#technically two of the three don’t even exist in the same universe

[sixeyesonathiel]

the curious case of satoru gojo

pairing — scientist satoru x housewife reader

synopsis : satoru gojo is a nobel-nominated genius with three phds, a devoted wife, and one tiny problem: he's accidentally turned himself into his nineteen-year-old self. now locked out of his own house and mistaken for a very persistent stalker by the love of his life (that’s you), he has one mission—fix the time machine, reclaim his face, and survive your increasingly violent attempts to defend your marriage from... him.

tags — oneshot, porn with plot, established relationship, domestic fluff, crack treated seriously, age regression/de-aging, identity shenanigans, miscommunication but it’s technically quantum, time travel(?) shenanigans, idiots in love, emotional whiplash, romantic comedy, jealous of himself, satoru gojo is so down bad, penis in vagina sex, kitchen sex, breeding kink, mating press, praise kink, overstimulation, sexual overstimulation, multiple orgasms, multiple sex positions, satoru gojo worships you like a religion, slight size kink, he’s been deprived okay, smut happens after he fixes everything

wc — 20.1k | gen. masterlist | read on ao3?

a/n: yes i wrote this in one day. yes i wrote this instead of focusing on finishing the part two of my apothecary diaries au fic. please don’t get your pitchforks out (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠) if u see i typo, no u don’t.

two weeks.

fourteen days of existing as a walking contradiction—a twenty-nine-year-old genius trapped in the lanky, smooth-faced prison of his nineteen-year-old body. satoru adjusts his reading glasses (the same prescription, thankfully, because his eyesight had been terrible since childhood) and stares at your front door like it’s the gates of heaven guarded by the world’s most beautiful, most stubborn angel.

his hair catches the afternoon light, those fine strands the color of fresh snow that had turned this ethereal shade when he was four and his first chemistry set had gone spectacularly wrong. it had originally been a soft, milk-tea brown, the color of dusty books and early autumn. he’d tried to invent a hair-growth serum for his dad. instead, the mixture combusted, coated his scalp, and bleached every strand into something unnaturally pale. his parents had panicked, thinking he’d poisoned himself. little satoru, meanwhile, had stared into the mirror and grinned with gap-toothed delight.

now, at nineteen-again, it falls across his forehead in soft waves, glowing almost silver in the sunlight. he looks like a walking, talking academic heartthrob from a university romance novel—which would be flattering if his own wife didn’t look at him like he was an unsightly bug on her kitchen floor.

the irony tastes bitter on his tongue, metallic like blood and regret. he’d spent six years perfecting a device to slow down time—not for scientific glory or recognition, but because twenty-four hours with you had never felt like enough. he’d wanted to stretch lazy sunday mornings into eternities, to make your sleepy smiles and the way you hummed while making coffee last forever.

instead, he’d accidentally turned himself into a time paradox of the most pathetic variety. a cautionary tale about hubris wrapped in the body of a college freshman.

his phone buzzes somewhere in the basement lab, probably sending another automated message to your device: still working on the temporal displacement project. eating the sandwiches you left. miss you. love you. —satoru

the ai assistant he’d programmed to keep you from worrying had become his greatest enemy. every perfectly crafted message, every detail programmed to sound exactly like him, was another nail in the coffin of his credibility. he’d been too thorough, too careful, too much of a perfectionist even in his contingency planning.

because here he stands, looking like a college freshman who’d wandered into the wrong neighborhood, while you believe your husband is safely tucked away in his lab, probably elbow-deep in equations and caffeine addiction.

the thing is—and this is where his pride starts gnawing at his intestines like a particularly vindictive parasite—he doesn’t want to sneak into his own house. he’s the dr. satoru gojo, for crying out loud. he has three phds, a nobel prize nomination, and enough patents to wallpaper the entire first floor. he shouldn’t have to skulk through basement windows like some sort of lovesick cat burglar just to access his own laboratory.

he’s a dignified man of science. he has principles. standards. a reputation to maintain, even if that reputation is currently being dragged through the mud by his own temporal incompetence.

no, he’s going to do this the right way. he’s going to convince you, properly and thoroughly, that he is exactly who he claims to be. he’s going to walk through the front door like a civilized human being, kiss his wife hello, and pretend the last two weeks never happened.

this is a matter of scientific integrity. of personal dignity. of—

he rings the doorbell.

the sound of your footsteps approaching makes his heart perform some sort of olympic gymnastics routine, complete with triple axels and a dismount that leaves his stomach somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles. even through the door, he can picture the way you move—that particular grace you’ve always had, like you’re dancing to music only you can hear. you’re probably wearing one of those sundresses he loves, the ones that make you look like you’ve stepped out of a 1950s magazine about perfect wives, except you’re real and warm and you smell like vanilla and clean laundry and home.

the door opens, and satoru’s brain promptly short-circuits.

you’re wearing the yellow dress. the one with tiny white flowers that he’d bought you for your second anniversary because you’d mentioned once, in passing, while distracted by a butterfly in the park, that it reminded you of the field where you’d had your first picnic. he’d remembered that throwaway comment for six months before finding the perfect dress, had it tailored to fit you exactly, had even added those hidden pockets because you always lost your keys.

your hair is pinned back with the butterfly clips he’d made for you—tiny mechanical marvels that flutter their wings when you laugh, solar-powered and calibrated to respond to the specific frequency of your joy. he’d spent three weeks perfecting the mechanism after you’d mentioned liking butterflies. three weeks of delicate gear work and programming, all for the chance to see you smile when the wings moved.

you look at him, and your expression shifts from hopeful to confused to absolutely murderous in the span of three seconds.

“oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

his heart skips a beat. maybe five. this is the part where he says something clever. this is the part where he charms you back into loving him. this is the part where his superior intellect saves the day and—

before he can open his mouth to explain, to plead, to grovel at your perfect feet, you’ve already produced what looks like a small silver device from somewhere in your dress. the hidden pocket in the seam, specifically—the one he’d reinforced with extra stitching because you had a tendency to overstuff it with lip balm and emergency snacks.

the device hums ominously, a sound that sends ice water through his veins because he recognizes it immediately. it’s the personal protection gadget he’d built for you last christmas, after you’d mentioned feeling nervous walking home from your book club in the dark. he’d spent a month perfecting it—a sleek little thing that could stun, disorient, or mildly embarrass an attacker depending on the setting.

and right now, you’re turning the dial past ‘warning shot’ and heading straight for ‘regret your life choices.’

“listen here, you little creep,” you say, and your voice is deadly sweet, like honey laced with cyanide. the juxtaposition of your floral sundress and the murder in your eyes is somehow the most attractive thing he’s ever seen, which probably says something deeply concerning about his psychology. “i don’t know who you think you are, but i’m a married woman. deeply, completely, utterly in love with my husband.”

the way you say ‘my husband’ makes something in his chest crack open like a fault line. there’s so much pride in your voice, so much fierce devotion, and he wants to bask in it except you’re not talking about him. you’re talking about him, but not him-him. you’re talking about the version of him you actually want to see walking through this door.

“so whatever pathetic attempt at impersonation this is,” you continue, and the weapon in your hand starts glowing a rather alarming shade of blue, “you can take it and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”

“wait, wait!” he holds up his hands, noting with growing horror how young they look, how smooth and unmarked by years of lab work. these hands haven’t built the music box that plays your wedding song. these fingers haven’t spent countless hours crafting the little inventions that make you smile. “i can explain! i know this looks bad, but i’m really—”

“satoru,” you finish, your eyes narrowing dangerously. “yes, i heard your little introduction yesterday. and the week before that. you know what? the name satoru only fits one person in this world, and he’s about a hundred times more attractive, intelligent, and charming than whatever discount walmart version you’re trying to pull off.”

the words hit him like a freight train loaded with emotional devastation and existential dread. discount walmart version. you—his wife, the love of his life, the woman who’s seen him drool on his pillow and still kisses him good morning—think he’s a cheap knockoff of himself.

“my husband,” you continue, and there’s that tone again, soft and dreamy and absolutely besotted, “is brilliant beyond measure. he’s kind and funny and makes me laugh every single day. he has these eyes that light up when he’s excited about something, and he gets this little crease between his eyebrows when he’s concentrating. he’s tall and gorgeous and perfect, and you...” you look him up and down with obvious disdain, “are none of those things.”

satoru feels something die inside his chest. possibly his will to live. definitely his ego.

because the thing is, you’re right. he doesn’t look like the man you married anymore. he looks like a college student, all gangly limbs and baby fat and skin that hasn’t been weathered by years of late nights in the lab. he looks like someone who might ask you for help with his homework, not someone who’s built you a smart house that anticipates your every need.

“but i know things!” he says desperately, his voice cracking in a way that makes him want to crawl into a hole and die. “i know about your scar from when you fell off your bike when you were seven! it’s shaped like a crescent moon and you hate it but i think it’s beautiful! i know you cry during dog food commercials but only the ones with golden retrievers! i know you keep our wedding photo in your recipe book, tucked between the pages for chocolate chip cookies and banana bread!”

your expression grows more dangerous with each word, and the weapon in your hand charges up another notch.

“you sick little stalker,” you hiss, and the venom in your voice could probably strip paint. “how dare you dig into our private life and try to use our precious memories against me! what kind of pathetic creep researches someone’s marriage just to play dress-up?”

“i’m not playing dress-up!” he protests, and he knows he sounds pathetic, knows he looks like exactly what you think he is—some obsessed fan who’s done way too much homework. “i know about the time you got food poisoning from that seafood place and i held your hair while you threw up! i know you have a freckle shaped like a heart on your left shoulder! i know you sing off-key in the shower but you think you sound like an angel!”

“stop it!” you snap, and your finger hovers over the trigger. “stop trying to soil our beautiful relationship with your creepy research!”

“i know about our first fight!” he rushes on, desperate now, sweat beading on his forehead. “it was about the thermostat because you like the house warm and i run hot! i know you forgave me by leaving little notes in my lab equipment! i know you doodle my name in the margins of your books when you’re daydreaming!”

each piece of intimate knowledge he reveals only seems to make you angrier, and satoru realizes with growing horror that he’s trapped in some sort of emotional paradox. the more he proves he knows you, the more you’re convinced he’s a stranger.

“and i know,” he adds, his voice dropping to something desperate and broken, “that you’re wearing the perfume i bought you for your birthday. the one that smells like vanilla and jasmine and makes me want to bury my face in your neck and never leave.”

you go very, very still.

“that’s enough,” you say quietly, and somehow that’s more terrifying than when you were shouting. “i don’t care how much you’ve stalked us, how many private details you’ve dug up, how perfectly you’ve copied his appearance. you are not my husband.”

“but—”

“my husband,” you continue, and your voice goes soft and dreamy again, like you’re talking about something holy, “is perfect. he’s brilliant and beautiful and kind, and he loves me exactly as much as i love him. he’s probably in his lab right now, working on something that’s going to change the world, missing me but dedicated to his research because that’s who he is. that’s the man i married.”

the weapon powers up another notch, and satoru is pretty sure it’s no longer set to ‘stun.’

“and you,” you say, looking him up and down with obvious disgust, “are just some sad little boy with a crush and too much time on your hands. so here’s what’s going to happen. you’re going to leave. now. and if i see you anywhere near our house again, i’m going to do something that will require a very good explanation to the police.”

satoru stares at you—really looks at you—and sees the fierce protectiveness in your eyes, the way you’re guarding not just your home but your marriage, your happiness, your love for a man you think is safely tucked away in his basement lab.

you’re magnificent. terrifying and beautiful and absolutely magnificent.

and you’re about to potentially murder him while defending his honor.

“i know about the night after our second anniversary,” he tries one more time, his voice breaking completely now. “when you wore that blue nightgown with the little ribbons, and we danced in the kitchen to that song you love, and then we—”

“that’s it.”

the blast catches him square in the chest, and suddenly satoru is airborne, flying backward off your porch and landing in the rose bushes he’d planted for your last birthday. the thorns are sharp, but not nearly as sharp as the look you’d given him right before pulling the trigger.

he lies there for a moment, stunned and possibly concussed, staring up at the sky and trying to process what just happened.

through the ringing in his ears, he hears you call out: “my husband is a genius with 845 patents and the most brilliant mind of our generation! you’re just some sad little boy who probably googled him! stay away from our house, or next time i’m setting this thing to something more permanent!”

the door slams with enough force to rattle the windows.

satoru continues lying in the roses, rose petals in his hair and thorns in his dignity, and tries to comprehend the fact that his own wife just threatened to potentially murder him while defending his honor with the very weapon he’d built to protect her.

somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps. a car drives by. the world continues spinning as if nothing momentous has just occurred.

he’s never been more in love in his entire life. which is probably a sign that he needs therapy. or a lobotomy. possibly both.

he lies there for a moment. processing. his ribs hurt. his pride hurts more. his entire soul aches in a way that is both deeply romantic and profoundly stupid.

“also!” you shout from the upstairs window, your voice carrying that indignant tone you get when you’re really worked up, “my husband has better hair! and better posture! and he’s taller! and he knows how to dress himself like an adult instead of a lost college freshman!”

each addition feels like salt in the wound. you’re systematically dismantling every aspect of his nineteen-year-old appearance while praising the twenty-nine-year-old version with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for describing paradise.

“and he smells better!” you continue, apparently not done with your character assassination. “like expensive cologne and coffee and home, not like... like drugstore body spray and desperation!”

satoru sniffs himself reflexively. he doesn’t smell like desperation. does he? the drugstore body spray comment is just mean, especially since he’d specifically chosen the brand you’d complimented on a stranger once.

“and his voice!” you’re really getting into it now, leaning out the window with the fervor of someone delivering a sermon. “his voice is deeper, and smoother, and when he says my name it sounds like music instead of like a squeaky toy!”

he touches his throat self-consciously. his voice had been deeper before the accident, richer, more confident. now he sounds like he’s going through puberty again, all cracks and uncertain intonation.

“and he would never be stupid enough to break into someone’s house like some kind of delinquent!” you conclude with devastating finality. “my husband is a gentleman and a scholar and the most wonderful man who ever lived, and you’re just some discount imposter who isn’t fit to shine his shoes!”

the window slams shut.

satoru groans. loud and dramatic and entirely justified.

he really should’ve just built a cloning machine. or left a video message in case of accidental de-aging. or tattooed a note to his own arm. but no, he had to get ambitious. he had to try and invent time-space atmospheric slowdown like a dumbass in love.

he drags himself up from the rosebush, brushing petals and leaves from his shirt. there’s one stuck in his hair, refusing to leave like it has a vendetta. his reflection in the front window shows a pathetic figure: clothes wrinkled, hair disheveled, a small cut on his cheek from the thorns, and an expression of profound defeat.

this is what rock bottom looks like, apparently. getting ejected from his own home by his own wife while she sings the praises of his other self.

the irony is suffocating. you love him so much that you’d attack anyone who even pretended to be him. your loyalty is absolute, your devotion unwavering, your protective instincts sharp enough to cut glass. it’s everything he’d ever wanted in a partner, everything he’d fallen in love with, turned against him in the cruelest possible way.

he presses his hand to his chest, where the stun device got him. it still tingles, a reminder of your precision, your preparedness, the way you’d defended your marriage without a moment’s hesitation. you’d been magnificent, absolutely magnificent, and he’d been the target.

satoru limps toward the sidewalk, his teenage body protesting every movement. his legs feel too long, his center of gravity all wrong. everything about this borrowed youth feels like wearing an ill-fitting costume to the most important performance of his life.

he looks back at the house—your house, his house, the home you’d built together—and feels the weight of his isolation settle around him like a heavy coat. inside, you’re probably making dinner, humming that song you always hum when you’re slightly stressed, maybe wondering why the strange boy keeps bothering you when your husband is working so hard in his lab.

the thought of you worrying, of you feeling unsafe in your own home because of his appearance, makes his chest tight with guilt. he’d never wanted to frighten you, never wanted to make you feel threatened or uncomfortable. he’d just wanted to come home.

but this isn’t working. two weeks of doorbell rejections, verbal demolitions, and physical removal have made it clear that the direct approach is a spectacular failure. you’re not going to believe him, not when he looks like this, not when every instinct you have is screaming that he’s an imposter.

he understands that you love your husband—him—so much that you’ll fight off anyone who threatens that love, even if it means breaking your own tender heart to do it. he understands that the depth of your devotion is exactly what makes this situation so impossible.

he also understands that his dignity, his principles, his stubborn refusal to sneak around his own house like a common criminal, has just officially been abandoned in your rose bushes along with his pride.

because two weeks without you is already too long, and the thought of spending even one more night in a hotel room that smells like industrial disinfectant instead of your vanilla perfume makes him want to invent a time machine just so he can go back and slap his past self for being such an arrogant idiot.

science is about adaptation. evolution. knowing when to abandon a failed hypothesis and try a new approach.

tonight, dr. satoru gojo, nobel prize winner and distinguished gentleman of science, is going to break into his own house like a lovesick teenager.

his dignity is already dead anyway. might as well bury it properly.

night falls like a heavy curtain draped by a particularly melodramatic theater director, and satoru crouches in the shadows of his own garden like some sort of discount romeo—if romeo had been a twenty-nine-year-old genius trapped in a nineteen-year-old’s body and juliet had been his own wife who’d recently threatened him with what appeared to be a weaponized jewelry box.

the irony tastes like burnt coffee and shattered dreams. he’s spent six years turning this place into fort knox’s prettier, more technologically advanced cousin, all in the name of protecting you from theoretical dangers that pale in comparison to the very real threat of his own stupidity. motion sensors that could detect a butterfly’s landing, cameras with night vision that would make the military weep with envy, locks that respond to seventeen different biometric markers—and here he is, plotting to break into his own fortress like the world’s most pathetic cat burglar.

the security system hums softly in the darkness, a technological lullaby he’d programmed himself. every blinking light, every nearly invisible laser grid, every pressure-sensitive tile in the walkway—his own paranoid genius, now turned against him like some sort of karmic boomerang wrapped in irony and spite.

he adjusts his reading glasses and studies the house like a general surveying a battlefield. except generals probably don’t usually have to factor in the devastating effects of seeing their beloved wearing pajamas into their strategic planning.

the kitchen window. salvation arrives in the form of his own procrastination—there’s a loose latch on the kitchen window that he’s been meaning to fix for approximately four months and seventeen days. not that he’s counting. you’d mentioned it in passing on a tuesday morning while making pancakes, your hair still mussed from sleep, wearing that ridiculous apron with the anthropomorphic strawberries that should have looked childish but instead made you look like some sort of domestic goddess descended from mount olympus to bless his unworthy kitchen with your presence.

he’d nodded and made appropriate husband noises about adding it to his mental to-do list, then promptly forgotten because you’d started humming that song—the one you always hum when you’re happy, the one that sounds like sunshine would if sunshine had a voice—and his brain had short-circuited somewhere between “fix window latch” and “marry this woman again immediately.”

procrastination, it turns out, has never felt so much like divine intervention.

satoru approaches the window with the careful precision of someone who knows exactly how much pressure the old frame can take before it creaks loud enough to wake the neighbors’ dog, which would start a chain reaction of barking that would inevitably lead to you investigating the commotion. his nineteen-year-old fingers work the latch with muscle memory that spans a decade—apparently some things transcend the space-time continuum, including his intimate knowledge of his own home’s structural weaknesses.

the window slides open with barely a whisper, and satoru feels a brief moment of triumph that’s immediately crushed under the weight of what he’s actually doing. breaking and entering. into his own house. to convince his own wife that he’s actually himself. 

if there’s a support group for men who’ve been defeated by their own scientific brilliance, he’s definitely going to need the membership information.

he slips through the window with the fluid grace of his temporarily teenage body, and the contrast is jarring—he’d forgotten how easy movement used to be, before years of hunching over microscopes and circuit boards had given him the posture of a question mark and the flexibility of a particularly rigid breadstick. his nineteen-year-old joints don’t protest the maneuver, don’t crack ominously or require the careful choreography he’s grown accustomed to.

it’s like being a ghost haunting his own life, except ghosts probably don’t have to worry about whether their wives will recognize them.

the house settles around him in the darkness, familiar as his own heartbeat. every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the old ventilation system, every subtle shift of air that speaks of home and safety and belonging. the scent of dinner lingers in the air—something with garlic and herbs that makes his stomach growl traitorously, reminding him that nineteen-year-old metabolisms apparently require more fuel than whatever laboratory subsistence he’s been surviving on.

guilt tastes like copper pennies and regret as he imagines you eating alone, probably glancing at the basement door every few minutes, wondering if your husband remembered to eat anything more substantial than the sandwiches you’d left for him. the automated messages from his ai assistant feel like lead weights in his chest—every perfectly crafted lie, every synthetic expression of love and longing, every digital deception that kept you from worrying while the real satoru stumbled around in a teenage body like some sort of scientific cautionary tale.

his feet hit the kitchen floor with barely a whisper of sound, and for a moment, he allows himself to breathe. step one: infiltration successful. step two: somehow make it to the basement without triggering any of the—

the lights explode to life like the sun deciding to have a particularly vindictive tantrum.

“gotcha, you little creep.”

and there you are.

standing in the doorway like an avenging angel who’d decided that white cotton nightgowns were the appropriate battle attire for dealing with home invaders. the nightdress—the one with the lace trim that he’d bought you for your birthday because you’d mentioned once that you felt pretty in white—catches the harsh kitchen light and transforms you into something ethereal and terrifying in equal measure.

your hair spills over your shoulders in loose waves, the same waves he’s buried his fingers in countless times, that he’s watched catch morning sunlight during lazy weekend mornings when the world consisted of nothing but you and him and the space between heartbeats. but there’s steel in your posture now, a predatory grace that speaks of skills he’d never suspected, secrets kept with the casual competence of someone who’s been protecting others while letting them think they were doing the protecting.

satoru opens his mouth to explain, to plead, to throw himself at your mercy and grovel with the desperation of a man who’s spent two weeks learning exactly how much his life means nothing without you in it—

your hand moves faster than his genius brain can process, faster than the calculations that usually come as naturally as breathing, faster than any of the combat scenarios he’s ever run through his head during his more paranoid moments.

the karate chop catches him right at the base of his neck with surgical precision, and satoru’s world doesn’t just explode into stars—it becomes a supernova of sensation and realization and the most inappropriate surge of attraction he’s ever experienced.

because even as his vision goes blurry around the edges, even as his knees buckle and his carefully planned explanations scatter like startled birds, even as consciousness starts its tactical retreat from the battlefield of his skull—you’re beautiful.

devastatingly, impossibly, catastrophically beautiful.

he’d known you were deadly, in the abstract way that husbands know their wives are capable of anything. but seeing it, experiencing the controlled violence of someone who’s spent years learning how to end threats efficiently and effectively, watching the way you move with the fluid confidence of someone who’s never doubted their ability to protect what matters—

it’s like falling in love all over again, except this time it’s happening while his nervous system stages a coup and his equilibrium files for immediate resignation.

the woman he’d married, the one who makes him sandwiches with the crusts cut off because you knows he eats more when food is convenient, the one who leaves little notes in his lab reminding him to drink water and take breaks, the one who hums while doing laundry and always smells like vanilla and clean cotton and home—you just incapacitated him with the casual efficiency of someone who’s been trained to handle much worse threats than lovesick scientists with poor life choices.

and he’s never been more attracted to another human being in his entire existence.

his vision swims, the edges of the world growing soft and fuzzy like someone’s smeared vaseline on the lens of reality. but even through the haze of imminent unconsciousness, he can see you clearly—the slight flush in your cheeks from adrenaline, the way your breathing has quickened just fractionally, the protective fire in your eyes that speaks of love fierce enough to level cities.

“you,” his mouth tries to form words, but his tongue feels like it’s been replaced with cotton batting soaked in novocaine. “you’re...”

“insane?” you supply helpfully, though your voice carries that particular note of concern that always appears when you think he might be hurt. “scary? criminally strong?”

“perfect,” he manages, and even slurred beyond recognition, the word carries every ounce of wonder and adoration and bone-deep reverence he feels.

you blink, clearly not expecting that response from your supposed stalker, and in that moment of confusion, satoru sees something shift in your expression. a flicker of uncertainty, a crack in the armor of your righteous fury that lets just a hint of the woman he knows peek through.

then the world tilts sideways, his legs forget how to function, and consciousness waves goodbye with all the dignity of a deflating balloon.

satoru surfaces from the depths of unconsciousness like a man drowning in reverse, fighting his way back to a reality that feels suspiciously soft and comfortable for someone who’d just been neutralized by his own wife.

the mother of all headaches pounds against his skull with the rhythm of a particularly enthusiastic drummer, and somewhere in the distance, birds are chirping with the sort of aggressive cheerfulness that makes him want to invent a device for negotiating with wildlife.

satoru opens his eyes to find himself on the porch—his porch, their porch, the one with the swing he’d installed because you’d mentioned once that you’d always wanted one—with a pillow tucked carefully under his head and a glass of water sitting nearby like a peace offering from the goddess of justified violence.

even while knocking him unconscious for breaking into his own home, you’d made sure he was comfortable.

the pillow smells like you—vanilla and that lavender fabric softener you use and something indefinably warm that he’s never been able to identify but would recognize anywhere. it’s the same scent that clings to his shirts when you do laundry, the same one that fills their bedroom in the mornings, the same one that he associates with safety and belonging and the radical concept that someone might actually love him enough to put up with his particular brand of brilliant stupidity.

he sits up slowly, his head spinning like a carnival ride operated by someone with a grudge against inner ears, and catches sight of a note tucked under the water glass. the handwriting is yours—neat, precise, with the same careful attention to detail you bring to everything from grocery lists to the birthday cards you make by hand because you say store-bought ones don’t carry enough love.

for the headache. next time, try using the front door like a normal stalker. —the wife of the REAL satoru gojo

despite everything—the splitting headache, the existential crisis, the fact that he’s been reduced to breaking into his own home like some sort of romantic criminal—he smiles. even your passive-aggressive notes are perfect. even when you’re threatening him with bodily harm, you’re taking care of him. even when you think he’s some delusional teenager with stalker tendencies, you’re making sure he’s hydrated and comfortable.

he’s never been more in love, which would be romantic if it weren’t so completely pathetic.

the front door opens with the sort of casual grace that suggests you’ve been watching him from inside, probably trying to determine whether he’s going to keel over again or attempt another round of breaking and entering. you step out wearing a blue sundress that makes his chest ache with longing so profound it feels like a physical injury—the one with tiny white flowers that he’d bought you for your second anniversary because you’d mentioned once that it reminded you of the field where you’d had your first picnic.

you’re carrying a plate of what looks like his favorite cookies, the ones you only make when you’re worried or upset, the ones that involve three different types of chocolate and a recipe you guard more jealously than state secrets. the fact that you’ve made them now, for what you think is a complete stranger, speaks to a kindness so fundamental that it makes his throat close up with emotion.

“you’re awake,” you observe, settling into the porch chair you’d insisted on buying last spring, the one he’d grumbled about because it didn’t match the aesthetic he’d carefully planned, the one that’s now his favorite spot in the world because it’s where you sit in the mornings with your coffee and your terrible romance novels and your complete contentment with the life you’ve built together. “good. i was starting to think i’d hit you too hard.”

there’s genuine concern in your voice, the same tone you use when he’s working too late and you’re worried he’s going to collapse from exhaustion, and satoru feels his dignity—what little remains of it—crumble into dust. his wife is worried about the wellbeing of someone she thinks is essentially a teenage stalker, because that’s the kind of person you are. that’s the kind of heart you have.

he struggles to his feet, swaying slightly as his nineteen-year-old equilibrium files a formal complaint about the abuse it’s recently endured. “you... you know karate?”

the question comes out slightly accusatory, tinged with the bewilderment of a man discovering that his beloved is capable of violence on a level he’d never imagined. six years of marriage, six years of thinking he knew everything about you, six years of believing he was the protector in this relationship—

“among other things.” you bite into a cookie with the satisfied air of someone who’s just discovered an interesting new fact about the world, watching him with the expression of someone observing a particularly fascinating specimen under laboratory conditions. “my husband doesn’t know. i like letting him think he needs to protect me. he makes the most adorable gadgets when he’s worried about my safety.”

the casual way you mention keeping an entire martial arts background secret from him makes satoru’s head spin worse than the concussion. not because you’ve hidden something from him—everyone deserves their secrets, their private spaces, their own mysteries to unfold in their own time—but because you’ve hidden it for the most fundamentally sweet reason imaginable.

you’ve been letting him play protector while being perfectly capable of protecting yourself, because you think his overprotectiveness is cute.

he falls in love with you all over again, which seems physically impossible given that he’s been operating at maximum love capacity for the better part of a decade, but apparently the human heart has hidden reserves for discovering new depths of adoration even when you think you’ve already catalogued every possible reason to worship someone.

“why didn’t you tell him?” he asks, genuinely curious despite the circumstances and the growing certainty that he’s about to learn something that will fundamentally reshape his understanding of the woman he married.

your expression softens in the way that always makes his chest tight with emotion, that particular look of fond exasperation mixed with infinite patience that you reserve for discussions of your husband’s more endearing quirks.

“because my satoru gojo is the smartest man alive,” you say, and the pride in your voice makes something warm and golden spread through his chest like sunrise, “but he’s also a complete idiot when it comes to the people he loves. he’d spend all his time trying to make sure i never had to use those skills instead of appreciating that i can take care of myself. this way, he gets to feel protective, i get beautiful functional jewelry and self-defense gadgets, and everyone’s happy.”

the way you say his name—their name, his name, the name you chose to take and make your own—carries so much love it’s like being hit by lightning made of pure affection. there’s pride and exasperation and devotion all wrapped up together, the voice of someone who sees all his flaws and brilliant strengths and loves him not despite them but because of the ridiculous, wonderful, impossible whole they create.

“he’s lucky,” satoru says quietly, his voice rough with emotions he can’t begin to untangle, “to have someone who understands him so well.”

“he is,” you agree, and your smile could power entire cities, could fuel space programs, could probably solve half the world’s energy crisis if properly harnessed. “he’s brilliant and kind and funny, and he makes me laugh every single day. he’s also terrible at remembering to eat when he’s working and has a tendency to forget that normal people need more than three hours of sleep, but he’s perfect. he’s mine.”

satoru has never experienced jealousy of himself before, but it turns out to be a unique form of psychological torture—listening to the woman he loves describe him with such complete adoration while being unable to claim that love for himself. it’s like being handed a gift and told you can look but never touch, like being shown paradise through bulletproof glass.

the domesticity of it, the casual way you catalogue his flaws alongside his strengths, the matter-of-fact possessiveness in that final declaration—it’s everything he’s ever wanted and everything he currently can’t have, all wrapped up in a blue sundress and served with homemade cookies.

“what if,” he tries carefully, his voice pitched to sound like idle curiosity rather than the desperate plea it actually is, “hypothetically, something happened to him? what if he was... changed somehow?”

your expression shifts faster than a summer storm, going from warm affection to arctic fury in the space between heartbeats. the cookie in your hand crumbles slightly from the sudden tension in your grip, chocolate chips scattering like the remains of his dignity.

“nothing’s going to happen to my husband,” you say, and your voice carries the kind of quiet menace that speaks of consequences beyond imagination. “and if someone tried to hurt him, they’d have to go through me first.”

the protective fire in your eyes makes something primal and deeply satisfied purr in his chest, even as his rational mind catalogs this as yet another example of how thoroughly he’s miscalculated this entire situation. you’d go to war for him. you’d fight gods and demons and the fundamental forces of the universe itself if it meant keeping him safe.

and here he is, the very person you’re trying to protect, being threatened by that same fierce love.

“but hypothetically—”

“no hypotheticals.” you stand up with sharp, efficient movements, smoothing your dress with the same precision you bring to everything, from folding fitted sheets to organizing his lab equipment when he’s too scattered to think straight. “my husband is in his lab, working on something that’s going to change the world, because that’s what he does. and you’re going to stop harassing us, because that’s what you’re going to do if you want to keep all your limbs attached.”

the dismissal is absolute, final, delivered with the authority of someone who’s never doubted their ability to follow through on threats. you disappear back into the house like an avenging angel returning to heaven, leaving satoru alone with his thoughts and the growing certainty that dignity is a luxury he can no longer afford.

he sits on the porch steps—his own porch steps, in front of his own house, locked out by his own security system and his own wife—and contemplates the spectacular wreckage of his scientific career. somewhere in that basement, his life’s work hums quietly, the temporal displacement device that was supposed to give him more time with you having instead stolen the time he already had.

the irony would be poetic if it weren’t so completely devastating.

satoru gojo, holder of 845 patents, winner of seventeen international scientific awards, the man who’d revolutionized three separate fields before his thirtieth birthday—reduced to breaking into his own home like a common criminal, only to be defeated by his wife’s previously unknown martial arts skills and her absolutely justified protective instincts.

he’s given up his dignity, his professional reputation, and apparently his door privileges, all because he’d been too excited about surprising you with a scientific breakthrough to properly test the safety protocols.

note to self: next time he wants to revolutionize temporal mechanics, maybe start with laboratory mice instead of jumping straight to human trials. 

assuming there is a next time. assuming he can figure out how to convince you that the teenager on your porch is actually your husband without sounding like the world’s most delusional stalker.

the basement feels very far away suddenly, farther than when he’d been planning his infiltration, farther than the actual physical distance between the porch and the lab where his salvation waits. because now he understands the true scope of his problem: it’s not just about fixing the temporal displacement device.

it’s about rebuilding trust with someone who thinks he’s been safely contained in his laboratory while a dangerous stranger makes increasingly desperate attempts to insert himself into their life.

satoru sighs deeply like a man who has discovered that rock bottom has a basement, and that basement has a sub-basement, and he’s currently spelunking through the geological layers of his own humiliation. the pillow you’d left under his head when you dragged his unconscious body out here mocks him with its floral pattern—little daisies that seem to whisper pathetic in tiny flower voices.

his dignity lies somewhere in your rose bushes, probably fertilizing the begonias.

he stares hopelessly at his own house—the house he designed, built, and has been systematically locked out of by his own security measures. the irony tastes like pennies and poor life choices. somewhere in that house, you’re probably stress-baking again, creating cookies that could end world hunger while muttering about stalkers and the general incompetence of teenage boys who think they can impersonate geniuses.

the truly tragic part is that you’re not wrong. he is a teenage boy trying to impersonate a genius. the fact that he actually is that genius feels like a technicality that the universe is refusing to acknowledge.

satoru stands up, brushing pillow lint off his jeans (when had he started wearing jeans? his twenty-nine-year-old self exclusively wore slacks, but apparently his teenage body had different sartorial opinions). if he’s going to reclaim his life, his wife, and his chronological age, he needs to get into that lab.

the front door is obviously out of the question. you’ve made it abundantly clear that any further doorbell-related activities will result in weaponized consequences that his nineteen-year-old body might not survive. the back door is visible from the kitchen window, where you’re probably standing guard like a beautiful, homicidal sentinel.

which leaves him with the architectural equivalent of a hail mary: the basement windows.

he circles the house like a cat burglar who’s read too many heist novels and not enough actual breaking-and-entering manuals. the basement windows are small, the kind of windows that had seemed like a good idea when he was designing a lab and wanted natural light but not easy access. past-satoru had been worried about corporate espionage, not future-satoru trying to infiltrate his own laboratory while trapped in a temporal paradox of the most embarrassing variety.

the window on the east side looks promising. it’s partially hidden by the hydrangea bushes you’d planted last spring, the ones that bloom in impossible shades of blue because you’d somehow convinced them that regular hydrangea colors were beneath their potential. the glass is dirty enough to provide cover, and the latch looks old enough to have the structural integrity of a wet paper bag.

satoru crouches in the dirt, feeling like the world’s most pathetic ninja. his knees protest against the unfamiliar position—nineteen-year-old joints might be more flexible, but they’re also apparently more dramatic about being asked to crouch in garden soil. 

the window latch gives way with the kind of rusty shriek that could wake the dead, the neighbors, and possibly several small woodland creatures. satoru freezes, waiting for the sound of your footsteps, the opening of doors, the general commotion that would signal his discovery and subsequent re-unconsciousness.

nothing.

either you didn’t hear it, or you’re currently sharpening something in the kitchen while humming ominously.

he slides the window open with the careful precision of someone who knows exactly how much the old frame can take before it decides to give up on life entirely. the basement yawns below him like the mouth of some scientific purgatory, all shadows and the faint hum of machines he’d built to make the world a better place.

getting through the window requires a level of physical coordination that his nineteen-year-old body possesses but his twenty-nine-year-old dignity abhors. he ends up sliding through headfirst, performing what could generously be called a controlled fall and more accurately described as a graceless tumble that would make circus performers weep.

his feet hit the concrete floor with all the stealth of a bag of hammers being dropped from a significant height.

the basement lab stretches before him like a technological cathedral, all gleaming surfaces and blinking lights that pulse in rhythm with machines whose purposes range from “revolutionary” to “probably shouldn’t exist but here we are anyway.” this is his domain, his kingdom, his sanctuary of scientific achievement and questionable decision-making.

it also feels like coming home and visiting a crime scene simultaneously.

everything is exactly as he’d left it two weeks ago, frozen in the moment when he’d stepped into the temporal field with the confidence of someone who hadn’t yet learned that the universe has a twisted sense of humor. the half-finished temporal displacement device sits on the main workbench like an accusation, all smooth curves and innocent blinking lights that belie its capacity for chronological chaos.

coffee cups are scattered around like caffeinated archaeological artifacts, each one marking a different stage of his research. there’s the mug you’d given him for his birthday with “world’s okayest scientist” written in comic sans font—your little joke about his ego that he treasures more than his nobel prize nomination. there’s the plain white cup he uses when he’s really focused, the one with the chip on the handle from when he’d gotten excited about a breakthrough and gestured too enthusiastically. there’s even the fancy porcelain teacup his mother had given him, which he only uses when he’s feeling particularly pretentious about his discoveries.

each cup tells the story of late nights, early mornings, and the kind of obsessive focus that leads to temporal displacement incidents.

his phone sits on the desk, buzzing intermittently with notifications he can’t answer. the screen lights up every few minutes with incoming messages, calls from colleagues, reminders about appointments he’s apparently missing while trapped in his own temporal feedback loop. but it’s the outgoing messages that make his stomach twist into knots that could anchor ships.

the ai assistant is working with the efficiency of a swiss watch and the emotional intelligence of someone who actually knows him. every few hours, it crafts another perfect message to your phone, each one a masterpiece of his writing style mixed with the kind of scientific romanticism that had won your heart six years ago.

making progress on the quantum stabilization matrix. the equations are beautiful—almost as beautiful as you in that yellow dress this morning. did you eat lunch? —satoru

breakthrough with the temporal field generators! i think i can increase efficiency by 34%. also, i dreamed about that weekend in kyoto again. we should go back soon. —your devoted husband

minor setback with the power coupling, but nothing i can’t fix. missing your voice. send a voice message please? maybe hum that song you like while i work? it always helps me think. —satoru

each message is a perfect imitation of his writing style, his habits, his love for you wrapped in scientific progress reports. they capture the way he thinks, the way he speaks, the way he can’t seem to separate his work from his adoration of you because everything he creates is somehow inspired by your existence.

no wonder you believe he’s down here, buried in his work, missing you but dedicated to his research. the ai had done its job too well, creating a digital phantom that was more convincing than his actual de-aged presence.

reading them makes him want to punch his past self for being so thorough, so careful, so goddamn good at programming an assistant that could replicate his personality down to the way he signs his messages with scientific terminology and pet names in equal measure.

satoru rolls up his sleeves and approaches his workstation like a penitent approaching an altar.

the lab’s security system chirps softly as he moves through the space, sensors tracking his movement with the bored efficiency of technology that recognizes him but doesn’t particularly care about his current chronological displacement. red lights blink in sequence along the walls, a heartbeat of recognition that would normally make him feel secure and accomplished.

instead, it feels like the lab is mocking him. oh look, the blinking seems to say, it’s the genius who outsmarted himself into adolescence.

the temporal displacement device looks innocent enough sitting there on the main workbench—a sleek silver contraption about the size of a microwave, all smooth curves and the kind of blinking lights that movie audiences associate with either miracle cures or impending explosions. he’d been so proud of it when he’d finished the initial design, so excited to show you what he’d been working on for months.

the irony burns like acid in his chest: he’d built a machine to give himself more time with you, and instead, it had stolen the time he already had.

but now, looking at it with the clarity that comes from two weeks of enforced separation and multiple instances of being rendered unconscious by his own wife, he can see exactly what went wrong. the power coupling on the left side shows signs of overheating, the quantum stabilization matrix is operating at 73% efficiency instead of the required 89%, and the temporal field generators are displaying the kind of fluctuation patterns that suggest they’re one strong breeze away from turning him into quantum soup.

his nineteen-year-old hands remember the work even if they look different doing it—smoother, unlined, with calluses in different places that speak of a life not yet lived. muscle memory is a beautiful thing, and soon he’s lost in the familiar rhythm of calibration and adjustment, replacing the burnt-out components that had caused the initial malfunction.

the security system continues its soft surveillance, cameras tracking his movement as he works. somewhere in the house above, you’re probably going about your evening routine, maybe reading in the living room chair he’d bought specifically because it makes you look like a goddess of domestic tranquility, maybe taking a bath in the tub he’d designed with jets positioned exactly where you like them.

you think your husband is down here, safely contained in his laboratory, working on equations that could revolutionize temporal mechanics. you have no idea that your husband is actually down here, working on equations that could return him to the age where you might not instinctively try to karate chop him on sight.

hours pass in the peculiar way that time moves when you’re focused on something that requires every neuron in your brain to fire in perfect synchronization. his back aches from hunching over the workbench—some things never change, regardless of what decade your spine thinks it’s living in. his eyes water behind his reading glasses, the same prescription he’s had since childhood because apparently temporal displacement doesn’t fix astigmatism.

the basement air grows stale and recycled, nothing like the fresh scent of your perfume or the way the house smells when you’re baking. down here, everything smells like ozone and possibility, metal and dreams, the peculiar combination of scents that comes from trying to bend the universe to your will through applied science and stubborn determination.

component by component, equation by equation, he rebuilds what his hubris had broken. the quantum stabilization matrix purrs back to life, its efficiency climbing toward the magic number that means the difference between “successful temporal correction” and “decorating the lab walls with physicist.” the power coupling stops smoking, which he takes as a positive sign, though the bar for success has been dramatically lowered by recent events.

finally, blessedly, after what feels like several geological ages, the device hums to life with the soft blue glow that means everything is working properly. the sound it makes is almost musical, a harmony of frequencies that speaks to the part of his brain that understands how beautiful math can be when it’s applied to impossible problems.

satoru stares at it for a long moment, this machine that had caused so much chaos, so much pain, so much embarrassment. it looks the same as it had two weeks ago, before he’d stepped into it with the confidence of someone who hadn’t yet learned that the universe has a deeply personal vendetta against his happiness.

but now it’s fixed. now it can undo what it had done, return him to the chronological age where his wife doesn’t look at him like he’s a particularly offensive piece of gum stuck to her shoe.

he takes a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of possibility and ozone, and steps into the temporal field.

the world bends.

reality stretches like taffy in the hands of a cosmic confectioner who’s had too much caffeine and not enough sleep. colors bleed into each other, the visible spectrum having what appears to be a nervous breakdown while time folds backward on itself with the sensation of falling upward through a kaleidoscope made of mathematics and regret.

his bones feel like they’re growing, stretching, settling back into familiar patterns that his muscles remember even if his consciousness is currently experiencing what could best be described as temporal vertigo. his face reshapes itself like clay in the hands of chronology, features aging forward to match the man you’d fallen in love with, married, and spent six years learning to live with.

the sensation is indescribable and entirely uncomfortable, like being turned inside out by time itself while someone plays a symphony written in mathematical equations. his cells remember being twenty-nine, and they rush toward that memory with the enthusiasm of teenagers remembering they have a curfew.

when the light fades and the world stops doing its impression of a funhouse mirror designed by someone with a degree in theoretical physics, satoru catches sight of himself in the polished surface of another machine.

he looks like himself again. twenty-nine years old, tall and lean, with the same pale hair that had turned white when he was four and stayed that way out of what he suspects is pure stubbornness. the same eyes behind the same reading glasses, the same hands that you’ve memorized, the same face that you’ve kissed goodnight for six years.

the face you’d married, the body you’d mapped with your hands on lazy sunday mornings, the version of himself that you actually wanted to see walking through the door instead of some temporal impostor with the emotional maturity of a teenager and the physical appearance to match.

he runs his hands over his face, feeling the familiar planes and angles, the slight roughness of stubble that his nineteen-year-old self had been too optimistic to grow properly. these are the hands that have held you, touched you, built you impossibly complex gifts that serve no purpose other than making you smile.

satoru straightens his sweater and climbs the basement stairs like a man ascending to heaven, or at least to the ground floor where his wife is probably stress-baking cookies and muttering about the general incompetence of teenagers who think they can impersonate geniuses.

time to go home.

time to reclaim his life, his wife, and his dignity—though he suspects the dignity might be a lost cause at this point.

the basement door opens onto the kitchen, and the smell of home washes over him like a blessing from the domestic gods: vanilla and cinnamon, the lavender detergent you use on the dish towels, the faint scent of the coffee you’d made this morning before you knew your day would include multiple instances of assault and battery against your own husband.

he’s home. finally, truly, chronologically home.

you’re in the kitchen when he emerges, standing at the stove in that pink dress with the tiny pearl buttons he’s memorized but hasn’t seen in two weeks. your hair is twisted into a messy bun secured with one of his prototype hairpins—the ones that glow soft blue when you’re stressed. they’re glowing now, just barely, a testament to how worried you’ve been about his prolonged absence from the world above ground.

the wooden spoon moves in lazy circles through whatever you’re cooking, and the scent hits him like a physical force—garlic and herbs and that particular blend of spices you use when you’re making his favorite pasta. his stomach clenches with actual hunger for the first time in two weeks, nineteen-year-old metabolism finally giving way to twenty-nine-year-old appreciation for real food.

but it’s the humming that undoes him completely. that soft, unconscious melody you make when you think no one’s listening, the same tune he’d programmed into his ai messages because he’d been missing it so desperately. hearing it live, unfiltered, coming from your actual throat instead of his memory—

satoru doesn’t think. doesn’t hesitate. doesn’t announce himself like a civilized human being.

he launches himself across the kitchen like a man possessed, arms wrapping around your waist from behind, his chest pressing flush against your back as he buries his face in the curve of your neck. you smell like vanilla body lotion and that expensive shampoo he pretends not to notice the cost of, and underneath it all, just you. warm skin and the faint sweetness that clings to your hair, the scent that’s been haunting him for fourteen endless days.

“satoru!” you yelp, startled enough that the wooden spoon goes flying, clattering across the counter and leaving a trail of red sauce in its wake. “you absolute menace, you scared me half to death!”

he makes a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, tightening his arms around you like you might evaporate if he loosens his grip even slightly. his reading glasses bump against your shoulder as he nuzzles deeper into your neck, and he can feel the butterfly clips in your hair tickling against his temple.

“missed you,” he mumbles against your skin, the words muffled and desperate. “missed you so much.”

“missed me?” your voice pitches higher, indignant and fond in equal measure. “satoru, you’ve been ten feet underground for two weeks! i’ve been cooking for you every single day, leaving plates outside your lab door, and what do i find when i check? cold food. stone cold. untouched.”

your hands come up to cover his where they’re locked around your middle, and even through your scolding, your fingers are gentle as they trace over his knuckles. “what have you even been eating? because i know it wasn’t my cooking, and if you tell me you’ve been surviving on coffee and those horrible protein bars, i’m going to—”

“also,” you continue without pausing for breath, your voice shifting into that particular tone you get when you’re gearing up for a proper lecture, ”you will not believe the past two weeks i’ve had. there’s someone who’s been lurking around our house and he who looks like some bizarre teenage version of you?”

satoru’s stomach drops. his grip on you tightens involuntarily, and he feels you notice the tension, your body shifting slightly in his arms.

“he’s been so persistent. yesterday he actually had the audacity to break into our house through the kitchen window—our kitchen window, satoru, the one with the broken latch you keep forgetting to fix.” your free hand gestures wildly, even though he can’t see it from his position behind you. “thankfully, all those self-defense gadgets you made me actually work. that little stun gun you built into my bracelet? absolutely perfect. sent him flying right off our porch.”

the embarrassment hits him like a physical weight. his face burns against your neck, and he has to resist the urge to groan out loud. you’re giving full credit to his inventions, protecting his ego even while describing how you’d defended yourself against him, and the sweetness of it makes his chest ache.

“and the motion sensors you installed last month caught him skulking around the garden at three in the morning,” you continue, oblivious to his mortification. ”honestly, the dedication is almost impressive. stalking behavior aside, you have to admire his commitment to the whole ‘young gojo’ aesthetic. though i have no idea why anyone would want to look like you did in college. you were such a baby-faced disaster back then.”

“i know you know karate,” he blurts out, the words tumbling from his mouth before he can stop them.

you go very still in his arms. the humming stops abruptly.

“what?” your voice is carefully neutral, but he can feel the way your shoulders tense, the slight shift in your breathing that means you’re calculating your next move.

“i know you know karate,” he repeats, his face burning hotter against your neck. ”you’ve been taking classes since you were twelve. you never told me because you like it when i worry about you enough to make you protection gadgets.”

the silence stretches long enough that he starts to panic. then you let out a long, shaky breath.

“how could you possibly know that?” your voice is small now, embarrassed in a way that makes him want to wrap you up and apologize for everything. “i never... i was so careful not to...”

your hands try to pull away from his, but he holds on, threading your fingers together. “because i’m the boy,” he says quietly. “the one who’s been trying to talk to you for two weeks. the one you stunned off the porch and knocked unconscious in our kitchen.”

he feels the exact moment understanding hits you. your entire body goes rigid, and then you’re spinning in his arms so fast he has to step back to avoid a collision with your elbow.

your eyes are wide, your mouth falling open in a perfect ’o’ of shock. the blush that spreads across your cheeks is magnificent and mortifying, and he watches you process the implications with the expression of someone who’s just realized they’ve been caught in the world’s most embarrassing misunderstanding.

“oh my god,” you whisper, your hands flying up to cover your face. “oh my god, satoru, i am so sorry. i thought—when he knew things about us, about our private moments, i assumed he was some kind of corporate spy, or maybe a rival scientist who’d done research on us, or—”

”a stalker,” he supplies gently, reaching up to pull your hands away from your face. “which was a completely reasonable assumption, given the circumstances.”

“i called you a discount version of yourself!” your voice cracks with horror. “i told you that you weren’t as attractive as my husband! to your face! while you were actually my husband!”

despite everything, satoru can’t help but smile at the outrage in your voice. “technically, you were defending my honor. it was actually incredibly sweet.”

“sweet?” you squeak, aghast, your palms flattening against his chest like you’re considering shoving him away. but you don’t. you stay pressed against him, trembling, overwhelmed.

“i knocked you unconscious with a karate chop!”

“you have excellent form,” he says solemnly, unable to suppress the tilt of his lips. the memory of you, so fierce, so protective, haunts him in the sweetest way—a blurred flash of your nightgown fluttering as you moved with such lethal grace. he remembers the precision, the practiced certainty in your strikes, remembers thinking you’d never looked more beautiful than in that moment where you saw him as a threat and chose violence to protect his memory.

it makes his pulse thrum in his throat. it makes him want to sink to his knees and kiss the hand that struck him.

and yet, here you are, groaning, humiliated, burying your face against his chest to escape him—as if he’s not already completely ensnared. his hands settle on your waist, loose but present, fingertips teasing over the soft fabric of your dress, as though reacquainting himself with the privilege of touching you.

he tilts his head, blue eyes gleaming behind his glasses, drinking you in with a reverence that borders on obsession. he catalogues the way you fidget, the way your lashes kiss your cheeks as you refuse to meet his gaze, the heat blooming under your skin.

there’s a little crease between your eyebrows now—he’s put it there, just as you’ve placed a permanent one on his.

his thumb brushes the edge of your jaw, coaxing you to look at him. “you kept it from me,” he murmurs, savoring the tremor that passes through you, ”because you wanted me to keep making you gadgets.”

it’s not a question. he already knows. you told him, so sweetly, so earnestly, when you believed he was a stranger, and he will hold that secret like a pressed flower tucked into the pages of his heart.

“you think my overprotectiveness is cute?” his voice softens into something breathless, incredulous, dripping with adoration. “you think it’s cute that i lose sleep making things to keep you safe? that i forget to eat because i’m too busy worrying about you?”

your blush deepens, scorching, and you tug at his shirt like you want to disappear into him. “you make me the most amazing things when you’re worried about me. and you get this little crease between your eyebrows when you’re focused, and you forget to eat or sleep, but you always remember exactly how i like my coffee, and—” he watches you falter, your words disintegrating into a strangled sound of mortification. “this is not making me sound less ridiculous. is it?”

“it’s making you sound perfect.” his forehead drops to yours, and he cradles your face like you’re breakable, like you’re the finest piece of machinery he’s ever built.“ it’s making you sound like the woman i fell in love with—the woman who’s been taking care of me, worrying about me, defending my honor against discount versions of myself.”

his grin sharpens, unable to resist, “and you defended me so well, baby. ‘not my husband.’ ‘my husband is a genius.’ ‘my husband smells better.’ ‘my husband has better posture.’”

he leans in, nipping at your bottom lip, playful, intoxicating. “my sweet wife. i’ve never felt so protected.”

your laugh bursts out of you, watery and full-bodied, your hands rising to cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones in trembling circles. “i can’t believe i spent two weeks beating up my own husband.”

“i can’t believe i spent two weeks watching my wife talk about how amazing her husband is while she was actively rejecting me.” his lashes flutter as he leans into your touch, like a cat, like something basking in warmth it had been starved of. “do you have any idea how confusing that was? i was jealous of myself. i was genuinely, pathetically jealous of the man you married while being the man you married.”

it’s a confession scraped raw from his chest, but you’re laughing properly now, bright and breathless, like you’ve been untethered from something heavy. you pepper kisses over his face in rapid, dizzying succession, your lips skating over his brow, his temples, the tip of his nose.

“you’re such a dork,” you murmur, still cupping his face, like you can’t bear to let go of him.

“i’m your dork.”

his voice is rough with want, his pulse tripping over itself as he lets the weight of everything crash into him all at once. his mouth brushes over yours again, lingering, reverent. “and i missed you so much. missed being able to touch you. missed you looking at me like you’re looking at me right now instead of like i’m some creepy teenager with questionable motives.”

“you are a creepy teenager with questionable motives,” you shoot back, but your words crumble under the softness that creeps into your voice. ”you invented a time machine just so you could spend more time with me.”

“and then immediately wasted two weeks because i’m apparently the only genius in history stupid enough to de-age himself by accident.”

his thumb slides over your bottom lip, unable to resist, unable to stop touching you now that he’s allowed to. his whole body hums with the need to consume you, to drag you inside his bones, to make up for every second he’d lost.

“not wasted,” you whisper, fierce and tender all at once. “never wasted. not if it brought you back to me.”

those words detonate inside him, and suddenly the kitchen feels too small, the air too thin. he’s been existing on stolen glances and careful distance for two weeks, watching you from afar, aching with the need to touch you, to kiss you, to prove to himself that you’re real and his and finally within reach again.

“we’ve been trying for a baby,” he says hoarsely, the words spilling out before he can stop them. “for months, and i just—i wasted two weeks, and i can’t—i need—”

you silence him with a kiss, soft and desperate and tasting like the tears you’ve both been crying. your hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer, and he responds by lifting you, setting you on the counter so you’re at eye level, his hands spanning your waist, thumbs tracing circles over the soft fabric of your dress.

“i love you,” you breathe against his mouth. “i love you so much, and i’m so sorry i hurt you, and i missed you, and—”

he kisses you again, deeper this time, pouring two weeks of longing and frustration and desperate love into the contact. you taste like home, like forgiveness, like everything he’s been craving. your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, and he can feel the exact moment you stop thinking and start just feeling, your body melting against his.

his glasses fog up. he doesn’t care.

your hair comes loose from its bun, the mechanical clips clattering to the counter, and he tangles his fingers in the silky strands, angling your head to deepen the kiss. you make a soft sound that goes straight through him, and he’s just starting to contemplate the structural integrity of the kitchen counter when—

ding.

the oven timer cuts through the moment like a bucket of cold water.

you break apart, both breathing hard, your lips swollen and his hair thoroughly mussed. the pink dress is wrinkled where his hands have been gripping your waist, and there’s a dazed look in your eyes that makes him want to forget dinner entirely.

“the pasta,” you say faintly.

“forget the pasta,” he growls, leaning down to press kisses along your neck, finding that spot just below your ear that makes you shiver.

ding. ding. ding.

“it’ll burn,” you protest, but your head tilts to give him better access, and your hands are still fisted in his shirt.

he doesn’t let you go. not when you say his name, not when you push at his shoulders, not when the oven timer chimes over and over like some petty background character begging for attention in a scene it no longer belongs to.

”don’t mind it,” he breathes against your throat, and it sounds less like a request, more like an instinct, as though there is nothing in this world more irrelevant than a meal when you’re in his arms again.

his lips move along the curve of your neck with reverence, brushing over your pulse, slow at first—a sweet drag of his mouth, the soft, wet pull of his tongue where your skin is most sensitive. he feels the flutter of your pulse beneath his lips, feels the way your body leans into his as though your bones have decided they’d rather trust him to hold you upright.

his breathing is uneven, shaky, like he’s on the edge of something he’s been chasing since the day he woke up in that younger body and couldn’t touch you the way he needed to. the memory claws at him now, vivid and bitter, that helpless ache of looking like himself and yet being nothing you would want to take in your arms.

you murmur something about the oven again, the protest barely formed, already dissolving into a sigh as he scrapes his teeth lightly along your skin. your hands remain curled in his shirt, not pushing anymore, just clutching—desperate, familiar, your fingers twisting into the fabric like you’re scared he might slip away again. his shirt bunches beneath your grip, your nails pressing half-moon shapes into his chest, but he craves the sting of it, the grounding pain of knowing you’re clinging to him, needing him just as much.

”it won’t burn,” he murmurs against your skin, his tongue following the line of your collarbone, his glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose. ”it’s a timed self-shut. i programmed it myself. knew this might happen. knew i wouldn’t be able to let you go.”

he pushes his glasses up with a quick, practiced nudge of his wrist, never pulling his mouth too far from your skin. he needs to see you. needs to see every part of you. his hands are too busy, too greedy, sliding up the sides of your dress, pushing the soft fabric higher and higher until his fingertips brush the bare skin of your thighs. the dress pools around his wrists as though the fabric is surrendering to him, letting him through.

he feels you shudder when his thumbs trace slow, possessive circles just beneath the hem. he slides his hands further, the cotton dragging over your skin as if the dress itself is a barrier he’s grown to despise. ”been thinking about this for two weeks. touching you. feeling you. not some memory—you. this body.”

the tremble in your breath is sharp, palpable, sinking into his bones. your voice hitches when he catches your earlobe between his teeth, when he sucks lightly, as if tasting something he already knows belongs to him. his hands splay wide over your thighs, his touch more sure, more demanding now as though every second he isn’t inside you is unbearable. his fingertips trail along the curve of your legs, memorizing the heat and texture of your skin with the same focus he gives his research—meticulous, thorough, consumed by the need to understand everything.

he pushes his glasses up again, quick and automatic, the weight of them a familiar anchor as his vision sharpens, as though seeing you this clearly makes the need inside him all the more unbearable. he tilts his head just enough to see your lashes flutter, to watch your lips part around his name, and the sight burns into him with perfect clarity.

when his hands find your waist again, he isn’t gentle. his grip is firm, grounding, as though if he doesn’t hold you tight enough, you might vanish all over again. he tugs you back against him, hips flush to yours, and he can’t suppress the groan that punches out of him when he feels how warm you are, even through his jeans.

the heat of you burns into him, through the thin fabric, the kind of contact that makes his head spin. his cock twitches against the rough denim, aching, pulsing, a frustration that’s been building since the second he lost the chance to touch you properly.

“you’re not gonna let me feed you first?” you manage, but the breathless curl in your voice betrays you.

”you’re feeding me now,” he says, dragging his hands to your hips and grinding against you, slow and deliberate, a filthy drag of friction that has you gasping into his shoulder. he’s gone two weeks without this—without your heat, without your weight against him, without the sweetness of your mouth pressed to his.

his mouth captures yours again, the kiss messy and open-mouthed, his tongue chasing yours as though he might starve if he stops. he can’t get enough of you, can’t bear the distance, can’t stand the thought of pulling away, not even to breathe.

“but dinner—”

“it’s fine,” he murmurs, almost a laugh. “it’ll shut off on its own. you can’t burn anything while i’m loving you. made sure of it.”

his mouth moves lower, down the line of your throat, tasting the salt on your skin, the way you shiver when he noses along the curve of your shoulder. he kisses the delicate dip where your neck meets your shoulder, over and over, as though he could mark you with nothing but his mouth.

his hand slides beneath your dress again, impatient now, pushing your panties aside without ceremony. his fingertips graze your folds, and he sucks in a breath through his teeth—wet, already, and his chest tightens with something ugly and possessive because you’ve missed him just as much. the feel of you, the heat, the slick glide of his fingers dragging through your arousal—it short-circuits something in him. his jaw clenches, his breath stutters, and he presses his forehead to your shoulder to anchor himself.

“fuck, baby,” he whispers, his voice breaking apart, “look at you. missed me that much? couldn’t wait?”

his touch lingers there, gentle for a moment, tracing, teasing, his middle finger dipping to circle where you’re already aching for him. his other arm curls around your waist, holding you firm against him when your knees nearly give out. he rubs slow circles until you’re grinding into his hand, chasing the friction like you can’t stand the distance anymore. you’re warm and soft and trembling under his touch, your hips rolling helplessly, your breath hitching every time he circles just a little harder.

“satoru,” you whimper, half a plea, half a warning, but you’re already folding into him, already falling apart.

“’m here now,” he murmurs, guiding you to turn around, pressing your hands to the countertop, his body crowding you from behind. “i’m right here. gonna take care of you. gonna fuck you just like you need.”

he kisses your shoulder, slow and lingering, as though tasting your skin could imprint you deeper into him. the curve of your spine rises beneath his mouth, the faint tremble under his lips pulling something raw and animal out of him. he presses into you, his chest solid to your back, his hands smoothing over the fabric of your dress as if his touch alone could brand you as his, as if holding you like this might anchor him to this moment forever.

his jeans rasp against the softness of your thighs, each rock of his hips a little rougher, a little more desperate as he grinds against you. the friction is maddening. it makes him hiss through his teeth, makes his fingers dig into your waist like he needs to memorize the shape of you beneath his palms. when he reaches for his belt, it’s with the shaky impatience of a man on the edge of breaking. the buckle fights him, the leather dragging through the loops in a way that feels insufferably slow, and his breathing stutters, uneven, desperate.

“hurry,” you pant, your voice wrecked and pleading, your hips grinding back against him in small, frantic circles. “please, satoru, please… i need you now.”

he lets out a low curse when he finally frees himself, the tip of his cock dragging through your slick folds with a helpless groan as though even that brief touch is too much, too good, too long overdue. “fuck, baby, you’re soaked,” he breathes, half-crazed, his chest pressed tight to your back. “missed me this much, huh?”

“missed everything,” you gasp, your hands fisting around the edge of the counter, nails digging into the wood. “missed you. your voice, your hands… your cock. please, please don’t tease.”

he doesn’t wait. he can’t. he pushes into you in one, long, slow thrust, inch by aching inch, feeling you stretch and give around him, until he’s seated as deep as you can take him. the tight, wet squeeze of you makes his breath falter, a shudder wracking his frame, his body folding over you as his hands scramble for your waist, clutching like you’re the only tether left holding him to the earth.

“fuck… so full,” you whimper, your voice breaking on a gasp. “god, satoru… so good… i needed this… i needed you.”

he adjusts his glasses with a quick, shaky push, his vision sharpening just in time to burn the sight of you into memory—the delicate arch of your spine, the way your fingers clench around the countertop, the way your hips fit perfectly in his hands like you were carved just for him. the view sears itself into him, and the weight of it nearly drives him to the edge.

“shit… you feel like home,” he rasps, his voice fraying at the edges, his hands tightening until his knuckles ache. he pulls out slow, savoring the sweet, unbearable friction that drags along every nerve in his cock, only to slam back in with a force that steals his breath. again. and again. a steady, greedy pace that grows frantic under the pressure of his need.

the wet slap of skin against skin fills the kitchen, tangled with his ragged breathing and the soft, gasping sounds you make beneath him, each one sinking into him, winding tighter and tighter inside his ribs.

“oh, fuck, satoru…” you cry out, each thrust knocking the air from your lungs, your body meeting his with a desperate rhythm. “don’t stop… please, don’t stop… you feel so good, so deep… i can’t think… i can’t think when you’re fucking me like this.”

he leans over you, his chest pressed to your back, his breath hot and ragged against your ear as he drives into you with desperate force. his lips brush over the shell of your ear, trailing kisses down your neck as though his mouth can’t bear to leave your skin for more than a second. he mutters your name between each kiss, like a mantra, like it might steady him.

“you’re mine,” he pants, his words shivering with the strain of holding himself together. he kisses along your shoulder, his pace only faltering when his hips grind deep, seeking more, always more. “i’m not wasting another second, baby. i’m gonna… fuck, i’m gonna… i’m gonna make you feel me for days.”

“i already do,” you sob, your head tipping back against his shoulder, tears blurring your vision as you clutch his hand where it grips your waist. “you’re everywhere… you’re all i can feel… all i want… please, satoru, please don’t stop…”

his hand snakes between your thighs, his fingers circling your clit with practiced pressure, coaxing you to squeeze around him, to shatter for him. “come on, baby… let me feel you… let me feel you fall apart for me.”

“satoru… satoru, please, i’m so close… fuck… fuck… don’t stop, i need… i need…”

he groans low in his throat when your walls pulse around him, his body bucking forward like the sensation has stolen the air from his lungs. his other hand glides over your stomach, over the dip of your waist, greedy for the heat of your skin beneath the thin barrier of your dress. he wants to memorize every inch of you, wants to claim you in ways his body can’t quite articulate.

he buries his face in the curve of your neck, his lips brushing against the frantic pulse at your throat, his nose pressed against your skin as he breathes you in like oxygen. “talk to me,” he breathes, desperate, hoarse, the words scraping out like they cost him. “tell me you missed me. tell me i’m the only one who gets to touch you like this. tell me you’re mine.”

“yours,” you cry out, wrecked and breathless. “i’ve always been yours… satoru, fuck… you’re the only one… i missed you… i missed you so much… i can’t… i can’t do this without you… please, don’t let me go.”

“fuck, you’re so good for me,” he groans, the sound ragged and raw, and he ruts into you harder, the snap of his hips relentless as he chases you both toward the inevitable edge. “you’re perfect… fuck, baby, you’re perfect.”

“i’m… i’m coming… satoru, please… i’m—”

he doesn’t stop. he can’t. not until he feels you clench around him, feels you fall apart, your body trembling as you come, your voice cracking on his name like it’s a prayer you’ve been holding in for days. the sensation of you pulsing around him, pulling him deeper, drags a broken groan from his chest, and only then does he finally let go.

he thrusts deep, emptying himself inside you with a raw, gasping sound, his entire body shivering with the force of it. his release comes in thick waves, like his body refuses to let you go, like it’s been waiting for this, for you, to finally come home to him.

“don’t… don’t pull out,” you whimper, your voice small and trembling, your hands covering his where he grips your hips. “please, i want… i want to feel you… please, satoru… please stay…”

he doesn’t pull out. not yet. he stays there, his chest heaving against your back, his hips pressing tight to yours, as though his body could fuse to yours if he just holds on long enough. his hand slides over your stomach, his thumb brushing the fabric of your dress, his heart thundering against your spine. he wants to stay connected, to keep his body wrapped around you until the heat subsides, until the trembling quiets.

he kisses you there, the soft curve of your shoulder, his lips dragging lazy, reverent paths over your skin, savoring the tremble still coursing through you. “gonna keep you like this,” he murmurs, his voice low, thick with something that sounds almost reverent. “gonna keep you full, baby. not wasting anything.”

his hands rub slow, soothing circles into your hips, but his cock still twitches inside you, the heat of you pulling him under all over again. he presses his mouth to your spine, trailing soft, possessive kisses up to the back of your neck, his body vibrating with the hum of restless energy that refuses to ebb. it’s not enough. it’ll never be enough. he wants to keep going until the lines between you blur completely, until you forget where he ends and you begin.

he leans in, his voice breathless but steady now, a vow he lays against your skin. “this…” he pants, rolling his hips slowly, deliberately, still buried deep inside you, “this is just the start. not letting you go. not for the rest of the night.”

“don’t let go,” you whisper, arching back into him, your fingers sliding over his as though you might trap him there. ”don’t stop… please, satoru… don’t stop…”

his grip tightens, grounding you to him like he’s afraid you might dissolve between his fingers. “baby, you don’t even know how much i’ve missed you yet.”

he rolls his hips again, savoring the drag, savoring the stretch, savoring the way you arch back into him like you’re already craving more. it’s a promise—a warning—that he isn’t stopping any time soon. his hands smooth over your sides, up to your ribs, coaxing more sounds from you, coaxing more of you to open for him. his lips hover just behind your ear, his breath brushing warm against your skin as he begins to move again, slowly building the next wave, chasing the next collapse.

he hums against you, pleased, almost smug, as you tremble beneath him. ”let me make up for lost time, baby. i’m not done. not even close.”

“please…” it’s the only thing you can form now—broken, breathless. your hands tremble as you try to hold onto him, your fingers sliding helplessly against his shirt like you might fall apart without the anchor of his touch.

he tilts his head just enough to kiss the hinge of your jaw, his pace unhurried but determined. “i’ve got you,” he murmurs, his voice soft even as his body hums with something feral. “all night, baby. all night to love you, to fill you, to put our baby right where it belongs.”

he pulls out with a sharp, deliberate drag, leaving you clenching around nothing, and without giving you a moment to protest, he hauls you up, one arm locking under your thighs, the other cradling your back. you cling to him instinctively, barely able to breathe as he carries you to the bedroom, his grip rough, his breathing uneven, his jaw clenched tight with restraint he’s barely holding onto.

he drops you onto the bed, his hands instantly on you, yanking your dress up over your head in one swift, tearing motion, discarding it somewhere behind him. his glasses slip lower on his nose, his blue eyes molten and sharp behind the lenses, devouring the sight of you—messy, flushed, gasping. you reach for him, your lips parted, your throat working around the desperate sound that tumbles out—a soft, helpless “please…”

his hands slam your wrists to the mattress, his body caging you in, his cock thick and heavy as he grinds against your soaked entrance. “shh, baby,” he whispers, his voice trembling as he tries to gentle himself. “i’ve got you. you’re not going anywhere. i’m gonna take care of you.”

he refuses to take off his glasses. he wants to see everything—every tear that slips from your lashes, every tremble in your lips, every mindless sound that breaks from your throat. his gaze stays locked on you, even as his cock pushes inside you in one deep, devastating thrust.

“you’re mine,” he breathes, voice ragged, the words shivering apart as he bottoms out inside you. he can feel your walls flutter around him, clenching as though your body is desperate to hold him in, to keep him there. your body jolts beneath him, legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, dragging him deeper. your moan punches out, breathless, pleading, the only thing you seem capable of now. your hands cling to him, fingers clawing at his shirt like you’re trying to root yourself to him, as if the only thing anchoring you to the world is the brutal drag of his cock inside you.

his glasses slip slightly down his nose, fogging at the edges, but he refuses to push them up. he needs to see you, needs to burn every detail into his memory—the way your eyes glaze over, the tremble in your lips, the tear that slips from the corner of your eye. he wants to remember this: the raw, unguarded way you fall apart for him, the mindless way you beg him, the frantic rise and fall of your chest as you gasp for breath.

he drives into you again, harder, faster, each brutal thrust forcing the breath from your lungs, forcing more of those broken, needy noises out of you. the sound of skin slapping against skin echoes in the room, tangled with the ragged rhythm of his breathing and the choked cries that tumble from your lips. your hands scramble at his arms, your nails clawing into his sleeves, but you can’t find the words anymore. all that’s left is “please…” and the sobs that fall apart between the sharp snaps of his hips.

“i know, baby,” he pants, his breath hot and frantic against your skin, his voice frayed with restraint that’s slipping fast. ”i know what you need. you need me to fuck my baby into you, right? need me to keep you so full you can’t think of anything else? need me to fill you until it’s all you can feel?”

“please…” it spills from your throat again, almost a cry, your body tightening around him as though your own muscles are begging him to stay.

“i’ll give it to you,” he promises, soft, reverent, though the brutal rhythm of his hips betrays him. “i’ll make you a mama, baby. gonna make sure you can’t hold anything but me. gonna make sure you’re mine forever.”

he shifts, pulling your knees up to your chest, folding you underneath him, locking you into a perfect mating press. the angle punches another sob from you, your back arching, your legs trembling around his ribs. he presses his chest to yours, his mouth dragging over your ear, your jaw, his voice trembling with sweetness that contrasts the feral rhythm of his body.

“you’re doing so good, baby,” he breathes, kissing your temple, tasting the salt of your tears. “taking me so well. you want it, don’t you? want me to fill you? wanna be round with my baby? wanna feel me every time you move?”

your answer is a mindless moan, another tear slipping from the corner of your eye, your lips barely able to shape the one word that’s left in you: “toru...”

he hums against your skin, his cock grinding impossibly deeper. “that’s it, sweet girl. i’ll fill you up… keep you so full you won’t even remember what it feels like to be empty. i’ll make sure you’re carrying me by the time i’m done. i’ll fuck you so deep that my baby won’t have anywhere else to go.”

his hips slam into you harder, faster, sharp and bruising. you sob beneath him, clutching him, helpless against the rhythm that’s shaking you apart. his voice stays painfully soft, cradling you through it. “not wasting a single drop. i’m gonna fuck you until you’re mine. until you’re pregnant. until there’s nothing left but me inside you.”

“want it…”

his mouth crashes over yours, swallowing your cries, his kiss frantic, messy, desperate. you’re shaking under him, the overstimulation shredding your mind, your body trembling violently, your sobs trapped against his tongue as you beg him wordlessly to keep going, to never stop.

“that’s it,” he whispers, his voice breaking as he chases his release. “that’s it, baby. take it. take it all. take everything i give you.”

he folds you even tighter, pressing so deep you can feel him in places you didn’t know could ache. your orgasm crashes over you again, sharp and blinding, your body convulsing around him, your voice lost to the desperate gasp that splits from your lips. and he breaks with you, thrusting deep as he spills inside you, his cock pulsing hard with every grind, his breath faltering, his voice catching as he pants, “gonna make you mine… gonna make you a mama… gonna keep you full… keep you right here… where you belong.”

but he doesn’t stop.

he keeps grinding, his cock still thick, twitching inside you, his hands trembling where they hold your legs open, determined to keep every drop right where it belongs.

“not done,” he breathes, kissing your cheek, your temple, his voice sweet and low, shaking with the weight of how much he still wants you. “not done with you yet, baby. not until i know. not until i’m sure. not until you’re really mine.”

he rolls his hips again, deliberately, drawing out the stretch, dragging out the feeling, coaxing more choked gasps from you. your body arches weakly into him, clinging, helpless to do anything but take him.

“shh, sweet girl, i’ve got you. i’ll give you everything. i’ll fill you over and over until you can’t hold anything but me. i’ll give you so much you’ll feel me dripping down your thighs when i finally let you go.”

he drags his cock out slowly, savoring the sensation, just to slam back in, forcing another sharp cry from you, your legs trembling where they bracket his ribs.

“you feel so good like this,” he murmurs, his words melting against your skin. “so good and warm and perfect. i’m gonna keep going, baby. you can take it, right? you’ll let me, won’t you? you’ll let me make you mine, over and over, until there’s no space left for anything else?”

a needy whine is all you can give him now, but it’s all he needs.

he smiles against your cheek, soft and breathless, his glasses slipping lower as he kisses you again, his lips trembling against yours. “i know, baby. i know. i’ll take care of everything. i’ll make sure our baby takes. i’ll make sure you’re mine… i’ll make sure you’re full. i’ll keep going until you can’t think about anything but me…”

his pace builds again, steady, deep, his hands stroking your sides, his voice staying low, unbearably tender as he destroys you beneath him.

“i’ll give you all of me, sweet girl,” he promises, his voice cracking even as he drives for more. “all of me. again and again. until you’re carrying me… until you’re round with our baby. until you can’t breathe without thinking about me inside you.”

he shifts his weight, dragging his cock out just enough to thrust deep again, coaxing more desperate cries from you, his breathing rough as his chest brushes yours, his glasses fogged and slipping. his hands tremble where they hold you open, where they keep you pinned beneath him, where they swear to never let you go, as if letting go would unravel him entirely.

“i’ll fill you until you can’t take anymore,” he whispers, his voice raw, his lips dragging along your jaw, his breath hot and uneven. “i’ll give you so much you’ll feel me for days, baby. you’ll feel me dripping out of you every time you stand, every time you move. you’ll feel me inside you every second, every breath, every heartbeat. there won’t be a moment you’re not full of me.”

he slows down just enough to let you breathe, just enough to kiss you, just enough to hear the soft, breathy whimpers that melt into his skin. his glasses are crooked, fogged, his hair clinging to his forehead in damp strands. his lips brush yours, tasting of desperation, tasting of love, tasting of the ache he’s carried through endless nights, his body pressed flush against yours as if he could sink into you, as if he could live inside you if he tried hard enough.

“baby,” he pants, voice trembling, his hand brushing your cheek, lingering there, “roll over for me, yeah? wanna see you all pretty on your hands and knees, wanna see your ass all messy for me, wanna watch you fall apart just for me.”

his words make you shudder beneath him, make your thighs twitch, but you listen, your limbs shaky as you roll over, his hands never leaving you, his palms gliding down your waist, over your hips, steady, grounding, helping you position yourself just right. he murmurs soft praises as he lines you up, kisses pressed to the nape of your neck, to the soft curve of your shoulder, to the swell of your back as you settle on all fours, your face buried in the pillows, your breath already ragged.

“that’s it, pretty girl,” he croons, his voice thick with awe, his eyes roving over your trembling form like he can’t believe you’re his. “look at you, taking me so well. made for me, baby, yeah? your body was made for me, just to take me, just to fall apart on my cock.”

his hand slips between your thighs, his long fingers gathering your slick, coating them generously before pressing two inside you alongside his cock, working you open, stretching you around him until the burn makes you sob into the sheets, makes your hips jerk helplessly, makes you whine from the fullness, from how stuffed you are, the overwhelming stretch making tears prick at your lashes.

your knuckles turn white where you grip the sheets, trembling under the weight of him, under the delicious ache of him, your breath hitching with every slow curl of his fingers inside you. your thighs twitch, thighs spread obediently despite the tremble overtaking them, your skin fever-hot where his palms ground you in place.

his other hand steadies your hips, thumb tracing slow, grounding circles against your skin, his palm firm, his grip sinking into the plush of your waist like he’s afraid you’ll float away if he loosens it even for a second. his hair clings to his forehead in damp, clumpy strands, his cheeks flushed a lovely pink, his glasses slipping lower on his nose, fogged to uselessness but still perched stubbornly there, framing the feverish glint in his eyes.

his lips brush kisses to the curve of your spine, down to the small of your back, each press soft and lingering, like he’s tethering you to him with every touch, like he needs to brand himself into you, to make you feel him everywhere, in every breath, in every heartbeat.

“shh, you’re doing so good,” he breathes, his voice trembling with restraint, placing a tender kiss to the dip of your waist. “so good for me, baby. you’re perfect, y’know that? so perfect when you’re stuffed full of me. i love watching you stretch around me, love feeling you clench when i’m this deep inside you. it’s like your body was made to hold me. you were made to be mine.”

he slides his fingers out slowly, savoring the slick sound, savoring the way your walls flutter around him like you’re begging him to fill you again. your thighs tremble, your hips rocking back in search of him, your breath shuddering as you whine, pitiful and overwhelmed, lips parted, drooling onto the pillow.

the needy arch of your spine makes his chest squeeze, makes his cock throb painfully, makes him press flush against you as he grinds back in, deep and unhurried, pushing as far as he can go, his pace slow but devastating, each thrust a deliberate drag against every sensitive spot that makes you gasp, makes you sob into the pillows.

“that’s it, baby,” he groans, his head falling forward, his damp fringe sticking to his temple, his glasses slipping to the very tip of his nose before he finally pushes them off and tosses them blindly aside. “every time i fuck you like this, you just take me so good, like you’re meant to. you were made to take me, weren’t you? made to fall apart on my cock, yeah?”

his kisses grow more feverish, his lips dragging across your shoulders, the plane of your back, his tongue flicking along the salt of your skin as he grinds deeper, sinking lower with each thrust, each snap of his hips making you whine, making your hands claw weakly at the sheets. he listens to every gasp, every cry, every broken plea you bury into the pillows, savoring the tremble of your thighs, the collapse of your arms, the desperate way you push back into him, chasing the delicious pressure.

then he leans over, his chest pressing against your back until his lips find yours, capturing you in a desperate, clumsy kiss. it’s messy, wet, more panting and whining than kissing, but he drinks every sound from your lips like he’s starving, like he can’t bear to be separated from any part of you. his tongue traces yours, coaxing you into the kiss even as his hips grind into you harder, even as your knees threaten to buckle beneath him, your soft whimpers muffled against his mouth.

“don’t hide from me, pretty girl,” he murmurs between kisses, his breath hot against your lips, his voice honey-sweet and reverent even as he rocks into you deeper. “wanna hear you, wanna feel you, wanna kiss you while you fall apart on me. every sound you make is mine. every little sob, every little plea, mine.”

he chases your orgasm with grinding thrusts, with soft praises that melt into your skin, with kisses that sear into you, that drag along the curve of your spine, that brand you as his. his hands roam across your waist, your sides, your belly, squeezing and caressing as if memorizing the softness of you. and when you come, when your body clamps down around him like a vice, when you tremble and sob against his mouth, he doesn’t stop. he swallows every desperate sound, his pace never faltering, his grip on your hips tightening as he drives through the aftershocks, pulling even more cries from your swollen lips.

“you can take it,” he pants, fucking you through the tremors, his voice shaking with the force of his own unraveling. “you’re doing so good, baby, you’re perfect, you’re perfect, fuck, you’re made for me. made to take me, yeah? you can give me another, can’t you? just one more, pretty girl. just one more.”

his hips snap forward harder, more erratic, his sleeper build fully activated as his fingers dig bruises into your waist, as he holds you steady even as your arms give out, even as you collapse onto the bed, your cheek mashed against the pillow, your body trembling with every rough, desperate thrust. your breath hiccups, your body limp, overstimulated, but he keeps going, keeps coaxing more from you with each deep grind, dragging out your high until your thighs shake uncontrollably.

but he doesn’t stop. his grip doesn’t falter. his praises don’t cease.

he kisses the sweat-slick skin of your back, he whispers against your shoulder, he keeps telling you how good you are, how you were made for him, how he’ll fill you until you’re overflowing, until you’re leaking with him, until you can’t hold it all, until you feel him dripping down your thighs, until it’s all you can feel.

“so good, baby, you’re so good,” he breathes, his voice cracking on the edges, as if your name is the only thing keeping him tethered to this moment. “my sweet girl, my pretty baby, taking me so well. fuck, you’re made for me, you’re perfect.”

he chases his own end with frantic, desperate thrusts, with the wet, obscene slap of skin against skin, with the ragged breath of a man who has no intention of stopping until he’s poured every last drop of himself into you. his fingers flex against your waist, his lips never leaving you, his rhythm a frantic, beautiful mess, his voice breaking with every curse, every sweet nothing he pours into your skin.

and when he finally shatters, when his body tenses and he spills inside you, he groans your name like a prayer, like a curse, like a plea, his hands trembling where they clutch you, his kisses never stopping, his words still tumbling in a broken, reverent stream.

“so good, baby, you’re so good, you’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine. gonna keep you like this, gonna keep you full, just like this, just like you’re meant to be. wanna see it drip down those pretty thighs.”

his body finally stills, but his hands never leave you, his lips never stop pressing soft, lingering kisses to your back, to your shoulders, to your waist, holding you close as if you might slip away if he lets go.

he stays inside you, buried to the hilt, his breathing shaky, his heart hammering wildly against your spine, his hair clinging to his damp forehead, his cheeks flushed and glowing, his arms curling around your middle to hold you tight, to anchor himself to you, to prolong this feeling of being so deeply connected.

he whispers to you softly now, praises spilling between kisses, his touch gentle but insistent, a man desperate to stay connected, to stay tethered to you in every way he can. his fingertips trace slow, lazy circles against your belly, memorizing the feel of your skin, of your warmth, the little trembles that still ripple through you.

“i’ll fill you up again,” he promises, his voice hoarse and full of love. “i’ll give you more, baby. you can take it. you always take me so well. i’ll keep you like this all night if you let me. just wanna keep you close, keep you mine.”

slowly, he shifts, carefully pulling out, his breath catching at the sight of his spend slipping out of you, leaving a glistening trail along your thighs. he groans softly, pressing a kiss to your lower back, savoring the tremble that runs through you. his thumb brushes over the mark he left there, tracing lazy circles as if to soothe the ache, as if to seal his touch into your skin.

he gently turns you over, cradling your waist, lifting you like you weigh nothing, his strong arms wrapping around you as if you’re something precious. he sits himself at the edge of the bed with you settled in his lap, your shaky thighs straddling him, your chest pressed to his, your breath still hitching as you try to find your footing in the aftermath, your arms barely strong enough to wrap around his shoulders.

his cock, still heavy, still hard, nudges against your entrance, and he shudders at the heat, at the way your body clings to him instinctively, like you never want to let him go. his hands slide over your hips, steadying you, his thumbs brushing slow circles into your skin, his touch reverent, patient, as if savoring the weight of you in his lap.

“come on, pretty girl,” he murmurs, his breath hot against your lips, his voice thick with sweetness and filth, his cerulean eyes glazed with adoration and hunger. “sit on me, yeah? just like this. let me keep you full a little longer. let me feel you, just a little more.”

he guides you down onto him, slow and patient, his large hands warm and steady on your waist as he lowers you inch by inch, savoring the sweet stretch, savoring the tremble that overtakes you as he fills you again, deeper this time, more deliberate, until his hips meet yours with a satisfying press.

your breath hitches, a sharp whimper escaping you, your head falling heavily to his shoulder as you struggle to accommodate him, your body straining around the overwhelming stretch, your fingers digging desperately into the firm muscles of his shoulders, clinging to him like you’ll drown without him.

his breath stutters at the heat of you, at how impossibly tight you are despite how many times he’s already filled you tonight. his pale hair clings damp to his temple, the ends curling from sweat, his cheeks flushed a tender pink, his lips parted and trembling as he exhales shaky, desperate breaths against your ear. his lashes flutter, his throat bobs with every ragged swallow, his entire frame taut, his biceps trembling where they hold you steady, straining to keep his composure, to keep his pace slow, to savor every second inside you.

his hands never leave you, one sliding to cradle your waist, the other splaying wide across your trembling back, as if to press you closer, to anchor you to him, to mold you to his body, to ensure that not even a breath of space separates you. he peppers kisses along your temple, the shell of your ear, your hairline, your jaw, his lips soft but insistent, his voice a low, reverent murmur that vibrates against your skin, as though he’s reciting a prayer only you can hear.

“look at you, baby,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to cradle your cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing away the stray tear that slips down your flushed skin. his ocean eyes are hazy, glassy with tenderness, with something so raw it tightens his throat and makes his breath stutter. “fuck, you’re so pretty when you’re falling apart for me. gonna let me keep you here all night, right? yeah? just like this, full of me. can’t let you go. don’t want to.”

his other hand curls into the nape of your neck, fingers threading through the damp strands of your hair, guiding your forehead to his, breath mingling, lips brushing as he steals soft, lingering kisses between his words, as if he can’t stop, as if he’s starving for you, as if kissing you is the only way he can breathe.

you can only whimper in response, the weight of him, the stretch of him, too much and not enough, your body trembling with the need to give him more, to feel him deeper, to be good for him, to make him proud, to belong to him.

his hands slide back to your waist, his grip steady but gentle as he begins to guide you, controlling your pace, moving you over him in slow, agonizing rolls. his thumbs draw slow, grounding circles into your heated skin, coaxing you to move, to ride him, to fall apart for him again. each time you rock your hips, you shudder, your breath catching on a sob, but he holds you steady, keeps you grounded, murmuring sweet words against your skin.

“shh, i’ve got you, baby. you’re doing so good,” he praises, pressing his forehead to yours, his breath shaky, his lips brushing yours between soft, trembling kisses. his silver lashes flutter with every slight tremble of his hips beneath you, his whole body trembling with restraint, with devotion, with the overwhelming need to stay inside you, to keep you close, to never let you go.

“you can do it, pretty girl,” he whispers, his voice low and rough, savoring every inch, every trembling grind of your hips. “just like that. take your time. i’ve got you. you’re mine. my sweet girl. let me take care of you. let me feel you just a little more.”

your thighs quiver, your movements sluggish and shaky, your whole body threatening to collapse from how sensitive you are, but he holds you, supports you, his hands never faltering as he coaxes you through it, guiding you with soft murmurs, with kisses pressed between your brows, against your fluttering eyelids, against the damp corner of your mouth. his hands roam your back, your ribs, your hips, memorizing the tremble of your skin, the heat of your body, the way you melt so completely into his lap, pliant and sweet.

he watches you, breathless, overwhelmed by how perfect you are, by how much he wants to keep you like this, forever tethered to him, wrapped around him, so utterly his. he savors the little gasps you give him, the soft hiccups in your breath, the desperate way you cling to him even when your body begs for rest, even when you sob softly into his shoulder, overwhelmed but unable to stop, unwilling to pull away.

when you finally falter, too sensitive, too overwhelmed to keep going, your movements slowing to weak, trembling shifts of your hips, he wraps his arms tightly around your waist and takes over, holding you close, keeping you flush against his chest as he grinds up into you in slow, deliberate rolls of his hips, savoring the sweet friction, savoring the little broken sounds you spill against his skin.

his pace is gentle but insistent, dragging sweet friction between your bodies, pulling broken moans from your lips, savoring the way you clutch at him, your fingers knotting in his damp hair, your head buried in his neck like he’s the only thing keeping you whole, the only place you feel safe, the only place you want to be. he feels your nails dig into his skin, your body trembling in his hold, but you don’t pull away. you press closer.

“that’s it, baby, i’ve got you,” he breathes, his voice cracking, trembling with the force of his own need, his own love. “just let me take care of you. just hold on to me. we’ll come together, okay? just like this. i’ve got you. i’ve always got you.”

his forehead presses to yours again, his lips parting to steal soft, desperate kisses, his hands trembling where they clutch you, his chest heaving as he rolls his hips deeper, slower, grinding against every sensitive spot inside you, savoring the desperate whines you spill against his mouth, savoring how you melt completely in his arms.

his voice is little more than a whisper now, ragged and broken, his praises melting into your skin as he rocks into you, chasing the edge with you pressed so sweetly against him, his breathing erratic, his kisses clumsy and endless.

“come with me, baby,” he pleads, his voice thick with love, with need, with desperation, his lips brushing yours as his hands tighten around your waist. “please. just like this. i need to feel you. i need you. just like this. don’t let go.”

you fall apart in his arms, your sobs trembling against his lips, your fingers tangling desperately in his hair as you cling to him, as you come so sweetly, so completely, your body shuddering in his hold, your thighs twitching, your hips stuttering as you grind against him, desperate to draw out the bliss.

he follows soon after, groaning your name like it’s a prayer, like it’s the only word he knows, his hips stuttering as he pours into you, as he holds you impossibly closer, as if he could fuse you to him, as if he could keep you here forever.

when you finally go limp in his arms, when your soft, exhausted breath fans against his neck, he holds you there, cradling you against his chest, his fingers stroking soothing lines along your spine. his hands slide to your thighs, rubbing slow circles, grounding you, savoring the weight of you in his lap, the softness of you, the way you fit so perfectly in his hold, the way you feel like home.

he presses soft kisses to your temple, to your hairline, to your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin, his lips tender and slow, as if he could never kiss you enough, as if he could never hold you long enough.

“so good, baby,” he whispers, his voice thick with tenderness. “my pretty girl. my sweet girl. we can stay like this, yeah? just like this. just you and me. i don’t need anything else.”

he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his breathing finally beginning to steady, his arms curling tighter around you, his whole body relaxing, melting into you as though he could sink into your skin and stay there forever.

you nod weakly, nuzzling into his neck, your lashes damp, your body pliant and warm against him. your arms loop lazily around his shoulders, fingers brushing the nape of his neck, and he presses one last kiss to your temple, one last kiss to your hairline, and he smiles against your skin, utterly content, utterly in love.

neither of you move. neither of you speak. you’re both too tired, too soft, too wrapped in each other to care about anything else, not even the cold dinner waiting in the kitchen.

“we’ll eat later,” he hums, his lips curling against your skin, his voice warm, tender, content. “just wanna stay here a little longer. just wanna keep you close. that’s all i need.”

his arms tighten around you as he buries his face in your shoulder, breathing you in, his body melting into yours, savoring the weight, the warmth, the softness of having you so completely, so entirely his.

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Putting together the most volatile combination of ships to make a gunpowder polycule because another fan got me into a second ship with the same character when I already had a different one

[chaaistained]

☕︎ my better cr; intro •°

.

.

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🗝️ you’ve now unlocked the recipe to my better cr ≈

name : ℳ

age (when i shift) : 17/18 — i’m planning to either shift to dec 2021 or aug 2022 , wtv my subconscious chooses

occupation : university student — double degree in law and arts, majoring in media law and craft of writing & literature, respectively

+ part time tutor for english and maths, at the same private tutoring company i went to in high school

+ (eventually) part time stock acquisition and youth advertiser at a telecommunications company near my campus which is technically a nepo hire bcs my aunt works there

+ (eventually) paid internship at the australian taxation office for the study of torts and contracts and even tho i got in genuinely bcs of my marks and my interview it also feels a little nepo bcs another aunt (a family friend) also works here.. anyway

side hobbies/hustles : blogger (tumblrina in every reality if i can help it) , tiktok + youtube cover channel with two of my high school friends , fic author (ao3 curse does NOT exist here come at me) , occasional columnist for my uni’s student newsletter

my s/o : childhood family friend — lost contact and reunited ten years later — not revealing his name apart from the first letter bcs . he’s real .. anyway it’s 𝒜

౨ৎ meet ℳ

a sun kissed cinnamon bun personified — she is the smile that blossoms between warm cheeks during the burn of a sunrise ≈

in this dr i don’t change my name, and for that reason i’ll stick to the first letter (just like my pinned post) which is ℳ.

i’m nothing more than a normal girl, waking up each day already tired but willing myself to either go to uni or work, staying up late to catch up on the hours i spend doing other things, i have a closet full of clothes and yet i have nothing to wear, i have three of the same shades of lip gloss but they’re all from different brands so ofcs they’re not the same, i just bought a new journal but i’m yet to finish the one i got four years ago, i have ink stains on the tips of my fingers and chai stains on the pages edge of the novel i’m currently reading.

i just take every day like a new pot of tea leaves, waiting to be steeped to perfection.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

౨ৎ the metamorphosis

with frayed edges and tear stained cheeks, she undid the binds of a life once lived, a life once loved, finding the holes to be too much to bear in the everlasting winter of the cold reality that was thrust upon her, opting to take the needle and thread between her own fingers and stitch up the seams, to reinforce the realm of her existence into one that can hold her hand rather than hold her down

quite often i approach the concept of reinvention with a quivering hand, unable to part ways from the comfort — or perhaps the codependency — of that familiarity.

but eventually i took a step back and realised, there is no shame in finding freedom in what already feels right . after all, our souls are not dependant on this realm or this body, our consciousness is an ever expanding universe on its own, and our power to wield it is something that we have grown to understand and control in a way that allows us to live the lives we truly desire.. that’s all that this dr represents for me.

a life that i truly desire.

i’m not that different here, i have the same name, the same birthday, the same family. but it would be a lie to say everything stays the same.

i do admit to changing my appearance a bit, i’m nothing if not a perfectionist and whilst i do think my features have potential, i actually reach said potential in this reality. my upbringing has been revitalised to be something that enriched me rather than keeping me sheltered. my parental unit is less overbearing and more understanding, my brother is less of a jerk and more of a friend, my family relationships are less immature and more genuine.

i revise my failures in education, i revise my anxieties around success and the fear of that success being unreachable, i revise my health, my athleticism, my willpower and the general energy i have throughout the day to achieve everything that i wish to accomplish, everything that i could not bring myself to take a step towards in my previous reality.

my passions aren’t shamed here, they are encouraged. not just with the wary caution of a simple hobby but rather as an actual proper lifestyle, a feasible choice to make for a career, a skill that is supported as something from which i can make a name for myself.

and in this growth, in this metamorphosis, i find stability and comfort in not just my family but also my friends — people that i lost contact with, people that i drifted away from, people that i couldn’t bring myself to keep close because of the shame in my own progression or lack thereof — i’m not an aspect of shame, i never was, i know what i deserve and what i’m capable of and in this reality, i am all those things.

that’s why this is home, even after i break out of the cocoon and open my eyes in a world that’s familiar, it will also be different, because i’ll be different — no longer experiencing the slow sluggish state of what once was, for i now have a marvellous symmetry of splendour that holds me high, the equilibrium of my reality, where the scales finally tipped in my favour, levelling out to be amiably sound, with every flap of a butterfly’s wing.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

౨ৎ sugar heart cookies

it’s an inexplicable pull, an intangible tug on the heartstrings, a firm grip, a gentle ache, a deep longing. you can’t help but feel that there is something more out there for you, that there is someone more. someone that feels less like a piece and more like a whole person. someone who won’t complete you, but will help you complete yourself. two halves of a heart leaves you vulnerable when you’re apart, but when it’s two hearts beating alongside each other, the only thing left is to hold onto you

he sat beside me in his mother’s car. we were six (me) and eight (him). he sat in the drivers seat while his mother went inside the house to pick up a few things before taking the three of us (his little sister sat in the back) to a gathering of family friends.

his mother had bought us britannia little hearts. i can still remember the minuscule sugar crystals stuck to the tips of my small fingers while i dove inside the aluminium cover every few seconds to reach for the next tiny biscuit.

he asked me where i was that day — i’d stayed home from school because i felt unwell — when i told him, his first reaction was to nag me : “you know, if you’re sick, you shouldn’t be eating these. this is pure sugar.”

“yeah but i don’t want to listen to you!” — i was .. never really good at listening to people, especially not cute boys who were a little older than me.

he always seemed a bit uptight, but i guess i forgot how much he cared. because i can’t remember what happened two years later, during my last day in my old school. i remember crying, and i remember being comforted by people. but i guess i forgot that one of those people was him. i guess i forgot that he told me “it’ll be alright. i’m sure we’ll see each other again someday.”

it took us ten years but we got there.

this time, he was upstairs, in the house that was hosting a dinner among friends. i was distracted by my brother’s antics, one foot inside the threshold past the door and one foot on the pavement outside. with a flick of my head, my gaze turned up, up past the stairs in front of the door, up to the railing on the second level, a lookout point for the entrance.

he was leaning against the railing, blue button up shirt tucked into his black jeans, scrolling aimlessly on his phone, taking a quick glance to his side before doing a double take.

the silence felt like the calm before a pattering evening of rainfall, where you can feel the change in your future from the way the air seems electrified, from the way the clouds seems to churn around each other, like they’re brewing together, ready to erupt and explode into thunder, like the way you can hear your heartbeat in your ears.

he seemed familiar, he seemed important, he seemed to be everything i could ever ask for and i didn’t know why the sirens were singing in my skull but i knew in my gut he was meant to be important to me. i knew he was meant to be somebody.

it took me a second to look away, but that entire night, and every night that followed, and every day that came along with it, i can’t ever forget the sugar crystal glimmers of light in his eyes. and for every moment to come, i’ll hold the little heart biscuits of our love in the palm of my hands, because i’m not someone who listens to people very well, i don’t care if i’m not allowed, i want them . i want him.

don’t swallow the tea leaves ! for they leave you a message 🍂

this dr is very near and dear to my heart and i can’t even begin to put everything i wanna say about it into one post so .. there will be more abt this dr

it’s literally home. it’s my life.

i’m so grateful for it xx

chaai brews; tea assortments — dr archive

2025 © chaaistained

[bombiikki]

𝖑et 𝖒e 𝖉rive 𝖒y 𝖛an ( 𝖎nto 𝖞our 𝖍eart ) ⸝⸝ 𓂃₊ ⊹

⋆˙⟡ — lee hyein x fem!reader

♯ 𝖘ynopsis : hyein is tall, funny, smart, she’s an idol, but most importantly—she’s your childhood best friend. you’re not that tall, or smart, and you’re definitely not rich. but, you have a van—even if it is your dad’s van. 

𝖈ontains : hella fluff. can be interpreted as platonic, minus the fact theyre basically on a date, and the fact they basically confessed, ok so its not platonic i lied, reader doesnt even have a license yet, minji makes an appearance!!, just short and fluff

𝖜ord 𝖈ount : 3.7k

𝖆uthor's 𝖓ote : i once said and i quote “im on a mission to revive njz blr” and so thats why im dropping ANOTHER NJZ FIC IN THE SAME WEEK!!! everyone clap… please… ive also had this idea for a while i js never got to it cuz i was working on the spidey x hanni fic anwyays enjoy chat!!

. ♬ ݁˖ 𝖓ow 𝖕laying — let me drive my van (into your heart) from steven universe

you didn’t need a driver’s license to fall in love.

but you did need a van.

and you had one—technically. it wasn’t yours, strictly speaking. it was your dad’s old clunky beast that groaned like a tired dragon every time it started. it smelled like gasoline and pine-scented air fresheners from 2009. one of the windows didn’t roll down all the way. but it was yours in spirit, in history, in the way it carried your whole childhood in its seats.

the van was parked crooked under the streetlight. it leaned a little to one side, always had. there was a rust stain near the back bumper and two old stickers peeling off the rear window—one of a dinosaur and one of a shooting star. the engine hadn’t run in three days, but it didn’t need to. you weren’t going anywhere.

not physically, at least.

you sat in the driver’s seat, both hands on the wheel, pretending the van was in motion. feet barely brushing the pedals. seatbelt long-forgotten. beside you, hyein lounged across the passenger seat with a pillow under her arms and a pack of sour gummies on her lap. the setting sun poured gold over her like some soft-glow filter you didn’t ask for but gladly accepted. her smile was lazy, tucked into the corner of her mouth like it wasn’t even aware of how it made your heart do actual cartwheels.

the radio didn’t work anymore, but she hummed something quietly. it sounded like the theme song to a cartoon you used to watch together—sweet and out-of-tune. you didn’t say anything. you didn’t have to.

it had been her idea to come out here again. same van, same spot at the end of the street. same snacks. just the two of you, like it used to be. you’d almost said no, scared it wouldn’t feel the same. scared you’d grown too much or changed too quietly.

but when she texted:

bring the van and me

you went. obviously.

“you know,” she said, voice half-buried in the pillow cradled beneath her chin, “you still don’t have your license.”

your fingers curled tighter around the steering wheel—cracked vinyl warm beneath your palms, like it remembered every time you pretended just like this. like it still believed you.

“yet,” you said, eyes fixed on the windshield, like if you stared long enough the world might open up ahead. “i’m manifesting it.”

she snorted softly, the sound low and fond. “you’ve been manifesting since we were ten.”

you turned your head toward her, heart knocking gently against your ribs. she was half-glowing in the last of the sunlight, the kind of quiet golden that made you feel like you were looking at something rare.

“and has it failed me?” you asked.

“you still don’t have a license.”

“minor inconvenience,” you grinned, like a secret, like a dream half-formed.

she laughed. a real one, all teeth and light. it poured into the tiny van like sunshine through an open window.

“god, you’re hopeless.”

you didn’t answer right away. just looked at her again, like you were memorising the way she existed. the way her hair fell into her eyes, the way her voice settled in your bones.

“you love it,” you said.

“i never said that.”

you smiled. “you didn’t have to.”

she rolled her eyes, but her lips betrayed her. the smallest twitch at the corners. the kind that said yes without needing to speak.

the silence that followed wasn’t empty—it was soft. full of every shared moment stitched between now and all your yesterdays. it felt like the kind of quiet that only belonged to two people who knew how to sit inside it without feeling like something had to be said.

you leaned your head against the seat. “i’m almost eighteen, you know. sooner or later, i’m gonna get that license.”

“almost eighteen,” she echoed, teasing. “i’m still younger. and taller.”

you groaned. “that’s criminal.”

“that’s biology,” she said, smug.

you reached into the back, fingers brushing past a crumpled hoodie and the crumbs of old snacks.

“one day, i’m gonna drive this van. like really drive it. and you’ll be sorry.”

she sat up then, the movement slow and sleepy. her hair stuck up on one side from the pillow, and her eyes looked at you like they had something to say before her mouth could.

“i’m not sorry now,” she said.

your breath caught. the kind of stillness that only happens when something inside you shifts, quiet and sure.

she’d noticed, of course. her gaze lingered just long enough to say she knew. but she didn’t tease, didn’t pry. she just leaned back again with the ease of someone who already felt at home here, with you. like she didn’t need an answer right away.

you reached for something safe to say. “the van’s falling apart.”

“so are most of my favorite things,” she said, without even thinking.

your van had been a spaceship once—its wheel a portal, its seats a cockpit, the stars just out of reach behind the fogged-up windows. it had been a castle with velvet curtains made from old blankets, a hotel where your names were written in crayon on imaginary check-in sheets, a submarine where you whispered through paper towel tubes and listened for sea monsters in the silence.

it had been a stage, too, bouncing with laughter as hyein made you dance across the cushions in mismatched socks, choreographing routines she insisted were "award-worthy."

it had been a hideout the night she cried into your sleeve after her first audition—when her voice cracked and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and she needed somewhere to fall apart that still felt like home.

and it had been a tent, once. the power had gone out in a summer storm, and your dad had let you sleep out in the driveway, your pillows piled high and a flashlight glowing between you like a campfire.

now it was just a van. but somehow, still everything.

“you know what the best part is?” she asked, resting her chin on her knees.

you glanced over. “what?”

“this thing. it’s always here. always waiting.”

you swallowed. “yeah.”

you didn’t say you felt the same about her.

your phone buzzed against your stomach, screen lighting up with hyein 💫 just as you were half-asleep, sprawled out in the back of the van, window cracked open to let in the smell of summer air and sun-warmed asphalt.

you answered without thinking. “yo.”

“don’t yo me,” she said, a little breathless, a little amused. in the background, you could hear the faint thump of music, some trainer yelling counts in sharp, clean numbers. “you’re the one who texted me a picture of a squished gummy bear in your seat cushion.”

“it looked like a person,” you mumbled.

“it looked like a murder scene,” she replied, then yawned. “you know you’re not funny, right?”

you smiled to yourself. “and yet you keep calling.”

“that’s just muscle memory,” she teased.

but her voice was soft around the edges—sleepy-soft, fond-soft—the kind that only slipped out when she was too tired to hold it back. you could picture her now: tucked in the hallway outside the studio, knees pulled up, hair damp with sweat, cheeks flushed. probably leaning against the wall with that half-exhausted grin she always wore after practice.

“i needed a break,” she added, quieter this time. “and you’re good for that.”

you let that sit. warm and golden and a little too big for your chest.

“how’s practice?” you asked.

“my legs hate me. i think my kneecaps are trying to quit.”

“you should give them a raise.”

“i gave them ice. it’s the best i could do.”

you laughed, and she did too. she always had the kind of laugh that made it feel like everything else could wait.

“guess where i am,” you said, even though she already knew.

“hmm,” she hummed. “judging by the background noise and the weird echo in your voice… let me guess. spaceship?”

you grinned. “bingo.”

“do the engines still make that weird rattling sound?”

“only when we hit light speed.”

she sighed dramatically. “classic. tell your dad his maintenance crew is slacking.”

you stared up at the ceiling of the van, faded and familiar. “do you remember that one summer we camped out here for like, a week straight?”

“we weren’t supposed to,” she said, her voice dipping low with memory. “your dad said one night. and then you made it seven.”

“you kept showing up with your sleeping bag and those microwave s’mores.”

“you had a playlist,” she said, almost fondly. “with like—old cartoon theme songs and weird lo-fi remixes.”

“you danced to half of them on the front seats.”

“because you made them into a stage,” she laughed. “i was eleven, i didn’t know any better.”

“you were good,” you said, quiet.

she didn’t answer right away. you heard a faint shuffle—maybe her brushing hair out of her face, or looking away like she could feel you saying it, even through the phone.

“you used to cry here too,” you added, a little gentler. “when stuff got hard. before auditions. when school sucked.”

“you cried here too,” she said softly.

you blinked up at the ceiling. “i forgot that part.”

“i didn’t.”

there was something about her voice just then. like a secret folded into paper. like if you tugged on the string too fast, it’d all come undone.

you swallowed. “this van’s got all our ghosts in it.”

“yeah,” she said. “but they’re the good kind. the ones that leave notes.”

you could hear someone call her name faintly in the background—muffled and distant. she didn’t move.

“hey,” you said, sudden. “when i do get my license…”

“mhm?”

“let me drive you somewhere. anywhere. i dunno. outer space or… whatever’s past that.”

she laughed softly. “outer space and beyond?”

"yeah," you said, voice light. "i mean, i don’t really have a plan or anything..."

there was a beat of quiet static, just her soft breathing on the other end.

"but i’ve got the van," you added. then, like the words slipped out before you could catch them— "so, y’know... let me drive it into your heart or whatever."

she went quiet, but not in a bad way. you could almost feel her smile through the signal. then hyein laughed. quiet. flustered.

“was that a line?” she asked.

you blinked. “what?”

“you so just quoted a love song at me.”

“no i didn’t,” you said, instantly mortified. “wait—what? no. that wasn’t—that was steven universe.”

“i know,” she said, and now she was giggling. really giggling. “oh my god. you flirted with me with a cartoon song.”

“i didn’t mean to!” you groaned, covering your face.

“you totally meant to,” she said through her laughter.

you didn’t answer, mostly because there wasn’t a defense that didn’t make it worse. but her voice was like sunshine over the phone line, and you would’ve let her tease you forever if it meant she kept laughing like that.

you heard her shift again, like she was standing now. practice was probably calling her back.

“you’ll drive me someday,” she said, softer now, almost like a promise. “van or no van.”

“you sure?”

“i’m already packed,” she said. “just waiting for the ride.”

you were about to pull your phone away when a muffled voice cut through the line—familiar, but distant, like it was coming from another room.

“hyein! stop flirting with your girlfriend and get back to practice!”

you froze, eyes wide in a mix of surprise and delight. there was no mistaking who it was. minji.

“shut up!” hyein’s voice came back, a little defensive but laced with a laugh. “i’m on a break, i can talk to her.”

“right, sure,” minji said, her tone teasing. “a break from what, exactly? we’re doing serious choreography here, and you’re over there giggling with your girlfriend on the phone.”

“i’m not giggling!” hyein snapped back, though it was clearly a lie—her voice still light, unguarded. “i’m just... talking.”

“talking, huh?” minji’s voice turned mockingly sweet. “we’re all sure that’s what you’re doing.”

you could hear the shuffle of feet and the soft murmur of the other members in the background, all joining in on the teasing. it was like being a fly on the wall of hyein’s world. and for some reason, hearing her like this—so real—made your chest warm in ways you hadn’t expected.

“okay, okay,” hyein said, her tone soft but a little embarrassed. “fine. i’ll talk to her later. but you guys are ruining my vibe!”

“so you are flirting!” minji said triumphantly.

“we’re not even dating!” hyein shot back, her voice high-pitched in mock exasperation. “it’s just—just—we’re friends! okay?”

“sure,” minji said skeptically, her voice full of fake sweetness. “friends. totally.”

there was a collective snicker from the other members in the background, and you could practically see hyein burying her face in her hands, embarrassed.

“really, you guys,” she groaned, but there was laughter in her voice despite herself. “stop messing with me.”

you were just giggling softly on your side of the phone, barely able to keep the smile off your face. you were so glad it was you getting to hear her like this, all real and unguarded, even if it was a little embarrassing for her.

“okay, okay,” minji said with exaggerated sympathy. “we’ll stop. but only because you’re clearly so in denial about it.”

“i’m not in denial!” hyein protested, but she was laughing, too. “i just—ugh. i’m hanging up before i lose my dignity.”

“if you had any left, sure,” minji teased.

you could hear the rustling of movement, like hyein was trying to get away from her members, but the teasing didn’t stop.

“i’m sorry,” hyein said, trying to sound serious but still laughing. “they’re just annoying.”

“it’s okay,” you teased back, still smiling. “i’m used to it.”

“you are used to it, aren’t you?” she groaned, the sound soft and affectionate. “well, sorry for having fun.”

“i’m just gonna stay quiet over here,” you teased gently. “don’t want to make you sound any more guilty than you already do.”

“ugh, you are going to make me sound guilty now, aren’t you?” she sighed, clearly defeated.

“you kind of already did that,” you said, your voice playful. “but it’s fine. no one needs to know the truth. we’re just friends, right?”

“shut up,” hyein muttered, but her voice was warm, fond. “you’re impossible.”

“and you’re impossible, but that’s why i love talking to you,” you said, the words slipping out before you could stop them. you didn’t even realize how flirty it sounded until the words hung in the air between you, a little heavier than before.

there was a moment of silence. then, you could practically hear her freeze, her breath catching. “w-what?”

“nothing,” you said quickly, trying to cover up your slip. “just... you’re fun to talk to, that’s all.”

but hyein was laughing softly, her voice teasing. “uh-huh. right. totally just friends, huh?”

you buried your face in your hand, a little mortified now, but still laughing, too. “stop.”

“i’m not the one who started this,” she shot back with mock innocence.

you chuckled, shaking your head. “i’m serious, though. you really think we’re just ‘friends’?”

“i—ugh. fine. maybe,” she said, her voice playfully reluctant. “but i’m not ready to admit it just yet.”

you both paused for a moment, and then the conversation lightened again, both of you sliding back into that easy comfort that had always existed between you.

“all right, i guess i’ll get back to my serious practice now,” she said, still laughing under her breath. “but i’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“okay. go be serious, superstar.”

“ugh,” she muttered with a laugh. “you’re awful.”

the call ended not long after that. and still, your phone glowed with her name like it didn’t want to leave either. 

you were still giggling long after the call. and though the silence settled again, it was filled with something light, something warm. and for a moment, the world outside your phone didn’t feel quite as big.

outside the cracked window, the sky was starting to pinken. and inside the van, you sat alone—but not really. not when her laughter still echoed off the seats.

you weren’t supposed to hang out today. she had a schedule—photoshoots, or maybe it was choreography review. you didn’t ask too many questions anymore, not wanting to be another thing on her list. but then, as always, hyein texted you anyway, like she always did when there was just a little crack in her day.

hyein 💫

meet me at the corner. bring snacks. and van.

you didn’t ask which corner. you knew.

you grabbed sour gummies and a soda in a too-warm bottle, and she brought herself—tall, shiny, seventeen, all lit up with laughter like the world wasn’t watching. she teased you the second she climbed into the van—about your height, about your snacks, about your hair—but it was easy. it was always easy with her.

you hadn’t grown much since middle school. she had. she was taller than you now, and she never let you forget it.

“remember when i had to tippy-toe to reach your bookshelf?” she said, pulling her legs up into the seat again. “and now look.”

“you can reach it now,” you deadpanned.

“and i can reach the top shelf of the fridge,” she added, eyes sparkling with that usual mischievous glint.

you stuck your tongue out. “you’re such a menace.”

“a tall menace,” she said proudly, leaning back, long legs stretching across the seat.

you slumped in the driver’s seat, hands still on the wheel. “i miss being taller than you.”

she grinned. “i miss when you couldn’t drive. oh wait—still can’t.”

“i can drive,” you argued, but your voice faltered a little. “i just legally shouldn’t.”

she snorted. “semantics.”

you both fell into a comfortable silence, the kind where nothing had to be said but everything still felt full. you caught yourself staring at her, her profile in the soft light—unreachable and so effortlessly perfect. it made your chest feel warm, the way things used to be between you, how they could be now, if only you weren’t so good at pretending.

just then, a knock at the van door startled both of you.

you looked up.

it was minji.

you watched as hyein scrambled to sit up, her movements a little frantic, like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. “unnie!” she groaned. “you scared me!”

“sorry,” minji said, though her grin said she wasn’t sorry at all. “but, date’s over lovebirds. it’s time to go.”

“don’t say it like that,” hyein hissed, her cheeks blooming pink. her eyes darted to you, that little flustered look creeping up her neck, and suddenly you felt like you’d just walked into a private moment you weren’t supposed to see.

minji raised an eyebrow. “am i wrong?”

“it’s not a—” hyein floundered, trying to recover. she turned to you, her face a picture of helplessness. “tell her it’s not a date.”

you shrugged, playing along even though you could feel your heart do a little dance. “depends on your definition of date.”

hyein groaned. “i will scream.”

“so dramatic,” minji teased, already moving to unlock her car. “get in before i leave without you.”

hyein hesitated, halfway out of the van. “ugh. why do you always do this to me?”

“because it’s funny.”

as she climbed out, you couldn’t resist calling out, “it’s okay! i’ll drive her home in my van!”

both of them froze.

minji turned, her expression a mix of disbelief and amusement. “that’s your dad’s van.”

“and you don’t even have a license,” hyein added, laughing despite herself.

you smiled. “yet.”

minji shook her head, smiling in that knowing way. “i can’t with you two.”

before closing the passenger door, hyein leaned back in, her hand still on the handle. the light from the porch behind her caught the edges of her hair, casting a halo around her face. her eyes were soft, her smile barely there, as if she were holding something back—something that was just hers, just yours.

“you’ll get there,” she said.

you tilted your head, unsure whether she meant the license or something else. “where’s there?”

“the license. the driving. the van.” she paused, letting the words linger in the air for just a moment too long. then, in a softer voice, the one she only ever used when she was close, when she knew you were listening, “the heart.”

your breath caught, and for a second, the world around you slowed. it felt like something in the space between you shifted, just enough for you to feel it—a flutter in your chest, the kind you could never quite name. you looked up at her, eyes searching her face for something more, something she wasn’t saying aloud.

she smiled, a little crooked, a little knowing, but so warm that it almost made you forget to breathe. “you’re already parked in mine.”

and then, as if she had just dropped a weight she didn’t want you to carry, she was gone, slipping into minji’s car, leaving you with nothing but the dim glow of the porch light and the steady hum of your heart. you stayed in the van, your fingers still gripping the steering wheel, and for the first time, it didn’t feel quite as parked as before.

you couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scream.

that night, you lay in bed, thinking about the van.

thinking about her.

you didn’t have a license. you didn’t have money or fame or even enough common sense to remember where you put your house keys half the time.

you didn’t know much. you didn’t have a plan.

but you had that van. and a girl who believed in you enough to call it home.

and you had her smile, folded gently in your chest like a paper crane.

so when you finally did get your license, the first place you’d drive?

her.

right into the heart she let you park in a long time ago.

[rosieyart]

What did you think about v3 ending? Personally I like it but there is a clear division in the fandom about it, so I'm curious about your thoughts

hmm for me this is somewhat a tough question. when i first completed the game, i was admittedly slightly disappointed and felt unsatisfied. i felt like the twist at the end came out of nowhere and the whole “no one is real,” to me, felt like it invalidated the characters from the other two (three, technically) games. as someone who has a soft spot for the d2 cast, it hurt a bit knowing their struggle and fight for survival — esp the efforts hinata and the others went through to wake everyone up from the neo world program — were invalidated. it didn’t matter anymore. which, granted, these are fictional characters and technically none of their struggles were real to begin with, but i think the whole “yeah these characters don’t even exist canonically within their own game universe” was so weird and hard to wrap my head around.

however, i have since changed my mind. if i’m being so fr, coming to understand ousai/saiou has honestly helped me understand v3 as a whole a bit more. that, on top of also just sitting with my feelings for a couple of months now.

i genuinely don’t mind the v3 ending, for more reasons that one. it’s not a perfect masterpiece, but deserves kudos. firstly, it’s a nice commentary imo on the concept of violence being used as entertainment. here we are, players and audiences to a game about students — children, really — killing themselves. there’s this sick fascination we as society have had towards media like that, whether it be via books, tv/movies, or video games. we are confronted with how sick and twisted it really is when saihara and gang realize the truth. people are watching them. and it’s not us, granted, but fictional people within the dr universe, but the point still stands. we are watching people kill and be killed. and we enjoy it.

this is why i don’t think there will ever be another danganronpa game. i love those games dearly — they’re so ass and so peak at the same time. but the message for v3 was clear: we’re putting an end to danganronpa. which is both sad (no dr4 ☹️) but also it’s waving in your face “hey, hey, pay attention! violence shouldn’t be glorified like this!!!”

but back to what i was saying about saiou helping me determine my feelings on the ending. if you’ve read my saiou analysis, then you know i really enjoy the whole truths vs lies theme for v3. it not only serves as a fun dynamic between saihara and ouma (and also just saihara and the game in general) but also engages the audience to think about truths and lies. in chap. 6, saihara, harukawa, and yumeno all have a mental breakdown over the fact nothing of what they knew was real to begin with — not their memories, not their personalities, not their characters. but… you can’t really fake your emotions. sure, maybe maki was written to fall in love with kaito, but does that really invalidate her feelings? she felt something, didn’t she? she cared, didn’t she? yeah, it’s sick and twisted to think someone manipulated her to feel that way, but the fact she felt such a strong emotion nonetheless doesn’t make her emotions and feelings unreal. at least, i don’t think so. and the creators of v3 agree. their message, as far as i’ve deduced, is that no matter what’s real and what’s fake, you ultimately choose your own truth to live by. shuichi’s past was overwritten by his new personality that was horrified at learning what danganronpa truly was. but he took this, despite the pain and horror, and claimed it as his own. despite everything, he is still saihara shuichi. there are lies sprinkled in there, but there are also truths.

if everyone agrees that the sky is blue, that is a universal truth. the same logic can be applied to lies. so, if everyone universally agrees the sky is green, that is also a truth. except — the sky is not green. not unless we want it to be. we as a society mold and bend truths and lies to make our reality clearer to ourselves. to help us understand the world we live in. but how do we know for sure what is real and what isn’t? is the sky really blue, just because everyone says so? perhaps we have been lying to ourselves the entire time.

tldr: this is why i think i’m satisfied, in the end, with the v3 conclusion. it not only confronts the audience with the sick and twisted reality of violence being used as entertainment, but additionally leaves us to dwell on themes of lies and truths. of choosing our own reality to live by and choosing what kind of person we want to be. because in the end, who truly decides whats real and what’s fake? you may not have the power to change the public’s opinion on what color the sky is, but you can certainly decide who you want to be and build the most truthful, honest version of yourself.

[weepingtalecowboy]

Link copy pasted himself

Fanfic prompt inspired by this … thing :

When the colors put the four swords back into the pedestal they didn’t though that link would feel guilty about them not existing anymore

So link pulled the sword again…

They put it back again because they were never real people to begin with and THEY also felt bad because link can’t exist when they do

Link pulled it out again

They put it back

Guess what link did…

He went to Zelda and then they figured out a way for the colors and link to exist at the same time

Or else they all would continue their game of hot potato

But it took time

So when the colors get copy pasted into living again they are all still 14 at most while link is already in his late twenties

Link and the colors then get too bond together and even grandpa was more then happy with his great grand kids

and eventually Vio and link figure out a way to locate shadow's soul with help from Zelda

It took even more time than figuring out cloning so the colors all are adults already

But the thing is they don’t have a body for him

So link copy pastes himself AGAIN

And shadow is a kid still

(Can’t age if you are dead and all)

so that makes him the youngest person in the house while Vio gets to play parent

Basically:

Link (first generation )

Vio Blue Red Green (second generation)

Shadow (third generation)

Imagine being so much that you as a single person end up overtaking three fucking generations

But it is all you and not you at the same time

When four went to linked universe he had the audacity to say he has kids already and one also has a kid already

Four pointing at the colors: those are my kids Vio , Red, Blue, Green

The chain : you color coordinated all of them and had the audacity to name them after colors

Four : to be fair I was like pretty young when they came to be and just named them after the colors they were wearing (the colors be like)

But unfortunately he didn’t consider the fact that he would technically be a teen dad because if the colors were 14 when he was thirty

He would have been 15 when he “had” the colors

And Vio would have been a teenager as well if going from shadow's age and his adult age

Two generations of teen parenting what a joy

The chain's older members making the uncomfortable calculations from the surprisingly small age gap between the family thinking :holy shit he was 14 with quadruples

Warriors: where was the other parent in this bullshit

Four and the colors still bitter about their dad choosing work over them and leaving them with their grandpa (no matter how nice he was) :

absent left us all ,no dad to be found,

they grew up without a dad

The chain then drew the wrong assumption that four was possibly dumped by a partner with his kids and then everyone felt bad about it

Because quadruples are already exhausting and raising them by yourself even with support is already challenging

Doing that while your still a kid yourself is a respectable accomplishment

But four accidentally made it worse somehow without even noticing: also it hurt a lot to get them into the real world and I was even contemplating regretting everything I did to get to this

(cloning yourself can’t be pleasant)

The chain was too creative for their own good

But they only felt horror because four is like 4 feet at most

Those would be four babies during birth

How hasn’t he broken his entire spine with that

[godhandler]

Hey Handsome!

[Noritoshi Kamo gets hit on, right in front of you]

[stand-alone drabble, part of Obeisance to The Arrow universe | fluff, light jealousy, arranged marriage, contractual marriage | 1k words]

Friendships are a difficult world to navigate, especially for someone like you who’s been raised in strict isolation. Even with your cursed technique that is particularly aimed at solving problems, how do you solve this problem: Saori, who you befriended a week ago and have brought along to introduce her to Noritoshi, has been steadily flirting with him for the past 15 minutes.

Not like your husband has noticed. You had caught up with him after his archery practice, with his sports bag hung over his shoulder, and all three of you are now walking around Nihonbashi with ice cream in your hands. Saori is subtle– maintaining plausible deniability just in case. A brush of her hand against his (“an accident!”), asking if she could try a bit of his ice-cream (“I asked you too, though!”), giggling at everything he says (“he’s just so funny, you know!”), and why is her voice so much cuter and softer now? 

Granted, Saori doesn’t know that you two are married, you only told her that he’s a good friend of yours. You suppose it’s not fair for you to be mad at her shooting her shot: Noritoshi, if you take a completely unbiased objective view, is really fucking good-looking. Why is he so tall? Why do his lean muscles strain against his workout clothes? Why do his built arms and broad shoulders draw your eyes? Why does his hair, parted and wrapped like always, seem so much more gorgeous, like a prince from the Edo era? And his face, it really sours your mood to admit this, his face is a masterpiece. With a blessed face like that, he could’ve been a rockstar-idol; it’s as if someone took a list of traditional markers of male beauty (lily-petal eyes, a refined mouth, ski-slope nose, straight eyebrows, delicately carved chin, long lashes and nobly-pale skin), and crafted a man with that as a to-do list. If it wasn't for his ice-cold standoffish demeanor, he'd be getting hit on everyday. No, you can’t blame Saori. You would’ve done the same if you were in her place. 

And technically, you can’t be mad at Noritoshi either. You were the one who established that your marriage exists only in front of the elders. I’ll be your perfect wife and lady when you need me to be, and you let me be otherwise when I want to be. You don’t even wear the wedding ring, not wanting your peers at Jujutsu High to see you differently (Noritoshi does keep his ring on, but he has his own reasons for that; not like Saori seems to care). The perfect deal struck between you two included a tacit understanding: as long as we keep it from being a scandal, our love lives are our own, with no interference from the other. 

Listen, it made a lot of sense when you two shook hands on this. It was equitable, mutually beneficial, and fair. What isn’t fair is the fact that you want to gouge out Saori’s pretty fucking eyes and throw your melting ice cream at her pretty fucking sundress. She’s so pretty too, you have to admit. And so is Noritoshi. And they seem to get along so well. It’s not fair.

Noritoshi’s picked up that you’re upset, though he’s not very sure why. You’ve been walking alongside him and Saori for the past 15 minutes without butting in a word while Saori has been chattering non-stop. You were so excited to introduce your first non-sorcerer friend to him too. Truth to be told, he doesn’t like meeting new people that much, and it’s been a while since he’s talked to a non-sorcerer, but he wanted to oblige you, as well as make sure your new friends are good to you. She’s only just started to interact with people. Noritoshi thinks as Saori accidentally bumps into him. Again. God, he really wants to go back to practising. She really can’t be blamed for her taste in friends. 

Your eyebrows have hardened, as if you’re trying to make a decision. Maybe she finds her annoying too? Or maybe– is Noritoshi inwardly pleased about it? Doesn’t the thought of two girls fighting over him stroke his ego? Doesn’t he get to feel silly things like this too? Doesn’t he, despite being Noritoshi Kamo and all that entails, get to enjoy that his wife is jealous?

He doesn’t stay with that thought for too long (his face is getting redder by the second), because the way your cursed energy is darkening, this situation might not end well for anyone in your vicinity, especially not Saori. As casually as he can, he throws an arm over your shoulders and presses a quick kiss onto your hair. It’s not too intimate to be PDA (both of you would rather die) but it sends a message, especially with the ring glinting on his left hand, which is just-so-absentmindedly playing with your hair. You’re getting really good at reading his mind and playing along: you lean into his side immediately. 

It’s a small gesture, done with practised ease. Saori gets the hint. She doesn’t stop talking about the price hike in Bottega Veneta though, but this time without any attempts to flirt with Noritoshi. She’s not evil that way. She might be a bit too chatty for your introverted duo, and she might not fully get the relationship between you and Noritoshi, but she’d rather grow a wart and eat it before breaking girl code: never ever eye a man that your friend likes. 

Noritoshi supposes that Saori is alright. It took you a (secret) Distillation or two to understand her intentions, and another Distillation on your husband to truly sate your insecurities. He doesn’t have any secret romances with anyone, you’ve gathered. It wasn’t like you were expecting him to. Still, it does make you happy, selfishly. 

You don’t even bother telling yourself things like, I just don’t want to be humiliated if my married husband is caught with another girl, or I don’t care if he likes someone, I just didn’t want it to be Saori, that’s all. Unfortunately, you are too self-aware: you might have a teensy-tiny crush on Noritoshi.

written as an inverse of #7 - Jealousy, Jealousy, where Kamo gets jealous.

timeline wise, this fic is set three weeks after reader has joined Jujutsu High. Kamo is in Tokyo now and then, for missions. Right before this fic, he was sent on a solo mission near Nihonbashi, and is staying in a hotel there for the weekend. Reader drops often to meet him. Nothing bad has happened yet :)

img credits: 1 2 3

@kalopsia-flaneur thnx for the idea!

[crystalline--echoes]

“Look, they’re finally here !”

“Just in time. Come on, I wanna see what’s inside !”

Wakana blinked a few times to accommodate to the light of the new place. She wasn’t in her room anymore, but in a dark cave. The only light was coming from a hole that seemed to be the entrance of another cavern filled with thousands of crystals. Wakana wasn’t alone: the three people she met earlier were also there, and they looked as lost as her. Suddenly, someone grabbed her hand.

“Hurry up ! We gotta explore this place !” 

The voice belonged to one of the people who talked when she arrived, a short girl with blond hair. A boy who looked like her was waiting next to the crystal cavern entrance.

“W-wait ! What’s going on ? Who are you ? Why am I here ? Wha- IS THAT HATSUNE MIKU ?”

“Huhu, welcome to your SEKAI.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Huh ? What ? SEKAI ?”

Wakana Shiraishi: An’s little sister. When they were younger, the two sisters dreamt of becoming famous musicians, like their dad. But something pushed Wakana to abandon this path. Instead, she’s focusing on her studies (she’s better at studying than An don’t worry). She’s hard working and very outgoing, she likes to be surrounded by people and usually makes friends really easily.

“You better have a good explanation for all this mess !”

Junko Asahina: Mafuyu’s little sister. Her familial situation is… complicated. But of course, she is always on her mother’s side, because she knows what’s good for her, right ? Unlike Mafuyu, Junko knows exactly what she feels: a boiling rage for everything that dares exist in the same universe as her ! Well, except her mom of course… She tries to maintain a facade in public, but she’s not really good at it. Her red eyes and dark glare speak for themselves: “if you breathe in my direction for more than 3 seconds, I will murder you.”

“Please Junko, calm down…”

Chiharu Mochizuki: Honami’s little brother (technically not an OC but we know nothing about him so he’s my character now). Chiharu is a people pleaser. He’s aware of that, and he hates it, not because this is bad for him, but because he feels like his kindness isn’t genuine. He wants to be nice to others, to be someone everyone can rely on, and he thinks that, to do so, he needs to completely forget his own feelings.

“No, Junko’s right. What are we doing here ?”

Naomi Tenma: Tsukasa and Saki’s little brother. Naomi is Chiharu’s complete opposite. He always says what he thinks, even if he knows this will upset others. For him, honesty is the most important value. He always seems grumpy, especially when he’s next to the ray of sunshine that is Chiharu, which is pretty much all the time.

“This is SEKAI, a place created by your feelings. And yes, I am indeed Hatsune Miku. I am here to help you discover your true selves. Nice to meet you ♪~”

[queen--of--maggots]

What’s your most unpopular DN opinion? (It can be about canon, fanon the fandom)

I don’t even know if you are still around anon, but I promised you an answer, and here it is. Unpopular opinion time! And here’s a really unpopular one: I wish Wammy’s wouldn’t exist and Ohba went in a different direction after L’s death.

I’m probably almost the only one with this opinion. I know many people love the Wammy kids, and I want to make this clear, this is not necessarily about the characters from Wammy’s. I appreciate them, some more, others less. However, you can like a character and still think the story would have been better without them.

First, a few points on why I don’t like the introduction of Wammy’s.

One thing I enjoyed a lot about DN up to L’s death is the lack of overused tropes. For example, DN isn’t L’s story despite him fitting more into the good guy role, L isn’t portrayed as a hero, Light isn’t portrayed as a villain, Misa isn’t the innocent victim who was dragged into this, and neither L nor Light is the chosen one(s), main characters don’t have an extremely outstanding design, and so on. Wammy’s changes this partially. There must be people, qualified ones included, in the entire world that have reasons why they want to stop Kira, but all of Kira’s antagonists originate from the same place – Wammy’s. That’s pretty much the secret-intuition-that-protects-the-world-from-evil trope. It also falls into the chosen one trope because only L’s successors are apparently good enough to put an end to Kira. Also, Near has a rather outstanding design. Having white hair isn’t impossible, but highly unlikely. In addition, he looks like 12 despite being 18 and always wears fucking pajamas instead of normal clothes. Mello has a somewhat outstanding design too, but it’s more the way the dresses. I won’t complain too much about it. Still, compare this to Team Kira’s new additions. Mikami’s and Takada’s designs are way more grounded.

Another trope I find annoying is linking everything to the same two or three people. Every important character that is introduced later in the series has a connection to one of the original main characters (being related, childhood friends, same former mentor, …). In my opinion, that’s just a cheap way to give a new character credit without them doing anything and make them more popular among fans. If the character is well-written enough, things like that are not necessary. Ohba goes hard for this trope with Wammy’s: Near, Mello, and even fucking Matt are all L’s successors, so they have a direct link to him. And, while it’s just a spinoff, and how canon it is is debatable, even the BB murder case goes back to L and Wammy’s. (I know AN wasn’t written by Ohba, but it fits the pattern.) Compare this to Light’s allies. Most Kiras had no previous connection to Light before meeting him. The only exception is Kiyomi after the time skip. In Misa’s case, Kira gave her the revenge she wanted. However, she’s likely still one of many with similar stories. She didn’t know Light before, and Light didn’t know her. Even how Misa got her DN is unrelated to Light and Ryuk. Mikami had to stand entirely on his own feet. He had no direct connection to Light or L whatsoever.

I’m also disappointed that Ohba toned down the realism with Wammy’s. DN wasn’t 100% realistic before either, but there is a drop in it with the introduction of the Wammy’s characters. We go from one rich dude who fights crime mainly for entertainment to an entire training ground for super-intelligent orphans to become the world’s greatest detectives. Then there’s Mello with the missile and ultra-fast healing powers, and Near winning because of magical guessing powers and plot armor. Both are also younger than Light and inexperienced. And while humans aren’t born with special powers in the DN universe and supernatural aspects are limited to the Shinigami and the Shinigami realm, BB has Shinigami eyes for no apparent reason. Technically, these are still connected to the Shinigami within the story, but the explanation given for this is extremely vague and unsatisfying.

The points I’ve listed so far would bother me less if they always would have been a thing or if both sides were treated equally regarding tropes and bullshit. But they are particularly noticeable for Wammy’s characters, while Team Kira is not so much affected.

Also, I liked that before Wammy’s became a thing, L was an extraordinary element. L appeared to be self-made. He even became an important part of law enforcement even though his main motivation wasn’t justice. Before Wammy’s introduction, his death would have had a massive impact on the DN universe because once he is dead, L doesn’t exist anymore and is no longer a secret weapon in difficult cases. Even if Kira is defeated, losing L in the process would be a massive loss. Wammy’s existence reduces L to a replaceable role. If he dies, someone else from the L-factory will take the position. The death of L as a person has almost no impact on the DN universe because L as an entity still exists, and that’s the only thing that counts. No consequences whatsoever. Barely anyone knew how he looked anyway.

I understand why Ohba went with L’s successors as a continuation instead of something else. He was playing the safe card by feeding the consumers something they are already familiar with. Going for different scenarios would be risky and require more effort. However, it could have been more rewarding if executed well. I would have liked a greater variety of enemies for Light and him having to adapt to new dangers. So, here are some scenarios that I would have found more intriguing than the one we got.

The premise of Mello’s arc was interesting; unfortunately, the execution was horrendous. But Light vs a criminal organization that, for example, wants the DN or Kira’s power for themselves isn’t a bad idea. A criminal organization would be a lot more ruthless than L. L needed evidence, while a crime syndicate would immediately shoot Light if he showed up on the list of suspects. And his family would be in danger too.

Or a revenge plot? Something like Kira killed a family member or other loved one (preferably justified, but could also be someone wrongly accused), and a bereaved person wants revenge. Now, this person is on a suicide mission, and Light has to fight against someone who has nothing left to lose. Their own survival is optional, only getting revenge before dying counts.

How about Kira vs a fanatic Kira fan? Someone who thinks Kira isn’t Kira enough anymore and feels they can do better? Maybe this person could make Light’s allies question their loyalty to him. Who are they loyal to, Light or Kira?

A female antagonist would also have potential (but not with Ohba as an author). Light tends to underestimate women. Now, Light faces one as a competent opponent, and he has to take one or more critical hits to realize the danger.

Anyway, the successor arc definitely has its moments, but overall, it is a lot weaker. And in my opinion, these weaknesses are primarily connected to Wammy’s. So, removing it could have been beneficial for the story. At least, that’s my opinion. If you have a different opinion, that’s great. But please, I’m not particularly interested in lengthy discussions about this subject.

[thana-topsy]

WIP Wednesday!

Tagged by @mareenavee ! Thank you, dear. And I know you tagged many people I might also tag, so I'll try to pick new people.

Tagging @kookaburra1701 @dirty-bosmer @viss-and-pinegar @moriche @expended-sleeper and @skyhon

---

So, I started in on this wip mostly because it was just a scenario that I wanted to see playing out in my brain. Isn't that how all writing begins? I'm not sure where it will go, if it'll ever be its own story, or anything, really. But I'm borrowing muldezgron's One-Eyed Teldryn from this fic, because he and Elanwe technically, exist in the same universe. On a collaborative technicality. Elanwe is from my fic "Hollow Men". And, of course, my unintentional muse, Kordin belongs to DirtyScrolls, who has so graciously given me their blessing to do whatever I want to him lmao. Wip below the cut, plus some art at the end:

--

“We’ve crossed paths before you know,” Elanwe said without making eye contact. Her gaze remained locked on her half-empty cup of ale. “In Windhelm. The day I–or, at least, I assume that was you. Same armor.”

Teldryn ran his tongue across his teeth then huffed a humorless laugh. “Ah, the mystery of the missing Thalmor prisoner. I was there, yes.” He tilted his head in acknowledgement. “You have quite the memory, sera. My memories from that day are… hazy, at best. Intentionally obscured by my own mind, at worst.” He drummed a finger against his own cup in agitation. “Kordin was… changed after that day. It probably goes unsaid, but he was unused to having his–” The word stuck in his throat, the hand on his knee tightening into an involuntary fist. “–his possessions taken from him.

She seemed to turn pensive, then took a long drink, draining the cup. “Did you know?” she asked sharply. “What he was doing?” 

Teldryn waited for her to meet his eye, then nodded. “I believe you know well by now what his preferred type was.”

“I’m gonna need more booze for this conversation,” she said, the skin around her mouth drawn tight, stretching the scar across her lip until it turned pale and bloodless. 

“That makes two of us,” Teldryn muttered to himself. “Get me one while you’re up. Greef, though. None of that Nordic swill.”  

Elanwe returned with two large bottles of greef, twisting the cork free of one and filling Teldryn’s cup. He offered a soft Dunmeris ‘cheers’ in response before taking a sip, letting the liquid rest against his tongue. He supposed he might as well talk about it. There was no one else to listen, as it stood. No one else who even wanted to, really. 

“I was in his service for three years,” he began. “Of course, if I’d known–” Another humorless laugh. “Well, it’s complicated.”

“Hence your prior hesitance to take on a new long-term patron, I take it.” 

Teldryn just nodded with a tight smile. “And we don’t have to dance around the subject. I know the way you Altmer are. Yes, he had his way. As often as he could. And I let him.”

Elanwe’s grip around her cup tightened. The soft curve of her lips twisted into a snarl, the corners of her eyes wet. “I wish I could kill him again. I wish–” Her jaw worked around the unsaid words.

“Like I said,” Teldryn continued after a beat of silence. “It was complicated.” 

He took a long drink, breathed through his nose, wiped his mouth on his netch leather bracer. Elanwe said nothing, the snarling distaste frozen on her face like a death mask, as if she could transmit the feeling through Teldryn and into the realm of the dead. 

Or wherever Kordin was. Teldryn was relatively sure he was in Coldharbour. 

“It wasn’t all bad, believe it or not,” he said after her prolonged silence showed no signs of ending. “Unlike your friend, I was not a literal prisoner. I had a modicum of–”

“Bullshit,” Elanwe spat. “I don’t want to hear it. So don’t even start.”

Teldryn managed to keep the surprised look from his face, and instead shrugged as casually as he could manage. “I suppose you’re right. There was always a part of me that hoped he’d… come to his senses, maybe. I was always searching for those moments of empathy. Some hint of regret… Anything.” Teldryn sighed and took another drink. “A fool’s hope. Something in that boy was broken long before he found me. But he was the Dragonborn…” Hollowness settled behind Teldryn’s sternum. “And now he’s dead.” 

Another doomed world without a prophet.

--

And now they're all I can think about... WHOOPS.

[lizhly-writes]

I would love to see Yang Haoran meet “Yang Haoshu”! Preferably with both of their JMZs there to see it too, because I think it would be hilarious.

lmao goootcha

Picture this – a small bakery, filled with pastries and sweets. Four people, seated around a table.  Two of them were technically the same person.  Three of them were having an incredibly uncomfortable day.  

Yang Haoran was having an incredibly uncomfortable day.

Across from him, Chen Lihua – no, Yang Haoshu – sighed.  “Why is it that you’re prettier than me?  I’m almost jealous.  It’s really a shame a face like yours is wasted on a man.”

Next to her, the other Jiang Mingxi glared.  She had been glaring for a while. Yang Haoran could admit that he hadn’t experienced so much uninterrupted hostility coming from a Jiang Mingxi for quite some time and that feeling it now was mildly unsettling. Fortunately, Yang Haoran had his own Jiang Mingxi to glare back, but still.

Yang Haoshu smiled at him over the tiny, intricately decorated cake she’d ordered.  Yang Haoran, to his irritation, found himself wishing it was Chen Lihua here instead.  He knew where he stood with Chen Lihua.  Chen Lihua wasn’t some weird, alternate universe, would-be sister of his.

“...Thank you,” Yang Haoran said, and took a sip of tea in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to say anything else.

Yang Haoshu leaned forward, eyes bright.  “So you think so, too?  You think you’re prettier than me?”

Ah.  How very Mean Girls.  Yang Haoran hadn’t thought about that in a while.  Really, there was only one thing he could say here.

“Yes, I do,” Yang Haoran said, a bit dryly.  

He could see the remark catch Yang Haoshu off-guard for just a moment, that faint freeze of her expression – and then she threw her head back and cackled in a way Yang Haoran couldn’t really imagine Chen Lihua ever doing.  “Fine!  It’s true enough!  You really do look more like Mother than I do, and you know what they say about Mother.”

“They always do say the same thing about Mother,” Yang Haoran confirmed.  Their mother, a great beauty in her youth.  Their mother, very beautiful even now – especially now, according to some, though Yang Haoran had admittedly stopped listening at that point.

“You really do have a nice face.  My Ming-jie hasn’t taken her eyes off you this entire time, so she must really like it–”

Jiang Mingxi took a break from glaring at the other Jiang Mingxi to snort.  The other Jiang Mingxi snapped her gaze to Yang Haoshu, lips drawn back.  “Yang Haoshu–”

“Oh, no need to be shy,” Yang Haoshu said.  “He really is nice to look at.  Of course you should get a good look at him, especially since you would be marrying him if he existed.  Imagine that!”

The other Jiang Mingxi appeared to be having an apoplectic fit.  

Yang Haoshu cheerfully patted her on the shoulder, which probably only made matters worse, before she leaned in. “Frankly, I don’t know how you do it,” Yang Haoshu said conspiratorially.  “I’ve thought about it, you know – if I was a man, I would be in the same position as you.  If I was engaged to Jiang Mingxi – no offense to you, other Jiang Mingxi – well!  I couldn’t!  I really couldn’t! We'd really kill each other!”  

“You’re trying to kill her right now,” Jiang Mingxi said.  Yang Haoran chanced a glance at her.  She was frowning faintly, eyes ever-so-slightly narrowed.  

“Am I?” Yang Haoshu said, one hand held to her cheek.  “So perceptive!  Haoran – can I call you Haoran? Ran-ge? – how did you train this one?  She’s so much more agreeable than mine.”

“Training,” Jiang Mingxi repeated, frowning more deeply.  “I’m not a dog.”

“Of course not,” Yang Haoshu said sweetly.  “You aren’t, anyway.”

[mittensmorgul]

all the time in the world

1289 words | rated T | destiel anniversary fluff

summary:

In the aftermath of the events of one working part, Dean and Cas take a road trip. Neither of them really wants it to end. And they realize it doesn't really have to.

It's been 15 years, and about time they got to celebrate! This is technically coda fic for one working part, but you don't need to read that to enjoy this little snippet of fluff.

read it on ao3, or below the cut

The morning after Cas came back, Dean just drove. The reality of their new lives had really begun to sink in. As they headed toward the bunker, after stopping for lunch at a Kansas City style barbecue place, Dean decided to use their self-appointed time off to introduce Cas to the wide variety of barbecue the vast and varied United States had to offer.

“It won’t take long to detour to Memphis,” Dean had said while they were still at the table. “Beale Street, home of the blues and pork ribs. You’ll love it.”

“But we just ate barbecue, Dean,” Cas replied. “Is it really necessary to drive across three states for more? Isn’t this sufficient?”

Dean looked at Cas in horror for a second, and then shook his head slowly. “See, this is why we need a barbecue road trip. Gotta train up those new human taste buds. I can’t have you spending the rest of your life thinking all barbecue is the same.”

Cas had reluctantly accepted that. Mostly he was just glad to be with Dean, no matter what they were doing. And the idea of a long road trip just for fun, not running into danger or looking for things to hunt or fighting against cosmic forces sounded pleasant, regardless of what they were doing. He also admitted that first barbecue dinner had been delicious, and he wouldn’t mind having it again. He looked across the table at Dean, and smiled.

“Thank you, Dean. Of course I’m happy to go wherever you’d like to take me.”

Dean had gone all pink and flustered across the table at that, and that was also something Cas didn’t mind in the least. In a matter of days he’d gone from firmly believing that he could never have what he truly wanted to being given more than he’d ever even dared to hope for. Not just Dean, but an end to the constant struggle to stay ahead of the forces intent on destroying the universe. For the first time in his long existence, he had time. Time to explore and enjoy the creation he’d stood above for eons, to partake of its wonders instead of invisibly standing guard over them. And Dean was eager and overjoyed to share it all with him.

After Memphis, Dean insisted they needed to head to North Carolina. They swung down through Louisiana and into Texas toward the end of the week. Over brisket while a local band played outside a brewery in the hill country outside Austin, Dean sat staring off into the distance at another group of people smiling and laughing together.

“Is something wrong, Dean?” Cas asked after a few minutes. “You’re not finishing your lunch.”

Dean shook himself off and gave Cas a warm smile. “I was just thinking we should probably be heading home soon.”

Cas nodded at this. “Yes. This has been fun and enlightening, but Sam might be starting to worry about us.”

Dean laughed. “Maybe. But I’m also thinking some of your returned souls might start showing up. Don’t wanna leave the homestead all locked up if anyone needs a refuge, you know?”

“Possibly,” Cas replied.

They’d already heard from Rowena and Crowley, who’d both eagerly taken the deal Cas's spell had offered them. Dean had been worried the two of them would just end up killing each other again, but apparently they’d instead decided to go into business together. So far he’d been reluctant to discover exactly what sort of business the two of them would concoct together, but at least he wasn’t worried about having to clean up another messy murder scene at Rowena’s place. He didn’t necessarily expect to hear from anyone else, but everyone who might reach out already knew where they lived. As long as Sam was there, at least they’d find a warm welcome. Something else was bothering Dean.

“Are you already bored of traveling with me?” he joked, hoping to lighten Dean’s mood.

“What? Never!” Dean insisted, reaching across the table to rest a hand on Cas’s. He stared down at their impulsively joined hands and slowly looked up to Cas’s warm smile with one of his own. “It’s just… it’s almost our anniversary, you know? The day we met, the day you pulled me outta Hell. Kinda feels like we should do something special.”

Cas frowned at that. “Anniversary? I never really thought about it like that before.”

“Yeah, well there’s always been a lot of other shit going on. Even after I started liking you enough to stop thinking of it as the day I had to dig myself out of my own grave and started thinking of it as the day we met, there was never really much time to stop and grab a Hallmark card about it. I just figured, we got time for celebrating stuff like that now.”

“That sounds lovely, Dean,” Cas replied, grateful to know that nothing was truly bothering Dean. He wasn’t actually upset about anything, but he still looked as confused as Cas felt. “What do people even do to celebrate that sort of thing?”

“What,” Dean replied absently. “Rescuing some dude from Hell? I don’t think a lot of other people got that sort of anniversary to celebrate.”

Cas grinned. “That’s true, but people celebrate many similar annual events.”

Dean finished off his brisket and then stood up with Cas to walk back to the car. They weren’t in a hurry, but they were ready to move on again. As they headed out on the road, Dean gave Cas a considering look.

“We could take another road trip. There’s a lot of other important human knowledge we gotta explore.”

Cas considered that for a moment, and then remembered where he’d first met Dean face to face. It seemed as logical a destination as any for an anniversary road trip.

“We could go to Pontiac, Illinois. The barn where you met me is still standing. Or was, a few months ago when I last checked on it.”

Dean turned to look at him so fast the car jolted to the side before he managed to correct it. “Dude, you checked on it?”

Cas gave a little shrug, wondering if maybe he’d overstepped some sort of boundary he hadn’t known existed. Maybe he needed to justify his actions to Dean.

“I used to visit there frequently. When I could still fly, it was a safe sanctuary. You warded it very well against almost everything other than angels. And after I fell and became human, I added more warding. It’s hidden from almost everyone and everything else, except for us. I made sure that you’d always be able to find it again, too. If you ever felt the need for a sanctuary.”

“What?” Dean asked, genuinely surprised by all of this. “You turned the place I stabbed you in the heart into a safe space?”

Cas shrugged. “It seemed metaphorically appropriate at the time.”

Dean reached across the seat and took his hand, squeezing it tight. He was clearly overcome with emotions that Cas was just beginning to understand. He squeezed back and smiled as Dean took a few deep breaths, intently focused on the road. Eventually, Dean cleared his throat, and then smiled at him.

“You know, we did the barbecue tour. We should probably do a pizza tour. Chicago’s not far from Pontiac, and you gotta try a deep dish.”

Cas smiled back, relieved, and let Dean deflect his feelings for the time being. They’d have plenty of time to talk through all their emotions. He could let Dean plan it all for the future for now. 

“That sounds wonderful, Dean,” he replied. Because they had time for everything now.

(ao3 link again for anyone who wants it!)

[meamiki]

okay here is the original ramble under the cut here! mainly doing these to the ones with associated textposts for different tagging systems tbh LOL

vvv

TLDR - The Universe keeps fucking with Loop and they are not really happy about it, regardless of timing.

While I haven't decided anything 100% concrete for Loop, the idea of a reverse isekaied Loop in general is interesting to me, so I'll be exploring that a bit here. Especially in terms of timing on when Loop gets taken out of their timeline. At least in terms of immediate outlook within this AU. So, for now, have a couple of those thoughts! 

---

The two main points in time I am currently considering are the following:

1. From when they gave up their original wish and made a new one.

In this instance, I feel like their arc would play a bit similar to in game

Seeing this new world as different & peaceful

Since they don’t have to deal with the loops anymore, just watch whatever happens.

Be a lil silly for funsies! The chaos that can ensue with a star being existing within a modern world! 

Even though it hurts to see Siffrin’s team hanging around, they really don’t have anywhere to go at the moment (hard to hide a star being in this type of world)

To a slow realization of how unfair this whole situation is. In comparison to all of the horrors they went through, this Siffrin has it so easy.

This Siffrin gets to live an idyllic life, free from the world calamity of being frozen & the literal time loop.

This Siffrin gets to freely hang around their family team, with no foreseeable "end" to being with them in sight.

This Siffrin had their original wish, the wish Loop wanted granted, handed to them on a silver platter. 

This Siffrin, nor anyone in this world, would ever be able to come close to understanding what Loop went through; Loop would never truly be seen in this world, not fully anyway.

What does The Universe have against them, to put them into this world and make them witness all of this?

It should have been them, with this carefree type of life, given all they went through.

2. AFTER the fight with Siffrin.

This leans a bit more lighthearted than the last, since Loop would have gone through all the development from the game via convos + the talk at the very end with Siffrin, and has a bit more peace about their whole deal.

Perhaps they would still see the same conclusions as above, since healing from the horrors would not happen all at once, if ever, with additional flavor

Underlying bitterness in why the script is still going. 

Why is The Universe asking for them to continue into a new world and role?

Haven’t they had enough, once making them witness another Siffrin’s loops and perfect ending, and now a completely idyllic Siffrin’s life from the get go?

However, there is also a bit of hope in the entire situation. Since if The Universe keeps deciding to fuck with them (as in, sending them to different world lines) there is still, technically, the chance of going backward as well.

To their original timeline and to their family.

Once could have been a one-off, but twice?

Perhaps three world jumps might be the minimum to go back, following standard wishing rituals?

More hope in this one from the get-go, with that thought in mind.

---

Though there are probably other points in time that would be interesting too! 

Another one I was considering was RIGHT BEFORE the fight with Siffrin, perhaps even mid-fight. However, I don't think that makes much sense for this particular AU ASAFASFASDAS. Can you imagine if Loop just spawned into this world, doesn't realize this is a completely different Siffrin, and attacks on sight?????

Honestly the idea of a reverse-isekaied Loop into different AU's in general is neat, would love to see other people's takes on it!!  Especially cuz of the various reactions/conclusions Loop could have/make based on the scenario/circumstances would be interesting, if that makes sense. At least I think there is something in that thought? I dunno!

I feel like I am missing some characterization bits in here, but that was the main gist of it for now since I cannot remember LMAO.

Mumblings over, thanks for reading my silly thoughts if you got this far!!!

a star being appeared in your apartment, wdyd?

(aka loop getting reverse isekaied into the modern office au)

also there are some scattered mumblings on loop in this AU under the cut actually in an rb now link right here if anyone's interested (spoilers for all of ISAT, including 2hats!)

[luscalucca]

The Friends

Two strangers meet in a party, they’re friends of people each knows, and had barely interacted before, but the few times they had, it was a nice one. One of them is their friend’s friend from college, the other one is the friend’s friend from a previous job. The friend from college is about 19, although very inexperienced in all things life, the few experiences he had made him mature way too much for all the wrong reasons, but he tried his best to keep going. The friend from the job has a lot of experience, but doesn’t get enough time to process what happens to them as a result of consecutive things happening at all times.

They both don’t know anything about the other, aside from what they gathered along the party. They sit next to each other, by chance, when alongside other friends also talking. They were unaware of each other’s existence till a few hours ago.

There is no romance, the friend from the job is in an happy relationship with someone else who couldn’t come to the party, and the friend from college is simply not interested in a relationship, especially with someone who they’ve barely known and with little information he heard in another time at the party was exactly that the other was in a relationship.

The party has already mostly died down. At this moment, everyone who hasn’t left is just talking to themselves or on their phones mostly wondering whether or not they’ll be able to afford the ride home. There is no music, there is only a calm chatter from some of the groups still around that are starting to come together.

The friend from college has ordered an uber and due to the time being really close to past his time, and with the few bucks he had left in his account, that was the best time to order an uber. The friend from the job has no clue whether or not they’ll even get home till the next day and doesn’t even want to ponder when they’ll bother with it just yet.

In the midst of the group conversation, new information about the friend from the job comes up: They wanted to go for a music degree, but ended up in an engineering major. The friend from college hears this and remembers: they also wanted an art related degree but ended up in an engineering degree, although he dropped out of it as fast as he could.

-Oh, you’re in engineering? - The friend from college asks directly

-Yeah, I’ve been doing it for a while now.

-Cool, what type?

-Ambiental Engineering, I’ve always been more from that side of environment things y’know. I wanted to try and go for the Technical College but my parents said I should go for the Federal University.

-I see, I see.

-Yeah, yeah, and it's nice. But my dream has always been a music degree, it has been my passion since I was a kid, y’know. But y’know, it’s hard going for it when you’re stuck around here.

-Yeah, yeah. - They nod

-And like it’s not easy to convince your parents to go for an artistic degree when you’re more likely to not make money from it.

-I feel that I've also wanted to go for a Cinema degree.

-Really? What are you doing now?

-Publicity and Propaganda.

-Oh it’s always these three that come up huh? Engineering, Publicity and Law.

-Haha yeah, I went for Engineering too when I first started going into college, I went into Mechanical Engineering tho. Like, I tried for Cinema and Engineering, ended up being able to get into Engineering rather than Cinema. Awful stuff, it wasn’t like three days in and I was already seeing where I could drop out.

-Haha I’ve been like that. I really feel like I’m just wasting my time doing that. Because like, ever since I was a kid I’ve been into like, music, as in composition, singing and stuff, and that kept on till I was an adult y’know. But, again I went into college because my parents told me it is better to be making money doing than not while doing something I like.

The friend from college keeps nodding agreeingly seeing as they remember their experience was similar, and they thought the same until they dropped out. That juxtaposed by them thinking ‘man, should I stop staring too much? Am I looking weird? Nah, this feels okay, I’m locked in the conversation, that should be fine.’

-But I don’t think that way y’know? - The friend from the job continues - I think I feel like shit doing something I dislike, I don’t think I’d be suffering so much just doing something I like.

-Oh no, totally. Like, I don’t think you should drop out just yet-

-But I’m almost doing so though.

-Yeah, Yeah I know, I did that, don’t regret it. But it is a big thing, and I think doing something you like is more important, but like, as it is very apparent, artistic things are ultra undervalued, so you would need something else to survive off of. 

The friend from the job nods. And the friend from college continues:

-Like me, I went for Publicity because it kinda aligns with Cinema, I can use a lot of it.

-Yeah, I know, it’s just weird because I’m 20 and I feel like I’m getting old and I won’t get there if I don’t start going for it now. I don’t want to keep wasting time on this.

Although the conversation is picking up pace, the ride from the friend from college is getting here. The friend from college picks their phone up remembering this detail, they want to keep talking so they see if they could cancel the ride. But, the uber is a minute’s distance away. Will they get refunded if they cancel? Who knows. But their bank account won’t have a second ride waiting. But the conversation might too good to pass up, so they try to reach a better conclusion:

-Yeah yeah, I went through the same, and in your case I think you should, especially because we use that stuff in places we don’t even see and…

Although they had more things to say, and they kept talking till the college friend packed their things rapidly, it was too short. The conversation did not had a real conclusion. The college friend could not afford to waste the ride, and the friend from the job just stayed, they moved on to talking to the group again. 

The friend from college went away, unsatisfied, thinking they could really keep talking all night long with the other friend. Meanwhile, the friend from the job just kept talking about whatever they could with the group, and ran away from the conversation they just had, probably also unsatisfied, or maybe indifferent from the result of the conversation.

The party’s end continued till god knows when, the friend from the job eventually went home, and slept. And so did the friend from college.

Nothing was lost. No one died. No one was saved. At the end of the day, just a conversation that ended before its conclusion. Just two people who didn’t know of each other’s existence until a few hours ago. But now, they knew a bit more about each other. Maybe they’ll meet again, another time, at another friend’s party, and then they’ll end that conversation.

[jeonginify]

star lost (01) — hwang hyunjin. ·˚ ༘♡

↝ pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader ↝ genre: humor, romance, angst, soulmate!au ↝ word count: 5.7k ↝ warnings: alcohol consumption, glitter bath bombs, changbin and jisung are menaces to society and should probably be stopped, general pessimism, hwang hyunjin (he should come w a label himself), reader is shirtless for like half a scene but nothing suggestive happens, this is like the song invisible string but like... more depressing

↝ summary: in a world where you can see every red string that connects soulmates to each other except your own, you have long given up on the idea of love. then, in a flurry of glitter and wonder, you meet hwang hyunjin under the most unlikely of circumstances, and find that maybe (just maybe) things aren’t as simple as you initially thought they were. OR, after years of wondering if your soulmate is out there, you finally meet him. too bad he is in love with your best friend.

PART ONE | next. series masterlist

You never expect to meet your soulmate at 2am in Changbin’s bathtub and yet, with the resounding clarity of his garish white bathroom lightbulbs as the backdrop for your utter demise, that is exactly how it happens. 

It is a good thing, you suppose, that you don’t believe in soulmates anyways. You know they exist—after so many years, how could you not? It’s just that you don’t believe in a soulmate for you.

The funny part is that you weren’t even going to go to Changbin’s tonight. He had spent the last week bugging you about the party, but you told him ages ago that you wouldn’t be able to make it. Some bullshit assignment or another had been your go-to excuse, but really, you just didn’t have another alcohol-strobe light-bad decision-hazed night in you for at least another month...

Not after the dayger Jisung had dragged you along to last week, where the two of you drank so much you both blacked out and woke up hours later in a communal tomato garden.

“So you’ll come Friday?” Changbin had asked hopefully earlier that Monday.

Despite the sunny day, your hoodie was pulled tight around your face and a pair of sunglasses were perched on your nose. By then, your bender with Jisung had been three days ago, and yet somehow—you were still hungover. 

Not that Changbin cared.

To make matters (read: your pounding headache) worse, he was wearing a red shirt that day. On a normal day, the color red was a mild nuisance—a reminder of something you would like to try your hardest to forget. 

On a bad day, however? Let’s just say the red really wasn’t doing anything to help Changbin’s case.

The reason you hate the color red and the reason you don’t believe in soulmates is one in the same. Since you were young, the color red has been synonymous with love... Not because of societal conventions, but because of the elusive red strings of fate that bind soulmates together—elusive red strings that, for some reason, you have always been able to see.

Sometimes, you think the universe is condemning you. You must have done something horrible in your past life, there must be something you are repenting for. Why else would you be one of the few people who can actually see the threads of fate?

“Bin,” you sighed as your best friend trailed behind you.

“Y/N,” Changbin parroted back, keeping perfect pace with you.

“I’m not going.” The blood thrumming through your ears was so loud that you almost didn’t hear the whine he let out.

The hangover was just heavy enough for you to pretend like you didn’t hear it anyways.

You were resolute in your decision not to go to the party. It was final. After the week that you had, frankly, you felt like you deserved a break from the chaos (read: Changbin’s horrible drinking habits.)

Which is why, when Yuna called you on Wednesday, your answer remained the same.

“Please?”

Your phone was wedged between your shoulder and your ear as you shuffled the stack of papers in your hands.

You weren’t technically allowed to be on your phone during work hours, but the office had been empty that afternoon and your boss never cared much anyways—so when the name of your favoritest friend (a fact that Changbin would sorely disagree with) flashed across your phone screen, you barely hesitated before pressing answer.

“Yuns, I already told you,” you squinted, trying to make out the last four digits on the account number you were processing. 

“I’m not going.”

“But—”

“—Nope,” you cut her off.

Even though the three of you have been friends since childhood, you have always found it much harder to say no to Yuna than it is to say no to Changbin. It’s probably because she is so cute, and he is so... annoying, but something about her puppy dog eyes makes it impossible for you to refuse her.

Which is why on any other day, for any other occasion, it wouldn’t have taken you much to cave to Yuna’s pleading.

You haven’t seen much of her ever since she started seeing someone new a few months back, and frankly—you did miss her. A lot. 

But... you really didn’t have another night out in you. So, resolutely, you stood your ground.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Yuna’s pout was tangible, even through the phone.

“Yes I do,” you retorted. “Changbin obviously put you up to this.”

“No he didn’t!”

Your silence was enough of an indication that you didn’t believe her.

“Okay,” Yuna said quickly. “He did ask me to try and convince you, but in his defense, I was going to ask you anyways!”

“I really can’t make it Friday.”

“...Really?” The disappointment was thick in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, but a tiny seed of guilt had already taken root in the front of your mind.

You hadn’t felt bad about saying no to Changbin because, well, he was always throwing parties, and after attending every single one this year, missing this one wasn’t that big of a deal. 

But something about the genuine disappointment in Yuna’s voice was turning your stomach inside out.

“It’s no big deal,” Yuna sighed after a moment. “There’s always the next party, I guess...”

“Knowing Changbin, we’ll be at his place again next week,” you said wryly.

“I just...” Yuna began, almost chagrined. “I was thinking about maybe bringing my boyfriend this time. But I guess I can always bring him around later...”

“Wait,” you paused them, your fingers fluttering anxiously. “Say that again?”

“Well, I mean, you’ve been badgering me to introduce him for so long, so,” she blabbered.

“Yuns, you bitch!” You exclaimed shrilly, dropping the papers in your hand.

“Thanks?” Yuna said unsurely.

You took a deep, steeling breath, and then you said, “what time is the party?”

Which is exactly how, despite your best efforts, you end up at Changbin’s place at 11:30pm on Friday.

On your walk over, you consider turning around and going home at least three times. God knows how insufferable Changbin is going to be when he sees you show up despite your insistence on not coming... But the mystery of Yuna’s new boyfriend has been killing you for so long that you have no choice but to go.

She hadn’t been exaggerating when she said you have been begging her to introduce her new boyfriend for forever. Throughout the many years that you have known her, you and Changbin have always been particularly protective over her. She has always had a tendency to dive headfirst into things with no regard for her heart, and after a few too many sleazy guys and failed relationships, it is only natural for you to be worried.

Even though you can see the red strings of fate, you have always done your best to ignore their presence. In your experience, the knowing just complicates things. If things are meant to be, they will be, and being caught in the middle doesn’t hurt anyone but you. And yet—you love Yuna so much that you can’t help but check her red string every time she meets someone new.

Maybe that is why it is such a big deal to you, to meet her new boyfriend. Or maybe it is because recently, she has been happier than usual. Much happier. You can’t remember the last time you saw her smile this much. Even Changbin has noticed—which is saying a lot when you consider the time you dyed your hair bright orange and he didn’t notice for a week and a half.

Despite it all, however, she still hasn’t introduced you two to him.

“I’m just taking it slow,” Yuna insisted the first time you brought it up.

“Slow?” Changbin had said, his mouth full of the Chinese takeout you had picked up on your way over to his place.

“When have you ever taken anything slow?”

A cheesy “your mom” joke was on the tip of your tongue, but one look from Yuna was enough to silence you.

“I’m serious,” she said, looking vaguely embarrassed. 

Her response remained the same every time you asked after that, and that was that.

Until tonight.

When you walk into Changbin’s apartment, the strobe lights are the first thing that greets you.

The second is a jello shot, shoved so close to your face that you can’t even see who is offering it to you.

The jello shot is red, and you regret leaving your apartment tonight.

“Entry fee,” someone says gleefully, shaking the shot in your face.

“Bottoms up!”

“Jisung, if you don’t get that out of my face in three seconds, you’ll learn a whole new meaning to the phrase ’bottoms up,’” you threaten.

The jello shot is gone in an instant, replaced by Jisung’s concerned face.

“Y/N, being mean and turning down free alcohol? What’s has the world come to?” He wonders.

Then, his face pales and he quickly says, “is this about the garlic incident? Because I swear, I really don’t know it ended up in your socks!”

You wrinkle your nose and shove him away from you.

“No, this is not about the garlic thing...” You grumble.

Despite how early in the night it is, the apartment is already pretty packed. A beer pong table is set up in the corner, where Chan and Felix seem to be losing horribly against two guys you don’t recognize. The couch has been pushed to the side, creating a makeshift dance floor, and a murky cooler of jungle juice takes up the majority of the tiny kitchen.

The entire apartment is cast in a hazy purple glow, and for a moment, you feel a little too underdressed in your sweats. Then you remember that you are only here for Yuna and that you don’t really care what anyone else thinks, and the feeling fades as quick as it came.

“And,” you add, “thanks for making me sound like an alcoholic. Is it a crime for me to turn down a shot?”

“Yes,” Jisung says seriously. 

“Woah there,” An arm wraps around you from behind. “Peer pressure is not cool, Ji.”

“It’s not peer pressure,” Jisung insists. “It’s Y/N. If anything, she does the peer pressuring.”

“I’m going to ignore that,” you flip him off.

“And you,” you jab Changbin in the arm, shoving him off of you, “are one to talk. Remind me again, who was bothering me all week to come tonight even after I said no?”

“Who was it? Just point and I’ll take them out,” he feigns ignorance, looking around the apartment as if searching for a culprit.

“You are insufferable.”

“And you loooooove me anyways,” Changbin declares gleefully, puckering his lips at you.

You take one look at his expression and crack.

“Give me that,” you say to Jisung, snatching the jello shot out of his hand.

He whoops loudly when you run your fingers along the rim of the plastic cup, and then wipes a fake tear when you throw the shot back.

“I knew my Y/N was in there somewhere,” he says dramatically, his hand held to his heart.

“I’ll kick your ass if you ever say anything like that again,” you smile sweetly.

A cackle bursts forth from Changbin’s lips.

“You shouldn’t say things like that when you know Jisung is into it,” your best friend crows.

“Oh, don’t you have someone’s dick to be sucking?” Jisung glares at him, but a faint dusting of pink covers his cheeks.

Almost unconsciously, your eyes trail down to his pinky finger where a bright red thread is wound tightly. Your heart clenches as you follow the thread across the room and towards the wall until it fades away, disappearing into the distance.

The bass of whatever EDM song is playing through the speakers fills the silence and you purse your lips. You have known for a while about Jisung’s little crush, but the reminder isn’t a pleasant one. Not because you dislike him—precisely because you like him too much. 

In another life, even, you could see yourself falling for him. But the weight of his red thread, the weight of your ability to see it... It isn’t something you can just overlook.

You already tried it, once. At the beginning of college, you decided you weren’t going to let the red string control you, and you started dating a guy. It started off well—the string was just a string, and you were content. Happy, even.

But eventually, the doubt started to creep in. Every time you saw him, the red thread taunted you, and little by little, the obsession began. It ate away at you like a rot, the wondering about who was at the other end of his thread. Eventually, you couldn’t do it anymore.

That is why you could never act on anything with Jisung... Because despite how annoying he can be, he means too much to you.

So when the silence between you stretches out a little bit too long, you roll your eyes and scoff.

“Jisung, you click your tongue, patting his cheek affectionately. “You know it would never work out between us, right? People should date within their league.”

He pouts, and the awkwardness breaks in an instant.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you’re pretty great.”

“Oh, I know.”

It takes a moment for it to click in his head. Then,

“Hey!”

“Anyways,” you brush him off. “Have either of you losers seen Yuna?”

“I saw her a while ago. I think she’s... somewhere.” Changbin waves.

The red solo cup in his hands hovers close enough to you that the burn of vodka, layered between something sweet and syrupy, overwhelms your senses.

“Okay...” You trail off, ruing the day you became friends with such a nuisance.

“And did she happen to come with anyone?”

Changbin shrugs. You turn to Jisung, and his face pales.

“Uh...” He guesses. “Maybe?”

You guys are useless,” you groan.

The only reason you were here tonight was for Yuna. A quick scan of the room, however, told you that she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Actually, now that I think about it, I remember her stepping out a few minutes ago,” Changbin muses. “She told me she’d be back soon though.”

The satisfied look on his face, as if he is waiting to be praised for telling you that, makes you narrow your eyes.

“Give me another,” you mutter at Jisung, motioning to the tray in his hand.

He offers you a shot without a word and—thankfully—this time, it isn’t red.

You don’t hesitate in snatching it up, and then before either of them can say anything more, you turn on your heel and walk away.

“Y/N?” Changbin calls after you. “Wait, Y/N, where are you going?”

But you have already disappeared into the crowd.

You aren’t sure how, but the second shot is strong than the first one. It burns as it goes down, but you find that you care much less than you would have a few hours ago. Somewhere between walking into the apartment and realizing that Yuna wasn’t here, you decided that the only way you were getting through the night was if you were at least a little intoxicated.

It feels like a cop out after your undying resolve that you wouldn’t get wasted tonight, but your irritation outweighs your embarrassment.

Another shot passes, and you still can’t find Yuna. When you dial her number, the call immediately goes to voicemail, and the text you send afterwards remains unanswered.

Your search for her begins in the kitchen, mostly because it is the place furthest away from Changbin. Yuna isn’t there, but you do run into a few classmates from your history class last semester. Almost against your will, you find yourself caught up in small talk. 

Once the conversation finally fizzles out to awkward silence, you make your way out to the living room, where Chan and Felix are desperately trying to recruit one more player for beer pong.

Yuna isn’t anywhere to be seen, and so when Felix hits you with his signature pout, it doesn’t take much for you to give in.

The game is 2 versus 1, probably because most people have spent the night skirting the duo, and somehow—you still end up winning.

Three times.

After the fourth game, at least half an hour has passed. A drink or two in between has made the world a little bit more hazy, and after playing for so long, victory has started to taste a little bit less sweet.

The truth is, you can only play beer pong (and absolutely decimate your opponents) so many times before you start to get bored, and so you quickly move on from the game despite Chan and Felix’s protests.

An hour more and five increasingly worried texts directed to Yuna later, Changbin finally manages to catch up to you again.

“Y/NNNNNN!” He slurs, swaying as he throws his arms around you.

“Bin,” You wrinkle your nose at the feeling of his flushed skin.

Changbin has always been a touchy drunk, but it was never truly an issue until a year ago, when he started taking his commitment to the gym much more seriously. With all the added muscles, it is that much harder for you in dire times like this, when he throws himself onto you.

“Where—where have you beeeeen?” He asks, then giggles.

“Get it? Beeeeen? Bin?”

“Shut up,” you roll your eyes, trying (to no avail) to shove him off of you.

“Don’t you have a babysitter tonight?”

Changbin nods solemnly. “Jisung’s over there.”

He points behind you. Then, he shakes his head and points to the left of you.

You quickly find that Jisung is in neither of those directions, and instead is leaning against a wall in the far corner chatting up not one, not two, but three girls. His face is flushed deep enough that you can tell how red it is even from across the room, and you are (once again) reminded why you didn’t want to come out tonight.

Both your friends are shit faced, and there is nobody left to take care of them but you. Lovely.

“You guys do this every time,” you mutter (more to yourself than to Changbin) but his face scrunches into a frown.

“Not true!” He pouts. “I—I took care of you last week when you got drunk.”

“Took care of me?” You scoff. “Two hours into the party, Jisung ran off, and you were too busy flirting with Chan to notice me chasing after him.”

“It’s not my fault,” he whines. “He was wearing one of those stupid muscle tees, and I was drunk!”

It is true that Changbin gets particularly flirty when he’s drunk. (It is also true that he has a strange obsession with Chan’s arms.)

Changbin buries his face in your shoulder, and most of his weight is on you as he breathes deeply. His breath smells like a combination of cherry and mint and alcohol, and you wrinkle your nose.

“That sounds really homosexual, Changbin.”

“Nooooo,” he shakes his head. “It’s not homosexual to be distracted by the homies...”

“Don’t say it—” You start. 

“...If anything, it’s homie-sexual.”

Exasperation wells up inside of you, only made worse by the painfully smug look on his face. On any normal day, sober Changbin is barely funny. Drunk Changbin somehow manages to take it to the next level... And not in a good way.

“Get it?” He asks gleefully, waving his arm wildly. “Homie-sexual?”

“Yes,” you say warily, wondering just how much he has had to drink tonight. “I do.”

The drink inside his cup sloshes around audibly, and you smack his arm. 

“Stop waving that around like that!”

Of course, he does the exact opposite of what you tell him. 

And then, in almost comical slow motion, the vodka-and-juice cocktail splashes out of his cup, and you aren’t sure what surprise you more—the cold, sticky feeling of his drink as it drenches the front of your shirt, or the way he manages to not get any of it on himself, despite the way he is clinging onto you.

“Changbin,” you mutter, your voice dangerously low. 

THe sharp edge of your voice is enough to make him pause, and you can see the color drain away from his face at the weight of your glare.

“W-What’s that?” He says loudly, his skin a sickly shade of white. “Sorry, I think Jisung is calling me!”

It takes only a few seconds for him to drunkenly stumble away—in the opposite direction of Jisung. You take a steeling breath through your nose as he rounds the corner, disappearing into the kitchen.

What a night this is turning out to be... You are at a party you didn’t want to be at in the first place, Yuna is still nowhere to be found, and now your favorite shirt is stained pink.

Despite the few drinks you’ve had tonight, the smell of alcohol on you is pungent, borderline revolting. The bass of the music thumps louder still, and irritation wells up inside of you. 

An overwhelming urge to chase Changbin down and kick him in the shins (maybe even somewhere else, too) grips you by the neck, and you have to take at least four more deep breaths to ground yourself.

Still—the noise of the party sits on top of your very being like a sticky layer of tar, and you are only able to fully exhale once it is muted behind the closed door of Changbin’s bathroom: your preferred (and only) option of escape.

It feels like the alcohol is seeping through your thin shirt and into your skin, and when you look in the mirror, you wince.

The reflection staring back at you is, in simple terms, a mess. Deep purple bruises pressed under your eyes, a messy ponytail hung lifelessly at the base of your neck, an unforgiving line in place of your lips... And that isn’t even the worst part.

No, the worst part is your clothes. Worn gray sweatpants that you have slept in for the past three nights, and your ruined shirt—sheer and sticking to your bra in the most skin-crawling way.

You huff and, in a flash of irritation, yank the shirt off. If you don’t wash it now, the stain will set permanently, and if you wear it for one more second, you think you might implode.

The only problem is that your best friend, the one that you chose, just so happens to be an absolutely slob. Ego, his sink is a mess, and ergo, you cannot use it to clean your shirt... Which leaves you with only one option: the bathtub.

“Seo Changbin, when you’re sober, I’m going to end you,” you seethe, dropping to your knees beside the tub.

In a choked sputter, the faucet turns on, drowning out the residual noise of the party. The steady stream of water is strangely comforting, and some of the tension dissolves from your shoulders.

You run your ruined shirt under the tap, fascinated as the water runs a pale red beneath your fingers. The shirt crumples into a thin, soggy heap and you scrub the fabric between your fingers, trying your best to work the warm water between the fibers.

The furrow between your eyebrows deepens. A concoction of excitement and relief swells in your chest as you notice the stain become lighter the longer you hold it under the water.

You are so preoccupied with the burgeoning hope that maybe your shirt isn’t ruined, after all, that it completely slips your mind that you forgot to lock the door—until the knob begins to turn with a rattle. 

There is only a split second before the door swings open, and your head turns just a moment too late.

“Woah!” The exclamation startles you almost as much as the appearance of the guy who walks through the door.

With windswept black hair, feline eyes, and the sharpest jawline you have ever seen, only two thoughts register in your head before you begin to short circuit.

First: damn, he’s hot.

Second, barely a moment later: fuck, you’re shirtless and look like a mess.

“I-I’m sorry!” He exclaims immediately, his slender fingers shooting up to cover his eyes.

It pains you that his voice is deep and just as attractive as you imagined it would be.

You glance down at yourself, a blush rising to your cheeks when you realize just how ridiculous you look on the floor like this without your top on. Your shirt remains hanging from your fingers, and the shock of the handsome stranger sends your elbow jerking in surprise.

A loud clatter resounds, and then—you watch as one of Changbin’s bath bombs tumbles into the tub, straight into the water. The hissing fizz as the bath bomb dissolves under the running water registers only mutely in the back of your mind.

With a resigned sense of horror, all you can do is watch as the bright purple glitter spiderwebs outwards through the water and over your shirt.

“I—Is everything okay?” The guy asks, and when you look up, you see that his hands are still covering his eyes.

Slowly, you lift your shirt out of the water. A faint pang echoes in your heart as you look at the faint purple hue that the fabric has taken on.

You don’t think that will be coming out any time soon.

“I-I’m really sorry, again!” He blabbers on. “I didn’t know anyone was in here, I swear! I wasn’t trying to—like, peep, or anything, it’s just—”

“D’you have to pee?” You interrupt him.

“—like, really loud out there, and—” He stops, his fingers dropping in surprise.

“—I’m sorry, what?”

His eyes fall on you on your knees by the tub, and his hands are back over his eyes in an instant. 

“This is a bathroom,” you point out. “So... Do you have to pee?”

“Oh,” he says, sounding unsure.

It’s almost funny how he shifts from one foot to the other, his nerves palpable within the four walls of the tiny bathroom.

Almost.

“Um, no I don’t,” the words come out stilted. 

Then, he says, “do you?”

Unbidden, a bark of laughter escapes your lips. 

“What do you think?”

“I mean... I can’t really see anything, so...” he reasons.

You raise a brow. “You can uncover your eyes, you know.”

“Are you sure?” He asks hesitantly.

“And maybe close the door while you’re at it,” you add wryly.

“Okay...”

His joints are stiff as he pushes the door shut behind him, and even though he (reluctantly) lowers his hands, his gaze remains fixed on the ceiling.

Then, to your surprise, he shrugs off the sweater he is wearing and offers it to you.

“...Thank you,” you say awkwardly, touched by the gesture.

“I’m Hyunjin, by the way,” he says, finally looking at you after you have wrapped the sweater around yourself and buttoned it up.

It is a few sizes too big, and the v-neck is so low that it doesn’t really hide anything very well, but he seems a little bit more at ease now that you are covered up, and it is soft enough that you can’t really complain.

“Y/N,” you return.

Silence settles over the two of you, only interrupted by the splash of the tub faucet. Your fingers are stained a glittery purple as you fidget with them, the awkwardness almost too much for you to handle. Your shirt, you determine, is a lost cause, and so you abandon it where it is in the tub and turn off the water.

“So, are you hiding in here, too?” he asks once the silence becomes a little too painful.

“Hiding is just the bonus,” you tell him, chagrined as you hold up your ruined shirt. “I was actually trying to wash out a stain, but... well, I’m sure you can see how well that turned out.”

“That... makes a lot more sense...” He says after a moment.

“What? I don’t look like the type to sit shirtless on the floor of a bathroom during a party for fun?” You ask jokingly.

“Not really, no,” he laughs, leaning against the wall.

You sigh, pulling your knees to your chest.

“No, unfortunately, I have stupid friends who get stupid drunk and spill their stupid drinks all over me, hence the lack of a shirt.”

He grimaces. 

“Why are you hiding in here?” You ask, not wanting the awkward silence to settle over the two of you again.

“Parties aren’t really my thing,” he says after a moment.

“I get that,” you say, thinking about just how much you wish you didn’t come tonight. Despite your track record with parties (which, you would like to make clear, are usually Jisung’s fault) you can’t help but sympathize with him anyways.

“So,” you continue. “Who do you know here?”

“No one, really,” he says sheepishly. “I think that might be why I feel so out of it. I don’t usually resort to hiding in bathrooms with shirtless women.”

A blush rises to your cheeks at the joke.

“No one?” You ask. “Then why did you come at all? No offense, but if I was you, I would have stayed home.”

I really tried my best to, you think to yourself.

“You know,” he says, “that is a great question. I was supposed to meet someone here, but she never showed.”

You wince. “Stood up? At Changbin’s party, of all places? I think you might be having a worse night than me.”

He buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, please,” he groans. “Don’t remind me. I’ll spend the next few weeks trying to live the embarrassment down. Especially after my best friend told me not to come...”

“It’s okay,” you tell him soberly. “Lucky for you, I have the best cure for embarrassment.”

“Do you really?” He asks hopefully.

You nod. “Oh, yes. In fact, I’ve found that tequila is the solution for all problems.”

He purses his lips at the suggestion, but a moment later when you stand up and open the bathroom door, he follows you out into the chaos of the party without a word.

“Don’t tell anyone,” you say as you enter the kitchen, “but this is where Bin keeps the good stuff.”

Luckily, most of the party has crowded in the living room, distracted by some (rather horrible) dance moves Jisung has pulled out of his pocket. When you bend down to retrieve a particularly expensive bottle from where it is hidden under the sink, Hyunjin seems a bit skeptical.

“You don’t think he’ll be annoyed?” He raises a brow.

You scoff.

“After all the shit he’s put me through? I’d like to see him try.”

His brow remains creased, and you deadpan.

“Hyunjin, who do you think ruined my shirt?”

“Oh,” realization flickers in his eyes. 

“And besides,” you declare as you grab two red Solo cups and set them on the counter. “He’ll understand. It’s for a good cause, after all.”

You pour a very generous amount of tequila in both cups, and then place the bottle back where you found it.

“Cheers?” Hyunjin raises one of the cups towards you.

“Cheers.” You mirror him, clicking your cup against his before tapping the bottom down on the counter. Then, you finally throw the contents back.

The tequila is smooth enough that you barely feel it go down, but Hyunjin still winces at the taste.

“That good?” You ask him with a laugh.

“I can already feel the embarrassment fading,” he says, his face still sour. “...Or maybe that’s just the taste.”

You laugh again. “You’re funny.”

“...Thank you.”

“I don’t really see why you got stood up,” you say offhandedly. “But I guess it’s her loss. It’s not like you’re secretly a troll, or something.”

A moment passes.

“...Are you?”

He shrugs, a smile playing on his lips.

“Ooooh, mysterious,” you return his smile with a smirk. “I like it.”

“Thank you,” he says, this time his tone more playful.

“Y/N,” the sound of your name reminds you where you are, distracting you from your conversation. “Y/N, there you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“What happened now?” You ask wearily, your eyes narrowed as they land on Chan. Hyunjin looks at you curiously, then at Chan, and then back at you.

Chan’s face crumples in worry, and you know immediately that you won’t like what he has to say.

“It’s Changbin.”

“Of course it is,” you mutter.

Of course it is Changbin, being yet again an absolute nuisance to you tonight.

“Alright,” you exhale after a moment. “Where is he?”

Chan wordlessly points towards the balcony.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” you tell him, resignation thick in your voice.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Chan tells you.

“Well,” you turn to Hyunjin. “Sorry about this, but my aforementioned stupid friend is being stupid, so I have to go. It was nice to meet you, though, and feel free to drink as much tequila as you need.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” Hyunjin says sincerely, not at all bothered by the interruption. “I hope your friend is okay.”

“I hope he isn’t,” you say darkly. 

“Y/N!” Chan’s voice calls, sounding even more anxious than before. 

“Coming!” You sigh, setting down your cup before heading towards the balcony. Hyunjin remains in the kitchen, his eyes glued on you until you disappear into the hazy night.

It is only an hour later, after you have finally pumped Changbin full of water and tucked him into bed, that you come a startling, heartstopping, almost terrifying realization.

You had been too distracted for it to register earlier, but—for the first time ever, when you had been talking with Hyunjin earlier, you had not see his red string of fate. 

[fierce-little-miana]

I am going to answer you in the post directly because I think it is easier. I hope you don’t mind.

@noriko04 said:

1) Ok, now I'm a bit wtf because today I was literally wondering If a possibility of redemption could exist for Kaoru too and then this pops up (I guess telepathy does exist XD). I came to the same conclusion as yours so I agree with your vision on him being tragic. From my perspective, it's almost a way for the game to tell the player that unfortunately change for some people is simply not possible (which I think is realistic too). 2) Also, it's been a while since I played the route so I might not remember precisely some scenes but I want to ask, when you say that Kaoru lies to chizuru being able to keep Okita do you mean his proposition to join the humanity-desctruction project? Personally, I can't quite put my finger on it. On the one hand I understand where you're coming from when you say this. Even in a hypothetical (unrealistic) parallel universe where Chizuru decides to join the fury army and 3) Souji follows her I have a hard time picturing a ''peaceful cohabitation'' because those two hate each other with passion, so he would probably plan to suffocate him with a pillow the 1st day XDDD. On the other hand though, I also have the feeling that Kaoru understands that he cannot really convince his sister without Souji, so he his presence is essential. who knows, maybe he is genuinely willing to tolerate him so that he is sure to get her to both join him and stay 4) (an attempt that would fail miserably, because again those two would end up trying to murder each other. I really can't imagine them getting along XD)

The three of us who think about Koru having synchronized so we can rotate him in our minds at the same time… nice…

Kaoru could definitely be read as a type of character exemplifying that some people are too far gone. I am not sure how I personally feel about this but it is an interesting and valid character interpretation.

Yeah! This is exactly what I meant by Kaoru lies to Chizuru about being able to "keep" Okita. In the scene where he offers her to join him to rule over his Rasetsu army, he says textually that she can bring Okita if she wants. I think we are meant to understand it as Chizuru being offered to keep living with Okita while joining her brother in his new kingdom. And this is how Chizuru interprets it too. I have screenshots of this moment I am going to share, and I will tag you in them.

It is obviously a lie and borderline impossible because of all the reasons you mentioned (though I really need to share my screenshots of the conversation with Okita when Chizuru decides not to accept Kaoru’s offer not only because I love this moment but because Okita considered this as a possibility for his future!).

What I do not have screenshots of though is how Kaoru’s reaction the minute Chizuru steps in the Yukimura village with Okita proves it was always a lie and not just a mere impossibility. If my memory serves me well, Kaoru immediately laughs at the idea of Okita being by Chizuru's side because he is even lower than a human and proposes turning him into a feeding station for his sister in the coming days.

So why does Kaoru lie about this to begin with? Imo, he tries to mollify Chizuru so she would start considering his offer seriously. He does not intend to deliver on this but he knows that she won’t even entertain the idea if Okita is off the table since the beginning. Kaoru is an absolutist in his way of thinking. He is sure that his way of seeing and interacting with the world is the right one and that, in the long run, Chizuru will come to see it too. That being said he is sneaky in his way to get her there and prefers doing it step by step (through pretty vile technics btw) than risking a move that would alienate her definitely. Considering what he put her through though, it shows Kaoru’s pretty abyssal basis for moves that are not definitely alienating. And if she doesn’t come her way ultimately… Well, Kaoru makes her disappear from the equation rather than changing his view of the world around him.

I really like your fic and I'm love how you do Chizuru and Kaoru relationship. I must admit I'm was very disappointed with how they handle Kaoru in the game, like no kidding he did horrible things and wanted to make his sister suffer but at the same he was a victim of abuse. I wanted a route for him - platonic of course - where he and Chizuru would make up or at least come to a understanding

Thank you so much for the kind words about my fic. It is always super nice to hear some feedback on it. If you like how it focuses on the Kaoru&Chizuru relationship you might have a nice surprise in the coming days (provided that you do not hate modern AU).

I perfectly understand your frustration with how Kaoru was treated in the game (though I am even more frustrated by how he was dispatched in the movie!).

I have only finished Okita's route (good ending only - I don't have enough time to play right now) in the Hakuoki: Stories of the Shinsengumi version, but I am super eager to receive my copy of the Switch version so I can play Sannan's route and the other one (Yamazaki? Sakamoto?) in which Kaoru plays an important role. I want more Kaoru content!

That being said, I did not find the content I got in Okita's route to be frustrating at all. I think Kaoru is a well-written and coherent character in it. He is not sane, he does horrible things, his goals are megalomaniac and very probably unachievable even if everything went as he wanted, but it all makes sense. He can't come back from what happened to him, he is stuck in a headlong rush. There is no escape. He is a well-executed tragic character.

I love tragedy so I love Kaoru. I love him even more because having him as a villain sort of anchors Okita's route as a route deeply centered on Chizuru and since she is sort of the main character you know… Well, narratively the oppositions "ChizuruVsKaoru" and "OkitaVsKaoru" are super interesting to me.

So I don’t mind that Kaoru is a tragic character who could not escape his cruel fate. Even if some days I believe that there was a short window in which he could have been brought back toward the light (I might write a fic about this idea one day). Other days I truly believe that Kaoru was too far gone the minute he decided to take control of the Nagumo clan to ever come back from the path he had decided to travel.

(This is basically me about Kaoru)

But I totally agree with you about something super important: Kaoru is without a doubt a victim of abuse (child abuse from when he was seven, and the game is not clear on when this stopped, sometime before the beginning of the game? sometime in 1864 taking advantage of the political turmoil in Tosa han?) that might very well have a sexual and scientific experimental dimension. That abuse ended in blood when Kaoru killed every authority figure in the Nagumo clan that wasn't him. Generally speaking every important character in the game is more or less given a redemptive action (even if that one action does not rehabilitate the entire character) that sort of acknowledges a "what could have been" scenario. Kaoru is not given that grace. The thing that comes the closest to this is his conversation in the forest by the Yukimura village with Chizuru after she has regained her memory. He is calm and apparently open during it but he is still hellbent on his "evil" plan and, for Chizuru, this conversation is more a corruption offer than a redemptive gesture from her brother. Plus we discover later that he is still lying to her about things at this point (notably about her being able to "keep" Okita).

Having the poster child for horrifying child abuse being among the very few irredeemable characters is… a choice? As I said, Kaoru’s character is well-written and coherent but the optics of that are not super good.

I too would very much enjoy a sibling (platonic) route that would explore their relationship and Chizuru oni’s heritage. Also, but this is because I am fucked up stories enjoyer, Kaoru’s route bad end could be a non-platonic ending. A bit on the same tone as Shiraishi’s Adonis Ending in Collar x Malice in which he is still with Hoshino but both characters are merely nightmarish shells (or everything they feared they could become) of what they were before.