#Convenience store chain with 6

[ur-mag]

Convenience store chain with 6,617 locations is giving 40cents off gallon of gas for all drivers today for only 3 hours | In Trend Today

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[tgirlwithreverb]

I saw that post about what to do if you're homeless again (the one that starts by telling you to spend all of your money on motel rooms lmao) anyway, here's a few thoughts, specifically for trans girls, cuz I don't really care otherwise tbh:

1) plan ahead, most trans girls are in precarious housing situations, you will have a much easier time when it falls apart if you already have a pack with most of the gear you need in it. Also, if you find yourself in a situation where you cant make rent, dont pay part of it, spend that money on gear, pocket the rest and leave, youll have a much nicer time. Look up your local eviction laws, you have plenty of time. (Gear list at the end)

2) travel! If you're in Arizona in May, leave. it's about to be hot as hell. If you're in Michigan in October, leave. It's about to be cold as hell. If you're in a big city, leave. It's way easier to be homeless pretty much anywhere else. Amtrak is cheaper and more comfortable than greyhound, hitchhiking is free and easy, if you're alone it's not that much slower than the previous two, and it's more fun, and sometimes people buy you food or whatever or give you money. I promise it's not scary and you're entirely capable of doing it, no matter who you are. 95+% of people who will pick you up are very nice. All you have to do is take the bus out of town, as far down the highway you can, to an exit with a truck stop if possible, then just stand on the side of the road with your thumb out until someone picks you up. You can stand at the bottom of the ramp(on the highway) near where the merge lane ends or at the top of the ramp(where there's usually a traffic light), the former is more likely to lead to cop interactions but will maybe get you a ride faster, check on hitchwiki for how the cops are in the area. don't be afraid to take a commuter bus or Amtrak to get out of a shitty cop area

3) skip shelters if you can (they are very occasionally a decent place to get stuff from) and encampments, good places to sleep include the trees near railroad tracks or highways, wooded areas behind shopping centers, sections of parks without paths, overgrown empty lots. Hang a tarp above you if there's an appreciable chance of rain, there's tons of YouTube tutorials on how to do this, maybe I'll make a post about what I usually do some day. There are many habits more fun than motel rooms, save your money for them lmao.

4) get on food stamps. This is easier in some places than others, but it makes the whole thing a lot easier. Just tell them you're homeless, if they don't give you a card the same day, you can probably ask to pick it up from that office, alternatively some drop in centers/day shelters can receive mail for you, or you can have it sent to general delivery(USPS service, look it up)

7) libraries are great for charging your phone and using wifi, but also keep an eye out, plenty of random outlets on the outsides of buildings are also powered

5) dumpster. sidewalk trash cans, Aldi, Einstein's, trader Joe's, pizza places, etc. You need to develop a bit of a sense for it but it's an easy way to get cooked food or travelling food or expensive food without spending resources. Also it's fun.

6) water is free, go into the bathroom of any gas station or grocery store in America(offer not valid in most big cities or on the west coast, but in that case just go to the library) and fill up your water bottle

8) hygiene notes: truckers get free showers from chain truck stops(loves, pilot/flying j) go there and ask them. convenient if you're hitchhiking, also you don't need to shower 3 times a day, really, you'll survive. Ditto with deodorant. Take care of your teeth though. Take your socks off every. day. Change them consistently. Safety razors give a good shave, work well without adequate water pressure, and the replacement blades are very stealable, they're kind of heavy though. Walmart makes these electric razors for women that take AA batteries and are pretty light but give a worse shave, also they kinda go through batteries, pick whatever works for you(cartridge razors suck)

9) traveling food notes: peanut butter is great, tortillas and bagels travel pretty well, tuna packets are pretty good protein for traveling(the ones with rice and beans or whatever are nice since theyre often the same price as the regular), condiment packets are free, hot sauce makes everything better, and mayo goes well with tuna and has a bunch of calories in it, salad dressing packets are free from truck stops and work well turning the Walmart shredded vegetable packages (labeled for making into slaw, next to the bagged salads) into a salad with real vegetables(not iceberg lettuce) in it or mixing in with tuna packets for even more calories than mayo

Gear world:

Necessary items(in order of importance): a gallon of water carrying capacity(an Arizona jug or other twist top jug is conventional, but a bladder+arizona bottles also works), a tarp(larger than 6'x9', not brightly colored), a hank of parachord, a sleeping bag (20° rated, synthetic insulation), a backpack with a padded hip belt(at least 50L, no more than 75), rain gear(a rain poncho might cover your pack too, a rain jacket can help with wind when its cold, a trash bag inside or outside your pack can keep it dry, a plan to watch the weather and not get caught also works), a z-fold foam sleeping pad, three pairs of socks, two pairs of underwear (at least one pair of boxer breifs strongly recommended if you arent incredibly skinny), a decent pair of shoes with good arch support, a functional jacket(skip if you got a rain jacket before), a base layer(wool or poly, absolutely no cotton)

Convenient items: a sleeping bag liner(cotton free, keeps you warm in winter and cool in summer), gallon zip locks to pack your stuff in(helps keep it dry and organized), no more than one change of clothes(as light as possible), a multi-tool(can opener, pliers, wire cutter), lighter(burning rope ends etc), spoon, floss and needles for patching

[sweetheartsaku]

(BLLK) just say the word.

𝜗𝜚 MIKAGE REO: RANUNCULACEAE.

a/n: [fem!reader] OMGG exam szn is finally over gais i am free!! i still have so many tests to do tho🙁 AND YES the title is a keshi reference

when mikage reo has a crush on you, he’s the type of boy to use your initials as his math variables. you’re all he ever thinks about, ever since he’s been rotted by the sugars of your kindness and presence. you were like his first and last breeze of air mixed in with love and refreshments. he had been enchanted by your soul, knotting his head and heart with yours. you’re all he ever wants to be around, and you have unconsciously seeped into his life like blood into a white sheet. a love that just keeps leaking, changing its colour completely.

SAY THE WORD, AND I'LL BE YOURS

when mikage reo realises, he can’t help but stare at you lovingly. his eyes are glued to you focusing on your tutor work he had given you, your pencil rapidly yet gently moving across the paper. his eyes are so tender and earnest, staring at you like you had hung up the stars yourself. reo finds himself instinctively caressing a stray hair from your face, his violet eyes still endearingly gazing. instantly, a pink hue graces across his face as his eyes meet yours.

THE LOOK YOU'RE GIVING ME GIVES YOU AWAY

when mikage reo steals your heart, he’s the type of guy to take his time into untangling your silver necklace. the one he had gifted you on your 6th month anniversary, that glistens in the sun. it’s chains are pristine, yet tangled tight, just like the way he had found himself when he fell for you (and does everyday). he smiles at the thought as his tongue sticks out slightly in concentration, one of your favourite habits of his. as a tease, you like to kiss the spot his tongue is before he can pull away. he loves to feel your face close to his, because it feels like his soul is too. he takes the time to untangle your necklace with his initial on the simple charm, even before the date’s expensive booking, he is gentle in unstringing every weaved chain.

YOU FINALLY FOUND THE HIGH THAT YOU'VE BEEN CHASING

when mikage reo falls impossibly deeper, he calls you all the time. not texting, because he knows you won’t listen. reo will call to make sure you eat lunch. reo will call to make sure you have your medicine. reo will bring you your favourite beverage and makes sure to remind you to take a break. reo will do everything he can to take care of you, because to him, when you came into his life, time is definitely more expensive than money. reo will take the time to make sure you are well fed and rested. his favourite part though is when you’re apart. don’t get me wrong, he hates it, but when you’re calling him and quietly telling him you miss him, his heart pounds against his chest a little more. and yes, he lets out a boyish chuckle once you’ve fallen asleep.

ONLY ONE MORE CHOICE YOU GOT TO MAKE

when mikage reo who never forgives himself when you have your first fight. after 6 gracious years, he finds himself living the day he could never fathom. yes, he had forgotten to buy your favourite snack at the convenience store, and he says he swears he will never forgive himself. how could you ever love him again? is what runs through his mind as he curls up against the couch, knees on his chest not feeling privileged enough for a blanket, nor feeling privileged enough to lie down with you in the bed in the room nearby. till then you, realising your fiancé’s absence, cluelessly searching for him, you gasp softly as you find reo all small on the couch. you sit next to him, but he inches away. he can’t help but confess his sins, but it all melts away when you lightly giggle at his silly habits.

I NEED YOU TO TELL ME 'CAUSE I

when mikage reo gets to be held in your arms, he melts completely. he feels his body go putty, his eyelids struggling to stay open to stare at your stunningly sculpted features. his teeth feels like he’s rotting, and his heart aches with an abundance of love. reo nestles his head in the junction between your chin bottom of your neck, absorbing every molecule of love he can. there is nothing he would want more than to unwind, cozily tucked into the embrace of his most beloved, sweetheart, and future wife.

IN MY ARMS FOR A SECOND

when mikage reo finally has you for himself, his brows twitch at the sight of your gorgeous figure, walking down the aisle. tears brim at the bottom of his eyes as you smile at him, taking your last steps in front of him. glitter highlighting the apple of your cheeks, lashes fluttering through the brown mascara and the necklace he untangled 5 years ago dangling off your collarbone. there was not a single moment in the world he would trade for this one. he finally smiles through the tears that stream down his cheeks, sliding the silver ring across the hand that once wrote tutor worksheet answers. it glistens in the sun, he thinks, just like you do.

BABY, SAY THE WORD, AND I'LL BE YOURS

mikage reo’s breath hitches. this is where he is. he is currently playing with his one-year-old, her incoherent babbles filling the silence strung into the air. reo finds himself laying on his stomach on a soft carpet next to scattered toys and various oils and creams for his little version. everything about this surreal moment had all gathered together to grasp onto the base of his neck, clenching onto him as tight as they can, making a lump form in his throat. his little version gently pats his nose, confused why her dad suddenly stop activating. he can’t help but tenderly smile at her, swallowing the lump as he lets a tear fall. your one-year-old innocently wipes it away. she must’ve got her kindness from you. he smiles, because thats what made him fall for you in the first place.

now, your initials have changed. guess he’s gotta fix those math equations, huh?

JUST SAY THE WORD.

[channiesluvrclub]

sᴀғᴇᴛʏ - ᴄʜʀɪsᴛᴏᴘʜᴇʀ ʙᴀɴɢ

A/n: Hey loves! Sorry if this isn't the best. It was really rushed considering I'm doing exams at school. This also isn't proof read. Please enjoy!

Info/TW: Police Sergeant!Chan, Drunk!Reader, Afab!Reader, Unprotected Sex, Handcuffs.

WC: 1.4k

Your ears rang as you stumbled out of the club, eyes squinted as the bright city lights blinded you. You were flooded with the sounds of the loud new york atmosphere. You were in a short dress, painful heels that made you regret your decisions, and an extremely uncomfortable thong. It was 1 a.m, definitely not safe for a woman to roam around a huge city at this ungodly hour. You had slowly made your way to your apartment, but not before eating some shitty convenience store pizza, being catcalled multiple times, and best of all… getting flagged down by an extremely handsome police officer. And with your luck it just had to be the sergeant. He flashed his lights at you, slowly driving up next to you. He rolled down his window, watching you for a second before calling out to you.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” He looked mildly concerned, one of his eyebrows raised, one arm raised on the steering wheel the other hanging out of the window.

You looked over at him, a drunken smile on your face. “Yeah, I’m doing so great.” Your words were slightly slurred, he could easily see right past what you thought was a good facade.

He let out a silent chuckle to himself. “You know I could detain you or fine you for being intoxicated in public?” His voice was tinted with a thick australian accent and sprinkled with a hint of irony.

Your eyes slightly widened at his statement. You had just had such a great night at the club and now you were about to get arrested? You couldn’t help but try and pull your pretty girl card. 

“But officer, I thought you didn’t give pretty girls tickets?” You slurred out with what you thought was a seductive voice. The officer just smirked.

“Who mentioned a ticket?” He asked, looking through his windshield to the rest of the city as he listened to you. He turned his head to look back at you. He inhaled deeply as he stared at you, standing there with your bag clenched tightly in front of you. 

At this point you had no response. You were frozen in your movements on the sidewalk, clueless and not able to think straight. The officer sighed before getting out of his car and walking up to you. He was now standing right in front of you, bodies almost touching. He carefully grabbed your bag from you and planted his hand on your back. 

“Let’s get you to my car, yeah?” The officer asked as he guided you to his car. He opened the door to the backseat, gently sitting your small clutch bag down on the seat. “How much have you been drinking tonight sweet girl?” He looked at you with a curious gleam in his eyes.

“Uh… maybe 5 or 6 shots?” You slurred out, trying to recall the memories from earlier. The officer let out a sigh. “That’s a lot… How about you wait for a bit in my car? I want you to sober up a bit, you can’t be walking the streets like this.” He spoke to you in a gentle tone.  You nodded as he carefully grabbed your wrists. “I’m gonna cuff you sweet girl, I can't have you running off or anything.” He smiled, gently clipping the cuffs around your wrists. “Not too tight, right?” He asked as he gave the cuffs a small tug. He carefully helped you into the car and sat down next to you before closing the door. “So, I assume you had a fun night?” The officer asked, looking over at you. You nodded tiredly, eyes barely open. You were close to falling asleep but instead you have one thing keeping you up. The heat emitting from your dripping core, you find yourself intensely aroused by being cuffed by this handsome officer. 

Before you know you’re scooting closer to him, gripping onto his shoulder with your chained wrists, and looking up at him with love adorned eyes. The officer gazed over at you, a small smirk falling across his face. “Looks like someone is head over heels for a man in uniform?” He teased you, his voice dropping an octave. You almost whined pitifully at his teasing whispers. He snaked his calloused hands around your waist, pulling you onto his lap. As soon as you were seated on his thigh he could feel your slick seeping through the small thong you were wearing. “Look at this, sweet girl is all wet for me?” He teased quietly, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear.

You looked down at the tag on his uniform, it read “Sgt. Christopher” You took in a sharp inhale, completely unaware of what was happening. While you were in a different world reading his badge he had managed to slip his hand up your thigh. The feeling of his warm and calloused hand against your thigh only turned you on further. You let out a quiet moan in response to his hand. You could practically feel his smirk. Christopher ran his hand further up your thigh, his fingertips painfully close to the seam of your thong. “Gonna be a good girl and let me treat this pretty pussy right?” His voice was low and raspy. You nodded, whispering out quietly. “Yes Christopher…”

His fingers immediately moved to slide your thong down your legs. “Oh, sweet girl uses her manners and said my name? I like that, keep it up.” He ran his fingers through your folds, teasing you. The friction of his fingers against your clit caused you to jolt forward, your torso up against his chest. You could feel his smirk by your ear. “Calm down sweet girl, I can make you feel so much more than that.” His voice teasing yet tender.

He carefully unlocked your cuffs, placing them to your side on the seat. “Just hold on sweet girl.” Christopher then carefully unbuttoned and unzipped his uniform pants, pulling his boxers down just enough to let his cock spring out. He was hard, his tip tinted with an angry red color. He gave himself a few strokes, coating himself with the pre-cum that leaked from him. “Gonna make you feel so good. I don’t have a condom, is that okay?” He looked at you with asking eyes, his hands now moving to rest on your hips as he awaited a response. You nodded, eyes barely open. Christopher let out a sigh. “I need words sweet girl, I need verbal consent.” You muttered out a few words quietly before laying your head down on his shoulder. “Yes.. Please Christopher?”

With your given consent he pulled you closer to him on his lap. He ran the tip of his cock through your folds before lining up to you. He then carefully guided your hips down onto him, his cock sinking deep in you. “Feel good sweet girl?” He asked, staying still so you could adjust to his size. He wasn’t too big but he definitely wasn’t average. He filled you up perfectly, not too long, and not too thick. You let out a moan, throwing back your head at the feeling of his cock stretching you out. He began to move after he traced your face for any signs of pain. Christopher began to carefully thrust up into you, his tip just gently kissing your cervix at every thrust. It didn’t take long for you to lose all of your senses. Your body felt like it was convulsing, your vision was blurred and hazy. Before you could even stop yourself, you were creaming around his cock. He moaned at the feeling of your walls fluttering around him. “Christopher…” You muttered out, unable to even finish your sentence before slumping onto him. “It’s okay sweet girl, I’m gonna get you home safe now, okay?” His voice was softer this time, he was looking at you with eyes of sincerity. He was your sense of safety.

He did the best he could to clean the both of you up with the towel he kept in his car. “And… don’t worry, you won’t be getting a ticket, pretty.” He pressed a small kiss to your right temple. He then zipped and buttoned his pants back up before getting in the front seat. “Are you gonna take me home?” You managed to slur out. Christopher nodded. “Of course sweet girl, just tell me the address and I’ll get you there safely.”

[neofolk-telvanni-wizard]

6-11 Dagoth's convenience store chain

[inkedtension]

Something like a pulse

Note:

went with a different approach than usual

probably more into plot but please get it

new writing style?? [Implied: gojo x reader]

errors [if found] with the main plot is intentional [they're none, but just in case]

constructive critisism is welcome

please dont be rude

long? very long, but i didnt count the words

enjoy!!

dividers by: @sisterlucifergraphics

for: @ghostykitty00, @scarsandmoons, @minminminswreckingmalife, @krispyloverlady

I'm bad at connecting two scenes so there are cuts often, and my network suggests I write small fics but this one's long, also there will absolutely be a part 2, I already wrote it too, but it will be posted later on, dont judge, and enjoy!

Got carried away. Sorry. these might seem more like snippets of a story written separately, i just got out of writers block

The city is a different beast at night.

It doesn’t breathe, not really. It holds its breath, like something is waiting. Watching.

By 11:03 PM, you’re past the school gates with your coat collar up, your cursed pen tucked into your inner lining, and your phone flipped to silent. Again.

You sneak in through the south wing to avoid Gojo.

Except he’s waiting.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, voice not bright, not smug—just awake.

You stop.

He’s leaning against the hallway wall, still wearing his uniform from the day before. No blindfold tonight—just dark glasses pushed up in his hair. Pale eyes sharp in the low light.

You exhale. “Go ask Nanami.”

“I’m asking you.”

You say nothing.

He pushes off the wall slowly, hands in pockets, posture too casual to be unintentional. He stops a few feet in front of you, eyes searching your face.

“You didn’t sleep.”

You shrug.

“You come back with blood on your cuffs and bite marks on your wrist. You haven’t filed a patrol report in three days.”

“It’s handled.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

You snort. “Since when do you care if something’s okay?”

There’s a flicker in his face—just the slightest crack. You’ve learned how to read them.

“Since always,” he says, too quiet.

You move to brush past him.

He snatches your cigarette pack from your pocket as you pass.

You freeze.

“Hey.”

He tosses it in the trash. “Go chew gum.”

“You are insufferable.”

He grins now—real grin, lopsided and shitty and boyish. “That’s what you like about me.”

You shove his shoulder. Not hard. He lets it move him.

“Go to bed, Satoru,” you mutter.

He blinks.

You don’t say his name often.

You both notice it at once.

Something in him goes quiet. That grin slips off like a mask dropped in a hurry. You don’t look at him as you keep walking. But he watches you go.

The streets are cold. Not in temperature—but in feeling. You step past sleeping convenience stores, under flickering signs, by alleys that hiss and whisper with low-grade curses.

You clean up. Quietly.

You don’t come back until 6:27 AM. Your fingers are numb, and your coat smells like the city.

The sky is orange by the time you step off the train.

You don’t remember boarding it. You barely recall climbing onto the platform, coated in the stink of hollow, half-cleansed air. The city glows dim, just past sunrise, all orange and dying pinks like an old bruise stretching over high-rise buildings.

Another night gone. Another set of curses erased. Three low-grade, one semi-grade two, and something in the shadows you didn't bother engaging. You made a report about that one. Let the higher-ups deal with it. You aren't paid enough to lose a limb over curiosity.

Your coat’s collar is flipped up, not from style but habit. You roll your neck until it cracks.

By the time you pass the school gates, your hands are shoved in your pockets. A glint of silver reflects against the faint morning light—your cursed pen, swings from a chain inside your jacket.

You’re two steps from the main building when a blur of movement rushes your left side.

“Morning, sensei!” comes the too-bright voice.

You instinctively move aside.

Yuji’s fist punches through empty air and he nearly eats pavement.

"HEY!" he yells, skidding across the courtyard. 

You reappear behind him with the flick of your cursed technique—soft distortion, shimmer, and then solid.

"Try harder," you mutter, your voice gravel from sleeplessness and street smoke.

Yuji beams at you, the way only a kid high on sunshine and sugar could.

"You saw that, right? That spin—I just learned that move!" He throws a quick, animated reenactment of the motion, eyes wide with excitement.

"It’s supposed to be this clean, but you—you actually blocked it!" He laughs, half in awe, jogging a few steps to catch up beside you.

"Okay, now I have to figure out how to break through that. Maybe— ooh, what if I go low next time?"

You grunt.

You head inside without another word, past students who are just arriving, past the smell of breakfast rice from the cafeteria. It’s early, but not for you. Never for you.

Nanami's already in the staff room, sleeves rolled, mug steaming, eyes quiet.

You drop into the seat next to him without removing your coat. You don’t need to speak. He glances at you once, notes the dried blood on your cuff, then slides a thermos your way.

Chamomile tea.

You murmur a thanks.

“Long night?” he asks, without looking.

You nod. “Shinjuku again. Something’s nesting under the rail yard.”

He exhales. “You sent the report?”

“Tagged the coordinates. Left a marker.” You lean back in your chair. “Didn’t engage.”

“Smart.”

You stare at the steam curling up from the thermos. “Didn’t feel smart. Felt like running.”

Nanami tilts his head, just slightly. “Running is only cowardice when it costs lives. It’s called strategy when you come back breathing.”

You don’t respond. Just sip the tea.

It burns, but you welcome the pain. It’s sharp. Real.

You don’t notice Gojo until his shadow falls across your table.

He’s always sudden. Even when he’s not trying.

“Look who made it back in one piece,” he says, grinning like he didn’t just appear out of thin air. “And in the same wrinkled suit. Impressive.”

You don’t lift your head. “I have three.”

“Oh, I know. I just think it’s cute that you rotate them like a cartoon character.”

“Bite me.”

“Tempting.”

You finally look up. He’s still grinning. Always grinning. That smug, radiant thing that shouldn’t feel as safe as it does.

“Tell me,” Gojo says, crouching down beside your chair, voice lowering. “You didn’t check that curse near the railyard, did you?”

Your jaw twitches, Nanami sighs.

Gojo hums. “You’re supposed to call us if it smells like a Special Grade.”

“It didn’t feel like a Special Grade,” you snap.

“But it made you walk away. What if it followed you?” His voice is soft now.

You hate when he’s like this. Kind through a knife's edge. 

You turn away. “I left a marker. Do what you want.”

“Already dispatched a team,” he says. “But next time, you wait. You call. Or I’m stapling a tracker to your back.”

Gojo stands, ruffling your hair—your carefully flattened, barely combed hair. Then goes to ruffle Nanami’s too, he ducks.

Later, after Nanami leaves for a mission and Yuji is dragged off by Nobara for training, you find yourself alone in the shade behind the school. The city stretches beyond the fence. 

Endless. Pulsing. You crouch there, smoke in your hand.

You don’t sleep because when you do, the dark things follow. But out here, in the sun, maybe you can rest your eyes. Just for a second.

You feel the presence before you see him. A subtle shift in the air. A footstep with too much weight behind it to be ignored.

snatch.

Your cigarette is plucked clean from your fingers.

You sit up fast. “What the—”

Gojo flicks the smoke to the dirt and crushes it under his heel. “Wow. So this is what thirty hours of no sleep and government-issue self-loathing looks like.”

You glare. “I was using that.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly, waving his hand through the faint curl of leftover smoke. “Smells like old men. Very sexy.”

“I will break your nose.”

He grins. “Kinky.”

You lunge for him, but he’s already dancing backwards, long limbs loose, laughing like this is his favorite game. Which it is. You know it is.

“You’re unbelievable,” you snap, standing now, brushing your hands off like you didn’t just fall asleep in the dirt.

“And you’re adorable when you’re homicidal.”

“Go away.”

“Make me.”

You step forward, ready to try, but he just keeps walking in a slow circle around you, hands behind his head like he’s on vacation.

“You know, most people smoke after something good happens. Not before they collapse like a cursed ragdoll under a sakura tree.”

“Maybe I like doing things backwards.”

“Maybe you like attention.”

Your stare is sharp. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Gojo spins, walking backwards now, his sunglasses glinting. “I’m not the one brooding dramatically behind the school like a tragic anti-hero. What’s next? Monologues about the weight of power?”

“Go choke on your own ego.”

He gasps, mock-wounded. “You wound me, senpai. And after I graciously saved your lungs.”

You march past him, done with the scene, done with the sun, done with him—but his voice follows.

“You owe me one,” he calls.

“For what?” you snap over your shoulder.

“For the cig! I saved your life! That’s worth, like—coffee. Or dinner. Or naming your firstborn after me!”

You don’t answer.

You just raise your middle finger without looking back.

He’s still laughing when you vanish into the building.

You make it exactly fifteen minutes into breakfast before Yuji starts poking you with chopsticks.

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks, voice too loud, energy too raw for six-something in the morning.

“No,” you deadpan.

“You should! Rice is life!”

“I hope you choke on it.”

“Wow,” he says, chewing anyway. “So mean before 7 a.m.”

Across the table, Megumi watches you like a suspicious housecat. Arms crossed, head tilted, judging in silence. Nobara is eating, avoiding your eyes. You ignore them.

Your tray is untouched. You’re not sure why you got one. Habit, probably. Something about pretending you’re normal.

Yuji goes to poke you again—and then Gojo drops into the seat beside you like he’s been summoned by chaos itself.

He props his chin in his hand and smiles.

“Morning, sunshine.”

You sigh without looking at him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Be delighted to see you alive?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Aw, c’mon. Would you prefer... sweet cheeks? My little gremlin? killer cutie?”

“I will put a pen through your eye socket.”

He grins. “Still not a no.”

Nanami sits down across from you, sipping from a thermos, and you actually relax a little.

He doesn’t comment. Just murmurs, “You’re late,” to Gojo.

Gojo shrugs. “Had to stop someone from setting themselves on fire behind the school.”

“I was fine,” you mutter.

“Oh, you were smoldering, alright,” he grins, elbow nudging yours. “In a hot mess kind of way.”

You finally turn to him, fully, and say—quietly, evenly

“Satoru.”

His smile flickers.

Just for a second. Like something short-circuits behind his blindfold.

Like you just dropped a match into his mouth and told him not to flinch.

“Die.”

He smirks.

You shove your tray toward Yuji without a word. He blinks at it.

“Wait, really?”

“Eat it before I change my mind.”

Yuji fist-pumps. “BEST SENSEI EVER! I’LL MAKE A SHRINE FOR YOU.”

Megumi suddenly looked horrified, you think you saw Nobara choke. 

Gojo, beside you, clasps a hand to his chest in betrayal. “You fed the child and not me?”

“You’ll survive.”

“But will I, emotionally?”

You stand, grabbing your coat from the back of the chair. Nanami looks up at you.

“You leaving?”

“Bathroom,” you say.

He nods. Doesn’t press.

You leave the cafeteria. Step into a quiet hallway. No footsteps behind you—until there are.

You don’t turn. “You’re following.”

“Obviously,” Satoru says, less smug now. “Didn’t even try to lose me. You’re slipping.”

You pause by the window at the end of the hall, sunlight slicing through glass and dust. Below, the courtyard shimmers with the morning heat.

He leans against the wall beside you, sunglasses pushed up onto his head now, hair sticking up like it always does.

You don’t say anything. Just turn and start walking to the shower rooms.

The water takes too long to get warm.

You stand under it anyway.

Let it hit cold, like punishment. Like proof. The tiles are cracked at your feet, and the soap smells too clean, like a hospital pretending to be a spa. 

You don’t wash your hair. You don’t even undress all the way—just peel the top half of your clothes off, let it slump down over your hips, the soaked sleeves dragging along your elbows like dead weight.

Steam rises eventually. Not enough.

You lean a hand against the wall, breathing like it’s a task. You hear a sound.

A click. A familiar one. Lighter flint.

“You smell like blood,” Shoko says through the thin stall divider.

You grunt. “Takes one to know one.”

A drag. A pause. 

You stare at the chipped tile. 

“I wasn’t going to light up in here.” she says.

You inhale. You hear the scratch of her back against the tile.

There’s something comforting about the quiet that follows. Not peaceful but familiar. Like the moment before a fuse burns out.

You shut the water off and let it drip from your eyelashes.

“Gojo’s looking for you,” Shoko says after a moment.

“He found me already.”

“Did he annoy you to death?”

“Almost.”

“Rookie numbers. You look half-dead anyway.”

You wring the water from your sleeves. “Don’t care.”

“Clearly.”

You wrap a towel over your shoulders and slump against the stall wall, mirroring her position—two backs to the same half-inch divider. You both stand there, for a while.

There’s a beat. You can hear the cigarette sizzle faintly in her hand. She knocks ash into the drain.

“You’re not sleeping again.”

You don’t answer.

She doesn’t push. “Nanami’s worried.”

You close your eyes. “He doesn’t say anything.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

You breathe. Let the silence sit. Water dripping down your back. Steam clinging to your skin.

“He said I should’ve called,” you mumble.

Shoko hums. “Satoru?”

You nod, even though she can’t see it.

“He’s not wrong.”

You turn your head. “Would you have called?”

She flicks ash again. “Nope.”

“Thought so.”

“But” she adds, “I also wouldn’t have walked into a rail yard alone with a bleeding suit and a hunger-activated cursed pen in my jacket. So.”

You sigh. “Touche.”

“Next time,” she says, tapping the wall once between you, “maybe don’t wait until you want to disappear.”

You stare at the grout line.

Then whisper, so faint she might not hear it:

I already do. You thought.

No answer. Just a flick of the lighter again. Flame, smoke, breath.

You walk out still damp.

Didn’t bother with a hairdryer. Didn’t pack spare clothes. The sleeves of your shirt cling to your arms, the collar wet and dark where it hugs your throat. Your jacket hangs off one shoulder. Steam is still caught in your skin. You look like something dragged from the ocean and left out to dry.

Gojo is exactly where you expect him not to be—leaning against the wall just beyond the turn, pretending to scroll through his phone.

His head lifts, very casually, half a beat too late. “Oh,” he says, like he just noticed you. “Fancy seeing you here.”

You don’t break stride. “Stalker.”

“Rude,” he hums, falling into step beside you. “I happen to haunt this hallway daily. This is my corner.”

You adjust the towel at your shoulders and keep walking. “Like mold.”

“I’m versatile,” he says. “You’re wet.”

You throw him a glare.

He shrugs. “Statement of fact. Didn’t think you owned a drowned rat aesthetic, but—”

“Bite me.”

“You keep offering. One day I’ll say yes.”

You pause. You do pause. Just long enough to make him stop walking, too.

“Satoru,” you say.

His mouth opens. But you’re already walking again.

He stares after you for a moment. Then jogs to catch up.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, quieter now.

“No.”

That shuts him up.

For two whole seconds.

Then, softer, trying too hard to sound casual, “Did you dream?”

You look at him.

Not like you hate him. Not like you want to kiss him. Just—like he asked a question that split you open.

And still you answer.

“Yeah.”

You’re already rounding the next corner when you say it, but he hears.

“Was it Haibara again?”

You don’t answer. You don’t have to.

Because he was there. He knows.

He remembers the three of you—back then. When Nanami still smiled sometimes, when Haibara lit up every room with something bright and stupid. You were younger. Meaner. Alive in a different way. Haibara used to call you by a nickname no one else was allowed to use. He was annoying and gentle and so, so good.

Too much like Yuji.

Too open. Too earnest. Always asking if you were okay, like he didn’t know you were capable of lying.

You breathe.

Gojo’s voice breaks the silence. “Yuji’s not him.”

“Yuji?”

He nods. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t say it like that,” you snap. “Like I hate him. I don’t.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I don’t.”

“I know, I know.”

You stop again.

This time, Gojo doesn’t pretend to be doing anything else. He’s just there.

Waiting.

You speak into the quiet.

“I dreamt about the last time we had lunch. Haibara and I. He brought that stupid plastic bento box. The one with the broken latch and the cartoon rabbit on it.”

Gojo’s mouth twitches. “You threw it at Nanami once.”

“He called it lucky.”

he tilts his head. “It wasn’t.”

“No” you say. “It really wasn’t.”

The air hangs heavy between you, grief caught in the walls, in your soaked collar, in the creases under your eyes that never really go away.

“I miss him,” you say. “And every time Yuji smiles like that, I think—what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of training these kids if all they do is die with their eyes still open?”

“I don’t know the answer,” he says.

You blink at him.

“You’re not supposed to,” you say.

His hand drops. He smiles again. Weaker. Realer.

Nanami rounds the corner just then, eyebrows lifting at the two of you. “You’ve been gone for thirty minutes.”

You blink. “I showered.”

“You’re still wet.”

“She’s going for a drenched aesthetic” Gojo chirps.

Nanami eyes your soaked collar, your towel-draped shoulders. “Very convincing.”

You roll your eyes and push past both of them.

“Breakfast is cold,” Nanami says mildly, falling in beside you.

“So is the grave,” you mutter.

Gojo snorts behind you. “Wow. Inspiring.”

The gravel crunches under your soles as you sit on the low ledge behind the training yard. It’s always quiet back here—except today, when Megumi shows up and ruins the silence without even speaking.

He just sits. Maybe two feet away.

You don't tell him to leave. He wouldn’t.

Instead, you stare ahead, both of you looking at nothing, like the ghosts hanging off your shoulders have names you’re too tired to whisper.

Yuji’s laughter echoes in the distance, high and bright—fighting with Nobara again, probably. He sounds so alive.

You don’t move.

“He’s loud” Megumi mutters after a while.

Your lips twitch. “He is.”

Silence again.

But it’s thick now. Not awkward—just too familiar. Heaviness is a language, and you both speak it.

The wind shifts. Megumi’s hair stirs across his forehead. For a second, you look at him—not for who he is, but who he reminds you of.

That brooding quiet. That reluctant kindness.

Suguru.

Then Yuji again, loud and laughing in the sun, and it’s like time folds in on itself. You see Satoru, years ago, with his unbearable smile, chasing after Suguru down the hall after stealing his drink.

You look away before your throat tightens.

One of them will die, or both.

You don’t know when. You don’t know how. But you’ve felt it since the first day Satoru dragged these kids into your world with too much faith and not enough fear.

you ask softly, “You sleeping okay?”

He shrugs. “Enough.”

You nod once and let the silence bloom again.

The sun filters through the clouds, weak and pale. There’s warmth in it, but not enough.

And for a moment, in the stillness, you remember the tile walls of the old dormitory showers. The steam. The quiet. Suguru. The beach.

You didn’t talk about it with anyone, honestly.

But it counted.

Back then, everything counted. Because it was before.

Before the split. Before the blood. Before Nanami found you in a stairwell with a bottle in your hand and told you “Don’t you dare.”

He’d meant it.

So you’d stayed.

Even when you didn’t want to.

Even now. You stand.

Megumi glances up but doesn’t follow.

“You should head in” you say.

He doesn’t argue.

Yuji barrels around the corner a few minutes later, cheeks red from running, hair damp with sweat. He’s too breathless to speak, too alive to hold.

You hesitate.

Then, without thinking, you lift your hand and pat his head once, gently. It’s not playful. It’s not sisterly.

It’s mourning.

Yuji stills under your hand.

Then smiles, eyes wide and simple and open.

You pull away and walk off before your hands can shake.

Nanami finds you in the corridor between classrooms later, where the light through the glass is watery and cruel. He doesn’t speak at first—just stands next to you.

“You were somewhere else today.”

You shrug.

He’s quiet a beat too long.

“Do I need to worry?” he asks. It’s not casual. Not rhetorical.

You look at him. Nanami, with his rolled sleeves and calm voice and the scar down his back you stitched up once in a storage closet with trembling hands. Nanami, who dragged you out of a freezing river two winters ago when you were sure you’d done enough living. 

You say, “No.”

And it’s mostly true.

He eyes your posture. The way your hands are stuffed deep into your coat pockets. The way you’ve started wearing your collar higher again, like back then.

“You saw something” he says.

You nod.

“About the boys?”

You close your eyes and dont answer. Because he knows.

Because he saw what losing one did to Satoru.

And what nearly losing you did to him.

He doesn’t reach for you. He never has. But his presence leans warm against yours, the way walls don’t move when you collapse against them.

Somewhere down the hall, Yuji shouts something about donuts. A desk crashes. Nobara yells.

It’s so alive.

You want it to last.

Even though you know it won’t.

You’ve been avoiding this conversation since last week. Maybe longer.

The knock is half-hearted.

Yaga grunts from inside. “Come in.”

You step in, still wearing the suit from last night’s patrol. It’s stained—not from blood, but from the sweat and dust of another mission run solo. Your hands are in your pockets. Your face is unreadable.

Yaga doesn't look up at first. He’s hunched over a rectangular planter on his desk, two vine-like plants growing in a tight, impossible twist. He adjusts the soil, prunes a stem with careful fingers.

“I heard you didn’t return till after 7.”

You shift your weight. “Time slipped.”

He grunts again. That non-committal sound he makes when he knows you’re lying but doesn’t care enough to press. “You were supposed to check in. Gojo was pacing the hall like a cat in a thunderstorm.”

“He does that anyway.”

A faint smirk flickers over Yaga’s face, quickly gone. “He wanted to go looking. I told him you’d show up. You always do.”

You glance at the plants. “Barely.”

He looks at you this time. “Are you eating?”

You don’t answer.

Yaga sighs. It’s that deep, weary exhale only a man who's raised too many broken kids can make. “You keep doing this. Working yourself into the ground. One of these days, even Gojo won’t be fast enough to drag you out of it.”

You look away. His words cut in the way soft things do—quiet and clean, but deep.

Then he switches gears.

“Yuji came by earlier.”

Your eyes narrow.

“He asked—no, requested—on being assigned to train with you. Said your cursed technique was ‘cool as hell’ and he wanted to learn stealth and ‘mysterious girl fighting.’”

You blink slowly. “I’m not fine with it.”

“He seemed fine with that.” Yaga’s smile returns, subtle and fond. “Said he’d die ‘invisibly’ and it would be poetic.”

You roll your eyes. “Tell him to stick with Kento.”

“I tried. He called Nanami ‘too structured’ and said ‘you’d understand his artistic chaos.’”

You stare at Yaga, deadpan. “…He doesn’t know me.”

“No,” Yaga says, leaning back in his chair, “but he’s trying to.”

There’s a beat of silence. You want to dissolve, go back to patrol, disappear into the hollow between buildings where thoughts don’t follow. But you stay.

Yaga reaches out, fingers brushing the twisted vines in the planter. You watch them curl slightly in reaction—alive, maybe too alive.

“I’ve had these since before you joined. Same seeds. Planted in the same soil. Look at them now.”

You do. The vines are impossibly entwined, their stems so knotted they almost look like one plant.

“Tried moving one,” Yaga continues. “Thought they’d do better on their own. Thought the roots were fighting each other. But once I split them, they stopped growing. Like they didn’t know how to live without the other.”

You don’t speak.

He plucks a single dead leaf. Drops it in the trash. “So I put them back together. And they started again. Twisting, adapting. Never separate. No matter what pot I place them in.”

You shift—barely—but something flickers in your expression. Your eyes remain on the vines.

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet” he asks softly.

You say nothing.

Yaga doesn’t expect you to. he says after a moment. “Maybe it’s obsession. Maybe it’s survival. Maybe it’s just something they were born with—coded into their roots. But it’s... something.”

Silence again. Then, your voice, so faint it barely stirs the air.

“Is that a curse?”

Yaga looks at you. Really looks.

“If it is” he says gently, “it’s an old one.”

You nod once, more to yourself than him. The words crawl under your skin.

The vines are still twisting.

And Gojo’s face flashes uninvited in your mind—laughing, bleeding, tired-eyed, soft-voiced when he thought you weren’t listening. His words echo again.

You think I don’t know?

A thought suddenly flashes through your mind.

You don’t like that thought. But you don’t pull away from it either.

Yaga returns to his task, brushing soil over the roots, like covering something sacred.

You turn to leave.

“Don’t kill Yuji” he calls after you. “He’s just curious.”

You pause in the doorway.

And you’re gone.

But that question lingers in your head long after:

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet”

You never said it out loud.

But something in your chest curled in recognition.

Two winters ago.

You walked into the river like it wasn’t a decision.

No thought. No panic. Just one foot after another.

Boots left behind in the snow, socks soaked through. The water welcomed you without question—silent, freezing, black under the skin of ice. 

The cold was crushing. It clung to your skin like teeth. And still, you didn’t stop.

You stared ahead—eyes dry, breath slowing—until the world narrowed to numbness.

You felt the coldness seep into your clothes, hair, ears and when you opened your mouth due to lack of breath, your lungs.

Then again, you felt nothing.

Not the wet fabric pulling at your shoulders. Not the bite of the wind cutting through your soaked clothes. Not even the trembling that began to climb your spine.

It was peace.

And then—it wasn’t.

Hands under your arms.

A jerk backward. Ice cracking beneath shifting weight.

“No—” you started, weak and hoarse, but the river swallowed the word.

“Get the fuck out,” a voice growled behind you—familiar and furious.

You thrashed, limp at first, then full-body jerks, kicking at the snow and ice, coughing out water as Nanami’s arms locked beneath your shoulders, dragging you up the bank like a corpse. You tried to twist free, elbow him, spit, scream. It didn’t matter. He was stronger. He was relentless.

“Let me go—Kento, let me go!”

“Shut up,” he snapped.

You clawed at his wrists, shoved at his chest, but he moved without hesitation—grabbed you fully, hoisted your soaked body up and threw you over his shoulder like dead weight.

You screamed. Hit at his back, fists weak. Legs kicking. Your nose started bleeding.

“PUT ME DOWN!”

He didn’t.

He didn’t speak.

He just walked—steady, powerful strides through the snow-covered path, through wind and silence and nothing but your fists pounding at his spine.

And then—gravel underfoot. The road. Streetlights in the distance. Some old van parked crooked in the snow. He dropped to one knee, and set you down on the roadside, your body folding in on itself.

You pushed yourself up to swing again—and he slapped you.

Just once. Sharp. A clean sting across your cheek. Not hard enough to bruise. But it landed.

You froze.

Eyes wide.

Mouth open—but no sound came out.

His face was twisted—jaw tight, red eyes wild with grief and panic and something unspoken. His breath steamed in the air between you.

“You don’t get to do that,” he said. Not shouted. Said.

You stared. And then you broke.

You collapsed forward, arms wrapping around him so fast it was clumsy, trembling fingers clawing at the fabric of his soaked shirt, blood seeping into his shirt from your nose.

“Don’t,” you sobbed. “Don’t yell at me—don’t leave me—don’t—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, hands wrapping around you, voice low. “You hear me?”

You were shaking, your chest heaving with a sob that wouldn’t stop.

“Everyone keeps leaving,” you cried, nose pressed to his collarbone, teeth chattering. 

“Kento—everyone keeps leaving!—”

“I know,” he whispered, folding his arms around your back.

“everyone’s fucking gone!”

He held you tighter.

You clawed at his shirt, screamed into his chest until your voice cracked.

He said nothing for a while.

Just wrapped his coat over your shoulders, rubbing warmth into your frozen arms, kneeling in the snow with you.

“I’m here,” he finally said. Quiet. So quiet it barely registered through your sobs. “You’re not alone.”

“I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can.” His hand slid to your face, fingers brushing the hair from your cheek. “You already did.”

You looked up at him through tears, lips trembling, face blotched red from cold and crying and blood. His expression was exhausted. His own eyes were red, rimmed with disbelief and grief, jaw working to hold in his own pain.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. His thumb brushed just beneath your eye. “You should’ve called me.”

You leaned into his touch like a dying thing starved of light.

“Don’t leave me,” you said again, barely audible.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. Not this time.

You stayed there for what felt like hours—kneeling in the slush, in the quiet aftermath of almost dying, clinging to the only person still standing in the crater your life had become.

And he also ate ice cream with you as he walked you home the same night, blue lips and numb legs.

For the first time in a long time you felt warm.

That was before he left,

You just added his name to the growing list of people who’d left.

Suguru. Nanami. The Class of 2007.

And eventually—you stopped reaching for anyone at all.

The villiage massacre.

You were used to the aftermath of curses. Used to blood. Screams. Silence.

But nothing prepared you for what you saw that night.

The village was hollow. Burnt out. The kind where people don't even realize they’re dying until they're dust. Suguru’s work.

You and Ichiji had arrived shortly after the incident was reported — a routine check. You expected another Level 2, maybe a rogue curse.

"I'll report it" Ichiji had said, his voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t just a cleanup job.”

You nodded. "Tell them everything."

But you didn’t go back.

Instead, you turned toward the one place that hadn't yet been mentioned in the reports.

Suguru's family home.

You'd never met them before. His parents. You barely knew what they looked like. But you'd heard him mention them in passing — his mother cooked seaweed soup in winter, his father worked too much. Casual remarks. Nothing special.

And now they were dead.

Bodies limp. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing stolen. Just tea cooling in ceramic cups, and two lives cut quietly at the root.

You knew right away that he’d done it.

Your knees gave out first. Then the sob caught in your throat, and you didn’t stop it. Not this time. You didn’t know these people. You had no memories to cry over, and yet you cried anyway. For whatever piece of his soul had died before he made the choice to do this.

You cremated the bodies, standing in silence. You watched the smoke carry their lives away.

You held a small funeral. you lit the incense with your lighter. You knelt before their ashes. Your hands trembled as you bowed, tears streaking down your cheeks.

"May you find peace" you whispered. "Even if your son couldn’t."

Telling the elders was worse.

Worse than the fire, the ashes, the way your voice gave out every time you tried to explain what had happened.

You became that person. The one who brought bad news. Who always returned alone, with blood or silence on her tongue. Some said you had bad luck. Some said you were cursed.

You believed it.

After that, you stopped going on joint missions. You stopped reporting directly to anyone. You took over the patrolling job.

You never quite came back from that house.

Eighteen and two months, the party.

The dress code was strange. White shirt, black pants. A marker in your pocket.

You hadn't questioned it — not out loud. Yaga had said it with a straight face, and no one dared poke the bear when he was in one of his "building camaraderie" moods.

But this was different. This wasn’t a mission or a funeral or blood-soaked silence. This was a… party?

If you squinted.

Suguru was the first to greet you, hair in his usual half-up style, a ridiculous party hat already askew on his head. “Hey, you made it,” he said, genuine and easy. “I had five bucks that you’d ghost this.”

You only blinked at him.

Behind him, Nanami nodded toward you, then shifted to open a pack of those tiny plastic forks with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb. Haibara was bouncing, literal sparkle in his eyes, waving you toward the table like you’d won some prize. “You came! Ah, Kento, she actually came!”

“I’m not blind,” Nanami muttered.

You sat without a word.

Gojo took the seat beside you before anyone else could. His hair was tied up loosely, his shirt already creased and messy, like he’d put it on last minute, possibly while wrestling a raccoon. He smelled like sugar. Why did he smell like sugar?

“You brought your marker?” he asked, mouth too close to your ear.

You gave a small nod.

He grinned wide and leaned back dramatically. “She speaks!”

“I didn’t speak.”

“She denies!” He clutched his chest. “God, I’m so into you.”

You turned your head, slowly, to stare at him.

He winked.

You ignored it.

Yaga gave a speech that lasted exactly three minutes too long and then mysteriously disappeared. The moment the door shut behind him, Geto clapped his hands. 

“Alright! You heard the man. Mark each other up. Memories, insults, love letters. Whatever.”

You watched silently as chaos bloomed around the table. Suguru wrote something very questionable on Shoko’s shirt, laughing when she threw a grape at him. Haibara’s shirt was already covered in stars, hearts, and the phrase “I’m a sunshine disaster” in at least three different handwritings.

Nanami's said ���Sleep is for the weak.”

Yours remained untouched.

Gojo watched it all.

Sprawled sideways, legs long and unruly under the table. Shirt already covered in chaos. Someone had written “dumbest genius in the room” across his ribs, and he wore it like a badge. He kept laughing, loud and easy, but his eyes never left you for long.

“s’my turn” Gojo announced, somehow behind you now.

You should’ve noticed. You usually did. Your brain, your… unwelcome noise, usually warned you when he was too close. But this time, there was nothing — just the heat of his presence and the pressure of the marker as it pressed against your back.

“Don’t move” he whispered.

Suguru watched him with tired eyes.

“What are you writing?” Suguru asked.

“Compliments. Vulnerable truths. My social security number.”

You didn’t move. You didn’t even flinch. You let him write whatever he wanted.

He placed a hand flat against your spine to keep you steady. His palm was warm. Fingers a little too long.

He dragged it out. Literally.

Big loops. Careful slants. Words that didn’t need to take up half your back but did, just so his hand could trail after each one. You didn’t flinch. It was strangely comforting.

He paused once.

Then kept writing.

It ended just above your lower back.

The others kept talking. Laughing. You focused on the hum, on Haibara’s dumb giggle, on Nanami trying to slap Geto’s hand away when he drew a cat on his neck.

When he finished, he didn’t say anything.

He just passed you the marker.

You turned.

“Satoru” you said.

He blinked, suddenly serious. “Yeah?”

You handed him the marker. “Your turn.”

His grin returned, lazy and lopsided. “You’re gonna write something sweet?”

You shrugged. Then uncapped the marker.

And across his back, in clean, blocky letters, you wrote:

“You’re exhausting. And maybe I’d miss it if you stopped.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he tilted his head at you and whispered, “That’s basically a confession.”

“Keep dreaming.”

“Oh, I am. Every night. Want details?”

You leaned slightly closer, voice low. “huh? no”

“…whatever you want, pwincess”

Later, when the food was just crumbs and soda cans, and Haibara was passed out on Shoko’s lap, you felt a tug on your sleeve.

Nanami leaned in and said, “Do you want to know what he wrote?”

You frowned.

He nodded toward Gojo, who was now drawing stick figures on Geto’s pants while humming.

You shook your head. “No.”

“You should.”

You didn’t see what anyone wrote. You just know those who read out aloud as they wrote. Like Haibara, Suguru, Shoko.

There were flashes of the real.

Like Haibara, crawling across the bench to get to you, nearly knocking over the soda can you hadn’t touched. He scribbled “Eat more fooooood” on your shoulder blade in giant bubble letters, rambling on about how he wants to write more, then added a small smiley with fangs.

He leaned close after and whispered, “If anyone bullies you, I’ll beat them up. Even if it’s Kento.”

Nanami sighed, long-suffering. “You are the one who keeps jumping out from behind doors to scare her.”

“That’s bonding!”

You let Haibara hug your arm and left it at that.

Utahime was already yelling, “Group photo! Everyone, let’s go, before someone falls asleep or explodes.”

Shoko had set up a disposable camera on timer, already blinking red.

You all crowded together in front of the old mission board. Half the room still wore party hats. Nanami looked faintly betrayed. Haibara squeezed between you and Geto, dragging your arm up for a crooked peace sign.

Satoru’s hand settled heavy on your shoulder. His thumb tapped once against your collarbone. Light. Unnoticed.

Click.

The camera flashed.

And for a second, there were no voices. Just a silence that felt like belonging.

You didn’t see the photo until weeks later.

After a shared mission with Nanami, your house.

The key creaks in the lock.

You hate that sound.

It meant you were here. Home. Back in this... place. A place that, even by accident, refused to feel like anything but a dark hollow shell. A mattress on the floor. No fridge. No electricity. No trace of softness. You didn’t need it. You were never here long enough to justify having anything. Nights were for patrols. Mornings were for school. Evenings? Brief flashes of a quiet bed and clean suit before heading out again.

And you liked it that way.

You and Nanami step into the darkness, the door groaning as it opens. Your eyes adjust automatically, though Nanami, who’s already sighing, flicks on the lights—

Click.

Wait.

Light?

Your eyes narrow, trained on the glow bathing the hallway in soft yellow. You take another step in, the soles of your boots no longer touching dusty floorboards but… clean laminate?

Nanami halts beside you. “...You have curtains.”

You don’t respond, just phase forward—silent, a flicker of motion.

The living room is...

Furnished.

There’s a couch. A coffee table. The floor is swept. Clean throw pillows like little marshmallow lies sit primly on the corners of the couch. There’s a TV mounted on the wall. The windows are dressed in blackout curtains, elegant and thick.

You phase again, into the kitchen.

The fridge hums—alive. The door opens and reveals fresh vegetables, cuts of meat, bottled water, beer—your favorite brand.

You slam it shut.

Nanami enters behind you, just as you teleport to the bedroom—your sanctuary of nothingness—and find—

Drawers. A wardrobe.

other clothes. Not just suits.

Just… soft things. Cotton. Sweaters. Even fucking pajamas. With clouds on them.

“Who broke into my house” you say flatly, appearing back in the kitchen with a thud of boots.

Nanami raises a brow. “I don’t think this qualifies as a break-in, exactly.”

You stare at him.

“Kento,” you say, voice low.

“Yes?”

“Tell me this wasn’t you.”

“You know I wouldn’t dare.”

You close your eyes and let out a sharp breath through your nose. “Then who—”

“I’ll make tea,” he interrupts, placing his coat over a new kitchen chair. A new chair. There was a stove. A dish set. “While you process the fact that your home no longer resembles a condemned shrine.”

You grunt but don’t stop him.

He moves with familiar ease, finding utensils like it’s instinct. You lean back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes flicking to him. His presence is steadying. Like always.

He opens a cabinet, finds mugs. “You remember the first place we rented in Sapporo?”

“Collapsed roof. No heat.”

“You dissolved the floor into a sinkhole because it was rotting.”

“...I warned the landlord,” you mutter.

Nanami huffs a quiet laugh.

You let him cook. Tea turns to dinner. You don’t even ask where he found rice, eggs. It just appears. And for a second, you forget to be mad.

You sit, both of you with plates, sipping, chewing, saying little—until the heat of old times loosens your tongue.

“You were always the one with taste,” you say, glancing at the apartment. “Guess I infected you.”

“You did,” he says, and his lips twitch. “You and your tragic sense of denial.”

You click your tongue.

The kitchen light buzzes softly above. Still too bright for your liking.

You stand near the counter, arms crossed, eyes cold as they scan your too-new kitchen like it’s a crime scene. Nanami’s beside you, calm as ever, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, wristwatch removed and placed neatly on the windowsill like he always did before cooking.

He’s already got water boiling. Something aromatic simmers in a pan—probably pork belly. Of course he remembered your favorites.

You lean against the fridge, silent. The hum of it is still unnatural.

Nanami turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder at you. “You’re quiet.”

You scoff. “Processing.”

He smirks faintly. “Processing that you now own a functioning stove?”

You roll your eyes. “And curtains. Don’t forget those.”

Nanami shakes his head. “They match the walls. You should be grateful.”

“I don’t want to be grateful. I want my pit back.”

Nanami doesn’t bother replying. He just stirs the pot gently. The aroma deepens.

A beat passes. You shift.

“...Need help?”

His brows lift—mildly surprised. “Since when do you offer?”

“I didn’t offer,” you say flatly, moving toward the counter. “I just asked if you needed it.”

He pauses, then steps aside slightly. “Prove you still remember how.”

You snort and pull the cot aside with your foot, dropping it against the wall. The coat comes off next, heavy and long, tossed unceremoniously over a chair. Beneath it, a black turtleneck hugs your form—simple, worn. You roll your sleeves up, the movement fluid, practiced.

“Please,” you mutter, cracking your knuckles. “My skills haven’t lagged.”

Nanami hands you a cutting board and knife with a quiet look. “I’ll believe that when I survive your seasoning again.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter, already slicing green onions with neat, aggressive speed.

“You almost poisoned Ino once.”

“He’s dramatic.”

“You mistook salt for sugar.”

“That was one time.”

“And you didn’t taste the difference?”

“I don’t taste while cooking,” you say, straightening. “I just know.”

He sighs deeply, as though the weight of knowing you has aged him ten years.

You begin working in sync. The oil sizzles, the kitchen fills with scent and steam. There’s a strange comfort to it—a rhythm older than either of you want to admit.

You flick oil from your knuckle. “This reminds you of something.”

Nanami glances at you sideways. “The apartment in Kyoto.”

You nod. “With the cracked ceiling.”

“And a mouse infestation.”

“You cooked every night.”

“You refused to shop for vegetables.”

“You refused to eat instant ramen.”

He shrugs. “I have standards.”

You smirk, just slightly. “You liked my miso soup.”

“...It was edible.”

“Bullshit.”

Nanami finally exhales a laugh, soft and deep. The smell of the past lingers between you—soy, broth, burnt onions, and time.

“You know,” he says slowly, as you wipe your hands, “you were reckless back then.”

Your brow twitches. “Don’t start.”

“You teleport mid-fight too often. You never rest. You haven’t reported half your injuries this month. If I have to remind you again—”

You slam the knife down gently.

“I survived, didn’t I?”

“That’s not enough,” he says, tone sharp now. His gaze pins you in place, no longer soft with nostalgia. “You’re not a student anymore. You’re not alone anymore. There are people who—”

“I know,” you cut in, flat.

But something in your voice slips.

He watches you for a beat longer, then returns to stirring.

You both work in silence after that. The meal finishes. Rice fluffs. The soup simmers low. You set out the bowls, the motion automatic. Almost... normal.

As you serve his plate, you mutter, “I didn’t forget how to cook.”

Nanami takes it with quiet reverence. “No. You didn’t.”

“Shut up and eat.”

He does.

The table is small, plain wood. Still new. Too clean for your liking. The chairs don’t creak like they should.

But the food’s hot. The scent of soy and garlic hangs in the air.

You both eat without speaking for a while. It's quiet—save for the hum of the fridge and the occasional clink of chopsticks against ceramic.

Nanami finishes his rice and sets his bowl down, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin that absolutely didn’t belong to you before yesterday. “Not bad.”

You raise a brow. “Not bad?”

He exhales slowly. “Fine. It’s better than I expected.”

“Hah.”

You sip from your bowl. Heat settles in your chest—probably the broth. Not the warmth from shared routine. Definitely not that.

Your eyes flick to him, thoughtful.

“…Kento.”

He glances up.

You hesitate. “Did you know?”

He frowns. “Know what?”

“That he… did all this.”

A pause. Then:

“No” he says. “But I suspected it the moment I saw the fridge.”

You sigh, pushing rice around your bowl. “So stupid.”

He leans back slightly, crossing one leg over the other. “You’ll never admit it, but you needed this.”

“I didn’t need anything. Especially not a renovation from a walking god complex.”

A faint smile plays at his lips. “He means well. You know that.”

You grunt. “Satoru’s… relentless.”

Nanami watches you carefully. You don’t meet his gaze.

“He’s been bothering you again?”

You don’t answer immediately. You stir your soup.

“Not bothering,” you mutter. “He just… talks too much. Touches too much. Shows up when he’s not wanted.”

Nanami raises his eyebrows, like he knows you've said something you didn't want to, and that you'd hit anyone else who'd say the same thing. “And yet, you never go away from him.”

Your eyes snap up, sharp. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

He nods. “Of course not.”

You hate that he says it like that. Like he knows.

Your voice drops. “He doesn’t get it.”

“What doesn’t he get?”

“That not everyone wants things. That not everyone needs to be surrounded all the time. That maybe I like being alone.”

Nanami raises a brow. “Do you?”

The question hangs there, heavy and precise like everything he says.

You look away.

“I don’t want to need him.”

Nanami nods slowly. “That’s different.”

You tense.

He sets his cup down gently, folding his hands in his lap. “You’ve never been good at needing anyone. Even back then, you only let people close when they were bleeding out or trying to leave.”

“Don’t psychologize me” you mutter.

“I’m not,” he says simply. “Just stating facts.”

Silence falls again. You chew slowly, jaw tight.

After a long moment, you speak.

“I don’t know what he wants from me.”

Nanami stares down into his tea. “Maybe nothing.”

Your brow furrows.

“Maybe,” he says, voice lower now, gentler, “he just wants to be where you are.”

You go still.

Your fingers tighten around your spoon.

Nanami, sensing the weight of your quiet, doesn’t push. 

Eventually, you rise without a word and collect the plates. He doesn’t stop you.

You don’t speak again until the sink water’s running and your back is to him.

“He makes things messy.”

Nanami exhales a soft breath through his nose. “Yes. But so do you.”

“Shut up.”

His smirk is audible.

“I’m just saying,” he says mildly. “You let him in.”

You glance back at him, eyes half-lidded. “Barely.”

“Still counts.”

You flick a droplet of water in his direction. “Keep talking and you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“He installed the couch,” he reminds.

“I’ll dissolve the couch.”

Nanami chuckles, slow and full in his chest.

You let the moment hang, let it fade into the clatter of dishes and the distant noise of your city—the one you patrol, protect, disappear into.

And even though Gojo isn’t here, it still feels like he’s in the room.

After sleepless nights and overthinking.

You weren’t ever really part of them.

Not in the stories they told around tables with cheap beer and broken bones. You were somewhere else. Always somewhere else. Just randomly close to Nanami and Haibara, until one died and one left, and came back again.

And that was by design.

It’s not like you were invisible—not yet—but you might as well have been. Some people are made to be seen, like Gojo Satoru. Others are made to be followed, like Suguru Geto. You? You were made to disappear. You liked it that way.

Most of the time.

The name they gave your technique is a mouthful— Phase Dissolution. Not very poetic. Not like Limitless. Not like Cursed Spirit Manipulation. Yours just made you unseeable. Forgettable. You learned to twist the technique until you could manipulate your own presence—erase your voice, your scent, your weight in the world. The closer someone got to you emotionally, the harder it was to disappear.

Which meant, mercifully, you were invisible almost always.

You never took normal missions. They stopped trying to assign you any after that third year, when Gojo and Geto started leveling small mountains and you just started wandering. When Haibara died, and Nanami left.

You loved Yu Haibara.

Not in the way girls write in journals about. Not in the way people expect—sweet and soft and glowing with crushes. You loved him like a little brother you didn’t deserve. Like a bright lantern in a dark temple.

He called you senpai, for fun, because you let him.

“Y/N senpai” he’d beam. “Did you eat yet? You look like a withering flower! Rice is life!”

You punched him for that. Lightly.

You remember his laugh. You remember how he glowed with sincerity, how he was one of the only ones who didn’t mind how quiet you were. He told you once, “I think your silence is peaceful, not scary.”

And then he died.

You stopped speaking for three weeks.

Kento Nanami was different. Not warm like Haibara, but dependable. Steady.

He used to train with you after class, not talking much. You both preferred it that way. Grunts. Nods. Sweating in silence.

After Haibara’s death, the school changed for you both.

You remember the day Nanami walked out. He didn’t say goodbye to anyone. Except you.

You’d been leaning against the back steps, pretending not to wait for him. He stood beside you for a few long seconds before muttering, “It’s not worth it anymore.”

You didn’t argue.

You just watched him go, your throat too dry to speak.

And you stayed.

Like a fool.

Years later, when Nanami walks back through the halls of Jujutsu Tech, it feels like seeing a ghost wearing a new suit.

You’re in the training yard when you spot him.

He pauses when he sees you—just a flicker of recognition—and gives you a nod.

It’s not a reunion. You don’t hug. You don’t speak for another week.

But when you sit beside him on a bench during a break in missions, you say, “I was angry at you.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Still am,” you mutter.

“I know,” he says.

And that was enough.

That was your job: to roam. Tokyo, Osaka, wherever. You found curses before they found others. If they were weak, you killed them. If they were stronger than you, you tagged the location and passed it off to the higher-ups. 

They turned it into a real mission. Your name never ended up on the reports. You were just the invisible smoke before the fire.

You haven’t slept in days. Again.

There’s a burning behind your eyes, the kind that presses behind the sockets and drips down your spine like rot. You’ve forgotten how to taste food. How to feel temperature. You move through the city like something in between — not alive, not dead, just moving.

Your abdomen hurts.

You’re walking home when you hear it.

It’s not the usual cursed energy flicker that makes you pause. It’s a voice. A quiet, ugly grunt. A breath that doesn’t belong on a child’s neck.

You round the alley’s edge and see it. Small body. Pants half-off. A man’s hand on the back of the boy’s neck. His other hand working at his zipper. The kid was crying.

“Please stop, please—please don’t—I didn’t say anything, I—!”

The man towers over him. Smiling.

“It’s not the first time,” he mutters, voice low and casual, like he's talking about the weather. “Stop whining. You know what to do.”

You’re too tired to think.

Too tired to breathe.

Too tired to speak, or scream, or question what’s happening, or why you’re here.

Your fingers are already inside your coat pocket.

A cursed object. A cheap black fountain pen used by a murderer in a high school hostage crisis. It killed six. Now it only kills when you want it to.

You’ve been walking among curses long enough to recognize when the ugliest one is human.

You just take it out the way you’d take out a cigarette or a key, walking over.

Your forearm hits his throat, and he stumbles back, crashing into the opposite wall with a winded grunt. The boy falls to his side with a whimper, scrambling back, and before you know it, you're standing between them.

The man coughs, glares at you, and spits. “What the fuck—?”

The boy looks up at you like you’re some kind of hallucination. That’s fine. You're used to being a waking dream for people like him.

You crouch and touch the top of his head gently. “Close your eyes.”

You the man down to the ground with force.

He crashes to the ground with a grunt, but not before his nails dig deep into your shoulders — dragging, tearing through fabric and skin as he resists, snarling like an animal cornered.

You take out your pen. He sees it too late.

“No—hey, don’t—wait—”

You plunge it into his eye.

Just a sound—a soft, wet crack, like a rotten peach under a boot.

He thrashes, nails tearing into your back again as his body convulses beneath you.

But you don’t stop.

You don’t scream. You don’t shake. You don’t cry.

You stab again. And again. And again.

Until his body stops twitching. Until you can’t hear anything but the sound of your own breath. Until blood coats your hands like gloves and the pen sticks, cracked halfway down the shaft, lodged in bone.

Your arms are heavy.

Your vision pulses dark at the edges.

You barely feel the blood running from your shoulder where his nails tore skin open. It drips down your side and soaks into your pants.

You stay there a second longer, kneeling on a corpse.

Just breathing.

The boy is behind you now.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t cry. He’s shaking — arms wrapped around his knees, head ducked down.

You turn, slowly, and peel your blazer off your shoulders — sticky with sweat, ripped at the seam, spotted with blood.

You crouch low. Hold it out.

He flinches.

But he reaches for it.

You wrap it around him carefully. Gently. A little like you're bandaging a wound.

Your hand finds your phone.

You dial without looking. You don’t trust your voice. You don’t trust your knees, either.

The call picks up fast.

“Hello?”

“...Nanami” you rasp. Your voice sounds like it’s underwater. “Pick up a kid. Alleyway by the old bookstore on 3rd and West. Don’t ask.”

A pause.

Then a simple, steady: “I’m on my way.”

You let the phone fall from your hand.

The boy’s little fingers are still clinging to the back of your shirt.

Your knees give first.

Then your chest.

You feel yourself fold, slowly, to the side. Like paper. Like cloth.

You hit the concrete with a soft thud.

And then everything goes black.

Nanami’s car screeches to a halt.

The alley’s empty.

At least, that’s how it looks.

The kid is there, huddled in your blazer, silent, still half-exposed, shoes soaked from standing in the runoff water. His face is pale and rigid. Frozen like stone.

And you?

You’re nowhere.

Nanami frowns and exhales through his nose. He asks the kid slowly, about a woman and the kid points to nothingness on the wall. 

There.

A disturbance in the current. An outline, faint but real, half-sunken against the wall.

She’s here.

She never turned it off, Nanami thinks grimly.

No wonder the kid’s confused. He’s not a sorcerer. He saw a woman kill a man and vanish into nothing. Even now, his eyes dart toward the dead body — the pen still buried in the man’s eye socket like a signature left behind.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nanami says, slowly.

The kid flinches.

He doesn't move.

Nanami approaches the body first. The man’s eye is split open around the cursed pen like spoiled fruit.

With a steady hand, Nanami wraps his fingers around the blood-slick pen, and with one clean pull, removes it.

Nanami slides it into a cloth-wrap and stows it carefully.

Your technique drops.

Not on purpose.

Your body simply can’t hold it anymore.

You re-materialize like a ghost coming back from fog, limbs limp, blood soaking your side and inner thighs, head tilted to the shoulder like a broken doll.

Nanami’s hands move fast, catching your body before it slumps completely.

She’s burning up, he realizes. Fever. Blood loss. Something else?

He lifts you — slow, careful. You’re light, all things considered. Lean muscle over bone. You’ve always been heavier than you look. 

The boy clings to your side the whole way to the car, refusing to sit anywhere but next to you in the backseat.

Nanami drives one-handed as he calls Shoko.

You’re unconscious when Shoko starts.

“Jesus, she’s bleeding like hell—” she mutters, snapping on gloves. “Shoulder’s ripped open, bruising at the ribs, hand trauma…she’s got injuries and she never got treated, wait—"

She checks again.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

She yanks open a drawer and pulls out extra gauze.

You’re menstruating. Heavy. Severe cramps, coupled with blood loss from the fight and god knows how many days without sleep. Your body’s on the edge of total shutdown.

And then—

You sit up.

No drama. No groan. You just lift your upper body like someone getting out of a cheap motel bed.

Shoko’s eyes narrow. “You're joking.”

You blink, sluggish, then look down at the blood on the sheet beneath you.

“…Guess that explains the stomach cramps,” you mutter hoarsely.

“You’re an idiot,” Shoko says flatly.

You don’t argue.

Instead, you glance toward the side and swipe the curtains to the side and your eyes dart to where the boy’s sitting with a juice box. His knees are hugged to his chest. His hair is still damp from sweat.

He sees you.

His face lights up.

And then — he rushes in.

Shoko opens her mouth to stop him, but you raise a hand. Just one.

The boy wraps his arms around you as best he can.

He doesn’t cry.

He just presses his forehead into your side.

“…Thank you” he whispers.

You rest your hand on his hair. You don’t smile. But you don’t pull away either.

Look, Suguru, this boy here is just as innocent as those girls.

Nanami stands in the doorway, arms folded, expression unreadable.

“I’ll take him” he says simply. The kid doesn’t want to leave.

But he glances at you — your torn shirt, the thick bandages around your ribs, the dried blood on your thigh where Shoko couldn’t quite clean everything — and he seems to realize he shouldn’t be here.

He nods.

Nanami lays a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder and guides him down the hall, slow and careful like he’s leading someone blind.

The door shuts softly, Shoko leaves as well, murmuring about how much of a jackass you are (again).

Then you fall asleep again. 

You wake up to the click of a lighter.

Your eyes snap open—only halfway, the kind of wakefulness that comes after too many nights on the edge. But the figure isn’t a threat. He’s too tall, too loud even when silent, sitting on the edge of your bed, with your lighter in hand, playing with it.

“Didn’t expect you to fall asleep,” he says, voice low. 

There’s a rare bite in his voice.

He rarely raises it. He’s always fun and games with you, until it’s about you.

You hadn't spoken to Gojo Satoru properly in your life, at least until eight years ago. He did enough talking for both of you. 

"You’re like a fridge," he told you once, years ago, chewing on a rice cracker. "Big, cold, and probably full of old stuff no one wants to touch."

You had stared at him. He waited. You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply.

Later, you’d realize that was the only thing he remembered about you for months.

He used to look through you, not past you — through you, like you were a pane of glass that hadn’t shattered yet.

Until Geto died.

Until his blood painted the pavement like a cracked koi pond, and the air went still for months afterward.

That changed the day he cornered you outside the morgue. The white hallway lights flickered. You'd just signed your name off on mission clearance and were trying to make it to the vending machine before throwing up.

“Did you know?” he asked, voice hoarse and drunk on loss.

You blinked. “Know what?”

“That he was going to do it.”

Your jaw tightened. “Do I look like I mattered enough to be told?”

He looked at you. You realized, maybe grief has its own kind of vision. Maybe it strips you naked.

He didn’t reply. Just stood there. His sunglasses hung low on his nose, and the bags under his eyes had turned him ghost-white. That scared you more than anything.

Now, you’ve all gotten so much closer like plants would get when stuffed into the same space.

You look at him properly now, — and what you see isn’t anger.

“I didn’t sleep,” you murmur.

“Right. Just… rested your eyes. Like an old man on a park bench.”

“Why are you here?”

He shrugs. “Wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. But okay.”

“You’ve been working too much,” he says after a long silence. “Even Nanami’s starting to get worried. That means the world is probably ending.”

“Don’t dramatize.”

“Oh, I live for the drama. But this isn’t that.” He shifts, finally looking at you. His sunglasses slide down his nose just enough to show his eyes. Too blue. Too much. “This is me… asking.”

You blink. “Asking what?”

“If you ever stop running long enough to sleep—do you dream?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

He shifts a bit closer.

Like he’s asking permission without saying it.

The silence between you stretches. You don’t say what you’re thinking. You don’t say that maybe, if he had asked you, you would’ve probably followed him.

Not out of agreement. But out of not knowing where else to go.

Instead, you shift your weight and wince again. Gojo notices, eyes trailing down to the cloth shoko put in between your legs near your knees.

“I talked to the higher-ups,” he says suddenly, like he’s trying to change the subject. “They’re not happy.”

You scoff.

“When are they ever.”

“They want a report. They think your actions were… impulsive. Undignified.”

Your jaw clenches. “He was raping that kid.”

“I know” he says sharply.

You both freeze.

His hand is clenched.

His voice, when he speaks again, is lower.

“I know” he repeats. “But they only see paperwork. Protocol. Headlines.”

You don’t need to ask what happens next. You already know how these things go.

Slaps on the wrist. Private lectures. Eyes that never look at the bloodstains.

“I’ll cover it,” Gojo says.

You blink. “…What?”

“I’ll file it. Under my name.”

You stare at him.

“Just so you know, I wouldn’t do it for anyone else” He says again.

“Why me?” you ask. “Why not someone else?”

“Because you don’t ask me if I’m okay,” he says.

You look at the ceiling. “Are you okay?”

“Bitch” he says, “what did I just say?”

You laugh. He laughs too. It was unexpected, for you too.

You want to live again. Not for long. But long enough to hear him make that sound again.

But his voice is serious.

“Because it’s the first time you’ve done something like this. And I’m sure  it won’t be the last. And if someone’s gonna take the fallout for your so-called recklessness…” he looks at you, dead-on, “…it might as well be me.”

The words land like a drop in water.

You don’t know what to say.

So you don’t.

You look at him, this man you barely spoke to in your school days — this man who was always loud, always shining, always orbiting around someone else.

And now here he is.

“Call me next time,” He says, jaws clenched, and leaves the room. You sigh and try to move, before Shoko bursts in again, making you flinch.

Shoko lets you go back after that evening.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

A Guiding Hand 6

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, parental neglect, depression, inference of self harm, violence, abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: your online academics are affected by your personal struggles but your professor won’t let you give up so easy.

Characters: Raymond Smith, Lee Bodecker in the background

Note: My dudes.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

Your shoulder hurts. Your ribs too. You keep your arm across your middle as you drag your feet down the pavement. The impact of the bed frame continues to throb tenderly in your flesh. 

The embarrassment is worse than the pain. You barely hold back the hot tears behind your eyes. You can still hear Professor Smith’s voice. He was mortified, just as much as you. How can you ever face him again?  

You’re not going to. You give up. Lee is right. You’re too stupid. You’re useless. You’re destined to end up just like your mom. Not quite. You doubt there will ever be a man who would waste his time. 

You dab away the moisture along the brims of your eyes before you enter the convenience store. You nod at the cashier and duck down the middle aisle. You find a canister of your usual brand and linger before the shelf. You don’t want to go back yet, but you know the longer you take, the more reason there is for Lee to complain. 

You pay and head back out into the street. The sky is grey and clouds dampen the air. There’s a rainstorm coming. It’s a perfect setting for today. 

The apartment rises before you and you sigh in resignation. This is it. The rest of your life. Well... 

One day your mother will cast you out. It might be sooner than later with how Lee hangs around, how he commands her. He doesn’t see a place for you there. You don’t see one for you anywhere. What will you do then?  

As it is, all you have to your name is your laptop, your ratty clothes, and the debt you won’t be able to pay back when you fail this course and drop out. You’re defeated by the time you get to the top of the stairs. You keep your head down as you enter the apartment and slide the chain into place. 

You’re met with thick grunts and the slap of flesh. Your mom’s whimpers are muffled but Lee’s carnal noises are untethered. Your breath traps in your chest and your skin razes hotly. You try to ignore it as you enter the kitchen and set the canister on the counter, leaving the change on the lid. 

As you back up, there’s a glimmer of movement from your left. The bathroom door opens, revealing the back of Lee’s rutting body. You cover your eyes in horror as he huffs and puffs, your mother’s strangled cries trickling out as she’s hidden behind the door, between him and the sink. 

“Put a pot on,” he demands as he grips the door and bites his lip, putting more into his thrust, “we’re almost done.” 

He smirks and winks before he snaps the door shut. Your stomach stirs with nausea and you quickly spin away. You shake as you near the counter. You have no other choice. You know if you ignore him, he’ll make sure it all gets worse for you. He’s already ruined so much. 

You put the change aside and uncap the canister. You peel back the freshness seal, your bandaged hand making it all the more tedious. The coffee grounds catch on the gauze. You fill the tank of the machine and set the pot in place. You measure out the coffee and flip the lid down, hitting the red button before you walk away. 

You can still hear them. Even as you shut your bedroom door. You face your room and turn on the light. It’s worse than when you left. 

Your bed is half off the frame, your bookshelf’s been cleared onto the floor, your laundry basket is overturned, and your laptop... It’s under the chair. You cross the room and bend to pick it up. You examine it; loose hinges and the frame is peeling away from the monitor. Your heart plummets and you drop into the chair. 

You have to prop the screen up against the wall to keep it open. Awkwardly, you reach across the desk to reach the keyboard and hit the power button. To your surprise, it boots and the screen lights up. The colours are all off; the dark is now light and the reverse. The mouse pad doesn’t work, or half the keys. 

It takes you twenty minutes to sign in. Aside from your burnt hand, the state of the laptop is more than enough to deter you. You watch the desktop load helplessly and several notifications pop up along the right side of the screen. You don’t read any of them as you see the name; Dr. Raymond Smith. 

You know what they are. Just like before. He's repulsed by you. By the way you live. He saw the truth and you can't hide it any longer. It's not worth it to deny it any longer. 

It was all a stupid idea. As stupid as you. It's easier to just give up. You don't know why you tried in the first place. 

You'll put in a request to drop the course. If you can. You can't do much given the state of your laptop. You can't do much at all in life. That's the way it will always be. 

📓

The last... however many days you've been awake. Waiting. Dreading. Expecting Lee to burst in and humiliate you again. 

Every time you try to close your eyes, you swear you hear the door knob. You put the chair under the knob. You're so tired. Exhausted to the bone. You need sleep badly. 

You lay down, head swimming with agony, and your eyes close without another thought. You can't resist the heavy blanket of fatigue that drapes over you. There is nothing. A void of sheer desolation that wraps around your body, submerging you like dark water. 

You wake with a start. The vision of blue eyes fade in an instant. Eyes you know. Not the vivid irises of the sinister man in your mother's room, no a pair of almost crystalline orbs, soft and diligent. You shake of the thought and rub the stitch from your forehead. 

You smell. You've been wearing the same clothes since that day. How long ago was that? You can't count. You haven't showered, the room is the same mess he made of it, your life too. 

You don't move. You don't want to. Not until the gentle tap comes at the door. You groan as the handle turns but the chair keeps the door lodged in place.  

"Sweetie," your mom calls through, "will you let me in?" 

You stare at the door. Your limbs refuse to move. You can't lift even a finger. You close your eyes and listen to her beg. You hate that. You hear it constantly, the way she begs him to stop, to listen, or just to be kind. 

Go away. 

When you open your eyes next, there's a banging on the door. The chair lurches and the legs scrape on the floor, but the door stays shut. You hide again, pulling a pillow over your head. 

Time flows into vague droning and shades of grey. Your head is foggy and thick. Suddenly, you're awake and staring up at an angry face. You're torn out of the bed and dragged to sit at the edge. Only Lee's unbreakable grip keeps you from flopping onto your back. 

You stare up at him dumbly then your eyes search past him. The chair is broken on the floor. You look back to him, head lolling. You blink as he snarls. 

"What're ya doin'? You're drivin' your ma batty! And I gotta listen to it so you get your ass up." 

You try to swat him away and whimper as your hand pulses and fire course through your skin. You force your spine rigid and try to shrug him off. You shake your head and cradle your hand in your lap, the bandage stained and smelly with puss. 

"Get on you fucking feet," he lifts you as if you weigh nothing. You as good as dangle from his grasp, "cupboards are empty." 

"Sweetie," your mom's birdish cheep comes from the doorway, "we got the credits. I wrote a list for you." 

"Laying in the dark all day, what else you got?" Lee scoffs and lets you go. You waver on your feet and look dully over at your mothers shadow. "Fucking stinks in here." 

You shuffle past him silently. You don't know what to do, you just know you need to be away from him. You feel sick. You're dizzy and drained.  

You put out your uninjured hand to take the list from your mom. Your stench ripples off the hoodie. She smiles through a curled lip. 

"Sweetie, you should get changed first," she slurs and give a doelike flutter of lashes. Drunk, as always. Maybe you should start. Maybe you wouldn't have to feel so much. 

You nod and go to the closet. Lee prowls around your desk but you're too hazy to care. You pull out a new hoodie then go to the dresser to find some loose sweats.  

You stop and stare at the man standing by your bed. The thick silence strangles you as he growls under his breath. Your mom trills with nervous laughter. 

"Lee, come on, she gotta put new clothes on. Honey, can you make sure you grab an extra chop for him?" 

You shrug and you hug the rumpled clothing with one arm and stare at the floor. He can have yours. Your stomach is so empty, the very idea of food makes you want to wretch. 

"Mmm, stop dragging your ass," he snarls as he stomps to the door, "fucking starving." 

You wait until he slams it. You expect that. You don’t even react. You lay the clothing on the desk and peel off the dingy layers. You pull on the sweats and swoop the sweater over your head. If you keep the hood up, you won’t have to worry about your hair or face. 

You take the list and stuff it in your pocket. Each step is a stagger. Your body is stiff and sore. You go out into the hall and brace yourself for another attack. You only hear your mother murmuring in the kitchen. You edge away and sit on the floor as you put your shoes on.  

You stand and fumble with the locks on the door. You can barely get your fingers to co-operate and your burnt hand is in flames. The bandages barely cling to the flesh. You shut the door behind you without using the key and head down the hallway. 

Down the stairs, you can see the yellow sunlight seeping in through the front doors. You emerge, squinting into the shine, and raise your hand as you try to see through it. Your head pounds at the intensity of daylight.  

You trod between the freshly mowed plot of grass before the building and stop by the sidewalk. You sway and try to shake the cobwebs out. You look one way then the other. The heat gathers under your sweater and you hunch down even more. It’s an unusually warm day. 

Your name startles you before you can find your bearings and set off for the store. You must be delirious. Maybe you should’ve found some stale bread to chew on. Rings of colour form in your vision as you turn around to face the echo of your name. 

The figure moves decisively towards you. You have to be hallucinating. It can’t be him. It’s probably that guy who always asks for a light between puffing smoke towards the doors. 

“I’ve been emailing,” Professor Smith says. You lean back on your heel and grimace. He isn’t real. “You... are you well?” 

You stare at him. You try to see through the delusion but can’t. You look down at your trembling hand then turn to peer down the street. 

“I have to go,” you croak over your dry tongue. 

You turn away, feet tangling, and stagger on. You can hear him following. His steps are fleet and light. In a moment, he’s at your side. 

“Please, you look ill, slow down,” he touches your arm and you rip away from him. 

“Leave--” you stumble and throw your arms out to balance yourself, stopping short as you nearly keel over. “I’m okay.” 

“You clearly aren’t. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for over a week. After our last meeting, I’m certain you can understand my concern--” 

You face him and scrunch up your nose, “Professor,” you stammer out, “you don’t have to worry about me. No one does.” 

You quickly veer past him and fall into a clumsy sprint across the street. You barely dodge a car on your way to the other side and you’re out of breath as you meet the curb. You keep your head down as you hurry away, hoping he’s not persistent. He’ll go away. He’s not real, so you just have to stop thinking. 

[jeanjauthor]

nice fake knife story, but EMTs will never pull out an object that's impaled in somebody on the scene. Stab Wound 101 is literally "do not pull the object out".

As I said in the original post, it literally was NOT impaled in his body. It was stuck in the chainlinks, and it was OBVIOUSLY not embeded in the man, because I'm quite sure the EMT could see the curve coming to the point. Chainmail links are usually a circumference that fits around a pencil, which is then further taken up by 4 to 6 links interlinked with it, depending on which pattern the maker used (I don't know which one he used; I didn't ask).

The majority of that tiny pencil-thick space is taken up by the thickness of the OTHER links' wires. You literally cannot put a pencil through chainmail once it's been woven together, because there is no room. The most penetration you'll get with an average-sized knife is maybe a third of an inch / 1cm tops. What you WILL get is a knife tip that is very thoroughly wedged in the links, but ONLY the tip of the knife.

Here is an image of non-riveted chainmail with human fingers in the picture for scale:

This stuff would not let more than the tip of a knifeblade through unless you were in a position to really drive home the blade. Reaching over a counter does NOT give a person a massive amount of leverage force, because they cannot put their full weight behind the blow (most folks will hit the counter with their waist or hips, which will absorb some of the incoming force).

Of course, it is true that abutted (not-riveted) chainmail CAN pull apart if you thrust with enough force. However, what the guy had made was RIVETED chainmail.

Literally, riveted chainmail is made up of rings that have flattened ends with holes through which a rivet has been set and hammered into place, so that the links CANNOT come apart so easily.

You can absolutely wedge the TIP of a knife in that stuff without actually penetrating deeper than a mere scratch...but you'd practically have to be charging at a dead run with the full weight of your body at the back of the hilt to have any hope of breaking through riveted chain deeply enough to penetrate with a mere knife. That dude had a convenience store counter in the way.

A regular shirt, man would've been shanked.

Chainmail under the shirt, absolutely not.

But it would look like he'd been shanked.

And did it not occur to you that when the EMT put his hands on my fellow SCAdian's back when trying to hold him still to exam the supposed wound...that he would FEEL THE CHAINMAIL under that work shirt?

Because abso-damned-lutely, you CAN feel chainmail through a shirt. Hell, you can even feel it through a puffy down jacket! Especially when you are trying to touch the body to stabilize a potentially injured person who is moving around, trying to demonstrate what had just happened.

EMTs don't diagnose patients hands-free. It's not a video call of a doctor's visit. They're very much hands-on-the-patient.

[prepperjournal]

For years, the idea of food independence has conjured images of sprawling gardens, backyard chickens, and rows of home-canned goods. But let’s be real: not everyone has an acre of land—or even a backyard. Does that mean food independence is out of reach? Not by a long shot. In 2025, it’s time to rethink what food self-reliance looks like. Whether you’re in an apartment, a condo, or just don’t have the time or space for traditional homesteading, you can still build a pantry that’s resilient against supply chain hiccups, inflation, and shortages. Step 1: Maximize Shelf-Stable Staples You don’t need a garden to stock up on dry goods. Focus on building a pantry of essentials with long shelf lives. Stock Up On: - Rice, beans, and lentils - Oats, pasta, and flour - Shelf-stable milk and powdered eggs - Salt, sugar, and cooking oils Step 2: Canned Goods Are Your Friend Canning isn’t just for homesteaders. Commercially canned goods offer a long shelf life, convenience, and variety. Buy Smart: - Focus on vegetables, proteins (tuna, chicken), soups, and fruits - Check for sales and bulk-buy deals - Rotate stock and use older cans first Pro Tip: Don’t forget about canned butter, ghee, and shelf-stable cheese options. FIFO Countertop Mini Can Tracker Holds 30 Standard 10-24 Oz Can Sizes, White| Stackable & Adjustable Can Organizer for Pantry, USA Made, White - Mini Can Tracker: Keeps your kitchen organized by storing and rotating your canned goods on a First In First Out model saving you from expired food cost and waste - Can Organizer Easy Install: Ensures effortless installation saving you time and energy; Carefully sized dowels fit smoothly into the panels, giving your fridge or pantry a fresh new look; Made in the USA - Customizable Can Rack: Includes the following easy-fit dowels; 3 - A dowels (fits family soup cans), 6 - B dowels (fits chunky soup and fruit cans), 6 - C dowels (fits standard vegetable/soup cans) - Canned Food Organizer Capacity: Make room for up to 30 cans, preserving sodas, soups, and veggies in great harmony; Measures 16 inches long, 16 inches wide, 12 inches tall, and weighs 5 pounds - Expandable Food Storage: Expand your organized empire in your refrigerator, pantry, cupboards, and cabinets by adding panels, dowels, or even units for limitless growth $44.19 Buy on Amazon Step 3: Think Vertical—Indoor Gardening No backyard? No problem. Grow small-scale crops indoors with minimal space. Try These: - Herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro) on windowsills - Microgreens using shallow trays - Hydroponic kits for lettuce and greens Step 4: Store Water, Not Just Food Water is just as critical as food, and most urban preppers underestimate how much they’ll need. Store: - At least one gallon per person per day (for drinking and minimal hygiene) - Water filters and purification tablets as backup - Collapsible storage containers to maximize space Big Berkey Gravity-Fed Stainless Steel Countertop Water Filter System 2.25 Gallon with 2 Authentic Black Berkey Elements BB9-2 Filters - ENJOY GREAT-TASTING TAP WATER EVERY DAY AT HOME- The 2.25-gallon Big Berkey System can be used on a countertop in your kitchen or office to transform tap water into delicious drinking water that's also ideal for making your favorite beverages or cooking. - INDEPENDENT TESTING- Black Berkey Elements (the original BB9-2) are composed of a unique, proprietary blend of multiple media types backed by testing from accredited, third-party labs. Black Berkey Elements remove or dramatically reduce over 250+ typical contaminants that could be present in freshwater sources—no electricity, tools, or plumbing are required. - INCLUDES AUTHENTIC BLACK BERKEY ELEMENTS (THE ORIGINAL BB9-2)- Don't fall for lookalike filters that use our Berkey BB9-2 model number or trademarks in their titles or product descriptions to legitimize their brand as replacements or "compatible", when they are not. Black Berkey Elements are designed to work synergistically and target specific contaminants that far exceed the reduction capabilities of black filters solely composed of activated carbon. - ECONOMICAL, LONG-LASTING- Black Berkey Elements provide filtered water for just pennies per gallon. Each pair of Black Berkey Elements lasts for up to 6,000 gallons before replacement is recommended. Elements may require replacement sooner based upon the quality of influent water. Each additional pair of Black Berkey Elements (sold separately) adds an additional 6,000 gallons of contaminant reduction. - THE GOLD STANDARD IN GRAVITY-FED WATER FILTRATION- Authentic Black Berkey Elements are capable of greater contaminant reduction and a longer lifespan than virtually any of the other filter elements on the market. Berkey systems are simple and easy to use and require no electricity, costly installation, or tools, providing economical, long-lasting water filtration for just pennies a gallon. $367.00 Buy on Amazon Step 5: Get Creative with Storage When space is tight, you have to think vertically and creatively. Ideas: - Under-bed bins for bulk goods - Overhead shelving in closets or garages - Stackable containers that maximize footprint Step 6: Plan for Rotation and Replenishment A pantry is only as good as its maintenance. Maintain It: - Label items with purchase and expiration dates - Create a simple inventory spreadsheet - Set reminders to rotate stock every few months Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need Land to Be Ready Food independence isn’t just for the rural prepper. It’s about mindset, strategy, and a commitment to self-reliance—no matter where you live. By focusing on shelf-stable essentials, clever storage, and a few innovative growing techniques, you can build a pantry that stands strong against whatever comes next. Related Reads: - The Sensible Prepper – Practical Advice for Tough Times - Survival Gear List – The Essentials You Shouldn’t Leave Without Finally, remember that food independence is an ongoing journey. Stay informed about food preservation techniques, explore new recipes using your stored items, and continuously adapt your strategies as your needs evolve. This proactive approach will help ensure that you remain prepared for any eventuality, no matter where you live. Moreover, engage with your community to share ideas, resources, and even trade goods. Building relationships with local farmers or joining community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs can enhance your food independence and introduce you to fresh, local options that may not be available in stores. Regular maintenance of your pantry is essential for ensuring that your food supply remains fresh and ready for use. Consider setting up a reminder system on your smartphone or calendar to help you keep track of your inventory and remind you when it's time to check on your supplies. When considering creative storage solutions, think beyond the conventional. Utilize space in your home creatively by incorporating multi-functional furniture that doubles as storage, such as ottomans or coffee tables with hidden compartments. Every bit of space counts when preparing for potential shortages or emergencies. Another critical aspect of water storage is the need for emergency preparedness. Storing water isn’t just about filling up containers; it’s also about ensuring you have access to clean, drinkable water during emergencies. Invest in high-quality water filtration systems and purification tablets to ensure your stored water remains safe for consumption over time. As you think vertically for indoor gardening, consider the benefits of LED grow lights. These lights can mimic sunlight, enabling you to grow plants indoors even when natural light is scarce. This technology allows for greater control over your indoor gardening environment and can significantly expand your growing options. In addition to canned goods, consider freeze-dried options. These products not only have an impressive shelf life but also retain more nutrients and flavor compared to traditional canned foods. They can be rehydrated and used in many recipes, making them a versatile addition to your pantry. When thinking about shelf-stable staples, it's beneficial to explore legumes beyond just basic beans and lentils. Incorporate a variety of dried beans—such as black beans, kidney beans, and chickpeas—not only for their nutritional value but also for their versatility in a variety of dishes. Each type of legume can bring unique flavors and textures to your meals, enhancing your culinary repertoire. Consider urban gardening techniques that allow you to grow food in small spaces, such as vertical gardening or hydroponic systems. These innovations can transform a small apartment balcony into a lush, productive garden, yielding fresh vegetables and herbs all year round. In today's fast-paced world, the notion of achieving food independence takes on new dimensions. It's not just about self-sustaining your food source; it's about creating resilience in the face of global uncertainties. With the increasing volatility of food prices and supply chains, understanding how to prepare for the worst while still enjoying the best of what our urban environments have to offer is crucial. Read the full article

[theoneeyedgoldenwolf]

Whumptober 2024: List of my stories

I have thought about this for quite a while now and I’ve finally made my choice.

I will have my Whumptober 2024 stories both in AO3 as well as in here Tumblr. =)

When I upload the stories I will update this whole post too. I will give both of the links so you can choose which site you’ll read the stories from. Also, I will be giving out the titles of the stories as well as the prompts used at the correct dates too. ;) Most are for Linked Universe but there will be several for my Linked Universe Modern AU called Ranch Family. I will inform if it’s a Ranch Family story.

Whumptober 2024 Prompt List

No. 1: No Time to lose - Time Race Against The Clock | Search Party | Panic Attack | "If only we could hold on.” (Icysami x Renegaderr, Strangers.) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59339266 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763088353681883136/no-time-to-lose

No. 2: Fixing a bad experience - The Chain Trust Issues | Amusement Park | Role Reversal | “You got away with the crime while the knife's in my back.” (Charlotte Sands, Rollercoaster) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59371012 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763173934075150336/fixing-a-bad-experience

No. 3: Old friends not worth keeping - Ranc Family AU - Legend Set Up For Failure | Fingerprints | Wrongfully Arrested | "I warned you." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59407543 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763273643449008128/old-friends-not-worth-keeping

No. 4: Lost friend - Time Hallucinations | Hypnosis | Sensory Deprivation | “You're still alive in my head.” (Billy Lockett, More) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59436019 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763358895844556800/lost-friend

No. 5: Pain tolerance - Time Sunburn | Healing Salve | Heatstroke | "If my pain will stretch that far." (Lottery Winners, Burning House) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59465191 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763450051329703936/pain-tolerance

No. 6: In the Temple of the Yiga - The Chain Not Realizing They’re Injured | Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms | Healed Wrong |  "It's not my blood." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59495164 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763544083037863936/in-the-temple-of-the-yiga

No. 7: Lighted - Time Only For Emergencies | Unconventional Weapon | Magic with a Cost | "It's us or them." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59526904 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763631340484689920/lighted

No. 8: Love - Ranch Family AU - Hyrule Sleep Deprivation | Isolation Chamber | Forced to Stay Awake | "Leave the lights on." (Coldplay, Midnight) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59559142 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763726759750451201/love

No. 9: Ghost Guide - Time Obsession | Broken Window | Bruises | “Frame me up on the wall, just to keep me out of trouble.” (Fall Out Boy, Irresistible) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59585449 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763811782693437440/ghost-guide

No. 10: The strength of the Hero's Spirit - Time Blow To The Head | Slurred Words | Passing Out from Pain | "I can't think straight." In AO3 (9 chapters): https://archiveofourown.org/works/59612932/chapters/152043313 In Tumblr (part 1 of 2): https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763907408092381184/the-strength-of-the-heros-spirt-part-1-of-2 In Tumblr (part 2 of 2): https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763907728777297920/the-strength-of-the-heros-spirt-part-2-of-2

No. 11: What is a Hero? - Time Seeing Double | Convenience Store | Loneliness | “Leave no trace behind, like you don't even exist.” (Taylor Swift, Illicit Affairs) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59642002 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/763994442203037696/what-is-a-hero

No. 12: In the hands of the hungry - Time Starvation | Underground Caverns | Cannibalism | "Just a little more." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59668993 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764084736586104832/in-the-hands-of-the-hungry

No. 13: Brothers not bound by blood - The Chain Team As A Family | Familial Curse | Multiple Whumpees | "Death will do us part." (Set It Off, Partner's In Crime) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59698105 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764175414407151617/brothers-not-bound-by-blood

No. 14: Mistakes - Time Left For Dead | Hunting Gear | Blackmail | “Because I want you to know what it feels like to be haunted” (tiLLie, kooL aiD mAn) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59729254 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764266690741780480/mistakes

No. 15: "DON'T TOUCH ME!" - Ranch Family AU - Wild Childhood Trauma | Painful Hug | Moment of Clarity | "I did good, right?" In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59757514 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764353948726476800/dont-touch-me

No. 16: "I can't find them!" - Time Necrosis | Swamp | Wound Cleaning | "No, I can't feel anything." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59786128 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764447512999411712/i-cant-find-them

No. 17: The Maze of the dead - Time Nowhere Else To Go | Ruined Map | Shipwrecked | "We had a good run." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59812903 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764539454753046528/the-maze-of-the-dead

No. 18: The Deity and the Mortal - Time Revenge | Unreliable Narrator | Loss of Identity | “I see what's mine and take it.” (Panic! at the Disco, Emperor's New Clothes) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59837245 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764628897484718080/the-deity-and-the-mortal

No. 19: Bad blood - Time Blood Trail | Abandoned Cabin | One Way Out | "Is there anybody alive out there?" (Bruce Springsteen, Radio Nowhere) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59861176 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764717416512094208/bad-blood

No. 20: Your time is up - Ranch Family AU - Time Emotional Angst | Shoulder to Cry On | Giving Permission to Die | "It's not your fault." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59887774 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764808351064391680/your-time-is-up

No. 21: Within - Time Body Horror | Tattoo Gun | Spirit Possession | “Let the bedsheet soak up the tears.” (Apparat feat. Soap & Skin, Goodbye) In Tumblr: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59918233 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764899341633798144/within

No. 22: Witness the deaths, change their fate - Time Bleeding Through Bandages | Tourniquet | Reopening Wounds | "Oh that's not good." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59946595 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764990961784864768/witness-the-deaths-change-their-fate

No. 23: Sacrifice for greater good - Time Forced Choice | Public Display | Broken Pedestal | "I'm doing this for you." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59972119 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765079835765882880/sacrifice-for-greater-good

No. 24: Attack of a Peahat - Time and Wild Radiation Poisoning | Collapsed Building | Equipment Failure |  “I never knew daylight could be so violent.” (Florence + The Machine, No Light, No Light) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59998672 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765172442412072960/attack-of-a-peahat

No. 25: The place to belong to - Ranch Family AU - Time Surgery | Stitches | Being Monitored | "It's for your own good." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60025801 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765266274475458560/the-place-to-belong-to

No. 26: Catch a knife - Ranch Family AU - Twilight Nightmares | Breakfast Table | Parting Words of Regret | “I'm haunted by the lies that I have loved, the actions I have hated.” (Poe, Haunted) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60049543 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765353070392721408/catch-a-knife

No. 27: When the mightiest fall - Time Voiceless | Laboratory | Muzzled | “I have no mouth and I must scream.” In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60076483 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765444645538906112/when-the-mightiest-fall

No. 28: Seven boys, seven scars, seven stories - Ranch Family AU - Sprite/Time Denial | CCTV | Exposure | "They caught me red handed." In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60108568 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765541921776074752/seven-boys-seven-scars-seven-stories

No. 29: Four's colors: Blue (anger issues) - Ranch Family AU - Four Fatigue | Labyrinth | Burnout | "Who said you could rest?" In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60136111 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765632436196540416/fours-colors-blue-anger-issues

No. 30: Warmth at winter - Ranch Family AU - Time Recovery | Hospital Bed | Holding Back Tears | "What have I done?" In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60160690 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765716892386312192/warmth-at-winter

No. 31: Special Operations Mission: Becoming Fierce - Ranch Family AU - Time Asking For Help | Therapy | Making Amends | "I'm alive, I'm just not well." (Elliot Lee, Alive, Not Well.) In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60190405 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/765813432710758400/special-operations-mission-becoming-fierce

Alternatives List:

1. Singer of the Dead - Time and Twilight Body Swap In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59829565 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764605227510972416/singer-of-the-dead

2. Senseless - Time (and partly Wild) Communication Barrier In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60945922 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/768527707145453568/senseless

3. Spaced out at wrong time - Wild Finding Old Messages In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59778700 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764425628997009408/spaced-out-at-the-wrong-time

4. Lost and found - Time Forgotten In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59804719 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764514754765209600/lost-and-found

5. Sharing is caring... Or not - The Chain Friendly Fire

6. Speared - Time Motion Sickness In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60972469 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/768616747098046465/speared

7. For family - Time No-Holds-Barred Beatdown In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61004530 In Tumbrl: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/768709310278713344/for-family

8. Lies to correct - Ranch Family AU - Hyrule Regret In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61876405 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/771502585087770624/lies-to-correct

9. Tick-Tock, eyes of a clock - Time Secrets Revealed In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60637447 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/767409860385161216/tick-tock-eyes-of-a-clock

10. Sick days - Ranch Family AU - Time Shivering In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61131838 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/769162402305540096/sick-days

11. Left behind - Ranch Family AU - Sprite Survivor's Guilt

12. The memory of sinister moon - Time Time Loop

13. Leader's responsibility - Legend and Time Used As Bait

14. When death arrives, you fight - Time Venom In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59851039 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/764684461846740992/when-death-arrives-you-fight

15. Leader for the Heroes - Time Vermin In AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61061053 In Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/theoneeyedgoldenwolf/768894035262947328/leader-for-the-heroes

[my-soul-sings]

the days of us: ch 11 - goodbye

Fandom: Love and Deepspace Characters: Zayne, Caleb and MC Genres: Family, Comedy, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Angst

Summary: The three were pretty much inseparable, until it was time to say goodbye.

// A collection of stories about Caleb, Zayne and MC until they part ways.

ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5 | ch 6 | ch 7 | ch 8 | ch 9 | ch 10 | ch 11 | ch 12 (end)

*See replies to this post for the AO3 link.

+++++++++++++

The train station felt especially chaotic that morning. All around him, people of various shapes and colours, were speed walking in every possible direction. Zayne struggled to haul his heavy luggage along while simultaneously dodging the many human obstacles zigzagging in his path. Sweat lined his brow as he played this intensely stressful game, all while trying to keep up with his parents who were just two steps ahead of him. They looked stressed as well, trying to navigate their way through the station to get to the correct platform in time. He just hoped that in their collective haste, they wouldn’t wind up colliding into someone and triggering a chain reaction and a mass accident in the middle of the station. 

Thankfully, they managed to get to their platform fifteen minutes later, with no detours needed. And there were precisely twenty minutes left before their train would arrive. 

While his parents used the remaining time to catch their breaths and also hunt for snacks in the convenience store nearby for the long ride ahead, Zayne sank into an empty metal chair to watch the bags, and took the opportunity to glance through his phone in case he had received any new messages. 

There were none. He restlessly locked and unlocked his phone a few more times because he didn’t know what else he could do. Then he quickly got tired of that and settled for staring out at the empty train tracks in front of him, the view occasionally blocked by the horde of strangers walking by. 

It was a rare moment of quiet after all the hectic packing and errand-running with his parents over the past week, which gave Zayne some time to pause and let his mind wander. 

Naturally, his thoughts went straight to recalling yesterday’s events, when he had said goodbye to his best friends. 

Caleb hadn’t cried — or at least, that was what he had hoped for everyone to believe, but Zayne could tell from the way he had been biting down on his lower lip and the deep frown in his brows that he was trying his very best not to. It had been a little easier on Caleb who had a bit longer than MC to process the news and come to terms with it. He hadn’t mumbled his usual complaints when Zayne ruffled his hair, nor did he shoot imaginary laser eye beams at the older boy when Zayne allowed MC to hug him a second time because the first time just hadn’t been long enough. 

With Caleb, there hadn’t been a need to exchange more words than what had already been said before. Most of Zayne’s words had been reserved for MC, although evidently most of what he said failed to comfort her at all. 

MC had cried for most of the time that he was at Josephine’s house, tears streaming down her face like two parallel rivers. Her eyes had swelled to twice their usual size, and snot had been leaking out of her nose no matter how hard she tried to suck it back in. Her shoulders had quaked from the force of her sobbing, and there had seemed to be no end to it, no matter how tightly he hugged her, or how many times he assured her that he would call and message them as often as he could.

It didn’t matter, because he would be leaving them, quite possibly for good. 

His parents had actually broken the news to him during their stay in the Arctic. They had explained that they would have to move to Skyhaven for work, and had considered that the move would be beneficial for Zayne too, since that was where Skyhaven University — the university that his parents had graduated from — was located as well. 

The news had come as a shock to Zayne at first, but apparently his face hadn’t revealed any kind of emotion until his parents had nudged him to ask what he’d thought about it. 

In the past, he probably wouldn’t have much of an opinion about the move. It wasn’t like he had any friends in school since all he did was keep his head down and study. It also wouldn’t be any different from when he had to transfer classes each time he skipped a grade; he would simply adapt and adjust somehow.

But then he remembered that he wasn’t entirely friendless anymore. That he had something to look forward to every day after school, instead of his old, dreary routine.

He never wanted to say goodbye to them. Not to MC, not to Caleb. He wanted to continue to see them after school and to engage in the domestic wars and roughhousing like siblings did. He enjoyed being a part of that household, even if it was just for a few hours each day. Because for the first time, he didn’t feel out of place, or like the nerd who didn’t know how to have fun. The two actually liked him the way that he was, even when he cracked a bad joke that made them cringe each time, or when he went on and on about his favourite science facts that most people found boring. 

He liked them too. He liked them a lot. They made him smile and laugh like the other kids at school did with their friends. It was only after meeting them that he understood why the kids his age dreaded studying so much; they had so much more fun beyond the comfort of paper pages and the sense of accomplishment that solving math problems provided.  

But, like any dutiful son who aspired to one day be able to become a good doctor like his parents were, Zayne had known better than to give in to his own selfish wants. Just like his parents probably had done, he had weighed the factors, considered every angle, and swallowed the protests that were bubbling beneath his tongue.

“I understand.” Of course he did. They were working hard to save lives, and if they had decided that Skyhaven was their next stop, the last thing he wanted to be was the obstacle in their path. 

Besides, they were right; it made sense to move if Skyhaven University was his goal anyway. 

So that had only left Zayne with the seemingly impossible task of breaking the news gently to the pair. He had been fairly certain that Caleb would be fine, but MC… well, even after racking his brains and writing out plans A to L to cover all possible bases, he had still failed to stop her from bawling her eyes out and wailing until her throat turned hoarse. 

An ache filled his chest as he remembered going home afterwards and wishing he could cry to get some respite, but couldn’t. Emotional constipation was the only way to describe it — one of his classmates had once coined it when referring to him. They hadn’t been wrong about that, as much as it had stung. 

A buzz came from Zayne’s phone then, drawing his attention back to the noisy train station. His screen flashed with a new text message from Caleb.

Immediately, his thumb swiped on the notification to open up the message window.

Caleb: U on the train yet? 

Three dots appeared above his icon — a blurry selfie that MC had taken of them while he had given her a piggyback ride home once — as he continued to type. 

Then the three dots disappeared, and five seconds later, an image was sent.

All Zayne saw were two pairs of huge nostrils that took up the entire screen. But he could make out the distinctive features of MC and Caleb whose cheeks were pressed together and staring down at the phone camera as if it was a peephole in the door.  

A sad smile tugged at his lips. They couldn’t be here to see him off because it was a Wednesday and they were both stuck in school. Just a week back, they had confided in him about their grand plan to feign being sick so that they could skip school and be here with him. Usually Caleb wasn’t the sort to be on board with such juvenile schemes as he was always adamant about being a good example for MC, but he had looked proud of his plan, not dissimilar to a supervillain rubbing his hands together and cackling evilly to himself. 

It had earned him a bonk on the head and a stern warning by Zayne not to do something like that, even though he really wanted them to — a fact which he didn’t admit out loud of course.

So all they were allowed to do was message and call him as soon as they were done with classes for the day. 

Zayne: There’s still some time before we board.

Caleb: fdsADLKKJS

Zayne: ? 

Caleb: ZA Y NNEEEEEE

He chuckled to himself before typing again.

Zayne: Hello MC.

Zayne watched with amusement as the three dots repeatedly appeared and disappeared above Caleb’s icon — they were probably fighting over the phone right about now. 

Eventually, the next message appeared.

Caleb: sry that was MC

Caleb: shes tryin to steal my phone!

Caleb: rmb to take photos of skyhaven

Caleb: get there safe

Zayne: I will. Please get home safe and don’t text while walking. You might fall.

Nothing. Zayne waited, wondering if they had really taken his advice and stopped messaging while walking home. It was rare though, for them to actually listen. 

Just as he was about to lock his phone again, a new message popped up with a clipped buzz.

Caleb: oppa

Caleb: got phone 

Caleb: big dummy caleb fell 

Caleb: m running

Caleb: sav meeee

Zayne got the feeling that Caleb didn’t just trip; knowing MC, she had probably kicked him in the back of his knees, causing him to stumble and/or fall, and grabbed his phone before making a run for it.

At the rate this was going, MC would likely fall or run into a pole if she kept running without looking ahead, so Zayne decided against replying for now. 

At the same time, he heard his name, and looked up to find that his parents had returned with a large bag of food and drinks. He hoped at least one of the snacks was chocolate, or at least something sweet enough to compensate for how bitter he felt on the inside. 

Then Zayne heard the ringing of a bell. The station announcement. The loud rush of wind against his face and tousling his hair as a train arrived. 

Eventually, the wind settled, and the air stilled. 

It was time to go.

He stuffed his buzzing phone in his pocket, taking the cold handle of his luggage in his palm and squeezing it tightly. They waited briefly in line for their turn to board, and then quickly found their assigned seats. 

It was only when they had finally settled comfortably into the soft cushioned chairs that Zayne allowed himself to retrieve his phone and see if there were any updates from Caleb’s end. 

Multiple message previews indicated that MC had nearly been knocked down by a bicycle while being chased by Caleb. The good news was, she had managed to duck out of the way just in time and dove into a bush. The bad news was, she now had leaves in her hair, scratches on her arms and legs, and may or may not have twisted her ankle. Caleb would have to carry her home the rest of the way, and they would call and message again later. 

It was the sort of trouble that would usually make Zayne frown, shake his head in disapproval and then start doing damage control by getting them cleaned up and looking for the first-aid-kit in Josephine’s home. 

But today, his reaction came in the form of a soft, near inaudible sniffle and moisture that went no farther than the corner of his eyes. 

The train began to move, and through the window, his surroundings began to blur.

[intoloopin-archive]

did taesong have a good day today.. is he ever having a good day.. what was his Best Day Ever. my limp piece of cabbage 🤗💗

₊˚ʚ 🌱 ₊˚✧ ﾟ. TAESONG'S GOOD DAYS!

1, 2, 3 & 6: DATES WITH YUNHEE! - Taesong spends half his off time with his girlfriend and best friend, Yunhee, mostly on each other's apartments but they enjoy doing a lot of small scale dates, like going to the farmer's market and having dinner with Yunhee's family (they have a tiny convenience store chain) and their work friends;

4 & 5: WHEN LOOPiN ISN'T A BITCH TO HIM! - Despite everything, Taesong can't help himself but treasure the moments when his group acts like a group, specially when Haegon is envolved, becuse they spend all of 2023 not seeing eye to eye (it was his fault). Back when they thought 'Reason: Start' would have a physical album, Haegon used his phone to take some potential photocard selfies and this was his non-verbal way of showing him he's ready for them to be cool again, so obviously Taesong is never going to delete them. They also recently had their last OT10 dinner and it was very emotional for everyone;

7 & 9: SOLO PRACTICE / WORK! - Taesong isn't given as much opportunities to do his own stuff as the most in evidence members, but when he does he's filled with a big sense of joy. He's been seeking his own vocal improvement outside of New Wave these last few years with some Big Trainers, and he was a co-host recently for a voice acting end of the year award;

8: HIS THRIVING PLANTS! - Taesong is a very dedicated plant father, because they're the only sort of pet that he can have given his one million allergies (and even on their department he is a bit limited). He really likes to grow cacti because they're low maintance enough for someone with his crazy schedule to maintain. They grow on a corner of his room, and he left some on the dorms too as an excuse to pop up and check on everyone every week.

Now, for his actual best day ever is yet to come, and I'm gonna keep it a little secret for now, but just know it will happen this year! I'm really not joking, this year will be HIS YEAR!

template: [x]

[hughungrybear]

7 Comfort Movies

Tagged by @imlivingformyselfdontmindme (post here). I have to confess that I have not seen the inside of a cinema since the pandemic. However, I do have tons of subscriptions from different streaming services and most of my favourite movies are old anyway lol 😅

In no particular order

1. It Happened One Night (1934, United States)

Starring Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert

Synopsis: In Frank Capra's acclaimed romantic comedy, spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) impetuously marries the scheming King Westley, leading her tycoon father (Walter Connolly) to spirit her away on his yacht. After jumping ship, Ellie falls in with cynical newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who offers to help her reunite with her new husband in exchange for an exclusive story. But during their travels, the reporter finds himself falling for the feisty young heiress.

2. Crazy Little Thing Called Love (2010, Thailand)

Starring Baifern Pimchanok, Mario Maurer

Synopsis: A junior schoolgirl Nam (Pimchanok Luevisetpaiboon) falls in love with her schoolboy senior Chone (Mario Maurer) but is afraid to show her feelings to him, partly because Chone is everyone’s idol, and Nam regards herself as unpopular, homely-looking, and average. She has nothing that can make him notice her. But with the support of her three best friends, Nam revolutionizes herself, starting with her looks and activities to get him to notice her.

3. That Thing Called Tadhana [Fate] (2014, Philippines)

Starring Angelica Panganiban, JM de Guzman

Synopsis: A story about a broken-hearted girl who meets a boy in a not-so-normal way. Together, they go to places and find out "Where do broken hearts go?"

4. Koe no Katachi [A Silent Voice] (2016, Japan)

Starring Miyu Irino, Saori Hayami

Synopsis: As a wild youth, elementary school student, Shouya Ishida sought to beat boredom in the cruelest ways. When the deaf Shouko Nishimiya transfers into his class, Shouya and the rest of his class thoughtlessly bully her for fun. However, when her mother notifies the school, he is singled out and blamed for everything done to her. With Shouko transferring out of the school, Shouya is left at the mercy of his classmates. He is heartlessly ostracized all throughout elementary and middle school, while teachers turn a blind eye. Now in his third year of high school, Shouya is still plagued by his wrongdoings as a young boy. Sincerely regretting his past actions, he sets out on a journey of redemption: to meet Shouko once more and make amends.

5. While You Were Sleeping (1995, United States)

Starring Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman

Synopsis: Lonely transit worker Lucy Eleanor Moderatz (Sandra Bullock) pulls her longtime crush, Peter (Peter Gallagher), from the path of an oncoming train. At the hospital, doctors report that he's in a coma, and a misplaced comment from Lucy causes Peter's family to assume that she is his fiancée. When Lucy doesn't correct them, they take her into their home and confidence. Things get even more complicated when she finds herself falling for Peter's sheepish brother, Jack (Bill Pullman).

6. Empire Records (1995, United States)

Starring Ethan Embry, Rory Cochrane, Robin Tunney, Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, Anthony LaPaglia

Synopsis: Joe (Anthony LaPaglia) runs Empire Records, an independent Delaware store that employs a tight-knit group of music-savvy youths. Hearing that the shop may be sold to a big chain, slacker employee Lucas (Rory Cochrane) bets a chunk of the store's money, hoping to get a big return. When this plan fails, Empire Records falls into serious trouble, and the various other clerks, including lovely Corey (Liv Tyler) and gloomy Deb (Robin Tunney), must deal with the problem, among many other issues.

7. Clerks (1994, United States)

Starring Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jay and Silent Bob

Synopsis: Dante (Brian O'Halloran) is called in to cover a shift at his New Jersey convenience store on his day off. His friend Randal (Jeff Anderson) helps him pass the time, neglecting his video-store customers next door to hang out in the Quick Stop. The uneventful day is disrupted by news that one of Dante's ex-girlfriends has died. After attending her memorial service, Dante muses over staying with current girlfriend Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) or reuniting with ex Caitlin (Lisa Spoonhauer).

Tagging @lost-my-sanity1, @telomeke, @bengiyo @shortpplfedup and anyone who sees this and would want to play 😊

[sustainabilitytravel]

10 Easy Ways to Make Your Next Trip More Sustainable

Traveling is one of life’s greatest joys, but it often comes with an environmental cost. Luckily, sustainable travel isn’t as hard or complicated as it may seem. By making a few mindful choices, you can enjoy your adventures while reducing your impact on the planet. Here are ten easy ways to make your next trip greener and more responsible.

1. Choose Eco-Friendly Accommodations

Look for hotels and resorts that prioritize sustainability. Many accommodations now have green certifications or practices, such as using renewable energy, reducing waste, or supporting local communities. Websites like Green Key or BookDifferent can help you find these eco-friendly stays.

2. Pack Light

Packing light not only makes your trip more convenient but also reduces your carbon footprint. The heavier the plane or vehicle, the more fuel it consumes. Stick to essentials, and choose reusable items like water bottles, tote bags, and travel utensils to minimize waste.

3. Travel Locally

You don’t always have to go far to have an amazing experience. Explore nearby destinations and support local tourism. This reduces the emissions associated with long-haul flights and helps boost local economies.

4. Use Public Transportation or Walk

Once you’ve arrived at your destination, ditch the rental car and opt for public transport, cycling, or walking. Not only are these options greener, but they also allow you to experience the local culture and environment more intimately.

5. Offset Your Carbon Emissions

If you must fly, consider offsetting your carbon footprint through reputable organizations like Gold Standard or Cool Effect. These initiatives support projects like reforestation and renewable energy, balancing out your travel emissions.

6. Support Local Businesses

Instead of dining at big chains or shopping at international stores, choose local restaurants, markets, and craft shops. This helps sustain the local economy and ensures your money benefits the community you’re visiting.

7. Respect Wildlife and Nature

Avoid tourist attractions that exploit animals or damage natural habitats. Choose ethical wildlife tours and respect local regulations, such as staying on designated trails or keeping a safe distance from animals.

8. Reduce Plastic Use

Plastic waste is a global issue, especially in popular tourist areas. Bring your own reusable water bottle, straws, and containers. Many airports and cities now have refill stations to encourage this practice.

9. Embrace Slow Travel

Instead of cramming as many destinations into one trip as possible, focus on exploring one location deeply. Slow travel reduces transportation emissions and allows you to form a stronger connection with the place and its people.

10. Educate Yourself and Others

Sustainability starts with awareness. Learn about the environmental and social challenges in the places you visit and share your knowledge with fellow travelers. The more people adopt eco-friendly practices, the bigger the collective impact.

Why It Matters

Sustainable travel is more than just a trend; it’s a responsibility we all share to protect the planet and its communities. Every small step counts, from packing smarter to supporting local businesses. By incorporating these tips into your next adventure, you can enjoy the beauty of the world while ensuring it remains vibrant and accessible for future generations.

[mahidhoot1234]

Grocery Store - Venkatesh Kirana

Great! If your blog is focused on grocery stores, there are many directions you can take depending on your target audience and the message you want to convey. Here’s a structured approach you can follow to write a detailed and engaging blog post:

Blog Title Ideas:

"A Shopper’s Guide: How to Make the Most of Your Grocery Store Visit"

"Behind the Aisles: The Hidden Secrets of Your Local Grocery Store"

"Healthy Grocery Shopping: Tips for Filling Your Cart with Nutritious Options"

"The Evolution of Grocery Stores: From Local Markets to Online Shopping"

"Sustainability at Your Local Grocery Store: How You Can Make a Difference"

Blog Structure & Key Points:

1. Introduction:

Start with a hook: You could start by highlighting how essential grocery stores are to daily life. Maybe mention the rise of grocery shopping trends, or how people have shifted between in-store and online shopping in recent years.

Why it matters: Explain why grocery shopping is important—not just for stocking up on essentials, but for making healthy and sustainable choices.

2. The Importance of Grocery Stores in Our Communities:

Cultural significance: Discuss how grocery stores serve as community hubs. They aren’t just places to buy food; they often provide local products, foster connections, and promote community well-being.

Economic role: Mention how grocery stores contribute to the local economy by providing jobs and supporting local farmers or small businesses.

3. Types of Grocery Stores:

Traditional grocery stores: Chain supermarkets, local grocers, etc.

Specialty stores: Organic markets, international grocery stores, health food stores.

Online grocery stores: How the convenience of ordering online has impacted traditional grocery shopping.

4. Grocery Shopping Tips:

Budget-friendly tips: How to make the most of your budget when grocery shopping (e.g., using coupons, buying in bulk, planning meals ahead of time).

Health-conscious shopping: Discuss tips for picking healthy products like fresh produce, whole grains, and organic items.

Sustainable choices: Encourage shoppers to choose reusable bags, avoid excessive plastic, and support local or eco-friendly brands.

5. The Impact of Technology on Grocery Stores:

Self-checkouts and automation: How technology is making the grocery shopping experience faster and more efficient.

Online shopping and delivery services: Discuss how services like curbside pickup and home delivery are changing the way people shop.

Smart grocery shopping apps: Highlight apps that help with shopping lists, comparing prices, or finding discounts.

6. The Future of Grocery Stores:

Trends to watch: You can mention growing trends like plant-based products, alternative protein sources, and more environmentally friendly packaging options.

Innovation in grocery stores: Explore how stores are innovating, such as the rise of cashier-less stores (e.g., Amazon Go), or the integration of AI to personalize shopping experiences.

7. Conclusion:

Recap the significance: Summarize why grocery stores are more than just places to buy food.

Call to action: Encourage your readers to be mindful when grocery shopping—whether it’s about supporting local businesses, choosing healthier options, or reducing waste.

Additional Ideas:

Include a personal touch: If you shop at a specific grocery store, share your experiences, favorite sections, or unique finds.

Visuals: Include images of grocery aisles, products, or grocery store trends to make the post more engaging.

Statistics or research: Incorporating facts about grocery shopping behaviors or the impact of grocery stores on the environment can make your blog post more informative.

If you have a specific focus within your blog topic, feel free to share it, and I can help you refine the post further!

[businessmarketreports]

An Overview of UK Home Small Domestic Appliances Market: Trends and Insights

The UK home small domestic appliances (SDA) market has seen significant growth driven by evolving consumer lifestyles, technological innovations, and a growing focus on energy efficiency and sustainability. From kettles and toasters to handheld vacuums and smart kitchen gadgets, SDAs are becoming indispensable in UK households.

Buy the Full Report for More Category Insights into the UK Home Small Domestic Appliances Market

Download a Free Sample Report

Here’s an analysis of the key trends and insights shaping the market in 2024.

1. Market Size and Growth

The SDA market in the UK is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4-6% from 2023 to 2028, driven by post-pandemic shifts in home-based lifestyles.

Rising disposable income and increasing interest in premium and smart appliances are fueling demand.

2. Key Consumer Trends

a. Smart and Connected Appliances

Voice control integration (via Alexa, Google Assistant) and IoT-enabled SDAs are gaining traction.

Popular products: Smart kettles, Wi-Fi-enabled coffee makers, and robotic vacuum cleaners.

b. Health and Wellness Focus

Growing interest in air fryers, blenders, and juicers as consumers focus on healthier lifestyles.

Increased demand for air purifiers and humidifiers due to rising concerns over indoor air quality.

c. Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

UK consumers are prioritizing eco-friendly appliances with lower energy consumption, such as energy-efficient kettles and low-wattage irons.

Brands offering repairable and recyclable products are seeing stronger loyalty.

d. Compact and Space-Saving Designs

Urban living and smaller households drive demand for multi-functional and compact SDAs, such as 2-in-1 steamers or combination microwaves.

3. Product-Specific Insights

Kitchen Appliances

Coffee Machines:

Premium brands like Nespresso and De’Longhi dominate, with demand for bean-to-cup and pod-based machines increasing.

Air Fryers:

Brands like Tefal and Ninja lead as air fryers become a household staple.

Consumers prioritize larger capacities and multi-functionality.

Cleaning Appliances

Robotic Vacuum Cleaners:

Growing adoption of smart robotic vacuums from brands like iRobot and Eufy.

Consumers value mapping technologies and self-emptying features.

Handheld Vacuums:

Brands like Dyson continue to dominate the cordless vacuum segment, driven by innovations in battery life and suction power.

Personal Care Appliances

Growth in electric toothbrushes, hair dryers, and grooming kits, driven by brand diversification and targeted marketing.

4. Retail and Distribution Trends

E-commerce Boom:

Online channels like Amazon, Argos, and Currys are witnessing robust growth, fueled by convenience and competitive pricing.

Omni-Channel Experiences:

Retailers are integrating digital and in-store experiences, such as AR demos for products.

Subscription Models:

Brands offering subscription plans for products like coffee machines and vacuum filters are seeing higher customer retention.

5. Competitive Landscape

Key Players

Dyson:

Leader in cordless vacuum and air purifier segments, with a focus on cutting-edge design and functionality.

Ninja:

Dominates the air fryer market and continues to expand into other SDAs like blenders and multi-cookers.

Philips:

Strong presence in personal care and kitchen appliances, with a growing focus on energy efficiency.

Breville:

Known for kettles, toasters, and sandwich makers, with a strong mid-market appeal.

Market Share Dynamics

Premium brands like Dyson and Nespresso dominate the high-end segment.

Mid-range brands (e.g., Tefal, Morphy Richards) maintain steady growth by balancing affordability and quality.

New entrants offering smart or niche eco-friendly solutions are gradually gaining market share.

6. Challenges and Opportunities

Challenges

Economic Pressures:

Inflation and rising energy costs may deter discretionary spending on premium SDAs.

Supply Chain Disruptions:

Component shortages and logistical issues continue to affect manufacturing and delivery timelines.

Opportunities

Sustainability:

Brands investing in energy-efficient and recyclable products are likely to capture eco-conscious consumers.

Customization:

Offering customizable products (e.g., personalized coffee settings or modular vacuum components) can differentiate brands.

7. Future Outlook

Smart Home Integration:

Growth in smart home adoption will drive demand for IoT-enabled SDAs.

Health and Wellness Products:

Continued interest in products supporting healthy lifestyles, such as air purifiers and low-fat cooking appliances.

Sustainability Leadership:

Companies embracing circular economy principles will gain a competitive edge.

The UK small domestic appliances market is poised for steady growth, underpinned by consumer preferences for convenience, sustainability, and technology-driven innovation. Players who align their strategies with these evolving trends will be best positioned to thrive.