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natto-stuffed aburaage

ushiwaka's b-roll. 2 scenes during or after "plexus unraveling". lapslock / 600 words / rated r

1.

in the end, sakusa agreed to meet at the coffee shop.

he'd sounded ok on the phone. but sat now across the low table with a scalding cup of coffee pressed between his fingers, he looked like he 90 percent regretted it.

if it were anybody else, ushijima might've spared them both the anguish, and fronted some excuse to leave already. for example, there was a new meal prep recipe he found on the internet that he wanted to try. or maybe he still had practice, despite having just left the gym, and then barring his inability to lie about it for real, he would've headed back to the gym to tear up a cardio machine & waffle about the pendulum squat for another 20 minutes. his trainer would totally admonish him. you're overdoing it again, ushijima-senshu. no doubt it'll deal you a proper exercise injury one day. it was such a foreseeable thing, too.

but was that so bad. if arranging a sports injury manifested in an ex-boyfriend coming around to wait hand-and-foot on every spontaneous emotional whim that he had, then maybe ushijima welcomed it. what sort of injury could he suffer? maybe not anything career-ending, like a torn rotator cuff or a broken patella. he'd settle for a sprained joint. growing up ushijima's father had always praised himself for raising a son with very strong ligaments.

ushijima entertained the idea of spraining his elbow during his next match. was this what they called having an epiphany?

sakusa cleared his throat.

"i... maybe i should go."

which was a funny thing to say. the last time he had said that, they'd wound up in the backseat of ushijima's car, parked next to the wall in the south lot of the adlers' training facility. sakusa had worn the most exquisite expression on his face while one of his hands grasped at ushijima's hair, the other one working to stuff his moans back into his mouth as ushijima pressed his thighs deeper into the seat with every debilitating thrust of the hips.

sakusa's face flushed. likely his thoughts had similarly landed on that day, there or thereabouts. ushijima watched him bite his lip and say nothing. it was that kind of memory, after all.

for lack of breathing room in the space between them, ushijima stood up to order an espresso.

"how's the coffee here, is it any good?"

sakusa sipped his drink. his voice was rough. "it's nothing special."

2.

"you went to his house? to APOLOGIZE??" oikawa's voice boomed loudly over ushijima's speakerphone. "why the hell would you even DO that???"

"is there something wrong with what i did," said ushijima.

"is there something wrong with what i did," oikawa mocked him. "oh, i'm sure you're the FIRST person that miya atsumu wants to see. honest to god, ushiwaka, this is exactly why i broke up with you too."

ushijima frowned. "i thought we broke up because my penis was too small for you."

oikawa sputtered. a guffaw with matsukawa's issei's name written all over it broke out over his end of the line.

"obviously i was only-- you know what? forget it." oikawa sounded upset, genuinely. ushijima hadn't the faintest idea why. "seriously. why are you even calling me to talk about this? why are we even talking to each other. we stopped dating so long ago."

"you're the one who still wanted to be friends," ushijima reminded him.

"that's because i was trying to be the bigger person!" oikawa exclaimed, perhaps realizing at last how that was working out for him. the uncrinkled pride of it all.

*

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"plexus unraveling" (hq!!)

—10k words of future!fic exes-to-exes sakuatsusaku. feat. sports injuries, food, and freeform tezuka kunimitsu. rated R for dubcon + some truly awful sadboi sex. —written for sakuatsu bigbang 2022, with art by the lovely teahex@! thank you!!

Live by your rehabilitation, and die by it too.

Locally-grown cabbage was so sweet. He lathered bite-sized pieces in more sauce until he was barely able to taste it through the coat of beer lined over his tongue. Sakusa continued to spread more batter onto the teppan, squeezing more hot sauce on Atsumu’s side of the monjayaki, and cooked it all wordlessly. They ate in silence. Atsumu finished his second beer. His memories started to eat at him then, and he wondered if the monja only tasted so good because the cabbage was so sweet, or if it was because the person who was making the food for him was an asshole who had stolen all of his aptitude for romance within the span of seven short years.

read on ao3

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2021... fic in review

for 2021 i am bringing back ye olde LJ meme style questionnaire. remember those? some of us never forgot.

i’ve taken out the questions that i have no answer for/am not interested in. and squeezed in some fic from the last week of 2020, bc i missed those in last year's roundup.

total wordcount: 15825 (ao3 main) + 3121 (ao3 alt) + 3942 (anon) = 22888

fic count: 7 (genshin) + 2.5 (hq!!) + 1.5 (ginsaji) + 1 (mashiro no oto) + 4 (various anime fandom drabbles) = 16

Looking back, did I write more fic than I thought I would this year, less, or about what I'd predicted? certainly more. in 1st part because i signed up for more fic exchanges than i’d initially anticipated (why did i sign up for s**j** exchange? we’ll never know lol) - which i blame two specific fandom friends for (and only one of u might read this but yes it’s true, i blame u both equally). in 2nd part because i locked most of my fandom socials and i no longer feel like i’m being perceived, which is kind of nice? in 3rd part because of general restlessness. what else was there to do this year for me hobby-wise besides write and run around? i don’t have that much money for drugs okay.

What pairing/genre/fandom did I write that I would never have predicted in January? komaba/kita because what the hell was that lol ?! just kidding, crossover pairings have been in my wheelhouse for ages. what was really unexpected was the amount of fucking porn i wrote this year. i never thought i was any good at writing it (& i still don't). but im glad that im branching out a bit more. it feels like i am pulling closer & closer yet to the essence of fanfic - that is, the horny porny broom of it all.

What's my own favorite story of the year? well that’s gotta be To the Nonfictional You. what’s not to like about a fic that u purely wrote for the sake of writing it? every year a drawer fic makes it out of the gdrive and this year it happened to be a pastoral soap opera. i’ll take that. tho luft HORiZON comes in at a close 2nd. it channeled into fic a lot of my irl humor, which is rare. and it felt nice to like my writing again. i’m relearning how to strike a balance between diet prose and the thick-cut purple stuff.

Did I take any writing risks this year? What did I learn from them? i mean, aside from the nc-17 content? probably doing all those drabbles. they definitely helped to reorganize and simplify my thoughts. if anything though it’s started to curl my nostrils up at certain narrative smells/prose structures that remind me of my old writing circa 2012~2014 - and i don’t like that. every type of fic has its merit, connie, when will u learn. so the biggest learning is that i am still learning. sounds about right.

From my past year of writing, what was...

my best story? quality-wise, it's either luft HORiZON or the ginsaji fic i wrote for yule.

most fun? shangri-la. ;)

biggest disappointment? bitter meat strategy - yes that’s me de-anoning, no i’m not going to elaborate. not because i don’t want to, but because i don’t have anything good to say about it. hahahaah

biggest surprise? shangri-la - i genuinely did not expect even 1 person to click on this fic. so thank you, if you did. i had fun writing it!

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters? probably... the daiya drabble i wrote. i forgot how much i loved that series & its characters. i wish the hq!! guys were like the daiya guys. then maybe the fandom would be more my cup of tea too.

most unintentionally revealing story? lol what is writing but a method to reveal ur true self. but if it’s unintentional then it has to be that given drabble. if the music’s not analog synth then i don’t want it!!! jeez

best opening line(s)?

from To the Nonfictional You:

Hachiken calls from time to time, in lieu of the balance sheet that they maintain between one another as acquaintances. Their chats are short and typically weather-related but it sits well with Komaba to touch base like that, especially when the distance between here and Hokkaido starts to foam around his adolescent memories.

best closing line(s)?

from luft HORiZON:

“We’re back together,” Kindaichi informs him, at the end of summer. “I apologized, and Tobio did too. How are things with you?”

“Never been better,” says Kunimi. It’s a lie, but at least it’s one that he can live with.

or the last passage in Like water for strawberries., but only with context.

best line(s) from anywhere?

from luft HORiZON:

“Let me put it this way,” says Hinata. “Kageyama’s like your dog. He will only go as far as you will throw, Kindaichi. But he has always loved you quietly.”

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most: love is dead & it’s been dead for a while. take ur pick of a dead horse to beat: komaba ichirou at hachiken’s wedding, kunimi akira on the santa monica pier, or maybe even sawamura wakana at a garden concert in beijing. does it matter with whom or where ur love went to die? not in a million years dude.

Do I have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year? to get out of my head. and clean up my gdrive drawer. vague goals only, because i can’t commit to anything. :p

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2 fic i wrote for a genshin exchange

forgot to x-post from ao3. both are sfw & written for the zhongchi/tartali discord server 2021 white day exchange.

1.

“a harbinger's home companion”  —2300w. canon compliant, mutual pining, on homecoming.

Between Scaramouche’s first plea bargain in Mondstadt, and the subsequent weeks spent scrubbing the Snezhnayan scent off another foiled terrorist plot on the Inazuma Bakufu, it took Childe three months to feel comfortable petitioning the Tsaritsa for a return voyage to Liyue.

Even so, perched now on a bench outside the Fatui’s Zapolyarny stronghold's debriefing room, he was hesitant to let so many sore spots dangle in plain air. Because there hadn't been any science to what he’d felt, when the doors of Northland Bank closed on his face that day. He’d been sitting here for four hours now, and his ass hadn’t gotten any warmer from brooding over missed conquests.

2.

“Like water for strawberries.”  —1600w. salaryman AU, reverse-chronological order, with fruit.

Give him a few more days, and Childe still won’t be able pinpoint when he’d become suspended mid air over two platforms. From this altitude either platform poses a steep drop, postmarked as fallen-out-of-love or not-quite-there-but-close. Across the duvet, Zhongli’s fingers are warm against his. Water from the hotel pool, thickened several centimetres by natural light, skims circles on the ceiling above their heads. Climbing back into his mind he can retrieve each detail vividly. Inciting violence on a Tuesday, laying down on a bed of roses at the tip of the hour. Near the end of each turn is a computable path back to the precise minute he’d last devastated himself.

Absently, he searches for a better way to describe what he’s feeling.

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“shangri-la” (mashiro no oto)

—950 words, post-canon pwp, sawamura wakana/ogata kousuke (kamiki seiryuu). rated R for sex + dirty talk.

There's nothing unholy about looking at one another. Simply let us agree on the state of flux we want to be in, and drive downstream the anomalies.

(Or, Wakana attends Kamiki Seiryuu's evening recital in Beijing.)

read on ao3

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🍓

kita-centric b-side to “the nonfictional you” 350w of lapslock / rated g

*

over the new year kita travels economy class into amur oblast, accompanied by a crate of strawberries that he’d had flown in from tochigi two days prior. which is as ridiculous as it sounds, having fresh fruit shipped to hyogo in a refrigerated box, only to then have it flown out further north to the middle of a rural russian oblast. almost as ridiculous as flying there by himself. almost as ridiculous as being in love.

“they’re delicious,” is the first thing komaba tells him, biting into the tip of a strawberry after kita has de-stemmed and washed a bowlful to set out on the kitchen table. together they dangle on a conversation about renovations to komaba’s farmhouse west of vladivostok, nursing a lull in the excitement of kita’s arrival and the fervent sex to make up for lost time. komaba’s farmhouse is a single-story construction, situated on the northwest corner of his parcel of government-leased farmland. the windows above the kitchen sink face the southeast, and past the weakened winter sun they are privy to an expanse of arable tundra, cleared of its crop past the regular soybean season. komaba stares out at the field as he says, “thank you for sharing these with me. i’ve forgotten the taste of strawberries from home. there’s nothing quite like this sweetness. how much did it cost you? they can’t have been cheap.”

“don’t wanna say,” kita shrugs, feeling at once committed and noncommitted to kissing the flavor of the fruit off komaba’s lips. komaba chews on the strawberry thoughtfully. the moment passes, and they talk about something else.

later, when they break up for good, kita buys himself a basket of tochigi-sourced strawberries from the supermarket. in his kitchen he bites into a strawberry and suddenly recalls that time he cried in high school, when he received his inarizaki volleyball team jersey for the first time. a bittersweet moment, one that he’d been sure he would remember for the rest of his life, but the memories of it now are as muted as the sweetness of the fruit on his tastebuds.

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“To the Nonfictional You” (silver spoon)

—5000 words of pastoral opera feat. one-sided komaba/hachiken, hachiken/mikage + some vague komaba/kita shinsuke (hq!!) shuffled in there. the heart is a lonely hunter, my friends —cursory warning: fic is rated r for explicit sex and contains mentions of infidelity

We reap what we sow, Komaba Ichiro. Isn’t that the first lesson they teach you in agriculture school?

read on ao3

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“luft HORiZON” (hq!!)

~2k words of alternating kindaichi/kageyama + matsukawa/kunimi, in the style of a king’s pawn sacrifice

8 months chronicling our attempts to avoid a back-rank checkmate.

read on ao3

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“Morax by the Sea” (genshin/tartali)

—childe/zhongli feat. powerful bottom zhongli. this is a nsfw pwp sequel to “Tartaglia on the Shore”. includes fellatio, buttplugs, anal sex/riding, implied prostitution & mentioned switching

the pearl galley has a new listing on its connoisseur catalog.

read on ao3

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“Tartaglia on the Shore” (genshin/tartali)

—zhongli/childe. “hurt”/comfort pre-slash, pg-13 for some mild cinema gore

the rex lapis comfort set, or whatever accompanies the mortal injuries you sustain from trying to save face in front of your kid brother. 

read on ao3

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multifandom fic in review

as usual, nothing prompted this. i was reminiscing about the various fandoms that i’d traversed over my last decade+ of fanfic. if had to pick one story written by me that was my favorite for each fandom, what would it be?

if you see this meme and you want to do it, feel free to. i am tagging you.

the first set of fandoms are ones i dabbled in when i was basically prepubescent so it’s hard to pick a favorite when they’re all equally cringe (but.. in a cute way....). not linking back to anything on my old ffn because it’s embarrassing but they’re easily accessible if u squint (please don’t squint)

Artemis Fowl - no favorite

Guardians of Ga’hoole - probably the story i started writing about Pelli being a nazi cuz she was on good terms with Kludd before she tried to escape his cult with a bunch of nestmaid snakes. wow look at me being a real edgelord here

Kill Me Kiss Me - no favorite but i did a double-take when i went back to check i’d actually written something for this manhwa

next set of fandoms are from when i started to get into anime, namely tennis & ninja foolery. i was based on FFN at first because of my ties to a group of forum friends, but then it bled into LJ as the circle started to migrate. those friends were probably the reason i was faithful to tenipuri for so long. having multiple 知音s in a fandom really does start to make it feel like your home base.

ATLA - crane station for jetko fic exchange

APH - ok for real this fandom dragged. i only stayed in it so i could keep talking to some of my favorite people. i guess if i had to pick a story i liked at all it would probably be softly treading softly

Bakuman - Your Chance to Rewrite the Bible

Code Geass - no favorite

FMA - Pacific Ocean, Telephone Line. i treasure this story. reading it feels like opening a time capsule of hopes i held onto near the end of high school

KHR! - SUNSHINE for me today. kyouko/haru rapture!

Prince of Tennis - tv cables. written as part of a private gift exchange between forementioned forum friends. marui gets hit by a car but it’s not an angsty story by any means. for a while my brand was injecting humor into concepts that were typically tragedy-driven and i kind of lived for it lmao... like i really thought i was doing something

PJO - definitely ハミングバード ~HUMMING BIRD~. nc-17 luke/nico magical realism 16k binge. first time writing id fic, i was hooked!

Naruto - The Pop Is Dead; Long Live The Superflat. deidara/oc, which makes this a self-insert. he was my favorite baddie and i’ll never understand why... whole lotta edgy references in this story but it’s probably the first time i felt like i got even remotely better at writing so it has a special place in my mind

the rpf fandoms i wrote for were scattered between LJ/tumblr eras but i’m going to list them all here. like most ppl that write rpf i ran in and out of it. 

e-sports - probably subperfect. everything on that blog is gratuitous & no you’re not welcome. i stopped writing e-sports rpf after i met najin sword irl. it got weird after that obviously

Genius Game - my Modulo on your Modulo. jdm/ohm for yuletide

JE - lot to pick from but probably Kind of happy, kind of not, written for je_holiday. my first foray into the pseudo sci-fi genre. i also accurately predicted the demise of politics americana but just so we’re clear the orange-kun mentioned in the story was a geass reference

kpop - no favorite

NBA - lapslock towel science for wall/cousins. yes i was actually drunk when i wrote this

i want to call this era of fandoms my ““second”” anime wave, wherein a lot of life imitates art bullshit came about via tunglr. it started with knb and led into time spent moonlighting as a typesetter and writing stuff across several pseudonyms. i made and discarded a lot of fandom friends/interests at this time and if you met me during it, i’m very sorry for the trouble i caused

Ao no Exorcist - Songe à la douceur. let’s be honest this fic transcended levels of self-insertion it was practically an autobiography

Daiya no Ace - finite fixation. but if i were picking by titles, “tanba-san is a secret” cuz i’m BL trash thru & thru

Free! - emotional trapcards you never wanted to play

Kuroko no Basket - i can’t pick just one, but i can tell you that it’s definitely nothing i wrote as gamblers. either aomido tennis AU “drive if destination not set” or nijimura/aomine “both of you, dribble like you want to win”

Slam Dunk - Rebound Rhapsodic, unfortunately. gratuity at its finest!!!!

Shingeki no Kyojin - remember when his name was rivaille lmao. pepperidge farm remembers. i got no favorites here

and finally we’ve reached the list fandoms that i’m currently writing for, so these are subject to change.

Haikyuu!! - probably オイ-メシ!! ~simple japanese homestyle cooking~

Saezuru - i’ve written only 1 fic so far & it’s not my favorite, but since i joined the discord it’s made me want to write more. we’ll see!

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english translation: “endgame unlikely” now available on ao3

残局可能性低 (hq!!)

~2000字，第二人称视角，成人+ 岩及，双方单人恋

没有留下来的原因。

你有一个异样性的妄想，也就是这样的：傍晚你习球后回到家，看到厨房的灯还亮着。在桌上摆着塑料棚遮盖着一盘饭，旁边贴着一张纸条上含有他的笔迹，说明了今晚饭里炖了几两瘦肉。你用微波炉丁完，默默沉沉的吃起来。嚼几口感到肉的味道有点淡，往饭里再撒一些盐。事到如今他仍没有掌握好基本的调料用法。过一阵子，他从浴室里走出来。头发还湿着，上衣都没穿下面也就持着一条薄薄的毛巾。“回来啦，徹，”他轻声道，之后就与你接吻，把满身子水滴到你的脸和衣服上。你唠叨他把你弄的湿透了。但你会继续的去吻他。

阅读 : ao3

lengthy notes in english about this story under the cut.

Keep reading

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残局可能性低 (hq!!)

~2000字，第二人称视角，成人+ 岩及，双方单人恋

没有留下来的原因。

你有一个异样性的妄想，也就是这样的：傍晚你习球后回到家，看到厨房的灯还亮着。在桌上摆着塑料棚遮盖着一盘饭，旁边贴着一张纸条上含有他的笔迹，说明了今晚饭里炖了几两瘦肉。你用微波炉丁完，默默沉沉的吃起来。嚼几口感到肉的味道有点淡，往饭里再撒一些盐。事到如今他仍没有掌握好基本的调料用法。过一阵子，他从浴室里走出来。头发还湿着，上衣都没穿下面也就持着一条薄薄的毛巾。“回来啦，徹，”他轻声道，之后就与你接吻，把满身子水滴到你的脸和衣服上。你唠叨他把你弄的湿透了。但你会继续的去吻他。

阅读 : ao3

lengthy notes in english about this story under the cut.

the english title of this story is “endgame unlikely”.

....so this was mostly an exercise/attempt to breath some life back into my prose. i wrote this story alternating between eng/zhy drafts, and re-translated both versions back and forth a few times before i thought it was ok to serve. the goal was to keep an eye on how i form sentences thru the lens of a language that is not my strong suit. i’ve never written anything substantial in chinese except for some short essays forced onto me when i was a child, lol. i’m not heavily involved in chinese fandom or culture at all so i’m sure there’s some awkward wording as it is.

writing this prompted several moments of clarity, particularly whenever i needed to pare my ideas down. i found it difficult to form english sentences into digestible phrases in chinese, but going from chinese to english was not as bad. this is probably due to my own relationship with both languages. either way it was fun.

i don’t have super intense feelings about this pairing. the premise of the story is also quite simple. but i do enjoy thinking about an insufferable oikawa quietly tasting the consequences of pursuing his childhood dream over staying tied down to any (dumb!!) romantic feelings. the r-rated scene in chinese was surprisingly easy to write compared to how i typically struggle w/ writing porn in english... lol idk how i feel about that honestly

i may end up posting the english version of the fic but i don’t think it will be a 1:1 translation. i like the chinese version much better so i posted it on its own.

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“do whatever you want but Don’t Apologize for the Allegory” (hq!!)

—2700 words of hinata/ensemble in an evangelion x megazone 23 au —this story is rated R and it contains explicit sex & non-descriptive violence (among other things)

the megazone is an archipelago submerged in deep space. within its central dogma are massive structures carved from steel and concrete, a mixture of metallic blues and violets pressed up against an artificial skyline. its inhabitants are humans with very little hope left inside their bodies. but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, nor that they cannot be deployed into the elegance of instrumentality.

read on ao3

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イニシャル C

the summer i started dating girls was the summer when i also started to like driving around. prior to that year i was without a license, taking public transit everywhere to meet friends for dinner and attend classes at university. before leaving in the morning i packed everything i needed for the day in two bags: laptop, charging cable, water bottle, lined paper in a binder, pens, highlighters, lipstick. on the bus ride back i often dozed off in my seat, waking miraculously in time to the sway of the bus rounding the curve before pulling up to my station, where i would take the last train home.

when i was 21 i gave my heart to a guy who drove a volkswagen with a very steady hand. he loved me back for 3 months. we had sex in his car 2 times before we started doing it in his bed. the relationship lasted for about 1 year. the only thing i remember about it now was how much he loved holding my hand when he drove.

the summer i started to like driving around, i think i understood how he felt. having a car is nice when you are seeing someone who doesn’t.

perhaps it’s heteronormative for me to feel this way but i liked picking her up in my car. i liked seeing her cross her legs in my passenger seat and i liked to crank the a/c on for her when the air was too hot outside. i liked the way she delicately picked up on each gareth emery track that i had scattered so indelicately in my playlist for different dates with different girls. kissing her while i was in the driver’s seat gave me a particular thrill. i kept my foot braced under the pedal when she pressed her kisses into the side of my neck.

although i no longer keep my passenger seat open, the habit of driving with only one hand on the wheel hasn’t gone away.

today i rounded the corner on the roundabout near my house a little harder than usual. the feeling of fake vertigo doesn’t trap me while i’m behind the wheel but it made me think about how the person next to me would have probably felt the sway of my car rounding that curve, waking miraculously in time to get off and go take the last train home.

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オイ-メシ!! ~simple japanese homestyle cooking~

1400 words of kindaichi/oikawa & kunimi gen, à la future fic / celebrity AU. closely based on Mizushima Hiro's soccer vlog and his online cooking show Hiro-Meshi.

never underestimate the support of a longstanding fanbase.

Oikawa asked to borrow the court over Instagram, which would have been fine, generally speaking. What made it not fine was the inherent suspicion attached to a celebrity handle with 1.2 million followers, sending a DM out of the blue to somebody as random as Kindaichi. But it was also Oikawa Tooru, whom he had idolized throughout his most formative years spent crying on a volleyball court. How was Kindaichi supposed to react? Was he even allowed to refuse?

read on ao3

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—350 words of Saeko/Hitoka (post-relationship), for Day 5 of @haikyuurarepairweek2020​ | “station”

—can be read as a sequel to summer tourism