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main is @alarici

my writing masterposts: death note | free! | other

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Free!

Free! - Matsouka Rin / Nanase Haruka

Sanctuary Chapters: 7/7 | Word count: 30,539 | M/M

Rin meets an unwelcoming seal rescuer while trying to save the Iwatobi Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary from financial ruin. Haru meets a rockstar idol whose entire existance feels like unnecessary change in the first place he's felt free in years. Two months in late spring, two rescued seals, two near-misses. A multi-talented risen star and a happily failed Olympic swimmer make it work. Eventually.

One Sided Chapters: 6/6 | Word count: 8,167 | M/M

Five times people misunderstood Rin and Haru’s relationship (plus one time they misunderstood each other) Or, Kaede ships it, Marin is an empath, Charlotte has the wrong Haruka, Mikhail is having flashbacks, and Gou brought popcorn

Chianti Oneshot | Word count: 3,065 | M/M

1970s Tokyo.

written for makeasplash

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Masterlist - Death Note

Meronia, Mellodramattic, and genfic!

Mihael Keel | Mello / Nate River | Near (Meronia)

armageddon/kill game Chapters: 8/10 | Word count: 28,287 | M/M

Mello fashions himself like a mobster. Like an American cowboy in leather. Ostrich feather and alligator skin. Mello becomes a millionaire the day Near wins the Sinquefield Cup for the second time. (Poker/Chess AU)

#akg on @alarici

texas hold 'em Oneshot | Word count: 2,047 | M/M

"Let's go to Vegas"

Loosely related to armageddon/kill game, for @jessaerys

reunion Oneshot | Word count: 1,937 | M/M

After the explosion, Near presents himself like a lamb. Instead of staying away, Near ties himself to the train tracks of exceptional risk and goes to meet Mello, first. What happens after is completely to plan.

Written for the “reunion” prompt for Meronia Week 2024

Steeplechase Oneshot | Word count: 1,025 | F/F

Mello wakes up before dawn and finds the horses in the stables. The groom is already up. There's mist on the track. The barn is alive, and it's cool out. or; Horse Girl Near & eternally undone Mello.

horsegirl Near for @neallo

Lungs Oneshot | Word count: 575 | M/M

At sixteen, there are crocuses taking root in Mello’s lungs.

Hanahaki AU for @dreamfilleddonuts

Mail Jeevas | Matt / Mihael Keehl | Mello (M2 or Mellodramattic)

Hangnail Chapters: 6/6 | Word count: 26,529 | M/M

Matt and Mello meet while studying ballet in New York.

Hoping for an encore Oneshot | Word count: 1,859 | M/M

“They were ugly flowers,” Mello says, instead.

(Stand-alone companion to Hangnail.)

please work with what is left Oneshot | Word count: 3,194 | M/M

So Matt agrees to get all shot up like a hero. He expects to die like one. The car crash that is his life was supposed to end at 180 km/h.

part 1 of "Lowercase 'm"'

nothing there all along Oneshot | Word count: 1,687 | M/M

The beginning before the end.

Matt wakes up one day, no longer a bug-eyed kid, more a bloodshot teenager, still clutching something safe in his hands, still found wanting. It’s sobering, but only for a moment. The dawn breaks, and he decides that he has to leave.

part 2 of "Lowercase 'm'"

Gen

Mercury Oneshot | Word count: 603 | Gen

The planet closest to the sun. (Near postcanon introspection.)

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F/F / rated M / 2/2 chapters / 1,900 words

“I don’t know...you looked peaceful. You never looked peaceful in the house.”

“You...” Near holds her tongue. They have grown up. Grew up together, apart, together. The follies of their youth are past—they have made their happy ending. You.

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Near looks ready to keel over when he stands up in the chess hall. Mello stands on the balcony, but can see it from so far away. Near’s just won with the black pieces. Mello knows he’s going to be ushered into the press room for a few minutes. He takes the stairs down to the ground level and finds himself at the back of the press room. Near is there, standing against the step and repeat backdrop advertising IBM, speaking to a woman in a black dress. Near’s tells aren’t blatant. But Mello’s seen him white-knuckling things a few times recently and never called him on it. It’s all the more evident, here. Worse, or just heightened. Or, Mello’s still learning the patterns of chess, and Near, at the same time.

Armageddon Kill Gayme

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I unhid Hangnail and will edit it eventually. I read it again and am less doomer about it. She deserves to exist idk.

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armageddon/kill game

chapter 7: good enough link (to chapter 7 on ao3)

Characters: Mello/Near | Rating: M | Chapters: 7/? | Words: 22,714

When Mello wins the first round of Go, Near indulges in looking up at him. Rage on his beautiful face. Mello’s rage over winning, of course.

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The more niche the better so

Kousano MD/PhD (Yosano) x depressed consultant (Kouyou) as fucked up girlbosses dragging around their guilt like

Kumiko got hot & followed her dreams and Reina is a burnout (cue Avril Lavigne)

March comes like a lion character dissection of Souya’a hearing loss/deafness. Perception and image.

After the rain old man yaoi. Tfwu almost date a high schooler but than your wild and free old friend returns and you realize you are just lonely.

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hoping for an encore

“They were ugly flowers,” Mello says, instead.

Words: 1,840 | Chapters: 1/1 | Matt/Mello

short hangnail coda

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armegaddon/kill game

Chapter 6: "kill game" (ao3)

“You are going to be my second for the candidates and the world championship match,” Near turns in a spinning leather office chair to face Mello.

Rating: M | Pairing: Mello / Near | Word count: 18,371 Chapters: 6/?

we back

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based off this photo of nicole kidman and tom cruise

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The Sinquefield tiebreak is speed chess. Near watches Light dismantle Linda’s clever tactics as the clock ticks down. From a private hospital room window, he watches the broadcast. The lion (the angel) in the plastic chair in the corner watches him...

armageddon/kill game chapter 5 “anticlimax”

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cover for armageddon/kill game

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Fourteen years old in body, twoscore and fourteen in mind, time ejects Number Five into a sorry existence. The days before the end of the world are bleak. Busy. Violent.

Look, old man. You still have family. You’re knobby-kneed and fish-eyed again, now. Look, the world is ending.

First , look at the family. Have you ever seen a more unsightly one? The Boy has met countesses and princes. Heiresses and kids raised by wolves. Numbers one through seven (minus six) are each less bearable than the rest. See—Five’s had decades to grow up. They’re still disgusting twenty nine year-olds. With addled brains. With purposelessness and helplessness and stupidity.

--

The Boy is a man is a hunger artist is a soul haunting his own body like snarled toes in a loafer five sizes too small.

Refused a name refused destiny refused—

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flight feathers

Teen & Up Audiences | No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, other | Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Relationships: Kageyama Miwa & Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Kazuyo & Kageyama Tobio

Word Count: 1,694

Senior high was a three-year bright spot between the loss and learning, nineteen and boarding a direct flight to Rio, that there is more than one type of grief.

read below or ao3 link

Kageyama Tobio considers quitting volleyball only once in his life, a year after his grandfather passes suddenly and unexpectedly. Less than a week after he tosses the ball—a perfect toss for C-quick, just as he’d practiced for an hour the night before—and it falls, untouched, onto the court where it completes its arc. He thinks about it, seriously quitting, for less than 24 hours. He still thinks about it, but not seriously.

Coach benches him without another word about it. He watches the rest of the meet from the bench. And feels nothing. There’s nothing left to feel when he realizes he doesn’t want to be on the court. Not after watching the ball fall. Abandoned again. First Miwa, now grandfather. If this time, it was his fault, which means the others may have been his fault as well, right?

Miwa seemed very free after quitting. She started doing other things. She tied her long hair up in pretty, intricate styles, and never looked at a volleyball again.

That’s how it works. On the bench he doesn’t cry but something in him releases. Everything feels very much over, in the moment. The king is gone, off the court.

I miss them. I’m tired. I want to play. I don’t want to play.

The sets pass, until they lose in the third round in a blur of nothing. The swell he’d always felt from the court, the energy of the stadium, putters out. No sting of loss. No rush of victory. No twisting frustration. No images, instant replay, of all the things to practice for next time. None of it. Just the ball rolling towards the far wall and twelve players walking away from the net.

He was going to win the tournament for his grandfather. He was going to win for him and for volleyball and now he’s on the bench. He’d told him, the only time they’d let him visit the hospital, that he was going to win for him. Look, you made me strong. I love volleyball more than them.

He doesn’t quit. Turns out, it’s not that easy.

Too bad he can’t keep his hands off a volleyball—a well-worn plain white ball from camp—at home, even if he doesn’t want to stand on the court like that ever again. He sets it at the ceiling, lying on his back, before he sleeps. He continues his receiving drills against the wall of the house until his mother’s car pulls into the driveway.

Monday is the day that Miwa calls. From Tokyo. A reminder that she’s still out that. They she’ll talk to him, but only for ten minutes a week. Straight out of senior high and she’s off to the big city with a pat on the head and a promise to call and to message. She’d gone to work as a hairdresser and go to beauty school. She was back for the funeral with a new haircut and a second piercing in her left ear.

She calls the Monday after Kitagawa Daiichi loses to Kousen. Instantly, he realizes she’s calling him from inside a gymnasium. He hears it, balls bunching and shoes squeaking, before she says anything. And she says something before he can say, “hello”.

“I joined the local municipal intramural team, so you better keep playing, quitter.”

Mom must have told her he’d stopped attending practice after the prefectural junior athletics meet. He wants to ask her why she quit in the first place. Why she went back, now, of all times. But he doesn’t want to talk about Kazuyo. And it’s probably about him. Her picking up the ball again and him getting kicked off the court are both about him.

“Do they make you cut your hair?” He asks instead.

“No, of course not. They’re not stupid high school students,” Miwa says. There’s a referee’s whistle in the background. It makes him cringe, the way it filters through the phone speaker.

“Oh.”

“The team is actually co-ed.”

“What’s co-ed?”

“Like, men and women. I’m setting to guys.”

“But you’re super short. You were a libero.”

“I’m a better setter than the other guy, so I’m setting for now.”

“Oh.”

His sister was a good setter. But she’d played all positions. Libero, in her final year of junior high when she didn’t grow. She’d been one of the best liberos in the prefecture, despite only switching in the middle of her second year. Her stats almost matched with Shiratorizawa Junior High’s starting setter, who plays for the national team now, she’d told him once.

“I’ll be there for your graduation, so don’t flunk out. I already have my train ticket.”

“Okay.”

And that’s that.

Miwa starts sending him videos of her practices. All of her games are practices. It’s all for fun. She looks like she’s having fun. Her long hair is tied up in a high ponytail. Instead of the typical girl’s volleyball uniform, she’s wearing long shorts like a basketball player and a sleeveless T-shirt. Her arms look stronger than he remembers them.

Me

[ Why aren’t you wearing kneepads. ]

Sis

[ I haven’t bought any yet. ]

Me

[ You’re going to hurt your knees. ]

Sis

[ It’s nice to know that my little brother is looking out for my knees. ]

Kageyama goes to the last mandatory practice of the year. He tries (and fails) to ignore the looks he gets from everyone on the team. Hashikami doesn’t say a single word to him. Kindaichi and Kunimi whisper to each other in the locker room.

“Look who finally showed up, king.”

He slams his locker door shut. It rattles in its hinges.

Practice is less intense than during the year. They have no matches to prepare for. Only to keep up their skills going into senior high.

And everyone’s chattering about senior high. Kageyama can hear it from where he’s standing for warm up, at least a meter away from the closest players—two first years he’d helped learn to serve-recieve, and who’d given him looks of pity when he’s been kicked off the court.

“I heard the king didn’t get into Shiratorizawa. Didn’t pass the entrance exams.”

“Serves him right. Did he think they’d just let him in for being a genius setter? I guess even they don’t want him on their team...”

“Ya think he’ll go to Seijoh?”

Kageyama does nothing but jump serve practice during open gym. He can tell he’s being watched by coach. He doesn’t ask. He has a ball and a net and nobody’s trying to speak to him. Good enough.

“Kageyama-kun!” Coach yells his name after blowing the whistle to end practice. He watches the ball he spiked land in the far corner of the court, just inside the line. Direct hit.

While he jogs over to where coach is sitting, dread kills the excitement from his pinpoint serve.

“Yes, sir?”

“I hear your teammates are considering where to attend senior high school. If you do not wish to go to Seijoh, I believe that coach Ukai may be returning to coach the Karasuno boy’s volleyball team. I believe he will have sound advice with regards to how you might succeed in the future, there.”

Kageyama had expected scolding or punishment of some kind. Coach had said nothing about his problems with his teammates until they had all made up their minds. He had nothing to say to him on the bench. But now he’s telling him to go to a school he’s never heard of.

“Ukai” sounds a little familiar.

He looks up Karasuno High School when he gets home. He knows he won’t pass the entrance exams for Date Tech, and Johzenji is too far away. Karasuno, “the fallen crows,” he reads.

Karasuno has no entrance examinations. Karasuno isn’t a private school, but it has two volleyball gyms. The school is located closer than any other besides Aoba Johsai. He tests into class 3 on a lonely Saturday morning, the answers to the singular Shiratorizawa entrance exam appearing in his mind at the wrong time. He doesn’t care what class he gets.

Kageyama doesn’t go to Karasuno because he’s looking for any advice. He’s all caught up in Kazuyo’s advice. His grandfather’s advice made him an effective volleyball player.

He wants a good volleyball coach who will let him play.

He goes to Karasuno because he finds a photograph of his grandfather, number 2, next to Ukai’s number 3 at Shiratorizawa’s volleyball hall of fame. They make him go back to pick up his failed entrance exam and he sees it. A hall with every framed photograph of past nationals-competitive teams.

Shiratorizawa Boy’s VB — Spring 1965, Nationals Top 8.

It takes him many years to realize it was the best decision of his life.

He doesn’t know what would have happened if he had gone to Aoba Johsai. Or, by some miracle, had gotten into Shiratorizawa.

Never one to believe in anything besides what he could do for himself, he never bothered to create a mythology around finding the photograph. Nor about his junior high coach taking pity.

Every sports writer writes about him as though he was destined to succeed. Miwa sends him articles when he makes the national team. “Diamond in the crow’s nest”, “genius setter,” “youngest men’s volleyball Olympic team member since 1994.”

She follows it all up with a pleasant:

Sis

[ Don’t get a big head. And block out all the news sites and armchair bloggers right now. ]

She would know. She’s dating a supermodel. “The press are vultures in every industry, brother mine.”

Senior high was a three-year bright spot between the loss and learning, nineteen and boarding a direct flight to Rio, that there is more than one type of grief.

For those years after, he keeps his head down and plays.

And his grandfather’s words find their way back to him, again. Punctuation but not an ending to the career he knows, for himself, wasn’t predestined.

“One day, you’ll find someone even stronger.”

If every victory was for you, just a little bit, to make up a broken promise in a sterile white room, this loss is for me, grandfather.

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When Mello first arrives in Vegas, he watches the sky. Watches God.

Two hours outside Paradise, Mello can see the big galaxy. The moon follows him along the horizon while the sun comes up. It gets in his eyes. Rod offers him a pair of aviators. Blue lenses against the dawn. He adjusts them in the side view.

Go west. Keep running.

-

The first time Mello plays poker, Texas hold 'em in the atrium of Wammy’s, he fixates on the Ace of Spades in his hand and loses all his chips. Ace, who brought the cards and the chips, takes pity and doesn't ask him to pay up.

Death Note Chess / Poker AU brain rot

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As Mello’s roommate, Matt sees that Mello spares himself no kindness. No inch is given. Unrelenting. Mello runs the extra mile, the extra ten. He claims the small practice room and dances through their break period. From the top, with the music. He jumps every jump and attacks every turn. Matt brings his cafeteria sandwich and watches. Fiddles with the flat piano in the back corner. Considers doing his calculus homework.

Hangnail

25,658 words | 6/6 chapters

Fandom: Death Note

Pairing: Matt | Mail Jeevas / Mello | Mihael Keehl

Creator chose not to use archive warnings