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[arcanawildcard]

boyfriend material chapter 8/?

|| chapter: 3.5k || total: 32.2k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences         Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Takamaki Ann Characters: Takamaki Ann, Kurusu Akira, Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Suzui Shiho, Mishima Yuuki Additional Tags: Humor, Matchmaking, Friendship, written entirely to apply middle school nostalgia to my otp, Post-Canon, Teenage Dorks, Rating May Change      

         Summary:          

The year following Akira’s probation in Tokyo, Haru invites all the ex-Phantom Thieves and their two new additions, Shiho and Mishima, to spend the summer at one of her father’s beach houses. The night before they’re set to leave, Ryuji, Yusuke, and Mishima learn the identity of Akira’s longtime crush, and decide to form a Sacred Bro Pact: help their mutual bro Get The Girl. Ann is oblivious, Shiho is amused, Haru has tea, and Akira didn’t ask for any this. He really didn’t.

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Akirann: Ann showing her affection to Akira by pet names

did someone call for grammatically incorrect usage of japanese? you betcha

anata = ‘you’ except the version wives use with their husbands

Akira had no idea what Ann was trying to prove, but listening to his girlfriend force out embarrassing endearment after embarrassing endearment was almost cute enough to make up for the embarrassment of being called them in the first place.

“B-… baby—”

“Honey…”

“S-s-sweet-…-heart?”

The way she blushed and stuttered could have made up for any number of offenses, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still want to die each time a passerby looked their way with an eyeroll or a knowing grin.

“U-um, love,” she breathed over his ear as they walked through the doors of whatever shop she’d wanted to go into this time, and he shivered despite himself. “W-we should go get smoothies after this, yeah?”

He nodded, an automatic response to that voice while he struggled to process the actual words she’d spoken with it, then cleared his throat and had to ask, “What’s with the pet names?”

“It’s a couple thing, you know?” She was going for casual but he could tell that she was feeling the awkwardness too. “I…I thought it would be fun.”

“…Hm.”

Then she grinned, mischevious and daring and adorable. “You don’t like it, anata?”

Gnfk. He’d be lying if he said his pulse hadn’t skittered at that one.

“J-just kidd—!”

He leaned in and murmured, “Anything you want, darling,” because two could play at that game, and she squawked.

“Ngyah! That’s cheating!”

“Heheheh.”

[arcanawildcard]

boyfriend material chapter 7/?

|| chapter: 1.2k || total: 28.8k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences         Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Takamaki Ann Characters: Takamaki Ann, Kurusu Akira, Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Suzui Shiho, Mishima Yuuki Additional Tags: Humor, Matchmaking, Friendship, written entirely to apply middle school nostalgia to my otp, Post-Canon, Teenage Dorks, Rating May Change      

         Summary:          

The year following Akira’s probation in Tokyo, Haru invites all the ex-Phantom Thieves and their two new additions, Shiho and Mishima, to spend the summer at one of her father’s beach houses. The night before they’re set to leave, Ryuji, Yusuke, and Mishima learn the identity of Akira’s longtime crush, and decide to form a Sacred Bro Pact: help their mutual bro Get The Girl. Ann is oblivious, Shiho is amused, Haru has tea, and Akira didn’t ask for any this. He really didn’t.

[arcanawildcard]

I really loved the older!Ann/Akira that you did a while ago. Can I request the reverse (i.e. older!Akira/Ann)? Like maybe Akira is a teacher/tutor and is trying to hide his growing attraction to his student. Or Ann is Akira’s new young secretary. Thank you

there is/was more to this but i got stuck and figured i should post the mini-shot before i got in too deep

requests closed until i catch up!

For all that Ann had gone into this job expecting a Pepper-Planters-and-Tony-Sharp type situation, this was the first time in the six months she'd been working that her boss had been anything less than perfectly punctual and professional, and it was just him arriving five minutes late without having properly tied his tie.

It meant that he only had forty minutes to prepare and debrief instead of forty-five, which... was about as detrimental as it sounded.

"Okay, so the director of Junes wants to talk about the contract—we want to keep as many of the terms the same as we can, but if we could get them to handle the soap distribution, then that'd be great for us, so keep that in mind, okay?"

Kurusu-sama nodded, looking kind of glazed and out of it and just as handsome as ever, and Ann resisted the urge to ask.

Everyone overslept sometimes, right? Right. The minutiae of why it had happened wasn't really any of her business.

(It was pretty adorable seeing the normally-untouchable CEO of Velvet Room Inc. trying not to nod off over his coffee though, she couldn't lie. It was making her want to coo over him or ruffle his hair or hug him or something—which were maybe not the most appropriate urges to feel towards someone who was both your boss and a fair bit older than you.

He seemed like the kind of guy who'd take that in good humor if she played the 'innocent child' card instead of the 'please bend me over your desk and then take me out to dinner' card, but for various reasons, she's really rather not do that.)

He let her talk for the most part, the occasional snark injections even less frequent than normal, and then her phone buzzed a warning and he got up to attend the shareholder's meeting, and it was only once he was about to walk out the door that she realized that he had no intention to fix his tie.

"Wait!"

He paused, blinking at her slowly.

She clicked up to him in her five centimeter heels. "Here, your tie..."

It was only when she had both ends in her hands that she realized how forward the gesture was—hadn't he proven countless times that he knew perfectly well how to knot his own ties?

He was bigger than her, soft cologne in her nose and the strange peace she got from having him so close and god, she should probably be grateful he wasn't talking or that 'peace' would turn into 'overheating' faster than he could say 'Takamaki'.

Well, she was here and she couldn't back down now. Cheeks hot, she carefully folded the ends over one another and pulled them snug, then pushed the knot up to his throat.

Then, because that couldn't be comfortable, she edged it down as far as she reasonably could and still maintain his professional look.

"There... there you go," she muttered, rasping in her embarrassment, and only managed to look him in the eye for a split second before she had to find something else to look at or risk actual death.

Why had she even done that?

After too many seconds of absolute silence, Kurusu-sama nodded, as taciturn as ever, then turned to leave for real.

"Um!" Ann blurted. She steeled her courage and made herself look at him. "G-good luck!"

Looking at him was so worth it—he flashed her one of those rare half-smiles. "Thank you."

And then he was gone, and Ann stumbled over to her desk, sank into her chair, and buried her face in her hands.

[arcanawildcard]

Ann and Akira doing a photoshoot together and being the hot, cute couple goals that they are

doubling up with this meme for extra inspo, and i rolled a 13: flirty hands-on teaching

Doing a couple’s shoot with Ann had sounded like an okay idea at the time.

Granted, ‘at the time’ she’d breathed the idea over his lips in that shy, breathy voice that tended to fry his synapses while hooking her fingers in his waistband, and it had made him rather conveniently forget all the reasons why it was a bad idea.

Such as: he hated being stared at, he’d never modeled in his life, having pictures of him made publicly available sounded like hell, there was no way in hell he had the looks to even stand in her league, he’d rather not deal with whatever the fallout of this ended up being…

But it was important to Ann, so instead of bowing out once he’d come to his senses, here he was, standing in front of a camera in borrowed clothes and feeling like an idiot.

“Hey,” she whispered in his ear, effectively distracting him from the photographer and the set and the… everything, really. “Relax.”

“I’m relaxed.”

She brushed her knuckles down his jaw, turning his face to her, and smiled up at him confidentially. “Smile? For me?”

He found it in him to smile. For her.

“There we go,” she chirped sotto voce, then started pushing at him, gently repositioning him with delicate, graceful hands, her own smile taking a turn for the bedroom eyes as she brushed deliciously against him. “Just like this.”

If her goal was to keep him from noticing anything that wasn’t those eyes and that voice and that body, then she met it seconds and exceeded it in a few more.

He barely heard the shutter click, too wrapped up in everything Ann as she guided him through pose after pose, but he did hear it when the photographer paused and cleared his throat.

Which was about the point at which Akira realized his face was hot and everything was a little too bright and breathless and he was steadily losing his fight against the problem in his pants—….dammit.

“Do you need an ice pack?” the photographer asked drolly.

Akira cleared his throat too, but less to get anyone’s attention and more because Ann in general was just kind of breathtaking. “…I’ll be fine.”

It still came out as a croak.

Ann giggled into the hollow of his throat, sheepishly unrepentant.

The photographer just adjusted his cap with a sigh. “Guess ‘s what I get for wanting a couple’s shoot with teenagers.”

Akira—17-year-old boyfriend of a Vague model who was still all over him and refusing to step away—wondered what he’d expected, really.

(The shots came out fantastic, though.)

[arcanawildcard]

Send me a number and a ship (the high school romcom edition)

- mutual pining

- almost kiss

- petty jealousy/competing for the love interest’s attention

- drunken confessions

- feeling like the girl/boy next door

- caught in the rain together

- the boyfriend jacket™

- dancing at a masquerade

- everyone can see they’re in love except the people in question

- fake-out make-out

- ferris wheel date

- dreaming about the love interest

- flirty hands-on teaching

- white tshirt gets wet while worn

- interrupted confession

- giving your love interest a trinket before a “battle”

- lap pillow

- singing a romantic duet

- longing stare™

- meeting the family (before the get-together)

- good luck kiss

- necktie leash

- operation jealousy

- running to catch the love interest at the airport before they leave for good

- trapped in a closet

- serenading the love interest

- meeting up but separated by a wall

- he/she cleans up nicely (a.k.a. unexpectedly hot after makeover)

- accidentally falling asleep on/next to one another

- sitting with the love interest after their date stands them up

- making food for the love interest

- keeping watch over unconscious love interest

- taking a hit/shot meant for love interest

- sharing an umbrella

- kabedon

- helping the love interest dress up (zip up, put on cuff links, tie the tie, etc.)

- there is only one bed

[arcanawildcard]

i don't know if this has been done before but i would love to see the rest of the thieves and their thoughts on ann and akira being together

this assumes that a) the relationship isn’t secret the way it is in canon and b) they got together a little after yusuke joins the team.

Morgana:

It hurt to see them together, and it hurt worse because nobody else, not even Morgana, could make Ann smile quite like that.

Still, if he had to lose her to anyone, at least it was Joker, not Fox or that numbskull—and at least Joker knew exactly how lucky he’d gotten. Morgana didn’t really have any choice except to hold his peace, but this was a way better peace than it could have been.

Ryuji:

Having been there since the beginning, Ryuji felt pretty confident saying they deserved each other: his bro got a hot girlfriend that turned him into a happy dope, and Ann got a boyfriend who didn’t mind how short-tempered and overhearing she was.

Sure, they could get gross as hell if you caught them at the wrong time, but after so many months, it was just kind of a fact of life, y’know?

Yusuke:

There was a whole range of love displayed on this team of theirs, and Yusuke admired it all, loved that it was here, loved being a part of this force united by a common history and a common goal, and the relationship between their leader and Ann was no exception. Perhaps he did not want this sort of love for himself, but it was truly a sight to behold.

(And he may have been disillusioned of Ann’s beauty after learning of her true nature, but sometimes when she smiled at Akira, he could see it again, and he found himself sketching the slant of her eyes and the curve of her lips with a twinge deep in his chest.)

Makoto:

It was a little… wistful to see them together. The secondhand taste of a life she’d always sort of wanted, as little as she could admit it to herself.

And of course it was a girl like Ann, a boy like Akira who got that happiness in the middle of all this insanity—it suited them. Beautiful people together on a wild adventure, falling in love like they were on a movie screen.

She wasn’t… quite jealous of either of them—it really felt just too right for them to be together—but maybe she wanted to have something like that one day, with someone like one of them, as far-fetched a dream as that was.

Futaba:

They were gross. Like, seriously. Fun. but gross.

(And, okay, so maybe she hadn’t always turned off her bugs like she really should have when they were ‘alone’ together, so her view was kinda skewed, but whatever. She was pretty good at not letting on things she wasn’t supposed to know, like that Akira had a kink for zippers (legit, honestly) or that Ann couldn’t shut up for the life of her until things got really dirty (Futaba felt that), so she was safe.

They were totally fun to tease, though.)

Haru:

Oh, they were so very sweet. The way they looked at least other gave Haru the flutters every time.

One time Ann had asked her advice on flowers, wanting to get some for Akira, and the next time they ended up in his attic, there was a bouquet on proud display on his desk, one that the normally non-tactile boy would brush his fingers across like a talisman every time he passed 

She got Ann to talk to her about Akira and got about as many giggles and sighs as she did words. The look on her face as soon as she was asked said it all, really.

[arcanawildcard]

Akirann: "Truth or dare?" "Truth." "Would you mind if I kissed you?"

on ao3

“Truth or dare?” Ryuji called out over the din of the mixer-cum-party the Phantom Thieves had landed themselves in.

“Um, truth!” Ann called back, because it was Ryuji and anything he had in mind for dare she did not want to know.

“Would you mind if my bro over there kissed ya?” he asked, nodding at Akira.

“What?!”

“Askin’ for a friend!” Ryuji cackled while Akira subtly facepalmed beside her.

“I’m not answering that!” Because the answer was ‘no, not at all, can we start right now?’ and she just wasn’t going to go there. “P-pass me the bottle.”

A tipsy Haru handed the bottle to Akira who handed it to Ann, and she tried to make her penalty pull deep enough to make the sparks and tingles where their hands had brushed go away.

It didn’t work.

She still had the rim to her lips when Ryuji bounced the ball they were using to decide the next truth-or-darer, and thus completely and utterly missed the catch.

Dammit. She wanted revenge.

Akira, the jerk, could hold his alcohol far better than everyone else in the room combined, and caught the ball on the first bounce.

He studied it for a moment, rolling the party’s Symbol of Power between his fingers, then glanced at her sideways.

“Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” she mumbled. It was Akira, and he was right beside her. Whatever he wanted to know, she could trust him with it, and she wouldn’t even have to announce it to the whole party.

“Would you mind if I kissed you?”

Oh, come on.

“That’s not fair,” she whined, feeling like she’d opened an oven on her face, and also kinda like she wanted to sink into the ground and die.

He looked faintly apologetic and very, very intent. He wasn’t going to let this drop until she answered one way or another.

Well.

It was still true that she didn’t have to announce it to the whole party.

She clumsily fisted a hand in his sleeve and tugged him sideways, shielding her mouth with her other hand, and then whispered, “I-I… I wouldn’t.”

“Oh come on!” Ryuji shouted, but Akira had jerked back to stare at her with wide eyes, surprise parting his lips.

She looked away. If she had to give that information up to anyone… well, Akira would keep her secrets. Of that she was su—

A big, warm hand caressed her jawline, turning her face, and then Akira was kissing her.

Really kissing her, nibbling at her lips and licking into her mouth and groaning deep when she bemusedly licked back—there was a cascade of wolf whistles and clapping and oh my gods and reallys and laughter around them—there was an oven in her chest and another in her belly and she just knew she’d be feeling the fireworks for real if the alcohol hadn’t been dulling her senses—

Dulled senses or no, she was a puddle when he pulled back, breathing hard and looking as proud and delighted as he was awed.

Ann felt herself sigh, felt herself tremble, felt herself melt bonelessly into his side—and then she felt him trail fingertips up her bicep, felt his hot breath on her ear as he absently tossed the ball onto the table and purred, “Would you mind if i did it again?”

Ann let out a high-pressure squeak.

“My turn!” Futaba said, crashing through that thick air between the them like a particularly determined semi-trailer.

Ann looked up, as grateful for the interruption as she resented it.

Futaba grinned drolly, waved the ball in the air, and said, “I dare you two to go get a room.”

Oh.

Yeah, that worked.

Akira took the bottle from Ann’s slackened grip and waggled it in front of her nose in silent question.

She buried her face in his shoulder and shook her head in equally silent reply—or it would have been if her giddy delight hadn’t been escaping her in giggles..

He slid the bottle across the table and stumbled to his feet with an unsteady grin of his own, locking their fingers together as he tugged her to the back.

She followed him, feeling the euphoria right down to her toes, and decided that secrets were dumb and Akira could tell the whole world she wanted to kiss him if only he kept taking her up on it.

(He did.)

[arcanawildcard]

boyfriend material chapter 6/?

|| chapter: 3k || total: 27.5k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences         Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Takamaki Ann Characters: Takamaki Ann, Kurusu Akira, Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Suzui Shiho, Mishima Yuuki Additional Tags: Humor, Matchmaking, Friendship, written entirely to apply middle school nostalgia to my otp, Post-Canon, Teenage Dorks, Rating May Change      

         Summary:          

The year following Akira’s probation in Tokyo, Haru invites all the ex-Phantom Thieves and their two new additions, Shiho and Mishima, to spend the summer at one of her father’s beach houses. The night before they’re set to leave, Ryuji, Yusuke, and Mishima learn the identity of Akira’s longtime crush, and decide to form a Sacred Bro Pact: help their mutual bro Get The Girl. Ann is oblivious, Shiho is amused, Haru has tea, and Akira didn’t ask for any this. He really didn’t.

[arcanawildcard]

Maybe it's been posted before. But would love to see if you could do a jealous Ann. Doesn't matter the girl that she's jealous over Akira. Just love how you write her internal thought process in your stories. It's very much how I imagine Ann to be

taking requests here! (be prepared for a wait tho orz) 

read on ao3

The girl was… cute. Ann could give her that. Maybe not model cute—(what happened to ‘just about anyone can be a model if they work hard enough’? a voice that could have been Carmen or could have been Shiho snarked in the back of her mind)—but cute.

Big brown eyes and a pert mouth to go with gyaru-bronzed skin and way too many accessories (seriously, who’d told her that was a good idea?), a high-pitched titter and too many teeth in her smile to qualify as attractive, and her thighs could really use some toning if she was going to show them off that much, but her brown hair was workable if she wanted to put work into it—

Ugh.

She sounded like Mika right now.

Not that there was anything wrong with Mika—(you have an admirable capacity for forgiveness, but there are plenty of things wrong with Mika, said a voice in the back of her head that was definitely Carmen)—but this was one way that she seriously didn’t want to emulate a sharky businesswoman with a hypercritical eye for anything and everything female in her vicinity.

But.

That titter was over something really dumb Akira had said, and that brown hair was being twirled around her finger as she batted her fake eyelashes at him and posed like a— like a—

…Posed like she like-liked him.

The girl was throwing out every signal in the book that she was interested and available, and all those signals were aimed right at Akira.

That was bound to happen at some point, right? She’d just been taking for granted that the whole school hated him (god, what a thing to take for granted; she was the worst), but he really was incredibly cute if you took the time to look past the creepy glasses shine thing, and he had a gorgeous voice when he took the time to speak up, and she’d never forget that first day when he chased her, an almost complete stranger in the middle of a breakdown, down and made her tell him what was wrong.

So now someone had realized what a hidden treasure he was, and Ann…

—Well, for definitions of realized. Did this girl really care about him, or did she just think he was hot?

Ann’s money was on the second.

(And, shamefully, that thought was a comfort. What kind of person was she to feel better about someone not loving one of her closest friends like he deserved?)

And Ann didn’t know how to deal with that. Didn’t know how to deal with one single first year gyaru making eyes at her best friend.

Ann’s best friend. Ann’s.

She didn’t even know why this was something that had to be ‘dealt with’! Akira was finally getting the recognition he should have had all along, and Ann should be—happy. Relieved. Giggly.

She should think this was cute.

It really wasn’t cute.

She felt sick to her stomach, sad and irritated for no good reason, and the girl’s titter was turning into a full-blown laugh and Akira was almost smiling and—

Ann stood up, leaving her lunch half-eaten on her desk, and left by the far door.

—|—|—|—|—

Her name was Anri. It was spelled with the same kanji as Ann’s name.

This was the first, only, and weirdest time she’d ever wanted to tell someone to change their name—and maybe switch schools or flee the country while they were at it.

It wasn’t fair. She knew it wasn’t fair. Anri hadn’t done a single thing wrong except smile at Akira just a little too wide, and yet whenever Ann thought about her for too long, her hands started itching for her whip, half-hating herself for hoping she was interrupting something when she texted Akira reminders about the Metaverse, praying that he’d give her something to hit.

She’d gotten too used to violence. That was the main problem here.

(It wasn’t the main problem at all. She just couldn’t manage to put a pin in what was. This irrational hatred of Akira’s new friend wasn’t doing anyone any favors, so why was it still here?)

Her dislike wasn’t even mutual. Anri was perfectly happy to nod to her in the hallways, greeting her with an easy hey there, Takamaki-senpai! each time.

Ann wished she wouldn’t. There was only so much guilt she could take here.

It was about two weeks into this that Anri failed to acknowledge her presence—something Ann would have been relieved about (if Anri didn’t notice her, then she was under no obligation to notice Anri) if Anri wasn’t blushing and grinning and she couldn’t hear Ryuji talking with someone (Akira) up the next flight of stairs.

“Told you she liked ya, dude.”

Ann froze halfway to the next stairwell.

If Akira replied, it was too quiet for her to hear, and Ryuji went on, “So? You gonna ask her out?”

She caught the fainted wisp of a neutral hum, and her stomach clenched. He had to know. He had to. She couldn’t live in suspense like this.

Dryly, lower, Ryuji added, “You know this is the closest you’re ever gonna get to dating Ann.”

…What?

Her veins turned to fire and ice and electricity all at once, stomach twisting hard—

“Ha.”

It was a humorless kind of noise, an acknowledgement of the joke, an agreement by way of not being a disagreement, and Ann wanted to charge up there and demand answers, wanted to throw something, wanted to be sick—

Just… what?

Closest he’d get to dating—

Well, it wasn’t… wrong, exactly, but why would that even come into the equation—

Closest he’s ever get to dating Ann.

Because Anri liked him and Ann… didn’t…

But Akira— why would Akira even care?

Akira… cared.

Ryuji wouldn’t have made that joke and Akira wouldn’t have responded like that if he didn’t care.

You know this is the closest you’re ever gonna get to dating Ann.

Ha.

Ann turned on her heel and headed back down the stairs. There was no way she could face him in class right now. Skipping hadn’t been on her to-do list, but it was now.

—|—|—|—|—

She was getting water at approximately 2:15 A.M. when three things abruptly occurred to her.

First: if anyone else had been in this mess and told her that they felt the way she did about it, the first thing out of her mouth would have been, oh, you’re in love with him.

Second: she’d been assuming that this thing she was feeling now was somehow fundamentally different from what it would be for anyone else.

Third: it wasn’t.

—|—|—|—|—

Going to school with that particular revelation spinning through her head was pretty wild.

How long—how long—had she been keeping her from thinking about him like that? Now that the floodgates were open, she couldn’t escape it.

All those cut-off thoughts about the shape of his mouth were completing themselves. All those banished fantasies of being in his arms were sitting implacably at the forefront of her mind. All those nights of laughing at herself for getting off thinking about him—and how she’d never let herself imagine kissing him through it—came crashing back.

She spent the entire first half of the day burying her burning face in her notes, unable to escape the knowledge that he was right behind her, just there while she couldn’t stop thinking about kissing him and touching him and… doing things with him, and oh geez, this was way too awkward.

She wanted, she wanted, she wanted so much. Wanted him. Everything he could give over to her, she wanted it.

(Whatever she could give in return was his already, wasn’t it.)

Lunch came, and with it came Anri. forever decorated, forever cheerful, forever getting way too close to someone Ann hadn’t realized she wanted almost since she met him.

“He-yo,” she singsonged as she slapped her hands down on the edge of Akira’s desk. “Guess who jus’ scored two tix to the aquarium! Wan’ come with?”

The requisite beat passed while Akira thought about it, then he said, “Sounds like fun.”

Anri squealed

Ann stared blankly down at her lunch, finally, finally, finally having a name for that emotion making unhappy knots out of her gut.

Jealousy.

She was so jealous she wanted to die.

Or make something else die. Either would work.

“So Saturday’s good, right? Swee-eet!”

“Heh.”

“Hey, Takamaki-san!” Anri leaned over into Ann’s peripheral vision. “…You okay?”

Ann found it in herself to nod.

“…’Kay.” Then, much chirpier, “See you Saturday, sweetcake!”

Once she left, silence reigned for a long moment.

Surprisingly enough, it was Akira that broke it.

“…Let’s go to the roof.”

Sensing the incoming interrogation but unable to find her voice, Ann just nodded again.

—|—|—|—|— 

They stood by the fence overlooking the school, Akira waiting in silence for her to start.

She had no idea how to start.

“You’re upset,” he eventually prompted.

She nodded.

“What’s wrong?”

She curled her fingers in the wire mesh and said, “Are… are you really dating her because— because she’s the closest you’ll get to… dating—” She swallowed against the tight lump in her throat. “—dating me?”

“…Ah.”

Ann waited.

“You heard that.”

“Uh-huh.” Agh, why did her voice come out so small?

“Ryuji’s an idiot.” But you didn’t disagree. “I’m not dating her.” You agreed to go out with her just the two of you, though. “You’re different people.”

…And yet.

“Mm…” Why were there tears stinging her eyes? “I don’t… want you to go out with… with a replacement for me.”

“That would be pretty awkward,” he agreed cautiously. She could feel his stare boring into the side of her head. “She’s not a replacement.”

It was close enough to a defense of Anri that tears coalesced in the corners of her eyes, and Akira inhaled a sharp breath.

“I don’t… I don’t…”

She didn’t have the first clue how to finish that sentence, but it didn’t matter; Akira took one step away from the fence, two steps towards her, pulled her close and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“…Ann?”

“I love you,” she ended up confessing to his shoulder, and Akira froze. “Really, really love you. And if you really wanna go out with her, that… would really, really suck.”

He let out a quiet, half-stunned laugh.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” she said, which might be the real crux of the problem now. “I just… wanted you to know.”

“…Oh.”

The silence was back for a total of two seconds, and then Ann’s face started to burn with a vengeance, a high-pitched whine forcing its way out of her throat.

“…I can’t believe i said that,” she half whimpered, half groaned. “Who just says that? So. Embarrassing…” She buried her face into his shoulder and let out a mortified whine.

“Said… you love me,” he checked, amused and almost breathless.

That was even more embarrassing to hear repeated back to her. And why did he need to check anyway? Didn’t he believe her?

She jerked back look him in the eye and—oh geez that was so close so close so close—blurted, “W-well I do! I really do! I won’t take that back! Not ever! I-I love you!”

“You love me,” he repeated, even more amused and definitely teasing, this asshole…!

“I do!” she snapped.

Her declaration rang between them for one single second, and then something something flashed in his eyes and his lips were on hers, his glasses digging weirdly into her nose one hand coming up to cup the back of her head and—

It wasn’t anything like what she was expecting.

It didn’t taste like sugar, but it sang through her mind like it. She wasn’t seeing fireworks, but her blood was crackling like they were inside her. Everything everywhere was pressure and sultry heat and need that was sated just as fast as it grew and grew and grew.

The wire mesh dug into her back through her clothes and into her scalp through nothing, only adding into the overload of sensation as he pressed her into it with his entire body, a knee between her trembling legs and a hand crumpling her thin jacket as it roamed up her side, and if she was going to turn into an electrified puddle on the spot, then no one could blame her.

For all that she was trying not to make too much noise, he seemed to be having a similar problem—subsonic groans and tight sighs making her knees even weaker, the perfect counterpoint to the little gasps she couldn’t restrain and the clicky noises of tongues and lips and mouths.

It was deep and wet and hot and even Akira looked kind of stunned when they drew apart.

“Eep!”

That… had not come from either of them.

Ann glanced over Akira’s shoulder and found Anri standing at the door to the stairwell with a very strange expression on her face.

“A-A-Akira-senpai! I, ah, one o’ my friends said ya could be found on the roof, an’ um! Hey, let’s jus’ f-forget about the aquarium, yeah?” Her voice cracked pathetically on the last word, and she abruptly turned on her heel. “Y-yeah.”

“…Yeah,” Akira echoed dumbly, glazed out and confused.

Anri slammed the door behind her so hard it rattled on its hinges.

Ann felt distinctly less guilty that she should have.

He slowly turned to look at her, befuddled frown deepening at her squirmy grin. “You look happy.”

She giggled sheepishly. She did feel a little guilty—just not enough, you know? “That means you’re just mine, right?”

She could feel the response through his whole body, he was still so close, his every muscle relaxing a little.

“Always,” he promised fervently, then kissed her before she could finish beaming over it.

—|—|—|—|—

It was a pretty satisfying long while before they discovered that Anri had locked the door on them.

[arcanawildcard]

boyfriend material chapter 5/?

|| chapter: 7.5k || total: 24k

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences         Warnings: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Takamaki Ann Characters: Takamaki Ann, Kurusu Akira, Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Suzui Shiho, Mishima Yuuki Additional Tags: Humor, Matchmaking, Friendship, written entirely to apply middle school nostalgia to my otp, Post-Canon, Teenage Dorks, Rating May Change      

         Summary:          

The year following Akira's probation in Tokyo, Haru invites all the ex-Phantom Thieves and their two new additions, Shiho and Mishima, to spend the summer at one of her father's beach houses. The night before they're set to leave, Ryuji, Yusuke, and Mishima learn the identity of Akira's longtime crush, and decide to form a Sacred Bro Pact: help their mutual bro Get The Girl. Ann is oblivious, Shiho is amused, Haru has tea, and Akira didn't ask for any this. He really didn't.

[arcanawildcard]

lockdown infiltration

|| 31k || shuann || Romance/Drama || Explicit || Complete

        Summary:    

One fateful night, Police Detective Akira Kurusu discovers his target, the mysterious phantom thief Panther, trapped in a trashcan.

—

His mind took the opportunity to point out a few other things as he stared—the ungainly way her limbs were tangled and amount of flexibility she’d need to relax in a position like that, the satchel on her stomach that likely held the rest of the stolen jewelry, the ten centimeter stiletto boots just resting against the rim of the can…

 Zippers. Lots of zippers. Really impractically placed zippers that looked like they were just begging for wardrobe failure. Especially with just how much they were supporting.

 This woman had stolen billions of yen’s worth of valuables over the past five years, and hadn’t been caught once.

 Akira couldn’t quite decide how he felt about… all that.

—

It’s the start of something beautiful.

[arcanawildcard]

Lovers Confidant: World Famous Model

|| 28k || shuann || Romance/Drama || Explicit || Complete

        Summary:    

Kink meme prompt: Akira/Older Women AU

Let’s go whole hog on the “older lady” thing and make all of Akira’s love interests older than him.

Ann/Akira: Ann used to be Akira’s babysitter and enjoyed dressing him up in cute boy’s clothes. Years later, after Ann has become a well-known model, she happens across her former ward one day and is impressed by how he’s growing into his charm. Maybe a bit too impressed. Akira, who developed a huge crush on Ann-neesan so many years ago, encourages this interest.

[arcanawildcard]

UPDATE:

i’ve decided to start posting links to all the fic i post to ao3, not just requests. i actually am pretty prolific, believe it or not.

gonna post the complete multichapters all in a row right now and leave out the oneshots for now, so check out my ao3 for those.

[arcanawildcard]

Thanks for always writing amazing stuff! For the request, maybe Panther casting tentarafoo and accidentally hitting Joker?

taking requests here! (be prepared for a wait tho orz)

read on ao3

(just in case you forgot, this is Awakened God and this is Scathach)

Panther really, really, really doesn’t have any excuse, but she never realized just how much of their abilities were controlled by their emotions.

Revulsion and fear were usually the emotions she felt for Shadows and she never had any trouble hitting them, but apparently resentment worked too, because that was what she felt about Joker eating their last sweet right in front of her while she had none.

So when she cast Tentarafoo in the following battle, that clicky tug of magic felt like one too many—and the swirling ill-will caught Joker dead on as he slashed down the Shadow he’d been whittling down.

She, Queen, and Skull wrapped up the battle as quick as they could while dodging Joker’s drunken attempts at ‘help’, but they were all distinctly more battered than they should have been as they dashed to the nearest safe room.

Joker was still staggering as they slammed the door shut, swaying over to the nearest chair with Queen’s help and immediately faceplanting on the table, a far cry from his usual casual pace as he checked on them all.

“Man, is he still supposed to be this… out of it?” Skull muttered out of side of his mouth as they all watched Queen try to get him to drink some water. “Usually this stuff is over as soon as the last Shadow goes down.”

“Well, Panther’s still standing and we’re all a lot stronger than most of the Shadows,” Oracle pointed out in a whisper, though she looked equally concerned, “so… who knows. I didn’t even know we could get each other with these spells.”

“Neither did I,” Panther said. The guilt was unbearable. “H-he will be okay… right?”

Oracle shrugged, tapping the side of her goggles and focusing their many lenses on their incapacitated leader. “Should be. If it lasts more than twenty minutes, we should probably get out of here, though. Real air’ll probably fix it.”

Panther let out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Right.”

“Until then…” Oracle’s lips took on a worrying curve as she singsonged, “Oh, Joker!”

Joker blinked fuzzily at the room, searchingly, before ending somewhere to the left of Oracle. “Haa…?”

“That’s a super cool coat you got there,” Oracle purred. Panther got the distinct impression of a kitten waggling its butt before going in for the pounce.

And Joker… smiled.

Proud and smug and disjointed and sleepy and oh no.

Oh no.

Panther didn’t even catch what Oracle was doing to butter him up before messing with him—that smile had a few of Cupid’s arrows poking out of her chest and butterflies in her stomach and an itchy warmth in her veins and hands. The world shrunk down to a terribly open and vulnerable and suggestible Joker—Akira—and the irresistible temptation that brought on.

(Gnah. To think that it took a magical roofie to finally break down that composed, regal reserve…

This was so cheating, but that knowledge didn’t keep her heart from beating hard in her chest and her mouth from watering as she considered the possibilities.)

Happiness, confusion, befuddled irritation, awe, disconcerted puzzling—each and every one of those emotions were written clear as crystal across his beautiful face as Oracle talked, slate gray eyes hazy.

His eyes found her at the back of the crowd, dopey smile flitting across his countenance for a second before it was replaced by a sad pout as he pointedly avoided looking at her.

Gurk.

(So much guilt, so much, and yet… he was just so cute she wanted to eat him up!)

To Panther’s profound relief, it didn’t look like anyone else had noticed the interaction; Queen was shooing Oracle away from him while Skull took her place as main instigator, Fox watching the scene with fascination and Mona and Noir hovered nearby.

“We need to let him rest,” Queen was sighing as Ryuji quizzed Joker about what he really thought about their popularity as Phantom Thieves and whether or not Risette was really the queen of idols. “Go. Let him lie down.”

The puppyish look Joker fixed her with proved to be Panther’s undoing; that weird little lurch of what may have been jealousy mixed with a keening longing.

“Oh! I can— I can help,” she blurted, winded. Her chest was just too tight. Her face felt hot as she added, “H-here, he can take the bench! I can look after him.”

“Uh,” said Oracle, shooting Panther an odd look as she approached. “Sure? Just… don’t do anything weird, okay?”

“Wha—?!” Panther squeaked—really squeaked. It wasn’t just her chest that felt tight. “Why would I do anything weird?!”

“Panther…” said Skull on a sigh, “you’re droolin’.”

She clamped a hand to her mouth with a strangled meep, absolutely mortified to find that he was right.

She made a concentrated effort to calm herself down and… mostly succeeded by the time Joker was laid on the bench with his head on her lap.

With all those gloriously messy and silky-soft-looking pitch black curls right there. Under her hands, literally under her hands—!

Just a little petting wouldn’t be ‘something weird’, would it? She’d be gentle! Just… one… little… touch…

She was breathing hard again, saliva pooling in her mouth as she thought about it.

…It would totally be weird.

Ughhhh…

She kept her hands to herself as she studied his face, all flawless alabaster skin and finely cut features, long eyelashes fluttering and a single dark eye glancing up at her before shutting again with a soft hmph.

Panther swallowed down the squeak in her throat. Her heart couldn’t take this much cute!

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. With great effort, her voice came out sounding almost normal.

Joker—oh gosh—Joker pouted. The corners of his mouth turned down, lower lip jutting as he stared at the far wall. “Why’d you hit me?” he wondered piteously.

Mmmgyangh—!

Panther gripped the edge of the bench so she wouldn’t completely lose it. How was she supposed to resist this?! “…I’m sorry.”

“Hmph.”

The childish sulk demanded her full and entire honesty or she would die. Compelled by forces being her comprehension, she confessed, “I didn’t mean to. I was just mad because you ate the last sweet bun and you didn’t offer me any. I didn’t know that the spell would get you too. I should have been more careful.”

The sulk melted into sheepishness, guileless guilt on his end too. “Oh.”

Her whole and entire being was tied up in that expression, and it was taking her for one wild ride. “What?”

“Sorry.”

Now, the usual Joker would have left it at that, or maybe reassured her that he’d check next time, but this one—this one—went on to explain.

“I was jus’ mad,” he slurred, looking adorably ashamed. “‘Cuz you were flirting w’ s’meone elsh.” He rolled over and buried his face in her stomach, clumsily wrapping his long, powerful arms around her waist. “Don’ do that. Only me.”

Panther felt like she’d stuck her head in her own Agidyne spell.

Around the room, their teammates were in varying degrees of shock and/or distress—from Oracle’s uncomplicated gape to Skull’s silent ‘holy shiiiit…’ to Queen’s borderline horror. Noir’s face was buried in her hands, her ears and neck bright red, while Fox seemed somewhere between surprised and fascinated and Mona’s already cartoonish visage had become a caricature of heartbreak.

The shattering of Joker’s eternal deadpan was the shot heard ‘round the world.

“O-okay,” Panther promised faintly. It would be easier to wrack her brain for what he was talking about if only said brain wasn’t completely taken over by that hazy pink of omigod cuuuuuute!

(She just wanted to touch his hair. He was being a horrible tease by just leaving it all there with that face in her lap.)

“Good,” Joker mumbled against her abdomen. His arms held her a little tighter. “You’re so pretty, ‘n’ so good, ‘n’ ev’ryone wants you. I don’ wanna share. Jus’… want you.”

“Oh,” said Panther, her voice cracking. Fire resistance or no, she must have just stepped into a firing kiln. She was dizzy with the force of her blush. “You’re… pretty amazing yourself.”

He looked up at her, gaze soft and open and awed, and then he smiled, and… was that…

Was that a…

A blush?

A bullet to the heart would have been kinder.

Then his eyes fluttered shut, smile and blush fading down to glowing content, and he nuzzled into her stomach and settled into his new ‘pillow’.

He was asleep before she could gather her wits or words.

Absolute silence.

It was a long time they all spent trying to absorb the interaction, and then Skull said, “Uhh… what the hell was he talkin’ about?”

Panther shrugged helplessly. She wasn’t in the habit of flirting with anyone to her knowledge—she’d remember it if she’d done it recently, right?

Another silence stretched out as they all contemplated this, and then Oracle spoke up.

“Was he… was he talking about that Awakened God Shadow back there?”

Now that she mentioned it, Panther had pouted up at the golem-type creature after Joker had accidentally offended it. She’d thought they would turn the tide, but then Joker had pissed it off so bad that no one could save the conversation and hit it with a barrage of nuclear spells before anyone else could get a word in edgewise.

…Seriously?

“But he didn’t mind when I helped out with Scathach!” she protested weakly.

Oracle frowned. “I mean, he absorbed her right after that. Maybe he just remembered you flirting with him instead.”

A pressurized whine of sheer mortification escaped Panther’s throat. The thought of intentionally flirting with Joker was already embarrassing enough!

“Yeah,” said Skull, about as obliviously unhelpful as he could get. “Besides, girl-on-girl is—”

“Hey-you-know-what-we-should-let-him-sleep,” Queen blurted out desperately, flushed around the edges of her mask, “so let’s just stop talking here, okay?!”

Noir had dragged her hat over her face, wrecking the brim with her white-knuckled grip and cringing so hard her head almost rested on the table. Mona had been lost to despondency. Fox was poking one of Joker’s shoes with the handle of his brush. Oracle had delicately placed her fingertips over her open mouth, almost tittering.

Panther was getting the profound feeling that she was at the epicenter of a spectacle that she’d only seen the iceberg-tip of.

She decided she didn’t want to know. What she already knew was humiliating enough.

However, no conversation meant nothing to distract her from the head of fluffy curls right in front of her.

About a minute and a half of that, and she gave into temptation.

—|—|—|—|—

Joker didn’t remember too much about how he’d ended up unconscious when he woke up—woke up to Panther practically in his arms while she finger combed his hair, no less—but obviously something had happened.

Mona was no longer acknowledging his existence. Oracle was the only one of the girls who would still look him in the eye, and when she did, she did it with a leer that was about as disgusting as Skull’s was. Fox was the only one acting even slightly normal, which wasn’t saying much, seeing as it was Fox.

He didn’t know if he wanted to know.

He probably didn’t.

Curiosity killed the cat and all.

(Fuck was he curious, though. What the hell had happened?)

Apparently he’d been out for about twenty five minutes, which left them with enough time to discover the next safe room and reconvene before they really had to get back to the real world.

It was right before they left Okumura’s Palace that Panther gestured him to fall to the back of the group of the group with her, and swung her arms shyly for a second before asking if he wanted to go see a movie with her next weekend.

She accepted his immediate (if confused) agreement with a blushing smile (he still didn’t know what the hell could have happened in those twenty minutes, but god she was cute), and then stepped up really, really close and pulled him down just enough to steal a kiss.

Hand clamped over his tingling mouth and blood pounding a racket in his ears as he watched her follow the others, he decided that he really needed to ask.

Later.

Maybe on that oh-shit-it’s-actually-a-date-isn’t-it he had next Saturday.

[arcanawildcard]

How about shuann soulmate marks au? First meeting and no powers?

taking requests here! (be prepared for a wait tho orz)

read on ao3

By the time ‘来栖 暁’ appeared on Ann’s wrist at the age of 16, she had her type nailed down to a T. Her reasoning was that if she was going to live her life without a soulmate (like 95% of the world’s population) she was doing to make perfectly sure that the guy she did fall for was as close to a soulmate as he could get.

He had to be about her age or a little younger. Good-looking and strong and smart and brave. A romantic. He had to be able to make her laugh and always cheer her up when she was feeling down. Taller than her, but only a little, with broad shoulders. Kind, gentle, reserved, but a bit of a rogue too. The perfect gentleman with a hint of mischief and a sliver of danger.

(”You might as well start on hair and eye colors with a list like this,” Shiho told her when she found Ann’s notepad.

“Oh! That’s a good idea.” Ann retrieved her notepad and tapped her lip with her pen. “What do you think about grey eyes?”

“Don’t ask me.”)

He couldn’t be fair-haired because there was only room for one dumb blonde in their relationship, she didn’t have the best impression of redheads for various reasons, and brown was just so... normal, you know?

(Shiho had been muffling snickers at that point, but she helped Ann come to the conclusions of dark grey eyes, curly black hair, preferably Japanese without further commentary.)

It was kind of silly, she knew, but it felt like a talisman. She’d have a soulmate, or she’d have a guy who was perfect for her anyway. Her standards didn’t have room for the likes of Mr. Kamoshida or that one Photography Club member who kept trying to get creepshots of her when she passed by. The girls could call her a bimbo and the boys could call her a frigid bitch and it would all be fine because she was just waiting for Mr. Right.

So her perfect guy had to be good with kids and kind to animals. He had to be a little bit noble and a little bit sly. He had to hold her hand in public. He had to want her—not her looks, not her body, not her connections or status, but her—more than anyone else.

He had to listen to her. He had to hold her but couldn’t coddle her. He had to support her in her dreams. He had to want marriage and children one day. He had to—

And then, one sunny afternoon in April, three kanji hastily inked themselves across her wrist, and no amount of scrubbing washed it away.

‘来栖 暁’

After so much time spent wanting to know who her soulmate was, it was kind of a shock to find out that he’d actually gotten close enough for their souls to, well, brush.

Maybe he’d moved to Tokyo, or maybe he’d just come to visit, or maybe-maybe-maybe...

Well, it wasn’t like she had any idea how to find him—at least not yet. The name would probably pop up online, if nowhere else, and he might even come looking for her first, but right now, at this moment, he could be just another face in the crowd shuffling through Shibuya Square and she’d never know.

It was an odd feeling, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Her agency had her weekend packed and she barely even had the time to make an attempt at her homework before it was Monday again.

Monday was misleadingly clear until it started pouring down right in the middle of her walk to school, and she found herself ducking under an awning with another unlucky student who’s forgotten his umbrella.

She was just contemplating making a run for it (she’d look totally lame, but it would probably be even lamer to turn up soaked through) when she felt a stare burning into the side of her face.

The other student was the culprit, eyes wide and lips parted in that kind of open awe she got sometimes, that kind that didn’t feel hungry or creepy the way some did, just... admiring.

It was a warm feeling, one that bubbled giggly in her throat—and then she registered the actual look of him

And blinked.

Dark grey eyes, curly black hair, definitely Japanese, a little bit taller than her, handsome and broad-shouldered and somewhat reserved—

Ahahaha, no way.

It was ironic that she’d meet a guy that looked like a perfect 10 on her (slightly joking) list of requirements only a few days after finding out her soulmate was nearby, but that just had to mean things were looking her way, right?

She smiled at him, then resettled herself and went back to contemplating the rain. Inconvenient as it was, it was also really pretty.

Mr. Kamoshida was... nice enough to give her a ride to school and save her from looking flustered and lame or soaked and lame, and she made it to class without further incident.

And then, just slightly late, the boy from under the awning walked in after Ms. Kawakami.

He was a transfer student, Ms. Kawakami said, and he’d be studying with their for the rest of the year.

He wrote his name on the blackboard and murmured his greetings in a low, velvety voice that she could really get used to hearing, but she couldn’t fully appreciate it.

‘来栖 暁’ he’d written. Pronounced as Akira Kurusu, he’d said.

That was her soulmate.

Akira’s soulmate was in Tokyo. He was pretty sure, anyway.

Somewhere, somehow, ‘高巻 杏’ was or had been close enough to ink their name on his wrist in the space of a nap on the train.

It was one more new thing in the whole slew of new he was walking into, and it should have been a shock, but he was traveling out of his hometown for the first time, he was alone in a big city, he had narrowly escaped a prison sentence for a crime he hadn’t committed, and he was barely acquainted with a picture of his new guardian, much less the man himself—

Well. Tokyo was the biggest city in Japan. There were over 9 million people here and more passing through on the daily. His soulmate could be... anyone, really.

Well, no. They were Japanese, he knew that much, and 杏 was generally a female name—an Azu, or Anri, or Kyou, or Suume...

That was about it, though. He should probably start looking for her while he was in Tokyo; much more convenient and accessible than his hometown, if nothing else.

Just... maybe not right now. Right now, he needed to sleep for a week.

Forgetting an umbrella on his first day at his new school felt like just par the course for his current string of luck.

The girl who joined him under the awning he’d taken shelter under did not.

Pale gold hair like starlight, eyes blue enough to make up for the muddied sky tenfold, quiet melancholy on a face so beautiful it was almost ethereal. She stood with casual confidence and enviable ease, like this was just another day to her, like she’d been like this so long she didn’t even notice that the world was hers anymore.

Which she didn’t, he guessed, but meanwhile his breath was caught in his throat, pulse throbbing in his fingertips, because oh, wow...

He’d known people looked like that in magazines, but seeing the real thing—seeing someone who was about as flesh and blood as divinity could get with his own two eyes—now this was something else.

She met his eye with a much milder surprise than his own, her confusion unfurling into a warm smile (oh) and quiet giggle (oh), and then looked away while he gaped like an idiot.

Just proof that there were all sorts of people in Tokyo, he supposed once he’d shut his mouth and scrambled his wits back together. It was a crazy city to put people like the two of them side-by-side.

Not that it really mattered.

He’d probably never see her again, and he was one of those lucky few with a soulmate he had to find besides.

Tokyo was a crazy city, but maybe... maybe it wasn’t all bad.

He saw her again.

And, for all intents and purposes, he’d be seeing her six days a week for as long as he was in the city.

Since, you know, he sat in the seat behind hers in homeroom.

Their homeroom.

The homeroom that they shared, being in the same class and the same year and the same school and all.

The school that was now buzzing with rumors about his probation and what kind of cruel, evil, morally bankrupt deeds he’d done to earn it.

Not that it... really... mattered...

It wasn’t like he’d ever had a chance in the first place, but he’d give just about anything to be entirely invisible in her eyes (and the rest of the school’s, if he was being honest) if that would mean she didn’t look at him with quite so much... alarm.

Ugh.

Oddly, it was her best friend who was the first person after Ryuji that didn’t look at him askance.

“Hey,” she said after he’d bumped into her just inside the door to the courtyard. “Don’t let them get to you. This school loves rumors.”

“What rumors?” he deadpanned, though the words were very, very welcome, he couldn’t lie.

She smiled, genuinely relieved. “I’m glad you’re doing okay.” Then the smile dropped as she looked behind him. “Ann? What’s wrong—”

The girl—Ann Takamaki, professional model at the age of 16—gave him a contorted attempt at a smile of her own and unceremoniously hauled Suzui-san away.

...Juuuuust his luck.

He was really going to go get his lunch and try to eat away his sorrows, but on his way to getting a drink from the vending machines, he heard Suzui-san’s voice from the rest area within and paused to eavesdrop.

“What do you mean, ‘don’t know how to talk to him’?”

Huh?

Apparently it was Takamaki-san she was talking to, because it was her voice that answered, “What if I mess it up?”

“Don’t you just go up and say hello? Ask how he’s settling in? This is small talk, not rocket science.”

Were they talking about... him? No way, right?

“I can’t do that!” Takamaki-san squeaked. “It’s gotta be, like, special! D-Doesn’t it...?”

“I don’t think so. He seems lonely. I bet he’d be happy even if it wasn’t special.”

“Mm...”

Right, so, it definitely wasn’t him they were talking about because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to take the disappointment if he thought they were talking about him and they weren’t. Maybe they were talking about one of Takamaki-san’s coworkers or something.

Maybe. Probably.

Definitely not him.

“Well, if you really want it to be special, you could always start off by shoving your wrist in his face,” said Suzui-san. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“Sorry... It never seemed to be the right time.”

“It’s fine. I’m going ahead, okay? And talk to him the next time you see him.”

Takamaki-san groaned with a shluff of fabric that suggested she’d slumped in her seat, and then Suzui-san was rounding the corner and Akira had nowhere to hide.

She slowed to a stop when she saw him, pursing her lips and blinking big puppy-brown eyes.

The look faded into wry acceptance after about two seconds. Walking closer (out of Takamaki-san’s earshot?), she murmured, “You heard all that, huh.”

He nodded cautiously. No sense in denying the obvious.

She studied him for a moment, then decided, “That makes things easier... I think. Follow me for a second?”

He nodded again, still mentally trying to catch up with this new turn of events.

Suzui-san led him... in a circle. Back into the school building and out another door, then back to the vending machines, where Takamaki-san was still sitting at the table.

“Look who I found,” Suzui-san announced, and then looked at Akira expectantly until he entered the rest area.

Takamaki-san, for her part, was just as gorgeous and just as alarmed as ever. Akira was of the private opinion that the way the light played over her face and throat belonged on the silver screen... preferably aiming that look at someone who was not him.

“Ann wanted to talk to you,” said Suzui-san, the blatant liar. “I’m going back to class now. See you later!”

And with that, she left Akira alone with Takamaki-san’s steadily growing horror.

The seconds stretched out like eons as the blood drained from her face and tried to rise in his, his mind pinwheeling as he tried to grasp why Suzui-san thought Takamaki-san wanted to talk to him when she was so blatantly terrified of him.

“Um!” she finally squeaked. “Hi!”

“...You feeling okay?”

“M-me? O-oh! yeah, I’m- I’m fine!”

She was a terrible liar. That would have been adorable in any circumstances but these.

When he didn’t immediately reply, she flushed, gaze darting away as she blurted, “So! Um, how are you liking Tokyo?”

“It’s alright,” he said slowly, the eavesdropped conversation dancing through his brain. “Kind of hectic. I never knew trains could be that packed.”

That was about three times what he’d normally say, but Takamaki-san looked borderline desperate.

Seriously, what was going on here?

“Oh yeah, that shocked me too when I first moved here, y’know? I grew up in Finland and it was way quieter than here.” She was gaining her composure back piecemeal, and she managed to look him in the eye with a shy, unsteady, but real smile. “Speaking of trains, have you had the chance to check out the Underground Mall at Shibuya Station?”

“No, not yet.” Suzui-san hadn’t honestly led him here for small talk, had she?

“Oh man, you totally should,” she said, still pink-cheeked and breathless but blossoming into a vivid expressiveness that had butterflies sparkling to life in the pit of his stomach. “They have, like, everything there—you have to see it to believe it.” She scratched the back of her head, suddenly bashful. “I could, um, show you around sometime... if you want.”

His heart lodged itself in his throat, and he had to clear it to speak. “I’d like that.”

Takamaki-san actually glowed, which was putting a whole lot of holes in his theory that she was scared of him. “Great!”

(It was also putting a fair number of holes in his heart and his cool, because there was only so much a guy could do with a smile like that aimed at him and Cupid wasn’t blind.)

“Was there something you wanted me for?” he asked then, because this was good but he probably needed to leave to go cool his head down soon.

Takamaki-san sat bolt upright and flushed again. “No, well, just- just this, I mean—I really did just want to talk to you, and see how you were doing because transferring is hard, I should know, and I know I’m a little late with the welcoming committee but you should definitely check out the city, and... ugh...” She buried her face in her hands. “I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“It’s cute,” he offered.

She shrunk in her seat and blushed right down to her collarbones. “I... don’t think this qualifies as cute.”

“You’re right; it’s adorable.”

Her head jerked up, and even her mortification was beautiful.

“That... not fair,” she said weakly.

He tilted his head with a half-smile, entirely unrepentant. Making her blush was a way bigger ego boost than he ever would have guessed.

(...If this maybe-definitely crush didn’t die a quiet death soon, meeting his soulmate was going to be a mess.)

Almost as if echoing his thoughts, Takamaki-san wrapped her hand around her wrist and squeezed. There was an enigmatic little grin on her face, her eyes bright and distant. “Guess Shiho was right after all.”

“About what?” he said, wrong-footed by the non-sequitur.

She didn’t seem to hear him. “Hey, so, um...” She dropped her head, shoes scuffing against the ground in a fidget. “There... there was something else that I... wanted to ask you about.”

He waited.

She took a deep breath, then jumped to search her pockets, muttering ah, shoot, and eventually pulling out a crumpled receipt and a pen.

He had a brief moment to think that maybe she would suggest trading numbers, but then she started sketching out a kanji.

“Y-your name...” she said, and his stomach flipped clean over. “It’s, um. It’s spelled like this, right?”

She’d written out ‘来栖 暁’ with astonishingly neat penmanship.

“Good memory,” he said, and his voice came out rough. Especially good considering that she’d only seen it once.

(Unless she hadn’t only seen it once...? whispered something in the back of his mind.)

“Y-yeah,” she said, and exhaled slowly. “And... my name is written like this.”

‘高巻 杏’

...Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

(Maybe this rapidly growing crush wouldn’t be that much of a mess after all.)

He wasn’t sure what his face looked like at that moment, but it was enough to make her chest shift in a gasp in his peripheral vision. He was still kind of stuck on the 高巻 杏 part.

Then she started shifting her sleeves, and the glimpse of skin under them had his full attention.

And, there, like a dream, was his name.

“April ninth, around two P.M.,” she said, this actual goddess with a shy smile and his name on her wrist.

“I... was asleep on the train,” he croaked dumbly, then belatedly thought to offer his own wrist to confirm.

The look on her face made him wish that he’d done it ages ago. Timid trepidation met honest joy and unfiltered relief, stained-glass hues of emotion painting her face like art.

The sleeve slipped to cover his name when she went to push her bangs to the side, then rub the back of her head, then, mind apparently made up, she stood and walked over to face him.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, offering a hand—for him to shake, for him to leave his heart in—and meeting his eye, endless wells of sky blue and just as open, just as enticing. “I’m Ann Takamaki, and I’m your soulmate.”

It took three weeks for Ann to dig her old list back up.

She went through the whole thing, checking off almost all of them, then adding amendments to the rest and then checking them off.

Shiho, who was hanging out to borrow Ann’s 3DS, button-mashed what sounded like a combo and said, “I still can’t believe you managed to get the hair and eyes right.”

Ann flushed, pen hovering over the page. Her most recent memory of ‘the hair’ was the way it felt tangled in her fingers and the low groan that had rumbled in his chest when she tightened her grip just so, and her most recent memory of ‘the eyes’ was how the looked when they were glazed and dark and a little bit wild.

“Oh, well, y’know. I have a type.”

“Or psychic powers,” said Shiho, teasing.

Ann sat up. “Oh man, you think?”

“Better start picking out your title now,” Shiho agreed, then muttered, “Ah! Darn...”

Ann flopped back on the bed and held the list high above her. “Ann Takamaki, finder-of-the-Perfect-10-who-is-also-her-soulmate!”

“Rejected. It’s too long.”

“Guess I’ll have to think on it.” She let out that sigh sitting high in her throat.

Then she rolled over and grabbed her phone, because Akira might have some good ideas (or some funny ones, or some intended to make her blush down to her toes), and she really wanted to see if she could make him smile again (coaxing them out was becoming her new favorite pastime), and she had a really funny story to tell him about looking out for the perfect guy and finding out that she'd been unknowingly looking for her soulmate all along.

She was pretty sure he’d be able to appreciate the humor.

fun fact for those who don’t know already: kanji generally have a few readings, but that number goes through the roof when it comes to names. you could name all your kids the same kanji with different readings and they’d hate you for life, but like,,,,, you could do it. both ann and akira’s names have 11 common readings each, at least according to jisho.

[arcanawildcard]

Omggg requests? How about just something fluffy and cavity inducing? Like AkirAnn going on their first date or something and they're both just balls of nervousness and holy shit they're holding hands now and the date is not in fact a fever dream it's happening! Maybe between 500 to 2000 words? ;w;/

filled!

taking persona 5 requests here~