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namodareads · 1 month ago

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When the Cult of Nikador conquers your city and sacks your temple, you are captured by the Crown Prince of Kremnos and taken as his war prize. (Or: The fall of Castrum Kremnos, as seen through the eyes of an oracle held captive by Prince Mydeimos.)

12.8k words of romance, enemies to lovers, and slow burn. Canon-adjacent (multiple timelines theory) with ancient Greek historical and mythological influences. Warnings for themes of war, slavery, and threats of sexual violence (none from Mydei). Mydei also seems quite terrible to you at first, but this is all unreliable narration; he is actually very kind to you for the entirety of the story. MDNI.

Author's note including discussion of themes, ancient Greek influences, canon lore (including the multiple timelines), and a list of characters and terminology for my non-hsr readers lol. dividers by @/strangergraphics!

They find you at the altar.

The Sons of Gorgo are a cruel people. Their hands are smeared with the blood of your fallen temple, staining the ivory silk of your chiton as they drag you outside. Chaos roars around you: the streets are strewn with corpses, the olive trees are devoured by flames, the sky is filled with ash. The city is screaming in its death throes. The Kremnoans jeer at you, at your humiliation. High priestess of a weak god, they say. Prophetess turned slave. They’ve heard that the hieria of your temple are required to be virgins. You won't be a holy maiden anymore, after they're done with you.

They argue over who gets to rape you.

You do not cower. You are sitting on the temple steps, surrounded by the corpses of acolytes and worshippers alike, but you remain impassive. You refuse to give the invaders the satisfaction of seeing your tears, and anyway, they are much too small to intimidate someone who speaks to the Titans. They bicker over who is more deserving of the valuable plunder of your body—who has killed more people, who has captured more slaves, who has burned down more homes—and you feel disgust, rather than fear. They're closer to animals than men.

The hoplites fall silent when their leader comes. His hair is fire and gold; his eyes gleam like the sun. He cuts a terrible figure—the shape of a man who feasts on strife and fear. Just like the rest of his army.

Just like Nikador himself.

“What’s happening here?” he says, harsh and oppressive. His gaze is sharp on you, but you do not tremble. “Who is this?”

A soldier speaks proudly: “She was the high priestess of this temple,” he says. “But now she’ll be a slave.”

The men laugh.

“We were fighting over who should get to keep her,” another says. “But I think it's clear as day who's most deserving, eh?”

“The fiercest among us should get the greatest prize,” someone else says. They cheer and bark like hyenas. Their general does not smile. He only looks at you, eyes burning. Outraged. How much the Kremnoans must hate your people, you think, for their leader to glare at you like this.

“Fine,” he says. “I'll take her, then.”

They grab you with their red hands. Push you toward an encampment, a tent. Laugh in delight and bloodthirst. About time our Crown Prince shows interest in a woman, they say. We were starting to think you were a eunuch, Your Highness! It wouldn't do if he were. In the wake of victory, Kremnoans are meant to take all the glories and treasures they can. That includes all the peoples they've conquered. Our mighty general needs to enjoy his spoils of war!

When they finally reach his tent, they throw you onto the ground, and the pain slams through your bones. You are left alone with the Kremnoan general, glaring up at him from your place on the floor. His eyes are less sharp now; rather than burning on you, they merely seem cold. He will kill me, you think, he will kill me like he has killed my city, but then he kneels down. A hand extends toward you, reaching, pilfering, violating—

You spit in his face.

“Don't fucking touch me,” you snarl, and the general jerks back, surprised. Your hand darts out as he falters, grabbing a dagger from his hip, swift and deadly.

The sharp metal of his gauntlet snaps around your wrist before you can slash open your throat.

“What are you doing?” he snaps. Your brow arches.

“Shouldn’t it be obvious?” you ask, scathing. “I'd rather die than let a Kremnoan touch me.”

His mouth twists. “I have no intention to do such a thing,” he says, and the bark of laughter you let out is so cruel that you hear in it the echo of the soldiers who dragged you to your doom.

“Do you take me for an idiot?” you hiss. “That’s what your people do when they win wars. What the Cult of Nikador does to the women they enslave.” The blade is pressed against your jugular, and you feel its edge when you swallow. “Or will you instead bleed me dry and drink my blood from your chalice? That's what your god demands of you, isn't it?”

His eyes narrow. “Foolish. I was going to help you up, but I suppose you prefer being on the ground.”

You watch him, wary, unconvinced, but he turns away. As if utterly disinterested in you, he crosses the threshold to rummage through his personal effects. You spot a golden winecup in his hands when he turns, and he snorts when he catches you looking at it suspiciously. “You have no need to worry,” he says dryly. “Kremnoans prefer pomegranate juice to blood.”

“If only they preferred to be humans rather than beasts,” you retort, and the general’s eyes harden as he pours himself a drink. You wonder, for a moment, if he will strike you, but he seems to temper himself as he takes his draught.

“I hope you prefer living to dying. If you should, then you won't leave this tent tonight. Doing so would mean throwing yourself to those beasts.”

“I'm already in the presence of one.”

His nostrils flare. You can sense his fury, but his voice is taut and restrained when he says, “Better to contend with one beast than twenty, don't you think?”

Your captor walks over, his boots heavy against the ground as he kneels before you. You expect to feel his hands on your neck, or the weight of his body crushing yours into the earth, but instead you are presented with his winecup, half empty.

“Take it,” he says. When you don't move, merely glaring at him, he frowns and sets the drink next to you before rising again. You're left staring at the nectar, and—unbidden—you see the rivers of blood on the temple steps, lacerations in your holy ground. Smell the copper stench of slain men, hear the sorrowful cries of your goddess through the Evernight Veil. Your captor misinterprets your grimace: “You just saw me drink from that yourself. It isn't poisoned.”

You glance at him, uncomprehending.

“...you mean for me to drink this?”

“Yes. Pour some on the sheets, then drink the rest.”

He turns away, as if to leave. You swallow, disbelieving.

“And then?”

“And then you may do whatever you wish, so long as you don't leave my tent. I have a war to wage, so you'll need to entertain yourself for the rest of the night.”

Entertain yourself. Your city is aflame, your temple is desecrated, and he wishes for you to drink pomegranate juice and amuse yourself until he has the time to rape you. As if you can't hear the screams and cries of your city. As if you can't smell the charcoal and death through the fabric of the tent. As if you will be content to lie back and wait for him to cleave you open once he returns.

How much the Kremnoans must hate your people, you think, for their prince to be so cruel to you.

You imagine rushing toward him. You envision grabbing his knife, lodging it into his back, in the soft space between his vertebrae, a path into his heart—but you hold yourself back, because you have no doubt he’ll easily overpower you now. No—if you wish to kill him, you will need to do it while he's unguarded. Likely when he's asleep, or perhaps even inside you, depending on how stupid or drunk he’ll be when he rapes you.

You will need to humour his whims until then.

“How much?” you ask when he is about to leave the tent. When he glances back at you, you add, uncomprehending, “How much do you want me to pour out?” And why?

He shrugs. “However much makes sense to you.” The general glances back, thoughtful, and says, “I’ll see to it that someone else cleans up in here tomorrow,” and then you understand.

You drink half of what remains in his cup, and then you pour out the rest.

Your goddess sends you visions that night, dreams of the past, present, future. You peer upon a child drowning in the sea, a poisoned woman with a golden dagger, a mad king cleaving a statue into fifths. You dream of burning villages, fallen idols, a father slain by his son. Aquila closes his eyes; Georios drowns in shadow; monsters roam the earth. A great fortress looms before you, dark and decrepit, and the young king seated upon its throne is covered in blood. He reeks of the corpses of a thousand temples, of your temple. You cannot see his face, but you recognise the shape of him, mighty and terrible—a man who feasts upon strife and fear. You are lying at his feet, wounded. Your chest is heavy, aching, and your heart bleeds in the hand of Nikador, scarlet dripping through his fingers.

You are crying when you wake up.

You do not need to look outside the tent to know that your city is gone. Aurelia is silent, bereft of life—its buildings gutted, its people slain, its treasures stolen. Death has settled over your home, and in its wake, the Kremnoan legion prepares to leave.

The soldiers sent to disassemble your captor’s tent all bear white caps. They must be helots, the children of slaves; you have met a few of them during your time as an acolyte, watching them trailing after the rare Kremnoan master who would sometimes seek supplication at your temple.

You used to pity them for their station; now, they pity you.

The helots give you sorrowful looks as they strip the bed of its red-stained sheets. They speak gently to you when they give you water to wash your face and thighs. They try to counsel you, tell you that Prince Mydeimos is the best person who could have stolen you. He is just for a Kremnoan warrior, they whisper, show the soldiers grace and you'll see, and then they put you in chains.

You do not show the Kremnoan army any grace. You glare at every hoplite who lays eyes on you, and you refuse to bow your head for any of them. On the long march back to Castrum Kremnos, they study you like you are an animal. Some of them look at you with wonder—for you are a divine oracle in the flesh—some with shameless curiosity—for it has spread like wildfire that you have been defiled by the Crown Prince Mydeimos, who has never taken a woman as his plunder—and some with unadulterated glee. They pester you and the other prisoners-of-war, and you recognize them as the animals who sacked your temple and burned your olive groves.

“Has Prince Mydeimos given you a Kremnoan welcome?” they ask in their dialect, mocking. Has he told you what your life will become? Do the men behind you know that their priestess has been ruined, or are they too stupid to understand the Kremnoan tongue?

“HKS,” you retort, and their faces fall. They look at one another, aghast.

“What did you say?” one grits out the Aurelian dialect, and you cast him a cool glance.

“HKS. I called you a hyena—or are you too stupid to understand the Kremnoan tongue?”

You do not expect to be struck. A hand cracks across your cheek; the pain is blinding. You are on the ground, knees in the dirt, reeling. The prisoners behind you are crying for their priestess; the memory-ghosts of the acolytes behind you are screaming for help; the olive trees behind you are turning to charcoal and dust; the city behind you is burning, burning, burning. Oronyx will never let you forget this, nor any other memory.

“What is this?” a voice snarls, and time freezes.

The procession has come to a halt. The hoplites are suddenly children, caught red-handed with a broken toy. The offending soldier swallows, and you feel some semblance of glee. The Cult of Nikador is famed for their obsession with order and with glory. It is taboo among their people to touch another’s spoils, and suicide to try it with one’s superiors. Killing the slave of the Crown Prince would be the same thing as stealing his belongings or breaking his sword—acts of impudence punishable by death.

He stutters: “She—the priestess… she was out of line, Your Highness, mocking us—”

“And you were not out of line for touching her?”

The offending soldier looks at the ground beneath him. Sweat beads his temple. “I… forgot myself. I apologize, Your Highness.”

Your captor is not placated. His gaze roams the bystanders, scalding. “Should any other man be foolish enough to strike the priestess,” he booms, “I will cut off his hand myself. I have claimed her as my war prize, and no one else shall touch her. Do you understand?”

The yessirs are immediate. Unanimous. The general is restless still. He turns to you, the edge of his voice now muted, but still present. “Can you stand?”

I will slit your throat someday, you think as you look up at him. “Yes, my lord,” you reply demurely. “He merely struck my face. The rest of my body is untouched.”

“Then you will ride upfront with me,” he declares. “I will not have my spoils within the reach of anyone else.”

You end up next to him in his chariot, which makes you want to claw off your skin—to be so far from your worshippers, and so close to your captor. You turn your cheek to him, throbbing and bruised, but he deigns to speak with you anyway.

“Tell me,” he asks brusquely, “do you have a death wish? Or are you just a fool? Though even fools usually know when to hold their tongue.”

“I know too many tongues to hold them all, I'm afraid,” you reply neatly in the Kremnoan dialect, and your captor gives you an incredulous stare. You pointedly look ahead, eyes unwavering on the winding road to the City of Strife. “I am the High Priestess of the Aurelian Cult of Oronyx. I will not be cowed by a gaggle of idiots.”

“You are very proud for someone currently wearing chains,” the general remarks.

“And you are very cruel for someone who will someday wear a crown.” You pause then, thinking of your dreams before gambling: “Though a man who plans to kill his father could only be cruel.”

Your captor falls silent. You glance at him, mouth curling in satisfaction as you catalogue his reaction. His features are stoic, and someone with a lesser eye for expressions—someone not practiced in the art of telling fortunes and giving counsel—might miss it, but it's clear as day to you: your captor is ungrounded.

Disturbed.

“I know not what you mean,” he says coolly, and you raise a brow.

“It’s no use lying to me, you know,” you bluff. “Have you somehow forgotten that your war prize is an oracle? That is why your men were so obsessed with staking their claim on me.”

The prince remains composed despite your goading. “...so the rumours of your visions are true.” He studies you. “There were almost children or elderly in your city when the walls fell. Nearly no women. And the Aurelian soldiers… it was as if they knew all our plans.” At your silence, he concludes, “It was you, wasn't it? You foretold our attack and warned them.”

“It seems that the future king of Kremnos is a clever one,” you say dryly.

“And the High Priestess in his hands is a fool.” His jaw clicks. “I am trying my best to keep the wolves away from you, but you seem determined to throw yourself at them.”

You bare your canines with a smile, and you try dangling your newfound leverage over his head. “If I were you,” you reply, “I would be more worried about the wolves who would hunt for you, Your Highness. I’ve heard that King Eurypon and his council threw you into the sea as a baby; I am quite sure they would do the same to you now—unless you kill them first, of course.”

A great deal of being an oracle is guesswork. Oronyx sends you dreams, visions, echoes; people give you hints, gossip, microexpressions. Together, you can get a fairly good grasp on a man’s circumstances. Your captor is no exception: from the way his brows knot, you know that you've guessed true.

His eyes narrow, and he glances back at the rest of the Kremnoan procession, who are too far behind to hear anything. “Keep quiet,” he commands. “Don't think I won't kill you if you are a liability. There are limits to my patience.”

You snort. “I won’t give you away”—not yet—“but it won't be out of fear of death. Kill me if you'd like; I will not cower.”

Your captor makes a noise of displeasure. “I have never met a person so eager to die.”

“Haven’t you?” You arch a brow at the perplexed look he gives you. “Valorous death before glorious return. That’s your way of life, isn't it? You’ve burned my city and destroyed my temple—I will never see a glorious return. By the laws of your own god, there is now only one path left for me.”

You turn your wrists, let the iron chains sing. It occurs to you that you had been dead in your visions—slain by King Mydeimos—but you had not been shackled.

Castrum Kremnos is a prison.

Never have you been anywhere so strange nor frightening. The walls of the fortress climb high enough to eclipse the sun; the streets are crawling with soldiers carrying spears and shields. Every man and woman carries a sword; every child play-fights with a wooden one. Each one of them cheers as their army returns from its campaign, and nearly all of them eye you curiously—the war prize chosen by their famed Crown Prince.

During your long procession into the inner city, all you can hear are the whispers and jeers of the crowd. It is the warriors who are the loudest—the ones who did not put Aurelia under siege and are disappointed to have missed out on the glory of its destruction. They speak about you, about what you must look like beneath your bloodied robes, about how they cannot blame General Mydeimos for capturing you. Any Kremnoan man would want to fuck the High Priestess of their long-time enemy, and that is only truer now that their leader has staked his claim on you. All of them want a turn with the war prize of the Crown Prince.

Your own face remains unmoving, but Prince Mydeimos’ eyes darken. “Hyenas,” he growls, and you have to stop yourself from snorting at the hypocrisy.

The king is said to be senile and half-mad, and his queen died some years back of illness, so the homecoming warriors are greeted by a high statesman, General Krateros. You have heard many tales of him: legendary strategos, shrewd politician, the right hand of King Eurypon. The Seaside States once launched an offensive on Castrum Kremnos and was met with Krateros’ Goldshield Brigade; every enemy soldier was either put to death or bound in chains.

Chains just like yours.

General Krateros gives you a thoughtful look when he meets you, eyes locked on your iron cuffs. “I had a great hand in raising you, Prince Mydeimos, so I know you well,” he says. You’ve heard tell that after Prince Mydeimos was thrown into the Sea of Souls, General Krateros spent years searching for him at the request of his mother, eventually finding him years later in some fishing village. Krateros has ever since served and counselled the Crown Prince—perhaps poorly, for he says, “I did not take you for the type of man to capture a woman as your bounty.”

“Nor did you raise me to be the type of man to throw an innocent to the wolves,” your captor replies evenly, and you stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

No, you think, you are only the type to put a holy maiden in chains.

Your face must give away your disdain, for General Krateros studies you carefully. “Innocent or not, you may do whatever you wish with her, Mydeimos,” the strategos says, his eyes keen on you. “A predator need not worry for his prey other than how to keep it for himself.”

The message is clearly for you—know your place—but your captor appears to take the words to heart. Keeping you for himself is exactly what he does: rather than sending you to the slave’s quarters or some courtesan house, Prince Mydeimos has you stay in his room and orders that no one—aside from his appointed servants—should be allowed an audience with you.

Thus begins your life as the war prize of the Crown Prince.

If you were a different sort of person, you might enjoy the position. The Aurelian soldiers who fought to protect you are likely chained in iron and performing hard labour; the older women who were accosted in your temple are likely being forced to do menial work; the younger ones may have been ushered into brothels. You are instead placed into a beautiful, private chamber, and you are given robes of silk. Your wrists are manacled like every other slave under Kremnoan law, but the chains are gold. You are told to bathe in fragrant water, and the scent of flowers is ever-present on your skin.

You don't mistake any of this as kindness toward you. It is clear that you are not meant to enjoy this opulence; you are part of the opulence. A thing for the Crown Prince to indulge in, a treasure stolen from Aurelia. The time will come when you are raped, and the time will come when he bores of you, and the time will come when you will be killed at the foot of his throne.

All you can do is face your fate with dignity.

An entire moon passes, and your fate does not befall you.

You are unsure why your captor does not hurt you. Perhaps he is busy with making war; the servants say that he stays at the barracks every night rather than coming home. He might be expected to fuck you anyway, but he visits you only once a day for half an hour, and he only ever stays long enough to ask you three questions: Are you eating? Are you sick? What did you do today, while you were alone?

For an entire month, your answers are single words: Yes. No. Nothing. You sit as far away as possible from him, though you do not give him the satisfaction of seeing your fear—you always meet his impassive gaze, your own hard-edged.

Sometimes he tries to speak with you: Are you comfortable? Are you bored? Do you want anything? But most days, he leaves as soon as he can, his jaw tight and his eyes filled with something that edges on discomfort. You start to wonder if he finds you too unattractive to touch, if he is debating whether he should kill you instead of fucking you. But regardless of his intentions toward you, it is clear that he does not care for you.

So it surprises you when your captor one day says, “You have not been eating.”

You give him a long look, wondering if you'd misheard.

“No,” you eventually reply. “I have not.”

“Why?”

Your brow arches. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.”

“Why?” His expression becomes puzzled—and it aggravates you. You point out, “You are a Kremnoan prince. It should not matter to you if a slave is starving. Or are you worried that I'll waste away before you can fuck me?”

His eyes narrow, and you think you see that hint of discomfort again. “I am worried you will starve to death in my care.”

Your nostrils flare. “I am not in your care. I am your prisoner.”

“I see to it that you are fed and clothed and bathed. Is that not care?”

You snort. “A man who took my home away from me cannot care for me. He can only torture me.”

His jaw tightens. Your captor’s voice measured, but his frustration is palpable: “He can also keep you alive—even though you seem determined to die.”

“Death is a mercy. I would much prefer it to being raped.”

“I thought it would be clear by now that I do not wish to touch you,” your captor says, frowning, and the bark you let out is so loud that he startles.

“Do you think I'd be stupid enough to believe that lie?”

“I think you'd be smart enough to see reality for what it is.”

“Yes,” you reply, voice bitter, “I am smart enough to see the reality of what you have done to my city. And I am smart enough to know the reality of what happens to women after they are captured by the enemy.”

Prince Mydeimos inhales sharply. His eyes flicker with—with something. Something you don't care to identify. Something you quickly decide is disdain.

“Believe whatever you want. Either way, I want to keep you alive.” His eyes narrow in suspicion. “Is it that you want to die? Is that why you aren't eating?”

You give him that fanged smile again. “No, Your Highness, I do not wish to die. I wish to stay alive so that I may someday slit your throat.”

Prince Mydeimos disappoints you when he does not react in kind. “Fine,” he writes off. “You are free to kill me as many times as you want, so long as you eat.” You give him a strange look; he ignores it. “Now, why haven't you? Surely you must want to, if your goal is to live long enough to kill me. Is the food not to your liking?”

A frown. “I don't understand why you care.”

He nods. “So it isn't. Very well.”

You open your mouth, countless questions on your tongue. What do you mean? Why does this matter? Why aren't you using me? Why aren't you hurting me? But Prince Mydeimos leaves, and you are alone again in your prison—untouched, unnerved, unbalanced.

Your conversation with Prince Mydeimos leaves you feeling strange. Perplexed. Nervous. The longer you think of it, the more you wonder why he is taking so long to torture you. You'd been dragged into his tent, fully expecting to be either mauled or violated; over a month later, the worst that has happened is that you have been served unappetizing meals, and that you have spent your days so idly that you have grown bored.

But even if you are idle, you are not unharmed. You still dream of the night of your abduction. You dream of the cries of your worshippers, of the stench of burning flesh, of your olive groves turning to ash. You dream of being pushed to the floor of your captor’s tent, of golden gauntlets cleaving open your legs, of pomegranate-red stains on silk sheets. Sometimes the dreams are so vivid that you wonder if they are actually visions from Oronyx—echoes of a future yet to be played out, or a past that you’ve somehow forgotten.

Whenever you wake from these dreams, you crawl under the bed and spend the rest of the night there, and you spend your day afterward untouched, unnerved, unbalanced.

You are in one of these tense moods the next time you speak at length with Prince Mydeimos, after his usual questions: Are you eating? Are you sick? What did you do yesterday, while you were alone?

“I am trapped in your room, so I did nothing but read your books,” you reply bluntly, picking idly at the chicken on your dinner plate. “Don't you have anything other than war histories, by the way? I should like a romance novel or two. I'd even take a philosophical dialogue over this. Kremnos must surely have a few thinkers who do not write solely about war.”

Your captor stares—perhaps surprised at your sudden chatter, though not displeased by it. Though he does seem perplexed.

“You are not ‘trapped’ here,” he points out, frowning. “I gave you leave some time ago to wander the grounds, so long as you are accompanied by one of the guards I have assigned you.”

“So you say, but not a single one of your guards has thus far dared to let me out.”

Prince Mydeimos frowns. “Why?”

You give him a strange look. “Do you not know the rules of your own land, Prince Mydeimos? Helots are given free movement, and even trusted slaves have some autonomy, but prisoners-of-war are not allowed to wander anywhere except in service of their given task. And my given task is…”

You gesture to the bed, and the prince’s mouth tightens.

“I see.”

You note the displeasure on his face—genuine, a sign of true oversight. “Why would you expect that I'd ever be allowed to roam around as I please?” you ask. “You paraded me around on your chariot as you returned home from war, and you announced me as your plunder to the entire city. Everyone knows I am your prisoner, and everyone treats me accordingly.”

“I have never kept a personal slave, let alone taken one for my spoils,” he says evenly. “I did not think these laws would supersede the orders of a Crown Prince.”

You snort at the sheer absurdity of his answer.

“The Crown Prince of Kremnos has never kept a slave? Your esteemed father has at least half a hundred of them in his personal service, I'd wager.”

“And my late mother did not allow any of them to serve me. She disliked the practice.” His voice is terse, belying something that turns your stomach. You look away, not wishing to think of it.

“Does that matter?” you deflect. “Your Highness, if you wish to ascend the throne and follow in your father’s footsteps, then you'd better get used to keeping slaves. Castrum Kremnos is built on them.”

Prince Mydeimos gives you a hard look. “I will not be the kind of king that my father is,” he says bluntly.

His words carry weight. Suppressed anger. You watch him keenly, interested—suddenly wondering if there is more to Prince Mydeimos’ plans to commit patricide other than self-preservation.

“And why would that be?” you ask.

He raises a brow. “You are an oracle. You haven't seen what he's done for yourself?”

“If I could see whatever I wanted at will, do you think I would be sitting here right now?” you ask dryly, and his brow twitches. His expression is otherwise impassive, but his eyes give away his alarm, and you exploit it immediately: “Worry not, Prince Mydeimos. Whatever secrets you've let slip are safe with me, so long as you do not touch me.”

“I thought it would be obvious by now that I have no wish to touch you.”

“And I thought it would be obvious by now that I am not stupid enough to trust you.” You laugh when he frowns. “No need to pout, Your Highness. You don't need my trust to keep me under control.” You shake your chains. "These are all you need."

He glances at your manacles, his eyes narrowing. “Controlling you is not my aim.”

“Then you are a fool and will make for an idiot king.”

“Surely no more of an idiot than the prisoner calling their captor a fool.” He contemplates you, his eyes suspicious. “...have you truly seen my future as a monarch?”

“No,” you lie. I hope you suffer every moment you sit on that throne, you think, remembering how Nikador will reach into your chest and close his hand around your heart, how you will bleed to death at the feet of King Mydeimos. You have no intention of giving him foreknowledge of his victory over you: you remain quiet, unyielding under his shrewd gaze.

The prince eventually relents, though clearly unconvinced. “I'll see to it that the guards and servants allow you some movement,” he says as he turns to leave. “I will… convince them to overlook the laws.”

His hand is on the door when he hesitates, glancing at the full dinner plate on the table.

“Do you still not like the food here? I had it changed after our conversation some time ago.”

You default to your usual answer: “Does it matter?”

He makes a noise—one that almost sounds displeased. “So it still isn’t to your taste.”

“No. I find the Kremnoan palate disagreeable.”

“Well, then, what should change to make you agree with it?”

You come very, very close to laughing in his face. “You could serve me a dish cooked by the Goddess of the Hearth herself, and it would taste like ash in my mouth because I am a prisoner.”

He sighs, closes his eyes, and you suspect he is silently counting to ten. “...I cannot blame you for your misery,” he finally says, “but you haven’t been eating, and I would prefer it if you didn't starve to death under my care.”

“Why?” Why does this matter? Why aren't you using me?

Why aren't you hurting me?

His voice grows quiet: “Because I do not wish to see any harm befall you.”

The words are so simple. So honest. There is no hint of deception in them, nor in his eyes—which flicker with something that looks so much like pain that even you, with your practised skill of reading expression, find yourself thinking that he feels sorrowful for you. That he feels guilty over you. That he wants to see you safe.

You marvel at what a good liar he is.

Because he must be lying. This must be some kind of manipulation. Perhaps he is afraid of your prescience, or perhaps he plans to use it for his own gain, and this is his way of appealing to you. Or perhaps he wants you to be willing when he fucks you. Some men do prefer that to outright rape; their egos demand it.

There is no other reason for him to come to your room every night and ask if you have been eating, ask if you are well, ask what have you been doing while alone. No other reason for him to say, “You barely touched your food yesterday, nor the day before that. Surely there is something that could be done to make you eat.”

You decide to play along for now. If you will die eventually, you may as well eat better in the meantime.

“More spices,” you say neatly, “and better olive oil. At minimum.”

“Of course,” he mutters. “The oil. I knew it.”

He leaves before you can ask him what he means.

The next day, you are served honey cakes with safflower, grilled fish salted to perfection, and wheat-bread with an olive oil so fresh and thick that you know it can only be an import from the south. The servants deliver to you five texts: three romance novels and two Socratic dialogues. Kremnos has no great storytellers nor philosophers, an unsigned note reads, so you will need to make do with these works from the Grove of Epiphany.

Prince Mydeimos does not visit you, and you find yourself in bed the whole night, three questions echoing in your head.

For whatever reason, Prince Mydeimos continues treating you well. The food is better—you’d even call it mouthwatering, at times—and new books are frequently delivered. He makes fewer stops by your room, possibly because he is busy or perhaps because he is growing disinterested with you. You don't care to ask why.

But as it turns out, he has been trying to find some way around the laws about your movements. He has been failing, too—quite miserably—and his way of compromise is driving you mad.

On the first day you are allowed outside your room, Prince Mydeimos is leading you, taking you for a walk on the palace roofs and parapets. For the first time since being abducted, you feel sunlight and wind on your skin—and you are too annoyed to enjoy it.

“This is your way of allowing me some freedom? Taking me out so you can walk me like a dog? I won't bark for you, you know.”

Prince Mydeimos clears his throat, pointedly avoiding your stare. If you didn't know better, you'd call him embarrassed.

“Because you are a prisoner,” he explains tersely, “I have been strongly advised against letting you wander the grounds unless it is to fulfill your assigned job as my companion.”

“You mean, as your whore?”

Prince Mydeimos looks so offended that you nearly laugh. “As a concubine.”

“Use whatever word you want—a slave you fuck can't be anything other than a whore,” you point out evenly. Your captor gives you a look of mild pain, but it is gone before you can unravel it.

“Well, then, it is a good thing that I will not be touching you,” he retorts. “Regardless, I cannot let you wander without drawing undue attention to myself”—a poor idea right before a regicide, you infer—“but I may eventually be able to let you move freely without me if we are able to convince people that you are serving me willingly. Not as my prisoner, but as my lover.” His mouth slants. “This would require you to give the impression of enjoying my company, however.”

“Then I suppose I will be trapped forever in your quarters,” you reply instantly. When his expression sours, you add, “Worry not, Your Highness. I do not much like the sights of Castrum Kremnos anyway.” Your eyes flick over the strange innards of the city—the high walls hiding open skies, the stone paths barren of any flowers or shrubs, the constant thunder of marching hoplites and proud salutes. The sword of Nikador hanging over the fortress gates, sharpened by the souls of countless slain Kremnoans.

This city runs on war. Hungers for it. It makes your heart pound, has you hearing the screams of your worshippers as the Kremnoans flood through the gates of Aurelia. Gone forever are the musicians who strung on their lyres every morning and night; gone are the streets of laughing children who would always ask you to fix their toys; gone are the olive groves full of birdsong and gossiping women.

Gone is everything that you love.

“You might like it better within the city,” your captor tries to reason, “or if I can someday take you beyond the walls and into the settlements—”

“—then it will still never be home.”

Prince Mydeimos has the grace to stay quiet, for which you are glad.

“...your home,” he says eventually, “what was it like?”

What was it like, before I took it away from you?

You shrug, feeling a dull ache in your chest that you'd rather die than show him.

“Peaceful. Kind. The people were nicer. The music was lovelier. The food was better.”

You remember the flavour of the dishes that the women in the neighbourhood always made for you, the figs and apples and olives that the farmers always brought to the temple, the simple but sweet breakfasts that you would have with the other acolytes—eat up, my love, the older ones would always laugh, eat your fill!—and then all you taste is ash in the sky and copper between your teeth and the acrid, nauseating stench of human flesh burning, burning, burning.

You close your eyes to the looming walls of Castrum Kremnos—a prison from which there is no escape.

“None of it should matter to you, of course,” you add lightly.

Because no matter how much Prince Mydeimos denies it and no matter how gently he treats you, you are just a bed-slave—and Castrum Kremnos does not care about its slaves. The burning of your home will become naught but ink in their war histories—a paragraph if you are lucky, a footnote if you are not. You are merely one massacre in a thousand years of them. Your death will be one casualty in hundreds of millions.

But you return to your quarters later that night, and you see another book delivered—an Aurelian play, wildly popular a few years back—and you notice a lyre on the nightstand, and your meal tastes just like the ones the grandmother next door always brought over to share. You realise that your captor must have sought out an Aurelian helot or slave to make it, that he must have gone out of his way for it. You ask silently: Why does this matter? Why aren't you using me? Why aren't you hurting me? And you answer for him: He is lying to me, he is manipulating me, he wants me willing when he rapes me.

But you eat your entire meal anyway, and then you crawl into bed and cry.

A fortnight later, Prince Mydeimos discovers that you sleep with a knife under your pillow.

It is a harmless thing, sharp only enough to cut the steak that you'd been fed. It brings you comfort nevertheless. After seven days of your mantra—he is lying to me, he is manipulating me, he wants me willing when he rapes me—you couldn't help but take it. If he is stupid enough to touch you, you will use it to make it as painful for him as possible.

The Crown Prince is sitting on a chair when you return from the bath. He is playing with your little knife, spinning it a hand. His expression betrays neither anger nor displeasure—though there might be a hint of disappointment. Why, you would not know.

“You are afraid of me,” he remarks.

“No,” you lie. “I do not fear you. I abhor you. All the books and Aurelian dishes in the world cannot change that.”

It is slight, but Prince Mydeimos nods. His shoulders bear a heavy weight suddenly, and you avert your gaze. You don't want to see him looking weak, looking human. He is your captor and nothing but your captor: the man who laid waste to your home. He is the heir to a millennia of Strife.

Fortunately for you, he soon returns to his usual, stoic countenance. “You really expect to hurt me with this?” he asks.

“I would try my best,” you say tersely, “if it came to it. I would hurt anyone who tried to touch me.”

You nearly shift under the weight of his gaze, but you manage to contain your discomfort. You return his stare coolly—you don't scare me, Son of Gorgo—until his hand drifts to his waist. He reaches for a sheathe dangling from his belt, and you recoil immediately, expecting the sharp kiss of his blade. But there is no blow, no knife across your neck nor lodged within your heart. He merely holds the weapon out to you, presenting its golden hilt.

“Take this,” he offers. At your hesitation, he adds, “This is not some trap. I am gifting this to you.”

Even as you snatch it, you ask, “Why?”

“Because I think it's wise for you to have some kind of weapon—a real one, not an eating utensil.” He glances at the door. “The palace is full of guards and soldiers, and now that I have begun taking you outside, some of them have seen you and grown… overly curious about the High Priestess of Aurelia.”

Anyone would want a turn with the war prize of the Crown Prince himself, you remember them saying.

“But I am yours,” you point out, and when Prince Mydeimos looks at you, startled—or disconcerted?—you add, “your slave, I mean. By law, I belong to you. They cannot touch me without facing the wrath of the crown.”

He scowls. “If only the men here were so easy for me to control. Then I would not need to keep you here and worry about…” The prince's brow knots as his voice drifts off, and then he shakes his head. “Nevermind.”

You don't want to know what he had been about to say. You don't want to hear him pretend to feel concern over you. You do not want to think that he may be keeping you here for any reason than to fuck you. He is lying to me, he is manipulating me, he wants me willing when he rapes me: this is your mantra as you study the blade. It gleams in the candlelight, gold like his hair in the fire of the invasion, and its weight is familiar—the weight of the dagger you tried to slit your own throat with, you realise.

It is light, you notice now. The blade sits easy in your fingers, moves for you too gracefully. You should not be able to hold the weapon of a grown man so easily. “This was made for a woman,” you realise. “And not a very strong one.”

“Not strong in terms of brute strength, no. But she was swift. Deadly.”

You are neither strong nor swift, but you can imagine waiting for the right moment to strike—when he's drunk or sleeping or inside you. You'd run this across his neck. Bleed him dry before he can bleed you.

“You're not worried about me attacking you with this?” you ask, and he snorts.

“Would I be afraid of a kitten with sharp claws?” At your sour look, he either mocks or consoles you—you cannot tell which—“Don’t feel too poorly. Most people in this world could not touch me; I am invulnerable.”

“Invulnerable?”

“Immortal,” he clarifies. “Any wound I take heals without a scar; any death I die reverses without fail.”

“Ah… because of the Sea of Souls, I presume.” You remember the child in the waters of the Styx, the way he cried and cried and cried—and you push away the memory. How many babies have wailed as the Kremnoans marched on their homes? Countless. Countless in Aurelia alone. Your goddess has shown you enough memories for you to know, and sometimes the images blend with the massacre of your worshippers.

A massacre that your captor led.

“So there is no way to kill you,” you remark, voice now subdued.

“You sound disappointed.”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

Something in your captor’s eyes flickers, something that makes you look away again. He is lying to me, he is manipulating me, he wants me willing when he rapes me. You cling onto all the visions that your goddess sent you: King Mydeimos is seated on his throne of blood; the claws of Nikador are cutting into your heart. Aurelia is still burning, burning, burning. As long as Oronyx is alive, it will never stop.

No olive oil, spice, nor book will ever change that.

Prince Mydeimos leaves for a time. Okhema—the greatest enemy of the Kremnos—has launched an assault on the city, and it is his duty to defend it. You can hear the distant cries of war from your room, the thunder of marching troops and the roar of terrible men. You hide in the sheets and try not to think of dying Aurelia. You pray for every Kremnoan soldier who invaded your home to perish, to receive the valorous death for which they long.

You play no songs. You receive no books. The food tastes like shit.

For a single night, you think you have been granted your wish. There is a breach into the city, and the bells toll in emergency. The guards tell you to stay in your room no matter what—any Okheman soldiers would desire you, would defile you, and there will be no hope for you if they steal you away, the prized concubine of their greatest foe—and then they leave to join the fighting.

You hide under the bed. You clutch the golden dagger that Prince Mydeimos gave you and you hold it to your breast. You think of all the hands on you as you were dragged from your altar from the Kremnoans, the way they jeered at you and threatened to violate you. If the Okheman soldiers do the same, Prince Mydeimos will not be here to save you—

Save you?

No, he didn't save you. Your captor merely stole you for himself. He is slaughtering the enemy soldiers right now, massacring them the way he did your people. He is taking prisoners of war. He will feed them nicely and send them beautiful novels and texts. He will lie to them, manipulate them, and wait until they're willing.

Or he could be dead.

Of course he's not dead, you idiot, you tell yourself, as soon as you have the thought. He will live long enough to kill you like in the visions, and anyway, he is immortal.

There is no use hoping he is dead—for that is your hope. That he will someday be gone from this world, and that he can never again take away someone's home. That you will have the chance to slit to his throat at least once before he kills you. That you will have the satisfaction of seeing him die before Nikador takes your heart.

There is nothing else you are allowed to hope for.

The fighting ends a few nights later, and your captor returns soon after the bells of victory toll.

Prince Mydeimos is invulnerable, but he looks worse for wear. His armour is scuffed, shattered in a few places. His hair is a mess, sweat and dirt matting it, dulling the gold. The whole of his body—from his legs to the bare expanse of his chest—is covered in a thin layer of soot.

His shoulders relax when he sees you, and you try your best to ignore it.

“You won, then?” you ask. You are in bed, seated in the far corner. The sheets are pulled up to your neck, hiding away your chest and bare arms. The handle of your knife is warm in your palms, comforting.

Prince Mydeimos does not miss the way you clutch it.

“Yes,” he says, voice heavy. There's a tinge of fatigue marring his stoicism when he replies, “Are you disappointed?”

“No.” His eyes flick to yours, belying a surprise that you decide to kill: “I am an oracle. I knew you would not perish in this battle.”

“...of course.” He closes his eyes, counting to ten again. You study him as he tempers himself, wondering why he has returned to you when neither of you enjoy each other’s company.

“Why are you here?” you ask. “Shouldn't you be taking a bath? Enjoying libations with the other soldiers? Toasting the king?”

“I will join the others later,” he says. “I came here first for the same reasons as always.”

Are you eating? Are you sick? What did you do today, while you were alone? The prince stands at the threshold as he asks his three questions, watching you carefully. It occurs to you that he must have just come from battle, that his first desire afterwards was to check on you, and you drop the sheets but you also look away.

“I am not ill, and I reread some of the books you sent me,” you reply, because you would rather die than tell him that you hid under the bed. “And as for the food…”

Prince Mydeimos glances at the untouched slop on your plate, then frowns.

“My apologies,” he says. “Now that I've returned, I will be sure to make you proper meals. I know the servants here do not make food to your liking, so—”

“What do you mean, you'll make them?” you interrupt. At his blank stare, you say, “Isn’t it the helots who cook all the meals here?”

“They cook for most of the palace. But for your meals, it has nearly always been me—ever since I noticed you were not eating.”

You stare, wondering if you've somehow misheard him. “But…” You swallow, and it feels painful. You don't want to look at him. “That can't be true. There have been Aurelian dishes—it must have been an Aurelian who made them. A slave, or maybe a helot…”

“I learned the recipes myself,” he says simply, “though I did ask an Aurelian to sample it first, an old woman who sells spices in the city. She made sure the flavour was right.”

You want to laugh—or cry? The thought of the Crown Prince of Kremnos bent over a cookbook, sweating at a stove, is so absurd that you don't know what to make of it. “Why would a master cook for his slave?

He shrugs, though you don't miss the way he clears his throat. “I enjoy cooking, and I prefer to make my own meals. It is simple enough to cook for two instead of one.”

“You enjoy cooking,” you repeat flatly, staring.

“Is that so strange?”

“Yes.” He’s not meant to be human. He's an animal who feasts on strife and blood. He lies to you, manipulates you, waits until you're willing. But now you are imagining him going out of his way to find southern olive oil, or thinking on which cut of meat to buy from the butcher’s, or squinting at an Aurelian recipe and wondering where to get cassia, and he isn't supposed to be human but monsters don’t enjoy such quaint things.

“Why would you even know how to cook?” you ask—weakly. “You were raised to be a soldier, a king.”

“I learned as a child, before I returned from the sea,” he explains. “A fisherman’s wife taught me how after I saved her husband from the Sea of Souls. Though they banished me from their home after they learned I was Kremnoan.”

You can't look at him anymore, after that.

A few days later, you are served milopita after dinner.

It is well-made. Prince Mydeimos was generous with the cinnamon, and the apples are fresh. The yogurt is thick. The olive oil is that expensive, southern variety, the one that the old Aurelian woman in the city likely picked out for him. It comes with a cup of pomegranate juice and a bottle of goat’s milk, which you don't touch—paired with the cake, it is too sweet.

You catch yourself thinking that Prince Mydeimos must have a sweet tooth, and then you kill the thought.

The prince comes to visit, which he does not often do nowadays. The Chrysos War has entangled Kremnos into so many battlefronts that he is now always in demand as a general, and all the meals have gone back to being untouchable. But the books keep coming, and now there is sheet music as well. You are slow to read the music and your fingers are even slower on the lyre strings—you have not played much since you were a child, when you were taught as part of your training as a hiereia—but it is enough to occupy you.

You'd been wondering if you would be left alone forever when you received the cake.

He comes to you at night. Steps inside as always, closes the door to block out any listening ears. Leans against the wall, as if trying to take up as little space as possible. This is a constant habit of his; you briefly wonder if he does it so as not to make you feel threatened, and then you kill the thought.

You try not to look at him.

“You ate the cake,” he says, in a calm but distinctly satisfied way.

“Yes. It was quite good.” Sweet on your tongue, nothing like bitter copper between your teeth. You can't believe how sugary the apples are. You can't imagine this cold prison of a city, this home of warmongers, having anything like an orchard—yet they must exist here, for Prince Mydeimos to have gotten fruit so fresh and ripe.

Are the orchards here as peaceful as the olive groves back home? The cake was certainly as good as what you had in Aurelia—something close to what the grandmother next door would make for you. She would serve hers with tea, though, and you'd sit outside her quaint home and watch the children run by, playing. Be careful, my loves, she would say to them as they ran up and down the street. Take care not to fall.

Your heart aches as you think of her.

“I have not had any sweets in a very long time,” you say, trying not to let your voice sound tight.

“Nor have I. It has been too busy for me to bake, and I generally avoid desserts—they are unhealthy—but I made them today.”

“Why?”

“Well”—Prince Mydeimos looks away, clears his throat—“I have not been by in quite a while. I could hardly come empty-handed.”

He is mannered, you think. He wants to show you hospitality. He is treating you as if you are an esteemed guest, as if he enjoys your company, and perhaps that is why he didn’t make you into his personal attendant or a labourer; it is because guests aren’t meant to work in the palace, and—

—and now you're killing the thought.

You must kill these thoughts. You are not his guest; you are his slave. He is not a human; he is your captor. The only reason he hasn’t assigned you any menial tasks is because he wants to make it clear to others that you only have one purpose here: to be a hole for him to fuck, and no one else.

He conquered your city. Sacked your temple. Ruined your home. He will ruin your body too.

“I am a slave,” you murmur. “You do not need to come with anything for me.” You should not be giving me things. You should be taking everything from me. “There is no need to treat me so graciously.”

“What, would you prefer that I torment you?”

“I would prefer you to be honest about your intentions.”

He raises a brow. “And what are my intentions supposed to be?”

You finally take a sip of your pomegranate juice—red and tart and sweet, it tastes like the night you were stolen from your temple—and then you rise from your seat.

Prince Mydeimos is startled when you make your way to him, slow but sure. You have never gone to him willingly before, it occurs: you have always been taken to him by force, dragged by Kremnoan men or compelled by chains. Perhaps he is taken aback by it, or startled by the look you give him—the one you use on worshippers who have incurred the wrath of the Titans—for he presses himself even further against the wall.

There is little space between the two of you when you stop. His face is impassive as ever, but you can hear his breath hitch.

“You like your women willing, don't you?”

His face creases. “What?”

“You like your women willing. The freedmen and the slaves alike, I'm sure. You think that if you ply me with gifts and treats, you will also be able to ply open my legs.”

Your captor watches you in alarm, in discomfort. Probably startled at being found out. “...that's not—”

“It won't work, you know. No matter how kind you are to me, you will always be the man who burned my city and sacked my temple. You will always be the beast who dragged me from my altar and into your bed. If I ever spread my legs for you, it will only be because they are held open by chains.”

His jaw tightens. “You've misunderstood my intentions.”

You laugh, light but cruel. “What, are you waiting for a better time to kill me instead? I know you Kremnoans like to hunt people for sport. Are you toying with your prey right now?”

You see it in his eyes when he snaps.

“Is it so hard to believe that I simply wish to treat you well?” he grits out. “That there is at least one person in Kremnos who finds senseless violence disagreeable? That a Kremnoan man could see an innocent woman about to be torn apart by hyenas and wish to save her? Or do you see us all as mindless animals?”

“I am sure there are some of you who behave like humans, but I don't think they would include the Crown Prince of all people. You lead a nation of warmongering beasts—you ride into battle at their helm.”

His nostrils flare. “My people depend on me. It is my duty to protect them from all those who want Kremnos fall.”

“And protecting your city means massacring cities? Sacking temples? Dragging holy maidens out from their temples to be raped?” Your captor falters, but you are too angry to take any joy in it. Too angry at the hypocrisy, at the golden chains, at the city that is forever burning behind you. “If you were really so kind, why would you even have come back to Castrum Kremnos in the first place? Even if you were a child, surely you knew you were going to be joining an army of monsters.”

“Because I wanted a home,” he snaps, and his voice is so harsh that you flinch. He breathes sharply as you step back, and you watch as he struggles to control his—rage? It must be rage. It can't be hurt.

It can't be grief.

“...a home,” you repeat.

“Yes, even a monster like me would desire a home. I spent my first seven years drowning in the Sea of Souls and the next several being cast away by countless families simply because of my heritage—do you think that was an existence I enjoyed?”

You don't know how to reply. You wish to recall the memories of your burning city, your visions of being slain, but all you can remember now is the baby you saw in your dreams—the one who was tossed into the sea, drowning, drowning, drowning. Is Prince Mydeimos forever being dragged into the tides, just as how you are forever being dragged from your altar?

Does Oronyx force him to remember, too?

Prince Mydeimos does not wait for your response. He walks back to the door, terse. Cold.

“If you are so aggrieved by my presence,” he snaps, “then I won't torture you with it any longer.”

He slams the door on the way out.

You and Prince Mydeimos do not see each other for a fortnight after that.

The moons behave strangely while he is gone. Night is always odd in Castrum Kremnos—too long and too inconsistent, as if Oronyx is struggling against something volatile, a presence that is not Aquila. Still, you can usually see at least one of her two moons—one gold and one red, one always waxing while the other wanes. But for an hour, they blink out of existence entirely, and your blood chills at the sight. At the omen.

Prince Mydeimos, you think immediately, is he dead?

Of course he isn't dead. He will live long enough for you to slit his throat as many times as you wish. He will live long enough to kill you afterward, to give you your valorous death without chains. He will live long enough to offer your heart to Nikador, who will devour it and drink your blood.

But every time you imagine it, all you can hear is his voice in your head, irritating and persistent every night—

Are you eating?

Are you sick?

Your home, what was it like?

I wanted a home.

I worry for you.

You tell yourself to kill the thought. You must kill all these thoughts. You must not believe that he worries for you, even though you are practised in the art of reading faces and all you can ever see in his is plain honesty. You are not allowed to hope that you are right, let alone hope that he is alive.

The only thing you are allowed to hope for is to someday slit his throat before he kills you.

The morning after the moons disappear, Prince Mydeimos returns to you. You are surprised when he walks in—he has never visited you so early in the day—and immediately, you want to say something to him.

But you don’t know what.

The both of you stare at each other, and he seems to struggle equally with his words. All you can think about is your last encounter, and he is likely doing the same.

“Why are you here?” you finally ask—not unkindly. Prince Mydeimos startles at your voice.

“I…”

He hesitates. His eyes, gleaming in the morning sun, are underlined by darkness. They're bloodshot, too. He has not slept, you realise.

“Did something happen last night?” you guess, remembering the two moons and how they flickered out like dying flames.

“Perhaps.”

Prince Mydeimos’ expression falters. You want to look away, but you know now the movements of his face well enough to understand what you should not believe—

I worry for you.

You think of the bells of victory tolling, how soon he came to see you thereafter. “Did you come to check that I was alive?” you ask softly.

His voice is quiet, too: “Perhaps.”

You stare at the stack of books on the table, which has grown so high over the past two months that you always wonder if the whole thing will collapse. The war histories are at the bottom of the pile, read so long ago, but you remember them well—the facts alongside the propaganda. The Kremnoans like to perpetuate the myth that they are incapable of fear, but you think that Prince Mydeimos is failing to maintain this illusion.

“Was what you encountered as frightening as the Okhemans?” you ask.

Were you worried that it would harm me?

“...perhaps.”

Your brow arches. “Is that the only word you know now, Your Highness?”

His uncertainty disappears, replaced by a usual annoyance, and the tension finally breaks. “There is only so much information I can share with a prisoner of war.”

“You have already given away your plans to commit patricide—I do not think any information could be more sensitive than that,” you say flatly. He frowns.

“Oronyx told you what I will do, not me.”

“You could have lied or played dumb about it, at least.”

“Why would I try to lie to an oracle? You said yourself it would be meaningless.”

“Plausible deniability in case anyone overheard. You simply could have written me off as mad had I tried to reveal your plans, you know, it's happened before to oracles who foretell tragedies…” Your mouth slants. “You are not very skilled in the art of manipulation, Your Highness. You won't survive the court for very long after you ascend the throne, at this rate.”

“I can survive it well enough,” he says curtly. “I'm alive right now, aren't I? Though I'm sure that disappoints you constantly.”

“No, I'm glad for it.” He blinks. “If I am going to slit your throat, you will need to live long enough for it to happen.”

He snorts. “Of course. I look forward to the day.” Prince Mydeimos looks at you then—scrutinizing. “You will need to stay alive too. Have you been eating? Have you been healthy? What have you been up to while I was gone?”

“I have been eating, and I am not ill. Terribly bored, but not ill.”

He frowns. “Bored? What could you possibly want for, with all that I have given you?”

You give him a long look, sensing an opportunity. “Well…”

He scrutinizes you. “What is it? Better food? More books? Another instrument, or a sharper weapon? I have an entire library at my disposal, plus the royal armory. Name whatever it is you want.” His voice is impatient, but his shoulders are relaxed, weightless. You can't it in yourself to deny the truth: he is relieved that you wish to demand something from him.

It makes you want to crawl under the bed.

“No,” you say, subdued. “I don't want any of that.”

“Then?”

Why do I matter to you?

Why aren't you using me?

Why aren't you hurting me?

“I want answers.”

There are no temples dedicated to Oronyx within Castrum Kremnos.

It is unsurprising. All citizens in Castrum Kremnos worship Nikador, and they war with other gods as often as the Strife Titan himself does. Nevertheless, the main palace has a few shrines dedicated to Oronyx. As much as the Kremnoans like to wreak havoc in the cities of other gods, all deities have their uses, especially Oronyx. It makes you bitter; the Goddess of Time sends enough visions for you to know that the use of her powers is painful for her, and you are certain that Kremnoans do not recompense her with any blood sacrifices.

You do, though. The Aurelian Cult of Oronyx has always honoured its goddess well. If Prince Mydeimos had brought you to a temple, you'd have also asked for a goat and sacrificed it. But as it is instead only a shrine, the only thing you can offer is your own blood.

At night, while the torches are burning low and the windows let through the dim light of the red moon, Prince Mydeimos takes you to the largest shrine of Oronyx. Her altar there is waiting for you—an alcove of cobalt and gold holding within it an azure light, its glow otherworldly. The Crown Prince is startled when you pull out a dagger and steady the blade over your hand; he reaches out and grabs your wrist, stopping you before you can wound yourself.

“What are you doing?” he says tersely. At his alarmed stare, you give him a blank look.

“I am about to appeal to Oronyx for her wisdom,” you explain, “and I will offer my blood in return.”

He gives you a dubious look. “Oronyx demands blood sacrifices?”

“No, but my temple provided them to honour her.” Your brow arches. “Don't tell me that this disturbs you. Your god not only gains strength from every Kremnoan death, he also demands blood sacrifices from other people. Don't think that the world has forgotten your tradition of drinking the blood of your slain enemies."

“We no longer engage in that practice,” Prince Mydeimos retorts immediately. “And in any case, what the Cult of Nikador does is entirely different.”

You squint at him. “What, so blood sacrifices are only acceptable when you do them?”

He sighs. “I only mean… if the god you follow does not demand violence outright, then I would not wish to see you inflict it upon yourself needlessly.”

You look at him, flabbergasted. “You cannot expect me to believe that a Kremnoan would be so averse to a little blood.”

“It isn't the blood that's the problem.” He sounds irritated. “It’s that it's your blood.”

You stare, watching his eyes for some tell of a lie—but you can find none. “You’re being serious,” you realise.

“Yes.”

“You really don't want to see me hurt.”

“Truly.”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Not even by a single hair.”

Part of you is aggravated—this is shameless hypocrisy from a man who led an army into your city—but mostly you’re bewildered. You shake your head, turning away.

“I can't believe I ever thought you'd drink my blood,” you mutter, wresting yourself from his grip. “Your Royal Highness’ delicate sensibilities will need to tolerate this. Prophecy isn't cheap, you know.”

Prince Mydeimos finally relents; he crosses his arms as he watches your ritual. Your blade—his blade—presses into your palm, sinks into the flesh and glides along your heart line until scarlet is welling around it. You bear the pain silently; it is nothing compared to what Oronyx must feel whenever her powers are used by force.

Your blood drips onto the altar, and its cyan light flares violently. It is brighter than the golden moon, maybe even brighter than Aquila’s sun, when you begin your incantation. Titan language sounds strange, beautiful but unnerving to human ears; you are unsurprised when Prince Mydeimos shifts in the corner of your eye, uneasy as he listens to you.

O Titan of Time and Night, you say aloud, tell me what my path to freedom is, and show me the true nature of the man who has taken it away from me.

It takes a few moments for the visions to come, but they flash like lightning when they do. You are in the darkness of a decrepit shrine in Castrum Kremnos, standing next to your captor, then—

Daytime. You are somewhere beautiful, with a warm sun above your head and limpid pools everywhere, bathers laughing in the sun. There's a woman with golden hair and sea-glass eyes; she smiles at you, all-seeing even though she is blind, and then—

Nighttime. There are no moons in the sky, and the stars are faded. The city is dying, and you listen to the screams as you watch an unnatural darkness fall upon it. Something is encroaching the palace walls—a dark plague that corrupts all that it touches, a black tide that has been sweeping across the lands. You wish to stay, to lose yourself to it, but the Crown Prince grabs your hand. You can make out his words, just barely: ████ with me to ██████, he says. ███ ██ save you. And then—

Daytime. It is painfully bright where you are now, idyllic. You are watching Mydei. An amicable looking dromas has lowered its head to his palm to eat the feed in his hands. You made Mydei try this—giving the docile beast a treat. You're laughing as you watch him; he looks so startled, out of his depth for royalty. A group of children are spectating as well, giggling uncontrollably at their Crown Prince. You hear yourself: ██ ██ cute… then—

Nighttime. The golden moon is out tonight. You are tired, so tired; you have buried someone, you don’t know who. Mydeimos looks haunted. Your palm is pressed against his cheek, cradling his face in your hands. Your wrists are bare, you notice. His voice is quiet: █ ██ remember ██ ███ ███████ touched ██ ████ this… now, finally—

The end. You are bleeding out at the feet of King Mydeimos. You cannot see his face, but he is malevolent, terrible, and strife runs thick in his ichor veins. Your chest hurts even though your heart is no longer in it, and you are crying, crying, crying—I will ████ you soon, ██ ██, you weep, and now—

It is nighttime, and the torches are burning low in Castrum Kremnos. You are on the floor of a shrine, gasping, your cheeks wet with your grief. Your captor is crouched next to you, his hand on your back—touching you gently, too gently for the man who sacked your city, too gently for the king who will kill you and drink your blood. You pull away from him, terrified, and your captor backs off immediately.

“Forgive me,” he says. “You were—you collapsed, and I only wanted to check what was wrong.”

“I'm fine,” you gasp. “I'm fine. It's just—what I saw, through the Evernight Veil, it was—” Your eyes squeeze shut.

“What? What was it?”

“My future. Your future. I wanted”—you don’t know why you're telling him this, you don't know why you were standing next to him in a beautiful city with a group of joyous children, laughing as he fed a dromas—“I wanted to know if I could trust you.”

“And?”

Your captor stares intently. His eyes burn in the light of the palace torches, in the light of the blazing olive groves, in the light of the golden moon.

It is easy to lose sight of time after peering into the Evernight Veil, for the past, present, and future to blend together. Easy for you to reach out to your captor in Castrum Kremnos, easy to instead see Mydeimos grieving after a burial. He stares at you as you touch his cheek, cradling it. Something is flickering in his eyes, something so painfully human that you cannot bring yourself to ignore it. You can hear him talking to you in the future.

“You can't remember the last time someone touched you like this,” you repeat. At his startled look, you add, “That's what you're thinking, right?”

He jerks back, as if your fingers are scalding. “How did you—”

“That's what you'll say to me,” you say simply, “eventually.”

Prince Mydeimos swallows.

“Does that mean you'll come to trust me, then?”

Now you're at the foot of his throne again, bleeding dry for him—bleeding more than you ever have for your goddess or your city or your people. Your heart pulses in the hand of the Strife Titan, and you close your eyes forever.

“No.”

End Part I

notes: oh my god when I tell you all the suffering I went through trying to write this shitass chapter slfjslfksdfjalsk. between navigating the nightmare of canon lore and a trope that is absolutely out of my wheelhouse, I truly suffered for this story. and I don't think the end product was even that good. regardless, please let me know if you liked it. LOL

as an aside, I'm not sure how obvious it is to people who are reading this blind (as opposed to my followers who've been witnessing my shitposting lol), but mydei is absolutely not into the sexual slavery stuff. he sees you in those golden bdsm chains and feels so uncomfortable that he leaves the room asap. my man is taking immense psychic damage from this situation rip he just wants to make sure you're safe but his palace is forcing him into this wattpad fic situation (i am forcing him into this wattpad fic situation)

#mydeimos x reader #honkai star rail x reader #not safe for minors #another banger from mao #i dont go here but it was so good to see how easily reader's own narrative abt mydei was integrated into their opinion of him #and how much work and time it took to even start undoing it #mao never misses!!!!!!!!!!!#writer: yinyuedijun

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namodareads · 3 months ago

Text

SITUATIONSHIP | asakura shin x f!reader

You are both the most diligent worker at Sakamoto's Store and the most hypersexual person that Shin knows. Overhearing your thoughts and accidentally seeing your fantasies routinely leads to profound psychic damage for him, as well as the most poorly timed boners in the world. All of this only gets worse when the two of you start hooking up.

6k words. comedy, smut. all the sex scenes are vanilla; however, the reader constantly reads and thinks about horny fanfiction tropes including: free use, omegaverse, and breeding. these are all mentioned but not discussed in detail. warning: the reader has a warped/unhealthy relationship with her sexuality, this fic is about shin fixing her with his stroke game lol. credits to @/cafekitsune for the dividers and @hansolen for the fic brainrot <3

You are the worst coworker that Shin has ever had.

This is saying a lot, given that he's worked with countless two-bit assassins who could barely a handle a gun (no one he worked with in his late teenage years could hold a candle to Mr. Sakamoto, truly), as well as Lu, who can barely orient herself within the store. You are, in contrast, brutally efficient with your work, incredible with the customers, and very cooperative with Shin. You even know how to handle a gun, and you do it with such pinpoint precision that it's always nonlethal despite being brutally debilitating. (Your skill level does hold a candle to Mr. Sakamoto in this respect, and Shin wonders if his boss has given you some kind of private training—a thought that fills him with such jealousy that it makes him want to chew on the sale stickers in his hands.) There's just one problem.

You are probably the horniest person alive, and Shin is about to lose his fucking mind listening to your thoughts.

Now, Shin is used to hearing the unfiltered stream of consciousness of the average human being. This naturally includes carnal desires here and there. He’s desensitized to most people’s erotic fantasies about their favourite gravure idol, memories of their last sexual encounter, intrusive thoughts about their friends, et cetera. He habitually tunes it out. But whereas a regular person might have these thoughts once or twice a day, you seem to have them once or twice an hour. And none of your thoughts are ever brief or underdeveloped. They usually last at least ten minutes each, with detailed internal monologuing and accompanying 8K UltraHD visuals, and you really only ever stop when you're trying to remember a code at the till or doing some quick mental math with the accounts.

Needless to say, Shin tries to keep you at the register as much as possible.

You used to tell yourself (in your head) that your mental fixation on sex was a natural consequence of your dry spell. After quitting the assassin life, you'd been celibate for the first time in at least a decade, forced to attain sexual gratification with nothing but masterfully written fanfiction and your vast collection of vibrators. (Your favourite one is hot pink, seven inches, rabbit eared. You sometimes have trouble getting it to fit, but it’s worth it for the way you cum when you do, and this knowledge makes Shin want to die.) You were convinced that getting laid would bring you enough relief to stop thinking about sex every hour of the day. You had thought that you'd go back to “normal” after that, though Shin doesn't know what “normal” entails for you. (One free-use fantasy a day instead of twelve? Daydreams strictly featuring humans rather than tentacle monsters? It's hard to say.)

Regardless, Shin had to agree: surely, there would be a limit to your sex-obsessed thoughts. It made a lot of sense that you were simply frustrated and in need of an outlet. Naturally, after sleeping with you, he'd expected your thoughts to quiet down.

(Yes—Shin slept with you. It was an accident, through and through, and he routinely feels bad about it. He'd been meaning to ask you out, treat you to dinner, maybe even get you flowers depending on the vibe. The type of thing that Mr. Sakamoto did for Aoi, when they first started dating. If everything went well, then you two could consider getting intimate. His interest in you has nothing to do with sex, after all—no, not even the fact that you've had explicit fantasies about deepthroating him while he works the cash. He'd die if you ever tried that, actually.

The plan was always to take things slow and maybe even start a relationship if the two of you really hit it off. He'd even asked Mr. Sakamoto for advice on what a civilian romance should look like! But then Shin walked you back to your apartment one night when you were feeling down, and you invited him upstairs, and one thing led to another, and, well… it turns out that you aren't the type of person to take things slow. Or think about relationships. Shin’s never overheard any thoughts from you about actually dating him, come to think of it. And no, before you ask—that doesn't bother him. Not at all. Not one bit.)

To both his surprise and yours, getting laid somehow had the opposite effect on you. Rather than being calmed, you're somehow even hornier—and now all your horny thoughts are about Shin.

It's nonstop. Shin can't believe it. Whereas you used to think about all sorts of people in your sexual fantasies (mostly your fanfiction men, but also some BL characters, occasionally Keanu Reeves, and very often that Nagumo guy), you now think solely of Shin. You're thinking about him right now, pausing as you finish restocking the onigiri.

Shin can hear every single thought from across the room, the way you feel the edges of your sanity fraying with the memory of his touch. The whole day, you've been remembering how it felt to have your pussy stretched around his cock, how it felt to have his hands on your curves, how he seemed to know exactly how to touch your body to make you keen. (Shin admits he cheated; a little ESP goes a long way in bed.) You soaked the sheets when you finally came, and he kissed you relentlessly through your orgasm. It made you so horny that you had to immediately go another round.

No other man’s ever made you cum like that, you keep thinking. You've fucked more people than you can count, but not a single person has ever felt so good inside you. The realisation is driving you crazy, and Shin feels like he's about to go crazy with you. In the absence of a cold shower, he wants to shove himself into the freezer right now. There's no other way to get rid of his raging boner.

How did it feel so fucking good?! you keep thinking, oblivious to his struggles. I need his cock inside me again. I need him to hit it raw this time. I need him to bend me over the counter and cum in my pussy right now—

It makes him want to die, listening to your thoughts. It also confuses him, somewhat: he isn't that experienced, and objectively he’s a little clumsy in bed. His performance is probably mid in the grand scheme of things, which makes him wonder why you feel like his dick is heaven-sent.

But more than anything, Shin wonders if you ever think about anything other than his dick. Sex isn't the only thing the two of you have done together. The first time you hooked up, he'd spent the night at your place. You clung to him in his sleep and you drooled on his chest and he thought it was kinda funny. He was careful not to wake you as he wiped your chin. You’d cooked him breakfast by the time he'd woken up: homemade miso, fresh rice, tamagoyaki. He made you burnt coffee after. You gave him a goodbye kiss, which somehow turned into a goodbye blowjob, which then escalated into wasting the day together in bed. You were really cuddly the whole time, and Shin could hear you think, how weird, I hate it when people hold me, and I hate it when people kiss me, but you liked it from Shin. You liked it so much that your pussy started dripping, and then what else could you do but suck him off again? (He returned the favour, of course.)

There was a lot more than just fucking, but you never think about any of that other stuff. You only ever think about his stroke game.

Not that that bothers Shin. Not at all. Not one bit.

By noon, he reaches his limit.

Shin considers himself a responsible guy and dedicated employee. He'd ordinarily never want to take off in the middle of the day to fool around with you—or anyone else—but it's his lunch break, and he has to get you to stop fantasizing. His dick is so hard that it's painful, and even with the apron it's getting tricky to cover up. As soon as the clock hits 12, he's throwing it off and making a beeline for you.

“We need to talk,” he says, grabbing you by the hand, and the face you make is so giddy that he can't help but sigh. You’re practically beaming as you take off your apron and say bye to Lu. We’ll be back in 30! you tell her in a sing-song voice, because you’re a very conscientious worker even when outrageously horny.

“You heard my thoughts?” you ask as the two of you climb the stairs to his room, and he snorts.

“How couldn't I?” He gives you a miserable look, cheeks flushing. “Were you doing that on purpose the whole morning?”

“No.” He raises a brow. “I'm serious—I wasn't trying to cause any trouble for you! It's just…” You bite your lip, and it takes all of Shin’s self-control to stop himself from staring at its glossy sheen. “I really just need to be touched again.”

“I don't believe you,” he says as he pulls you into his room.

“You're an esper! You should know I'm telling the truth!”

“I also know you like to torture me with your thoughts.”

“Well, yeah…” You smile at him, sheepish. “But I really just need a bit of relief. Want me to prove it to you?”

There's a sudden glint in your eye that makes Shin nervous, out of his depth. Sometimes he gets the feeling that you want to eat him alive, and he never knows how to handle it. He’s never gotten this level of attention before, and never in his wildest dreams did he think he'd get it from someone like you.

(Yeah—you're way out of Shin's league. For all his plans of a civilian romance, he wasn’t sure if he could actually score a date with you. He still isn't sure if he can score one. He's also not sure he’ll survive this encounter.)

He swallows. “Prove it…?”

“Uh huh.” You look so pretty right now, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Let me show you.”

You read too much hentai. Shin knows this firsthand (you read a lot of it on the clock, and all the images get blasted right into his prefrontal cortex), but he can also tell from how you act. It’s just way too fucking outrageous when you spread your legs for him, pulling up your skirt, and he's greeted not by the sight of your panties (you wore a lacy pair to work and kept bending over in hopes of flashing him—you had not been shy at all in this thought), but your bare, glistening cunt.

No fucking way.

“You’ve been working like that?!” he blurts out, mildly horrified even though his dick is jumping at the sight of you. You laugh, and you conjure up your panties from somewhere. They dangle from your fingertips, sheer and drenched.

“Took them off as we came up here. They're useless now anyway, see”—they’ve been soaked through for hours, and my thighs are all sticky—“and besides… I wanted to give you easy access.”

He thinks he's going to pass out.

“Easy access,” he repeats stiffly, bright red.

“Uh huh. Wanted to be efficient—we only have, what, twenty minutes?” Before he can even react, you're already turning around, bending over for him, ass up. From this angle, he can see just how wet you are—and how you're clenching around nothing, your cunt empty and needing to be filled. You glance over your shoulder, give him a teasing smile. “What are you waiting for?”

It’s a wonder that Shin doesn't cum on the spot, really. Like he said—he isn't an experienced guy. He's never slept with anyone so forward, or so—well. Smoking hot, for lack of better word. Half of him has a mind to just stand there and say that he can't believe you, and half of him has a mind to fuck you like you've been hoping all morning. Thankfully, this latter half of him wins out—probably for the better. If he helps you work this out of your system, you'll probably stop assaulting his mind with all your horny thoughts and his dick can exist in peace for the rest of the afternoon. Right?

Right?

(He ends up being extremely wrong.)

By the time he's pulled down his pants, put a condom on, and started pushing inside you, the two of you have seventeen minutes left. He worries briefly that it won't be enough time to get you to cum (nor him, though that isn't his goal currently), but it turns out to be a non-issue. Your pussy swallows his cock easily, stretching around him so perfectly that he nearly chokes. He always hears you talking about how sex with him feels leagues better than with any other person, but he’s not sure if you know that the same is true for him. No one's ever felt as good as you, and it takes every ounce of willpower in him not to cum immediately.

You're already close to the edge, too. Probably pent up from squeezing your thighs together all morning and thinking about his touch. You moan in a way that is obscene, like something out of an AV—but Shin knows that it isn't a performance. He can feel your body and hear your thoughts, all the genuine bliss you get from being filled up. When he starts moving, it's with intent. He fucks you like you’ve been fantasising all day, all week—with a relentless pace, focused on giving you nothing but pleasure. You tighten around him like you were made for him, and—

—apparently you feel like you're being used? Like a hole? The fuck! Shin almost stops mid-stroke to balk at you—he wouldn't do that to you!—but then you moan and he feels you getting wetter at the thought, and then he has no choice but to keep going. He's not about to kill your high.

Nine minutes left. Your clit is throbbing, neglected, and as soon as you think about touching yourself, Shin’s fingers are circling it instead and making you keen. He hits the spot inside you that has your eyes rolling back and your spine arching beautifully, and you can’t speak with your mouth, but he hears you anyway: the begging, the neediness, right there right there you're doing so good Shin you feel so good don't stop don't stop don't, don't—

“Oh fuck,” you whimper, pressing your face into the sheets, and then Shin feels you pulsing around him, drenching him. He gets dragged over the edge with you, gasping sharply as he finds his own release. You collapse as he twitches inside you, spilling himself inside the condom, and he almost snorts when he hears you thinking, wish you were cumming in my pussy instead. Do it raw next time, okay?

“You know we have to use a condom,” he says between pants.

“But I'm on birth control! Read my mind—you know I'm telling the truth!”

“And I also know that birth control is only 93% effective,” he says, rolling his eyes. He glances at the clock. “C'mon—we only have five minutes until our lunch break ends.”

It feels a little weird, rushing you. He’s never had a quickie before, but he understands that you can't exactly take your time with cleaning up afterwards. Still, he thinks about what it was like the last time the two of you did this—how slow and soft it was after, how he stayed inside you for a bit, how he kissed you long and cleaned you up carefully. It just felt like the right thing to do after sleeping with someone, especially given that that someone was you. He'd much prefer to do that right now.

But you are both punctual workers, and anyway Shin’s heard enough of your idle thoughts to know that you’re fairly apathetic to aftercare—you never expect it, and you’re never particularly sad when you don't get it. Sometimes you even fantasize about being used roughly and then discarded (a thought that he finds so unpleasant that it instantly kills his boner every time).

So it's probably fine to rush back downstairs, he figures. He throws you some wipes, lets you clean yourself up. You do it without complaint. You're not upset. He can even hear your mind humming with satisfaction, coming down from the highs of sensory pleasure.

Which is why he's confused when he hears you think, Huh. That didn't feel as good as I thought it would.

It's not like it felt bad.

This is what Shin hears all afternoon: You had a good time. You generally like being treated like a hole. You hadn't thought that Shin would have it in him to do that (neither did he, he admits), but it was kind of thrilling that he did. You want him to do it again for sure. He hit your g-spot with the kind of precision that only an esper can manage, and your vision nearly went white as you found your climax.

And that's what matters, right? You came. You had an orgasm. The little death. The ultimate goal of sex. You used to have a hard time with it, but after so many missions your body started to enjoy sex and now you cum very easily. And you came very easily with Shin, so that means you must enjoy having sex with him too, right?

But it was better the first time you had sex. Objectively better. You came way harder. You even squirted during your second round with him! Your orgasm was so intense that you felt blissed out for the rest of the night, and even the morning after. When you woke up and realised that Shin was not only still there, but also holding you, it made you so horny that you nearly woke him up with a blowjob. It was only with great self-control that you woke him up with breakfast instead.

You don’t feel like that right now, though. You don't feel horny and you don't feel like cooking and the euphoria of your orgasm melted away a while ago. You just feel sort of… empty.

You don't feel bad, though. It's a beautiful day. The char siu bao in your hand is incredibly fragrant. Piisuke is on your shoulder and chirping in your ear. Shin looks really handsome in his apron—did you know that, Shin? you ask him in your mind—and he goes bright red at this thought and looks away. You don't feel bad, you mentally reassure him. You just don't feel as good as you thought you would.

But Shin does feel bad. He feels miserable, actually. He's not a very experienced guy, but even he can tell that you’re the type of person who needs to be held after having sex. It seems like you probably don't realise it, but it's clear as day to Shin, and for the rest of the afternoon he hates himself for not having done it. It wouldn’t have had to be for very long.

Lu could have covered for an extra fifteen minutes, he keeps thinking. Fuck!

Eventually, you ask him to come over in the evening, and he scrambles to agree, desperate for a do-over.

Shin’s not really good at this hook-up business.

Now—he isn't exactly good at relationships either, but he feels exceptionally awkward about coming over to your place with the express purpose of having sex. He isn't familiar with dick appointment etiquette, especially not appointments involving a friend. Was he meant to bring a gift? A Netflix movie recommendation? It would have felt wrong to show up completely empty-handed, so he ends up bringing your favourite snacks and two bottles of Pocari Sweat. If this is anything like the first time he stayed over, you'll probably both need it.

You're delighted by the snacks and amused by the drinks. He wrestles with himself over what kind of small-talk to make—there’s a PS5 out right now, and your TV screen is paused on Leon Kennedy’s face, so maybe he can start a conversation about the horror genre? He watches a lot of films—but you're dragging him into your room before he can overthink it.

“I missed you,” you say, voice all sweet with affection as you straddle his lap.

“It's been two hours,” he points out, somehow managing not to stammer.

“Eight hours since we fucked.”

“That's not very long at all.”

“Felt like forever to me.” Your whisper is so tender in his ear, incongruent with the absolute filth you're thinking about right now. You need his cock so, so bad—you’d have it inside you 24/7 if you could have it your way, though he's also free to help himself to your body at any hour of the day. Sure, he can't smoke on the premises, but there's no rule against hiking up your skirt and pushing your panties to the side so he can—

“I wouldn't do that in the store!” he squawks, and you giggle.

“Then you should start taking me up to your room more often.”

Shin would be more than happy to host you, actually. He’s been thinking lately about having you over for dinner—Aoi’s been teaching him how to cook—and getting to know you better, in a non-Biblical way. But Shin knows that's not what you mean. You want him to carry you upstairs without asking and to throw you onto his bed and to fuck you into the mattress. You want to go back to your shift without your panties, his cum dripping out of your pussy and sliding down your—

“You really want me to finish inside you,” Shin remarks, bewildered at your sheer obsession over it, and you tilt your head.

“Don't you?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean—we shouldn't. It's, uh. Risky. I don't want to get you, y'know… pregnant…” His dick twitches in a way that makes him grateful that you don't have ESP. He's realising something about himself that he absolutely cannot think about, and which you would absolutely exploit if you figured out. He clears his throat, hoping he looks normal. “Like. You know. It's better to be on the safe side.”

You study him carefully. “I dunno, Shin.” You smile knowingly. “I don't think I'd mind it if you wanted to breed me.”

Shin is going to die.

The next twenty minutes pass in a horny blur. The two of you spend it all over each other, his cock sliding along your opening—dangerously close to pushing in. You beg him for just the tip, both verbally and mentally—pleaaase Shin please please please it'd be so easy, I'm still stretched out from before, you know it'd feel good—and he's watched enough adult films to know that this is a blatant trap. He somehow pulls away, and immediately feels bad at the crushed expression you make, so he decides he has no choice but to make it up to you by putting his head between your thighs. Within minutes he’s sucking on your clit and making you keen, his fingers curling inside you. He knows your orgasm is intense both from the way you gush all over his face and how your mind goes pleasantly, blissfully quiet for a moment.

It doesn't stay quiet for long.

The most debauched image possible comes to his mind—you, underneath him, your legs folded into a mating press as you take his cock. He’s giving you another load, pumping you full. It's filling up your womb, and you'll definitely get pregna—

“You’re fucking evil,” he groans. “And you read way too much hentai. Those visuals were so goofy.”

You laugh, unbothered. “Sorry, I'll adjust them for realism next time.”

“Please don't,” he begs, even though he knows he's going to spend the next week being mentally assaulted by your breeding kink fantasies. He just hopes they stay relatively normal and don't devolve into the weird omegaverse stuff. Or the monsterfucking stuff. Or the gangbang scenarios. Please, God, anything but the gangbang fantasies. He’ll scream if you imagine another threesome with him and that invisible asshole who kidnapped Lu. He’ll simply resign if you add Nagumo.

To your profound disappointment, Shin ends up using a condom. He doesn't give you much time to feel sad about it, settling quickly between your legs and practically knocking the breath out of you as he thrusts into you. He’s left kind of breathless too. You weren't lying—you are still stretched out from earlier in the day, wet and pliant for him, and there's hardly any resistance as he starts pumping into you. He watches you carefully, laid out underneath him—your eyes squeezing shut as you're made to take his cock. Your mind goes a little quiet again, overwhelmed by pleasure. It's simultaneously a blessing and a curse: Shin’s finally getting a break from your psychic teasing, but the knowledge that he's fucking you dumb is doing something horrible to him.

He changes his angle, and a whimper leaves you. You tighten and gush around him in a way that makes it obvious what he’s hitting; he doesn't need ESP to know to keep doing it. Still, your thoughts are going haywire, a tangle of desire, and it's impossible for him to ignore. I need, he keeps hearing as your thighs starts to twitch, as you start tearing up, I need I need I need I need—

Your eyes land on his lips, and Shin hears you.

His kiss is open-mouthed, clumsy, but you’re hungry for it anyway. You’re panting into each other’s mouths when you start pulsing around Shin’s dick, and you end up cumming so hard on his cock that it's dizzying for you both. He fucks you through your orgasm, and it's only when you're glassy-eyed and limp beneath him that he finally lets himself finish. He pulls back as he does, gasping sharply, but not for long—you draw him back in quickly, clinging to him as you seek out another kiss. The two of you stay like that for a long moment—still connected, breaths heavy with exhaustion, lips slow and lazy against each other.

“Enjoy yourself more this time?” Shin asks, and you hum sweetly against his mouth. You’re still too mindless from your orgasm to form any real thoughts, but Shin can tell that you don't really want to talk. You want to keep kissing him. And you want him to hold you while you do it, which he happily obliges.

Some ten minutes later, you make a small noise of protest when Shin pulls out of you, and it turns into a look of outright betrayal when he gets up. Shin’s heart clenches immediately.

“Just getting stuff to clean up,” he explains, and you relax visibly.

“Oh,” you say. “Right.”

You seem antsy. You feel antsy. You're antsy because you just realised how much you like kissing Shin. Specifically, you've realised that kissing him elevates your orgasms into mind-blowing experiences, and now you're questioning every other orgasm you've had. Maybe I don't actually enjoy sex that much? you wonder. Or maybe I always needed to be kissed to enjoy it more? Wait, no. I hate it when people kiss me. It's gross. Except for when it's Shin. Why Shin? Hm… that apron must really be doing something for me.

Your head hurts. Shin patiently watches you replay your past experiences in your head, comparing all those nights with this one, and he can’t help but frown. Deeply. Your eyes go wide when he gives you an alarmed look at one particular memory.

“Shit, sorry! I forgot you’d see all that.”

“No, I'm sorry,” he says, feeling—not for the first time—guilty about his powers. “If I could turn it off, I would.”

“Don't be sorry. You can't help it. That'd be like if I were sorry for breathing.” But despite your easy words, you’re watching him carefully, and your mind is stirring in an unsettling way. I'm nervous? you realise. Your heart is beating in a way that suggests a flight or fight response. It gets worse the longer you stare at him. Why am I nervous? Tell me, Shin.

“I wouldn't know.” Except he’s got a good guess, and he'd rather die than say it out loud because it would be embarrassing for you both if he were wrong. He'd have to resign. Nevertheless, he tries to guide you in a specific direction: “Have you really never liked it when people kissed you?”

“No,” you reply immediately. “I don't see the point of kissing during sex.”

He gives you a long look. “What if it’s not just sex? What if it's just a regular kiss on a regular day with, like, a partner? Someone you're really serious about.” He blinks at the confused stare you're giving him. “You mean you don't like that either?”

It's suddenly very noisy. Shin can hear your mind buzzing as you stare at the ceiling of your room, not with coherent sentences so much as shapeless confusion. His skin crawls with the echo of your discomfort; it's a wonder you aren't slipping out from the sheets to run away.

“...I don't know,” you finally decide. “I don't have much real dating experience.”

“Huh? You’ve said before that you've dated lots of guys.”

“Um.” You’re careful not to look at him. “Yeah, I guess. They all sucked though. I, like, wanted to kill every single one of my exes.”

“Like they were shitty boyfriends?”

No, like they were assassination targets, you think, and Shin has to keep a straight face as you reply, “Yeah, something like that.”

You rarely lie to Shin. You did it somewhat frequently until you figured out that he was capable of ESP, and then you stopped because you didn't see a point anymore. You only do it now when there's something you really don't want to talk about, so Shin relents. He focuses on cleaning himself up, and he interrupts the tense hum of your thoughts when he turns his attention to you. By the time he's finished and slid back into bed, your more complicated emotions have vanished, and you're back to marveling at the quality of the orgasm you just had. Apparently you like to keep things fairly simple in your inner world.

When Shin puts an arm around you, he can hear your pleasant surprise—and your immediate desire to press into him.

You're so happy just being held by him, it's shocking. And painfully endearing. Shin tries to pretend not to notice the warm glow of your thoughts, as well as your confusion over them: surely the simple act of being close to someone can't feel so good. Maybe the whole kissing thing was just a coincidence and Shin happened to be hitting it just right when your lips met. Or maybe he used his ESP on you to make you cum extra hard and he's still influencing you, and that's why you feel so tenderhearted right now.

“My powers only allow me to read minds,” he tells you. “I can't control other people.”

“Aw,” you say, “that's too bad. I bet forced orgasms with ESP would feel amazing.”

“...”

Shin realises something else about himself that he absolutely cannot let you know. Thankfully for him, you're none the wiser. Your mind’s somewhere else entirely when you climb on top of him, smiling neatly. Mind you, what you're thinking is still making him feel nervous. He's always a little out of his depth with you.

“Shin…”

You lean in, breath sweeping over his lips. His heart jumps.

“Y-yeah?”

“I'm still confused about how that felt so good.”

“I’ve noticed.”

You hold back a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you would have.” Then you give him an apologetic look. “Sorry I'm so stuck on it. I just thought I knew my body, y'know? I felt like I had tried everything worth trying. Sex was starting to feel boring, including the freaky stuff. But this is very new to me.”

This close up, Shin can feel the brush of your lashes when they flutter. See the glossy swell of your lips from all the kissing. Take in the fragrance of your hair. He starts to feel dizzy. “I-is it? I don't think we've been doing anything, uh. Crazy.”

“I didn't think so either.” Your thumb traces his lip. You're thinking about kissing him again, and you're also thinking about riding him as you do it. “I can't help but want to try it a few more times, you know? Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke.”

“A few more times,” he repeats, and you smile.

“You don't have anywhere you need to be tonight, do you?”

The two of you get two hours of sleep that night, and you end up going through both bottles of Pocari Sweat and all the snacks. There's no time for breakfast or burnt coffee the morning after; you make the executive decision to just eat something at the store instead. Shin leaves behind a toothbrush and you tell him he should also bring an extra set of clothes next time. He tries not to get too excited about the fact that there's going to be a next time. He fails.

Mr. Sakamoto sees the two of you as you make it to work just on time together and immediately figures out what's happened. Shin gets a mental reprimand for not marrying you first, and the disappointment from Mr. Sakamoto is so strong that he briefly considers resigning out of disgrace. But he stays on, and the days pass, and your relationship with him remains the same. Sort of.

Because, see. Now that you're regularly getting laid, your horny thoughts have finally (finally!) calmed down. You now have one free-use fantasy a day instead of twelve, and your daydreams only occasionally feature tentacle monsters. You do like to torture Shin with breeding kink scenarios, but that's only once a day, and they never involve any other guys. Shin considers this a victory, respite from the psychic agony that he was previously experiencing.

There's just one problem.

You want to kiss Shin all the time now, and it's making him feel like the horniest person alive.

He can't believe it. He doesn't have a particularly strong sex drive, and he rarely ever has sexual fantasies. But holy shit is he having them a lot now, and he can't say it's strictly your fault.

You spend most of the day now thinking about what it felt like to kiss him in bed, and what it felt like to hold his hand as he moved inside you, and what it felt like to be in his arms afterwards. What it would feel like if you were to do those things that you used to hate—kissing someone, linking fingers, embracing them—with Shin. Not just in bed, but on a regular day, out in the open. In a secluded park somewhere, or maybe at the top of a Ferris wheel, or even on a random street corner if the mood is right. All of these daydreams are usually followed by very explicit fantasies about public, unprotected sex, but the kissing is the most important part of it. The subsequent creampies are pretty significant too, but not nearly as much as the bits where you make out.

And somehow, the thought of cumming in you is not the part of the fantasy that's driving Shin crazy.

You give him a meaningful look. A week ago, this would have been a sign that you wanted him to bend you over the counter and give you backshots. Now it means you want to sneak away to kiss him and hold hands, and this makes him want to do things to you that would get him fired immediately.

Shin sighs, and he contemplates shoving himself into the freezer.

END

I wrote this with one hand and did not proofread it. my apologies if you see any errors. I just needed to be free of these thoughts asap. release me...

PS - I know the Resident Evil/Leon Kennedy mention must have felt very random, but it's set-up for potential future sequels haha.

#asakura shin x reader #sakamoto days fic #writer: yinyuedijun #not safe for minors

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namodareads · 3 months ago

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TRUST FALL | asakura shin x f!reader

Shin is a painfully vanilla guy but tries his best to let you live out your kinky fantasies. You have a breakdown when you try to indulge his very normal one. (Or: 3 times Shin humoured your kinks + 1 time you humoured his.)

11.5k words, sequel to situationship. nsft tags: fingering with the power glove, free use, somnophilia, domesticity kink + breeding kink. all sex is consensual (sometimes veers into cnc territory, shin relies on esp to obtain consent), none of it is rough or mean. toward the end of the fic, the narrative focuses on anxieties and/or desires about starting a family. chapter 203 spoilers. dividers by @/cafekitsune!

IMPORTANT: the reader is hypersexual due to off-screen sexual trauma, which is not explicitly described, but is discussed. there is also one non-graphic nightmare related to this trauma that turns into a horny dream about shin (lol). 20% of this fic is a psychosexually strange healing narrative, 80% of it is just silly porn.

Sometimes, Shin is glad that he can hear all your thoughts.

Mind you, it's not like he doesn't want to give you some privacy. God knows he's tried a million times to tune out your internal monologue the way he can normally do with other people, and god knows you’ve tried your hardest to imitate the cognitive trick that Nagumo does to keep his mind hidden away from Shin. The reality is, though, that your feelings always overpower any psychological barrier that the two of you attempt to create. Your thoughts are always too loud for him to ignore, usually because you're either too happy or too horny around him to keep them quiet. Apparently Shin has that effect on you.

But often he doesn't mind it. It’s sometimes even convenient. Helpful for all the stuff that you want to do in bed, for example.

Now, Shin’s known from Day 1 that you're kind of a freak. He’s seen enough of your psyche to understand the exact nature of your sexual fantasies, and on the day that you became an official couple, he went home and googled how you're supposed to have safe, sane, and consensual sex with a person who dreams of doing the exact opposite of that. Although Shin is himself a strictly vanilla guy, and the two of you were already having perfectly nasty vanilla sex that was satisfying you—he likes you a lot. He wants to treat you right, give you nice things. This includes everything from flowers to chocolates to exciting orgasms for the rest of your life, even if it means he’ll need to get a little freaky about it.

Shin’s since ended up learning a lot about BDSM, and he’s also ended up trying a lot of basic BDSM practices that don't really work on you. You are shockingly bad at enforcing your boundaries. You always get too horny to remember your safeword (Resident Evil—you chose it yourself), find it too much work to use nonverbal cues, and you dry up whenever he tries to use the traffic light system.

“It doesn't matter,” you once whined at him, “it’s not like I’d ever not wanna have sex! You can do whatever you want to me.” Which was an insane thing to say, and exactly why Shin feels like you should know how to use a safeword. But when he tried to explain this to you, you’d crawled into his lap and begged him to fuck you anyway. His dick got so hard that he could only say yes, though he first made you understand that it would be regular sex, not the stuckage roleplay you'd been asking him to try.

Regular sex. You're only supposed to be having regular sex.

There is no reason why you should be in tears right now, desperately trying to stop yourself from cumming on Shin’s fingers—and all over his power glove.

This is mostly your fault. Mostly. Ever since seeing Shin nearly kill someone using the thing, you've fantasised about him having it on in bed. Specifically, you’ve fantasised about him wearing it while his fingers are knuckle-deep in your dripping pussy. Shin wasn't ever planning on humouring those daydreams, but, well. He likes you a lot. He wants to give you nice things. If you want to have a mind-blowing orgasm while you're grinding your clit against the power glove, he'll let you—on the condition that you don't ruin it.

You've been having a lot of difficulty fulfilling this condition.

You're breathless, broken. Face tight from the effort of holding back your orgasm for so long. You’ve cum nearly twice now, and only didn't because Shin decided not to force it. Not yet, anyway. He admits he's being a little mean: every time he curls his fingers and rubs your sweet spot, he feels your cunt drip for him and he can’t help but do it more. The tears pearling up at the corners of your eyes and the way you're trying to squirm away from his hand would ordinarily make him stop—even make him worry—but then he hears you thinking, right there, right there, feels so good Shin you make me feel so good do that again, and then of course he has to comply.

“Shin,” you whimper, “I’ll cum if you don't stop that.”

You try to pull away again, hips jerking back from his touch, but your pussy is begging for him—tight and wet and greedy for more. His fingers are soaked, as is the black steel encasing his palm. Part of Shin feels like the glove has already been ruined; the rest of him is too horny to care. Completely unrepentant, his thumb rubs gentle circles into your clit, and he feels his cock throb at the noise you make.

“Shin,” you whine, “don't.”

He glances up at you. “You want me to stop using my fingers?”

No. You bite your lip. Pretend to look distressed. “I… I’ll make a mess if you don't.”

“I'll slow down,” he promises, and when he eases the pressure on your g-spot, your inner disappointment is so loud that he knows what he should do next.

When Shin lowers his face between your legs and pushes your thighs open with his free hand, you squeal.

“Shin!”

“What? I’m not using my fingers. Should be fine, right?” He doesn't need to wait for a response—he already knows what you're thinking—so he leans down and puts his mouth on you the way he's been wanting the whole night.

You whine when you feel his tongue on your clit. Clench immediately around his fingers—more Shin please I want more please touch me the way I like, you know where—so he curls them again, and the way you cry makes him want nothing more than to get on top of you and fuck you properly.

But that's not how you want to cum. You don't want to cum on his cock; you want to finish on his fingers, soak the sheets, and probably ruin Natsuki’s day with a repair call. So Shin closes his eyes and starts sucking at your clit, and he’s relentless about it—even though you try to push him away, even though you start keening and telling him to slow down, even when you’re panting hard and pleading with him to give you a break. “Shin,” you say, voice breaking, “Shin, no, I can't, please, I'll—I’ll cum, you gotta stop, no no no, I can't, I can't—”

You sob. Fully cry as your back arches, and Shin groans as you gush all over his fingers. Can’t help but watch as you fall apart for him, the way you’ve been wanting the whole time. He admits that it was hot seeing you cum despite the fact that you were begging not to, knowing that he was the one to make you lose control. Still, Shin is a vanilla guy; as soon as you've calmed down, he's wiping away your tears and studying you carefully.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “Was that alright? I was reading your mind the whole time and did whatever you were saying to me, but I was still a little worried that—”

You throw your arms around him and shut him up with a kiss.

Once Shin gives up on the use of safewords and starts relying on his clairvoyance, the free use thing also becomes a lot easier.

Now, it isn't like you aren't beaming into Shin’s mind—whether at the store, in your home, or even on the train—that you want him to fuck you at all times. It isn't like he's happily obliging whenever he's over at your place, as many times as his dick will allow. But he likes to ask first, and he likes to hear you say yes first. Unfortunately, you have the specific fantasy that Shin doesn't care what you want—you just want him to manhandle you and pull you onto his cock whenever he feels like it. Also, it's apparently very important that he takes you by surprise, and that he keeps going even if you complain about it?

Shin truly doesn't get it. He's not opposed to having frequent sex. He likes you a lot, wants to give you nice things. You want his cock inside you at all hours of the day? Sure, he’ll give it to you. But why do you want him to be so rude about it? Whatever happened to saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?!

So anyway, he does it.

It’s hard catching you by surprise. His ESP tells him that you do want—and now expect—to be fucked nearly every moment of every day. You want it in the morning, when you wake up in bed and heat starts curling in your belly at the sight of him next to you. You want it when you're in the kitchen, trying to focus on making dinner while you squeeze your thighs together and try to relieve some of the heat between your legs. You want it as you clean the windows, your panties soaked and thighs messy with slick, thinking of the way Shin fucked you against the glass just the day before.

Want you inside me, Shin, you think nearly all the time. Want you to use me. Please?

This is how you find yourself leaning against the kitchen counter, all the dishes in the sink forgotten as your pussy squeezes around his dick. How you find yourself warming his cock as the two of you watch TV, your focus on the screen wavering as his fingers circle your bud. How he ends up interrupting you when you’re trying to read, pulling down your top so he can squeeze your breasts and tease your nipples through your bra. Stress relief, he calls it, which is true. There are fewer things that take his mind off his ex-assassin troubles than playing with your tits as you squirm on his lap, listening to you squeal and whine as you try to read. Sometimes he can get you to cum that way, too—just by licking and pinching your nipples and letting you grind yourself on his thigh.

It takes him a long time to actually get you off-guard, though.

He finally manages it when he comes home after a late shift in the store, wound up from nearly (but not actually!) killing two hitmen. It wasn't the violence that had bothered him, really; it was the fact that those pricks had knocked over an entire shelf in the store in the process of attempting murder. Couldn't they have attacked Mr. Sakamoto outside?! It took fucking forever to clean up and restock all those cooking wines and soy sauces. Assholes.

To his significant shame, Shin spent his entire commute afterward thinking of coming home and seeing you. Not to kiss you and cuddle with you, which was the sort of thing he wanted to do at the start of the relationship—but to pull you onto his lap and hear the cute noises you make whenever he plays with your body. Apparently that's now his stress response after several weeks of your free use policy, which makes him want to die a little bit. But as this been your explicit goal, he also decides not to fault himself for it too much.

By the time he's stepping into your apartment, he's already hard and thinking about which positions he’ll fuck you in.

In a miraculous twist of fate, Shin catches you while you're folding laundry and thinking about the news, rather than the way his dick felt inside you last night. He knows then that this is his moment: the stars have aligned, and he can finally fulfill your favourite fantasy.

“Shin,” you say, face lighting up. “Welcome home! I didn't hear you come in.”

When he kisses you, you beam at him in a way that's so pretty and innocent that it makes his cock twitch and has him feeling bad about what he's about to do. The two of you could have a wholesome night in for once. You're in the mood for it. He can tell from the way you’re chattering at him about your day off with Lu, and how you’re thinking about maybe doing a trip to Hakone with him because of a travel ad you saw on the subway. I've only ever been once on a mission… it would be nice to go as a couple next time. I wanna go to a ryokan with Shin…

Shin would definitely enjoy a couple’s trip with you. Not just to Hakone, but everywhere else in the world too. Maybe it can be an annual thing, something to do for anniversaries. (Though it's not like he’s thought of destinations for your next five anniversaries or anything. Nope. Not at all.)

Ordinarily he'd start trip planning with you on the spot, but this is an unprecedented opportunity, and his dick is throbbing from the sweet way you keep looking at him. You're in the middle of talking about plans for the rest of the evening, still folding laundry, when Shin's hands slip beneath the hem of your t-shirt.

He feels like a creep doing it. It's rude, right? It's so rude. You were thinking just now about making some popcorn and cuddling up to him and watching John Wick tonight. You weren't expecting to feel his palms sliding up your sides and cupping your breasts. Or for him to start kneading them.

But after a moment of shock, Shin hears a mental cheer from you that’s so loud that it nearly has him laughing.

Of course, you don't voice your enthusiasm. “Shin,” you whine instead, squirming as his fingers start circling your nipples, “I'm—ah—trying to get these chores done.”

“I’m sure they can wait,” he says, pulling you backwards. His cock presses against your ass and your thrill is palpable in his neurons. “This’ll be quick. I promise.”

You don't give in immediately. You chide him a little, then make a half-hearted attempt at continuing at your task. Your hands shake as you pick a shirt out of the basket and start folding it, all while you're being groped and teased and rutted against like a toy. You’re opening a drawer when Shin’s hand wanders between your thighs and he runs his fingers along your shorts. They're thin enough for you to feel his touch through the fabric, and you shudder when he starts rubbing your pussy through them—with a precision that has you melting, because he can hear it when you think about how good it feels when he touches your clit like that, especially while he's ignoring your complaints about it. Who knew you had it in you, Shin? you giggle internally. (Definitely not him, he wants to reply.)

He slides a hand into your shorts, and that's when you drop the laundry and give up.

Shin finds himself fucking you for the better part of the night, first from behind, then from beneath you. The sight of you bouncing on his cock drives him so crazy that he has you pinned underneath him not too long later, moaning and drooling as he drives you into the mattress. He only stops when you start thinking that you're starting to feel too sore. (You can keep going anyway, Shin, you tell him, but he knows he wouldn't be able: it kills his boner whenever you're in any kind of pain.)

But even if you’re a bit uncomfortable, you're practically glowing by the time he's finished.

“That was so fun,” you say as you kiss him. “You should do that more often.”

Shin snorts. “I don't think we can have sex any more than we already do without my dick falling off.” He gives you a curious look, suddenly worried. “Is this really not enough for you, though? ‘cause I can do other things if you want. Use my mouth, or toys, or whatever…”

You seem confused. “Well, it's not really about how many rounds we go…”

He blinks. “It's not?”

“No.”

“Then what is it about?”

You tilt your head. “Haven’t I said it? I mean, I've definitely thought it. It’s about being treated like a ho—”

“I know,” Shin interrupts, deadpan, and you giggle. But then he's studying you intensely; if he wants to give you exciting orgasms for the rest of your life, he'll need to understand what makes you tick.

“What’s the appeal of, uh… being treated that way? If it's not just about how many times we do it in a day?”

Shin encounters one of the major limitations of ESP: if you can't form a coherent thought, then Shin can’t read it. He can only see the knot in your brow, feel the discombobulation in your mind as you try to make out the exact shape of your desire. See it in your face when you can't.

“Who knows,” you finally say. “It's just hotter the way we did it just now, I guess? Like, it's a whole genre of porn. Tons of people like it.”

He frowns. Shin truly doesn't get it, and he wishes he did. But he doesn't need to understand your fantasies to humour you, as long as it makes you happy.

Though... there is one free use scenario he can't deliver.

No matter how many times he’s tried and how many times you've begged him, Shin can't bring himself to have sex with you in your sleep.

He feels a bit bad about it, honestly, because you clearly really want it. You've pleaded with him to try it out for the past twenty nights in a row, slept in exceptionally revealing lingerie just to tempt him, and have recently begun a diabolical routine of teasing him every night. You make out with him, rub yourself on him like a cat in heat, and grind your core on his aching cock through your tiny little panties—all before rolling over in bed and knocking out.

But despite your new habit leaving him with the worst case of blue balls in the world, Shin just can't bring himself to touch you in your sleep.

He doesn't get how it's supposed to work in the first place. It's a kink you probably picked up from all the fanfiction and doujinshi that's rotted your brain, and it doesn't make sense at all when applied to real life. A trained assassin is the worst person to try somnophilia with: “You're a light sleeper and your first instinct is to kill anyone who startles you,” he’d pointed out once. “How am I even supposed to touch you in your sleep without you waking up and accidentally stabbing me?”

In response, you started to take benadryl and melatonin before going to bed, and you promised that you would absolutely, 100% not stab him if you woke up in spite of that. (Okay, it might be more like 90%, but Shin can just use his ESP to see the future and dodge, right?) This flabbergasted him, but also didn't really surprise him.

It also didn’t really help.

The heart of the problem is that somnophilia is truly just too freaky for Shin. Despite everything he's tried with you, nothing really hits like vanilla sex. Even when he's enjoying the more adventurous stuff, he can only do so if he knows without a doubt that you're fully into it, and that's just kind of impossible if you're asleep when he's doing it. What if you wake up and realise that you didn't want any dick that night, actually? What if you wake up and you feel complicated, empty—not as good as you thought you would?

“But I’m always going to want it,” you insist, “and I'll like whatever you do with my body! You don't have to worry about all that.” Which is, again, an absolutely insane thing to say—but Shin doesn't know how to explain that to you. Your mind buzzes with frustration and something that feels a little like heartache whenever he tries, a knot in your chest that you don't really understand yourself, and it makes him feel so bad that all he can do is kiss you until your sadness ebbs away.

So Shin keeps his hands to himself, even when you're having the horniest dreams he's ever seen.

He doesn't mean to peer in on them. It's just impossible not to when you're next to each other in bed and your subconscious is making you think and feel crazy things. The sad dreams are probably the loudest ones, but the wet dreams are a close second. And this current dream is both very wet and very loud. Whenever Shin closes his eyes, he sees it clearly: some faceless man is on top of you, inside you. With each thrust of his hips, you shift in your sleep—thighs pressed together, hips twitching. Hot breaths, little whimpers. Your body is begging to be filled.

Shin doesn't take it personally that you're dreaming of some random guy instead of him. It's part of a particular kind of free use fantasy for you—the idea of anonymous men using you impersonally, like some kind of gloryhole. You used to think of it so much in your waking hours that it's lost all shock value to him. It doesn't turn him on, either—it's just not his thing.

So he lies down next to you and prepares to fall asleep to some pretty mundane gangbang visions. He's nearly drifted off when something happens that makes his eyes open wide—

You start to feel uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable, uncertain. You've just realised that you can't recognise the face of the man on top of you, that you aren't sure if it's Shin. You’re squirming, wanting to get away, because I don't want anyone other than Shin to touch me, I don't want anyone other than him to use my body, I don't want anyone other than him inside it. A sense of panic grips you, and now the whimpers you're letting out don't sound needy anymore.

You sound afraid.

Shin is on you immediately. A hand on your cheek, his voice soft so as not to scare you. “Hey,” he says, “I’m right here. I'm right here. Wake up for me, okay? C'mon.”

He shakes you gently, and then not so gently, and now he's wondering what ungodly cocktail of sleep meds you took to stay unconscious like this. But even if you aren't awake, you can still hear him, his voice cutting through the fog of your sedative-fueled dream—and that's enough to comfort you. You can make out his features now, which are so handsome that you can't help but calm down.

Oh, your dream self says, it is you. Hi, Shin.

Shin sighs. “Hi,” he says, voice full of relief. “Yeah, it's me.”

The little smile you give him is so tender that his heart lurches. I'm so glad, you sigh. I don't want anyone else to do this to me.

This dream version of you is chatty. Infinitely chattier than your real self. I wouldn't have minded some other guy on top of me in the past, you know? you tell him as he undresses you. As long as I came, I didn't really mind whoever was inside me. It's not like I got to choose anyway. I was using my body for missions, so I only slept with whoever I got assigned. Cumming was a nice bonus though.

The Shin in your dream kisses a path from your jaw to your neck to your breasts, ignoring you. (The real Shin would never do this—he would probably start crying if you ever talked about any of this stuff out loud to him, actually.) He doesn't reply as you keep babbling about what sex used to be like for you, about all the stuff that Shin’s seen in your sadder dreams. Not that you think they're sad; you don't know that you sometimes cry in your sleep. You don't think it's too strange that the kind of sex you had for missions sometimes made you pretend that you weren't in your own body, that the kind of things being done to it weren't also being done to your heart. As long as your body had an orgasm, then you were probably enjoying it—that only makes sense, right?

But then you started sleeping with Shin, and sex always feels so different now. Shin doesn't just make you cum; he makes you feel like you're melting. Like you don't want to be anywhere in the world except in his arms where he can hold you and kiss you and hopefully fuck you a second time.

I never liked going multiple rounds with other people the way I do with you, you observe. I kinda feel like I maybe didn't like having sex at all. But you like it if it's Shin. All the things you hated doing with other people—being held, being kissed, being used—you always enjoy doing them with Shin. You’re actually pretty sure that you were doing them all wrong before you met him, and it's nice that your body feels right whenever he touches you now.

That's what you like most about when he fucks you, actually. You can always trust Shin to make your body feel right.

That's when it clicks for him: the shape of your desire, the reason your heart twinges when Shin starts talking about safewords and boundaries and how he can't just do whatever he wants with you. It makes him feel an ache in his own chest, and he finds himself leaning down to kiss your forehead, and then—after a long, thoughtful pause—the silky contour of your mouth.

The Shin in your dreams moves in lock-step with him. Kind of. He kisses you as well, his hands wandering all over your body. But then he gets wildly out of character. Shin goes bright red when he hears the porn dialogue he's been assigned. He wants to wake you up so he can tell you that he wouldn't ever call you his cum dump (what the hell), but it's making you wet that you're being treated like one—and to his utter shame, Shin’s dick is starting to twitch too. Something about you squirming underneath him, desperate and vulnerable for him even when asleep, is making his brain short-circuit.

When you start begging him to touch you—please, Shin, I was so scared I need to feel you now, need you inside me right now, want you to use my pussy, only you and no one else—Shin feels something inside himself snap.

And he touches you.

He starts with your breasts, because that seems least likely to disturb your sleep, and god knows he doesn't want you to wake up and witness him doing something so deranged. But your eyes stay closed even though you feel his touch in your dreams, your nipples pebbling as he teases and pinches them. Your brow dips and you whine, and you only get louder when his tongue starts swirling around a nipple—but you stay fully asleep.

When he reaches down, he's unsurprised to find your panties soaked through. Not just from your juices, but also from all the cum he left inside you earlier in the day. He strokes you through the ruined satin, a thumb rubbing your swollen clit, and he’s startled to feel you get even slicker. His dream self wonders at how sensitive you are, how needy your pussy is, and Shin cringes at hearing himself saying all that—but he also agrees. You always make a point of using toys to keep yourself stretched out for him if he's not around to do it himself, and your body is at this point practically trained to expect his touch—but even then, it's shocking how ready you are to take him even when unconscious.

When he pushes your panties to the side, he sees your hole is fluttering around nothing—both here and inside your dream. The sight makes him lose any shred of self-restraint, and he frees his dick from his sweats and starts fisting himself until his length is slick with his own pre-cum. Your subconscious can't quite recreate the feeling of taking his cock, leaving you panting and unsatisfied, and he fully intends to fix that.

He lines himself up with your slick folds—and he pushes into you.

Shin can hardly believe that you're still sleeping right now, all while your pussy helplessly swallows his cock. He'd feel bad if he didn't know how blissed out you were, your subconscious flooding with euphoria, your body overfilled with pleasure. He's being pretty rough with you in your dreams, but he's careful with you in reality, the way he's always told you he'd be.

Plus, he really doesn't want you to wake up.

But despite his best efforts, your eyes open. You're groggy, confused, not understanding what's happening and how come your breasts are exposed or why is there a cock inside you—and then your eyes are going wide as your pussy starts pulsing around him, and you're gasping and crying as you feel yourself soaking everything.

By the time you figure out what's going on, Shin’s come back to his senses. He blurts an apology on instinct, launches into a garbled explanation of why he was fucking you—but you just give him a dazed smile, a sweet little kiss, and then you turn over to spread your dripping pussy for him.

“Keep going, Shin,” you say, voice drowsy but no less clear. “You're still hard, right? Use my body until you feel better. Promise I'll like it.”

Shin sucks in a breath, feels the last threads of his sanity snapping. He's a vanilla guy, after all. Nothing hits like hearing you ask to be fucked out loud—except for maybe the sight of his cum dripping out of your swollen, needy pussy, your cunt fluttering around nothing and clearly wanting his cock back inside it. The combination is driving him wild.

You don't end up getting any more sleep after that.

The two of you do a lot after that. Way more than Shin ever thought he would in bed, including the most embarrassing roleplays in the world. There was the stuckage roleplay, the sex worker roleplay, the school classroom roleplay, the french maid roleplay, and—perhaps the worst of them all—the chikan roleplay.

(Yes—the two of you tried the free use thing in public, with Shin feeling you up during a commute home as you squirmed and pretended to ignore it. He'd tried to be subtle, telling himself he would stop if anyone noticed what you were doing, but you kept thinking that you really wanted him to keep going, so of course he had to oblige. Shin now can't take the Yamanote line without wanting to die from shame, nor without thinking about you instantly cumming on his fingers when he told you that you were being watched.)

But despite all those insane sex acts, nothing scares him as much as when you ask about his kinks.

“I don't have any specific fantasies,” he says quickly. “I'm a vanilla guy. You know that.”

“Uh huh. Sure. I also know that you're lying.”

He tries not to sweat.

“It’s okay, Shin,” you say delicately. “You don't need to be embarrassed. Breeding kinks are very common and respectable. It's the most normal thing out there, if you think about it. Humans need to procreate somehow, don't they?”

Shin can't form a response. He’s too busy visualising potential escape routes from this room, of which there are none because you are much faster than him and could easily intercept him if he bolted. When he accepts his fate, he forces himself to look at you and finds himself being stared at. Studied.

“So,” you say.

“S-so?”

“Tell me what flavour of breeding kink you like.”

His face burns. “What do you mean, flavour?”

“Like the kind of scenario where the breeding is happening. Like omegaverse, or hybrids, or those stories where someone's chained up and forcibly bred. You know.”

Shin realises then that he absolutely cannot tell you the fantasy that has him furiously jacking off when you aren’t around. He just knows you wouldn't understand it, and possibly you'd also read too much into it. Maybe you'd even freak out and break up with him. He’ll need to keep this a secret and carry it to the grave—or at least for another five years, after which it might make more sense to bring up as a serious conversation.

But you're very, very persistent about asking, and around five weeks later, he caves and tells you everything.

“Pleeease, Shin,” you beg for the millionth time, batting your lashes and giving him wide, pretty eyes you know he can't resist. “Whatever it is, I promise I won't judge. Like—I’m the last person who can make fun of anyone for their kinks. You know the kind of shit I read.”

Shin does indeed know the kind of shit you read—he’s also read it all, secondhand through your thoughts—and he does indeed know that you are in no position to judge anyone else for their preferences. But judgment isn't what he's worried about. It would be easier if it were. If his breeding kink had anything to do with omegaverse or hybrids or the weird dubcon stuff you described, it would be far less incriminating. But given the truth, he coughs and tries to crack a joke—“I dunno, it might be too freaky even for you”—and you give him a look so disappointed that he nearly flinches.

“H-hey—what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I just wish you trusted me. “I’m fine, I promise.” I trust you with my thoughts. How come you can't trust me with yours? “Don't pay attention to whatever you can hear from my mind, by the way. It's not anything you should worry about.” I don't want you to feel guilty.

The two of you have a strict rule, given your lack of mental boundaries: when Shin overhears something that you don't want to discuss, he's supposed to pretend it never happened. Usually he obliges, but this is just impossible to ignore. You have a point: you are willing to be vulnerable around him 24/7. There are no psychological barriers between the two of you. Each moment you choose to be with Shin, you also choose to forfeit all privacy for your heart—an act that confuses Shin as much as it moves him. Because everyone dislikes his uninhibited access to their minds. Everyone has something to hide. Everyone should be at least a little bit afraid of him—you, most of all.

The one time Shin voiced all this, you gave him a funny look and thought, I don't understand what you mean.

Because you don't mind that Shin can hear all your thoughts. You don't mind him knowing your insides, feeling out all the places that make you feel nauseous and bruised and dirtied. You don't mind that he's seen things about you that make you feel disgusted with yourself, things that make you feel like your body is undeserving of love—because you know he won't judge you for any of it. Because Shin is a good person, he’s good to me and he's good to my body, better than anyone else has ever been and will ever be. That must be why I have such mind-blowing orgasms when I sleep with him.

I didn't know how good sex could feel until I met you, Shin. Did you know that?

Shin did know that. He had actually figured all that out some time ago from seeing your dreams, which is only making him feel worse. His access to your thoughts is so unlimited that he understands your desires better than you do yourself. It's only fair that you should also understand some of his, right?

Besides, it's just a kink. A harmless kink. You won't think too hard about it, right?

Right?

He clears his throat.

“I…”

You glance at him, curious.

“I'm kinda into… like, a domestic kind of scenario… with the whole, uh…”

He can't bring myself to say it, so you do it for him: “The breeding thing? Like, you’re into the idea of breeding me in a domestic roleplay?”

Shin is going to die. But he perseveres, because it's you, and you deserve this bare minimum from him: “Yeah… like. You're a housewife, and we… y'know.”

You give him a blank stare, which then gives way to understanding. “Oh! I know what you mean.”

“D-do you?”

“Yeah! Like those doujinshi where there's a lonely housewife and the neighbour cucks her husband by sleeping with her, right? Or her daughter’s boyfriend sleeps with her. Or the husband’s father.” You hum, studying him, somehow not reacting to the way his jaw just dropped. Just what the hell have you been reading when he isn't around? “Or is it one of those wedding NTR scenarios?”

“What? No!” Shin really is going to die. But he comes clean, because he won't be able to live with himself if he gets roped into a roleplay about any of those situations: “I just mean, like. We’re a married couple, and we’re trying for a baby.”

You stare, and he hears the open confusion in your mind. Apparently you can't fathom why anyone would find a life of domestic bliss sexy if it's not about to involve some form of cucking. But you keep your word and don't judge him: “Oh. Well, that'll be easy enough to do.”

Shin blinks. “You mean… you’ll do it?”

“Of course I'll do it,” you say, warm and reassuring. “I wanna make you feel as good as you make me feel, Shin.”

Something in him melts at the words, especially because he can hear that you're saying them with your whole heart. Every response he can think of is lacking, and he's at a painful loss for a reply. But then you cheerfully add, “And anyway, you fingerbanged me on the Yamanote line. This is the least I can do in return,” and Shin goes back to wanting to disintegrate.

Despite Shin’s insistence that his fantasy has nothing to do with the R18 cucking doujinshi that you read, you seem dead set on taking inspiration from them. For the next week, he's subjected to some of the worst imagery he's ever encountered as you “perform research” for the scenario you're planning for him—which is to say, he reads a great deal of ecchi manga through your thoughts. Their contents make him incredibly afraid of whatever you'll come up with, but he's also oddly touched at how committed you are to the whole thing, so he can't help but leave you to your machinations.

And to be fair to you, you do your due diligence by asking him additionally what he wants.

“What’s your idea of domestic bliss?” you say one afternoon, when the shop is slow and sleepy and Lu is mercifully absent. “Like, what do you imagine a happy household looks like?”

Shin knows the answer immediately: Mr. Sakamoto with Ms. Aoi and Hana. Eating a home-cooked meal around a table with them and Lu. Waking up each morning to the scent of miso soup and the noise of a laughing child. Hana running into the store as she returns home from school, carefree and loved. Watching you teach her how to fold origami cranes so you can make some to hang from her ceiling. Seeing you beam when she says, Thank you, neesan.

Being embraced by you when he comes back to the store after almost dying. Feeling you wipe the blood off his knuckles before kissing them. Hearing you say, Welcome home, I missed you, let’s eat dinner. Cooking for you with his hands that he once used only for killing.

That's family to Shin. All of you, in the store, together.

Now, Shin will absolutely die if you use such sacred memories as a reference for this roleplay, so he doesn't voice any of this. Problem is—he doesn't have any other reference point for what a family should be. He grew up in a lab, and then afterwards he watched his father explode on a ship. You can't exactly fill in the gaps for him either, given how you were raised, and he constantly listens to the buzz of your disappointment at having no real material to work with for this roleplay.

“I dunno,” Shin eventually says. “Maybe, like, I come home and you’re in the kitchen? And I help you make dinner? And we eat together and go to bed together. I feel like that's what a married couple does.”

You hum. “Yes, that sounds right. And I'm wearing an apron, right? With a conservative outfit that's still tight enough to be kind of sexy?”

“Uh…”

“And I'm super lonely because you've been neglecting me because of work and we haven't had sex in two years?”

Shin is baffled. You can't even go two hours without asking him to have sex—two years is unfathomable. “Uh…”

“And the neighbour has made several passes at the lonely housewife next door, but I turn him down because I only want my husband’s cock inside me, right?”

Shamefully, Shin’s dick twitches at this last suggestion. Still, he says, “Er, no, I’d really just like you to act as you normally do. I don't need a re-enactment of The Neighbourhood Housewife series.”

“Aw, okay… And you're really sure you don't want me to wear an apron?”

Shin overhears a thought, and he almost snorts. “You're free to wear one if you want.”

“I just feel like aprons do a lot for me.” You give Shin—and his shop apron—a meaningful look. “Don't you?”

Shin tries not to flush. A little afraid that you'll next suggest that he wears an apron and plays a lonely househusband, he hastily says, “Good point. I think you should wear one.”

When Shin gets home that Friday, he discovers that aprons do a lot for him too.

This revelation is shocking for him, given all the housewife-centric porn that he's been forced to read secondhand. He's seen probably half a dozen women in nothing but aprons and hardly reacted to any of them, but the sight of you in a sky blue apron, humming as you chop away at some carrots, is doing something horrible to him.

The setup is getting to him too. There are couple photos placed throughout your apartment (among them is his personal favourite, taken among the cherry blossoms at Himeji Castle), as well as a fake wedding band on your finger (he’d picked out one with you at your insistence, and Shin thought it was funny at the time but now his ears are going pink at the sight of it). The air is rich with the fragrance of cooking rice and simmering curry. New curtains, a vase of flowers on the table, unfamiliar decor and some of his personal effects are placed throughout the living room—all to create the illusion of just having moved in together.

The scene isn't making him feel horny, exactly. It's more like it's making him feel warm.

It’d be nice if the two of you could live together like this, he thinks. If Shin could really come home to this everyday, and if you could really greet him with a kiss and smile, and if you could cook together and spend time together and fuck nasty together, if you could take your husband’s cock every day and get filled up with his—

Oh. Those are your thoughts. Not Shin’s.

He clears his throat, and he half-expects you to crack a joke about your dirty monologuing, but instead you put down your knife and come by to kiss him on the cheek. “Welcome home, dear,” you say warmly, and Shin’s heart jumps at the pet name. You smile as his cheeks flush: My husband is so handsome, you think, and Shin feels like he's about to explode.

Somehow, this is harder for him than fingerbanging you on the Yamanote line. That was mortifying, but this roleplay is quickly revealing things about his psyche that frankly distress him. Still, he plays his part, and tries to get into the appropriate mindset. You're his wife right now—his beautiful, pretty, gorgeous wife who he lucked out with and somehow married and now he’s has a home with you, and he's going to start a family with you, and he hopes the baby will have your smile and eyes and hair, and he's going to take so many photos of the two of you, and holy shit he's so glad you don't have ESP.

Anyway, he comes up with an underwhelming response: “H-hi. How was your day?”

“Good,” you say. “Was nice to get a break from work. Missed you the whole time though. You kept me waiting too long.” Wanted to feel you inside me all day, you whine at him mentally, and Shin doesn't know how actual married couples go about their daily lives. If you were really his wife and he heard you thinking like that, he'd probably never leave the house.

(Roleplay, he reminds himself immediately after. This is a roleplay. He shouldn't think about actually marrying you. That would be a dangerous route to go down, and he definitely hasn't thought about it before. Nor dreamt about it. No, sir.)

“I'll make it up to you,” he promises.

“You'd better.” You point at the curry that's simmering on the stove. “You can start by helping me with dinner.”

The way the rest of the night is similar to a regular evening together. The two of you cook together, eat together, and clean together. The only difference is that instead of hearing you monologue in your head about how much you want your boyfriend to fuck you, Shin is instead subjected to fantasies about your life as newlyweds. You beam a false memory of your wedding night directly into his head, and the mental image of Shin fucking you in your wedding dress has him so bricked up that he nearly breaks several glasses.

By the time you've both showered and gone to bed, Shin has been tortured for hours with detailed fantasies about your married sex life. (They involve various sets of bridal lingerie, an amorous honeymoon in Thailand, and sex on every surface in the apartment. All unprotected, of course, and accompanied by tender kissing each time.) Somehow, you don't break immersion even once. Even when Shin joins you in bed, you're thinking about how lucky you are to have him as your husband.

Shin doesn't think he's ever been so hard in his life.

You giggle when you’re straddling his lap, feeling it for yourself through your silk slip. “Someone’s excited.”

“‘Course I am,” he says between kisses. “How couldn't I be?”

How couldn't he be, if you were his wife?

(Roleplay, he reminds himself again. Roleplay. This is a roleplay! It's not good to think in marital hypotheticals. It's stupid, really. But he's doing it anyway and holy shit is it making him horny.)

He reaches under your slip, isn't surprised to find your cunt bare and dripping for him. Stretched myself out for you while I was at home today, you think as you move your lips against his, hot and messy and addictive. Used a toy, but it just wasn't the same as my husband’s cock.

He groans against your mouth as he reads your memories of your day: not a fabrication like the hazy visions of your false wedding and honeymoon, but detailed and heated and real. How you really did feel the frustration of a lonely and neglected housewife and couldn't help but take your favourite vibrator and spread yourself out on your shared bed. How you split yourself open on it and moaned his name as it stretched you out. How you gushed as you came, and how it still didn't feel as good as Shin’s touch because you didn't get to kiss him and feel his arms around you at the end.

He feels crazy when he lays you out beneath him. Insane when he studies your gaze, honeyed with lust, and your pussy, pretty and glistening for him. You give him a smile that's shy—genuinely shy, he can tell from your thoughts, because you've done a million freaky things but you've never acted out anything so tender before. Never played house like this, never imagined a cozy and warm life where you get to have a family.

He's never really thought of it before, either. He never had a cozy and warm life growing up, and he didn't really think he could ever change enough that he could have one. Never thought he could have a family, and maybe this is just a roleplay, but it's the first time he's really envisioning himself starting one.

“Are you gonna put a baby in me, Shin?” you ask shyly, and he nearly cums in his pants.

Shin generally likes to take his time with you in bed. Even if he can hear you mentally whining for his cock, he ordinarily likes to tease you with his tongue and fingers first. But he's desperate to be inside you today, and he can tell that you aren't upset by how quickly he frees his cock and presses it against your entrance. He can feel himself throbbing as he slides between your folds, his cock twitching at the slick and sticky noises from your cunt.

“So eager,” you tease. You break immersion just to taunt him, bedroom eyes turning sly: Wow, you really do get off to this stuff. Never would have pinned you for the type to enjoy breeding someone like this—

“Wife,” he corrects you without thinking, and you blink.

“Huh?”

“You’re not ‘someone’, you're my wife,” he says, fully talking with his dick, “I wouldn't marry anyone other than you, and I wouldn't put a baby in anyone other than you.”

You stare at him, wide-eyed. Shin is vaguely aware of your heart pounding as he lines his cock up with your entrance, your pussy fluttering even as your mind scrambles for words. “O-oh, really? I mean, I guess that is what the scenario-ohhh—aah…”

Your mind goes blank as Shin pushes into you, and Shin’s finding it equally hard to think. He can never get used to how you feel around him—tight and hot and perfect—and it’s even more overwhelming this time thinking that he'll get you pregnant. The thought has him feeling so insane, he can't help but start fucking you immediately.

You gasp when he starts thrusting, driving his cock into you at an angle that has you curling your toes. Pleasure bursts in your mind as he hits your sweet spot, your pussy squeezing around him each time. He's touched you so many times, fucked you into oblivion so many ways, committed every inch of your body and mind to muscle memory—it’s easy for him to take you apart, force you toward a quick finish.

Your hole starts dripping uncontrollably, and your belly tightens in a way that short-circuits your thoughts. Shin reaches between your bodies before you can fully comprehend it, rubbing your clit until you’re whimpering.

Sometimes your mind sounds very needy when you’re about to climax—more more more, right there, right there, don't stop, don't stop—and sometimes you sound pretty depraved—that’s right, Shin, fill me up, wanna be your cum dump—and sometimes you sound very tender—please kiss me, please hold me, please be as close to me as you can—but right now, you just sound shocked.

A-already? you think, dazed, and before your brain can catch up with what he's doing, Shin presses down on your belly and grinds his cock against your g-spot and suddenly you're tearing up as you gush all over him.

It's so hard not to cum with you. Shin nearly has to resort to using ESP on himself to keep it from happening. But he fucks you through your orgasm without pause, and he doesn't really slow down until you're a hazy, fucked out mess. Every inch of your body is so wrung out from pleasure that Shin can't hear a single, coherent thought—just a mindless rush of dopamine—which means you're probably relaxed enough to take his cock just the way he wants.

He brushes his lips against yours, sweet and easy, before he says, “Let me know if this is too much.”

“Hmm?” Not ready to form real words yet, you think, What are you up to, Shin? and You can do whatever you want with my body, you know that now.

Shin answers by throwing your legs over his shoulders. You squeal when he practically folds you in half, grabbing at the sheets when he starts to move again. Your pussy tightens around him as he pumps his cock into you, your body eager for more even though you just came. Deep, you think, gasping, it's so deep—

Shin feels it when he hits your cervix, and he hears you thinking it too. You keen when he does it again, moaning at the feeling. Feels good, Shin, you reassure him, your fingers reaching for your clit. Keep going. It's all he needs to hear before he starts pounding into you again.

He feels like an animal when he fucks you like this. Can't think about anything other than how deep he is inside you and how completely he's going to fill you up, how you're going to be walking around with his cum inside you for days. You’re thinking about it too—please, Shin, want your cum in me, want it in my womb, want you to breed me, please, please, wanna give you a baby—

Shin groans, his hips stuttering to a halt as his cock starts twitching, and soon he's pumping thick ropes of cum into you. You follow not long after, you pussy milking his cock as you gush all over him. He lets it, too—stays inside you the whole time and makes sure that you take it all, the two of you kissing each other hungrily. Only pulls out once you're both spent, and you whine at the emptiness afterwards.

Your hole is stuffed so full that his cum drips out of you almost immediately; you make a small noise as you feel it soaking the sheets. Somewhat predictably, you reach in between your legs, spreading yourself to give him a show.

“You came so much,” you say. “I can’t keep it all inside me.” As if you even tried.

Shin is used to your cumshot displays, but he feels his throat go dry at the sight anyway. “Um…” He licks his lips, and he’s momentarily torn between cleaning you up with his mouth and pushing it all back inside you. “Aren’t there, um. Positions you're supposed to stay in after? To help. With keeping it in. To get pregnant, I mean.” At least Shin remembers this fact from one of the many breeding fics you read over the past week.

“Are there? Oops.” You give him a guilty look. “I didn't know that. I guess we're gonna have to do that all over again.”

Shin snorts. Figures. “I'm gonna need a few minutes,” he says. Then he lies down, pulls you with him. “I wanna hold you first anyway.”

You make a happy noise as you're wrapped up in his arms, his chest pressed against your back as he curls around you. Apparently still committed to your role, you grab your phone as you snuggle up to him and look up post-coital positions for couples trying to get pregnant. Shin watches you type on your screen, idly touching you all the while—his lips kissing your shoulder, his fingers running along the arc of your hip. “Oh, huh, you're right. I'm supposed to lie down and keep my lower body elevated…”

“Elevated?”

“Yeah, people put a pillow underneath their hips sometimes… or sometimes they put their legs up.”

He makes a face as he tries to imagine it. “Sounds uncomfortable. I feel like the pillow thing should be enough… not that I think it's gonna make a difference with how often you like to have sex, anyway.”

You laugh. “Kind of a wonder I'm not pregnant already, huh?” Then you give him a look that's supposed to be shy, but is a touch too playful to be convincing. “But hopefully I will be after this.”

Heat crawls up his neck as he listens to your thoughts. You're not even imagining anything especially filthy—just thinking about what it'll feel like to carry his child. Shin recognises some of your monologuing from a fanfiction you read two days ago, a lot of which is sort of sensual. But it's really the original, non-sexual bits that are doing a lot for him. Stuff like how you'll probably have really bad morning sickness, but you know Shin will be there to rub your back as you throw up. Or how you're worried about whatever weird cravings you’re going to get, but you know Shin will buy whatever snacks you want. Or how uncomfortable you'll be when your stomach gets huge and the baby starts kicking, but I bet Shin will be excited to feel that, though.

There's a long, heavy pause before you think, You're gonna be such a good dad, Shin. Because Shin is a good person, he's good to you and he's good to your body and he's good to everyone at the store. He’s going to be so good to his child, and he’ll be good to their mother, too.

Shin doesn't realise that his fingers are resting on your stomach until he feels you lay your own over his. He closes his eyes and imagines a life there, cradled beneath the hand that he once only used for killing, the laugh of a child carefree and loved, the sound of your voice welcoming him home at the end of the day—every day, for the rest of his life—and obviously it's just a roleplay, it's a roleplay and he's being a moron for thinking in marital hypotheticals, but he says, “I can't wait to start a family with you.”

You stiffen.

Shin blinks. He listens for your thoughts, but there's only a long, crawling silence, and then you bolt upright and say, “Resident Evil.”

His eyes go wide. He sits up, reaches out for you—“H-hey, what's wrong?”—but you're already slipping out of bed.

“Need to pee!” you squawk. “Don't want to get a UTI, y'know?” And then you're gone and the bathroom door is slamming shut.

Your apartment is small, just like most places in Tokyo. The washroom is well within 400 metres of the bed, so Shin can fully hear you crashing out in there. The thoughts are incomprehensible at first—garbled words, high pitched buzz, flashbulb images. Chain link fence. Bloodied knife. Needle in a child’s arm, a string of cranes hanging above their head. Zombies on a screen, Mario and Princess Peach. An older boy with white hair, pinching a crease into flower-patterned paper. Niisan left me they all left me they never wanted me. Nobody ever wanted me, except for Sei-nii but that was only to use me for missions so many missions I lost count. A dark room full of men, their jugulars slashed. Other men, other rooms over the years. There are so many of them, so many men inside my body using my body has Shin ever looked in my head and counted them all?

The sound of chimes in a convenience store. Your favourite place in the world. Then Shin at the stove, in an apron. He's so handsome. Now he's holding a baby, a little boy who looks just like him.

There's someone beside him, and it isn't you.

You turn on the shower, and the rush of water is loud so Shin can't hear the sad little noise you make with your throat, although you can probably hear everything in my head, right? Sorry. Please ignore me. I'll be normal in a minute.

Shin wants nothing other than to kick open the door to help you, but his guilt stops him. His regret at how invasive his powers are, at how he can't shut out your thoughts, so loud and raw, when you most need privacy. It's the least he can do to respect your wishes and leave you alone.

He sits on the bed, listens as the roil of your thoughts become a simmer and then still. The shower turns off. The toilet flushes. I really don't want a UTI. You wash your hands, count to ten, and you come out looking and sounding so calm that if Shin couldn’t read minds, he'd never guess that you just had a mental breakdown in the toilet.

“Hi,” you say neatly as you sit down, and Shin pulls you into a hug so suddenly that you yelp.

“I said to ignore my thoughts!” you whine, squirming in his grip, trying to get away.

Shin actively stops himself from sighing. “I don't need to hear your thoughts to know something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong. I'm fine! I'm normal. I'm very normal right now.”

He gives you a long, unimpressed stare, but you return it with the look of a prey animal about to bolt, and he realises he has to humour you.

“...alright,” he says, “you're normal. Nothing's wrong.” Shin watches you uncertainly, seeing the tension in your body, hearing the rush of blood in your skull. You're staring at your fingers, remembering how to fold the wings of a paper bird. Trying to focus on the motions and not the person who taught them to you. Trying not to let Shin see all the people you miss and all the things that weren't meant for you.

You find it hard to look at him, so he stares at the wall instead.

“Do you want to be left alone right now?” Shin guesses.

Your voice is very, very small: “...yeah.”

Shin’s brow knots, but he can't hear anything other than a vague emptiness from your heart now, and he shouldn't be listening anyway. Shouldn't exploit the fact that your mind is so defenseless around him.

He's pulling himself away when you say, “Wait.”

You’re visualizing escape routes out of the apartment right now. You'd beat Shin in each one, and you'd be able to disappear from Tokyo long before he could ever catch up to you. But you stay on the bed instead, fidgeting as you stare at your lap, and even though your face is calm, the flood of your thoughts is so scared and sad and hopeful that Shin finds his head and heart aching simultaneously. He wants crush you in his arms and say all the things you want to hear—and then all the things you need to hear, but don't know.

But he stops himself.

“If there are thoughts you want me to ignore,” he says, “then you'll need to say the ones you want me to know out loud.”

You wince. You trust Shin with listening to all your thoughts, but actually voicing them is something you're not very good at yet. Assassins are secretive by nature, and you were raised to be a killer. I’ll throw up if I say this, you think, face miserable.

“You'll throw up if you don't,” Shin points out, feeling your stress response in his brainstem.

You nearly look—and feel—physically pained when you say, “I… I’d like it if you stayed.”

Shin's not sure when his own heart started feeling so heavy, but he's relieved to feel the weight lift. “Okay.”

So Shin settles next to you in bed, and after a moment, you start to relax. The anxious chatter of your mind goes quiet. The old memories stop blinking at you. You try to focus on your boyfriend to further ground yourself. He has a handsome face so it's easy. He goes bright red at the thought, which makes you smile.

Shin cracks a joke, which makes you snort, and after that you crawl pretty eagerly back into his arms. You demand kisses and he happily obliges. Your fingers seek him out and he knows to hold your hand. You rest your head on his chest and you listen to him talk about all the goings-on the store, the upcoming movies he wants to see, the ryokan he's booked for the two of you, and now you're very drowsy.

People's thoughts get slippery and strange when they’re on the verge of sleep. Sometimes it's garbled nonsense, but sometimes it’s their unguarded feelings. Shin hears yours, faint and scared but so very, very tender:

Wasn’t raised for a life like that… Never even thought about it… But if it's Shin…

Shin wants to grab you and make you look at him. If it's Shin, what?! he wants to ask. Suddenly, he’s having insane thoughts about if you’d like to actually live together and when's the right time to get serious and come to think of it, Mr. Sakamoto wasn't much older than him when he got married, right? Maybe he's not crazy for having daydreams where your face is lighting up at a diamond ring that he got you. Not a fool for wanting to come home to you every night. Not losing his mind for thinking that it might be nice to have kids at some point down the line.

Not stupid for maybe sort of really wanting to have them with you.

It did make him feel like he was insane, when he first started having those thoughts. Shin had never contemplated any of that stuff before. He’d grown up in a lab. Drifted through life being rejected for his powers. Shot his own father and watched him die. The only person who looked out for him after that was Mr. Sakamoto, and then he dipped soon afterwards anyway. All this to say, Shin wasn’t exactly raised to expect that he'd someday have a family, either. Never even thought about it, because he was sure he'd never get it.

But even if he’s never expected such a life, Shin can’t help but hope for it when it comes to you.

He would really like to tell you all this, but by the time his own mental crashout is over, you're fully asleep and drooling on his chest. So deep in the REM cycle that when Shin tries to read your mind, he catches you dreaming about kissing him on the Yamanote line, giggling into his mouth as his ears turn red. Typical.

There's a ring on your finger, different from the pretend-play version you left in the washroom. This one’s got a diamond, simple but pretty. It suits you.

Shin commits the design to memory, and he decides to stay up a little bit longer, watching the dream with which you've trusted him.

END

notes: the funniest part of this fic to me is how much build-up was required for shin to try the most standard kinks on tumblr dot com. i am very sorry if you felt misled by the summary/tags, expecting to read something super kinky only to find that this fic was fairly vanilla. i blame shin.

also i know this is not my best writing </3 I actually lowkey wanted to delete it all at the midway point alskdfjsldfkj but we move. please do let me know if you liked it!!!!

#fuck yeah #writer: yinyuedijun #asakura shin x reader #sakamoto days fic #not safe for minors #trying to remember my tags holy feck

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namodareads · 11 months ago

Text

suo + weird pussy inspection ft. latex gloves

#not safe for minors #what if i eat bricks #hes so freak!!!!!!!!#hes a freak and i need him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#writer: prettyboykatsuki #wind breaker fic #suo hayato x reader

731 notes · View notes

namodareads · 11 months ago

Text

SINCERITY

Flirting with Suo is never a good idea—you can never tell whether he means to charm you or make fun of you when you do it. Sometimes it feels like both. Occasionally it feels mean. More often than not, you like to entertain it. But you can't right now, not when his blood is all over the washroom sink. Your manager will be furious about the mess, and also about the fact that you're giving first aid to three delinquents while you're on the clock. If Suo makes one more joke about marrying you, you'll probably throw up and cry. (Or: Suo, Nirei, and Sakura get into a fight in the red light district and go to you to get patched up. Suo takes the opportunity to tease you mercilessly.)

4.5k words, suo x reader with implied one-sided sakura x reader, sfw with mature themes. set post-canon (they are all 18-19 years old), non-canon backstory details for suo and sakura (speculative as of ch. 146). fem reader – references to gendered professions, e.g. hostessing; reader wears a dress for her job in a girls’ bar. warning inaccurate depictions of first aid!

Suo’s never liked your job.

You suppose this is fair. The feeling is mutual. You’ve never liked the fact that Suo chose to go to a delinquent school rather than a proper high school, and he’s never liked the fact that you chose to drop out of your proper high school to go work in the red light district—first at a kyabakura, and now at a girls’ bar. His master, who also happens to be your master, has always told you that this was a natural reaction on his part. Having a secondary school certificate is important, after all. But Suo’s disapproval of your income sources, no matter how politely or subtly phrased, has always felt like it runs deeper than simple concern for your education.

Still, this has never stopped him from visiting you at your place of work, though he only tends to come by under the worst possible circumstances—tonight worse than any other.

When you see the three of them limping through the clamour and heat of the red light district—the neon glow of the street making the blood smeared across Suo’s face shine vibrantly—you entirely forget that you're on the clock. You chuck your sign onto the ground (3000¥ per hour! it reads) as you cut a path toward them, almost tripping in your stiletto heels. Your customer service voice gives way to your regular one, which is so outraged that it startles everyone around you.

“Suo, you motherfucker—are you trying to lose the only eye you have left?!”

Suo is unbothered. His smile is calm and deeply shameless as you approach him. It’s nothing like Nirei, who cringes at the furious look you give him, or Sakura, who looks like a deer caught in headlights when you round on him instead. Like he doesn’t know what to do at the fact that someone is worrying over him, and especially not when that person is wearing an extremely revealing evening gown. For a minute, you think he's going to bolt.

But Suo keeps him there, grip tight on his arm.

“Hi,” he says brightly, like there isn't blood all over his face and shoulder. “Are you busy? We might need to trouble you.”

“Of course I'm busy! I'm in the middle of a shift!” you fume at him. But you still extract Sakura from him, scruffing him by the neck before he can clam up and run. You pull him in the direction of your bar, and gesture for the other two to follow. “Hurry up before my manager sees you.”

Smuggling three delinquents into the washroom of a girls’ bar is not a skill you thought you'd ever need, but it is one that you've become an expert in. This is at least the third time you've done it. The Furin trio rarely ever loses fights, but they occasionally slip up in the part of the red light district that isn't controlled by Roppo-Ichiza. This is somewhat unavoidable, as Keyaki Street is a different beast from Keisei Street. It isn't just delinquents here, but bona fide criminals. “Like, actual fucking Yakuza,” you grouse at Suo for the millionth time. You wipe at the blood remaining on his face—most of it you've already rinsed off, staining the melamine sink with iron—and the paper towel in your hand blooms red.

“But these guys weren't Yakuza,” he says cheerfully.

“They still pulled weapons on you! Bladed weapons!”

“Mm… well, that's true. I'm sorry.”

You scowl at him. “No, you're not.”

“No, I'm not.” He’s still smiling. “In our defense, we didn't have much of a choice. They were about to do something terrible to an innocent person,” he says, and you deflate a little, because you know Suo can't stand to see injustice. This is something you love very dearly about him, and also a quality of his that constantly raises your blood pressure. But then you roll your eyes when he happily adds, “And in my defense, it’s all our Captain’s fault!”

“Oi!” Sakura yells from one of the stalls, where he’s sitting and holding a bag of ice to a knot on his head. “Wasn’t my fault we ended up fighting. They were practically beggin’ to have their asses kicked.”

“You did provoke them, Sakura,” Nirei says. He's in the other stall, trying to stay off his sprained ankle.

“Well, they were dangerous! Not like you wanted to just leave them alone either,” Sakura grumbles, and Nirei apologises, though Suo accurately points out there is no need for him to. After hearing this story, you can't help but agree, and you suppose you shouldn't have expected any differently. After three years at Furin, Sakura is no longer the type to pick fights for no reason. Whatever those guys were up to must have been pretty bad for him to start shit in unfamiliar territory.

Still. The red light district is what it is. Touts, street gangs, and Yakuza are constantly causing problems here, with violence of a scale and nature that Bofurin simply don't see on their own turf. Your street in particular makes someone like Endo look like a joke. “You should still learn to exercise some restraint,” you say to Sakura. “And you”—you give Suo a miserable look—“you know the area. You should have known better. At the very least, you should have called me for backup.”

“But you were on the clock,” Suo points out, and you frown. Despite having absolutely no need, you take out an alcohol wipe and swipe it over his cut. He winces.

“I'm still on the clock now,” you reply, voice dry, “and here you are, distracting me anyway. My boss is going to be on my ass about it if I don't bring in any customers tonight, you know.”

“We can be your customers,” Suo offers.

“You aren't old enough to drink!”

“Neither are you, yet you work here.” His gaze has turned a little sharp. His voice too. You blink, suddenly mollified.

“...okay. If each of you buys a drink after this, I’ll call us even.” Then you glance down at his changshan, which is sliced through, the pearly silk stained red at the shoulder. He’s insisted that the wound is unserious and said that he'd rather clean up his face first, and you're starting to question his priorities. “That is, if you don't have to go to the hospital after this.”

“I don't.”

“I don't know if I believe you.” You pull out some polysporin. “Come closer.”

Suo could do this on his own. His hands aren't incapacitated. But he humours you, as he's always humoured you, and allows you dab his cut with the antibiotic. You feel a little sentimental as you do it, and almost a little sad. Doing this reminds you of when he was a kid who had just started learning martial arts. Granted, he never got any real cuts back then, but sometimes he’d scrape his knees or his elbows or—god forbid—his face, and you would plaster bandaids all over him when he did. But none of those were real injuries.

More than anything, doing this reminds you of when he lost his eye. The state that he was in after the accident. The way his face was bandaged after the surgery. The texture of the gauze against your fingers when you asked to try swapping out the dressings for him.

If Suo notices the way your lip is trembling, he doesn't comment on it.

“You’re so mean—how come you never believe anything I say?” he asks. You press the gauze to his cut with more pressure than necessary, and he blinks. He opens his mouth again, but then the door rattles violently.

“Sorry!” you yell. “Washroom’s closed for cleaning!” You wince as you hear complaints in reply—you’ve been closed for half an hour!—and shoot your Suo a sour look as the customer leaves. “I’m really risking it all for you three,” you remark.

“I'll make it up to you,” Suo says. “I'll stick around the whole night and buy as many drinks as you want. Your manager won't be able to hassle you about anything then.”

“No way. You're not wasting that much money on the red light district.” You frown. “Master will kill me if I let you piss away your inheritance like that.”

“I’m not wasting my money on the red light district. I'm wasting it on you.”

“Well, I'm employed at a girls’ bar, so when you waste money on me, you are in fact spending it on the red light district.”

“Then you should quit so I can spend as much money on you as I want.”

“Quit and then live on what income?” You set aside the first aid kit and grab some more paper towel. “Take off your shirt.”

“Oh? Right here? Right now?” His eye goes wide. “How forward.”

Sakura coughs very, very loudly from the stall. If you weren't so used to Suo saying this kind of thing just to mess with you, you'd probably do the same. In fact, you'd probably choke on your spit and die on the spot. But as it is, you only sigh and start unbuttoning Suo’s changshan, starting at the high collar. Any sentimentality or concern you previously felt is quickly drowned out by annoyance.

“Suo.”

“Don’t worry—I don't mind,” he adds. “I thought you'd never ask. I just didn't think it’d happen here. And so suddenly.”

“Don’t do that. I can't do this today.”

“Don’t do what?” he says innocently. He lets you slip his changshan off one shoulder. To your relief, the cut does look very shallow—he’s too quick for anything other than a bullet to land a serious hit on him, you guess—but you still swallow when you see it. It looks like he's bled a lot more than he probably actually has.

Or you hope so, anyway.

“Joke like that,” you reply after a moment. “It's very mean.”

“I’m not joking about anything.” You feel his eye on you as you start dabbing at all the red on his skin, the paper towel in your hands blotting crimson as if with ink. Your breath shakes as you study the wound. He lifts his hand, his knuckle brushing against your cheek. You smack it away, but he doesn't seem bothered. “I was being very serious,” he continues. “Quit working in the red light district and let me support you instead.”

“Suo,” you say, your voice flat, “there is no job you could qualify for on this planet that will let you earn more than what I'm making now. If anything, you should let me support you.”

“Ah,” he says brightly. “I get it now—you want me to be your trophy husband!”

Now you are choking on your spit and you do think you're dying. Sakura sounds like he's not doing much better—something bangs loudly against the washroom stall, and you assume it’s his forehead. Even Nirei is affected, not-so-subtly clearing his throat.

“I do not want you to be my trophy husband.”

“Just a regular husband, then?” he asks. “That’s alright. If I joined the Yakuza, I could make plenty of money. You could even stay at home if you wanted.”

“Suo you motherfucker you are not joining the fucking Yakuza! And I wouldn't be a stay at home wife!”

“Oh? You wouldn't want to be?”

“No, god! Do you know how much I could make if I scored a hostess gig at a high-end place? Why would I ever turn down that kind of money?!”

“Ah, so you want us to be dual income?”

“Of course I would want us to be dual income!”

“You could get a different job and we could still be dual income.”

“There’s no other job that would pay as well.”

Suo sighs, and your brow twitches. You've always been suspicious about why he disapproves of your choice in career. It’s not in his disposition to judge people, but sometimes you still worry that he's doing it to you.

“What,” you ask, “would you be so against marrying a hostess?”

“No, not at all. But I'd be worried if my spouse worked somewhere unsafe. What if you end up at a Yakuza-owned club?”

You pause, startled at the abruptly earnest tone of his voice. Suddenly you feel guilty.

“Oh… well, I wouldn’t work at a Yakuza-owned club.”

“Hm… then I guess it's fine.” Suo nods, as if arriving at a decision. “We’ll get married, we’ll be dual income, and neither of us will work for the Yakuza.”

“Yes, exactly. We’ll get married, we’ll be dual income, and neither of us—” Your eyes go wide as you realize what you're saying. You feel yourself flushing. “Wait.”

“What? Is there a problem?”

“Suo.”

“Don’t tell me you're going to change your mind now. That would just be mean.”

“I'm being mean?” you ask, flabbergasted.

“Well, yes. You don't think it would hurt if you changed your mind about marrying me? And so soon after agreeing, too.”

You stare at him in disbelief. You have a number of possible retorts that cross your mind, and somehow you pick the least relevant one: “You can't trick someone into marrying you.”

“Then can I trick you into dating me?”

“Suo! I said don't do that!”

“Don’t do what?”

“Joke about that kind of thing!”

“I'm not joking about anything.”

“Yes you are? You don't actually want to date me. Stop saying that you do!”

Suo leans in. He stares at you, his gaze distinctly vulpine. It's very attractive, and also intimidating, and you should be used to it by now, but your heart rate ticks up anyway. You swallow thickly as his thumb glides along your cheek again, your skin scorching beneath his fingertips. You forget to bat his hand away this time.

“You’re so mean,” he repeats, voice lilting, “how come you never believe anything I say?”

He's baiting you. He's obviously baiting you, and you consider for a moment whether you want to bite.

Flirting with Suo is never a good idea—you can never tell whether he means to charm you or make fun of you when you do it. Sometimes it feels like both. Occasionally it feels mean. More often than not, you like to entertain it. But you can't right now. His shirt’s stained with such a bright red that it keeps distracting you, just like the blood he's left all over the washroom sink. Your manager will be furious about the mess, and also about the fact that you're giving first aid to three delinquents while you're on the clock. You think they'd go broke before they could spend enough money here to appease her, were she to discover the four of you. You might even lose your job. Then you wouldn't be able to support yourself anymore, let alone Suo, who cracks jokes as easily about being your trophy husband as he does about being Leonardo DiCaprio.

If he makes one more joke about marrying you, you'll probably throw up and cry.

“You're not being very gentlemanly right now,” you finally point out. He raises a brow.

“No?”

“No. I'd even say you're being a menace, actually. Doing a very bad job of”—you almost laugh as you say this, because you've heard this speech so many times—“engaging with my feelings. Not being supportive at all. Really falling off the staircase to adulthood, you know.”

Suo studies you. Something complicated passes through his eye before he pulls away, his expression now back to normal. It's deceptive how innocent he looks.

“Sorry,” he says. “You’re right. I’ll play nice.”

“No, you won't,” you retort, and Suo smiles at you, not replying. But he does give you a break. You finish cleaning up the cut without incident, although you do get flecks of blood on your evening gown, which you hope won't be too noticeable against the black satin. You bemoan the lost cause of Suo's changshan too—made of Suzhou silk, a gift from your master—and silently make a note to buy him a replacement sometime.

You're in the middle of buttoning up his shirt when the door clicks and swings open. Met face to face with your coworker, you freeze up.

Your stage name leaves her mouth in an angry bark. “What are you doing? I told you you're not supposed to be having sex with customers here, you should be doing that someplace—” She stops, evidently spotting the blood on Suo’s shirt, and then the other two individuals locked up in here with you, one of whom is blushing violently and looks to be on the verge of dying from embarrassment. Beneath your hands, you feel Suo’s body go stiff too.

“Oh,” she says before either of them can comment. “It’s just your delinquent boyfriend and his buddies.” Suo waves at her, and she nods back before squinting at the sink. “Are you going to clean that up?”

“Yes,” you say quickly. “Please don't tell our boss.”

“Have I ever ratted you out?” she asks. “Just get out of here soon. People do have to piss, you know.” Then she stops, looking at Suo with a dubious expression. “And make sure your boyfriend doesn't die.”

You're too tired to correct her on the nature of your relationship. “I've been trying,” you say, and she gives you a sympathetic look before retreating. You hear her laughing with a customer about people fooling around in the washroom, and I'm so sorry for the inconvenience, sir, and could you please go downstairs while I clean up. You’re so relieved, you nearly fall to your knees. A calloused hand touches your back as you rub your temples.

“I’m sorry for worrying you,” Suo says quietly—sincerely—and instead of saying no, you're not, you reply, “I know. I’m sorry too.”

Suo’s always hated your job.

He’s always hated your job, your boyfriends, your apartment, and a lot of other things about your life that Sakura doesn’t have any business prying into. And it's just as well. Sakura also hates your shitty job, and your shitty boyfriends, and considering that you live in the same shitty building as him, he isn't a fan of your rental situation either. Nirei’s too polite to say anything about it, but Sakura can tell that he disapproves as well. It’s not like any of them are living the most comfortable lives either—Sakura has personally been living from shithole to shithole, mostly alone, ever since his parents passed—but your lifestyle does make them all feel poorly.

You're just a very easy person to like. And it's very easy to want nice things for you. So Sakura gets it, how Suo feels about you.

What he doesn't quite get is how Suo acts about you.

One thing he’s learned over the years is that Suo is very good at reading people. Sometimes he understands Sakura better than Sakura understands himself, and he can convince Sakura to do things which he himself didn't think were possible for him to do. He's done the same with Nirei, and about half the other people in their grade, and at least a third of the guys in Bofurin. It’s frankly a terrifying skill. But Suo never uses it with you—not to get you to change jobs, or boyfriends, or even apartments.

At first Sakura thought that you were just immune to Suo’s tactics, but he's recently come to realise that Suo simply gets too emotional about you to know how to convince you of anything. He’s even emotional enough to get kind of petty and a little mean with you, which is something that Sakura has only witnessed from Suo during fights. Really bad fights.

It’s terribly uncomfortable, especially when you’re clearly head over heels for Suo.

Sakura doesn't have any business prying into your personal problems. Though truthfully, he’d be happy to thrash some random assholes for you anyway, if that would fix your heartbreak. (He's already done this to at least one of your exes, and it worked shockingly well.) The problem is, Suo is not a random asshole and Sakura isn't sure that you'd want him thrashed in the first place. But it's just fucking painful watching the two of you act like this around each other, so he ends up pulling Suo aside after you kick them out of the girls’ bar, scowling.

Suo looks at him, surprised. “Sakura? What's the matter?”

He doesn't mince words. “How come you were being such a dick to your friend?”

Nirei goes stiff. “Sakura,” he says in his panicked ‘why are you trying to pick a fight now’ voice, “where is this coming from? I don't think Suo was being rude…” But Sakura can tell, as Nirei’s finishing his own sentence, that he's second-guessing himself.

“No,” Suo replies. “I was being a bit terrible, wasn't I?” There’s no humour in either his words or his face, but the corner of his mouth lifts. He actually looks endeared. “I'm surprised you noticed, Sakura.”

“I mean”—Sakura feels himself going red, embarrassed at just the memory of how you looked at Suo; first so worried, then painfully fond, and then like you were going to burst into tears right there in the washroom and ask him to hold you, as if you were in a horrible getsuku drama—“it was kinda hard not to.”

Suo nods. “I suppose it’s natural to be sensitive to the feelings of someone you like.”

Heat floods his face. “I don't like her!”

“Did I say you did?” Suo’s mouth curls when Sakura can't answer. “Don’t be embarrassed. She's a very easy person to like.”

Sakura tries his hardest to ignore Suo—which should be easy, because Suo lies randomly and pointlessly all the time, whenever he thinks it's funny—and says, “If she's an easy person to like, how come you act like you don't like her at all?”

“Was I acting like that? Or was she acting like it was impossible for someone to like her?” Sakura stops. Suo gives him a long look, then smiles. “You would know how difficult it can be to accept being liked, Sakura. And how long it can take to understand that there are people who want to support you unconditionally.”

Sakura opens his mouth once, twice. A third time. Nirei sighs. The two of them watch as Suo—rather than walking in the direction of the subway—steps over to a vending machine and buys a bottle of oolong tea.

“Are you going to wait for her shift to finish?” Nirei asks.

“Mm, I think so.” Suo glances down at his ankle. “But you should go home, Nire-kun. You can’t fight like that. In case those guys come back here, I mean.” He opens the bottle, takes a sip. “They had bladed weapons. It would be bad if you risked it.”

Nirei glances at the entrance to your bar, worried. “But…”

Sakura understands without Nirei finishing his sentence. The security at your bar is terrible, and plenty of people like to exploit that. It was Nirei who noticed a group men eyeing you before anyone else did, following you all the way from Keisei Street to your place of work. And sure, Suo kicked the shit out of them in the end, did much worse to them than vice versa—but who knows if there aren't more of them.

Suo hates your job. All three of them do.

“It’s okay,” Sakura says. “I'm sure the two of us will be enough.”

“...I'll ask Tsubaki if he's free,” Nirei finally relents. “And I'll text Kiryu and Tsugeura too.”

“Thanks, Nire-kun.”

Suo gets a bottle of ramune after Nirei leaves, passes it to Sakura. Tsubaki comes by later, still in his pole outfit, with several pieces of taiyaki for them to share—I’m always snacky after dancing, he explains—and the three of them loiter in front of your bar until four in the morning. Tsubaki asks questions about you in a tone that has Sakura wanting to crawl into an alleyway just to hide, and Suo deflects masterfully with questions about Tsubaki’s new boyfriend. The guys from earlier don't show up. Maybe the sight of Roppo-Ichiza’s top fighter scares them off.

You're surprised to see them there when you emerge a little later. You give Tsubaki a happy but perplexed look as he hugs you.

“Tsubaki? What are you doing here?”

“Keeping these two company,” he replies. “And I wanted to say hi, of course. You should come by the club sometime, you know! I haven't seen you in forever.”

“Sure! That would be nice, but…” You turn to Sakura and Suo, puzzled. “Why are you guys still here?”

Sakura, on instinct, nearly recounts the whole evening to you—about the men tailing you, about how they got into a fight, about the kind of things they said they'd do once they caught you—but Suo answers first.

“Troubling you again,” is all he says. “It’s fine since your shift is over now, right?”

You give the two of them a long, curious look. For a moment, you look worried, but you're eventually disarmed by Suo’s expression.

“I guess it's fine,” you reply. You sound so happy. Suo’s gaze goes soft, and Sakura has to force himself not to look away. “Let's hurry up and go home.”

You smile at them, and it's the kind of smile that makes it very easy to like you. The kind of smile that makes it natural to want nice things for you. The kind of smile that would make anyone emotional, even if they're normally very controlled. It makes something in Sakura squeeze tightly, all knotted up and painful.

He’s starting to understand why Suo acts the way he does around you.

END

this wasn't meant to be a love triangle, my apologies…

this was also meant to be a very short piece (like 500w lol), but I kept thinking about what suo’s backstory might be, and why he was so comfortable in the red light district in the manga, and what these guys might realistically act like in an aged up, romantic context. that all coalesced into this very bizarre fic LOL. I'm not sure how it'll land, but I hope someone out here enjoyed it! I would like to write more about this triangle (+ nirei) but I'm not sure what the level of interest would be, or if it'll even make sense with the manga. I guess we’ll see eventually!

#LEAPING ON THIS #SPAWN CAMPING THIS #to read #wind breaker fic #suo hayato x reader #writer: yinyuedijun

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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Someone is following you.

You don’t need to look behind you to know that someone has been following you for the last fifteen minutes. Every turn, crossing, and stop. You could feel their gaze on the back of your neck. No killing intent. Yet. You didn’t speed up, you didn’t run. You kept to a steady pace. Your follower could fool themselves into thinking you were clueless.

You take a left instead of the right of your daily commute back to your apartment, and instead, enter a park, cutting across it, past the empty swings and playground, to the alley wedged between two buildings behind it.

The presence disappears. You stop. Turn around.

“Hey stranger!” Nagumo chirps, standing against the chain link fence enclosing the park. He brings a hand out of the long trench coat on his figure and lifts it in an enthusiastic wave. “Long time no see!”

You set your shoulders, instantly on guard. “What are you doing here?”

He tilts his head to the side, as if he’s genuinely confused, before he brushes it off in the same manner you’ve seen him shrug off your barbed words and people’s glares: with a bright smile. “Can’t I visit an old friend? It’s been ages!”

Just as you move to take a step back, he’s in front of you, taking a step closer.

“I’ve been really lonely these days,” he muses. “You know, with Sakamoto leaving the Order, and you being off the radar and all. Shishiba doesn’t even laugh at my jokes! He can be so du—”

“...”

“—deadly!”

“We aren’t friends,” you say bluntly. “We never were.” Rion was your friend. Rion got along with Nagumo for reasons beyond your comprehension. You and Sakamoto had somehow bonded over the long stretches of silence in which all the two of you could hear were Nagumo and Rion giggling away or bullying some undeserving freshman.

“Ouch!” Contrary to your words, he looks pleased. “Straight to the heart! Guessing if I ask you to be mine again, you’ll kill me, won’t you?”

What a joke. Your gaze sharpens, feeling a rush of irritation. You aren’t in high school anymore, but that smile always made you feel small. Like he’s hiding all your secrets in them. Like you willingly entrusted them to him in the first place. You’ve never trusted that smile.

Once again, you ask. “What are you doing here, Nagumo?”

His smile widens. He likes that you used his name. You don’t know what to do with that information. Your back hits brick.

He’s almost flush against you, despite every atom in your body rejecting your passivity. Your fingers twitch. You ground your feet against the dirt, forcing yourself to stay still. Five openings. You aren’t stupid enough to believe all of those five are actually openings. Even now, he’s guarded, shifting all the vital points of his body away.

You’re out of practice, but that doesn’t mean you’d go down easy.

Then a finger grazes your neck. You flinch so hard, you move against the brick. The hand drops.

“If you want me to back off, then kill me.” He leans in closer, until your noses are almost touching. He cranes his neck to the side, giving you an opening straight to his jugular. You can see the shapes of his tattoos pressed against skin, strands of his black hair resting against his neck. His voice lowers. “With that pen in your hands.”

You startle, looking down at your hand, fisted around a pen you have no recollection of taking out. You loosen your grip, and the pen falls out of your hand.

Your heart drops, eyes wide. “I…”

An honest life. No more killing. Sakamoto understood. Sakamoto had fallen in love and retired for good. If Sakamoto could do it, couldn’t you? You weren’t asking to be loved. You were asking to be better. To be a person your younger brother could call his older sister with pride.

“Ah! That reminds me! How’s your younger bro—”

The key in your hand is pressed right against Nagumo’s jugular. A thin trickle of blood runs down his neck, down the lines of his tattoos, down onto his pristine white collared shirt, staining it red. His hand is wrapped around your wrist, stopping you from piercing him entirely.

You stare at him. He meets your gaze evenly.

“See?” He smiles, eyes lidded, and it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a smile touch more than his lips. “I knew you still had it in you.”

#O_O #<- my face after reading this /pos #hes so strange . what a fucked up little guy. i need to study him like a bug #writer: seoafin #nagumo x reader #sakamoto days fic #the ... hhhhhhh the tension..... my brain is moving at 100000mph rn #he can be so unsettling so strange so offputting

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namodareads · 1 year ago

Text

*cracks knuckles* alright fellas. let's get into it.

i want to start off this dissertation by saying that nikoo worked incredibly hard on this fic and it is magnum opus worthy, piece of art la pièce de résistance (chefs kiss) but nikoo has many more wonderful memorable pieces all about this stinky loverboy man gojo ✌️✌️

this fic is so visceral and captivating, the opening is strong and gives a very clear message of: read me and figure out wtf is happening (teehee)

the way we are so instantly mercilessly tossed into the throe of it all (the screaming the memories the violence) is soooo brutal in a fascinating way, and the line abt gojo being freakishly tall was funny LMFAOOOOO (get bent).

and i have never really read time loop fics or consumed time loop media, but the horror of this one was so fascinating that no matter how many times i read it (or have it read to me, hehe) it's like there's always something new to pick up on or some new theme that emerges

Behind you, you hear a woman screaming, her voice crazed and terrified. You turn your head automatically to look at her and when you see her you realize you recognize her yellow and white magical girl costume. You can say with certainty that you’ve never seen her before and yet—

^ and THIS. ouragrrhghhghhhhhh. THIS!!! is an example of smth that u pick up on only after ur 2nd or 3rd time reading; that reader touching someone at the moment of death makes them loop too!!! and the fact that it comes into play later on too... on my knees rn.. and i never watched madoka magica but. i see u . nods. and this moment also makes me wonder abt the other ppl that accidentally touched reader before dying, if there were others... imagine how fucked up that'd be </3 and the fact that no one remembers after the loop resets even if reader touched them once.... aourghhhh they are truly alone....

and there is something sooo sinister abt the way reader's deaths are counted up until a certain point, where it skips from loop 10 to 14 to 17 and ongoing.... siiiggghhhhh... get this reader into therapy yesterday (pls this is not a drill /j)

reader's slow mastery (or rather, adjusting) to their technique is done so well too; from the way they conduct themselves to recognizing that every second counts, going from terror and horror to a kind of ... numb acceptance also is a terrifying (/pos) aspect of this fic

things are going well even tho reader is definitely past the breaking point of "oh my fucking god what the fuck is happening" and they try to fight for survival ... agonknee dot png... no longer are they freaking out but ... theyre just tryna get out of this hell !!

"yet another information gathering loop" is just so devastating to read; that reader has resigned themselves to this torture!!! literal death and torture in the hopes it gets them to a solution, or an loop where they dont die... (me @ reader: i see u are good at compartmentalizing ur emotions... wuld u like to talk abt that.... also pls let me study u like a bug) and that they talk abt making the most of every death :(((( king... let me hold u.... makes me wonder abt how adjusted they were before they found out they could do this...

"Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick." oh buddy do i have news for u . KJDHSFJKHSDJH .

as someone who hasn't seen this ep/season its very easy to picture the absolute terror and chaos this fic entails, the crowd of ppl, the turmoil the fuckin.. SCREAMS. my god. also gojo grinding his thussy on jogos arm but this aint abt that

You clearly remember thinking, at some point, previously, that there was something attractive about this man. You still don’t know what it is. You haven’t had the time to try and figure it out, but there is one thing that you do know: you can’t keep your eyes off of him.

looks at nikoo.

i know what u are dot png

anyways <333

reader 😔😔😔 i cant even blame them bc if i had to die in multiple violent horrible ways a million gazillion times id also look for any ounce of entertainment that could keep my sanity somewhat in check, and them being morbidly entranced by the violence of his actions just 😔 i need to put them in those blankets firefighters give to trauma victims, also an ice cream cone

gojo satoru u are an insane little man. take a sip of water every time reader full names him /lh AND THE FUCKIN.

THE FUCKIN HOPE U GET FROM READER GETTING FARTHER IN THE NEXT LOOP THAN THE LAST ONE 😔 ONLY TO HAVE IT RIPPED AWAY WHEN THEY DIE AND HAVE TO START FROM SQUARE ONE... GIVING THEM A TASTE OF HOPE.... evil....... <- lying face down

and the fact that it jumps from 18 times to 26.......... reader..... blink twice if u need help 😔😔😔 and the fact that theyre able to remember and keep track of things after dying multiple times is just... argouh..... and then straight to 30!!!! girl!!!!!

and . holy shit.

the dread the fear the terror the HORROR when reader realizes theyre supposed to meet w their friends... and the fact that (aside from u telling me kjdfkjdhsj) that at least one of them definitely died during this.... OUCH????? OUCHHHHHHH... im in agony just thinking abt it 😭😭😭😭 this the only time loop fic im gonna read bc OUCH /j and the awfulness of reader thinking abt having to watch their friends die over and over if they met up... reader forcing themselves to remember they're capable of getting out of here even if it takes a million years.. THINKING ABT THEIR FRIENDS AND LOOKING AT THEIR LOCKSCREEN.... PAY FOR MY TISSUES!!! AGONKNEE DOT PNG

BUT I CANT HELP BEING PROUD OF READER FOR ESCAPING THE LOWER PART OF THE STATION AND MAKING IT TO THE SPOT WHERE MIMIKO AND NANAKO ARE :((((

the bigger the leap of loops is the more devastating it is i think ... 30 to 60... time loop fic makes the despair and helplessness go crazy haha <- dying AND THE FACT THAT READER DOESNT GET TO BUILD ANY MUSCLE EITHER .... AWFUL....

You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. ... He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

^ hword moment break. heh. ik what u are reader (cant even blame u gotta do what u gotta do) ok anyways

THE JUMP TO OVER 100 LOOPS IS SO BRUTAL TOO.... HOW COULD U... <- WEEPING CRYING... I WANT TO REACH THRU THE SCREEN AND PULL READER OUT OF HELL

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

^ FALLS TO MY KNEES AGAIN IN THIS WALMART!!!!!!!!! READER !!!!!! WAILING INCONSOLABLE WAILING

and the fact that them reaching gojo and gojos involvement allowed them to get further than ever ... reader realizing they NEED him to break this loop.... aaaarrrrrrggggggghhh.... and fucking. KENNY

KENNY WHEN I FUCKING GET U KENNY . at least he helped reader realize they need gojo's cooperation to stop their loops SDKJHFJKDS...

As he talks, you realize this is probably the first time your death is intentional— every other death you've suffered has just been a byproduct of the ongoing slaughter. You were just another casualty, a victim, never a target.

^ THIS WAS SO DEVASTATING BTW.... READER BEING TARGETED FOR THE FIRST TIME AND KNOWING THEY LITERALLY CANT DO SHIT ABT IT... AARRGGGHHHHHH IM IN AGONY

TEARS IN MY EYES READER I LOVE U ..... THEIR DETERMINATION THO... THEIR EFFORT THEIR HARD WORK.... IM IN SHAMBLES IM IN PIECES

AND THE FACT THAT. THAT THE LOOPS STOP COUNTING. WHAT IF I DIE !!!!!!!!!!!! READER .... AGONKNEE DOT PNG!!!!!! the desperation theyre feeling is so well executed tho.... sniff.... the fact that they are painstakingly stealing back minute by minute.... im on my knees weeping

Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming.

^ heh. gojo fucker /j

You look down at your phone and, sure enough, Satoru Gojo has added himself as one of your contacts. He’s even added a little star to the end of his name. That’s… a little unexpected. Why his number though? “Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

^ im going to fucking kill him 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 GET UR HEAD IN THE FUCKING GAME GOJO!!!! LOCK IN GOJO!!!!!! FREAK!!!! this did make me laff tho

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all.

^ thats bc hes a little shit tied to u by fate reader DONT U SEEEEEEE DONT U SEE IT (no bc theyre dealing w immense psychological damage of having died 8736878 million times by now)

You look at the paper; it looks like a receipt. For a disturbing amount of mochi that Gojo bought earlier today. The amount of money he spent is almost sickening; way too much to be paying for mochi. More importantly, you notice something juxtaposed over the receipt’s print.

what if i just burst into tears... <- already crying. reader going thru this shit so many times but me as the audience finding comedy in this moment.. what if i CRY WHAT IF I SCREAM ... i dont even have the right words for how teary eyed this made me fr U_U despite everything its still u kinda thing.... cries....

BUT THEN READER BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF THAT BARRIER!!!! POP OFF KING !!!!!!

AND THE FACT THAT IT GETS HIM TO FINALLY TOUCH THEM AND PULL HIM INTO THE GODDAMN LOOP AFTER LOOKING LIKE AN IDIOT AND GIVING HIS NUMBER TO THEM AN UNGODLY AMT OF TIMES!!!! POP OFF READER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

^ YEAH U STUPID ASSHOLE IDIOT I NEED TO TALK TO U IVE NEEDED TO TALK TO U FOR 600 FUCKEN LOOPS IM GONNA CLOBBER UR EAR!!!!!!! <- THRU TEARS

but the way he teaches reader--helps them realize whats different abt the loop after he touches them...... on my fucking knees....... weeping sobbing.....

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

^ uncontrollable sobbing dot png

“You didn't get rid of the body properly!” You cut him off, raising your voice in hopes that he'll take even just a second to stop and listen. It seems to work and you add something you remember ‘Geto’ saying. “You should have had Shoko Ieiri get rid of it, but you didn’t and now some… some kind of gross brain thing is possessing the corpse!”

^ THIS THIS THIS !!!!!!!!!!!

i think i mentioned it before. but even tho we were jokingly calling it a halloween fic, this whole paragraph and the reveal to gojo just made me shiver so much!!!! the time loop stuff is terrifying of course, but every time i hear/read this line i just do a litttle "euughh" bc !!! rly there is nothing more terrifying abt the idea of something possessing ur best friends dead body!!! there is something so deviously sinister abt this delivery, abt the choice of words of "possessing the corpse" ... bc thats what geto is at this point, and its all kenny 😔 MANNNNNNNN ARRGGHGHHHHHHH

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

^ 487 DEAD 2948578 INJURED

“You know where I am down to the exact minute?” He asks and you tilt your head back and forth a little. It’s not exact per se, but it’s close enough. Gojo chuckles a little. “Man, I didn’t realize that you were actually that into me.”

^ 1 dead 1 injured (gojo)

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can. “I'll protect you.” You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

1 dead 1 injured (me)

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

^ YOU FUCKINGGGGG WISH GOJOOOOOOOOOOOOO

side note i like that gojo also calls jogo volcano head LMFAOOO... wait does he even know jogos name... anyways

So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

^ reader u are literally everything to me i wuld kill for u i wuld die for u i wuld eat a balanced diet for u my poor meow meow pookie bear shoves gojo aside

You are afraid.

^ i think this is the first time reader actually acknowledges their fear so plainly in this, and that makes it so heartbreaking bc its when theyve 1) successfully filled gojo in on what the fuck is happening and 2) they know what they have to do

and the fact that they ultimately DO let themselves trust gojo to protect them :(((( that he does save them from getting yoinked... MULTIPLE TIMES.... FROM HIS DEAD BEST FRIENDS BODY EVEN.... head in my hands ... pay for my tissues...

“Even if I make it past tonight… What if this all happens again? What if I inadvertently trap myself in another time loop?” you ask. “I… I don’t want to have to go through all of this again. It’s better for me in a place where time doesn’t pass.”

^ READER I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR U I WOULD KILL FOR U I WOULD DIE FOR U I WOULD EAT A BALANC--

AND THE ... !!!!! THEY GOT THEIR HAPPY(?) ENDING... THEY WERE ABLE TO STOP THE LOOP AND ALSO SAVE PPL AT THE STATION and also gojo ig. whatever (/j) AND THEY WERE ABLE TO DO IT ALL !!!!!!!!!

i love this fic truly, so so much , im holding this fic's hand, it's wiping my tears for me (pay for my tissues) and its tucking me into bed at night ... sniff... i love it sm and nikoo beloved worked so hard on it... blood sweat and tears.... FOR MONTHS !!! EVERYONE CHEER AND CLAP AND READ THIS 100 TIMES!!!!!!! OK... THANK U FOR COMING TO MY NIKOO TALK... going to lie in a puddle now....

BONUS if u've made it all this way:

beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

notes: it's finally here. the long awaited halloween fic. yes, i know it's march, but i did start working on it in september. haha. there's so much i could say, but i will leave it at that this fic is, in every sense, a fic that i would not normally write. and yet here we are.

contains: f!reader (no physical description or gendered language is used), no explicit romantic pairing (though you don't have to look hard to find the reader x gojo implications), major character death (played with), semi-graphic depictions of death, blood and violence, minor suicide ideation, canon retelling (lines of dialogue are pulled from the jjk english dub because i'm a dirty dub watcher). opening poem is from higurashi no naku koro ni (minagoroshi-hen). fic title is from giga's beyond the way.

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required) || playlist

Please tell me what happened in this night. It's like the cat inside the box.

Please tell me what happened in this night. You don't know if the cat in the box is dead or alive. Please tell me what happened in this night. The cat in the box was dead.

The first time, it is instant— you don’t even know what’s happening.

The second, it is by flame, but you barely realize it, barely feel it— a second of mind numbing heat before nothing.

The third time, it is something slicing across your throat; you see the blood spilling everywhere, then the pain follows— a moment of pure agony before nothing.

The fourth time you realize what’s going on; what’s really going on.

You realize you’ve been dying.

You think your head is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because the subway platform is crowded, insanely so— there are hundreds of people shoved into this space alongside you, packed like sardines in a can. You’ve never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you live in Tokyo. For the most part, you’ve learned to accept it, but even this crowd is a little much and you wish you hadn’t listened to your friends when they said you should go party in Shibuya for Halloween; you don’t even like partying.

There’s a sharp pain in your temple followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone is screaming it at you through a megaphone positioned right next to your ear.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

For the eighth time.

Before you can even question the thought, images flash in your mind’s eye, blurry at first before they come into focus. The platform gates open. Chaos ensues. People dropping onto the subway tracks— spontaneously bursting into flame— their heads, necks sliced off, stomachs cut open—

Bile rapidly builds up in your throat, and you clamp your jaw shut, trying to force it down. Not here. Not now. You try to focus on something else, anything else happening outside of your brain. There’s a pair next to you musing about the people standing on the subway tracks, wondering what the two (the four?) of them are talking about. You blink back tears as you look. You can only see two: a freakishly tall man with white hair dressed in all black, and another man, dressed in strange, yet more traditional looking garb. Are those costumes too? You don’t have a lot of time to think about it as another image forces its way into your brain.

Your corpse— lifeless on the ground.

Your corpse— burning to ash.

Your corpse— bleeding out.

You can’t hold it in any more. Every fiber in your being screams at you to get away from the subway tracks, but instead you rush toward them, shoving people left and right as your hands desperately reach the stability of the gate. You grip it like a lifeline as you retch over the side of it, the contents of your stomach spilling all over the subway tracks.

There’s a quiet murmur of disgust behind you but you can’t be bothered to respond. You need to get out of here. You need to leave. You need to do it before—

The gates open and the crowd starts to move like a tidal wave, pushing and shoving their way through the gate. You’re swept away, vomit long forgotten as you and a few dozen others tumble onto the railway.

Alarm bells go off in your brain, loud and deafening. A voice in the back of your head screams for you to get off the track! Get off the track now before—

The platform erupts into a cacophony of screams, drenched in horror, saturated in fear. You are surrounded by people, by corpses— beheaded, sliced open, bursting into flames.

Your terror roots you to the ground as the carnage ensues around you. It’s only when another person, another corpse, dressed in a magical girl costume collides with your body that you can finally move. But it’s too late, you realize, despaired and helpless, as your bodies fall to the ground.

It’s too late.

You die an eighth time.

You think your chest is going to explode.

At first, you think it’s because it’s so hard to breathe, frustratingly so— there are hundreds of people squeezed into this space alongside you, packed like cattle for slaughter. You've never been one for crowds, but it’s the reality of things when you’re in Shibuya. For the most part, you’ve come to accept it, but this crowd is way too much and you wish you had just stayed home and ordered a pizza; though honestly, the thought of pizza kind of makes you sick.

There’s a dull throbbing in your forehead, followed by a thought so loud that it feels like someone’s hollering at you from a loudspeaker that’s been installed in your brain.

It’s the night of October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You think it's the ninth time now.

Before you can ruminate more on it, images— memories assault your mind’s eye with a clarity that is absolutely sickening. That woman colliding into you, your bodies slamming into the subway tracks before you both— Your stomach churns violently,

and you feel like you’re going to puke, but you force it down— can't afford to right now. Instead, you make your way over to the woman.

Her head is in her hands as she mutters over and over again about how everyone is going to die. People around her figure that being stuck in here with the crowd has probably gotten to her. You, however, know better.

“...hey,” you say softly.

Her muttering comes to an abrupt halt and slowly she raises her head to look at you. There’s a flash of recognition in her eyes and she grabs you violently by the shoulders. “You! You know, don’t you? That we’re going to die?”

If it weren’t for the fact that you have indeed experienced death here eight times already, then you would have thought she’s lost her mind. Slowly, you nod and she seems relieved by it, her grip on you loosening.

You can’t help but feel a little relieved too— glad to know that you’re not the only one experiencing this nightmare. There’s a voice in the back of your mind that’s confused though. Why is she only remembering now? But then again, it took you a few times before you realized yourself.

Around you people start to gasp, and you glance back toward the railway to see an abnormally tall man with white hair and dressed in all black jump down from the atrium onto the railway. He lands rather gracefully for someone who jumped at least one floor and starts to converse with the other three people (you think they're people— two of them are in some pretty wild costumes) on the track.

Wait. Isn’t it supposed to be just two people: the tall man and the one in the traditional clothes? Where did the other two come from?

“We have to get out of here,” the woman says. “Before they kill us.”

Her grip shifts from your shoulders to your arms and she starts to shove at everyone around you, trying to force her way through. She seems to know, just as well as you do, that any second now the gates will open and the crowd will start spilling onto the railway, littering the tracks with bodies and ash. Neither of you can let yourselves get swept up with the rest. If you do and you end up on those tracks, you’re as good as dead.

People move aside at a snail's pace, many of them too focused on trying to see what is going on on the subway tracks. This isn't good. You need to move faster or else—

The collective sound of the gates opening echoes in your head, a metallic hiss that makes your stomach fold into itself. Before either of you can stop yourselves, you both whip your heads back to look, to confirm, but it’s a mistake.

The briefest lapse in attention is enough to pull you both into the current of people, and try as you might to fight against it, the crowd splits you and the woman apart as it swallows you both whole. You’re both spat onto the tracks at the edge of the platform and your head collides with the metal rails of the track. It feels like your skull is about to crack in two, and it takes every fiber in your being to scramble to your feet. You're close enough to the platform that if you can just climb up it, then you'll be—

“Help! Help!”

It’s the woman’s voice. You turn to see that she ended up a couple meters away from you. She’s staring at you, eyes brimming with fear filled tears as she extends her hand in your direction. You take a step toward her, reaching out.

And then, her entire body is engulfed in flames, the skirt of her magical girl costume a ring of fiery death around her.

Her blood curdling scream is the only thing you can hear, her burning flesh, the only thing you can see. You don’t know what to do.

You can’t save her.

There's something touching your back. You can barely feel the pressure, but it's hot, scorching hot, mind numbingly hot, painfully hothothot.

You know this sensation. You have felt it before. The scent of burning cloth, burning hair, burning flesh clogs your nostrils. It's too late, you realize, helpless, despaired as the flames eat at your body— your soon to be corpse.

It's too late.

You die a ninth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the tenth time.

Your head hurts, but you ignore it. There’s something more important that you need to attend to. You immediately make your way to the woman you met during your last round, the one you watched burn to death. Her costume is still pristine, unmarred by fire and death.

For now.

She’s not screaming this time and while there’s a little voice in the back of your mind that’s concerned by this, you try to ignore it.

“Um, excuse me?” you say when she doesn’t acknowledge you as you approach.

The woman turns to look at you. You’re taken aback by the distinct lack of recognition and it feels almost as if the woman you encountered previously and the one before you now are two separate people. In a way, they technically are.

“Do I… know you?” she finally asks when you don’t say anything.

Your mouth is dry. How do you even answer that? You don’t know her. You just watched her die twice. You know her. She begged you for help. You couldn’t save her.

If you explain all of this you know she’s just going to think you’ve lost your mind. Maybe you already have— you’ve died nine times after all.

You give her a weak smile. “I… just wanted to tell you that you think your costume looks great.”

She blinks, taken aback by your words. There’s no doubt that she wasn’t expecting you to say that. It’s the truth though, her costume is nice; she’s dressed up as a character from a magical girl anime that was popular a couple years ago.

“Thank you! I made it myself!” The woman breaks out into a genuine smile and your heart hurts. In a few moments she’ll die and the costume she worked so hard to make will be nothing but ash on the subway tracks.

“Sorry,” you blurt out before you can stop yourself.

“For?”

For watching her die. For not being able to save her.“...I just kind of came up to you all of a sudden…”

She laughs. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

You consider telling her that she should try to move. That if she stays here she will die. You don’t want her to die. Again. You can still hear her screaming in your ears as she burned to death. You want to tell her.

You don’t.

“Stay safe, okay?” you say. It almost sounds like you’re begging.

She gives you another smile, kind and gentle and you think you’re far too undeserving of it for not telling her what fate will soon befall her. “You too.”

“I’ll try,” you say and move away from the woman just as the gates open and the crowd surges toward the railway. You do not fight it as you are swept up into the crowd and despite what you said, you do not try, this time, to stay safe.

You die for the tenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the fourteenth time.

There’s a slight ache in your head, but it’s subtle enough that you can ignore it. The pain you feel lessens with each round and you think it’s a sign that your body no longer feels the need to remind you of the precarious situation that you’re in.

Or maybe you are just becoming numb to everything: your death, the death of the people around you, the death of the woman in the magical girl costume—

You try not to think about it too much as you reach into your bag to check the time on your phone: 8:37PM. There’s not a lot of time: you need to move.

At the very end of your last attempt to escape this nightmare you realized something. You need to know exactly what is going on around you so you can plan accordingly: where to not stand, where to not go. Up until now, you’ve relied almost solely on the knowledge gained from your previous failures to try and survive, but obviously it’s not enough to keep you alive. You’re not sure why you didn’t realize this earlier. The panic, maybe? The fear?

Maybe you really are becoming numb to all this.

Unlike previous iterations, this time you elect to move closer to the gate, positioning yourself somewhere against it where you’re unlikely to be pushed off the platform in a couple minutes when they open. You take great care to place yourself where you can see the ones responsible for the slaughter very clearly. At the beginning, you could only see one, the one who looks the most human, but with each repetition, the other two have become more and more clear. You wonder why. You don’t have time to think about it.

Murmurs nearby alert you to the arrival of the fourth major player involved in the night’s events. You look up and see the white haired man dressed in all black descending upon the platform like an angel from the heavens. This is your first time really looking at him and you realize there’s something almost inhumanly attractive about him. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it occurs to you that you shouldn’t even try; you don’t have the time to be drooling over some handsome stranger.

You’ve naturally never taken the time to try and listen to whatever the conversation the man and his opponents have before all hell breaks loose on the platform, but you try and lean closer to listen. It’s hard to hear over the dozens of conversations going on behind you, but you try anyway. There might be a clue to what’s actually going on— or better yet, a clue on how to get out of it.

It’s obvious that you’re missing context from what bits of the conversation you do manage to hear, but honestly it all sounds like stuff out of a shounen battle manga. There is one part of the exchange that you manage to hear with a startling sort of clarity. It feels almost as if your heart stops beating as your blood turns ice cold in your veins.

“If I run away, you’re just gonna kill everyone here, right?” the man in black asks.

There’s a pause, and if your heart was still beating it’d be long enough for just four heartbeats.

“If you run away?” The monster with cane repeats, the sadistic grin spreading wide across its features, displaying its charcoal black teeth. The gravelly sound of its voice sets fire to the blood in your veins, your stilled heart thumping wildly, in fear, in anticipation. Soon. It’s happening soon. You brace yourself. “We’re going to do that even if you don’t!”

You die a fourteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is the seventeenth time now.

Things are going surprisingly well, even as the people around you tumble onto the tracks. You manage to hold on, desperation keeping you from falling into the abyss. This is good, you tell yourself, despite the fact that it’s not the first time you’ve achieved this. Every little victory is worth celebrating, but you have to remain vigilant. This is yet another information gathering loop, and while you know that maybe this time you’ll be lucky and live, there’s still a chance, a big one, at that, that you will die again.

You have to make the most of each and every death.

It’s such a morbid thought, but the ends justify the means, or so you tell yourself. If you have to die a few times to make it out of this unending nightmare, then so be it.

The spot you’re in is a good vantage point; it’s easier to see everything happening below you. It’s so good that it’s actually sickening. You watch as the monster with the cane and one with what looks like branches for eyes slaughter the people on the track, mowing them down, setting them aflame. In another life, in another many lives, that was you down there, and for what feels like the first time in forever, you feel like you’re going to be sick. You feel like, at some point, you likened the scene before you to some kind of shounen battle manga, but you think that was wrong.

This is borderline horror.

Everything plays out before you like a scene out of an action horror flick. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were just an extra on set, but you know the reality is that you’re just an extra to whatever phantasmal battle is taking place in front of you. The monsters and the strangely dressed man all try to attack the man in black, but he manages to block every hit effortlessly, as if he is protected by some sort of invisible barrier. When it seems the two monsters are about to hit him, he merely jumps out of the way and the two monsters seem to collide, the force of their combined strength sending a gust of air throughout the crowd. The man in black neatly lands on a nearby platform half wall and says something about curse users, whatever those are, to the monsters, before he starts to mock them, pulling down his strange blindfold in the process.

And this, you’ve found, is where you start to get in trouble.

He drops back down onto the tracks, antagonizing his opponents in an arrogant tone as he approaches. When he comes to a stop between the two monsters, the second round of their fight begins. They try to hit him, but he dodges still, gracefully, fluidly, like the three of them are embroiled in some sort of passionate, yet violent dance.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he cruelly rips off one of the arms of the one-eyed monster.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he brutally kicks the branch-eyed monster in the abdomen, sending them flying to the other side of the platform.

You cannot turn your eyes away as he effortlessly hurls the one-eyed, now one-armed monster in the same direction, sending them smashing into the wall.

Only when the man in black seems to fly to the other side is the spell over you seemingly broken. Still, your eyes give chase, and your body too, rushing from one side of the platform to the other. You can’t lose sight of this fight, you tell yourself, settling in a spot you recall being safe during your last round. Doing so could mean another death, another loop, another October 31.

You watch as the man in black acrobatically dodges what looks to be vines or roots that the monster with branches for eyes seems to have summoned from the depths of the Tokyo metro. He lands on the monster’s shoulders, balancing on them as he uses its branch-eyes for leverage. The look in the man’s eyes is so crazed that you can see it from where you’re standing. He says something to it and then—

With a feral and sadistic smile, he rips their eyes straight out of their skull.

Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest as you watch the fight unfold. It is horrifyingly, disgustingly violent, yet still you watch as people on the track are killed by the human-like person, blood raining down as their freshly beheaded skulls go flying into the air. He and the one-eyed monster launch their counter attacks against the man in black and the blowback is so intense the power goes out causing everyone to scream.

There’s a faint glow where the man in black is standing that starts to grow brighter and brighter. You can make out his form turning to face the wall, and it seems almost like he’s slammed the monster that had branches for eyes against it with some sort of telekinetic power. Despite the panic from the people around you, you manage to hear him, chuckling like a mad man as he draws closer and closer to the monster.

The one-eyed monster yells out a name, a name you think must belong to the man, but he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as he extends his hands out toward the eyeless monster, exerting some kind of force that you can’t really see. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster as the eyeless monster’s entire body is vaporized in a flash of blue light. He doesn’t hear the one-eyed monster, as the lights flicker back on revealing a smoking crater stained with purple blood where the eyeless monster once stood.

But you do.

Satoru Gojo.

You make sure to remember that.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And this is the eighteenth time.

You watch as the man called Satoru Gojo stalks through the crowd of people on the subway tracks, chasing after the one-eyed fire monster. It throws people at him, in a clear attempt to slow him down.

It does not work.

Satoru Gojo climbs back onto the platform in a way that you can only describe as inhuman, and the people nearby shriek and move away from him, out of terror, out of fear. You, on the other hand, draw closer, refusing to lose sight of him.

He is relentless in his pursuit of the one-eyed monster. It continues to throw person after person at him, but he does not stop and the people float there, suspended in midair before they are gently lowered to the ground by some unseen force and scramble away.

No one dares get close to Satoru Gojo, everyone on the platform seems to know that doing so means certain death, yourself included. But you still feel the need to keep an eye on him. The monster and the strangely dressed man are focusing more on him than the crowd— anyone in between is just collateral damage.

But not you.

Especially since you’ve made it this far— you’ve never made it this far before.

A voice echoes throughout the platform; you realize it’s the automated announcement.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You can hear everyone’s relief coming from all sides. The train is coming! The train is coming! A ripple of hope makes its way throughout the crowd. With the train comes the chance to get off the platform and the senseless violence that’s been happening here. Some of the people around you are talking excitedly and others are running toward the gates, toeing the yellow line they’ve been instructed to wait behind. And you, you should be excited, you should be hopeful.

All you feel is dread.

It eats at your stomach, at your chest, at your mind. Clawing and gnawing at you in a way that leaves you paralyzed on the platform. There’s something wrong here. You can’t be sure because you’ve never made it this far, never survived long enough for the train to come, but something is just not right.

No.

You must be paranoid. The train coming is a good thing. It has to be a good thing. You are just paranoid. It’s normal. It’s natural. Dying seventeen times would do that to anyone— rob them of hope, condemn them to an existence full of fear.

It is not lost on you that the thought of dying more than once, much less, dying seventeen times is not normal or natural in the very slightest.

But you need hope, you crave it, wildly, desperately. The hope of freedom, of escape is the only thing getting you through this unending nightmare. Every time you die, every time you wake, it is with the hope that maybe, just maybe this iteration will be different, maybe this one will be the one where you make it out, make it back to your friends who must be waiting for you, make it back home where you can be safe and sound. You need the hope to keep going. Because without hope, what will you have left?

The train screeches as it pulls into the station and the people around you laugh in both disbelief and relief. They start to push and shove toward it, fighting to be able to board because there’s no way everyone here will be able to get on an eight car train and being left behind at this point is practically synonymous with death. Unable to decide if you believe in the train as a symbol of hope or a new layer of fear, you are pushed along with the crowd toward it.

The doors of the train cars slide open and the current passengers all rush off as they disembark. You as well as everyone else on the platform can see with a horrifying clarity that the train is filled to the brim with monsters. Monsters that reach out and grab anyone their hands can reach. The woman to your left. The person to your right.

You.

Hope is gone.

What do you have left?

You die for the eighteenth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This is probably the twenty-sixth time now.

If there is anything this entire ordeal has taught you, it is that you are resilient. Whether it is some innate trait that you never had any reason to uncover before or just a byproduct of being trapped in an unending cycle of being dead and not dead, you don't know. What you do know, though, is that even if you no longer have hope, you at least have your resilience.

Whether you want it or not.

You check the time. It’s 8:35PM. Something flickers in your chest, like a faint light in a sea of darkness, but you ignore it. You don’t have time right now.

With a nimbleness born from your previous failures, you weave your way through the crowd. You’ve done this enough times to know where the gaps are— who will yield and who won’t. Your destination is the escalator that leads off the platform and up to a higher part of the station. You’d noticed previously that the escalator along with every other entrance onto the platform will eventually be blocked by vines or roots of some sort (the work of the branch-eyed monster probably). It’s not a perfect plan because you don’t know what happens on the other side, but whatever it is has to be better than whatever is happening on the side that you’ve been on.

You’d tried to get to the stairs during your last two rounds, but you’d just missed it. You hadn’t been fast enough and had gotten caged and slaughtered along with the rest. But this time, this time you have more time. It’s just one minute, but it’s enough. You know it is.

The flickering in your heart grows stronger. Hope. You try not to pay attention to it— you don’t want to be disappointed yet again. But you want to so badly. A voice in the back of your mind tells you to focus on the good, tells you that if there was truly no way out of this endless nightmare, then why would you get more and more time with each round to escape your fate?

With that thought in mind, you break out into a run, recklessly rushing through the crowd, shoving anyone who will not yield to the side. Out of the corner of your eye you can see the stark white of Satoru Gojo’s hair as he descends upon the platform.

You need to get up those stairs.

Now.

If you remember correctly, the roots and vines don’t close off the area the moment he touches down, but a little after they start talking, so you think there is probably some time, but you can’t leave it to chance.

The stairs are packed, and for some reason no one is moving. The escalator right next to it is just as full and the power doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t have time for this. You clamber onto the escalator’s rubber handrail, ignoring the weird feeling that passes through your body as you do so. You don’t have the time to worry about whatever that is. The people around you start exclaiming around you, but you don’t care, you don’t listen. You wobble as you try to balance yourself and when you think you’re steady you try to run.

But you trip.

And you die for the twenty-sixth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

This marks the thirtieth time.

And you have, finally, finally made it up the escalator, up the stairs with barely a second to spare. You pause, glancing back as the roots or vines or whatever the hell they are seal off the entrance to the platform. You notice that the area where the plants come down is actually fairly clear, despite the crowd. It seems weird, but you don’t dwell on it.

A strange feeling envelops your entire body and your legs turn into jelly. As you sink to the floor, you realize what you’re feeling is relief as all the tension, maybe thirty iterations of Halloween 2018 worth, seeps from your being. You don't remember the last time you felt anything other than fear and dread; it’s weird, but not unwelcome.

That voice in the back of your mind tells you that you can't relax just yet: October 31st isn’t over. Even though you have repeated this night again and again, burning the events that play out on the platform into your memory, you do not know a single thing that happens over here. It would be smart to scope everything out.

Legs still shaky, you rise to your feet and start walking. You think it’s probably for the best to try and head up to the surface and you make your way up to the next floor.

It’s packed with people here too, but relatively peaceful, especially when you compare it to the pandemonium taking place beneath your feet. Still, you can make out the undeniable hum of displeasure resonating throughout the crowd. People complaining about how uncomfortable their costumes are, people complaining about how much they want to go home, people complaining about how much their nights have been ruined because they couldn’t meet up with their friends and—

A thought hits you like an eight car train.

You were supposed to meet up with your friends.

That’s why you were on the platform in the first place— you were waiting for them to arrive, but then the trains stopped working, and people just started pouring into the station out of seemingly nowhere (you think you heard some people say they’d come from the crossing?). Soon after that is when everything went to shit.

You check your phone, though, for once it’s not to look at the time (8:56PM). Instead, you open LINE to check your friends’ group chat. There’s no signal here, for whatever reason, so if there are any new messages, you haven’t received them. The last one was from Kei, mentioning he was enroute, but as far as you know, you’re the only one who made it to Shibuya before the trains stopped.

Did one of them maybe make it here though? Surely, you would have run into them if—

The image of a woman in a magical girl costume fills your vision, burning to death before your very eyes as her screams echo in your ears. It is the first time in what feels like forever that you’ve thought about her and your stomach churns violently. You couldn’t help her, you can’t even help yourself, so how could you even expect to do the same for your friends if they were here? The mere thought of having to watch them die over and over is almost enough to send you over the edge. You don’t know if you could do it.

Would you even have a choice?

No. You can't think like that. You have choices. You've had choices. If you didn’t then, you would still be down below, among the fire and brimstone. Dying, if not dead already. However, instead, you are up here, where, for the moment, it is quiet and peaceful.

That thought, in of itself, is enough to give you a shred of solace, a glimmer of hope.

You take a deep breath and fiddle with your phone a little more, changing your lock screen to a picture you and your friends took at a photo booth not too long ago. The four of you are huddled together, faces squished as if you're all struggling to fit in the frame, despite there being plenty of room. You're mid-laugh because it's the first time you've been in a photo booth in years, Mio and Shin are grinning mischievously and finally, Kei is smiling, but only just slightly, the embarrassment clear on his face. It's probably only been a few months since you all took this picture, but the fact that it feels like it's been years makes your heart ache.

You press your forehead to the screen, like a prayer, like a promise.

You will make it out of this nightmare.

No matter what.

A shrill scream yanks you from your thoughts and you are instantly on your feet, alert as your eyes flit around frantically to identify the source. It doesn't take long for you to find it and when you do, you think you might have stumbled upon a new layer of horror to this nightmare.

It’s not the corpse, dangling by a noose, that terrifies you— by now you’ve seen dozens upon dozens of dead bodies that the sight of just one more doesn’t faze you in the slightest. The thing that’s the most mortifying, that’s the most disturbing is that right next to where the body is tied are two girls, two teenage girls still dressed in their school uniforms.

You can accept monsters and weirdly dressed men being responsible for the carnage tonight, but children too? Both girls look like they’re barely in high school and try as you might to rationalize things, to chalk it up to coincidence, you cannot ignore the ominous energy radiating from them.

The very notion that these two children could have killed someone here is a hard pill to swallow, but so is the fact that you’ve died.

And you’ve had to swallow that pill thirty times now, so what’s once more?

“Listen up!” one of the girls yells over the crowd, but she is mostly ignored; you don’t think everyone here has noticed her and the corpse dangling from the rafters. She scowls and turns to the other girl and says something quietly to her. The other girl nods and almost instantly she’s stringing up another person, another example. You want to look away so badly, and yet you cannot bring yourself to and you watch the poor soul choke to death.

“I said listen, you dumb monkeys!” the girl shouts, and this time she’s caught most of the crowd’s attention. “If you don’t want to end up like these two, you’ll listen to what we have to say!”

There is clear dissent among the crowd, people dismissive as they utter their disbelief. Some seem to think it’s a prank, but you know better. It takes two more examples before the crowd goes silent before the two high schoolers.

“About damn time!” The girl roars and then points toward the atrium, which is currently covered by roots and branches. “All of you move over there!”

You have a bad feeling about this.

Still, you comply; the girls have made it abundantly clear that failure to do so will result in death, though, at this point, you're almost certain this iteration is a bust and death is all but imminent. You try to keep positive— thinking you can at least gather information or, who knows, maybe there's a chance that this one is the one.

Yet when you step onto the mound of vines and branches that cover the atrium it feels as if you've crossed the threshold into hell. Your footing is stable… but for how long?

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

It's faint, but you can hear the announcement from below. The liquid in your stomach curdles at the sound as you recall the train and, in particular, what is on board. Soon enough, those monsters will be swarming the platform, massacring everyone in reach, guzzling down their blood, feasting on their flesh—

It dawns on you that the people on the platform are the monsters' first course.

And you, and those around you here in the shrubbery, are the second.

As you realize this, the branches and vines disintegrate beneath your very feet and suddenly you are mid air— falling, falling into the abyss below.

You die for the thirtieth time.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

You've done this nearly sixty times now.

After countless failures, you've decided that you're just not going to go upstairs any more. No matter where you try to go, you still end up herded onto the death trap above the platform where you ultimately fall to your death. You've tried positioning yourself in the same spot, tried bracing yourself for the drop— but nothing seems to work: upon landing, assuming you manage to land without hurting yourself or dying in midair (which has happened a couple times) you get grabbed and killed by one of the monsters from the train. It's probably not impossible, you just don't have the physical prowess or reflexes for it.

If anything, you can try again later, but you sincerely hope you don't have to.

It's 8:32PM, and you have plenty of time to get to your chosen spot for this loop— it's close to the stairs, in the very center of the platform. Here, there's little risk of getting pushed off onto the tracks when the gates open. You'll probably have to move when the train comes, or even before (assuming you survive) to avoid the monsters, but you'll get to that when it's time.

You can't really see the fight once it breaks out after Satoru Gojo arrives, but you still try to keep track of it as best as you can. You see when he hurls both monsters across the platform and you're not sure if it's muscle memory or what but you have to fight the urge to move to the side and watch. It's been a while, yes, but you've seen the fight countless times before— it doesn't change. Satoru Gojo will give chase. He will rip the branches from the branch eyed monster's skull. He will use some kind of power to eviscerate them.

You don't need to watch, but there's something in you that wants to.

It doesn't make sense, you've seen it all before; if you're unlucky you'll see it all again.

The lights go out and people start screaming; Satoru Gojo is ending the life of that one monster. Soon enough he'll be back on the platform, in pursuit of the other. You think at that point it would be good to move, reposition yourself as far from the incoming train as possible.

When he rises from the tracks like a demon straight from hell, you realize it's the first time this loop that you've actually gotten a good look at him. You remind yourself, again, that this isn't the first time you've seen this man, this scene. You can't help but watch, but stare at Satoru Gojo as he stalks through the crowd in pursuit of his prey. His expression is an eerie sort of calm that's at odds with the acts of violence you've seen him commit— his eyes an unnaturally bright blue.

He's a terrifying sort of beauty and you can't help but be captivated by him.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

The sound of the announcement sends your heartbeat into a frenzy, snapping you out of your little trance. The train is coming and you need to get moving. As you dart to the edge of the platform, the thought occurs to you that even if you avoid the initial wave of monsters, it's likely you will inevitably be caught by them and killed. It wouldn't be impossible for Satoru Gojo to turn his attention to them instead of the two he's currently facing, but he's just one man— can he truly defeat all those monsters?

You can see the train pulling in and you brace yourself, praying that it'll work out somehow.

The doors hiss open and the screaming starts again as the monsters come bursting out of the train, biting and mauling anyone they can get their hands on. Those who were lucky enough to not be at the front start to scramble away and the monsters give chase. Your body is taut, ready to try and dodge any that come your way.

Out of the corner of your eye you notice something moving through the air. A person? With blue hair? You take the risk to look— they're attacking Satoru Gojo. He tries to punch them but they fly away from him to dodge— disappearing into the crowd.

You hear a loud cracking sound over the cacophony of the crowd and your stomach twists; you know what that sound is. The roots above the atrium disintegrate and bodies from above start to rain down onto the platform.

And then, you're not sure what happens— it's so quick that you only manage to see what looks like an explosion of blood surrounding Satoru Gojo. Corpses litter the ground around him and even from here you can tell he is shaken by the carnage.

The monsters have finally reached where you're standing, and you duck under one as it lunges at you. Although it's big and scary, you realize it's moving kind of slow. Right after it another one comes at you and you take a side step to avoid it; this monster is kind of slow too.

Maybe you can do this.

As soon as you think that a strange feeling courses through you. Every hair on your body feels like it's standing on edge and the voice in your head is telling you to look at Satoru Gojo. You don't understand why because you think he's the least of your worries right now, but you do it anyway.

He's in some sort of stance, one hand raised to his face, fingers bent in some kind of gesture. There's some sort of aura, oppressive and frightening emanating from his form.

Satoru Gojo is doing something.

You just can't tell what.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are utterly confused.

Barring your first few loops when you weren't fully aware of what was happening, you have very distinct memories of how each of your previous iterations of this night have gone— of each and every one of your deaths. But for your last round, the last thing you remember was feeling the immense power radiating from Satoru Gojo's body, but that's it.

You do not remember dying.

In fact, you don't think you did.

And yet, here you are again, back at the start: it's 8:32PM and the monsters and strangely dressed man are standing on the subway tracks waiting for the arrival of Satoru Gojo.

You don't understand what's going on; you didn't die but you're still stuck in this damn loop. Up until now, your death has served as the trigger to restart the loop. It's not impossible that maybe you suffered a quick and painless death but you're almost certain that isn't the case.

Something else must have happened.

Something having to do with Satoru Gojo.

You have to find out what. If you don't, you won't know how to avoid it, and if you can't do that, then you really might spend an eternity stuck in this nightmare. And so you take great care to repeat the steps of your last round. You need to make sure to survive to the same point you made it to last time.

Miraculously, you do.

The moment you feel that sensation again, a prickling sort of feeling that envelops your entire body, your eyes are on Satoru Gojo— trying to figure out what the hell he's doing. His eyes are crazed with a desperate kind of focus. You see his mouth move— he's saying something. A spell? A prayer? A curse?

You don't know.

You do know.

Your brain feels like it's going to explode.

Again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

Again.

You do not know how many times it's been the night of Halloween in Shibuya: you stopped counting around the hundredth loop. It feels like it's been a while since then. Or maybe it hasn't? You don't know any more.

What you do know is that this night ends up going one of two ways before you are forced to repeat it. Either you die, in some way, shape or form or something happens just after nine that forces you to reset. You still don't know what it is exactly; you only know that Satoru Gojo is responsible for it.

You do prefer it to dying— it's far less painful.

But if anything, you wish you could just die permanently and never have to repeat this night ever again.

Unfortunately, you know better.

The only good thing you’ve noticed about all of this is that you really do seem to keep waking up earlier and earlier. The last time you checked, it was at around 8:30. It might take hundreds of thousands of loops, but eventually you’ll certainly wake up early enough to avoid this damn entire mess.

But by the time that happens… will your sanity still be intact? Will you really be able to go back to a normal day to day life after living the equivalent of hundreds of years, repeating the same night over and over again? You don’t even know how you’ve managed to stay sane all this time and as much as you want to believe you could do it…

There has to be a breaking point.

For both your mind and this time loop.

If you’re lucky, you’ll reach the latter first.

There’s a dull ache in your head that feels foreign yet familiar. Your mind is foggy, all your thoughts hazy as you try to recall what the word for this feeling is.

Groggy.

It feels as if you’ve woken up from a nap and you blink the sleepiness away from your eyes. When was the last time you took a nap? It’s been a while… You think you maybe tried once or twice, but you were too nervous, too on edge. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter because, either way, you were doomed to repeat this nightmare.

As you think this, you realize that something is different.

You’re used to how the start of each loop feels like waking up suddenly and abruptly and it becomes clear to you that you haven’t looped. This is completely uncharted territory.

You need to find out what’s going on.

The first thing you notice is that it’s quiet. Almost eerily so, especially when the last thing you remember was screaming and chaos. You glance around you and find that it looks like all the monsters from the train are dead, the ground littered in their bloodstains and corpses. There were so many of them, you don’t know how someone could have wiped them out so quickly… Could it possibly have been Satoru Gojo’s doing?

More concerning than the complete eradication of the monsters is the fact that nearly everyone else on the platform is standing stock still, their mouths ajar with blank expressions on their faces. It’s almost as if their souls have completely vacated their bodies…

Were you like that too before you woke up?

You hear voices, and your body immediately goes tense as you turn your head in their direction. A little ways ahead of you, you see a man dressed as a monk conversing with the blue haired person from earlier and before them is—

Your heart nearly stops: it’s Satoru Gojo, restrained and on his knees.

Honestly, you can’t make heads or tails of the conversation they’re having; it’s more shounen battle manga nonsense. Satoru Gojo doesn’t seem to be enjoying their conversation either, and he interrupts them, clearly annoyed.

“Are we gonna do this or what?” he asks. “The view sucks and I’m just kinda bored.”

“I wanted to enjoy this sight for a little bit longer, but you are right,” the monk says. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen— gate, close.”

When he says that, Satoru Gojo’s restraints move, the weirdly shaped cubes at the ends of them closing in around him, trapping him in a giant red cube. It starts to shrink until it’s small enough to fit in the monk’s hand.

You gulp and hope they don’t notice that you’re awake. The fact that they haven’t slaughtered the rest of the people standing around you is a good sign, but you don’t want to find out what happens if they know you��re cognizant.

It’s not hard to play the part of a living statue, especially when you compare it to everything else you’ve had to suffer through on this night. You watch as the monk’s allies, the ones who had attacked everyone on the platform, wake up, but before they can do or say anything, the box holding Satoru Gojo slips through the monk’s fingers and makes a dent in the concrete. The look on the monk’s face makes it clear that it’s a problem he wasn’t expecting.

You don’t know a damn thing about Satoru Gojo, but you feel like this kind of thing is the norm for him.

The blue haired person suddenly looks in your direction and you nearly stop breathing. Have they noticed you? It takes everything in you to keep perfectly still, in hopes that maybe they didn't, that maybe they’re looking at something else. They raise their arm and it extends, their hand acting like some kind of projectile. You almost shut your eyes and brace yourself for impact, but their hand flies upwards and hits something on the ceiling, destroying it.

Inwardly, you breathe a sigh of relief— you’re still safe.

For now.

You listen to their following conversation and while you still don’t fully understand everything, it’s clear they’re talking about what to do next since they’ve taken care of Satoru Gojo. Something having to do with someone named Yuji Itadori? The group seems split on what to do about him but it’s clear he’s their next target.

Eventually, everyone but the monk (you heard the blue haired person, who is apparently named Mahito, call him Geto?) runs off, probably to find this Yuji Itadori person. Once they’re gone, Geto speaks and, at first, you think he’s talking to you, but it becomes clear he’s addressing someone else. “Those cursed spirits are actually smarter than the two of you.”

“Give him back!” a voice hidden among the crowd hisses. Your blood runs cold at the sound. You recognize it; it’s one of the high school girls from the upper floor.

“We cooperated with you fully and kept dropping monkeys for you,” says another voice; it must be the other girl that was with her, the one who hung all those people.

“Now give us back Master Geto’s body like you promised!”

“Don’t toy with Master Geto any further than you have!”

You blink in confusion. Isn’t the monk named Geto? The way the girls are talking it sounds like they’re talking about someone else… Is it possible that the body is ‘Geto’ but the person they’re talking to is someone else possessing it? It sounds kind of crazy, but then again, so is every single thing you’ve experienced tonight.

Your suspicions concerning this ‘Geto’ are confirmed only seconds later as he says, “Now begone, or is it your desire to be killed by this body?”

One of the girls vows her revenge and you hear shuffling somewhere else in the crowd as they scurry away. Now you think it’s just you and whoever it is that’s puppeting Geto’s body. You see him plop down in front of the box (the prison realm, you think he’d called it) that’s holding Satoru Gojo.

“You can come out, you know,” he says after a while.

You freeze. The rest of the platform is completely silent. This time you think he might actually be talking to you.

“I know you’re there,” ‘Geto’ adds, his voice casual. “If you’re insistent on hiding, you should know that I’m not afraid of using whatever means necessary to smoke you out.”

Given everything his allies have done, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s serious. You were hoping to hide out among the crowd until he decided to leave, but it looks like you won’t be able to now.

Looks like this loop is a bust after all.

Your heart starts to race as you weave your way through the crowd. In every single one of your loops, you were always treated like a bit character, never noticed or singled out by any of the major players of the night. Although this is your first time encountering this ‘Geto’ it’s clear to you that he’s involved with everything that’s happened here and honestly, you get the feeling he might actually be the mastermind behind the massacre.

That makes you even more nervous.

You come to a stop in the place where Satoru Gojo was once kneeling before he was put in that box. Now that you’re out in the open, ‘Geto’ looks you over with some sort of nonchalant curiosity.

“You’re…” he starts, sounding thoughtful, "not a sorcerer, are you?”

Sorcerer. You heard that term thrown around by him and his group a few times. It’s what they’ve been referring to their enemies as. It probably wouldn’t be smart to lie and say you are one; you get the feeling he’d see through your lie anyway. “I’m not.”

He hums. “How interesting.”

“...what do you mean?” you ask before you can help yourself.

“It’s just you have an abnormally large amount of cursed energy for a non-sorcerer,” he explains. “Though, I suppose that all just sounds like gibberish to you."

You nod and look down at the box lodged in the floor. It has eyes, big creepy looking eyes. "...are you going to do the same thing to me as you did to that man?"

He laughs, "...fortunately for you, the prison realm only holds one person at a time and I need him sealed away more than you."

"...does that mean you're going to leave him in there forever?"

"If I'm feeling nice, I might unseal him in a hundred years or so."

One hundred years? At this point, you've probably lived roughly that amount of time through your loops alone, but for Satoru Gojo… "Won't he die first?"

"Only if he decides to," 'Geto' says, looking completely and wholly unbothered. "Time doesn't doesn't flow in the box, so when I unseal him, he'll be the same as he was just now. Physically anyway. Who knows how deteriorated his mind will be after all that."

Time doesn't flow in the box.

The words echo in your mind over and over. Time doesn't flow in the box. In other words, that means time has stopped in the box, and if that's the case then—

"Anyway, rather than worry about him, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?"

You look at 'Geto' and he's smiling at you, it's friendly, but ominous. There's no doubt what is going to happen next, though you had already resigned yourself to this iteration being a bust; it was only a matter of time.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I was thinking I might keep you around, even if you aren’t a sorcerer, your wealth of cursed energy would serve my plans well," he muses. "But… it would be too much trouble trying to teach you how to use it in time."

You're scared.

Even though you know that once he kills you, once you die, you'll just loop back to around 8:30 again. You'll be on the platform again. And you'll play out some sequence of events before you eventually die again. And again and again.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

"I'll be nice, though," 'Geto' says, raising a hand and another monster appears out of nowhere. You don’t even bother trying to figure out from where. It doesn’t matter, especially since this monster will surely be the one to end your life. "I'll make it painless."

"...I appreciate it," you say and close your eyes hoping that he's not lying about it.

Time doesn't flow in the box.

He didn't lie.

You die again.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you're trapped.

You don't know how and you don't know why, but you are stuck in a time loop— forced to suffer through the horrific events of the night before you die and begin it all again. It's been a long time since you stopped counting how many loops you've gone through, but if you had to guess, it's probably somewhere in the hundreds now.

You are so very tired.

But it doesn't stop. It won't stop no matter what you seem to do. You are stuck. You are trapped. You are doomed.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

Ever since that first loop where you heard whoever is possessing Geto's body say that, the words have been stuck in your head, playing on loop.

You finally realize why.

“Time doesn't flow in the box.”

It's 8:25PM when you wake up; that should be plenty of time.

You need to find Satoru Gojo.

After hundreds of loops you've come to a singular conclusion: you need to prevent him being sealed in the prison realm. You've witnessed it enough to know that you won't be able to do it alone; you'll need his cooperation.

You rush upstairs as fast as you can, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine as you step onto the stairwell. According to your previous loops, Satoru Gojo arrives on the subway tracks at 8:40PM. With how crowded the upper floor is, you don’t know if you’ll have the time to intercept him and talk to him, but if you can at least figure out where to find him, then you can try and talk to him during a subsequent loop.

When you reach the fourth basement floor, however, you don’t know where you should even start. He’s pretty tall so you think you could spot him in the crowd, but… there are still so many people. It occurs to you that maybe it would be better to try and look from a higher vantage point so you head to the stairs that lead up to the third basement floor. You check your phone again. It’s 8:35PM; you need to hurry.

Luckily for you, you find him very easily on the third basement floor.

The only problem is that he’s in a hard to reach spot— squatting above a sign hanging over the crowd.

You check your phone again. It’s 8:38PM and he’s starting to move, presumably to meet with those waiting for him on the subway tracks. It’s good that you found him, but there’s no doubt about it.

You’re going to need more time.

The moment you wake up, you immediately bolt toward the stairs. It's taken many, many more loops, but you've finally brought the time you wake down to around 8:15. You're still not sure if it's enough time, but there's only one way to find out.

You barrel your way up to the next floor and zig zag through the crowd to get to the next flight of stairs. By the time you get to your destination, you're completely out of breath, your chest heaving as your lungs clamor for air. You’ve done this so many times, yet your body acts like it’s always the first. It sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You slow to a brisk pace to catch your breath and check the time. It’s 8:27— a new record. Hopefully it’ll be enough.

The goal is to catch Satoru Gojo before he moves to his lookout point above the crowd. While not impossible, it would be difficult for you to follow him there. You eye the safety barricade that blocks off the area where he’ll be moving in just a few minutes warily.

Yes, getting over there would be extremely difficult.

You don’t want to think about it right now; you’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Especially since Satoru Gojo has now entered your field of vision.

Your heart starts to race at the sight of him and it feels like it’s beating a million times a second. There isn’t a lot of time. You need to talk to him, but your legs only wobble, your feet planted firmly to the ground. This is not good. You need to move. You need to move.

Finally, after what feels like both an instant and an eternity, your feet finally budge, propelling you in Satoru Gojo’s direction. The beating of your heart only grows louder as you make your way toward him, mingling with the single thought that’s echoing throughout your mind right now: will he even hear you out?

You need to make him.

“Excuse me!” The words nearly come out in a stutter as you realize that you are actually talking to Satoru Gojo. You have watched this man at a distance for so long that it almost felt like he wasn’t real, like he was just another fixture in this nightmare that you’ve been living for far too long. And yet, here he is, right in front of you, in the flesh.

And his attention is on you.

All sound stops: the crowd around you, the thoughts in your head, the beat of your heart. Even though you cannot see them through that blindfold of his, you know that Satoru Gojo’s eyes are on you and the thought of that, the knowledge of it is actually a little overwhelming. Your mouth is dry and suddenly you don’t know what to say, but you need to say something. You need to say something before he thinks maybe you bumped into him by accident and just walks away without a word.

“I need to talk to you!” The words just burst out from your mouth and something about it is just absolutely embarrassing. You’re not sure if it's desperation or the fact that you haven’t really talked to anyone other than the existence occupying Suguru Geto’s body in nearly forever.

Satoru Gojo’s lips slowly start to form a smile, “Oh, yeah?”

The sound of his voice makes your mind go blank. There’s something different about it right now; more playful, amused even. Maybe it’s because he’s talking to you, a harmless human being and not a monster trying to kill him. It’s almost kind of jarring, but you know, with certainty, what Satoru Gojo’s voice sounds like. And the fact that he’s actually talking to you right now has you kind of excited. You nod, doing your best to not show how thrilled you are that he’s not ignoring you.

He hums thoughtfully, “Sorry… but unfortunately I kind of have some business to attend to right now.”

“I—” You start to say that you know that he’s headed down to the platform below to fight with…Choso and Jogo, you think their names are— you don’t know the name of the monster with the branches for eyes. “It’s— it’s really important!”

Gojo tilts his head a little, clearly thinking. You should probably say something else, something to try and convince him to stay a little longer and hear you out, but your mind is both full and blank. Where do you start? From the beginning? Or do you start with what is most important? Maybe you should say what you think will get his attention. You’re not sure, and you realize you really should have thought about this earlier because you’re running out of time right now.

“...mind handing me your phone?”

You stare at Gojo, completely and wholly confused, but he just holds out his hand expectantly. When you don’t move, he wiggles his fingers a little, a silent gesture telling you to hurry it up. Without thinking, you reach into your bag and unlock your phone before handing it to him.

“Kind of sucks that cell service isn’t working right now,” he remarks as he types something into your phone before handing it back. “But! Here's my number.”

“Are you… hitting on me?” you mutter in your confusion.

He laughs, “Well, you said you had something really important to talk to me about, right? So just give me a call when you get home or some time tomorrow and we can talk then!”

You’re not going to make it home, or even to tomorrow, and neither will Satoru Gojo. As you start to tell him this, he steps past you. Desperate, you try to grab him, but somehow, for some reason, you can’t. You remember he did this with Jogo and the other monster, made himself untouchable.

This is not good.

He gives you a little wave, cheery as he says, “I’ll talk to you later!”

You watch, helpless as he hops over the barricade beyond your reach.

Gripping your phone tightly, you take a deep breath. It's fine, it's not like you didn’t expect things to go well anyway.

You'll just have to try again.

Every time you’ve tried to solicit help from Satoru Gojo, it has gone the same way. He just won’t give you the time of day, and in some ways you can’t blame him; he’s clearly here to deal with the monsters down on the platform. You’re fairly certain that he probably thinks that whatever is going on with you is a much lesser issue in comparison.

Plus, it probably doesn’t help that in the times that you’ve approached him, you haven’t been able to articulate yourself particularly well. Once you start talking to him, you just get hit with something akin to stage fright and the connection between your mind and your mouth just stops working. It’s gotten better with each attempt, but…

It’s just so frustrating.

It is interesting that Gojo has given you his number every time, star symbol and all. You’re not sure what kind of person you were expecting him to be, but after witnessing him literally and viciously rip monsters apart, you’d figured he’d be a little more somber. However, in the fragmented conversations you’ve had with him he’s come off as far more friendly and playful than you would have thought. Is he the type of person to get more serious when the situation calls for it? You can’t help but wonder, but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter.

What really matters is that you’re able to convince him to help you.

You have to convince him.

“Excuse me!” you say, stepping in Satoru Gojo’s path. You don’t stutter this time, and your voice is more sure. This is good.

“Yes?”

His head turns in your direction and you gulp. Gojo’s gaze, despite that blindfold of his, still feels just as overwhelming as it did the very first time you approached him. You have no doubt that he’s sizing you up, but there’s just something about it that makes you feel like you’re being picked apart.

You take a deep breath and step closer to him, hoping your voice sounds firm enough as you say, “I need your help. I’m trapped.”

He chuckles a little, “I know, but yours truly is on his way to go beat up the bad guys keeping you all trapped here, so soon enough you’ll be all free to go on your merry little way.”

Right. You were so caught up in your own plight that you nearly forgot that technically you’re not the only one ‘trapped.’ Satoru Gojo obviously knows that everyone else is confined to this station, but you doubt he knows that you’re confined to this night alone.

“That’s not what I mean!” you sputter.

“Then what do you mean?” Gojo asks. Should you tell him that you mean that you’re trapped in a time loop? You’re honestly not sure— in the movies and manga you’ve read about time travel, revealing that sort of thing risks creating a time paradox which seems to be a bad thing. If you have to tell him, you will, but— “Oh, I get it.”

You stare, bewildered. Did you maybe just spew all of that aloud?

Gojo gives you a mischievous smile. “You’re hitting on me, aren’t you?”

“No!” The word comes flying out of your mouth. You can’t deny he’s attractive— you’ve thought it all this time, but that is not what’s happening here.

“No need to be embarrassed,” he continues, ignoring you. “I totally get it, so if you want, I’d be happy to give you my number!”

Again? You’ve received Satoru Gojo’s contact details in every loop you’ve talked to him, star symbol and all— you even have his number memorized. There’s something kind of odd about how he keeps giving you his number. Part of you wonders if he’s got some sort of ulterior motive, but you haven’t thought too deeply about it. There are way more important things going on.

“I don’t need your phone number,” you say. “I need to talk.”

Your response seems to give Gojo pause. Did you somehow manage to get through to him? No way. Your suspicions are all but confirmed when he gives you that familiar apologetic smile.

“Like, I said, I’m sort of in the middle of something, but…” Gojo reaches into his pockets and rummages around until one hand fishes out a folded up piece of paper. The other hand keeps digging around in his pocket and when Gojo seems to give up on whatever he’s looking for, he turns his attention back to you. “Got a pen?”

What?

Gojo tilts his head. “Well?”

“I do, but…” You trail off, unsure why he’s asking.

He holds out his hand waiting for you to just hand him the pen. You still don’t get it, but you reach into your bag’s front pocket and pull out the pen and hand it to him. Gojo looks almost like an excited child when he takes it from you, quickly scribbling something onto his paper before shoving it and your pen back into your hand.

It’s Satoru Gojo’s name and number.

He even drew a little star next to his name.

“If you change your mind later, just give me a call!” he tells you cheerily. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while!”

You gawk at him. He cannot be serious. You literally just told him that you didn’t need it and yet he still gave it to you. He must want you to contact him later, but you can’t even begin to understand why. It can’t have been something you said or did, right? Unless, he’s actually—

“Later!” Gojo’s voice cuts through your thoughts and you notice him walking off with a wave.

You can’t let him get away.

Again.

You crush the receipt in your hand and rush after him. Despite the crowd, Gojo seems to move through the people with ease and it almost seems like they are yielding to him naturally. It’s good for you. Makes him easier to chase.

“Wait!” you yell, but Gojo doesn’t even look back. Bastard. Your muscles strain as you try to run faster. You know you won’t be able to grab him if you get to him, but there has to still be something you can do to stop him. Circle around him? Cut him off before he—

Satoru Gojo reaches the barricade.

“Wait!” you yell again. “Satoru Gojo, wait!”

He does not even acknowledge you.

You’re almost there though. Almost. If you reach out your hand, then maybe, maybe you can grab him. Something in your head tells you that it’s useless; you’ve never been able to touch him. But, you don’t care, you don’t care because you have to try. You stretch out your hand, desperate and hoping, but just as you do, Gojo effortlessly jumps over the barricade, moving to survey the crowd.

Due to your momentum, you almost collide into the barricade, but you manage to stop yourself. You stare at Satoru Gojo through the glass. He watches the crowd for at most three minutes. Is this just another bust? Is there really nothing you can do? There must be a way you can get his attention. Is it possible to climb over the barricade? No, it’s too high. There’s nothing you can grasp onto or use as footing either.

This fucking sucks.

Another minute or two and Gojo will be on the move again, and there will be no way you can follow, no way you can get his attention. You press your hands against the glass, pushing against it. Naturally, it doesn’t budge. Why would it? If only you could get it out of the way. If only you could break it. This stupid barricade is the only thing between you and Satoru Gojo and there’s no way you can climb it, but if only you could break it.

If only you could fucking break it.

Suddenly, the glass feels warm. Satoru Gojo’s image starts to look a little distorted as the warmth beneath your fingers grows. Something is happening. The glass starts to vibrate and shake. Violently. The tremors grow stronger and stronger. You should stop. You should back away.

You don’t.

The barricade starts to crack and fracture and soon the sound of shattering glass resounds throughout the entire room. Everyone starts screaming. No one knows what’s going on— not even you. But you don’t care. It’s gone. The barricade is gone.

You take a step forward, toward Satoru Gojo. He’s on a beam that’s about a two meter drop from where you’re standing. That’s fine. That’s okay. You can make it. You have to. Without a second thought, you jump—

And you land on the beam. You look up and Satoru Gojo’s attention is back on you. He’s finally, finally turned toward you, face twisted into an expression you can’t decipher or even comprehend, but—

Something’s wrong; your world is turning on its axis, but—

Satoru Gojo is looking at you, and—

Up is very quickly becoming down, and—

Satoru Gojo is coming closer, but—

You’re slipping—

But he’s right there, and—

You’re falling, but—

He’s trying to catch you, but—

It’s too late. It’s too late.

The last thing you think you feel—

—is Satoru Gojo’s arms around you.

It’s October 31, 2018— Halloween in Shibuya.

And you are causing a commotion.

“Shit! Fuck!” you curse loudly. The people near you start to shift away but you barely notice; you don’t really care.

You were so close, so fucking close and yet… yet here you are again. It’s quarter past eight and you are back on the goddamn platform. You don’t know what happened; you remember falling and thinking you were going to die, but you are absolutely certain that, once again, this time, you didn’t die.

Is Satoru Gojo at fault again? Did he do something? Like he did all those other times you looped without dying? When you think about it more, you don’t think so. You don’t know what happened; all you know is that you tried to get to him, but you slipped.

And he caught you, you definitely remember that.

You still don’t understand why you looped, but there’s not much you can do about it now; it’s not like you can go back anymore. It just sucks, because you think he might have actually listened if you’d talked to him.

Or he would have come after you for… whatever happened with the barricade. It could have been taken as an attack on the crowd… But if he thought you were doing that, then why would he catch you?

You don’t know.

All you know is that you have to try again.

The only problem is that you don’t know how you managed to shatter the barricade. You think about it as you make your way up to where you’ll find Satoru Gojo. There is the possibility that it wasn’t you and something else happened to it instead, but that feels way too coincidental. It had to be you. That’s the only thing that makes sense. You just can’t figure out how you did it outside of wanting, wishing, praying for the barricade to break. It’s not like you have supernatural powers like Satoru Gojo and his enemies.

Despite your mind being completely and wholly occupied by trying to figure out how in the world you managed to break through that barricade, you still manage to make it to the second basement floor of Shibuya Hikarie by 8:25PM— a brand new record. Satoru Gojo doesn’t show up until around 8:34PM, so that gives you almost ten minutes to try and figure out what you need to do to try and replicate shattering the glass barricade again.

Except—

Except Satoru Gojo is already here.

The thought that maybe you’re mistaken flashes in your mind before it’s quickly dismissed; there’s no way you’d mistake anyone else for him. There is absolutely no denying it: that is Satoru Gojo. Bewildered, you double check the time on your phone. Maybe you misread it and you’re actually late but sure enough you read it right— Satoru Gojo is here early.

What the hell is going on?

Of the thousands of times you have experienced this night, this hell, this sort of thing has never happened before. Everything happens at a specific time, as if adhering to an unseen schedule. It’s likely that what happened in your last iteration did delay Satoru Gojo’s arrival onto the platform, but other than that there has never been a deviation to the time table.

And yet, here Satoru Gojo is, nine minutes early now.

You realize that that’s not the only thing that’s strange: he’s not moving. In previous rounds, when you encounter Gojo here, he’s walking to the lookout spot beyond the barricade. But, right now, he’s just standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. It almost looks like he's waiting for something.

Or someone.

This unexpected turn of events has you rooted to the spot. You’re not sure what you should do. No. This shouldn’t change anything. You need to talk to him. As concerning as a change like this is, the extra time it gives you should be a good thing. Despite knowing that, your feet are still firmly planted to the ground.

The crowd shifts and you see Satoru Gojo start to move. Toward the barricade? No. He’s not heading in his usual direction, rather he’s—

You stop breathing.

He’s headed toward you.

He comes to a stop before you, lips curled up to form an amused sort of smile as he says, “Soooo, you needed to talk to me?”

You try to answer but no words come out of your mouth. Are you dreaming? You have to be, right? There's no way that this is actually happening. Could it be that, after thousands of loops, you’ve finally lost it? Your mind shattering along with the glass of the barricade at the end of the last one?

Gojo tilts his head, indicating that he's still waiting for an answer. When you open your mouth, at first, nothing comes out, the words stuck in your throat. You force them out, your voice cracking, “...how did you know?”

He smiles, looking almost mischievous as he reaches up and lightly taps the side of his head. “I remembered, of course!”

All you can do is stare at Satoru Gojo. He remembered? How is that possible? From his perspective, this is the first time you’ve met and while it shouldn’t be possible for him to remember there’s something in your mind that’s keeping you from completely dismissing the possibility.

Gojo laughs, “I take it from the look on your face that you’re not used to this sort of thing happening. Is this the first time?”

“No.” The fact that the word is out of your mouth before you can even really think about it surprises you and you really have to think. Your face scrunches together as you try to remember. Is this really not the first time? Then, the memories assault you, overlapping as they replay simultaneously in your head— a woman in a yellow and white magical girl costume— begging you for help as she burns to death— smiling as she tells you she made her costume herself. “...it happened just once a long time ago.”

“‘A long time ago,’ huh. Sounds like you've been at this for a while now.”

“...unfortunately.”

Gojo hums. “So when you said you didn’t need my phone number…”

“You’d already given it to me a few times,” you say, figuring that’s where this conversation is going.

“Really now?”

Does he not believe you? Or is he just being an ass? You’re not sure, but since you had taken the liberty of memorizing Satoru Gojo’s phone number you recite it back to him to prove your point.

Just when you think you may have stunned Gojo into silence he starts to laugh, obviously finding something funny about the fact that you know his cell phone number. “Seems like you've got quite the fascinating technique there.”

Technique? What is he talking about? Your confusion must be plain on your face because he adds, elaborating, “The time travel.”

You continue to stare at him. You don't think you'd consider what you've been going through time travel, because traveling implies moving from point A to point B, but you've been stuck walking in circles at point A for a long time. What really gets you is… “What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“You mean you don’t— oh. I get it; no wonder you’re trapped.”

That does not answer your question in the slightest. “Can you please explain what you're talking about? What do you mean by ‘technique?’”

“Right, right… So basically, a technique is like a special sort of power,” he finally explains. “Like I said, your technique seems to be a kind of time travel. Whenever you activate it, your mind is sent back in time.”

What he's saying makes sense, but… “How come you were sent back too?”

He laughs again. “Isn't it obvious? Think back to before— do you remember that I caught you as you were falling?”

You nod slowly. The memory of his arms around you is almost embarrassingly vivid. “...is it because we were touching?”

“Ding, ding, ding! That's correct! Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!”

Something about his tone annoys you, but you try to ignore it. He could have just told you rather than make you guess. “How do you know that for sure?”

“Well,” he continues. “You’ve done your little time loop a bunch of times, right? If your technique affected everyone, or even a few people in a select range you would have noticed for sure. And if it affected only just you then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, now would we?”

When you think about it, you do think that the woman in the magical girl costume might have bumped into you before the loop where she remembered.

“That’s honestly just conjecture, but I've got pretty good eyes, so I’m hardly ever wrong.”

Gojo gives you a grin and while you do think that his reasoning is sound enough his confidence is a little grating. More than that, though, you’re glad that this conversation is actually going really well.

“Either way,” he says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t look like you can control your technique. Usually a person’s technique manifests when they’re a kid, but you seem to be a special case… in fact, I bet your technique activated for the very first time tonight— probably under some pretty extreme circumstances, too.”

“...dying counts as an ‘extreme circumstance,’ right?”

“Oh, absolutely. Or legitimately thinking that you’re gonna die, but it seems like your body has been unconsciously activating your technique as a sort of defense mechanism. Which is why you’re trapped.”

“So, if I could control it I’d be able to make it out of this time loop.”

“Yeah, but in this case it probably wouldn’t end very well for you,” he points out with a chuckle. “It’s not like you actually want to die, right? I mean, if you did, then your technique wouldn’t even activate in the first place.”

You don’t; what you want is for this night to finally end. To be free from the endless cycle of dying over and over again and again. You don’t think death is quite the answer; even if you were to learn how to control this supposed technique of yours, there’s no guarantee that you would just unconsciously activate it when the grim reaper comes knocking on your door. No, the answer is…

“Anyway!” Gojo’s cheery voice cuts through your thoughts. “I highly doubt that you’re the type that makes a habit of jumping off ledges for the funsies, so the fact that you’ve been dying tells me that some pretty gruesome stuff is about to go down, so, tell me what happens tonight.”

The sudden drop of his voice sends a shiver running down your spine. If it weren’t for the fact that you’ve seen how serious Gojo can get, the sudden shift in demeanor would probably freak you out a bit, but it doesn’t. This is the Satoru Gojo you’re familiar with.

You do have one concern though. “That… won’t create a time paradox or anything, will it?”

“Nah,” Gojo shrugs. “You wouldn’t cause one with the way your technique works, besides, if you’ve only been going back at most an hour or two in time it’s hard to believe you’d be making a really big impact… unless you really believe in the butterfly effect.”

You’re still not quite sure.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

His voice sounds strange. Gentle. Kind. It's the most soothing thing you've heard in a long time and it makes you want to believe him.

“...okay.”

Anxiety is still gripping at you, but you try to dispel it, taking a deep breath before beginning your explanation. For the sake of brevity, it’s probably best that you’re as concise as possible. There isn’t much need to really get into the nitty gritty of things unless he asks specifically.

Naturally, you begin with his arrival onto the platform and how soon after a fight breaks out and how the crowd is unfortunate enough to be involved. Gojo’s expression is passive for the most part, but he does crack the faintest hint of a smile when you mention how he manages to eviscerate one of the monsters.

It disappears once you tell him about the arrival of the train. Between the dozens upon dozens of people being dropped onto the platform by those two high school girls and the hoard of monsters disembarking from the train, everything devolves into pandemonium.

“Wait,” Gojo holds a hand up and you pause. This is his first interruption since you started recounting the night’s events for him. “Everyone is able to see the monsters?”

You stare at him. What a weird question. “...yeah?”

His mouth twists and it looks like he’s thinking about something. You can’t even begin to imagine what. Finally, he comments, “Makes sense.”

It does not, but you don’t ask him to elaborate. Surely if it was important he would have just done so.

“Anyway, in the middle of all that, you… you do something.” Your brows bunch together as you remember the stance Gojo took, the crazed and desperate look in his eyes, the feeling of your head about to explode. “I don’t know how to describe it. At first, it would just force me to… activate my technique, I guess. But now, it just knocks me out for a few minutes.”

Gojo frowns and he rubs at his chin, obviously thinking about what you’ve said. Eventually, he raises a hand and bends his fingers into a familiar gesture. It’s the one that preludes whatever he does on the platform. “Do I do this?”

“Yeah.”

He hums. “Interesting.”

You wait to see if he’ll explain. He doesn’t. Great. Even if he doesn’t think you need to know, it certainly would be nice to. It’s annoying otherwise, but you ignore the feeling and continue. “I can’t tell you what happens when I’m knocked out, but when I come to everyone is basically a zombie and all the monsters from the train are gone. I think you kill them.”

“I probably do,” he says casually. “But what about Volcano Head?”

“...you don't…get a chance to kill him,” you say slowly. Gojo tilts his head, waiting for you to elaborate, but you hesitate. You have to tell him, you know you do, but…

You have seen the interaction so many times and though you don't know the exact nature of the relationship between them, you can tell that seeing Suguru Geto (or rather seeing his body) shook Satoru Gojo to his very core.

There's no doubt in your mind that he will not take this news well.

“Come on now,” Gojo's tone is light-hearted, unaware. “Don't keep me in suspense here.”

It's as if you're withholding the punchline to a joke. In a way, you suppose you are, but you don't think he's going to find it funny.

You take a deep breath. You need to tell him. The worst thing that could happen is that he doesn't believe you, but if that's the case… you'll probably just end up repeating this all again until you find a loop where he does.

Having made it this far, you'd like to avoid all that.

“Before you can get Volcano Head you get restrained by something called the prison realm,” you say slowly, “by someone calling themselves… Suguru Geto.”

The second the name leaves your mouth, there is a clear and obvious shift in the air. Gone is Gojo’s laid-back and frivolous demeanor, replaced with something more somber and almost frightening. The tension grows more and more palpable to the point that you think it might almost choke you.

You almost wish that it would.

“You can’t be serious,” Gojo finally says, once your words have fully sunk in.

“I—” You start to speak, but come to an abrupt stop when you see him shove his hand into his pocket to yank out his phone of all things.

The both of you know full well that there’s no reception here, but you don’t think that he’s planning on making any calls. Gojo scrolls and scrolls on his phone before he stops and shoves the screen in your face. It shows a picture of three people— a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth, a younger, happier version of Gojo sporting a pair of round sunglasses and—

“When you say ‘Geto’ is this who you’re referring to?” Gojo demands, using his other hand to point at the third person in the frame— a handsome young man with long dark hair pulled up into a bun.

“Yes, but—”

“That’s impossible. It can’t be him,” Gojo interrupts, his voice firm, cold even. “He’s dead.”

There’s a note of finality in his words that is definitely meant to leave no room for argument. It doesn’t stop you, though. Instead, you glare at Gojo’s stupid blindfold and say, “...being dead doesn’t mean a damn thing! I’ve died hundreds of times and yet I’m still fucking here, but—”

“Your situation is different,” he interjects, the temperature of his tone hiking up, his words like heated hissing. “I killed him almost a year ago. There's no way—”

The air between you both is silent as the grave. Though you can't see it, you can feel the weight of his gaze pressing down on you. He’s definitely having second thoughts about everything you’ve said so far. There’s a chance he might even think you’re his enemy now. You stare him down though, refusing to look away. You’ve made it this far, you can’t— you won’t back down.

“...you’re not lying, are you.” Gojo’s words are more of a statement than a question. There’s no doubt in your mind that he knows the answer, and yet he’s still asking. You wonder if maybe he’s clinging onto some vain hope that maybe, just maybe this all a sick, cruel joke that’s gone way too far.

“I’m not.”

Gojo holds your gaze for a second longer before he lets out a curse. “Fuck!”

“...I’m sorry,” you say quietly, mostly because it feels like the most correct thing to say at this moment. You don’t know the whole story, but it seems like they were close. If so, then it must have hurt Gojo a lot to have killed him, and must hurt even more to know that someone is desecrating the body. You hate that you, a complete and utter stranger, happened to be the person to tell him, but…

It had to be done, for the sake of getting past this unending night, it had to be done.

Gojo runs a hand through his hair and lets out a ragged sigh. “Okay. What happens after that?”

You give him a rundown of what follows; he gets sealed, the monsters wake up and all but ‘Geto’ leave in search of their next target. When you mention the high school girls demanding the brain give Geto’s body back, Gojo snorts loudly.

“Fat chance of that,” he says derisively.

You nod in agreement. It was clear to you that the brain parasite has no intent on giving it up any time soon. “After they leave, he… talks to me.”

“Probably couldn't ignore all that cursed energy you have,” Gojo remarks offhandedly.

You stare at him, expression twisted in a way that shows that you have absolutely no clue what that means. It should be fine for you to ask this one question; it actually concerns you after all. “What does that even mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, though… probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?”

You give him a pointed glare and all Gojo does is laugh.

“Just think of it like having a lot of MP.”

“...Like in a video game?”

“Exactly!” Then, Gojo tilts his head, clearly thinking. You don't bother asking; you don't feel like he'll explain.

“He does ask me if I'm a sorcerer, whatever that is. Is that why?”

“Probably. Ordinary people don't have even a fraction of the energy you're packing.”

‘Ordinary people’ he says as if you’re not an ordinary person who got caught up in all this supernatural sorcery bullshit. Or at least you were, but if the time loops are really a product of your own doing…

“Does he kill you when you answer?” Gojo asks to get the conversation back on track.

“Not right away. What happens next kind of varies,” you answer. “He usually lets me have a question or two before he kills me; I've asked him a couple different things.”

“Really taking advantage, aren’t you?” Gojo says and you're not sure what to make of his tone. Is he mocking you or is he easing back into that laid-back persona of his?

“If I’m doomed to repeat the same situation over and over, I might as well make the most of it,” you respond flatly.

“You know, your technique kind of reminds me of save scumming.”

He’s definitely gone back to acting almost completely unserious— all signs of his earlier agitation are nearly gone.

“So what did you learn?”

“Well, the prison realm only holds one occupant. Once they’re sealed, time stops for them and the only way out is if the bearer unseals them or if they choose to kill themselves.”

“I see… And what about our body jacker?”

“He didn’t go into detail but he said something about… striving toward the evolution of mankind?” You frown a little at the memory. He didn’t explain further because he said that you wouldn’t understand.

“Huh. Interesting. Wonder how he was gonna go about doing that.”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine you'd like it since he goes out of his way to seal you into that box,” you say. “Said you’d get in the way because you’re too strong.”

Gojo shrugs his shoulders and grins a little. Cocky. “Well, I am the strongest sorcerer around, you know.”

You would think him overconfident if you hadn't seen the magnitude of his strength first hand.

“Anyway, that's as far as I ever go. When he's decided he’s done talking to me, he kills me and I loop back.”

“So, in short, what you want help with is getting past that point, right?”

“More or less.”

“And all I have to do is avoid getting caught by the prison realm?”

You nod.

“What’s it look like?” he asks. “A big cage with a bunch of metal bars?”

Now that you think about it, you haven’t woken up early enough to see it before it traps him, but you can’t imagine it looks that much different. “No.. It’s a small box with eyes… It gets big enough to fit you in it, though.”

“Huh.” He stretches his arms out above his head as if he’s trying to emphasize how large he actually is and shoots you a grin. “Should be easy enough then. I bet our body snatcher used the shock of seeing Suguru to trap me but since I'll see it coming, avoiding it'll be a piece of cake.”

Gojo makes it sound so easy, and maybe it really is as simple as that, but you can't help but be worried still.

“Don't tell me you don't think I can do it,” he says, tilting his head.

“It's not that,” you admit. “I'm just concerned I might die before we can get to that point.”

Truthfully, since you know that will just result in another loop you're less concerned with dying itself and more worried about losing the progress you've made in convincing Gojo to help you. Even though it's been clearly proven you can loop him as well, there's no guarantee you'll be able to make the physical contact needed to do it upon death.

“You've made it pretty far on your own, though, right?”

“Yeah, but… I’ve messed up plenty of times.” More than you can even count. “There's also the possibility that taking the time to talk to you might have thrown things out of whack.”

Speaking of time, you check your phone. It's 8:39PM. You curse.

Gojo leans over to check your phone. “Let me guess, I'm supposed to be somewhere right now.”

“Yeah, this is when you’re descending down onto the platform.”

That earns Gojo a glare from you, but he just laughs it off. “I doubt being a few minutes late is going to make a big difference.”

You certainly hope so.

“Don't worry,” Gojo says and you notice he's using that tone from earlier. “You won't die.”

It’s hard to argue with him when he uses such a reassuring sounding voice and yet, you still open your mouth to try— to voice your doubts, but what he says next silences you before you even can.

“I'll protect you.”

You think your heart stops beating in your chest and your words dissolve in your throat.

He grins at you. “Did you fall in love with me just now?”

That catches you a little off guard. You're willing to admit he's hot, but surely he must be joking. “How could you even think of something like that at a time like this?”

Gojo laughs again. “Well, since someone is so worried about their time table being all messed up, I better head down there; can’t keep Volcano Head and friends waiting, right?”

You blink. Is that it? “Wait, shouldn’t we make a plan or something?”

“Isn’t the plan for me to not get caught in the prison realm?”

Yes, but… “But what about me? Is there anything I can do?”

Gojo stares at you, or at least you think he does. “...I don’t know, is there?”

You’ve seen the encounter between Satoru Gojo and those monsters so many times and you try to picture a version of it where you intervene and… all you can see is yourself getting in his way. You’re no fighter, no… sorcerer, or whatever he is, you’re just some ordinary person that was unfortunate enough to get all caught up in this mess. The most you can probably do is kick the prison realm out of the way when the time comes, but otherwise… “...no, I guess not.”

His expression turns sympathetic. “You’ve done plenty by telling me everything that happens. So just wait up here, and let me handle the monsters.”

You almost nod. Almost. But then you remember what transpires up here above the platform. You know it sounds safer up here where you’re less likely to get involved in the carnage, but… “Wait, no, if I stay up here then I’ll fall to my death when those girls—”

Gojo laughs, interrupting you. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll be fine.”

“How?”

“Just trust me.”

“I…” It’s hard to. After everything you’ve gone through it’s hard to trust in anything, to believe in anything. Even though you’ve made it this far this time, the worry that something will go wrong and that you’ll have to do it all again still lurks in the back of your mind.

Despite all that, you want to believe.

You want to believe that you can make it past this unending night, that one day you’ll wake up and it’ll no longer be October 31, 2018. And the first step towards that is trusting in Satoru Gojo.

“...okay,” you say quietly. “Okay.”

Gojo chuckles then asks, “Anything else before I head off?”

You start to ask if there’s anything you should say, in case things don’t work out, but you stop yourself. You’re choosing to trust him, to believe in him— you can figure out that stuff later if things end up going south after all. So, instead you give him a smile and it feels a little weird because you don’t remember the last time you did. “Good luck!”

For a split second, Gojo looks almost surprised, but then he laughs again, beaming widely at you. He starts to move past you and reaches out to give you what you think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder and then he’s off. You turn to watch him go, the crowd, once again, parting almost naturally for him.

When he reaches the barricade, he pauses, raising his hand as if he’s giving you one last wave. Then he jumps over it onto his little perch and then less than a minute later he’s gone, descending to the platform below.

Now, all you can do is wait.

You check your phone again and it’s 8:44PM. If you remember correctly, the high school girls start threatening everyone right before 9PM. With Gojo’s arrival being shifted back almost five minutes, does that mean that they’ll be shifted back too? It would make sense, but you’re not too sure.

Out of habit, you keep checking your phone and at nearly 9PM, you hear the shrill voice of one of the girls over the crowd, commanding everyone to do what she says, her partner stringing up bodies until everyone listens. Everything plays out just as you remember it, which is mildly comforting, though you know that the events that happen up here are more or less independent from what happens below.

Surely, just as Gojo said, a few minutes aren’t going to change anything, but—

No.

You agreed to trust him. To trust that everything would be fine.

When the girls start to demand that as many people as possible climb onto the roots and vines covering the atrium your heart starts to hammer in your chest. In just a few minutes, all the foliage will disintegrate beneath you, and you and everyone else here will fall into the abyss below.

You are afraid.

There isn’t a single loop where you’ve really survived this fall. If you don’t die in midair, you die right after landing. It’s a death trap, and that’s why you’ve stopped coming up here. There’s a part of you, the part that knows what’s about to happen, that wants to try and run back onto stable footing. But you can’t, because you know if you do then the girls will kill you for sure; you have to stay.

It’ll be fine, you tell yourself, it’ll be okay.

You just have to trust Gojo.

An eight car train is pulling in. Please wait behind the yellow line.

You hear the announcement faintly below you. It’s almost time. You brace yourself and try to stay calm. Gojo said he would protect you, that you wouldn’t die. You don’t know how he intends to keep that promise, but all you can do is believe in his words.

It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay.

The vines and roots start to crack and the ground beneath you starts to give out. You squeeze your eyes shut as that sickening weightless feeling overtakes you. It occurs to you that this is actually quite literally a trust fall— will Satoru Gojo really be able to catch you?

As you fall, you realize almost instantly that something is different.

You’ve experienced this fall dozens of times and so, even though it has been a while since you’ve gone this route, you are very familiar with what it feels like. Something is different. You’re falling faster. The trajectory is changing. It’s like some force, other than gravity, is pulling at you.

Is this Gojo’s doing?

Just as your body collides with the ground you hear the sounds of mutilating flesh meld with the screams surrounding you. Blood and severed limbs litter the ground, but you try to ignore it. You need to focus on your own survival right now. Quickly, you scramble to your feet scan the area around you; you’re on the platform right now and right in front of you is—

Right in front of you is Satoru Gojo.

His back is turned to you, his focus currently elsewhere. Looking at him you realize you recognize this scene, though it’s much closer and at a different angle. He’s about to do that thing, that thing that knocks you out.

Something in you tells you to move closer to him, after all, he used his mysterious powers to deliberately bring you closer to him, right? You rush toward him and as you do something he said earlier pops up in your mind.

Anyone you happen to be touching when you activate your technique gets affected by it too!

Whatever he’s about to do… Is that his ‘technique?’ And if it is, would it work the same way as yours? If so, there’s only one way to find out: you need to touch him. You dodge monsters and other people as you run toward Satoru Gojo and—

A monster still manages to grab you, its large hands wrapping around your wrist. You try and yank it free, but it's much stronger than you are.

“Shit!” you hiss as the monster starts to pull you toward it and away from Gojo. What do you do? Your other hand is still free, should you try to punch it in the face? Or—

Before you can do anything, something blasts the monster’s head clean off. Shocked, you stare as the monster’s body slumps onto the ground, its grip loosening on you instantly. You whip your head around to find that while Gojo still has his back to you, his arm is bent back in your direction, his palm open as if he fired some invisible blast from it.

Then you feel it again, something pulling at you, but this time it's more forceful. Your body is yanked toward Gojo and the second you feel his hand press against you, you see him make that gesture with his other hand.

“Domain Expansion,” he whispers in a strained voice. “Infinite Void!”

Something happens and your vision flashes for a fraction of a second. And then—

The room is enveloped in an eerie stillness; all the violence and bloodshed coming to an abrupt stop. Monsters and humans alike stand like the living dead, unconscious with their eyes wide open as if they are staring into an infinite abyss. You recognize this scene, you’re familiar with it because it’s similar to the one you wake up to after being hit by Gojo’s ‘domain expansion.’ The only difference is the presence of the monsters, who are all but gone when you regain consciousness.

The pressure from Gojo’s hand is gone and he says to you, his voice still low. “If you’re squeamish when it comes to blood and gore, it might be best for you to close your eyes.”

And then he’s gone.

You do not take his advice. You do not close your eyes. How many loops were you unable to witness what’s about to unfold? A few hundred? A few thousand? And if all goes to plan, then you will never get another chance again: there’s no way you could possibly look away.

And what you see unfold before you is that Satoru Gojo was right.

He is the one to kill all the monsters.

It’s not as if you really had any doubt, after all, it seemed like the most logical conclusion to come to and yet…

There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

All the violence resumes and the platform is engulfed in the sounds of carnage and slaughter once more. The lack of terrified screams makes everything more disconcerting— without them, all you can hear is the squelching echo of mangled flesh and blood splattering all over the place. You can’t really see him, but you can tell where Satoru Gojo is in the crowd as he leaves dozens upon dozens of decapitated heads soaring in his wake. Once or twice, he leaps out of the crowd and even from where you stand you can see the crazed glow of his inhumanly blue eyes as he massacres monster after monster.

Even though you don’t think you have anything to be scared of, you are still terrified: Satoru Gojo is no longer a man, but violence incarnate. You want to move closer to where Gojo gets trapped, but you’re afraid to. What if you get in his way? What if he kills you by accident?

Dying again when you’ve made it this far is definitely not ideal, but isn’t being killed by Gojo the best case scenario? Because then the two of you would probably loop together again and—

No.

Gojo said you wouldn’t die.

He said he’d protect you.

It’s hard to believe when he’s in the middle of a massacre, slaughtering monsters left and right, but you remind yourself yet again that you have to believe in him.

You take a deep breath and start moving, taking care to keep an eye on where Gojo is. You don’t know how long this is supposed to take, but you do know where he ends up when he’s just about done. The closer he gets to that spot, the sooner the prison realm will be unleashed upon him.

There’s a small group of zombified people nearby and you settle yourself among them. It’s not super close, but you think it's close enough that you'd be able to run over and kick the box away from Gojo if you have to. You do a quick survey to see if you can spot the body snatcher, but he's nowhere to be found. Hopefully, he hasn't noticed you moving around, or, if he has, he's more concerned with Gojo than he is with you. Given that you always seem to be the last thing he acknowledges, you'd like to think that he doesn't consider you a threat.

Which you're not, not really anyway.

The sounds of slaughter start to die down and you look to see Gojo approaching the spot where he gets caught. He looks beat, his eyes unfocused and his breathing heavy. You do another quick scan around him and notice a small box a few meters away from him, wrapped in what looks like paper charms or seals or whatever they're called. That has to be the prison realm— though it looks different than what you saw before. Gojo seems to notice it right after you do, his gaze honing in on it, examining it with some measure of bewilderment. Then, some invisible force slices through all the paper seals covering the box and it expands, the corners of the box floating up in midair to reveal what looks like a large sheet of dark red flesh with a large bloodshot eye stapled to the middle.

Disgusting.

If Gojo didn’t realize before, he seems to now, because he takes a step back, away from the grotesque thing. Good, good—

“Hey! Satoru!” Your blood runs cold at the sound of the body snatcher’s voice. He emerges from the crowd, smiling widely as he gives Gojo a wave. “Long time no see!”

Satoru Gojo’s entire body goes rigid. Shit. You told him, you warned him about what was going to happen, who he was going to see, but was that not enough? It’s possible that no amount of warning would have been enough to mentally prepare Satoru Gojo for the sight of the man he said he killed a year ago. After all, you know that there’s a stark difference between knowing and seeing. Even then, if Gojo doesn’t gather his wits and move now then he’s going to get caught and you can’t let that happen.

Your body moves before you can even think about it.

You scramble out from your hiding spot in the crowd and throw yourself in between Satoru Gojo and the prison realm. There’s no way you can kick it away from him now, not when it’s in this form, but maybe, if you get between them you can at least keep it from capturing him.

The eye quivers erratically, as it flits from Gojo to you. Every hair on your body stands on end as it watches you, the pupil dilating and contracting uncontrollably. You can’t look away from it, your own gaze fixed to your image reflected in the black abyss of the pupil. Something in the back of your mind tells you to stop, to get away, it’s dangerous, but you keep your feet firmly planted to the ground.

A second, or maybe even a minute passes and the prison realm shifts, its fleshy form morphing to restrain you.

The body jacker looks at you, his frown tinged with disgust. “Don’t you think you’re being rather rude by butting into what could have been a touching reunion?”

You scowl. Is he still trying to play the role of Suguru Geto?

He sighs and looks past you at Gojo. “Satoru, I thought bringing lesser sorcerers to fight alongside you was more trouble than it was worth?”

You hear Gojo snort from behind you, “It is… but this person here isn’t a sorcerer… Just like you aren’t Suguru Geto.”

The faker almost pouts and presses his hand to his chest as if Gojo's words have wounded him. “Satoru, I’m hurt, how could you say such a thing to your best friend?”

“Cut the bullshit,” Gojo snarls. “You can’t fucking fool me. You might be in Suguru’s body but I know with all my heart and soul that you’re not him.”

The corpse snatcher stares at Gojo, expression blank before he sighs once more. Then, his gaze shifts back to you, his eyes narrowed as he looks at you with sheer disdain. It feels as if you’ve been drenched in ice cold water. There's no smile this time but you already know what's going to happen.

He’s going to kill you.

“I intended to deal with you later since you seemed harmless enough,” he says, raising a hand to summon a monster— the same one he always uses to end your life. “But you’re in the way. So, I think it’s for the best if I just get rid of you right now.”

Instinctively, you try to take a step back but the prison realm’s restraints keep you in place. Not that it would have mattered much, even in the loops where you’ve tried to escape the faker’s monster, it still kills you, too fast and too agile for an ordinary human like you to avoid. All you can do is squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the monster to kill you. At least, it’s always painless.

Something touches your back.

Your eyes shoot open.

Before you is the monster, wiggling and writhing only mere centimeters from your face. It gurgles and snarls at you, desperate to fulfill its master’s wishes and kill you but it doesn’t move any closer. You stare at it with wide eyes, unsure of what to do.

Someone behind you clicks their tongue— Gojo. You try to turn your head to look at him, but your movements are too limited, the most you can do is turn your head to the side. The sounds the monster is making start to change, sounding more frenzied, almost as if it’s in pain, and you flit your eyes in its direction just in time to see its entire body explode. The monster's guts and bright purple blood fly off in every direction, getting on the floor, the ceiling, the zombified bodies of the people unfortunate enough to be nearby, but not on you.

This is Satoru Gojo’s doing.

He steps in front of you, half turned towards you as he moves in between you and the body snatcher. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he loudly says, “Did you really forget about me?”

You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or the body snatcher.

Past him, the imposter scowls, raising his hand once more, probably to summon even more monsters, but Gojo’s quicker, and it almost looks like his eyes are glowing even brighter, the blue looking almost white as he whips his head in the faker’s direction. The sound of mangling flesh and breaking bones echoes throughout the room as Gojo, using that mysterious power of his, seems to break the faker’s arm.

The body snatcher hisses loudly and despite the fact that his face is twisted in very obvious pain, he tries to shoot Gojo a mocking smile. “Do you really think you can kill your best friend again?”

“I already told you,” Gojo turns to fully face the monster inhabiting Geto’s corpse. He tilts his head a little to the side and some force starts to squeeze at the faker’s neck. “You’re not Suguru.”

You hear a loud crack as Gojo telekinetically snaps his neck.

The head rolls onto the ground and you almost look away, but then you notice his eyes still moving, looking around. Is he still alive? Then you remember: the thing possessing Suguru Geto’s body was some kind of parasite. “Gojo! Wait! The brain!”

He reacts almost instantly, head turning and in an instant the skull is crushed and all that remains is red splotch on the ground.

You almost relax. Almost.

But the body is still standing.

Horrified, you watch as it quivers violently before falling to the ground. Then what looks like dozens of black spirits start to erupt from the corpse and the entire room is engulfed with a shrill howling.

What the hell is going on?

“Those must be all the cursed spirits he consumed,” Gojo explains uselessly, voice barely audible over the screaming. “Guess he was empty before.”

You don’t bother asking what he means. There are bigger problems right now. “What do we do?”

“No choice to exorcise them,” he answers plainly.

For him to exorcise them, he means. You both know that there’s not much that you can do. You still can’t move and honestly, you don’t even know if it’s possible to get out of the prison realm’s restraints. Not without dying. And if you die now…

Everything will have been for naught.

You’ll reset time and have to do this all over again— assuming you can even get to this point again.

There has to be something, you just have to think outside the box.

Or rather—

“Gojo!”

He glances back at you.

“You need to seal me in the prison realm!” you exclaim. He turns to face you fully, looking bewildered and you start to explain as fast as you can. “Those things are going to attack any minute right? I can’t move or try to hide and I can’t expect you to protect me the entire time and if I die then I’ll end up looping time again, but— but, if you seal me in the prison realm then that won’t happen.”

Gojo frowns, looking conflicted. “You don’t think I can do it?”

“Wouldn't it be easier if you didn’t have to?”

He tilts head and you think he’s conceding your point.

“Please,” you beg, staring at him desperately. “We don’t have much time. The other… cursed spirits will wake up soon too!”

You don’t have to explain that you mean Volcano Head and friends.

It takes only a second for Gojo to consider the very few options you have. “...how do you seal it? Do you know?”

“I think so,” you answer. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work but I think that if you say ‘prison realm, gate close’ it should seal me inside.”

If anything, it’s worth a shot.

Gojo nods. “Do you know how to break the seal?”

“I… don’t,” you confess. You never asked, and you don’t think the body snatcher would have told you even if you did. He only told you that it holds one and that…

That time doesn’t flow in the box.

“...you don’t have to break the seal.”

Gojo frowns, “Wait a sec—”

You don’t know for sure if it’ll be better, but right here, right now, it seems like the best option.

It feels like an eternity passes before Gojo says anything.

“...fine,” he agrees and you don’t quite know how to feel about it. The howling around you all grows louder. You wonder why the cursed spirits haven’t attacked yet. Maybe Gojo’s power is holding them at bay… for now anyway. You both know that he can’t ignore them forever.

“...before I do, though, mind if I ask you just one thing?”

You blink. “Not sure what I can do for you in this state…”

He laughs. “I just want to know your name.”

What an odd request. Though, now that you think about it, you don’t think that during this loop or any other loop really, you’ve ever told him your name. It only seems fair to tell him, since you’ve known his for longer than he’s known of your existence.

You tell him your name.

He nods, looking as if he’s committing to memory. Probably easier to remember than his phone number. “Any last words?”

You try to think of something. Nothing comes to mind and you just shake your head.

Gojo takes a deep breath, “Alrighty then… Prison realm, gate close.”

Just as it did the many times you’ve seen Satoru Gojo sealed away, the boxes and restraints around you vibrate a little before they start to close around you, growing large enough to fit your body as they approach.

You won’t see it, but once you’re inside the box will shrink and become small enough to fit in the palm of someone’s hand.

Will it be quiet inside?

In your final seconds, some words, some last words come to mind, and you say them, hoping that he hears them in time. “Thank you, Satoru Gojo.”

You burn the glittering glow of his brilliant bright blue eyes into your mind.

And then, everything is engulfed in an unending black.

It’s November 30, 2018— morning on the campus of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School.

Satoru Gojo strides through the school grounds, casually tossing a small silver box with eerie blue eyes known as the prison realm up and down in his grasp. Walking at his side is Shoko Ieiri, a pretty woman who’s been unfortunate enough to have been Satoru’s friend since high school.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Shoko asks, twirling a few strands of her long brown hair.

“What do you mean?” Satoru responds nonchalantly. “All my ideas are good ideas.”

Shoko hums in clear dissent, but doesn’t say anything more. Even she knows better than to try and waste her time trying to argue with Satoru. “I’m just worried about their mental state. Didn’t you say that time doesn’t flow in the box?”

“I’d be worried if it was some normal person,” Satoru says. “But after what they’ve gone through I think they’ll be fine.”

“...well, if you say so.”

The two arrive at their destination: the largest training area on the Jujutsu High grounds. Satoru places the prison realm at the center and takes a few steps back with Shoko standing behind him, in case anything happens.

He doesn’t think it will, but it’s always good to take at least a few precautions.

“Gojo, are you sure we should be doing this?” Shoko asks again. “Didn’t they want to remain in the box?”

“Of course I am,” Satoru says with his usual air of confidence before looking back at the prison realm nestled in the grass. He grins and then—

“Prison realm, gate open.”

if you made it this far. thank you. it's my sincerest hope that you enjoyed the ride.

#writer: stellamancer #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen fic #takes a bow thank u for coming to my nikoo talk #*WAVES* HIIIIII NIKOO #NIKOO HIIIIII

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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silent reading time — kaiju no. 8, hoshina soshiro x reader, use of foods as nicknames, childhood best friends dynamic, biting, 1.4k words

Hoshina Soshiro is staring at your thighs.

... you think.

It's hard to tell, since you aren't looking at him. Quick, fleeting glances out of the corner of your eye aren't enough to discern the true aim of his line of sight, but it really kinda looks like... he's looking at your thighs.

Why, though?

It's just a typical weekday night. You dropped by his room the way you have for the past twenty-odd years, holding a paperback book with a purple pen tucked behind your ear, ready to indulge in your favorite pastime of silent reading in your best friend's company. Soshiro has his own paperback in hand, green pen spinning around his fingers. The two of you jot little notes as you read, and once you finish you swap books. Later, you'll go to one of your favorite cafes together to talk about them. Soshiro's neat scrawl is as familiar to you as the back of your own hand.

For a brief moment you debate calling him out on his staring. But — nah, it's probably nothing. Maybe your pajama shorts are a little worn and he's just appalled you're wearing something so flimsy.

"What's up, beansprout?"

You glance up from the words you haven't been reading and meet your best friend's gaze. "Huh?"

Soshiro closes his book but keeps his finger tucked to hold his place. His green pen spins in a blur. "You've been starin' at that page for ages. You sleepy or somethin'?"

"Nooo..." you draw out the word as you think of something to say. "Just wondering if I should get new pajamas."

Well — you didn't call him a creep, but now he's blatantly staring at your thighs and maybe this is... worse? You can feel a flush rising up your body at his scrutiny.

"What's wrong with these?"

"... Nothing?"

Soshiro gives you a doubtful look and before you have a chance to retreat, he's caught you against the bed, pinning you down with his elbows on either side of your shoulders. Your books and pens go flying across the mattress, landing with a thunk and a clatter as the room settles back to stillness. The sudden proximity of him looming above you takes your breath away. You squirm a little at the abrupt weight. Soshiro chuckles, his breath warm by your ear as his legs press yours into the mattress.

"Tell me, egg tart."

He's close enough that the strands of his purple hair tickle your forehead. You know you have no chance of getting away from the Vice Captain of the Third Division in close quarters, but you wiggle half-heartedly anyway. "Get off of me, you big oaf!"

"Oh? That's not very nice," Soshiro's grin is playful. He eyes you for a second, and then he pouts. "I just wanna know what's runnin' through that pretty lil head."

Well that's just unfair. He knows you're weak to him when he makes that face. You scrunch your nose at him and giggle when he mimics you. He's steady, hovering above you, as if it's nothing for him to basically hold a modified plank pose on the soft surface of his mattress. Something about that makes you feel... a little warm.

But he's your best friend. You've known him since you were toddlers, training in swordsmanship together at the Hoshina estate, following him into the Defense Force until you hit a wall and pivoted to research instead — you know Hoshina Soshiro, and he does not make you feel warm like this.

You gather your wits about you slowly, like your braincells are moving through molasses. Soshiro seems content to hold his position, familiar grin still firmly in place. You can feel the warmth radiating from him, the careful way he keeps from squishing you entirely, even though he's stopping you from running away from the question.

"It's really nothing, promise," you say, "I just thought maybe you kept looking at my pajamas because they're so old."

There's a moment of silence as Soshiro digests this. You listen to him breathing above you, the thick fabric of his sweats warm where his legs press into your bare skin, the overhead light haloing his purple strands and casting his carefully blank expression in a faint shadow.

"Dontcha think you're a lil too comfy 'round me?" His voice comes out low, almost missed beneath the sound of your rapidly accelerating heartbeat. "I'm a man, too, y'know."

You blink. Soshiro's now wearing the vaguely amused smile he always seems to have on when you're around, but there's something lingering along the edges that sends a shiver up your spine.

Forget molasses. Your brain shuts down entirely, bluescreening as you frantically try to reconcile his words and his meaning and why is he looking at you like that? Like he wants to — to eat you, to swallow you whole — and why does he keep glancing at your lips? Do you have something between your teeth?

But, no, wait — Soshiro is a man. You know this. You've known this for ages. It's impossible to train with the strongest close quarters combatant in the entire Defense Force and not realize this simple fact. You've seen Soshiro take down more miniature and mid-sized kaiju than you can count, and he's a brilliant leader of his platoon and division. Everyone respects him and works hard to live up to his expectations, though you know he works three times as hard in the shadows.

Your childhood friend is certainly not a child any longer. One glance at the densely packed muscle on Soshiro's body is enough proof of that. You peek at his biceps tensing as he shifts above you and gulp.

Yeah, he's definitely a man.

But what does that have to do with anything...?

"Of course I'm comfy with you, Soshiro-kun," you say. Why does your voice sound like that? All... breathy and soft? You clear your throat and try to inject some normalcy in your tone. "You're my best friend! You'd tell me if my pajamas are too worn out, right?"

Soshiro just looks at you blankly. This is where he's supposed to crack a joke, this is where he flicks your forehead and calls you 'sugarplum' and rolls off of you, this is not where he suddenly leans down close enough that you can feel his breaths puff against your ear before everything narrows down to the singular point on your neck where he bites you.

"S-Soshiro-kun, what the hell?!"

"What's wrong? We're best friends, ain't we?"

"Yeah, but why'd you bite me?"

Soshiro's laugh is pressed into your neck like honey dripping from the comb. He's not... He hasn't moved away. You haven't moved away.

You could. He's left you room to move.

But you don't.

It's warm. His legs are still pressing against yours. The faintly woodsy smell of him is all around you, seeping into your skin as you shift amidst his blankets. "No reason," he says airily, lips brushing your temple as he brings himself to hover above you again. "Just takin' advantage of my best friend privileges."

"By... biting me?"

"By showin' ya I'm comfy 'round you, too."

The tension pops. You can't help but laugh, something like relief and the bittersweet tinge of regret flushing through your bloodstream. "What are you, an animal? Who the heck bites people and calls it comfortable?"

"Are ya uncomfy?"

"Well, no, but—"

"I've always wanted to bite you," Soshiro says. You can read the truth in the curve of his smile as his purple strands waver above you. "Ya look like you'd taste good, chestnut."

"That's it," you wrinkle your nose at him. "You've gotta come up with other nicknames for me, or else you'll keep thinking of me as food!"

Soshiro hums in thought. You can feel the sting and the faint imprint of teeth along the sensitive skin of your neck. Something about it makes you feel fuzzy inside, like a tv antenna struggling to search for a signal. You shift anxiously as the silence stretches, yearning for something unknown.

"No can do," he says brightly. His red eyes gleam as he leans down again. "But we're comfy with each other, yeah? Want me to inspect these old pjs for ya?"

The blush blooms beneath your skin with a force that startles you. "Uh, what—? No, Soshiro-kun, definitely not—"

He grins and it's bright, but a little strained. You reach up unthinkingly to cup his face in your hands, smoothing your thumbs along his jawline and cheekbones and smiling when he leans into the touch. The knot in your chest loosens. The two of you bask in the comfort of each other for a moment.

"You should really tell me off," he breathes, tilting his head. "You should tell me ta quit messin' around."

"Are you messing around?" you ask.

Soshiro laughs, a quiet sound in the stillness of the room. "I'm never messin' around when it comes to you."

#this was such a lovely fic #i really liked their dynamic #oblivious childhood friend my beloved LMAOOO #i need to get bitten so bad #sorry op #ANYWAYS #reader is stronger than me i wuldve fallen asleep #parallel play + comfy bed = zzz LDSFKJHSDJ #'I've always wanted to bite you' OK SO. get that thang away from me (me when i lie)#writer: mangostarjam #hoshina soshirou x reader #kaiju no 8 fic

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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THIS SIDE OF PARADISE ┊ HIMURA REI

tags: GN reader, post canon au, neighbours to lovers, rei is divorced, mention of domestic abuse, falling in love, gardening, todoroki siblings, mutual pining, healthy communication, first kiss, so much fluff, no real mention of age difference

wc: 2k

The first time you see Himura Rei she is sitting on her veranda, pale legs bare under the pitter patter of rain and hands held out to house the droplets.

You are wrapped up in a long coat under an umbrella. The collar whips against your cheek with the wind, petrichor thick on your tongue. In the month since she moved here you hadn’t seen her once. You met her children, briefly. Fuyumi is a frequent visitor and less… skittish than the sons. Rather, you find her more approachable.

The memory of her face as she had accepted your house warming gift on her mother’s behalf is drawn to the forefront of your mind. An expression so profoundly sincere, lips quivering with the effort to allay her tears, that you felt your own throat swell. The monstera cradled in her arms was tall enough to drape its larger leaves over her shoulder like an infant.

“Thank you,” she grinned. “My mother loves plants”.

Thinking back, Fuyumi looks a lot like her mother. You aren’t sure how long you have been standing in the middle of the pavement, lingering at the garden gate as you watch your elusive neighbour embrace the passing storm.

The sun is tucked behind a dense blanket of dark clouds and yet Rei’s complexion glows. White and waning like the surface of the moon. She’s wearing a thin nightgown, sheer sleeves fluttering around her shoulders, hem pulled above her knees. Her naked legs hesitantly kick back and forth, toes wiggling above the grass. The breeze seems to glitter as though it were crystallised upon touching her.

The rain is loud in your ears. With every lash your jeans get wetter. Your knuckles feel like they could split yet she is unperturbed, at ease, and you can’t look away. Her gaze drags from the curtain of droplets along the roof to you. Moonlight on the water's surface; her reaction ripples at the sudden disturbance until it settles into calm. You smile and lift your hand in an awkward wave.

Rei blinks. When she slowly returns the wave you hear a sharp inhale—your own, fist flexing around the handle of your umbrella like it might be torn away from your grip. A chill stirs the evening air. She’s beautiful.

You stumble towards home, the cold sharper on your hot cheeks.

The second time you see Rei is not all that dissimilar from the first. Your houses are side by side and built on an incline. Her front garden is gated and well kept, brimming with flora held by retaining walls. She sits out on her front veranda in a powder blue knitted cardigan with a white daisy pattern and a skirt that hangs above her ankles.

The early afternoon sun soaks into the timbre and you can see clearly the various small potted plants that bordered her doorway. Her sleeves have been rolled up her arms, loose dirt clinging to her skin as she cups both hands to form a spout, meticulously pouring soil into a decorative pot in her lap.

You observe with fatal stillness just how careful she is with the seedlings, how she plucks the clumps from their roots piece by piece and tucks it into the freshly made earth. A smile pulls at your mouth at the pleased little noise she makes. Satisfied and heavy, a job well done. Her shoulders sag and she nudges the new pot beside the others.

It’s then that her face lifts up to feel the sun on her cheeks, and she sees you.

If Rei was elusive then surely you were erring into ‘creep’ territory. You bite your inner cheek, mentally scorning yourself for getting distracted, and motion to wave at her once again.

Rather than return it, Rei pushes up onto her feet. She brushes the dirt from her skirt and the front of her cardigan falls open—it isn’t a skirt, but a dress. You stand frozen at the foot of her garden as she walks down the path, marked by stepping stones, each a different size and shape.

The gravel crunches underfoot as she stops. Crisp air follows shortly behind her and you draw it into your lungs. Closer, you can trace the soft wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. They deepen; it’s how you intuit that she’s smiling, despite the absence of one.

Hot embarrassment floods through you at the realisation that you’re staring again. You bow hastily and glare hard at your shoes as you give your name, “I’m glad I could finally meet you, Himura-san. I hope you’re settling in well”.

Her feet shuffle forward. You can see her open toed sandals in your periphery. Hands clasping tight to her stomach, Rei returns the bow. Her posture is perfect, a picture of formality. A drape of white hair falls over her shoulder and you swallow the emotions cloying in your throat when she tucks it behind her ear.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she says quietly. Her voice is light, almost feathery as it carries in the breeze. Then she dips her head again, “I apologise for not greeting you sooner”.

“Oh, not at all!” you make an aborted motion to reach out and comfort her, taking note of the tension that snaps back into her small frame and pausing. Offering what you hope is a reassuring smile, you add, “I barely see the neighbour on my right. This isn’t a particularly chatty street. So please don’t worry”.

You’ve proffered your hand and she stares at it with vague hope. Rei first swipes a palm down her hip, conscious of the dirt, and gently returns the handshake. “Sorry. I’m cold, aren’t I?” she says, noticing the fleeting shiver that runs up your arm.

“It’s not too bad,” you intone curiously, solidifying your grip. Her fingers are lissome and soft. You can smell a faint waft of eucalyptus intermingled with fresh earth. “Is it to do with your quirk?”

“It is,” the tendons in her wrist flex as you part and she appraises her hand. It clenches into a fist, as if she were holding onto something. “I can create ice with the moisture in the air”.

Shadows shift with the sun as it partially sheaths overhead. Light simmers in her irises as she squints to shield her face. “You must be popular in summer. I might just pay you in mocktails, Himura-san,” you reply lightheartedly. The impression of her hand remains cool on your skin and you resist the urge to rub at it, lest she think her temperature bothered you.

Your eyes meet and Rei smiles. It is tentative but undoubtedly warm. A slow pull at the corner of her mouth, her bottom lip a little thicker than the top. She has a pronounced cupid’s bow that strikes right through you. The less you try to think about it the more it resurfaces.

“Please. Just call me Rei,” she demurred. There is strength in her voice now. “And I’d be glad to see more of you, mocktail or not”.

Thus marked the beginnings of a growing friendship.

You knew who she was. Of course you did. Her son’s face—the youngest, not the oldest—is plastered around almost every billboard in the city and difficult to miss. Seeing him walking down your narrow street in ratty sweatpants is even more surreal.

But that knowledge created an imbalance of sorts. You’re a bit ashamed of how it coloured your early interactions with Rei. She isn’t a baby bird for you to nurse. Rei is an adult woman that happens to have weathered a traumatic marriage and seen the other side of it, like many others her age.

You would know—you read the statistics. They were grotesque. Supposedly the emergence of quirks had seen an unprecedented rise in domestic violence cases. You’re not sure why it surprises you.

Rei doesn’t talk about it and you never ask. You’re not entirely sure you want to know more than you already do. Only that there’s a plot across Tokyo with the beginnings of a traditional house carved into the land. She declined the offer and expressed her wish to pick somewhere to call entirely her own. Entirely untouched by him.

And it was—her own, that is. Your row of houses were built to be narrow and deep. It was difficult to make use of the space. Even so, Rei’s home is cosy. Maximalist in a breathable way.

The conservatory had been refitted with tatami mats, centred by a large kotatsu. Old family photos and childrens paintings are dotted across the walls. Plants are hung from the ceilings, blankets draped across the couch cushions, shelves lined with garden care and self help books. Passing through the genkan was like stepping into her soul.

When you later asked what drew her to live here she replied, “There’s spare room for my children and a garden big enough for my plants,” and then she pinned you with a gentle smile, “The sweet neighbour is an unexpected plus”.

Your heart just about fought its way through your rib cage. Beating desperately against bone bars. It fills you with restless affection, and anger. You want to hold her tight to your chest. You want to tear into every person that has ever harmed her.

This was not something you could pursue with the hope of asking for more. You were content to be a friend to Rei. She’s wonderful and considerate and you count yourself lucky.

Now, there is always tea waiting for you; boiled in a small electric kettle that rattles as it heats. She likes it because it doesn’t whistle. You spend most of your evenings with her amongst the perennial beds, the sun a shawl around her neck. “Rindou flowers are my favourite,” she confessed wistfully. The petals feel frail between your fingers, arching bursts of vivid blue. “They like dappled shelter and rich soil”.

Some days you are coaxed into helping with her garden. The soil is warm and wet. It’s messy work, and your compliance has everything to do with the phantom brush of her fingers on your cheek as she swipes away the dirt.

One rare instance saw Rei handing you a hair tie with stained hands and the timid request that you pull her hair back. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, wilting as you quivered. You physically felt the chill leave the air. “Is that better?”

You could hardly confess the true reason. Skin that frissoned where you touched. Fine white hair curled at the nape of her neck. You had never felt so oddly exhilarated by the curve of someone’s throat.

Your house is gradually filled with colour. Rei makes sure to send you back with a small bouquet or two. “It’s good to have something to take care of other than yourself,” she told you.

Fuyumi stops by twice a week, sometimes more. Natsuo and Shouto have a less structured schedule. One being a paramedic and the other a pro hero, days off are hard to come by. Still they call every day, and the youngest sends her written letters, which you found particularly endearing.

Rei’s company had added an unexpected glimmer to life. When she pauses mid sentence to listen to a bird song. When her frosted eyes brighten at the watercolor sky as it douses the entire street pink. When a new leaf on her gifted monstera began to unravel, and that delicate sound of awe echoed traitorously around your brain well into the night.

Right. The world was full of wonder. When did you forget that? You feel like a newborn again.

The real paradigm shift comes in late August with a firm knock. Natsuo stops by your house one Sunday as he’s leaving and asks what your intentions with his mother are. You have never felt so despairingly transparent.

His gaze sharpens as you draw in breath through your nose and blow it out through your mouth. “I just want her to be happy and healthy,” you tell him.

He’s unintentionally intimidating like this. Broad and looming, taking up much of your doorway. It betrays how aware he is; the Natsuo you’re familiar with always telegraphed his movements around Rei. He’s a good boy, a gentle, bleeding heart, but he’s also quite big.

“You don’t plan to ask her out?”

“I—” you stammer at the unexpected question. “I… wasn’t planning on it?”

Natsuo’s glare dims into a look of confusion. “Well. Why the hell not?”

You blink. He glances over your shoulder into the hallway, staring at the flowers arranged beside your bowl of keys. There are pieces of Rei dotted around your house and she has never even stepped foot in it.

“She cares about you, you know. Neither of you are subtle,” he mumbles, awkwardly scratching at his neck. The bridge of his nose wrinkles and for a short moment, he looks just like her. “She’s—I’ve never seen her like this. So… full of life. You’re good for her”.

Then he shrinks, and it’s as though a little boy is shuffling on your doorstep. Sonorous and thick with emotion, Natsuo falls into a bow and blurts, “Please take care of our mother”.

You take him by the shoulder. As he stands straight your arm stretches high where your hand remains in place. His eyes are boyishly wide and hopeful. Cold seeps through his clothing, intensifying as you smile.

“I promise. Thank you, Natsuo”.

Despite receiving her children’s blessing you resolve to take your time. The month reaches an end and another begins. In the weeks between you touch Rei with purpose, each more confident than the last as she visibly flusters and eventually reciprocates. It feels like spring anew.

The day soon comes that she needs to divide the perennials and sow new seeds for September. You fawn over the dark green dungarees she has pulled up over her sweater. “You look so cute!”

“Do I?” Rei pats down her stomach self consciously. You’re used to her wearing loose fitted clothing, but this fabric strains a little around her wide hips and thighs.

You wet your lips reflexively, “Yeah. You do”.

She herds you toward the garden by the waist and you let her lead you, laughter following close behind. You are distracted by her firm instruction. Gently lift from centre to root, shake off the clumps of soil and replant. Some require teasing by hand, and you observe as she deftly pries the knotted roots apart.

Though the sky is clear there are brief, infrequent showers passing through and your job has mostly been to keep the umbrella stable over her head. Ripe seed heads are plucked singly from their stalks and laid on the planter wall.

“Look. You can tell they’re ripe because they’re no longer green,” she exalted, holding a pod up for you to see. You lean in close and rest your cheek on her shoulder. She inhales deeply but says nothing. You feel the weight of her head rest atop your crown.

“Do we crush them?”

“Some. I’ll bring them inside,” she says. “Let’s take a break for now. You need to eat”.

“So do you,” you murmur, nuzzling into her sleeve. The perpetual chill has grown on you and you can tell she’s relieved by it. Funny, how both you and the plants seem to turn toward her as though she were the sun. “Can we sit in the tatami room?”

“Where else?”

Your body is leaden with contentment. Warm like the soil. Rei kneels adjacent, draping the kotatsu across her lap, a clementine cradled in the shallow of her palm. An arc of light passes through the shutters as she passes it off to you.

You press a nail into the soft rind and peel it back. The room is filled with fruit; it spills over your hands. Viscous strings of pith stretch and snap as you push your thumb in the centre, pulling apart the segments.

The silence is comfortable. You like to feed her first. Watching her eat the tart slices one by one satiates your own hunger. Her mouth is coated in a sheen of sticky juice, puckered and shaped around her finger as she sucks them clean.

“They taste wonderful,” she says, pleased. Short lived as she realises you’ve not eaten anything yet. “Do you not like them?”

You push a slice into your mouth in lieu of a reply. A sweet flavour bursts on your tongue as your teeth sink into the flesh. It is good, and she softens at your satisfied noise. Unbidden, you wonder how it would taste from her lips.

“I like them,” you reassure her. She exhales a short laugh.

“It certainly sounded that way”.

Another bout of rainfall curtains the street. A quiet symphony of pitter patters rapt at her windows. It draws neither yours nor Rei's attention from the other. Your knee bounces restlessly beneath the table as the magnetism between your bodies grows taut.

“Rei,” you begin, voice overlapping her own with your name on her tongue. Together you dissolve into shy laughter. “Rei,” you try again. “I want to kiss you. Is that okay?”

She nods. You shuffle closer as she turns naturally into your embrace. She feels like winter and smells like summer. Sweet clementine glossing her mouth, her shaky exhale is visible in the warm air as you dip. Lips part and you right the angle, slotting them together in a long, meaningful kiss.

Cold hands grasp at the front of your shirt. Rei takes your face into her hands like she’s looking for solid ground. Your noses bump as you lick the seam of her mouth and she meets you there—coaxes you in, wet and smooth. She shudders under your touch, half lain in your lap.

Then she freezes. Eyes wide like a doe in an open field, she pulls back from the kiss. “Rei?” you call gently, smothering the instinct to panic. “I’m sorry. Was that too fast?”

You wait as she presses her fingertips to her lips and wonder if your warmth has lingered. What you are not expecting to hear is, “I’m old”.

“You’re—old?”

Rei nods slowly. “I have three adult children and I don’t want to remarry”.

“O…kay”.

“Okay?”

“As in, I’m okay with all of those things,” you affirm with a slight frown. She doesn’t flinch as you take her hand and the tension dissipates when her wrist overturns to reciprocate.

Cautiously, Rei intertwines your fingers. “Despite the fact that I’m nearing fifty?”

“You’re only forty five, Rei. We could probably have another forty five together, if we try,” you squeeze your palms together with a fond laugh. “But we don’t need to label anything yet if you don’t want to”.

Rei seems to weigh your words. Rather than reply, she reaches across and peels the small oval sticker from the rind of another unpeeled clementine. You stare at her in wonderment as she sticks it to the apple of your cheek.

“I’d like a label,” she breathes. “If that’s okay with you”.

Pink blooms across her nose and deepens in your prolonged silence. Frosted fingertips skim your jawline and when she moves to retreat you grasp her wrist, bringing it closer to cradle your head in her hand.

You turn into her palm and kiss her inner wrist. “So would I”.

#i also miss ur wife tails #started tearing up as i read it 😔 i love women 😔 women i love u #and this fic was so soft and the emotions were so poignant #AS ALWAYS I MIGHT ADD :ass:#i know its a monty fic bc it made me TEAR UP #i like reader acknowledging that they did infantilize her a little during their first meeting #and then their reminds that she IS a grown woman whos been thru it #that was very refreshing #she is such a sweet lady and she is so strong #the scene w natsuo made me weepy too...#ough... head in my hands...#writer: shibaraki #himura rei x reader #boku no hero academia fic

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namodareads · 1 year ago

Text

O4O: part i

|| jing yuan x reader || E/18+ || omega for omega, soft smut || wc: 10.3k || ao3 ||

Jing Yuan has been content riding out his heats alone for centuries. You, despite being another omega, are happy to lend a hand if Jing Yuan will have you.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

💦🎀 this piece is apart of SPRING FEVER: an omegaverse collab! 🎀💦

part i (here) — part ii (coming soon!)

notes: hello omega jing yuan omega jing yuan save me... the way omega jy has haunted me for months. MONTHS. this fic is incredibly indulgent soft, needy smut with non-traditional a/b/o dynamics. THANK YOU to the lovely @owlespresso for beta reading!! please read the tags and enjoy!! <3

CW: a/b/o dynamics, omega jing yuan (with afab and amab anatomy), omega reader (afab anatomy), past yingxing/jing yuan/dan feng, bottom jing yuan flavors (though reader does not do any penetration), use of toys, worldbuilding around omegaverse, lots of biting, milfy jing yuan, mommy kink without the word mommy (at least not in this part 👀💗!!),

Jing Yuan has not shared his heat with anyone in a very, very long time. Centuries, most certainly. Jing Yuan doesn’t find it very useful to keep track of that length of time— he finds it cumbersome if anything. There’s no use holding onto a past that only forces him to redigest pain.

Jing Yuan rarely has heats. He keeps a diligent schedule of medication and only has to go through them once every decade or so. Occasionally less, if the Luofu is passing a particular star system or comet field. His heats are always cumbersome. He can conceal his omegan sensibilities often, but it is more difficult prior to a heat.

Preheat is a different beast.

When Jing Yuan sequesters himself in his estate for the better part of a week, anyone who knows he’s even there assumes it is to go through a rut. A week is a standard amount of time to take off for a rut and is expected. However, a heat has a standard time off of about two and a half weeks. Much longer to accommodate preheat and nesting needs.

Jing Yuan rarely indulges his own.

The Luofu, at large, assumes he is an alpha. This is manufactured, however only partially. Generally, the citizens of the Luofu assume, given that he is the General and he has a larger, broad-shouldered stature, that he is an Alpha through and through. He always wears scent patches in public, which is normal for both omegas and alphas. Betas, too, occasionally. Depending on the subtype. The Charioteers know that he is an omega, but they are committed to some amount of discretion and guard the information as a secret. Lady Fu, an alpha, will occasionally scold him for being so secretive. Like he harbors some sort of self-hatred that he is an omega.

It is simply more convenient for him to be seen as an alpha. Jing Yuan doesn’t wish to disturb this perception.

And therefore, it is much easier to wait as long as possible between heats and bear them alone. Whatever instincts he has can be satiated with toys and a half-decent nest. Jing Yuan has always considered this enough. ‘Enough’.

(It’s not sating. Jing Yuan cannot lie to himself about this. He remembers laying with Yingxing, and how the alpha made him feel more full and content than Jing Yuan had ever thought possible during a heat. Or ever, truthfully. He remembers how calming Dan Feng’s presence had been— grounding and reassuring, too. Jing Yuan was fucked, filled and protected. An omega’s dream.)

Jing Yuan... copes with what he has. A large, plush bed with a downy mattress, a few donated, alpha-scented garments, and a collection of inflatable, knotting toys. He always leaves his heat with lingering cramps, a brutalized hole, and a yearning that takes a few weeks to quiet itself.

It is natural that he craves his mates. Even if they are long dead (not dead. Not really. Not the same as they once were, anyway.)

And certainly, never to be his again. The mating mark on his neck has long faded.

Jing Yuan tracks his heat so such yearning can be anticipated and planned for. He knows when his heat is approaching, down to the specific day it will occur. He titrates off his suppressants carefully, and maps out a portion of time off for himself a year or so in advance.

Which is why it is very odd that he starts exhibiting preheat symptoms in the middle of the day, a random day, during a tactical meeting.

Even if he had been titrating down his dose in anticipation for a planned heat in a few months time, it is far, far too early to begin feeling symptoms. The familiar itchiness prickling under his skin is entirely unexpected. Jing Yuan has to put a particularly large amount of effort to get through this unnecessary meeting without letting a single symptom slip. He can only adjust in his seat so many times before it is improper, or juggle the cradle of his jaw from one hand to the other before it is clear something is wrong.

If any of the Charioteers and their advisers notice anything amiss with him, they say nothing. The only one who looks off-put is Fu Xuan. She’s a spitfire alpha herself, and perhaps she’s keen enough to notice that Jing Yuan is beginning to feel... unwell. Though he is masking his scent as he always does, he imagines that the flush in his cheeks is becoming increasingly obvious.

Fu Xuan gives Jing Yuan a wary look as the meeting is dismissed.

“General,” She says curtly. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” He gives her a rich laugh as he stands, muffling a groan as his stiff back and knees ache. He’d sat for too long. He feels light-headed as he rights himself and Fu Xuan glares at him.

“I doubt that,” Fu Xuan huffs. “I will not interrogate you in public, nor do I think you would give me an honest answer even if I did—”

“So little trust in me, Master Diviner—”

“ However, I will urge you to go home. ” She takes a step closer and sniffs the air. It’s just the two of them in the meeting room now, the rest of the parties in attendance having filtered out. Subtly and without fanfare, she takes his hand in her own, and presses her wrist to his. Jing Yuan keeps an easy grin on his face but can’t help the way he tenses his fingers, flexing them at the contact. “Do you need an escort?”

“Is Lady Fu worrying for me? How kind.”

“I’m— not, ” Fu Xuan huffs now and more roughly smears their wrists together. The scent gland she is almost abusing is swollen and hot to the touch. It takes all of his composure not to squirm with her treatment. “I’m no fool. If you have a heat starting, you should be comfortable at home, not in a war room.”

“Master Diviner, you think I’m an omega?” Jing Yuan says with a smile. He knows she is already privy to this, but he can’t resist teasing her a bit.

“You are insufferable. Even in this state. Go home. I will take you there myself.”

“I’m afraid I can’t return home just yet,” He hums. He imagines he has a few hours before proper pre-heat sets in. “I have a lunch date that I cannot miss.”

“You— a lunch date?”

“Yes, of course. It’s a scheduled event, dear Diviner.”

“Do not patronize me.”

Jing Yuan laughs as she fumes. He has the urge to ruffle her hair, but thinks better of it. The complicated updo would surely be ruffled, and Jing Yuan is already getting an earful as it is.

“I would never.”

Fu Xuan yanks her arm away with a growl. She wears some type of masking perfume, she always has, but with her frustration swirling, a bit of her actual scent peaks through. It’s light on the back of his tongue, floral almost. Nearly inedible, but the kind of scent Jing Yuan that makes him nostalgic—

(For a master with a scent like frost-covered roses, and a packmate with a scent filled with springtime lilac blossoms in fat clusters.)

“If this lunch is really so necessary, may I escort you there at least? Or will your alpha be meeting you here?”

“They’re not an alpha.” Jing Yuan hums. His stomach feels warm regardless. “And I’ll be just fine getting there myself.”

Fu Xuan looks at him, questioningly. Her lips open, then close once more. There are questions she clearly has. And for all her brashness and hot-blooded fervor, she understands decorum better than most. She pries out of care and her good intentions, and Jing Yuan can respect that if nothing else.

“I’ll concede,” Fu Xuan sighs. “ However, please let me know if there’s anything else you need. You have my number.”

“Noted.” Jing Yuan rises, and feels the heat clouding his head sink lower in his body. He’s being engulfed.

Fu Xuan deadpans, “General—”

“Have a good rest of your day, Master Diviner,” He calls with a light laugh, slipping away before Fu Xuan can give him any further grief.

...

As the Arbiter General of the Luofu, Jing Yuan knows its streets and secrets very well. There’s more than one way to arrive at his favored terrace garden without being seen or smelt by the public. It is helpful that this path is lined near an aqueduct stream, surrounded by lush greenery and clumps of fragrant azure asters. This path is tucked away, straddling an external tunnel of the Luofu’s inner tunnels. Really, only the Calibrators aboard the ship use it, and as there are only a few and they tend to keep to their delve, Jing Yuan has very little fear walking this way at his own leisure.

He is glad you tend to take your lunch dates in the privacy of this particular garden, under the gazebo and nestled atop its many silken blankets and pillows. A conventional restaurant in this state would be doable, but unideal.

Jing Yuan can smell you as he approaches. It makes him pause, just outside the gate. His hands hovers over his jade abacus as he opens his mouth to taste you in the back of his mouth.

(Warm, a familiar scent that he associates with the rare indulgence of relaxation. It’s not overly sweet or ripe, but balanced and full-bodied. Not quite floral or fruity, and not deep enough to be akin to an aged black tea. Perhaps like the roll of a hearth or the beeswax of a lit candle.)

He’s sighs. It calms him instantly.

Even if you aren’t an alpha, you are familiar, as is the current setting.

You’re sitting at a low table in the shade of the gazebo. There are several plates of cheeses, cut fruits, salted meats, and nuts laid out. You’re ladling sticky honey into a small dish as he enters, and look up at the sound of the gate closing.

You smile when you see him.

“General,” You smile. “I apologize, I started setting up lunch without you. Everything should still be chilled.”

“No need to be sorry,” he laughs gently, brushing a hand against your shoulder before rounding the table, and taking a seat across from you. “I could never complain about your diligence. You have chosen quite the spread today, haven’t you?”

You flush with a nod, and gesture down to the table, “The markets were lovely today, I had to splurge. You’ll have to let me know what you think.”

“Only if you do the same.”

“I-I can do that,” You smile at him softly.

Despite your familiarity, you still regard him with some amount of anxiety. Jing Yuan has long since placed this has less to do with his status as General, and more than likely due to a deepened amount of affection that Jing Yuan... entertains. Enjoys. Thrives off of, even. He perhaps returns it, though he hasn’t told you that explicitly.

Besides, you believe him to be an alpha. He’s sure that, if you did know his secondary gender, such affections would fade quickly. The allure of what he could provide as an alpha is quite different from what he can provide as an omega.

Jing Yuan takes a sip of sparkling juice, and as he lowers the thin-necked glass, you look at him strangely. A crease knits itself between your brows.

“Did I get some on my face?” Jing Yuan chuckles and wipes at the corners of his mouth with his thumb.

“No... you just,” You stumble with your words, hands flexing in your lap. “Are... are you alright? Your cheeks look quite warm, and you’re sweating around your hairline.”

You always have been keen to bodies other than your own. It’s not the most common trait.

“... Am I?” Jing Yuan could choose to lie at this moment. It would be easy to say he was using a new brand of suppressants, or blame it on a stressful day. However, he doesn't like lying to you, only twisting the truth when entirely necessary. “I do suppose I’m at that point in my cycle.”

“Oh!” You startle and sit up more straight. You push a plate at him. “Pre-rut? You should eat, then. You’ll need your strength. Do— do you have someone I can call? I don’t mind.”

Your worry is cute.

Jing Yuan can’t help thinking about it. You are an omega full of so much care and urge to help. Jing Yuan has seen it and experienced it many times, and has also seen how it has gotten you into unfortunate situations. You have a trusting mind and spirit, and more than once, it has been used against you.

Jing Yuan likes keeping you close, so he can look after you, even if it’s from a distance.

He stares down at the plate. There’s a pile of glistening orange grapes, a few roses of sliced, cured meats, a chunk of honeycomb, and buttery looking crackers. It does look delicious, however Jing Yuan has always struggled to eat in his pre-heat. When he looks up at you to decline, your expression looks even more worried, almost sour.

Before he can speak, you are. Petal-soft lips lips downturned. “Are you... not in pre-rut, General?”

He deflates, slightly. He is old— and. He does not wish to steer you away from what is a correct assumption. You are his most trusted companion.

“I am not,” He says softly, and picks up one of the grapes. He squeezes. The skin is taut and tight. “And, please call me Jing Yuan. Formalities can be dropped, yes?”

“I— yes, of course.” You look from his plate to him. “So, you’re... pre-heat?”

“I am, yes.”

“Oh!” You immediately heap his plate with several other kinds of fruit, and grab a clean glass and pour ice water from a pitcher into it. “I apologize— for. Making such an assumption.”

“No need to apologize.” He soothes and lays a hand over yours. “I’m aware of what the vast majority of the Luofu assumes my secondary gender to be. It does not bother me. If it did, I would have corrected the greater public long ago. I apologize for not telling you directly until now.”

“It’s— okay,” you reply. Perhaps a bit hurt. “I never asked. I just— I just thought. Wrong.”

(Please be kinder to yourself, he thinks. It hurts to see you saddened on my account.)

“Nonsense,” he laughs and gracefully takes the water you offer. He downs the glass down his parched throat. He— hadn’t realized how thirsty he was. “No harm done. If anything, I’m grateful that you now know.”

(Regardless of how it could change your feelings toward him.)

Jing Yuan has tempered heartbreak for millenia. Another one— is not nothing, but it is manageable. Perhaps not during preheat, but he still has time to mourn.

“I’m glad too,” you tell him, and squeeze back his hand. You only scent him sometimes, always so shy about it, but now you firmly rub the scent gland in your wrist against his. His aches, and the sensation and exchange of pheromones nearly makes him wheeze. He straightens his spine.

“Was that—?” You almost pull away.

“No, it’s very welcome.”

You stare at him, intent and soft, before settling. Tentatively, you rub at the gland in gentle circles.

“You should eat,” you say after a moment. “Do you have an alpha I can call? Or— um, anything you need me to pick up for you?”

“I am fine.” Jing Yuan will text Qingzu for the essentials, rather than troubling you. “I’ll finish lunch with you, and then see myself home.”

“... No alpha to pick you up?”

“None to speak of, no.” Jing Yuan manages a smile.

(It has been— centuries since Jing Yuan had an alpha to care for and stake a claim on him. The notion of finding another has been put out of his mind since he himself had to confine Dan Feng to the Shackling Prison and exile the man Yingxing became. Even after meeting them as they are today, Jing Yuan knows they are no longer his mates.)

“Oh.”

Every one of your emotions is so clearly on your face. You look so sad for him and you squeeze his hand. He has half a mind to pull away, and remind you that he does not need your worry. However, he is in pre-heat, and by Lan, he is craving worry.

“And... heatmates?” You ask. “I don’t want to pry, but it’s hard to spend a heat alone.”

“Once again, none.” Jing Yuan replies without hesitating. The silence that follows is poignant as you study him.

“I see.” You frown again, clearly thinking. Jing Yuan can see the thoughts turning around just behind your eyes. You pile on even more fruits to his plate. “Eat, eat. You need it.”

“This much fruit will give me a stomach ache, I fear.”

“Some of it, at least!” You huff at him. “For me, please?”

Jing Yuan meets your gaze, easy and soft. There’s no threat, only the heat that matches your scent and the feel that radiates in his chest.

(You are not his alpha. You are something entirely different— something that he wants so badly to hold.)

“For you.”

...

By the end of lunch (in which, Jing Yuan does manage to eat a decent amount of the fruit you’d put on his plate), Jing Yuan’s pre-heat has begun to simmer into a more uncomfortable territory. He desperately wants to shed his uniform and armor, and slip into a robe and no bottoms. He hasn’t begun to slick yet, but he will surely start to by sundown.

Jing Yuan stands after the meal, stretching. It’s proper afternoon now, and the birds of the garden chirp eveningsong.

“Jing Yuan?” You ask as he stretches his arms above his head. His name sounds lovely in your mouth.

He hums, “Yes?”

“Do you want a heatmate?” You ask quietly.

He looks at you.

You’re fiercely meeting his gaze, even though you’re clearly struggling to. Your bottom lip is tucked between your teeth, and you’re fighting a frown from the crinkles on your forehead. Regardless, you stand your ground and ask a question that is surely difficult to broach, especially so directly.

“I—I am offering.” You stammer. “To clarify.”

“To be my heatmate?”

“Yes— I hate to think of you suffering alone, Jing Yuan. If I can be by your side to ease it, if only a little, I would like to be.”

“That is very brave of you to ask.” He smiles with a tilt of his head. “And bold.”

“I— I’m being honest.” You almost whine. It’s so cute. “Is that a no?”

“No, not at all.” Jing Yuan replies. “However, I wouldn’t want you to help solely for my benefit. If you wish to enter my nest exclusively to be an aid, and not out of... personal wants, I would feel guilty.”

“It’s— it’s personal wants too.”

“... Is it now?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Even though I’m not an alpha, as you thought?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain.”

“ Yes, Jing Yuan.”

“I cannot give you a knot—”

“I do not need one!” You break, much to Jing Yuan’s amusement. “I am happy to be by your side, regardless of that! If anything, I’m more than happy to share a nest with you without the assurance of a limp and a potential pup.”

Jing Yuan smiles, almost unrestrained, and your cheeks heat deliciously.

You stammer, and poke at his chest, “You’re teasing me—!”

“I apologize, you must forgive me—”

“ Rude—!”

Your bury your face in his chest and nuzzle there. It’s— clearly a self soothing action, one you realize a moment too late isn’t quite proper. You stiffen, beginning to draw away, before Jing Yuan catches you by your scruff and holds you there.

“You’re alright,” He holds a wide palm there. “I apologize for teasing you. I mean so warmly.”

“... Scoundrel.” The sound muffles into his chest.

“Am I?”

You peer up at him, so warm in the cheeks and eyes... almost watery. Something in his chest feels sticky and molten.

“ Yes—” You dare to meet his eyes again. “But, one I’m very fond of.”

Jing Yuan steels himself.

You are an omega. It is not your pheromones addling his mind. There is clarity in the attraction and affection he has for you, one not influenced by the urge to be knotted and bred. Though, Jing Yuan wants that, maybe part of him needs it. There is a trunk full of toys and implements he has tucked away that will sate the urge. The feelings that he carries for you will not so easily be placated.

“I would like it very much if you were to share my heat with me,” He speaks softly, just for the two of you to hear. Not even the garden birds will know his words. “If you are still offering.”

“Yes,” You say quickly, tentatively wrapping your arms around his waist. “Yes.”

He chuckles, easy and low, and presses his nose into your hair. Perhaps it’s pre-heat, making him sentimental and mushy. He usually hides out and bears it alone in his comfiest nest so these feelings typically do not get expressed in any other way other than delirious, anguished cries while a knotting toy takes the edge off.

Jing Yuan finds these are nice to indulge, as your scent envelopes him.

...

“I lied earlier,” Jing Yuan says as you enter the threshold of his estate. “I apologize sincerely.”

“Oh?” You ask with a tilt of your head, accepting a pair of house slippers eagerly. “... What about?”

“I am in pre-heat unexpectedly. Though I have been tapering suppressants for an anticipated heat, it has come far earlier than planned . Things are... not as I would like them. You’ll need to excuse me for a few moments.”

Jing Yuan, like any omega, is particular about his home and nest, especially around his heat. He knows his home and inner chambers are not to his liking and he’ll need to prepare them. Even if you aren’t an alpha entering his nest, you are a guest and companion he is very fond of. You deserve only the best.

“Of course, whatever you need,” you assure him. “Do you need me to grab anything while you do so? I don’t mind running to the market—”

Jing Yuan turns on his heel, grabbing your arm firmly, “You’re not leaving.”

“O-Oh.”

Your eyes widen, and heat rises in your cheeks. Your throat bobs as you swallow and nod. Jing Yuan— were he not in pre-heat, would perhaps be a bit embarrassed by his brazeness. However, now? The idea of you leaving his home sends him reeling. You cannot leave— not until you smell like him and his nest. Not until— not until this is over.

“I sent a request to Qingzu to fetch us a few things during the walk over. She’ll be here shortly. I do, however, have a bowl of fruit that could be cut up while I get myself sorted. How does that sound?”

You nod eagerly, happy to follow instruction. Jing Yuan knows this about you and enjoys it thoroughly.

He sets you up in the kitchen with a bowl of sunsiettas, a box of meldberries, and a few bunches of perfectly ripe, round kaishen grapes. Jing Yuan leaves you to the task, which he can already tell you will do dutifully. You thrive off of praise and direction. It’s a dangerous trait of an omega to carry, even more terrifying to hold openly as you do. Jing Yuan knows it has burned you before.

However, he intends to indulge you well and kindly, as it pleases him very much.

His mind, far-too warm and itchy, yearns to spin fantasies as he locks himself in his room with a shake of his head.

He must keep it together. Just for awhile longer. His bed is— not a nest. Not the nest he wants (needs) it to be. His duvet, thick and luxurious as it is, needs a fluffing and a fresh scenting. His pillows are not arranged to his liking, and he needs to poke through his linen closet and add some extra layers as well. He needs to make sure there’s lube nearby with clean toys. Water out. His phone charged and volume on— (though, he already sent a message to Qingzu stating his heat has hit and he’ll be out for at least a week. ‘Defer to Diviner Fu :3’ , which is Jing Yuan’s payment to Lady Fu for the list of errands he had sent her.)

Jing Yuan shakes his head with a laugh. The little alpha will certainly be pleased when she hear she’ll get to play General for a while.

Pre-heat drives him forward. He sheds his many layers (without aid, which is objectively a headache and he regrets not asking you for assistance initially. However, Jing Yuan is fairly certain that if he were to be fully bare around you, regardless of his pre- heat or not, he may jump you and drag you into his nest—)

Pre-heat is also making him somewhat irrational.

He throws on his favored robe, a silken, cream-colored garment with delicate gold and red embroidery around the hems. The sleeves drape at his wrists and a sash ties it snugly around his waist. The itch that’s been rolling around just under his skin feels duller, with the less restrictive garment. The fabric crosses over his chest in a way that is... revealing. Probably too revealing, under any other circumstance, especially given that you have never seen him in anything less than his daily regalia.

The thought of looking so indecent around you has its allure to it. One that Jing Yuan lets himself entertain with a smitten smile as he works.

He is attracted to you, surely. This he knows and has known.

Jing Yuan acknowledges that this is both emotional and physical. You are dear to him, truly. In a way that is unique to any of the connections, he holds in the present. Your presence is one he thoroughly enjoys, and, more than once, (many times), has craved during his late-evening ruminations in his courtyard. He— has thought about inviting you over, if for nothing else than a chat in the moonlight and tea or wine to your preference, however—

He has always stopped himself.

Yearning, he will allow in the ways he has learned to manage it over the centuries. Small doses of longing that can be enjoyed and swallowed down, without festering. Being brazen with his wants and feelings is... slipperier. Especially concerning you, as you are dear to him, and Jing Yuan, for better or for worse, would like to share space with you for as long as he can manage.

This attraction is regardless of secondary gender.

Jing Yuan has not cared about secondary gender for a great while (since he shared a bed with a short-lived alpha and one of Long’s Scions, who, like all Vidyadhara, did not have a secondary gender at all.)

Your presentation as an omega was never a deterrent to him. If anything, it was something of a comfort. Jing Yuan was claimed long ago, and he knows that no alpha’s claim will feel the same as Yingxing’s and he wouldn’t want anyone, especially you, to attempt to emulate it. The ownership of a claim was not something he sought. Jing Yuan has had his heart broken enough for this lifetime. He is sure you could rend his heart asunder, however it would not be in the way of losing a mate that he is biologically tied to.

Statistically, Jing Yuan is lucky that such a loss did not cause him to become Mara struck five hundred years ago.

He is very content with whatever your relationship could become. If nothing else, the prospect of it allures him. Especially now that you know his presentation and clearly seem undeterred yourself. If— if anything. Your scent calmed and cooled when he’d told you on the terraces.

Another thing that Jing Yuan will have to parse when he isn’t so wet that he’s leaving puddles in his wake.

For now, Jing Yuan’s nest is satisfactory aside from a few personal items.

Now, all it’s missing is you.

...

Jing Yuan does not find you in the kitchen, but rather the foyer, wishing Qingzu a goodbye with a wave and shout.

Jing Yuan must—

(Temper his instincts because you are far too close to the door and you need to be in his nest and his teeth need to be in you and his scent on you—)

“Jing Yuan,” you say to him warmly, with a smile. There are a few canvas bags on your arms. “How are you feeling—?”

Jing Yuan can’t stop himself from dragging you away from the tall set of doors and back to the kitchen. You squawk at his firmness, but don’t reject his touch. He helps you heft the bags onto a low table. His own arms shake, with both the strain and his own heat-induced weakness.

“It’s really progressing, huh?” You tentatively raise a hand, and place it on his forearm to stroke there.

Jing Yuan practically purrs when you rub over the silken fabric, “It is. Quickly. However, my nest and appropriate supplies are ready. Did Qingzu deliver all that I asked?”

“It seems so.”

There are— three more bottles of lube. A few pearly-looking medicine pills, a specialty item from the Alchemy Commission. Several stacks of ready-made meals and electrolyte powder. There are several vials of milky-looking oils he had her grab for more scandalous purposes as Jing Yuan would like to avoid any type of friction abrasion. Lastly, there are few unmarked boxes with new toys.

“You’re so well-prepared.” Your eyes are wide as you take stock of the haul. Jing Yuan bundles things into a basket and ushers you to his nest.

“I have gone through many heats,” he chuckles. “I have learned the best tricks.”

“I-I can see.”

As you enter his bedroom, you stare at his nest with wide eyes. You jump when Jing Yuan locks the door.

“... Is that alright?” Jing Yuan asks.

“Yes, yes, of course. I just—” You swallow. “I haven’t ever helped another omega through a heat. If you have any pointers or preferences, let me know while you’re still in your full mind, please? I’d like to make this as comfortable for you as possible.”

Jing Yuan thinks for a moment. With a tilt of his head, he rests his hands on your shoulders. Your scent is spiced, a bit nervous, but also undeniably aroused. Your gaze darts down to his exposed collarbones and chest, then quickly back up to his eyes. Heat rises fiercely in your cheeks.

“Your presence will be helpful in and of itself,” he assures you with a squeeze. Carefully, he hooks his thumbs on your outer garment and pulls it down, undoing buttons and ties along the way. Your lips part, breath hot. “I’ll guide you as I need. My heats tend to be mild, though they do last a full week. There will be lulls, which I tend to be quite worn out during. I’ll need your assistance more than anything.”

You nod, taking in his response.

Jing Yuan— he’s holding it together. Slick is beginning to drip down his inner thighs and there’s an ache in his core that feels heavier and hotter by the minute. However, he does want to do this part slowly. He prides himself on his patience. Piece by piece, he takes off your day clothes and tosses them into his nest. Without them, your scent is stronger. Your neck is bare from any topical or adhesive blockers.

“During the rest of it though?” You ask, softly. “When you’re in the throes of it.”

Jing Yuan hums, letting a shaking hand rest on the curve of your waist, “I’m not certain. It’s been quite some time since I’ve shared a heat with anyone.”

“... Really?”

“Yes.” Jing Yuan presses his lips to your forehead without thinking. The heat of it, of you, sinks into his own. He feels like he’s going to burn up. “Does that surprise you?”

“Yes.” You answer, and push yourself closer to his neck. Your lips part to taste his scent on the back of your tongue. “You are a catch. I know you have quite the lineup of suitors... I just assumed.“

“You also assumed I was an alpha.”

“The General is a skillful liar.”

Jing Yuan clicks his tongue, sliding a hand below your last garments. Satin, lacey things that are almost sheer. Thin. He could tear them easily, but doesn’t. His touch lingers.

“ Jing Yuan,” he reminds you. You stammer before pitching into him. He carefully walks the two of you backwards. His legs are close to giving out. “And I’d like to think of it as a skillful withholding of unnecessary information.”

“ Jing Yuan is very good with his words,” You murmur into the soft skin of his neck, lingering around one of the scent glands there. They ache, sore and unstimulated.

So carefully, you stretch up on your tiptoes to nose at one of them. Your scents bloom together and his eyes almost roll back into his head at the meld of it, the relief and rush of connection.

It’s the last push Jing Yuan needs before dragging you into his nest with a stifled moan. Coherency is shattered and all he can do is crave, crave, crave.

...

You are a good heatmate.

Astoundingly good. Attentive, kind, and so soft. It’s a relief to Jing Yuan, who’s heat-addled mind is so used to loneliness and cold. You do not have the scent or knot of an alpha, but you’re more than enough. It’s presence and comfort in a way Jing Yuan so, so missed. It’s enough in a different way— and that difference is good.

(You are not Yingxing or Dan Feng, and Jing Yuan is grateful that you aren’t.)

Jing Yuan finds himself on his back, with you wrapped around him. You let him pillow his cheek against your collarbone. His nose presses against your scent gland, and he pants against it with an open mouth and spit slicked lips. Your hand lays over his chest, cupping his breast while gently thumbing over his nipple. He’s so swollen there, aching.

He cries out as you pinch, as if it could relieve any of the pressure roiling around under his skin.

You curl closer into him with your lips against his temple. “Does that feel good?”

He can only keen and hope you understand that it’s a plea for more.

You must because a moment later you’re squeezing with your entire hand. It’s— too big of a handful for you. Your fingers are soft and your touch gentle. The visual of the plump flesh of his chest bulging out from between your fingers rewires Jing Yuan’s brain for a craving he never knew possible. A rush of slick gushes from his cunt and— it’s so much. He lurches into your neck, licking blindly at your scent gland. Vaguely, he notices you stiffen and your scent grows a little sharper.

It’s worry. Jing Yuan can’t have that.

With every ounce of his strength, Jing Yuan rolls you below him, and sits on your hips. You let him, so pliant and agreeable, and lay below him. Jing Yuan’s breath catches and drool slips to the corners of his mouth.

You are beautiful. You look debauched, and you’re not the one in heat. You’re flushed and damp with sweat, just as he is. The robe he’d draped you in is mostly open, revealing supple skin and your last bastion of modesty in the form of a cute pair of panties that Jing Yuan will fantasize about later.

You look up at him in awe, lust-hazed just like him. There’s little composure to be had as your fists ball up in the sheets around his thighs. Your gaze goes glassy as you look from his face down to where he’s seated atop you and back again.

“No teeth,” he assures you. It is the last coherent thought he has, if only to provide your some comfort.

You look up at him sweetly and nod, grabbing the plump flesh above his hips. “No teeth.”

(A claim wouldn’t take, anyway. Not really. Omega-to-omega pairings lack the necessary pheromones to stake a claim on each other. The most it would do would indicate that whoever has been bitten is a submissive-leaning packmate. Which— Jing Yuan actually would not mind biting you. He would like his teeth in your neck if you would ever allow him.)

He groans at the thought, lowering his head as a silver mane of hair spills around his face.

Jing Yuan is drenched and hard, leaking from the tip of his cock and seam of his cunt. It’s— filthy. You’re soaked too, with a mix of him and undoubtedly yourself too, though Jing Yuan can’t scent it over the smell of his own heat. It’s regrettable as he is sure the mix of you must be divine. Heavenly.

He wants it in his mouth.

Jing Yuan slinks down your body, licking and sucking at patches of your skin. You try to bat him off, haul him up and away from your own leaking sex, but he resists. He needs a taste or he’ll die, probably. His heat can be quelled in a number of ways, he presumes.

With his face buried in your cunt, surrounded by your scent, the ache for a knot is dulled. When you cry out on his tongue, it is almost deafened.

Jing Yuan drinks you up— he should pay more mind to your clit, probably, if he wants to get you off properly. However, he is so immensely distracted by your entrance and the essence of you that’s leaking out. There’s a rapidly widening damp spot beneath your ass. A steady flow that Jing Yuan needs in him.

He seals his mouth over your cunt, and prods his tongue inside of you. He presses so close, suffocating with his nose tight to your clit, to lap at your insides.

You— you wail above him. Your hands bury in his increasingly tangled mess of hair for any sort of leverage. Jing Yuan doesn’t let up; he doesn’t think he can. Your tone crashes into one that’s softer, more airy, begging for more. For less. Jing Yuan can’t entirely tell. He isn’t sure he cares, truthfully. All he knows is that your thighs tighten around his head with each suck and slurp.

The sound of it is heavenly.

Your thighs press around his face. Flush to his cheeks are the scent glands in the apex of your inner thighs. Not everyone has them, as they’re something of a recessive trait among all secondary genders. The scent that comes off them is your own, however muskier and deeper. It sticks to the inside of his nose and pours down his throat like a nectar. You mewl when he breaks away to lap at one, coaxing out more of the scent. He gluts himself on it.

He needs, he needs, he needs.

“Jing Yuan,” you pant above him, propping yourself up with one arm while the other blindly reaches among his nest. “Do you need it? Knot?”

He—

(He needs to be filled. He isn’t picky if that feeling is quenched with his cunt, ass, throat, or nose. The scent of you is almost enough, even if he clenches down on nothing and feels hollow in his belly. The sensations are so dull with you nearby. He feels heat incensed, but in a way that craves closeness with you and not the manic pursuit of a knot.)

It’s refreshing. Jing Yuan regrets not propositioning you for this treatment sooner.

“Are you offering?” Jing Yuan purrs. He places his thumbs over the scent glands of your inner thighs and presses down on the swell of them, just under your skin.

Your back bends off the bed and you throw your hand over your mouth. Teary eyes meet him and you nod. From the folds of the nest, you pull forth a knotting toy with a shaking grip.

It’s beautiful for a toy. It’s a model that Jing Yuan had seen in a few high-end adverts on the few social medias he moonlighted on. It’s a flesh-like plastic cock, with an inflatable knot at the base. A little, wired remote drags along the blankets of his nest as you hold the phallus out to him. The plastic of the toy is a light gold, cut with veins of blue. It looks otherworldly and unreal. Jing Yuan has never cared for much realism with his toys, though this one is human enough.

He makes a mental note to get Qingzu a bouquet for purchasing it for him on such short notice.

The head of it feels cool against his cunt. It’s a welcome sensation as it feels like his body is burning up from the insight. He lays over you, wrestling you a bit to be flat below him, with his thighs caging yours. He growls when you try to grab the toy from his hands to assist.

It makes you pause.

Your soft palms cup his cheeks, “Do you not want me to help?”

“The angle—” The angle won’t be right, Jing Yuan wants to say. His words feel lost in his throat as he slowly begins to push inside himself. He gasps and tries to duck into your neck, to like and suck at the gland there and feast on your scent.

“I can try—?”

“ No.”

Jing Yuan wants you just like this. In his nest, smelling like him and arousal and safety. The toy that’s sliding into his cunt is mostly irrelevant, as is the twitch of his cock as he slowly and methodically fucks the toy into himself. Little by little, he bullies it into his underused hole. The stretch is— is not bad. It would be far more uncomfortable if he weren’t in heat and pouring slick.

You ask more quietly, just as he bottoms out. You still haven’t let go of his face. “Are you sure?”

He is, but he can’t find the words to say so. Instead, he nods and tucks himself closer to you. You pet down the back of his neck and push on his scent glands. They ache with his heat. The pressure and direct contact makes him grunt as he adjusts to the toy in his cunt.

You hush him and nuzzle in his cheeks, “You’re doing so well. So good, Jing Yuan.”

He keens and pulls back the toy cock, only to shove it back into himself a moment later. Praise from you is a drug. He’s sure. You’re unbearably earnest and sweet and you are too kind to him. You whisper more of them into his ear as he fucks himself, deep and slow. He feels the sentiment of your words more than he hears it. Deeply affectionate and caring. If he were more lucid, he would be disarmed by you, speechless even. Perhaps he is already speechless, but he blames that on the heat haze and how the head of the toy is pressing deliciously into his sweet spot.

He narrows his focus on the spot and fucks him on the toy in earnest.

Jing Yuan will have an arm ache after this. Many aches, actually. It will be worth it. It is easiest to bear with you underneath him, tilting your hips up to grind against his dripping cock. It’s not the friction his body craves, but it’s welcome. It sends sparks down his spine and he whines into your neck.

You nip at his neck, high on the side of it, and Jing Yuan lets loose a cracking moan. It’s almost embarrassingly loud. Were Jing Yuan able to feel shame in that moment, he’d be red-faced.

Instead, he tips his head to the side, allows you room to mouth and suck marks as you desire. You catch on quickly, and hum, licking broad stripes and soaking him in your scent. Your marks. It surrounds him.

He fucks himself on the toy faster.

(It’s nothing like the heats he had while he was mated with Yingxing and Dan Feng. Not at all. They were shorter, back then. Perhaps it was his youth or the relentless pace and haze Yingxing kept that burned Jing Yuan out faster. Or, maybe it was that Dan Feng always made sure he was wrung out, despite not craving him in the same way Yingxing had. It was carnal then. It still is now, but it does not feel as manic. You are gentle without qualifiers, sweet without expectation, and happy to let him rut into you and back onto the toy as much as he pleases. Your kisses are bruising, but not bloody like Dan Feng’s. There’s a different pace, a different scent, and a different intent.)

Jing Yuan once enjoyed the desperation that Yingxing put into everything he did (including him). He had fallen in love with Dan Feng for his poetics and distanced care. You have neither of these. It is unfair, ultimately, for Jing Yuan to draw comparison.

Perhaps, he’ll feel guilty over it later. For now, his arm gives out and he falls into your chest with a keen. His back arches, hips raised, and the new angle is so, so good. You run your hands through his hair, and move your thigh, just right, so he can grind on it to his heart’s content.

He’s close; he can feel it in his belly.

What sends him over the edge is the feel of your lips against his hairline, the way your lips have curled into a soft, easy smile as you kiss him there. You stroke down his back, like how a good lover would.

You are a good lover.

He shudders as orgasm grips him. The sound that rips from his throat is shattering, as overwhelming as the heat that boils over in his guts. And you are such a good lover, that the little remote must have already been in your hand, as in the moment he comes, the knotted base of the toy begins to swell. Jing Yuan can’t— can’t chase his orgasm. He can feel his eyes growing wet while his body feels out of his control (he hates that, he really does). You, however, are a good lover and reach and stretch, matching his angle with the toy and fuck him through it yourself. The knot catches once inside him, then a second time, and with the third, it locks him and the toy together.

And with what can only be called a sob, Jing Yuan fully collapses on top of you.

He can’t keep himself upright, he realizes. His thighs tremble terribly, and his arms are the same. His eyes are filled with tears he didn’t expect and doesn’t know what to do with. It feels vulnerable. Too vulnerable, in a way that Jing Yuan has avoided for centuries now.

Before the feeling can consume him, you’re coaxing him onto his side and wrapping yourself around him. A sheet gets pulled atop the both of you and you’re nosing into him wherever you can.

“It’s okay,” You tell him. “You’re okay, I promise.”

A muffled sound that comes from your throat, followed by the low roll of a purr.

Oh.

All for him?

He shoves himself closer, skin to skin in all the spots he can reach. His tongue laves at your scent glands as his cunt flutters around the toy. He claws at your back before locking his arms around your waist.

You’re purring for him.

He can help but do the same, even chirping without meaning to as he nips at your jaw. Jing Yuan trails his lips to your cheek, then the corner of your mouth. You curl and laugh at his touch, and Jing Yuan steals the lovely sounds from you with a kiss. It’s something deep and consuming, and Jing Yuan needs more of the taste of you. You squirm into it, gasping and opening your mouth for him to explore as he needs. Your openness continues to undo him.

It’s all the reassurance he needs. Any poisonous feelings fall away, and Jing Yuan, for the first time in far too long, finds himself content and knotted.

...

Jing Yuan has never had a heat quite like this one.

It is certainly more mild, and certainly a bit shorter than what he was expecting. The worst of it lasts five days, followed by three days that he can’t quite call post-heat. Though the desire in him is less feverish, he still craves your presence so much it hurts, and the idea of you being out of his nests sends him into a toothy panic those days. The ‘no teeth’ rule is modified to allow some biting, as long as it doesn’t involve any scent glands.

(However, Jing Yuan still would not mind putting a claiming bite on you. He makes a note to bring this up when he’s feeling some clarity of mind and can... attempt to court you properly.)

The most intense days of his heat are spent with a knotting toy in his cunt, rutting against your soft thighs, or with your hands wrapped around his cock. He eats you out whenever he can muster up the energy to shimmy between your legs and luxuriate there. Any down time is spent dozing in the warm sun rays that his bedroom is perfectly placed to receive.

The latter days of his heat, Jing Yuan is more lucid.

It’s in those days he truly enjoys his heat. Though the burn of arousal still lays within him, it is easily tempered with your presence in his nest and your many shared bite marks. Your time awake is spent lazily kissing, speaking in low voices, and sharing laughter and cups of cool water, one after the other.

Jing Yuan, partially, did not think he would ever get to experience this type of connection again. with you or any other partner. The intimacy of the act is so deeply vulnerable, and after the spiritual loss of both Yingxing and Dan Feng, he never endeavored, or wanted to endeavor to, open himself up in that way again.

He, perhaps, convinced himself he did not need to.

(Nevermind the many nights, both heat-addled and otherwise, Jing Yuan spent craving nesting companions. Nevermind how many nights Jing Yuan lay alone, accepting his losses and mourning mates he’d never hold again. Jing Yuan could never choose to be selfish.)

It helped when Yanqing was little. He was just a small pup with golden eyes like Jing Yuan’s and a fiery spirit, even when he was so small. Jing Yuan had never considered himself maternal, however having a pup to take care of brought out latent instincts he’d spent the better part of his life pretending didn’t exist. As Yanqing aged, however, he was less receptive to such affections and connections. After presenting (far too young, poor thing, traumatized body), Yanqing wouldn’t share a nest with Jing Yuan unless he fell ill. Even then, Jing Yuan would have to coax him into it.

It quenched something in him. It allowed Jing Yuan to let himself care in the direct way he craved. With his position as General, how often does get to show care with his hands, and not with his words or stratagems? Not with sacrifice or poetry, but with his body and scent.

Jing Yuan realizes now that there truly have been so many urges and behaviors Jing Yuan simply did not indulge.

And as his heat breaks, Jing Yuan thinks he’d like to start indulging them more.

...

On the last day of his heat, you stir around nightfall. You are exhausted, Jing Yuan knows this. Though his heat has provided him with a surprising amount of stamina, you are in standard condition, and looked wrung out halfway through day two of his heat. Jing Yuan’s grateful you’re as fond of midday naps as he is.

You are cradled against his chest, your cheek pillows on his breast. He’d thrown a robe on while washing up, and hadn’t elected to remove it. The silky texture of it feels lovely against his flushed, sensitive skin. You seem to enjoy it too as you grip at the fabric of it in your sleep, nuzzling into his chest.

Your brow scrunches and a little sound pops from your throat as you try to burrow closer. It’s a hopelessly sweet gesture, desperate and honest. Jing Yuan can’t help but chuckle and smooth a hand over your mussed-up hair.

When your eyes crack open, your voice is raw, “‘S morning?”

“No, nighttime.” Jing Yuan nods to the darkened window.

You raise yourself up just enough to look, hum, and then fall back on top of him, “Feels like it should be morning.”

“We haven’t been keeping a very consistent sleeping schedule,” Jing Yuan rarely does, but he imagines that you and your position with the Sky Faring Commission have quite a regular routine. “You can keep resting.”

“I don’t wanna’,” Though, you shove your nuzzle into his chest, smearing him with your scent. “I wanna stay up and talk to you.”

“Me?” Jing Yuan smiles, smitten. He pinches your cheek. “About anything in particular?”

“... Not yet.” Your eyes slip closed. “Maybe later. I want to say things to you, but I feel... mushy. Inside my head.”

“Pheromone drunk?”

“‘Something like that,” Your words slur. “Not that I’m complaining. You smell so good, Jing Yuan.”

When you say his name, he shudders. The hand that’s been playing with your hand slips to your nape and squeezes. You keen at the contact and tangle your legs with his. It’s an impossible amount of closeness you are seeking, but Jing Yuan must attempt to give it to you. It’s abashed and honest, and in the stillness of night, how can he not indulge?

“Do I?”

“ Mhm.”

“Like what?”

You’re falling asleep, clearly. You’re struggling to keep your eyes open even as you inhale deeply. Your lips part and you take his scent into your mouth.

“Earth after rain,” You hum. “Sunbeam and linen. Warm milk.”

He squeezes you.

(A long time ago, Yingxing had complained about his scent. ‘Complained’. His face had been flushed crimson, telling him how distracting his sweet, rich scent had been. Dan Feng thought it was the funniest thing, considering Yingxing so clearly enjoyed Jing Yuan’s scent, as did he. They’d described it similarly— “petrichor” Dan Feng had told Jing Yuan while sweeping his mane back from his neck— “the smell of sunshine” Yingxing had told Jing Yuan after berating him.)

“How complementary.” Jing Yuan purrs and pulls you closer by the waist. Your face is smushed against his chest, but you don’t complain. You keep your lips parted to enjoy his scent. “And you like it?”

“So much,” You assure him, droopy-eyed.

So good for him, so so good.

Jing Yuan presses the tip of his finger to your lips, a bit chapped from the dehydration and exertion. You chirp with it, a bit more awake.

He hushes you, and pushes his finger further into his mouth, “Sleep now, dear. You need to rest.”

“‘So do ya’,” You try to say, though it comes out garbled as Jing Yuan lays his finger on the flat of your tongue. Your eyes widen and go a bit crossed to look at his wrist, then up to his eyes.

Jing Yuan isn’t entirely sure what compels him, but something does. Gently, he leans down and presses his lips to your forehead. He idles there, and pets down your side.

“I’ll sleep soon, I’m sure you know.” Jing Yuan says softly. “Will you indulge me?”

(He asks to be selfish.)

Without hesitating, you nod.

(And you let him.)

Jing Yuan doesn’t explain himself. He doesn’t need to. Maybe it’s the specific sweetness his scent must take on, or the night air in contrast to the warmth and comfort of his nest, but you understand what he wants and give it to him without so much as a word.

Your lips open a little wider and Jing Yuan slips another finger inside. You stroke your tongue on his fingers as you close your mouth, eyes going dazed and heavy-lidded. You take a deep breath, inhaling his scent into the deepest parts of your lungs. You suck on his fingers gently.

Jing Yuan watches with still, even breaths.

Later, he will analyze why this scratches so many itches in his brain. Why his post-heat mind feels more calm and sated than he thought possible. Why he wants more of this, always, even if he doesn’t have a name for it yet.

For now, he is so, so content to have you this way. You are lulled back to sleep so easily, sucking on his fingers with your cheek still smushed against his breast. Even as you sleep, Jing Yuan doesn’t remove his fingers. He explores the inside of your mouth with gentle, easy pressure, so as to not wake you. It’s exploratory, more than anything.

He plays with you in such a way until he’s too drowsy to continue. Satisfied and warm, he drags you under the covers and holds you close, scenting you one last time before letting himself fall into a contented, new kind of sleep.

...

You depart suddenly, while Jing Yuan is in the kitchen deftly chopping fruits and assembling little parfaits.

You had been in his bathroom, freshening up with whatever products you’d like from his stash. Jing Yuan had left you your own robe for when you exited, quietly beaming that he’d have yet another article with your scent on it.

However, when you do leave the bathroom, you are fully dressed in the day clothes you arrived in a week ago. You stand at the doorway of his kitchen, pausing, wide-eyed.

“I n-need to go,” Your voice wavers, like you’re going to be ill.

Something squeezes in between Jing Yuan’s ribs. There are thin, transparent patches on your neck on either side. Scent blockers. Your eyes look watery. Jing Yuan immediately sets down the knife he had been working with.

“Is everything alright?” asks Jing Yuan. He knows something is wrong, even if he can’t smell you, you’re clearly distressed and disheveled.

“It’s— it’s nothing. It’ll be okay.” You tell him. Your voice trembles and you shake your head.

“Are you sure? I can help.”

“It’s— it’s really nothing. I need to leave. I-I’m really sorry.”

You look from him to the foyer that leads to his front door and back again. There’s a desperate look in your eye that Jing Yuan has never seen with such an intensity before. It makes his heart ache and his hands feel clammy. He sighs.

(And a quiet, ever-present voice in his mind says, “they all leave, eventually.”)

“Alright.” Jing Yuan gives you a smile, the best he can muster. He knows it must be sadder than intended, as your expression falls and you look like you’ve been punched.

“I’m so s-sorry.”

“It’s alright,” It isn’t. Not fully. “Handle whatever it is that you must. I’m only a call away. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

“Okay.” You take a shaking breath and shudder out the exhale. You’re trying not to cry and it takes everything in Jing Yuan’s being not to rush to you and attempt to mend whatever is causing you distress but—

(He can’t. He can’t do that. You have asked him to leave you be and Jing Yuan has spent his entire life honing his ability not to chase, even when he so, so badly wishes to.)

You give him one final, fleeting look, “Thank you. I— I’ll see you at our next lunch, okay? I’m sorry.”

It looks like there’s more you want to say, but you’re already out the door before you can. Jing Yuan hears it open and shut with a soft thud that vibrates throughout his home. It leaves Jing Yuan standing alone in his kitchen, frozen, while the robe he wears slips down his shoulders. He bears your marks, and reeks of your scent. His nest grows colder each minute. And though his heat has ended, the yearning for you has not.

If anything, the feeling is far stronger than it was before.

He latches onto the fact you will have your lunches. That— he will find some clarity then. That he can inspect you for damage during the next sunshine-filled meal you share, and prod to see if the last week and half did not carry the same type of... meaning for you, as it did Jing Yuan. He will need to make sure you’re well. He’ll fret until then, he knows this.

(A more dormant, possessive part of him wishes he snatched you back from his foyer and threw you back into his nest. If something was wrong, he could. If something needed fixing, he could help. If it were anything official for your work, Jing Yuan would pull any and all strings to get you out of the obligation. If you were hurt, Jing Yuan would do anything to see you better.)

Instead, Jing Yuan idles in his kitchen, feeling struck and helpless. Something in him aches, deep and low, and Jing Yuan lays a hand over his chest and squeezes it into a fist. He had thought he had become used to this type of loneliness, but it aches all the same.

#writer: lorelune #honkai star rail fic #jing yuan x reader #this fic had me in tears #the tenderness and the longing and the VIBES of this fic r so unmatched and #its SUCH a beautiful story and relationship #reader is so charming and of course jy is too!!!#this was so satisfying to read too! from the way they took care of each other to how their emotions played into their reactions #man............#this was my first omega x omega experience and im so happy it was!!! such an amazing fic #eagerly waiting for the second part; his heartbreak was so palpable it put me on the edge of my seat #held my breath reading the ending fr fr #not safe for minors #cw omegaverse

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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Aventurine doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you. (Or: You are the only person in the universe who understands Aventurine in his mother tongue. He often regrets teaching it to you.)

5k words. gender neutral reader, established relationship, angst, non-graphic sex (reader bottoms, anatomy neutral), themes of cultural loss, references to slavery, aventurine’s canonically implied desire to die. MDNI.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

Deception does not come easily to him in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak—and too kind. The universe was a different place in the days when his life was coloured by the warble of Avgin dialect. It felt simpler, partly because he was a child and partly because Sigonia was yet untouched by outsiders. There were no corporations, no casinos, no commodity codes. His entire world was sand, desert, mother, sister, father (or more often—ghost), goddess, tent, wagon, luck, sin, rain, blessing, Avgin.

Katican.

Aventurine is sure that he knew more than just those words. He was fluent as a child. He had conversations with his sister that were complex enough to make his heart hurt, though perhaps his heart was just constantly aching anyway. But the rest of his early words escapes him. He could maybe dredge them up if he thinks long enough, but he also isn't sure if his tongue and lips could form the shape of them anymore. Sometimes he still counts in Avgin, memorises phone numbers in it, but he doesn’t remember the last time he actually strung together a full sentence in the language.

When Aventurine was first stolen into slavery (a word that he had not known as a child, and still doesn't know in Avgin), he wasn’t given a Synesthesia Beacon. He had to rely on his ears and his wits, deciphering the harsh edges of the Katican dialect and then the strange garble of Interastral Standard Language. By the time he had a Beacon installed, it was already translating all speech into Standard—his dominant language.

Sometimes he feels a little aggrieved by it, but at least it wasn't Katican. He'd have blown out his brains if it were.

But it is easy to console himself: Avgin is not a useful language anyway. Dead languages have no value, and the Avgin dialect was killed along with its people. You can’t perform commerce in a dead language, can't negotiate contracts, can't enter a gambling den and use your silver tongue to rob people blind. You can't use a dead language to fell governments and extract resources; you can't use a dead language to bring an entire planet to its knees. You can’t use a dead language to gamble your life; you can't use it to save yourself from the gallows.

You cannot deceive people in a language that is defined by sand, sister, goddess, ghost.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin. His command of it is too weak, and there is no one left to which he can lie, anyway.

When you ask Aventurine to teach you his first language, he gives you an amused look.

“Why Avgin?” he asks. “No one speaks it anymore. I can teach you Common Sigonian if you’d like. Or we could learn Xianzhounese together. Maybe Intellitron code? I know a little.”

“You speak Avgin,” you argue.

“Not often,” he says. “And badly when I do.”

“But it's still your language. And I want to understand you.”

Aventurine has to stop himself from laughing. Understand him? He hates being understood. When people understand him, it makes him predictable. And unlikeable. Hardly a position from which he can manipulate people in.

You understand him well enough to know that.

“You'll have to give me a better reason than that,” he says neatly. “Make it worth my while. Reward me.”

You look at him as you ponder, your eyes lingering on his. Perhaps trying to read him, though he prefers to think you're just enjoying the sight of them.

“I’ll teach you my language as well?”

“You mean—you'll reward my hard labour with more work?” he says, lighthearted.

You frown at him despite the joke. “You don't want to understand me better than what a Synesthesia Beacon would allow?” He blinks, pausing. “It’ll be convenient too. We can talk shit about other people in public and no one will understand us.”

Aventurine considers you. He doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.

He also likes the idea of talking shit in public.

“I'm listening,” he says, voice lilting. You lean in, smiling. Sweet. It makes his heart feel something he isn't used to. Something addictive. Something disgusting. He scrambles to cover it with one of the usual tools: humour or distraction or maybe just plain old lying—his most reliable weapon.

“I'll throw in a kiss?” you try.

He hums. “Just one?”

“One per day.”

“Three.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Well, I am a businessman.”

You snort, but he knows you're endeared. You have very noticeable tells when you’re flustered.

“Okay,” you say. “Three kisses on days you teach me.”

“Deal.”

Aventurine remembers more Avgin than he thought he would.

It comes to him slowly, painstakingly. You aren't interested in structured lessons, and he wouldn't be able to provide them anyway. He has a nonexistent grasp of grammar aside from this sounds right and that sounds strange, and Avgin dialect is both so niche and so dead that no textbooks are available. The scholars have abandoned the language as much as the politicians abandoned its people. Aventurine only has you, his fragmented memory, and whatever questions come to mind as you live out your days with him.

Mostly, you ask him about basic vocabulary. Sometimes you ask him to repeat sentences from your conversations in Avgin, like he’s some kind of multilingual parrot. Each prompt forces him to wade through the fog in his mind, the one that’s been shrouding his childhood memories until now. He's startled at how naturally the old words roll off his tongue: One, two, three, four. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Sweet dreams. Five, six, seven, eight. You're lying to me. Why do you always lie to me? I don't know what you're talking about. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Welcome home. Have you eaten? Have some bread. I made you stew. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. That was dangerous. I thought you wouldn't make it back to me. Sometimes I think you want to die. One hundred, one thousand, one million, one billion. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

When you say, How do I ask you to let me hold you, he answers easily. He'd heard the words so often as a child: Let me hold you, Kakavasha. Let Mama hold you. His mouth forms the sounds without conscious thought.

He regrets it almost immediately.

When Aventurine hears it from you—stilted, halting, but no less gentle—he stops breathing. Let me hold you. You say it all the time in Standard, but it feels different in Avgin. More painful. A strange sense of panic closes in on him when he's wrapped up in you, thinking in Avgin, thinking sand, sister, goddess, ghost. He holds you tightly, like the rags cut from his father’s shirt, or his mother’s locket won back from the shell-slashers, or a bag of poker chips beneath a card table, clutched within his trembling grip.

“Aventurine, is something wrong?” you ask in Avgin, and he replies in Standard with his usual smile.

“Hm? No. What could be wrong if I have you here?”

Lying is one of his greatest tools. Sex is another one. So he says, “I think I'd like my reward now,” and he runs his lips along your jaw, your pulse, the spot over your heart (there's a word for that in Avgin but not Standard, he tells you), until you're laughing. I thought you wanted three kisses, you tease, and he replies, Who said I wanted to kiss you on the mouth?

But he coaxes open your thighs, and once he's inside you, he collects his payment properly. He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and you swallow his lies whole.

There are some things that Aventurine doesn't teach you. Mostly, they’re things that he can’t teach you.

There are countless gaps in his Avgin. His speech is painfully childish—probably more childish than it was when he actually stopped speaking it. He doesn't know how to swear (something that disappoints you) and he doesn't know how to flirt (something that devastates you). He doesn’t know any words that would be useful for work either: commercialization, governance, stakes, winnings, profit. When you ask him what his job title is in Avgin (“Was senior management even a thing in Avgin society?”), he laughs and gives you the word for gambler.

Then there are the words that he remembers—has remembered his whole life—but never says. Not to you, and not to himself. He doesn't teach you any prayers. He doesn't teach you any blessings. He doesn't teach you about Mama Fenge, or the Kakava Festival, or how the rain fell when he was born. When you ask him, What holidays did you celebrate when you were little? he shrugs and says, We didn't have any. Sigonia’s too bleak to do any partying.

Then you ask him one day, while your bodies are spent in the afterglow of sex, sticky with sweat and sweetness, how to say I love you. And he goes quiet.

Love is a cheap word in Interastral Standard. In the language of globalisation and trade, love has been commercialised, commodified, capitalised for power. You say it to him in many contexts: I love this, I love that, I love you. He hardly ever reacts, and he's never said it back. It would feel unnecessary and also cruel if he did: Aventurine has only ever said the words himself as either a joke or a manipulation.

But love feels different in Avgin than in Interastral Standard, doesn't sound like a thing that can be traded or bought. Kakavasha only ever said the word love to his mother, to his sister, to his father's grave. Love in his mother tongue feels priceless.

When Aventurine thinks about you saying it—I love you, Kakavasha, in clumsy, earnest Avgin—something so painful swells in his throat that he can hardly breathe.

“There is no word for love in my language,” he tells you.

You blink. “Okay, then what's an idiom for it?”

“There is none. There’s no word or phrase expressing love.”

You raise a brow. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Is it?” He smiles. “There’s no Avgin in the known universe who cares about love. Only scheming, thieving, and treachery—and you can't do those things when love is involved.”

You look at him in alarm. “Why are you saying that?” You're practically squirming in your discomfort. “I don't know why you think I'd believe such a racist stereotype.”

“It’s not a stereotype,” he says. “I'm not talking about the Avgin culture. I'm talking about myself.”

After all, he is the only Avgin left.

It is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing to say. After all the laughing and kissing and crying and fucking, after all the tender eyes and gentle words from you—it is probably the worst pain imaginable: I don't give a shit about you. He waits for you to cry.

But you only stare at him calmly, studying him. You brush the hair out of his eyes, seeing them clearly.

“If you lie to me all the time,” you say in Avgin, “eventually I'll stop believing anything you say.”

Aventurine is speechless. His heart does that addictive, disgusting thing again. He thinks about leaving, but then you say, Let me hold you, and he can't do anything other than obey.

Avgin dialect was once included in the Synesthesia Beacon list of functions. The Intelligentsia Guild added it before the Second Katica-Avgin Extinction Event, when the IPC was trying to get a political foothold on Sigonia via the Avgin people. The language was alive then, with enough value to be included into the Synesthesia LLM by the linguists.

But since the Extinction Event—since Kakavasha ran away from home—the Synesthesia data on Avgin has been stagnant, a fossil. Aventurine knows because he's subscribed to software updates for certain languages (Avgin Sigonian, Common Sigonian, Interastral Standard, and now your mother tongue). He gets pinged every time there's a new addition for slang, for neologisms—but there hasn't been a ping for the Avgin dialect since he had the Beacon installed. The live translation function hasn't even been available since the previous Amber Era. When he checks its page on his Synesthesia app, it's very clear why—

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 0 STATUS: Extinct END OF SERVICE: 2156 AE

The complete death of the language has led to an irritating dilemma for you and Aventurine. You keep running into words that he doesn't know—this time not because of his childlike speech, but because they never existed in his language to begin with. Ocean, tropical, rainforest. Starskiff, accelerator, space fleet. Stock market, shortselling, mutual funds. Black hole, event horizon, spaghettification. All things that never came up for Kakavasha, but now come up for Aventurine, and the language has not evolved to include it.

He always wants to switch to Standard to discuss these things, but you're insistent on speaking in Avgin as much as possible. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind humouring you—partly because he likes to indulge you, and partly because he’s grown used to hearing the honeyed timbre of Avgin dialect in your household. The place would feel strange without it.

So you start filling the gaps with other languages, filtering them through the lyricism of Avgin. Loanwords, he thinks they’re called. You take ocean, tropical, rainforest from Amazian; starskiff, accelerator, space fleet from Xianzhounese; stock market, shortselling, mutual funds from Interastral Standard. For the astrophysics terms, you try directly translating them—with limited success.

“Can't I literally just say ‘black hole’?” you ask in Avgin, and he nearly spits out his coffee.

“Please don't. That's a dirty word.” He can't bring himself to say what it means, but from the way you’re laughing, you can clearly guess.

“I thought you said you didn't know how to swear.”

“You've just reminded me how.”

“You're welcome.” You look on the verge of cackling. Aventurine finishes his coffee and wonders when you're going to surprise him with your newfound vulgarity.

“Let's just do the space terms based on Standard,” he says. Begs.

“No, that's so boring.”

“Then let's do your language.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Give him a blank look.

“You don't know how to say those words in your mother tongue either, do you,” he intuits.

“Well, ‘spaghettification’ doesn't really come up in everyday conversation, does it?”

“Then maybe we don't need it.” He smiles, senses an opportunity. Smells blood. “How about ‘love’? I'd much rather know how you say that. I bet it sounds beautiful.”

You give him a long look. Your eyes are vulnerable when you share it: Love. I love you. He’s fascinated by the sound of it. Your voice is never that fragile when you say it in Standard. It's never so earnest. He repeats it, staring at you, and your gaze falls to the ground. His mouth curls.

“I like it,” he says. “Let's use that. It'll sound nice in Avgin.”

You try to recover. “Sure. That works. But back to ‘black hole’—”

And the two of you continue like that for days, weeks, months. It feels like a complete bastardization of his mother tongue on some days, in some conversations. Almost unrecognisable. But it doesn't feel bad. It’s all he has, it's all you have, and when he walks into your home, he starts speaking it without thinking: your bastard, patchwork language. The Avgin dialect that exists only in your house. A tongue that can only be understood by a liar.

And then, one lazy Sunday morning, he gets a familiar ping. He expects it to be Interastral Standard, as usual. The language balloons with each planet that the IPC colonises.

But instead, he opens his screen and freezes.

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 2 STATUS: Endangered. SERVICE RESUMED: 2157 AE NEW UPDATES: 103 loanwords and 5 neologisms added.

He can't stop looking at the status. Endangered. Endangered, which means dying, but alive. The Avgin dialect is alive again. The Intelligentsia Guild determined it, so it must be true. But Aventurine can't agree: there are no Avgin speakers in the known universe other than the two of you, and what you speak isn't real Avgin. The Avgin spoken by his mother and father and sister is dead; the Avgin spoken by Kakavasha is dead. The festivals are gone; the deserts have been terraformed. There are no wagons; there are no dances; there are no prayers. There are no blessings, and he has no home—

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

His throat locks up.

“Aventurine?” you ask. Your voice is drowsy, but concerned. “Is something wrong?”

He looks at you from his phone, a polished smile on his face.

“No.” His syllables are plain and efficient in the noise of Interastral Standard: “Just looking at details for a new assignment. It’ll be a long one.”

“Oh.” You frown. “Will you be away from home for a long time, then?”

He stops himself from swallowing. “Yes, I'll be away from the house. For several months, probably.”

“Okay.” Your voice is small. “Take care of yourself, okay? I'll miss you.”

Each word you speak resonates with heartbreak. It always does in these conversations, even in Standard—but the sorrow is amplified in Avgin. His mother tongue has an inherently sad quality to it, he's noticed. His people have lost so much over their history—their language is one of loss. It's his language of loss. Kakavasha did all his grieving in Avgin; Aventurine has never felt sorrow in Standard. When the language died, so did Kakavasha—and all his regrets with it.

“You'll come home to me, right?” you ask. It's a beautiful sentence in Avgin. A heartrending one. He feels something that he hasn't known since he was a child.

It's a feeling he has to kill.

“Yes,” he says in Standard. “Of course I'll come back.”

This is not the first time that Aventurine has been mistaken for dead, but this is the longest time.

The latest world to join the IPC network was a tough acquisition. It had been ruled by a despot who wreaked havoc on both the people and the planet, and who was too stupid and reckless to resolve conflicts with his trade partners. He probably would have blown up the whole star system had he been left to his own devices. Aventurine had no qualms about bringing him to ruin, nor did he have qualms about nearly dying in the process.

If things had gone his way, he'd either be dead or missing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do the latter, actually—to be freed from the IPC. Free to drift alone, speaking with strangers in strange, unfamiliar tongues. No connection to his past, to the cruel history of his luck, to his commodity code. No tether to his inherently unjust destiny. But instead he's back in your house, pockets heavy with his borrowed wealth, speaking to you in his bastardised, childish Avgin. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Your Avgin is—shockingly fluent. He doesn't know how. He can't think about it right now. All he can process is the wounded animal noise of your speech as you yell at him, as you cry. Like an injured songbird, or a weeping child. Why did you leave, why did you lie, why do you always lie to me, why don't you give a shit about me, you spit. Why do you want to die, why do you want to die, why do you want to die, you keep saying. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost, he keeps hearing. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost. Don't leave me, big sister. People will die. Why do you have to go?

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, this time in your language. “I'm so sorry. Come here. Let me hold you.”

You collapse into your mother tongue. Aventurine is both relieved and horrified. Relieved that he doesn't need to hear the language of his grief—horrified that he needs to hear yours. He's never heard you cry like this. He's never heard you break like this. These must have been the words you used when the soldiers found you hiding in your closet, when they dragged you out of your home. You were just a child.

Aventurine doesn't know the words you are using—you've never taught them—but he still understands them.

You're very malleable when you’re sad; even more so when you're hysterical. Aventurine understands this about you, and he understands how to calm you—this time in your native tongue—and he understands how to kiss you. He understands that you need to feel close to him. He understands that there are ways to accomplish this other than sex. A normal person would talk it out, have an honest conversation, come to a mutual understanding, and maybe even stop trying to kill himself. They wouldn't fuck you into the mattress while your face is still wet with tears.

But Aventurine is not a normal person. He doesn't know how to have an honest conversation, and he doesn't want to be understood. Lying is his greatest weapon, and sex is a close second. So he kisses you until you’re too breathless to cry, fucks you until you can't think, and makes you come so hard that you’re in too much bliss to grieve. And maybe it's horrible of him, but he enjoys it. He enjoys the way your body takes him in so easily, the way your nails dig into his back, the way you tighten around him when you climax, so wet and needy for him. The way you beg for him in your language for liars as he spends himself inside you: I love you, Aventurine, I love you, I love you, I love you—

Only because it feels good. This is all only because he enjoys fucking you. This is all only because you enjoy fucking him. This is all it'll ever be, and it'll be this way until he gets to meet his end.

(Some months ago, Aventurine started dreaming in Avgin.

It surprised him when he first noticed it. The last time he remembers having a dream in his native tongue, he was twelve years old and still in chains. And even then, it had become a sporadic, strange thing. Awful to wake up from. One minute he was with his mother and sister on a cool, rainy day, speaking fluently in Avgin as he laughed and played—and the next minute, he was being shaken awake in his cage, hearing the cruel lash of Katican.

But ever since he's started speaking Avgin with you, he's been dreaming in it. Vividly. Sometimes he's a child in these dreams, and sometimes he's grown. He's always back in the Sigonian desert, among the tents and the campfires and his family wagons. His mother and sister are alive. Sometimes his father is too. The skies roar with thunder and the stellar winds are always harsh, but they always keep him cocooned up in their arms. He's always warm.

Sometimes Aventurine dreams of nicer days. Clear skies, warm sun, cool breeze—all blessings from the Mother Goddess. On these days, he tends to be an adult, and you tend to be there with him. Your Avgin is fluent but strange, filled with funny loanwords and peculiar slang. His father likes the neologisms and starts using them—but only in wrong ways. His sister finds it embarrassing and keeps apologising to you.

His mother loves you. She loves you so much it hurts. This is how I know you're blessed, Kakavasha, she says, glowing. You’re so lucky to have found such a kind person.

Kakavasha knows this. He knows he's lucky, and in his dreams, that isn't a bad thing. In his dreams, his luck means that his home is not violently excised from his heart: his father never dies; his mother never dies; his sister never dies. The tents are not burned; the wagons are not destroyed. He is never forced to forget his people's dishes, their songs, their language, their joy. And in his dreams, his luck means that he meets you anyway, without all the loss and the chains and the lying.

In his dreams, he is able to bring you to the desert. He is able to teach you the Avgin he spoke as a child, to cook all the meals his mother used to make, to share with you their coffee and their tea. He teaches you prayers. He teaches you blessings. He tells you about Mama Fenge, about how the rain fell when he was born. He takes you to the Kakava Festival, shows you how to dance, sings to you all the Avgin songs until you're singing back. He presses his palm to yours in prayer; he kisses you in devotion, not avoidance.

Sometimes the two of you still fight, the same fights that you have in real life, but he handles them with honesty. He listens to you. He apologises to you. He tells you that he’ll change, and he means it—because this world is a kind one, and he has no need to be so cruel to you.

In this kind world, when you lay in bed with his arms tight around you, you smile at him and say, I love you, Kakavasha. You say it in Avgin—real Avgin, not the dialect born from genocide and deceit—and when he responds, there's not even a little bit of insincerity in his voice. Because Kakavasha never became Aventurine in these dreams, so he has no Interastral Standard in which he can lie to you, no silver tongue with which he can manipulate you, no commodity code that inspires his fear of being controlled by you. Kakavasha only knows Avgin, and he only has his sand, his family, his goddess, his home.

And he has you. Finally, he has you.

He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and then he tells you the truth.)

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

You noticed this very early on: whenever he lies to you, he always switches to Interastral Standard. Probably he wouldn't be able to do it in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak, and the words he knows are all too kind. He speaks with the innocence of a child, and children cannot deceive people in the way that adults can. Children cannot perform commerce or negotiate contracts. They cannot use a silver tongue to rob people blind. They cannot save themselves from the gallows.

So Aventurine’s Avgin is defenceless. Vulnerable. So vulnerable it hurts. You are not so vulnerable in your first language because your captors spoke it on occasion, and you learned to lie in it to gain their pity. You told Aventurine that knowing it would help him understand you, but this was a deception. Aventurine’s mother tongue was a language of trust, but yours is a dialect of abuse.

The Avgin language died before Aventurine could be gutted by it; this is why it disarms him so completely. This is why he’s so indulgent and so warm when you use it with him, why he yields to all your requests. Not requests for money or gifts—you’re certain those are meaningless to him—but for affection. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. Let me kiss you. He can never say no.

This is also why he loves hearing you speak his mother tongue, you think—it makes him feel at home, it makes him feel safe. Maybe it even makes him feel loved. He never seems so at peace speaking any other language, so you try to use Avgin as much as possible. You like seeing him happy. You like it even if it means you need to teach him your own native language in exchange, even when it means you need to hear him say all the things your captors used to say. You don't mind it if it's him. You never mind the harm he inflicts on you, especially not when it brings you closer to him.

It is convenient that he cannot lie in Avgin. You only wanted to learn it in the first place because he talks in his sleep—mostly in Standard, but sometimes in his native tongue. And now that you know he cannot lie in Avgin, you also know he's always being honest in his dreams. Honest when he throws his arms around you in his sleep. Honest when he grabs you so tightly that you bruise. Honest when he buries his face into your neck and whispers prayers into your skin.

Most of the words he says are common ones, the earliest vocabulary that he taught you. But there are some things he's withheld from you—and to learn those things, you had to track down linguists from the Intelligentsia Guild, bribe them with your dirty money, have them give you all their deprecated, extinct data. It felt two-faced, and it was violating, but it was the only way. You already know that Aventurine would rather die than translate his feelings for you, would never want this part of himself understood.

I'm sorry for always leaving you.

I'm sorry for making you cry.

I can't bear the thought of losing you.

Freedom would be too lonely without you.

I don't want to hurt you anymore.

I don't want to lie to you anymore.

I missed you.

I want you.

I need you.

I love you.

end

afterword

#honkai star rail fic #writer: yinyuedijun #not safe for minors #adventurine x reader #oh my god miss mao this fic....#i dont go here but im so glad i read this fic bc it hit me where it hurt DSJKFHKJSD #i personally havent experienced the kinds of loss explored in this fic #but reading this made it feel like i have #everything in here was so poignant and well written #u rly put ur whole writeussy into this fic god bless #but i had to pause a few times while reading and try not to cry LMDSFHJS #the ache i got from reading this fic hurt but i will definitely read it again #reading this is easy to tell how interested and invested u are in his character and these topics and it makes for a rly lovely read!!#language of love language of abuse it was all so ARRGHHGOUUGGHHHHH <- cant find the right words #ur writing has flourished!! excited to read more of this lil guy from u :3

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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𝑤𝘩𝑒𝑛 𝑖 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒 : 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑘𝑖 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑜 𝑥 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 : 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑖

𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦: In order to placate your anxious mother, you agree to return to your hometown to participate in a mating run—knowing full well that betas rarely get chased, never mind betas nearly old enough to age out of the practice. You’ve decided to treat it like a vacation, a chance to visit with your childhood friends, the mating run itself a nice relaxing hike. All in all it’s a solid plan—until alpha Todoroki Shouto, your best friend's little brother, steps in and blows it all to pieces. 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡: omegaverse, no quirks au, alpha!shouto, beta!reader, mating rituals, age gap, best friend’s little brother, older reader, afab reader, some class differences, aged up characters, semi-public sex, slight small town romance vibes, background implied dabihawks for some reason, smut, 18+; mdni! 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ: 5.7k | chapter 1 of 4

Then

It was a freezing day in spring the first time you set foot in the Todoroki house.

You had shared a class with Touya for years now, and in that time you’d become something of his best friend. You’d bonded early over a mutual hatred of fish and your status as the two best tree climbers on the playground—two integral friendship quality bars if ever you’d met them—and your entente had strengthened over the following months.

After enough time together Touya had even seemed to like you, seeking out your opinion, deploying you like a shield between himself and the other kids. He wanted to be paired with you for group projects constantly, as he seemed to disdain the ability of the other kids in your class.

He eventually acquiesced to two other friends—Rumi and Keigo—as Keigo was a really fast runner, and Rumi could kick a kid almost clear across a playground. But the two of you remained particularly close, and a few years in, Touya had seemed to want to check the final box of your friendship.

That was the day he’d haughtily informed you that you were coming home with him.

You’d phoned your mother from the school office to obtain permission, and then pulled your jacket on to follow Touya out into the cold, his skinny legs beating a quick path through the streets.

You’d half-expected that Touya lived in a box behind a shop, with the way he descended ravenously on his lunches (as well as yours, and Rumi’s, when he could occasionally get them—though notably not Keigo’s, something that had only retroactively made sense to you as an adult). But the house Touya steered you to was enormous—easily the biggest house you’d ever seen—a stately pile at the end of a fancy neighborhood.

You’d later learn this was because his father was the mayor, and the Todorokis were neck-deep in generational wealth. At the time you’d been mildly annoyed, because what had you let him eat part of your lunches for if he lived in a house like this?

“I’m home,” Touya had called into the echoey foyer, grand but strangely barren. He’d kicked off his coat and shoes, discarding them carelessly—perhaps purposefully—on the floor, then gestured for you to follow him into the kitchen as a warm voice called out to him. “Welcome home, Touya.”

“I brought Y/N,” he announced grandly as he prowled into the room. To you he said, “This is my mother, Rei.”

The voice you’d heard resolved itself into a woman, tall, with beautiful long white hair and a small, but unmistakably fond smile on her mouth. You startled, immediately floored by her beauty. She looked just like Touya, the same delicate prettiness to her mouth, the shape of her eyes—but even lovelier. She looked simultaneously like she belonged on the cover of a magazine, and would be embarrassed by one saying so.

She also smelled like an omega—sweet, but a little wilder than you were used to. Like spring flowers blooming on a cold day.

“Hello Y/N,” she said warmly, turning to you. You gave a shy wave back, suddenly nervous in front of her.

As she turned you finally noticed the child on her hip—a small, round, pudgy little thing with half red and half white hair, and two mismatched grey and blue eyes that pinned on you immediately. It was wearing a horrendous polkadot onesie, and you felt your eyebrows raise without your permission.

“That’s Shouto,” Touya informed you, and the pieces slotted together in your brain. Ah, so that was the face to the name.

Shouto was the little brother Touya complained about incessantly—the one that was his father’s favorite, the one that stared too much and wanted to play with all of Touya’s toys even though he was too little for them, the one Touya was saddled with babysitting constantly. He’d made Shouto out to be this sort of tiny harbinger of evil—but Shouto did not look very evil, perched there on his mother’s hip.

He blinked at you, a flutter of surprisingly long eyelashes, for a baby. You had the thought that actually he was kind of cute. Most probably not a harbinger of evil, and actually very sweet-looking, if weirdly round.

“I need to be excused from Shouto duty,” Touya said, the question posed more like a statement.

Rei shook her head, a somber little smile playing about her mouth. “I have to make dinner before Fuyumi and Natsuo get back from their playdates and your father gets home. Why don’t you take Shouto to play with you and Y/N?”

Touya rolled his eyes in the long-suffering manner of a man who’d endured it all. Shouto didn’t seem to notice, however, his mismatched gaze barely detaching from your face. You noticed Shouto’s left eye was the exact vivid blue of Touya’s, and his other eye the same silver as his mother’s.

“He’s staring like a weirdo,” Touya complained, but collected Shouto from Rei anyway. Shouto let himself be passed over as placidly as a bag of potatoes, still watching you.

“Y/N is a new face for him, he’s just curious, Touya,” Rei said, smoothing Shouto’s hair down as Touya hefted him in his arms. Shouto reached out a hand towards you, fat fingers flexing.

“What, you think I’m some taxi service who’s gonna bring you wherever you want to go?” Touya demanded. Shouto ignored him, his little chubby arm wavering.

Strangely, something compelled you to step closer, reaching out a hand in return. Shouto seized it in his pudgy little fist, staring up at you with solemn eyes. His other hand reached out to you, too, twisting in Touya’s grip, and Touya let out an annoyed scoff.

“Y/N didn’t come here to hang out with you,” he said. But Shouto ignored him, his little hand fisting in your tee shirt. He seemed to be trying to lever himself up out of Touya’s arms and into yours.

You were startled, never having held a baby before, and Shouto was kind of a big one. But Touya showed you how to hold him under his butt and across his back, and you heard the rustle of his diaper as he was handed off to you.

“Hi Shouto,” you said, watching him watch you.

His eyebrows raised, some small happiness lighting up his expression, and he gave a little kick that wiggled his whole body in your arms.

“He likes you,” Rei said over the counter top, as she settled a cutting board and a pile of vegetables across it.

You looked back at Shouto, feeling weirdly pleased. Maybe babies weren’t that bad.

Touya made an annoyed sort of grunt, stomping past you. “We’re going to play in the living room,” he announced imperiously. You glanced at Rei to make sure that was okay, then followed Touya, Shouto heavy in your arms.

By the time you arrived, Shouto had settled a hand on either of your cheeks and seemed to be trying to stare directly into your soul, and Touya patted him firmly on the back, clucking. “Stop being such a little freak.”

“He’s fine,” you said, bemused. No one had told you really little kids were this intense and weird. But Shouto’s little round face was kind of sweet, and it was hard to be annoyed at a baby staring up at you, that clearly enamored.

“Actually he’s being way nicer to me than you,” you told Touya.

Touya rolled his eyes and busied himself pulling out a horde of action figures, legos, puzzles, and games, as well as a turtle with multi-colored blocks set into it that appeared to be for Shouto.

“Oi, it’s turtle time, weirdo,” he told Shouto.

That seemed to break the baby’s singular focus on you, and he peered around, lighting up nearly the same way when he saw his blocks as he had when he’d seen you. You laughed, and helped him settle on the floor next to you, watching his clumsy, chubby grip fumble on the blocks as he carefully removed them one-by-one from the plastic turtle.

Touya set up the legos around you, an older parallel of his brother, though you thought he would kill you for saying so.

A block appeared in your lap, carefully and deliberately placed by a fat-fingered hand. You smiled down at Shouto, picking it up and gesturing grandly. “For me?”

A grey-and-blue gaze attached itself solemnly to your face, as if awaiting your judgment, and an instant fondness swept over you. Who knew babies could be this cute—when they weren’t screaming and crying and generally being small and annoying near you. Touya had massively undersold his little brother, who was the sweetest baby you’d ever encountered.

You bowed your head, clutching your gifted block close to you. “Thank you, Shouto. It’s very nice.”

Shouto stared up at you, smiling a shy little almost-smile, clearly pleased. You couldn’t help but reach up and ruffle that distinct tuft of hair, taken with him already. Yep, definitely a good little kid.

And you decided then and there that you liked Todoroki Shouto—though for now he was a child—you both were children—and he could only mean so much to you.

You wouldn’t realize how much he’d actually come to mean to you, until many, many years later.

Now

Touya’s white mess of hair was the first thing you spotted as you stumbled into the restaurant.

Outside it was unseasonably cold, an icy wind tearing through you as you’d rushed all the way from your mother’s house. The inside of the restaurant was blessedly warm, and slightly smoky from the meat and vegetables grilling away on each table top. Touya was on the far side, and you could see Rumi’s white hair beyond him, Keigo’s blonde riot of waves peeking over the top of the booth next to him.

Rumi faced the door so she spotted you first, a mouth-splitting grin overtaking her face as she waved you down.

You hurried your way over, letting out a surprised hrrk! when Rumi drew you down into a rib-crushing hug, her alpha strength barely contained. You fell into the seat at an awkward angle, your joints screaming.

“Well look what the cat dragged in! You don’t look a bit changed, you little beta cuck,” she crowed, making you choke on a laugh as you almost inhaled a mouthful of her hair.

“Rumi—!” you sputtered, half-pleased and half-scandalized that she clearly hadn’t changed in the years since you’d seen her last. She crushed you to her harder, and you could feel your eyeballs all but bulging like a rubber doll.

“If you plan to crush her to death you could at least wait until I clear the scene,” came Touya’s disaffected drawl from the other side of the table. “The last thing I need is police on my case again.”

That was so typical of him, too, after all this time.

“Good to see you too, Touya,” you said, even though you couldn’t get a look at him through Rumi’s hair. She ground her knuckles into the top of your head for good measure before releasing you, and you came up for air gratefully, watching the two men on the other side of the table grin at you.

Keigo looked exactly as you’d left him, a little bit more filled out than the skinny teen he’d been, the same wiry facial scruff growing in, those golden eyes alight with typical playfulness. Touya looked like he’d aged the most, his scars—fresher when you’d graduated—now deepened to the color of dark bruises. His features were still achingly familiar under them, however, the fine-boned prettiness of his mother shining through, his father’s blazing cerulean eyes the only nod to the other half of his parentage.

“So you really obeyed mommy dearest huh,” Touya said, pinning you with a smirk.

You rolled your eyes at him. As your closest childhood friend, he still knew all your weak spots, your mother the biggest of them. Growing up she’d been lonely and overworked, and you’d tried to care for her and please her the best you could. You still called her several times a week and sent back your wages to help pay for the house, and pay down the pile of debt your father had left her in when he’d died.

The concession of returning home for a few days to attend the annual mating run, as pointless as it was going to be, was the least you could do for her.

“You know as well as I do that no one is going to run down a beta,” you said, settling yourself in next to Rumi and shedding your coat and hat. “Especially not now that I’m well past newly-presented. It’ll be like a vacation.”

“You never know,” Keigo said, raising his fluffy eyebrows at you, his grin wicked. You flung the pile of your things across the table at him, but he intercepted easily, all alpha reflex. He stuffed your jacket down next to him, laughing at you.

“I do know,” you said emphatically. “And I’m not fussed about it. I don’t know who she thinks is going to pay her bills if I’m off getting dicked down by some knothead idiot.”

Touya made a dismissive noise and you looked around the table for something to fling at him too. He’d never had to worry about money, his future shored up with the Todoroki family fortune, built over generations and then basically quadrupled by his father. Since coming out of the correctional facility for a string of petty crimes, Touya had been skating by on family generosity, and you knew he wasn’t about to stop.

“Just burn her house down like mine,” he said, an unholy grin overtaking his face as he leaned forward. There was a light behind his eyes like he wasn’t entirely kidding. No one had ever been able to determine if the Todoroki family fire had been an accident or not, although Touya claimed it had been.

But you’d known Touya your whole life and you had your suspicions. Touya had hated his father for nearly all of your living memory—and the Todoroki men had an almost disturbing single-mindedness about them. You had long wondered if Touya’s fixation on his break with Enji had ever played into the fire that ravaged their house during your middle school years.

The one exception to the Todoroki single-mindedness was sweet little Shouto, who you’d last seen at your high school graduation. He was several years younger than you and had still been round-faced and chubby-cheeked then, all wide solemn eyes and pouty little mouth, just like when he was a baby.

You hadn’t seen him since, but couldn’t imagine Shouto turning out anything like Touya.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” you said to Touya, not liking how his grin widened.

Purportedly he’d come out of the correctional facility for good behavior, his record squeaky clean.

Purportedly.

“So why even agree to the run?” Rumi asked. “If you’re not looking to actually take anyone home?”

You helped yourself to the water that had been laid out before answering. “It’s just easier to appease my mother. She gets what she wants—some indication I’m open to my life mate-–and I get what I want, which is to be able to use this as an excuse next year.”

“Aww you won’t come back to see little old us?” Keigo asked. His tone was wheedling but his eyes tracked your expression carefully, always observing.

You smiled at him. You did miss your old friends, and you liked how easy it felt to sink right back into them after so many years away. You wanted to see them outside of the confines of a group chat or the rare facetime.

And you missed a lot about the town you’d grown up in. You liked the tiny storefronts of the downtown shops and the easy access to the coast and miles of hiking trails. You’d had a dream of opening up a little bookstore in one of the lovely brick buildings downtown when you were younger—but that was back before the staggering number of dollar signs on your mother’s bills had made themselves known to you and the romance of your daydream had begun to seem more like foolishness.

The bigger cities offered the bigger jobs, the bigger wages to send home. Even if it meant you could only see your friends every few years and mostly kept in touch via group chat.

“How about you guys come to me?” you asked. “There’s a chicken place I think Keigo will want to make the trip for.”

Keigo’s grin widened and he leaned in, interested. “Say no more,” he drawled.

On the table top, Touya’s phone vibrated. He peered at it, dismissing the notification with a swipe. “Rei wants to see you,” he reported, the usual blend of disrespect and unwilling fondness for his own mother layered in his voice. “She says you should come by the house.”

You smiled, pleased to be remembered. “I’d love that. Who’s living there now?”

Touya stretched, his back brushing the booth. “I do. And she does. Enji visits sometimes—” his tone was pointedly colorless “—and Fuyumi and Natsuo come by a couple times a week. Shouto is there almost daily for dinner when he’s not on shift, because his own cooking is absolute shit.”

You blinked, struggling to reconcile the idea of sweet-faced little Shouto with an adult who lived on his own now. “On shift?” you asked.

“He’s a fireman,” Touya rolled his eyes. “Little fucking do gooder. Ever since the house fire he’s wanted to.”

Your eyelashes fluttered again, your brain floating with the images of skinny, round-faced Shouto struggling to haul people out of a burning building. You struggled not to voice this disbelief.

“Wow, good for him,” you said.

“Not for me,” Touya complained. “Ever since he’s presented he’s been eating us out of house and home. Can’t find a fucking thing in the cabinets after he’s been through—”

And that shocked you, too, the idea that Shouto was already grown enough to have presented.

Objectively you knew he had to be into his early twenties at this point, but hearing the changes life had wrought on him was almost too much to contemplate. You wondered what he had presented as, and whether he’d be subject to the run this week as well. You’d always sort of suspected he’d be an omega, with that wide-eyed, beautiful face—almost a carbon copy of his mother’s, the same delicate prettiness in it as Touya.

And he’d been so sweet, too. When you’d been much, much younger—before Touya had become too cool and too emo for it—you remembered playing house together, remembered how often you’d dragged Shouto in to play the part of your son. He’d always sat there, a chubby-faced toddler, smashing blocks together and staring up at you with big eyes as you and Touya made plastic food and Touya unrolled a days-old newspaper collected from his father, bossing you around from his armchair.

Even when Shouto had gotten older and started to get as fresh with Touya as Touya was with him, he’d always been nice to you, always watched you with those same wide, mismatched eyes.

Yeah. He was most probably an omega.

“Well I’d love to see Rei, and Natsuo and Fuyumi and Shouto,” you said.

Touya stretched in the booth, not minding Keigo and thumping him right across the chest. Keigo squawked in annoyance.

“I’ll tell Rei you’re coming for dinner,” Touya said.

You smiled, pleased. You knew what a huge deal it was for both Touya and Rei to be in the same house again—both in recovery, both sharing the same space again.

When you’d left, Rei had been hospitalized and Touya had already been knee deep in petty crimes and utterly disinterested in any sort of overtures of help. For them to both be together again, getting regular help, with Enji out of the house and a rotating string of their family members checking in on them—you were happy to see them healing.

The buoyant feeling lasted all the way through lunch and too many drinks, until Touya shepherded you out of the restaurant, blazing a familiar path towards his family home. You followed, gratified when you saw that the Todoroki house was just as you remembered it, even the rebuilt pieces nostalgic.

Its grandness had been a shock to you as a child—not only in comparison to the tiny, squashed little two bed you’d grown up in—but that Touya had grown up there, in so vast and elegant a space. Touya who you dug in the dirt with. Touya who picked bugs out of the mud and put them on you. Touya who turned his nose up at dolls and ate things right out of your lunch box without asking, like he was a starving child without any access to food.

The house said otherwise.

Touya treated the Todoroki mansion with the same pointed lack of care he had as a teenager, kicking in the door as he led you inside, throwing his things in a pile in the entry. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, fondly nostalgic over his shithead behavior.

“You missed a spot—I think there’s a bare patch of floor over there,” you said.

Touya gave you a narrow-eyed gaze over his shoulder as he uttered a string of objects you might suck.

You raised your eyebrows at him, smiling and unbothered. He’d always said it was your beta nature that left you unfussed with his various attitudes, taking everything in stride. You didn’t know if that was true—you’d always sort of suspected it was the strange, inherent connection you felt to him, and to the Todoroki family at large that kept you fond of him, even as he descended into teenage fury.

You didn’t know what it was, as you’d not ever felt it with your other friends’ families who you’d spent nearly as much time with. But if it netted you a lifelong friend, you weren’t about to question it.

Rei was in the kitchen like she had been that first day Touya brought you home, an enormous expanse of marble counter and vaulted ceiling that made her look unfathomably small. Her snow white hair had been cropped short into a page boy cut and made her look younger than her years, especially when she glanced up at you with the very same smile she had when you were a child.

“Welcome back, Y/N,” she said. You bowed respectfully, Touya scoffing and grabbing the back of the collar to haul you up.

“She’s not the fucking prime minister,” he grunted.

“And you’re not the boss of me,” you sniped, the drinks you’d both shared at lunch making you a little looser tongued in front of Rei than you’d have liked.

“Shouto will be by in just a few minutes as well, and he’ll be so happy to see you,” Rei said, smiling gently.

“Shouto lives on his own?” you asked, curious. Aside from picturing him as the skinny preteen you’d last seen him as, you also had trouble imagining kind, sweet little Shouto leaving his mother on her own—and with Touya definitely counted as on her own, for all the help he was. Shouto seemed devoted, familial.

“He’s wanted his own space since he presented,” Rei said lightly, clearly unbothered.

It was rare for omegas to peel off from their family units before finding a mate, and the strangeness of striking out on his own struck you even further. Maybe he wanted a nest to bring someone back to, after finding the right person?

You wondered if he was going to be participating in this year’s mating run, and made a mental note to try and find out if he wanted help avoiding any undesirable alphas. If he was an omega, your beta scent would help disguise some of his tracks, you’d just have to follow in his footsteps far enough away from the main track that a ranging alpha wouldn’t accidentally stumble upon it.

That thought was cut short, however, by the sound of the door creaking open in the foyer you’d just come in from. There was the sound of rustling fabric, like someone shedding their coat, and then footsteps padded through the hall. A hint of a scent met your nose, slightly sweet and smoky, with an undercurrent of something fresh—like a campfire burning on a cold, clear day. Your brow furrowed, the frostiness an almost-familiar dimension, like Rei's cold widlflower scent. Who was—?

Then a tall, unfamiliar alpha poked his head through the door, fluffy red and white strands of hair tangling across his forehead. He was an arresting sight—easily the most beautiful person you had ever seen, every single one of his features so perfectly and evenly placed, like he'd been put together deliberately. He looked startlingly like Rei, if Rei were a man, except for the fiery blue of his left eye, the shock of scarlet hair above it.

You stared at this new interloper, confused, until you were seized with a sudden memory of that scar, that same mop of hair bent over a turtle-shaped block puzzle.

No. No fucking way.

Rei smiled, opening her arms, and you gaped after him as Todoroki Shouto prowled across the kitchen to her, enveloping her in a hug. Where Touya was taller than his mother, his baby brother almost dwarfed her, easily clearing six feet, his shoulders broad and his frame packed with dense muscle. He'd always had the same elegant, sweetly beautiful set to his features that his mother and Touya did, but there was something sharper about them now, a slightly more alpha edge to him.

An enormous bicep shifted against the sleeve of his t-shirt as Shouto held Rei, and suddenly it was very clear how Shouto had managed to become a firefighter.

Something pinched your arm, hard, and you whipped around to stare at Touya accusingly. “Ouch!”

He smirked. “Don’t fucking stare like he does.”

You scowled at him, and opened your mouth to say something unsavory, until two mismatched eyes turned on you, pinning you in place.

“Y/N,” Shouto said. His voice was deep as midnight—so much lower than you had remembered—careful and smooth. The sound of it slithered up your spine like a shiver.

“Shouto?” you answered, stepping closer. “You’re Shouto? Are you sure?”

Shouto released his mother, only the tiniest corner of his mouth twitching. And that was confirmation enough. Shouto had always been a little serious, watching you carefully and intently. He was most like his mother that way—withdrawn, a little bit solemn.

“As far as I am aware,” he said. His tone was flat but you heard the tease in it, regardless. And that was so like him too, couching his inner little shit under the most serious tone, under those earnest heterochromatic eyes.

“Wish he wasn’t,” Touya muttered.

“Oh my god, Shouto. You’ve grown up so much,” you said, a strange thrill zinging up your spine as he stepped closer. That scent like campfire on a cold day washed over you, making you a little dizzy.

Shouto’s eyes got a little bit round at the edges, and something pulled at the corner of his mouth again, an expression you didn’t recognize. His tone was soft as he observed, “You are exactly the same as I remember.”

You could tell he meant it kindly, so you chose not to be offended with his obvious tact. You were well aware you were not a fresh-faced high school graduate anymore.

“I’m definitely older than you remember,” you said, resisting the urge to poke him in the chest. Your hand felt magnetized toward it for some reason. “Don’t be surprised if you hear my bones creaking all the way from the preserve during the run.”

Something sudden and strange passed over Shouto’s face, those mismatched eyes narrowing in on you.

“You’re running,” he said, his tone suddenly flat. “This year.”

“Yeah I’m back in town for it,” you said, ignoring Touya’s scoff at your side. “Gotta appease my mother. She doesn’t get that betas aren’t the target crowd for this, nevermind ancient ones. That, and I plan to disappear up a tree if someone so much as sniffs in my direction.”

“Up a tree,” Shouto repeated, sounding contemplative.

You wondered if he was internalizing how weird you were. He probably wouldn’t have remembered you being weird, considering how younger kids never thought to question their older peers. Maybe he’d even thought you cool when you were growing up together—you’d quickly disabuse him of that notion.

You nodded. “I’ve only been followed by alphas twice and both times I lost them up that big willow overlooking the bay, if you take the seaside path out two miles?”

Shouto’s eyes tracked you closely, like he was committing every word to memory. “I know it.”

You smiled. “The sea breeze is just enough to hide a beta’s scent, once you’re out of sight up there. I hope the city life hasn’t gotten me too out of shape to get up the trunk. Though to be frank I’m not too worried about it this year. Are you running?”

“Yes,” Shouto said, so quickly that it looked like he’d startled himself.

Touya’s head whipped around to stare at him, and Rei’s eyelashes fluttered momentarily, a weird stillness overcoming her—until a sort of look of understanding came over her features. You thought you caught a hint of a smile as she ducked her head to return to her dinner preparations.

“Thought you said you weren’t interested,” Touya said, his tone accusing. “You’ve never run before.”

Shouto looked deeply unfussed by his older brother’s sudden consternation. “Perhaps I have changed my mind.”

“The hell you did,” Touya said snottily. “You said you knew you wouldn’t find your life mate there.”

“Perhaps that has changed too,” Shouto said, his tone so dry that you could tell he was purposefully needling Touya. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. Brothers.

Touya’s scoff overlaid the thump of Rei’s knife as she returned to chopping, and you realized how rude it looked for the three of you to be standing there arguing while she was working.

You hurriedly stepped around Touya and Shouto, peering over Rei’s shoulder. For some reason you were hyperaware of Shouto as you passed him, a thought you shoved right back out of your mind as you approached Rei. “Is there anything I can help with? I feel like I have years of free dinners to pay you back for.”

“I am almost done, but thank you, Y/N,” Rei said, as Touya said something in a haughty tone of voice, and Shouto’s low baritone answered. Rei’s mouth quirked softly at this—and you realized it was the same way Shouto smiled, small and private.

“—Not bringing home some weird fucking omega,” Touya was saying when you turned back to the boys. You startled when you realized Shouto had shifted to face you instead of his brother, and his body language looked like he was mostly ignoring him.

You channeled your sudden laugh into a fake cough. Touya eyed you sourly, long used to your tricks.

“Well if you want any help on the run, let me know,” you told Shouto, cutting into their argument with the practice of a beta used to diffusing things, especially between Touya and others. Shouto’s mouth twitched again like he knew what you were doing, and you watched his eyes pick over you speculatively.

You marveled at how far back you had to tilt your head if you wanted to look him directly in the eye now. He was so big, and so unexpectedly handsome—he really had grown up well. Some omega was going to be very, very pleased at the end of this week, provided he really did go after someone.

“If it’s your first you probably won’t know all the best hiding spots,” you told him.

Not that they were really hiding spots, considering most omegas wanted to be found. And there was no one on this earth who wouldn’t want to be found by an alpha who looked like Shouto did now. But he’d probably want to make sure he got to his intended first, before any other alpha found them.

Shouto nodded, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I will take you up on that,” his tone was low, intimate.

You smiled up at him, though something weird twinged in your chest. “Lunch sometime this week then? I’ll walk you through everything.”

Touya made a noise of disgust, and you shushed him. Shouto’s smile pulled into a quarter-moon sliver, sweet and beautiful. “I would like that.”

A strange little thrill zinged down your spine. You very pointedly did not think about it, instead shooting Shouto a thumbs up. And then, seized by a sudden need to get away, you marched forward to grab Touya by his collar, dragging him out into the dining room.

“Do you have to make your mother do everything? Let’s set the table,” you ordered him, shoving him at the cabinets. Touya swore at you, trying to twist his lanky body out of your hands, spitting like a wet cat.

But your mind was already elsewhere, occupied by this strange new turn of events. It really had been a long time away from your hometown, and much more had changed than you realized. You’d missed seeing Touya start to recover his life, you’d missed Rei returning to herself, you’d missed Shouto growing up into a man—and an alpha. You were suddenly overcome by the feeling that you did not want to miss any more, did not want to leave again—though of course that was foolishness.

The run was less than a week away, and you had train tickets back into the city just after.

And you had your mom to provide for, much as she wanted you to settle down with the first rando who got handsy with you in the woods. An alpha would have to bring more than an interest in you to your coupling in order to win you—and that was not going to happen, especially not to a beta, and especially not to you.

You laid the dishes out, resolving yourself. You’d enjoy this week, but never lose sight of the fact that you’d still have to leave at the end of it.

After all, it wasn’t like some miraculous twist of fate was lurking just around the corner of the Todoroki kitchen, ready to change your life.

#WE EATIN GOOD THIS MONTH LADS!!!!!!!!!!!#todoroki shouto x reader #boku no hero academia fic #writer: andypantsx3 #andypantsx3 aob fic.... a good omen of things to come methinks

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namodareads · 1 year ago

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beyond the unending night (reader + satoru gojo)

please note that this is a time loop fic and, by nature contains repeating scenes (particularly from canon). please do not read this fic if you do not like that sort of thing.

wc: 21,883 read on ao3 (account required)