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[ghostlykeyes]

I love you boo

Love you more xoxoxo

[ghostlykeyes]

possession

6.5 k words // warnings - suicidal ideation/tendencies, gore/blood + body horror (miscarriage imagery), vomiting, implied cannibalism, geographical errors, not beta read, you wear skirt, not in canon

summary - Grief is ugly, you knew that. The hole where your husband used to be just keeps growing until you can't take it anymore.

@ghostlykeyes i finally finished the possession fic!! like months after talking about it!!

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

You’ve seen the funny things that grief does to people. Your father refused to rise from bed for five days when your mother passed. Your kitten would search the house for her mother every day when the older cat was no longer around. Your aunt bleached her hair and moved to the states when her husband served divorce papers. Your baby cousin faked ill for a whole week when his dog ran away. Your best friend admitted that when her brother died, she drove far out to the country and parked over train tracks… She admitted that she waited for an hour before driving home.

Yes, you’ve seen the bizarre and stomach-churning behaviors that grief can bring out from a person, but you’ve never seen something like this. And the most stomach-churning thing about it, is that you’re the one behind this.

It isn’t someone else you can psychoanalyze or rant about -- it’s your hands settling over the chilly doorknob. It’s your hands twisting around the knob. It’s your guest room that’s occupied by this… thing.

You release the metal as its cold exterior burns a hole in your palm. You step back, and you stay away.

…

When you were younger, you liked to draw yourself far into the future. Where your crayoned head would scratch at the sky, and you would have a car with a lumpy hood and mismatching tires. And, of course, your very own house with a grand front door: a welcoming, circular window, and a lemony handle meant to be gold, and thick mahogany wood. You used to be embarrassed by the squiggly lines and uneven shades when your mother would keep and display the dog-eared pages, but Mahito would insist. Mahito pressed the contractors how dire it was that the entryway to your shared home matched your childhood depictions.

So how strange it is that Mahito’s mission partner and close friend, Kento Nanami, stands in this grand, gaping doorway with a firm downturn of his lips. Tingling wells from the bottom of your gut, tangling with your intestines and latching onto each rung of your ribs. Thick knots lodge in your throat -- your questions choking you. You swallow them. You spit them back up.

“How…?”

Kento blinks, honey eyes dripping to the floor and sticking there, “I can’t tell you.”

Chunks replace the words in your throat, spittle wetting the inside of your mouth. You try to suck it all back, suppressing the bile, “Can I see the body…?”

Kento shakes his head, hands curling into fists at his sides, “I can’t show it to you.”

“Is there anything you can give me?”

“I have nothing,” Kento mutters it, gaze finally flicking back up to your face, “Only my word.”

You’re uncertain of how to respond to Kento. Thoughts swiped off your brain, like a dreary mother clearing her counter of kitchen scraps into the garbage. There’s a thin film of powdery flour clinging to the surface, remnants of things you wanted to ask. Information you’d beg for. Details of the mission. The dreary mother blows hot air over the counter, scattering flour up into the air.

Kento reaches into his front shirt pocket, the azure material stretching around his hand. He pulls out a thin, bleached cloth with tattered edges and extends it towards you, “Well, I do… have this.”

It was once purple. The shade of sweet raisins. It was once part of his uniform.

“It was all I could grab,” he watches your face as you focus on the cloth being pressed into your palm, “If you need company, or the house is too quiet…”

“I know, Nanami.”

You survey the cloth, it barely takes up your palm with a stretched, floss-like texture at each side. So worn the purple is churning into gray. Or is it marinated ash? Or dried curse’s blood?

“I’m here for you.”

“I know, Nanami.”

Kento sends himself on his way, stepping back from your doormat with dirt clots following after. He crunches over them again on his trek down the front steps. Your stained mahogany door clicks shut gently, golden handle nipping cold at your flesh. The sound of the lock sliding into place echoes through your home’s foyer.

Mahito’s frayed uniform strip is rough in your hand. Slim. Thin. Hardly protective at all.

Just as the door shutting, and the lock pinning it, your gasp makes rounds through the empty house. Quiet. It’s already too quiet.

You used to like that. Peace away from Mahito’s missions and cursed humans and terrible spirits and even…

Gaze falling across the vase displayed on a frail, dark wood end table, you’re suddenly overwhelmed with contempt. Every bright sunshine sheen and painted pastel flower petal aches like a knife in your back.

As you lift the ceramic vase, it’s thunking off the table fills your ears in the silent house. Too big. Too quiet. You hurl the decorative vase into the farthest wall and cringe at how overbearing the song of its shatter is. After the offending art piece is out of sight, the cloth in your free hand regains sensation. You can feel the tile under your feet again. You can hear the birds chirping outside like there’s something to hope for this spring.

Legs shaky and thighs burning from the stress, you rush towards the vase’s new graveyard and cradle the shards you’re certain won’t tear your hands apart. You feel your heart burn a hole through your chest. Its fire blares and feeds until the hole extends far into your viscera. Guilt seeps into place -- molding around your organs to keep them from collapsing into each other.

Kento’s gift vase is scattered around your knees. And you cry into the pieces you hold.

When the only surviving shred of Mahito cannot dry your face, you cry harder.

…

“I don’t know when,” you answer honestly. Shaking your head. Your nails rake into the stretch of skin over your thighs. So sharp it's as if you’re ripping right through your tights, but you don’t hear the telltale popping of fabric.

Though it’s louder in your boss’ office than at the house. That, you suppose, is one good thing here.

“I understand,” she nods slowly, hands folded calmly over her steel desk. A glass vase, tinged like precious jade, holds white lilies. You think they used to be yellow. You wonder when they changed, “Take your time. And drive safely, please.”

Wallowing eyes trail after you. Shame bleeds into that guilt pothole inside you as your coworkers watch you exit the building. For what, you couldn’t answer reasonably. Because, reasonably, there is no cause for such shame. You’re unfit to return to work. Your boss sympathizes. Yet, you feel that humiliation of eyes squinted and narrowed and curious all the same. It doesn’t sink when you’re in the parking lot, nor when you climb into the driver’s seat of your car.

You never liked taking public transport without Mahito to keep you company. And even then, he would often drive you home when he wasn’t sent away with work.

So you needed to adjust the seat upon initially settling in.

The memory of your clueless fiddling, unfamiliar with the layout of your own vehicle, makes your hands shake against the wheel. Your knuckles twinge at the stretch, and perhaps when you release your grip the leather of the steering wheel will have left indents. Your foot feels heavier than it used to, you think it drags the gas pedal down.

Surprisingly, the road is not clogged with cars. Vast asphalt paints the scene ahead, lined by inactive streetlamps and sagging telephone cables. You and the road.

You could let your foot sink. Find out how far down the pedal goes. You could ease the tension in your hands and let the steering wheel go altogether. You could turn on the radio and fall into a blissful, noisy sleep.

Slowly, you slip a hand off the wheel and reach for the radio knobs, slowly swerving the dial far right. You leave that hand off the wheel. Your foot slumps into the gas and your car jolts down the road. Waning wires transition into beams of black rod separated by blurry lamps. Tires jerk to the left and your heart bumps out of your skin, you now notice how unsteady your hand remaining on the wheel is.

But peeling that hand away seems impossible. No matter how you lift or pry, as though you’ve been suction sealed to the leather. A weight pressing your final tether firmly into the real world.

Your foot lightens on the pedal until you’re below the speed limit, and you return both hands to the wheel before gliding it over and off the side of the road. Between two street lamps, your car rests -- you keep the radio high. Better that than droning silence occasionally interrupted by birds and crickets wailing for carnal attention.

With the car immobile, you’re left to stare across the clear azure sun. As spotless as it had been days before Mahito left, and, perhaps foolishly, you’d taken that as a good omen. Now it just burns your eyes, leaving you to blink back welling tears: the tears do not stop, though.

No matter how hard you blink, they will not stop.

…

You no longer eat at the table. A shame because it was crafted by hand at Mahito’s pocket’s expense, but everytime you eat there you think of that fact. And you think of breakfasts ruined by his crude humor. And you wish you hadn’t let such minuscule words dictate those mornings. So, to avoid that chain of thought, you consume your measly meal at the kitchen island in the dark. And in the trash can immediately to your left is a crumpled sheet from your calendar -- the month of May.

(You’ve discovered your days go smoother this way.)

A collection of harsh thuds vibrate against the kitchen counter. Masamichi Yaga’s stern face igniting your screen, underneath are two buttons; one ruby and one emerald. Having never been a sorcerer yourself, the only reason Yaga ever had your phone number was for trivial matters. Occasionally, he’d use it if Mahito hadn’t answered his own phone. A sharp sting eats away even more of your insides at the thought. So, you swipe the ruby button.

You decline Yaga’s call.

Stubbornly, he redials your number. Again, you decline.

He calls again, so you decline.

He calls once more, so you decline.

When he calls for the fourth time, you blindly throw your phone through the kitchen doorway. The absence is bliss for a short-lived second before the silence is interrupted by a bang and shatter. You jerk against the counter, hesitation anchoring you there for longer than the quiet’s lifespan before you explore the living room. Finding your phone’s grim resting spot takes no effort.

It’s surrounded by ceramic that glints in the few, thin ribbons of sunlight poking through your slatted windows. Shards you should’ve picked up weeks ago, but the shame of having an unkempt home fails to inspire any cleanliness. You merely retrieve the cracked phone (screen flickering with a pale greenish glow at the bottom) and ignore the jagged pieces.

…

3:34PM

“What even happened?” Utahime cradles your extended hand between hers. Thin, cardinal lines are split into the delicate skin of your fingertips. Some are lighter in color, and some are much, much darker. She frowns and curls her fist around yours as if to melt the wounds back together with the warmth of her palm.

“My screen’s broken.”

Her deadpan stare slackens as soon as it arrives, she bites her tongue and quietly sighs through her nose, “I know that. I meant: how did your phone even break?”

Slipping your hand out from her grasp, you pick up the display phone to your right. Roughly the same size as your current one, but a cursory glance at the tag confirms it’s a (moderately) more recent model. Therefore, apparently, it must be double the price.

Before you can replace the phone on its stand, Utahime snags it without so much as a glance at the price, “I’ll get it for you. Save your money.”

“I hope that’s not pity.”

“You’re my friend,” she insists, but her words don’t make you feel any better, “So was Mahito.”

You nod slowly. Her oxblood eyes linger over your face, the attention spurs nausea gurgling through your throat. Saliva wells along the velvet walls of your mouth, throat burning, “What?”

“Are you sleeping well?”

“Yes,” you blink away the faint throbbing in your stressed eyeballs, turning your head away towards the front of the store, “Yeah, I’m fine, don’t… just buy the phone, if you’re sure you want to.”

“‘Course I am,” she hushes herself, solely to avoid frightening you off. Like you’re some abandoned kitten soaking in a cardboard box under rain, “I can always come over, too.”

“Utahime.”

“I’m sorry.”

You let it go rather than try explaining the sore, tender, exposed nerve away. You cannot fathom how you would even begin telling her that you don’t sleep in your bed anymore. And, furthermore, you don’t wish to share the couch. Can’t even consider the notion.

Utahime bites her tongue harder.

5:30AM

The digital clock sitting beneath your television has lighting like olive’s skin, making it easy to stare at even in the pitch black of your living room. Without the hum of the air control, your dismal little makeshift sleeping quarters are even more still than in the day. Silence makes it hard to sleep. Thinking about how little you’re sleeping makes it harder to sleep. Thinking about how Mahito would usually wake you in two and a half hours for breakfast before he went to work made it impossible to sleep.

Maybe, if you squeezed your eyes tight enough then you could slip into an alternate timeline where you get to rest in your own bed. And after breakfast at 8:30, there is the shopping excursion to a marketplace you two frequent at night when he gets home. He likes to carry your bag.

But, oh, you will have to go alone in this timeline, won’t you?

And, oh, everyone will ask where your Mahito is, won’t they?

Sweetly, they will tease that he’s making you carry all the groceries home. Curiously, they will titter about his whereabouts. You will be forced to answer.

Will you lie? Or would that be too pathetic?

The alternate timeline is making your head hurt. The pit inside you gnaws further on its surroundings until you’re sure that your entire stomach is swallowed and torn and burned into sickness. You open your eyes again.

5:31AM

…

With how mousy your appetite has been lately, you barely notice when the back of your pantry becomes more apparent than its contents. Utahime, you’re sure, would be giddy to run such a tedious errand simply because it would mean that you’re still alive and capable of speech. Her current location across the country in Kagoshima argues back, though.

So you found yourself on the long trek to a new store with new faces at midnight on an otherwise abandoned railway. Nothing in the store roused much inside you, except for the ever-growing rot in your gut when you’re ashamed by how you wander to the alcohol. One of few things you’re certain you can keep down now is, ironically enough, wine.

You were never much of a drinker when-

You swallow hard and make for the selection of breads.

At least now you can hopefully rest in the night, however unorthodox the methods may be.

Does it matter at all? When you really, truly think about it -- as long as you’re sleeping, does it matter what puts you there? With a full night’s rest, you could finally be motivated to look through the piling mail. Or return Yaga’s missed call. Or get more bountiful groceries.

Will it be from this new place? Or your usual?

You could be energized enough to go anywhere, you suppose.

Anywhere tomorrow. Moving forward and upward and without Mahito.

Do you want that?

Does it matter?

It’ll happen anyway. Time will move anyhow, your only real choice is whether or not to fight the flow. You can be without Mahito and struggle or be without Mahito and scrape by.

Either way, you will be without.

Until you die yourself, potentially decades from now.

And suddenly, you wonder what you will do when May comes. The thought brings you to a full stop. Your heels click their final echo in the empty train tunnel.

Nothing, you suppose.

When May comes… you’ll be at home. Maybe? Or work.

Yes, you have to go back to work eventually, right?

But you won’t have friends over.

But what if they insist?

Because they want to drink and play games and be loud, and you’re their friend and it isn’t like you have any other plans. So why wouldn’t you have friends over?

(It’s not like you’ll be getting married.)

Your shoulders go lax, the glass wine bottles rattle together like dice, the haphazardly packed bread is crushed. Your eyes refocus, the little stick figures of men and women and the arrows and the directions plastered on tall boards hit you. They don’t leave. Your gaze drifts to the tracks below.

(You could jump in.)

Why wouldn’t you have friends over? It isn’t as though anyone will have an important mission the next morning.

You blink. You can hear yourself breathe. It’s obnoxious. It’s too loud and too soft at the same time. You feel your heart pump between your ribs. You feel each fiber in your bag’s strap pull on the soft skin of your hands. Burning away at your flesh.

Mahito usually carried your bag.

Your shoulders jerk back to life, the wine bottles clink and the plastic wrap over your bread squeals for mercy. You stumble on the height of your heels. The fibers nip sharply at your tender fingers.

Your breath is too loud. You hold it. You need to breathe.

Your breath is too loud.

So you scream to cover the sound. You wretch your eyes closed, your hands tighten around the bag and it burns again.

Mahito never told you that holding the bag hurt his hands.

You double over, suddenly nauseous.

You open your eyes and stare down at where the bag peels your skin. There is no blood; you think there should be.

(You could make it so.)

You stumble back again, but this time, when you regain your balance you let the motion sweep you away. The momentum carries you in a circle and you stretch out your arms to swing the irritating bag into the wall at your side. You hear the glass clang and chip apart. You see the dark plum stains blossom along the bottom of the bag. You watch the wine pool and drool from the seams, but you cannot hear the droplets over the shuddering, ragged breaths you suck in. And each exhale rings out as more of a throaty, feral groan than human huffed dioxide.

Swirling the other way, you bang the remaining glass bottles into the wall again and when the grapes have soaked halfway up the bag, you find yourself grinning.

A groan is interrupted by a giggle.

So much for a warm buzz. Alone.

(Alone.

Home alone.)

The giggle stops suddenly.

Alone now. And alone tomorrow. And alone in a week. And alone in a month. And alone in May.

And alone after May, too.

The festering rot carving into your guts claws up and up and around until you fear that all of your meat has been shredded through. Tighter and tighter, even squishing high into the shell of your skull. Bubbling, the rot consumes until finally -- it bursts. A sharp cramping in your stomach that shoots through your hip bones and all down your thighs.

You harshly drag the bag up above your head before hurriedly slamming it back down. The scattered glass shards tink and crash, only faintly dulled by the squished loaf. The wine leaks onto the floor.

You watch it seep out and you watch how the fabric plops with a wet little splash as you release the handle. You watch it dribble out on the smooth, albeit spotty floor. It soaks into the grouts and rolls smoothly to the toe of your heels.

You watch it merge with another tinted liquid.

Red. Mulberry, almost.

Your fingers dip into the secondary substance, and you note how thick it is. Yet slippery. Tracing your fingers through the puddle, you find it leading to your ankles.

Heart thundering up into your throat, you graze your fingers up the divots of your socks and along the plain of your calf. The red liquid is pushed into your skin, smearing along the smoothness. You continue to follow the trail up to your thigh and under your skirt, your hand is enveloped by warmth as you finally make contact with the source.

Your underwear is wet.

Your fingers are shaking when you unveil them to your eyes, they are shaking and coated in that thick, yet slippery, red hue.

The puddle grows under your feet. The mulberry overtaking the grape.

You aren’t due. You don’t…

You don’t think…

No, you weren’t sick. You weren’t aching. You and Mahito

It isn’t

It isn’t, no, not at all

You aren’t due at all

Your nausea swells and the sound of your own hurried breaths is quickly overwhelmed in your ears by the sound of your blood. By the cinching, hard drum of your pulse.

Suddenly, your knees buckle and your hands lurch forward with the rest of your body -- shooting out to the ground to keep you standing. Jagged glass scratches through the material of your grocery bag, raised incisions slowly blooming red. Your mouth is hot, and wet. Too wet.

Your stomach squeezes, throat loosening uncomfortably. It stretches around nothing, and the roof of your mouth tingles unpleasantly. You belch. Your palms burn worse than your fingers now.

(This never would’ve happened if Mahito had carried the grocery bag.)

Your stomach tightens again and your jaw snaps open, throat squelching as a rush of bile gushes through. It lands in the mulberry-grape mix, tainting it with a murky, pale swirl. The scent burns your nose and sends you rocketing back onto your feet. You stumble for the third time in your heels, but this time you do not catch yourself. Floundering on uneven footing before slamming your back harshly into the wall at your side.

Another groan shreds your throat, dredging up more acidic fluid to the full of your lips. You spit onto the ground. You can hear your breathing mix with the push of your blood.

Mahito would’ve held an arm out for you. He would’ve taken the bag. He would’ve gone instead. If he knew what was bound to happen in this tunnel, he would’ve just gone instead and you would’ve insisted he didn’t go alone and he’d pretend to put up a fight before you both would have decided to stay in and he would sleep next to you through the night and he would be there again when you woke up.

The mulberry juice has trailed after you. Trail thickening as it heads for your twitching legs. Your socks are red and squishy in your heels.

Both legs now engulfed with the bloody trickle.

For a moment, you forget yourself. You bring your hands to your thighs and cup the inside softness, blood ponds in the wrinkled depths of your palms. You scoop the blood upwards, as if to shove it back; return it to its place and erase this terrible night altogether. Somehow that makes perfect sense.

All you succeed in is staining your skirt.

A sharp twinge spikes from the joints between your legs through your abdomen, it pulls a rippling scream from the base of your chest. You crumple to your knees, skidding them against the floor. The blood beneath you is cool and sticky, quickly overtaken with the fresh flush leaking from your underwear.

Your hands shake, previous cuts bubbling with crimson of their own, as you curl them into the material of your skirt. When you subconsciously twist your feet at the siege of pain, that squelch of blood filling your shoes infests your ears again. Fitfully, you kick out your legs, flinging off your heels, before tearing your hands down the sides of your legs and ripping off the bloody socks. In their wake, you sear your nails over your skin and the path continues to burn even when your hands return to your pelvis.

Briefly, you consider the possibility that you could be crushing your own bone under the hefty pressure in your hands. When another wrack of cramping wagons over your pliant insides, all concern is tossed aside.

Mulberry vines its way up your body, clinging to your skin.

And later in the night, when you’re scrubbing ruthlessly against your skin -- attempting in vain to rid yourself of this catastrophe, you will give birth in the guest bathtub. A pulpy mess of blood and muscle strands will writhe and wail for you by name. It will call to you with Mahito’s voice and you will run because the familiar warmth in your chest at his song is overwhelmingly horrifying.

Yet, when you sit against the closed bathroom door, you hear nothing. For a moment, you’re certain you hallucinated during a genuine emergency.

But you creak the door open again, just enough to get an eyeful of the cornish yellow room before slamming it shut. A malformed creature resembling the top half of a medical dummy is wrapped in lashing strips of steaming intestine and exposed muscle. You wretch and scramble out to where you’d haphazardly thrown your purse over the couch in your rush to the nearest bath.

Wisely, you call Utahime over the police.

It rings and rings and rings until it boops and beeps into voicemail. You dig for Yaga’s number, when suddenly you hear your name again. More clearly. More enunciated. More obviously him.

So, you let the phone slip from your palm and ignore how it buzzes loudly and beams with Utahime’s contact.

The golden glow seeping from under the closed bathroom door slices your home’s darkness -- it flashes over your skin and illuminates your fresh, changed socks. Sweeps over the hollow of your open palm against the golden knob. Which jiggles noisily under your unsteady hold, rattling in its socket. You can barely hear the sound of your name repeated, smoother. More careful.

Deeper. Kinder. Sweeter. Lovelier.

You squeak the door open, just barely pressing the side of your face into the crack to glimpse upon the creature in the tub.

Soft powder blue hair that stretches down to a pale, naked chest. One icy blue eye and one coppery fire. Clean face bisected both ways by silvery, glittering stitches -- otherwise unmarred. Blood splatters and hand print smears still decorated the rim of the bathtub. You’re sure there’s a draining pool of crimson at the bottom, too.

But there’s Mahito.

He grins at you. His right front tooth sits slightly over the left, just like you remember. And he has an unnerving lack of dimples, like you remember.

“Are…?” you squint your eye into the bathroom -- the old bulbs buzz vaguely overhead, “Mahito? Are you real?”

Slowly, he nods. Inoffensively blue tresses gliding like silk over his shoulders, “I’m real, honey.”

Your knees shake, bones smashed into paste. The door opens wider with how you lean into it.

“Can I touch you…?”

Again, he nods.

Creeping across the frosty tile, you kneel against the porcelain tub before crossing one leg over the other into the wide bowl. Blood soaks into the padding of your fresh socks and hem of your oversized shirt. You skim your hand over the expanse of his chest, fingertips dipping over the divots and raises of his new stitches. Soft lashes of hair tingle under your skin. His muted chuckle rumbles through his chest at your glazed over, mesmerized state as your caressing moves to his arm.

Below his chest and arm are mush and guts tethering together with peachy, pink sheets of fat and muscle forming over the innards. You pinch yourself. It stings.

Mahito chuckles again, “See, honey? I’m real.”

It’s over half an hour later that you’re finally redialing Utahime’s number.

“Sorry, I was just missing Mahito, but… I went onto the porch and got myself together. I think I’m okay now.”

Utahime inhales sharply, and she’s speaking, but your focus is solely on the guest bathroom door.

Mahito waves at you sweetly.

You don’t sleep that night, but you don’t visit the bathroom either. You sit on the couch and ignore the voice of your dead fiance singing your name until sunrise. Only then, does the Siren song lure you back.

Mahito’s legs remain stumps, pulpy at the knees and sharp, jagged bones barely poking out from the mess. So, he remains in the tub -- where rot and iron are thinly masked by the sickly floral scent of cheap, generic brand air-freshener. Dried blood crusts against the bath with gushes of fresh, oozing crimson consistently re-wetting the porcelain bottom.

“Honey,” his fingers dance over the apple of your cheek, lids low over eyes that singe straight through your chest, “can you give me flesh?”

As if he can see every twinge in your heartbeat, he’s grinning at you as soon as you look into his face.

“What…?” your brows furrow, his own draw sympathetically -- grin snapping into a gentle frown, “What do you mean?”

“I want to be a full man,” he coos, “Just the way you remember. And I need flesh.”

“Okay.”

He nods sternly, “It’s exactly what you think.”

“Okay.”

,,,

You’ve seen the funny things that grief does to people. Your father refused to rise from bed for five days when your mother passed. Your kitten would search the house for her mother every day when the older cat was no longer around. Your aunt bleached her hair and moved to the states when her husband served divorce papers. Your baby cousin faked ill for a whole week when his dog ran away. Utahime admitted that when her brother died, she drove far out to the country and parked over train tracks… She admitted that she waited for an hour before driving home.

Yes, you’ve seen the bizarre and stomach-churning behaviors that grief can bring out from a person, but you’ve never seen something like this. And the most stomach-churning thing about it, is that you’re the one behind this.

It isn’t someone else you can psychoanalyze or rant about -- it’s your hands settling over the chilly doorknob. It’s your hands twisting around the knob. It’s your guest room that’s occupied by this… thing.

You release the metal as its cold exterior burns a hole in your palm. You step back, and you stay away.

Away, and nervous. So nervous it makes your limbs shake and twitch.

Kento hovers a gentle hand over your shoulder, “Are you sure you’ve been well?”

“I’ve just been… out of it.”

“I can understand why. I’m sorry,” he shakes his head, “I’m sorry,” you wonder if that’s all he can say, “I can… Is there anything more I can do? Change the lights? Clean the glass in the living room? Replace your vase?”

“Just this,” you turn away, facing the turquoise of Kento’s button up. Physically incapable of staring him in the face as you continue, “There’s something wrong… seriously wrong with the bathroom… Just checking this will be okay, Nanami.”

“Anything,” Kento whispers softly, stepping around your cemented body to grasp the golden handle. He smiles down at you, despite the way you’re still unable to look him in the eyes -- he opens up to speak, but decides against whatever additional sympathies he felt indebted to, “Anything.”

You can’t so much as squeak out a ‘thank you’ before he slithers out of your life.

…

“I’m worried. I don’t want to pretend I’m calling for any other reason, or that I don’t notice something wrong. You’re worse than ever, and I… I just don’t know…” Utahime sighs loudly over the phone, “I’m so worried.”

“I’m okay,” you’re itching to hang up, to more thoroughly monitor Mahito’s growth.

“Nobody’s seen or heard from you!” she cries, “And Nanami- we still don’t- !” she stops abruptly, “Nothing’s been the same since…” Utahime sighs again, quieter, “You have to be running low on money now.”

“I’m okay, Utahime.”

“Do you want me to stop by? I can come with more groceries…”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m coming by.”

You’re opting to refuse when two fingers poke into your side, Mahito grins brightly with a thumbs up. For a moment you’re left stammering into the phone, staring into scorching eyes. Ice and copper, like burning flame. He leans forward and presses a soft kiss into your cheek, just as he used to before leaving for work. Just as he did that morning, before you never saw him again.

Not until now.

Mahito kisses you again, skimming his hand over your temple and brushing back hair so he can soothe his lips there, too.

“Ah, okay…”

Utahime, much more excitedly, responds, “Oh! Yeah, okay! I’ll be there soon. With groceries!”

“With food,” you murmur back dumbly. Mahito nods against your face, soon after nuzzling into your neck, “Okay…”

Hours later, you will be on the other side of the house, desperately trying to scrub the sound of wet slurps and chews from your memory.

…

“Why do you stay in the bathroom?”

“It’s comfy,” he teases, stretching out his bare legs over the rim of the tub, “Why? Are there comfier places?”

“Our bed,” you should probably be more alarmed that he cannot recall that, but he tilts his head so pretty.

“Why don’t you show me then?”

Your eyes drift to the clots of blood and matted hair by the bath drain, blonde and raven black tangling together with crystals of bone flecked over the mess. You try not to look or think about it because you’re not so delusional as to think you can justify this.

Mahito tilts his head, grinning, “Hm?”

Or maybe you are.

“What’ll you think of the house…?” you murmur to yourself, “It’s different now.”

Mahito laughs and kisses your cheek, right below where tears well against your lashes, “When have I asked anything of you except yourself?”

He nuzzles into the warmth that spreads over your face and flows down your neck. When you grasp his hand and lead the man -- naked and rich with the scent of iron -- out of the guest bathroom to the dark hallway, he’s delighted. Down the hallway, are multiple gaping doorways with similarly unlit rooms. Both hands bite around one of Mahito’s as you take him into the master bedroom -- the one you used to share.

“It’s hard to see you in here,” Mahito makes no effort to lean away from your touch, though he does search for a source of light to flick on.

“Sorry…” you frown, dragging Mahito to the bed -- sheets messy and yet frozen cold to the touch. Shakily, you reach out for the drawstring of your bedside lamp. You clench your eyes as the bulb clicks to life, digging your nails into Mahito and praying, silently, that he’s still real. That the darkness hadn’t somehow fooled you so thoroughly into believing your Mahito returned.

His hand squeezes in return, you open your eyes. Mahito stares back. Ice and copper burns straight through your chest.

“Mahito…” his face creeps closer at your whisper, voice liquifying into a soft coo, “Mahito...” your eyes inch below his navel, to where any possibilities of him being a mere curse die, “You’re real? You’re back? Mahito’s back?”

“Mahito’s back,” he parrots, less affectionately than you said it, but he nods calmly nonetheless. He backs you against the mattress, your knees buckling so your back meets the springs. His eyes close and you’re tempted to claw them open again, “Don’t you want me back, honey?”

“Of course!” you cry hopelessly.

“Don’t you want to be happy, honey?” he slips both hands up your shirt and the ruthless buzzing in your heart numbs you to how cold his fingers are over your ribs. You open your mouth to question him, but he slots his lips over yours before musing into the sweltering air, “I want you to be happy.”

Beneath the raw blood, you can pick up hints of cedar wood -- how Mahito’s clothes smelt until you sucked the life from them, too.

“I want you to be happy, too,” you mumble against Mahito’s cheek. He’s so close you can’t breathe without inhaling him alongside oxygen. Your gut twists unpleasantly, and you will the knotting sensation down as Mahito nods into you.

“Of course, honey, I know you do,” he rolls his lips against the nape of your neck and sucks harshly where your shoulder begins. His teeth are sharp, you almost feel them stinging into your bone.

His teeth were never so lethal before, and yet you feel the indentation that revokes Mahito’s status as a curse. A penis.

As juvenile as it feels to have something of brainless flesh hold so much weight, you recall Mahito’s own words on the matter years ago.

“So, are curses like… naked?”

“Yeah,” he’d shrugged carelessly then, yawning soon after, “But they don’t have any,” he grinned at you, apparently eager, “Genitalia: to put it nicely.”

“None at all?”

“None at all. So it isn’t weird that they’re naked.”

(But his new stitches are so…

And, well, the teeth…)

His body itself is much colder.

The pit in your stomach returns as Mahito sears his teeth over your skin until he’s pointed over the ripe point of your pulse. Juicy and fat with hot blood. Mahito slips his hands over your sides again, as if to remind you of the softness he intends. It eases you.

“Will you -- well -- if you’re back…” you swallow, you suppose there isn’t a gentle way to ask this, “Will you ever return to sorcery?”

He shakes his head, long hair webbing over his shoulders and netting onto your chest, “I need to stay home. It’s safer at home.”

“Ah, okay,” you regret the question, momentarily fretful you may have offended him, “Will you be okay like this? Can you eat- can you eat food? I don’t think there’s anybody… else.”

His hands squeeze your sides, a soft sigh breezing over your neck, “That’s okay. As long as I stay with you, I’ll be okay.”

“Good,” sharp teeth pierce your neck shallowly, and this time Mahito’s hands do not rush to remedy the ache. But you push down the budding nerves and string your fingers through Mahito’s hair. It’s still as soft as you remember,

“Good,” he copies, with much less love than you said it with.

[ghostlykeyes]

Hello! I absolutely LOVE your heartsteel Kayn headcanons, you capture his character so well. What kinds of headcanons would you have for Kayn going for a night out (esp. with the heartsteel boys)?

Ty!! <3

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GIF by thedemonlady

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HEARTSTEEL KAYN: NIGHT OUT HEADCANONS ♡ TW's: Alcohol usage ♡ SFW ♡ Thank you!!! This one's not for Kayn/reader, just single Kayn (if Kayn's in a relationship with u imagine this all as the exact same except he's calling you 3,000 times at random points during the excursions)

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KAYN

Kayn will often flake on plans if they're made in advance, so it's best to blindside him with a night out. He's much more likely to attend if someone texts him, "Party at 10, u in?" than if they let him know a week prior. That being said, he usually goes out with his bandmates either way. He's trying to be a team player, at least a little bit, and he knows that means he can't bail on guys' night out. (Plus, he has enough fun with Heartsteel to make it worth going—not that he'd ever admit he actually likes partying with them.)

Even though he pretends he 'woke up like this', Kayn spends waaaaay too much time in front of the mirror before a night out. Gotta make sure his nail polish isn't chipped and his hair's swept back in that perfect 'I don't give a fuck' type way, you know?

Kayn stashes extra jewelry in his pockets before heading out to a party—he knows he's probably about to lose a hand of rings and a bracelet within two hours. Best to keep stocked up so he can maintain his carefully-curated look.

Dressed to kill. Kayn likes to play with textures, silhouette, and bursts of neon color. His going-out fits lean towards techwear and the tamer side of cybergoth.

You already know Kayn pregames like a motherfucker. Expect him to be a few shots deep before the night even starts. And, once he's buzzed, he's not about to let himself get even halfway to sober. Doesn't matter what, he drinks whatever Ezreal puts in front of him. He also keeps a flask tucked in a side pocket, and he's surprisingly willing to pass it around. If they promise to buy him a drink at the next bar, he lets any of his bandmates take a generous gulp.

After getting a little tipsy, the guys like to scribble graffiti tags all over everything, so Kayn keeps a handful of paint markers on him in everyone's preferred colors. Of course, he won't hand them out for free. Often, Ezreal and Sett can be convinced to split Kayn's chores for the next two weeks in exchange for the Poscas.

Starting out at a bar or club is just fine but Kayn's surprisingly opposed to bar-hopping. There's way too many people in way too small of a space. A few hours in, Kayn prefers to duck out of the sweaty bodies and pounding music. At this point, he just wants to wander around and get in trouble with his boys. City streets, grocery stores, empty parking garages—anywhere is fine, though Kayn gets extremely annoyed (and slightly more inclined to property destruction) whenever they're asked to leave somewhere. For this reason K'sante and Yone try to make sure wherever they end up is relatively isolated. Less of a chance of getting kicked out that way. An abandoned building where they can bring a huge speaker and chill out is a prime place to close an evening out.

If you're a fan, this is probably the worst time to approach Kayn for an autograph. When he's trying to let loose the LAST thing he wants is to get bugged by groupies. He won't even give you a second look, scoffing: "I don't do autographs." If Sett notices him being mean, he'll offer to sign two things for you to make up for his friend's rudeness. It helps, of course, but still. Don't approach Kayn in public unless you want your dreams shattered.

Of the group Kayn's the most likely to break something. This ranges from everything like accidentally shattering a shot glass to absolutely intentionally wrecking one of those public-use electric scooters. (How was he supposed to know you're not supposed to do quint whips on those, he asks. He ignores Ezreal when he points out that crashing full speed into a dumpster has nothing to do with pulling off tricks.)

As everyone's winding down for the night, Kayn's been known to smoke a cigarette or two on the apartment stairs or balcony. He never smokes otherwise, but it's a bit of a ritual at this point. When Kayn ducks out for a smoke, then the rest of the guys know not to bother him anymore. He's done.

Kayn refuses to drink water or change into pajamas after returning from a night out. Best you're gonna get from him is him taking his clothes off before passing out. No teeth-brushing, no shower, nothing. All routines are abandoned and he falls straight into a thirteen hour coma.

It doesn't matter how much he did, or didn't drink, Kayn's an absolute zombie the morning after a night out. Don't expect him to leave his room until three pm, and even then, he's probably only getting up so he can go on a McDonald's run (his signature hangover order: two fish filets, fries, and a large Sprite).

[ghostlykeyes]

i rlly like your work, heartsteel needs more content tbh,, so ty!! ANYWAY,

i liked the general relationship/kiss hcs w kayn, would u be able to do that for the other two as well?? if that makes sense

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HEARTSTEEL YONE: RELATIONSHIP HEADCANONS ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW, with light touching/sensuality ♡ TW: Some alcohol usage/food mentions ♡ I've done Sett's kisses here (X) and relationship HCs here (X), and Yone's kisses here (X) ! (will I remember to come back and edit those links in??? only time will tell)

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YONE

No matter where you go, Yone brings you on fantastic dates. It's never popular tourist-trap type outings, either. If you ask how the hell he even found out about your date locations, he smiles coyly and says he can't reveal his sources. Regardless, expect lots of breathtaking, original dates—hidden trails that spill into breathtaking clumps of wildflowers, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint with the best fries you've had in tour entire life, tiny sculpture parks with some truly absurd statues (he absolutely refuses to delete the unflattering pic of you squatting next to a caked-up stone Sasquatch).

He isn't on his phone often, so don't be surprised if Yone doesn't text you back quickly or is overly-formal with his messages. Wild horses couldn't drag a silly emoji or a meme out of him. If you're lucky, you'll get a red heart, but that's about it. He tries not to make you feel neglected just because he's a dry texter, though. Especially when he's on tour, he calls you to check in whenever he's got a spare moment.

Yone's a chronic meal-skipper so he really appreciates if you share your food with him. Be warned, though, if you force him to step away from work and sit down for dinner you're either getting five minutes and a cup of instant ramen, or he's cooking you a three course meal complete with different appetizer, entree, and dessert wines. There's no in-between.

While Yone's not a fan of PDA, he holds your hand through every big event you're forced to attend. He doesn't appreciate the attention and flashing lights, but your warm, reassuring grip keeps him calm and relatively content.

Matching outfits are a little bit too much, but Yone is all for wearing clothing that compliments yours. Think similar textures, colors, and cuts. If you're wearing athleisure, he'll throw on a pair of stylish sweatpants. You're rocking the all black fit, so is he (with a pop of color in his earrings, probably—if he's completely monochrome, Kayn accuses him of "stealing his look"). Though he thinks it's a little cringy to be exact matches, he's definitely down to coordinate.

Whenever Yone makes himself a coffee, he whips up a glass of your favorite beverage as well. Nothing is too complicated—if you want a latte, he can make any flavor, and he'll pour the foam into a heart shape on top. Boba? No problem, he's got tapioca pearls in your favorite flavor and large straws on hand, to boot. A mimosa? Okay, he might raise his eyebrow at that one and point out that it's like eleven A.M.—nevertheless, if it's a mimosa you want, then it's a mimosa you'll get. Part of this is because he loves you, of course, but also? He hates sharing his coffee and figures that you won't ask for a sip if you've got your own drink.

Yone absolutely melts when you take care of him. He's used to looking after everyone else's wants and needs, so it's a pleasant surprise when someone extends that same care and attention to him. Cook him his favorite meal or take care of his laundry when he's been extra busy, and he looks at you like you're the eight wonder of the world. "You didn't have to do that for me," he cups your face gently, sweeping an appreciative kiss over your forehead. "But I'm glad that you did."

Chivalry is not dead and Yone's the man giving it CPR. Count on him to be the perfect gentleman. He opens every door for you, takes your coat whenever you drop by his studio, and no, under no circumstances will he let you pull out your own chair.

Yone's pet-names are sweet and classic. Most often, he calls you 'my darling', but he'll occasionally pepper in a 'dearest' or 'lover' for variety.

One of Yone's favorite ways to spend a free evening with you is sneaking into underground music shows. The two of you will turn up to somebody's house where the living room has been cleared to throw together a makeshift stage, or an abandoned warehouse with people clustering together and swaying to synthetic beats blasting through mid-grade speakers. More often than not, the musicians aren't that good (but that's par for the course with these kind of shows). The atmosphere can't be beat, though. And, when you do stumble upon somebody's garage band that actually goes hard, it's always an exciting surprise. Yone always keeps cash on him in case somebody's selling merch. He snags two stickers, one for you to keep and one to paste on his guitar case. What better way to commemorate shitty bands and crowded house shows than with matching stickers?

If you tag along with him on tour or business trips, Yone's first mission is to scout out a good coffee shop. Of course he takes you along, and buys you whatever little treats catch your eye. Sweets, sandwiches, snacks—anything he notices you ogling behind the glass, he orders for you.

Even with his massively packed schedule Yone NEVER, EVER forgets an important date. Expect gifts on birthdays and anniversaries, and extra love and support on dates that might be difficult for you.

Since Sett's a master crocheter, Yone pays him a frankly absurd amount to make you a plushie that looks like his fox mask. Yone knows that it can't be easy for you, with him away touring or on business so much of the time. The stuffed snuggle-buddy, he hopes, can ease your loneliness when he's away. Before he sets off on a long trip he makes sure to spritz your stuffie with his cologne, so that you can squish it in your sleep and dream that he's right there with you.

Yone's not a huge cuddler. Too much physical attention can make him feel smothered. The exception is when you sit on his lap. He loves when you settle onto him while he's working. As long as you're quiet and still (he doesn't want you to disturb his flow, after all), he basks in your comfortable warmth and the adorable way you tuck yourself into his chest.

[ghostlykeyes]

dw abt crazy detailed posts, just have fun writing!! i like reading all of them, short or long :D besides goth gfs 🔛🔝

what abt kayn when his goth gf, who‘s usually confident abt her style, suddenly starts questioning herself bc of her parents? n she spiraling, barely participating in band stuff, and even wanting to avoid kayn bc of it all

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HEARTSTEEL KAYN/ SELF-CONSCIOUS GOTH READER ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW ♡ No TW's

KAYN

At first, Kayn assumes you're just feeling a little off. Who doesn't, every now and then? He tries to help you cheer up the only way he knows how—bothering you. Kayn blows up your phone even more than normal, shows up at your house at all hours to take you out "because he's bored", and is practically glued to your skin whenever you're together. Maybe he's not the best at all that conversation stuff, but his antics will be enough to get you back to your old self...right?

When that doesn't work, Kayn's attitude takes a turn for the worse. He assumes that the reason you're withdrawing is because you're finally fed up with his shit and can't handle him anymore. It's a slap in the face, and he's more upset than he'd like to admit. After all, you were supposed to be different! He would never have let you in if he thought you'd just ditch him.

Kayn does a little spiraling of his own, which obviously makes the situation ten times worse. Surprisingly, he doesn't immediately lash out at you. He's too confused about his emotions to do much other than give you an uncharacteristic cold shoulder. But his bad attitude during rehearsals, general irritability, and the scowl that darkens his face whenever anyone drops your name clues his friends in that something definitely happened between you two.

Thank god for Ezreal, because he just gets it and takes it upon himself to talk some sense into Kayn. He approaches Kayn bringing his favorite energy drink, hoping to give his sulking friend a reality check without getting something thrown at his head. Ezreal listens as Kayn gripes that you must be sick of him or something, but it's whatever, he's totally fine—

"Kayn," Ezreal cuts him off, not bothering to hide his eyes rolling behind his candy-pink sunglasses. "Talk. to. them. You're crazy about each other and it honestly just sounds like they're going through something. You need to be there for them instead of doing this whole hot-and-cold asshole routine."

Kayn grudgingly considers Ezreal's words. Yeah, maybe you could be going through something. But why wouldn't you just talk to him, then? He's still not convinced, and he's still a bit pissy, and he's still dodging your phone calls.

But then you show up to his apartment wearing a beige t-shirt and Kayn knows something is up. The goth baddie he knows wouldn't be caught dead in neutral tones. He snags your hand in his, makes a pit stop at the fridge to grab a can of your favorite drink (he writes it on the grocery list every week to make sure Yone keeps it in stock for you), and drags you into his room.

"Okay, my lil' batty," he sighs, sitting you down on his bed. He squishes your hand reassuringly. "No more acting weird, it stresses me the fuck out. What's up with you?"

Kayn's fuming when he finds out that your parents are putting you down. In his own strange, aggressive way, he gives you a pep-talk about not giving a fuck what anyone thinks. You're awesome and hot, why should you let anyone make you doubt that? He bumps your shoulder with his arm and gives you his signature cocky smirk. "I'm supposed to be the problem, remember? Don't ever let any-fuckin'-body convince you that you're less than perfect."

From then on it's Kayn's life mission to piss the hell out of your parents. Whenever he picks you up from your house, he shows up ten minutes early so he can smoke in the driveway and blast his music so loud it makes the front door rattle in place. He "sneaks in" at night, but always leaves the toilet seat up and muddy boot-prints in the hall so your parents know he doesn't give a shit about your curfew. And, if they have the nerve to confront him about it? Oh, boy... let's just say he has no issues making his opinions known, and he tells them exactly how fucking stupid it is of them to put you down.

Knowing that you're struggling with your confidence right now, Kayn makes extra effort to lift you up. He demands a selfie every day, and blasts you with a hundred drooling emojis and thirsty comments when you flash a peace sign in the mirror and show off your outfit. If he notices makeup or clothes you might like, he doesn't even stop to look at the price tag—straight into his bag it goes. Most of all, he tries to get you to stay with him as much as possible. If your parents are going to pressure you, well then, fuck your parents. You can sleepover at his place whenever you want. If it's privacy you want? He doesn't mind splurging on a studio apartment for you, just so you can have your own space away from your parents' negativity. (Just be warned—if he does pay for your apartment, he's gonna be crashing the place all the time. Make sure you've got his favorite snacks and an extra set of sweatpants on hand, because your couch is basically his second home.)

[ghostlykeyes]

SOBBING SOBBING SOBBING

relationship ended with angsty Denji stories now TALES OF SELF DISCOVERY AND IDENTITY Denji stories are my best friend

i am a sword // i am a shield

word count - 15.8 k // warnings - unhealthy/codependent relationship themes, reader has ego/identity issues, potential dub-con but nothing actually happens, brief mention of animal death, existential crisis, past manipulation/abuse from makima for both of you, also you and denji are both adult-core, and reader is specifically written as a girl, CSM part 2 spoilers!!!

summary - The Rejection Devil gets put on a new mission -- to be Denji's girlfriend so he doesn't blow his cover as a normal guy living a normal life!

In late 1995, you are led into a tall building with a smooth, plain white finish and windows you wouldn’t be able to count even on both hands and feet. You aren’t sure where you were before this, and you can’t be certain why you agreed to trail the red-headed woman downstairs. All you know is that your life - your real life began with that red-headed woman and those winding stairs into the bureau basement. She’s speaking in a voice so silky smooth, you’re compelled to listen even though her words make your head hurt.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so easy to track down this time. You fight more than this.”

You hug your arms around yourself as the darkness swallows you both whole, a door clicking shut behind your backs and leaving your only route to be following this strange woman. She smells like iron and spoiled milk veiled thinly by cheap vanilla perfume. It makes your nose wrinkle.

“Are you sure I can stay here…?” your eyes drift to the many metal doors lining the cramped basement walkway, “It’s scary down here.”

She giggles, hands clasped behind her back, and doesn’t so much as look at you as she replies, “You’ll be safer here than out there.”

Coming to a delayed pause outside a gaping steel doorway, the woman maintains her straight-lace posture while you hunch into yourself. Coldness wheezes out of the room, and a single twin mattress on the floor with no sheets or pillows laid in the middle, making your arms wind tighter around your midriff. Your beige dress may reach the ankles, but it's still thin - branded together with noncommittal strands that fray at the hem.

“Can I… go home?”

“Where?”

You swallow the lump in your throat and nod silently. Right. There is no home. There is on the mattress she provided, or there is under her mud-stained boot heel. You step into the concrete room - a boxy affair that wouldn’t even hold a bed larger than a twin.

“Good girl,” the woman coos, head tilting sweetly as she lays a hand over the steel door, “And I’ll be back tomorrow to see you again, how does that sound?”

You nod meekly as the door slides shut with a heavy groan and shick.

The woman is not back the next day. Or the one after that. Or even the next five. By the time you see her again and learn her name (Makima, you recall: it tastes like sour cheese coated in sugar on your tongue), there are sixteen shallow tallies on the wall nearest your bed, and blood and rock mix grossly under your index fingernail.

In mid-1998, the debut of Tokyo’s summer showers threatened to kick off overhead.

Swirling, lumpy clouds mask the sun’s golden rays behind a sickly gray - sky darkening as the rumbles of an incoming storm roll under your feet. Yoshida marches ahead of you in confident strides, his familiarity with the building ahead your only savior to navigating Fourth East High School.

“Chainsaw Man really goes here?” you fidget with the unevenly hanging ribbon tied around your collar, “Why? Couldn’t He just avoid high school? I hear it’s terrible…”

“It is,” Yoshida confirms, not so much as looking over his shoulder at you as he guides you to your shoe locker, “But Chainsaw’s supposed to live a normal life now.”

“How would I help with that?” you watch Yoshida’s slender fingers pry open the rectangular metal door to fish out a pair of white lace-up sneakers. He lets them clutter to the floor before tapping the door’s plated number and wandering off to his own cubby, “Isn’t Kishibe His warden now? Why are we getting involved?”

Knowing Kishibe, Chainsaw Man is most likely left to his own devices more often than not. The man called “Mad Dog”, after all, would not be your top choice of fatherly figures, so perhaps Chainsaw Man is better off controlling his own life.

After swapping his own shoes, Yoshida stands where the entrance tile ends and the hall tile begins -- the entrance tiles are slightly darker in shade. Alabaster over pearl. He waits patiently for you to stuff your outside shoes into your locker and slam it shut before continuing down the hall. Teenagers in uniforms just like yours (though, you notice embarrassed, much neater and straighter than yours) are crammed by the walls, clogging staircases, and even looming in open bathroom doorways. So many voices all at once, they hurt your ears when they fight each other over who can draw the most attention. The joke is on them, with so much chatter you can’t pick out even a single conversation.

“Yoshida,” you call timidly from over his shoulder, and he hums - tilting his head just barely in your direction to indicate he’s listening, “How are we helping Him?”

Yoshida pauses in the middle of the corridor and turns to face you, one hand securing the book bag slung over his shoulder and the other in his pants pocket. His cheek meets his shoulder as his eyes flutter from the top of your head to the toe of your shoes, “I’ll show you at lunch. Just know you’re really doing good here.”

“At a high school?”

“For Japan,” he shrugs and turns back around, “Maybe the world.”

You like working with Yoshida more than most other devil hunters. He’s soft-spoken, but not from some unbearable shyness -- and he’s gentle, but not pitying. But even so, Yoshida is as much of a devil hunter as any and that means he selfishly uses what isn’t technically his. Well, technically it is actually.

Your power technically belongs to everybody except you in the name of public safety.

Cringing at your own overuse of the T-word, you slide wordlessly into the seat Yoshida points to as soon as you both enter a classroom. Your new classmates are sparse, and you assume that most of them remain out in the common space to squeeze out as much socializing time as possible. A few eyes follow you, so you flatten the crinkling, wrinkled material of your vest and undershirt with shaking hands. Secretly, you hope the sweat in your palms will slick the material down.

In the desk behind you, Yoshida sits with his cheek resting in his palm. Tired, lidded eyes skip over your withering frame and up to the clock above the teacher’s podium. His foot starts tapping as if he’s already expecting the dismissal bell to ring.

When a gaggle of girls approach and their gaze sticks to you a little longer than you think is appropriate, your hands shiver up to your hair. A terrible fire in your chest urges you to pat and soothe down any untamed strands you may have somehow missed in the mirror. Not that the mirror in your room is one of those great fancy ones you see in movies - the kind that fits the whole wall and never has a bothersome speck - but you think it gets the job done. Apparently, not well enough, you huff bitterly, glaring down at the pleats in your skirt joined by haphazard wrinkles vining down the unfolded sections.

You, still with a hand wound nervously in your hair, twist to look at Yoshida’s lame face, “What’s He like?”

“Hm?” Yoshida drags his dark eyes from the time to your pinched face, “Stupid.”

“Be nice…”

“Well, then he shouldn’t be stupid if he doesn’t want me to call him stupid. And lousy. But pretty. And he likes cats.”

Yoshida grins lazily when you perk up at that, stress lines melting away in favor of raised brows and wide eyes, “Really?”

“Mhm. Has one, too.”

“No way,” you perch both hands on the back of your chair and inch closer, “What’s its name, do you know? Is it black? Or white? Does it have long whiskers?”

“No idea.”

He watches your impressed gape press thinly into a frustrated line, “I thought you knew Him!”

“I do, but I don’t know his cat.”

“Do you think He’ll let me meet His cat?” you lean closer despite your apparent disappointment.

“Definitely,” Yoshida’s grin widens, eyes narrowing up at your buzzing excitement, “Why wouldn’t his girlfriend meet his cat?”

“Huh?” your brows furrow again, but you’re prevented from inquiring further by the attendance bell, your teacher tiredly saddling up to her podium soon after.

You’re going to help Japan (maybe even the world) by being Chainsaw Man’s girlfriend?

The sentiment is so baffling and strange, that you’re almost unable to sit still through class (not that the cause of your distress being sat right behind you helps any).

Yoshida’s standing just after the first ting of the lunch bell, his first curls around the oddly bent collar of your uniform before he’s yanking you up. Your new classmates file out of the room and Yoshida keeps a hand pressed flatly against your spine. He’s practically shoving you down the hall, towards one of the upward staircases.

“Where are we going?”

He sighs quietly into your ear, “Where do you think?”

“What?!” your hands scramble down to where your top is tucked into your skirt waistband, hoping it looks as neat as it did this morning. You trip on one of the step ledges, almost smashing your nose into the floor until Yoshida’s shoving hand grips the back of your vest tightly. He yanks you back into his chest, and you toss your head back to stare into his obsidian eyes, “We’re meeting Him now?!”

“Duh,” he forces you forward once again.

“No way!” you can feel your throat swelling, knees filled with jelly as Yoshida pushes open a heavy metal door. The dark sky greets you above, the rare ribbons of sunlight available reflecting off steel bars.

A lone boy leans against the furthest railing, his hair is tousled and unkempt. A pretty, silky coral that reminds you of the softness of mangoes’ flesh. Long in the back but trimmed at the sides in a way that tells you he might be cutting his own hair. His uniform is unbuttoned, flaps billowing in the wind behind his lax frame.

“Hey, Chainsaw!”

Lone Boy turns, plum bags hang under drowsy, unimpressed copper eyes. He sticks up a peace sign to acknowledge the call and waits silently as you and Yoshida approach his post. Despite the careless stance, he smells strongly of ashed cigarettes and dog fur unsuccessfully obscured by the plastic mimicry of a floral detergent.

Any polite greeting you’d hoped to muster is trapped in the dry cavern of your mouth. Tongue too heavy to form words. Your hands twitch up to the rail and you press your entire weight onto it to alleviate the wobbling in your knees. Yoshida stands at your side, squeezing your shoulder before speaking,

“I wanted to introduce your girlfriend,” he pitches you like those men in polos talk so passionately about whatever product is hottest in sterile white film studios, “And the best part? When it comes to her, you don’t need to keep any secrets ‘cuz she already knows.”

Denji stands straighter, his slumped leg shooting out in attention, “You know I’m Chainsaw Man?”

You nod skittishly.

He tilts his head, “You a fan?”

“Of course!” you chirp, hands squeezing around the rail so tight it burns, “You’re amazing!”

“Good to hear,” he leans closer, coppery eyes igniting with interest, “How’d you know? When’d you find out? What’d you think when you found out?”

“Oh- I’m- !” you reach up, straightening your bowed ribbon and trying to even the strands, “I’m a devil…” you shake your head, “Not as impressive as You, Chainsaw, just the rejection devil…”

His silence is chilling, and the disgust he must be feeling from your claim is starting to rot your insides. A terrible, agonized rot that no amount of blood could heal.

“Sooo,” he places a hand over his shirt - it has his own chainsaw form’s silvery and orange head on it with bubblegum pink characters lining his name, “You think ‘m a big deal, then?”

“You are a big deal!” you lean into him, at least hoping to lap up his body’s warmth if you can’t get his approval, “Huge!”

“Good, then?” Yoshida gives Chainsaw Man a thumbs up, “I’m sure a devil wasn’t your first choice, but a girlfriend’s a girlfriend and she’s nice. Listens. Easily impressed. Plus your big mouth won’t ruin anything.”

Chainsaw Man ignores Yoshida completely, grinning at you through shark’s teeth, “Name’s Denji. I like girls that like me.”

“I’m a girl!” you beam, bouncing on the balls of your feet, “I like you!” you tug sharply on the black ribbon around your neck, “I think you’re the best!”

Denji nods curtly, visibly smug. His posture curves again, all suave and cocky, “What can I call ya?”

Yoshida steps back when you glance at him uncertainly.

“My name?”

“Uh-huh.”

“My name,” you state blandly, blinking at Denji as you try to cobble together sounds and vowels that sound familiar. Makima had a name. Could you have one, too? Angel just went by, well, Angel. Quanxi had a name. So did Princi. You must have a name, right? “I don’t know…”

Yoshida chips in, both hands in his pockets, “Nobody really calls her. If they do, it's just Rejection.”

Denji glares at Yoshida, “That’s shitty.”

Yoshida shrugs, “She’s enrolled as Yoshida, Reiji.”

“I am?”

Denji wrinkles his nose at that before looking back towards you, “Do you like that name?” you shake your head, just slightly enough so you can deny doing it if the only real Yoshida child gets offended, “What do you like?”

“I like fruit…” you twist your hands around the rail, the metal cooling your flushed skin, “And cats.”

“Peaches?”

“I like peaches.”

“Okay, peachy,” he stands straight, and there’s something sweet about the way he smiles at you -- the way his body jitters, like the thrill of being a boyfriend is jumping out of his veins, “We should go out! After school. Today.”

“Okay! Totally!”

You realized quickly that going on a date with Chainsaw Man (Denji, you correct yourself, Denji) meant that you’d be going out without Yoshida when the boy walked straight past you and out the gates without so much as a goodbye. He didn’t even wait for you to change out your shoes before leaving. How nerve-wracking…

Pacing, you wait for Denji to exit Fourth East and tell you where you’re both going for your first official date. You watch the black slip-ons Yoshida shoved at you this morning crease against the floor with every step. You get so entranced by the sight that you don’t notice Denji’s approach until a hand stops you by the arm.

Jumping under the sudden touch, you gasp at the sight of Denji before awkwardly calling, “Hi!”

“Hey,” he drawls out the vowel, releasing his tender grip on your bicep, “So, where d’ya wanna go?”

“Huh?” you tense up - was that a genuine question? - before gnawing your bottom lip unsurely, “I don’t know. I thought you’d know.”

“Is there anywhere you’d wanna go?” Denji starts walking, book bag hanging limply over his shoulder.

You rush to catch up to him, tightly clutching the straps of your own bag in front of you, “I don’t know!”

“Really?” he turns to stare at you, only to find you watching your feet against the pavement with a soldier’s focus. So he looks back up, glaring when a man in suit and tie doesn’t move to the far side of the sidewalk to avoid knocking shoulders with you. The man glares back at Denji, but relents to dodge you, “Anything you’ve always wanted to do?”

“I don’t know…” your brows draw towards the middle of your face in concentration, “I like… Food?”

“Me too,” he murmurs in solidarity, “What about ice cream? There’s a place nearby, and cheap! You can get two soft creams for three hundred yen!”

“Woah!” you don’t know anything about that or how important it actually is to get two servings for three hundred yen, but Denji is excited and that feels like a good enough reason.

“Right?!” his steps quicken, hand circling yours and pulling you along. His hand is warm with rough calluses blooming around his digits, but it feels nice in yours, “And you can combine any two flavors for no extra charge!”

Upon arrival, you are only a little disappointed, but you suppose you probably shouldn’t be. It isn’t like you were genuinely owed your preference, that’s why it was a preference, right? In the same way, you prefer to have control over the heat to your room in the commission basement but don’t.

“Ah, no mango…”

“You like mango?”

“I’ve never had one,” you admit, albeit confusingly following it up with, “It’s my favorite, though.”

“Oh. Okay,” he nods as if filing the information away for later, and you hesitate to ask if he actually cares, “My favorite is the bubblegum. It makes me sick if I eat it too fast, but it’s really sweet,” you nod this time, slowly, “But you like fruit, so you’ll probably want the strawberry one, right?”

You nod faster.

When neither of you steps towards the patiently smiling vendor, Denji leans forward, “Do you want me to order for both of us?”

“Yes!” when you realize how outright eager you sound, you try to quiet yourself down, “Please, that’d be nice.”

Denji gives you a peace sign before taking charge towards the old man behind the open counter.

Upon his return, Denji holds out the small cardstock paper cup to you, a miniature plastic spoon buried into the soft pink mound. Darker red splotches decorate the scoops, sinking to the bottom the longer you take to grasp the treat.

With unsteady hands, you almost knock the soft serve from his fingers before clumsily clutching it with both palms. Sadly, the spoon could not be saved once rattled from its spot; the plastic unceremoniously clattering onto the pavement. Strawberry sweetness splatters onto the toe of your shoe, staining your laces. Your chest fills with the heaviness of dread, the freeze of the ice cream spreading through your hands and all the way down to your wiggly jelly knees. You look up from the grizzly death scene to Denji’s blank face.

You squeeze the cup, strawberry cream teasing to gush over the lip, “I’m sorry.”

Denji shakes his head, orange peel locks flicking wildly. His coppery eyes gaze up at you through his dark lashes, soft around his stare. Suddenly, the cherries of his cheeks brighten up, balled and red with glee, “‘s fine!”

“It is?”

“I have an idea…” his posture straightens and he reaches for his own cup, scooping out hot pink bubblegum and swallowing down the sugar before offering the utensil to you, “We can share!” you reach for the spoon and Denji creeps closer, anxiously rolling his fist as you use the same spoon, “This is our first indirect kiss.”

He swallows down the other woman that briefly flashes through his mind. Instead, he focuses on the way your tongue swipes over your lips to lap up any excess ice cream. You blink up at him and smile before holding out the spoon with a soft, “Sorry…”

Shaking his head again, Denji feels the sparks of excitement spark little fires down every vertebra of his spine, trailing over the rungs of his ribs when he brushes your fingers, “What’re you sorry for?”

“You have to indirectly kiss me every time you want ice cream…”

Denji raises a brow at you, having a spoonful of his treat before passing the plastic back to you, “You’re kind of a downer, huh?”

“Ah,” you cradle your ice cream closer to your chest, “Sorry.”

“Downer, yeah,” he nods to himself, slipping the spoon from your hand - gentle, warm fingertips pressing into your skin again, “I guess if we were both jumpy, it’d get boring,” catching your downcast stare into your liquidy strawberry ice cream, Denji cranes his neck to force eye contact with you. He says nothing, but slides the spoon into your cup.

He’s honestly just glad to be so close to a girl without her trying to kill him. He’d hoped you’d be glad to be here, too.

His eyes follow as you glumly take the spoonhead over your tongue. Denji is consumed by the need to know your every thought, each tissue’s twinge should be beamed into his brain the second it happens. For a moment, he even finds the idea of knowing each other so well to be comforting. Like warm toast smeared with every jelly he can get his hands on.

You say you like him, but you keep apologizing for indirectly kissing him - it’s confusing. A dull buzz began to ache through his head at the mixed signals. Denji is excited every time his turn for the spoon comes around (even now, his hands are rattling with anticipation as he reaches for it). He can’t separate the taste of your saliva from anything else, but the hint of saccharine strawberries is more than enough. He’d never apologize for greedily sucking at the aftertaste of your ice cream if the roles were reversed.

Does this mean he pushed it with the indirect kiss? Should he have just asked for another spoon? Will you let him have a direct kiss anytime soon?

None of those questions shake Denji in his beat-up shoes, which are tearing at the soles, so he decides that if you really hated it -- then you would’ve told him. Besides, Denji got lucky(????) having his first direct and indirect kiss on the same night and not everybody is so fortunate(????).

The women, however, he grimaces just remembering. So instead of focusing on a fuzzying eyepatch and unrecallable (yet unmistakably soft) voice, or hair like consuming embers and too-tight smiles -- Denji turns to you. To your modest displeasure over the flavor, you’d been stuck with over your apparent favorite.

“Are mangoes really your favorite fruit?”

You shrug, slapping the spoon against your melty cream and watching droplets rocket over the cup’s edge, “Even though I haven’t had one, yes. I like the flavoring best of any other fruit. Do you like mangoes?”

“Haven’t had one either. Haven’t had most fruit,” he looks up and notes that the cloudy weather is inappropriate for an ice cream date, but you haven’t said anything against it so he doesn’t either. Then, as he stares into unfolding skies, blue peeking through clearing patches, he tries to recall any fruit he’s had that isn’t a plain apple or grapes. All the fruit he knows about is through artificial recreations, and for some reason that strikes him as unpleasant, “Do you prefer mango over peach?”

It takes a few prolonged, stiff seconds of silence before you snap to the realization that Denji expects a response.

“Mango is…” you twiddle your thumbs, wondering which answer he would rather hear. You aren’t sure, you don’t know which fruit he likes best. Or if he even likes fruit! So you stab your left thumbnail into the pad of your right thumb and decide to give the answer you truly feel, “‘Mango’ is a weird nickname - peach is fine. Peach is actually… cute.”

Denji nods rapidly, you notice he’s standing a little closer than before, “Okay, peachy. I’ll stick to that.”

Azure whistles overhead, downtrodden weather fading away calmly. You wonder what else is left for people to do on dates -- you’re sure they spend time together, but doing what? Denji took you for ice cream because he likes ice cream, does that mean you get to choose the next activity? When does the date end?

Does it ever end? You two are already boyfriend-girlfriend after all.

“What- “ you’re cut off by the sound of Denji’s voice, “When- “

“Sorry,” you wave him off, “Go, you go first.”

Denji purses his lips before drinking the syrupy remains of his aggressively saccharine bubblegum ice cream, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares at the stained base of his cup, “When’d you decide you wanted to be my girlfriend?”

“I didn’t. Yoshida just said I was being reassigned.”

“Oh, so you didn’t know?”

“No.”

You can’t read Denji’s expression at all. It’s all straight except for the smallest downturn of one corner of his lips, “You didn’t know anything about me, did you?”

You shake your head, “I just knew I was going to meet Chainsaw Man. I didn’t know He was you.”

“You’re really only here ‘cuz you knew I was Chainsaw Man?”

Denji shouldn’t be hurt, he knows that was the plan eventually. To catch a fly with honey.

But when you plainly nod, it does hurt. It hurts a lot.

“Well,” you’re itchy all over, uncomfortable because he’s uncomfortable, “I think you’re great.”

“Right…”

Frowning, you hang your head and stare at the floor, “I do.”

You can’t read Denji at all. You’re supposed to placate him and you can’t even do that right. What if he breaks up with you? You’d be far too embarrassed to show your face back at work. The Rejection Devil met a force she could not deflect (seconds later you realize that the irony alone of being rejected as the very devil itself alone might kill you). How humiliating.

Denji’s head flops back limply, the apple of his throat exposed. You’re almost alarmed by the way you want to nibble it. He blinks up at the rolling sky, eyes watering as the sun burns away fitful clouds.

“Denji,” you plea weakly, feeling as small as an ant under his downcast mood, “I like Denji, too.”

His eyes flutter over to you, “You do?”

It feels like an opening - when the battle is at its climax and your opponent’s foolishly left their weak spot unguarded in the adrenaline rush, “Of course, I do. You’re cool when you’re Chainsaw Man, but you’re cool when you’re Denji, too.”

“Really think so?”

“I really do.”

Denji smiles suddenly, and you smile too just because he does, “You free tomorrow after school?”

Of course, you are.

You choose not to point out that keeping him company is what you should be doing after school anyway. Hopefully, he doesn’t consider that fact.

In January of 1996, you meet an imposing man with stitches across his left cheek and a flask tucked haphazardly into his trench coat - the silver glints under sickly fluorescents.

“Timid, but useful, if she can behave without me there,” Makima talks about you like you aren’t standing directly in front of her. She keeps her helix eyes just over your head at all times, “I’m sure she will, but I think you’re the best thing to test her with first.”

The man behind you reeks of booze and womens’ perfume and mold, but somehow it feels less safe than Makima’s more foul stench.

“Quiet one, huh?” as if to begin the ‘test’ early, he pokes you in the back of the neck, “Sure it's a Devil?”

“Positive,” she winks and taps her nose, “I have a good sense about this stuff.”

You don’t want to go anywhere with the man with the stitches. Physical attacks and special abilities from your fellow Devils are things easily deflected by your own power, but Miss Makima has taught you a new lesson:

Words do not bounce off the Rejection Devil.

And the man with the stitches doesn’t smile at you with any kindness.

“Then let’s get to work, yeah?”

You think he’ll actually enjoy finding all the ways around your rejection abilities.

“I thought we were going out today…”

Denji’s been your boyfriend for a measly two days, but he already hates the look of your disappointment. Those glassy eyes and pouting lips, they make him want to chew marbles and swallow. Instead, he scratches at the soft skin on his neck, clawing up red marks from chipped, short nails.

“I wanted to! ‘m just failing… hard. So I need to get my history shit done.”

“I can help!”

“It’ll be boring as hell…“

“No, really,” you hesitate to grab his hand before committing, his cheeks flush at the warm contact, “I could even just watch.”

Life is more boring when Denji isn’t around anyway. You’re mostly just… waiting to see Denji again every time you two part ways. Even the books and journals they supply you with at the commission cannot distract you from how gray and cold your room is now. All you think about is sunshine hair and thick lashes.

“I just don’t- “ you release his hand and look down at your white indoor shoes, “I just thought we would be together longer today. If you want to work by yourself, then- !”

Denji snakes his hand back into yours, shaking his head vigorously, “No way! That sounds terrible.”

“Okay!” you try to smother the elated smile rising to your lips, but it's totally hopeless. You nestle into Denji’s side, using him to navigate the (largely abandoned) halls of North East as he leads you both towards the school library. Your attention drifts to your feet against the floor once again.

Denji pulls his hand slightly behind his back, squishing your body tighter to his, every time someone passes you both, “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Look at your feet.”

“If I tripped over myself in public, I’d just about die…”

“Makes sense,” he glares at a trio of boys walking down the narrow corridor shoulder-to-shoulder until they break apart to avoid bumping into you.

You remind him of Kobeni for that. He realizes he hasn’t spoken to her in a very long time. He wonders if she’d even appreciate him trying to reach out. Probably not, he concludes; but he likes you better anyway, which is appropriate given the circumstances.

“Why do you…” you hum quietly, contemplating the question as you both arrive at the library. Denji squeezes your hand encouragingly, finding you two a table far off from the rest, “Why did you try using Him to get a girlfriend?”

“We’re the same person,” Denji shrugs before tilting his head and shrugging again, “I dunno. It worked before.”

“Really?”

“Not really,” he isn’t minding his volume as he replies, not like you do. Two other students are holed at tables by themselves, one underclassman debating two books in the nonfiction section, and the librarian at her desk, “Every girl I’ve met before you has tried to kill me…”

“Aw, that’s terrible… You’re not someone I’d kill.”

“,,,”

“Not that I could. But even if I could, then I still wouldn’t.”

Denji nods, a pensive screw overtaking his face, “What if there was a prize? Like. Something really, really cool that you’d get. Would you kill me?”

Instantly, you’re shaking your head, “Never!” you’re still whispering, cautious of irritating others even as your boyfriend drags you into the depths of his ego death, “I’d run away with you if it came to it.”

Iron pools in his mouth. A severed tongue. Soft daisies leave dirt and spit-up trailing over his chin. An ominous choker that stayed on, even when she stripped to go swimming.

“What if I couldn’t run away?” he still has a family after all. Bigger than last time, even. If he had to run away, he wouldn’t.

You frown, “Then I guess I’d have to stay away for good…” then, you settle your head in your hands, palms cupping your cheeks, and Denji has to look away to avoid spilling his guts about how cute he finds that, “Wait, I’m not gonna have to run away am I?!”

The shrewd librarian raises her head only to shush you before burying her nose back into her binder of book logs. Denji flips the old lady off at the same time you mutter an apology.

She takes note of neither act.

It irritates Denji in a way he’s unfamiliar with because more than the urge to be acknowledged is the need for him to know that the woman heard you.

“I really can help, if you want, also.”

“Huh?”

“You said you’re failing,” you point out, leaning forward onto the table by your elbows, “I’m passing everything, so I actually can help. If you want!”

“Seriously? Didn’t you just get here? How’re you already all smart?”

“I just don’t want to fail,” you wave out your hands as though to dismiss any ill-intent, “Not that it’s… I’m not sure how to say it… I don’t think it’s terrible of you to fail, school seems really hard. I just feel sick at the thought of not doing well.”

“Your class is lucky to have you to answer questions, all my classmates are dumbasses,” he bites bitterly.

“Oh, I don’t really answer questions. Yoshida does sometimes, though.”

“Why don’t you?”

“What if I’m wrong one day?”

“Are you ever?”

No, but that doesn’t mean you’ll start raising your hand anytime soon. To distract Denji from this topic, you stretch closer to him over the table and insist on helping him finish his history work. That way, he won’t have to do it in replacement for your date tomorrow.

“Hey. Why d’ya like Chainsaw Man?”

His fiery eyes are all raw, mushy dough. He looks terrible and sad. You want to fix it, whatever or whoever made him this way. You simper sweetly and confidently declare,

“He’s so powerful. He can kill any devil he wants. And so can You, Denji. You’re both so amazing. But I like You best.”

“... I like you, too.”

In February of 1996, you are sent on your first real mission with Kishibe -- Makima stating he was your safest partner option after training together so long.

Your tie is tied too tight, and your pants cinch uncomfortably around your thighs. You can’t maintain any sort of normal breathing pattern and that’s beginning to occupy more brain space than your actual upcoming fight. Mostly, you’re trying to level your heavy breaths so as to avoid irritating Kishibe. Logically, you know him to not be hotheaded and prone to rash lashing out, but the fear of him slicing your chest open lingers there.

Far too soon for your liking, the car lulls to a stop outside the boarded, graffiti’d Love Hotel. Swiftly abandoned by faculty and regulars alike as soon as the Devil made itself known on the fourth floor.

Just remembering the bold letters printed at the top of Kishibe’s briefing report sends a shiver down your spine -- FOUR CIVILIANS DEAD. TWO PUBLIC HUNTERS M.I.A. ONE PRIVATE HUNTER K.I.A.

“Come on,” Kishibe jerks his head towards the building and you trip after him like a newborn puppy.

You follow Kishibe into the Love Hotel and patiently wait for his orders before heading for the top floor. He pauses at the stairs to jerk your body in front of his, shoving you in the back to hurry up the flight as he meanders behind.

“I want you to clear the first floor ahead of me.”

A command, no room to fight back. Not that you would. Following his orders blindly feels more comfortable, anyway.

“You ever get the urge to bite people?” Denji pops the question while watching you peel an orange. The underside of your thumbnail is stained yellowish from the skin you punctured, and some bizarre voice inside him whispers that he should dig the flesh out with his sharpest tooth.

“Hm…” you roll the orange peel into a ball and settle it beside you on the rooftop pavement, seeing as there are no nearby trash cans, “I don’t think so…” you rip the conjoined slices in half and hand the slightly fatter side to Denji, “Maybe when I first met Kishibe. He scared me.”

“Really?” Denji pops one of the juicy slices into his mouth, eyes still trained on your fingers as you carefully squeeze out the brown seeds inside before eating, “I just thought he was a geezer.”

“That’s rude!” you’re trying in vain to keep your lips pressed in a straight line, as if the Mad Dog would apparate at your back and kick you just for laughing.

Denji leans back and chews another slice of the orange, tucking the seeds under his tongue and debating whether or not it’d be a waste to spit them out. He shrugs, “‘s true. He had a flask, too. Definitely thought he was some weirdo.”

“I guess maybe a little…” you hesitantly admit, “He super liked beating me up when we met.”

“Oh, yeah. Like for training?” Denji finishes his half of the orange and settles on swallowing his seeds.

Just as you go to respond, the bell to end lunch rings and Denji is stumbling up to his feet, swiping up the pile of orange skins and your discarded seeds. He offers a hand to help you up and you wonder if it’d be more polite to spare him from the sugary orange blood on your skin.

“My hand- “ you begin, words sudden and jumbled, and you feel shyness suffocate you under his blank stare, “Sticky… it’s sticky with-“

“I know,” he waves his hand out again, “I watched you.”

“You don’t mind…?” you take his hand, earnestly shocked by the quickness with which Denji yanks you off the ground.

And just as Denji opens his mouth, Yoshida is yelling at you both to hurry inside from the doorway to the roof. Denji flips Yoshida off before turning to you, he squeezes the orange in his hand and thinks about the sweetness.

Oranges are better than apples, he thinks, but he can’t find a real reason as to why. The seeds are a hassle, and he’d hate to sit there and peel one, but he liked sharing just half an orange with you more than he liked having an entire apple to himself in Aki’s apartment. He can see the orange juice still glistening on the bow of your lip. His eyes linger there, and he knows you notice because you’re suddenly fidgeting under his gaze.

You wait patiently, eyes flickering down to your shoes before meeting his again. He isn’t sure what that means. So he turns back towards Yoshida and stuffs the boy’s palm with the orange husk before walking you to class in stiff silence.

Your bed is thin and flat against the floor. A bookcase that only reaches your waist is pushed against the opposite wall. You’ve read every book in it twice over. You don’t remember when every empty slot was finally occupied, and you don’t remember the last time you touched one of the books and felt genuine interest.

You do know that you once requested a brand new book from Makima, and she’d refused you so simply you once believed it was a personal slight you’d committed against her. You also once requested a television -- you had it for one week before it was taken away. You never asked why because Makima herself came to oversee your beloved TV’s removal from atop your dusty bookcase (though you doubt you would’ve had the courage to ask even if she was absent).

During that week, however, it was the happiest you’d been since coming to Tokyo.

A lot of what you watched was utter garbage. Contrived plot lines and miscommunication and shallow characters you’d sooner choke out than shake hands with, and it was the most beautiful entertainment you could’ve asked for. What you quickly discovered to be your favorite viewing material was movies made specifically for television. Usually lower budgets and completely unknown actors. A paradise all to yourself.

“That’s it, watch your back,” Makima’s soft voice called when one of the men nearly slammed into your doorway on the way out. She turned to you with a smile, “Anything before I go?”

A prompt, you figure, to ask if you had the courage to demand your stolen present back.

Rather, you shook your head shyly, twiddling your thumbs, “Well, could I maybe get a window…? I’d like to see something other than…” you gesture to the walls around you.

They, too, are covered in a thick layer of cloudy dust.

Makima extended a hand to pat over your head, “No,” she stated as blandly as your room was decorated, “You’re still a security threat.”

Another test. Would you deny it? Would you dredge up the fact that you’d never once reacted with hostility? Would you bare your teeth and try (in vain) to rip her apart?

You nodded solemnly and watched Makima exit.

And your room has remained untouched since.

Denji’s handwriting was a sloppy chicken scratch, often paired with backward or mismatched characters, which was why he asked you to write his reminder note.

YOYOGI PARK ON SATURDAY. 12PM.

And at 12:02 PM, you sit on a picnic table surrounded by tall ginkgo trees with bouncing knees as Denji makes his approach. In one hand, he clutches a plastic bag, logo wide and distressed around a massive bulb shape. In the other, is a knotted tangle of black and red leashes tethering seven wiggling and yappy dogs to his side.

“I didn’t know you had so many dogs,” you hold out your hands for the dogs to sniff and lick before petting over their heads and behind their ears.

“I got a cat, too, but I dunno if she’s allowed in.”

You sit straighter, letting the dogs press their heads into your hands for more attention, “So you do have a cat?!”

He nods, laying the bag on your table with a thud and crinkle before sitting beside you -- thigh firm against thigh and arms brushing, “You’ll meet her eventually.”

Denji leans over the edge of the seat to lift a corner of the table, stapling the leashes into the grass. Even if they weren’t collared, you doubt they’d try running off anyway with each dog avidly jamming itself into both your spaces. Big drooly jaws resting on your lap and paws digging into your calf for even more attention.

“Hey,” Denji whines when he sees the opaque slobber Tiramisu is webbing on your pants, “Off. You’re makin’ her gross.”

“It’s okay,” you insist, tempted to rest your head on Denji’s nearby and tantalizing shoulder as you pet the husky, “I have a lot of these pants in my room.”

“These’re your casual pants?”

“Yeah.”

Denji side-eyes you, but says nothing more about your white button-up and black slacks being ‘casual’.

“If I could have a job, I’d buy you lotsa clothes,” he mutters, “Whatever you wanted,” he’s so quiet you almost feel apologetic for hearing him at all; but before you can suss out a response, he suddenly whirls around in his seat and sticks both hands into the plastic bag, “A mango!”

“A mango?”

“Uh-huh,” he wrestles the fruit free from its plastic confines and rolls it into your hands, holding an arm out in front of you to keep his licking dogs at bay.

“...for me?”

“For you!” he echoes. He’s trying to play everything off casually, but really his hands are moist and vibrating - his gut cramping as he awaits your feedback, “Old man was in Kyushu, so I had him get a souvenir… I hope you like it, he bitched about how expensive it was the whole time I saw him.”

Taiyo no Tamago. Egg of the Sun. Gold leafing into fierce, flaming oranges and reds. You bet that the real slices are even juicer, tastier than faux flavorings.

Between both hands, you gingerly cradle the large mango and feel your mouth watering just as you stare at the fruit.

“Kishibe got it?” you lift the mango towards the blazing sun, inspecting the skin for any damage, “It’s not poisoned, right?”

“Nah,” he squints at the fruit as well, just to be extra sure, “I can try it if you want?”

“Aw, no, it’s- I’ll be okay either way, but I trust you,” Denji watches you pet over the mango like it's a fat kitten curled over your arm. He grins at the sight and doesn’t question it, scared that if he does, then you might stop, “So, does he watch over you?”

“Not really. Sometimes he comes around just to know I'm alive.”

“Do you get lonely when he’s not there?”

His face wrenches sourly at the idea of Kishibe lingering around the apartment, “I got the dogs and Meowy. And a little sister… friend… type living with me,” his eyes dart over you warily, “You’ll probably meet her eventually, so…” he inhales sharply, “It’s, eh, you know, the new Control Devil.”

“She got reincarnated already?” you whisper it, like you’re saying something inappropriate.

“Well,” he winces, “Nayuta’s her own person. Same Devil stuff, but she's nothing like Makima.”

“Sorry! Of course! I didn’t mean it like that…”

Denji feels a pang in his chest at the sight of your cowering frame, consumed by guilt over misspeaking, “Don’t worry ‘bout it. Just didn’t want you freakin’ out when you meet her or anything.”

“I’m nothing compared to Her, I’m not really in the place to freak out.”

Something disturbs Denji so staunchly at the ease with which you say that. He can’t place it, he just knows that the very sentence made his stomach curdle and tie his intestines in knots.

You tilt your head, “Can I ask…?”

“Shoot.”

“Is it… well…” you shake your head, but Denji shakes his back.

“Just ask. Whatever ya wanna know.”

“You said Nayuta is her own person,” his brows furrow but he lets you finish before speaking, “Do you never consider maybe they’re… similar?”

He’s quiet for an unbearable eight seconds before answering casually, “Guess if I thought about it for a long time, I could find ways they’re alike. But I don’t really think about it that long. Nayuta’s my little sister. Makima was…” he shouldn’t say exactly what Makima was to him in front of you, he knows that much about being a boyfriend at least, “Makima. They’re totally different.”

It’s extraordinarily complicated to even put words into describing what Makima meant to him. A lot of things he’s learned were sick, but some things he almost… wants to hold onto.

He definitely shouldn’t say that to you. But it isn’t like he misses her, he misses the comfort of their early days. If you could even label it “their” days. Makima may have been like Nayuta at one point, but he knows Nayuta would never so meticulously stab him in the back. Or the chest. Repeatedly. Miserably, however, he knows that even if she did -- he’d probably still love Nayuta like she were his sister. How he imagines an old dog still craves the warm hands of their human as they fall asleep for the last time.

Dangerously, he wonders if he may one day feel the same for you, smiling as you dig a knife through his chest just because his girlfriend is still holding him.

And when you blink up at him like he’s as delightful as the mango in your hands, he thinks he might.

You beam at Denji before shyly turning your gaze back onto the mango, curling both arms around it. This time with all the tenderness you would a baby and tuck it into your chest.

If Makima and Nayuta are different maybe you are too.

You hope so.

Tsuyu time is finally looking to drag to an end by early July -- with yet another rain storm. Fourth East faculty has very kindly allowed students to stay past the usual close time of 6:00PM due to such harsh winds and lightning raging outside. You hadn’t accounted for this when you asked Denji to accompany you to a bookstore’s summer sale after school. The frustration you feel could boil the falling rainwater with how heated such sudden weather has you.

Impatiently, you and Denji are leaning right side against one of the entry door frames with his chest to your back.

“They’ll be closed by the time the rain lets up…” you grumble.

Denji almost wants to laugh: the first time he sees you act minorly unpleasant is over books.

“There’s always tomorrow,” he’s not sure, actually, “Probably.”

You scowl out at the wretched, amalgamated clouds, “Sale better still be on tomorrow…”

“If not, there's next year.”

In an embarrassing instant, your annoyance wavers. You tilt your head back into Denji’s shoulder to look at him, “You think we’ll be together next year?”

Honestly, he hadn’t meant to imply that. All he meant was that you’ll be able to go next summer whether the sale ended today or not, but when you bat your eyelashes at him all softly he’s compelled to agree to whatever you want.

“Why not?” he shrugs, fighting to keep his arms relaxed at his sides rather than folded over his chest defensively.

Your lips stretch with mirth, a smize following lead, “I want to go with you to the summer sale next year, Denji.”

The confidence of your confession is rattled from you as quickly as it’d appeared.

Until, “Even if we go today?”

His tone is bleeding hope.

“Even if we go today,” and you’re all too merry to confirm.

Denji slides to your left, hands shaking wildly, “Can I- should we?” you quirk a brow at his chopped questions, “Can we kiss?”

“Do you want to kiss me?”

He nods rapidly. You want to kiss him, too. You reach for one of his hands and tug him closer with a much slower nod.

“We can kiss, Denji.”

“Awesome,” he lamely sighs under his breath.

You remain glued against the metal frame, leaving Denji to be the initiator. He’s the more dating-experienced party anyway.

Denji swallows audibly before steeling his nerves and leaning so his lips are just brushing yours. You can feel the hot puffs of air he lets out, and you’re praying he can’t feel yours. Neither of you has shut your eyes yet, weirdly certain that the second you do disaster will strike.

Up close, you can really see everything -- his messy sunset hair, the peeling skin on his lower lip, and the faint red veins peeking around his sclera. His skin is stained dark like pomegranate juice. Finally, he tenses his eyes shut with a wrinkle in his brow and commits. Given how chapped his lips looked, you’re amazed they feel nice against yours at all.

Your eyes flutter shut and you press back.

You don’t dare venture further than the chaste lip-lock before Denji pulls away, leaving a sharp stabbing sensation on your bottom lip in his wake. His low-lidded stare widens as soon as he sees your chin.

“Oh, shit.”

Cupping the aching area, you feel a slickness slowly leaking over your fingers. You dip a finger to your lip and pull back to find a stain darker than pomegranate juice.

“Denji!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he grimaces, reaching up to swipe away the blood spread over your chin.

“You bit me!”

“I know!” (he does a poor job hiding the aggravated trill in his voice there)

His fingers are all smeared with your blood by the time he’s done makeshift mopping up your lower face, and he wipes his hands off on his black school pants. You pull your lip back as if you’d be able to see the trivial wound. The motion tests Denji: wanting to maintain his nurse act, but also wanting to kiss you again.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore…” you twist a hand into your rumpled uniform skirt, “It’s okay. I wasn’t mad, just surprised.”

Forlorn, Denji reaches up to gingerly thumb at the spot he bit -- now swollen and darker than the rest of your lip. Only minutely, but still. His brain can’t compute how small-scale your injury is over the fact that he was the one to cause it in the first place, “I’ll be more gentle next time.”

You nod, face growing hotter the longer Denji touches you so softly, “I trust you.”

The rain thins outside.

“Can I try again?” Denji’s hand slides from your lip to your jaw until he’s tenderly cupping your cheek.

Again, you nod, hoping the shift in movement will get air to cool your melting cheeks.

Puddles are splattered by a few brave students rushing home, and Denji holds onto hope the storm clears fully before the bookstore closes.

By spring of 1996, you’re given your first journal and pen; and in winter of that same year, you finally pluck up the courage to try putting your headache-inducing thoughts to words.

A Devil is more humanoid the more that Devil tolerates humans -- you don’t know where you learned that. Or why you remembered it. It’s just something you’re always certain of, in the exact same way you blink and breathe you are also indistinguishable from a human being. When the both of you met, Makima spent time examining you from head to toe to see if there were any visible tells of your true species.

You aren’t sure why you look the way you do, you don’t like humans. Although, you don’t exactly dislike them either. When you think of people, flailing on swings and cramping grocery store produce sections and knitting warm winter sweaters, you feel only a vague thrumming in your heart at the knowledge that they could send you back to Hell. A primal and innate sensation of spine-tingling fear. If enough people discovered you outside Makima’s care, then you would be back in Hell.

Maybe it’s that fear. Your knowledge of the tipping power scales could be maintaining your flesh and bones. Strangely, you wish you looked more horrific - a gaping, toothy maw and claws in place of hands. Swells of discolored flesh that twitch with each beat of your heart.

You wish you looked appalling. Absolutely ghastly. Maybe then Makima wouldn’t like looking at you so much.

But then, what if you were so scary that Chainsaw wanted to eat you?

While being free of the perpetual motion of death and rebirth in Hell unto Earth and Makima’s inescapable, piercing gaze, you wouldn’t want to face off against Chainsaw. He’s the Hero of Hell, so wouldn’t that make you the villain?

You’d rather be reincarnated and stared at by a million Makimas than be so terrible that the puritor of Hell forced himself to consume you. And he’d be able to -- you’re sure of that, too. Not even your rejection of other Devils’ powers could be so strong as to deny Chainsaw. No, no. He’s far too great.

You think of that figure - one that makes your usual aching thoughts whirl into devastating stabbing pain just trying to remember - covered in Devils’ blood and guts and you feel nervous that perhaps Makima will try finding him too if she reads of him in your journal.

So instead of expressing those thoughts to free your searing skull, you jot down a plain:

Made a new contract today. His name was Yoshida, Hirofumi. He said I was nice for not wanting to eat his body parts as payment :)

“Denji! Over here!”

It's a stubbornly drizzling Tuesday when you’re shouting through the school gates, inky uniforms parting around you like a gentle river flow. Usually, getting your peers to not body check you is terribly difficult, but maybe the authority you carry in a Public Safety suit and tie is more pressing than yourself. While students shelter their heads with small book bags and hands and vests, you’ve got the plastic handle of a black umbrella warmed up in your palm.

Denji tilts his head at your distant frame before suddenly shooting ramrod straight. He rushes out from under the shelter of Fourth East and through the gates to your side - puddles splashing under his quick feet all the way.

“Heard you were out,” Denji ducks under your umbrella, tempted to hook his chin on your shoulder and sap up your body warmth.

“Just a mission,” your hand clenches with the urge to grasp Denji’s, but you take no such initiative, “Sorry I couldn’t tell you myself.”

He shrugs, “‘s fine,” then he sighs shortly, brows scrunching, “Fucker let me sit on the roof for ten minutes before saying anything.”

“Aw, I’m sorry! I told him to let you know in the morning…”

Again, Denji shrugs off your worry -- eyes trailing slowly from the pristine white collar of your shirt down to the smooth black slacks snug around your waist and thighs, “Been awhile since I’ve seen one of those.”

Ironed and fresh and symmetrical black-tie apparel. It seems far too dismal on you, he doesn’t like it. Memories of strawberry blond hair and scorching blue eyes snuffed out, he tries to smother those down as often as possible.

“Oh, I have my school uniform!” you lift a plastic bag up, sealed around more black and white folds, “In case I needed it…”

In case you want me to change -- you don’t add that part. You’re not sure Denji would appreciate the reminder of a power imbalance while you’re dressed like this. You already know that you don’t like thinking about Makima while dressed like this.

He nods, wordlessly sneaking the bag from your grasp to his so he can hold your now free hand, “You look pretty.”

“Really?” you two finally begin walking away from Fourth East and to the same ice cream place he’d taken you on your first date.

“You always look pretty,” Denji doubles down as if it's that easy. As if it's so simple. As if it’s undeniably true, “‘m glad I saw ya. Thought we wouldn’t be able to go out after school.”

“Sorry, again. They’re trying to avoid giving me more work, but I guess this one couldn’t be helped…”

You’re almost nervous Denji picks up on that sentiment of “more”. That “more” means you’re already working, which is mortifying because even if Denji is technically work you don’t want him to think that. You chalk that concern for his feelings up to not wanting him to grow tired of dating you.

But Denji doesn’t make any indication of having noticed, “I guess I’ll have to get used to it: dating the Rejection Devil.”

Now you’re genuinely nervous.

That sentence alone freezes every cell in your body -- heartbeat stilling lethally. Your hands crinkle down your long pant leg before scrunching up the material around your thigh -- ruining the plain smoothness. Desperate to feel something in the spiraling numbness, you stab your teeth into the ripe flesh of your lip, tearing up thin strips of skin. And you chalk this up to a defect in your usual personality.

“Hey, Denji?”

“Hm?”

“When was the last time you called me ‘peach’?”

“I dunno,” he answers honestly before he blinks his brain into action and looks over at you, “I’ll use it more often, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“No, you’re fine, really. I just…” you can feel your chest bump in tune with your heartbeat, so overt and harsh it's causing authentic sparks of pain in your chest, “I’m sorry.”

For what, you can’t be precisely sure. You think, as a general rule to yourself, you’re sorry for everything that he doesn’t like, especially when it comes to everything about yourself.

But he just thinks you’re still stuck on earlier today, “Like I said, I’ll just have to get used to dating the Rejection Devil.”

Despite the two being in one body, you’ve come to learn that Chainsaw Man is Denji, but Denji is not necessarily Chainsaw Man.

While yes, you think Chainsaw Man is great, you think Denji is somehow even greater. It’s almost unfair. The Rejection Devil is okay, but are you? You as in you as in the fleshy, squishy, bloody you? You as in the you with a name you don’t remember (and desperately hopes her government-assigned boyfriend calls her peachy)? You as in the you that likes sugary fruit juice and soft cat fur? Are you okay? Could you one day be great?

Or are you only as useful as the devil you are? Protecting hunters and killing beasts and soothing the lively Denji (and therefore the Chainsaw inside him).

Are you still Denji’s girlfriend because he likes you? Or are you Denji’s girlfriend because he knows you might be the only available option? Could you be great like Denji? Could you be named?

Or is your soul too entwined with the Rejection Devil? Is your soul the Rejection Devil itself? Do you have a soul at all?

You must if you keep coming back. If your birth and death are celebrated and mourned, you must be alive.

Too bad you remember none of that.

If you died now, would Denji mourn?

You know you’d mourn him, but is that your choice?

You know you like Denji, but is that really you? Or is that Rejection Devil admiration spiraling into an infatuation for the Chainsaw and his host?

Does it even matter at all?

“Do you wanna come over after school tomorrow?” Denji asks like it's an afterthought, one he doesn’t even need to look at you for. Maybe he already knows your response.

“Yeah.”

Maybe he’ll grow bored soon. You wouldn’t blame him.

“Yeah!” you repeat it louder this time, hoping to entice a bigger reaction from him (this is the first time you’re going to his apartment after all), “I’d love to!”

He nods, though with a rosier tint to his cheeks than earlier and that’s good enough.

By October of 1997, your second diary was full with one last addition.

The wall closest to your bed has only 273 tallies, and you stare at the dust pooled in the shallow divots when you get bored. With every book read and only the same four walls to stare at until a Devil Hunter came with a contract proposal or a mission -- you were bored more often than not.

In a strange way, you still got excited when you saw Makima because it meant something new was coming. However quickly it would then be stripped away wasn’t even an afterthought.

But you’ve gone a long while since seeing her. You can’t be sure of the days passed with no window or calendar or even clock; you can’t even be sure you’re sleeping at night and awake during the day. Part of you is sick over the ache in your heart the longer you go without seeing Makima, Yoshida, or even Kishibe. As though they’ve all forgotten you exist. You could be locked down here for eternity with no means to die and not a single soul would be bothered to find you. But if they did?

If they found you, would they care?

Would they cry?

You don’t think so. You’re hardly something to cry over.

So does it matter at all that you’re down here? Certainly, a life of nonexistence is better than languishing in a cellar, burdening commission resources with no purpose.

Maybe when Makima finds Chainsaw, she could have him eat you. That would be nice. An honor to be so miserable upon humanity that Chainsaw is left with no choice but to consume the concept of your being. An honor to finally be wiped off this planet.

With a drying pen, you scribble that down.

To be eaten by Lord Chainsaw. That would be freeing.

And after sleeping that night(?), you awake to find Makima blatantly reading out of your journal. When she turns to stare at your crumpled form on the bare mattress, she smiles and reaches over to pat your head. Like an eager puppy, you push up into her touch and don’t dare demand she stop reading.

“You’re a good girl,” she coos down at you.

“I am?” you croak.

“You are,” she stands, snapping the book shut and continuing to smile down at you, “And you have a mission today.”

When Denji notices you curiously eyeing the black slip-ons by the door (which are multiple sizes too small to be his), he’s quick to explain.

“Just Nayuta. She throws her shoes wherever she wants.”

“Okay.”

You hadn’t planned on asking, but you like to imagine that maybe he didn’t want you getting jealous. Then you wonder why you like that so much. Probably because he’s your boyfriend, and you’re meant to.

Before you can spiral, a soft mew nabs all attention. Dogs’ nails clack against the faux wood tiles and you and Denji are quickly surrounded on all fronts by wagging tails and soft fur. Sniffing, happy puppies lick at your hands. You wrinkle your nose at the unadulterated smell of dog and you're hoping Denji doesn’t notice when suddenly a long tail wraps around your ankle. Loudly, you gasp and swoop down -- frightening Denji only a little -- to smooth your hands over the fat white cat’s fur.

“Kitty!” you’re borderline squealing in glee, and Denji shoos his dogs away after giving them their due pets, “So big!” you encourage the feline to pounce onto your lap with quick taps against your thighs.

“Meowy,” Denji clarifies (as if you could forget!), leaning over your shoulder to scritch under the cat’s chin, grinning when she starts purring in your coddling hold.

“I love you, Meowy,” you whisper to the cat, and Denji sits on the floor beside you after figuring the fat cat won’t be moving on from you anytime soon.

You’ve been looking forward to this since you heard about the cat, and somehow all your expectations have been exceeded.

“Didn’t know you liked cats so much, peachy, I woulda introduced you sooner.”

“Cats are so picky,” you keep your voice low as if raising it could startle Meowy off, “When a cat picks you, it feels so nice.”

“You must be a hit with the strays, then. Meowy usually fucks off in the living room instead of hanging by the door.”

You shrug, sluggish and dismal, “I’m not usually allowed out unless it's for school. Or you.”

Denji feels nauseous. His whole chest is tight with this unpleasant curdle. Quickly, he decides that he hates this feeling and wants it eradicated as soon as possible. Subconsciously, he must believe the solution is you because before he can really think about it, he’s lugging you off the floor and towards his room.

He lays you on his bed and falls into your side with Meowy now latched to your chest; purring loudly as you pet her with one hand, and Denji snatches the other. Rather than link his hand with yours like usual, he splays your fingers into his mess of tangerine hair.

Turning your head so your cheek meets the feather plush of his pillow, you find Denji’s eyes boring into yours. You blink at him with your hand limp over the side of his head, “Do you want me to pet you?”

Denji nods, crimson overtaking his cheeks and sweat beading over his palms.

“Okay.”

You card your fingers through his hair, gently prying loose knots apart over your knuckles before tenderly dancing your nails along his scalp. He presses his head closer, cheek now smooshed on your shoulder and eyes flickering shut.

Shakily, he raises an arm and lays it across your stomach, careful to avoid spooking Meowy. You can sense his hesitation in how the weight of his arm is so light it's imperceivable, then you press your hand flat against the back of his head and pet there, too. His arm relaxes, fully settling the weight on your gut.

This feels right.

Crushed and warm.

You’re doing a good job, you think.

You smile at the thought of being so useful and Denji hugs you tighter.

“Can I…” Denji swallows, throat cinching dryly, “I wanna make you feel good.”

“I do feel good.”

“Good good,” he’s quiet now. Voice all raspy and unsure, “I want to do something for you.”

That would be good for Denji too, right? He’ll be happy.

But you’re not sure you want to.

But not wanting to isn’t exactly your job.

Your job is to make Denji happy. So you lift Meowy from your chest with great remorse and watch the cat prattle out of the bedroom, “Okay.”

Sickness unlike the kind before a big fight builds in your stomach. Bloats all the way to your throat as you go limp in bed and allow Denji’s hands to wander. He sits up and untucks your uniform vest and top before gliding under those and resting over your bra.

Denji looks up at you for encouragement and finds a stoic appraisal. Then his eyes drift to your balled fists at your sides, and the lip you’re ravaging between your teeth.

If you had offered this to him -- he’d be on cloud nine, so what’s he done wrong? Denji clears his throat and finds a burning sensation at the back of his eyes, he tries blinking the fire away but it only makes the pain worse. He’s certain that this is what boyfriends and girlfriends do for each other. They bring each other to euphoria and lave one another in attention every night. This kind of service (or rather, the promise of service) was one of a few things that Denji recalled fondly from his days under Makima. Unfiltered affection: nasty and raw and intimate.

But the longer his hands are cupping over your bra, the more defeated you look.

The vicious pain in his chest bites up to his head.

“This isn’t hot at all…” Denji’s hands peel off from your chest to stow in his lap.

You shrink into yourself, shoulders coming to your ears as red-hot shame climbs up your neck, “What?”

“This isn’t hot,” he leans back with his arms outstretched behind him on the mattress. Hotter and hotter the burning grows until it's all wet, stinging heat in his eyes, “You’re not into it…” he looks around his room and tries finding anything out of place (he was sure he made it perfect!). But no, all the posters a girlfriend wouldn’t like are hidden under his bed with the magazines a girlfriend would hate. The blinds are drawn. His door is locked. He sniffles and looks down, hoping you don’t notice the flooding along his lower lashes “What’s wrong? You don’t like me? Ain’t I handsome?”

Inching your shoulders even higher, as if to somehow hide behind them, you frown, “What if you think I look weird naked? Or I make a sound you don’t like? Then you won’t want me anymore…”

Denji scoffs, lips twisting in an almost offended snarl, “You’re my girlfriend! I’ll still want you!”

He’s sure you don’t look or sound weird, but he’s also simultaneously sure that if you do then his loyalty will twist the weirdness into some obscure new fetish.

But you’re shaking your head, what more does he want?

What if he finally does have sex and realizes he never wanted you at all? What good are you doing then?

“We’re hardly a real couple…” his pout is just that, and one of his eyebrows is quirked curiously - he’s totally clueless, “What’s my favorite color?”

“I dunno!” he groans, then shrugging and sitting up straighter, “I know you like mango best even though you’ve only had a single one in your life. And you like staring at your feet when you walk so you don’t trip, which is annoying ‘cuz I gotta make sure nobody runs into you. And you never raise your hand in class even if you know the answer. Which is even more annoying ‘cuz now people think you don’t pay attention, but you’re passing every class,” he frowns a little, “You’re the smartest girl I know,” his frown deepens when you don’t smile like he’d hoped you would, “And you like cats more than dogs.”

“I like your dogs,” you weakly defend.

But he never meant it to be a jab in the first place, “But you like Meowy more.”

“I think we should break up.”

“Oh…”

“Just for a couple days,” your voice is tittering, all soft mush. If he so much as stood up and crossed his arms then you might take the suggestion back, “Three at most… just to see if this is really what you want.”

“I do, I know I do.”

“I know you want a girlfriend. Do you want me? Me me.”

“‘Course I do,” he sulks, “You’re…” he stops himself, the churning ache in his stomach sensing how displeased you may be with the repeated argument of you’re my girlfriend, “Do you want me?”

You’re silent. He tenses.

“I don’t know if we want each other.”

“I do. I want you. I want to- I haven’t given you anything. I want to give you things. I want to be nice to you, too. I want to make you happy.”

But how could he? You’re a tool, and now you’ve upset him. Are you worthy of being upset over? You aren’t so sure.

You aren’t even certain you have the power to make the call for a break-up. You’re a tool -- you don’t think you’re anything worth crying over.

But Denji is absolutely sure you are. And he knows he wants you, and that feels right because you’re his girlfriend. But curiously, even after you leave and he’s apparently now single, he continues to want you. He wants you so bad that he turns onto his stomach and buries his face in the pillow you laid on, just to see if he can still smell your perfume on it (he can).

In November of 1997, Makima got you a cat.

“You like them, right?”

“I do!” you’d smiled so wide your cheeks hurt, giddily petting your new friend, “Thank you, thank you! I love him!”

That same night, she makes you hold the small, quivering kitten above your head as she takes aim with a single finger. Your words are slurred with spit leaking down both corners of your mouth in your hurry to beg for your friend’s life. Your eyes are squished half-shut, trying to juice all the tears out without cutting Makima from your vision. You choke on your own breath, snot sour on your tongue as you shriek for her mercy.

bang

You don’t remember much else after that. You think you passed out as soon as the wall to your right indented.

You do, however, remember waking up the next morning and weeping into the kitten's soft fur. Hugging the warm, live feline to your chest and praying Makima would die on her next mission (by now, though, you were smarter than to think your prayers had merit). You even feel rebellious enough to engrave the edgy remark in your personal journal.

As repentance, Makima sends you on a month-long mission only days later. When you return, it’s to an empty room -- aside from a note left on stationary you recognize as ripped straight from your journal.

Kitten got sick. :( - Makima

Yoshida is stomping ahead of you the entire way to school the next morning, and you already know he’s fuming. You had hoped that by the time you both reached Fourth East, he would have calmed down; but you’re quickly proven wrong as he storms up to you once you’ve switched shoes at your cubby.

“Are you- !” Yoshida holds both hands over his face, muffling the scream he unleashes, “Are you serious?! You were doing everything right! You two were fine!”

“I’m sorry, I just- I don’t think I should be here… I’m really confused about how I feel all the time. I think I should go back to- “

“You don’t get to decide that,” he hisses, visible eye wide with rage, “You better beg him for another chance, I am not letting you fail this mission just because you’re ‘confused’.”

“I don’t want to beg him,” you stand a little straighter, maintaining fierce eye contact, “I want him to be sure- “

“This isn’t a dorama!”

“Hey, stop yellin’ it's annoying,” a passing voice snaps. The both of you look up to see Denji glaring sharply at Yoshida, “And don’t yell at her at all.”

Yoshida is quiet as Denji stalks off, the latter’s back growing smaller the further into the distance he goes.

“Did you like him?” Yoshida asks, voice returned to his typical lulling forbearance.

“Huh? What does that matter?”

“Shut up,” he commands before redundantly asking again, continuing to stare deep into the direction Denji was headed, “Did you like him?”

Did you?

You did. He was prettier than Yoshida prepared you for. And more considerate, too.

Deep down, you even think that maybe he’s inspired you - regarding you higher than you’d ever taken yourself for. You’ve realized things since dating him: you hate your room at Public Safety, you want to try petting more dogs, you don’t like school, and you really, really hate not having a name.

A real name.

“I think I did… Can I still like him?”

Yoshida groans under his breath before walking off, “Do what feels right!”

“What?!”

Scratch that -- you really hate that cryptic answer above all else!

Despite not having anything else to be tending to, you dawdle around Fourth East more often than not after being dismissed. You prefer wandering around the track twenty times over retiring to bed as soon as you get back to the commission’s basement.

Not even homework can entrap your attention long enough for the days to be less agonizing.

You watch your outdoor sneakers line one after the other along the white paint - you wobble less now that your body’s used to the limited movement. However, the idea of falling onto your side on lap twenty-one is mortifying. So when you’re too busy staring at your feet, you jostle into a body at the starting line. Your head bumping into their chin, their hands gently cupping your arms to keep you upright.

“You should seriously look up when ya walk.”

“Denji!” you cough, clearing the excitement from your tone, “Denji, what’re you…” you stop yourself, fretting over how rude he might think you suddenly are, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Do you want to see a movie with me?” you open your mouth and Denji watches your lips part before interrupting you, “Don’t overthink it.”

Do you want to watch a movie with him? Yes.

Should you?

Don’t overthink it.

Does it matter? Honestly, what’s even waiting for you at home?

Why shouldn’t you watch a movie with Denji (especially when every nerve in your body is screaming at you to say yes)?

Denji ends up sneaking you two into an R-18-rated horror film. One with a single poster lit up in the theater lobby - blood dripping down a screaming woman’s face and the title in a gaudy, pure hot red. You’re the only ones in the theater, sitting in the middlemost seats Denji could scour. Your hand is bound in his on your shared armrest, warm flesh tangled in warm flesh.

And it’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen.

The main actress has the inflection of a primadonna teenager despite portraying a single mother lawyer, and halfway through you’ve seen more strip teases than blood. Not one of the characters is likable beyond being a slice of dead meat hooked on the end of the killer’s cleaver. You can’t even discern the plot of the movie other than some brick wall villain slashing down a woman and her coworkers.

You earnestly laugh as the woman runs upstairs in the creaky old cabin in the woods rather than out the wide open door. In the corner of your eye, you can see Denji looking at you. You return his stare, giggles still chittering through your teeth at the ridiculously forced story beats.

“Terrible, right?” he doesn’t bother whispering.

But you do, “Horrible,” his eyes flicker down to your lips again, “I love it.”

“Me too.”

It may be your favorite movie of all time.

“I missed you,” you admit, fully ashamed of backtracking a mere day after your decision to break up.

“I missed you, too, peachy,” his voice is unweathered by that shame.

“I don’t know…” you look down at your dark shoes, they fade into the swathing shadowing of the theater, “How can I know this is real? That I really do like you? That this isn’t just because I was told to?”

Away from Fourth East, above your small room in the basement, and throughout the barren offices of Public Safety, the shadow of Makima hangs heavy over everyone. You’re not certain when you started submitting to her, and you’re not sure when you started submitting to everyone she told you to, and you’re especially not sure when submitting to everyone felt comfortable. What you do know is that you are a useful tool for the public. You are a good instrument when devil hunters need assistance, for your technique and regeneration -- on missions and off them. And to keep Denji’s identity hidden, you are to be a sweet, giving, and kind shield.

But you hate all of that. You hate fighting and you hate everyone you work with. You miss movies. And you like Denji.

Is it some late-stage rebellion as the death of Makima truly settles in, or is this who you are?

“How should I know?” Denji mutters, kicking at the plastic back of the seat in front of him, “I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care about devil hunting or who controls who. I choose my life, and I choose to be your boyfriend. If I didn’t like you on our first date, I wouldn’t like you now.”

“What if I change?“

“You can’t change in a way I don’t like,” he frowns when you don’t smile at his declaration, “I just want you because you’re…” nice, weird, interesting, and if he pushes the right buttons you can be lively and loud, “you. I like you. You can’t change in a way I wouldn’t like unless you tried killing me.”

“I would never try to kill you.”

So does it matter if this was chosen for you?

You can like Denji and be with him, or you can like Denji and be away from him. You feel like the second option would be more miserable. So how does it matter, then, that dating Denji was chosen for you? Either way, you like him.

A lot.

You smile, and he copies it, “I like you, Denji. I want to be your girlfriend.”

On the big screen, a woman is being stabbed to death, but Denji eagerly closes towards you as if the projection is completely blank.

“I wanna be your boyfriend!”

A flashlight blinds the both of you suddenly, a stern male voice you briefly mistake for some impossibly higher calling following after, “How old are you two?”

“Eighteen!” Denji flips the man off, one eye cinched shut and the other squinted in a nasty glare, even as he answers honestly.

“Yeah, eighteen!” you copy, grabbing one of Denji’s hands with yours.

The man holds out his palm, flexing his fingers once. Denji scoffs but hands over his student ID with you taking example.

“Hayakawa, Denji… Yoshida, Reiji…”

Reiji. れいじ. It feels as unfamiliar as it sounds.

You almost open your mouth to protest - that’s not my name! before remembering that in the eyes of Fourth East High, it is. You don’t like it.

But you don’t like Rejection, either. You feel bigger than that. You are bigger than that. You like ginkgo trees even without the fall glow, you think mangoes are the best fruit, you like the smell of ashed cigarettes and dog fur, and you think the color orange is prettier than people give it credit for. You wait until the strange guard leaves before voicing,

“I want to change my name,” you continue to whisper although neither of you is paying any attention to the movie.

Denji sticks his legs out, resting them over the back of the seat in front of him, “What to?”

His volume startles you a little before realizing that it doesn’t matter how loud he is; the two of you are alone.

You raise your voice to a normal volume, “No clue yet, but I’m excited to find one…” you smile when Denji does, he tightens his hand in yours, “I wonder if I’ll find one unique or pretty.”

“If it's yours then it’ll be pretty anyway,” there’s a pause, you stare at him and he stares at you. You like how the projection reflects over his pale face, his eyes sparkling from the bright screen. Finally, he speaks again, “You’re really pretty.”

I think I actually love you.

“You’re pretty, too, Denji.”

I think I actually love you, too.

“You should leave Public Safety for real. We can get you real clothes. And you can stay with Meowy all the time when you’re not in school. Nobody will order you around ever again.”

“They’ll try dragging me back,” you doubt that they’d let a Devil -- even one that has no interest in being a Devil -- roam free in Japan on some fluid, lucrative “mission” of dating Denji.

“I’ll fight ‘em off,” he sounds so determined, “I’ll protect you.”

You look back at the movie, you wonder if you and Denji are the only ones to have seen it since it came out.

“Okay,” he brightens up at your agreement, “I’ll live with you. I’ll leave Public Safety.”

Denji lifts your linked hands from the shared armrest and pulls it up, shoving it into the gap between your back supports to yank you closer to his chest. He hooks his chin on the crown of your head and squashes you in a tight embrace like a child would their stuffed bear. He kisses your head, nose dug into your hair. He feels so excited he could burst out of his skin, and the only solution is to keep hugging you as unbearably annoying characters are slaughtered onscreen. To cram the both of you so tight together you’ll explode as one -- that’s the only way he can escape this whole-body buzzing.

Immediately after deciding to live together, Denji made the frightening choice that you should meet his sister. On the way back to his apartment, he’s internally scolding himself for not having introduced you sooner but pushes the nagging feeling away. After all, Nayuta wants what’s best for Denji just like Denji wants what’s best for Nayuta -- if she can feel the same coziness that Denji always does when he’s with you, then she’ll like you. He’s certain of it.

“I told her about you, so… She shouldn’t be weirded out when you meet anyway…” if not for the blush on his face, you could mistake him as being casual about this!

You, however, feel so nervous you’re hunched into your boyfriend’s side and fighting the urge to gag up your lunch.

“What if she hates me?!” you heave, a hand clawing at the unevenly tied ribbon around your neck. It’s somehow too tight and too loose. Simultaneously suffocating and unable to ground you.

“She won’t!”

He’s so sure, he foolishly doesn’t even prepare a backup plan for if she does hate you. Besides, revising house rules to adjust for your incoming presence went well enough -- so how could it not work out now?

By the time Denji’s managed to steer you up to his apartment’s door, your legs are overdone noodles. He knocks twice - brief pause - then three more times, and waits. A caucus of rowdy barks and animated paws on fake hardwood thrum behind the door before a faint click hauls your heartbeat to a stop. As soon as the lock is undone, the door’s hinges squeal open and a little black-haired girl with untrimmed bangs is poking her face through the gap.

Her eyes are electric yellow, burning straight through your skull, with crimson rings around her iris.

“This is her?”

“This is Her,” Denji nods sternly, certainly much more serious than you’ve seen him before.

Nayuta’s stare is just as intimidating as Makima’s was, despite the girl being a grade-schooler. You’re frozen stiff under her gaze, heart thundering so hard you’re absolutely positive that she can hear it even feet away.

Suddenly, she nods, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Denji’s positively beaming.

“Yeah,” Nayuta shows off a peace sign, receiving one in turn from Denji, “She’s got a nice scent.”

She doesn’t say it, but she thinks you smell like sugary fruit punch and honey.

Terrified of sullying her (apparently positive?) impression of you, you squeak out a childish, “Thank you…?”

Nayuta slinks an arm through the door, careful not to let any of the yipping, jumpy dogs out, and takes hold of you to pull you inside, “Mhm.”

She hugs your arm through the door and into the common space.

That night, Nayuta almost makes you miss Public Safety curfew -- desperately trying to worm you into the cuddle pile of the dogs and Meowy and Denji that they sleep in. You almost feel compelled to break curfew and listen, and not from her own power. As a compromise, you promise to be back the next day and she demands you honor your word before letting Denji walk you to the train station.

After a bite-free kiss from Denji, you’re sitting on the train to the commission’s haunting office building. Alone and warm all at once.

And you have to agree with your boyfriend, Nayuta is nothing like Makima.

In late 1998, you met with Yoshida at your shoe cubby for the last time. A cold breeze of December’s premiere christens the moment.

“It took some help from a senior hunter, but I got your release papers signed,” Yoshida holds up the manilla file in question, “I’m supposed to hold onto them in case you do something they don’t like, but I have a lot of work on my plate already.”

As if you wouldn’t understand, he waves the file around Fourth East’s expansive entrance. Then, he holds the folder out to you, jerking it further when you don’t immediately grab for the thing.

“Are you- ?”

Yoshida cuts you off quickly, “It needs to be renewed every five years, and I’m sure you’re not stupid enough to think there’s no consequences of fucking up. So just live a normal life, okay? Don’t make me and Kishibe regret this.”

Kishibe?

“Kishibe?! Seriously?”

Yoshida shrugs off your question and heads for class, fully intent on dodging any of your future attempts at interrogation.

Fortunately for him, you don’t give chase; too busy giddily reading over the official statement of your release from Public Safety. The final plot to yours and Denji’s journey of moving in together since you’ve had your few possessions sent to his apartment (and due respect to whatever nurturing side Makima had, no matter how selfish in nature, because you genuinely forgot how plain your room could be with no old books or journals).

“Thank you!” you call after the boy, ignoring the odd stares from your peers and holding the folder to your chest as if it may disappear.

Inside on the very top line is a printed line for your taken name. 恣恩 -- Shion -- is slated over the last name spot, preceding the empty bank for your first name. A pen is tucked into the corner of the folder.

Looking up again, you find Yoshida nowhere in sight, but you still whisper after him with a gooey need to express your gratitude, “Thank you.”

“You got it?”

“Yep!” you can tell who’s behind you without needing to turn.

For a reason you cannot discern, that makes you proud of yourself. Knowing Denji so well you can pick his voice from a crowd. You like that. A lot.

Nayuta drearily slips into the tight kitchen space, rubbing crust from her eyes while watching you and Denji stare into a pan. You’re closer to the stove with Denji huddled just over your shoulder.

“Breakfast?” Nayuta meanders over, wrapping her arms around one of yours and burrowing into your side.

“Eggs,” you and Denji answer.

Then you tack on, “And toast.”

She nods sluggishly against your shoulder, lazily blinking as Denji holds the pan for you to scoop the fried egg with one hand. You hold the egg up while Denji scrambles for a plastic black plate with a piece of toast on it. Once the egg is settled onto the bread, Denji holds the plate out for Nayuta.

“You’ve still gotta get ready for school!” Denji calls after her as she moves to the living room.

When you hear no response, you poke your head out to look at the little black-haired girl, being sure to keep your voice gentle as you ask, “Did you hear Denji?”

Nayuta throws up a peace sign, chewing her egg on toast.

“She heard you.”

“Figures.”

Denji yawns and slings both arms around your shoulders just to rest his head against yours -- the motion itself is selfish and monopolizes your entire personal bubble. You return the embrace around his waist and press a kiss against his cheek: soft and warm and pink like peaches. He hums at the affection and squeezes you tighter.

I think I love you

I think I love you, too

Denji almost gathers the courage to say it, but instead settles for, “You skippin’ again, peachy?”

You nod against his cheek, “Think I’ll wash the dogs.”

He snorts, “Your attendance is shit.”

“Oh well…” you think you’ll drop out at this point -- Fourth East is a slough of swamp water unless you’re cutting class with Denji by the track field.

Denji kisses your forehead before leaving to finish putting on his own uniform, “Yeah, oh well.”

He’s certain he’s in love with you. You’re certain you love him back.

On nights when you and Denji aren’t sleeping in his room -- Nayuta has you all holed in hers. You learned quickly that Nayuta was possessive (you expected it, even), what you didn’t pick up on was that her possessiveness spread rapidly to you as well as Denji and the pets. If you and Denji make the mistake of not putting her to bed with enough soothing, she’ll slither her way between your arms.

Like tonight;

You and Denji are laid out first in a loose sweetheart’s cradle, Nayuta flopping onto the wide mat next. She rests perfectly in the middle with both of you throwing an arm around her. Tiramisu will jaunt up behind you while Custard takes Denji’s side, and Meowy will always find a way to settle her weight on your lap or hip. The remaining five dogs will circle your pre-established huddle for the most comfortable spot before sighing into the mattress as well.

Nayuta’s stray hairs tickle your cheek and Denji will carefully card the strands away. It’s a repetitive routine, but a comfortable one.

You had a routine in the basement, too. It was less comfortable.

Much less comfortable.

~~

@ghostlykeyes hopefully i got the depressed:pathetic ratio right!!

[ghostlykeyes]

ragnlover is a concept that is so dear to me…

@ghostlykeyes !!!! oomfie n i were sharing daydreams abt living in a swamp cabin and being rag’s witchy partner and this popped out heheh

377 words - not proofread oops

Savory burns of meat are overtaken soon after the front door hinges squeak, Ragnvalder’s hefty boots thud across the floorboards before he’s flush behind you. His own scent of the vague outdoors floods the kitchenette. You can make out raw dirt and iron, sharp twinge of the stench of sweat.

“You reek,” you point out unhelpfully.

Ragnvaldr barks a laugh into your ear before pressing his nose into the back of your head, lips soft against your skull soon after. He lingers there stubbornly, squeezing around you like a viper crushing its prey, but he kisses you so tenderly. Warmth licks over your back from his broad, bare chest; you’ve tried warning him that thick furs are not as useful in a swamp as they are in the north, but your outlander persists. Wrapping around you tighter and tighter until you’re blue and bursting at the joints - simply petrified at the mere thought of releasing you.

“I can’t cook like this, you know,” the air is pushed out from your chest as Ragnvaldr squishes you into his chest, making a deeply huffed ‘oof!’. You giggle at his clingy display and pat one of his thick forearms, stretching out to flip the sliver of feral swine underbelly, “I’ll burn the food! This is dinner -- do you want to eat char?!”

“Only if it’s made by you,” Ragnvaldr nuzzles into your hair, “I hung more pig outside. And rabbits,” you feel the impression of his proud grin against the back of your head, “I know you wanted rabbits’ feet.”

“Thank you, darling,” you coo, gently raking your nails over his skin and watching goosebumps rise in the wake, “Did you find any yellow russulas?”

“I was waiting for you to ask,” perching his chin over your shoulder, Ragnvaldr watches with seemingly unending interest as you shift peeled carrots and chopped potatoes and shredded greens in the pan’s bowl. He kisses your shoulder before replacing his chin there, “I pinned half on the clothesline to dry out and left the rest by the line.”

“My brave warrior,” you lean your head back enough to press your own kiss to his cheek before stripping the meat and vegetables from the open flame.

“The best for you, elskling.”

[ghostlykeyes]

how abt how yone kisses o(∩_∩)o

sorry if getting these repetitive asks r annoying or uninspiring— take your time and have fun

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♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

HEARTSTEEL YONE: KISSES ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW, NSFW separated under bold header ♡ DW anon, I'm OBSESSED with kiss HC's. I will NEVER complain if I get to Think About Kissing The Boys. Hope you enjoy (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

YONE

Yone's kisses are unique—they can't quite be described in the normal terms you might use, like 'passionate' or 'intense'. His deep kisses feel like poetry, almost abstract: like a pine forest under a shawl of fog. The steady roll of dark storm clouds, not quite raining over you yet, but whispering with a looming promise of thunder. Leather gloves. A whiff of cedar—mountaintops at dawn—the ripples on carved marble. Even though he's busy, he truly makes time when he's kissing you. As his tongue takes command of your mouth, you really feel him. Strong. Steady. He makes you feel important, secure. A good word, if you have to boil it all down? Sensual, but not overdramatic. It often leaves goosebumps popping up along your arms, and whenever he pulls away there's a momentary look of peace and dreaminess on his face. (It's quickly extinguished whenever the rest of Heartsteel engages in their perpetual bullshit, but oh well, what can you do. There will be more time to kiss when Sett's not whipping Earnest's toys at the windows as fast and hard as possible.)

Not big on PDA, Yone will keep your kisses quite chaste and gentlemanly in front of other people. The classic knuckle kiss is a favorite of his. He'll often gently bring your hand to his pillow-soft lips if feeling affectionate while in meetings with band managers or discussing business with venues.

That being said, Yone loves to stand behind you and rest his chin on the top of your head whenever you're waiting in line somewhere. If you protest with an 'ow' when his bony chin boinks your skull he'll murmur a "sorry" and press a light kiss your head. Then he puts his chin back, albeit more gently this time.

Yone always tastes great (a very subtle, clean wintergreen flavor) , even though you never see him popping mints or chewing gum. How does he do it...? You ask him how he avoids chronic coffee-breath but he just shrugs. "I don't do anything special," he claims. You're sure he's got some super-secret stash of high-powered mouthwash hidden on his person at all times but, as of yet, its existence is sadly unconfirmed. (Not to say he won't let you feel him up with the excuse of looking for it.)

Often, Yone's mouth is freezer-cold from his iced coffee. His chilly tongue never fails to send a shiver down your spine.

Speaking of his tongue—boy, does Yone ever know how to use his. He likes to lick long the ridges on the top of your mouth, the back of your teeth, and along the length of your tongue. Never fear because he's appalled at the mere thought of the washing machine maneuver. Even if you're in a sloppy make-out sesh he keeps it classy.

Yone's got some minimal pull with the more popular gossip mags, and he uses it to make sure pictures of you kissing stay out of the tabloids. He absolutely hates the idea that your relationship could be subject to public scrutiny. If someone manages to get a picture of you two in an intimate moment, he's not above using his influence and/or money to make sure it's not released.

Kissing Yone with his hair down is a recipe for disaster. There's just so much of it and it gets everywhere—before you know it he's wincing as your fingernails accidentally tug his hair and you're pulling red out of your mouth. If there's a hair tie on your wrist, Yone snags it. When you open your mouth to protest the theft he shuts you up with his mouth on yours.

Sometimes the rest of the guys are dorks and act absolutely disgusted if they catch you kissing Yone. "Ewwwwww," they laugh, prompting Yone to roll his eyes, annoyed. "I hate seeing Mom and Dad kiss." (Gender matters little in this teasing scenario. Yone is 'Mom' either way.)

Yone's a workaholic, so of course he gets a bit delirious and silly from lack of sleep sometimes. If he's giggling and rapid-fire pressing kisses on all your birthmarks, it's probably time to make that man go to bed. Nothing says you can't enjoy the extra affection before he passes out, though.

Though he gets in the zone and may not give you a deep, sensual kiss while he's working, Yone always returns a kiss when you give him one. Giving him a quick peck while he's scrunched over his work computer is a surefire way to steal a little loving while he's otherwise occupied.

NSFW

Yone's the king of body worship. When he knows he's been neglecting you for work, he makes a show of getting to his knees and running his hands feather-light up and down the outside of your thighs. "My darling," he lifts your foot towards him and his warm breath fans along your ankle. "Won't you please let me earn your forgiveness?" Taking his time, he caresses sweet, nerve-tingling kisses up the length of your legs. When he reaches the apex of your thighs, Yone meets your eyes, gaze smoldering, before taking you into his mouth. Let's just say he doesn't rush, and you more than forgive him by the time he's done with you.

Yone adores kisses in missionary. It's as if his mouth is soldered to yours, swallowing up your moans like he's a man starved. Whenever you break away to gasp and pant his name he presses his forehead to yours, basking in the closeness and warmth of your bodies.

One of Yone's turn-ons is when you trail kisses down the back of his neck and over the column of his spine, so light he can barely feel them at all. Your warm breath and your lips whispering across his back have him tense and shivering in the best way possible. You're only halfway down his spine before he starts muffling moans into the palm of his hand. He gets so fucking hard it almost hurts when you finally reach around to touch his cock.

[ghostlykeyes]

kanin under maanen

word count - 4.6 k

warnings - p in v sex, reader is described with words like "soft" and "round" and is also fem, rag's status as a widower is an afterthought, i kept losing track of where i put his furs

also - i think oldegaard is funger's norway?? or something... :P oops

“Please- I’ll be quick, I swear! I’ll carry things! I know how to mix herbs, I can heal you! And I’ll be quiet, too. Just, oh, just please... please let me stay with you…!”

Your hands rattle against your chest, which heaves like you’re fresh from a churning dash through the entirety of the dungeons -- just to ask this man, a stranger, a simple question.

“Can I stay with you, please?”

Ragnvaldr stares down at you over the bridge of his nose, seafoam eyes lapping over the weaker stain of your frame in his vision. Such bold, shameless desperation plagues him. He starts to wonder how you’d made it to the courtyard. How many cramped corners you’d jammed yourself into, barely scraping out of the dungeon beasts’ sights. How you’ve held your mind together to form words and continue your slow crawl to freedom.

The reddened, raw stretch of skin over his right ribs stings suddenly to emphasize your point. Ragnvaldr was raised well enough to know which shrubbery to scrub into which wounds and which ones to avoid at all costs, but his knowledge was poultry compared to what these cells demanded.

At the downwards twitch of your knees, Ragnvaldr can feel an uncomfortableness to rival the ache of his seared flesh twinge through his beating chest. He takes you by the shoulder, grip loosening when you flinch under his hold. Ragnvaldr shakes his head, silky cardinal tresses dancing over his skin. His lips, cracked and fading in color, pin themselves back faintly to ease your shivering uncertainty.

“No need to beg on your knees,” Ragnvaldr unlatches from you completely in favor of cradling the slowly leaking slashes in his side, “You said you can heal?”

“Yes!” you eagerly respond, nodding, “Yes, let’s sit you down!”

Ragnvaldr flows under the bristle of your fingertips, fur armor quickly coming off. His uncovered back was against the chilled stone highwall; lower body stretched out against the grass bed. Your hands move in smoother, more assured strides as you single out the most useful of your colored leaves.

“Can I…?”

“Ja, anything you need.”

Ragnvaldr’s eyes, you notice, have softened in how they watch over your work. The flutter of his lashes now matches the tenderness of their color. A near-missed swipe from a serrated weapon -- none like you’ve seen -- decorates the majority of his right side under his arm. Angry red lines string over the pink flesh. You press a careful hand into the surrounding area, testing the firmness of his body for soft spots. For broken bones. He allows it, despite the stark difference in strength and the fact he could probably crush your skull with one palm -- he allows your hands to roam.

The bag you pull from is ratty and he thinks the deep brown hue may be more from staining than original dyes, but he says nothing. You first pull out a thick book with yellowed pages between faded, peeling covers. Then, four blue herb sprigs and two glass vials -- the stretch and twist of your bones and ligaments beneath soft, unbruised skin is hypnotizing to Ragnvaldr. You crush the sprigs with a single vial before hurriedly separating the remains between the two vials and combining two blue vials into one.

“I don’t think it’s infected,” you murmur, clogging the vial with a cork. A lighter shade of blue now shimmers beneath the glass, darker shreds of herb cling inside the abandoned second vial.

Ragnvaldr shakes his head, “Nej. I’d have mentioned it.”

“Ah, right,” you cup a hand over your mouth, eyes wide as if you’re offstruck by your own words, “I didn’t mean- of course, you- I mean… I’m sorry,” you bashfully reopen the cerulean bottle and hold it up towards the man’s face, “I didn’t mean to suggest anything…”

A vicious anxiety continues to course through your chest, no matter how pliant Ragnvaldr has made himself to show his trust for your care. You’re visibly hyper-aware of how simply he could end your life. Something about the nature of this makes him nauseous.

“I’m sure you didn’t,” Ragnvaldr speaks softer than before, his voice a deep, gentle purr through the broad expanse of his chest. Tenderly, he swipes the open vial from your palm, the warmth from his skin washing over the cold nips of your own, “Thank you.”

Silently, you nod, wasting seconds to watch his adam’s apple bob thickly with each swallow before you pull loose the cloth you’ve collected through ransacked rooms. The strips coil around themselves by your kneeling legs.

“Can I start wrapping it?”

“Ja.”

“This might be…” you flounder under his eyes, instead stringing up the cloth in your hands and leaning over Ragnvaldr’s bigger frame. Invasive.

Ragnvaldr contemplates, for the second time, how you’d skipped past guards and tentacled flesh beasts and dogs. Even the impish, frail, winged creatures seem capable of knocking your terrorized self off your steady. Then, he asks himself why he’s taken you in. Oldegaard groomed strong warriors, and he had always taken pride in that. He was raised with scorching blood and willing hands, you were not.

But you remind him of the blacksmith’s girl. A sweet thing -- also unfamiliar with the fighter’s path. He prays she was killed quickly rather than being made to suffer.

Perhaps he can apologize to her and the rest of his gutted homeland by escorting you back out once he’s taken revenge.

“How did you get this?” your voice lulls Ragnvaldr from his own head, he looks up from your binding hands to your soft face, “Can I ask that? How were you injured?”

“A man with the head of a crow,” Ragnvaldr admits this to you with the ease he would his name, “A mace for an arm,” he gestures down the length of his side, “He’s much faster than I am.”

“I’m glad you got out,” you finish tucking the tattered end of your cloth spiral into the rest of the sprawl. You are suddenly afraid of being misconstrued, “I’m glad this dungeon couldn’t claim another soul.”

Ragnvaldr thinks you are as kind as the blacksmith’s girl, but you must have resilience to survive this far. More guts and nerve, and even teeth. They may be loose and accustomed to chewy, lavish fat, but you most certainly have teeth.

He wants to see them.

“I feel the same.”

You smile, bigger than he had earlier. The thin shadows and dimples highlighted in your face remind him of when he was younger, with the liberty to stare up at full moons. Absorbing and beautiful with radiance to shine over shadowed forests and into black night seas. He wants to return to there. Even in the cruel winters when he was faced with the opened chests and severed limbs of his deceased comrades. Even then, when he had to eat or be eaten, things were simpler compared to now.

“I think you should rest,” you frown immediately after speaking, “To avoid agitating the wound with the cloth… it isn’t very clean and I don’t have enough green herbs to keep infections at bay for long.”

Ragnvaldr tenses, but it’s not as nerve-wracking as it would’ve been mere moments ago. He clenches his fists and gently skims his knuckles down the pseudo-bandages, when it stuns him momentarily, he nods.

“We can’t stay out here, then.”

“There are rooms in the dungeon’s first level.”

“For torture?”

Dread fills you, that he may consider your suggestion foolish and ultimately dump you off to a guard, but then you see the lopsidedness of his grin. He’s messing with you.

“Well, yes,” you huff, coming to a stand and holding out both hands to assist him up, “but our options are limited.”

Ragnvaldr stubbornly stands on his own, pushing off the tower wall behind him and stumbling ahead of you towards the entry hall.

And with just as much defiance, you jam yourself under one of his arms before you can properly think out the action. Your desire to be helpful and needed by the strongman outweighs your politeness; not wanting to be abandoned with your back turned. Ragnvaldr jolts over you, but relents and leans the more unstable part of his weight against you. The trek is difficult, but you both manage. You feel less afraid traversing back through the dank, dark halls than you did leaving them, and you are not ignorant to the fact it's because of Ragnvaldr hanging over you. Injured as he is, he’s still far more competitively capable than you.

Once you’ve properly settled into a room and jammed the door shut, Ragnvaldr slips onto the sole creaky bed. His eyes close, exhaling noisily through his nose.

The bed’s frame is caked in dried, blackening blood and sits opposite a bucket full of murky sludge; a crinkly film drying over the surface. Pressed far into the side of the room is a table with glinting blades scattered across the stained wood. You can’t define what most of the tools are, but you can identify the skinning knife teetering by the closest edge of the table.

Aside from that are the typical smears of carmine blood over cobblestone: people before you and someday people after you. You can only pray now to the old Gods that it won’t be your own blood to join the pool.

For that, for your safe passage through the dungeons, you need to ensure your new party doesn’t fall to infection or blood loss.

“I’ll check you over tomorrow morning,” you tangle your fingers together, switching the weight between your feet, “Maybe tonight if it’s noticeably hurting.”

Ragnvaldr stares over at you again before patting the bed.

You heed the silent command, dragging along the worn bag you pulled from a barrel in the basement.

“What brought you here?” you wonder quietly, looking over at the man. He monopolizes the bedspace, spread wide over the mattress without even intending to.

His eyes drift up to the ceiling before finding your dutiful hands again, he follows the movements as they dig through your items. Taking stock of what you have, mourning the losses, and fretting over what you need. The blacksmith’s girl didn’t have hands as mystifying as you.

“I am here to find a relic that a certain person took from my people. This man is imprisoned somewhere deep down below,” Ragnvaldr is not so foolish as to believe his home’s pillaging is either undeserved or unbefitting for his soul to bear. He’s done the same, and the parasite from Vinland still burns a hole in his pocket. Even so, his human heart persists, “When I found them- I was one of only a few survivors.”

“Oh,” you pause your inventory search to very delicately press a hand to his shoulder and pat sympathetically, “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

He wonders what someone with as soft hands and face as you would think of such a declaration. If the teeth you have can chew through the toughness of his words. You pull back, but much slower than he was expecting, and return to sorting through your bag.

Much to Ragnvaldr’s surprise, you smile, “Then I’ll make sure you get there in one piece.”

You swallow his ominous message without pause.

“What are you doing here?”

“Ah, a friend of mine…” you worry your bottom lip between your teeth, fingers caught at the bottom of your bag with a thin slip of paper, “She’s pregnant and the man promising to wed her came for a job to set them up for life. He’s been gone for a while.”

“A friend would send you here? Into this evil?”

“She never said she wanted me to come here,” you shrivel into yourself, settling your bag against the bedpost leg, “I don’t know what compelled me… I really- “ your hands fist the torn, blood-stained sheets, “I was an idiot to think I could’ve done any good here.”

Ragnvaldr sits up, laying his calloused palm over yours, “The man you’re looking for. What’s his name?”

“Cahara. Cahara of the South.”

The man nods, auburn strands hanging with the motion, “And I’ll make sure you find him for your friend.”

“Thank you,” you notice the way he moves further to the side, a new gap on the mattress for your body to slot beside him, “Thank you, Ragnvaldr.”

He doesn’t think he’s heard someone outside the North say his name with such care.

You lay beside Ragnvaldr and revel in how close the two of you are. Safety and comfort buzzing in the lack of space.

He’s big. And warm. Like the sun.

You missed the sun.

…

Upon rising from slumber, you see that Ragnvaldr is still in unguarded rest. His bare chest rises and falls in soothed repetitive swoops, and his soft hair rains over the flat pillow beneath him. Prepared to slide off the mattress, you don’t register the arm fastening you to Ragnvaldr before you’re brushing against it. The arm tightens and you’re rendered useless.

You contemplate waking Ragnvaldr. Of squeezing yourself through the narrow hold. Even forcefully unwinding his muscle from your midsection.

You fall back asleep.

…

By the next time you’re awake, Ragnvaldr is too. You’ve sat him up against the scratched, chipped headboard and are undressing his wound. Green herb sprigs sit at the ready by your right knee in case pus is clinging to the cloth and oozing from open shreds. Thankfully, nothing of the sort awaits.

“Good!” you chirp, and Ragnvaldr remembers a full moon hanging over the spindly, leafless trees in the harsh falls of his youth, “There’s still some scratching, probably scarring later… but no infection! And it’s not inflamed or red.”

“We should continue our way, then.”

“Oh.”

Ragnvaldr laughs suddenly, from the hull of his chest, and only stops when the skin over his ribs pulls uncomfortably, “You want to stay here?”

“It’s been nicer than out there… We could stay in here. Away from the darkness.”

It has been nicer. The dungeons of Fear and Hunger are no place for domesticity, but anything is fair in a locked room. In a strange way, you wish you could stay with the beautiful man from Oldegaard.

His hair brushes past his shoulders and even though he is so much larger than you (you fear that he may even be able to kill a guard on his own), he is nicer than most men you’ve met in your life. Especially where you live in the seedier underbelly of Rondon -- men with spines are not uncommon, but men with spines and hearts are. Cahara was a welcomed gem in the coal mines of home.

And Ragnvaldr, you fear, might be your prettiest diamond.

He gazes upon you fondly. Seafoam you want to drink up. Or drown in. You haven’t decided yet. He cups your round cheeks and smooths back the stray hairs slicked to your face.

“Maanejente,” he coos beneath his breath, the harsh pads of his thumbs glide over the plain of your face and down your neck, working into the knotted meat of your shoulders, “Maanejente… nothing will hurt you. Not with me here,” he wants to see your teeth in that pretty smile from last night, “You have sugar in your heart, has anyone told you that?” you bare your teeth in a grin and he feels more successful than after any battle, “We’ll press on later.”

You nod under his calm massaging, eyes drifting to the fiery lines over his right side, “I don’t have anything to make the wounds close.”

“I don’t expect anything more,” he soothes, studying you kindly. Oldegaard had such a wide, unhindered view of the skies, when he was a boy he would stare into the moon’s craters. He’d compare them from night to night and dream about a day when he would defeat a beast so great, he’d be rewarded. The thick trees of Vinushka Himself would lift Ragnvaldr high into the sky and he’d be able to study the deep caverns up close, “You’ve healed me plenty to keep fighting.”

He became a man and forgot those dreams in favor of providing for himself and his wife and their child.

But he remembers himself in his purest form and finds that he doesn’t want to part with you after taking revenge against the foolhardy Le’Garde. If you asked, he would stop fighting after that, or he could become the God of Ultra-Violence. Whichever way you please, he’ll bend.

“Maanejente, we should go.”

You move swiftly, exhaling sharply with a curt nod, “Right!” you stow away the unused green herbs, “Right, we’ll go.”

“The job your friend had taken, what was his work here?” Ragnvaldr watches you move. Your sureness and determination sway him further.

“He had to find a man,” you bury yourself into the shadow of Ragnvaldr as he unsticks the room lock, “I’m not sure of the name.”

“An important man, though,” Ragnvaldr is embarrassed how his first thought is what you’ll do if he kills the man your friend is meant to rescue, “Must be.”

You realize what he means, eyes widening, “No! It… Well… It could be…”

Ragnvaldr’s warm gaze melts into the floor tiles as he guides you through the dim hallways. Prison guards moan and gurgle in the distance and the sound used to freeze you in your spot -- it now feels like the squeaks of mice with the Northern man in front of you.

“I’m sure if he knew,” you brace, “he wouldn’t get in your way.”

Ragnvaldr pushes through to the courtyard, unveiling rows of hanged men naked and baking in the open air. Despite the fact this is, in fact, open air, the scent of death continues to cling along each blade of grass. A mist clogs your vision.

Bared skin wafting more warmth than the exposed sun, Ragnvaldr looks down at you as you clutch your measly bag. Your expression is pinched like you’ve somehow stabbed him in the back. His red hair burns like gold embers in the bathing light.

“You would let me kill the man, then?”

“He hurt you,” you answer simply. A way so unbridled by dark and evil, Ragnvaldr once again cannot comprehend your survival past the entrance guard dogs.

You discuss a stranger’s death with the comfort you would which color you prefer for robes. You have teeth unsharpened by true terror. Ragnvaldr should get you free of these walls soon.

“Sugar for a heart,” he muses.

The two of you duck under an archway and find a womanly figure in the mist. Two oblong points jut out from her skull, and the closer you get the more defined her shapes become. Firstly, is that she’s naked (Ragnvaldr chuckles when you gasp and clench your eyes shut); second is that her horned points are ears on a mask. Her voice drips like honey from behind the bunny mask,

"Welcome to the meadows, o' travelers,” she shifts closer to the wood post behind her, your eyes slicing sharply away from the sway of her breasts, “Let us ease your suffering…” your stare dawdles up over the contemplative face of Ragnvaldr, then to his injured side, “The first one is free."

“Mending of flesh,” you mutter, creeping further into Ragnvaldr’s coziness, “Sylvian will heal you, if you…”

Ragnvaldr is struck by the opportunity, wringing his hand through yours and stringing you into the scene. The expressions you can make out from under the eggshell masks are highly varied -- from twisted agony to buttery bliss to far-off stares and brainless drooling. Some bodies are limp, unmistakable from corpses aside from occasional jolts and twitches of their hips. Other bodies are more lively, rocking and humping in veracity. A man with dark hair stands in the middle, he waves the both of you over.

"Are you looking for partners?” you clutch Ragnvaldr’s hand tightly and pointedly ignore his exposed groin, and he squeezes back. The man giggles quietly beneath his mask before holding out two more, “Just take off your clothes and put on these masks."

“Come, mannejente,” Ragnvaldr pulls you away from the man, a previously unfamiliar thrumming working hot blood through his entire body. He works off his furs quickly and lifts your bag from your shoulders to lay it down, “Would you be my partner?” he smiles softly, “I’m not sure of these other people.”

His utterance curls inside you like a full meal. The thought alone makes your mouth water. He’s got meat on his bones and you want to sink your teeth into him. If he were to sleep with anyone else in this garden, you can already tell the sight would make you physically sick. You hope that he’d feel the same.

“Right,” but the dungeons are not a place for his affection for you, and even though you know you’re not made for this world -- you don’t want to make him lose sight of his mission, “Everyone else is just strange.”

“Not you,” Ragnvaldr’s hands find your shoulders again -- working slightly under the hem of your lackluster cloth shirt, “Not you.”

Ragnvaldr is big and warm like the sun. More like the sun than what hangs in the sky above. The sun you used to run under as a small girl before the crushing weight of responsibility ran you tired and nerve-sprung. You miss those days. Somehow, even though he’s directly sifting off your clothes, you even miss Ragnvaldr.

Somehow, you need him closer.

And closer you pull Ragnvaldr, right by the furs draped over his shoulder; unsurely brushing your hands under the thick material. Ragnvaldr flows under your call, shrugging off the weight of his furs as he frees you of your own clothing. Little mind is paid to either you or Ragnvaldr by the other erratic bodies, but still, their presence is off-putting. In a terrible nightmare, you could see these people being broken from their overstimulation as soon as Ragnvaldr is tucked inside you. Then their eyes would wander -- would they judge you? A newcomer unwelcomed, perhaps?

Ragnvaldr gently kisses your cheek, sweeping you up between his arms and smoothly lying you on the plush grass. He kneels between your spread legs, angling the surrounding bodies out of your vision the most he could.

“Focus on me,” he simpers, all to your ears, “Sweet girl… snill maanejente...”

You never studied the tongue of the North, figuring that it would never come into play in the West, but you could listen to Ragnvaldr ramble to himself in his mother tongue all day. His hands slide over your sides, molding into the bend of your waist before snatching you up by the hips and perching you over his bent knees.

“I- “ wind catches in your throat, hands balling on the ground, “I’ve never laid with a man before…”

Ragnvaldr nods, leaning over you with his broader form to kiss you again. On the lips this time. He leaves with a soft, chaste peck before pursing his lips and letting spit pool in his mouth and laving your cunt with the saliva. He promises to be patient while slicking a single finger inside you.

The stretch is not entirely unpleasant, a faint pinch.

“Relax for me, sweet girl,” Ragnvaldr stares down at his hand slowly pressing into the apex of your thighs, “Take a deep breath and relax. Let me take care of you, yes?”

Ragnvaldr hikes one of your thighs to his waist, continuing to fingerfuck you until you’re gasping his name. His spit is joined by your natural wetness mixing along his thick middle finger, slippery and messy: he coils a second finger into you, carefully stretching your hole. Your other thigh joins at his waist of your own volition, jerking your leg into him in the throes of bubbling pleasure.

The warmth of Ragnvaldr’s body swaddles you, the meat of his palm grinding against your clit and sending a spiral of heat down your spine. Heating your chilled blood and raging all the way into your face.

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth, both hands squeezing around Ragnvaldr’s wrist as you cant your hips into his hand.

Noticing your earnest efforts to meet his fingering halfway, Ragnvaldr’s spare hand cups the flesh of your ass and pulls you higher over his lap, “Eager, maanejente?”

“Oh, please, Ragnvaldr!” you whimper, jerking onto his fingers. This begging he could get used to, “Please, please, I need you to- !” unfortunately for him, you stop that plea short, “I need you!”

“Beautiful voice for such greed,” he shadows over you, kissing and sucking the column of your throat as he replaces his fingers with the head of his cock. The enveloping heat of your cunt sucks him in as though you’re starved, tightly he grasps your hips and restrains the urge to give in and press your pelvis flush to his. He may leave violet imprints, but he knows he will soothe them later so the concern is quickly pushed aside, “My sweet girl is greedy,” he whines at the squeeze around his dick, “And so lovely when I’m inside her. So pretty, aren’t you?”

Your arms loop around his neck, nails puncturing into the skin of his bare back. Heat waves through your palms and through your arms -- all down your chest and into your churning gut. Most of all, however, the heat is buzzing where the both of you are connected. His hips slotted against yours.

“Pretty when you’re working,” he lifts you from his cock before thrusting in again, building in speed until his hips are pistoning into you in smooth, fluid strokes, “Pretty when you’re fucked,” his thumb finds your soaked clit and circles it, just to pinch out as many of your whines as he can, “Pretty - hah! - pretty maanejente.”

Ragnvaldr is big and broiling hot and you don’t know if you can stand to be apart from him after this. Dungeons be damned, damned as your souls.

His cock spears each sweet spot nestled inside you: thick and full. And messy. So wet you can feel your juices webbing between where his hips meet your thighs on every pull-back.

The arm not stimulating your button of nerves rolls under you and up to the back of your neck. He secures you in his hold, pressure on the sides of your throat though not suffocating, so he can push even further inside you. Ragnvaldr kisses up from your collarbones to your jaw and finally the corner of your mouth before he huffs into your mewling lips. Your thighs tighten around him as the steady warmth of ecstasy comes to a boil.

Ragnvaldr’s tongue dips into your mouth, desperate to taste your own tongue. Try as he may to keep quiet in favor of your moans, the throaty, raw groans and grunts from his chest never cease. The sounds make you wail louder into his gaping maw as your cunt cinches around Ragnvaldr.

When he was a boy, he used to dream of being lifted by swirly branches until he could scrape the moon with his fingertips. He imagines the feeling of you cumming with him is the same, inseparable euphorias digging up from his gut and swallowing the rest of his body whole. Your teeth latched into his neck, and he is unwilling to be released.

In darkness, he finds the moon. And for now, he doesn’t need to consider how foolish it is to trap a celestial body beneath him when he’s here for Le’Garde’s bastard head. In darkness, he’s illuminated by the powdery shine he senselessly clings to.

In the same way, you bathe in a sun that feels otherwise unattainable. Large and unburdened, Ragnvaldr warms your chills with ease under a sun less desirable than his company. A muggy, clouded sun -- wholly unappealing compared to the man above you.

This affection will eat you alive down here.

You might let it.

[ghostlykeyes]

american psycho - s.geto

part of the jjk movie marathon event / movie selection … warnings - suguru's depression ig, i meant to rewrite this but got busy word count - 1.3 K / rating - PG-13

“Since when are winter weddings all the rage?” you’re twisted in Suguru’s gray sheets (technically, the department store lady had referred to the dark shade as “cheating heart” gray) in a way that cinches around your waist and thighs. Pulling tightly over the heated flesh.

Suguru shrugs with a yawn as he crosses into the barrier of his bedroom, liking the way your curves are wrapped in tousled silk. And liking the way your eyes swing to the corner just to snatch a glimpse of him in his sweatpants. His post-euphoria gleam still clinging like a rosy, honeyed glow to his flushed chest.

You return your gaze to the smooth, dark wood surface of Suguru’s nightstand - littered with stretched hair ties and, of course, wedding invitations from his closest friends. All varying shades of white with dark lettering.

“Ah! Utahime ‘n’ Shoko finally tied the knot,” suddenly, you pout, “I didn’t get an invite…”

“Oh, right,” Suguru throws himself over your legs, and somehow the feeling of his weight crushing yours reminds him of his power with you. When he pulls back and you chase, when you let him press your knees by your ears, when you let him shove your face into the pillows - it’s a wicked fire in his veins. One of the reasons he refuses medications is the fear of that fire being snuffed. Rumors and reviews he obsesses over rather than speaking with his doctor, “Uh- " he shakes his head, black hair fluttering around his shoulders, “Shoko told me she figured we’d just show up together.”

“Why?”

“She thinks we’re dating,” he turns his head, shifting the rest of his body again so he’s lying over you. His head over the swell of your breasts. At your quirked brow, he merely shrugs again, “I dunno what to tell either of you at this point.”

“Tell her we’re not dating.”

“I tried. She doesn’t listen.”

She knows better than both of you.

“Well, the card’s pretty,” you hold it up as if Suguru hadn’t seen it yet.

“I like Yuki and Choso’s better.”

“Oh, yeah!” your body jostles his as you scramble to replace the card in your hand with a new one, “Yuki told me Choso wanted it to be all black with white letters,” you snort, “like some orgy cordial request.”

Suguru ‘tsk’s, “No eye for graphic design.”

Yuki and Choso met because of you and Suguru. After you and Suguru. Specifically, after you and Suguru had already started… whatever this was. Not quite friends. Not quite benefits. Somewhere far, far past both of those.

You’re showing off the invite again, but he’s not paying it any mind. If anything, the selection was a little bland. Basic eggshell cardstock with midnight black lettering and gold accent twists along the edges.

Instead, he thinks about how Choso is only one year older than Suguru. And Choso has a little brother, Yuuji, who is eleven years younger than Suguru and yet is already apparently ‘getting serious’ with some Fushiguro boy from school. Far more than Suguru can say for himself and you.

And now he wonders if you feel that same sinking feeling he does.

Entering his thirties in only a couple of years, and yet to the public eye, he’s miserably single in a fling with his best friend. He could, theoretically, get a girlfriend. But meeting someone new sounds exhaustive. Not to mention, Suguru doubts that he is meant to be loved by a stranger by this point, when he’s no longer naive and malleable and able to suppress his more dangerous thoughts.

Of course, on top of all that is the fact that being with anybody except you sounds like a demented, unusually cruel punishment.

Allowing Yuki and Choso’s invitation to flutter back onto his nightstand, you pluck up another; a giggle is trapped in your chest.

“He’s such a little asshole.”

“Hm?” Suguru tilts his head up at the sound of your voice. This time, he’s greeted by obnoxious silvery characters on a flaky, golden card, “Ah, Satoru? He’s the worst.”

“Like, it’s ugly!” you bring a hand over the back of Suguru’s head, “And he’s not even getting married.”

“He thought it’d be funny…”

“‘Course he did!” you grumble, flipping the card over and glancing over the back, “And he’s got the money to blow on stupid shit like this.”

Suguru also does well for himself. Not nearly as well as Satoru, but he lives comfortably. Satoru was born from parents in the fashion industry, making the man’s entrance into modeling somehow even easier aside from his absolute jackpot in the genetics lottery. Satoru was well-loved.

The jealousy he felt over it bred a great, terrible guilt in his chest that was difficult to swallow every time he was with his childhood friend.

But Satoru was also lonely. Beloved and alone, despite it all.

And Suguru is immature enough to take solace in that fact.

Then there’s him.

“Aw, Kento, too!” you take notice of how Suguru tenses atop of you, his arms squeezing around your waist. Pitifully, you pat his head, “Sorry, I can put it back…”

Kento is exactly the kind of man Suguru wanted to be growing up.

“No, no,” he murmurs, “Let’s see Kento Nanami’s wedding invitation.”

It’s a powdery shade of white, with pure, pitch-black characters raised against the background. Aligned down the center with charcoal black outlining the corners of the card. Something Suguru would’ve seen getting for himself, had he gotten engaged sooner than his junior.

His parents certainly think he should have anyway.

Kento holds himself to every standard Suguru’s parents wanted their son to uphold. All of which he breaks now, by keeping you wrapped in his sheets under his frenzied body while maintaining the title of a ‘bachelor’. He’ll be thirty two years sooner than Kento, but Kento is already the exact man Suguru wants to be.

A respectable job, smooth skin, a house in his own name, a fiance, and the adoration of his community.

All of his neighbors, they don’t truly know Suguru. They know the man in black with long hair that slinks through the halls and lobby, they get to peek at the beiges and grays of his apartment, but they do not know him.

They have no idea what he’s done today, what time he clocked into work, what time he clocked out, where he works, what time he gets home every day, what time he goes to sleep, what he likes most for dinner, what he daydreams of in the shower, what he dreads before bed. And he doesn’t know that of them. They are all just little pieces of each other’s lives for one measly moment in a sharp, short burst of the universe's lifetimes.

And there are so many more people whose lives he isn’t part of. And who are not part of his. People who have no idea he even exists. People he has no idea exist. Therefore, nothing would change if he spontaneously disappeared.

Sure, those close to him would be devastated, but after that…

Japan would not miraculously change in any way. The world would not stop spinning. Space would be just as expansive and overwhelming and mysterious as it always was.

Suguru was one little piece of a massive complex of nonsensical happenings in one of many galaxies, on one of many planets, in one of many countries for a handful of years. Just as billions of other people were.

He wonders if there’s any point to this at all.

“Sugu…?”

“Hm?”

“Are you okay? You’re spacin’ out on me.”

He wonders if you ever feel the same way, or if he’s the only one cursed with this poison in his mind.

And he’s immature enough to believe he just might be.

[ghostlykeyes]

So, i was super excited to see you were writing again and while I, to be frank, couldnt care less about LoL/Arcane/Kda/Heartsteel, I DO care about your writing, so Im reading all off the heartsteel posts and taking everything at face value and as 100% canon. Will this give me a heavily skewed and probably incorrect opinion on the series? Most definitely, but its either this or knowing nothing of league flat. Anyways, that was a really roundabout way to say your writing is so good and I like it so much Im willing to put aside my indifference for a series for more of it. Weird way to give a compliment. But yeah, I like your writing a lot.

Have a good one.

this is probably one of the best compliments I’ve ever received, my heart is MELTING ?! Thank you so much for sticking with me through my wildly oscillating obsessions, and I’m so glad that you can still find something to enjoy about my writing even if it’s not something you’d usually be into 💕💕💕

ALSO just have to say the worst thing about league is Playing League (🤢🤮) so honestly?? Getting all of your info through internet osmosis is probably the strat. I like to pretend that all of the league characters are little paper dolls that Riot dresses up and lets me play with. It lets me ignore the fact that I am Bad At Games

[ghostlykeyes]

Can you do the head canons set for Yone and Sett like you did for Kayn??? Thank you !!!!

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HEARTSTEEL SETT / READER ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW (Light sexuality, nothing explicit.) ♡ Hi my dear! Wasn't sure if you meant the relationship ones or kiss ones—Yone is getting both in upcoming separate posts, and I've already done Sett kisses here ! Hope you enjoy these :D

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SETT

Sett's most sensitive spot is his ears. They're dreamy soft, like velvet but thicker, and oh-so-warm. When you play with them he goes weak in the knees, tilting his head towards your gentle hands and letting out a low groan. He adores when you play with them. If he plops his head in your lap and looks up at you with pleading puppy-dog eyes, chances are an ear-rub is what he's begging for.

After Sett smashes out a great lifting session, he usually sends you a mirror selfie. He just wants to tell you he had a great workout, and he loves when you encourage him, so it's mostly innocent. But come on...he's shining with sweat, his muscles look fucking huge, and he's got that flushed-cheek, out of breath smile. How are you not supposed to ogle him a little bit? If you accuse him of trying to turn you on with his gym selfies he goes 'no wayyyyyy'. The next picture he says—one of him winking at you, with the hem of his shirt pulled tight between his sharp teeth and his glorious abs on display—says otherwise.

Sett's social media pages consist of basically two things: gymbro shit and cute animal videos. He spams you with the latter. Expect lots of pictures of housecats cuddling ("us", he captions) and videos of dogs doing tricks ("do u think we could teach earnest that??" Probably not, you tell him, but you find him on the kitchen floor the next morning trying to get the poor dog to do a flip anyway).

Sett is all for pet-names, and rarely calls you by your given name. He  goes with the classic "babe" a lot. Sometimes he likes to spice it up by sprinkling in nicknames like "hot stuff" or "sweets". If he's being cheeky, he'll give you a teasing smirk and call you his "favorite groupie".

Sett loves staying active (obviously) and he's always down to try something new. If you're for hurting date ideas, take him rollerskating, rock climbing, or swimming. And, if you're really brave? Ask him and the rest of the Heartsteel guys to go paint-balling with you. Bless his heart, he will try so hard to protect you and hyper-carry your team but his aim just isn't that good. (Predictably, Sett ends up covered in paint-splashes. He's nothing if not a good meat shield.)

For your first Christmas together, Sett's mom knits you a beanie to match his. "Oh, you two are adorable," she beams as her son excitedly tugs the warm hat over your ears. Once you've earned the beanie, trust that you've got Mama's approval on lock.

Anyone that wrongs you is on Sett's shit-list for life. He's a hothead and he knows how to hold a fucking grudge. If you complain about your boss or come to him teary-eyed because a friend blew off plans, he's fuming. "That fucking asshole," he snarls. Of course, he sets aside his fury to comfort you. Just know that a lifelong beef has been started and he's going to scowl every time you bring that person's name up again.

After a hard workout, Sett loves to tease you by pulling you in for a sweaty bear-hug. Don't worry, though—he's always down to hit the showers with you right after.

Sett knows his way around the human body—he's got a near medical knowledge of muscle groups, nerves, and effective stretches just from his time in the gym. What does this mean for you, though? The best fucking massages in the entire universe. The moment you complain about a kink in your neck or a sore back Sett's cracking his knuckles. "Okay, hot stuff," he says, placing his gentle hands on your tight muscles. "Where exactly does it hurt?" Of course, you don't need to be in pain to get a massage—Sett's eager to touch you any chance he can get. Pout a little and ask if he can pretty please rub your neck, and his hands are on you before you can finish your sentence.

Since he's a cuddle-bug and serial napper, plan on spending a fair amount of time snuggled up in Sett's bed. He keeps sweatpants in his closet for you so you can be comfy during cuddle-seshes. Honestly, though, he prefers if you skip the pants altogether and chill out in your underwear and one of his old t-shirts. He tends to take a fabric scissors to any of his shirts with sleeves—your favorite sleep shirt, though? He mercifully leaves that one alone.

Sett's a massive show-off. Anytime you're on your tippy-toes trying to reach the top shelf or you're struggling with the pickle jar, Sett swoops in with an "Oh, lemme get that for ya!" And if he's flexing extra hard opening the jar or stretching his arms so that just the teeeeeeeniest bit of his shirt slips up, exposing his six-pack...well. You might as well enjoy the show, right?

Even though he wears lifting gloves, Sett's hands get chapped and calloused, anyway. He constantly steals your lotion. If you catch him swiping it out of your bag his ears go back and he offers you a sheepish, "sorry, hon...", but does he stop?  No chance. He pops the top and slathers it on his hands, anyway. "Whaaaaaat?" he whines as you stare him down. "If I'm all rough and whatever you'll stop holding hands with me."

You and Sett have a frankly obscene amount of plushies. There's an endless sea of plush on your bed, plus a good handful on his, but he just. keeps. buying. more. You'd complain, since it makes finding a comfy position to sleep a battle sometimes, but come on... how can you say no to a sugarcone furyhorn? Fucking impossible.

Sett's favorite way to pull you closer is by your belt loops. He hooks his fingers through and gives your hips a light tug, loving the surprised squeak you give when you bump into his massive frame.

Sett has a metal water bottle with him at all times (gotta stay hydrated)! Even though he rolls his eyes when you paste cute stickers on it, you notice that he never peels them off.

[ghostlykeyes]

You write the Hearsteel babes SO well! You're an amazing writer and you should be proud of yourself! Thank you for writing for these absolute dorks!

Thank you so so much !!! That's really kind of you (〃＾▽＾〃)

[ghostlykeyes]

carrie

part of the jjk movie marathon event / movie selection

…

warnings - reader is fem core, and also not a very good person as it turns out, blood and gore, bullying, vague religious imagery, material emotional abuse (light), kinda rushed towards the end (i wanted to be done already lmao)

word count - 8.6 K / rating - PG-13

The dark doesn’t scare you much. Since you were little, the jitters everybody else described when their parents dared to shut their door for bedtime were simply lost on you. Suguru explained it to you once - the dark itself is not scary, it's the mystery of what's inside those shadowy pockets. Again, however, that dread is nowhere to be found in your beating chest.

Because you know what’s inside - you can see their twisted expressions and the vein-like sprawls of black tendrils. Their eyes that are impossibly sunken or painfully bulging. Teeth that clack and gums that suck and stick against one another. Limbs in plenty, or none at all, wrapped in paper skin that exposes every divot of bone, or sometimes fleshy and fat and full. You can see them, you do not fear the dark. And you do not fear any mysteries.

You fear the creatures that stare back.

Acknowledging them did not make them disappear. Ignoring them didn’t either. Telling your mother made her seek out ways to prove her spiritual devotion. You can’t - and refuse to - imagine sharing with your peers.

They would hardly lend an ear anyway.

You’ve done a good job enduring. Until you don’t.

Chin pressed to your chest, you curl both arms tight around yourself as you and your fellow students flood from the school gates. Your fingers pull tightly at your uniform sleeves as a pack of boys comes blaring past, shouting excitedly about whose house will be ransacked for the night. Your eyes track each crack in the pavement below you. The sun bounces violently into your eyes, stinging them. You clench your eyes, opening them again when your body collides with a bigger one.

Tilting your head up on instinct, the shock of it all renders your previous years of haunted, terrible figures utterly useless.

Your throat swells, gut hitching tightly. Your skin shreds up into millions of little bumps at the sudden cold.

Lumps twitch under midnight skin - piled together lazily like a child’s drawing of a bodybuilder. Two arms, two legs, and two eyes, a shaking humanoid mimicry that leans down to press its flat face closer to your stilled one. Sweat beads down your forehead despite the chill. Its plump lips stretch up, misaligned rows of jagged teeth on display. And it giggles down at you - wavering and layered with the reflection of little girls and teenagers and old men.

Finally, you break from your stunned state and stumble back. A wordless scream rips at your throat, both arms flying up in front of your face as if to guard it.

Little girls and old men laugh again, but this time the sound of teenagers has amplified.

Shakily, your arms fall into your lap and you look around as upper and underclassmen point and howl. Your lungs feel pressed, yet moments from popping at how you heave at the same time.

“What’s your problem?”

“Seeing things?"

“What the hell was that?!”

Your hands clap over your eyes again when the hulking mass of rippling bumps and muscles refuses to trample away.

“Go away!” you scream, “Go away, go away, go away!”

Two arms pull you into a warm chest, a hand petting your head over the heart beneath. The body rocks you as one would a baby, “How can you all be so callous! Someone get Principal Machigae! Now!”

“Hey,” you hear your name faintly, the hand on your head moving to wipe stray tears from your burning cheek, “It’s alright - you’re alright!”

The bigger body pries your hands down, and you peek an eye open to find the malformation gone.

Then you see them. The eyes that take form. That blink. Upper and underclassmen murmur amongst themselves. Their eyes cut across your body, serving the slices of meat up to one another to pick at. Tear away the skin and dig into your fat.

Your chest sputters, burrowing into your self-induced ball of safety and blocking out the whispers. The scraping of sharp knives across the silver platter. The stronger voice above you, trying to coax you from your chamber.

Into the back of your mind, you retreat. Big, colorful flowers that release no itchy pollen. Warm meals that soothe your soul. Suguru’s big hands holding yours so assuredly. Suguru’s sweet voice singing your name.

…

The chairs in Principal Machigae’s office are too squeaky for your liking. It isn’t even the pleather - which would cling to any given skin, were you not wearing tights - it’s the weak joints in each leg. Loose screws and old bones.

Your mother sits straight, legs crossed at the ankles and knees pressed together, beside you, “I don’t understand, she’s never displayed this type of behavior before.”

Her eyes slip to you. Nails burying into her handbag.

Your eyes are still glazed and wet, ears burning with the echoing laughter.

...

“She thinks I’m seeing devils,” you sigh, an arm thrown over your eyes as you lay in your bed - your other hand pressing your phone to your ear.

“You’re kidding…” Suguru has never liked your mother, “Why doesn’t she take you to a doctor?”

He wishes he could tell you everything. Puke up his guts and then some. But Shoko is staring him down, shaking her head.

“I dunno…” but you sound so distraught as you describe every mutated body you cross nowadays, “She thinks it’s all hocus pocus bullshit.”

“Hm? And seeing actual devils isn’t?” he snickers, pointedly looking away from Shoko.

Shoko has explained to him the same thing, in the same way, that Yaga has. Telling you the truth runs the risk of you telling others the truth in an attempt to end your torment. One that they each deeply understand, but cannot risk the incoming wrath of people with more authority than both of them combined.

“Right?!” you whisper the exclamation, and he can just imagine the way you twist on your bed. Rolling onto your stomach on your sheets, propping your head up with a hand, “It’s so… ugh!”

“You know you can always come out to Tokyo,” Suguru shoves Satoru away when the pale fool makes kissy noises at him, Shoko joining in soon after, “Stay with me. I’ll pay for it all.”

“No, no,” you like that he offers, “You’re coming home soon anyway, I’ll get you to myself then.”

“Soon isn’t soon enough,” he stands up from Shoko’s bed when his friends coo and clap, “Sorry, I have to beat up some idiots. Call you later?”

“Hm, I might just head to bed… try to sleep off whatever happened…”

It helps that you can’t think of another better way to spend your time.

Suguru bids you his final goodbyes before you hang up. He clicks his phone shut and bats a fist hard into Satoru’s shoulder, then huffs and rolls his eyes over Shoko’s teasing.

Those next days leading up to Suguru’s return are no easier than the days before.

Your daily schedule has manifested into something completely new. Rotten and putrid flesh bleeding over into normalcy.

In the morning before school, you pray at your mother’s feet. At school, you take longer routes from class to cafeteria to home to avoid as many people as possible. The people you cannot avoid scream in your face - crying for you to go away in the way you did that monster. You scrub black marker from your desk after school and pretend to not be able to recall every dirty name scrawled over the wood. At home, you pray again before doing homework and calling Suguru. When Suguru has to hang up, you go to sleep.

And you do the very same thing the next day.

And the next.

And the next.

And the next.

And the next.

And on Saturday, before going with the Geto family to pick up Suguru - your mother shoves you to your knees at her feet and forces more prayers from your quivering lips.

In the car, Suguru surprises you - declaring that he’d like to stay with you tonight.

His parents seem uneasy at the suggestion before giving in. They’re less comfortable with you now than they used to be.

Suguru is allowed in your room, but your mother very firmly states that he’s to sleep in the guest room down the hall.

Something Suguru has grown increasingly fond of since being sent to Jujutsu Tech is physical contact. Coddling you to his broad chest and feeling the thrum of your blood beneath your skin. Switching positions and hearing your heart still beating. He told you once that it was hard to ground himself at school - that the dwindling class numbers and surrounding forest were driving him crazy. It doesn't hurt that you don’t mind the additional heat swarming you in his arms.

“Sorry I’m so boring,” he’s quiet, but light with humor, “right when I get here.”

“‘s fine,” you burrow into his chest. He’s oddly filled out since going to Tokyo. Bigger and bulkier, “I like this.”

Suguru breathes deeply, your head lifting in time with the smooth motion. If you were to slide your head up and glance at him, you’d see the gentle smile on his face, “I do, too.”

He’s a lot clingier now. Calls you every day and texts you at odd hours. As if you may disappear without him ever knowing. He’s desperate to know you still exist.

Another big breath warns you that he’ll start talking again, “I meant it. You can stay with me in Tokyo,” this time you do slide your head up to look at him, but he’s already staring down at you. Thick eyelashes gently bat at his cheeks, dark obsidian eyes so warm on you, “I’ll make it happen.”

You snort, curling the arm settled on his chest around his waist and squeezing, “Yeah? What if your principal kicks me out?”

Stubbornly, he shakes his head, bangs falling across his forehead, “I wouldn’t let him.”

“Oh? You have that much influence?”

“Mhm,” he smiles thinly, always so certain of himself, “You’d be surprised.”

Suguru has never really liked your mother. He thinks she does a rotten job of loving you.

You don’t like the air conditioning in Counselor Haiboku’s office. It rattles obnoxiously and spits freezing air that not even the long sleeves of your uniform can combat.

She clears her throat, wiry glasses slipping a little down the bridge of her nose, “So, what I can do is recommend a therapist through a third party,” her voice is tinny and strained, as she's at a consultation desk rather than a school, “We can organize it so that you’ll be able to meet in my office, likely during your gym block.”

“My mom probably wouldn’t like that…” you know what you hope she’ll do with that information.

“Hm,” she hums, head tilting and hands scrambling to even a stack of papers against the surface of her desk, “I can scout a professional preemptively, and all she’ll have to do is sign to acknowledge that you’re meeting.”

Before she could even finish speaking, you’re already shaking your head, “My mom definitely won’t sign.”

You know what you want her to ask. You know how you would respond. You just don’t know how much more you’ll have to say before she finally asks.

Are you okay at home?

Instead, she sighs with a forced grin, shaking her own head, “Don’t give up hope. She seems harsh, but your mother loves you. Try bringing it up and we’ll discuss it further.”

What else you don’t know - is if you respond to that.

It seemed like a blur with the way your gut swirled and head pounded. Heart squished down to your feet. The organ splurted wetly against the floors with every step back to your gym block.

Once you arrived, after dragging yourself through changing into your uniform, the other girls had no interest in letting you join their teams. They usually don’t, though. And this time, Coach Teru permits you to find a solitary activity.

It’s reassuring, at least, to know that not all teachers are blind to the goings of students.

By the end of the hour, as with every day for gym, you and the other girls are piled into the showers. Eyes darting away to the tiled walls and floors and arms fastened around belly pouches and plump thighs as those parts of you all are unnatural. A blobby, juniper green thing with arms that shiver with each stretch lingers around flustered girls trying to cinch the flimsy curtains closed. Short, stubby legs let it slowly wobble between each uncomfortable body.

You’re trying to hurry through every automatic motion, scrubbing the soap from your locker into your skin like it could wash away the slimy feeling this spirit leaves behind. Eyes clenched shut and head perfectly straight. Water drips over your face, pooling around your cupid’s bow.

Quick fingers sink soap into your thigh before the bar slips from your grasp. And for a moment, your immediate instinct is to deny that it even fell. Until that dull thunk hits your ears, you are in blissful ignorance of your terrible mistake.

Frostbitten bitemarks tingle up your shaking thighs, sharp points threatening to break the skin. You can feel pudge press against the rounded base of your stomach, slithering arms jiggling around your waist.

“Look away…!” it’s squawky voice cries, teeth scraping against your soft flesh, “Look away…!”

“Stop it!” you welch, hands slamming over your ears and body tucking out from under the water and sliding against the wet wall until your bottom meets the ground, “Stop, stop, stop!”

A distinctly girlish, throaty groan rises from the stall in front of you, your eyes peeling wide in time to catch her peeking over the separating board. But most of your attention is on the limping, wobbling devil in front of you. It reaches out with long, unbalanced arms and razor-sharp nails that clack together. Its own eyes are popping out from its face, staring at you despite its pleas for you to divert your attention.

“What’s your problem?” the girl asks, sneering. You fail to reply, hands tightening around your ears and legs pressing against your chest, “What? Got your period?”

Chest heaving and broken whimpers leaving your lips, you merely drag your stare down to the tile by your bent legs.

“Oh my God…” the same girl looks out at the audience she’s conjured. Shrugging at each questioning face.

“Her batshit mom didn’t say anything,” another girl snickers, reaching into her bag and plucking out a tampon before tossing it at your aghast face. Laughing when you flinch away.

A third pops up behind her friend, long black hair flowing behind her as she creeps towards your stall. She maneuvers her hand back behind the steel shower head and angles it back towards you. More girls have gathered, some towards the back and some eagerly shoving their way to the front. The girl with black hair laughs with more twisted intent than the devil before you as she sprays you with water, twisting the temperature knob to icy cold.

“Still wanna keep clean, ya know?” you tuck your head between your knees, squealing as the chilling water hits your bare skin. Your hands slide against the tile as you try moving out from under the flow, “Don’t wanna get any sicker than you already are!”

A new chill breaks across the skin of your shins, ripping down - “Look away! Look away!”

“Stop it!” you screech, kicking out against the curse. It flies back and a new ring of laughter escapes most of the gathering girls, “No, no!”

“Ah- !” a scream, then the harsh thud of a back meeting the wall, and the water stops.

A warm body scoops you close. Coach Teru’s voice breaks out across the locker room, “How could you all stand there?!” she presses you close as your shivering gets worse, “You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” you are, you know that, “All of your parents will be hearing about this, and I hope you all expect big punishments!”

“Hey…” a girl from the middle of the crowd steps forward, “She’s not even bleeding…”

Instantly, your legs seal back to your chest.

“She’s really as crazy as her mom!”

Your eyes weakly peel open, catching the curious gaze of the uncanny thing before you. Its arms are loopy at its sides, its whole body tilting to the side on untrained feet. You sniffle, trying to wipe away the building tears but only smearing more water across your face, “Help me…”

Its watching eyes go eggshell white. One of its arms unlatches from the floor and flings up into one of the lightbulbs above you. Breaking the light and casting shadows across your naked form as the girls scream. The dark is momentary relief, knowing that the crowd is no longer as focused on you as they were.

...

Suguru bursts into Counselor Haiboku’s office seconds before your mother does. His large hands gently pet over your shoulders, eyes scrambling over your body as if assessing damage. Your mother loudly demands information from Haiboku - what have you done, where were you, why was she called from work - as Suguru helps you to stand.

You’re rattled, undeniably. But you’re grateful, too. For that spirit.

Not soon enough, you’re in the backseat with Suguru. He still holds you, as if he’d almost lost you, as if you're precious. It’s funny, in a way.

“What even happened?” your mother cuts you off prematurely with a scoff, “I know what happened - you and your devils. Your devils,” she murmurs, “Pray as soon as we get home. You’re getting worse.”

You nod listlessly, “Yes, Mother.”

Suguru grunts, deep in the back of his throat in protest. Despite being sent to a private religious school, you don’t know him to be a pious man at all. He goes to speak out, but you clasp your hand over his and subtly shake your head.

He wants to tell you everything. It physically sickens him, he gets so nauseous that he can barely keep down anything he eats. Or perhaps that is because he knows where your mother hides you away when she demands that you pray. A cramped closet with low, exposed candles and creeping spiders in each corner.

The next morning, you realize the girl with black hair is Rinko Ayashi. A girl you remember from junior high. She never seemed to like you, but you didn’t care for her either.

Also that next morning, you’re bidding Suguru a final farewell before leaving for school. His hugs dawdle, soaking up what remaining time he has before his parents take him back to the train for Tokyo. He reminds you once again - I’ll make it happen - before watching you begin your trek to school, a heavy sickness resonating through his whole body.

You can sense this creature faintly before you see it. A bulbous head and teeny, gossamer thin wings with a yellow little body. Insect-like. Almost cute. It doesn’t fly too close nor does it make you uncomfortable.

Two passing boys reach out to yank your hair and call you creepy for staring off.

Just as you begin to wilt, this insect-like spirit flies closer. It pauses just short of landing on your shoulder until you bump the muscle and nod for it to flutter down.

“C’mere.”

The creature’s eyes sheen in flat white before daintily positioning itself on your shoulder. The added weight is comforting, somewhat. Like the strong hand of a parent, guiding their youngest child to their class.

...

By the time you reach your gym block, your new friend is still clinging to your padded uniform shoulder.

Coach Teru intercepts your approach, but you can still spot the glares over her shoulder. She tells you not to worry. That the girls are only bitter over consequences of their actions - stripped privileges of attending the school festival. She moves aside, and you creep into the gymnasium. It smells strongly of lemon and raw chemicals. You prefer that to the maliciousness that rolls off your peers in thick curds.

Rinko lurches forward sharply, letting out a growly yelp in your face before huffing, “I wish I could make you bleed for real.”

Teru overhears, naturally, “Hey! Ayashi, thirty minutes after cleaning - you’re in here doing laps.”

Rinko glares at you again.

“Come on!” Teru calls out across the room, “Let’s get changed and start class!”

The spirit on your shoulder nuzzles into your cheek, pushing against the downturn of your lips and humming lowly. On your other shoulder, a soft, lithe hand lands. You follow the polished pink nails up, climbing along the long, black uniform sleeve, and finally to the flustered, red face.

Yonaka Hokori - Rinko’s former best friend - her bottom lip tucked between her teeth, her hand draws back and she lowers her head, “I’m really sorry,” her voice wobbles, arms trembling, “You shouldn’t have been treated that way by me and the others. It was nothing but evil!”

“No, it’s…” you press your lips, fingers knotting together. Your shoulders bow, eyes flitting from Yonaka’s face to your shoes, “I’m sorry you can’t go to the festival anymore…”

“What? No way!” Yonaka has curled hair that bounces with her movements, she insists it’s inherited from her mother, but nobody knows for sure, “You should be able to enjoy it without us being there to remind you of… well. You know.”

Yonaka is just as bouncy as her hair. Big smiles that show off her pearly teeth.

“I dunno,” you scratch your elbow even though there is no itch. The spirit pulls back, now hanging off your hair like a monkey to vines, “It isn’t like I have someone to go with…” Yonaka walks with you to the locker room, her round face tilting curiously, “My only friend just went back to Tokyo, I’d feel bad asking him to make the trip again.”

Rinko’s melodic laugh rings through the space, a wobbly green thing peers around the corner leading to the showers, “Doubt you have a friend out in Tokyo. Much less a him.”

You fold your arms and Yonaka’s lashes narrow at the girl, “I do, too. It’s Suguru.”

Again, she laughs. Nose wrinkling in a snarl, “No chance. Geto was too cool for you, the only reason he was nice to you was ‘cuz your moms were friends,” her brown eyes scrawl lazily from your feet to your face, “Emphasis on ‘were’, since your mom’s gone off the deep end nobody wants to be her friend anymore,” she grins suddenly, “Just like you.”

Your body snaps around, rushing out of the metal doorway and towards the closest bathrooms. The insect pulls closer, bitty hands clinging to the warm skin of your embarrassed face. It’s cold skin cooling you.

In the changing room, Yonaka’s raspy voice is cracking out harshly as she yells, “What is wrong with you?!”

“What?” Rinko rolls her eyes, “It’s what she gets for trying to attract so much attention. She wants it until she can’t handle it - that’s not my problem. Nutjob’s been like this since junior high.”

Yonaka rolls her eyes and scrounges for her phone, pushing all the way to her boyfriend’s contact, and digging out each character. Normally, she’d skirt the long process of texting via notes or verbal passage, but this is urgent.

we need to talk. don’t freak out i’m not breaking up with you.

…

“She obviously needs more friends than this ‘Geto’ guy.”

“It just won’t be the same if I’m not going with you…”

“You’re so sappy. Now use that to make her feel better, hm?”

…

Suguru is very warm. His body runs hot naturally. And he's very level-headed and mellow, like gentle sunshine. He likes to care for others, to uplift and blow away the dust. He’s been that way since you were both little. Does he use that kind soul just to placate your loneliness?

Another, practically identical, insect-like spirit comes to your other shoulder. Its hands scrape against your lower lids, desperately cupping the tears that fall from your lashes.

When you want it the least, a new presence descends upon you. A cheery voice, and you find it to be Yonaka’s introverted boyfriend.

“So, I heard that you don’t have anyone to go to the festival with,” he starts, dodging your stare entirely, “And since I’m already out of a date, I figured that we should go together.”

You wonder if he knows your name. And if he does, then is it only because of his girlfriend? Or did he notice you before?

Did he pity you?

Did he think about stepping up?

Did he think about joining in?

“Did Hokori put you up to this?” you ask.

At the mention of his girlfriend, the boy lights up. His cheeks flush and his whole body straightens up, as if she may appear at any moment, “Honestly, yes - but! It could be fun to get to know each other.”

You kick the toe of your shoe down into the ground, looking at the impact in the dirt, “It’ll be social suicide.”

“I don’t care,” he scratches the side of his nose, “It’s just high school.”

The sound of a giggle surprises you, what surprises you more is that it’s your mouth the sound comes from. Both spirits are startled away, buzzing off into the distance. And you hardly notice.

“Yeah,” you lock your hands behind your back, suddenly bashful under this foreign attention, “Okay. That could be fun.”

Thumb hovering over the call button, you breathe in deeply before committing. It rings once. Twice. Three times.

Four.

Five…

It rings until you hear the robotic woman on the other end, “The number you have dialed- “

You hang up before the message can start. You redial Suguru’s number.

It rings once. Twice. Three times.

You hang up just as the woman starts speaking again.

”The number you have dialed- “

With nothing to placate this loneliness, you turn over in your sheets and let slumber snatch you away as the sun begins to sink below the mountains.

You’re startled out of bed by the techno ringing of Pac-man’s main theme. Throwing your sheets off, your hand beats around your nightstand to (eventually) find the source of the sudden noise. You silence it by accepting the call before you can see who’s name - or number - was printed across the screen.

.

.

.

“Hello?” your voice is dry, cracking towards the end - and subconsciously, you reach out for the water bottle sitting at the edge of your stand.

“Hey, sorry…” it’s Suguru, he sounds drowsy, words lilting and slurring on the edge of sleep, “I saw you called and didn’t wanna sleep until I made sure you were okay.”

“Aw,” how could someone so tender be so willing to be around you, “I’m fine, Sugu, just missed you…”

A humiliating admission, you fear.

But Suguru would never want to humiliate you.

“I missed you, too,” you can hear his bed creak on the other end of the line, he groans faintly as his sore muscles settle in the new position, “Satoru and I have this new project - it’s been keeping us busy,” you know of Satoru, you used to get so jealous at the prospect of him stealing away Suguru’s attention - but Suguru was always quick to assure you that he preferred your company, “We were tied up all day and then I passed out as soon as we got back to- “ he clears his throat, “our dorms. Ah, shit, it’s late. You were sleeping.”

You must be on some humored roll today because you’re giggling again, looking down at the blaring crimson numbers scorching your eyes. Quarter past midnight.

“I’d rather talk to you than keep sleeping,” you admit, and it’d be so much more shameful if it were to anyone but Suguru.

“Better not be sleeping in class tomorrow ‘cause of me, your mother’ll kill me,” he groans quietly and the bed creaks again as he tries getting comfortable, “How has she been since I left? Any better?”

And from anyone but Suguru, that could be misconstrued as concern for her but you know better. He’s worried about you because it’s you that’s important to him. He cares. You don’t remember why you thought otherwise.

“If things are getting to be too much,” he continues when you’re quiet for too long, “Just let me know. I’ll - I’ll make them better.”

“Hm? And drag me to Tokyo?”

“Maybe. If you’d like. Or I could stay down there.”

You’d never ask that of him, but he’d still do it anyway.

“Don’t worry about any of that,” you lay back down, pulling your blankets back over your body, “I actually might be making a friend. And someone wants to go to the school festival with me.”

“What?” you can practically see the playful pout on his lips, “Didn’t wanna go with me, huh?”

“I would’ve felt bad keeping you here! Especially when you’ve got exciting projects in Tokyo.”

“None of that even matters compared to how much I like being with you,” he says very seriously. You’re tempted to ask what has him so sentimental tonight.

But you don’t, mostly because the words are trapped in your chest. Right next to your thundering heart, all words and thoughts rattle around - clawing to get out all at once. Eventually, the ones that escape are, “I like being with you, too.”

It’s still. Both of you are in bed. One of you lying about where. Suguru doesn’t want to think about what a bad omen it may be that he’s flirting with you while lying about many facets of his life. You don’t think Suguru could be capable of such lies.

So when he easily insinuates that he’s still at school in Tokyo rather than a hotel in Okinawa babysitting a junior high student, you are none the wiser.

“It would’ve been fun,” he begins again, “We don’t do any festivals here. Just the exchange event and that’s…” he groans heartily and you laugh, “I don’t like the Kyoto students.”

“Well, there’s always next time!” you offer, curling your warm blankets tighter around your body, “I’ll make sure you can come to the next one.”

Suguru doesn’t consider the logistics of how a relationship would work out with you when he’s kept a large portion of his life hidden. But he knows you well, takes pride in it, and he knows you won’t turn your back on him when he does come clean. At some point, Yaga won’t be able to argue against his decision to tell you.

“Can it be a date?”

You turn your head and press your mouth into your pillow before letting out a girlish squeal. Returning to the conversation, you nod even though he can’t see it, “That would be fun!” your heart hurts, it’s pounding so hard, “I hope you don’t plan on making me wait that long for a first date, though.”

He sounds tired as he speaks, but you know he means what he says, “No way - you’re too special.”

For the first time in a long time, you’re dreading going back to sleep. You don’t think you even could right now - body too electrified with excitement.

“Have you seen more of those devils?”

“They don’t feel like devils,” you don’t want to see how your mother looks at you, “They don’t feel evil.”

You don’t need to see how your mother looks at you. You already know she’s horrified. Especially when she fists a chunk of your hair and begins dragging you toward the rickety closet with her altar in it. She’s muttering to herself, eyes darting around the kitchen as if to find one of the creatures that has apparently possessed you.

“Mom!” you claw at her hand, caught between wanting to free yourself and still being too terrified to cause her real damage, “I’m fine! Really! It isn’t- I’m not evil!”

“You’ve changed,” her bug-eyed stare comes down to you through the side of her eyes, “You are not my little girl,” she yanks your hair hard like she’s trying to pull it out, “Not my little girl anymore.”

She pulls again. Harder.

So hard you briefly consider that she might’ve tugged skin straight off your skull.

On the creaky stairs that lead up to your room, creeps down another spirit. It rolls like melty, red Jell-O with a massive eye rotating on the axis. You reach out with one hand while still trying to pry your mother’s hand from your hair. Your feet slip against the linoleum floor, your scalp burning under your mother’s hand.

“Help me!” you whine, your mother pulls harder, you sniffle and claw out for the mushy spirit, “Please, help me!”

Its eye washes over with a milky hue, body jiggling down the stairs rapidly and bowling right into your mother’s legs. She scrambles back, hands now trembling as though you’d been the one to deal the blow. You feel something surging through the tunnels of your veins. A vat of frozen water poured over the sludge clogging your pores. Washing away muck and leaving behind only chills of rejuvenation.

Your mother’s frame withers beneath your gaze. She holds up her hands, clasping them together and murmuring against the shaking appendages. You don’t know who she’s praying to, who she’s asking for forgiveness - it makes you feel something that scares you just a little.

“You won’t mistreat me anymore,” you swallow the lump in your throat, “I’m excited to be happy, and to live! And I won’t let you ruin it!”

She only continues her prayers. You hear your name faintly.

The curse slithers up your body, licking away the salty tears that’ve begun dripping down your face.

“And I’m going to the festival… And you can’t stop me.”

Her eyes clenched shut, lips moving faster against her hands.

You sniffle and the spirit slurps faster at your leaking tears.

“I was planning on taking Yonaka to this one,” the girl's boyfriend - Aoto, you learned - admits shyly, pulling the classroom door open for you, “But I think it’d be a shame to waste.”

“Ah!” you glare over at Aoto lightly, “You should’ve told me we were coming here, I would’ve worn something nice!”

“You are wearing something nice,” he shrugs, “Besides, it isn’t like I’m exactly dolled up.”

It’s corny, undoubtedly, but you can’t help but admire the pink and purple decor. Color-shifting lights and shimmering streamers tacked to the ceiling. White balloons litter the floor and float aimlessly against the ceiling. The hosting students are easy to spot, decked in flowy or poofy ball gowns and sleek tuxedos.

Some other students with previous insight into this exact event are similarly dressed up. Pins and sparkles and stained lips.

Modeled after a cinematic, inauthentic, American prom.

A cold waft of air brushes your back. Two spirits wander in with a third limping in behind them.

Aoto takes your hand and guides you through the crowded classroom until you meet the dance floor; keeping his hands politely on your waist and yours on his shoulders. It’s ridged and you can tell he’d much prefer to have his girlfriend’s head tucked against his chest and under his chin. But that’s okay, you’d rather have Suguru’s hands explore the dips and curves of your waist. You close your eyes and pick yourself up, placing yourself back down in a different world.

One where it is Suguru. His hair is down, inky strands gliding along his shoulders. His hands are tugging you closer and he simply laughs when you accidentally step on the toe of his shoe.

“I know we aren’t close or anything, but I have had a nice time.”

You grin, eyes opening, “I did, too.”

“Yonaka, uh, wanted me to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Would you want to go with us- ”

He’s abruptly stopped when the music pauses, both of your heads snapping towards the front of the room.

More spirits are piling into the room, stomping over one another and clawing each other’s flesh as they race into the space.

Two boys struggle to pull the door shut as a final, boarish creature squeezes inside. The door slams loudly and your attention is drawn there before you feel Aoto tense completely against you - his breath hitches and he curses quietly. Slowly, with dread filling your stomach, you look back to the front of the makeshift dance hall.

“Let’s go,” Aoto tries tugging you away, but you remain frozen.

You want to see her as you saw your mother. On the floor and wavering. Asking for forgiveness. You want to feel that scary feeling again. You want Rinko to regret sneaking into school tonight.

The two boys that shut the door now bind Aoto by his arms, Rinko makes a show of your presence. Pointing you out, grinning snidely, “Aren’t you so brave? Coming out tonight when nobody likes you,” many eyes linger, human and spirit, they burn you, “And I think you need a reward. Like a real dance, we need a queen, don’t you think?”

The eyes all feel malicious. Even the creatures only you can see, their gaze feels just as evil as it previously had. Their gaze feels like that of devils.

“You’re not usually so cleaned up, though,” she reaches out and drags you forward, and now you’re not so certain, “I’m more used to you like this.”

Cold water sloshes down your back, gasps retching through the room’s collective chests. Your clothes slick down against your body and chills course up your flesh. Feet patter away from behind you, and a new body approaches from the front. He heaves a bucket up by his shoulder.

The eyes are unblinking.

The abyss stares back.

And you are afraid.

“No, if we really wanted to relive that fantasy then maybe you should actually be bleeding this time.”

The bucket in the boy’s hands tips, and vile red pools to the metal lip before flying out. Red sticks over your skin, plastering your clothes to your body, it drips down your face with grotesque slowness. If you weren’t sure that it’d slip onto your tongue, you’d be screaming. But you can already taste the iron. What you don’t taste, stings your nostrils.

You see that Aoto is released, but you don’t feel relieved. He rushes over to you, ungracefully crashing on his knees at your side. His hands catch yours as they fruitlessly attempt to scratch off the blood - you hadn’t realized you were even doing that. You don’t realize when people begin crowding around you either.

Aoto rips off his jacket to wipe off as much blood from your face as possible. He’s speaking, fast and breathless, and you have no idea what he’s saying. Your ears are ringing. You look at the forming group. Some are smiling. Some are frowning. Some are stuck in the middle. Every devil giggles, though. Loudly,

The door squeaks open, and whoever planned on entering slithers back out when they spot your predicament.

Your devils follow your command, but they will not help. Your peers will not help. Your mother will not help. You are alone in the dark room, and your fear fades. You control the things that stare back from the shadows, you don’t have to be afraid.

Aoto tries to assist you in walking away, his hands are soft and his jacket is left on the ground. Stained in blood. You shove his hands away and look at Rinko, she laughs. Her friends laugh. Aoto is still speaking, but the ringing has yet to stop.

Rinko’s pin-straight hair shines under the dim lighting. You hate her.

“Just wanna…” your voice croaks, Aoto leans closer as if you’re talking to him, “get rid of her…”

The spirits’ giggles abruptly end. Eyes flashing over milky white.

Lightbulbs shatter from behind colored veneer and the emergency red lights flash on. Every body is painted in crimson. You watch Rinko. The ringing grows. She looks up, wide-eyed at the lights. The ringing grows. A stiff, rectangular body with a banging, metallic jaw steps forward. The ringing grows.

The rectangular devil swings its jaw open and practically inhales the top half of Rinko’s body as she screams. The misaligned mouth swings shut with a loud clang and her screaming is cut off. Her body’s bottom half - a quarter of her pelvis and both legs - fall uselessly to the ground in a bloody heap. Stringy, choppy ends of muscle spread over the ground.

Aoto stiffens beside you, his hands tighten around you and he tries yanking you towards the door, “We have to get out - oh, God- what? What was that? What was that?!”

Teenagers sound like squealing pigs as they scream. You hear the classroom door’s hinges squawk and turn towards the sound. The boy that’d dumped blood on you is trying to escape.

“Get rid of them all…” you mutter. Catching Aoto’s attention.

The door snaps shut, a brutish, pear-shaped devil responsible. The peachy flesh monster pushes and pushes and pushes, uncaring that the boy is trying to drag himself through the squeezing doorway.

The boy’s head pops, body slumping against the jammed door. Pigs squeal as they’re locked inside the pen.

“Are you- no,” Aoto sounds winded, air unable to get to his lungs, “Are you doing- ? Are you doing this?”

Claws shred clothes and raw meat. Teeth gnash and tear. Blood falls to the floor from bodies that aren’t yours.

“Would you have helped me?” you don’t look at Aoto, voice frail and dry, “If Hokori hadn’t made you, would you have helped me?”

His mouth opens and closes. Like a fish to be gutted. His chest rapidly moves with his hyperventilating. He reaches out for you, but you’ve stepped back. He sees a girl have her legs twisted like putty over your shoulder, and he runs to the door.

The peachy spirit stands guard, roughly slapping Aoto away. His body flies into a table and he stays down. You look up at the creature and he clears your path before slamming the door shut behind you. You trail blood into the hall, looking out at the gathering student body in the narrow space. Teachers are at the frays.

Wet, strained eyes of devils watch from every corner.

The ringing has subsided. You can hear the screams behind you more clearly now.

And you can hear yourself as you tell the devils, “Make them bleed.”

Fly-like devils swarm to your sides. They suck up the blood still clinging to you. You collect more as you wander out of the school.

You pass Coach Teru. Her body is pinned to the wall by a lanky devil with sagging, baggy skin - like a deflated beach ball stretched around a stick. Her chest only lets out wheezy little whines. You could free her, but then once the euphoria of having a savior wavers, she will realize what you are. The very devil-conduit freak your mother and peers feared. She will hate you just as much. So you walk away as she is crushed, desperately flinging out weak cries of your name.

Real flies join the buzz around your bloodied form as you walk home.

…

As you watch blood mix into water and flow down the shower drain, you hear your bathroom door creak open. A shadow casts over the white shower curtain. Your mother attracts the fly devils. They tangle in her hair and lap at her face with long tongues.

You can see her hands tremble. The shape of something angular and sharp rests in her grasp. It means nothing well.

You want for your mother to sweep you into her arms. To cradle you and promise better days. To seek help for you that does not come with scorching candles and splintered knees in a cramped closet. Yet, you already know you cannot have that. You wonder if maybe in a different world, you could have. If maybe there is another version of you that isn’t plagued by visions of evil and has normal breakfasts with a family that loves you.

You wonder. You will never know.

“Get rid of her,” you command coldly.

The flies flock around her throat, laying pressure from all sides. They’re weak individually, but en masse, they manage to pry the oxygen from your mother’s lungs. Strip away the cruel beat of her heart.

Her knife clatters to the ground, body thumping to the ground soon after.

It hasn’t hit you yet as you towel off and change post-shower, what you’re going to do about the carnage left in your wake. But returning one of Suguru’s many, many missed calls seems like a good first step. It rings once.

Then his voice, weaker and shakier than you’re used to, “I’ve done something bad,” he sucks in a sharp breath, “Terrible.”

You’re snapped from whatever sinister haze had taken over you. Suguru’s confession rouses the warmth of your chest, you clutch the phone tightly to your ear, “I have, too.”

If you try hard enough, you can still smell the iron in the hallway. And you can still hear the screams of boys and girls and mothers and fathers and lovers and friends. You sniffle, the memories burn your eyes, “I- Sugu…” you really have done something unbearable, haven’t you?

Your mother’s body will be cold by morning.

“I killed them,” you gasp, hoping to feel the air fill your lungs - you don’t, “I killed them all…!”

And the scariest thing about it, is you don't know if you even regret it.

Suguru is warm and kind, you know this hopelessly. You’re reminded now because he pushes aside whatever sin he’s borne tonight to ease your breathing. His voice is gentle as he coaxes you into calmer breaths. Only then, does he continue, “What happened? You killed people?”

“I- “ he doesn’t sound afraid, that should alarm you but it doesn’t, “They hurt me, Sugu. I couldn’t- I can’t- I just wanted them dead. I wanted them all gone and I made the devils- “

Suguru cuts you off abruptly, “Curses.”

“What?”

“You’re a sorcerer, too,” he hums quietly, “That’s good…” you’re tempted to ask, but he’s already speaking again, “I killed a village; burned them all… they were hurting children. Two girls,” he groans, sharp and throaty, “Locked them in a cage- they weren’t eating. They’re all bruised.”

“Sugu,” you trust that he’s done right by the girls because that’s simply who he is, “can I see you?”

“Yes, yes,” you hear rustling, his words rushed like he’d forgotten something, “Pack light. Hide in my room. God, God…” he starts murmuring and you aren’t sure you’re supposed to be hearing what he says now, “If the higher-ups don’t know yet then they will soon. A whole school… yeah, they’ll know by morning for sure.”

He sounds frantic. You’re sure if you could see him now he would look even worse.

“Will you be here soon?” you’re realizing you don’t know where he is. You look back and wonder if he’d truly been in Tokyo this whole time like he said.

“Fast as I can,” he turns away from the receiver to call out to an unseen company. The girls, you figure, “Don’t see my parents. Just climb through the window like you used to.”

You want to ask. The question digs into the meat of your bottom lip. You hang up instead.

You’re unable to sleep. Hyper on the paranoia that someone will find you. That Suguru’s sleeping parents will spontaneously awake and creep into their son’s old room. That police officers will kick the door down and take you away. That God Himself will smite you.

The sun barely peeks over the mountains when Suguru sneaks into his old room. A faint thud echoes from his parent’s room followed by the squeak of a mattress. He pays it no mind, cupping your cheeks and tilting your head to inspect for marks. He’s gentle with you.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this? About any of this?”

Suguru pulls back, melancholy eats at the skin of his face, “I wanted to, but nobody above me would budge,” his shaky hands find yours, he exhales and the shaking eases, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t get my teacher in trouble, and I didn’t want you to be a part of this if I could help it,” he looks down at your locked hands, “I just wanted you to be happy, away from curses... I love you,” he says it so plainly, unashamed and with no embarrassment, “I love you so much, I can’t bear the idea of you getting hurt by these curses. And I ended up letting you get hurt by these monkeys.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sugu,” you lean forward, pressing a kiss to his cheek and hoping it soothes his aching chest, “Not your fault at all.”

He smiles softly, standing and bringing you up with him. His hands are wound tightly around yours and he takes the moment to look at you; he hated how upset you sounded last night. How tearful you were over the bloodshed of people that tormented you. How terrible that sound was, “We should go. We’re both in trouble with some powerful people right now.”

Your shoulders droop at the thought, eyes widening, “More powerful than you?”

You know nothing of the sorcery world that Suguru hails from, but you know that he would be discontent being low on the totem pole.

“No,” he hums, “Well, one. But he’s not a concern,” he grabs the bag you’d packed last night and throws it over his shoulder, “There’s lots of work I have to do if I want to change this world. And I want you with me.”

There’s nearly an endless amount of work to be done if Suguru wants to change the world that ousted and hurt you. Hurt Nanako and Mimiko. Hurt Riko. Hurt Satoru. But he’s a Special Grade, capable of raising a cursed army to wipe out the parasites that feed off his loved ones. He’s certain that, if you’re willing to share, you could raise an army, too.

You nod excitedly, turning towards his bedroom door until Suguru clears his throat.

He shakes his head, bangs falling over his pale, weary face, “That’s not a good idea. We’ll use the window.”

He doesn’t know if the gore has reached outside his parents’ room, but he doesn’t want you to be one to find out.

Suguru is the first to jump down, catching you afterward and tucking you both into his parents’ car. You’ve always known that Suguru is good with kids, he’s been babysitting around the neighborhood since he was in grade school, but seeing it again now sets your whole chest ablaze. His compassion and tenderness - your Suguru is just as sweet as you remember. You think you love him.

“I trust and adore her more than anyone in the world,” he says to the frightened girls, having shied away from you, “You’ll never be harmed by her, we promise you that.”

Suguru clings to you as he drives, a hand settled on your leg as if to make sure you won't jump from the car. Soft and sweet and gentle-hearted Suguru. You’re sure you love him.

One day you will tell him.

That day, he will say it back.

For now, you two sit in the front seats of his parents’ car - and in dim offices in Tokyo, your death sentences as Special Grade threats are being signed by men you’ve never met.

[ghostlykeyes]

Hello. I like your Heartsteel writings c: I just got my wisdom tooth removed today so can I ask a hc or anything for Aphelios taking care of an s/o? 😊

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HEARTSTEEL APHELIOS / SICK READER ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ No TW's ♡ Quick note that I don't usually write for Aphelios (requests aren't open for him) but who am I to turn away a recovering patient??? (Hope you're feeling better/healing well my dear!)

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APHELIOS

When it comes to taking care of a recovering partner, Aphelios has learned from the best. He thinks back to the last time he had the flu and uses Alune's three-day-nurse-stint as a blueprint. Whatever you need, he's ready to silently offer it. Cold cloth for your head? Done. Pain meds? He's got your dosages measured out and your favorite drink on hand to wash it down. Cuddles? Don't even mention it. He's already in bed, cocooning you both in fresh-washed blankets still warm from the dryer. And, if worst comes to worst and one of your requests stumps him, he can always text his sister to come in as backup.

Aphelios doesn't cook often, but when you're bedridden and in need of a good, comforting meal he comes in clutch. He makes a mean galbitang, and he'll even spoon-feed it to you if you give him your best puppy eyes and whine, "pleeeeeeeease, Phel, I'm too weak to eat by myself." (Not without an affectionate eye-roll, of course.) Besides that, he makes sure the freezer is well-stocked with popsicles and other cold, easy-to-digest food that will soothe you. Making sure Sett and Kayn don't eat it all, well, that's another issue entirely...

Aphelios hates to let a good prank opportunity go to waste, but if you're sick or recovering? You're safe. He wouldn't dream of harassing you while you're feeling less than your best (even if it's all in good fun). Expect to be teased extra when you are feeling better, though!

Keeping you clean and comfortable is a top priority for Aphelios. One of his most-hated things about being stuck in bed is how quickly he starts to feel grimy, so he's sure to help keep up on your hygiene routine. If you're up for it, Aphelios runs you a warm bath. He helps you out of your pajamas and eases you into the bathwater. While you're relaxing in the tub he takes care of your hair for you. Gently, he works a generous handful of shampoo into your scalp, massaging soothing circles against your skin as he goes. He hums, sometimes. A rare treat he gives when his vocal chords aren't as painful. This alone relaxes you more than any bath ever could (though of course, you aren't complaining about that part). Whatever your regular routine is, he'll see to it—face masks, body scrubs, he'll even shave your armpits for you if you ask. When you're ready to get out, he has a warm towel ready for you (what a wonder ten minutes in the dryer can do). Aphelios has fresh clothes on standby, too. He really does think of everything, and he doesn't let you back into bed until you feel fresh and rejuvenated.

While you're recovering, Aphelios strings together a few soothing instrumentals to help you relax. It's nothing fancy, just a simple beat to break the silence and lull you to sleep.

Aphelios isn't known for going easy on his gaming rivals. That completely disappears when you, bored out of your mind and desperate for something to do, challenge him to Mario Kart or Mortal Kombat. Kicking your ass while you're already down doesn't sit right with him, so he lets you bag a few wins. That stunning smile when you beat him, like you can't believe your luck, makes it all worth it. Fuck, that smile makes his knees weak.

Normally Aphelios can be a bit stingy with his cuddles. He just isn't overly physically affectionate. But if you need extra love? Say no more. He's glued to your side, snuggling you like it's his job. Your limbs are tangled together, your head finds a permanent pillow on his chest, and your bodies share a comforting heat. He will never tell you no if you're not feeling well, especially if you need more attention.

Aphelios sends you tons of memes throughout the day as-is, but if you're recovering from something? He's practically blowing up your phone. If you don't mute your notifications you will never know peace. Mainly, it's because he doesn't want you getting bored. He's also thinking about you a little bit extra, though, and what better way to express that than through a string of unhinged Tik-Toks?

[ghostlykeyes]

hiii heheh, i just got into heartsteel recently and i’d love some sett kissing headcanons! (like the ones you wrote for kayn!!) ( ^ω^ )

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HEARTSTEEL SETT / READER: KISSES ♡ Gender Neutral ♡ SFW, NSFW under bold header ♡TW: Sexual Content

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SETT

Whenever Sett hasn't seen you for awhile, (which happens far, far too often, owing to his packed Heartsteel schedule) he greets you with a huge, dramatic kiss. "Awww," he grins, "there's my favorite person!" He drops his bag to scoop you up in his arms, squishing you in a giant hug. No sooner than he puts you down is his mouth on yours, telling you how much he missed you in a way that words can't. It always lasts a minimum of five seconds and always makes you a little jelly-in-the-knees.

If you ask Sett his favorite place to kiss you, he rolls his eyes. "Awww, c'mon baby, you can't make me pick just one," he groans playfully, emphasizing his point by tugging you in and smattering kisses around your face. But really? He does have a favorite spot, and it's your forehead. Sett loves to slip his hands under your jaw, tilting your head up towards him. He brushes his lips across the smooth patch of skin just above your eyebrows. Sett lingers there for a moment. He basks in your soft warmth and closeness, rubbing tender circles over your cheekbones. Normally, he swipes a quick kiss over your lips before he pulls away (might as well make a pit stop while he's down there, right?).

Sett doesn't have an extraordinarily specific taste, but sometimes his mouth is a little sweet from the last pre-workout drink or protein shake he's had.

When he's kissing you, Sett's hands don't wander much. He keeps a gentle but firm grasp on your waist, or he's got one hand on your hip and one at the nape of your neck. If you let him, he tangles his fingers in your hair—if not, though, no biggie. He just keep his hand on the column of your neck, softly pressing you closer so he can devour your delicious lips.

Even though he wraps his fists, Sett still scuffs his knuckles up from frequent one-on-ones with a punching bag. He loves when you speckle soft-lipped kisses across his aching, split knuckles. "Thanks, hun," he hums, giving you a lovesick look that he reserves only for you. "I'm gonna be back to a hundred percent in no time."

Sett doesn't mind PDA. If you want a kiss then you're getting a kiss, who cares where you are or who sees? Picking him up from the gym? Cute (albeit sweaty) kiss in front of his gym bros. Hanging out backstage at a performance? Good luck kiss, even though he's quite aware it breaks the hearts of any groupies that might catch a glance. You're crashing Heartsteel's game night and Aphelios is kicking your ass in Super Smash Bros? Bet on a consolation kiss, even though Kayn makes a face and does an exaggerated 'eeewwww'. Sett just laughs and kisses you harder.

That being said, Sett will never give you a steamy kiss in front of his mom. You're getting a light peck at best. He's trying hard to maintain that Good Boy image for her. Plus, he just thinks it's a bit more respectful to you, as well—spending time with someone's parents can be nerve-wracking at the best of times, so he figures it's probably better not to embarrass you by shoving his tongue down your throat during family dinner.

Sett's a human space heater, which means his lips are always warm. If you're chilly, kissing Sett is a great way to get some feeling back in your numb-cold cheeks. His body heat and warm mouth will have you thawing out in no time!

Sleepy, cuddly kisses are a staple with Sett. He likes his naps and he loves to snuggle, which means you end up trapped as his little spoon pretty often. If you try to wriggle free he half-wakes-up, murmuring a little "hmm?" before nuzzling into your neck and falling right back asleep. Plan on being there for awhile if your dozes off on you. And, when he does finally wake up? Sett is not above bribing you to stay in bed with kisses. "Awwwww, c'monnnnnnn," he groans, hiding his face in your shoulder. "Ten more minutes. Please?" If you say no, he goes in for the kill. He starts at the junction of your shoulder and neck and works up from there, peppering kisses across all of your most ticklish spots. "Please?" He begs. "Please please?" Sett finds your lips before long, quickly deepening an innocent smooch into something languid—licking lazy patterns into your mouth, strong hands massaging slow circles into your skin. He relaxes you until you're basically boneless, melting into his touch. "Fine," you relent, and he hums with contentment. "Nice," he murmurs. He's back asleep before you even have time to adjust.

Sett's almost-unfair height is a bit tough to navigate when trying to kiss him. Luckily, though, there's a few workarounds. He's always wearing a necklace or chain, which is a great way to pull him down to your level and reach his mouth. And, considering he's constantly trying to "subtly" show you how strong he is, Sett's eager to lift you up for a kiss. He slides his massive arms around your waist and picks you up without breaking a sweat, holding you to his lips until you break away, breathless and giggling.

NSFW

If neither of those methods are to your taste, you can always straddle Sett. This works best, honestly. Both of you can settle in to make out comfortably, with your thighs squishing his waist and his hands spread out across your ass. Perfect. The only drawback? This position almost always leads to sex. You can't help it! How are you supposed to keep from jumping his bones when he's sitting underneath you, letting out those precious moans whenever your teeth pinch his spit-shiny bottom lip? And as for Sett, how can he not tear your shirt off if you're scraping your nails against his scalp, looking down at him with those bedroom eyes?

Sett absolutely loves french kissing. If you go in for a kiss any longer than three seconds, you can bet you'll feel his tongue swiping across your bottom lip, coaxing your mouth open for him.

Getting a little messy doesn't bother Sett in the slightest. Even with your cum dripping off his face he still wants to make out with you. He works his way into your mouth, savoring the way you shiver as you taste yourself on his tongue.

[ghostlykeyes]

Hi Keyes! Nice to meet you ❤️ I was wondering if you would accept a request 👉🏻👈🏻

Its my first time asking for requests! So sorry if Im not clear enough of if I forget the rules. Im totally new at this T-T

I had this idea in my mind for a long time and I was wondering if you could consider writing it! Kayn x fem reader headcannons where Kayn falls haaaard for reader cause he found a partner in crime in her. They both like to cause a little trouble here and there, and also he found someone that could drive ever FASTER than him.

Omg Im so in love with him 😮‍💨❤️

Thank you and hope Im not breaking any rules!

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

HEARTSTEEL KAYN/TROUBLEMAKER READER ♡ No TW's ♡ SFW ♡ Nice to meet you, you're so sweet!! Thank you for your fantastic request, I loved writing it! I hope you'll feel free to request more in the future (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

KAYN

Instead of traditional nicknames like "honey" or "babe", Kayn exclusively calls you his little demon. Given your wild side, it's pretty accurate.

All it takes to get Kayn to do something is a dare. He has a hard time turning down dares as is, but if it's coming from you? His partner in crime and chief enabler? Oh, no way in hell he's backing down. Naturally it works for big, bold things: popping a wheelie on the Paranoia MV motorcycles, climbing a water tower, vandalizing a cop car. It also works for small things, too, though. Dare him to get you a glass of water or give you a kiss and he'll roll his eyes, but comply. "Oh, a dare, huh? You know I can't turn those down." He folds to your innocent, cute demands like paper. Just be mindful, though; he knows you're a troublemaker too, and he's not afraid to throw a dare or two of his own your way.

Whenever Ernest is naughty, fingers immediately point at you and Kayn. "He gets it from you two," the rest of Heartsteel claims. Kayn just shrugs. "We're his favorite," he defends (not true—Ezreal is clearly Ernest's favorite, but it's best not to rub that in Kayn's face). "Of course he's gonna take after us." He rubs Ernest's ears, completely ignoring the fact that he just stole food off the counter or shredded K'sante's favorite shoes. "Yeah, you're our little monster, huh?" If you didn't know any better, you might think Kayn is encouraging the dog's troublemaking...

(He is. He totally is. You've literally seen him sneak Ernest a treat after turning one of Sett's plushies into a chew toy.)

Kayn nabbed your phone one time and set the home screen as a picture of his mug shot from the music video. Not to be outdone, you stole his phone and set the home screen as a picture of your mug shot. Kayn has nothing but questions. "Is this real?? The fuck did you do? Why do you look so hot in this..." Of course, you don't tell him if it's real or staged. You can't give away all your secrets so easily, now, can you?

There's a change jar in the Heartsteel apartment kitchen marked "Kayn and (Y/N)'s Bail Fund". At first you thought it was a complete joke, but then you noticed Ezreal drop a twenty in there after Kayn broke a Taco Bell drive-thru window during a night-out. Now you're not so sure. Either way, hopefully you'll never have to use it for that.

Every single time you and Kayn go somewhere, it's a race. You line your cars up at the mouth of the parking garage and then you fucking go. You've raced to McDonald's for lunch, raced him to his rehearsals, you even raced him to a funeral one time. There are no rules except 'get there first', and yes, this little game has resulted in multiple speeding tickets. But whatever what's a small fine compared to an adrenaline rush? They wouldn't put 130 on the speedometer if they didn't want you to do it.

Kayn and you have been permanently banned from a fair handful of establishments. Reasons why include: totaling a go-kart, throwing bowling balls overhead, bribing a ring toss worker to get a gigantic Bulbasaur without playing the game (Sett really, really wanted it). And that's the beginning. Don't even get Yone started on the infamous Laser Tag Incident...

The perfect date for you two is a rage room. Yone got you and Kayn passes for a local rage room for Kayn's birthday one year. Playing frisbee with glass dinner plates? A surprisingly good time. Sure, they may have asked you not to come back after Kayn got a little rowdy with an old radio and an extension cord (you asked him how high he thought he could slingshot the thing and the answer was "pretty fucking far", which of course he had to prove), but it was a good time regardless. Whenever Kayn's feeling extra stressed and you don't want to deal with the fallout around real property damage, you take him to a rage room for the afternoon and smash bottles to your hearts' content.

Kayn never paid much attention to minor scrapes and bruises before meeting you. But, since you're now hopping fences or slipping through open windows together, he's suddenly become attuned to the bumps acquired while daredevilling. He keeps a small container of band-aids in his bag just for you. "I might have some bandages in here," he grumbles whenever you get scraped up. "Dunno if I used 'em all." (Of course he hasn't. They're your band-aids and he wouldn't dream of using one.)

Whenever Kayn just needs to talk, the two of you often sneak into an old building to do it. Getting caught puts your nerves on edge, for sure, but it allows Kayn to pretend he's not anxious about discussing his own feelings or worries. Of course he feels vulnerable, you two are trespassing! That's totally why his palms are sweating and his chest feels tight. It has nothing to do with his deep-seated reluctance to talk about his emotions. If you can tell Kayn's wound up extra tight, offer to sneak into a nearby community pool or abandoned gas station late at night. Under cover of darkness, in the silent hallways of a vacant building, Kayn lets you take a peek under his dark shell.