#His life is too short without Hotaru

[hanashiz]

Gin, the boy who was cursed to disappear by a human’s touch.

[13rurururi]

♡ミ Married Life with Husband! Haganezuka Hotaru (Haganezuka x Reader SFW)

featuring six moments that will make you fall in love with him all over again

Pairing: Haganezuka Hotaru x Female!Reader

Content: SFW (but there's one suggestive line), fluff, domestic life, etc.

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA is a surprisingly doting lover who is never ashamed to let the world know about your love-filled union.

"My wife—"

At Hotaru's 16th use of the word 'wife,' Kotetsu begins to feel his thoughts blur into anything but the unending spew of Haganezuka's wife-related stories. The young boy feels grateful that the hard-headed smith found a life partner; however, Kotetsu's patience is falling short, and he definitely does not want to know about your 10-month anniversary dinner.

Kotetsu feels a brief sigh of relief against his mask when Kanamori strolls inside the quiet teahouse. "Ah, Haganezuka-san and Kotetsu-shounen!"

Kotetsu sees Haganezuka swivel his head to face his younger colleague, and without missing a beat, he uses 'wife' for the 17th time in that very hour.

"My wife's birthday is coming up. She keeps telling me not to get her anything, but I'll be damned if I don't." Haganezuka regards Kanamori with a short nod.

"Oh, my En-chan says the same! Regardless, I'll gift her at least a bouquet of flowers. Just this other day, I came home to give her a—"

At this point, the two men were in a whole new dimension, exchanging stories about their married life. Kotetsu once again begrudgingly thanks the heavens for allowing Haganezuka to be passionate about something other than swords, but he feels himself sink onto the table as he thinks,

"There are two of them now..."

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA never fails to come home to you with a gift in hand, letting you know that you are always on his mind, no matter how hectic the forge gets.

"Here," he firmly places a haphazardly wrapped present on your palms. Your body jolts at the sudden weight on your arms, and you blink up at him in curiosity. "Open it."

"Hotaru," you cutely drawl out the last syllable of his name with a pout, shaking your head at your husband's stubbornness. Your lover is a gift-giver; after all, he is a maker of many marvelous blades and trinkets. In the earlier months of your relationship, he would court you with handmade jewelry, even if you bashfully tried to tell him that you'd appreciate even just simple quality time.

Lightly blushing from the adorable glint in your eye, he repeats himself, "Open it." You do just that, and you find yourself faintly gasp in wonder at a welded flower with the most intricate design he's done yet. It's made entirely out of shiny steel, reflecting your mesmerized expression on the metallic petals as you softly caressed the pattern on the leaves.

"Flowers die too quickly," he purses his lips — a mannerism he does whenever he feels shy — and turns his body to the side. "This one should last forever."

At a loss for words, you opt to kiss him meaningfully on his his blushing cheek. "I love it."

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA is still as stubborn as ever. He sometimes overworks his muscles until they are cramped and tense, so you — his beloved — offer to alleviate his pains with a soothing massage. He loves it.

You see Haganezuka roll his shoulders for the 5th time that morning. The crinkle of his brows seems to furrow deeper in silent aggravation.

Silently sighing, you embrace him from behind, letting your palms press firmly on his broad shoulders. This makes him groan in a mix of pain and relief, confirming that he is under discomfort.

"You never tell me when you're hurting," your breath is against his back, and you continue to massage his hard muscles.

"It's nothing that'll drag me away from smithing." His prideful quip makes you lightly slap his shoulder in annoyance, and it only makes him bark out a chuckle.

"Let me take care of you, okay?" You tip his head towards yours and bat your eyes in an attempt to persuade him. "Let's get you to bed."

Hotaru merely huffs as his lips form a suggestive smirk. "Fine, but you know I'd want to take care of you, too, my love."

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA will never want to prolong your arguments and misunderstandings. He may be a prideful and headstrong man, but he acknowledges your side and your feelings, even if a little begrudgingly.

The moment your husband raises his voice at you, you turn away and head to a separate room, urging yourself to regain composure as you blink away your tears.

You're aware that he doesn't mean any harm with his gruff shouts — it's more of a habit he developed due to his social ineptitude — but you can get caught up in a flurry of petty disagreements and feel saddened by his misdirected rage.

Knock, knock, knock.

You hear knuckles softly knock on the thin wooden door of your shared bedroom. Muttering a soft 'come in,' you wipe the residual tears from your face while Hotaru stalks towards you and joins you on your Western-style bed.

"I'm sorry," he exhales through his nose as he hesitantly wraps an arm around you. To his relief, you completed the embrace and snuggled close to his chest. "You're right. I shouldn't have gotten so angry at the vendor, even if he did look at you for far too long—"

"Hotaru," you cut him off in a scolding tone. "Having you beside me is enough to ward off any danger."

You gaze deeply into each others' eyes. "Just stay by my side, and we'll be fine." You softly kiss his parted lips.

Hotaru only sighs one more time. "Okay."

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA is protective, and his concern for your safety is immeasurable and genuine. He'll cease his work and come join you if you wish to go somewhere during the evening. You'll never feel lonely with him as your lover.

"Where are you heading?"

You feel yourself faintly jump at the sound of your husband's voice. You gaze at him as he shifts from his usual spot in the forge, a half-finished katana laying behind him.

He's been engulfed in his craft for the past 3 hours, staying completely silent and diligently focused on smithing; you simply didn't expect him to do anything else for the next few hours.

"I just want to walk outside for a while," you begin to open the sliding door to exit, but your movements are ceased when you see Haganezuka fully stand up from his station and walk towards you.

"Darling, you still have a sword to finish—"

"It's nearly nighttime. Don't be stupid." You try to protest but he stays rooted by your side. "I'm not leaving you alone."

With a bemused huff, you find yourself smile at the bulky masked man walking next to you.

You definitely feel much safer with Hotaru.

HUSBAND! HAGANEZUKA never leaves your home or sleeps without telling you he loves you. He shows it through his actions, but he regards the simple words as devoted declarations he will never forget to remind you of.

Haganezuka rises from slumber before the sun even fully peaks through the valley. It's part of his dedication to his duties as a swordsmith — the only downside is how he barely gets to spend slow mornings with you.

After firmly wrapping his scarf over his head, he stares at your sleeping figure behind his Hyottoko mask, and he feels nothing but rampant swirls of adoration and love.

He sits down next to you, his weight causing you to stir in your sleep. Lifting his battered and calloused palm towards your cheek, he caresses you softly with a smile behind his mask.

"I love you, and I cannot imagine a world without you." He adjusts his mask and kisses your forehead. "I love you."

Before he can entirely leave the bed, he feels your gentle grip tug on his arm. He looks at your smiling, half-asleep face as you whisper,

"I love you, too, Hotaru." You beckon him for another kiss, and he dips down to do just that.

At that moment, Haganezuka was certain — there won't ever be a life where you wouldn't be reborn as each others' lovers. He swears in his heart that he shall always be yours, as long as you allow him to be.

a/n: I miss Haganezuka a lot. Have some domestic fluff of him! Reblogs and comments are much appreciated! ☆

[grapefives]

WHAT WE LIKE | HC

hotaru x fem!reader

fluff + married + stay at home wife reader + this is a bit short

him getting married was something the village NEVER expected

and to a sweet but fierce y/n much less. another shocker!!

anyway, your life with him is… pretty hectic.

at first, as his first relationship, it was quite stressful.

but the two of your were already quite old, looking for something serious so communication came very easily.

affection was quite tuff but soon it was the main expression of love and gratitude.

anyways, you had come up after a long day of selling

while you were a stay at home wife, that didn’t stop you from going up the mountains and giving out lunches to the hard working swordsman, especially that hungry husband of yours.

normally you’d be the first to get home, because of how dangerous night time could be .

despite how protected the village was, you could never be too cautious

but to your dismay, today was quite too long and you got home after dark

and to your surprise, hotaru was already home

“where were you?” he asks with a pout and a huff.

“sorry,” you apologize with a pout, “i had someone ask for so many orders i took all day cooking and packing that’s why i gave you yours first thing in the morning.”

he could see how tired you were, and as soon as you walked over to him, he grabbed your arm and pulled you into his lap

his calloused hands grab your mask and pull it off, revealing your smile, despite how tired you were and looked, you were bright and enchanting in his eyes

“you left dinner before you left, hm?”

“i did,” you sigh and he massages your shoulders, eyes closing.

“let’s eat, hm? i don’t like eating without you.”

you grin, “awe, what a cutie.” you flick his forehead, “but i know you ate already. you just won’t have the second bowl without me.”

he denies it harshly but you laugh hard as he picks you up and carries you to the dining table.

he always places you gently, making sure you’re comfortable.

to your enjoyment, he serves both of you.

and you enjoy the meal a lot more when he tells you about his hatred towards kamado tanjirou and his love for blade polishing.

while you yourself knew how to make blades, you’d much rather hear about it than do it.

as hotaru says “you weren’t made for that.”

and he makes sure you’re pampered for the rest of the night.

a nice bath. a nice scrub. a nice change of clothes.

and a warm cuddle to fall asleep in.

oh, and that warm kiss of your forehead. along with whispered praises and hopes to see each other in the morning.

[fanfictionalhooligan]

The Swordsmith's Spring〚Haganezuka x Kakushi/Reader Oneshot〛

Preface: Haganezuka is left discouraged after the failure of his first matchmaking arrangement. Tecchin's next pick for him is a Kakushi, oddly enough, but he obliges. He has little hope that his Spring will arrive (as Kanamori words it), but love has a strange way of bringing together those who look after the Demon Slayers.

Intended to be a follow-up to the Demon Slayer novel, Telltale Signs of the Wind. This story can still be read independently but it probably hits differently if you've read the light novel. I added a link to the specific chapter at the end of the story, but if you just want a quick overview then see this post!

"I think we've met before, Haganezuka-san."

"...Is that so?"

"Just for a few seconds. You, um, were running with a knife and yelled at me to get out of the way."

"...Oh." Haganezuka had no memory of this. He'd delivered too many death threats and knife chases in his life to recall small details. "Sorry if I frightened you."

"It's okay. I yell at Demon Slayers a lot, too," the female Kakushi replied. "They can be really frustrating."

"They are."

So, this would be the first topic of their matchmaking. Knives and yelling at Demon Slayers.

The two of them were here on extremely short-notice thanks to Tecchikawahara Tecchin, the Swordsmith Village chief. The old man had taken one look at her face a few days ago and shamelessly asked if she was married. He wasn't supposed to see her face at all, actually, but a spider had crawled under her mask and caused her to shriek and yank off her entire hood in wild terror. Tecchin lit up with glee and told her that his adopted son, Haganezuka Hotaru, was looking for a wife.

The chief was persistent and beseeched her to stay for just a couple of days in the Swordsmith Village, no matter how many ways she tried to find excuses to escape for work duty. However, there was something endearing about the way Tecchin wished for "Spring to finally blossom" for his son and for her as well. The female Kakushi gave in and decided that there was nothing to lose from one matchmaking meeting, anyway. She was constantly given a hard time about being unmarried, but what was she supposed to do? The Kakushi had her running all over Japan with Demon Slayers on her back, and she was never in one place long enough to meet a potential suitor. Still, at least she could get everyone off her case after this meeting and say that she'd tried.

...As it turned out, it was mostly Tecchin trying to find a wife for Haganezuka. The latter was carrying on with his life and his swords as always, and no one told him anything until she'd already agreed to the meeting. He threw a fit but grudgingly obliged since it would be rude, even for him, to disregard her gesture.

And here they were.

For two people who apparently yelled at Demon Slayers a lot, they could only manage a quiet mumble when they spoke to each other. Tecchin had insisted that they show up without their masks, claiming that their good looks would be sure to make a lasting impression and a shame to keep hidden. Besides, it was safe given that they'd both been working alongside the Demon Slayers for several years and needed no explanation. Tecchin arranged the meeting in a secluded area away from the village houses, surrounded by Sakura trees and difficult for onlookers to spot.

Secluded or not, though, sitting out here on the grass in broad daylight without a mask felt similar to being naked. The fact that she actually found Haganezuka as handsome as he found her beautiful, true to Tecchin's claims, somehow made it worse. They couldn't look each other in the eye for more than a few seconds at a time before getting embarrassed and pretending to focus instead on the plate of dango between them.

She decided to choose the first thing within sight that she could start a conversation about. "So... I hear that this is your favorite food?" she held up her skewer of dango.

Haganezuka had just stuffed one of the round masses of sweet dough into his mouth and gestured with his free hand for her to give him a moment. After a loud gulp, he cleared his throat. "Yeah. Mitarashi dango's my favorite."

"I can see why. They're really good," she remarked, taking a bite from her own stick of dangos.

"Wish I could eat them every day," Haganezuka added.

"Yes, wouldn't that be great?" she responded as cheerfully as she could manage. He was making it very difficult to keep the conversation alive and had returned to eating without replying. "So, um...do you have any hobbies, Haganezuka-san?"

His face hardened for some reason. "Making swords."

"Hey, it's great that you see your work as a hobby, too!" the Kakushi girl exclaimed, trying not to think too much into his sour expression. Haganezuka seemed surprised, though, lifting one of his glaring, jagged eyebrows."That makes it more fun since it's usually a really strenuous process, right?" she continued. "On top of that, the Demon Slayers just throw new requests at you as if you could magically just hand a new one to them the next day."

"I would still make swords whether or not anyone uses them. I enjoy it." Haganezuka stopped eating and just looked down at the dango skewer in his fingers instead.

"Well, that must be how you became so great at it," she told him earnestly.

Haganezuka smiled halfheartedly. "It's odd... I was asked the same question last time."

"Last time, as in, you had another matchmaking meeting?" she exclaimed. For some reason, she wasn't fond of the idea of another woman entertaining a chance to marry him.

"Sorry, forget I mentioned anything. Nothing good came out of it." Haganezuka straightened up and cleared his throat, a little ashamed. "...But I do like your answer better."

"Oh, about your hobby?" she remarked, unsure of what he meant. "Eh...what else would someone say? If you don't mind."

Haganezuka went silent for a moment. "...That swords are barbaric weapons that should be left in the past for me to look into more useful things. Like kitchen knives." The Kakushi stared at him in horror. "That's all."

"Someone actually said that?" She suddenly threw down her unfinished stick of dango and startled him. "What - why?"

Haganezuka shrugged. "I rejected the arrangement."

Everyone who met him was able to tell within minutes how much he adored swords. Whoever wanted him to discard them like useless artifacts might as well have told him to go kill himself. The Kakushi was enraged. "Kitchen knives?!" she repeated. He said nothing. "Well, how about those kitchen knives you chase after Demon Slayers with, then?" she scowled. "Yeah, let's see how much she loves kitchen knives after -"

"Those aren't kitchen knives," Haganezuka interrupted plainly. "Too dangerous. They might look like cutlery, but I made them extremely sharp. I wouldn't recommend them for cooking."

"...Oh." She was thrown off by the random comment about the actual knives, rather than the person that deserved to be hunted down by them. "I, um, didn't know."

He didn't add anything else.

It was probably a better idea not to talk about it. He was still sitting over there without touching the plate of dango.

She thought of something else. "You know, I've always wondered how swordsmiths know what to use to forge a Nichirin Blade." Haganezuka's face immediately brightened, and she couldn't help smiling. "Maybe it's obvious to you, but I personally can't tell them apart from regular swords until they change colors. Is there a special component in the metal?"

"Absolutely." Haganezuka's voice was suddenly clear and confident, sounding nothing like their initial conversation about knives and yelling at Demon Slayers. "Have you ever heard of Mount Yoko?" he asked eagerly.

"I haven't," she replied curiously. "But the name sounds familiar. Where is it?"

"It's the mountain closest to the sun," Haganezuka explained avidly. "It's bathed in sunlight all day, and that's where you'll find Scarlet Crimson Iron Sand and Scarlet Ore, which is what we use to forge Nichirin Blades." The young woman nodded along, fascinated. "The result is a sword that absorbs sunlight," continued Haganezuka. "The source of the very thing that kills demons and makes them terrified of the day."

"That's amazing, Haganezuka-san!" She was able to look at him directly for once, without remembering about the whole mask thing and how foreign it felt not to have one. "So, all the blades actually come from the same place? Even with so many different colors and finishes?"

"Yeah, isn't that incredible?" Haganezuka exclaimed. "When I see the sun's energy flow through a new blade, how it transforms into colors and patterns that are entirely unique to the owner of the sword... It's one of the most beautiful things in the world."

Her eyes sparkled with awe as she tried to picture it. "Wow, I wish I could see that, too. And the mountain sounds like it would be a very beautiful place."

"Oh, you have no idea." Haganezuka was glowing with joy as if he were standing on the actual mountain. "The sunlight makes everything flourish - every leaf greener, every flower more vibrant, every tree taller." He gazed off into the distance, presumably in the direction of the mountain. "There's a river with a waterfall as clear as glass, and you'll see streaks of the ores running across the rocks near its bank. There are just...so many things that words can't even describe."

"It sounds gorgeous..." the Kakushi said breathlessly. "Can I go with you next time? I want to see it, too."

The question flew right over his head. Haganezuka was completely immersed in his praise of the Nichirin mountain and continued to ramble. It was a pure, almost childlike kind of adoration that the Kakushi found endearing, and she patiently continued to listen.

"I would live on Mount Yoko if I didn't have to stay in the village to forge the swords," Haganezuka declared. "In fact, that's where I want to get married." He suddenly froze on the spot.

"I-I mean...just in general. T-that's where I would choose to have my wedding...if I got...married."

It was as if Haganezuka just remembered why they were even sitting here, talking to each other. On the other hand, the Kakushi was a bit relieved that she didn't have to be the one to bring it up first. There was an odd silence in the air as they simply looked at each other, both of them setting the dango sticks quietly back onto the plate.

"Hotaru..." she finally began, ever so softly. His face was burning red as she called him by his name. It sounded lovely, coming from her voice.

A particularly harsh gust of wind suddenly rattled all the Sakura trees above them, causing a flurry of pink petals to blow straight at their faces. A good number of petals flew into Haganezuka's mouth, while another one of them hit the Kakushi's eye along with a cloud of pollen. The two of them jolted as their arms flailed in the ambush.

"Pffft -" Haganezuka hunched over and spat the pink petals out irritably; the young woman next to him violently rubbed her eyes to get rid of the stinging pollen. At some point, the two of them stopped and looked at each other. They suddenly began to laugh.

"Hey, it's definitely Spring," the Kakushi giggled.

"Well, that's one way to be reminded."

The petals were everywhere - caught in their hair, down their backs, fluttering over their shoulders.

The moment had passed; the two of them were more fixated on brushing the sakura petals away from their faces, which weren't used to particles getting on them after wearing masks for too long. Haganezuka didn't look like he was planning to repeat anything he'd blurted about mountains anytime soon and started picking Sakura petals off of the dango plate instead.

She had no idea how to comment on it, either. But honestly, she enjoyed spending time with him here and was okay with just talking and sharing with one another their stories. All she'd ever heard about him was that he'd go completely off the handle whenever his swords got damaged and could not be reasoned with. She'd heard many rants from former clients - even if the lower-ranked Slayers seemed to complain the most - and it made her sad that he probably didn't receive many thank-yous.

"You know...I can always tell when a sword's been forged by you, Haganezuka-san."

He was eating another row of dango and looked up with surprise. "Is that so?" His face was relaxed again and eyed her curiously.

"Most of the Demon Slayers who use your swords look terrified whenever the blade needs to be repaired or reforged," she replied sheepishly.

"...You mean because of me."

The young woman let out a nervous laugh. "Y-yes."

"Anyone who brings harm to a Nichirin Sword deserves death," Haganezuka replied matter-of-factly. "It's their own fault."

"But there's more than that. Your swords are sharpened with such precision and polished so flawlessly that when it's nighttime, I can see the moon and stars reflecting from their blades."

Haganezuka's face grew warm, but he brushed the compliment aside. "All Nichirin Blades are like that. And if they're not, the wielder probably got it dirty and is a careless slob that deserves to die."

"But the thing is...I've seen a lot of Nichirin Blades." The young woman's eyes suddenly went downcast. "When Demon Slayers are killed, the Kakushi take their swords back to the village to be reforged into new ones." There was a heavy silence. "A lot of times, the blades tell me how it ended. Some are broken. Some are bent. Some are still splattered with blood."

Haganezuka was taken aback when her eyes began to water. "H-hey, are you okay?" he exclaimed, reaching out his arm awkwardly towards her for a moment before stopping himself.

"I'm fine...thank you, Haganezuka-san," the Kakushi replied with a somber smile. "I just get reminded of my friends from the Demon Slayer corps who never made it back from battle. Some of them died while I was still carrying them on my back." She swallowed back a lump in her throat. "But it's good to have a body to bury, you know. We're not always that lucky. Sometimes there's nothing left but a limb or a finger here and there, an eyeball, or just some scattered organs. We identify those Demon Slayers by their swords instead."

Haganezuka felt his stomach twist. How many times had this Kakushi seen such things? She was describing it so calmly, completely composed. Graceful, even. But every once in a while her voice shook, ever so slightly. It betrayed a deep, underlying grief that no one in the Demon Slayer Corps nor their associates could truly recover from. Haganezuka himself constantly dreaded the possibility of seeing another one of his swords in those bloodstained piles that were sent back for reforging. How did this Kakushi stay sane? She was out there delivering corpses - or pieces of them - and witnessing the maddening grief from their loved ones. Over and over again.

The young woman could sense the concern and looked away for a moment. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said so much. People don't need to hear that."

Haganezuka wished he had something more useful to say. "No, it's fine -"

She cut him off. "What I really meant to tell you is, I've recovered more swords than I can count from fallen Demon Slayers. And yet, I rarely ever see one engraved with the Haganezuka family's crest."

"Oh...maybe because there aren't as many of those," Haganezuka replied gruffly. "People prefer other swordsmiths." As much as he loved swords more than humans with little regard for anyone's opinion, it still was discouraging whenever a Demon Slayer stormed off and demanded a more tolerable swordsmith.

"That's not what I'm getting at." The Kakushi girl suddenly gazed intently at him, causing him to pause for a moment. "I never see your swords laying out there, in all that blood, because the people you made them for are still alive. It's your dedication, the love you put into making each blade, that endures and protects them and makes it possible for them to win." She gazed softly at him with humble admiration. "That's how I know when you've forged a Nichirin Sword, Hotaru."

Something warm and bright glowed deep inside his chest. "Is that really how you see it?" Haganezuka asked, his eye glittering as he gazed back at her.

"Yes, I mean it! And the swordsmen who trust you with their Nichirin Blades can do amazing things," she told him earnestly. "Urokodaki Sakonji. Tomioka Giyu. Kamado Tanjiro -"

"The Kamado boy lost his previous sword and was willing to use a basic, first-degree blade before I could finish sharpening it to its full potential!" Haganezuka immediately threw in. His brow twitched just from the memory. "Forget the demons, I wanted to kill him myself!"

"Oh...right, I've heard." A bead of sweat ran down her temple. "But even so, you were the one who honed the sword that Tanjiro used to slay a demon that would have killed everyone in the village. It gave him time to save a lot of people because you were so committed to finishing the job that you refused to stop, even while you were wounded. And you even lost your eye..." She unconsciously reached towards his face, where his left eye was permanently shut with two long scars that crossed each other over the lid.

"I still don't remember exactly how my eye ended up like this," Haganezuka commented obliviously, scratching his head.

The young woman quickly placed her hand back down. "What do you mean?"

"I was in the workshed for days, honing one of the finest blades I've ever had the honor of being entrusted with until that misty Hashira brat suddenly took it and ran off," Haganezuka grumbled. "I noticed that my left eye was bleeding for some reason, and it hurt when I tried to open it." He scrunched his face as he tried to recall the details. "Everyone tells me that a demon crushed it, but I have no idea what it looked like or when it appeared. It was already dead by the time I noticed."

The young woman stared at him incredulously. "Wow...they weren't joking about your ability to focus beyond human limits."

"Huh?" Haganezuka blinked. "I thought all swordsmiths never get distracted while forging."

"But with you, it's, um..."

"Is there something wrong with me?"

"No, no. Not at all," she quickly retorted. "I think it's amazing, really. I've never met anyone so dedicated to their craft. That's a commitment to be admired, you know."

She had such a bright, endearing smile. It was contagious, and Haganezuka found himself smiling as well. "I appreciate that." Upon closer look at her face, however, it occurred to him that he could still see a shadow of grief in her eyes, just beneath the surface. The sadness was so subtle, so quiet without daring to speak out loud. It made his chest grow heavy.

"Is something wrong, Hotaru?" she asked, cocking her head a little. His name sounded impossibly beautiful again.

"I want to ask you something." Haganezuka turned to face her, suddenly stern. "Do you ever get to rest?"

"...What do you mean?"

"When you're out there, tending to the dead bodies and their abandoned swords. When you see the hell on earth that demons bring to humans." He spoke so bluntly that the young woman jolted and her eyes went wide, her face growing pale. "Does your spirit ever get a break for you to rest?" he asked, deathly serious. "You, the Kakushi, literally carry our swordsmen and look after them and let them rest. Even if they're dead. Even if they're in pieces." Without thinking, Haganezuka reached forward and grasped her shoulders. "But what about you? Who carries you? Who is there when you're the one who needs to rest?"

The young woman looked down at the ground, completely silent. Her shoulders began to tremble. "I..."

Haganezuka held her shoulders more gently when he realized that there were tears pooling beneath her eyes. He'd gone somewhere that she couldn't hide them.

"You don't have to worry about me...but thank you," she replied softly, almost a melancholy whisper. 

Okay, that was it. "Listen," he told her, holding an intense gaze. "Remember all the things you just told me earlier? About my impact as a swordsmith and empowering Demon Slayers and all that." His face was turning red again, but he wanted to tell her. "That...made me really happy."

She was at a loss for words, but her face grew pink as she looked up and met his gaze.

"I want you to know that you give just as much as I do to the well-being of the Demon Slayers. You put so much care and dedication into making sure that they are looked after and can become strong enough to fight again. My swords won't do a thing to save them if they're still beaten up and left out there to die. Without the Kakushi, Demon Slayers would crumble without the strength to even lift a blade again. You keep them alive to fight, too."

"Hotaru..."

"But if you ever feel like you can't take it anymore," he went on, "If your spirit is shaken, you don't have to put on a smile and force yourself back out there right away. You...you can come to me." He never imagined that he'd be saying these kinds of words in his life, but it felt right. "You can tell me all about it, you can cry - anything at all that would help - I want you to come to me. You don't have to shoulder all the pain."

She nodded silently. Haganezuka felt her shoulders lift and then drop again with a sigh of relief, held steady by his calloused hands. He wasn't sure when their faces had gotten this close to each other, but he couldn't look away from her eyes. They were green like the fresh leaves of Spring that emerged after a long Winter.

It suddenly occurred to her that the sun had begun to set. "So, um...I think it's getting dark soon."

"Oh. Yeah, it is."

"What are we supposed to tell Tecchikawahara-san?"

The two of them shared a long, tender gaze.

"If you ask me, I'd tell the old man that there's going to be a wedding on Mount Yoko," Haganezuka declared. He paused for a moment and went still. "If...if that's okay with you." His voice grew quiet, suddenly afraid that she might recoil and run away from him like all the Demon Slayers. "If you'll have me."

"Yes, Hotaru," she told him gently. "With all my heart."

- The End

Thank you for reading💚

You have my gratitude forevermore for setting aside time for this little tale 🥹

POST-CREDITS AND COMMENTARY:

This is the first tumblr fanfic I've attempted, but I also posted it on AO3 here if anyone else likes to have a traditional story page format! I never intended to write a Demon Slayer fic at all actually! But in the light novel Haganezuka was down in the dumps for several days after the incident with the stinker who called swords barbaric; the chapter ends with Kotetsu's prayer that Spring will arrive for him one day. That was just too sad to me so I wanted to give Spring to Haganezuka myself :')

I intentionally left out any mention of Ms. Kakushi's name so that you can choose to interpret the POV or treat her face as more of a placeholder for yourself if you'd like. If you like the default OC, however, she's in fact a retcon and referenced from this young lady! Picked for her green eyes and presence in the Swordsmith's Village and hey, maybe they even glanced at each other. Here's her profile if you'd like to roll with it (link!)

I designed and illustrated the rest of her for this story using a combination of blank OC templates and body references to adapt to our hotheaded swordsmith. See the links below!

I also drew a random epilogue comic (link)

All fanart and overview of continuity

Care for Part 2?

REFERENCES:

Light Novel Chapter and Inspiration

Drawing Base 1

Drawing Base 2

Drawing Base 3

Drawing Base 4

Drawing Base 5

Drawing Base 6

[strawb3rrystar]

Hayoo

Not sure if you've written Haganezuka (if not, you're more than welcome to replace him with Rengoku [the donut]) but can I request an unrequited scenario?? Him just hopelessly (in his prideful tsundere way) pining after s/o

Up to you if you want to keep it angsty or angst to fluff!

Rip my heart out if you're going to reject me.

Pairing(s): Hotaru Haganezuka x Fem! Hashira! Reader

Notes: You can choose whatever breathing style you want. It's not that important to the story. Hurt, no comfort.

Word count: 0.5k

Hotaru Haganezuka was a single man. His only dedication was to his craft.

"Did you hear? A hashira is coming here." Whispers spread across the village of your arrival. Slayer's would come and go, most taking short vacations in the village. But, it was quite rare for a hashira to visit, as their workload was fairly heavy.

"I know! I heard she's beautiful, and one of the strongest." According to the gossip, you were coming to the Swordsmith Village to formally talk to your swordsmith and thank them.

"Of course, she's strong you idiot! She's a hashira!" Hotaru chose to ignore the gossip about you. He wasn't all too worried about the others having a false opinion because of the rumors.

Oh how unlucky he was to be out at the time of your arrival. To come almost face-to-face with your smile. You were far more beautiful than he, or anyone else could describe.

"How long are you staying?" Someone asked, grabbing your attention. "I'm staying in your lovely village for two weeks." You answer, walking away to greet the village chief.

Hotaru felt his lips purse, love at first sight was such a cliche thing, so that's not what he was feeling. Right?

Over the next few days, you had an entourage of villagers following you. Making it impossible for Hotaru to introduce himself without a bunch of people around to make it awkward.

He just had to talk to you. Just once hear your angelic voice directed at him. He had never felt this way before, so he was going to chase this feeling till it died.

You sat on the grass, your blade lying beside you. As much as you loved having people to guide you around, it was overwhelming. You just needed a short break, away from everyone.

"Excuse me." Your head immediately shoots up, your eyes meeting Hotaru's.

"Yes?" You ask, standing up and brushing the dirt off your uniform. "I don't normally do this... but, I'm Hotaru Haganezuka. I noticed you- Well, I'm sure everyone has... and, um..." He says, scratching the back of his neck.

"You don't wear a mask like the others." You point out. "Oh, I took it off. For you..." He replies, almost regretting talking to you.

"I was wondering if you wanted to grab something to eat? Like a date?" He finally pops the question he's been wanting to ask.

"Oh... I'm sorry-" Those words were enough to make his heart sink. "I'm married already."

Married? But so many guys were talking about how you were looking for a husband, and asking you out. Was he really that stupid? Did he really believe the gossip?

"I see... sorry for wasting your time..." He mumbles, walking away. He just sat, not doing anything, not thinking about anything. He felt the puffy ballon that was his heart, had popped.

Hotaru made another mistake by leaving his house on the last day of your visit. You were saying goodbye to the village people, giving hugs to the children. He saw your smiling face, the face that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Maybe in another life, you two are happily married. Or maybe in every life, his only relationship is with the nichirin swords he crafts.

Hotaru Haganezuka is truly cursed to be a lone, single man forever.

Star's notes -> I've never written for Haganezuka or angst before, so sorry if it's awful

(Thank you, sweet anon, for requesting!) (Requests are open!)

Taglist -> @forgottenfroggy @ellenel19 @divinexchaos22 | Join the taglist

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Mikan (pt. 4)

Yesterday, we talked about Mikan getting settled into her new life at Alice Academy, how she's being singled out, and how she managed to find a place where she belongs. We also are starting to see parallels between her and Natsume (king of mysteries), who continues to intrigue her even though she doesn't like him.

Today we'll see Mikan face the fact that she's being treated differently. She will also slowly start to see Natsume in a new light. From now on things will start changing.

<- Prev Next ->

Chapter Nine

Mikan is so happy to have met Tsubasa, her first and dearest senpai, that she has to introduce him to all her friends right away. They have a tea party where she complains about her classmates’ bad behavior and bullying. Tsubasa explains to her that her classmates are just high-strung because they’re unhappy with the academy. They know they’re just pawns but the only way they can vent their frustrations is through bullying. What they need is a new way to vent. 

Tsubasa compares himself to Natsume, saying he was similar when he was younger, acting up because of his frustrations with the academy. He even has a punishment mark that reminds her of Natsume’s punishment mask. Tsubasa is a great addition to Mikan’s life for many reasons, but one important thing he brings to the table is that he helps her understand Natsume better. He can relate to Natsume, and that connection helps her get why he might act out the way he does. Ruka gave her the first inkling that there’s something deeper to Natsume, with his firm defense of him. But Tsubasa is somebody she trusts and looks up to, who doesn’t even really know Natsume. He still understands him and why he behaves the way he does, even seeing himself in the kid. It’s just another of the little insights into how Natsume thinks, particularly since they both have anger with the academy in common.

Jock Mikan! (Also I love using images that have Natsume in them too, to remind you that this is a ship essay even if it doesn't feel like it quite yet.)

Tsubasa tells her to find something fun to distract her classmates with, so she gets pumped and suggests dodgeball to Class B, because she’s athletic and likes playing sports.

Her enthusiasm switches tack when she’s met with boos and insults. Insulted, Mikan eggs them all on, calling them cowards. Mikan may have started with good intentions, but she’s easily distracted, especially with how quick a temper she has, so the game begins with anger and vitriol instead of the fun bonding activity it was supposed to be. 

Mikan gets called a mary sue a lot and that bugs me. People are incapable of seeing a sunshine girl without assuming that she has no flaws. Mikan certainly has flaws. She has a short temper, for one. She is brash and hasty and acts thoughtlessly. She often ends up inconvenienced by her own actions, as evidenced here, or inconveniencing others. Additionally, Mikan isn’t acting alone to try and bring peace to her class: she is working with her two best friends who each bring a vital element to the endeavor. Mikan is loud and outgoing, impossible to ignore, so she’s the one advertising a dodgeball game. Yuu is patient and thoughtful, and he tries to keep Mikan grounded in their good intentions. And Hotaru is of course the cold logic of the trio, and is always there to provide a voice of reason (this time by trying to stay out of it).

So much for being blindly sunshiney all the time!!! Mikan quickly forgets about prioritizing fun and instead gets fired up.

The class makes a bet and Mikan has to win or else the bullying will continue and her team will become the other’s servants. Mikan doesn’t back down, even though her team is much smaller than the other one. This ends up being a blessing. They have more room to move around, and they’re all more motivated than the other team’s players. Additionally, she has great friends on her team, including poor Ruka, who just got lost looking for his rabbit (though he quickly gets swept away by Mikan). The only issue is Sumire and her buddies are dirty cheaters who know they won’t win if they play fair. Mikan might start with just a few friends, but their focus is on having fun. The rest of the kids joined the other team, mostly out of fear. Seeing how much fun Mikan’s side is having prompts the other team to drop the cheating and instead focus on having fun too. 

There’s very little interaction between Natsume and Mikan in this chapter, beyond him hitting her in the head with the ball and then telling everyone about the time he stole her underwear. He’s obviously unchanged by all this exercise. Just like Natsume is different in the manga versus in the anime, so is Mikan. She doesn’t thank him for playing. Instead, she gets so pissed off at him that she ends up accidentally hitting Hotaru in the face with the ball. 

I don't think Natsume cares enough about this game to be privy to the cheating going on here, but this is still his fault.

I described the differences between the episode and the chapter at length in my previous essays, but the differences in Mikan’s character are always shocking to me. Maybe Manga!Natsume would have reacted the same way as Anime!Natsume to the game if Manga!Mikan had thanked him for playing and told him she wanted him to smile and have fun. But she doesn’t. It’s hard to imagine Mikan doing that in the manga at all. (DON'T JUST START READING THE MANGA WHERE THE ANIME LEFT OFF! YOU'RE IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY! PLEASE READ THE MANGA FROM THE BEGINNING! I PROMISE IT'S WORTH IT!)

Anime!Mikan is not just more patient, she is more proactive and involved with Natsume from the beginning. Manga!Mikan can’t stand Natsume. He’s involved in the game only because he’s in Class B. She’s uninterested in making him smile or befriending him, especially since that’s clearly a lost cause anyway. This game is not about him, so when the chapter ends without his presence, it makes little difference to her. Like I said: they are real, genuine enemies to lovers, particularly on her end. Enemies, and how!

The chapter ends happily, even if it is nothing like the anime’s version. Mikan bonds with her teammates and has fun, and she even makes friends with the other team when they decide to start playing fair. They decide to settle for a tie and the biggest question is what they will play next. She might have started off with only a few friends on her team, but she’s closing the gap. She’s making friends with the rest of Class B, with only a few stragglers (namely Sumire and Natsume) left to befriend.

Even the Natsume fans are starting accept her (except for Sumire and the boy himself... all in due time).

Chapter Ten

Mikan misses her grandpa. She’s been writing letters but hasn’t gotten a single response. She’s sure her grandpa’s just holding a grudge, but she wants to know why he isn’t writing to her. She enlists Otonashi’s help and comes to find that her grandpa has been writing to her. 

This isn't funny at all. Where's the school comedy?

He looks sick and is desperately begging the guard to let him see his granddaughter or pass on a letter or anything. 

The anime makes this silly. He has some violent run-in with the mailman and then shivers during his water training regimen. But this is not the same scene. Jii-chan is unwell and desperate, willing to take any news of his granddaughter that he can. And Mikan can see it all--she knows he’s right outside the gates and that he wants to see her, but he’s not being let in and he hasn’t heard anything from her. She can’t see him, even though he’s right there, no matter how much she wants to. When Anime!Mikan shouts that she wants to see her grandpa, it’s just as unrealistic as ever, since he’s still back at home. But in the manga, he’s here, right here, waiting to see her. The fact that she can’t see him despite his proximity is cruel.

Mikan wonders what’s going on and Natsume-the-jerk cuts in to brusquely explain that Jii-chan will never get her letters because Narumi will never send them. He reiterates what Ruka already told her, that there’s not a single teacher worth trusting. He compares them, saying that they’re different from the rest of them. They’re being singled out for no reason and it’s naive to trust blindly in a situation like that. Further examples of them being narratively paired, to the point where their similarities are even obvious to Natsume.

Natsume may be a jerk, but he's frequently correct, especially about the school. Mikan will struggle for a while in being able to admit that sometimes he's on to something.

Yuu wonders why Natsume’s in a bad mood but Mikan doesn’t care at all, insisting that he’s wrong about Narumi. They might have some things in common, but not this. He’s just cynical, just a jaded little jerk. Two sides of the same coin, again. They are in similar situations but have very different perspectives on them: one pessimistic, the other staunchly optimistic.

But it turns out he isn’t wrong.

This is darker than the anime too: Narumi isn’t just tucking her letters away into a secret drawer, he’s burning them. They were never being sent and never will be, because they are in ashes in the teachers’ lounge. Mikan is shocked. She confronts Narumi and he punishes her, giving her detention without food. The anime has Jinno dole out the punishment instead, but the manga lets Narumi be the villain for a moment. It’s not just Jinno anymore; it’s the whole staff, even Narumi. He is a teacher with the academy, not a savior or an advocate for the student body, even if he smiles more than Jinno does. He is complicit with this system and has done very little so far to act outside of it.

Who exactly is "everyone"? It was mainly Natsume saying this! The quotes she's recalling are mostly Natsume's too! But Mikan doesn't like when Natsume is right (this and similar issues will come up later).

Mikan is determined to see her grandpa and enlists Ruka’s help (and he's so sweet to her, even this early on, wearing a girl's uniform just because he doesn't like to see her cry--he's a sweetie-pie). Her escape goes less than ideally when she is cornered by human traffickers but she is saved in the knick of time by Narumi and his trusty stolen bean-whip. An explosive is set off and Narumi protects Mikan from the blast, getting hit in her place. When she sees his bleeding face, she is instantly repentant. She feels responsible for his injury. This is one more trauma on a growing list. Getting nearly kidnapped and then watching somebody get hurt for her sake is not an easy sight for her.

Mikan is not the kind of person to hold a grudge. She is angry with Narumi because what he did was wrong, and he betrayed her trust. But he is showing her now that he cares about her and wants to protect her, and the issue now is that she doesn’t understand how those two things can both be true. She asks him why she’s singled out and he only asks her to trust him, that he will do everything he can to fix things. He is obviously beginning to genuinely care about her, because he means it. He does want the school to change, just like Yuka always wanted, and it took her daughter enrolling for him to be reminded of why she had requested he stay to begin with.

If he gets through to her, she'll be the only student at the school who trusts the teachers.

This is an example of the withholding of information that I’d mentioned. Mikan rarely gets to fully understand what’s going on. She is Alice in a strange world; as bizarre as this world is to us, it’s even more so to Mikan. She’s new and yet everything she learns is because someone chose to tell her, and they usually don’t. 

Narumi pleads with her to not lose trust in people, to not become jaded and cynical like all her classmates. She’s only been a student for a little more than a week, and she’s already been betrayed. She’s already been thoroughly traumatized. That’s how quickly bad things happen at the academy, a vicious cycle of teachers acting violently out of duty and children being exploited. It’s made kids like Natsume weary and bitter. Narumi doesn’t want Mikan to end up like that. She sees the best in people, and he wants her to keep that innocence with her, because it’s only with that kind of innocence and optimism that real change can happen. Sometimes, seeing the best in people brings out the best in people. And, in Narumi’s case, trusting him gives him the chance to turn things around. 

Reminder that Mikan is ten years old, separated from the only family she's ever known for the first time. She doesn't know how to be apart from him and Narumi is the only adult she's close to. It makes sense that she would look at him as a parental figure (a Jii-chan). None of the other kids would ever ask this question.

They have a sleepover (a dubious scene, but I won’t get into that here) where Mikan asks Narumi if she can call him Jii-chan. He suggests she call him “Dad” instead, and she gets flustered. Mikan has never had a father before. Her only family is her grandpa. She sees Narumi as a sort of father figure, but because she’s only ever had her grandpa, that’s what she wants to call him. Calling him dad instead is weird, a mixture of self-indulgence for them both, to get something they might have yearned for but never had. Narumi wanted to be what Izumi was to Yuka, and Mikan always wanted to meet her father. This only lasts for the one night, but it helps cement for Mikan all the things Narumi has told her. She wants to trust people, especially him, and trust that things will work out. She will be okay.

Chapter Eleven

It’s time for the school culture festival and Mikan is excited. She’s never been in such a huge event like this and she’s eager to be a part of it. Mikan is a hick and it’s amazing and endearing. 

Narumi tells the class to try and make bonds with people they usually don’t spend time with. Mikan takes his advice seriously because their relationship got a refresh and she wants to heed his word. She deduces that Narumi wants his class to get along, and that’s especially true now, although he obviously still hasn’t let go of his desire to draw Yuka in. Regardless, he can see how successful Mikan is in bringing her class together, and there’s only a few stragglers left who haven’t yet allowed themselves to let her.

Those stragglers are Sumire and Natsume, her least favorite people.

Typical soulmates tropes require fate to be the main agent in undoing hatred and getting people closer. GA assures us that it's actually up to them to choose taking steps in that direction. (And by "them," I mean, it's just Mikan. Oops!)

So Natsume is the first person she approaches with the intention of taking Narumi’s advice. The fact that she would approach him in a friendly way in the first place is testament to how much her conversation with Narumi meant to her. She asks him about the festival, an easy conversation topic, especially for two people who are supposed to be partners, but he gets pissed anyway, setting her hair on fire. This enrages her, almost leading her to abandon Narumi’s friend-making mission entirely, but Yuu consoles her with answering her question in Natsume’s stead. She quickly forgets her frustrations with this new information, delighted to hear about the attractions most of the classes put on. (Yuu has caught on to what makes Mikan tick pretty fast and knows how to cheer her up because he is an amazing and caring friend.)

But when she asks about the SA class, Seaweed, one of the middle-school bullies and Sumire’s older brother, shows up to answer, insulting the class and saying they’re the lamest part of the event. He only stops ripping on the Specials when he spots Natsume. Then he starts a tirade about how the only class worse than the Specials is the DA class, who are so terrible they’re not even allowed to participate. According to Seaweed, Mikan and Natsume are so lame they make perfect partners (am I broken record yet? Narratively paired!). 

Natsume shuts him up by burning his hair too. He uses Mikan’s nickname for him, temporarily aligning himself with her. Unlike last time, when they weren’t on the same side despite having the same enemies, now they are on the same team, even in just this small way. But he leaves quickly. He has Mochu by his side, cheering him on, but Mikan is watching him and she doesn’t look impressed, just concerned.

Something something blah blah Mikan having epiphanies about Natsume but only when he has his back to her blah blah. (What I mean is that he shuts her out, but she she makes the choice to figure him out anyway.) Natsume's back is thematically important LMAO.

Mikan gets insecure again, thinking about Seaweed’s words. If her class is the least popular, that must mean their alices are useless, which makes her alice useless, which is a nagging thought she can’t rid herself of. The thing is, she values the other SA students’ alices; it’s only her own that stands in her way. No matter what, she always comes back to this insecurity, that her alice isn’t good for anything, and there’s no clear reason it should be useful for something like the culture fest either, so she’s dismayed. 

She finds Natsume again, this time as she’s walking through some trees. She’s so unhappy and surprised to see him that she drops all her papers--flyers for the festival. He helps her gather them up, probably the one and only nice thing he’s done for her in all this time. He asks why everyone’s making such a big deal about the festival. He calls it pathetic and dismisses the whole event as a dog and pony show--just another means for the school to exploit its student body.

But the thing is, Mikan heard what Seaweed said. Natsume isn’t allowed to participate in the festival. She connects the dots that he’s in a bad mood today because of that, because he’s constantly being reminded of something that has nothing to do with him. But even more than that: she can see him clearer than Mochu could. She can see that his anger is just a way to cover up an underlying sadness. When she watched him walk away earlier, she looked concerned because he seemed hurt, not just angry. This is the first time Mikan has gotten a puzzle piece that helped her better understand Natsume instead of just further confusing her. 

This is maybe the first nice moment they share. I love this scene so much. Now that Mikan gets this part of him, she stops hating him as much. Mikan is just like that, always drawn to the depth and glimmers of people to the point where the bad parts of them are worth tolerating.

Just like her, his class is unpopular and disliked. They’re so disliked, they can’t even put on an event like the others can. They have something more in common, and it’s the first time she lets a similarity act as a connection. 

She gets Natsume. She’s seeing him in a new light, and the picture of him she has in her head is shifting, if only slightly, helped by this one-sided conversation and the fact that he’s playing with a puppy, that he helped her pick up her papers. It all makes him seem less overtly evil.

It rejuvenates her spirit too. She goes to the SA class and demands they do something for the festival. Natsume isn’t even allowed to participate, and Mikan doesn’t want that same fate. She’s able to come up with an amazing idea on the spot, exciting all her classmates into getting started as soon as possible. She glances out the window and sees Natsume with Ruka, making her smile. Natsume may be an outcast, but at least he isn’t completely alone. 

I love this chapter for letting Mikan get a little glimpse into what makes Natsume human, what makes him more than just a cruel and cold jerk. She starts to understand him here, and although they’re still enemies, her feelings are turning more positive.

Natsume definitely falls for her first, but Mikan starts understanding him first.

Here’s the perfect moment to ask a vital question: Why did they start off as enemies? NatsuMikan have a complicated relationship that encompasses many forms and tropes. They somehow manage to be enemies to lovers AND soulmates right from the beginning--hating each other but sharing more in common than they care to admit or can even see at this point. They’re constantly being paired up before they can tolerate each other and have a shared past that links them even if they’re not aware of it. They’re the fated pair! But they start off hating each other.

It is beginning... Slowly...

I’m always conflicted about the soulmates thing; but I always like it on the one basis that it means the narrative (the true meaning of fate in a story) intended for them to get together. In short, the story calling them soulmates means the author is purposefully putting them together, which means there's a confirmation that the relationship is thematically important. I think that’s why I like it; it’s reassuring. But I also dislike it. I don’t want Mikan to love Natsume because that’s what she was meant to do; I want her to love him because she chose to.

But the narrative covers that by introducing them as enemies. NatsuMikan hate each other from the beginning and have absolutely no interest in getting closer. Except that Mikan is choosing to look closer. A soulmate enemies to lovers storyline might throw these two fated but hateful people into situations where they’re forced to be around each other until they start seeing things they like, even if it’s against their will. They’d be entirely at the mercy of fate’s whims, would only fall in love because they were meant to. 

And yet! Although they are put in many situations where they are forced together, it is ultimately choice (particularly Mikan’s choices) that lead to them falling in love. Mikan makes the choice from the beginning to look closer at him, to make connections and try to figure him out. She will continue to use those threads to make a fuller picture of him and will choose to get closer to him. Even Natsume falling in love with her only happens because Mikan chooses to go back for him during the Reo Arc. Mikan’s love story with Natsume is entirely centered around choice. They are fated only insofar as Mikan is the only person who would choose to look closer.

Chapter Twelve

It’s time for the monthly allowance to be given out, so some kids in Class B are going to Central Town to splurge. Mikan doesn’t have a big allowance as a result of being a no star, but she still wants to go, eager to have an experience shopping with her friends since she grew up in the country and never has before. She’s denied permission by Jinno until he’s persuaded to allow her to go with one caveat: she has to go with her partner. 

Obviously, even though Mikan understands him better now, she’s still not a fan of his and, even worse, he still hates her. 

But she is willing to beg. She pleads for Natsume to come along with her to Central Town, but is surprised to see that he’s sitting with a child in his lap: Youichi, a DA student who is attached to Natsume. Ruka explains that Natsume looks out for him in their class together. 

You'd think his facial muscles would have atrophied by now and yet.

It’s only with Youichi that Mikan is able to catch a glimpse of Natsume’s first ever smile. She is taken aback by this, as if she didn’t think such a thing was even possible. It’s one more soft side that she’s seeing in him. It starts with one puzzle piece, and suddenly a couple more are appearing, like a snowball effect.

Natsume may still be a jerk, but he’s a jerk who occasionally plays with puppies, or smiles at toddlers. 

He decides to go with her to Central Town, only because Youichi requested to go, but she has to be his mule. She forgets about that as soon as they get there, surrounded by endless shops and strange sights. The problem is that she can’t afford any of it and she’s quickly abandoned by her friends. She spends most of her money on a sweet potato and starts crying about being poor, a universal plight. She sees plenty of things she’d want to buy, including a hat that would look good on her grandpa, but that are too expensive (it’s so sweet that Mikan is preoccupied with buying things for others, even for Jii-chan, who won’t be able to receive it). 

She spots Natsume eyeing the jewelry store, looking at some hairpins. We know from his POV that he’s reminded of Aoi, and that the reminder makes him sad. But all Mikan sees is Natsume checking out jewelry, which prompts her to imagine him dressing pretty and putting on makeup. Even other kids around suppose he wants to buy something for a girl, but Mikan just assumes it’s for him. Perhaps she can’t imagine that he might also think of somebody else when looking at something for sale. 

I love how that's the only explanation she can think of.

She meets up with some friends and is introduced to howalon. She has never wanted anything as much as she wants howalon. 

Again we can see that she values her grandpa’s wisdom: she can’t borrow money from Yuu. She must earn the money herself. She enlists her friends’ help and puts on a little play, garnering just enough attention to get her the money needed to buy the smallest box. Mikan is willing to put in work to get what she wants. She doesn’t give up just because something seems hopeless. She’s resourceful and creative, and these traits will continue to benefit her.

Mikan calls herself useless and thinks pretty lowly of herself, but the fact is that even if her alice was useless (and it isn’t) she has plenty of valuable traits that are simply different from the traits she sees and values in her friends. She may not be smart or witty, but she’s determined, passionate, and insightful, all traits that help her and her friends on numerous occasions.

Like now. 

Mikan finally has howalon, but she insists on sharing it because she didn’t earn it all by herself. Her friends helped her get it, so they should have some too. And all the hype was deserved, because she loves howalon. It’s every bit as good as she thought it would be. 

She ends the chapter giving the rest of her howalon to Narumi to send to her Jii-chan. In the anime, she gives one to Natsume, but here she doesn’t even think of him. Even though she was supposed to spend all her time in Central Town with him, she didn’t really spend any of her time with him. 

Translation: "I am choosing to trust you again."

Instead, she wants to send it to her grandpa. She couldn’t get him the hat that would’ve looked nice on him, but this is a little taste of her time in the academy. She’s having fun with her friends, and this will help him from worrying so much. Additionally, she asks Narumi to send it for her. It’s exactly what he’d requested from her: trust. She believes that Narumi will pass the howalon on to her grandpa. She’s putting her faith in him again, a difficult decision to make after being betrayed so recently. But she wants to trust him, so she will.

Conclusion

Mikan has been betrayed, but chose to forgive and keep trusting Narumi anyway. She has also started to understand Natsume better, setting them on the course towards more pleasant feelings. It's very important that Mikan chooses to take a closer look at Natsume instead of only being told that he's better than he's let on. It's more than just fate.

In the next part, we'll see what happens when Natsume is kidnapped by a world-famous super-star. Those stragglers she hasn't yet turned will eventually come around.

Forgive me if there's lots of mistakes here. I'm deeply tired and my head hurts so I skimped a little on the "editing" phase of my posting process.

I just got a job. It's a day shift on the weekdays. So. I have to rework my posting schedule around it. I'll see if I'm able to post tomorrow. Depending on how tomorrow goes, I'll either keep my weekday schedule and just post in the evenings (my evenings) instead, or I'll try to work out how posting on weekends would go. Please be patient with me!

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[hny-updates]

English Translation of CanCam's article

2.5-dimensional handsome actor Shohei Hashimoto perfectly recreates the role of the “love is too heavy” killer! What is the popular manga “Hotaru no Yomeiri”?

``Firefly's Wedding'' is the latest work by Oreko Tachibana, the author of the manga ``Promise Cinderella,'' which was made into a live-action film by Fumi Nikaido and Atsushi Maeda, and became a hot topic of conversation (currently being serialized in ``Manga One''). In this work, the heroine's partner, the assassin Shinpei, became a hot topic, saying that ``love is too heavy,'' and the first volume was decided to be urgently reprinted as soon as it was released! To commemorate the release of Volume 2, the popular character Shinpei has been perfectly recreated by 2.5D actor Shohei Hashimoto. Mr. Hashimoto has appeared in many Japanese-style productions such as the musical ``Hakuouki'' and the stage play ``Touken Ranbu,'' and is a manga lover who even wrote the original story himself. We will also introduce recommended points of "Firefly's Wedding" as well as photos taken of Shinpei in Japanese clothes ♡

The time is the Meiji era. Satsuko Kirigaya, the daughter of a count, is blessed with both her family name and beauty, but it has been declared that she has only a short time left to live, and her only dream is to marry in a way that will benefit her family. Meanwhile, Satoko's life is suddenly targeted by a mysterious killer, and in order to survive, she proposes to the killer, Shinpei Goto, ``Please marry me.'' It was supposed to be a one-off lie, but Shinpei is a man with a lot of love...

Q: ──I'm sure you're used to wearing Japanese clothes on stage, but what did you think of wearing a kimono inspired by Shinpei?

A: It's been a while since I've worn a kimono like this (a kimono without a haori, simply tying an obi), so I was very happy, and there's something exciting about photographing kimonos. This time, I was playing the role of a killer, so I had a lot of fun filming it, thinking that I shouldn't let my excitement show too much.

Q: ──You showed off various facial expressions and postures, but what points did you pay attention to in order to bring out Shinpei's uniqueness?

A: I was struck by the way Shinpei-kun's head is tilted, as if he's relaxed and relaxed, so I kept this atmosphere in mind when designing his stance. The rest is the eyes. In fact, before filming, the author, Tachibana Oreko, gave me this advice to my editor: ``Anyway, I hope you give me dead eyes...''

Q:──Mr. Hashimoto, what impressions did you have when you read “Hotaru no Yomeiri”?

A: I thought it was going to be a girls' manga as a genre, but there are scenes where people are cut with swords and it's surprisingly cruel, so it's different from the girls' manga I had imagined! I was surprised with. Because of the battle scenes, it's very easy to read even for someone like me who came from a youth magazine. Of course, it's about the love story between Satoko and Shinpei, but it also has suspense elements like who orchestrated Satoko's kidnapping in the first place, so I think it's a fun manga to explore.

Q:──What scene in particular captured your heart because of the beauty of the painting?

A: The scene where Shinpei-kun and Satsuko-san watch fireflies together. I especially love the scene in Volume 2 where Shinpei-kun releases fireflies into Satsuko-san's room. Another unforgettable scene is the scene where the two kiss for the first time. There are many people lying around who were killed by Shinpei-kun, and the two figures are reflected in the pool of blood. Although the situation is cruel, it is a very nice expression and I think it is beautiful. It's so fascinating that you can't help but look into every corner of it.

Q: ──Mr. Hashimoto, what kind of character did you think of Shinpei?

A: At first, you get the strong impression that Shinpei-kun is kind of a "dangerous person," but as you read on, you'll find that he's surprisingly cute. I thought this gap made him a really fun character. For example, the scene at the beginning where Satoko is saved from a villain while she is locked up in a prison. He escapes by jumping off a tall building, and I really like his poignant expression. He even makes an expression like this! (laughs) After all, love is heavy! Looking at Shinpei-kun makes me think that love and madness may be a thin line.

Q: Mr. Hashimoto, you sometimes demonstrate your swordsmanship on stage, but what impression did you get of Shinpei's sword technique?

A; This first sword line is depicted in the scene where Shinpei-kun saves Satsuko-san. I really like his style of cutting with his legs wide open. In the case of kimono, there is a style of slashing without showing your legs, but when I played Hajime Saito in ``Hakuoki'', I also slashed with my legs wide open. Also, although Shinpei-kun looks rough, he has a surprisingly delicate expression on his sword. For example, this sword technique that involves returning the sword in a detailed manner. It gives the impression of a mixture of movement and stillness.

Q: ──If ``Hotaru no Yomeiri'' were ever made into a stage play and Mr. Hashimoto was chosen to play Shinpei, how would you like to play him?

A; I want to firmly express Shinpei-kun's dual nature. Shinpei-kun may be saying what he really means, but if you look at him from the outside, you can't see the bottom of his heart. I would like to act with this in mind.

[aelloblu]

Knight Titan belongs to Sailor_Mimas

╔═════ ∘◦⛧ﾐ◦∘ ══════╗

 Botan Uehara / Knight Titan

╚═════ ∘◦ ミ⛧ ◦∘ ═════╝

:Mission:

Many generations ago the Sol System looked very different, including two other giant planets lurking amongst what would become the Asteroid Belt. These were Echidna and Typhon and its senshi were corrupted by Chaos. The ancient Sol Senshi, led by their ancestors, Sailor Blue Moon and Sailor Gaia Earth, could neither heal nor destroy them. All they could do was seal their corrupted starseeds deep in the Earth. Although their spirits slumbered through the ages, their restless souls caused the world to tremble, throwing off the balance of Earth’s Energy Lines. 

Sailor Moon is almost twenty one and she knows this is her final challenge before she ascends the throne of Crystal Tokyo. She, Mamoru and the senshi must remain in Tokyo, maintaining what will be the Tokyo Crystal Points fighting to keep Earth’s Energy Lines from breaking free.

But someone must travel deep into the unearthly realm of Tartarus to quell Echidna and Typhon.

Luckily the Satellite Senshi have awakened in their time of need! Sailor Saturn, now sixteen, must lead these rookies and leave the sunlight behind. Together they will arise as Guardians of the Solar System!

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Civilian Form

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

:Name & Meaning:

The name Botan means Peony, a nickname Daichi uses to tease him, but it uses the kanji 牡丹 that mean ‘bull’ and ‘red clay’.  Uehara means 'divine plan'.

:Age & Birthday:

His birthday is May 28th, making him a Gemini. He’s 14 and is in the same eighth grade class at Mugan Academy with Hotaru and Sora.

:Appearance:

Although they are almost twins in appearance, you’d never know it standing side by side. Botan’s chestnut hair can go days without brushing or even being washed if he’s not reminded by Daichi. He certainly doesn’t adhere to Daichi’s strictly scheduled hair cuts and is more than likely to take the closest pair of scissors to it. 

His clothes are dishevelled but thanks to Mugan Academy’s laundry service they don’t smell like gym shorts. He’s the guy who sits around in his pjs until the last minute and in his freetime lives in sweatpants, sports jerseys and graphic t-shirts to the displeasure of his brother.

:Personality:

Beneath a lazy grin and sloppy personality beats a fiery heart of passion. Mugan Academy constantly expects perfection and he rebels against it by not caring about society's expectations. Unfortunately while he doesn’t care about others, he does care about his brother so will do enough just to keep him happy.

Secretly, Botan never wanted to leave Wakayama. He liked the slow, quiet life with nothing but him and his brother’s imagination. The city is cramped, loud and way too dull. He hates people telling him what to do and schedules are like prison time. He mutinies in small ways; barely being on time, wearing his uniform in rumpled disregard, making goofy jokes and puns and smirking when he can’t answer a teacher’s question. He’s always on the cusp of being kicked out of school but Principal Igarashi knows to lose one brother is to lose the other.  

But when they venture into Tartarus all that pent up boredom is unleashed! He gets to be the champion he always daydreamed he could be! He’s the team’s muscle, imbued with uncanny strength and can do a lot of damage when he swings wild with reckless abandon! He will Leroy-Jenkins himself into any battle and is constantly needing to be saved by the rest of the team. He plays it off as being the comic relief of but beats himself up when no one is looking.

More than anything he wants to be someone’s hero. He wants someone to look at him with adoration and admiration, to love him for who he is.

:Likes:

Botan wears his heart on his sleeve, loudly obsessing like the fanboy he is. He’s obsessed with J-Pop, and a new waifu each week, learning the dances, gushing over costumes and memorising their bright cheerful songs.

One of the hardest things to adapt to Mugan Academy’s bland, healthy cafeteria food. Even their Aunt’s food had more flavour and variety. At every opportunity he spends his pocket money on sugary candy, sodapop and potato chips in the weirdest flavours imaginable.  

 He also looks forward to eating noodles with Daichi at Tengoku Noodles, but while his brother has the same thing every time, Botan challenges Chef Yudai to surprise him. Variety is the spice of life!

:Dislikes:

Studying anything is the world’s biggest drag and it's no secret that Daichi drags across the finish line for every passing grade. Anything that requires studying dates, times or maths, Botan will immediately be shoved to the side for the closest distraction.

He also hates when Daichi calls him Peony to get a rise out of him. Nothing will make him lash out like his brother’s condescending use of his mother’s pet name for him.

:Hobbies:

In order to follow his brother to Mugan Academy he had to earn a scholarship. Fortunately he’s the endurance of an albatross, able to lazily coast at a jogging pace for hours. Most afternoons he plugs in his favourite JPop band and will circle the school’s 800m track until light leaves the sky. It's as Zen as his excited brain gets.

His favourite pastime is hunting down weird flavours of candy and potato chips to share with his friends. He is obsessed with special release flavours and keeps a photo album filled with his favourite snackwrappers. It's the one thing the city can offer him that his isolated hometown can’t. On the weekend he pairs his hobby of stuffing face with hero movies. Action, fantasy, scifi, but his favourites are Shaw Brothers martial arts films and Marvel movies!

:Sexual Orientation:

Despite his breezy exterior Botan is a hopeless romantic. He spent his childhood watching brave and daring heroes save the girl, rescue the damsel and be rewarded with their red string soulmate, so when he actually becomes a knight in white shining armour why shouldn’t the girls fall at his feet? He’s not even picky! Guys, girls, just someone to love!

He was initially besotted by Sora, he realised she didn’t see him the same way. Vowing only to give his heart to his J-Pop waifus, could he ever give his heart again?

:Background:

The brothers were not born in Tokyo, raised in the tiny rural village of Koyagawa of the Wakayama Prefecture. They lived in a state of genkai shuraku, a once vivid life atrophied after the coal mines closed. It saw no modernisation, no utilities, no internet. It was merely a dot on the mountain highlands on the way to somewhere else.  

They lived with their grandparents, mother and father who ran the convenience store by the turnpike, and their mother helped out at the school where a handful of children played. They loved it. They spent their childhood playing in mountain streams, hunting for mushrooms and wandering freely. Occasionally their parents would take them camping high into the mountains and teach them how to live self-sufficiently.

However one day, when he was nine and Daichi eleven, heavy rains stranded them at a friend's house and everything changed in a mudslide. They were rescued, but much of their village gone and their family’s convenience store buried beneath the sludge and stone.

Their family’s lone survivors, they moved in with their mother’s brother who lived on the other side of the mountain in another genkai shuraku. They weren’t neglected, they were two more mouths to feed in a family of four with another set of twins to be born soon. The boys lived their lives when they were thirteen a strange tutor from Tokyo’s Mugan Academy visited their school. They complimented the boys' rugged, growing bodies and assured them that a sports scholarship was waiting for the purehearted.

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Relationships

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

:Family:

His mother is Wakumi (spring of water) and his father Rikuto (land, heavy). They also lived with their grandparents who spoiled the boys. They died when the boys were nine and eleven, leaving them with many happy memories but also a heavy hearted awareness for what they were missing.

Although he was only nine when they were orphaned, Botan clings to his memories much more tightly. Daichi strides forward to a better future, but Botan looks back to the good times of  his past.

:Friends:

Botan’s best friend is always going to be his brother, the guy who always looks after him and keeps him out of trouble. But he’s well known as an affable guy, class clown and on good terms with everyone. He’s well known within the grade to hang around the cafeteria hoping to beg for snacks and treats. 

Once he was revealed as a Guardian, it gave him the perfect opportunity to woo his dream girl Sora. It made for a strange triangle with Sora’s devotion to Hotaru making her oblivious to his flirtation, and Hotaru’s determined to be as kind and loving a leader as Sailor Moon. 

:Rivals:

Botan is too carefree to have a rival. He too, is his own worst enemy with his slacker attitude. 

:Love Interests:

Sora and Botan bonded over myths and heroes and he thought she was his perfect princess to his knight in shining armour. But then he realised she didn’t want to be a rescued damsel, but a knight to protect her princess and reluctantly gave up the dream.

It was then on a mission on Tatarus they stumbled on a prison where many who betrayed the Golden Kingdom were trapped. One of these was Arke, sister of the Sailor Iris. Manipulating her jealousy, she was tricked into being a double agent and as punishment the Golden Kingdom tore away her wings, caging her so she could not fly again.

Arke was not grateful to the Saturn Senshi for releasing her. In fact once she saw they possessed the Gilt Key which would return them to the Golden Kingdom, she saw her freedom. Despite her constant lies, tricks and sabotage to get the key, Botan sees beneath the hurt and betrayal to the soft and vulnerable heart beneath.

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Guardian Form

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

:Name:

Knight Titan, Guardian of Molten Earth and Magma

:Guardian Starseed:

Botan is the incarnation of Saturn's moon, Titan. Long ago it was barely civilised because of its seismic instability. Its surface is constantly rocked by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Its few stable land masses are crowded with citizens proud of their ability to survive harsh conditions.

:Realm of Influence:

Titan draws his powers for the incredible power that drives tectonic plates; the quaking earth, the boiling magma and pressures that build and build and unleash without warning. 

:Awakening:

Botan finally nagged his brother into upholding his promise of celebration ramen at Tengoku when he did well on a popquiz. As they strolled through the twilight evening, they passed Hotaru and Sora peering into a tourist window filled with charms and statues carved in jade. As they drew closer they hear Sora explaining the story of the giant marble minotaur statue outside the door, a half bull half human monstrosity born from the greed of King Minos.  

Botan listened eagerly before reluctantly following his brother but almost immediately they rushed towards the screams. The statue grows, glowing with fiery molten cracks smashing its way through the stalls. Botan sees it on a warpath and roars. “No way! I’m getting my noodles! I studied! I worked hard! You won’t stop me!” He welled with energy, transforming into Knight Titan and attacked. He forced the minotaur to his knees but took a crushing blow.

To protect his brother, Daichi followed suit and transformed into Knight Tethys. Together they tagteam the Minotaur, exploding it into flaming shrapnel. As they look up,  they see the silhouettes of Sailor Saturn and Sailor Mimas on a rooftop giving quiet applause. Sailor Saturn used her resurrection powers to restore the street and offered them dinner to explain their destinies.  

:Past Life:

Not one but two starseeds were born to a noble Saturn family. His surprise legacy meant he was always standing in his mature brother’s shadow. While his brother dedicated himself to his duty, Titan was more interested in making a name for himself and catching the eye of Queen Serenity. He was well known for diving into trouble only for Saturn’s other Guardians to save him.

He always thought his duty of respecting the sleeping Princess Saturn was a dull time waster. When he heard of Princess Serenity’s Cotillion Ball it seemed like the perfect chance to present himself at Court. If he could prove himself to Queen Serenity they would make him one of the Inner protectors and could win prestige and renown he deserved rather than sit around doing nothing. 

When the Dark Kingdom attacked Knight Titan fought until his last breath but it wasn’t enough. In the wake of the Silver Millenium’s destruction awoke the one he was sworn to protect, the Messiah of Death and Rebirth, Sailor Saturn’s Glaive fell and all he knew perished in the blink of an eye.

:Guardian Animal:

The team is led by the psychopomp sparrow, Athana, through the dying lands of Tartarus. However in their travels they are met by a two headed dog guarding giant golden cattle and responding to the names Orthus and Amydros, names meaning shade and gloom. It followed them deeper into the depths, helping Athana with their keen sense of smell. 

The dogs resemble shoulder high black shepherds with orange eyebrows, chest and thick fluffy tail tip that looks like a flaming torch. Orthus seems silly, constantly grinning and panting and always has something in his mouth ready to play, and Amydros seems serious, his nose down and pushing the group forward towards their goal. The similarities of the pups and brothers are not lost on the team.

:Allies/Team Mates:

Hotaru Tomoe aka Sailor Saturn

Titan doesn’t remember his past, hasn’t remembered his betrayal and Hotaru won’t tell him as she knows how much he values being a hero. He’s constantly trying to impress her with feats of strength and bravery. Even when Sora’s feelings for Hotaru were made known, he didn’t hold it against her. Even when the whole team is angry at him for trusting Arke, Hotaru who understands the seed of corruption better than anyone encourages him to help her find redemption.   

Daichi Uehara aka Knight Tethys

Daichi is his older, nagging brother who constantly gets him out of scrapes even though Botan never asked for help! He loves his brother, but he wishes Daichi would just relax, give him a chance to fail- and succeed- on his own merit.

Sora Yoru aka Sailor Mimas

Sora was supposed to be his perfect princess. She’s quiet spoken, elegant, demure and loves reading stories. As much as he tried to impress her, make her laugh and win her love it was never meant to be. While he hides his feelings of rejections, he does realise how lucky he is to have a friend as loyal as Sora. They still share movie-night and cheer on their favourite stars.

Machiko Goto aka Sailor Dione 

It is so much fun to tease Machiko! She’s stuffy and prissy and her condescending tone, alongside Tethys drives him crazy so it's only right he returns the favour. These two at each other's throats constantly slow down the mission. 

:Henshin Token:

Botan’s token is a golden circular locket, a medallion kept on a bracelet, glossed with a dark maroon plate and embedded with the symbol of Titan. He’s proud of his so he will wear it like a necklace, flash it nonchalantly, heeeaayy, how about that Knight Titan, he’s so cool! What do you think? Everyone tells him he’s going to lose it if he’s not careful.

:Henshin Phrase:

Titan Saturn Power!

:Henshin Sequence:

Botan tosses the medallion into the air and shouts “Titan Saturn Power!” From the locket pours a glowing molten lava, bright orange and maroon lines gleaming through a cracked, black shell. It flows across his arms and legs forming into black sleeves and pants. The lava around his waist glows white hot, forging his hip guards. It cools and darkens around his chest, cracking open to reveal his pearl white armour, shoulderguards and rust coloured jewel. As he spins around the candescent lava spills down his shoulders forming his cape, with his poleaxe, Aitnaîos Axe ready to fight.

:Symbol:

:Guardian Challenge:

Protector of Saturn, I am the herculean/hunky/manly/stalwart Guardian of Titan! I will crush you into the dust!

He likes to change it up!

:Guardian Fuku:

The male guardian fuku is much akin to Mamoru’s armour. Titan bears a pearly white chest plate, trimmed in silver with angular shoulder guards. At the centre of his chest is a polished oval jewel of deep ruby that pulses like lava. His body suit is jet with maroon cuffs and shin guards also adorned in silver. Billowing behind him his cape of  silky scarlet and an inky black inner lining. Hiding his face is a maroon mask, white eyes and rust red metal wings sweep behind his ears and along his cheekbones. 

:Starseed Talisman:

Titan swings the mighty poleaxe Aitnaîos Axe, named after Hephaestos’s forge. While a bladed weapon, his earth shattering blows have as much grace and poise as a club.

:Attacks:

Titan Scorching Slag

Grabbing at the earth, he holds massive chunks and turns them into dripping, burning slags of magma. He winds up like a baseball pitch and hurls it at the enemy.

Titan Obsidian Obelisk

Titan crosses his arms and jumps, flinging his arms out and landing heavily with both feet, causing the earth to crack open beneath the enemy. Lava leaps up and hardens into bladelike black spires that trap the enemy.

Titan Volcanic Cascade

Titan stabs the haft of the Aitnaîos Axe into the earth. Spreading from the hilt is an earth mound like a tunnelling mole. It grows and grows until it looks like a mountain range. Like a chain reaction several peaks erupt like volcanic geysers spewing noxious fumes and molten lava. 

Titan Seismic Fissure

His ultimate attack, he swings his axe hard and heavy, plunging the mighty blade into the earth which splits and cracks, opening vast, black chasms beneath the enemy and when they fall in he yanks the axe free. The earth closes as if the cracks never were. It is an attack just as likely to affect his allies as his enemy. 

╔═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Miscellaneous 

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

:Inspirations:

:Soundtrack:

When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars

Out of Reach by Gabrielle 

:Fanfiction:

:Website:

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ✯ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

[descentintosiblingcon]

Chapter 7: A Passing Shower

Two pin-ups. Both boring. Let's move on.

(And wow, we got translated titles now! Cool.)

It's Fireworks Season (CAN THIS GAME GO A SINGLE DAY WITHOUT A FUCKING EVENT)! Shugo wants to watch a show irl but Rena demands they watch the virtual fireworks because...she has severe allergies that prevent her from going to the beach, I guess. Ouka comes up and Shugo immediately thinks he's gonna see some bikini-clad tits...and Ouka shows up in her dog form in an applauadable troll move.

Ouka comes bringing news about a hidden event. The gag was supposed to meet up with Hotaru later but---GO! GO AND LEAVE A NOTE IMPLYING YOU WERE RAPTURED!

At the Cursed And Deadly Secluded Forest Manor, Shugo and Mireille are ready for some horror. Rena...not so much. She's clearly freaked but puts on a brave face for her brother. Inside, they find a nice manor interior. Rena thinks a suit of armor winks at her somehow. Ouka hits and...it's just a suit of armor. Mireille outright calls her a pussy and Rena denies it. Her proof? Nearly killing her own twin brother over being spooked by Kamiya. Shugo wisely stays in his lane and ignores his twin sister's manslaughter.

Rena proceeds to break off the first rule of being in a haunted house: don't run off by yourself. Chasing her, Shugo and Mireille run into monsters called Invisibles. Shugo chops them down easily and runs off for his sister...surprising Mireille, who remembers that Invisibles are supposed to be pretty tough enemies. Is Shugo getting stronger? His general track record suggests...no.

Rena is still lost by herself, bemoaning how she wanted to keep her fear of spooky stuff a secret from Shugo. First, the insult comes when she walks into a torture chamber. Then the injury...she gets ambushed by a Lich Lord. Shugo jumps in to defend her with Mireille and Ouka in tow. Shugo recognizes the Lich Lord's element as Dark so he commands Mireille to hit it with Thunder spells and tells Ouka to focus on wearing down its HP. He then asks Rena to use her Hunter's Bane to increase all of their attack accuracies because wizard types are notoriously hard to hit. As Ouka and Mireille observes, our boy Shugo is becoming quite the Chad...an RPG Chad. The best kind of Chad. Rena observes that he's truly becoming like Kite.

They defeat the Lich and head back to Town Square, making back in time for the fireworks. Rena asks when Shugo suddenly transitioned from pull-ups to toilet training (i.e. how did he get so strong). Apparently Shugo been grinding offscreen. He's also checked out newsgroups, read the FAQs...all because he didn't want to rely on the bracelet too much. Rena asks why he decided to give a shit all of a sudden. Shugo smiles and says he promised her he'd be a hero. To keep us from experiencing actual pride in our protagonist, Shugo quickly mocks his sister for being afraid of ghosts. Rena brushes it off before reminding Shugo (and informing us) that entrance exams are coming up so their days playing .hack are numbered. Shugo thinks about Aura for a second...before Hotaru shows up to catch the fireworks. Sadly, it looks like there's going to be no fireworks because it's raining. Despite being Emperor of Trolls, long may he reign, it turns out the rain wasn't Balmung's doing. The background music changes too. Everybody hears it...and the chapter ends with everybody seeing Aura.

THOUGHTS:

Finally, a decent chapter again.

Shugo's development feels kinda rushed and forced (in the "let's make this kid strong enough to last against the next enemy without questions being asked" kind of way) but it's nice to see him being allowed to be competent for once. And those are realistic methods to improve in a game in a short time in real life. Plus, nice sibling moment with no incest subtext! I didn't know they knew how to do that.

[your-daily-dose-of-fandoms]

hey can you please write something about like.. Haganezuka x a reader whos from a noble family with close ties to the Ubuyashiki family and has beauty relative to a goddess? i know its super dumb. im really glad to see other people like this character and the way you write with him is amazing!

Thank you for requesting! As you can see I got a little carried away by this, I hope you don't mind that! I hope you enjoy, and if not, feel free to request again!

Hotaru Haganezuka x Noble! Reader

You're beautiful.

You've been told that by everyone for your whole life. Those taunting words, been following you since you were born.

For a woman it is better to be seen than heard.

Would your father say, during the dinner, as you'd spoken too much.

Well, aren't you pretty.

Would the men in the village say to you, while putting their finger under your chin to make you look at them.

You're pretty, pretty, pretty.

But you were so much more than that. You wanted to study, explore and see the world. You wanted to be so much more than just an another decoration on the prize shelf. You didn't want to become like your mother, just a wall rose, treated like another accomplishment for men. You needed a goal, or otherwise, you would lose yourself. You didn't want to learn the etiquette for your whole life, and then marry off to some old man in exchange of money. You wanted to choose your own fate by yourself.

So that's why you started to train. Train like your brothers, train like your father, train like every men in your family, train to your eventual death. You see, your family was a trusted bloodline of Ubuyashiki's family. For decades, your family's men have been fighting for the better world, fighting against the demons that once were one of us. You didn't want to just watch your brothers march up to their deaths without you. Maybe that was your excuse, but actually, you just wanted to prove yourself.

Luckily you were able to get help from Ubuyashiki. He, and the pillars taught you all the basics. They taught you how to breath, and along with all the fighting techniques and ways to keep your head calm, they taught you how not to be the slave of the etiquette. They taught you how to find yourself, from the mess they called a mind.

It was hard to keep your training as a secret, but it was even harder to break it up to your family that you'd be leaving for final selection. The last march of many young men and women. You don't remember much of it, only the fact that in the end of the day, you didn't have a home anymore.

As you got ready to take possibly the last steps of your life, Ubuyashiki gave you a gift. A simple fox mask, a habit he had picked up from Urokidaki, as he bid you a farewell as his daughter. And on you went on your journey, that was still in the beginning. But now you knew that you had something to fight for.

And this is why you were here now, looking at a man explaining about the handmade sword enthuastically, refusing to have any tea before he had explained every last bit of the said sword. You fixed the mask on your face, so any of your face wouldn't be seen, as you listened to the man's excited rambling. Hotaru Haganezuka, you've heard rumors of him, but you never believed them to be so accurate. The man was here to deliver your very first sword, and by the looks of it, he had done it pretty well. Finally, he finished his rambling, and took a good look at you.

"I wonder what color your sword will change to.. I hope to see blue or indigo-gray!! What style of breath are you?? Let's go inside! We must see the color it's going to turn into!" The man in front of you exclaimed, as he ran past you, almost hitting you, and head towards the indoors with the sword wrapped in clothing in his hands. He was bold on his actions, and you were taken back from it. Rarely no one who knew who you were treated you with such an ignorance and boldness.

Right, he didn't know who you were. Realizing the fact, you felt a wave or relief wash over you, as you realized the life you were about to take the first step towards to. The life where people didn't appreciate you by your looks, but your skills. You chuckled and made your way after him.

*

You held your breath, as the nichirin blade in your hands started to switch color. You stared intently at the sharp blade, it reflecting your fox mask on it, as you gasped. Instead of one color, the blade had now turned into two. Blue, and white, the top being blue and then slowly fading into white towards the handle. You gasped.

"Gahhh?!? Why do I always get the weird ones?!" You could hear Haganezuka yell in annoyance, as you turned to look at him, confusion written all over your face, not like he could see it though. He was fuming, the smoke coming out of his mask, as you smiled nervously. You didn't want to upset the short-tempered man.

"I-I'll go make some tea!" You stated, slowly leaving the nichirin blade on the floor, as you sprinted to the kitchen. As you had made it to your destination, you took off your mask, set it on the table, and held your face in your hands.

"What.. what just happened?" You could only question, as you slowly started to gather the ingredients for the tea. You were currently living in Ubuyashiki's spare house, which he had for some reason, but by now you already knew where everything was. Once in a week, when you were home, the kakushis would come and bring you some essentials. Ubuyashiki was taking a good care of you.

You were boiling some water, as Haganezuka stepped into the kitchen, now cooled down. You sighed in relief, but then you realized that you didn't have your mask on and panicked, grabbing it quickly and putting it back on.

Haganezuka deadpanned you, walking past your nervously sweating form, and taking a cup of tea for himself. He didn't mention anything about your face, even though he probably had already regognized you. You felt your heart thump.

"So that's why you were wearing that stupid mask", He stated, and you turned to look at him with a shocked look. He was drinking his tea, slightly lifting up his mask to drink it.

"Excuse me?! You're the one to talk!!" You stated, pointing at his ugly mask, that was probably covering even uglier face. You weren't sure how to feel about this man. He hadn't said anything about your face, but instead offended you by mocking the mask Ubuyashiki himself had made for you.

"Well at least I'm not trying to escape my past, by covering my face", He continued, taking an another sip. He was provoking you! What did he want to accomplish by that?

"But don't worry", He continued, placing his tea cup on the table, as it was already empty.

"I'm not interested in your background, nor in your face, I only want to make my swords", He finished, and you stood there, frozen in your place. You mouth was wide open, as you gaped at the swordsmith in front of you. You could bet he was smirking under that god damn mask of hi-

Before you could realize what was going on, you had already done it.

You had snatched away the man's mask, as it fell on the wooden floor with a loud clonk.

Time felt like it had stopped as you were now staring at sharp eyes of a shocked man. A long black hair was neatly pulled into a man-bun, few strands of hair framing his sharp features.

You gulped. This man was insanely handsome what the duck.

Not to mention, now you were fucked.

But before you could sprint away and yell for help, in hopes of someone hearing, or even dying before the man could catch you, you could only stay still and watch as Haganezuka raised his hand and grabbed your mask. You didn't have a chance to react, as he had already taken it off from your face, now getting a proper look of your face as well.

"Now we're even", He told as he picked up his mask from the floor, and turned around, about to walk out of the kitchen and towards the outdoor.

"Wait!" You called after him, and he turned to look at you, raising his eyebrow, as he adjusted the mask back on his face to hide his handsome face.

"When.. when will we meet again?" You asked, fiddling with the sleeve of your kimono. He shrugged in response.

"Probably when you've broken my blade and need a new one.." He started, stared into distance and then turned to lock his eyes with you.

"And that's not gonna be a pleasant meeting", He told, and you gulped and nodded. Then he left from the kitchen, leaving you to stand there stunned. This man really loved his swords more than anything. But you would have to break them to meet him again.. You sighed and held your head in your hands. This was going to be a troublesome situation.

[kpopdancings]

THE MEANING AND MESSAGE "ANTI-WAR" OF GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

New Post has been published on http://www.whatsupkpop.com/the-meaning-and-message-anti-war-of-grave-of-the-fireflies/

THE MEANING AND MESSAGE "ANTI-WAR" OF GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

THE MEANING AND MESSAGE “ANTI-WAR” OF GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES

Link Video:

Grave of the Fireflies  opens with a statement that shocked and haunted viewers, “September 21, 1945  that was the day I died” with the image of starving corpses, that tragic scene is also the context. throughout the movie. Japan in World War II appeared in the scene where planes were dancing overhead, artillery shells dropped like fire on the rooftops, people running riotously in the rain of bombs, screams, crying like merging Bang. Among them was a boy carrying a small baby on his back, rushing to find shelter. It’s Seita and Setsuko. 

After that, with no other choice, Seita took her sister to depend on her distant relatives. The selfish aunt welcomes the two children just for the valuables on their stroller. Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive between famine on the one hand and merciless indifference on the other. surrounding people.

After a period of time when the two brothers live in scolding, discrimination and restraint, the boy Seita is faced with the choice of either staying with his selfish aunt, working and dealing with face the truth. Or run away to get the freedom. Although it will be difficult and needy, the two brothers will do what they like. And then in the end the two brothers decided to find shelter for themselves, which is the abandoned bomb shelter. The boy tried to steal things to survive. Seita had to steal the farmers’ food and food to overcome the hunger of him and his baby. Once he was caught and beaten.

   Ironically, once his sister got sick, the doctor said that due to lack of food, Seita decided to go to the bank to withdraw all the money, he happily brought back rice, eggs and thought of his sister’s smile when eating, Setsuko is gone forever. At the last minute, she smiled to Seita “Thank you”, and went to eternal sleep. You are like an obedient, innocent, cheerful angel, a pure smile that warms people’s hearts. Seita’s recollection of her sister running and jumping around the simple, gentle abandoned house took away tears from the audience. She held her breath and opened her arms to catch the fireflies, She hid here, ran there like a puppy, She ran around in a towel around the lake, happily and innocently … All of a sudden, nostalgic. For Seita, that moment his sky collapsed, the light for him to move on was gone, all turned to ash and Setsuko’s cremating flames on the hill.

       The meaning of the title

In the original Japanese title (火 垂 る の 墓) the word “hotaru” (firefly) is not written as usual with one kanji (蛍) but with two kanji (火 – “hi”, fire and 垂 – “tareru) ”, Drooping) which means a drop of water is about to fall from the leaf.

We can see images of fireflies throughout the movie. Immediately after the evening when the two brothers caught fireflies to light up that dark cellar – the evening when the two of us sank into dreams of hopes for a different world, the fireflies died. The next morning, Setsuko silently digs graves for fireflies. The short life of the fireflies is a metaphor of the fragility of life . In the world war many innocent children go forever . They are like fireflies,very beautiful, but cant’t live long.

Setsuko’s little hands full of fireflies is heartbreaking. It is the embodiment of dreams, beautiful things disappear quickly. Setsuko is still naive, but still painful. Setsuko says I already know, I make the grave just like her mother’s grave, she is dead. Seita, who had seen her mother in critical condition, bandaged all over her body, saw her mother’s death, was thrown into a mass crematorium, at that time, without restraint, he burst into pain. Setsuko is his only relative, the person he loves most, someone he doesn’t want to suffer. Now that Setsuko knows that he has lost his mother, his efforts have become meaningless, whether he can still make his sister as innocent as before.

The good things disappears quickly

There is a saying that I have noticed, which is a saying of the seller of straw and coal to cremate “Today is beautiful, but no one noticed”

This sentence is a statement that creates a contradiction for the audience to look back at the film. At that time, Seita just discovered her father died, knowing that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, all beliefs in him had collapsed. Setsuko also dies, dying from starvation and fever. The money he brings back, the food he cooks also has no meaning. But “today is a fine day”, because today there are no aircraft wings in the sky, no bomb shelter announcements.

Evening came, the two brothers went to the garden and watched the fireflies. They went out into the sea, playing in the sunlight, when the salt makers looked at them puzzledly. The two brothers sang together by the piano in the house, but the aunt scolded because it was war, “you don’t realize it”. Seita feels like the king, feels good about stealing someone else’s stuff in dangerous circumstances while the enemy plane is bombing, because he knows that it will make his brother happy.

For them, war cannot affect their childlike joy, or Seita cannot let war obscure Setsuko’s innocence.For them, “today was also a fine day (though the bombs fell), but no one noticed.”

The meaning of the movie

Graves Of Fireflies is one of the most successful animated films by late director Isao Takahata. In addition to the message of war and family affection, the film also does a good job of depicting post-war images. The devastating and frightening consequences followed by the collapse of the Japanese economy and a terrible, long-lasting famine.

Fireflies, joys, beautiful things, They’re all things that can’t last long. The audience, when watching the movie, has short moments of joy of the two brothers, then sinks into tears when reality suffers again, like fireflies. War has never been so painful when referring directly to war in the bare minimum.

The film contains a lot of drawings and very moving depictions of the terrible consequences of war on society and individuals among them, many critics have considered the Grave of the Fireflies as an anti-war film. . The film also gives viewers an inside look at Japanese culture as it focuses on depicting human tragedy by war rather than seeking to praise heroic deeds.

The hallucinations in the movie, the image of the train are what anchors a bit of the film’s belief. Seita doesn’t cremate her brother at the temple, as the straw vendor tells Setsuko to rest. Seita knew that he was going to die, or after all, he didn’t want to live. Seita knew when he died, he wouldn’t rest in peace. He doesn’t want his brother to rest and be alone, he doesn’t want him to die and stay in the world without Setsuko.

  General conclusions

With 89 minutes of movie viewing we will find that it is too quiet. However, taking us through many different levels of emotions, Setsuko’s death makes us deposition in a silent film, evoking thoughts about family relationships. Or to say further, humanity in war. War changes people. The aunt character represents the painful and obnoxious reality of war. I think if this is the peacetime, and the siblings’ mother dies in an accident, the aunt will be much less harsh. The aunt is not to blame, the farmer is not to blame Seita, the war is what must be responsible.

Watching “Grave of the Fireflies “, I suddenly realized, happiness is really simple. Even if you don’t eat enough, you can still laugh, just be together, even in an abandoned house, you can sparkle with fireflies. Despite the sad ending, what lingers in me is not only the pain but above all, the beautiful love between the two children. That love will forever shine like fireflies flying up to the brilliant sky, reminding us of our dream of living in peace …

If you have a day off, I advise you not to start with this movie, you do not want the rest of the time to wipe your tears. I think this movie is best suited when you are bored and feeling hesitant, let’s see how lucky we are and get back to work.

[morethanaprincess-a]

@onlyhorn​ said:  " Hey! Hey, you! " Sonia is waved down by Hotaru on a daily stroll -- one likely coaxed by Argus, who has influenced her to take daily walks or jogs. The area is relatively clean and clear, with little pedestrians to catch her attention. Though she is small, almost like a teen who belongs in school, she is set up at a small table stand fit with four cups, a ball, and a bottle of green tea. " Do you wanna make a bet? " She'd ask, smirking at her, challenging her wits-- and her luck!

Unprompted asks: Accepting!

Beyond her usual commute to university, Sonia had taken to walking when she could. Normally it was advised she take the car for her safety, but in order to keep Argus from having words directly to her private secretary regarding his client’s health, the princess decided to soothe his concerns and promise to walk when the opportunity arose. The last thing she wanted was to see those she cared for unhappy, and having to mediate a debate between Argus and Cecily would ensure a migraine as a result. 

Yet on her journey to one of Aoyama’s shopping districts, in search of a birthday present for an old high school friend, she was flagged down by a little girl. Well, not necessarily a little girl, but rather a petite young woman, a foot shorter than her if she had to guess. Sonia had seen such a setup before, in Novoselic’s capitol but she’d never been permitted to go near. “A safety hazard, Your Highness” had been the only explanation given by her security, along with the automated locks of the towncar with black tinted windows. Adjusting the top handle of her handbag at the crook of her arm, she wandered over with a bright smile.

“Hello there,” She addressed her warmly with a tilt of the head. She didn’t attempt to squat down to her size, at least not yet. It would be rather uncomfortable in her short, full skirt and until the princess addressed her properly, Sonia couldn’t ascertain if the young lady was simply petite or if she was truly a child. But her smirk was one of mischief and fun, as if she were determined not to take the day, and their encounter, too seriously. “A bet? Hm, perhaps. What might your terms be and what is the game at hand?”

Such questions were ones she’d learned to ask years ago, when friends who excelled at luck and at gambling had realized just how easily gullible the once-Ultimate Princess had been upon her arrival to Japan. It had made sense eventually, once Sonia explained that she’d never stayed away from Novoselic Castle longer than a holiday or a working trip for her entire life and had an entire staff of people at her family’s beck and call. Street smarts, common sense, and household skills were entirely foreign to her. And for the most part, still were, though it had been ages since she’d mixed up a cleaning product and she’d finally figured out how to scramble eggs and make toast without burning either. Baby steps. Nevertheless, her friends had been reluctant to let her graduate from Hope’s Peak Academy without some life skills in her arsenal, even if those skills revolved entirely around asking questions in order not to be duped.

[yourdailyharutaru]

The Sundowns Eternal Wish

Hello! So I wrote a fanfiction about Harutaru, it's quite short and it's a one-shot but it's really cute. English is not my first language so please if there's any mistakes don't feel uncomfortable to tell me 💕

I uploaded on wattpad too if you can't read it here (https://my.w.tt/jt1t6eA4m9)

THE BURNING LOVE OF HEARTS

Her shiny and blonde hair was imerged in the fragile sand of the sea meanwhile its owner peacefully observed the blue sky. Beside her, there was a young man with a opaque brown-like hair and eyes who couldn't find a way to look away from the girl's energetic expressions as they kept talking at how warm it was that day, mid of that year's summer.

The young man slowly laid down on the sand trying to understand what was so enigmatic to his friend's eyes. Hotaru turned her head to the right and slowly moved her whole body to the same direction. The wind was almost non-existent but yet it was notable its light touch in their skin. While Haruki looked to the sky, Hotaru was now the one not being able to take her eyes from the young man beside her.

— Haruki-san, Tachibana is happy we're here together — She said brightly as memories of that day they were spending together came once again in her head, without noticing her friend's red face as he put his arm on the top of his face to hide the obvious feelings that could not longer be hidden in his heart. He wanted to be always with her and it was impossible not to dream to hear her voice as soon as he couldn't see her daily. — Haruki-san? Are you alright?

— Don't worry, it's nothing...I just... am happy to be here too, with you, Masamune and Yukimura but I want to say something to you — Hotaru changed her laying position sitting yet falling a bit more towards Haruki while he stayed in same position as before and not taking his arm away from his face. He was scared but this was his last chance to tell his precious friend his heart's deepest feelings for her before she leaves Japan once again.

While he was fighting with himself in between his own doubts and courage, Hotaru impatiently waited to hear more of his voice. Her heart was shaking as a bell is moved by a storm, she wanted to know but deeply inside her heart she already knew what he was trying to say to her. For so long since the moment she left Japan for the first time, it was undoubtedly clear her desire to be with him and how deeply her heart asked to see the brown haired boy every day more passionately. She fell in love before she even could understand what her heart was telling her but that love were followed by the uncertainty of the distance between them, the ocean that created the biggest obstacle in Hotaru's heart.

The silence took presence between the young couple, making Hotaru even more uncomfortable and impatient waiting for Haruki's voice. He couldn't say a word, there wasn't enough words to express his love for the blonde girl who stood right in front of him and scared of losing the sweetness of her love. His eyes were closed and the pain in his heart hit him even stronger by every second that it went by. Hotaru couldn't wait any longer, she wanted to hear him but she knew the person she loved and thus with a burning red face of shyness she took slowly Haruki's arm from his face making the brown haired boy open his eyes and stare into Hotaru's emerald eyes.

— Haruki-san, Tachibana fell in love... — Yet hesitant Hotaru began to talk, breaking the silence while Haruki couldn't believe in his own ears. All the doubts in his head began to vanish faster than a raindrop falling in the waterfall and then the deepest feelings in his heart merged with the courage that came from his love's words. As soon he heard such words, his arms took Hotaru by surprise once her waist felt surrounded bringing her closer to him. Their skin started to warm up each other as love were in every inch of their body. — Haruki-san?! T-t-tachibana....

— I love you — that was enough for Hotaru to have her heart melt by his words which were said so strongly but yet shy that her body relaxed instantly being over his, surrounded by his arms.

The heart's warmth that united them, the now unshakable wind that couldn't separate their body and the ocean that now proudly filled the silence with its sounds of happiness together were the witnesses of the young couple's mutual confession of love. Slowly Hotaru closed her eyes letting every inch of her body feel more deeply the love of the person she wished to be with for so long, holding onto the boy's shirt softly meanwhile Haruki kept her in his arms still not believing that person that entered slyly in his heart was finally in his arms and felt the same burning love as him. The sundown finally came taking the now lovers's wish for the day never to end but that day was only the first day of a love that would last until their last breath of life.

THE END

[spacehologramcollection]

Kombat Krew and Cuddling;

Okay. So I intended for this to be fluffy all the way through. But my Smut Goblin brain got to Baraka and it get very NSFW very fast. And there are elements of NSFW through some of them. So there is a cut, I am so sorry! Warnings; NSFW, 18+, fluff, angst, you know the drill, little bit of monster loving. Hotaru is in this, I know some people aren’t keen, but some people are. He was requested in an ask to make more an appearance.  GIFS not mine.  Should I write a Baraka smut piece? 

Kabal;

·         Cuddles with Kabal are often and can be spontaneous. He’s a very tactile person and loves to be close to you. So, in public, he has no issue with giving you a hug, having an arm around you and pulling you close to him etc.

·         He’ll love to cuddle you on the sofa whilst you’re watching a film, the pair of you falling asleep. He’ll be sprawled out on the sofa, with you laying on him, his arms holding you close to him and your head resting on his chest. He’ll often plant a little kiss on your forehead.  

·         He’ll also wrap his arms around you whilst you’re cooking or standing up. And will often start swaying with you.

·         Post-Burns, cuddles become very rare at first. Just whilst he gets his confidence back. The first time you will cuddle after his accident, will be very raw and emotional. It’ll be after he is having a hard time, you’ll end up wrapping him up in a hug, comforting him by whispering soothing words in his ear.

·         You’ll calm him down, reminding him that you fell in love with him for who he was on the inside. And no amount of fire could ever extinguish that.

·         He’s really touch starved and just wants to be touched and loved.

·         After this, he’s more open to hugs and will slowly go back to his old self.

·         Cuddling butt ass naked in bed is still his favourite thing to do. He loves the feel of your skin on his. And loves to spoon. God, he loves it.

Sub Zero (Kuai Liang);

·         He is the definition of touch starved. He’s never really had anything other than a platonic hug. And even then, they are short and brief. He just wants a bit of affection, not that he would admit that.

·         He knows his hugs and cuddles may not be great, since his hands are cold, but you know what, he has a warm soul! And that’s got to count for something.

·         In public there is strictly no PDA, he has a reputation, whether he likes it or not. He wishes he could hold and hug you though. He wants to feel you against him, because it brings him great comfort.

·         In private he becomes more of a cuddle bug. He loves it. He’ll love to hold you whilst he reads, with your head on his lap. One hand with a book in hand, the other stroking your hair. A massive smile on his face as he catches glances of you.

·         He won’t admit it, but he loves when you sit on his lap facing him, hands cupping his cheek, and forehead pressed to his. All whilst his arms are around your waist holding you close to him.

·         He wishes he could be like this outside of your quarters, because your hugs and cuddles are addicting.

·         They bring him great comfort in times of need. He’ll be more cuddlier when he’s stressed as well. He just wants a cuddle to calm him down when meditation has failed. His stress melts away in your arms.

·         In bed, he’ll love to cuddle with your head resting on his chest, an arm wrapped protectively around your shoulders. Your breathing synchs up as you fall asleep, and he’ll plant little kisses on your head and hold you close.

Scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi);

·         Cuddling is one of life’s few pleasures in his opinion. He, like Sub Zero is touched starved, but he knows he cannot hug and cuddle in public due to his reputation. He’s a little less stringent than Sub though. Because who is going to argue with Grandmaster grumpy face or make a comment? Fucking nobody. Less they want to a frowny faced Hanzo.

·         He wishes you could cuddle more in public, since he feels reassured and knows you’re safe when you’re in his arms. But he has a reputation that he must uphold.

·         Cuddles with him are always warm. Not overly hot, but cosier and homelier in a way. He feels warm and will always warm you up on a cold day.

·         When its could, he uses this as an excuse to cuddle you more. Since you both need to maintain body heat.

·         He prefers to cuddle in the dark, surrounded by candles, relaxing either on the sofa or in bed.

·         Depending on where you are, depends on what type of cuddles he’s going to give.

·         On the sofa, he is a sucker for him being sat up, whilst you lean against him and rest your head on his shoulder. This way he can be comfy and have an arm wrapped around you, whilst you essentially use him as a pillow.

·         In bed, he loves to cuddle you face to face. So, he can stroke the hair from your face and take in all your features.

·         He’s very affectionate and vulnerable during these moments.

·         He like Kabal, will also wrap his arms around your waist and just hold you. Before spinning you around and kissing you. Hanzo has been through a lot and he just wants some TLC and to be close to you.

Erron Black;

·         Cuddling is great, he gets to be close to you and he gets an excuse to lounge around.

·         He’ll whisper a lot of pet names to you during your cuddling session. He will initiate and receive, he loves to cuddle. Doesn’t care who’s watching. If they have a problem, they can tell him. Not that he’ll listen.

·         He loves to cuddle with you on his lap. He loves it. He likes to lounge in whatever chair he’s in, whisky in one hand, your ass in the other whilst you giggle and cling to his neck.

·         That is more if he is in a playful mood. If he’s being more intimate, he still prefers the lap hugs, but he’ll want to hold you closer to him.

·         Erron smells like smoke, whisky and the faint smell of gunpowder. It isn’t overpowering its just a smoky kind of smell.

·         He’ll talk to you more during cuddling, he’ll want to talk about your future together. He’ll also admit how happy he is and tell you how he never thought he’d have any of this. He becomes a lot softer in moments like this.

·         Cuddling in bed consists of spooning, one arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close to him, his head buried into the back of your neck. His hands brushing your abdomen softly as you fall asleep.

Raiden;

·         Cuddling is one of his favourite mortal customs. He’s pretty touch starved as well, so when you introduce him to this concept on a romantic level. He is all over it.

·         Once more, not a big cuddler in public. Gods have a reputation to uphold. He did try and pass off your hugs as platonic once, but everyone saw through it and he did not hear the end of it for weeks. So private cuddles are his jam.

·         He loves to have you on his lap, just so he can hold you with one arm and whisper sweet things in your ear. At first, he’d just sit there a little awkward and unsure of what to do. But once he got used to it, he became more confident and figured he liked to whisper in your ear.

·         He feels at peace with you and can easily rest with you on his lap, or with you holding him.

·         In bed he prefers to have you on his chest. That way he can feel your breathing against his chest, it eases him and soothes him. As a God he doesn’t really need to sleep a lot, but he does love to spend time with you like this. Your breathing soothes him, and he feels so at content.

·         Every little noise you make whilst you sleep, manages to tear a curious smile from his lips. You’re so sweet when you sleep. And just seeing you slumber so peacefully in his arms, is enough to make him sleepy.

·         You act as an anchor to him and you’re basically one of those ‘Sounds of Nature CDs’ just without the dolphin noises. You help him sleep and relax. You make him feel like a normal person almost and not a God.

·         Moments like this make him think about your future together. He sometimes voices his opinions when you’re falling asleep. Sometimes he just thinks about them.

·         He could spend the next millennia likes this with you.

Fujin;

·         Like Raiden he has no fucking clue about cuddling in a romantic way. He has had platonic hugs, but even then, they are rare. Someone give this man a fucking hug and some love!

·         He’ll love to cuddle whilst you’re on his lap. One arm around your waist whilst the other plays with your hair. He’ll also encourage you to play with his. He found out quickly he is a sucker for having his hair played with. It completes him.

·         Loves to cuddle with you on his lap whilst he tries to understand Mortal TV. He’ll ask questions, all the whilst you’re sat on his lap, contently watching too but with your arms draped around his neck.

·         “Y/N, what is this ‘Game of Thrones’ everyone is talking about? Johnny Cage said it was a show about building the best chair?’ What a way to ruin a cuddle.

·         He grows extremely fond of cuddling rather quickly. He doesn’t really care who see’s, because he see’s no shame in cuddling and being close to one another. It’s an intimate act but not a sexual one. So, it’s fine in his eyes.

·         He just wants to hold you to him and keep you safe. Because you are precious, and he loves you.

·         You Mortals have fucking everything sorted. Cuddling on the sofa, cuddling in the bath/shower, cuddling in bed. God, he loves it.

·         In the shower, he’ll often ask if he can join you, before stepping in and wrapping his arms around you. He loves to feel your bare skin against his, it just feels so raw, emotional and intimate. He’ll also plant kisses on your neck.

·         As for cuddling in bed, he switches it up. He loves to fall asleep with him cuddled up to you. He loves to drape an arm over your waist and bury his head into your neck. He can hear your heart beating and it soothes him to sleep. That and he doesn’t want to trap his hair by accident. Last time you got tangled it took ages to untangle and he feared he’d have to shout for someone.

·         You fall asleep so cutely but wake up a mess of tangled limbs.

Hotaru;

·         Okay. Cuddling with him is such a fucking weird experience I can tell you that.

·         There is no PDA. You’re unsure if PDA is even legal in the Orderrealm. Who fucking knows.

·         He is aware of it, but he has never partook in cuddling. He’s read about it. He hasn’t really had a lot of contact with people. Because who has the time and it’s never appealed to him. But when in Rome?

·         He is extremely tall and a mass of gangly long limbs. So, cuddling is finessed and kind of tricky at first.

·         You try cuddling standing up, but his chin ends up resting on your head, and it just feels a little odd.

·         You tried it with him sat on your computer chair, but it ended up tipping because you both lost your balance.

·         In the end, he ended up doing some maths and through trial and error discovered, lap cuddling is the way forward.

·         He loves having you on his lap, whilst he’s lounging in a sturdy, none tippable chair. He has an arm lazily around your waist at first. Trying to actual casual, but then it ends up with him tightening his grip. Because hell, he kind of likes this cuddling business. That and it sort of strokes that huge fucking ego of his. The one he pretends not to have.

·         But even with that, cuddles are on the rare side outside of the bedroom. He’s busy and he still isn’t overly affectionate orientated. He’s trying to break the cycle, but it will take time.

·         Cuddling in bed is still on though. He tried spooning and wasn’t keen. Just because of the height thing. So, he’d prefer it if you laid on his chest. It just feels nicer and more organised, in a strange way. Mainly because he knows you won’t end up a mess of limbs come morning.

·         Someone help this man. He needs a hard slap and to be told he’s better than the rest of the Seidan guard.

 Baraka;

·         Cuddling with him is an Olympic fucking sport. For starters, how the fuck? How the fuck do you cuddle someone who is on the spikey side?

·         With great fucking difficulty and a lot of finesse.

·         Baraka tried to at first pretend he wasn’t interested in cuddling. It seemed so soft and squishy. A very human thing to do… but then he kind of came around to the idea, since it meant being close to you.

·         He finally gave in when curiosity got the better of him. You spoke so highly of it, so it must be good. He’s trusting you on this.

·         At first you tried cuddling on the sofa, but when things got a little heated, I mean you were straddling his lap and it started off innocent. But damn did he get hard a little too easily. And he basically imbedded into the back of the sofa. So yeah, that was not on the cards.

·         You figured cuddling whilst stood up is the way forward. He normally has to cuddle you, with him carefully wrapping his arms around your waist.

·         Bonus points if you’re shorter, because he will love to rest his chin on your head or tuck it into the crane of your neck.

·         He won’t ever fully admit how much he loves it. It’s nice to be close to you. It’s a human custom he doesn’t fully fucking hate either. This is nice. He wishes Tarkatan’s would do this more often. Since it feels relaxing and you get to be close to the one you love… but it is too mushy for a Tarkatan. So, he keeps the thought to himself.

·         He will also be down for cuddles in the shower, he’ll be bolder however and will wrap an arm around your waist, before gently brushing your neck with his teeth. Kisses are impossible, but this is a sign of trust on both your parts. The fact he’s acting vulnerable around you, and the fact you let him near your skin with his mouth. It’s sweet and also kind of arousing. Because what that mouth do?

·         Cuddles in the shower has led to fucking in the shower. The once place he cannot break! Yet.

·         Cuddles at night are the exact same as in the day. Fucking finessed and carefully planned out. Lots of tweaking, gentle nudging and carefully placing his arms around you. You’re surprised he has the patience to do this. But, it sort of reaffirms his love for you. He’s doing all of this for you and to be close to you. As Venom would say, “Aw that’s nice”

·         He’d love it if you could rest on his chest, but his arm spikes are in the way. So, it looks like spooning is on the cards. Not that he’s complaining. Unless your hair gets tangled in his teeth. Then that is a problem.

·         You’ll initiate them more than he does, but when he initiates them they last forever.

[mountphoenixrp]

We have a new citizen in Mount Phoenix:

                     Amari Hotaru, who is known by no other name;                                     a 22 year old son of Susanoo.                        He is a swimming instructor at Zero to Hero                                              and host at Sakura.

FC NAME/GROUP: Yeo Changgu/Yeo One (PENTAGON) CHARACTER NAME: Amari Hotaru AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 22 Years/March 27, 1998 PLACE OF BIRTH: Shodoshima, Japan OCCUPATION: Swimming Instructor at Zero to Hero/Host at Sakura DEFINING FEATURES: - Somehow almost always smells like the ocean. - Tall, tanned, fit, and smiley :)

PERSONALITY: Boyish, friendly, upbeat, and kind, Hotaru is a reflection of all the love he was given growing up. The easiest way to explain it being that his mother, uncle, and aunt had poured so much love into him, that at some point, all that warmth and tenderness brimmed over and spilled out into the world in the forms of compassion and care. He’s a whirlwind of joy, excitement, and best intentions. If someone were standing in the park with a “free hug” sign, not only would he take a hug, but he would join them in offering free hugs himself. If someone was caught in the rain without an umbrella, he would hand his own over to them, no problem. If someone showed up at his door in the middle of the night with nowhere to go, you bet your ass, he would take them in, and give them his bed in a heartbeat. Some would say that he’s a bit of an extreme altruist, others would call him extremely naive.

Despite the fact that he’s almost exasperatingly positive about everything, he can be just as insufferable when his feelings are hurt. He’s got a little flair for the dramatics especially when his feelings are hut. If it’s sunny out and there’s a sudden downpour, chances are Hotaru had his heart broken again. Or he watched another tragic show or movie. But he bounces back fast. Never one to dwell on his negative emotions for longer than a couple of days unless he’s really hurt. He’s an expressive person, an open book, wears his heart on his sleeve for everyone to see. He’s a little lovesick too. Love crazy at times with how he has a new(unrequited) crush every other week despite his better judgement. And a little chaotic with some of the poorer decisions that he makes. Overall, he’s a good person, but a little bit of guidance wouldn’t hurt him either.

HISTORY: tw: mentions/heavy implications of chronic illness, mental illness, and suicide.

Hotaru’s childhood had been a happy one. He had grown up healthy, taken care of, and though he couldn’t have everything he asked for, he knew he was loved. Now that he’s older, he can appreciate how lucky he was. He was given more than what some others get. Yet, that doesn’t change the face that there’s still a handful of things he wishes could’ve been different.

Though his mother did have a presence in his life, she wasn’t the one who raised him. As soon as he was born, she had given him over to her adoptive brother and his wife. The reasoning behind this decision only ever being hinted to him through cryptic words that skirted around the entire truth. It wasn’t until Hotaru was well into his teens that he learned why exactly.

“Your mother… Isn’t well, Hotaru…” his uncle had explained to him when he’d asked the first time. “She’s doing her best to get better, but right now she can’t take care of you… Hopefully when you’re older and she’s feeling good again, you can go on to live with her.” And that was that.

His uncle and aunt had taken him in without any fuss though. They treated him like their own, but made it clear to him that they weren’t taking his mother’s place in his life or trying to keep him from her. He was allowed to see her most weekends and she visited him as frequently as she could during the summer and winter.

Years later, when Hotaru is ten, the offer to live full-time with his mother arises. Naturally, Hotaru is eager and excited. He jumps on the opportunity without really thinking about it. Not that he doesn’t love his aunt and uncle, but his childhood wishes to be with her as much as possible finally comes true. Just as naturally, his aunt and uncle are apprehensive, but they’re supportive nonetheless. The couple couldn’t be any happier for the mother and son duo and wished them all the best.

Come the next summer, Hotaru’s mother whisks him away from his hometown and out to her modest apartment in Tokyo. The city is very different from what he’s used to, but with his mother by his side, he adjusts to everything well. The next few years are happy ones. He makes so many good memories with his mother that at times, he can hardly remember any of the heartache and pain that comes next.

He’s thirteen, when things start to change. His mother’s mood shifts and Hotaru finds himself helplessly watching as she withdraws from the world and him along with it. When he asks her if she’s alright, she dismisses his concerns with a gentle smile and a ruffle of his hair. “I’m alright,” she would say or, “Don’t worry about me, I’m just a little stressed.” Every time she does, he so desperately wants to believe in her words, but he knows deep down that there’s something she’s not telling him.

Around the same time, his powers start making themselves known, but he brushes them off as coincidences and they’re more or less shoved to the back of his mind. He has other things to worry about and worry he does. Between then and now, things get progressively worse and worse. It’s not until he gets his uncle and aunt involved that things improve again, but the relief and happiness is short lived.

He’s fifteen years old when he comes home from a swim meet, his aunt and uncle in tow, the older couple chatting with him about school and congratulating him on the silver medal he wears around his neck. When he calls out into the apartment to greet his mother and receives no response, but he dismisses it. Figures his mother is still resting in her room. But there’s an unnerving stillness in the air, like the calm before a storm, and Hotaru can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong. He tries to keep his cool though, chuckles a little nervously when his aunt and uncle give him a worried look before going off to check on his mother.

The couple watches as he disappears around the corner and over to her bedroom calling out for her once more before he stops mid sentence and something thuds to the ground. They glance at each other. The scream that they hear next is so loud and so heart wrenching and so pained that it stuns them for a minute before they’re rushing after him.

The scene that they come across next is surreal. Hotaru collapsed to the ground in a fit of inconsolable tears and anguished cries hunched over his mother’s lifeless body. For as long as they’d known the boy, he’d never made a sound so heart breaking in his life. It shakes them up even more. Outside, thunder cracks in the distance and there’s a sudden downpour, but the only storm they can focus on is the whirlwind of grief that comes next.

After the funeral and his mother’s cremation, Hotaru moves back home and he isn’t himself for a long time. Years of counseling, therapy, and the support of his family help him along the way and he’s better for it, but there’s something fundamentally different to him regardless.

On his eighteenth birthday, his aunt, uncle, and a few friends gather together at the beach to celebrate. It’s a happy occasion, but he can’t help but wish for his mother’s presence there. The very same night, after returning home for the evening, his uncle pulls him out to the back porch and hands him one last gift. A modest sized box with an elegant looking envelope on top. There’s a bit of weight to it and when he opens it, it reveals a series of black journals. He flips the envelope over to see it addressed to him with his mother’s handwriting on the back of it. The young man looks up in confusion and his uncle explains.

“She wanted you to have these when you were sixteen, but we thought that it would be too soon after…” he pauses, eyes glossing over with tears that he does his best to blink away. He clears his throat, “I’m not sure what’s in the journals, but she wrote them all for you to read when you were old enough to understand… But read the letter first. There’s something important in there that she wanted you to know, I think.” He wishes the demigod another “happy birthday” before going to bed for the evening.

Hotaru sits there in the dark for a while, twirling the letter by its corners tentatively while he debates opening it like his uncle insisted. It’s a while before he can muster up the will, but he eventually does and the contents of the letter leave him speechless. He’s not sure whether the line of, “You’re a demigod, Hotaru,” holds any truth to it at first, but his doubts disappear when he manages to stop a sudden rain shower with nothing but a wish. Of course, he repeats it a few times for good measure, but the action confirms his mother’s words to be true.

After putting himself through university and earning himself a degree in honor of his uncle and aunt’s wishes, he was finally able to set off to the place his mother encouraged him to go to in her letter. He’s twenty-two when he arrives at Mount Phoenix and despite not knowing entirely what he’s there for, he’s looking forward to the new atmosphere and learning more about this side of his heritage.

PANTHEON: Japanese CHILD OF: Susanoo POWERS: Can summon and control storms for a short time. They are particularly powerful near oceans and salt water restores their energy.   STRENGTHS: He’s compassionate, kind, and caring, a good swimmer, all around good human. WEAKNESSES: Attractive people, sad animes, his own emotions, a little chaotic, cares a little too much sometimes.

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Natsume (pt. 12)

Oof, the long-awaited Christmas Ball arc has finally arrived! Let's get into it!

What does it look like to see Natsume at his most selfish? One needs only to look at Chapter Fifty.

Chapter Forty-Eight

The Christmas Ball is finally here!

Natsume has to begin the ball just like he has to begin the festival, sitting on stage with the other Principal students, as if he’s some kind of representative. When he catches Mikan looking at him, he sticks his tongue out at her, and she’s taken aback and offended, but he’s trying to be cute. When Natsume is around Mikan, they always bicker and argue. She’s someone he can argue with, something he can’t do with most people. He can’t argue with the people in the DA class because he’ll get punished. He can’t argue with Ruka because he already causes him enough stress. With Mikan, none of the arguments are deep. She forgives and forgets easily, and he can act freely act like a little kid. In the last chapter, even, he smiles at her when they’re in the midst of an argument, because just the freedom of being able to bicker makes him happy.

He's trying to be cute, so go easy on him, Mikan.

He sticks his tongue out at her, acting silly and childish, because she’s special and he can act silly and childish around her.

For most of the ball, Natsume is content to sit in the tree, minding his own business and keeping away from the commotion. He does notice Mikan, though, because he always does, when she acts as Trash Santa to help Youichi play with Mr. Bear. He doesn’t say anything, and he’s only present for a couple panels, but it’s obvious she stands out to him.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Natsume is eating a good piece of cake when he meets with Ruka, who is overcome with guilt for kissing Mikan on the cheek a few minutes ago. Ruka knows that Natsume likes Mikan too, but he doesn’t understand that Natsume has jumped that ship before it could even leave the dock. Natsume gets that Ruka is conflicted about something, so he playfully squeezes Ruka’s nose to assure him in his own way. Natsume’s love language is physical touch even if it is awkward, whether it’s ruffling Ruka’s hair or squeezing his nose. That’s how he comforts people, particularly Ruka.

It apparently does make Ruka feel better, because when he next sees Mikan, he doesn’t freak out like she does. He’s calmed down a bit, isn’t quite as guilty. So he does his own version of what Natsume did for him at the alice festival closing dance. He gets Mikan to dance with Natsume. It’s his way of evening the score, giving Natsume the same chance he got. Either he doesn’t understand that Natsume isn’t playing the game at all, or he’s trying to convince him to start.

He walks away and Natsume and Mikan are left standing there without their masks. There’s a moment of awkwardness, where they stand around and don’t say anything, but Natsume has a moment of resolve. He takes her hand and pulls her close. It starts off proper and gentle, like a dance is supposed to be. They dance and Natsume notices that Mikan is not happy to be with him at all. She’s quiet and frowning. He’s seen her smile while dancing before, because she always catches his eye, so he knows she’s capable of it. She’s danced with Ruka, Tsubasa, Narumi, and all sorts of people, and she’s had a big grin on her face for all of it. For some reason, that smile is absent when her partner is Natsume.

Natsume got upset and hurt when Mikan said she would never want to dance the last dance with him. He’s hurt now that she seems so reluctant to dance with him in a zero-stakes dance at the Christmas Ball. He will be hurt in the future too, because he has a low self esteem. This girl that he likes may see him as a friend, but she gets so uneasy around him, and only him. Natsume thinks he cares so much more about her than she does about him, and it’s moments like these where he gets the feeling more than ever, and it hurts. He thinks it’s a given. He’s helped make it happen on purpose. But he still wishes deep down that it wasn’t that way.

He's doing everything right and she's still upset to dance with him! What's her deal? (heheheh)

And so he argues with her. Why isn’t she smiling with him, huh? He’s doing it all right, the way he’s supposed to. He’s dancing normally and she seems to hate it. He turns to insults because it’s his most reliable technique, and suddenly Mikan is energetic.

To avoid making a scene, they bicker and insult each other under their breaths, dancing just the same as they had before, but with a new aura around them. He twirls her and she’s smiling now. And his eyes get soft, because that’s all he wanted. One moment of selfishness for him to keep in his memories, where they danced and she actually liked it.

The moment ends when they get shoved and fall over, Mikan landing with her teeth on Natsume’s lip.

They’re both tense and uncomfortable with what just happened in front of so many people. Natsume hates that he tripped in front of everybody, so his mood has suddenly soured. If this had been a proper kiss, he wouldn’t have gotten so angry, and he won’t, spoiler alert. He was actually having a nice time, only for the moment to be so abruptly stolen from him. He fell down and now his lip is bleeding. Her teeth hitting his mouth also could be the closest he’ll ever get to a kiss with Mikan, and she looks horrified. Being under so many watchful eyes, all nervous about what’s about to happen. He has very few options, really. He can walk away, or he can cause upset. Natsume isn’t in the mood to run away, since he’s already embarrassed himself by tripping, so he tells her that she’s bad at dancing and kissing, even though he obviously very much likes dancing with her.

He is a problem child.

Chapter Fifty

Mikan is enraged that he had the audacity to call what happened a kiss. There’s also the trouble of Ruka, who had been nice and arranged for them to dance in the first place, only for this to happen.

Now it’s Natsume’s turn to feel guilty. It was an accident, of course, but Natsume already messed up by calling it a kiss, so now Ruka is upset. The only thing he can say to comfort his friend is to downplay it, acting as if everyone is making a big deal over nothing.

Don't worry about it, man. It's a whatever situation.

Natsume’s admirers take that as some sort of confirmation that he’s the man, probably going around kissing all the time. This really meant nothing, because it’s just one kiss of many. It’s far from the truth: Natsume has never kissed anybody before. This kiss doesn’t mean anything only because it was an accident.

Natsume escapes. He feels horrible for hurting Ruka, and probably let down that the teeth-kiss is the closest he’ll ever get to the real thing, least of all with Mikan. He stays in his tree, safe and isolated, alone with his thoughts. He has no intention of returning to the party.

In fact, it’s Mikan who finds him, when she climbs up the tree to find someone to comfort her. She’s looking for Tsubasa or Hotaru or Ruka or Iinchou. Not him. She admits that she’s just settling for him (or at least that’s the way it comes off in the TokyoPop version), and not being one of the people she can count on is something that he sadly resigns himself to.

Still, even if she’s only venting to him because there’s nobody else around, he listens to her whole story.

Just like with the Christmas Ball prep, he insults her and it somehow works. The worry leaves her face and she grins.

Forgive me. These scans leave much to be desired. Apologies.

Natsume is a bit preoccupied. He’s had some time to think and he has a lot on his mind, so he reminds her that she was angry at him just a bit ago, reviving her rage. It’s short-lived, though, because then he asks what happened between her and Ruka. Mikan shuts down, then tries to change the subject, mentioning all the gossip about his many kisses, suggesting Natsume talk about himself before demanding to know other people’s business, which leads him to the conclusion that she’d kissed Ruka.

They argue a bit more, but then she insists that the accident before didn’t count as a kiss, so he decides to fix that.

Natsume’s selfish acts are still in the single-digits, but this belongs on the shortest list in the world. Keep in mind that Natsume is convinced that Mikan and Ruka kissed already. They did, but that was a cheek kiss, and not on the same level. He has no idea. They’re arguing, so it won’t seem romantic or mushy at all, especially when compared to whatever Ruka surely did (though he did not do anything at all, in fact) and she won’t get the wrong (right) idea. It seems like a low-consequence move, like something he could do, so that he could have it for the rest of his life and then die with it. He doesn’t dare assume it’ll mean something to her.

He pulls her into a kiss, in any case.

She pushes him away, gasping for breath.

He explains that he did it because she said it wasn’t real before. An easy excuse. Then he muses, “So that’s what kissing is like…” and essentially answers her question from earlier, about all the rumors that he has plenty of experience kissing. He says it’s no big deal and then jumps from the tree.

"Wow! That sucked! Let's do more of this next year!"

To him, it is a big deal.

He says things aren’t a big deal when he wishes he could do them, like competing in the alice festival and now with kissing. Things are a big fuss over nothing when he can’t do them but wants to. Just like the alice festival, this is something he can’t look forward to. This is done, and it’ll probably--definitely--never happen again. Being selfish once is one thing. He wouldn’t do that to Ruka.

Downplaying it is supposed to comfort her. It’s no big deal after all, so she can just move on and keep kissing Ruka, which she probably prefers anyway. It obviously meant a lot to him, since in about a year he’d ask for more and more kisses, but for now, he’s content with one. It’s all he can ask for, and all he needs. Just one kiss, to know what it’s like to kiss the girl he loves. And now he’s done.

His post-kiss behavior is all for her sake, acting casual and blase about it so that she doesn’t catch on that it meant something more to him. “Huh, whatever,” is an easier kiss to get over than a romantic and sappy one, in his mind.

Besides, she’s not like him. It’s not like she’s never kissed somebody before.

Chapter Fifty-One

It’s post-Christmas cleaning day in Class B and the kids are gathering in a circle to tell scary stories on their lunch break. Koko calls Natsume over to make a demon fire for the atmosphere. Ruka and Natsume catch Mikan’s gaze and she runs to avoid them both.

She’s an anxious mess because of the Christmas Ball, unable to look either of them in the eye.

Natsume and Ruka both join the group anyway, and once Mikan is thoroughly spooked, Natsume scares her even more with Yo-chan’s help. It’s not that he wants her to suffer, but he wants to seem as unaffected as possible. See, he’s right back to normal, so there’s nothing to worry about. She doesn’t need to freak out about what happened, because ultimately, nothing happened. It was no big deal, a big fuss over nothing.

Jinno then separates the class into smaller cleaning groups, and Mikan is stuck with Natsume and Ruka. She’s awkward and anxious, Ruka’s embarrassed and doesn’t know what to say, and Natsume’s not the type to talk much anyway.

He isn’t really the kind of person who fixes things, but it’s on him now, because the other two sure as hell won’t. So first he teases Mikan by scaring her. She gets a little upset, so he tells her to quit ignoring Ruka. He makes it about Ruka, because he’s okay being the one ignored. Again, he’s never considered himself in the running for Mikan’s affections. He’s Team Ruka, all the way.

Ruka is touched, and there’s obviously no hard feelings about the accidental kiss at the ball. That doesn’t mean that they’re talking much, or that there’s no tension. They both know that something happened with the other in regards to Mikan, and broaching that topic is uncomfortable. They’ve been letting it sit for so long untouched--months even, since the very start of it all--and it’s only gotten bigger and bigger.

Before they can have an actual conversation, though, the lights go out.

They’re all sitting against the wall, Ruka and Natsume on either side of Mikan.

They’re both aware that Mikan is easily scared and that she’s particularly afraid of the dark, and so they both independently decide to hold her hand in an attempt to comfort her. Natsume remembers how afraid she’d been when they were trapped together in the haunted house, and how all she’d wanted at the time was to hold his hand, because if they’re touching, they’ll be warm and less scared.

Don't overthink it, Mikan. You might figure him out.

For now, it’s not about being selfish, just being helpful, because he wants to reassure her and comfort her. He’s learning ways that he can be comforting to Mikan, that don’t necessarily involve insults and getting her mad.

But then he looks up and he and Ruka notice each other, see what the other is doing, and after all this built-up tension and awkwardness and lack of conversation, it only makes sense that…

They start laughing. They start talking, suddenly so honest, because the hardest part is over. They got to skip over the confrontation and now they can just talk about it with each other. They’ve known the truth about each other all along, but now they don’t have to pretend to hide it anymore.

And Ruka feels free to tease Natsume, and Natsume can tease Ruka, and that’s amazing too. Even before Mikan came to the academy, Natsume and Ruka had a lot left unsaid. They didn’t communicate well, and their talks never involved bickering or friendly teasing. It’s like all the tension that had accrued between them for years has suddenly lifted, and they can laugh about it now.

There's so much honesty here now.

Natsume can tease that Ruka has terrible taste in women, Ruka can shoot back that that means Natsume does too, and Natsume can scold him for putting himself on his level.

If anything, this was good for their relationship. They’re in a place now where they can communicate about their feelings somewhat. Natsume is never really that emotionally open, even at his most communicative, and he’ll continue to keep his secrets, but the wall that has built between them has been more or less knocked down.

This moment doesn’t seem romantic at all to Mikan, but romance is intrinsic to their conversation. Ruka swears he won’t lose, and Natsume scoffs that he’d never intended to win in the first place.

And just like that, without even including Mikan in their conversation, everything is back to normal, or even better than normal. The Christmas Ball tensions have officially been eliminated. The feelings may still be there, but the problems are gone.

But it’s still dark and scary, and now it seems that a ghost has joined them in the hall, wielding scissors--so Ruka and Mikan run away. Natsume is not so easily spooked, so he sticks around long enough to see that the ghost in question is Nobara.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Natsume starts his conversation with Nobara by reminding her of an off-screen (off-page?) conversation, where he told her to stay away from Mikan. Nobara explains that she came to see him, because she was watching Mikan for the entire Christmas party and has something to tell him. Though it’s a bit creepy, the lengths Nobara went to in order to watch Mikan (including special opera glasses that catch sound), she says she saw something strange.

At first, Natsume thinks she’s going to mention the kiss, and he’s uncomfortable that Nobara probably knows about it. First, she’s still just as untrustworthy to him as before, because she’s loyal to Persona. That their kiss might get back to Persona could be potentially quite dangerous, and he might face serious punishment as a result. Secondly, he’s also capable of getting embarrassed, and the idea that this girl was watching when he had no idea at all, especially during such a vulnerable moment, is a little off-putting.

But Nobara isn’t talking about the kiss. She’s talking about the fact that the person who danced with Mikan and upset her by making her mask fall was probably the ESP. She tells Natsume because she’s seen the way he looks at her and she knows that he cares about her. She can even tell that Natsume forbidding her from talking to Mikan is his way of protecting her, even though she must not be a fan of such a rule. She’s a middle-schooler, and not as close to Mikan, but Natsume is in her class. He’s her partner and he cares about her, so he is the best person to have protecting her. Because he will, no questions asked.

Natsume remembers the warning he’s been given, that he should continue isolating himself or bad things will happen to his loved ones, so we can tell that he finds himself somewhat responsible for the ESP upsetting Mikan. More than that, he’s understandably concerned that this is merely the first move of many, and that the ESP will continue to antagonize her and even put her in danger, and that it would all be his fault.

In any case, Natsume is kind of stuck regarding his options.

He can go back to trying to avoid her. He was never that great at it in the first place, but it’s bound to be even harder now. But he also has to protect her, and that will be harder to do from a distance. Besides, the damage seems to have already been done. Whatever happens, he’s willing to take all the punishment in her stead, as long as she’s safe.

Conclusion

Natsume has done all he intends to do: he got a kiss from Mikan and now he'll more or less step aside. Or will he? The plot thickens! But in any case, he's up to face some serious repercussions for his actions so far, and his punishment will be any day now...

Also, sorry, I couldn't find full scans for Chapter Fifty-Two, so there's no pics. It's okay, I wouldn't have done much for it anyway, because Natsume's only around for a few pages.

Hope y'all are having a nice day! Thank you so much for reading this far!

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