#He is the Zen Room itself

[acotarxreader]

Lessons in Herbology

Azriel X Reader

Synopsis: You and Azriel are frequently at odds with one another but when Azriel accidently destroys your life's work, the illyrian will do anything to make it up to you.

Warnings: Angst, Smut, scratching? biting

A/N: Alrighty we got some frenemies smut situation going on hehe let me know what you think friends!

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“AZRIEL!” You screamed from the top of the stairs of the Town House, your voice carried through the whole house and practically into the neighbour's. You had never been so angry with him in your life, with real thoughts that you were going to kill him. You quickly stepped down the stairs, your gait heavily weighted with rage.

“Gods YN, I was in the kitchen not Summer Court” Azriel laughed, meeting you at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes landed on the shredded manuscript you held in your hand, his eyes moved from the ribbons of paper to your enraged eyes. Azriel bolted towards the lounge where your friends sat alarmed at the volume of your voice and pace of Azriels sprint. You darted after him only to have a weight thrown into your stomach, hoisting you off your feet and over a broad shoulder. 

“CASS! PUT ME DOWN” Cassian held you as you tried to wriggle from the fireman-style hold, some of the shreds of paper flying around the room.

“Calm down YN we can fix whatever it is - Gods stop hitting me!” he fought against the urge to drop you, Azriel taking sanctuary stood behind the sofa. You allow your body to go limp, forcing a deep breath from your lungs until they empty. 

“What on Prythian is going on in here? I heard the shouting from the end of the garden?” Rhysand entered the lounge to his friends, concern and humour painted his face.

“He shredded my FINAL DRAFT of the medicinal encyclopedia I was writing to finally finish my fucking healer apprenticeship” the group inhaled sharply at the severity. You had been working on that for months, it needed to be submitted in a week, eyes all then landing on Azriel.

“I didn’t mean to! I was looking for something in your room and my shadows got a bit frantic at the urgency and-” “-What the hell were you doing in my room?!” you still hung over Cassian's shoulder, simmering in anger.

“-I was looking for Truth Teller AFTER YOU USED IT TO CUT UP HERB SAMPLES” Azriels own voice raising, remembering the disrespect you had shown him the week previously.

“-I’M GOING TO KILL YOU SHADOWSINGER” You began thrashing again, Cassian's fingers burying into your hips. 

“Would you two hurry up and have sex already?” The room's eyes landed on a very bored Amren as she rose and made her exit. You breathed deeply out once again.

“Okay, okay, I am calm, I am zen, put me down”

“Ehh I don’t think-”

“I SAID I’M FUCKING ZEN-” you coughed after shouting, clearing your throat before speaking again “-Ahem, I mean, Cassian, if you would please return me to the ground, I am Zen” Cassian glanced at Azriel who looked genuinely terrified.

“Okay, no killing Az though, he owes me a drink-”

“Wow thanks, Cass, my life is only worth a glass of whiskey” Azriel rolled his eyes to his brother as Cassian lowered you to the ground. You ran your hands down the front of your trousers, breathing out until the blood rush from being upside down released itself. 

The inner circle watched as you moved towards the kitchen, Azriel remaining behind the sofa as a buffer. You returned a jug of water and the broom, no one taking their eyes off you. 

“Cass, please help me with this for a moment” You stood on the edge of the opposite sofa to Azriel, placing the mouth of the jug flush to the roof, the broom then pushed at the base supporting the jug. You gestured with your head for Cassian to take hold of the broom, allowing you to release the jug, its weight now supported by Cassian holding the broom.

“Now, don’t move or you’ll soak the place Cass-”

“-wait what?” Cassian's confusion was cut off by your sudden movement darting towards Azriel.

“COME HERE AZRIEL!” you flew over the sofa that was protecting Azriel, slamming into his chest and sending him flying to the ground, Cassian was completely caught off guard and unsure of what to do, looking between the jug and his two friends near killing one another. Mor, Rhysand and Feyre keeled over with laughter. 

—---------------------------

You lay flat on your bed, staring up at the ceiling, the magnitude of the workload ahead of you washing over you. You left a soaked Cassian to mop up the water after Rhysand finally caught his breath from laughing to separate you from Azriel. You allowed the tears to fall down your cheeks, unable to hold them in any longer. 

You pinched the bridge of your nose, sighing while trying to pull the tears back in, a knock gently tapping off your oak door. You silently hoped it was Cassian or Feyre, wishing to openly cry into their arms at your future dissolving in front of your eyes. You opened the door, Azriel blowing in the door passed you before you could close it on him. You were shocked as you closed the door gently so as not to wake the rest of the house, Azriel pacing your room.

“Azriel, please go, I just can’t with you right now” “YN, I am so so s- were you crying?” you span away from him, drifting over towards your bed, climbing into the centre of the shredded paper nest you had made. 

“Look, I’m really sorry about the manuscript, normally I wouldn’t care if I drove you this insane but I really didn’t set out to ruin your manuscript as some sort of vendetta-” “You’re rambling Az” “Sorry sorry, long story short I’m here to help you rewrite the whole thing-” your laugh at his words cutting him off before he continued, sitting at the edge of your bed to continue his plea.

“I know I don’t know anything about healing other than what not to do but I can write a lot faster than you and I know you hate me right now but I’m still your friend in a weird us kinda way right?” you didn’t have a reply to that. You and Azriel frequently fought but you were still friends beneath it all. 

You didn't expect your body to move towards his, exhaustion and stress perhaps blurring your thought process. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug, his arms wrapping around your waist returning the sentiment. You fought against your body again, losing the fight as tears began to fall from your waterline once again.

“I am a terrible friend” he whispered into your hair, feeling the scope of the burden his haste had brought you. 

“Yeah, you kinda are” You laughed through your tears, your joking tone returned the lightness to Azriels chest. Silence fell around the room, you both just taking a moment to hold one another in ease, a new sense of comfort growing between you both. 

You separated, moving deeper into the bed, handing him blank sheets and a pen as you wiped your tears with your sleeve. Azriel slid into the bed alongside you and after a quick debrief, you both began the work of diving into herbology. 

You both wrote and researched until three in the morning rolled around, and your eyes grew heavy, sleep fighting your need to keep writing. 

“Okay YN, that’s enough” Azriel barely whispered as your eyes finally lost the fight. Your weight fell softly into Azriels side as he gently pulled the pen and paper from your hand. His shadows swept up the stray sheets into a pile on the floor before they pulled a throw blanket from the base of the bed over the both of you. Azriel too tired to fight their mother-hen energy. 

—----------------------------

The sunlight crossed your eyes as you rested into Azriels chest causing you to squint into the unforgiving rays. You rolled into Azriels side tighter, further tangling your legs together with a groan of comfort. You then shot upwards in the bed. 

“Gods YN what's wrong?” he stretched the words out while straightening his arms out above his head, his eyes adjusting to the light. 

“I just woke up next to you is what's wrong! Leave before someone sees you, they'll never let it go” “YN don’t be annoying, nothing happened-” he rolled back towards you, reaching his arm across your abdomen and pulling you back into the mattress “-you were blocking the sun from my eyes a minute ago” You hit him gently into the chest laughing at his dumb smirk and yet you obeyed. 

“OH MY GODS I NEED TO FINISH WRITING” You shot back up remembering the mammoth workload ahead of you, Azriel being sent flying towards the floor with your sudden upward movement. 

“Okay okay fucking hell, I'll go get you a coffee” he half laughed, pushing himself from the ground and quietly out into the hall.

Azriel strode down the stairs, feeling weirdly warm towards the thoughts of this morning. 

“Hey Az, do you-” “Nothing! I did nothing” Cassian raised an eyebrow to the spymaster's rushed and unusually uncontrolled response. 

“Okay, I’m going to choose to pretend that wasn’t incredibly suspicious” he laughed from the lounge where he sipped his coffee.

“Wait, I thought you went to the House of Wind last night”

“Yeah I was but then YN and I fell asleep after-” “After what Az? Wait, did you just come out of her room?” he couldn’t hide the giddy smug tone coating his words. 

“No no no” Azriel tried to brush him off, moving into the kitchen with Cassian hot on his heels. 

“Azriel, did you and YN-” “-Cassian! Do not finish that sentence!” Azriel scrunched his eyes together before reaching for a coffee mug from the press. 

“Az, you don’t drink coffee” Cassian smirk now turning to a blinding grin.

“It's for YN and before you start, I was helping her with her manuscript and then we fell asleep, literally nothing else happened” Azriel boiled the water, still refusing to turn to face the Illyrian warrior.

“Did you want something to happen Az? Was it a lesson in Chemistry instead of a lesson in Herbology?” The question caught him entirely off guard, dropping the pouch of coffee granules into the sink with a swear.

“Ohhhhh Azie like YNN-ie”

“Shh she could hear you” he whipped around to his brother with panic at his teasing tone. 

“Oh shit you didn’t deny it” Cassin punched Azriel’s arm playfully but harder than intended, some element of his protective nature rearing its head. 

“Look, I don’t know, you know I don’t know, I just find her mesmerising but also a mind-altering amount of frustrating” 

“Ohh Az you got it so bad for her” he pushed Azriel coltishly again. Azriel returned to finishing the coffee, the noticeable silence from his brother raising a question in his mind. Azriel turned back to find Cassian's eyes fixed heavily onto the ground, now unable to meet his eye.

“Cass…what do you know?” 

“N-nothing” Azriel only raised an eyebrow in response, he would always be able to spot a lie, especially with Cassian. Azriel caught Cassian's shoulders and forced him to look into his eyes

“Cassian, you need to tell me right now if I even have the slightest of chances with YN'' The clear and definitive tone of Azriels voice was not lost on Cassian.

“Yeah Az, I kind of do know something” Cassian then proceeded to tell Aziel the story of you. How you liked him since you met four hundred years ago, how you believed you would never be like Mor in his eyes, how you knew you’d never be like Elain in his eyes, your fighting going into overdrive, especially at the time of Elains introduction to your world. How you tried to process and bury your feelings, choosing to stay his frenemy rather than ever risk losing him to unrequited feelings. At the end of it, Azriel felt awash with every and all emotion.

“So wait what about now, does she still feel those feelings?” “Do you want to be with her?” 

“We’re not talking about me right now Cass, we’re talking about her! Well?!” “Yeah Az, she still does - Gods she's going to kill me where I stand” Azriel barely heard what was said after the confirmation of what he had secretly wanted for so long. He took a step back from Cass, shock colouring his face before he found his feet rushing him up the stairs and away from Cassian's calls to be careful.

You sat writing away, almost halfway complete with the rewrite as Azriel nearly lashed the door off the hinges and slammed it closed almost as hard. Azriel almost took two steps at a time as he closed the distance between you, he snatched the paper from your hands, throwing it any which way. 

“Az what the fuck-” Your confused laugh was cut off as Azriel lunged forward, pushing you into the bed, and hovering above you. You looked into his hazel eyes, which seemed almost lit with fear before he leaned down and connected his lips to yours. You felt the stress he had caused you yesterday be instantly replaced with a pure lightness. He pulled back to look into your eyes again, his face the picture of apologies and petrification, not believing his actions.

“I am so sor-” You cut off his apology by pulling him back to meet you, him smiling into your lips as they met hurriedly. 

“This-is-so-crazy” he breathes between kisses.

“It-could-get-crazier” You almost giggled into the breathy kisses, Azriels shadows responding to you by wrapping around your curves. You sat up from beneath him, only separating from him to pull your shirt from over your head, Azriel repeating the action with his own linen. You ran your hands down his chiselled bare chest and he began to nip at yours. 

“Are you sure you want to do this YN?” you smiled at his kind eyes, placing a tender kiss in reassurance. As you separated his eyes had turned lustful, your hand reaching and grazing his bulge, gaining a slight groan from him. He promptly stood and removed his trousers as you kicked off your own, sliding further into the bed and beckoning him to follow you. You let out a whimper at the feeling of his teeth marbling your neck, marking you as his.

“I’m gonna give you such crap about that beautiful noise later YN” he grinned, abusing the spot that gained the noise causing more to leave you. He claimed the spot until dapples decorated your skin, the feeling of him hard against you was driving you crazy quickly. You bucked your hips up to meet him harder in sweet friction. 

“Okay I can’t wait any longer, I need you, I really fucking need you” he panted, pulling his underwear down, unleashing his full glory, your mouth almost drying at the sight. 

Azriel slowly inched into you, allowing you to adjust to the massive length of him, your nails digging into his shoulders in glorious pain. Azriel raised a hand above your head to support himself, your eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as he began to move. Your nails racked up his back at the growing speed, your growing moans spurring him on. Azriels wings splayed out to balance himself, your hand found itself trancing gently the spines sending gratifying shivers down Azriels back. 

Your head fell back as you both began to sink into synchronised movement, tightening around him the band began to tighten and tighten and tighten until finally, it snapped. You almost roared his name at the release of pure endorphins, the sound sending Azriel sailing over his own edge. Your legs still wrapped around him as he began to shake through his own orgasm before he slowly pulled out and collapsed breathlessly beside you. 

Azriel sat up, hauling the duvet up and over you both as you leaned your back flush with his chest, breathing, fighting to return to regular rhythm. 

“Four hundred years huh?” Azriel puffed the words out with a smile. You took a moment to process the words. 

“I am going to kill Cassian” You squeezed your eyes closed in almost embarrassment, Azriel leaning forward and kissing your cheek softly.

“Am I forgiven for the manuscript incident?” you hummed in answer to his question, eyes relaxing closed as you both tangled together. You looked to the ground to see Azriel’s shadows mending shreds of paper together.

“Az…did you know that your shadows could do that?” you sat up looking at the now-mended manuscript on the floor.

“Eh…yes I did, I just wanted to spend time with you, don’t kill me” he looked panicked to your disbelief. You just allowed a loud laugh to escape your chest at the absurdity of it all. 

“I think you’ll be making it up to me for the rest of your life” “I can’t wait” 

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[tired-biscuit]

fem!reader // age gap; bakugou is in his early 30s, reader is in her 20s.

bakugou gives me “get off my lawn!” vibes.

i imagine him gardening in front of his new home in a quiet little neighbourhood that he’s moved into after a particular scandal — the idea recommended as a solution to easing his temper in one of his anger management classes that his friends had somehow managed to convince him to go to — when his wrath comes face to face with you for the very first time.

he’s kneeling in front of the little garden that’s situated underneath his living room window as he digs his hands into the soil, no gloves, and with dirt pushing underneath his fingernails so deep that he’ll only be able to scrub it out when he finally heads inside to take a shower later.

so, he’s tending to the small patch of soil. with his brow furrowed and his teeth repeatedly sinking into the inside of his cheek, the temporarily-retired pro hero is visibly trying so hard to not crumple the flowers that he’s spent ages fighting to keep alive in their little pots ever since the day his stupid therapist had instructed him to buy the seeds, put them on the windowsill, take care of them, and watch them grow just like the calmness and the ‘zen’ in him is supposed to, or whatever the fuck.

and sure enough, the little fuckers actually grew. they grew so big actually, that he now has to complete yet another pesky task, consisting of finding them a new spot where they can fully flourish before they can get the chance to overtake his entire window, bed, room, even him, perhaps.

grumbling under his breath, the raging blond feels somewhat proud as he stares at his little creations. i mean, who knew he had it in him? a proper green thumb; attached to the explosive, otherwise oftentimes murderous palm of katsuki fucking bakugou!

and speaking of murderous: the look on katsuki’s face is a near perfect example of the word as he goes to place the first plant into the little hole that he’s just finished digging up. with his crimson eyes dangerously narrowed, he watches intently how the petals bend, as well as the leaves, whilst he picks up the poor flower and starts transfering it from pot to soil.

luckily, neither break or tear under his thick fingers. he’s being gentle and delicate for a change — adjectives people would never describe him with at first glance, nor after getting to know him a little bit better. no, he’s a grump through and through, and the focus in his head is so high now, in fact, that it even causes a wrinkle to etch itself deep into the middle of his forehead, accentuating the previous statement even further.

but that grump in him really manages to shine through the moment a football suddenly appears out of nowhere and knocks over one of the pots he’s brought outside only minutes prior.

tink! — a thin little crack appears on one side of the pot, now. bakugou, holding his breath without even realizing it, watches as it spreads through the glazed ceramic. the flower lays limply on the concrete step beside the garden that it’s just been knocked into. it had been his favourite one of the plants, the petals were so pretty and in a gorgeous shade of orange, but he can’t dwell on it; not when the crack is still spreading.

it’s spreading, spreading, spreading. just like the anger that bubbles within him.

tink, tink, crack! — the pot is chipped. a little piece of it crumbles off and falls onto the step.

oh, no. it’s ruined. it’s all ruined and the perfectionist in him is screaming.

and fuck, red fury swoops upon bakugou’s mind like a hawk at that. it’s such a small thing, a mere accident, but he just can’t help it; life’s been hard as of late. with his jaw clenched and all anger management lessons forgotten, he grabs the football and tightens his hold around it with both hands until he can feel the sparks dancing on his palms. until he can feel the warmth start to radiate from them.

the heat makes the synthetic leather hiss. it tingles, from his hands, all over his body. he hasn’t indulged in his quirk in such a long time. it feels good, even if the emotions that now plague and storm his outraged mind are awfully bitter.

and as for rage…

“are you fucking kidding me?!” his voice booms through the air as he pushes up to his full height in one swift, scary movement. “you stupid, brainless brats; how many fuckin’ times have i told you not to play he—”

it’s not often that katsuki stops in his tracks mid-sentence — especially in the midst of such a venomous one, at that — but the moment he whirls around and lays his eyes on you, deadly silence falls.

i mean, how can he not turn quiet? jesus on a cross, there’s a girl standing in front of him now, instead of a kid or an old lady. an actual girl, and she’s fucking gorgeous.

dressed in comfortable shorts, a cute crop top that shows just a sliver of your stomach, and colourful, almost childish flip-flops, your skin looks like it’d be warm to the touch if he were to stroke it. the sunshine that blazes above you on this hot summer’s day, causes sweat to glimmer in a layer so thin on your forehead. it makes the little hairs that frame your pretty face curl because of the way they’re turning damp with salt. makes the side of your neck have a certain sheen to it as well.

bakugou’s head cocks to the side as he assesses you further. sure, it’s hot out, however the heat doesn’t seem to be the main reason as to why you look so appealingly disheveled. after all, you’re inhaling and exhaling fast, and your shoulders are rising and falling even quicker as you seem to be trying to catch your breath.

did you run all the way over here?

“sorry… hi! lemme just… ah… catch my breath for a quick second… gosh.” he blinks at the sound of your voice as you raise your hand in apology before resting both of them onto your knees and bending over at the middle. your demeanor almost seems sheepish when you look up at him from underneath your lashes, still trying to ease your breathing. “i’m so, so, so sorry for your flowers, mister dynamight, sir…! my little brother kicked the football way too hard as we were playing a game he made up, so i just… i, uh, i ran over here to apologize on his behalf, and to… get the ball back.”

katsuki quirks a brow as he lets his gaze fall to the football he still holds in his hands, and for which you’re so clearly asking to get back, now. he knows the kid who you’re referring to as your brother — an especially irritating little menace that’s been sucking his blood through a goddamn straw, with all the pranks he and the group of brats he calls his friends have been initiating on his property as of late.

and sure enough, when he looks over your shoulder, the little shit is nowhere to be found.

the thought of the kid continuously stepping on his nerves for the last few weeks angers him in a flash, making his grip on the football tighten and start to smoulder; it makes smoke spiral in thin lines underneath his fingertips. though, when he lifts his gaze and lets his eyes land on you again — on that stupidly pretty, sweaty face of yours — bakugou surprisingly feels that white-hot rage somewhat disippating bit by bit.

hand to heart, he’s intrigued by you. you don’t seem to mind being in his presence, despite the fact that you seem to know fully well who exactly he is. and if you know that, then you’re surely familiar with the rumours and gossip that never cease to follow a big name like his. as well as the public announcement, talking about his — forced — temporary retirement from the hero business, because of the consistently violent outbursts he had failed to tame over the years.

for fuck’s sake, the dynamight is your neighbour, and you seem to be outright unbothered by it. it’s peculiar as fuck.

and it’s also the reason why the only thing he grunts out now, is, “you’re new.”

“i’m sorry?” that surprises you. your brief confusion is evident in the way you straighten, as well as how your own head lightly tilts so that you can look at him properly for the first time ever since you’ve stepped foot on the patch of land he should be calling home.

“you’re new,” he repeats simply, jerking his chin towards your direction and pointing the football at you. “i haven’t seen ya ‘round here before.”

“oh—ohh…” there it is; a wonderful smile appears on your otherwise pouty lips as you smack your forehead in realization. “yeah; that totally makes sense! i came back home just a couple of days ago to spend summer break with my family, so that’s probably why you haven’t seen me around yet.”

summer break. so you must be still in college? it’s not odd that you’re still a student, with a tight body like that, clothes so revealing and scarce, and a face that just screams youth, youth, youth. adding it all together, bakugou catches himself feeling not all that thrown off by the fact that you’re in school, pursuing a degree.

at least you have a goal in life. unlike him, and his stupid gardening.

nevertheless, he gives you a curt nod and tries to tame the flutter of a muscle in his cheek as he hands you back the ball he’d considered melting with his quirk just moments before. he’s still so angry because of the pot.

it held his favourite flower, goddammit.

“you’re new here, too,” you chime as you take the ball from his hands. “i know you weren’t here the last time i came to visit… i’d remember a man like you if he were living across the street from me.”

he isn’t entirely sure if you actually don’t see it, or you simply turn a blind eye towards the dirt and the branding that he’s now burned into the ball with his fingers, but both choices seem just dandy to bakugou as he watches you grin up at him, now. so cutesy.

“moved in a couple of months ago,” he explains briefly, clearing his throat and wiping his hands against his black gym shorts. he has to wash them later anyway; what’s a little bit of sweat and dirt? “been sort of… startin’ over, hah.”

you could call it that, all right.

you give him a knowing look, but don’t say anything about the article that had covered the first page of nearly every newsletter in the country not a while back.

dynamight retires at the young age of 33 after yet another savage misdemeanor! read more below!

no, instead you say, “well, that’s nice. i certainly hope that you’ve adjusted and that our little neighbourhood has been treating you well, mister dynamight, sir.”

that last word… did you say it like that; so softly, almost purring, the first time, too?

“i suppose i did,” he answers, feeling a heat that he can’t blame on the late afternoon sun start to crawl up his neck. it’s not intense enough to make him blush, per se, but it is enough to tint the tips of his ears a light pink. damn, it sure has been a while if a mere tone has got him acting like this.

your smile grows bigger as you notice the faint change of shade. it makes your face beam. “i know it’s quaint compared to the city, but i’m sure you’ll learn to like it.”

he watches you turn so that you can head back to your house, inside of which your menace of a little brother is surely hiding, and he can’t help but eye you up from head to toe again, well, heel. the back of you is just as stunning as your front is, he’s dragging his eyes all over; that is until you whip your head to the side so that you can look at him over your shoulder.

“oh, and mister dynamight?”

“what?” he calls out. you’ve already reached the sidewalk.

“i really am sorry about your flower pot. i’ll buy you a new one, if you’ll let me,” you say, waving. “just don’t be a stranger, yeah?”

katsuki doesn’t answer. he wants to say a million things all at once, to agree, to deny, whatever. to tell you to call him katsuki, or at least bakugou; that he hasn’t been called dynamight in a while and hasn’t felt like him either for a long while, too. to ask you what your name is, because he’s just realized he’s never got it. to try shooting his shot, or just talk, talk, talk because he’s lonely, he’s been feeling oh, so very lonely ever since moving here.

but all he does instead, is raise his hand and wave.

[astridthevalkyrie]

honeymoon period | jumin han x reader

After Jumin marries you, slowly, his threads start to untangle.

a/n: my first and probably last long jumin fic. this has been in the works for months, literally what i've been stalling on superior for (pre keigo 😭) i hope you all enjoy! i love this man <3

warnings: afab reader with she/her pronouns, some depressing thoughts, smut, oral (m and f receiving), penetrative sex, references to kinks that they both have, references/nightmares about abuse including sexual harassment, insecurity, jumin's comedy lol

word count: 13.2k (only a little less than the last superior chapter that is cray cray)

There is a knock on your door.

It makes you jump. Not that you’re nervous—it’s a hotel and several of your friends and family are here to see you get married, so naturally many of them know where your room is. The room itself is, of course, lavish, a paradise compared to most of your previous lodgings. Honestly, you miss the penthouse.

No, that’s not quite right. You just miss being curled up on the couch, tucked into Jumin’s chest with Elizabeth on your lap, wine on his lips and love in his eyes. You miss him, even though you saw him last this morning. You know he’s in the hotel lobby being forced to get wasted by Luciel, because the hacker in question has sent you dozens of videos of your fiancé. In one of them, when Zen reminds him he’s getting married tomorrow, a goofy smile breaks out on his face as he ducks his head.

Maybe the wedding wasn’t necessary. Maybe you two could have just signed the necessary papers without having to go a full day without seeing each other. How are you supposed to sleep tonight? You could call him, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Sighing, you make your way to the door. If it’s one of your friends trying to convince you to let loose or a family member coming to check up on you, you’re not in the mood.

When you open the door, your fiancé is standing there.

“Jumin!”

All questions on the tip of your tongue disappear when he brings you into his arms, burying his face in your neck with a content sigh. There’s no urgency in it, just a quiet, sudden happiness, like he’s fully aware that in just a few hours he won’t have to worry about you being anywhere but in his arms again.

“Thank you.” His voice breaks the silence, muffled on your skin. “For letting me love you, and for loving me.”

Your eyes well up with tears. What an emotional bride you’re turning out to be. And what a wonderful groom you have, to somehow know exactly what you need even when he’s not completely sober.

Slowly, you wrap your arms around him as well, breathing in the scent of his shampoo as you press a kiss to the top of his head.

“You’re welcome, Jumin.”

///

There has never been a lovelier sight than your smile, and Jumin hopes you know that.

If you don’t, he’ll just have to convince you.

“Hi, sweetheart.” You’re sporting a grin for him—just for him—wearing nothing but one of his shirts with Elizabeth the Third scurrying out from between your feet when she sees him. There’s a pink bottle on the counter. Frosting, he thinks. “I hope you don’t mind, but having a chef cook for us for a month straight has ruined my palate for anything else. I had to cook for myself again before I got spoiled. I can call him to make you dinner if you don’t want to eat what I made, though!”

“Of course not.” The urge to embrace you is unbearable. A month after the wedding, and his first day back at work after the honeymoon, he still can’t seem to keep his hands off. “What did you make? I’ll eat anything.”

He leans down to take Elizabeth the Third in his arms, scratching the back of her head softly. “Alright! I made stew and baked some cupcakes, I hope you like it. But you should probably change first. Slip into something more comfortable.”

“Ironic, considering you and I are wearing the same thing.”

“Well…” You lean over the counter, making a show of ogling him. “If you really want to match, you can leave the shirt on and take off your pants.”

It’s impossible to even try and stop the smile growing on his face. “Would you like that?”

“Come over here and find out, hubby.”

The nickname makes him flush pleasantly, but instead of taking you up on that extremely tempting offer, he simply walks up and presses a kiss to your forehead. You pout, and with the tact of knowing Elizabeth is still in his arms, you tug on his tie and kiss him properly. Jumin’s brain turns off, if only for a few seconds. As long as you kiss him and he kisses you back, the only thing he knows is you, you, you and nothing else.

Now, instead of changing, he’s holding his cat and kissing you in the kitchen. With just a minor breakaway and murmured apology, he’s no longer holding his cat. His hands slide around your back and pull you in, and your hands meet at the base of his neck. You. Only you. 

“Ju-min,” you admonish breathlessly, the second he pulls away to trail hurried kisses down your neck. “Dinner first.”

“Mm. I’m not hungry.” Or he is, but not for dinner.

Your hands come to rest on his chest, but you don’t pull away, and Jumin is beyond grateful. He doesn’t want to eat, doesn’t want to sleep or shower or do anything else when he could be showing you just how much he’d missed you at work today. 

Slightly pressed into the counter, you place your hands back and jump onto it, and he eagerly steps in between your legs to kiss you again. Your legs wrap around his waist and your hands tangle in his hair—a habit of yours, he’s noticed, to mess his hair up. He doesn’t mind. Not if it makes you happy. 

Finally, you pull away and before he can dive back in for yet another kiss, you dip your finger into the bowl next to you and offer it up to him. Without even considering it, he takes your finger in between his lips and licks the gravy off.

It’s only after he registers the taste does Jumin realize how intimate the action is. And of course, he knows that you’re married, that you and he have seen each other absolutely bare and open to one another, that he is literally making out with you in his—in your—in your shared kitchen. He knows that despite everyone thinking that the marriage was rushed and impulsive, this will be a long road, and he plans to stick by you for each and every single step. He knows that tasting something off your finger is hardly the most domestic thing you two will do.

But it doesn’t stop the flurry of butterflies he feels in his stomach. It doesn’t stop him from thinking my wife is letting me taste what she made, because she’s perfect. That’s not to mention how wonderful the taste actually is.

“Good?” you question, with gleaming eyes.

“Incredible.” He takes your hand and dips your finger in the bowl, stealing another taste right after. “More than incredible. The best stew I’ve ever had.”

“I know you’re flattering me.” Leaning forward, you take his face in your hands, brushing your thumbs over his cheeks. Softly, gently, like he’s something fragile that will break if you use any force. “But I’m not complaining. Keep going.”

“Food is always better when a beautiful woman is the one serving it.”

You beam. The butterflies in his stomach do a victory soar.

Jumin Han is in love.

///

Zen has a dream about you. That’s when the problem starts.

He tells it to the group in great detail—it’s not anything romantic or sexual, but Jumin doesn’t see a reason for you to be in his subconscious at all, even if you were just the supposed director for Zen’s dream movie. You’re not any sort of movie director, so the dream is ridiculous at any rate.

It doesn’t stop him from pouncing on you the second you two get back home. You don’t even get to take a seat before he’s pressing you against the door, ensuring it’s locked (the last thing he needs is for one of the security guards to see this and have dreams about you too) and kissing you possessively. 

“Jumin—?” There’s a question on the tip of your tongue, but it cuts off into a delicious moan when he starts sucking and biting all the same spots he knows he left hickeys on during your honeymoon. 

“Spend the day with me,” he whispers. “Just me, no one else.”

An amused giggle bubbles from your throat. “I was already gonna do that, honeybunny.”

Good. That’s plenty of time for him to mark up your neck (and other places) so that everyone knows you’re his, and other people can stop dreaming of you. Already his mind is filled with wicked thoughts, of how he can make you cry and beg and scream today. From the time you two spent on your honeymoon, he knows you can get quite loud if he puts his mind to it.

The only limit is his imagination.

“Jumin.” Your head tilts back against the door, eyes closed as his tongue soothes a bite mark he just made. “Ah, J-Jumin, are you jealous?”

“No.” He is.

“I know what possessiveness looks like.” You take his hand in yours and press a kiss to each fingertip. “You know that me being in Zen’s dream isn’t something in our or even his control?”

“Of course I know that.” He huffs, impatiently fiddling with the buttons on your shirt. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

He kisses you again, and you hum in understanding, sliding your arms around his neck and pulling him in closer. It’s amazing, no matter how many times he thinks everyone would dismiss him for being ridiculous over something like this, you are always there to prove that at least one person wouldn’t. And you taste. So. Damn. Good. 

So why not taste you all over? Jumin hungrily slides his tongue over your teeth, seeking entrance. When your mouth parts for him, he tastes you intimately, swallowing your soft sighs. 

“For the record,” you mumble, out of breath, “I only ever dream about you.”

“As do I, darling.” He pulls you closer still, thinking about how good you’ll taste when he has his mouth on your pussy. “As do I.”

///

This need to prove himself to you extends beyond the sexual—you laugh so much when you’re around Luciel and Yoosung. Actual laughter that is so different from the polite smiles and chuckles that are in response to his own words.

He hates it. He hates it so very much. He wants to make you laugh, full blown and unabashed. As much as he likes making you giggle, he wants to make you laugh so hard that there are tears pouring down your cheeks. And his experience has quite readily set him up for the expectation that if he wants something, he will have it.

And now, what he really, really wants is to see his wife lose her in laughter because of him.

That means it’s time to bring out the big guns.

Right now you’re under the covers, reading glasses on as you flip through a book. The book in question is something from his personal library (when he showed it to you, mentioning a scene from Beauty and the Beast, you had promptly told him that he was not a beast, but that you finally understood how the princess felt in that scene). 

To an extent, Jumin feels bad when he distracts you from work or requests your attention. But he tries to remind himself that if you didn’t want it, you were more than capable of telling him as much. And your reaction to him crawling on top of you with his arms on either side would certainly not be to put the book aside and pull him down to lay on your chest with a kiss to the crown of his head.

For once in his life, Jumin is certain that he is loved.

“I have a joke,” he tells you matter-of-factly, and your brow raises.

“What is it?”

Taking a deep breath, he raises himself up so he can take a good look at your face.

“Hit Seoul, hit Daejon, hit Daegu, hit Busan, hit it!”

There’s a long pause, and your surprised expression slowly morphs into a giggle, then at his grin, a chortle. Jumin laughs first, and then you do too, throwing your head back. It’s single-handedly the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard in his life.

“W-what—“ You’re wheezing now, shoulders shaking. “What does that even mean?”

“I cast a spell on you. Those who laugh are no ordinary souls, for your information.”

“You are so perfect.” The praise catches him off guard, but your body is still shaking from laughter, and in your eyes he sees something like adoration. “How are you so perfect?”

That is definitely not a word he associates with his humor. His status, money, company, business acumen? Yes, perfect, as they were always meant to be. But the little flips in his stomach tell him that none of those things are what you’re referring to. The look in your eyes—he never sees you look at material objects or money that way. He has only ever seen it aimed towards him, and Jumin realizes with a start that there is no need to compete with Zen or Yoosung or Luciel—because really, there is no competition to begin with.

///

Being a workaholic comes with benefits. Everything always gets done. And he enjoys doing business, so there is no negative side effect…other than the lost time that could be spent with his wife. Typing away on the computer he has set up in his study, Jumin sighs, cracking his neck every half hour or so. He’s been at it for hours, but there’s still more left to do.

A soft knock makes him look up. You peek your head in, blinking sleepily and all wrapped up in a blanket. “Sorry to disturb,” in a whisper that barely reaches his ears, “can I sleep here, honey?”

Jumin beckons you in, looking around dubiously. “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s any surface here you’d be comfortable on. I don’t want you to have an ache by tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” Your eyes keep blinking closed, as though you’re barely staying awake. All your words are hushed, but you still manage to clamber over to his side of the desk, blanket in tow, and fall onto his lap, burying your face in his chest. 

With a start, he catches you, holding you close. “What is it, sweetheart? You can’t sleep?”

You shake your head, getting even more comfortable. “The bed’s too cold.”

Something indescribable squeezes his chest. Above everything, the pleasure that you would rather seek warmth from him rather than get another blanket is all-consuming. Without another word, he stands with you in his arms and walks to the bed. The second he steps into the bedroom, your grip on him becomes a little tighter.

He huffs back a small laugh. “I’m not going anywhere. I’d just rather you sleep here.”

Pulling out a second blanket from the closet for good measure, he lays down on the bed with you, throwing both blankets over your bodies before wrapping you up in his arms. You sigh happily, legs mixing with his and face pressing in his chest once more.

“Sorry for distracting you.” Now your voice is barely audible. “Mm…you’re just…so much warmer…”

“Can I ask you a favor?” You hum softly in response. “Please never apologize for demanding my attention. I am yours, that includes my body, my soul, and my time. Should you ever need me to sleep and I am in the office, please call me and I’ll come home immediately. I’ll take the jet home if I have to. That doesn’t just stop at my time either. If there is anything, anything, you would like, then all you have to do is ask me. I’ll buy you anything. The world is at your disposal.”

There’s a pause and Jumin thinks you’ve fallen asleep, but then you break the silence, quietly asking, “Is it okay if I ask you for something, then?”

“Anything.”

Cute but glossy eyes peer up at him, and you blink rapidly. “A kiss?”

Jumin places his hands on your cheeks, catching the stray tear that falls. Then he leans in, and everything is right with the world.

///

Ice Prince.

Jumin has no idea where the title actually came from. He doesn’t see what’s wrong with someone having control of their emotions. Is he expected to cry or rage at every little thing? That’s a genuine question. Maybe he doesn’t show much emotion at all, and he should. He’s open to advice.

It shouldn’t even be on his mind. He’s watching a soap opera, and the most beautiful woman in the world is in his arms. He enjoys watching your reactions more than watching the show itself, whether you’re holding back an aww or wincing. Every so often, you look up and meet his eyes, giving him a sweet smile each and every time before placing your head back on his chest. 

Still, he can’t get the article he read earlier out of his head. Has the Ice Prince really settled down? What kind of life does the new Mrs. Han lead? One can only imagine that she does not get many warm moments with Jumin Han. A speedy divorce would not be surprising.

Just the thought makes him tug you in closer, the idea of you leaving never failing to terrify him. He’s gotten better, he doesn’t freak out over you exiting the penthouse or hanging out with friends or working. He’d told himself harshly that he would not drive you away with his overt possessiveness.

But maybe he’s going to drive you away if he can’t learn to show you his emotions and instead continues to be…well, an ice prince, as much as he hates the term.

“Jumin.” You’re pressing a kiss to his throat, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Are you tired, honey? We can go to bed.”

When he looks down, you’re gazing concernedly up at him. He doesn’t feel like a villain when you look upon him like this. And holding you close is not the only privilege he has here. Taking your face in his hands, he kisses you, and you melt in almost immediately. Jumin knows that you’re starting to get sleepy because you don’t make any move to straddle him further.

The man who knows you best—that is what the articles should be about. Doting husband. Family man. Your partner. How could anyone think he was cold or heartless to you?

“Juju,” you mumble softly, not bothering to break the kiss, “we should get to bed.”

Yes, you’re right. However…

“May I ask you a question?” His curiosity and slight anxiousness requires him to make sure. If he’s ever done anything to make you think he’s some kind of robot, he needs to get rid of such behavior immediately.

Your lips quirk like he’s said something funny. “You may.”

“Have I ever seemed…cold to you?” Almost as if to remind you before you answer, he holds your hand, squeezing gently, while the other hand remains on your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin softly. “Since we’ve been together, I mean. Have I ever acted anything like an…” Jumin cringes just saying it out loud. “Ice prince?”

The question seems to take you aback, and you blink a few times. Your eyes—warm, beautiful eyes—first stare at him with a certain confusion, then quickly become infused with a sudden anger.

“Did someone say that about you? Who was it?”

“No one,” he responds, then hastily amends, “there have always been articles calling me that. I just happened to see one today, so it was on my mind.”

Now, you really do straddle him, threading your fingers through his hair. The anger has dulled into a stubborn crossness. With a deep scowl, you kiss his forehead and say, “That is ridiculous. You have been nothing but warm to me, Jumin Han.”

The same warmth you’re talking about spreads across his cheeks, painting them pink, but you’re not done.

“Since when do you care about those articles anyway? They’ve always been inane. Remember when everyone was convinced that you would marry Sarah?” Here you huff, and he hates to admit that he loves seeing you jealous, even if over someone he never even considered getting to know. “And you had to set them straight for them to print anything accurate. Maybe I should give a press statement of my own. Ice Prince my ass.”

“Such language,” Jumin says lowly, already hiding his face in your neck. You’re still peeved, muttering things under your breath as you stroke his hair, angry kisses pressed to his skin in the middle of your rant.

Eventually, you tire yourself out, falling asleep right there on his chest, a common occurrence. He doesn’t mind it one bit, it’s actually really easy to carry you to bed. For some reason, Jumin feels much, much lighter.

///

His wife is a party planner. An event planner, technically, since you’ll take some requests for meetings as well, but it’s mostly parties. He knows that due to your marriage, there’s been an increase in the amount of clients wanting you to plan their events. Even before, you’d said your schedule had always been sporadic, revolving around whatever the current most pressing event was.

Frankly, he shouldn’t be surprised, with how masterfully you pulled off the RFA party. 

He’s more than proud of you, of course. He’s now attended quite a few of the events you put together, and it always leaves him impressed. You’ve confided in him about how you’d like to either switch to a company that exclusively does weddings or start your own, and despite your protests, he’s fully prepared to finance such an endeavor when the time comes.

The only issue about your job, and his job as well, is that your schedules can be sporadic. There are days where you can work without even leaving the penthouse, and then there are days where you are running around and don’t return until 2 AM. Jumin can hardly get upset when he’s taunted the clock with his record times at coming home as well.

Can’t get upset at you, that is. Being upset at the situation is perfectly reasonable. He wants to spend time with his wife, dammit. You’re his favorite person in the world, all the things he wants to do involve being with you.

So when he’s the one who’s arriving at 2 in the morning, he deflates to see that you’re fast asleep, a couple documents and your phone in the bed next to you. How many times has he told you he would set up a separate room for you to work in? Each time, you shake your head and say all you need is your phone and laptop, and you can work anywhere. That doesn’t take into account your health, though. The place you relax should not be associated with work, or it leads to a less relaxing sleep cycle. He once read a study about that.

It might be hypocritical, but Jumin misses you. He wants to talk to you so badly it pains him, and not just longing phone calls that always leave him wanting more.

Loosening his tie, he waits for a second before falling hard onto the bed.

Your eyes flutter open immediately, and in your daze you take in your still-dressed husband. With a sleepy smile, you push away all the papers next to you to snuggle into his arms. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.” One arm secured around your back, he pulls you as close to him as you can. He sees you breathe in his lingering cologne, and it makes him downright giddy that his scent seems to bring you comfort. “Shouldn’t a loving wife be waiting up for her husband?”

You yawn, throwing one leg around him. “Not when the husband returns at an ungodly time and the wife has an early morning site inspection. Did you have dinner?”

“I did. Did you?”

“Mmh. Yeah. I refrigerated some in a container if you wanna take it to work tomorrow.” 

This is one of his favorite domestic things you do—and he doesn’t even think you realize how much he appreciates it. If it’s between having something from a five star restaurant or having your cooking, the latter will win each and every time. Sometimes he wants to brag  to the whole world, although the most he’ll do is slip how tasty his lunch was today to Assistant Kang (who will almost always respond with a dry, “Glad to hear that, Mr. Han.”).

“I will.” Jumin kisses your lips, smiling when he feels you respond with little effort. “I’ve missed you.”

Your arms snake around his waist as you tuck your head under his chin. Jumin sighs when he feels you kiss his collarbone. “I’ve missed you too.” All he needs is your breath on his skin, or your hands on his face, or your voice filling his ears. It relaxes him instantly. “What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

“I’ll be in the office all day.” Already he groans, burying his face in your hair in the hopes that it will preemptively soothe the headache sure to form tomorrow. At first he didn’t understand why you insisted on using the same hair conditioner you always did instead of a much more expensive one he could buy for you, but the smell of your hair is so exquisite that now he wholly prefers it (although there is a special kind of tingling in his chest reserved for the moments you smell like him). 

“Same. After my inspection, I’m going to be meeting four new clients, and I’m going to guess they all want priority.” You roll your eyes, carding your fingers through his hair. “Tomorrow is also Mr. Wang’s wedding, so I’ll be back late.”

At his wordless whine, you giggle, kissing his cheek. Then after a few seconds of thoughtful silence, a soft hum sounds from your throat.

“I have an idea.”

///

The click of Jaehee’s heels alerts him to her entrance, and Jumin straightens in his chair, accepting the papers that she hands him. 

“Thank you. Have you eaten, Assistant Kang?”

Jaehee blinks at him once, then twice, like he’s grown an extra head. Then she slowly nods, the surprised expression melting back into her perfectly professional one once more. “Yes, sir. And you?”

“Not yet. I brought a container my wife packed for me.”

“Honey, I don’t think she really cares to know that.”

“I see. She is a pretty good cook if I recall correctly.”

“Everyone cares,” Jumin insists. 

“Excuse me?”

“You’re so sweet, it’s annoying. I want to kiss you all the time.”

“Mr. Han, are you alright? You look a bit out of it—should I call for a doctor?”

“Do it.” He smiles at the papers in his hands. “I won’t stop you.”

“Call…call the doctor?”

“Will you kiss me back, in front of all your employees?”

“Yes. Of course. Whatever you desire.”

“Right away, sir,” Jaehee responds in a sort of strangled voice, and it’s not until he hears the click of her heels again that he remembers she was there. In almost a flash, she leaves his office. 

“What did she say?”

Jumin touches the tiny earpiece that’s been on all day, adjusting it only slightly. “I honestly have no idea.”

///

Jumin hates leaving. But he does, well, what is the phrase? Hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave? Something along those lines, is what you’ve said to him. He’s not sure it applies here, since he is actually leaving to go abroad for a few days, and already he’s looking forward to his reunion with you, but he didn’t expect that both of you would be so needy for each other the night before the flight.

It starts with a few kisses, a pout on your lips that he thinks he can kiss away if he just tries hard enough. Telling you in hushed whispers that he’ll miss you an unfathomable amount. Your understanding on a pragmatic level, and your clinginess the second you both laid down. Both are appreciated more than he can say.

“What if I want to watch a movie with you?”

Kiss. “Just wait a week for me, my love.”

“What if the bed is too cold and I need you to warm me up?”

Kiss. “One week, I promise. No more than a week.”

“What if aliens invade the penthouse and I have no one to protect me?”

Kiss. “Tell them that your husband is going to kill them…in a week.”

For a few minutes, it goes on like this, with you proposing other scenarios and Jumin doing his best to both reassure you and make you laugh. He lays kiss upon kiss to your lips, and perhaps subconsciously, they become more ravenous, demanding. Seeking more. Seeking your conviction on just how much you will miss him.  

“Jumin,” you breathe into his mouth. Jumin, Jumin. He loves how you say his name.

You’re seeking something as well, the warmth that you are so certain will disappear along with him. On one hand, he hates that his princess has to sleep without him at all, especially when she clearly doesn’t want to. And on the other hand, knowing that you’ll be here, missing him so desperately, makes his heart flutter. You’ll miss him. You’ll miss him.

Within moments, you’re on top of him, seated on his lap and unbuttoning the buttons on his shirt. He’s responding in kind, leaving love bites on your neck as he slides your night robe off your shoulders. 

“What if I get lonely?” you ask, more demure than you actually are. “What if I need you, and my fingers aren’t enough?”

His hands press into your hips, hard enough to bruise. You mewl at the slight pain, and he manages to hiss, “I never want your fingers to be enough. If you wait for me, princess, I’ll make you cum more times than you can handle when I get back.” Even if just the idea of you sending him a video or even calling him as you touch yourself was incredibly appealing. Maybe next time. This week, he would have you think of nothing but his own fingers, his tongue, his cock.

And what better way to do that than to remind you how they feel?

“I’ll be gone seven days exactly.” Spoken more to your breasts than you, but he does gaze up at you reverently as he kneads them in his hands. “Maybe tonight I can make you cum once for every day I won’t be here. Would you like that?”

He jerks his thigh up against your core before you can answer, so you nod frantically, mouth falling open. “Uh huh!”

And who is Jumin to ever deny you?

///

The trip right before Valentine’s is the worst. It’s all Jumin can do to finish work before running like a madman through several different stores, picking up this and that. He insists on a different bag for each purchase, despite the clerks gently pointing out that he can put a lipstick tube in the same bag as a pair of heels and nothing will happen, but he doesn’t want to. He would like to see you open every item with a new spark of delight in your eyes.

Usually, he would return late at night, always opting to finish the day’s work and catch a flight right after instead of waiting for morning, because this way he would arrive home, gather you up in his arms as you slept soundly, and then bask in your surprise and delight when you woke the next morning. 

And this time would have been no different if one of the departments had not messed up, forcing him to wake up on Valentine’s Day still out of the country. After five days’ worth of work forced into two hours, a shopping spree and a quick call with you, he nearly takes the wheel from the pilot himself before Jaehee begs him to just sit and try to enjoy the ride home. The rest of the trip, they are engaged in a glaring contest every time she looks up from the video she is watching on her laptop. 

As soon as the door opens, he hears a surprised cry of his name, and then you’re barreling into him—all the bags in Jumin’s hands fall to the floor in favor of catching you and hefting you up in the air for a spin. 

“I thought—“ Kiss. “That you—“ Kiss. “Weren’t coming back today!“ Deeper kiss.

“I couldn’t miss my first Valentine’s with you, my love.” The deepest kiss of all.

The two of you only stop because his bodyguards are coming into the room after him, with more bags. Your eyes widen as you take in all of them, and your sharp mind has already pieced together what’s going on. “Is this all for me?”

“Of course.” Jumin knows that the way you’re latching onto him with such a tight grip is a more priceless gift than anything in these bags. “Why don’t you open everything? I wish to see your reaction.”

And so you do. The makeup, the shoes, the clothes, the jewelry, the books, the decor, all of fine quality and all things well thought out with your interests in mind. With every single item, no matter how big or small, you gasp, or squeal, or simply smile ever so widely. And without fail, you kiss him right on the lips each time.

Jumin is dizzy only halfway into the opening process—he must start buying you gifts far more often if this is the reward he gets.

However, you see beyond just his outward appearance, and you place the next bag he hands you aside without so much as a glimpse at it before clambering onto his lap. Hands on his cheeks, your thumbs smooth over where he’s sure eyebags are forming. “My poor Juju,” you whisper, “you look really tired, honey.”

Honey, honey, honey. How joyful he feels when you call him honey. “As always, you see right through me. I can’t hide from you, can I?”

“I never want you to hide from me.” A sweet kiss pressed to his cheek makes his stomach jump, like he’s a teenage boy with a crush. “Let’s lay down, shall we? We can finish opening everything afterwards.”

Jumin concedes, rising hand in hand with you until you’re both on the bed, curled up in each other. “What a terrible Valentine’s this turned out to be. I’m sorry, my love.”

Your arms wrap around his neck, kissing him slow, soft and smooth. “What are you talking about? You’re here where I can hold you, we’re both off work, and you’ve gifted me more than anyone else ever has or will in my life.”

“Good,” he says, satisfied that he’s set a standard that no one else can ever match for you. “But is that…enough?”

“Enough?” Your tone is incredulous. “Jumin, just you being here is more than enough. I love you so, so much, and I—“ You cut yourself off, slightly backing up as though you’re trying not to overwhelm him (a ridiculous notion, he would love nothing more than for you to overwhelm his every sense). “I cannot believe how lucky I am to have married you.”

This time he kisses you, the idea of sleep slipping further and further away because really, why should he close his eyes when he can only see you when they’re open? Why should he rob himself of the privilege to gaze upon your lovely face and listen to your quiet, soothing voice? Why should he do anything else, eat or drink or work or play, when he could simply kiss you for the rest of his life?

“I love you,” he breathes, pulling you closer because you simply can never be close enough. “Happy Valentine’s, my precious wife.”

///

Of course, the first time your schedule allows you to accompany him on a business trip he’s ecstatic. Finally a week without the headache of returning to an empty hotel room, and instead what will feel like more of a vacation, especially once he completes the necessary work and the two of you can spend the rest of the days lazing by the beach.

Because of the honeymoon, Jumin had become well acquainted with your fear of flying, and had arranged your seats in his private jet to be close together. As the jet takes off, he holds your hand in his as you squeeze, eyes shut tightly for the takeoff. Reassuringly, he kisses your hand, rubbing the back of it while his other hand strokes Elizabeth the Third’s head through the carrier she’s in. 

“Poor Elizabeth,” you manage to whimper, still looking quite pale even after the takeoff is done, “I hope she doesn’t get airsick.”

“She doesn’t,” Jumin reassures. Elizabeth is used to such flights, unlike you. He’d much rather you focus on your own health right now.

The stewardess for the flight comes through with the cart of food and drinks. “Anything for you, Mr. Han?”

“A glass of wine.”

“Of course, sir. And you, Mrs. Han?”

“Oh, um…” You smile sheepishly up at her. “Would you happen to have apple juice?”

The woman blinks once, then, as though she’s fighting back a laugh, says, “Apple juice, ma’am?”

“Is that a problem?” Jumin cuts in sharply before you can answer, glaring daggers.

“No, no! O-of course I can give you apple juice, ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend—“

“No offense taken.” Even nauseous and teased, you smile kindly, eyes lighting up when you have your drink. If he remembers correctly, he used to drink apple juice when he would get airsick as a child as well.

When the stewardess leaves, you lean over and press an apple-tasting kiss to his lips, and he catches a few drops of the juice in his mouth. It tastes yummy, or maybe it’s just the taste of you that he likes. 

Probably the latter. Either way, he’s eager to get this vacation started.

///

“I feel so good that you’re here. Thank you so much for coming. I…never want to let you go.”

…

“I’ve trapped you here, haven’t I?” he asks one night, after he thinks you’ve fallen asleep.

You’re wide awake, though, and he feels your lips on his throat as you whisper, “I’ve never once felt trapped with you, Jumin.”

///

You’re a lightweight, and it’s the most adorable thing Jumin has ever seen. Including cat photos. Including Elizabeth the Third. And you don’t realize just how cute you are, which only makes you cuter.

“Juju,” you whine, when he starts to guide you to bed.

“You have to sleep, my dear.” Almost smugly, he places a kiss to the tip of your nose. “Sleep and allow me to take care of you in the morning.”

The protest you seemed to be ready to fire back morphs into a happy giggle as you throw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his midsection. “I do like when you take care of me.”

“Likewise.”

For some reason, that sends you into more giggles as you press against him. “You talk so smart like. I love when you use big words.”

Biting back a smile, Jumin raises a brow. “Is likewise a big word?”

“Anything is a big word when you say it.” You kiss him softly, sliding your hands in his hair. You love messing up his hair, almost as much as he loves letting you do it. “You’re so smart. So clever. Your brain is like…” To exaggerate your point, you lean your head away, with his hands on your back to keep steady. “Soooo huge.”

“Not the only thing,” he hums slyly.

“Jumin!” Laughing, you hit his shoulder, only for him to tug you in close, making you squeak. The only downside to how well you two know each other now is that he doesn’t get to see your beautifully embarrassed face, but he still gets some wins when he catches you off guard.

“I’m only kidding, my love.” Watching your lips part for him as he leans in, Jumin kisses you this time, gently sucking your lower lip between his teeth. Let no one say he wasn’t out and open with his oral fixation when it came to you. “I’m honored to know you find me intelligent.”

You beam, nearly blinding him with how brilliant your smile is. “Intelligent, and funny. So, so funny. I love your jokes.” Now you turn your cheek, placing sloppy kisses along his jaw. “And handsome. I have the most handsome husband in the world.”

Jumin, only now realizing the difference between being happy and being giddy and knowing he’s both, can only close his eyes, tilting his head back. “Ironic for you to say, considering no one with your beauty has ever existed before nor will exist again.”

The way your cheeks flush make him realize that he, too, must be quite tipsy. Surely his stomach does not flip so violently just to see how your eyes glow at his praise.

“I love you.” You swallow, and he watches the movement of your throat closely. “Do you know how much?”

He exhales, not having realized he inhaled before. “M-more than is reasonable, I presume.”

“A lot more than is reasonable,” you whisper before kissing him again. This one is different, he can tell. Something more desperate. More wanting. More likely to make him lose his mind.

How does he know? It’s because you’re not just kissing him, you’re also borderline riding the knee he’s slotting between your legs. With a whine, you tug on his collar, as though you want him closer. Need him closer. 

Losing his mind is just the beginning.

“Sit on the couch.” The tone with which you beg makes his already hardening cock twitch. “Please, Jumin.”

He obeys—how could he not obey?—and just the sight of you dropping to your knees to unbuckle his pants has him throwing his head back with a lustful groan. How did he get here? How did he get so lucky? 

You kiss the head of his cock, and Jumin is gone.

When you start bobbing your head, eagerly sucking with your eyes closed in concentration, it takes every inch of willpower he has ever had to not cum immediately, so that this can last. With every slow caress of your tongue, he can feel himself getting lost in his own base senses, every coherent thought fading away and leaving only an animalistic need.

“Princess,” he moans, fingers in your hair. His words escape him in a slurred, barely coherent manner. “I, ahh, won’t last—shit—”

Coming inside your warm, wet mouth is not in the top five moments he remembers when he thinks of his favorite times with you, because he likes to think he’s classier than that, but regardless, he’s never going to forget this.

///

Growing up, the one trait that he was always told to avoid and to find disdainful in others was laziness. There is nothing worse than a person who is not efficient. People who waste time just doing simple tasks are not worth his time, he was told.

But surely, surely, that does not apply to you. (Or maybe it’s a silly lesson in the first place, another one to add the list he has started to garner since he married you.)

It does not apply when you have to get up early for work and you sadly try cuddling with him in the five minutes you have left to remain in bed. Most days Jumin leaves before you, pressing a kiss to the lips of the princess in bed before heading out. Your parted lips in sleep do such a number on him that he has to make sure not to linger too long.

Days where your job demands you wake with him are no less enjoyable, and perhaps even more so as he gets to witness your clinginess. Jumin tugs you to the bathroom, where you close your eyes and rest your head on his chest as both of you brush your teeth. When you finally make it to the kitchen, he seats you on the chair by the counter and amuses himself by watching your sleepy eyes follow him while he makes a quick breakfast.

“Maybe I could eat ‘n your lap?” you ask cutely, poking at your scrambled eggs with a fork. 

“My dear,” Jumin answers, intertwining your fingers to kiss the back of your hand, “I would love nothing more, but you will fall asleep again.”

Not even an argument as you nod with a lazy smile, head falling forward on the counter. “I want to fall asleep again. How do you do this every day?”

“It’s what I’ve always done.” He’s finished with his eggs, so he stands, sweeping your hair aside to lean down and press a kiss to your nape. You squeal, squirming away as he catches you and tugs you to him, watching you immediately give up this play fight and snuggle into his chest to catch a bout of standing shut-eye. “Now come, Driver Kim is waiting to drop us both off.”

You shake your head, clutching onto him stubbornly.

“You can sleep on my lap in the car.”

And he feels inordinately pleased with how fast you move after that.

///

The days that he knows you will be at the penthouse when he returns, there’s always an extra breath in his steps, as if the air itself knows he must return home immediately.

Tonight, for example. He has a whole night planned. The two of you would cook the next thing to try on that list of recipes you printed and excitedly taped up in the kitchen, then after dinner he plans to play some soft music and waltz you around the rather spacious living room, and then both of you could go for a swim in the pool, and the night would end with you dozing off in his arms.

A perfect night. The kind he dreams about, the kind that he never can quite believe are real.

When he opens the door, he doesn’t hear any call of his name nor is he tackled in a hug, which only makes his shoulders deflate slightly. Elizabeth the Third softly mrrows at him from where she’s sitting on the couch. Placing a kiss atop her head, he pokes in to check a few rooms, searching for his wife. 

You’re nowhere to be found. The only place left to check is the bedroom. His sweetheart usually doesn’t fall asleep so early, though.

He opens the door, then freezes in his tracks.

With a couple of candles lit up around the room, you sit on the bed, nothing on except the set of lingerie he ordered a few weeks ago at your request, black as the night sky (“because it reminds me of you”). A few pillows support you as you lean back, eyes trained on him. There’s a glass of wine in your hands, and another on the table next to you clearly reserved for him. 

You take a small sip, and some drops purposefully miss your lips and slowly drip down your neck, down over the swell of your breasts.

“Care to join me, husband?”

Jumin swallows.

None of his plans end up coming to fruition that night, and he doesn’t mind one bit.

///

(You’ve pointed out how the most random things turn him on—when you wear his clothes, but specifically his striped shirts, when you let him buy something ludicrously expensive for you, when you do simple things to take care of him, when you wait for him at home after work, cat ears—cat ears, cat ears, cat ears!—and the rare moments where he gets to see you pissed off.

But he’d only responded how the things you were into were equally as random—seeing him disheveled after a hard day’s work or a visit to the gym, the way he answered business calls simply by saying Jumin Han speaking, what do you need, and every time you’re naked on his lap while he’s fully clothed. 

Shall I remind you how desperate you get, my dear? he growls into your ear. Your cheeks flush, and Jumin reaches for the ribbon in the drawer, even more impatient than you are.)

///

There are other times where Jumin will arrive home and if you aren’t leaping into his arms, kissing him full on the lips as he spins you around or pins you to the wall depending on the mood, you’re sitting on the couch, typing away on your laptop either for your job or for the RFA.

In those moments, he finds himself easily sliding his arms around you and burying his face in your neck, absolutely reveling in the subconscious way you rub his nape and kiss his hair.

Sometimes you both will exchange stories of your day, expanding on something a phone call simply couldn’t cover or something that perhaps you had wanted to say in person to fully soak in the reaction (you seem to particularly enjoy how he insults the difficult clients you tell him about). Other times, there is a serene silence, only broken by Elizabeth the Third’s purring and the clack of your keyboard keys. 

You smell so good, all the time. He wonders if he should be capitalizing on the perfume you use so that no one else can buy it. That way this scent would solely be yours, just like he is. Something about that idea blooms a warmth in his chest.

The best part of the night comes when you finish, closing the laptop and setting it aside before wrapping your arms around him. “I love you,” you say, only for his ears, just like how your lips are only for his skin, just like how your scent is only for his nose, just like how Jumin is only here to be yours entirely. 

///

In the past, when he’s fallen ill, he’s either ignored it or simply just taken the necessary amount of time to recover. The last time he was pampered like this was as a child by his nannies. And even their doting paled in comparison to yours (but then, didn’t everything, when it came to you).

Because this. This, is heavenly.

Every single ounce of your affection is solely for him. Your soup that you feed him, your fingers stroking his hair, your voice sweetly singing him to sleep. Your lips on his forehead, whispering, “How are you feeling, Juju?” 

Granted, because he’s sick, he can’t fully appreciate it without the feeling that his body is turning against him. But it’s worth it, it’s easily worth it.

So, the day that he wakes up with a low temperature, feeling absolutely fine, he still manages to cough pitifully and throw out the word to Jaehee that he simply has to take another day off.

You have a knowing smile on your face, but when he slips his arms around your waist, with his face buried in your neck, you still hold him just as warmly, and Jumin is so, so, so in love with you. Nothing could possibly stand to be better than this. One hand absentmindedly strokes his hair while you type on your phone with the other hand, communicating with someone from work. 

Your phone starts to ring; he only shifts minimally to get closer as you answer it. “Hey, what’s up?”

He can hear the person who called—it’s one of your friends. “Hey! Check your messages, I won that ukulele I told you I would win last time.”

The sound of your laugh is so melodious, he’d do anything to get drunk on it. “Win another one for me, I’ll hang it up in my closet.”

“Yeah, right.” Your friend snorts. “I wish you were able to come. It’s been so long since we’ve been here.”

“I know, but Jumin really doesn’t feel well. I couldn’t just leave him at home alone.” As though your friend can see, you plant a kiss on his forehead. “We’ll go another time, definitely.”

“I’ll hold you to it. Alright, I have to go. Give the husband all my love, I hope he feels better.”

“Will do. Bye, have fun!”

With that, you hang up, resuming the scrolling through your phone and the stroking of his hair. Jumin is still, for good reason. 

You had meant to go out with your friends today. And due to his not-actually-sick state, you had canceled on them.

Hadn’t he told you to put him second to your own self? But he can’t pin this on you, not when he was the one faking. A terrible feeling begins to rise in his chest, causing him to move away from you and stare at you with a guilty expression.

“Is your neck finally tired of…” You trail off when you look at him, furrowing your brows. “What happened?”

“You were meant to go out today.”

A small frown forms on your face. “Um…we made plans, yeah. But you were sick—“

“I wasn’t,” he confesses, ironically sick to his stomach. “I just wanted to take another day off and spend some time with you.”

“I know that.”

“I—you know?”

The frown on your face is replaced by a tiny smile, as you tug gently to bring him back into your arms. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

“Yes I am.” He pouts, still upset but more calm now that you don’t seem disappointed. 

“Honey, the one time I kissed your finger after you got a papercut, you somehow got a papercut on every finger the following week.”

Jumin blushes, but you’re not wrong—he just craves your attention. You simply make everything better.

“More importantly,” and now you pull him into your chest, settling back into the same comfortable position with a kiss on his forehead, “I’m faking just as much as you, because I love it when you do things like this. Why would I complain? I get to spend time with you.”

This is what it feels like, Jumin is certain, to be loved. To be cared for and adored so deeply that it leaves an ache in one’s chest. “The next time,” he murmurs, as your hand finds purchase in his hair once more, “The next time you would like to go out to an amusement park with your friends, please let me know. I can buy it out for the day.” A thoughtful pause. “Or forever.”

Another soft kiss, he’s tempted to keep going, to make more and more outrageous promises just to earn each and every press of your lips to his skin. “My friends will appreciate that. I think the park is already owned by C&R, actually.” You chuckle. “Some fast passes though? I wouldn’t say no.”

Fast passes? He’ll ask you what in the world those are just as soon as he finishes kissing you (something a fake sick person can, thankfully, afford to do).

///

A soft knock on the door. 

“Mother?” He makes sure to keep his voice to a polite volume. “I’ve played with all my toys. May I please come out now?”

Silence. 

Jumin clears his throat, trying his best not to look behind him, just three steps down. It’s dark down there, and he knows it is not logical to be afraid of the dark, but even the logic does little to quell the growing fear inside him. 

“Mother? It…it has been a few hours now.” Fourteen hours, he counted on the tiny clock that ticks a little too loudly in the basement. “May I please be let out? I’m starting to get hungry.”

That’s a lie, but he doesn’t think she’ll know. The truth is he began to get hungry hours ago, and is now close to starving. As if on cue, his stomach growls. 

Jumin knocks again, the dread he feels growing with every second. “Please, Mother, I’ll be good. I’ll play with my toys. I’ll be normal. Please let me out.”

None of it makes any sense to him. In all the books he reads, none of the mothers lock their sons up in the basement. But then maybe none of the sons are as strange and abnormal as he is. They didn’t need to be locked up like he did. 

Still, even if he deserves this, the loneliness is starting to scare him.

“Please.” Childish tears start to prick at his eyes. “Mother? I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I promise.”

The only response he gets is the silence, beckoning him to come back to the darkness where he belongs. With a trembling lip, he turns to face it once more.

The doorknob jiggles.

He whips his head back, not daring to believe it. Is this punishment finally over? 

The first thing he’s going to do after he eats is call Jihyun, ask him if he’d like to go to the park nearby. Anything to go outside, in the light, with other people. 

Except, to his horror, when the door finally opens, it’s not his mother standing at the top, but his stepmother.

“No,” Jumin whispers, stumbling back. He misses one step and trips, hands on the cement floor as he stares, terrified, at the woman. “Please, no. Where’s Mother?”

The woman at the top laughs, a sound that seems to make others happy but only serves to suffocate him further. He’ll choose to stay in the darkness for a hundred more hours before going upstairs to see her. “What’s this? Another woman in your life, Jumin? What a lady killer!”

He shakes his head desperately, as though to tell her that there’s no one, there’s no need for her to get possessive.

It doesn’t work. 

“I’m your mother, Jumi.” He hates that nickname. “Shouldn’t you spend more time with me? You know I love our time together. I know you love it too.”

No, no, no, no, no. He’s on his feet in an instant, scrambling back away from her as fast as possible. His back hits the shelf, no longer a child but an adult, and yet still equally as pathetic.

“Your father doesn’t even pay attention to me anymore. You’re all I have, Jumi.” Her eyes turn cold. “But it looks like you’ve found someone else, haven’t you? You’ve replaced me so easily.”

Now her gaze is focused somewhere else. Jumin follows it, peers through the darkness, only to see…

You.

Relief floods his chest all at once. You are his solace, to hold close and worship. You are the only person to ever understand him, to love him without hurting him. You have accepted him no matter how much he’s shown you that he doesn’t deserve any of your care. As long as you are by his side, he can face anything.

“Jumin.” Even his name sounds so much nicer coming from you. Everything and everyone else seems to melt away.

He takes one step towards you.

You speak again, but it doesn’t sound the same this time.

“Jumin.” Now that he can see your face properly, you look…angry. “Don’t come any closer.”

Immediately, he stops, and that sharp fear grips his throat, squeezing.

“You’re fucked up, Jumin.”

The words spit out of you like a spear, hitting him right in the center. 

It can’t be you talking. You don’t say things like that. You always tell him you love him, that you understand him, that you adore him.

But maybe you’ve just…had enough.

Tears begin to spill from his eyes. You stand before him, his heart in your hands, and you look at him with such disgust that he hopes the darkness in here opens up and swallows him.

“I’m leaving,” you say firmly, “don’t follow me.”

“Please,” he gasps, shakily reaching a hand out. “Please don’t leave me here, my love.”

But you don’t listen. You step up the stairs, grip the door, and with one last look of vitriol, you slam it shut, damning him to the darkness forever.

Jumin wakes with a gasp that’s really a sob, head jerking up and slamming against yours.

“Ah!” You grip your forehead, wincing in pain from your position above him. “Ow ow ow, that hurt!”

Like he’s in auto mode, Jumin sits up, touching your cheek with a terrified expression. “I’m so sorry, my love, let me call the doctor. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” You wince again, rubbing your forehead. “It’ll probably bruise later, but I can deal with it.”

He hurt you. He hurt you.

But you don’t have any of the hate that your dream counterpart did in her eyes. Instead, yours are filled with concern, and you cup his cheeks with such gentleness that he closes his eyes, immediately melting in your hands.

“Were you having a nightmare?” You kiss his forehead. “You were tossing and turning and mumbling in your sleep.”

As much as he wants to bask in your worry for centuries, it doesn’t stop the guilt that threatens to spill. “I apologize for waking you, my love. And for hitting you. I—I was having a nightmare, yes, but I’m alright now.”

“Jumin.”

“If you’d like, I can make some tea for you to help you go back to sleep—“

“Jumin.” Your lips are on his forehead again. “You’re crying, sweetheart.”

So he is. It’s strange he didn’t realize, but there are indeed tears wetting his cheeks. He opens his eyes to meet your gaze, looking at him so sincerely and with such care that this time he actually feels the tears pour down.

“Oh,” you breathe, brows meeting in concern. Your thumbs wipe his tears away diligently, and your lips begin to kiss every spot you wipe. Jumin trembles under your touch, hating himself for being so pathetic in front of you and simultaneously considering crying forever so that you stay here forever too. “What is it, honey? Please tell me how I can help.”

He wants to. But all he can manage to do is grip the back of your shirt in his hands, bury his face in your shoulder, and sob.

Not even for a second do you let him go. He doesn’t know how long he stays in your arms, seconds, minutes or hours. He cries, and cries, and cries, until his eyes feel swollen. and all the while your hand strokes his hair, your lips kiss his cheek, and your voice comes out in soothing whispers.

It’s okay. 

I’m right here, I’m here for you. 

You have me forever. 

We’re going to get through this.

I promise I’ll stay with you as long as you want.

Even though he hasn’t told you what his nightmare was about, you still somehow know exactly what to say. 

Even when he finally tires himself out, Jumin can’t stand the thought of not being held by you. He’s never felt this safe, this protected, in his entire life. He continues to grip your shirt tightly, breathing in and out, chest heaving. Any second now, he thinks. Any second now, you’re going to pull away and see how awful he is when he clings to you again, like a child.

You do no such thing. Instead, you lean back against the headboard, gently guiding his head to rest on your chest. It’s not the most comfortable position, but he shifts so that he’s sitting curled into you and pulls you forward gently to place a pillow behind your back. This way, he can hear your heartbeat.

And it’s that steady rhythm that makes his eyes start to droop.

But if he falls asleep again, he risks having another nightmare.

“Sleep,” you murmur, kissing his temple. Jumin’s eyes close on instinct. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The promise knocks him right out.

///

When he wakes, you’ve kept your promise, and you’re in the same unfortunate position, head lulled to the side as you snooze. 

An indescribable feeling settles upon him. It’s not just one feeling, in fact, but multiple. Guilt, because he forced you to sleep like this throughout the night. Gratitude, because he’s pretty sure he’s in the arms of an angel sent from above. And most importantly, he feels white hot love, because he has clearly married the only person in this world worth a damn.

And as much as he wants to stay like this, he knows that will surely not bode well for the chiropractor appointment he plans to schedule for you. So Jumin slips out of your embrace gently, taking good care to lay your head down on the pillow. With you picturesque in front of him, he places a kiss on your forehead, whispering, “Thank you.”

“Ju,” you mumble in your sleep. Your hand seems to reach for something, stopping when he intertwines his fingers with yours.

An angel, indeed.

Jumin gets up fully, taking the time to brush his teeth and freshen up before going into the kitchen to whip something up for breakfast. He wasn’t expected at the office until after lunch, so he had time to really make something nice. Chocolate chip pancakes, instead of his usual strawberry.

As he makes the batter, he thinks. Last night was…an anomaly. There should be no reason for him to dream of people that no longer matter anymore. His present is the most important, and his present is, thanks to you, leagues and leagues ahead of his past anyway. He wants to forget it all, forget his mother and stepmother and even Sarah Choi, who, while she hadn’t made an appearance last night, had been in his nightmares more than once, in a bleak alternate reality where he actually married her.

But he knows who he really married. It’s the person whose arms are sneaking around his waist right now. You.

“Morning.” Your voice is exceedingly pleasant, especially when it’s cooed in his ear. “You’re going in late, right?”

“Yes.” He places a kiss on the back of your hand, pressing his lips to each knuckle. “And you, my princess?”

“All from home today, my prince.”

Inwardly, he feels a quick twinge of irritation. “I wish I could spend the whole day with you. I should call out.”

“I’m never going to dissuade you of that.” You kiss him right on the nape of his neck; Jumin shudders. “But it’s up to you.”

“I’ll end up burning these pancakes if you keep distracting me.”

“Maybe that’s what I want.” Your laugh is so pretty, he thinks, and he didn’t think he could describe laughter as pretty before you. “Um, before I get too off topic…don’t you think we should talk, Jumin?”

He knew you weren’t going to simply forget the fact that he had cried himself back to sleep last night. Luckily, before you’d woken, he’d already prepared for such a scenario.

“I apologize for disrupting your sleep. I had a disturbing dream, but it will not happen again.”

For a second, he thinks it’s enough to stop you from asking any further questions, up until he feels your arms slide out from under him. The next thing he knows, you’re turning off the stove before he can start on the next batch of pancakes. 

Then, you’re gently turning him so he’s facing you, looking at you right in the eye. Jumin has seen that look before. It’s way too determined for even his stubborn nature, and it always comes out when you’re about to do whatever you want (a rare delight, given your selfless nature, but one he enjoys every time).

Your hands loop around his neck, and you kiss his cheek. Jumin closes his eyes as you speak softly. “Won’t you tell me what’s bothering you, love?”

It’s amazing that you think anything could bother him when you’re this close, calling him that. 

“Just a nightmare,” he says softly, but you clearly don’t buy it.

“I have nightmares too, it’s very rare that one of them affects me that much after I wake up.”

“A bad nightmare.”

The other version of you flashes in his head again. You’re fucked up, Jumin. But she’s not you, and even though he thinks for a terrible second that you’re going to shove him away, you pull him in for a hug instead, warm and welcoming and cozy. The scent of your nameless-brand shampoo fills his senses—it makes him desperately want to go back to bed.

“Please,” you breathe on his neck. “That’s what you were saying last night. Please, Mother. Please, no. Please, don’t leave me.” 

His hands grip the back of your shirt.

“Please talk to me, Jumin,” you plead. “Please.”

Somehow, he has to keep from crying this time. How pathetic can one man be? But he also has to acquiesce to your request, because you’re you, and he cannot deny you no matter how hard he tries. If you want him bare, you shall have him bare. If you want him destroyed, he will destroy himself in an instant. 

“Alright,” he concedes, trembling.

Not wanting the kitchen, where you and him cook together and laugh together (and a couple other things too), to become associated with these tainted memories, he guides you to the couch, hands holding yours. You promptly get into your favorite position, on his lap with your knees on each side. With a sigh, he rests his head on your shoulder, the fabric of your shirt seemingly smoothing out the creases in his forehead.

Your lips on his skin and your whispered words of encouragement give him a courage he wasn’t aware he possessed. Jumin talks.

“You have not met my mother yet. There is…good reason for that. A week before our wedding, she sent me the profile of a woman she wanted me to marry. I refused, of course. But that is the first time she has reached out to me in years.” He clears his throat. “She and I did not have a pleasant relationship. I think some part of me was very disappointing to her, because instead of giving her the true challenge of parenthood I molded to exactly what she wanted me to be. She recognized that I was…abnormal.”

In the span of a few seconds, your eyes have hardened more than he’s ever seen them harden before. This isn’t determined. This isn’t even pissed. This is raw anger.

“Abnormal?” There’s a bite to your words. “Is that her way of saying she was blessed with an intelligent, kind child?”

“You are kind,” Jumin whispers, cupping your chin to press a short kiss to your lips. “As a child, I was perhaps more robotic than I am now. I took to the world of business rather quickly.”

“You were brilliant, Jumin. Were and still are.”

If he kisses you after your every reassurance, the two of you will never leave this couch (not that he necessarily minds that idea). The more disturbing risk is that he will break down in front of you, if he starts elaborating, not to mention when he begins to talk about his stepmother as well.

But that’s a risk that Jumin can now accept. He understands now, that he hasn’t known love before you, and that there will be a great many times he will feel afraid, but he also knows that there is no one in the world he trusts more. 

Taking a deep breath, he continues.

///

Jumin is addicted—addicted—to making you cum.

The face you make when you orgasm—eyes shut, mouth open in a silent scream, head thrown back—is the most beautiful thing he’s seen in his life. He considers spending eternity with his head between your legs, recklessly licking you to completion again and again.

The sounds you make—God. They have him rolling his hips against the sheets, so close to finishing just from your taste. It’s an obsession now, one that’s been growing ever since you two were married. A stressful day or a bad meeting or even projects being set back for whatever reason, Jumin can get all that frustration out as long as you allow him to spread your legs and devour you. As long as you squeal on his tongue, make a mess of his face, cum on his lips once or twice or more. He only stops when you beg him to. 

He could taste you forever.

But he reconsiders this commitment after he experiences the feeling of you coming on his cock once more.

A choked cry escapes him when he feels your walls clench around him. For a second, he can’t move, too lost in the way your eyes roll back and your nails dig into his skin. It’s the most pleasurable pain he’s ever had the fortune of experiencing.

“Ju-min,” you whine, legs clasping around his waist as he continues to thrust lazily, seeking his own release, “more, please.”

It really is always nice to know that he’s not the only one affected, enthralled and addicted to this madness.

///

Returning home to silence is still better than returning home to the sound of soft crying.

Jumin is on high alert in an instant, not bothering to take his suit or even his shoes off. You’re curled up on the couch, wiping your cheeks aggressively when you catch sight of him.

“J-Jumin, I didn’t hear you come in. Um…” You swallow, dried tears still obvious on your face. “I haven’t made anything, let me call the chef.”

He crosses the rug over to you almost blindly. There’s nothing else in his head, only you—your tears—you’re crying—you’re crying and he wasn’t here. His hands cup your face, wiping another fresh tear that rolls down your cheek as you look up at him, shaking.

“Who did it?” There’s a white-hot anger pulsing inside of him. He never sees you cry. “Tell me who I need to kill.”

A soft gasp escapes you, and you shake your head frantically as he sinks to his knees, taking your hands in his own and pressing reverent kisses to your knuckles. “N-no one did anything—I promise I’m fine, h-honey, please get up—“

Your laptop is set to the side, but the only thing on it is an email draft, giving him no clues at all. The last thing he desires is for you to have to recount that which distresses you, but he wants, needs, to ensure that you never get upset again.

“My love,” he swears, pressing his palms to yours, “please, tell me what happened. Was it something I did? One of the employees in the building?”

You whisper frantically, “No,” but even as you do another fresh wave of tears drip down your face.

Jumin wants to scream, wants to hurt someone, whoever is responsible, but he’s helpless, and so he lets intuition guide him, rising up until he’s next to you on the couch, and he’s pulling you in.

With a firm grip on his suit, you bury your face in his chest, shoulders shaking. In this moment, he recalls the predicament from that night, when the roles were reversed. How you’d simply let him cry, and held him all the while. Is he capable of…can he possibly bring you the same peace you bring him? Could you allow him to comfort you in the same way?

No matter what, he’s going to try. Anything for you.

Placing a kiss to your hair, he tightens his arms around you and murmurs sweet nothings, making sure you hear all of them. Everything from you’re the strongest person i know to i’m here for you, my love, i’ll be with you till the end of time.

“It’s just so much,” you finally hiccup, sniffing, “I’m busy all the time, they dump every project on me, I never get a chance to just take some time for myself and breathe! I’m always on some call, writing some email, visiting some area, I just want it all to stop. And you’re busier than me, and you do it so effortlessly, I can’t imagine how pathetic I must look compared to you.”

“You’re worth a hundred of me.” His voice is fierce, and he meets your eyes with his entire honest conviction. “Nothing about you is pathetic. You…you’re hardworking, you’re talented, you’re brave, and you’re the kindest person I know. I do not deserve you. I’ve never deserved you.”

“Please don’t say that,” you whimper, face still wet. He squeezes you tighter.

“I apologize. This isn’t about me. You need a break, sweetheart. Please, just request a week or at least a day off.”

“Jumin, I can’t—”

“I’ll request off too. Whenever you get a break, I’ll schedule one at the same time, and then I’ll take you wherever you desire, or we can simply spend it in the penthouse, and lay in bed all day. Or I could buy your company,” he half threatens, half jokes.

You let out a weak laugh, sinking into him, but he feels the tension in your shoulders release just slightly. Placing a kiss at the top of your head, he quickly texts for the chef to come by within the next hour, then tosses his phone aside to hold you better, which is when he catches sight of your own phone. On the screen is an image of the chatroom—a screenshot, he realizes, since his own messages are in it and he hasn’t been on the messenger today.

Your gaze follows his, and a slight smile finally forms on your face. “Messages from when we first met. Ah, the day I came to your apartment, I think.”

Oh, no. To put it lightly, those days were not a good time for him (although he’d never say such a thing, because he finds it cruel to say that some of the hardest days of his life included the one where he met the most wonderful woman in the world). Heaven knows what foolish things he’d said, he’s tried to block out most of the times that didn’t include the sight of you in front of him.

“They calm me down,” you admit softly, “the screenshots I have. I’m glad I took them, I have almost a hundred pictures that remind me of all the butterflies I would get when I talked to you. Knowing you’re my husband is the biggest calm of the storm.” Your cheeks are still stained with tears, but in your eyes is a newfound admiration as you and him look at each other, as though you have all the time in the world.

Jumin’s heart seizes.

“I’ll request a week off.” You reach up, a thumb on his cheek. “Thank you, Jumin.”

Surely, he thinks, being needed by you is the best experience of all.

///

“Thank you.” Your voice breaks the silence, muffled on his skin. “For letting me love you, and for loving me.”

Your husband kisses you, impatient as always, and you adore it.

“You’re welcome,” he breathes.

[kangjaehee]

RFA + sex headcanons

because i am in a Mood. minors do not interact

content under the cut

YOOSUNG.

SUBBY.

like... very. He likes it when u take control.

He likes it when you’re mean to him, when you demand, when you give him no choice but to do as you say if he wants to be a good boy for you.

Humiliation is his shit kinda... he says he doesn’t like it when you highlight how sensitive he is but you, who sees how he trembles at every word you say, you know different.

And on that regard... he’s sensitive. Like, the slightest touch and the right words can crumble him into a whimpering mess within seconds. You’re actually quite shocked. But you absolutely love it.

And he’s loud, too. Doesn’t at all hold back his cries, which sound oh so beautiful to you.

Very into pet play. Likes when you take care of him, likes the element of humiliation that comes with being treated like an animal.

Make him do the gross embarrassing things. Make him eat from a bowl and bark. It gets him off.

Surprisingly, he’s not that much into physical pain or impact, just the control element of it all. He likes it as part of something else, but not in and of itself.

Actually he gets off more in the concept of punishment than the act itself... it urges him on. You think it’s cute. It makes him harder to hear your little dismissive laugh after he whines.

He finishes quite fast but my god does he have stamina. He can go for rounds and rounds that leave you asking for a break.

it turns out all those lolol all nighters he pulled did actually mean something....

Also: the idea of you taking care of him while he’s in the middle of a game??? and not letting him cum until he wins????? GOD it makes him melt.

Very kissy during aftercare. Also very talkative.

You actually have no idea how a person can have this much energy after cumming so many times but hey this is Kim Yoosung we’re talking about.

He doesn’t sext but he does call you to tell you how needy he is. Over the line, you hear him stroke himself to your voice. It makes you lose your mind.

ZEN.

this man has 1 goal and 1 goal only: making you feel good

service top pleasure dom whatever you wanna call it. He just wants you to feel loved and sexy and give you the orgasm of your life.

He likes feeling you. Groping your thigh, manhandling you, kissing you red and raw.

(of course, all while he praises you and tells you how unbelievably gorgeous you are...)

And you absolutely love it. It makes you feel wanted, powerful.

Active sex drive. Y’all do it every other day or so. Not always for long. But it’s an integral part of your relationship. 

He’d do it anywhere. In the kitchen, living room, bathroom, car... He doesn’t need to be comfortable, he just needs his hands and your body to touch.

But don’t misinterpret him, he loves planned affairs too. Especially when you go out of your way to set the mood with lighting and scents and stuff.

LOVES it when you dress up for him. Put on some cute lingerie and sit there, watching as he turns beet red and his breath deepens.

And send him pics. be the biggest tease you can be. Anything relating to you drives him crazy. In his eyes, you’re the sexiest being on the planet, no matter what anyone has told you.

Although keep in mind that he Will warn u about the power u have over him and The Beast potentially coming out at an unwanted moment...

You always tell him to be patient and wait, as if that’s not exactly what you’re after. The Beast always comes out when he gets home though, with him absolutely devouring you in kisses.

Stamina for days... like come on let’s be real he’s a musical theatre performer. He’s Never done.

Not very kinky but has a thing for breeding? creampieing? He wants to claim you, to have something of his inside you.

...And you don’t hate the idea but Babe don’t you think we’re... too young for kids?

Oh my God sorry I didn’t mean it like that... But, hey, don’t you think I’d make a good dad ;)?

You roll your eyes and laugh.

Also he’s not so opposed to the idea of bondage... to have unrestricted access to your body like that (or you to his...)

Surpisingly likes toys. If they make the experience better for you... (and he wants to try them too, though he’s not gonna admit it).

He’s not very keen on being on the receiving end. Doesn’t exactly like not being the one in charge, but he relents every once in a while.

He particularly loves blowjobs. He thinks you look so stupidly sexy while doing them, and the way he flusters and bites his lip... it’s so cute

(One day you’re gonna get him on his knees for you, one day.)

JAEHEE.

Although the tension between you two and the desire you harbored for each other was undeniable, it took you quite a while to get intimate.

When you crossed that threshold, though... Well, let’s just say there was no return.

Lots of kissing. Before, during, and after. She kisses you intensely, with purpose, like she wants to eat you whole. It’s a bit overwhelming. Makes you wonder for how long she’s been saving this.

Quick, does not hesitate. Teases very little, goes straight to it, and has you shaking and remembering nothing but her name in a matter of miniutes.

Stupidly skilled with her hands. They’re good for so many more things other than kneading dough...

Absolutely loves to hear your moans and other sounds. It urges her on. Please be as loud as you possibly can.

The sight of her large honey eyes looking up at you while she’s eating you out has to be one of your favorites.

But while she absolutely adores being the one to take care of you, she actually pefers it the other way around...

And you do too. Because, my god this woman is the cutest being in the universe when she’s flustered. And it’s extremely easy to fluster her.

All it takes is a smile, a kiss, a remark on how wet she is for you... and boom. You’ve reduced her to a mess of whimpers. She’s sensitive and easy to crack.

And it’s funny because all the while you’ll see her trying desperately to hold onto the propriety that she’s so known for. But soon enough it’s gone and she’s cursing and pleading.

You love to tease her because of this. She groans like she hates it but actually doesn’t, actually wants you to do it, draw this out as long as you can. It makes her climax much more satisfying.

She loves when u play with her boobs. Bite them, mark them, grab them, pinch them, maybe slap them if the occasion requires it...

Two words: Praise. Kink.

...Yeah she very obviously has it.

Tell her how well she’s doing no matter what it is that she’s doing. How good she is at taking your fingers down her pretty wet cunt. How well she’s sucking on your clit. It makes her feel like she’s in heaven.

And of course, tell her how she’s a good girl, how she’s your good girl. And watch her fucking dissolve.

(...yeah she’s quite a sub).

She’s into some other stuff... classics like bondage and the occasional spank, more adventurous stuff like wax play.

She likes sexual experimentation. She’d try most things once, just to have the experience, as long as they’re safe, sane, and consensual.

She has quite a bit of stamina and can last long, although she doesn’t exactly like cumming many times in a row or overstimulation in general. Instead, she prefers being edged until she can barely hold it in.

She also cries. It shocked you the first time, but... she cries when cumming.

And after you’re done, she’s always extremely tender and soft, wanting to cling to you for long. You always reassure her, tell her how good she did. Often you like to shower after, or eat something together. Cuddles after sex are mandatory but always remember to get up and do your necessities.

You guys don’t do it often, and don’t like to do it quick. The Jaehee motto is “If you’re going to do anything, do it how it’s supposed to be done” and that applies to sex. But that just makes the encounters you do have all the more special.

JUMIN

for someone whose only experience is having explored his best firend’s body once out of “curiosity” he’s surprisingly very good.

(JUMINV REAL i will die on this hill. i am cheritz actually.)

instinct-driven. doesn’t hesitate. takes you in whole.

composure and propriety thrown out the window, he will make you his. he’s gonna make sure that you forget your own name and only remember his, that you forget everything else but the feeling of his hands on your body and how he pounds inside you.

It’s not hard to get him going. Like at all. Just kiss him deep the way he likes it, grind agaist him, and bam.

He likes to tease verbally, you like grinding against my thigh, love? but not a lot. Eventually his desire to just have you wins him over.

It’s possessive, yes, but it’s his way of showing you just how much he wants you and no one else. You think of it as almost a privilege to be loved so deeply by someone.

Loves marking you, biting into you and then seeing the pretty purple bruises that from, that mark you as irrevocably his. Kisses you a lot during and after. A lot of You’re mines coming out of his mouth.

Also, he loves hearing your moans. And you love hearing his.

It’s actually very funny to tease him, because it’s very easy and he tries to make it subtle. Just push out your shoulder, watch as his face gets red and he swallows, struggling to keep his poise.

And then God save you, because he will not hold back...

You guys do it often. It’s a way for him to destress, so it’s almost a daily affair. A little quickie before bed and after waking up never hurt anyone...

Doesn’t like doing it in public, likes it when it’s just the two of you, though he for sure likes teasing you in public... You’ve given him a handjob in the limo in more than one occasion.

He’s averagely kinky. Likes bondage. Likes calling you his kitten. Likes slapping your ass when you’re both really into it. Not much beyond that. 

The dominant position is comfortable to him, he can let his desires run wild and free, and you like how he exerts his power, how he’s so confident. It almost lights you up.

Though he also has a strange, almost hidden desire for the other side of the coin... he likes being the one with the power taken away, too.

It always oddly attracted him, but he never paid attention to those desires, as they made no sense. But then you suddenly decided to be more dominant one time, and oh boy something awoke in him.

It’s not very easy for him to submit and let go. But it’s extremely liberating once he does so. For a man who has to be thinking and making decisions and bearing more responsibility on his shoulders than any person could imagine, being in a position where he doesn’t have to make any of the decisions is almost cathartic.

He likes being your kitten. Likes the sight of you above him, holding him by a leash and smiling, just as much as he loves the sight of you under him.

Likes impact quite a bit, actually. More on him than on you. It’s a little humiliating to imagine the heir of one of Korea’s biggest conglomerates being spanked raw. But that’s inexplicably a turn-on.

Likes latex a lot. The sight of you on it is pure art.

Also into shibari. Likes the intricacy of it, the protocol, the fact that it’s an art form.

Lot’s of stamina, doesn’t cum easily. Will always make sure you’re the one to finish first or with him. Prefers to cuddle after, sometimes for hours, tightly and in silence or with just a few words exchanged. It’s the act of bodies becoming one, of feeling being not said but expressed in the way his skin contacts with yours.

SEVEN.

Okay so wbk this man is a menace. This applies to sex too.

Most of the time, it’s sloppy and imporvised. Undeliberate, hands everywhere, kisses all over the face. He doesn’t think, and you don’t either. It’s almost funny.

A tease, just because he absolutely loves to see you riled up and begging for it. But, do it a bit aggressively. He’s a bit of a brat. He pushes, and wants you to push back and push harder.

He doesn’t need things at all to be fancy, he can have fun with very little. He’s creative.

But you know what his absolute shit is?? Roleplay.

He does it almost naturally. Has fun with it. Likes the performance element, the not being himself, the play. It’s a way for him to take advantage of all the costumes he’s kept form his agency days.

You’ve found him on more than one occasion just weasring a maid dress and pretending to clean... The indirect was caught and enacted upon.

He’s kind of a jack of all trades. He can top, he can bottom, he can take the strap and rail you until walking is an arduous task.

freak in the streets and the sheets. Truly willing to try anything once.

Pain enjoyer. Likes spanking you, and likes you doing it to him too.

Also likes overstimulation. Edge him, then let him cum, and do not let him stop... just let him go off like that.

Lots and lots of stamina. And also just fucking dies after. Does everything and then five minutes after he’s absolutely fucking spent. To you, it’s shocking. To go from being so loud to being so still...

Likes to kiss during foreplay, but not much during or after. Prefers to tease with words or just let the actions speak for themselves.

One thing about Choi Saeyoung: he’s a romantic partner and extremely entertaining lover. You can trust that stuff will never get repetitive on him. Always switching it up... in all ways possible.

[two-white-butterflies]

you're losing me (three) | am. targaryen and j. velaryon

Description: The family reunion happens and you announce your engagement with Aemond. You realize that the Targaryens are an eccentric bunch. Rating: General Audiences Author's Note: Sorry for the Taylor erasure, I was just to lazy to come up with songs hehehe part two

You were wearing a white-satin dress that reached past your knees. It was a vintage Chanel '70 - that was certainly worth it's price. After a few hours of interviewing Aemond, you soon realized that their family was old money - coming from the very bowels of fortune, and Aemond was one of the few members that strived to be different - the few members of the family that the world knew.

You've spent a lot of time with the Old Money folks - you used to work in a country club down in Singapore. They were stingy - and stealth with their money. That observation was evident in the outfit that you wore today - nothing too flashy or bold.

"Are we ready?" he asks, and you turn to look at him. His bowtie was crooked - in a cute way. You smile, walking towards him and adjusting his bowtie. "We are." you reply, holding onto his hand while you walked down the marble staircase.

This was the life that you wanted as a teenager - a trophy wife to a rich man, not ever worrying about money or doing work. Your smile deepens, realizing that you looked amazing and sophisticated. It was a facade, but it was nice to pretend once in a while. He leads you out of the hotel room, the valet stops in front of you - flashing the paparazzi's a good view of the couple.

"I'm nervous," you admit, staring at his flashy car. Mingling with the rich was easy, but meeting the rich family of your fake boyfriend was going to be hard. A smile finds itself etched on his lips, opening the door for you to enter. "Just look pretty, my dear - that's all I want." he licked his lips, entering the car after you.

The car stopped in front of a mansion - heck, it actually looked more like castle. There were guests everywhere - and lights that illuminated the pathway that led to a zen garden. "You said family reunion." you quoted him and his lips turned into a thin line - telling you that he didn't expect this much guests either.

"My mother was quite a socialite back in the day - and all of these people were her friends." he explained, trying to regain his calm. He wasn't prepared to show you to his family's entire circle. He opened the compartment beside him - removing the emerald ring from it's box. "Now, remember the story - I proposed on the beach." he reminded and you nod.

A servant begins to open the doors to the car. "Now let's meet the vipers." he took a deep breath, plastering a fake smile on his face before exiting the vehicle and helping you do the same.

Jace wasn't expecting to see you today. The lady in white that managed to steal the heart of his uncle. He wanted to hate you, but he couldn't - not when you were already over him. God knows how many times he's listened to the songs that you made about him.

A million little times.

He's only felt alive when you were the one describing him - immortalizing him with your soft melodies. His jaw clenches as he watches his uncle's hands snake around your waist, his hands were in the places that he used to be in. Aemond whispers something in your ears, and you couldn't help but giggle.

"Isn't that (Your Name)?" his mother inquires while holding a glass of champagne. Rhaenyra's eyes widen, seeing the man beside you. "Oh, Jace." she cooed, pitying him in that very situation. "I'm alright, mom." he forced himself to smile - taking a lazy sip of his champagne. Jace couldn't understand why he was missing you.

He had everything he wanted - the respect of his fellow writers, all the money in the world, and freedom. Why was he missing the shackles that he fought to remove? You told him that you wanted to teach him what forever felt like - but why was forever falling away from his fingertips? Now, you are just one of the girls that he's loved before - not the one.

Aemond begins walking in his direction - a smug grin was on his face, but there was no way that his uncle knew. "Jacey," the man teased, one hand wrapped around you - and the other wrapped around a glass of merlot. His uncle was glowing.

"Uncle Almond," Jace responded using their childhood nicknames. "Have you met this lovely lady?" Aemond tilted his head, expecting you to smile warmly at his nephew - but you gawked at the sight of Jace. You didn't know that they were related. "Uncle?" she inquired, choking on air.

"I'm too young to be an uncle, huh?" he chuckled, staring at his nephew up and down. "I didn't expect you here, (Your Name)." Jace proceeded with caution, he stared deep into your eyes - searching for the warmth that used to fill it when you looked at him. "I could say the same," you answered, grip around Aemond's back tightening.

Something shimmery in your fingers catches his eyes. An engagement ring - green, like his step-grandmother's favorite color. "Congratulations on the engagement." he smiled, feeling happy for you. Marriage was all you ever wanted - all that you desired. He was glad that you were about to have it. "Thank you," you smile, bringing the ring closer for him to view it.

"When she's the one wrapped around your arms - you can't let her go." Aemond stared at your face - basking in your glory. Jace nodded, feeling bitterness creep up his throat. "I know the feeling." he paused, taking another sip of his champagne.

He should've fought the world to have you beside him. He should've took you dancing, bowling, skating - bought you flowers everyday, but he didn't. He was blind and entitled. He didn't know what he had until it was gone. "Well - excuse us, Jacey, I believe that dinner is about to begin." Aemond smiles, pulling you away from him.

(your first name): i like shiny things but i'd marry you with paper rings. 3 new songs out at midnight. (courtesy of the 3 sleepless nights where I was talking to @officialaemondtargaryen)

23, 912 comments 2, 903,294 likes

sharterpack: It's so nice seeing mom with a man that allows her to post him. If Jace Velaryon has 0 haters, I am dead.

ynkitten009: ya'll the lyrics were leaked 💀

(your name)'s kitten fanbase ya'll i'm sobbing because y/n wrote "i wouldn't marry me either." for jace, but she wore "i like shiny things but i'd marry you with paper rings." for aemond 😭 JACAERYS VELARYON YOU ARE ON THIN FUCKING ICE.

wandamaximoffdefender "i find myself running home to your sweet nothings." JACE, YOU LITERALLY GAVE HER NOTHING BFFR !

PaperRingsStan13 When he's no longer her Cornelia Street, Sweet Nothing, King of My Heart, Endgame, Cruel Summer, and Peace because someone else is her Lover, Dress, and Paper Rings.

Your phone wouldn't stop buzzing, all of your fans were tagging you in their recent twitter posts. A small chuckle escapes your mouth, and you place the phone on silent mode. "You're doing a good job," he compliments, helping you sit down on your chair. "So (Your Name), should I even call you that? I think sister is much better," Helaena makes her way beside you - you smile at her.

"I think sister is much better too." you answer, and her smile deepens. "I actually love your songs," she began to rant - taking note of all the lyrical devices you used in your songs. "I hyper-fixated on them one time, and I know all of the lyrics." she exaggerated - and Aemond places himself in the middle of the both of you.

"That's enough, Helaena." he whined, seeing that the crowds were beginning to make their way towards the dinner table. His father, Viserys, clinks his glass - earning everyone's attention. "I want to make a toast to my son, Aemond, who brought us his lovely fiancee." Viserys boasted, and everyone begins clapping.

"I want everyone to eat as much as they like - and drink as much as their wives let them." he joked, and the entire crowd laughs. "Our family will only grow bigger." he smiled and everyone settled into their chairs.

part four>>

@glame @xcinnamonmalfoyx @winxchesters @yentroucnagol @hotchnerswife @itsabby15 @mxxny-lupin @joliettes @kemillyfreitas @mxtantrights @urmomsgirlfriend1 @kravitzwhore @sweethoneyblossom1 @introverbatim @flrboyd

[parvulous-writings]

Flowers in Hardship // Lifeweaver x GN!reader

Summary: You fall very, very ill - and Niran hates to see you in such a state.

Warnings: Descriptions of unspecified illness.

Words: 2.7K

Notes:  Includes Platonic!Genji! My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist!  Original character list - please request for these too!

Not my gif

You had felt it coming on for a while now. There was just this feeling, of something practically gnawing behind your eye. Not literally, of course - if that had been the case, you would have gone to see Ziegler a lot sooner. It started with a light headache. You thought it would go away with some water - which you drank in abundance, along with a couple of painkillers, to try and help the headache's swift departure. However, this did nothing. By the end of the first day, your head was pounding. Nothing besides laying still would sate the ruthless and unending hammering inside your skull. So, you resigned yourself to your room - the cool air of the place surrounding you in your little cocoon of sheets and pillows, your eyes creaking shut with a relief that you couldn't voice the pleasure of.

You had had the vague hope, when you laid your head down to rest, that by morning, the ache in your temples and behind your eyes would have subsided enough that you could just take some more painkillers, and go on with your day as normal. However, upon opening your eyes you had to throw that plan right out the window. The small amount of light that had managed to get itself past your company-issued blinds felt like you were staring straight up into the sun. You groan, shuffling as much as you can to shy away from the light. This proves much more difficult than expected, however - there's a stiffness in your neck that stabs at your muscles with each little flex. There go today's plans, you think to yourself. And just when you thought you had everything for today under control, too. You had planned everything out; you'd start the morning off with breakfast as normal, before spending some time in the Zen room, meditating with Genji. That was an activity you hadn't had the luxury of partaking in for almost three weeks, and you had been dying to be able to do it again - it always started out as a normal meditation session, but would always eventually devolve into you both sharing stories or gossip with one another.

A part of you hoped that Genji would notice you not turning up to your shared meditation session today - especially since you had both been talking so avidly about it over the past few days, in almost childish anticipation. But the more logical part of you - as defunct as your headache made it - knew that this would likely not be so. As caring as Genji always was to you, he was never one to pry. If you didn't show up to something, he wasn't going to chase you down about it - though he would normally ask next time he saw you, in case it was something that he could help get off of your chest. Your thoughts swim in your head as you try your damndest to try and grab one and hold onto it. It doesn't work very well at all. You're hardly even able to comprehend a word or image in your mind, let alone an entire thought. Your eyes clamp shut again as you half-heartedly shuffle to lay on your side, your back now to the window. It helped a little bit, but your head protested at even that movement. You let out a quiet, involuntary groan at the pain settling itself at the front of your head, pounding against your skull with a vengeance. Your body falls still as it begins to rest once more, trying to naturally shake off the headache. Your chest rises and falls slowly, almost laboured from having to actually use the muscles despite it being necessary, as the pain starts to spread down from your neck into the rest of your body.

It was difficult for Genji not to notice your absence in the Zen room - though, as you had rightly predicted in your headache induced haze, he hadn't thought too much of it as of yet. There was a lot of pressure on you - and many of the other operatives still involved with Overwatch. It wasn't uncommon for mental health days to be mandated by those working the med-bays, particularly Doctor Ziegler. So, Genji just assumed that this was what you were doing that day - he'd catch up with you when he saw you next. Though, as he sat across from one of the others you were meant to spend the day with, eating lunch, the subject was sprung upon him much sooner than he had expected. "Where do you think they are?" Niran - one of the newer members of the force - asked Genji. The cyborg glanced up, his eyes narrowing beneath his mask for a moment. He just wanted to eat his food - as difficult as it could be at times, removing the lower half of his face plate wasn't exactly easy, nor comfortable. So, he just continued eating, knowing full well that Niran would continue the conversation by himself anyway. "It's so odd that they wouldn't turn up, and not say anything…" He pondered, pursing his lips before eating some more of his own meal. "I mean, even if it wasn't anything to worry about, they'd still say something, I know it-" The man continued, his mouth half-full of salad. "Do not talk with your mouth full." The other replied, his voice low, and quiet. It wasn't threatening, but it certainly was a warning. Niran quickly covered his mouth with one hand, making sure the remainder of his mouthful couldn't be seen by the much calmer of the pair. "Sorry!" He replied bashfully, looking down briefly as he spoke. But, within a moment, he was back on his original train of thought. "But my point still stands... Perhaps someone should go and check on them!" Niran's normal optimistic tone was now laced with worry - ordinarily he tried to keep his thoughts aligned with the optimism that he often found lacking in his colleagues, but this had never stopped him from also being an avid worrier. "Are you going to?" Genji asked, mostly a rhetorical question. But instead of just making Niran think, it gave him a sparkle in his eye as his face spilt into a smile; "That's a wonderful idea, Shimada!" He exclaimed, getting to his feet. Genji just... Stared at him. Niran stared right back. "Aren't you coming...?" "No." Was the Cyborg's curt reply. "My question was purely rhetorical. I had no intention of going." "Oh... I suppose that... makes sense." Niran said slowly, pursing his lips and raising his brows for a moment as he thought this over. "But I'm still going to go." He told him, starting to turn away. "I would finish your lunch first." "No, no... I'll have something more later." Niran waved his arm in dismisal, as he started off down the hall, making his way to the living quarters.

Niran was very familiar with where exactly your quarters were - the number of times he had walked back with you, and even stayed the night, were immeasurable. Without a doubt, he could walk this route with his eyes clamped shut. Of course, the closest he would ever get to that was if his eyes were fixed on you, whilst you were both in the deep throes of blissful conversation - which, admittedly, was more often than not anyway. His steps were light, almost silent, on the cold hard floors as he rapidly approached your door. Cheerfully he lifted a hand, knocking three times fast, a signature knock you would have noticed and recognised immediately - if you were awake. Unfortunately for Niran, you were not, and thus no response came from your humble little room. This confused Niran - you were not normally one to miss out on a whole day of spending time with your closest companions for nothing. His brows drew together, as hundreds of possibilities ran through his mind; had you run off? Were you still in your room? Had you - somehow - gotten lost in the facility?

Niran shook his head. Of course you couldn't have! This was your home- how could you ever get lost? With this in mind, he slowly slid the door open, peering inside your darkened room. "Hello?" His voice wasn't too much more than a whisper, as he was now starting to worry that he had disturbed an impromptu nap of yours - which, of course, he was right. Your groan of discomfort was the only response he got at first. So, he started to slide the door open a little more, only to be met with a louder, more disgruntled moan. You fling your arm over and try to lob a pillow at him, but you fail miserably - the pillow doesn't even go past the end of the bed. Niran gets the message, though; close the door. He hurries in, sliding the door quickly shut behind him. "Oh dear..." He mumbles, mostly to himself, as he draws closer to you. "You don't look well at all.." He states, as if it weren't the most obvious thing in the world. You feel the back of his knuckles gently press against your forehead, as he takes your temperature. You try to bat his hand away, but the action is less than half-hearted; you just don't have the strength to put up much of a fight. "'s cause 'm not..." You grumble, your gravelly voice partially muffled by the pillow you're still laying on. "Let me help you..." You sense him moving by your side, and you absently wave a hand in his direction, trying to shoo him off. You didn't want any interaction, you just wanted to be left alone. You groan again, attempting to get the message across without actually uttering another word - you just didn't have the energy to talk any more. Niran gives you a pitying look, even though you can't see it you can almost feel it. The way his face falls when something upsets him, the way his bottom lip juts out as he starts to pout a little bit - it's all there, in your mind's eye, fuzzy as it may be at the moment.

You grumbled again - you were trying to say 'please leave me alone', but of course, all that left your lips was a load of garbled sounds, of which nothing could be made out. "Here... Let me get you some water..." Niran says gently to you, and you're somewhat aware of some footsteps moving away from you - you don't particularly care for the other sounds after. You try to get yourself back to sleep, shuffling a little bit to get comfortable again. "No, no... Let's try and sit you up..." It's Niran's voice again, and you feel a pair of hands on your arms, gently trying to move you into a seated position. You don't struggle, but it still takes quite a bit of effort for him to get you sitting comfortably, even if your head does keep lolling from side to side. The room is swimming, spinning as you try to focus your eyes on something. You can't settle them, only close your eyes to try and dull the sensation that the sudden movement has caused. "There, there..." He soothes, "It's alright... I've got some water for you..." He says gently, as you feel something cool tap against your bottom lip. You hesitantly part your lips, and as soon as you felt the water hit your mouth, you drank hungrily. "Woah, slow down..." Niran warned, pulling the glass away from your lips for a moment. "You'll make yourself sick if you keep drinking that quickly..." He brushes some hair from your face, before allowing you to drink again. "I've never seen you so ill... Even in this light you look awful..." He says gently. He moves the chair you keep at your desk to your bedside, slowly lowering himself into it. "You rest, for now... I'll make sure you get drink when you wake... And then, when you can sit up properly again, I can make you some food..." He pauses, allowing this to sink for you. "I could make you some Som tam, if you'd like..." He offered, though you don't reply, slowly sliding down from your seated position, back into a more comfortable laying one. Niran lets you, his only interference being how he moves your pillows around your head. He crosses one leg over the other as you settle properly, making himself comfortable. He was going to watch you as long as you needed him to.

As he sat, and the day wound on, he started to work on something for when you woke. It wasn't exactly difficult work per se, but he was working almost tirelessly to make sure that it was just right, exactly perfect for you. He worked on some holographic roses, fashioning each petal carefully, so they sat just so amongst each other. He had about seven by the time that you finally awoke, feeling... A little more like yourself. "Niran?" Your voice takes the Thai hero from his work, his brown eyes instantly seeking your face in the slightly pink tinged light coming from the roses he had been making. "What are you doing?" Your voice is a bit gravelly, but he can make you out just fine. "Why, making some flowers for you, of course..." He replies, proudly holding his handiwork out to you. You carefully reach out to take them, unsure if you can actually hold them in the first place. Turns out, you can. They feel quite warm, unlike normal flowers. "You didn't need to do that..." "I thought it was customary to get people flowers when they are ill?" "Well, yeah, sometimes, but it's just me... You really didn't need to-" "I wanted to..." Niran chuckles. "I care for you, of course I wanted to give you flowers... Is that so wrong?" He asks, and you can't help but smile at him. "I guess not, no..." You reply, "But how long have you been sitting there?" "Oh, since yesterday." He tells you, waving a hand as if it is not a big deal. You stare at him, slack jawed. Before you can say anything, Niran holds up a hand to silence you. "I have had food, drink and sleep, before you even think about telling me off..." "You shouldn't have-" "I wanted to... I didn't want you to be alone whilst so under the weather..." He told you, "I know you'd do the same for me in a heartbeat, so..." He shrugged lightly. You reach out, carefully taking his hand in yours - like the roses he had given you, they were warm. "Thank you, Niran..." He smiles at you as you speak, lowering his head for a moment, somewhat bashfully. "Oh, really, it's no problem - I was happy to do it... Just... Don't go getting sick on me all the time, hm? I'm sure I'd be called away sooner or later, and I'd hate to leave you..." You both laugh a little bit.

Niran decides to break the silence that falls over you both. "When you're back at full health... I'd like to take you out.. I can get us reservations at this fantastic restaurant. I've wanted to go for almost two months now, but I've had nobody to go with!" He exclaims, chuckling softly. "I'd love to go with you..." You tell him, "Only if I can pay, though." "No, no.. I'll be paying, I insist!" He replies quickly. "It's the least I can do for someone as wonderful as yourself... Let me treat you..." He pats your hand gently. "But only once you're completely well again... Until then... You rest.. I'll be right here..." He keeps his hand on yours, giving you that warm, gentle smile. "Now... Have another nap... I'll be right here, for when you wake again..." He tells you, and you slowly nod - you know he's talking sense, so you slowly get comfortable again, falling quickly back into a deep, restful sleep, assured that Niran is watching over you.

[t3chborb]

As depressing as the 2 Ramattra + Zenyatta spawn room interactions are, for me, 2 outta the 3 Ramattra + Echo interactions take the cake. Both are just... insane.

Echo: You... are an R-7000 unit. The one humans call... umm... Ramattra: Ravagers, yes. Squad killers, and... ruder things. Echo: Does it trouble you? Being so feared and hated? Ramattra: Once. Now, it gives me a warm little feeling inside.

... A few things:

(Putting a read more cuz the post got a bit long)

Being judged for being the model of omnic his soul just happens to occupy bothered him.

He likes it now. Which, good for him, but imagine liking being hated, especially when it used to bother you. Just how far gone you have to be for that?

... Does he truly like it now, or is he pulling an excuse out of his ass? Because the sheer strain in his voice when he finishes Echo's sentence kind of suggests otherwise.

Wait a minute... Does... does he hate his body??? That could explain why he's having a hard time talking about his model, yet is perfectly content with humans hating and fearing him, as that could be tied to his personal choices (standing up for the survival of his species, Null Sector, all that jazz), not something he can't control (his model, which is something he didn't choose and can't change)...

The other interaction doesn't get any better.

Ramattra: It's a shame none us have ever met Aurora, your predecessor. Echo: I hear that often. *throat clearing noise* What would you have asked her? Ramattra: The same thing I ask her every day. I wish she could answer.

The "asking every day" is potentially metaphorical, not pin-point accurate, which... honestly doesn't matter. He asks often enough to use such wording. That naturally begs the question, what is he asking?

When I first heard this interaction all the way back, I knew whatever he's asking has to be some rough shit, just based on the sheer nature of his character, and the fact Aurora is lowkey a God (weeell not entirely, according to Symmetra's short story, but whatever, close enough). But, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly he could be asking. Bro has a lot on his plate, and, at the time, there wasn't much evidence.

There certainly still isn't anything concrete to figure it out... but... since then, we have received this.

Sooooo just on the fact of where this information comes from, it isn't anything too solid. It's from the PVE missions menu. Which is told strictly from the perspective of the Overwatch-the-in-universe-organization's members. They don't know what the audience does. They don't even know who's in charge of Null Sector beyond Genji's educated guess.

That means this entry existing in OW's archives is from Genji, who is the only one on the squad who has any idea who Ramattra is. Aaand, based on Zen's flashback in the PVE missions, Genji has never even met Ramattra. So what Genji knows about the guy comes strictly from Zenyatta (maaaybe Mondatta), either by Zen being observant enough to notice, or Ramattra straight up told him.

Aaaand Ram and Zen haven't seen each other in decades. Obviously, Ramattra has changed a lot since his Shambali days. So OW's archive might not be exactly up to date.

But, it is the best piece of information we have. And Jesus Christ, it hurts a lot by itself, but in the context of Echo's interaction, it's even worse.

[einsteinsugly]

December 1985. Zen and Zeppelin.

For @zenmasterlover. Happy birthday! The scene resolved itself without the carrying, sorry. It seemed really random to add it in. Hope you like it anyway. :)

*****

"I'm not tired, Steven!"

Jackie's amber eyes are notably heavy, as she defiantly rocks their fussing daughter, with dark hair and big blue eyes, back and forth. Back and forth.

She's tried everything in the book. Well, except for one thing. She could sing a lullaby or something to help her fall asleep, but that would probably scare her. And make her scream bloody murder, even more than she already is.

And Hyde isn't quite as tone-deaf as her, but he can barely carry a tune, either. "Lemme take her."

"No, I can get her to sleep." She lists off her attempts, like one would list their grievances. "I rocked her, I fed her, I burped her..."

He smirks, eying the changing table. "I changed her diaper."

"Shut up." Whenever he's there, she's more than willing to pass off diaper duty. And, of course, he dutifully obliges. "You're potty training her."

But yet, her defiance is abnormally stilted. Her eyes are beginning to droop, and he simply nods. In understanding, as he swoops in, and takes Becca under his protective wing.

It's overwhelming, to say the least. She knew motherhood would be way tougher than picking out the perfect shade of pink for her daughter's room, picking her outfits, picking her name...

*****

"Jackie?"

Despite her defiant cries, to the contrary, she has fallen asleep in the rocking chair.

Even though she'll yell at him later, she seems to be...at peace. He leaves her be.

The same can't be said for Becca. She's still fussing, although not as much as she was when she was in Jackie's arms.

He rocks her back and forth, back and forth. He quietly hums a familiar little tune, some Zeppelin. Like her mother, Becca's eyes begin to droop.

All of my love

All of my love

All of my love, to you

Hyde nervously hovers over her crib, still humming, gently placing Becca in it. He doesn't know how he can get her to calm down, unlike Jackie, but right now? He's rolling with it.

As Becca drifts off to sleep, he lovingly eyes his two favorite girls in the world. His wife and daughter. He could've fucked it all up, and ended up like Bud and Edna, but here he is. Domestic bliss and all, his world is at peace.

*****

Bonus:

He plans on leaving her be, if only for...

The chaotic but lovely little scene fades away, becoming a memory. "Don't you dare."

"You were zen, at peace."

Jackie quietly, for once, scoffs. "I wasn't sleeping."

"You were..."

"Not."

"Uh huh." He remains unconvinced. "It's time for bed."

[nonmurdery]

A THOUSAND KISSES DEEP

reader x yoosung | part one

summary: reader escapes rika’s apartment before the bomb goes off in yoosung’s bad ending 1. this uses his dialogue from the game.

author’s note: why am i obsessed with bad endings? i’ll never know! the mc’s personality is derived from how they were in that route. had this in my drafts for a minute, i don't know who'll be her end game, just take this as some angst!!

ps. chatroom formatting probably looks cuter on mobile devices

trigger warnings: major character death

word count: 1,444

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

You technically met Yoosung Kim last week.

The same could be said for the entire RFA. Jumin Han, V, 707, Jaehee Kang, and Zen. You've learned that the RFA is short for Rika’s Fundraising Association. You started texting them after receiving mysterious messages from an Unknown contact to go to the apartment you'd start living in. Yet you haven't met any of them in person.

Being separated by a phone screen didn't stop you from pursuing Yoosung. He's a cute SKY University student around your age. His inexperience kindled the spark between you two. You couldn't have been expected to pass up the opportunity! Not when he was clearly desperate for a partner. As were you. Your self esteem was in the gutters and the loneliness within you had become so voluminous as of late. The RFA has helped out with that.

Chatting with the RFA throughout your day wasn't difficult. Although planning their next party had its challenges. They helped you with whatever they could. Mostly with recommending guests while you picked the theme and most everything else. The best part? You were getting paid for your services.

In short: plenty of unexpected things happened to you this week. Most of them being new beginnings for yourself and the RFA. Yoosung showing up to the apartment by himself proved itself to be the most unexpected.

Intruder found. Special security system attack mode initiated.

“Did you hear that?” Your eyes wandered the room.

The bomb. You remembered it, well, you didn't forget about it either. It terrified you and made it difficult for you to get a full night's worth of sleep. No RFA member was supposed to enter this apartment—707 was still working to deactivate it. Your throat suddenly felt tight. Instead of feeling excitement upon meeting Yoosung, terror swamped your senses instead. Every fiber in your body yelled that you run. There's still time to get out of here.

Yoosung paid no attention to your words nor the alarm. “Reader … But you’re not blond like Rika … ?”

Sensing location of intruder … adjusting target …

“You cannot be serious! I was kidding about that.” You yelled, your eyes saucer-wide.

Is this his truly greatest concern? Your hair wasn't made up of the same lion's mane of loose curls as Rika’s was. Regardless, the ticking bomb that's about to go off was of more importance, to you, it seemed.

He stared at you with his large violet eyes, a cloud of confusion passing over his face. He looked exactly like the photographs he’s shared in the messenger. Short blond hair that pointed in every direction, a lithe build, and baby-faced. Your heart thrashed against your ribcage, thumping at a terrible pace. If you didn't start moving, you'd faint. Or worse, you'd die.

“And you don’t have her eye color … Your hands and face look different too … Is it really you, Reader?”

You answered with a shaky nod. “Yes! It’s me! I’m not some doppelgänger or any other look-alike. None of that matters, we need to get out of here, Yoosung.”

This changed from what you said in the messenger earlier. You spoke about how you'd need to become like Rika in order to be someone special to him. It shocked you to know he processed all of those texts you sent. For some reason, that made you like him even more than you did before.

Orders to destroy all information for the sake of protection. Activating system destruction.

“Oh … I’m sorry. I guess I just thought that you’d look exactly like Rika. But you don’t.”

You were beside yourself with frustration. “I still own you. That means we'll do what I say, let's go.” You slipped your arm through his elbow and yanked him toward the door.

It was mostly your fault for why he’d come to such assumptions. You told him that you'd be his Rika and replace her. Still, they made you a little queasy. Physically being here with him felt different than typing letters on a screen. You felt a connection to him.

“We’re not going anywhere! I ran over here because no one in the RFA helped Rika when she took her life away.” He wrenched himself out of your tight hold.

15 seconds left … 14 seconds …

Stand here and listen to his spiel, or run now and have a chance at living? You told him that you'd take care of him. That he'd be your pet and that's what you wanted. In the face of life and death, you knew what to do. You weren’t going to die for someone who looked at you with disdain for not matching their cousin in appearance. Someone who barely knew or liked you. Two days ago, you would have done anything to be accepted by him and be in charge of his life. The truth is, you barely knew Yoosung beyond the color green, LOLOL, and Rika.

Dying wasn't worth it. Not here, your life has just started.

“Yoosung, come with me. Running here won't matter if you don't run now! We’ll talk about everything after.” He looked unphased by your words, as if they held no weight to him.

Throwing one final glance at Yoosung, you darted out of Rika’s apartment as quick as a shooting star. You could only hope that he's shortly behind. Your heartbeat thrummed in your ears while the sounds of your footsteps pounded with them. Or they might've been his footsteps, listening to what you had to say after all.

Taking the elevator would've been a foolish decision. You ran down the hallways, knowing that 707 watched them through the CCTV. That explained the notification that made your phone buzz in the back pocket of your pants. It had to wait. You made it to a large stairwell that descended to the lower floors. Did V really have to purchase an apartment on the 14th?

Sucking in a breath, you headed down the staircase. You ran down the stairs faster than you knew that you could. The seconds counted down in your mind until a loud bang issued from behind you, startling you enough to fall. You hit the ground hard. Even with your eyes squeezed closed, you saw the light of fire beyond your eyelids.

None of this would've happened if he listened to you. You held your consciousness and managed to get to the 1st floor. When you got down there, firemen were making their way up, up, up. Sirens and screams glided to your ears as you fled the building.

A cold breeze lanced into you. From your peripheral vision, you saw ambulances, more fire trucks, and police cars coming down the streets. Nighttime stretched over the sky, littering it with glittering stars and fluffy see-through clouds. When you lifted your eyes up to Rika's apartment, there were fat tendrils of smoke rising into the air from the building's roof, like a soul ascending from their body.

“Yoosung! Yoosung, you idiot!” Your scream got gobbled up by the street’s cacophony. Tears pricked your eyes and you let them slide down your face. His death is on your shoulders. That's if he died. But you couldn't see a way that he could've survived.

You held yourself, squeezing your upper arms. Interviewers raced to the scene with their cameras and microphones. Your neighbors sprinted outside with some of their belongings, their mouths gaping. That's when it hit you that you only brought one thing.

“Do you know what's going on, Reader?” A woman with watery eyes asked. You bumped into her once in the lobby and talked about the weather.

You watched the flames. “I …” You wet your dry lips. “I need to go.”

Walking to the nearest alleyway, you whipped out your phone. The app was bursting with messages, most of the RFA members are active.

READER has entered the chatroom.

Jumin Han

Did everyone see the news? I'm watching it live now.

Jaehee Kang

? Mr.Han

ZEN

What news?

Jumin Han

There was an explosion at [ADDRESS] on the fourteenth floor.

Jaehee Kang

Goodness…

Jumin Han

The occupants are currently evacuating the building.

READER

HELP! I think Yoosung got cahgt in the fire!

707 has entered the chatroom.

ZEN

Yoosung?! Oh no...

Zen

Reader are you alright?!!! Tell me you're alright.

707

…

707

..

707

.

707

On my way.

READER

On your way here?

707 has left the chatroom.

ZEN

stay where you are, Reader!

ZEN

I'm sure that he has a plan…

Jaehee Kang

I agree with Zen.

Jaehee Kang

What happened to Yoosung, Reader?

Jumin Han

I can only hope for the best.

READER has left the chatroom.

[artsycervidae]

Moksha: Chapter 23, Danno Intermission Pt 3

Summary: Nobutoshi follows Jin into the belly of the beast. The Demon Slayer Corps confronts Danno, Lower Rank One.

Word Count: 9.6k (Grab a snack.)

Be sure to check the chapter list and trigger warnings!

The darkness sheltered the Mist Hashira and his tsuguko from the rain, wind, and light. Nobutoshi, who could see exceptionally well even in the dark, felt his eyes losing focus. His father's tilted stride drew him into a contemplative zen. This whole island had been as severely disconcerting as possible: already he couldn't tell how long the night had been, how many hours they spent in the maze, how much time they had left to kill Danno... or how much longer they had to walk down this endless ramp.

Eventually, their path opened up into a large chasm. The new geometry was a relief, a breaking of the spell. The walls expanded out on both sides, but the floor continued to slant downward in... whatever direction they were facing. In the belly of the barge sat a cavernous nightmare: catwalks leading nowhere hung from rusted support beams, metallic plates and wooden walls met at disjointed angles in the walls and ceiling, and random tunnels suggested paths elsewhere... surely all of them were dead ends, a final hope of easy escape before a bloody demise. Scummy water sloshed at the far side of the room, the deepest end. The storm far above raged on.

Jin entered first, each step allowing the saltwater to climb higher on his legs. Nobutoshi and his father strode out up to their knees and drew their swords in unison. The water settled to an eery stillness. A dead calm. A sudden realization dawned on him: something was coming to meet them.

Nobutoshi felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck as the demon slipped out of the water, not a ripple to behold in its surfacing. The leviathan body twisted and curled, ribboning like a sea snake to keep itself afloat. Vermillion scales shed from its form into the water like a constant bleeding. It bore a singular left arm that was razor-winged, the tips of its talons matte against the darkness. And atop the demon's shoulders sat the pangolin samurai, its armored back unfurling like a faceplate sliding to expose the Upper Kizuki demon's true face... that of a desiccated corpse. Skin had grown over its eyes, nose, and mouth like an unchecked moss. Despite the monstrosity, Nobutoshi was bewitched: its features were fair and feminine, and even its toothy snarl seemed more like a playful smile.

"Oh," Danno purred, "the main course. Finally. I was starting to think that they wouldn't ever send a Hashira. Welcome. And you brought a side dish!" The voice, hushed and stern like ocean waves, was what chilled him most. It sounded so polite... so believably civil. Beyond the fused eyelids, he could see a slight glowing from within. The stronger those lights became, the darker its blackened veins stood out against the skin, declaring its status as Lower Rank One. Suddenly, the metal panels scattered across the room illuminated like windows-- lightning struck somewhere far yet near, the catwalks and cables and beams quaking at the intimidating display.

The shift in its aura was overpowering. Nobutoshi worked his jaw loose, trying not to freeze up. He needed to be limber or it would cost him speed... and his life. Danno laughed, sharp teeth threatening the seemingly thin layer of skin that sealed its lips. "Quiet and dangerous. I like your type." It tossed its head back mirthlessly then and its body cut through the water as it slithered closer.

"Don't let down your guard," Jin warned, still refusing to acknowledge the demon directly.

"I won't." He hardened his heart to fear.

Danno paused, examining the Slayers. Then it struck: with a flick of its wrist, several bladed feathers came spearing at them-- Jin deflected all of them and countered. Nobutoshi watched in awe as his father's airy footwork carried him across the water like a mist rolling over the ocean. He followed in suit, trusting the oxygen in his lungs, his years of training, and some dumb luck. The wind sighed past his ears as he surged swiftly.

Fourth Form: Shifting Flow Slash.

"Blood Demon Art: Bloodthirsty Whirlpool!" Danno's second face clapped back over its mummified one, the armor covering its neck as its wing came up to shear the Slayers into pieces. But Nobutoshi had landed his slice first-- Danno's elbow came away from his body too soon to hit Jin, but at the same time that massive tail whipped through the water and swung at the Hashira. It missed, but as it passed, Nobutoshi could feel its powerful pull-- an undertow stronger than gravity itself. Jin was yanked off course, and his swing only nicked the Kizuki's armored throat, which rumbled in distress. Danno's hand, already regenerated, slapped over the injury as though to confirm the failure.

Nobutoshi fell upon one of the catwalks a meter above the water. He didn't stop running: Danno didn't strike down the structure, but the tail had drawn all the water to it, flooding the low-hanging walkways and making them hazardous. His sandals slipped, he stumbled but caught himself. Jin had seized a hanging support beam so as not to be swept away by rushing water, then oriented, twisting his feet onto the beam. Then he kicked off with such force that it exploded into debris and with such grace that he seemed to elevate toward Danno's face.

With a sudden grunt, Danno's right wing grew from the shoulder in a thrust of bone, meat, and blood. It bubbled and broiled before the feathers molted away, writhing like waking seed pods. As they formed, the batlings beat their own two wings with furious energy. 'Junko killed Kume,' Nobutoshi realized with equal parts relief and horror, about to watch his father be picked apart by a pack of carnivorous monster birds.

"Third Form: Scattering Mist Splash." And the birds were destroyed, the Hashira shifting priorities mid-launch. He plummeted into the Lower First's path, and Danno swung its bladed left arm at him. Jin blocked it with a ringing strike, allowing the demon's blow to throw him across the room, away from the entrance-- and all at once, Nobutoshi realized his father was alone out there above the deep waters. He sprinted, leaping from his catwalk to another dead end path imbedded lengthwise into the wall.

He passed one of the metal panels right as it began to shiver and ring out a high tone. Water and wind pelted him from that side and Nobutoshi wavered. Suddenly, the aviary demons rushed him-- he slashed them all dead, but his feet overcorrected for his swinging arms. He fell through the metal wall and out into the tempest itself. Warm, fat raindrops beat down on him, and he glimpsed the fight happening on the other side of the tall doorway. His father raised his sword, landed on a catwalk, and Danno raced after him with both arms raised. Then the doorway filled with bloodthirsty minions, hot on Nobu's trail.

He killed them as they came. He could see nothing but raining spittle, dagger teeth, and flying viscera; he felt nothing but the burn of his arms and chest as he fought them desperately in a miasma of blood and thunder. The surviving birds snapped into a new direction, fleeing from Nobutoshi's vicinity. He ran for the portal, but in a blink, it stopped singing. It went opaque and he crashed into the solid barrier, blood spurting out his nose. He bounced off his backside and onto his feet again, gritting his teeth and glaring against the cascade of water to make out the next attack. Two divided waves struck him-- he dodged both sweeps-- before the batlings reeled back, reforming into a single group. The storm didn't slow them as it did Nobutoshi. Like a school of man-eating fish, they threatened to swarm their cornered and helpless victim.

He wasn't nearly as talented or powerful as his father, given the lack of space and preparation. Even so, he mimicked Jin's perfect execution of the Third Form. The birds were eviscerated before his eyes, but there was no time to further assess himself. The wind throttled him, his hair whipping across his face. He didn't recognize the maze he had been spat out into. Completely turned around and the way to his father lost, he panicked-- he should have been thinking ahead, but he could only think of returning to the fight. He took off, seeking the wall markings or the tower. Anything to point him the right way. He skidded to a stop at a fork in the path, kicking up water.

To his right was a dead end.

Something was hurdling from the left-- no, hobbling frantically his way.

It was Hinata, still relying on the empty sheath to keep their left leg straight. They were shouting, waving their arms at him, but a crack of thunder muted any words that may have reached Nobu's ears. It was only when he turned back to the dead end that he saw the sudden danger. Another portal had opened-- an opportunity-- offering a glimpse into the demon's lair. Across the chasm, another hallway also opened up: it was flooded, a torrent of water spewing out into the barge's insides. 'I fell in on the other side of that room,' he vaguely registered. He saw his father's figure blur past, diffusing into the water spray. In a synchronized reflection of green, Junko-- somehow on the other side! His father wasn't alone!-- was triangle-leaping past the wall. "Blood Demon Art: Piercing Plumeage!" Danno's left arm flung razor-barbed feathers their way, too slow to make Junko its mark--

Hinata made it to Nobutoshi before anything else. They had thrown his body to the ground, then their own. The feathers shrieked overhead and narrowly missed them. Nobutoshi shoved his way to his feet, but the doorway had shut them out. "Not yet!" Hinata shouted, stumbling up as the storm buffeted them. "It's too dangerous! Follow me!"

"I need to get back to Dad!" Nobutoshi cried.

"I know!" They stuck out their hand, and Nobutoshi couldn't tell if it was more for his benefit or theirs. "We have to hurry! Be careful-- Kabuto and Kume are brutal together." Nobu took their fingers in his and they tried to lead the way, but in the end, Nobu was the one pulling them along. Their nails pinpricked his hand with a vicious grip as they hollered "Left! Right, here! Right again!"

Another door opened, this one on the walkway before them. They could have leapt in, but Nobutoshi slowed when Hinata dug their heels in and cried "Wait!", trying to stop him. A wall of flesh-birds burst from the opening, and suddenly they were overrun: the demon minions imprisoned them in a cloud of pecking and biting and beating. Hinata let him go and both Slayers took up their arms. Multiple birds swooped at the two, but were forced back when Hinata stepped into the path with an incoherent bark, slashing at the offenders. Nobutoshi began to envy those spike deterrents-- he felt a beak plunge into his back muscles mid-slash, the rake of talons across his shoulders disrupting his balance-- but they only did so much. Soon, even Hinata's Flame Breathing became erratic and desperate.

"Foliage Breathing," he heard vaguely through the rain, but the form was lost to the storm. Even without comprehension, Nobutoshi found Junko suddenly among the fray as she seethed air through her teeth. The Sixth Form roared again, the phantom forest of batlings felled. The batlings with their claws in Nobu suddenly fell to pieces and liquid. Hinata too was unscathed by the Foliage Hashira's discerning blade. Hinata looked up to the woman awestruck, and Nobutoshi couldn't help but relate: she fell atop the solidified floor, as though the maelstrom were but a tepid breeze.

She seemed as startled as Nobu had been to see she was shut out. "Kabuto closed the way!" Hinata shouted, yanking Nobu along with their free hand again. Junko fell into their ranks, gripping her katana with white knuckles. Hinata paused. Nobutoshi was about to jerk them along as they said, "Junko--"

"He's strong," she said so quietly that her words were nearly taken by the wind. "How is he so much stronger than Namazu, if he's only a rank higher? How..." She looked to Hinata. Hinata looked to her.

They were doing it again: talking without talking. Here and now, of all places, of all times. A heat slithered down Nobu's back and shoulders. "I'll do it," Hinata declared, throat scratching. "Whatever you need of me, Junko, I'll do it. But..."

And then they both looked to him. He couldn't explain how isolating that moment was-- the way they stared at him in unison to see if he would be a burden or obstacle.

"What's going on?" He asked, trying not to lose his temper. "What about the portal? Where is it opening?"

"It'll open soon. We'll have to go in fast." Hinata turned away, averting their eyes.

"We? Hinata, you go back to the boat and wait for the Kakushi Brigade. You're half-dead as it is."

"Nobutoshi," Junko interrupted, the one to step forward and take Nobu by the shoulder, "There's something else you need to be prepared for."

"What? Say it already." He wanted the door to open. He didn't want to be shut out anymore. He didn't want to know what could have happened on the other side, though.

"Hinata was always in favor of telling you, for the record. Keeping you in the dark was my idea. Just until we thought you could understand our plan, and that you could trust us without question."

That hurt. "Junko, I will always trust you," he told his future wife. "Always."

Junko knew he meant it. She cupped his cheek fondly, and it was the only thing to reach through the downpour and into his weary mind. "Oniinata is about to do something... difficult. You might even hate us for it. But we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't have a plan. I trust them with my life," she swore, the smooth curls of her nails soothing his nerves. "What about you?"

Nobutoshi glanced Hinata's way-- and he recognized their expression. It wasn't unlike the look from Final Selections, when they watched a demon tear its fellow kindred into pieces. It was also the same face that they had when a freshly widowed woman blamed them for the evils in the world. Fascination and sadness. They deliberately looked away again, staring at the metal panel that had yet to activate.

"If you trust them... I trust them."

"Thank you. I promise I'll answer all your questions afterward. Don't be mad at them-- okay?"

"I won't be," Nobutoshi promised, holding himself to it.

"Don't let your father kill them," she added, her every addition shifting the foundation of his reality. "We'll explain it to him too."

"Get ready," Hinata interrupted.

Nobutoshi was sickeningly grateful that he didn't have the chance to address that point-- he wanted to focus on his father's survival before dividing loyalties like pieces of himself. He only had time to grab Hinata by the shoulder and commanded them, "Whatever you plan on doing, keep it away from my father as best you can."

They met his eyes and nodded firmly. Then they looked to Junko. "We'll go first. Follow us." She smiled a little and huffed while Hinata relaxed fractionally.

In an instant, the wall opened, and all three dropped into the chaos. Nobutoshi, in his mind's eye, saw himself evaporate-- becoming a Lunar Dispensing Mist that somersaulted into the dark, weaving a cocoon around the bird demon swarm before it could plug the hole with body fodder. His sword sheared the air around him, clearing the way for his companions to slip through unharmed.

Among the rocking sea, the parasite-filled air, the feather-blades, and the samurai's mirror maze, Nobutoshi became yet another moving piece. In this free-for-all, he was being tested to his limits: he sliced demonlings down with every stroke. He kept track of Junko, weaving a Kudzu Vine from catwalk to catwalk, distracting the eel's tail and the rising water. Jin was running along the wall, using the pinned feathers as footholds. Hinata, he saw for only a moment, surging right into the crowd of minions before it swallowed them. 'Idiot!'

Then he lost them, when another portal opened just below. Across the numerous walls, the metal pieces flickered alight, some spewed seaspray. The body fodder demons braided in choreographed pillars, flying in and out from the lair. Nobutoshi slaughtered his way to clarity-- while he and Hinata distracted the crush of bodies, the hashira worked together to corner Danno. Nobutoshi kept moving. He leapt from his perch and slashed his descent clear, landing roughly on a jangling, suspended platform. He spun around when something heavy landed next to him-- something squelching, crunching. For a moment, he dreaded fighting one of the named components of the Lower Rank.

He froze at the awful sight and cried out, despite himself. He wished it had been one of Danno's pieces instead.

The creature before him was unlike any he had seen before, though the way it crouched over the half-dead batling was a familiar sight. The hunter's aura spiraled into itself hungrily, but its outline was perfectly shelled, guarding a greedy core from the world around it. The batling emited a high keening as the demon raised its head, tearing away a large strip of meat and sinew by its teeth. And then the batling was quiet. It was only a single bite, but so much of the creature no longer existed that Nobutoshi couldn't account for. The victor turned to the tsuguko: its pinprick pupils were of inverted color, a searing white-hot center that he couldn't turn away from ringed with orange fire. The black sclera and sunken sockets gave an impression of floating ghost lights. The mouth-- God, that mouth-- split into a shining, bloodied grin.

The corpse and its blood began to flake from the demon's front, giving the impression of an eternal smoldering. The hunter slipped their fingers under the chain of broken sword hilts that adorned their body, freeing the scavenged weapon with a snap of their wrist. They flicked the blade in their right hand, which flung gore clean off-- then they stretched their mostly-healed leg as the sheath fell away, testing their body weight with a little wince. "Much better," they conceded, their voice smooth and rich as silk. "I can keep up with you like this."

He would know this feeling of muted rage anywhere-- the way they spoke a little too informally, crassly, as if things hadn't fundamentally changed with this revelation. The rising tide prevented him from properly wielding his fury. Hinata was on the move after him, the both of them abandoning the platform. Nobutoshi found a wall-bound tunnel, leading into a dead end where his back would be protected, and there he decimated another flock. Hinata had vaulted elsewhere-- through an open panel, which flickered shut. "Idiot," Nobutoshi muttered aloud this time, left on his own as a distraction and hoping that his father hadn't been nearly as observant of his allies. 'They could have at least done that in the maze, out of the line of sight.'

Junko reached the Kizuki's neck first. She scaled the beast's torso with her Lotus Rot form, impaling the demon with such power that it blasted holes clean through. Kidneys. Liver. Lungs. Heart. Danno yelped with pain at each intrusion; not that they would kill him, but the creature's biology focused on patching these injuries as Junko swiped for the samurai's throat. In synchronicity, Jin dropped from his position overhead, his own katana arcing downward to meet the Foliage Hashira's swing. A portal opened, but rather than a reinforcement of minions, only rain pelted through. Nobutoshi could see in various angles-- overhead, under, far behind-- Hinata tearing through the maze as they maimed and obliterated the torrential batlings.

Danno's open-mouthed wails hitched from agony into delight. Before either blade kissed the demon's skin, a slit was making itself known at the base of its throat, a separation of parts. Nobutoshi hollered a warning but it was already too late: "It's--"

"Blood Demon Art: Naginata Nails." The armor platings on either side of Danno's face reached up and out-- the naginata's range beat Jin's katana, and suddenly the Edo samurai demon (Kabuto!) was standing atop Unagiko's blunted fish-head, her humanoid body stooped forward in a painful slouch. In his spear-tipped hands bled the Mist Hashira's throat. 'No.'

Unagiko writhed, her tail swinging the Bloodthirsty Whirlpool a meter too late to strike Junko-- her legs jerked straight and she flipped, trying to salvage her momentum. But Danno's left arm formed itself into a Slayer's uniform, its talons turning into hands and feet themselves: the demon Slayer ripped feathers from his own body mid-free fall, and swiped at Junko's haori-- neatly slicing the fabric from her body, narrowly missing her uniformed body as she twisted out of his reach. 'No!'

His perspective swam: he was upon Kabuto himself now, ignoring Kume's cruel laughter as she spawned minions anew, "Blood Demon Art: Hungry Mouths!" They flooded him, the pain of their pecking and biting eroding at his body. He didn't know what he was doing, whether he intended to decapitate the court anew before facing Danno again. What was the point-- they had lost so many Demon Slayers already, and now-- he would never see his father again-- His thoughts blurred until he could only recognize the brutal pain that ravaged his body, a gravitational pull compelling him away from his victim. "NO!"

Nobutoshi tightened all his muscles before he crashed into the shallow end-- it was still about two meters deep, but he had been rebuffed so fast that he felt his shoulder bump off the ramp bottom. He clawed and kicked to the surface, gasping and seeking manageable depth. He swiped wet hair from his face and desperately gaped out into the dark waters, trying to unsee his father's disembodied hand, his dislocated head, and the last fragments of light, hope, or filial affection fading from his fox eyes.

The eel demon was gone, the last rope of her tail flicking into the air as she dove down into some immeasurable depth with her prey. Could his father hold his breath that long? What would Jin do without his sword? It had all happened so fast. So fast. Faster than his father? How was that possible? How could a Lower Rank demon kill a Hashira? That hadn't happened for decades! How could it have happened to his father?

Kabuto opened the portals again: "Blood Demon Art: Glass Labyrinth." Lightning crashed and lit up the room in garish whites and blacks. The inky tide was indistinguishable yet unmistakable. Blood in the water. So much blood-- demon and human alike. Out in the dark waters, Junko was retreating. Kabuto extended a long speared finger, and Masajun pursued her, assisted by batlings. The leader followed with fluid, easy steps from catwalk to catwalk. Something clawed itself up from Nobutoshi's chest and he immediately recognized it as his own: a calcified, solid pit of hate.

Demons always found a way to make him feel utterly powerless-- and this moment of sheer loathing fueled him. Although his clothes were heavy he turned to face Kume, her pelican wings beating furiously as she spiraled at him. Those batlings, the Hungry Mouths, descended on him. This time, his Third Form was immaculate. Even Kume gasped when the sword split her wings, her body dropping for the second she grew fresh ones. His sword decapitated the empty space her neck had once been. She kept a cautious distance then, letting her minions fall victim to his mood instead while she dipped in for the occasional vicious picking.

Junko wasn't alone for long. Masajun had taken to the air with the minions, swerving upon her with a familiar Water Surface Slash. Junko cut through the crowd, just as a demonic Hinata surged from one of the mirror-portals, striking Masajun down with an Unknowing Fire so powerful that the nearby catwalks jangled from the Breathing Form's heat wave. The new recruit hollered and backed from the fight, his arms plopping into the water below.

Kabuto was no coward. Danno's head came, his hands slashing and puncturing at Junko. The Hashira's sword fended him off as Hinata clawed their way through batlings back to her side-- Masajun fled gasping, a chunk missing from his shoulder. Hinata's face dripped with blood as they binged, devouring whatever they could get their hands on, the handle-barbed whip gashed holes into the batling swarm. Junko didn't even glance back, wholly trusting her back to her demon devouring shadow.

Even with all her focus devoted to the Lower Rank, Kabuto had at least a centuries worth of experience to his advantage. He parried her, their blades screaming against each other as he forced the weapon from her hand.

But at that moment, Hinata dropped their sword. Junko caught it, as though their arms and minds belonged to the same body. Hinata's disarmed limb was swiftly destroyed for sticking out, ripped open with a gesture from Kabuto, but the transaction was made regardless-- and then Nobutoshi lost visual of them to Kume's gnashing beak, rimmed with serrated teeth. His sword split her face into two, but a cloud of her fodder slammed into him from the side like a hammer. He moved with the movement and spun like a top. He was caught between forms, his muscles ripping and bones groaning at this misuse.

Kume was gone again, and Nobutoshi cut the air clear enough to catch Hinata and Junko in motion: Hinata was right behind Junko, crowding her and surely limiting her movements. But they had both their arms-- the one he swore had been cut asunder now wielded Junko's emerald sword. Had he been mistaken?

Kabuto jabbed and kicked and swiped, his body erratic, but Junko slid her newfound weapon along those naginata extensions and nearly swiped his head clean off his shoulders. The samurai backed away, baffled and aghast. But Hinata was in Junko's afterimage, and the makeshift whip had been given its chance. With a swish of Hinata's wrist, the weapon snagged Kabuto's ankle like a bolas. When he stepped back, his foot was yanked out from under him, and the Slayers both surged forward. The Hashira and her echo performed a choreographed dance of Foliage Breathing, two Kudzu Vines twisting into a thick noose to catch Kabuto by his throat.

Suddenly the water exploded with a barge-shaking force. Unagiko appeared like a breaching whale, bringing a torrent with her. Droplets rained on them all like broken glass, and Nobutoshi had no defense but his sword and the Third Form. He felt water pellets rip through his clothes, lodging into his body before becoming inert. The opposite end of the room exploded into shrapnel, flinging the demon and Slayers off their catwalk and into the air. Hinata and Junko both landed, though the latter had landed among a net of cables. Kabuto saw an opportunity and lunged for the helpless Hashira-- but Hinata roared and leapt at him first, sword and whip snapping out like guard dogs. The Hashira swiftly disentangled herself, leaning backwards to slip free. She landed hard on an unstable catwalk before leaping over the ledge, letting faith and gravity take her into an open portal. In the next blink, the door had reverted to a metal wall.

Hinata had bought her an escape, but at the expense of those three naginata ends piercing them clean through the torso. Even when impaled, the Slayer swung to behead Kabuto. But the samurai caught their wrist. As easy as yanking a loose thread, he pulled their arm, and began to rip Hinata in half, his face fatigued and unimpressed. Nobutoshi screamed again-- Kume swooped down while his grief distracted him. Her talons slashed through his shoulder and he swatted her away, her cruel laughter sounding off the walls. His second howl was of raw fury.

Kabuto withdrew his bladed fingers from Hinata's body, thus releasing them. But before they could slump, Kabuto's knee flew up and into their ribs. Even from afar, Nobutoshi made out the bloody crnch! of their bones caving in. Hinata's body went careening in Nobu's direction, skipping across the water four times before skidding up the waterless ramp and rolling to a stop, surely skinned by the friction.

"Nice one, Kabuto!" Kume cackled, as Nobutoshi rushed to meet his fallen companion. "Sorry about the Hashira-- the older one. I know he would have been an excellent addition." Her tone shifted to something softer and sympathetic. She placed her winged hand on his shoulder, suddenly gentle and lovely as she fussed over him. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Kabuto rumbled, his voice coaxing her to make up for his state. "He had a stick up his ass, anyway. The Corps made him into a hopeless cause." With a sigh, he leaned into her, and her hand drifted to his face. "I want a weapon. Someone who can make us strong enough to take out an Upper Rank. I'd say we've deserved a promotion, ne, my beautiful wife? I wish that marechi hadn't gotten away... maybe she could be a suitable replacement."

"What?!" cried a healed Masajun, who fluttered alongside the other two. "But I just joined! You didn't give me a chance!"

Nobutoshi fell to his knees next to Hinata right as their body began to rise. Unharmed-- incredible. He had no words for the cognitive disconnect in his mind. He had watched his battered friend be fatally struck. He watched them die. And yet, they groaned and sat up, alive, their ribcage expanding and shrinking like bellows. "Are you okay?" Hinata was the one asking, resting Junko's sword in their lap before reaching for Nobutoshi's chest.

The mere question broke him. "Of course I'm not okay," he seethed, gripping Hinata back a little harder than he meant to. "My father is dead." Their mouth warbled and their eyes flashed with hurt feelings. And even though it didn't make sense, he took up fistfuls of their clothes and put salt in the wound he created. "Why didn't you intervene? Why did you run out on us?" Rage slipped into shock, which plummeted into despair. "My dad. His hands--" Nobutoshi choked, "I think it--" and stopped abruptly. He never thought it would happen like this. He was the Mist Hashira now, and he wasn't prepared.

"Nobutoshi," Hinata murmured, love and regret thick in their throat, "I'm sorry." They slid the hand on his chest up to his neck, pulling him in. They pressed his forehead to their own. "We'll make him pay." The tone of Nobutoshi's compact loathing sounded alien from Hinata's mouth. It sounded musical. "We still have time to kill him. I've eaten. Junko will be back. He won't have died for nothing. I swear it."

Invoking her name did the cure: Nobutoshi felt himself breathing steadier. He had to come back alive to her. "I'm sorry I tried to send you away," he whispered, feeling weak and grateful suddenly.

"It's okay," they replied warmly. No grudge. No harm.

A pained squawk drew their attention back to the demons, Nobutoshi drawing away from Hinata's face. Blood glinted and faded off of Kabuto's bladed fingers. Masajun was clutching his newly severed shoulder: that made four times he had been disarmed, counting both sides. Kume snickered at the display from behind Kabuto's back. Unagiko surfaced slowly in the background, keeping a careful eye on the Slayers rather than appreciate the show of dominance.

"You're lucky I only took that much," Kabuto warned. "I thought I told you to get rid of Aguri before the party. You spoiled brat. At least they're obedient. You're more trouble than you're worth." Then Kabuto turned-- and Nobutoshi froze with the distinct impression that he was the one being watched. This was debunked when Kabuto raised the bloodied blades their way and said, "Aguri. I like your friends, especially the Hashira girl. Tell you what: I'm feeling generous tonight. You've all been a worthy nuisance. Kill this runt with that nichirin sword and I'll let you take her with us. Hell," then another blade rose, gesturing to Nobu too now, "if you kill Aguri, you can come instead. Winner can even pick who the marechi fights," and he gestured to his allies. "If she wins, she can be the next replacement." Masajun watched helplessly, the fibers of his winged limb growing back much slower than Hinata's fatal wounds had.

Nobutoshi raised to his feet, lifting his sword. In another universe, in a world where he had foreseen the suffering that humanity would go through because of this night, he slit Hinata's throat and committed himself to suicide, fighting Danno off until Junko could find an escape. But that did not happen in this world-- not when demons threatened to take everyone away from him. He stood between Hinata and the four evils. "You can't have either of them," he stated, dripping with saltwater and venomous contempt. Hinata did not contradict him.

"Sure," Kabuto said breezily. "That's a shame, but I don't have time to argue with someone whose mind is made up. We'll eat all of them and move on," this last sentence spoken to the demons around him. Unagiko shrank until her eyes alone peeked over the waterline nervously. Kume beamed, the flaps of her face pulling her grin ever wider. Masajun sulked, but his razor-studded arm had regrown by then. He flexed his arms, warming up for another round.

Hinata rose behind Nobutoshi. He didn't have to look back to know they were with him. "Unagiko is too heavy to leave the water," Hinata whispered in Nobutoshi's ear. "And if we can decapitate them all again, we can beach Danno too."

"Do you think that'll work twice?"

"No... But maybe if we can kill the other three as Danno first, then she'll be weakened and alone." A better chance of hunting her down and winning.

Nobutoshi understood. "How will we drag him into the shallow end?"

"I'll make the opening," Hinata promised. "Ready?"

"Let's go." He sprinted forward. Kabuto's doorways to the maze flew open. Kume's Blood Art burst like a boil into dozens of bloodthirsty birds, pouring into the room and out of the barge. Masajun took to the air, sharp feathers scattering in his wake. Unagiko sank below the water silently. Nobutoshi leapt from catwalk to wall-- birds swam into his vicinity, but he massacred them down in time to find Kume airborne, flying directly for him. Good-- she hadn't noticed Junko rocketing in from an opening, the Third Form of Foliage Breathing already in motion as she made a beeline for Kabuto. Nobutoshi slashed, but only managed to bisect the airborne demon's face again as she swerved away from him, howling in pain.

From behind him, he almost overlooked Masajun's Water Breathing strike. Thankfully, the Slayer demon was intercepted by the substitute bolas. Hinata's well-timed throw of their hilt-whip captured Masajun's limbs, tangling his arms and wings into a mess. Then they pounced him, crashing into the wall which caved with a groan-- water and steam poured out from the man-made tunnel. Then suddenly, Hinata's body was flung from that crater, numerous razor-sharp feathers skewered through their body. Nobutoshi forced his eyes away.

Kabuto caught Junko's blade on his-- but she was already too close, stepping under his arm and pressing her scapula to his. She stuck to him like his shadow, their strikes bouncing and catching air. He couldn't shake her, so he opened another portal, through which Junko chased him like a shadow. Nobutoshi swiped the next oncoming horde of birds from the sky, stealing another look around for where Kume could have gone-- narrowly leaping from an oncoming wave and to a safer height.

Nobutoshi was beginning to understand the patterns of the doors. Like blinking lights along the shoreline, he realized that the maze access was timed between specific intervals-- Hinata's door selections were calculated, and so too were Kabuto's. Which meant Kume's paths could be predicted also. He leapt out of the path of a swarm, slashing through another cloud, and landing easily on a panel that remained closed even when others lit up and opened. By the time it flickered open, he was on the move down the chasm's length, safe from the batlings' tactical formations.

But then Masajun came sailing into Nobutoshi's path, wielding a long feather like a katana. It rang off of Nobu's nichirin, but it hardly felt real. Nobutoshi recognized the resistance of his own sword on something else, but Masajun barely wavered or recoiled. If trapped in a swordfight, he knew he would break first. So he ended it fast: Nobutoshi saw instantly where Masajun relied on his body, compensating in the way that someone who had been human all their life would. Someone who felt pain and had a natural aversion to it, even after they had become immortal. Habits were harder to break than bones. Between parries, Nobutoshi momentarily apologized to his father's memory before he kicked hard into the fight, catching Masajun in a moment where his feet unconsciously met the ground. It wasn't loyal to Mist Breathing, and it felt like fighting dirty.

But it felt good to bring that demon to his knees.

Nobutoshi stepped up, his sword raised high. Masajun raised a hand as an animal scream broke his composure. "Mariko, help!" Nobutoshi easily cut the demon's head away with a single swoop. But as the head and body plummeted into the water, someone else was screaming. A rapturous noise of horror and pleasure.

Nobutoshi turned, grappling with what he saw.

Hinata, who had been bullied and railroaded by Kume and her spawn, should have been dead. In the moment Masajun screamed, they too had lost their footing and their nerve. The opening allowed the swarm to overwhelm them. Human or demon, it felt unfathomable that anybody could survive such vicious disassembly. The Hungry Mouths ripped them apart like a pack, yet the Slayer remained whole. They were mutually feasting: the thick pelt of swords trapped batlings with every swing, and Junko's green blade had nearly been dyed red. Nobutoshi couldn't concede with the way Hinata's limbs bubbled right before they were nipped and torn away. How the flesh died and turned to ash as soon as it left their form, leaving only their unmarred singular self. Kume was devastated. She was completely distracted with Hinata's disgusting display, screeching and cursing. Nobutoshi launched himself off the wall and arched his body into a modified Second Form: Eight consecutive strikes carried him through demonic matter, the final strike of it sweeping Kume's head from her shoulders. He landed smoothly in a dead-end tunnel, spinning and planting his feet to brake.

The minions fell, dead and inert. Hinata paused, their limbs falling to their side as they hyperventilated. Their breath came in puffs, as if exhaling vapor or smoke, and Nobutoshi hesitated. He only knew they were okay when their white pupils darted to him, and their lips pulled back in their familiarly grim smile. They both nodded, and set in motion to assist Junko.

She was being forced to cede ground to Kabuto. Unagiko nearly flooded the Foliage Hashira's platform, so she leapt to a cabled catwalk where Kabuto cornered her, landing so heavily that the floor threatened to drop. Hinata lunched for Unagiko, their body twisting into a bastardized Flame form. It was a good try-- the eel delved into the water, but a scattering of her flesh dissolved at the surface. The pseudo-demon lurked above the water, snatching up chunks of demon and tearing into them with their teeth as they waited for the moment Unagiko chose to show herself again.

Nobutoshi landed behind Kabuto, trapping the trapper, and the samurai glanced between them with an amused chuckle. "Aguri told me plenty about you two," he hissed, trying to sow distrust. "They missed you awfully. Talked constantly about their darling friends, the most powerful hashira of their time. How it was their honor to live in service of you. What I wouldn't give to have as loyal a vassal! Always does what you tell them... does whatever it takes to do a job right. Such fealty didn't used to be so hard to come by. But the world is changing... I don't expect you to understand."

Neither Slayer responded. They inched closer, briefly making eye contact past the demon's head. With a subtle acknowledgement, Nobutoshi lashed out, and Junko met his stride. Kabuto dodged them easily, with the practiced hand of a centuries' old warrior. Junko's blade skidded down the length of Kabuto's Naginata Nails. Kabuto backhanded her, and she nearly flew right off the platform, catching the railing at the last moment as it groaned and split from the walkway. Their foundation shook again. Nobu's strikes were parried off with the other naginata hand-- his sword caught before he could counter, he saw Kabuto's grinning face, and suddenly his head rocked back, the front of his face acutely throbbing. More blood. His nose had broken completely now, and he stumbled back dizzily. He couldn't help the frustration that his body was being disobedient lazy, moving like it was swimming through honey.

"They're much weaker than you, though," Kabuto dismissed. "Persistent and resourceful, but weak. I didn't get their fussing at first, but now I do." A pause. "Too bad you aren't any stronger than your Hashira though. You stood a chance to gain from this." Kabuto loomed over the disoriented orphan, pulling his arm back to ensure a fatal strike. "What a waste."

Nobutoshi remembered how difficult Kabuto's metallic hide was-- how Hinata had to be creative to decapitate him.

There was no such worry with Junko. Kabuto had gotten complacent and focused his attention on the one easier to torture. Her borrowed sword breathed through his throat and arms, fast as a switch and silent as the wind. For a moment, Kabuto's brow furrowed in confusion. Then his head, along with the naginata appendages, slid off his body and fell into the water.

Unagiko revealed herself. She cried out, muffled against the flesh over her head as she squirmed to where Danno surfaced from some deep, dark pocket in the water. He gasped for air and raised his winged arms to find balance. He was awkward and graceless without her like Hinata had predicted, as only the most committed stalker could have. Unagiko coiled around Danno protectively, but neither of them stood a chance at this rate.

All at once, the pieces fell into place. A perfectly functioning death machine, oiled by blood, had been assembled.

"Immolation Breathing Fourth Form: Sleep in A Bed of Coals." An overpowering gust of wind whipped the bowels of the barge: a sudden rise in temperature sucked all the oxygen from the atmosphere. Hinata rocketed for Danno's throat, their sword swinging twice, both strikes bouncing off of the pangolin armor. Blades nor birds slowed the possessed swordman; in fact, it was as though all obstacles fizzled and died on contact, so quickly were they snatched from the air and devoured.

In Hinata's third blow, they landed on Danno's shoulders with their morbid sword-chain looped around the helmet's faceplate. Hinata yanked hard on the ends of their weapon, feet digging into his shoulders as their garrote screamed against the pangolin armor. The chin guard caught and slid away, exposing Danno's dessicated face and craning neck. The Kizuki screamed and clawed for the pseudo-demon on his back-- right as Unagiko swept the end of her body across Danno's attacker. The water that Unagiko had wielded so easily exploded, much like the earlier breach, only this awful expulsion threw Unagiko and Hinata to separate ends of the room. Hinata, who had tangled their perforating weapon into the Lower Rank's throat, took Danno with them. The dessicated demon gurgled and gasped, hand reaching out for Unagiko who froze at her own unexpected incompetence.

The awful, monstrous mouth opened and she blurted something out as her humanoid appendage writhed. She said something clear and audible, but total nonsense. It wasn't Japanese. Then she dove into the water-- abandoning Danno in his dire moments. 'Was that Dutch?' Nobutoshi thought, a little delirious from adrenaline.

"COWARD!" Danno shrieked. "TRAITOR!!"

"Oh no you don't!" Junko thundered. She drew air into her lungs-- the same lungs powerful enough to explode man-sized earthware, Nobutoshi reminded his panicked nerves-- and sprinted for the water, diving after the escapee.

Nobutoshi could see the opening thread. He could see the demon's glowing eyes flickering about behind their curtain eyelids in a frenzied horror at the predicament. But all at once, the barge was yanked off course. The world shook and rotated. Nobutoshi did all he could to keep his delicate body from smashing into pieces, shrinking into himself as he was thrown to the air. He heard Hinata howling-- Danno screaming-- he couldn't see anything but the blur and crash of a sudden death.

Then he closed his eyes. He opened them again. For a moment, he swore he saw his father. Perhaps it was only his body. Maybe it was his ghost. But Nobu saw Jin like one would see a falling leaf in passing. Briefly. Unconsciously. His heart hurt.

And then, everything ceased to hurt at all.

He oriented himself in what felt like slow motion. His legs didn't fold under his weight; they compressed like coiled springs. Never before had he felt so light so absent of burden. He hated to admit so, but he seized the feeling with both hands. He drew a smooth breath and launched himself back into the fray, the barge around him bursting and swinging and flashing.

He could see Hinata burrowing into Danno's neck muscles with tooth and chain-- desperate to gorge, trying to heal against the larger demon's thrashing and slashing. The razor wings and minions were easily outnumbering Hinata, even in their incredibly sturdy state. The scraps of their body was only held together with clothes and their own bare tendons. The Fourth Form was all Nobutoshi needed for the situation. He felt himself depart from the ground and almost float through the air, his sword slicing through Danno's armored bone and muscle like an oar paddled through water. A moment of pressure. A release. His sword and his mind buzzed with vengeance and the realization that he would never be the same man Jin was.

Perhaps he could be greater than that man.

The barge jolted-- Nobutoshi knew, somehow, that this meant Junko had cornered Unagiko. Danno's massive body was dissolving in the water, amplifying the only survivor's Blood Art which dragged the entire prison in her wake. The labyrinth roared in pain as it slammed into the mainland, cables snapping, catwalks swinging. The water became a powerful vortex, fleeing the beached structure for the freedom of the sea. Nobutoshi thought fast-- he leapt for a safer foundation in a half-formed dead end, his eyes seeking the snake-like movements of Hinata's makeshift weapon.

He found it victim to the violent tides, but he was faster. He seized it before it could be snatched by the water, found purchase on handles, and fought to tie it to the wall-mounted railing. As the polluted water drained, Nobu gripped the tether and hoisted it from the churning water with ease, opening his eyes against the sting of saltwater to seek out his friend.

He found them clinging to the weapon still-- the fabric knotted around their arms, Junko's green blade tucked within the tangle as a last-ditch attempt to keep their body from being snatched by the rapids. Water and blood dripped off their hair, the dark shadows surrounding their eyes fading fast. Their face was turned up to the surface, and their eyelashes and lips kept fluttering as though asleep. Nobutoshi pulled them up and laid them out on the hallway. "Hinata. Open your eyes."

The washed out person gave no response. Nobu's panic began to catch up, but it manifested in his hands rather than his mind. He shook as he freed their limbs from the weapon and threw it into the darkness. He let the evidence be washed away as he pawed at their face. "Hinata. If you die, Junko said she's going to kill you." Still no answer. Somehow, their hair had silvered entirely along their left temple hairline. One of their arms had broken, but their body was whole, not a single hint to imply they had been ripped to pieces except for the uniform that hung off them in tatters.

Nobutoshi straddled them. As pale and dead as they looked, Hinata was still feverishly hot, a sun burning under their clothes. They were trembling too: whether it was a response to the demon's drowning or their own, Nobu didn't know. He began compressions. He gave mouth to mouth.

He was thanked with a muted cough and a mouthful of salt water down his throat.

They both turned away from each other, hacking and gagging. But even after Nobutoshi had cleared his mouth, Hinata wheezed and spat something thicker than water. It was frothing and pink and had more substance than water. Nobutoshi helped them to lean over the edge, holding back their loose hair as they choked and retched. Whether this was a result of their experimental Breathing Style or their experimental possession, Nobutoshi didn't know.

"Are you done?" Nobutoshi asked, his voice unexpectedly flat and void. They didn't reply, shoulders shivering with a labored inhale as they spat something meaty out. "If you intended to die for us, I wouldn't have apologized to you. I would have sent you away again."

Hinata brushed blood-tinted saliva from their lips and then, in a voice that wasn't theirs, they said: "Was it worth it? To carve away parts of your body and mind, to crave the respect and awe of others, when you'll end up all alone anyway? Just like me."

Slap!

Nobutoshi blinked at the stinging of his hand. Hinata sighed and tenderly touched their cheek, their tongue pressing into it from the other side. "... Sorry," they murmured, though they didn't look one bit regretful. "I don't know why I said that. I think I was still with Danno..."

"It's okay." Nobutoshi didn't apologize, because he felt no need to. He didn't say anything wrong. "Can you walk?"

Hinata furrowed their brows and tried. Their neck arched and they bore their teeth, arms straining on the railing, but then they gave up. They hadn't moved an inch.

Nobu was quietly surprised his own legs and lungs hadn't failed him yet, but chalked it up to his superior training and experience. "I'll fetch the Kakushi Brigade."

"Please don't leave me," Hinata pleaded with sudden desperation. "Don't go. Can you stay here? Please."

Nobutoshi considered this plea. Then he sat down, feeling the exhaustion all at once. He slipped his hands under their arms and scooted them further from the ledge, sitting behind them with his knees propped up. He could feel their attempts to assist him, but parts of their body were still new and weak to exertion. They sank back and let him take control, chin pressed into their collarbone as they breathed slow and steadily. They were clearly tuned in to Nobutoshi's heart and breathing now. "Thank you." Nobutoshi looked down at this hole of a human being. "... I guess this means things are changing again." Tactful. Pathetically so.

"Yeah." A beat. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I wanted to... so I asked Junko to explain it to you for me. You're always better prepared getting bad news from her. I was scared you would kill me, because you hate demons more than anyone I know. Junko said we should just keep it a secret between ourselves..."

He supposed if Junko knew how he would react, he couldn't argue against it. "... It's deplorable behavior. Don't ever do that again," was what he meant to say, but his mouth kept moving, "not without my say-so."

"Okay," they obliged with no further persuasion.

"How did you... nevermind. I don't want to know how you figured this out." It didn't matter. Eating a demon wasn't the same as eating a person... demons weren't people. Not anymore.

"I'm sorry," they miserably murmured. "I knew you would have preferred to hear it from Junko... she's the one who thought up the plan in the first place."

"The plan?"

A sudden sharp noise broke their silence-- they were both well used to the sound, but had been absent for the entirety of their mission. A crow flew in from an opening somewhere, circling overhead and cawing declarations of its discovery. It was a Kakushi guide seeking survivors and safe passages. Nobutoshi exhaled with relief but Hinata fell quiet. "The plan?" Nobu prompted gently. Hinata slowly shook their head. He went completely still, trying not to display his discomfort. Hinata and Junko-- the Foliage Hashira-- keeping secrets from the Demon Slayer Corps?

"I'll let Junko explain," they resisted, "when she gets back."

-----

"Master Ishikawa! Master Ishikawa?"

Nobutoshi knew the search had to come to an end. The sun was already nearly setting on the horizon, but he couldn't bring himself to walk away. Not when they hadn't found her yet.

The barge itself had already been searched-- it was easy to do, especially after it had dissolved into a pile of shipwrecks next to that dead village, indicating that Kabuto too was laid to rest. Unagiko could be assumed dead as well, given the lack of uncharacteristic riptides. Or perhaps she had fled so far beyond the reaches of the Slayers that they couldn't follow... only the best of them dared to chase demons into the dark.

Nobu couldn't accept the possibility she was killed in action. He didn't want her to be dead, but how else could she have vanished like that? He hoped that the Kakushi member calling out to him had found something of value, and he turned away from the ruins to hear them out. "Yes?"

"We... we have to bring the search to an end," the support soldier said hesitantly. "We've searched up and down the coast. All we found was her haori, which Yasumoto refuses to relinquish... and they also refuse to be transported to your manor without you."

The Mist Hashira sighed impatiently. Leave it to Hinata to draw him away from something so vital as a search and rescue. "Continue to search the waters. Drag the shore if need be. Find me something that could tell us where Hashimoto went."

There was no test. No arched eyebrow or second guesses. "Yes sir," the Kakushi member said, bowing and retreating. Nobutoshi supposed he had done enough work for one day. Slaying the Lower First and avenging dozens of souls could be considered... an acceptable outcome.

He tread away from the rocky shore and into town. It wouldn't be long before the villagers returned. By then, the Corps would have erased any evidence of the demons and their awful feasting, in hopes that lives could be picked up where they had been left for those who survived. He walked up the main path, stopping before the hut that once served as their temporary operations. A breath caught in his throat. Twenty-four hours ago, he had been in this very home with Junko and Jin. The last vestiges of his family... he stifled that breath down, swallowing sadness as he stepped indoors for the last time.

Hinata was leaned against the same wall Junko had sat at, looking out the same window that once beheld the demon's lair. In their lap lay Junko's belongings: her sword, lovingly cleaned and sharpened for her and snug in a new sheath, and her haori, cleaned and repaired and folded tidily. "... So now what?" they asked, tired. Perhaps they wouldn't look like such shit if they had submitted to the Kakushi Brigade.

"... If we can't find her body, we presume her dead."

"Do you really think Unagiko could have killed her?"

Nobutoshi curled his lip. He hated the way Hinata made the question sound rhetorical, as if the concept were unthinkable. As if he didn't feel the same way. "We have no information to suggest otherwise."

"She's still alive," Hinata said steadily, matter-of-factly.

"How do you know?"

"I have a feeling. Besides... if she's dead, then that means her plan is also dead... it can't be done without a Hashira's guidance, knowledge, and control."

Nobutoshi hummed and circled the room. No crows on the roof. No bodies lingering outside. Everyone's efforts were being put toward recovery, with only a small team aside to extract the Hashira and his companion once they were cleared to leave. With privacy assured, Nobu settled into place next to Hinata's legs. "... What is the plan, Hinata?" Their eyes locked onto his. "Is it something we can do? Together?"

Hinata scanned Nobutoshi over. "... Maybe. It'll be harder without her... but that's fine. If you want to do it, I'll make it done."

"Tell me," Nobu urged. He wanted to make Junko's goal a reality-- he wanted more than anything to live in that world she dreamed of. He would do whatever it took, even if it meant keeping Hinata's secrets.

Their lips moved subtly, and Nobutoshi leaned in to listen. They weren't speaking, but clearing their throat gently, in that familiar bedtime cypher. Nobutoshi watched their throat shift beneath their skin as they confided in him the most audacious idea that could ever be conceived. It was only something that could have been concocted with Hinata's compulsions and Junko's confidence.

It was their plan to infiltrate the Upper Ranks and assassinate Muzan Kibutsuji.

[ya-zz]

DANCE WITH ME (v1)

Ramattra x Reader (gen)

Word count: 1934 DRESS VERSION -

Please note that there are two versions of this story. One where the reader is wearing a dress and the other in a suit. I didn't want one to feel uncomfortable and decided on making two version. They are both exactly the same story, it just differs on outfit. Please read which ever one you feel more comfortable in reading!

!They both share a GN reader!

“Excuse me?”

“I am inviting you to this party.” 

“Why?”

“Do you have to question everything?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up and accept the invite.”

“And if I don’t?” 

“You will be missing out.”

“Missing out on what?” 

“Come and you will find out.” 

“Fine.”

The banter you shared with Zenyatta always warmed your heart, but it caught you by surprise when he asked you to join him at this party Saturday evening. It was supposed to be one of the more important events in omnic history, a party with trusted humans. If Zenyatta has invited you, then you were trustworthy, right?

You smile to yourself.

“What do I wear?” You ask, knowing that your wardrobe was anything but party attire. 

“I have that already prepared.” There was a playfulness in Zenyatta’s voice.

“I’m sorry?” You look at the monk, confused. “What? How?” 

He shrugs, and you knew.

“You went through my room, didn’t you?” 

“It is rude to ask someone their clothing size.”

“It’s rude going through someone’s room without permission.” 

You both stare at each other, not uttering a word.

“Would you have told me if I asked?” He cocked his head to the side.

“Probably not, no.” 

“My thoughts exactly.” There was that smugness in his voice that you disliked. 

“I swear, Zenyatta-” All you could do was sigh. 

“It will be in your room Saturday afternoon.” And with that, he patted your shoulder and left, leaving you there in the hallway almost dumbfounded by his actions and his words. All you could do was smile at the situation before going about the rest of the week.

—

Saturday came around far quicker than you had liked. The excitement bubbled inside of you, but so did the anxiousness of being around so many people. 

You left the bathroom and noticed a box on your bed. That wasn’t there before… 

Upon opening the box, you are greeted with a small note, a warmth spreads through your body as you read it.

I look forward to seeing you in this. I hope the night goes in your favour ~ Zen

You pull out the dress from the box, an audible gasp escaping your throat as you look at it, eyes widening slightly. The dress itself was gorgeous, a deep purple littered with little rhinestones, almost like a galaxy of stars. Absolutely nothing could’ve prepared you for this, and you felt guilty, knowing that something this beautiful had to be expensive. You sighed, placing the dress on the bed, looking at the matching shoes. This was feeling more suggestive, but you let the thought go as you got ready. 

—

Zenyatta met you outside the Monastery, his gaze left yours as he looked you up and down. 

“You look wonderful.” There was that playful tone in his voice. 

“You don’t look so bad yourself.” You smile at him, a warmth spreading across your cheeks.

Zenyatta had ditched the monk attire and settled on a dark suit, his blazer unbuttoned as he moved his hand from his pants pocket, offering his arm for you to hold. 

“Are you ready?” He asked. 

You take his arm, hooking yours through it. “Of course, my handsome looking friend.” 

Zenyatta chuckled at the comment and you both started walking away from the Monastery and out of the village.

A few other omnics and humans were walking in the same direction, their attire equally as elegant as your own. The feeling of relief washed through you, knowing that there were other humans attending. 

“Relax. It will be a fun night.” Zenyatta squeezed your hand gently. He had something planned, but he wasn’t going to expose that just yet. 

—

The Nepal city was full of life, a starking comparison to the village you had just left. Having rarely ventured away from the village, a slight anxiety rose within you, but you pushed it down as Zenyatta led the way to the party location. 

He squeezed your hand again as you approached the doors, two large men guarding the entrance. Zenyatta pulled two invitations out from his pocket, handing them to the men before they parted and let you and your friend inside. You were instantly greeted by another omnic who handed you a glass of champagne, a warmth radiating from him as you thanked him before walking with your friend. 

The room was brightly light, warm lights from the chandelier illuminating everyone around. The noise never waivered, a variety of conversations happening at once. There wasn’t anyone standing alone, except from one omnic in the far corner. Upon seeing Zenyatta, he lifted himself from the wall and approached. 

There was that gentle hand squeeze from Zenyatta again before the larger omnic stopped in front of you. He was a lot taller than you had initially thought, and the deep purple suit he wore matched your outfit perfectly, almost as if… It clicked suddenly. That bastard monk…

“It has been too long, brother.” Zenyatta spoke, releasing you from your thoughts.

“Likewise. I did not think you would make it.” The other omnic spoke, before looking down at you. “And who is this?” 

“[y/n].” You answer, bowing your head slightly. 

“A pleasure.” He took your hand in his, bringing it up to his face plate as if to kiss it. “I am Ramattra.” 

“[y/n] has been staying with us at the Monastery, and they are quite well liked among the monks.” Zenyatta looked at you before looking back up at his brother. 

“I can see why.” Ramattra kept his gaze locked onto you, noticing the change in colour of your cheeks. A small chuckle left his body. 

The music around the room slowly died down before a quiet voice speaks out, asking for floor to be cleared for those wishing to dance.

“Perhaps, you would like to dance with me?” The taller omnic looked at you, hand still holding yours. 

Zenyatta removed his arm, his hand finding your back. “Go on. I will find some company while you have fun.” 

You smile at your friend before he wanders off. Ramattra leads you by the hand to the empty floor of the ballroom where other dancers had gathered. The heat only continued to rise in your cheeks as you faced him. He placed a hand on your lower back, the other taking your hand in his. You rested your hand on his arm, the hard metal barely felt under the thickness of his blazer and shirt. 

The music started and everyone followed in time almost effortlessly. You followed Ramattra’s lead, the flow of your dress with every turn followed behind. Omnics and humans alike were watching and dancing as the pair of you somehow found your way into the centre of the floor.

He dipped his head to speak to you. “I must say you are rather quite skilled in this.” 

With a smile, you reply back to him. “You watch enough movies to pick it up I suppose. What about you? Surely they didn’t add a dancing module to ravagers.” 

A small chuckle escaped his throat. “I suppose that is true.” He paused. “Upon hearing that this was happening, I spent a bit of time researching, and in case something like this happened… well… I was prepared.”

Your steps never faltered as you kept dancing, your breathing deep as the music sped up slightly. 

“How long have you known Zen?” You ask, moving your hand back to its place on his arm after slipping down slightly. 

“A few years. He was one I could always speak to when I had my doubts.” You could hear a sadness in his voice. 

“Will you be returning to the Monastery?” 

“You ask a lot of questions, but yes. I will be returning in time. A few… loose ends to clean up first.” He cocked his head to the side. 

“I look forward to it.” You look up at him and smile, the lights illuminating your face softly as a sparkle glimmers in your eyes. 

“As do I.” The hand on your back pulled you closer to him, your body now flushed against his. 

You could hear the soft humming from his body, a soothing sound amidst the violins and piano. Although the sounds were pleasing, the hum of his body were far greater. A gentle sigh escaped your lips as Ramattra and you stepped in rhythm. 

It felt just like something in the movies you watched and you never thought something so magical could happen. 

His hand never left your body as he pulled you around the floor. Everything felt so good, just perfect as you continued to dance with the omnic. 

Ramattra’s memory was in borderline overload. He knew his brother had something planned, but this was not what he had expected. Even though the war had ended months prior, his hatred for humanity was still present in his core, but seeing you smile at him warmed his circuits. The moment he saw you in that dress it was like something had flipped inside of him. Love? Lust? He didn’t know but he wanted you. 

Zenyatta was cunning like that. He knew what you wanted and he knew what Ramattra wanted. A meeting like this was one way to get things going without unnecessary bloodshed or hatred. He knew you were a kind soul that could change the way Ramattra views humans.

He watched from the sidelines, your movements in sync with the ravager. He saw the way you looked up at him, and he saw the way he looked at you. Something was growing and he felt rather proud of himself. 

The music slowly died down and the dancing came to a stop. Everyone turned to view the orchestra and clapped.

“The night is far from over.” Ramattra speaks to you, offering his arm to you much like his brother did earlier on in the evening. “Perhaps… We will get to know each other more, yes?” 

You place your arm with his, hand resting on top of your own as he escorted you back to your friend. 

“I would very much like that, Ramattra.” A gentle smile on your face was all the confirmation he needed. 

“Ah, brother, [y/n].” Zenyatta joins the pair. “How was your dance?” 

“Quite pleasant, actually.” Ramattra answers, head turning to face you. 

“I have to agree.” You look at Zenyatta, raising an eyebrow. “You got what you wanted.” 

A soft chuckle escapes Zenyatta. “You figured it out, I assume?” 

“Yes.” Ramattra chimed in.

“Zenyatta, I swear-” You stop as the smaller monk takes your hand in his. 

“The night is still young, [y/n].” That playfulness is back.

“What are you suggesting?” You narrow your eyes at him, Ramattra stood there listening. 

“Perhaps you take advantage of this.” He places something in your hand. 

“Zen-” 

“Please, I did not spend the better half of this week making these arrangements for it to go to waste.” You knew he would be grinning if he could express his emotions on his face. 

The moment Zenyatta releases his hand, you look down at the item. A key with a room number on it. Instantly your cheeks flushed. 

“Zenyatta-” You go look up at him but he had disappeared among the other parties. 

“That brother of mine… Foolish.” There was a hint of humour in Ramattra’s voice as he looked around. “If you would prefer to stay among the party we may.” 

“I will never hear the end of it either way.” You laugh quietly. 

“Shall we?” He extends his other arm towards the staircase that leads to the rooms. 

You nodded. “Lead the way.”

-----------

Is there going to be a part two? Maybe. Would you want a part two? It would be exactly what you think it is. smug face

[astridthevalkyrie]

thinking about the multiple throuple options in the rfa, with my clear jumin bias:

zen and jaehee are obviously the most natural choice. they already get along, and they both have hearts in their eyes every time you walk into a room. zen loves getting a kiss on each cheek from his girls before and after a performance, and he is the number one customer at the coffee shop you and jaehee run together (you suspect it might be because jaehee has given zen a coffee addiction, not just because he loves you two). both of them really love to lay their head on your lap, and the only source of conflict between them may be when jaehee’s urge happens to present itself at the same time as zen’s. the usual solution is you lying down so jaehee can rest on your chest from one side and zen can rest on your stomach from the other, with your fingers running through both their long strands of hair and coaxing them to sleep.

jumin and zen is another obvious one. they’re so competitive, or at least zen is. if jumin kisses you for ten seconds straight, zen kisses you for twenty seconds straight. then they might kiss each other for a whole minute (definitely not straight). you will also never have anyone so much as look at you the wrong way, not when zen’s scowling and you’re holding his hand back as he shouts, “say it to me, buddy! to me!” and jumin is already tugging you into his chest and pulling out his phone, asking the person if they would prefer “hyun’s fists or the bodyguards’ which will only hurt a bit less.” later, they complain both in person and in the messenger about the audacity of the person. you’ve never seen them get along so well.

yoosung and seven will never bore you. will never make you feel anything less than absolutely loved. yoosung likes to hug you from behind to take photos he can send to seven when the latter can’t come out of his house for a bit. seven places his hands over your eyes and whispers, “guess who” while yoosung is laughing on facetime. when you’re all together, they’re all about closeness, so you’ll be sitting on seven’s lap while yoosung lays on yours, and there’s a disorderly snack chain going that will almost always end with yoosung nearly choking and seven insisting you resuscitate him with true love’s kiss (cpr).

seven and jumin, the deep story boys. they have absolutely no idea what a normal relationship looks like. both are afraid of being too possessive, too needy, too much. but both also love you so fiercely that if seven puts his head on jumin’s shoulder from behind and wordlessly gestures over to where you’re just sitting on the couch smiling at something on your phone, they’ll both having matching fond expressions, until seven kisses his cheek and then tackles you down on the couch. jumin hums, pretending not to hear the battle cries as he returns to the book he was reading and ignoring your cries for help.

and jumin and jaehee is so complicated, but it also has so much potential. they kinda hate each other—but they don’t, not really. they love you, in different ways, but just as deeply. and for a while, they were more jealous of each other than even jumin and zen would be. jumin hates that he cannot seem to know and understand you as well as jaehee does, and jaehee cannot fathom how your lovely heart could possibly love someone she can barely stand the sight of. it takes time, it takes effort, it definitely takes jaehee quitting, but eventually, eventually, there comes a moment of peace, where you can cuddle in between them, snoozing on jaehee’s shoulder while jumin’s hand is clutched tightly in yours, and they can look over your head and for once, smile at each other.

[mountain-sage]

The Transmission of the Lamp Osho on Enlightend Zen Master Sekito

Seigen was silent. In that deep silence is the transfer, the transmission of the lamp. It is not a question of language, it is a question of a transfer of energy. Just simply in that silence the flame jumped from Seigen to Sekito. And because he received the flame, the fire, he immediately bowed down and retired. Now there is no need to disturb the master. He has been accepted, not only accepted; the last step for which he had come has been delivered...

It was Seigen who finally managed Sekito's enlightenment. But enlightenment happens in silence.

That's why my whole effort here is to make you as silent as possible. Then you don't need even a Seigen.

Sitting anywhere - in your room, under a tree, in the garden, by the side of the river, anywhere - if your silence deepens, existence itself gives you the initiation into buddhahood. And when it comes directly from existence itself, it has a far greater beauty than when it comes through a master. I teach you immediate, sudden enlightenment. The meditation that you are practicing is just preparing you for that great silence in which existence will become a flame inside you.

Osho

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 26- Part 15

But I'll admit, going back and forth like this is a bit…cumbersome. It works, sure, but it just seems like a lot of extra steps. I just wonder how Abra isn't able to teleport away itself, or teleport Pokémon out of the cages- is it young and inexperienced with its powers?

I also wonder why Xera can't just use her party Pokémon for this? She still has them, they weren't confiscated. Crater's Lava Plume, Riptide's Water Gun, Kirin's Zen Headbutt…wouldn't that work just the same without a puzzle?

Finally! Freedom! Let's see- is that guard still asleep, even with the metal being broken apart?

Yes he is! He'd probably try to battle us if he was awake, but it looks like we can skip that fight. Now then, let's see these hallways!

Hm, well there's a doorway, but it's kinda blocked…can we still go inside of it, though?

Oh, we can- and it looks like Flash is actually working now.

A lot of engines, by the looks of it. What is this room? Big power source? General generator room?

AH! PULSE READ-OUT! GIMME THAT!

Ahahaha, let's give this a read!

Uh, hold on, that's new- “Move Tutor”? Must've been added in a recent update. What's this all about?

…Okay, good talk. Let's check that Dex entry now.

“Systematic Contamination”... I remember seeing a file like that back in Mosswater, yeah.

What're they trying to contaminate, though? The air? The water? It's just a pure Poison-type like normal Muk, that doesn't give many hints. 

What's interesting about this though is its Ability, Protean. So it'll change its type throughout the battle as it uses different moves? There are ways to deal with that, of course, but without knowing its moveset it's hard to go in with a concrete plan. I could start with Glare, but beyond that…who knows.

However, there's something else to this, namely its ungodly Special Defense. Holy crud, look at that green bar! However, all of its other stats are quite middling in comparison, especially its Defense. So what I'm getting from this is to avoid using special attacks (if possible) and try to use physical moves as often as possible.

Ah, there's a TM too- I wonder if there's a way to get it by continuing down this way.

Ah! Long ominous hallway! No thank you, we'll come back to that- 

But no way to get to that TM from here. So what about the other way? Is there another passage?

There is, very nice. Now let's see that move!

Echoed Voice? Not what I was expecting, I thought it would be some kinda Electric or Steel move.

Regardless, let's check this last hallway, in case there's anything important…

Oh, this room wasn't scary at all, it's quite nice! Although I would have preferred an actual Magnet instead of this…Magnet Powder stuff.

Now then- up those stairs, and into the rest of the facility!

Oh hey, a guy who's not dressed in a gray and black jumpsuit! I'm sure he's no less evil, though!

Though, it looks like there's a good chunk more to this building, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get to all of it this time, especially with Pokémon battles in between. So, in the name of making sure this chapter isn't super long and overwhelming…

I'm gonna cut it off here! That way, we'll have all the time in the world next chapter to explore Blacksteam Factory in full, with everything that entails. Beating up more Meteors, finding Cain, destroying the PULSE, and hopefully getting revenge on Ace for their bamboozling! It'll be pretty exciting next chapter, I have no doubt, so I hope you'll all join me for it! See you then!

CURRENT TEAM:

Riptide

Species: Feraligatr

Gender: Male

Level: 40

Ability: Sheer Force*

Item: Quick Claw

Brave nature; Alert to sounds.

Glare

Species: Arbok

Gender: Female

Level: 39

Ability: Intimidate

Item: Protective Pads

Naughty nature; Highly curious.

Bloom

Species: Roserade

Gender: Male

Level: 40

Ability: Technician*

Item: Big Root 

Docile nature; Alert to sounds.

Prong

Species: Vikavolt

Gender: Female

Level: 40

Ability: Levitate

Item: Insect Plate

Rash nature; Loves to eat.

Crater

Species: Camerupt

Gender: Female

Level: 40

Ability: Magma Armor

Item: Quick Claw

Hardy nature; Often scatters things.

Kirin

Species: Girafarig

Gender: Female

Level: 39

Ability: Sap Sipper*

Item: Odd Incense

Quirky nature; Thoroughly cunning.

CURRENT BOXES: INFORMATION UNAVAILABLE

NUMBER OF RELOADS: 19

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[sabraeal]

All That Remains, Chapter 11: The Prince and the Princess [Part 1]

[Read on AO3]

Written for both Obiyuki Bingo and also a very, very overdue birthday gift for @lusakina, who has nearly waited a year for me to be able to sit down and write this. It’s a slightly shorter chapter than these typically are, but this one needed to be more of an interlude between parts...

With a flourish of the pen, the girl escapes.

That is how a story would tell of this, wouldn’t it? A grand climax racing into the gentle arms of a denouement. An exultant cry of victory followed by a blank page.

Our fingers straddle the border between two words; one in which there is the possibility of failure, and the other which brings us the relief of success. It is so easy for us to turn the page, to shift from those dire hours to the moment of safety. A girl escapes, and in the space of a breath, she is far away, only pale echo of that danger buried beneath the next step of her journey.

There is no time to dwell on the between; on the sleepless hours wondering whether you will awake to the sounds of stomps and shouts, of whether you can afford to stop to catch a breath or must chance a push onward, hoping your own legs won’t give out beneath you. On the page there is only room for failure or flight, and anything in between...

That is where the story abandons you. Escape is only a small sliver of survival, and the the rest, the rest--

Is living. And oh, that is by far the hardest part.

Lata taught her how to ride on one of the sparse spring days in Lilias; Shirayuki had been the one to ask, only a day or so before, and he had huffed, at least it might make you more useful. A tepid response, one she thought had been as polite a refusal as a man like him could come, until she bumped into him in the courtyard, mouth wrapped halfway around a good morning, before he hauled her off to the stable.

Unlike most of her studies, riding did not come easy. No, instead it came in fits and starts; months of taking two steps forward and ten steps back until one day her amiable little mare broke out into a canter, and Shirayuki kept her seat. Good, the professor had grunted, hunching his furs up around his ears. I thought I might just wash my hands of this and let that poor excuse for a knight cart you around like luggage.

Please, my lord, Obi had called from his perch on the fence, a gloved hand pressed courteously to his chest. She would be my precious cargo.

Whatever he chose to call it, it was baggage, and if there was one thing Shirayuki refused to be, it was a burden. Riding might not come easy, but she had kept with it until not even Zen could find a flaw with her seat, and yet--

And yet, beside Kiki she sits a graceful as a rock in a bucket; unlikely to tumble out but by no means proficient. At least, not the way she thought she was. That’s the difference between learning a good seat and being born to it, she supposes, which wouldn’t matter at all if the moment Kiki slowed them to a trot, she didn’t feel as if her own backside would fall off.

“Catch your breath,” Kiki tells her, voice raised no louder than the susurrus of leaves around them. “We’ll need to keep moving.”

A protest hones itself to a point at the tip of her tongue-- there’s no need to stop, it wants to say, I won’t slow you down-- but Kiki only stares at her, kindness leaving her no quarter. The fight sloughs off her like a skin-- no, like a gown, ill-fitting and heavy, made for someone else. Another Shirayuki, one more used to saddles and stirrups, who spent her days toiling in the gardens and summers riding across the North, who hadn’t been afraid to throw a blanket over dewy grass to stare up at the stars.

Not the one who had wasted two seasons trying to slip into a smile that pinched at the seams. Who hadn’t let her friend simply disappear while she chose which spoon to stir her tea.

Nails bite into the flesh of her palms, sharper than she ever kept them in Wirant. She’d needed them short, then; longer ones were liable to break, for dirt to get caked deep within the bed, but in the palace...

Ornamental, Haki had called them, hanging polished nails over the divan. The same as Shirayuki had been, when all the flounces settled. Nothing more but another face to decorate its halls.

Her breath steams in the air, a gasping specter that dissolves as soon as it appears, never quite solid enough to grasp. Glancing over her shoulder, the lights of Wistal still shimmering past the dark ribbon of the river, she feels much the same. Insubstantial. Hardly real. That if she just reached out she could touch those glittering lamps as if they were no more than shards of wunderocks, meant to settle in the palm of her hands and never burn.

The city’s so tame from so far away.

“We should go back.”

It’s barely more than a whisper, a toneless sigh into the night, but Kiki’s stare cuts to her, sharp as the blade at her waist. “Shirayuki. You have just fled the palace and its protections.” The night blurs the details of her expression into shadow, but the angle of her brows says sharp, skeptical. “Are you really so eager to return?”

“I-I didn’t say we should go back t-there.” She skips over her words like a stone on a still pond, hands clenched tight around her reins. “I just meant...the market. Or maybe one of the pubs. Somewhere...”

Somewhere there’s something left of him, she doesn’t say. There’s no point when Kiki is already shaking her head, gold shimmering silver in the moonlight. “You do understand, don’t you? We cannot go back. Not to the palace, not to the market...not to Wistal at all.”

“But that was the last place Obi was seen,” she insists, stomach as knotted as the leather strap in her hands. “If we’re going to find anything, it will be there. If we leave now--”

“Obi has made some...questionable decisions in the past” --the wrinkle between Kiki’s brows discourages further inquiry-- “but if he was trying to slip out of Wistal under the Watch’s nose, he wouldn’t stop for a drink.”

Her mouth works-- wasn’t he supposed to be a slither-outer? a man who abandoned his post to make a fool of himself in every tavern before he’d crawl back into our good graces?-- but that venom stings even her own lips, a set of lies too raw a wound in her to even scrape out a single sound. To pretend she could believe that of him for a moment, even just to win her way--

You do know that house plants don’t drink champagne, she informs him, poking her head around the improbable girth of this fiddle leaf fig. Even if it does reside in a manor house.

Gold flashes up from where he crouches, startled, flute hanging limply from his fingers. It’s only a moment before it smooths into an easy confidence, into a grin that’s right at home with all these silver platters and crystal glass. It’s either this or off one of these fancy little balconies, and I got to say, there aren’t ladies walking out from beneath these leaves. Well, except you, Miss.

His playfulness is contagious. You could just drink it, if you need to. I doubt this would give you anything more serious than a case of the hiccups. She leans in, conspiratorial. In my professional opinion.

You may be the granddaughter of a bar, Miss, but never on the streets I’ve visited. A corner of his mouth twists as he levers himself to his feet. Then you’d know that the only knife you carry with you is a sharp one.

--It would be a betrayal. Another way for her to turn her back on him, to forget the man he’d become over these past six years, the one who-- who--

So, it was worth having? Just asking makes her stomach lurch, like holding her foot over a precipice, trying to judge the distance down. It’s just a necklace, just Obi, and yet she’s tangled up in anticipation, breathless for that tilt of his head, that soft flicker of a smile.

Of course. Both fondness and confusion add an airiness to his laugh, as if his answer were as certain as the ground beneath their feet, or as necessary as the air between them. It would have been just for the fact that you lent it to me.

--It’s impossible.

Not that he loved her; of course he did, but in the way a key loved its lock, or a hand might miss its pair. The way she felt when she walked the streets in front of her grandparents’ old pub and heard laughing through the glass. She was a best-worn glove, a favorite meal, a half-remembered chorus to a lullaby.

She was home, the same way he was for her. And to think of it as the same as the knights in the palace tapestries, kneeling at the feet of their mistresses and longing, to think of it as desire...

They’re mistaken, is all. Of anyone, she knew him best. If his feelings had changed, then surely she would have noticed, she would have known--

You don’t know anything about me, Miss.

Her breath catches, painful in her chest. “But we don’t know where to look. If there’s a lead, then--”

“There’s nothing left to find of him there.” Each word hits her like a whip crack, a lash she’s not braced to take. “They will be looking for you, Shirayuki. Not now, but in the morning...”

In the morning, one of Haki’s maids would bustle into her chambers, throwing curtains wide and informing her of the gowns the consort had set out for her perusal. But today her hands would sink into the covers and find no flesh beneath it, no young lady to dress as her mistress pleased. No, there would only be a haphazard bundle of silk and velvet and down, and then, then--

Kiki’s eyes narrow as she gazes back, a hunter gauging the distance between her and her target. “It will take them time to search the grounds, to realize...”

That she was gone. No, that she, of her own volition, had left.

Kiki’s mare nickers as she leads her head around, back to the road ahead. “We should use what time we have wisely.”

It is simple to have purpose when there is trouble at your back, when there is the promise of menace nipping at your heels. One step yields to the next with such ease that it becomes nothing more than an instinct, heedless of fear and of good sense. Forward is so much more tenable as a directive than a decision.

Second thoughts are the luxury of those whose stories have an after.

Night passes into day, and what once seemed a steady, sustainable pace turns relentless. Kiki turns them off the main road at first light-- we can cover your hair, but two women riding hard is a rare enough sight still-- leading them first through fields of tall grass and wildflowers, so many Shirayuki is tempted to ask for a rest, if only to replenish her stocks--

But the grimness of Kiki’s jaw stills the words on her tongue.

It’s not long until fields give way to scrublands, and scrub gives way to the first stirrings of a forest, its canopy blotting out the sun’s heat as it climbs to its zenith. To her eyes, it seems untouched, a primordial kingdom of leaf and bramble and vine, but Kiki quickly picks out a hunter’s trail in the brush, leading them deep into its cool embrace.

It’s only then that Kiki lets their pace slow, that she lets her mare come to a panting halt. “We’ll stop here. The horses need to rest.”

There’s no block for her to dismount to, but Kiki provide a knee-- and then a net of arms in short measure, once Shirayuki’s leg fails to swing over and becomes a slow, terrifying slide.

“Sorry,” she gasps, clutching hard to her shoulders. “I didn’t realize that my, er, I mean...everything’s numb...?”

Her only consolation is that Kiki’s huff is at least amused when she finds her feet. “No need to apologize. We rode for a long time. Longer than we should have.”

Obi used to complain that too much time in the saddle made him bow-legged-- like some sort of hedge knight, Miss-- but it’s not until she hobbles across the clearing, too much space between her thighs, that she understands it.

“Oh, did we? That’s good. I mean--” there’s no comfortable way to rest; to stand means suffering her trembling legs, to sit only worsens the numbness “--I thought so, but if we were really riding for so long, then we would stop to switch out the horses...”

Kiki shakes her head, expert hands never slowing as she rubs down their mounts. “They’ll check the roads first, the post stations where it’s likely we’d need to stop. And any groom worth his pay will know these are from the royal stables, which means he’ll be the first to tell them what he knows.” Her mouth gives a wry twist. “Horse thieves always pay well.”

“But we’re not...” Kiki spares her a long, dubious look. They certainly hadn’t asked to borrow a pair of His Majesty’s finest mounts. “Are you so sure there will be anyone coming after us? Izana said that if I left, that I would be-- I’d--”

It should go without saying-- even now, the burden of his gaze weighs on her-- if you break this agreement, there will not be another offer.

She clears her throat. “I don’t think he’d be sending anyone for me.”

“Not Izana.” Kiki stretches out the words with care, the kind that warns of a ‘but’ before it can round the corner. “But Zen will turn over the whole city to find you.”

“Ah...” She hadn’t accounted for that, no. Not for Zen, who so often complained of tied hands, of how his brother’s wants ran roughshod over his own, using what little power he could bring to bear. “But Izana would never let him. Not when he was so clear...”

“Which is why this will all happen so quickly.” Kiki turns to her, as grim and serious as she had been in the stables. “Before Izana can hear of it.”

Her fingers tremble against the trunk, bark biting into flesh to keep her upright. “N-no. He can’t do that. When Obi disappeared it took him weeks to even get a single search party...”

Beneath the black of her jacket, Kiki’s shoulders tense. She does not speak but brace, and that is enough to draw Shirayuki up short, to remember--

A knife strapped to a belt. A seed pressed into her hand.  Ah, she’d forgotten how easily a healed wound can run fresh, if she only pulls off the scab. “But he never sent anyone. Not for Obi.”

“Shirayuki...” A sigh soughs through her teeth. “We should go.”

But it cannot last forever. There always comes a time where fear banks, when tempers have cooled and the ceaseless war drum of the heart fades. And all that is left...

Is you.

Day fades into night again before Kiki allows them to truly rest, not just pause to catch a breath or let the horses drink. Their pace had been slow through the forest, careful as they picked their way along the knotted trails, but their mounts are exhausted, pulling at their leads as they plod into the clearing. Shirayuki can hardly blame them; she nearly balks until Kiki reaches for her, more falling from the saddle than dismounting it.

No matter how she might insist that she bore the mark of Tanbarun in her strong shoulders, or that heaving bags of soil from the cart to the greenhouse made her as capable as any of the male scholars, Shirayuki is hardly heavy. A girl her size might make Suzu stagger-- I can’t leave him on the walls by himself, Obi had confided once, grin peeking over his scarf, he’s got more in common with a sail than stone-- but even with the brunt of her weight slumping over her like a sack, Kiki is only driven back a step, solid when she plants her on the ground.

“You’ll have to forgive the accommodations,” she huffs, one half of her mouth hooking into a smirk. “I’m afraid it falls just short of royal.”

There’s no silk sheets or pillows of down, that’s for certain. But Kiki lays out her cloak to cover the soft sponge of the forest’s undergrowth, plumping her pack to make a kissing cousin to a pillow, and oh, what Shirayuki would have given for such luxuries during that breathless flight across the border, all those years ago. She stumbled upon that forgotten manor after a half dozen nights of only rocks and roots to lay her head on, with just that little hood to keep her warm.

“Ah, don’t worry about me,” she murmurs, unclasping her own cloak from around her neck. “I’ve slept on worse.”

Kiki’s smile stretches tight over her teeth. “Of course.”

Never one to need to fill the air with noise when silence would do, Kiki gathers their leads, nickering quietly at their mares as they tamp at the ground, impatient. Lata had taught her how to care for tack-- as any good horseman should, he sniffed, turning up his nose at the university’s groom-- but there’s a practiced efficiency to Kiki’s movements, almost meditative, that suggest any of her fumbling might only get in the way.

Still, Shirayuki isn’t about to stand idle. Not anymore.

“If you’re going to take care of the horses...” Her slippers shuffle, uncertain, beneath the hem of her skirt. “Should I gather some wood for--?”

“No fire.”

Shirayuki blinks. Wistal may be warm, even into its winters, but its nights still grow cold late in the season, enough that some mornings leave a lick of frost on the windowpanes. “But it will get cold soon. The sun’s already--”

Kiki shakes her head, sharp. “We can’t risk the smoke.”

She doesn’t so much snap as rasp, a dire note scraping her voice raw. Kiki has stood tall before kings and traitors both, and yet her whisper is nothing more than a live nerve that her desperation skins open. And it-- it seems so silly. They aren’t running from some first’s prince’s wounded pride, from four dozen of the kingdom’s most loyal knights and a half dozen dogs, but...

“But it’s only Zen.” It’s strange that she’s the one to say it, that in this twilight of her escape, she’s the one to speak sense. “He won’t hurt us. He’ll just...”

“Convince you.”

Her mouth falls slack. “I...?”

“Zen loves you.” It’s stunning how easily Kiki can say such a thing when Zen never had, when it had always been something hidden in the wrinkles of his smile or the longing in his eyes. “The fear has never been that he would hurt you. It is that you will listen.”

Shirayuki wants to protest, to say there would be nothing he could say to convince her to abandon Obi now that she’s set herself on his trail--

But even now her heart leaps to her throat not in dread but anticipation as she imagines Zen stepping into the light of their fire. Hope sears as he kneels before her, the fire casting his pale hair golden as he tells her, it’s all been a mistake. The anguish would turn itself to earnest apology in his eyes, and he would say that they can do this together, if only she would come back with him, if only she would stand by his side.

A breath shudders from her lungs, so full of wanting it burns.

It is so easy to say that she would not turn her back on Obi again, but three months ago, she would have sworn no one could get her to forsake him the first time.

“Right,” she rasps, chest tender beneath the hand she presses to it. “No fire.”

Oh, how easy it is for the doubts to set in, when it is only your tender heart to stand against them.

These are not Lilias’ nights, so cold that even a warm pan beneath the pallet and a heap of furs can’t keep the chill out, but they do have to press close beneath the weight of her cloak, tucking it tight around their shoulders and back, scrunching to keep their feet beneath it. It’s hardly the first time she’s had to huddle for warmth under the blankets, tucking deep into open arms to keep out the elements, but she’s used to a warmer body beside her, a furnace wrapped in flesh. And Kiki, well--

What do you expect? Obi lilts into her ear, as soft as he always spoke beneath the stars. Miss Kiki’s got a reputation to keep.

Her body is weary, bruised and battered from the ride, but even still-- her heart leaps when Kiki lays next to her, the sweet scent of lilac wafting from where her hair knots at the back of her neck. For a moment, it feels like that night so long ago, when snow had pressed at the inn’s windows, and her heart had raced from how close she had come to-- to something in that room. Not with Kiki, but with Zen, the pillows collapsing in among them and the urgency to see, to know had pressed her in for that next kiss. Her lips stung from it, tingled, and she had wanting nothing more than to say something, to ask if it was right that she felt so torn between her head and her heart.

But instead she had stared at the nape of Kiki’s neck, where her hair parts around skin like waves around a breaker, and worried. The same as she does tonight, as she does the next, and the night after. She is a font of concerns, an endless well of anxiety that burbles through the early morning hours, ceaseless until the sun rises.

You understand, don’t you? Even now, she feels Kiki’s fingers at her ankle, a single thoughtful tap on her boot. What all this might cost when it’s over?

If you break this agreement, Izana warns her, his tone implying fine print, there will not be another offer.

Think about what you might lose, the silence urges her, sounding more like Kiki than any words ever have. Think about what you might not get back.

Her fingers clench tight in the wool of Kiki’s tunic. But what about you? she wants to ask into the soft skin of her nape. What do you lose, coming with me?

Kiki is a royal knight, an aide to the second prince, the heir to Seiran. Soon to be married, too, after her father’s summit. One so important that it even peeled Zen’s aides from him, one Kiki herself is supposed to be handling the arrangements for.

And yet here she is, with her. Because a princess needs her knight. Except Shirayuki has never wanted to be a princess, and Kiki...

Must have her reasons. Good ones. The kind Shirayuki wants to know, to understand--

But instead her body betrays her one last time, and all its anxiety abandons her for sleep.

Oh, how stories never speak of this part, of that space between the wanting and the knowing. A woman wakes from her thousand year slumber in the arms of her true love. Children outsmart a witch and find their way home without a single wrong turn.

A girl escapes the garden of a sorceress, and stumbles straight onto the trail of her boy. No doubts, no second thoughts, no leads that have gone cold over the long months she spent, a prisoner in paradise.

How much easier it must be to suffer knowing that there is purpose to it in the end. How much easier it is to go forward, when every step will lead you true.

It’s impossible for her to say how many days it take for them to travel through the forest, or how many more there are before Kiki leads her back to a road. Obi had always been the one with the map in his head, unerringly leading them through hill and dale and drift; Shirayuki had only followed, putting her boot prints beside his own, a matched set.

It’s only the hangings above the inn’s door that give her pause when they pass it, that remind her that they’ve been here before. They’d run across this very courtyard with rain dogging their heels, standing in front of the desk soaked entirely to the skin. The five of them, traveling back from Tanbarun, breaths caught up in laughter as they skidded to a stop in the tile. It’s impossible, she thinks, that they could have been so young only such a short time ago.

“How about it then?” Kiki grunts, voice rough from disuse. “Would you like a bed tonight?”

Her back would certainly appreciate it. “They had baths here, too, didn’t they?”

For the first time in days, Kiki’s mouth curls toward a smirk. “You know, I think they did. Good ones, too.”

Strange, is it not, how we never know the precise moment the story finds us again?

Steam curls thick in the air, a palpable curtain between her and the bath. A welcome one; it’s been so long since Shirayuki last removed her dress that the cuffs stick to her wrists. It’s a miracle of the humidity-- and her own ingenuity-- that it peels away, leaving pink skin in its wake.

“Oh.” The warmth of the bath clings to her as thick as any cloak, coaxing out a sigh. “Where...?”

“Leave it,” Kiki urges her from farther in. “The maids will look after it. If there’s anything that can save those things.”

She hums, uncertain, letting the fabric hang from her fingers. This is her own sweat, her own mess; it hardly seems right to expect someone to clean it...

But she wants to deal with it even less. “All right.” The gown drops into the fog, lost. “I’m coming.”

When it is not just our own will that moves us forward, but the narrative, pushing us inexorably to the next turn of the page.

It’s a good, solid scrubbing that Shirayuki gives herself; she’s no stranger to the sort of dirt that a body can gather over a day’s work, but this, this is a week’s accumulation of grime and filth. It doesn’t wash away so much as flake, chipped off by the application of horsehair and grit until the only think left is pink, scoured skin beneath.

“We’re alone,” Kiki assures her through the partition, one pale foot sliding a sudsy bucket beneath. “If you want.”

Shirayuki blinks for a moment, staring down at the bubbles uncomprehending--

“Oh.” She reaches up, unwinding the towel from her head. It’d be generous to call what’s under it brown, let alone red, but with a good wash, well... “Thank you.”

Kiki hesitates. “I’ll meet you in the bath.”

Even in the most mundane of moments, the times in which we feel the most off the trodden path, lost and left with only our hopes to guide us, we can be so close that only a step would traverse the space between. That only a breath could speak it into being.

How many times must we come close to relief, and then never know it? How many doors must close while we hope for a mere window, all unknowing?

If Shirayuki had thought the steam thick before, it is nothing to how it rises from the actual bath. It might well be a curtain for how well it shields the edge from her; she risks a few toes at first to feel for it, and with a steeling breath, sinks a whole foot right down to the knee.

It’s hot, enough that the fresh skin these prickles with pain before the heat soothes it away. Her other leg follows, then the rest of her, sinking down into its warm embrace.

As much as it stings, it’s pleasant as well. As if she’s been made new again, the Shirayuki of the palace washed away, and leaving behind only her.

And then, when we least expect it--

“Caw, caw,” the crow says, swooping down to the little girl, “Good day, good day, little one, what brings you here?”

“Well, well, well.” A lithe body slides into the pool, tawny trailing after her like a comet’s tail. “Didn’t think I’d find a fine young miss like you here.”

--We are found once again.

For better or for worse.

[traditional-with-a-twist]

lxvii. Beauty and Her Beast

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For Obi, all the doubts had burned away.

He had said to Shirayuki once that he could not help her understand as Zen could —he would bring the prince to her instead. Zen could clear away doubts impenetrable to Obi; he saw through it all, straight and clear down the path ahead to the sunlit lands that lay beyond.

Now Obi saw it, too.

No longer did he feel himself adrift, without purpose or direction except what he set for himself, secure only in the knowledge that he could not be trusted. Just when they had all thought themselves abandoned, and none perhaps more so than Obi, Zen had bequeathed this parting vision.

For the first time since his master had ridden away, and the army of Clarines had returned home without him, the way forward was made clear to Obi.

The only question now was how to get there.

This guiding light – charged by the threat of imminent danger – revived all Obi’s prodigious energies to concentrate on a single point: stop the sea snake before she could hurt Shirayuki.

...

With this single-mindedness of purpose, he threw himself again and again against his bonds, muscle against the cords, bone on steel, until he felt the ring that bound him to the wall begin to give way.

All this time, Mitsuihed sat motionless. His body hunched in on itself, immobile, but his mind was churning. He heard his friend’s struggles as if from a long way distant, strangely muted.

Metal clanged on stone as Obi wrenched himself free. The victory stayed him not an instant – he sprang to the door and pounded iit with the same ferocity as his chains, his energies unspent.

Obi was hammering at the door, and their faces were hammering in Mitsuhide’s head: Kiki… Shirayuki… they were in danger.

Mitsuhide wanted to help them; in his soul of souls, he yearned for their happiness and well-being. He would have given anything for that – but he shrank from the connected thought: that day on the battlefield, Zen’s blood running into the grass, and his own empty hands – shaped to wield a sword in the defense of his prince’s life, yet helpless against that red flow, powerless to save him.

Perhaps it was better not to try than to fail, when that failure might cost the ones you loved best, nothing short of everything.

...

The door burst open, but beyond it — a staircase full of armed men.

They fell upon Obi with wild yells, bearing him backwards over the threshold as inexorably as a wave.

Even had he not suffered from every deprivation and abuse as a prisoner, to say nothing of his long stretch of relentless, self-inflicted maltreatment while journeying alone, Obi would have been at a disadvantage, fighting in doors at close quarters.

As Itoya had discovered firsthand, Obi exercised the full extent of his powers in the forests, among the trees.

The boundless spaces, with their multitude of possibilities for concealment, gave full play to his abilities: the hurtling speed, lightning strikes, crushing force.

Inside four walls, he was more easily hemmed in, crowded and outflanked by his opponents. Now, in the heaving press of assailants struggling to subdue him, he was slowly folding under their weight.

...

Mitsuhide rose. Ahead of him, a guard raised a club over Obi’s head. The blow descended —and broke. 

It had struck a broad shoulder, interposed between.

For a moment, the fighting stilled. Towering above the other men in that close, dark room, Mitsuhide spoke: “There are things in the past that I wish I had done…but there is more in the future that I still wish to do.”

His eyes met Obi's: steady, clear brown against the wild gold with dilated pupil. "I'm here,” Mitsuhide said simply.

With a strangled yell, the guards closed to battle again, but now the odds swung against them.

Fighting back to back, Mitsuhide and Obi bore down the hail of blows, forcing the guards away, to either side, like a prow cleaving the waves.

...

Mitsuhide struck with a grim determination, face set, one eye always on his friend, for Obi flung himself into the brawl with an abandon heedless of his own safety. More than once, Mitsuhide intervened to turn aside a hit that must surely have incapacitated him – if it were possible to halt the raw drive that consumed Obi with his mindless purpose.

Mitsuhide almost envied him that unfettered instinct – he felt himself slow and dull, his power blunted by a long season of no training more strenuous than the cross-country pace of a courier in saddle.

He had forsaken the way of the sword, and it had forsaken him. He would have reproached himself bitterly for this in turn, but the mad throng left little space for reflection.

It was all the work of elbows and fists: rusty as he was, Mitsuhide relied more than ever on his superior bulk.

Their attackers, repulsed to the point that they felt themselves defending against the onslaught, wrestled all the more frantically as the prisoners neared the top of the stairs, but now even the support of the walls failed them in the containment effort.

Only the open air beckoned, and Mitsuhide and Obi would not be denied.

They burst into the hall — and found the house in chaos.

...

For the first time, Obi paused. Adrenaline may have pushed him beyond thought, but a sense far deeper than consciousness warned him something was amiss – something too costly to ignore. 

A moment later, Mitsuhide smelled smoke.

He gripped Obi’s arm, trying to recall his friend to himself. Eyes darting this way and that, Obi met his gaze only reluctantly and obliquely at that.

“The windows,” Mitsuhide shouted above the din. “The windows!”

Regardless of whether Obi heard him or understood, he surged forward in much the way Mitsuhide had hoped. A haze now clogged the air; both men bent low as they ran, their height no longer serving them in good stead.

At least the estate’s staff had grasped the greater danger and paid them no attention —too frantic in their cries and desperate attempts to organize some defense against the flames that now licked at the walls.

The first window Mitsuhide and Obi found answered them with blackened glass, the gardens beyond completely obscured with smoke.

...

Mitsuhide reached out to turn Obi back, but he had already wheeled around and plunged once more into the corridor. Following, Mitsuhide struck his foot against a step. He stumbled and corrected; they were running on stairs — below, the heat grown intolerable; above, a gamble in the dark.

Obi cut left — the floor had leveled out again — and Mitsuhide followed. 

They emerged onto a balcony, its fluted bowl clinging to the walls like a flowing vine. 

Brilliantly orange serpents were devouring the ornamental trees below, blackening their pale stone paths.

Only the central fountain had escaped the conflagration. It shone a glassy, sapphire blue, a pool of tranquility in the sooty, sparking mess. 

Obi’s whole body had angled that way, his gaze fixed, his muscles coiling to spring.

...

For a breath, Mitsuhide remembered he was mortal. 

Then they jumped.