#Three Corpse-Carrying Tips

[thatsbelievable]

[kysstar]

NOTHING BUT A BET? | PARK SEONGHWA (requested 💕)

pairing: park seonghwa x fem!reader

synopsis: seonghwa makes you fall in love with him, plays with your feelings just for a bet. when the truth comes out, you are left heartbroken.

genre: angst, hurt-comfort, fluff

warnings: mentions of y/n, heartbreak (happy ending!)

word count: 5k

—The living room of the off-campus house was pulsing with bass-heavy music, bodies pressed wall-to-wall, red cups in hand. On the battered brown couch sat three-quarters of a chaos unit—Seonghwa, Hongjoong, and Wooyoung—drunk off their asses, and Yeosang, who might as well have been their designated babysitter, sipping the same watered-down drink for over an hour.

“Listen,” Wooyoung slurred, elbowing Hongjoong, “I’m telling you—out of all of us, I’ve had the best luck with girls.”

Hongjoong nearly spit his drink. “You literally got ghosted last week.”

“That was a fluke!” Wooyoung said, offended. “Besides, look at Seonghwa. You think he’s smooth? He’s just got that tragic pretty boy thing going on.”

Seonghwa scoffed, tipping back his cup. “Please. I could pull anyone here if I wanted to.”

“Yeah?” Wooyoung leaned forward, smirking. “Anyone?”

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Anyone.”

Wooyoung turned his head dramatically and pointed across the room. “Except her.”

In the far corner, you sat cross-legged on a beanbag, talking animatedly with your friend, gesturing with your cup. Your laugh carried through the noise—clear, unbothered. You looked like someone who didn’t care who was watching. And that annoyed the hell out of Seonghwa.

His face twisted. “Oh, her?”

Yeosang looked up from his drink. “You mean Y/N?”

Wooyoung nodded. “Yep.”

Seonghwa rolled his eyes. “Good. I wouldn’t want to pull her.”

Hongjoong snorted. “Why? Scared?”

“Not scared,” Seonghwa muttered. “I just—don’t like her.”

“Hwa, you’ve never even talked to her,” Wooyoung pointed out, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t need to. She’s everywhere. Top of every class, president of three clubs, always with people. Perfect GPA and somehow still has time to go out and laugh at parties like she doesn’t have five deadlines tomorrow.” Seonghwa downed the rest of his drink. “People like her are fake.”

Yeosang raised an eyebrow. “So you hate her for... existing?”

Seonghwa ignored him. “She’s fake. No one is that perfect without playing a part.”

“Or maybe,” Wooyoung said, “you just can’t stand someone being better than you.”

That hit harder than he expected. Seonghwa didn’t flinch—but he didn’t answer, either.

“So,” Wooyoung grinned, pushing his luck, “what if we make it interesting?”

“Oh god,” Yeosang muttered.

Wooyoung ignored him. “You say you can pull anyone. I say you can’t pull her. So prove it.”

Seonghwa looked at him, slowly. “You want me to make her fall for me.”

“Exactly.”

Yeosang sat up straight. “That’s messed up.”

“It’s not serious—”

“You’re playing with someone’s feelings.”

“If she even falls for him,” Wooyoung said, glancing at Seonghwa. “Which she won’t. She’s smart. She’ll see right through you.”

Hongjoong looked up, frowning. “This feels kind of gross.”

Yeosang chimed in again, more serious. “Yeah. You’re drunk. She hasn’t done anything to either of you. Don’t mess with someone’s feelings because of a bruised ego.”

But Seonghwa was already watching you again, eyes narrowed. You looked so untouched by the mess around you, like you didn’t even see him.

He looked back at Wooyoung. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Yeosang stared at him. “This is messed up.”

“Relax,” Wooyoung waved him off. “It’s just a dumb bet.”

But Seonghwa wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re on.”

—The dorm room smelled like instant ramen and coffee. It was too small for four grown men, but no one really cared. Yeosang was lying on the floor, hoodie hood pulled over his head like a corpse in mourning. Hongjoong was perched backwards on his desk chair, arms resting on the backrest. Wooyoung had claimed the beanbag, limbs everywhere. And Seonghwa, of course, was stretched out on his bed like he paid rent for the whole place.

“Did you guys read the email yet?” Hongjoong asked, yawning. “About the project.”

“Yeah,” Yeosang mumbled from the floor. “Thought it was gonna be groups, not pairs.”

“Professor Lim said it was too chaotic last time,” Wooyoung said. “Too many slackers hiding in big groups.”

“He’s not wrong,” Seonghwa added lazily, one arm behind his head. “Half of us didn’t even read the brief last time.”

There was a pause as they all pulled out their phones. A few seconds of scrolling—and then silence.

Yeosang was the first to speak. “No way.”

Wooyoung sat up straight. “Oh my god.”

Hongjoong blinked at the screen, then slowly turned his head to look at Seonghwa.

“…What did you do?”

Seonghwa didn’t even open his eyes. “Why?”

Yeosang sat up. “You and Y/N. You’re assigned together.”

“Really?” Seonghwa said, voice perfectly blank, like he’d just heard the weather forecast. He opened one eye, mock surprise in his tone. “That’s convenient.”

Wooyoung’s jaw dropped. “Don’t play dumb. What did you do.”

Seonghwa gave a slow, smug stretch and sat up against the wall, phone still resting on his chest. “I might’ve… browsed Professor Lim’s office hours.”

“You hacked him?” Hongjoong’s voice cracked.

“Don’t be dramatic. I just… nudged the spreadsheet a little.”

Wooyoung stared. “You literally committed academic fraud.”

“Relax,” Seonghwa said. “It’s not like I changed grades. I just made a better match.”

Yeosang ran a hand down his face. “This is so messed up.”

Seonghwa didn’t respond. He was leaning back against the wall, jaw tight with focus now, thumbing through his phone like the rest of the room didn’t exist. The buzz of the old desk fan hummed in the background, filling the silence with something just above white noise. His screen lit up—a DM notification.

From you.

He tapped it open. The message was short, polite, perfectly worded. You weren’t exactly friendly, but you weren’t cold either.

You: “Hey. Saw the partner list. When are you free to start working on the project? I’m good for evenings after 5, or weekends if needed. Let me know what works.”

Seonghwa reread it, twice. You really didn’t suspect a thing. No hint of suspicion, no passive aggression, nothing. You were just trying to be efficient.

Seonghwa: “Evenings work. Friday, maybe? Library or the cafe near campus?”

He hesitated, then sent it. Almost immediately, the typing bubble popped up.

You: “Let’s do the library. Easier to talk than in the cafe. I’ll bring the outline.”

He stared at your name in the message thread for a second, then backed out and tapped into your profile.

Your feed was clean but not curated—nothing felt fake. Study sessions at cafes, blurry photos from concerts, the occasional sunset from your dorm window. You didn’t post often, but enough. There was a rhythm to it, subtle but steady.

He scrolled through a few shots. You always had a cup with you when you studied. Sometimes tucked into the corner of the frame, other times front and center—iced coffee, mostly. Long plastic straws and condensation on the cup. Always the same place, always the same drink.

You also posted books—fiction mostly. Some film photos. A couple of shots from club events, one of you standing next to a booth you clearly helped organize, laughing at something off-camera. You looked at ease in those pictures.

He watched that photo a second too long before locking the phone and setting it face-down beside him.

This wasn’t going to be easy, not with someone like you. You didn’t try too hard. You didn’t need to. That was the difference.

But that didn’t matter. Because Seonghwa had already decided. He wasn’t backing out now. He was going to make you like him. Trust him. Fall for him.

And then?

Well.

He’d win.

—The library wasn’t packed, but there were just enough people scattered between tables to keep it from feeling dead. You’d picked a corner spot by the window—habit, really. Good lighting, fewer distractions, and easy to disappear into. Your laptop was open, and you’d already laid out your highlighters and printed notes, trying to look more focused than you felt.

Your eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of your screen.

Five minutes past.

It wasn’t a big deal. But still—you weren’t sure what to expect from Seonghwa. You didn’t know him. Not really. You’d seen him across classrooms, heard him speak when he had to. He wasn’t rude, just... hard to read. Always composed, never lingering too long in conversation. He gave the impression of someone who kept a deliberate distance.

And yet, here you were. Paired together.

You couldn’t lie—you were curious. Nervous too, maybe. You didn’t get nervous often, but something about this felt unfamiliar.

The sound of approaching footsteps broke your thoughts. You looked up.

Seonghwa walked in like he wasn’t in a rush—dark jacket layered over a hoodie, hair pushed back like he hadn’t bothered to fix it after walking in the wind. He wasn’t making an effort to look good, but somehow he still did. His expression was neutral, unreadable as always, but he was carrying two iced coffees.

He set one down in front of you.

You blinked. “You brought coffee?”

He nodded, slipping into the seat across from you. “Figured we’d be stuck here a while. Didn’t know what you liked, but this seemed safe.”

You looked down at the drink, mildly surprised. Iced coffee. Light on the milk. Just how you usually ordered it. You picked it up without thinking. “This is actually my favorite.”

His eyebrows lifted a little. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

He cracked the smallest smile. “Same.”

There was a small pause, not awkward, just quiet. You watched him take a sip of his own drink before leaning forward slightly to glance at your spread of notes.

“You’ve already started?” he asked.

You nodded, sliding a printed sheet across the table. “Rough ideas. I figured we’d need some kind of structure before we start writing.”

He looked it over, eyes scanning the page. “This makes sense. Clean layout.”

You were relieved he didn’t push back on anything. From there, the conversation settled into something... surprisingly easy. You discussed the angle for your project, divided tasks without tension, even threw in a few quick references to past classes that you’d both suffered through.

It wasn’t small talk, exactly, but it wasn’t stiff either. Just enough to start feeling like a real collaboration. A few times, you caught his eyes lingering—not in a weird way, just… watching.

You didn't overthink it.

When your laptop finally closed and the table was cleared of papers, Seonghwa leaned back slightly in his chair, glancing out the window before turning to you again.

“When do you want to meet next?”

You shrugged, thinking. “Wednesday works, if you’re free.”

“Same time?”

“Same place?”

He nodded. “Yeah. That works.”

You gave him a small smile, tapping your pen on the table. “Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

He looked at your almost-empty cup, then back at you. “Anytime.”

—By Wednesday, everything felt like it was hitting at once. Third day of the week, but it might as well have been the seventh. Assignments had stacked up out of nowhere, your inbox was overflowing, and your club meetings were overlapping to the point that you didn’t even remember what you were supposed to be preparing for anymore. You hadn’t slept properly in three nights, unless you counted the accidental thirty-minute nap you took on your textbook at 3 a.m.

Your stomach was empty, your brain was foggy, and you were five minutes early to your meeting with Seonghwa—mostly out of habit.

You sat at the same table, eyes scanning over the notes you'd already read three times, just trying to hold focus. You weren’t sure you were absorbing anything anymore.

Then you heard him approach.

Same calm pace, same neutral energy. He placed a cup in front of you again—iced coffee, no words at first—and sat down. But this time, he didn’t dive into the project.

“Are you okay?”

You glanced up, blinking at him. He frowned. “You look tired.”

You waved a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Just… midweek stress. It’s whatever.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Did you sleep?”

“Some,” you lied.

“When did you last eat?”

You hesitated. “I don't remember.”

His jaw tensed, and he leaned back slightly, eyes still on you. He didn’t press again, but he didn’t look away either. You dropped your gaze back to your notes, reaching for a pen, but before you could write anything, his chair scraped back.

You looked up, confused. “What—”

“We’re not doing this today.”

You blinked. “What?”

Seonghwa was already standing. “You’re out of it. You won’t retain anything we go through, and you’ll just end up feeling worse.”

“I’m fine,” you said again, firmer this time, more out of instinct than truth.

He shook his head. “No. You’re running on fumes. Come on.”

You didn’t move. “Seonghwa, we have deadlines. We can’t just—”

Before you could finish, he reached out and gently took your hand, tugging you up from your seat.

“Come on,” he said again, softer this time. “Trust me.”

You looked at him, searching for sarcasm or some kind of joke, but there was none. Just quiet sincerity. And maybe a bit of concern he wasn’t trying very hard to hide.

You sighed, shoulders slumping. Maybe he was right. Maybe the project could wait one night.

The campus convenience store was mostly empty by the time you and Seonghwa walked in. The lighting was a bit too bright, the music too random, but it was familiar. Comforting, in a weird way. Rows of snacks, instant meals, drinks in neatly stacked coolers—it felt like the kind of place where time slowed down.

You trailed behind him, still a little dazed from earlier. Your body hadn’t caught up with your brain yet. You weren’t used to someone pulling you out of your spiral before you crashed. You weren’t used to someone noticing.

Seonghwa moved with purpose, scanning the shelves like he did this often. He tossed a few things into the basket—ramen cups, a small pack of seaweed snacks, two bottled waters, and something sweet you hadn’t even seen. You reached over to add your own items, but he stopped you with a look.

“I got it.”

You frowned. “Let me at least pay for mine.”

He ignored that, heading to the counter before you could argue.

You followed him anyway, reaching into your bag as the cashier rang everything up. But just as you pulled out your card, Seonghwa blocked you with his arm.

“I said I got it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I know.” He looked at you sideways, mouth tugging up into a small smile. “But I’m doing it anyway.”

You stared at him for a second, then exhaled. “You’re annoying.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Outside, the night was cooler than before. The two of you found a seat at one of the tables outside the store—plastic and slightly uneven, but it worked. You peeled the lid off your ramen as Seonghwa passed you a pair of chopsticks, then cracked open his own cup like he’d done this a hundred times.

There wasn’t much talking at first. Just the quiet hum of vending machines behind you, the distant noise of other students passing by, and the soft clatter of chopsticks against plastic bowls.

You took a long sip of your iced coffee and let out a tired breath.

Seonghwa looked over, raised an eyebrow, then reached across the table and took the cup right out of your hand.

“Hey—”

He stood up and tossed it into the trash behind him without hesitation.

“What the hell?” you said, half-laughing, half-serious.

He came back, unfazed. “You don’t need more caffeine. You need food and sleep.”

You couldn’t help it—your mouth twitched. “You’re kind of bossy, you know that?”

He looked over at you, the faintest grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “Someone’s gotta be.”

The conversation drifted after that. You ate quietly, occasionally sharing bites, occasionally throwing soft jabs at his snack choices. He talked more than he usually did in class, told you a story about his freshman-year roommate nearly setting their microwave on fire, and you laughed harder than you expected to.

Somewhere between bites and low conversation, something about him felt... easier. Like he wasn’t trying to impress you, he wasn’t performing.

When you finished, he stood first, gathering the trash into one bag. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you back.”

The walk across campus was quiet, both of you watching your breath cloud up in the cool night air. When you reached the front of your dorm building, you stopped at the stairs.

“Well,” you said, turning to him. “Thanks. For the food. And... all of it.”

He shrugged, casual. “It’s nothing.”

You smiled, a small, honest thing. “Still. Thanks.”

He looked at you, eyes steady under the dim campus lights, and for a second it felt like something was about to be said. But then he just nodded.

“Get some sleep.”

You nodded back. “You too.”

And then you turned, walking up the steps, feeling lighter than you had all week.

—It was never dramatic with Seonghwa. He didn’t make grand gestures, didn’t say anything overly sweet or flirtatious. But you started noticing the little things. And somehow, those were the ones that stuck.

Like how he always showed up with an iced coffee before every study session, never asked, never forgot. Even when it rained. Even when you texted him, not to bother. It was always the same—light on the milk, just enough sweetness. Your order. He never made a big deal out of it, just set it down in front of you like it was routine now.

He kept snacks in his bag, the kind you liked. The ones you’d once offhandedly mentioned craving when you were running late and hadn’t had time to eat. The next time you met, he pulled out a packet without a word and tossed it across the table while you were setting up your notes.

Sometimes, when your energy was low and your eyes couldn’t focus on the screen anymore, he’d quietly pull your laptop toward himself and start working without needing you to say anything. Not taking over. Just picking up where you left off.

And the texts.

That surprised you the most. At first it was just about the project. Times, schedules, quick updates. Then it became something else—random observations from class, memes about how burnt out the semester was making everyone, late-night “still awake?” messages that somehow made you feel less alone.

You didn’t remember when it started exactly, but now, most nights ended with you lying in bed, phone glowing in your hand, a small smile tugging at your lips as you read through another one of his dry one-liners or the occasional deadpan voice memo. Sometimes you'd type out longer replies without meaning to, catching yourself enjoying the back-and-forth more than you probably should.

It was easy to tell yourself it was still about the project. But the project had started to fade into the background.

—Seonghwa knew his plan was working.

You were opening up, letting him in. Slowly, naturally. You laughed more around him now. Looked for him in lecture halls. Texted first. Smiled when he showed up with coffee like it still surprised you—like it meant something. And at one point, that’s all it was supposed to be: a strategy. A bet. A win.

But somewhere between the first fake smile and the first real one, he lost track of the game.

He didn’t mean to.

He didn’t mean to start looking forward to seeing your name light up his phone at 1 a.m. Or to memorize the way you tapped your pen when you were thinking. Or to notice how your nose scrunched ever so slightly when you couldn’t find the right word mid-sentence.

He didn’t mean to catch himself leaning in when you laughed, just to hear it better. He definitely didn’t mean to start picking out songs that reminded him of you, or saving stupid inside jokes in his notes app like some kind of idiot.

But the worst part?

He’d caught himself rereading your messages. Not just once. Often. Scrolling through your Instagram again—not to find leverage or patterns like he had in the beginning—but because your smile in those old posts made him feel something. Something still and soft and entirely outside his control.

And for a guy who usually kept everything locked tight, it was unsettling how easily you got past all that.

He didn’t mean to like you. He wasn’t supposed to. That was never the point.

But it was hard not to.

—The library was quiet, as it always was midafternoon—low light, the faint scratch of pens, pages turning, the occasional squeak of a chair. You weren’t planning to stay long, just grab a few books for the paper you were working on. Your steps were light, familiar with the shelves by now, weaving past rows without thinking.

You were about to leave when you heard Yeosang's voice.

“Hwa, how long are you going to keep this up?” Yeosang asked, his voice tense. “It’s not fair to her. You’re playing with her feelings.”

Your heart froze. Her?

Seonghwa shifted uncomfortably. “I—It wasn’t supposed to go this far.”

Wooyoung chuckled lightly. “Come on, Seonghwa. You’re doing her a favor. She’s having the time of her life.”

You took a step closer, straining to hear, feeling a knot form in your chest.

“But I didn’t mean for it to—” Seonghwa started, but Wooyoung interrupted.

"Why are you complaining? You've won the bet! You made Y/N fall for you."

Your blood ran cold. The realization hit you like a wave crashing over rocks. The time spent with Seonghwa, the laughter, the shared moments—it was all a lie. A bet.

You couldn’t breathe. Everything between you and Seonghwa had been fake. He had never cared. He had only been using you to win a bet.

Tears pricked the corners of your eyes as you stood there, frozen. You didn’t even realize Seonghwa had spotted you until his voice cracked through the air.

“Y/N…”

You shook your head, your vision blurring with tears. The betrayal cut deeper than you could have imagined. You took a step back as Seonghwa stood up, his hand outstretched.

“Please, Y/N, let me explain—”

But you couldn’t bear to hear it. You turned on your heel and fled, leaving Seonghwa calling your name behind you.

Seonghwa stood in the library, watching you leave, a sinking feeling in his chest. He wanted to chase after you, to explain, but how could he? The truth was out now, and he knew it. He had hurt you in the worst possible way.

Wooyoung, Yeosang, and Hongjoong sat in silence, the gravity of what had just happened settling heavily around them.

Yeosang sighed, his voice soft but firm. “I told you. You were playing with her heart.”

Seonghwa slumped back into his chair, guilt gnawing at him. He didn’t care about the dare anymore. He didn’t care about winning the bet. All he cared about was the girl who had just walked out of his life—the girl he had fallen for without realizing it.

—You tried to go on like nothing happened.

Assignments still had deadlines. Club meetings still ran late. Life kept moving, indifferent to your pause. But everything felt heavier now—like your body was dragging through water, every step a little slower, every breath a little tighter.

You kept your head down in lectures, sitting further from the front than usual. You stopped raising your hand. You stopped staying back to chat with classmates after. You weren’t trying to be dramatic—you just didn’t have the energy to pretend like you weren’t walking around with a chest full of cracked glass.

You avoided the library.

You used to love that place. It was quiet and familiar and reliable. Now, all you could see were the shelves where you overheard your own name, turned into a joke, a prize.

Now even the small things betrayed you. Every time your phone lit up with a notification, your stomach dropped for half a second—before you remembered you’d blocked his number. Every iced coffee you passed in someone else’s hand felt like a punchline you weren’t in on anymore.

People asked if you were okay. You smiled and said you were tired. Everyone was tired—no one questioned it. That made it easier to lie.

You still saw him sometimes. From across the courtyard. In the hallway. Once in class, slipping into a seat two rows behind you. You didn’t turn around. Didn’t flinch. But you felt it—his presence like static, loud even in silence.

You didn’t want to hate him.

You just wished he’d never made you think you were anything more than part of a game.

So you worked. You threw yourself into your clubs, let your schedule pile up until there was no room left to think. You said yes to things you didn’t want to do just to keep moving. Just to stay one step ahead of whatever it was that would catch up if you slowed down long enough to let yourself feel again.

But when you got home at night, and it was quiet, and your phone didn’t light up anymore—

That’s when it hurt the most.

—Seonghwa hadn’t expected the silence to last this long.

At first, he thought maybe you just needed space. A day. Maybe two. Enough time to cool off, process it, come back with questions he could try to answer. He told himself he’d explain everything—the bet, yes, but also how it stopped being about the bet long before he realized it.

But the texts stayed unread.

The apology he sent—long, quiet, honest—was met with nothing. Not even the little "seen" mark. Calls went straight to voicemail. When he tried to talk to you on campus, you didn’t even look at him. You just kept walking, like he wasn’t there.

And it was starting to eat him alive.

He saw it in your face first—how different you looked now. Not angry. Just... dulled. Like something in you had been dimmed. You walked slower. Didn’t meet people’s eyes. The same girl who used to light up entire classrooms with her energy was suddenly small, withdrawn. Like she was trying to shrink herself.

And every time he saw it—your silence, your avoidance, your tired, guarded eyes—it hit him like a second punch to the gut. Not because of the guilt, but because he missed you. More than he knew how to say. More than he thought he ever would.

He found himself scrolling through old messages late at night, the ones you’d sent when you trusted him. Jokes. Rants. Small, vulnerable pieces of your day. He used to reread them with a smile. Now, they just made his stomach twist.

He hated himself for playing the game. For thinking he could keep it all under control. For thinking you'd never find out. But more than anything, he hated how much of your light he’d snuffed out just by being careless with it.

He kept trying—short texts, brief glances in your direction when you crossed paths. Hoping for eye contact, for anything. Even a glare would’ve been better than your indifference. At least it meant you still felt something, but you didn't.

But that didn’t mean he stopped trying to make it right.

He stayed quiet, but he noticed things. Like how you started going to the smaller study room on the third floor instead of the main library. So he started showing up early and leaving things behind—small, easy things. A granola bar. A bottle of water. Once, a pack of your favorite gum.

No notes. No name. But he hoped you knew.

When it rained again and you left class without an umbrella, he watched you walk into it like you didn’t care. That night, there was a plain black umbrella left leaning against the door to your dorm. He didn’t wait to see if you’d take it.

He stopped texting. It took everything in him not to. He typed messages constantly, late at night—“I’m sorry.” “I miss you.” “Please talk to me.” But he never sent them. You deserved peace. Not pressure.

He didn’t want you to feel obligated to forgive him. He didn’t think he deserved it. But he hoped—selfishly, silently—that maybe, when you were ready, you’d see it. The way he was still here, even now.

And maybe you’d know he was sorry. Not just for the lie, or the bet—but for ever making you question the way you loved, the way you trusted him.

—You noticed the little things. Even when you didn’t want to. Even when you told yourself you were done with him.

The granola bar left on the desk in the small study room? You hadn’t mentioned that brand to anyone except Seonghwa—once, casually, during a study session weeks ago. You thought it was a coincidence at first. Then it happened again. A bottle of water. A coffee coupon tucked under a paperweight. No name. No note. But you knew.

And when it rained, hard and sudden, and you left your umbrella in a rush—again—there it was. Waiting outside your dorm, leaned up like it had been placed carefully, like someone made sure it wouldn’t fall over. Plain black, no label. Your old one had been just like it.

You never saw him drop anything off. He didn’t hover. He didn’t text. He didn’t chase you. But it was him. You knew it in your chest.

And that made it harder.

Because you were still angry. Still hurt. You remembered the way your heart stopped in the library. The way the air left your lungs when you heard your name twisted into something so careless. You remembered the silence when you stood there, books at your feet, and he didn’t run after you fast enough to stop it.

But then you’d see something small—like a snack tucked behind your laptop at the club room, or notes from a class you missed, printed and annotated the way you used to do for him—and your chest would ache in that awful, soft way.

Because even now, after all of it, you didn’t hate him.

You wanted to. God, you tried. But love doesn’t switch off like that. You loved the version of him that made you laugh, that remembered your coffee order, that walked beside you at night like it was second nature.

It frustrated you. Not because he was trying—but because a part of you wanted to trust him again. And that felt like a betrayal of yourself.

You didn’t owe him anything. You reminded yourself of that every time you caught your eyes lingering on the familiar slope of his shoulders in a crowded hallway. Every time you noticed the gum, or the coffee, or the fact that he still showed up—even if it was always from a distance.

But the ache never fully left. And it didn’t feel like it was going to. So, against your better judgment, you texted him.

“Can we talk?”

—The park was quiet, scattered with a few students walking or sitting on benches, but mostly still. You waited by the path near the tall row of trees.

You heard his footsteps before you saw him. “Y/N,” Seonghwa said, voice soft as he approached, careful not to move too fast, like he knew you might run.

You looked out past him toward the trees before speaking. “I’ve been thinking,” you said quietly. “About what happened. About you. About me.”

You took a breath. “It hurt, Seonghwa. More than I think I even let myself admit. I trusted you. I believed you were real with me. And when I found out it started as a bet, it made me question everything—every word, every moment. Like none of it was mine to hold onto.”

“I know,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I know I ruined that.”

You glanced down at your hands, then back at him. “But… I’ve also seen what you’ve done since then."

His expression cracked, just slightly—enough to let the regret show. “I didn’t want to make things worse. I just… I didn’t know how to fix it without crowding you.”

“I wanted to hate you,” you said. “I tried. But I didn’t. I don’t.”

That made him freeze. His eyes locked on yours. “I want to trust you again,” you said. “I do. But it’s not easy. It’s going to take time. And I’m not promising anything more than that right now.”

For a moment, Seonghwa stood frozen, processing your words. Then, without thinking, he stepped forward, gently cupping your face in his hands. His touch was warm, and careful, like he was afraid you might pull away. He gazed into your eyes, his own filled with an intensity that made your heart skip.

“I swear to you, Y/N,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “I will never, ever hurt you like that again. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving to you that I’m worth trusting. I promise.”

Your breath caught in your throat, the warmth of his hands on your cheeks grounding you as your heart fluttered in your chest. You could feel the truth in his words, the genuine regret and longing behind them.

Slowly, almost instinctively, you leaned into his touch, your eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment as the tension between you melted away. When you opened your eyes again, Seonghwa was still watching you, his gaze filled with hope and affection.

You held his gaze. “No more games.”

“Never again.”

© kysstar

[chronosdawn]

I wake not with the sun - Monster hunter!Childe x Vampire!Reader

Modern Fantasy AU, GN!Reader

Summary:

In a world where the supernatural lives alongside the mudane, just out of sight of the common man, you've devoted almost a century to keeping your nose down and staying out of trouble.

All of that changes though, the night you catch a monster hunter on your trail.

CW: Depictions of violence, age difference (Childe is in his early twenties, reader is immortal)

A/N: I'm back on my vampire bullshit once more :') Please note this is the first part of a three part series, with later parts featuring Zhongli x Reader.

Word count: 5k | AO3 link

Childe’s blade carved clean through the carapace of the spider demon that had thrown itself at his face. Venom bubbled from the tips of the creature’s fangs as it fell to the ground, a series of strange clicks emanating from its maw before being silenced by the crunch of Childe’s boot.

He was already turning when several answering clicks echoed around the walls of the alley, years of hunting down creatures much larger, and considerably more dangerous, than his current quarry allowed his body to operate on autopilot. The dual swords he wielded glowed faintly white under the moonlight as they slashed through demon after demon, untouched by the black ichor that now stained the pale grey stone around him. That was the power of the Tsaritsa’s blessing for you.

The final spider demon fell to a stab wound through its abdomen; its numerous, beady eyes burning bright yellow as it let out a final rasping hiss. The demonic energy withered while Childe watched expressionless, the corpse of the spider shrivelling to a desiccated husk in its absence. The alley fell silent, the only other sign of life being the occasional sound of distant traffic from a nearby road. Childe let the twin swords slip out of fingers, the weapons vanishing in a shower of sparks as they lost their physical form, waiting for him to call on them once more. Letting out a sigh, he ran a hand through his hair as he looked over the lingering carnage. He’d hoped that a whole den of spider demons would have made for a bit more of a challenge.

When the Tsaritsa had initially ordered him to this quaint little town, he’d thought it must be because something truly monstrous had made it’s home here—a quarry worthy of one of her Harbingers. Thus far, however, his hunts had been limited to minor demons and other lesser aberrations. Aside from the wraith he’d found lingering around an old graveyard a day after his move here, these spider demons had been the most promising chance for a good fight he’d had, and he still hadn’t even broken a sweat.

The lack of any real challenge was making him restless—the need for battle and blood itching away at his insides. He was at least still cognizant enough to realise that if this carried on, it might actually start to become a problem; the same way it had before one of the Tsaritsa’s hunters had plucked him half-feral from his own quiet village. Just as he was ruminating on whether he should return to his temporary lodgings at the local inn to search for something more likely to put up a fight via the official hunter channels, he felt a shift in the air. It was subtle, a single off-key note in a symphony that he doubted most hunters, or even a number of supernaturals, would have been able to catch. But he could feel it, an ever so slight charge running over his skin that promised danger.

Childe ran his tongue over his lips, the bloodlust that was an ever-present murmur in his ear rising to a roaring cacophony. He carelessly tossed a cleansing talisman at the spider demon remains—setting them alight with a white flame that would burn away at the corpses until not even ash remained—before slipping away down the alley on silent feet. That vague sense of something unnatural guided him through the twists and turns of various backstreets. The sounds of background traffic faded and gave way to the usual quiet ambiance of a sleepy town—a TV turned up slightly too loud, the jingle of a bell on a cat’s collar and there—just at the very edge of his hearing—the sound of too swift footsteps weaving through the darkened streets.

Childe grinned. The hunt was on.

You were so very hungry.

Your throat burned as though you’d swallowed a mouthful of hot coals and your fangs ached in your gums, begging to be allowed to sink into soft warm flesh. It was own your fault things had gotten this bad, but it was also the price you’d decided to pay when you made the choice to move out of the city decades ago.

Cities offered a certain sort of safety for supernatural beings—the thrumming mass of people making it far easier to hide than in a small town, where everyone knew everyone else and gossip spread like fire across a field of tinder. It would have made hunting easier too, less chance of past meals encountering those with similar stories and realising that perhaps what they’d written off as a drunken dream and terrible hangover might be something more sinister.

Unsurprisingly, however, the promise of relative safety was a terribly effective lure for other supernaturals as well, leading to large communities being built under the noses of almost every major city. You’d thought those places marvellous once, a menagerie of the inhuman—like and not like—but now the thought of them turned your stomach like curdled milk.

A place like this, where you could count on one hand the number of supernatural creatures you’d encountered in the years since you’d moved here, was exactly where you wanted to be.

If only it didn’t have to come with such a strict feeding schedule.

You practically fled from your little redbrick townhouse, darting out into the night lest you encounter one of your neighbours and drain them dry before you could come to your senses. There was a pub just the other side of the river that split the town in half, and there were usually at least one or two patrons who ended up stumbling home after one too many beers. You could only hope you’d have the self-restraint to charm them into letting you help them home rather than simply dragging them into a back alley and biting down.

The night air felt faintly warm against your chilled skin, leftover heat from a scorching summer day. As you turned down one of the few shopping streets, a string of bunting weaving back and forth across the road caught your eye, the moonlight rendering the bright colours a greyish pastel, along with a scrawl of chalk declaring this the site of the annual summer street fair. A deep breathe revealed the lingering scents of grilled food and sticky sweet soft drinks, a sign that only hours ago this street was thrumming with life and laughter. Now it was dark and silent, save only for the sound of your footsteps.

You hadn’t known there was any sort of event in town today, not that it mattered. Even if you had been able to withstand the five minute walk here under the blazing sun, just the thought of all those hearts beating together in such close proximity had saliva welling up in your mouth, swiftly followed a miserable sense of shame you were quick to bury—an easy task considering the fierceness of the burn at the back of your throat.

Pushing on, you turned down a narrow side street and left the signs of human merriment behind. It didn’t take long for the scents to fade as well, although all too soon they were replaced by a strong odour—sulfur layered over burnt incense.  You froze. You were far too familiar with that smell to mistake it for anything human.

What business would a demon have all the way out here? There was a small nest of spider demons somewhere nearby, you’d caught sight of their misshapen, jointed limbs retreating around the corners of buildings once or twice, but they tended to run as soon as they sensed you coming. Even predators knew to make themselves scarce when something more deadly was on the prowl. For the air to be this thick with the scent of demonic magic, however, either something had happened to really rile the lesser demons up or another, stronger demon had decided to drop by your small town.

At that thought, your chest started to feel tight, your long dead heart heavy and still. Surely, it couldn’t be him, not after all these years apart. Refusing to take another breath of the familiar stench, you forced yourself to continue on your way. Demons were common enough as far as types of supernatural being went, just because one might be passing through, didn’t mean it had anything to do with the reason you’d moved out of the city in the first place.

A soft whistle of wind, far too faint for the human ear to pick up, alerted you to movement of something behind you and you twisted to the side just in time to see a silver tipped arrow fly past you and clatter against the cobblestone path.

All of thoughts of your past were immediately forgotten as you took in the sacred runes carved into the arrow, a language used only by one very specific group—hunters. Your body was already moving by the time the second and third arrows came, the last one brushing past the edge of your coat as you ducked into a side street.

Damnit, so that must have been what had gotten the spider demons all worked up. What the hell was a hunter doing here? You took a brief moment to stop and listen, the sound of someone shuffling about on the roof tiles was muted enough that it told you whoever they were, they were clearly experienced. Before a second round of silver arrows could rain down upon you, you charged down the street, building momentum before kicking off against the brick of one of the buildings and launching yourself onto the roof opposite your attacker. As you twisted through the air, you scanned over the surrounding area, looking to see if there were any other hunters on your trail who you’d need to fend off before you could finally soothe the raging fire in your throat.

Fortunately, the hunter on the rooftop appeared to be alone, which at least made it unlikely he’d come to town looking for you specifically. Any hunter who’d been trained enough to be granted so-called holy arrows should have been drilled on strategies to take down vampires—all of which involved making sure you had backup.

The hunter still had his bow trained on the spot where you’d first ducked into the alley—though you could see his head start to lift as your feet touched down against the roof tiles. Unwilling to give him an inch, you leapt across the gap between the buildings throwing yourself at him.

You caught the surprise in his eyes at the speed of your movement as he was just barely able to twist his bow to block your strike at his neck. That he could react at all meant he had some ability beyond a normal human—likely either a boon granted by one of the supernatural beings who worked with hunters against their own kind, or he had some distant supernatural ancestry himself. Twisting your body, you aimed a swift kick at the back of his knee, his leg buckling as you made contact. Rather than topple forwards however, the hunter used the momentary loss of his footing to dive forwards into a roll, pivoting just before he reached the edge of the rooftop and putting the two of you face to face once more.

He seemed to study you for a moment, his eyes eerily devoid of any reflection of the moonlight that highlighted his profile in silver. The hunter opened his mouth to say something but you threw yourself towards him once more. The scent of a warm body so close to you turning the burning ache in the back of your throat into a roaring inferno. You were so hungry you could barely think straight as you went for his neck once more, but this time with your fangs. A flash of bright white light brought your back to your senses in just enough time to dodge the twin swords slashing through the air, blades appearing from seemingly nowhere. Taking advantage of the moment of lucidity, you backed up a few steps, forcing yourself to think through the bloodlust clouding your brain like a crimson fog.

Those weren’t ordinary hunter weapons, you noted as the young man brought the shining silver blades in front of him, settling into a fighting stance. The ability to conjure light weapons out of thin air could only be something he’d received from the founder of the hunter’s guild herself—the so-called Tsaritsa. Even you’d have a hard time healing a wound caused by something like that.

You braced yourself for him to come at you, already trying to think through the best steps to disarm him, so you were somewhat surprised when he began to speak instead.

“So, what’s a vampire doing all the way out here?” he asked, the casual tone of his voice a sharp contrast to the way he held his blades, poised to strike.

“I could ask the same of one the Tsaritsa’s dogs,” you replied, muscles coiling as you adjusted your own stance.

“You know, all the vampires I’ve hunted up to now were newly turned, but you’re not new, are you?” The hunter cocked his head at you, exposing more of his youthful features under the faint light. “How old are you?”

“A lot older than you, I’m sure.” You shifted your weight back and forth between your feet, trying to puzzle out if there was any point to this unexpected chatter over the roaring chorus in your head telling you to pin him down and bite and drink, drink, drink.

“They say the older a vampire gets, the stronger they become,” he said, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Let’s test if that’s true.”

That remark was the only warning you got before he lunged towards you, the blade in his right hand aiming for your throat, while the one in his left was raised at just the right height to limit your ability to dodge. Experience told you he was likely expecting you to step backwards and would be planning his next move accordingly, possibly aiming to drive you back to the edge of the roof. Decision made in a split second, you ducked instead, ripping a tile from the roof with your bare hands in the process and raising it to parry the sword in his left hand as you moved underneath it.

Just like that you exchanged a flurry of blows, his weapons leaving scratches across the surface of your improvised hand-sized shield. In turn, you tried to strike at his joints; his wrists and knees and anywhere else that one solid blow from you should be enough to take him out of the fight. But for as much as you possessed inhuman speed, so did he, those swords twirling such that even when you managed to hit him, you had to soften the blow in order to withdraw quickly enough to escape path of his blades.

Bringing the roof tile up to block yet another swipe at your side, you cursed when you felt the slate crack in your hand from the impact. Changing tactics, you stepped your foot behind the hunter’s and brought your elbow down hard into his chest, striking with enough speed that he wasn’t able to bring his blade down on your arm before he started to fall.

What you didn’t expect, however, was for him to dispel the weapon one of his weapons, using his now free left hand to grab hold of a handful of your clothing as he fell instead. You just caught the gleam of the sword in his other hand coming towards you—a borderline suicidal move considering that if the weapon succeeding in carving cleanly through your neck, it’s trajectory would leave his head next on the chopping block. You barely had enough time make the decision to move with him, buying yourself the precious few seconds you need to grab hold of his arm and brute force it above his head. The weapon fell from his grasp, turning to shards of light that quickly winked out of existence before they hit the tiles of the roof.

There was a loud thud as the hunter fell on his back and you landed on top of him, effectively straddling him while you grasped hold of his other arm and brought it above his head, your clothes tearing in the process when he refused to let go of them. You felt him strain against your grip; definitely not quite human then, you thought as it took all of your strength to pin his arms in place. Glancing down at his face, you expected to see some degree of horror or disbelief—a hunter this powerful likely wasn’t used to being beaten in a show of brute strength. Even a newly turned vampire would likely struggle to keep up with him. Instead, however, you found him panting softly and grinning up at you like he was having the time of his life.

“You really are strong. You’ve been trained to fight too, haven’t you? Who taught you?”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be asking questions,” you replied, struggling to think over the feeling of the warm press of his body beneath you and the rapid pounding of his heart in his chest. The rush of blood throughout his body was a siren song in your ear. If you just bent down, you could—

There was a flicker in the dark and you moved your hands just in time to avoid being caught by the sword the hunter summoned, the handle only lightly gripped between an index and middle finger you hadn’t pinned properly.

Taking advantage of your surprise, he used the leg you still had wrapped behind his ankle to reverse your positions, bringing his blade up to your throat as he now hovered over you. The weapon burned faintly against your skin, akin to the sting of midday sunlight.

“Now I’m in a position to ask some questions, right?” he said with a cocky grin. “Who trained you? If you’re this good, then after I’m done with you, I want to fight them too.”

You almost wanted to laugh at how pointless it would be to tell him. Not even the Tsaritsa herself would dare to go after your once mentor, it would be suicide to even consider it. Before that thought could go much further, you caught a new scent in the air—the saccharine smell of freshly drawn blood.

You quickly zeroed in on the dark droplets beading along a shallow gash on the hunter’s forearm, likely a result of summoning in his weapon at such an awkward angle. The tenuous hold you had on the seemingly endless hunger inside you snapped entirely, and you were aware of nothing—not the burn of his sword against your palms when you forced the flat of blade aside nor the surprise on his face as you surged towards his throat—save for the promise of blood on your tongue.

Your fangs sank into his neck, carving through skin to reach the tender vein beneath. Liquid ambrosia flowed into your mouth, drowning out the feeling of the body thrashing beneath you as pinned the hunters hands once more on pure instinct, this time forcing his fingers flat against the surface of the roof so that he had no way of resummoning his weapons and interrupting your feeding. His blood was richer than that of the townsfolk, untainted by alcohol or any other substance. There was a faint aftertaste to it though, one you could not name but managed to bring to mind the rush that came with pursuing prey, the thrill of the chase.

Slowly, you began to gain some sense of a hot stinging sensation emanating from your palms, like you’d put them on a grill and left them there long enough for the heat to reach your bones. You forced yourself to unlatch from the hunter’s neck, his struggles having long ceased, and brought your hands to your face, studying the blisters that had formed over the skin of your palms. Right, that was why you should never touch a weapon gifted by the Tsaritsa. Even with the blood that currently warmed your body, creating the illusion that you too, were a living, vibrant thing, it would take at least a couple of days for the burns to heal.

You sat back for moment, taking deep, gulping breaths of air you didn’t really need as you waited for the euphoria that always accompanied an infusion of fresh blood to fade, the pain in your hands hurrying it along its way.

A noise, the sound of something buzzing against the rooftop caught your attention, and you snapped your head towards it. Lying about a metre away from you was a phone, one that currently had the screen lit up as it vibrated its way over the tiles. Still trying to clear the last of the fog from your brain, you reached over and grabbed hold of it, taking in the bright image. It was a photograph of three people; one of them, the hunter currently lying half-dead beneath you, had his arms wrapped around the other two, a little boy and a little girl. The resemblance between the three was striking, all of them sharing the same ginger hair, Christmas card smiles and deep blue eyes, although the children’s had a certain shine to them that the hunter’s lacked.

Despite the fresh blood still rushing through you, your chest turned cold as you looked down at the pale face of the man beneath you, then back to the photograph once more. He really was shockingly young to have earned the Tsaritsa’s favour. Did his siblings know what he did for a living? Did his parents?

Your memory of being human was so faded you couldn’t remember if there was anyone who might have mourned you after you were turned. The closest thing you had to a family was the very same thing you’d come to this town running from. 

The hunter’s eyelids flickered and he let out a low moan as he teetered on the edge of life and death. He hadn’t lost quite enough blood to kill him yet, but it was a near thing, another couple of mouthfuls and he’d never harm another supernatural again. You should kill him. Hide the body and flee before anyone would think to come looking for him. It would be the sensible thing to do if you wanted to avoid ending up on the hunter guild’s radar, not to mention that it would grant some small justice to all the creatures who’d met their end on his blades.

You took one more look at the smiling faces on the phone in your hand before the screen went dark. In that moment, you felt the weight of centuries pressing down on you. What good would come from any more bloodshed? From forcing someone to have to deliver the news to those children that their clearly beloved brother was missing and likely dead?

With a heavy sigh, you reached for a portion of the dark power that lurked inside you, newly replenished from the mortal blood running through your veins.

“Look at me,” you commanded, taking hold of the hunter’s face. He was just barely conscious enough to register your words but sure enough, his eyes blinked open.

“When you wake,” you told him, magic lightly distorting the timbre of your voice, “you will remember nothing about the supernatural, nor that you were ever a hunter. Go back home to your family and forget you were ever here. Now sleep.” No sooner had you finished speaking than his eyes fell shut once more, his body fully limp beneath you.

You stood, assessing the damage to the roof. Other than the tile you’d ripped out and the few that appeared cracked where you’d pinned the hunter’s hands against them, the roof was otherwise unscathed. Deciding the damage wasn’t bad enough to require your attempts to fix it, you lifted the hunter into your arms, wincing at the way your palms stung as you did so, and jumped down from the roof, landing softly in the neighbouring alley.

It took several minutes to search the hunter and remove all of the weapons you found on his person, including a small, engraved dagger that you recognised as one kept by hunters mainly for ceremonial purposes. The name etched onto gleaming silver blade, Childe, must have been the one given to him by the Tsaritsa when he swore himself into her service. Not that he, nor anyone else, should have any reason to use it now. Finally, you slipped the phone into his jacket pocket before leaving him lying on his side against the cool cobblestone of the alley.

Frowning as you took in the torn state of your clothing, you set off on the walk back to your home, even if the days you could keep calling your little house that were now numbered. Although the hunter had been effectively neutralised and sent on his way, it wasn’t a good idea to stick around in the area any longer, especially considering you hadn’t found out why he’d ended up all the way out here in the first place.

Oh well, you should have bought yourself a bit of time at least and it certainly wouldn’t be your first time uprooting everything. Plans for the inevitable move could wait until tomorrow though, for now you intended to collapse on your bed and savour the temporary relief that came with a fresh meal—the hunger that forever threatened to consume you momentarily sated.

Childe woke feeling like death. The pounding in his head a steady beat that almost drowned out the chorus of morning birdsong. Blinking, he found himself sprawled on his back, the cool uneven stones beneath him digging through the fabric of his jacket. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious for, but it must have been at least a couple of hours judging by how the sky was beginning to lighten, soft shades of blue and pale pink chasing away the midnight blue he usually did his work under.

Slowly pulling himself into a sitting position, Childe brought his hand up to his head to steady himself as the grey stone around him started to spin with the movement. While most might write off the throbbing inside his skull combined with the faint vertigo as being due to the almost lethal blood loss his body had endured, he knew better. There was a slight golden haze around the edges of his vision, a telltale sign of attempted hypnosis. Patting himself down, Childe frowned as he came to the realisation almost all of his weapons were missing, save for the small, innocuous-looking purple stone he’d been sure to carry everywhere since the Tsaritsa had gifted it to him that still hung suspended from his belt. So close. He’d been so close to losing almost every memory he had since age fourteen and had only been saved because you hadn’t known the power that smooth, round gem held.

In the years since the hunter’s guild had started producing delusions, news of them and the ability they granted their holders to shake off almost all forms of supernatural mind control had spread far and wide among the supernatural community. For you to be unaware of them meant that your presence in this lonely, quiet town wasn’t a one-off; you must be purposefully isolating yourself.

Childe thought back to how you’d fought on the rooftop, refined movements backed up by a strength and speed that he’d struggled to match—even if your hypnosis had taken effect, he struggled to imagine ever forgetting it; the way his blood had sung in response to every strike and parry. There was no way that level of precision had been achieved through experience alone. Someone had to have trained you after you’d turned. The question was, where were they now and why had you ended up all alone?

Before he attempted to stand, Childe took a moment to prod at the various aches over his body, assessing the damage. A couple of his fingers were almost certainly fractured and his left wrist ached in a way that suggested it too might have been the victim of more than just a nasty bruise. And that was to say nothing of the sting when he ran his fingers along the juncture of his neck, the tips of his gloves coming back flaked with dried blood. A proper vampire bite, a mistake that by all rights should have been fatal, and from the half-feral look in your eyes before you’d buried your fangs in his neck, very nearly had been.

The number of hunters Childe had met who’d endured a vampire’s bite and lived to tell the tale could be counted on one hand, and almost all of them had been the same story. A newly turned vampire had gone for them, but been staked before they could finish off the job. It was agony, they’d said, coming that close to death. However, Childe found he couldn’t remember feeling much pain beyond the initial slice of your fangs. He could recall the way his heart had begun to meet more rapidly in his chest, trying to compensate for the loss of blood, while unwittingly funnelling more of it down your throat. How his breath had hitched at the rush of sensation, stronger even than the one he felt in battle, and how it had almost entirely drowned out the bloodlust he’d had in his system for almost a decade. Even now, still weak from blood loss and slumped against the alley wall, he ached to feel that same thrill once more. Both the buzz that only came from fighting a near equal and the borderline ecstasy of teetering on the brink of life and death under your hands.

He had to find you again before you could run.

Feeling in his left trouser pocket, Childe grinned when he felt his fingers meet a small hard object. Lifting it into the air, the first rays of morning light reflected off of the silver key in his hands, the same one he’d managed to slip from your coat before the strength in his fingers gave out entirely, while you were too lost in sensation of his blood sliding down your throat to notice. Attached to the key was a small charm; a worn little hummingbird crocheted with strands of green and pink yarn. Cute, he thought as he turned it over in his fingers, the bright colours stark against the stained black leather of his gloves. In a town as small as this, someone was bound to recognise it, if it not hear on the grapevine of someone losing their keys. All he had to do was play the good Samaritan wanting to return them, and he’d be led right to you.   

A/N: Thank you for reading! Next part we will delve more into the Reader's past (meaning a certain someone is going to make their appearance) as well what happens when Childe finds them. Like most writers, I am motivated by comments so if you enjoyed this fic, let me know!

[aft4rhours]

— hangman ღ

number: unknown. pt 2.

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: strangers to lovers

warnings: dead dove, yandere, smoking, manipulation, corruption, allusions to depression and anxiety, allusions to past familial abuse, kidnapping, drugging, hints of fear kink (mind games, mentions & threats of snuff and necrophilia), allusions to cnc, mentions of stalking, angst, obsession, dub con, humiliation, praise, choking, possessiveness, outdoor sex, rough sex, dirty talk, use of triggering words in an erotic and degrading manner* (listed under the cut), creampie, mindbreak (??? a tiny bit), aftercare, mentions of murder and corpses, revenge themes, softer towards the end

*use of the word “rapist”.

masterlist

It's been three weeks since Jungkook has started seeing you in clubs. Five weeks of silence since the last phone call. It didn't take a lot for you to let your guard down, a tempting invitation for a predator like him. Were you passing time drinking, hoping he would finally come around and see where you've been hiding? Terrified of the moment fantasy bleeds into reality, but unable to resist its pull?

He didn't have to wait long to find out.

He caught when you were walking home, heart throbbing the moment he finally felt your warmth. The thick shadows of the alley concealed your bodies, and if anyone were to walk by, they'd see nothing but a pair of lovers embracing in the dark.

No one would notice the cloth damp from chloroform pressed into your mouth, or the way his voice made your frightened form soften in his arms.

"It's okay," he shushed. "It's just me, baby..."

A monster familiar was better than a beast unknown.

"I'm sorry, I just need you to take a nap. I'll take care of you. I promise."

He pressed his lips into your forehead, stroking your hair as you limped in his hold, less conscious by the minute. A kiss goodnight, marking your departure to the empty dreamland that swallowed you whole.

Jungkook scooped you up, carried you to his car, then laid you down at the back before starting the engine.

The drive was smooth, the roads long and dark, inky outlines of trees thickening as they stretched forward. The little dress you wore barely covered your legs, prompting Jungkook to turn the heating on; even if his jacket already kept you warm.

Two hours later, you began to stir.

Your eyes opened, hazy from sleep and the drug running through your system. Your consciousness fluttered awake slowly, along with all of your senses. You registered the feeling of Jungkook's heat blanketing you, his arm tight around your waist, keeping you tucked into his chest. You registered the weight of his hand cradling your cheek, and the smell of his cologne, mingling with leather.

"Had a good nap?" He murmured, his breath tickling your lips.

You blinked a few times, taking in the dimness of his car, and then the hooded eyes staring right into yours.

As if the reality of the situation just dawned on you, you startled, an incomprehensible protest fleeing your mouth. Your body seemed too weak to fight, however, and your mind wasn't in a much better place.

Jungkook buried his face in your neck when you jumped, brushing his nose along the smooth skin.

"Sorry, baby. I know you're tired, and we haven't seen each other in so long—" he whispered. "I've been going crazy without you."

You shivered promptly, your brain still muddled and heart thumping in your chest. You had no idea what was going on, and you were afraid to find out. Pride out the window, there was no denying that fact.

"But that's why tonight's a special occasion," Jungkook continued, still whispering. He lifted his head, the tip of his nose bumping into yours. "You know I'd do anything for you. Tonight I need you to do something for me."

You swallowed thickly. You wished you had the energy to slap him, kick him, bite him; but you felt too heavy.

"Go to hell," was all you managed, raspy and weak.

Jungkook chuckled. The sound made your blood boil. Fighting back only ever seemed to encourage his depraved nature, and it was humiliating, somehow, if not utterly discouraging.

"Hell is wherever I have to live without you," he mumbled into your cheek, "and trust me when I tell you, baby, you're never getting away from me again."

Your stomach sank, reaching depths you had no idea were possible. You watched him slip away from you to get out of the car, and the cold air that poured in wasn't the only reason your legs started shaking.

Like a gentleman, he reached for your hand and helped you out, most likely aware of how weak your knees felt. He steadied you against the door, letting you take in the dense woods surrounding you, the grim sight of empty branches twisting into the autumn sky.

You tried not to let the worst scenarios flood your head, yet it was a difficult wave to hold off; and impossible to run from.

"Where are we?"

Jungkook reached into his pocket.

"Out of town, little doe."

A glimmer of silver among the dark scenery caught your attention. You found yourself going rigid, staring at the shovel laying on the damp ground.

A click had your head snapping down. The barrel of a gun brushed against your hip, tender, like a lover's touch.

"Wanna get to work?"

The world tilted off its axis, your blood running cold, ice as blue as your veins.

You were going to die.

There was a small part of you that seemed to crack at the thought, prompting tears to burn your eyes. It wanted you to cry, plead him to stop and just take you home, to bed, so you could sleep it all away.

Yet a bigger part of you felt somewhat betrayed. He touched something dark inside of you, fed it until it bloomed, and now that you were so damaged he wanted you six feet under?

Jungkook bit his lip, a meek attempt at holding back a smile.

"Don't look at me like that. Not every girl gets to dig her own grave, you know. I even bought you flowers."

Still and silent as a statue, you didn't answer. The lump in your throat was too thick, the static in your head growing louder.

Jungkook leaned in, his gun languidly caressing your hip and plush lips teasing your ear.

"Here's your noose, baby. Are you ready for it?"

Your noose...

Were you supposed to trust him with it?

You were walking forward before you realized it, fists clenched and steps unsteady. You could have spent hours running through the woods, and you still wouldn't be able to escape him. Whether this was a sick game or your last night breathing, there was no denying that fact, either.

"You know what?" you snapped, grabbing the shovel, "I would rather die than spend another minute here with you."

You still tried to blink your tears away, refusing to give him the satisfaction, the last shreds of your dignity. You shoved the sharp edge of the tool into the earth, your vision blurred.

"I would rather die than ever see you again."

You were too busy throwing away the dirt, then digging in to gather more, to notice the way Jungkook's jaw tensed.

"I would rather be in the ground, than be around a psycho freak like you!"

The louder your voice rose, the more your throat ached, tears spilling over despite all your efforts. You continued to dig, completely disregarding seeing Jungkook walking towards you.

"Wow. I would watch your mouth if I were you, honey," he warned lowly, stopping a few inches behind you.

The shovel struck the earth again, a chill crawling down your spine.

"Ever gotten off to snuff porn?"

You froze, wide eyes staring into the ruined ground before you.

Jungkook ran his finger down your back, making you shiver.

"Well, I haven't. But I might start soon, with my personal little movie star, if you're not gonna be a good fucking girl."

The implication had your mouth instantly shut. You couldn't bear to turn around and look at him, or even run. Rooted to the place you stood in, withering away, like the trees that trapped you.

Jungkook snaked his arms around your waist, the gun still in his hand, flat against your abdomen.

"I don't like it when you lie, baby," he muttered, placing a kiss on your neck.

Your head was spinning strangely, shallow breaths leaving your lungs.

"Bet your pussy's wet. Probably been wet since I grabbed you. Bet it's clenching right now and you can't stand it, so you choose to be a fucking bitch... As always."

He kissed your neck once more, hot and breathy against your skin. Your knees almost buckled.

"You're so fucking dirty. Do you want me to snuff you out? Hmm?"

It was disgusting, the filth he spouted, the way he pressed himself closer to you, hard beneath his jeans. The way your tummy churned was worse, heat radiating on your skin despite the insistent brushes of the frigid wind.

"Want me to fuck you into that grave?"

You couldn't stop the tears, silent and hot, flowing in tandem with the slick sticking to your underwear. You still felt drugged out, your outburst doing nothing but leaving you hollow. Tiredness was beginning to take over, numbness spreading through your bones.

Maybe Jungkook was right. You were no better than him; aggression remaining your only self defense when you were left vulnerable. But now that it has faded, a quiet, devastating acceptance was starting to settle in.

You hated him — because you hated yourself. You wanted to be normal, to heal from the things that broke you. And every attempt ended in failure. Instead of encouraging you to try again, or critizing, Jungkook was the only person who wanted you as you were. In pieces.

He didn't mind getting cut on the shards. In fact, it seemed he'd be ecstatic to bleed for you, offer you everything he had. Toxic and twisted, no end to his devotion.

"Keep digging," he said hoarsely, then took a step back.

Like he was trying to stay in control.

You obeyed, sniffling quietly as you bent down to pick up the shovel.

He told you once that not everyone was made for this world; and you clearly weren't, but that was okay... because you were made for him. That you could keep trying to fit in and keep failing if you wanted — or let him in.

You didn't, and he crept inside anyway; a tender violence.

At this point, you didn't care much if you died or not. At least everything would be over. In the end, you didn't have much to wake up for.

Jungkook lit up a cigarette. He drank in the sight of sweat shining on your skin in the dim light of the moon, the shift in your demeanor as you continued digging.

"Easy," he called, blowing out smoke. "Don't hurt yourself, darling. That's my job. It doesn't need to be that deep."

You ignored him, no longer in the mood to talk. Or to provoke him any further, for that matter. Your arms almost trembled as the hole in the ground grew deeper, whether from strain or nerves, it was hard to tell. The thought of your body laying in the dirt, cold and forgotten, felt both unsettling and peaceful. As though nothing mattered anymore.

Jungkook watched you struggle, fingers stiff around the shovel, and yet you kept going, the scattered pile of dirt behind you increasing. He was pissed off, but finishing his cigarette soothed the fire, while noting how pale you've begun to turn put it out altogether.

He threw the bud away and jumped off the hood of his car to make his way towards you. His hand settled on your waist, pulling you up, while the other took a hold of the shovel.

"That's enough," he murmured, dropping it aside with a small thump. "Good girl."

You let yourself melt into death's arms.

Your head lolled to the side, exposing the expanse of your neck, unconsciously giving Jungkook the access he wanted. He kissed the tender flesh, squeezing your hips, still hard and hot beneath his jeans.

"The end is always a new beginning, baby."

You sighed, mascara wet and heavy on your lashes. Gently, Jungkook turned you around to face him, wiping the dark streaks from your face.

"I love you so much," he breathed into your lips.

His body was solid against yours. Your only source of warmth. Dizzy, you barely had the chance to glance up at him before he kissed you, swallowing your shaky exhale.

You let out a mellow squeal when his hands traveled down your legs, gripping your thighs to lift you with ease. For the first time you found yourself clinging to him, kissing him back with equal hunger instead of denial. You wanted to forget the world around you, the grave you've dug for yourself, much earlier than tonight.

Jungkook took a step, then another, before giving up entirely and lowering you down beside it, disconnecting your lips from his only the moment he hovered above you.

Pupils blown out, inky hair messy, he cupped your cheek, his heart thumping right against yours.

"Are you scared?" He asked softly, his thumb still wiping at your tears.

You stared up at him, trying to hold on to reality, but as always, your grip was slipping, and he was the only lifeline you had left. He stirred up the muddy waters in your heart, agitated the unbridled, starving things within their depths.

"Is this a punishment?" you found yourself uttering, barely a whisper.

Jungkook cocked his head to the side, his gaze flicking between your eyes and your lips.

"Mm, not really. Just a little game, to end all the others. And start something new."

You didn't know what to think or feel anymore, your hair splayed out on the ground, so cold beneath you, Jungkook's heat bleeding into your skin from above, and the world spinning.

You smacked his arm when he dipped down to mouth at your neck again; drained, the distorted hands under the water still reaching to pull him under with the remnants of your anger. He laughed, as though he found it adorable, immediately grabbing your face to kiss you again.

He didn't hesitate for a second, unzipping his jeans with one hand, and you could feel your core quiver against your better judgement. It was surprising to find that there was still some clarity left in you; or maybe it was easier to make peace with death than with the fact that you were your own traitor.

"Want me to fuck you in it?" Jungkook breathed, forcing your thighs apart.

You couldn't help the way your gaze fell down to his inked hand, wrapped around his cock. He tapped it against your inner thigh impatiently, precum wetting your skin. You clenched around thin air, spine tingling.

"The grave," he clarified, smirking.

The words finally hit you, and you shook your head, your hands frantically pushing at his chest.

"No!" you cried out, nails almost slashing the skin of his neck.

Jungkook grunted, pushing back, leaning his entire weight on you to put an end on your antics. Your breath hitched when you felt his fingers dip inside your underwear, pulling it aside abruptly. He didn't comment on how drenched the flimsy material was. The moment you were exposed, he was pushing inside you, incapable of focusing on anything but the warmth of your cunt.

The small hole stretched so nicely to accommodate him, fluttering around his cock. He groaned into your mouth, and your thighs shuddered around him, a restless heat boiling deep in your gut.

"You're so wet," he moaned, pulling back to feel the ring of muscles clench against his flushed tip, trying to suck him back in.

He shivered at the feeling, then proceeded to fuck himself in and out of you like he needed; like you both did. Hard.

"You're a filthy fucking minx, I shouldn't ask you anything unless I'm inside you. Your pussy won't lie to me, hm?"

Despite the whines he coaxed out of your throat, you shook your head, every wet slap of his cock thrusting in and out echoing through the woods. Imprinting on your brain.

"Oh yeah? How about we rewind a little, baby?"

He fucked you faster, angling his hips to find that little spot that made your mouth fall open. He wasn't going to go easy on it, or on you, chasing the high.

"What's gotten you so soaked?" He managed, panting. "Did you like the thought of me snuffing you out?"

Cheeks aflame, a choked out protest; and yet your pussy was getting tighter, soaking the thick grith pounding into it.

Jungkook let out a sound akin to a whimper, eyebrows scrunching.

"Fuck, I know you did," he leaned his forehead on yours, feeling his cock throb. "I know how much you want my cum, screaming or dead or asleep. And if I could live without you, baby, I'd do it for you, keep you so full of me."

A revolting insinuation; but you couldn't tell the difference between nausea and an approaching orgasm making your stomach twist.

Jungkook's lips inched towards yours, a deep groan rumbling out.

"That's it. Let it go. Let it all go, angel."

This was the way he wanted you to fall apart; on his big cock, tasting the kind of euphoria nothing and no one but him could offer. He felt his balls tighten, heavy as they slammed against you, almost ready to spill everything he had.

"Mhmm—" a sigh, a pause, hips grinding as his hand clutched your neck, feeling your pulse jump. "Yeah."

A drop of sweat slipped down his temple. Beautiful, with a mouth that dripped depravity, he might as well have had two horns growing out of his head, a forked tongue hidden under the illusion of humanity.

He resumed his ruthless pace, unwilling to let you look away, dissociate from him. In fact, the way you squirmed under him, succumbing to the rush, pliant and loud as you cried, had him choking you harder, crushing the rest of your pride.

"Close?" He bit down on your lower lip, pulling on it. "What do you think your friends would say if they saw you like this?" He husked, his hand crawling up your chest. "Getting fucked out in the woods... by your stalker. Do you think they would be surprised?"

He fondled you over the soft material of the dress, focused on nothing but pumping you full of him. You felt like heaven, and your tight little cunt responded to his words, even if you didn't want to, fluttering and releasing more slick.

"They shouldn't be," he swallowed harshly, watching your eyes fall closed. "They don't know you at all. Don't know how much you like this cock forcing you open."

For the first time that night, it was clear that your thighs weren't trembling from fear. That greedy pussy wasn't letting him go, and Jungkook was tipping towards the edge, no filter on his thoughts anymore.

"But I know," his head fell into your neck, a hot mumble striking your skin. "You're such a good girl, such a good fucking girl, and such a dirty fucking whore, just for me— aaahhh, fuck."

There it was; his favorite way of getting to you. Kissing, biting and licking at your monsters until they'd submit, recognizing him as one of their own. His cock liked it too, the way you fell to pieces under him, back arched and hands digging into his shoulders.

"I feel you, baby," he groaned, "knew you'd cream my cock. That's all you can think about, isn't it?"

You whimpered, delirious, though it still sounded like a 'no', a cute, little lie to ward off your guilt. For some reason, it turned Jungkook on more. He lifted his head and sucked at your lower lip, rutted into you harder.

"Go on, baby," he breathed, "cream it. No need to be shy, you're already mine."

A trail of sloppy, possessive kisses marked your neck, electricity trickling through your spine.

"My prettiest baby, my only girl," Jungkook babbled drunkenly. "Go on, do it for me. Yeah..."

Eyes dark, locking on yours, his voice lowering to a shaky whisper.

"Come on your rapist's cock."

You unraveled like his word was holy, clamping down on him and ripping a hoarse moan out of his throat. He fucked you through it anyway, too close to the edge to stop his own fall; his cock throbbed, long spurts of hot cum filling your ruined hole, so deep and so good his eyes rolled back.

He swore filthily, knees like cotton and his hand digging into your throat, staking his claim, the rush too sweet not to let it linger. It flowed through his entire body, pulsing and warm, like the sun. It flowed through yours too, imploding, and wiping out the rest of existence. As far as you were aware, Jungkook was all that was left.

You didn't feel anything else; not the passage of time, nor the cold air grazing your arms. Only his lips, leaving kiss after kiss on your face, muttering praises you could barely make out with your mind numbed out.

You weren't sure how long you've spent laying there, his cum leaking out of you, bones like jelly and skin sticky. At last floating in the dark, like fog, and still being kissed all over, your flesh existing only where his lips touched.

By the time he pulled you up, you didn't have the capacity to wonder what was going to happen next.

So why were you crying again?

You even didn't notice until Jungkook sat you on the hood of his car, cupping your cheeks.

"No more, baby," he pleaded. "Relax. I've got you."

You were so tired.

You wished you could lie down and sleep, but Jungkook reached for the hem of your dress, inching it up.

"I'm gonna need this."

Your heart flipped. Still, you were too out of it to protest or ask why.

Goosebumps flooded your skin as he took the clothing off you, gently, leaving you in nothing but your underwear.

As if shutting down, you stayed there; once again, unmoving. You listened to the trunk pop open, stuck on the odd rustling sound that followed. A loud thud came, making you flinch.

Then, more rustling.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jungkook dragging something towards you, a faint, unpleasant smell of blood reaching your nose.

Your stomach turned.

You stared at the bag, and he stared at you, unceremoniously dropping your dress on the wrapped up corpse.

Perhaps it was the way you gasped that had him reaching out, the same hands that took a life massaging your bare sides to comfort you.

"Close your eyes for the next part, baby," he whispered.

His nose brushed against yours. You felt your lower lip tremble, but still did as he asked.

"Good girl," he praised.

Frowning, you attempted to make some sense of what was happening, attempted to keep your heart from jumping to your throat.

It did anyway.

Sensing your distress, Jungkook kissed your lips.

"Remember a girl called Jia?"

No more pounding, or skipping beats. Everything seemed to come to a halt, including your heart.

Jungkook squeezed your waist. His voice remained quiet, a ghost in the wind.

"Not a pretty sight."

Inhale.

Exhale.

He took a hold of your trembling hand, leaving a loving kiss on each knuckle.

"Tonight, you die, baby," he murmured, the next kiss landing on your temple. "And nothing bad will ever happen to you again. Just you and me, yeah?"

The tears that fell were different now. Something broke. But it felt like release.

The soothing warmth of his hands vanished, and you kept your eyes closed. Even as the bag rustled and the stench got worse, even as another thud echoed through the empty woods.

How did he know?

Somehow, it still surprised you. Somehow, you couldn't bear to disobey him as he filled the grave you dug up, burying the biggest nightmare of your past. The so called family that had torn your life and soul apart.

There was no doubt in your mind that if he found her, he found him, too.

You listened to the metal dig into the earth again, dirt gathering on top of her corpse. Clad in your dress, butchered, rendering her unrecognizable. Teeth, face, hands — ruined. Jungkook had thought of everything, it seemed. A perfect crime.

The only traces of DNA left? Yours. Whatever still lingered on that little black dress.

As of tonight...

You were were dead.

Jungkook threw the shovel away, huffing, then made his way back towards the car. He heaved a sigh and pulled you in, held you close, sheltering you from the rest of the world.

Your fingers wrapped around the fabric of his sleeve, squeezing.

He acknowledged the gesture by kissing the top of your head, eyes closed. There was no rush, really, besides the longing to finally take you home and get into bed to sleep.

No more games. No more pain.

The end was always a new beginning.

taglist 💌: @baalsgurl1913 @httpsbts @hoseokshobagi @pynkgothicka @ar14dna @sweetempathprunetree @blueberryarchive @messyjk @themochiverse @minyoongiboongi @chimmisbae @crisle19 @bangtans-momma @get-that-brain-working @babycandy111 @mother2monsters @whipwhoops @svnbangtansworld @ane102 @stellalovesstarss @jksteponme @httpjeonlicious

[aprilcolours]

blackheart - part three

part one - part two - part four

*warning: some nsfw*

—

Visenya did not sleep well that night, dreams haunted by the memory of warm hands, a sly grin, and eyes that gleamed in the dark. 

She awoke to the arrival of a raven from her mother, the Queen. The message it carried was simple, but a revelation. She dressed quickly, braiding her hair haphazardly before rushing out of her tent. She was greeted by the anxious face of Oscar Tully, waiting straight-backed by the entrance.  

“Your highness…” the knight began, clearly apprehensive, “there is an urgent matter…the Lord Blackwood… that is, well he…”

“Speak plainly, Ser,” she bit out, a stone sinking into the pit of her stomach. The knight straightened his impeccable posture even further and responded,

“Benjicot has taken upon himself to retrieve the head of Lord Lannister. He absconded in the night alone, taking only a horse and his blades. I can assure you, had I been present at the scene I would have stopped this folly—” 

The Tully continued on, explaining that he had already punished those who had not alerted him and apologizing profusely, but Visenya ceased listening. Her heart thrummed in her chest, and the sound of blood rushed in her ears. 

Though they had pushed the Lannister army back at Lydden, Lord Jason Lannister had escaped alive and retreated westward. She had not chased him because she had not thought it worth the risk to her men. ‘Let him run’ she had said. 

Clearly that bloody fool disagrees, she thought. Godsdamnit all. 

“Hold the fort Ser Tully,” she decreed, tone leaving no room for argument. The knight nodded solemnly and bowed, but she had already walked away. She made haste out of camp, grabbing a hood as she went. She had Vermithor in the air and chasing westward in a matter of minutes. The Blackwood had a night’s head start, but the Bronze Fury was not a horse. 

It took into the afternoon at ceaseless top speeds, but they caught up to the vanguard of the retreating army. Vermithor rose high above the clouds so that they might avoid being spotted, taking care to approach downwind. They circled back to land behind the cover of hills, and Visenya threw her cloak over her head. 

This boy will be the death of me, she swore as she crept stealthily into the enemy camp. 

Their defenses were lowered, it was clear they did not expect an attack as they had not been chased. Many tended to the wounded and dead, and many others drank wine to wile away the midday hour. Despite herself, she wrinkled her nose at the indiscipline. 

Keeping to the shadows, and when needed playing at being some nursemaid or other servant, Visenya moved through the lines unnoticed, watching carefully for any sign of the raven-dark haired boy. At the center of camp she reached a tent, featuring an ostentatious display of wealth that could only belong to the Lord of the Westerlands. She circled round the back and tucked under the edge of the fabric wall, her blades at the ready. 

Benjicot Blackwood stood above the still bleeding corpse of Lord Jason Lannister. Blood had splattered across his grim, vicious face. He whirled on her, a dagger swiftly raised to her throat.

“What in all the God’s names do you think you are doing,” she hissed, raising a finger to the tip of his dagger and pushing it down. 

His rabid grin curled higher at the sight of her, stepping swiftly into her space. He did not even seem surprised to see her, simply delighted. 

“I have won you a great prize my lady,” he whispered, voice low and husky. “A lion’s head.”  

“I can assure you that getting yourself killed would be no prize to me,” she muttered back, grabbing his arm and pulling back the way she came. He resisted, gesturing to the body with his dagger. 

Seeing in his sparkling eyes that he meant no jest, she asked, “What madness has possessed you?!”

“I would return a hero, and earn myself honors befitting your hand,” he replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Still, he steadfastly resisted her pulls. 

Visenya Targaryen II did not beg. But here, for only his ears to hear, she breathed a small simple:

“Please.”

Finally, the dark fire in his eyes banked and he relented, allowing himself to be pulled out of the tent and the rest of the way out of the camp. She did not loose her grip once, hands firmly tangled together as they passed between shadows. 

He trudged forward, a sullen silence about him, as though he had failed. 

Silly creature, she thought fondly, as they crested the hill that hid Vermithor. She tugged him forward towards her waiting dragon. Only then did he stop again, tugging out of her grip, brows raised. 

“You would allow me to ride beside you, princess?” 

“I would.”

“It would give a certain impression to the other lords,” he remarked, voice bitter and sharp. She simply smiled a small smile.

“I am aware,” she replied, “They could hardly object to my riding alongside my betrothed.”

At the shock writ across his bloody face she could not help but laugh. With a grin, she continued, “The raven from my mother arrived this morning. I would have told you immediately had you not run off.”

He took a step to close the distance between them, but Visenya lept back— expression playful. 

“Although, there is one left whose approval you should seek,” she teased, taking another step back. She reached out her hand for him to take.

Bloody Benjicot Blackwood was many things, but never a coward. With a breath and the beginnings of a sly grin, he took the offered hand. Together they approached the great beast at the bottom of the hill. 

“Rhaenagon ñuha valzȳrys,” she said as the bronze dragon watched their approach. Vermithor raised his great big head with a shake, and sniffed at the pair. 

“Bloody fucking hells,” Ben swore underneath his breath. Visenya laughed again and raised their joined hands to touch the dragon’s snout. 

After a moment, she gently pulled the boy towards the ropes and ladders that led up onto Vermithors back. He took a moment to look at her and read the challenge in her eyes. Then, with another muttered curse, Benjicot began to climb. 

Visenya followed after, a smug expression playing at her lips, and crouched in front of him when they reached the seat. 

She fastened the belts that anchored to the saddle around his waist, and tried desperately not to blush as her fingers brushed his thighs. 

“Shouldn’t these be for you, my lady?” he asked, eyelids low as he watched her hands and their careful movements. 

“Please,” she scoffed, “I haven’t used the harness since I was two and ten.” She was aiming for nonchalant, but she could tell she missed the mark slightly by the way his eyes narrowed and his grin sharpened. He leaned closer and spoke in a low tone,

“Is there some cause for nervousness, your highness?” 

They were close enough now that they shared breaths, mingling together in the damp air. Visenya bit her lip. Benjicot’s eyes immediately tracked the movement, shifting closer still. She was sure he would kiss her. 

“Sōvegon!” she called suddenly, and Vermithor began to prepare to take off. Ben’s eyes shot wide open and he grasped at her arms. Visenya laughed, throwing her head back, her long braid tossed about. 

“Do not worry Lord Blackwood,” she grinned, shifting around to sit properly. His arms immediately closed around her waist in a vice grip, his warm chest pressed tightly at her back. “Your princess would not allow harm to befall you.” 

She felt his shaky laugh against the shell of her ear, and she shivered. 

Vermithor took two great bounding steps before launching skyward. Benjicot held her waist so tightly she could barely breathe. Visenya laid one hand atop his to comfort, and he immediately locked her fingers between his own. 

They climbed and climbed into the sky, rising above the low lying misty clouds, until they broke through the cloud base and the sun shone upon them. Vermithor leveled out, pace steady and even now. 

“Ñāqa,” she commanded. Visenya turned, intending to speak, but the words died on her lips as she looked at the boy with her. 

His face was aglow with an awe-struck smile, looking down upon his home from the sky. 

He is rather handsome isn’t he, she noticed as the sun shone on his raven dark hair, illuminating the shape of his features— perhaps plain on their own, but thrilling in their vicious combination. So distinctly him. 

She studied him, as he took in the miracle of flight. She had the impulse to kiss his cheek. So she did. I am done denying when it comes to him, she decided. 

His gaze shot to hers, brows furrowed like she was an impossibility. He raised one hand to cup her jaw and neck in his broad hand. 

This time, when he kissed her, it was torturously painstakingly slow. A thorough, languid exploration of all the ways tongues could dance. She gasped at the slow banking fire that smoldered low in her belly. 

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, even as her neck ached from the angle. 

When she finally placed a hand on his chest and pushed him lightly so that she might breathe, her lips were well swollen and eyes glazed. Their chests heaved as if it had been a tremendous exertion. 

Visenya became slowly aware of something hot and hard poking into her backside. 

No, she thought, It can’t be… But as she peered back into his face and he swiftly avoided eye contact, she was sure. 

She nearly forgot all sense. 

Seven hells. She cleared her throat, turning forward. The motion nestled that part of him even closer. His hands were balled into fists at her waist. 

“Adere, Vermithor!” she called. 

The rest of the flight was spent in a loaded silence, though it fortunately wasn’t too much further. A few hundred yards before they reached the sprawl of camp, they landed. 

Once firmly on the ground, there was a beat as neither quite knew what to say. 

“Should we take a moment?” Visenya asked finally. As if speaking it aloud had made the situation clear, they both burst into raucous, cackling fits of laughter. 

Benjicot buried his head into her hair to stifle his embarrassment with a groan. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as the giggles continued. 

They sat there, pressed tightly together, for a time. Their breaths heaving in tandem. 

“I would wed you now,” the Blackwood finally decreed, breaking the silence, “Tonight.”

—

A/N: ta daaaa!! so there will be one more part for sure after this, maybe more we'll see

Rhaenagon ñuha valzȳrys - Meet my husband

Sōvegon - Fly 

Ñāqa- East

Adere- Faster

[thatnightlamp]

warning: English is not my first language, I am very bad at writing in English so I will use everything I can to translate from my mother tongue to English.

You leaned against your rain-soaked car, take a deep drag on cigarette, the city stretching before you like an open wound. Nights like this, the weight of the years presses heavier on your shoulders. You’ve been chasing him for too long. Too many bodies, too many sleepless nights, too many moments staring into the abyss questioning yourself.

Konrad Curze. Night Haunter. The Boogeyman of Nostramo.

You don’t know what’s worse: the fact that no one believes he’s real, or the fact that you know he is. They call him an urban legend, a ghost story whispered in dark alleys and horror stories to scare children. A serial killer so precise, so methodical, that he leaves no evidence - only fear.

But you know better. You’ve seen his work. The crime scenes are a symphony of horror, every cut deliberate, every corpse an accusation. The media doesn’t see the pattern, but you do. It’s not random. It’s judgment. He doesn’t just kill - he punishes. Corrupt cops, abusers, untouchable criminals - every victim had it coming. Some people call him a necessary evil. You call him a monster.

And he knows you’re hunting him.

The first letter came three years ago. A single sheet of paper, crumpled and dirty, folded carelessly, slipped under your apartment door. No fingerprints. No DNA. Just a message, written in slightly shaky handwriting, the pen tip almost piercing the paper:

"You’re wasting your time. But I admire your persistence."

You should’ve stopped then. Maybe you should have walked away before he got into your head. Before you started understanding him.

Before you started dreaming about him.

The second letter came after your partner, Ronald, went missing. It wasn’t a warning, not exactly. Just another message, this time written in red:

"You should thank me."

You remember the way your stomach churned when you read it. Ronald was dirty, you knew that, he tried to flirt with you a few times and stopped after seeing you throw down a guy twice his size. But did he deserve whatever Curze did to him? And did it matter?

You clench your jaw and get in the car. There’s a lead tonight. An informant swears they saw something - someone - at an abandoned building on the west side of the city. You shouldn’t go alone, but you don’t trust anyone else with this.

The elevator is broken, of course, so you take the stairs, boots echoing against cracked concrete. The building smelled musty and moss grew everywhere, but you press on. The higher you go, the more the city lights vanish, swallowed by the dark.

And then you feel it.

That familiar prickle at the back of your neck.

He’s here.

The air is different, heavy with the weight of his presence. A shadow moves in the corner of your vision, just enough to set your pulse racing. You draw your gun, turning slowly-

"That won’t help you."

His voice is a whisper in the dark, but it cuts through you like a knife. Low, smooth, almost amused.

You don’t let yourself flinch: "Step into the light, Curze."

Silence. Then, a chuckle.

"And ruin the mystery? You have chased me this long, detective. Are you sure you want the hunt to end?"

You exhale slowly, steadying the grip on your gun. The air between you two is thick with something unspoken - dread, anticipation, maybe even fascination.

"Justice," you say, voice low. "That’s what you think you’re doing, isn’t it?"

A pause. A rustle of movement somewhere beyond the shadows.

"Justice?" His voice carries amusement, but underneath, there’s something else. "A pretty word. But tell me, detective, do you believe in it?"

You grind your teeth, scanning the darkness. "I believe in the law."

"The law~" He lets the word linger, stretching it like something fragile between his fingers. "Men in suits, selling morality to the highest bidder. How many times have you seen it fail?"

You don’t answer. Because you have seen it fail. Over and over again. Victims denied justice, murderers walking free. People like Ronald, rotting from the inside out but protected by a badge.

Curze hums, as if reading your silence. "I give them what they deserve," he says. "Do you?"

You grip your gun tighter. "You don’t get to decide that."

"And who does?" He steps closer - just enough for you to sense him, but not enough to see. "A system built on lies? A court that serves only those who pay enough? Tell me, detective… have you ever wanted to do what I do?"

The question hits too close. You have had those thoughts before - brief, fleeting moments where rage burned too hot, where you imagined pulling the trigger on the ones who got away.

But you never did.

"I’m not like you"

"Aren’t you?"

Something shifts in the air. A breeze? A trick of the light? Whatever it is, instinct kicks in. You lunge forward, boots scuffing against the cracked floor and-

But he’s already gone.

The sound of your own breath fills the space he left behind.

You curse, running down the stairs, bursting out into the night. But the streets are empty, the city swallowing him whole once again.

You should be angry. Frustrated. But all you feel is that lingering weight in your chest, his words burrowing deep where you don’t want them.

Because the worst part isn’t that he escaped.

It’s that, for a split second, you weren’t sure if you wanted to catch him.

---------------------------------

tag: @kit-williams

[s-4pphics]

moth. teaser. (e.w.)

SYNOPSIS: knights of the devil, you all are to be conquered. 

WORD COUNT: 881 

WARNINGS: vampire!ellie, vampirekiller!oc, a lot to come FUCK, violence… so blood(drinking), death, murder, gore, religion briefly,

A/N: yasss yaaas taglist?

prolouge

1809

“Oh, my precious darling…” 

Red, similar to her hair; palms painted from the tips of a finger to the points of elbows; knees sunk into begrimed pili drenched with fresh maroon. Panicked breaths are accompanied by prayers, wishes of denial. Desires for death. 

“… What I would give to protect you…” 

“F-F—“

Tortured hollers are directed towards the pouring skies. Bodies. Bodies everywhere; surrounded by decay. 

She sobs, deep from the pits of her stomach, “Father, for-forgive them! For they do not—“

Thunder claps. Lightning is being used as weapons from the Lord above, all meant to discover her and strike. The beams in the sky are intended to punish her discernment. It was a mistake. It was a mistake! Her eyes refuse to meet the battered corpse of the young babe, no more than three. Her crime was committed in a haze, blinded by starvation, all at the cost of the family before her. Villagers would deem the view a savage attack. A mutilation only made possible by the ravenous wolves after dark. The bears that protect the trees at dusk.

All on horseback, the strangers paused their ventures to inquire guidance. She swiftly became an aid for navigating the path, instructing them with a trembling finger and a blistering throat. Follow that trail to the end of the woods. Unbeknownst to their gracious eyes, she followed. Stalked after their mount for miles like the thoroughbred they ride, carried by the wind. Urged by bloodlust. 

Her vision blurred when they tied their horse’s lariats to a nearby post that barely passed the trees. Her vision was shrouded in darkness, a substance so thick that her limbs felt trapped, even in frantic movement. They’d reached the end, just like she’d promised. 

Their screams satiated her hunger, but never hindered her guilt. 

Demons, I tell you! All of them, demons! Witches destined to be set aflame for the masses! 

And now she crouches over them with remorse in her chest. Remorse that will wash away her like the rainfall that pounds on her shoulders. Much like it had in the past when her purity was stolen. Another fatality. 

1919

“Hunting requires bouts of unwavering dedication. If the entirety of your being doesn’t relish in the suffering of the demons walking, then you are to be shunned.”

Being the youngest hunter-to-be amongst legends, historical monuments that leave trails of prosperous victories wherever they advance, is humbling. Your mother pestered you for as long as you could remember: never, never become a hunter, being her only protest for you, her only child. She used to pray beside your bed at night when she assumed you to be asleep, praising the Creator for forbidding you sickness or poverty. You were her only treasure, a gift from the frosted heavens. 

And the demons took her. 

Hunters searched the unoccupied lands that surrounded your home relentlessly, but no traces of the Devils’ were ever discovered. They attended your mother’s burial for your protection, and prepared to assist your transition into the orphanage, but you denied. You were permanently vexed. Forever vengeful. 

I wish to become a hunter! 

Your recruitment was immediate due to the shortage of volunteers, and that same day, you witnessed all of the treasures and memories of your childhood home — of your mother — get burned to the ground by the Hunters. No trails for the demons should go untouched by fire. 

“If you hesitate for even a second, you’re dead. Either by their hand…” 

Something unsettled you that morning as you prepared for school. Something in the air, something underground. A heaviness in your home that you couldn’t trace. Your mother ironed your skirt and pinned your hair up, brushed down the small curls around your hairline, and she eased you. The weather is changing, dear, she’d said before wishing you well. You studied relentlessly, all while she was shredded by teeth sharp as knives. You want the Devil’s lifeless heart in the palm of your hand, risks be damned.

“Or mine. And I will not hesitate.” 

The overseer of your battalion, who slowly paces before his future prodigies, aura menacing, pauses in front of you. With your gaze locked forward and a lump in your throat, you gawk right on the crescent on his belt — the hunter’s insignia — your feet shuffle, shoes slightly squeaking above the wood. 

“Are you prepared, child?” 

His tone is disparaging, and you swallow. Your head bobs and your breathing stutters. 

“Yes, sir.” 

He crouches before you and your cells stiffen, elbows perched on his knees, eyes finally level with yours. You appear stoic due to the grinding of your teeth, inspecting the stitched scar that sprouts at his right brow and crosses his eye.

“You are nothing,” He hisses, and your heart clenches, “You are not a child, and I am not your elder. Any identity you held prior to your arrival is worthless, now. We are vessels for the greatest power above. Hunter is your only name, do you understand?” 

No verbiage escapes you. It couldn’t with how your breath trembles, so you nod once; Quite mechanic. 

“Stand straight.” 

His conviction forces your shoulders into alignment, and snickers from the older prodigies erupt from behind you. Your cheeks warm and your palms drip. The overseer rises to his feet once more.

“That goes for all of you!” He shouts, and the room is quiet.

The crescent sparkles under the yellow candlelight. Your palms grow clammy at his viperous swear. 

“I will not hesitate.” 

[formulaforza]

oh oh can i request max + drunken confessions (something fluffy) please? smoooches

The first knock on your door is more than loud enough to wake you up from a dead sleep at three-am. The one that follows could wake up a corpse, and you're sure it ruins the sleep of at least three neighbors.

Your pajama-clad frame hurries to the door, standing on your tip-toes to look out the peephole, and you're met with the sight of Max and Martin. The two are not so quietly bickering about if Martin can or can't just leave Max on your doorstep, or if he really needs to wait until you answer.

You promptly put a stop to that when you swing the door open. "Oh, thank god," Martin sighs, already pulling his shoulder out from under Max's arm, pushing him in through the doorway. "All yours."

"Thanks?" You say, moving out of the way of Max's stumbling frame. His heavy, unbalanced feet carry him all the way to the living room, throwing himself down onto the couch with a groan.

Martin nods, and he's gone almost as quickly as he showed up, leaving you to deal with Max all by yourself.

"Get up," you sigh, pulling on the dead weight that is his arm. "You're going to be pissed if you sleep on the sofa."

Max has a stupid grin on his face, laughing at you trying to get him up and to bed. "You're so pretty," he says, "d'ya know that?"

You shake your head, "Thank you," you say, finally getting him up onto his feet. You don't know if you're thanking him for standing or for the compliment. "Bed. Now."

"Bed. Now," He laughs again, mocking your voice. "You're so cute. I love you so much," he continues, sauntering down the hallway with you hot on his tail. "Oops," he stops, giggling. "I wasn't supposed to say that."

You ignore him, keep ushering him down the hallway. "Max..." You don't want to tell him you love him for the first time when he isn't even going to remember it. "Tell me in the morning?"

"That I love you?"

You nod. "That you love me."

"Okay."

grab a bite (sized fic)

[milgram-en]

MILGRAM Novel 1: Prologue

T/N: Translator's Notes will be found in the replies. Check the original post before reblogging as TLs are occasionally revisited and edited.

A sharp, pungent smell filled the room, penetrating deep into my nose. The room was circular and fairly spacious. However, it was no open atmosphere; rather, there was a suffocating sense of entrapment that dominated the space. There were several possible reasons for this. First would be the presence of five solitary confinement cells arranged all around the outer perimeter of the room, separated by rusty iron bars. Inside the cells, there was nothing but a modest bed with a seemingly hard mattress. It was a dreadfully surreal scene, disconnected from the grounds of reality. The cells were arranged at equidistant intervals around the perimeter of the room. This was so that the sole “Warden” could monitor multiple “Prisoners” at the same time. By simply standing in the center of the room and turning in place, the Warden could instantly check on the Prisoners. This surveillance structure was a system proposed by the 18th-century English scholar Jeremy Bentham and was later instated in practice known as the “Panopticon”. In reality, it was designed to efficiently monitor much larger prisons but it could be used on a smaller scale with similar effects. That’s right. This place was a prison.  But it was by no means an official prison. I had no idea where it even was. The prisoners incarcerated here aren’t tried on the basis of any legal code. I—the warden—didn’t want to be in this position either. There’s other reasons why this room felt so claustrophobic. The ceiling was so unimaginably high up that it was impossible to confirm its existence with my own eyes. Only heavy darkness spread across above, and—trying to look up at it—I felt as if I’d be crushed. Most of the prison was dimly lit. With almost no warm lighting, the room was enveloped in a damp and gloomy hue. The final reason for this suffocation was refreshingly straightforward. The souls of everyone present were worn down—by fear, by intimidation, by despair. It was all overflowing with a madness of negative emotions.

However, that was evidence that the people here still possess a normal sense of sense. If you were to smile here, it wouldn’t be surprising if you were considered insane. In the center of the room was a large, white round table with six chairs where I, along with the other prisoners, were seated. A foul odor was emanating from where one of the chairs had been just a moment ago. “What’s this?” One of the four muttered brightly, voice reverberating ominously.  The reactions of the other prisoners were similar, though with minor differences. No one yet recognized that what had just occurred before them was reality—not even myself. A massive white cross fell. From that darkness spread above.  The cross was about three meters tall and one meter wide. It was made of stone and could be presumed to be quite heavy. Yet, the tip of the cross was polished sharply like an awl.  Such an object fell suddenly and, in a single blow, pulverized the chair beneath—piercing the body of the prisoner who had been seated there. The cross pierced through the backs and chests of the four prisoners as easily as needle pierced paper. Bright red splashes of blood splattered onto the faces and clothes of the four seated nearby; The smell of blood overflowing from a human corpse filled the room. This was the entirety of what had just occurred before my eyes. I had been told this was a purge. I had been asked to make a decision and the answer that I gave was carried out, leading to this purge.  This was the result.  I don't believe my judgement was wrong, but I hadn't been informed that it would come to this. This prison is not ordinary. It is something else— something ugly that was shaped like a prison. Even I, the one appointed as a Warden, don’t fully understand the full extent of its true nature. MILGRAM. That was the name of this prison. What is happening here is not a game. In reality, Prisoners are judged based on my choices; purged and, ultimately, deprived of their lives. At this moment, I realize that MILGRAM has truly begun to operate; the Warden given power, and the Prisoners facing judgement. Everyone is painfully aware of their position. And I… could sense the prison silently reorganizing the relationships within itself. I remember just a few hours ago when I came to into this place, still yet to be a warden.  That was the moment this despair began to slowly unfold.

[hasbeenhellwolf]

Blood on the Run

Three days passed while Lenard laid unconscious, recovering from the trauma; both recent and that which had been building up over the last decades. Eventually his coma turned to slumber and although he was frequently restless, he clearly needed the sleep.

Asphodel spent much of her waking hours never leaving his side except to attend to some of her own duties and to get food, and she would in fact sleep on a pallet they had moved into the room they'd set aside for him. The bed was large enough for both of them, but she did not want to disturb him or to presume on his consent.

At this moment she was sitting a chair pulled up to the head of his bed, occasionally glancing up from her book to gaze at him in concern. If he did not wake up soon they would need to start trying to feed him...but maybe it was best that he slept while his body tried to get over his addiction? Surely he'd be suffering if he was awake...she put her book down on her lap and turned to the nightstand to pick up the damp cloth, dipping it in the still warm water and wringing it out before wiping his forehead again.

"Any sign that he's waking up anytime soon? I still have questions for him, dear."

Ashopdel looked up towards the door. Standing in the doorway was her surrogate mother and the Overlord in charge of the settlement. Melisende Sentinal; she had been a vampire before being slain in 1808 and had been a sinner in hell for over 200 years.

Melisende was much shorter than the average sinner at 5’3” but she carried herself with confidence and high boots. She was as pale skinned as when she was alive, the pallor barely warmer than that of a corpse. She had vivid dark red eyes with a darker sclera and a slit pupil; similar to her vulpine features were the ink black vulpine ears on her head and her matching tail, Her equally dark hair, black with red highlights was pulled back in a dragon braid. Her legs were digitigrade and ended in paws although she usually wore thigh-high boots. She had a pair of smooth crimson horns sprouting from the crown of her head and curving back and they ended in blackened tips. She had carved into the base of each horn her old family emblam.

As usual she was wearing what amounted to a glorified brassiere and a micro-mini skirt over a garter belt (when she didn't even wear garters), and she was not in the least ashamed of her many scars, especially the most prominent across her abdomen from her death. Her wings, an angelic variety with feathers in a gradient from a pale rose pink to a darker reddish-gray, were currently folded away and transformed into a mink-like jacket, the kind rich debutantes might wear.

"Oh, Meli...he's...stirring more. His consciousness is nearer to the surface with every hour that passes, I'm certain he'll awaken soon." Asphodel replied softly.

[jisokai]

Ochako’s earliest memory is a warning: to stay away from the ocean, and what lurks inside it.

[mermaid AU where Ochako is from an island surrounded by sea creatures, and the only one willing to see them as anything but monsters]

part 1: your siren song (my lullaby)

uraraka ochako x toga himiko ch 1/2 | 16.3k words | masterlist | ao3

cw (includes spoilers for fic): human/monster relationship, blood, blood drinking, descriptions of corpses, illness, major character death, violence, law enforcement, cultural tensions, child neglect (ish), implied kidnapping notes: shoutout to gigi perez for sailor song and vonabel for the partial beta <3

Oh, won't you kiss me on the mouth and love me like a sailor? And when you get a taste, can you tell me what's my flavor? I don't believe in God, but I believe that you're my savior My mom says that she's worried, but I'm covered in this favor

- Sailor Song, by Gigi Perez

The ocean has a lethal sort of beauty.

Murk darkens the shore, brown sediment clouding beneath the surface. It blooms with each wave against the docks—the disturbance of a spoon dragging through a bowl of miso soup. The grains expand and disperse, swirling with clumps of seaweed and driftwood and garbage. This water is cold and unforgiving, the result of a recent storm scraping at eroded mountains. Clouds linger above, a shield against the sun.

It’s not unusual for the water to take this form, especially in the summer when typhoon season sweeps in. The clusters of islands to the south of Japan usually take the damage—monsters of weather blazing through the Philippines or Taiwan, leaving pleasant stormclouds blowing towards Musutafu. Kaone, the most recent typhoon, was the largest the town experienced in years, managing to dodge Taiwan’s coast in a line straight for Japan, an angry and swirling tirade of rain.

Today, three days after the storm passed, everything is in order when the Urarakas take their Saturday trip to the harbor. Everything but the brown of the ocean, the angry waves that jostle the docks forcefully, the looming darkness of the sky.

The stench of the sea is strongest here, carried in through lines of boats, their wireframes and decks littered with buckets and bins of fish, some still writhing in captivity. The vessels are loud—painted bright colors with blaring horns to announce their arrival, crew members jumping out with ropes for mooring. A yellow ship docks close to where Ochako stands, hand in her father’s. Wide, brown eyes watch as a man leaps from the deck to secure the ship, then drift to the engine. Liquid spills from one of the tubes, coating the water beneath it in a pearlescent shimmer—the shine of an abalone.

Her father’s hand tightens, tugging her firmly. Ochako didn’t notice in her staring that she had walked forward, entranced. He doesn’t elaborate. She takes three steps back to his side.

She knows what he’s thinking—an incident from elementary school at the forefront of his mind. Ochako’s memory is hazy, a series of flashing feelings and images: stomach plummeting as her body tipped over the dock, the blunt force of the water when she broke through its surface. She remembers a warm and sunny day, but the ocean was cold, terrifying. Consuming. It stole her breath, only let her take shallow and stuttered inhales as she writhed in its grasp. 

(There was a glimmer of something beneath her, a faded gold smeared across her vision in the chaos of her flailing. Something alien, terrifying. Something pulling her deeper.)

She remembers the onlookers above her. They laid safe on the deck, anchored on their stomachs while reaching for her. But nobody would dare join her in the water.

Standing here years later, Ochako still doesn’t know what happened. The memory hasn’t faded with time, but it was never more than a fuzzy collection of images to begin with.

Her father worries that she’ll trip again, or stand too close to the edge. Ochako understands enough to know that falling was no fault of her own. She was pulled by something beneath the surface—something calling to her. She knows that if it were to happen again—if whatever song that lured her in the first time is sung again—her father’s hand won’t be enough to stop her.

Disappearances aren’t common in Musutafu, but they happen enough for locals and visitors to be aware of, to speculate. No one lost has been found, posters with names and contact information stapled over one another, faded on bulletin boards. Oftentimes they display the faces of children, kids the adults assume are lost to the ocean—to the monsters some believe lurk beneath the surface.

Ochako has heard the stories time and time again, words inscribed in the depths of her memory. Tales of writhing beasts in the water, ones that claw through the exterior of fishing boats, tear through nets, and wrench open metal traps. To steal the prey for themselves. To steal people.

But they only exist in stories. Ochako has never even seen a photo of the supposed monsters. There is no evidence of their reality. She has only the mental images of half human, half sea creature amalgamations. Her father says they’re ugly things, deformed and mangled and lesser than—akin to old depictions of ningyo in traditional paintings: twisted faces, bodies almost entirely fish, with bony arms and claws for hands.

They’re horrifying, enough to make adults shudder. But Ochako’s fear leans more towards curiosity. Fascination. When she opens her books and traces her fingers over scale patterns and wispy fins… She dares to think these creatures are beautiful.

She’s wondered before—what it would take to see one.

“Higa-san,” her father greets as the boat unloads.

The man stands at the edge of the dock, wide shoulders on sturdy legs. One of his crew passes wire boxes of fresh catch. He grips the handles tightly, slamming them against the wood with a thump. The fish inside are slender and grey with darker coloration at the top. They jostle from the movement. One wriggles above the others, still alive.

“Uraraka.”

Ochako’s hold on her father tightens, eyes trained on the fish. Its body inflates slightly, gills flaring desperately. Is it suffocating? She wonders. Is it in pain?

“The water treating you well?”

Higa grunts, heaving a large crate. Ochako recognizes the fish inside this one, the patterned edges of mackerel. None of them move. “Still not normal. ‘S murky out there, choppy. Full moon ain’t helpin’.” His slanted eyes move to Ochako, her own glued to the corpses before her.

What would happen if she set them free, if she tipped over that box and put them back into the water? Would they come back to life, righten like zombies, and swim home? Or would they float like buoys on a line, surrendered to their death.

“—grabbed our net today ‘n tore it. Had such a creepy grin, all teeth. A nasty thing. Was the first time one came s’close to the boat, figured we shoot ‘n haul it. But as soon as the spear hit, bloody thing turned to seafoam.”

Ochako blinks as she tunes back into the conversation.

Her dad makes a sound of surprise. “Seafoam?”

“Awful foam. Red as blood with a nasty stench. Miya was yackin’ for ten minutes at least.”

“You should report it to the Coast Guard,” Uraraka insists, knuckles white from gripping Ochako.

“You ‘Matonchu wouldn’t know what to do with the information,” Higa scoffs. “Would just give ya a reason to interfere with our fishin’. Like hell we’re tellin’em. ‘S a matter for the Musu.”

The Musu people were the dominant group of the Musutafu township for centuries, even long after the Yamato, or Yamatonchu—the people of mainland Japan—expanded to the east. They're recognizable by a difference in features: thick hair as straight as a blade, freckled skin, striking eyelashes. Higa is a descendant of the Musu, a member of one of the few remaining families on the island. 

His eyes narrow, irises darkening as they train on Uraraka’s face. A warning. “So ya better keep yer damn mouths shut.”

Ochako doesn't know much about the Musu, her knowledge limited to brief mentions in school. She knows they don't fear the sea the way Yamato do; instead honing understanding from years of navigating canoes on the open water, so skilled they could reach smaller islands off the coast. They had a relationship with animals that was lost over time: one built from reciprocity, responsibility. But it changed when the Yamato came. 

When she stares at Higa-san’s angry face, his stern voice ringing as a warning to stay out of his business, she wonders if the Musu ever dream of going back.

The rest of the outing is a blur. Strung along by her father’s hand, Ochako wades through rows of markets, eye level with piles of catch. She passes the glistening scales of mahi mahi, the slippery skin of eel, smooth shells of mussels that clack like stones rolling through a current. Her parents stop several times—at the most affordable stands—to purchase carefully weighed portions of seafood.

Their last stop is at a table filled with shellfish. The woman at the stall shovels handfuls of shrimp in a bag with dark fingers, each addition making a wet plop. She ties the crinkly bag before murmuring a warm thank you, passing it to Ochako’s mother while taking the bills and coins.

A boy sits on a stool behind the table. His eyes are wide and carefully watching the exchange, curtained by thick and dark bangs. When his mother turns to wave at the Urarakas, he swipes a raw shrimp off the table, the head held between his fingers while he bites the meat and legs and tail. Ochako watches with fascination—and disgust—as he chews quickly and swallows, shell and all. 

“Hanta!” the woman chides while Ochako’s father makes to exit. 

The boy laughs, mouth stretching into a grin plastered crookedly across his face. His eyes meet Ochako’s and his delight somehow grows further.

“That’s that boy I was telling you about yesterday,” Ochako’s father mutters, pulling her attention back to the faces of her parents.

“The Musu boy?” her mother asks. “Who’s always in the water at the southern beach?” 

He grunts in affirmation. “They’re crazy—all of them. Who lets a kid in that water? By himself?”

Ochako’s eyes return to the market table. The boy is still grinning on the stool, bare feet swinging while the woman—his mother, Ochako assumes—softly sweeps at his bangs with her fingers. She smiles fondly at her son.

Ochako thinks he looks loved.

Ochako is loved too, in a different sort of way. Her parents have a love that inspires protectiveness. They worry about her, for her.

“You’re precious to us,” her mother says, fingers caressing the plush of her cheek.

Ochako knows this. And she knows the message buried beneath those words: that she’s important but small, and too young to understand what her parents know. The adults make decisions for her that she’ll come to appreciate when she’s older.

But Ochako sees other types of love around her—love like that: a boy and his mom who gives him freedom and choice, and she wonders what sort of love is the best. Maybe certain types of love work for some people and not others. Maybe some people only know one way to love.

Maybe people only ever know the love they were given. 

Ochako considers this one the longest. She worries too—about her parents. The image of their faces twisted in a grimace, murmuring about the bills, is a reminder burned in her memory. They don’t discuss these things when Ochako is present, but the kitchen is halfway down the hall; she catches glimpses through the door and slivers of conversation on the way to the bathroom.

Her worry sits uncomfortably in her chest. During particularly restless nights it rises above the skin, a crushing weight.

It’s the kind of worry that makes her feel small, that makes her say I don’t want any, or I don’t need it. It’s the kind of worry that she can’t say aloud, because she’s not supposed to be aware of it in the first place. It’s the kind of worry that makes her parents worry back, because their sweet girl never wants anything. Never makes a fuss.

So Ochako listens to her parents. She heeds their warnings, even when curiosity stirs within her body, pulling her where she desperately wants to be but can’t go.

The only water she’s allowed to play in is the stream behind their home. It’s a conservative size, just deep enough to reach the bottom of her calves, and with a width barely greater than her wingspan. There’s hardly a bank, just clusters of grass that flatten into sparse river sand. The current is gentle and the forest is quiet, deemed safe enough for Ochako to explore alone—so long as she stays within the confines of the Uraraka property.

(Borders are an imaginary thing, a mental image of a gate or line drawn across the yard. Ochako doesn’t understand why people are the only beings restricted by them—the water and fish and birds don’t have any sense of these territories, instead guided by the divots in the ground, the wall of the shallow bank. 

But Ochako listens. She confines herself to the section of stream and forest her parents allow her, and she enjoys her time here, playing away from watchful eyes.)

Even in the darkness of the settling dusk, she kicks through the water on her own. Red rays of light skim the surface of the stream, kissing the skin of her legs. Her feet stomp quickly, chasing a frog on the bank. She inhales when her hands gently trap it, fingers cupped against the wet dirt. She lifts it carefully towards her face, wide brown blinking with delight. 

Her pointer finger lifts to press against the back of the amphibian, tracing slimy ridges of skin. A loud croak sounds from its throat, underbelly jerking with the vibrations, and Ochako makes a sound of surprise. Her hand jerks and the frog leaps directly for the water. 

It lands with a splash, ripples radiating in a disfigured circle. Another blooms when the frog hops downstream, concentric shapes overlapping. Ochako follows carefully, her footsteps another disturbance on the surface.

The frog pauses at the imaginary border: the edge of the stream before it crosses the neighbor's land. Ochako halts. The amphibian croaks again, an overtone song that smothers the buzz of insects. The girl giggles softly at the sound, eyes narrowing as she prepares to catch it once more. Her hands open carefully before they dart forwards. She huffs in disappointment when they cut through water, missing the frog as its legs stretch to launch through the gap between her palms.

Her eyes lift to watch its escape, bounding and croaking down the stream. Her breath catches in her throat.

A trail of lights flicker on the surface.

Ochako cranes her neck to peer at the trees. Littered along the lower branches is a line of fireflies. Their dancing light trails through the woods, bobbing gently upstream. It’s too weak to illuminate the forest, but the blinks of gold marble along the water.

Ochako steps forward without thinking.

Her steps sparkle when she crosses the border—that arbitrary boundary. The rapid shuffling of her feet comes to life, illuminated swirls of ripples. She breaks into a run, frog forgotten as she now chases the light.

Her foot catches on something sharp. She falls with a yelp, arms stretched to catch herself as she lands against a pile of rough stones. The result is painful: scraped skin and a litter of future bruises. Standing is a challenge, arms shakily hoisting her body, knees wobbling as she shifts her weight to her feet.

She stands in darkness. 

Ochako sighs, staring along the water as if conjuring the light to return. It doesn’t, the only glow is now the house at her backside. Her arms pebble from the cold, drenched clothes clinging to her skin. The aches of her fall start to register. She trudges back home.

Her mother tucks her into bed, leaning over her small frame to press a kiss on her forehead.

“I love you.” Her voice is quiet, face half illuminated by the bedside lamp.

Ochako’s response is a ritual, a whisper of, “I love you too.”

(What does it mean to love someone because you’re supposed to, Ochako wonders. How do you distinguish love from attachment, from comfort and familiarity and habit? 

Are those things even considered love?)

Ochako thinks her mother would be sad if she said these thoughts aloud. A crease would form along her forehead, familiar wrinkles of confusion and worry. Maybe even hurt.

Instead, in Ochako’s silence, her mother wears the slope of a smile. She reaches to tuck loose hair behind the girl’s ear, and then to turn off the lamp. Darkness envelops the room, her mother now nothing more than a dark figure.

When she exits and Ochako is left by herself, she hurries to toss off the covers that were so neatly arranged over her body. She sits on her knees and turns towards the window.

The stream is visible, a small dip in the ground that sits in the transition from yard to forest. Dim moonlight flickers atop the water, but that’s all.

The following weekend, she sees the Musu boy again. This time while his mother efficiently manages the market stand, he sits on a low stool, a bag of peanuts open on his lap as he talks excitedly with another kid. They both have a thin braided band around their ankle, one yellow and the other red. Even in earshot, Ochako has no idea what they’re saying—or at least, what the black haired one is saying. The other sits quietly, nodding along.

The former beams when his eyes catch Ochako. His grin engulfs his entire face and he stands, grabbing the bag of peanuts and stretching his arm out. He says something loudly, but Ochako doesn’t understand.

The woman behind the table interjects with more unfamiliar sounds. It’s a musical speech, one that dips low at times, rolling like the tide. The boy's eyes flicker with clarity, turning back with the same grin.

“Have some!” he says this time.

She nods and grabs a fistful in her small fingers. They’re good—gently roasted with a touch of salt, the sweetness of the sea. She smiles.

“I’m Hanta!” he continues, wide eyes watching her eat. He points to his friend. “And that’s Koji.”

Hanta. Koji. Their names ring with song. She tries to repeat them but they fall flat in her voice. She doesn’t know how to make their sounds.

“I’m Uraraka,” she replies.

They eat their peanuts together quietly, scooping handfuls into chubby cheeks. It’s mostly quiet, with Hanta swinging his legs and grinning, asking questions like, “Do you like shrimp?”

Ochako nods to most of them.

The other boy—Koji—sits quietly, never saying a word. But he watches, eyes trailing between Ochako and Hanta as they talk. His gaze falls when she looks his way. She notices his long and dark eyelashes.

Ochako wants to ask her own questions. About the Musu people—who they are, what that even means. She wants to ask about Higa-san, if they know anything about the sea monsters. She wants to know how this boy has gone into the water by himself and come out alive.

She wonders if he knows anything about the fireflies.

A tug leads her away before she’s ready. She whips her head towards her mother, free hand still cupping a sprinkling of peanuts, face twisted in an uncontrollable plea. Ochako doesn’t want to leave.

Her mother pauses, eyes softening with a guilty smile. “We need to go,” she says gently.

Ochako’s eyes fall in disappointment, then lift to Hanta and Koji. The former smiles brightly and waves. He looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“See you!” He cheers. Koji timidly waves beside him.

She pouts the entire walk home, but neither of her parents notice. Instead they talk in soft voices, murmurs of words like budgeting and expenses. Normally Ochako would listen carefully, matching their worried expressions, but now an ugly part of her thinks it’s fair, that they’re all unhappy together.

The disappointment doesn’t leave with time. Instead it grows, festers like a mold that sits heavy in her chest. There’s a heat in her cheeks, a tightness in her stomach. Does she have to wait until next week to see them again? Will it be for the same amount of time?

She heads straight to her room, sparing no parting words. Her parents don’t mention it, voices drifting to the kitchen where they continue to talk in increasing volume. Ochako huffs, kneeling on her futon, hands grasping the duvet in tight fists. Her teeth are clenched as she swallows back tears. Part of her wants to stomp back to the kitchen while sobbing, loud noises that can’t be ignored. The other knows that her parents wouldn’t like it, that she’d regret it later.

Abruptly she stands, turning to reenter the hall. The voices carry through the house, louder without the door as a guard. Ochako takes softs steps to the kitchen, listening as she approaches.

“—think moving is going to give us the most opportunities,” her mother murmurs. “It’s becoming more expensive than the mainland.”

Her father grunts. “It would take months to get out of our contracts. Besides, there’s no guarantee we’ll find similar positions.”

“We could stay in Mie. My parents would happily host us until one of us secures a job.”

“And give Ochako that kind of instability? She’s still so young.”

“You think it’s worse than living here?”

The air is still as several moments pass. Ochako tries to imagine the faces they’re making, her mother’s pinched brow, her father’s pursed lips. She wants to crane her neck to look through the doorway. She wants to know why they said her name.

Footsteps sound, her parents shuffling. Ochako panics, starting swiftly and quietly to her room. Her heart gallops as she closes the door and stands behind it, taking ragged inhales. When her breathing calms, her chest is still tight with something unsettling. Her parents' voices start again, muted sounds behind the wall.

She exits into the hall again, this time jostling the handle and deliberately thumping her feet across the floor. Her parents’ conversation halts. They watch expectantly when she enters the dining room. She doesn’t say anything.

“Ocha-chan?” her mother probes.

The girl’s heart is uneasy. Her body is still swirling with disappointment, with now additional curiosity.

“Can I play outside?” Her voice is small.

Her mother smiles, shoulders relaxing. She glances at Ochako’s father with an expression the girl doesn’t understand. He nods curtly and she answers, “Okay honey. Just remember to stay inside the yard.”

Ochako bobs her head, eyes averting to the floor. Something else gnaws at her chest, not a tightness this time but a sting. She scurries to the genkan, hastily strapping on her shoes before heading out the door. When she reaches the creek and turns around, her mom waves from the window. The sting eases.

The water is cold against her skin, rushing along her sandals as she steps into the stream. It runs to her calves, washing away the itchiness from stalking through the grass.

There are no fireflies.

She pouts, standing and craning her head to the sky. It’s a royal blue, deep while bright, the quilt of late afternoon. Streams of fluff slice through the fabric, clouds stitching the atmosphere together.

When she brings her head back down, turning to the window, her parents are gone. Her pout pulls into a scowl.

She runs.

It starts with jagged steps, tripping through the water before she returns to the bank, and bolts along the stream. Her heart pounds in her chest when she crosses the boundary into her neighbor’s yard, and then the next neighbor, then the third one. She doesn’t look back, eyes trained forwards as the water curves into the forest, turning perpendicular to the neat line of houses. 

The ground is forgiving despite her sandals. She runs with ease, next to the rushing water. It stops shortly, disappearing just before an incline. The trees thin out as she climbs the hill and stands at the crest, overlooking a sunny break of canopy. The light streams along a wide river, a plane of green and brown. Its body snakes in a lazy curve, a weak pulse pumping the current.

Ochako’s side of the river has a gentler slope, transitioning from water to land via a sea of pebbles. They’re bright white, bleached under the sun. As she inches down the hill and towards the bank, she notices that they’re smooth ovals, sprinkled with occasional sharp stones—like fragments of coral or bone. A few large stones sit in the water, ripples wrinkling around them.

She has never been here, hardly knew there was a river so close to home. It’s a quaint stretch of land… a secret. Warm with bright light but also shrouds of trees, the sun dappling through. The hum of water strolling downstream. The call of birds she has never heard.

Her heart slows, steadying as she takes in the serenity. Ochako wishes she could play here, where it’s calm and wide and with more to explore. Her parents might let her, since it’s a river: a pretty river with stones and soft grass. A river that—

That smells rancid.

The scent is an ambush, flooding her nose with a horrible kind of sweetness. A fishy sourness that springs tears in her eyes. Her stomach turns, face twisting further with each shallow breath.

A morbid curiosity takes over. Ochako turns her head towards the source, reluctantly breathing in. She takes a hesitant step downstream, stones rolling as she walks. The pungency strengthens.

She freezes after passing a clump of driftwood, wide eyes locking on a figure behind it.

It’s long and motionless and clearly the source of the smell. Despite the dread pooling in Ochako’s stomach, a heaviness and nausea, she walks closer. She wants to see.

An animal, a sea creature with slippery skin. It has a bulbous head and a long mouth—a dolphin. A beady eye stares straight into the sky. Ochako can see her own reflection in its blackness.

Two small holes puncture the animal’s body, smeared faintly in red. Crusted blood lines the openings. Along its stomach are gashes. Not long, but deep, like claws were stabbed violently through the flesh. Similarly, there are no blood stains, only faint dried clots and light smears.

Ochako gawks openly, completely frozen. Her heart continues to drum, to thump, thump, thump between her ribs. She struggles to inhale, throat and chest tightening.

It’s… it’s terrifying, naturally. A large creature, longer than Ochako’s own body, splayed out along the bank, sucked dry by some other animal she can’t imagine. But as dreadful as the sight is, she’s filled with an inexplicable wonder, that persistent curiosity. Pure awe at encountering something this rare, this impossible. The still-fresh skin is grey, a storm stretched taught along muscle and flesh. It fades to yellow at the edges of the fins and mouth, aged like paper. Ochako feels the urge to reach for it, to run a finger along the slippery surface.

The body suddenly twitches. Ochako’s heart drops, body leaping to take two steps back.

Its mouth parts, revealing the pink of its tongue. “Hnngh,” it moans.

Ochako yelps, body moving on instinct as she turns to sprint away. Panic floods her veins, icy, as her mind flashes with images of the creature somehow chasing after her. She doesn’t look back, head jerking to find the spring and follow it home, fueled by fear.

The journey is longer than she remembers. Low branches swipe across her shoulders, twigs grasping her clothes like hands. Her father’s worries race through her head, pictures of something ugly and unfathomable sinking teeth in her neck and leaving her drained on the shore. His warnings thump through her head, spinning on repeat.

Stay away from the water Ochako. 

Relief floods her system as she catches sight of the neighbor’s home. She’s close, so close. Only a minute later and she’ll be safe. Safe in the stream, safe in her backyard. Safe with her parents. She wants to cry in their arms and hear their soothing voices, their gentle hands cradling her hair and cheeks. 

When she crosses the final imaginary border, relief swells so heavily in her stomach that she halts. She heaves, lungs burning as she sucks in air. Mud and scratches splatter her legs, stinging. Her eyes burn as they fill with tears.

Her parents are right: she should listen to them, to keep herself safe. This worry they have, these limitations and rules, are to protect her, because they love her. Ochako’s heart hurts. Guilt claws at her stomach. 

When her breath settles she anxiously turns to the house, ready to run inside.

Her parents are still out of sight.

The guilt in her gut hardens into something she’s never felt before. Something heavy, and dreadful.

The week is hard for Ochako.

Confusing feelings swirl inside her—a typhoon of feelings that scare her, make her want to do things she knows are wrong. She doesn’t understand what she saw, what her parents are whispering about, why she’s too young to know.

(Will she ever get to know?)

Nobody is safe enough for her to share these questions. Instead she sits quietly with this storm inside her chest, raging winds and murky water pounding against the cage of her flesh. If it’s lucky it will find its way to the surface of her skin, emptying itself through her lashes. She doesn’t notice when this happens.

Her parents do. They catch the faraway look in her eyes, her subdued attitude, a lack of focus. They worry, brows furrowed when they ask if she’s okay. Their expressions make her stomach turn—do they know she disobeyed them? 

“Ochako, do you want to go to the mochi stand tonight?” her father probes. His voice is soft.

She recalls hushed voices in the kitchen, discussing work and money. She frowns and says, “No,” in a quiet voice.

Her mother’s face falls. Ochako feels worse.

When the weekend returns and her dad asks if they’re ready to go to the market, her mother offers to stay home with Ochako. 

The girl shakes her head, mumbling, “I want to go.” 

The adults trade glances, confused by her attitude. Her mother watches her daughter’s face carefully. 

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Ochako nods quickly, and that’s enough to convince them. 

She walks through the markets with a hand in her mother’s. Her eyes skim along the lines eagerly, brightening when they land on Hanta and Koji. They sit on the same stools as the previous weekend. She waves when they notice her.

Her mom tugs her arm. She started towards them without realizing it.

“C’mon Ocha-chan.”

Her round face lifts, eyes widening in a plea to stay. Her mother’s breath hitches, chest freezing in apprehension. She looks nervously to the table, the boys sitting on their stools as the older woman bags orders of fish.

Another second passes. Ochako lowers her gaze, turning to follow where her father walks ahead.

Her mother folds. “We can go say hi,” she offers.

Ochako beams, eyes sparkling. She misses her mother’s flicker of guilt as she turns and barrels ahead.

“Hi,” she says, breathless, when she stands before Hanta’s grin and Koji’s reserved interest.

“Hi!” the former replies. He stretches his arm to offer a bag of sunflower seeds.

Ochako’s mother releases her, letting the girl take a handful and work them open with her teeth. The shells splinter easily, falling into her palm to be discarded in a bag by Koji’s feet. Ochako relishes the nutty flavor, audibly humming. Her mother smiles.

She likes this table, the company of Hanta and Koji. They’re kind and carefree. Hanta does all the talking, but Koji nods along, occasionally making hand gestures that Hanta translates with words. She giggles at one of his jokes and turns to her mother to see if she caught it too, then pauses when she sees her talking to the woman behind the table.

“That’s my mom,” Hanta says plainly. “Your mom is nice.”

Ochako nods immediately. “I love my mom.”

Her eyes avert to the ground as soon as she says it, brain pausing. Not in apprehension or uncertainty, but in question. Why do they love each other?

“Me too,” Hanta responds. He chews the seed shells and swallows them. “I love lots of things.”

Ochako straightens. “You do?”

He nods, humming in affirmation.

“How do you know?”

“I just do,” he asserts. His eyes lift in thought. “Ma says we have love for everything inside us.”

Ochako stares at him with bewilderment. “Really?”

“Mhm. Everything comes from love, so we love everything. She says when we do things for love, that’s when the best things happen. Like the fireflies.”

Ochako’s breath halts. “The fireflies?”

Hanta grins. “You haven’t heard?”

Ochako shakes her head. She wants to say she has only seen them, but the words catch in her throat.

“A very long time ago one of our oldest grammas was in love. But granpa had to go away, and they were both very sad. He left on a boat by the river next to their home, so gramma waited every night for him with a torch to help him find his way home. The people and animals called her the ‘Lady of Fire’.

“She stood there every night with her torch, finding ways to keep it burning even in heavy rain—until there was a typhoon. But even when the wind and rain blew it out, gramma stood there waiting. She cried and cried, only wishing for granpa to come home safe. Her love was so inspiring that the moon herself came down to light the way. She turned into a million twinkling bugs that could fly in the rain. Granpa came home that very night.”

Ochako’s mouth hangs ajar as she listens, eyes full moons. She’s never heard such a beautiful story.

“That’s where fireflies come from,” he reminds her.

“Wow,” she breathes.

Hanta nods, grinning. “Yup. And Koji can talk to them!”

The smaller boy jolts at the mention of his name, but he doesn’t make any gesture of disagreement.

“Really?” Ochako asks in amazement.

“Mhmm! People from old gramma’s family can do things like that when they love.”

Something in Ochako’s chest expands at his words, like it’s grown. Then it clenches in envy. Urgency.

“Is that something I can do too?” she asks.

“Ma says anyone can do it,” he answers. He parts his lips to speak, but no words escape. They pull into a frown and Ochako thinks the expression is out of place. “… You can lose it too, like Higa-san.”

The brunette blinks in surprise. “Higa-san? He lost it?” 

Hanta’s wide eyes dart to his mother, then to Ochako. She is captivated, clinging onto every word.

“His love.”

“Oh.” Ochako frowns. She thought he would say more.

“Yeah,” he answers with a shrug, swinging his feet.

Ochako wants to probe but she doesn’t know how to navigate thoughts like these. Where does she start? What sort of question makes sense for this?

“What did he love?” she tries.

Hanta frowns again. 

“The ocean,” he says flatly, as if it’s the only thing worth loving.

Ochako doesn’t understand. She knows love as a feeling for people: for family members and marriage and maybe a cat. Even so, love isn’t openly shared, instead kept for private conversations and the gaps in speech. How can you love something so big, so vast, so… inanimate?

So terrifying.

“Ocha-chan.”

She blinks, turning to her mother’s voice.

“We should go now.” It’s a command disguised as a suggestion. “But we can come back next time, okay?”

Ochako turns to Hanta, questions brimming at the base of her throat. She wants to know what it means to love the ocean, how Hanta knows that Higa-san lost his love, how he knows that the man had it in the first place.

She wants to ask Hanta and Koji what their love feels like.

Her mother’s hand slips into her own. It’s warm, and Ochako grasps it on instinct.

“Next time,” she repeats.

Ochako nods, mindlessly shoving the remaining seeds in the pocket of her jacket as they turn away. When they walk along the dock and her dad raises a hand to Higa unloading his boat, something stirs beneath the surface of Ochako’s subconscious.

Her parents watch her wander through the stream under the falling sun. They sit by the window absorbed in conversation, but focused enough to occasionally glance her way. Ochako finds it burdensome. Part of her wishes they would leave again.

She busies herself with her bucket and net, grinning triumphantly when she catches a minnow. It circles the bottom of the net, darting within its cage. Ochako giggles as she lifts the mesh, minnow flopping in the air. Her chubby hand traps it and she laughs again at its slippery skin. It writhes in her grasp, along the tunnel of her palm.

Brown eyes peer through the opening. Its small head comes closer, inching towards her thumb. Without warning it slips through her hold and leaps into the air. The girl shrieks and lifts her opposite arm to catch it in the bucket.

The fish lands with a plop, splatting against the empty bottom. Plop, plop, plop follows as it thrashes against the plastic. Until it stops.

Ochako’s smile falters as she stares at the creature. Its tiny body is motionless. Stripes of silver and green shimmer in the light. Its eye is a black bead, small but swallowing her whole. 

The dolphin flashes through her mind, and she moves quickly, dipping the rim of the bucket under the water for a second before raising it. She stares into the shallowness, holding her breath.

The minnow twitches, jolting to life, and Ochako exhales.

She pours the water back into the stream, watching closely as the fish darts upstream to the bank. A mix of guilt and relief sits inside her chest.

“Ochako,” her father calls behind her.

She turns to see him standing half outside the door. He waves.

“Dinner’s ready.”

The girl nods, understanding the order. She gives the bucket a final shake and walks up the bank. Red seeps into the sky from the horizon, dusk creeping in. When she finally reaches the door she steals one final look at the water. A white heron swoops in, standing in the shallows. It steps slowly, then jerks forward to thrash its beak into the stream.

A faint flicker of yellow bobs above it.

They have tuna for dinner, sashimi on rice with pickled plums and stringy cucumber. Ochako eats slowly, letting the softness of the meat melt over her tongue. She wonders what the fish looked like when it died, if it thrashed in a bucket.

“Ocha-chan,” her mother interrupts her thoughts. She speaks gently. “What do you think about going to Mie soon, to see baachan and jiisan?”

The girl looks up to her parents’ faces. They’re uncertain, almost nervous.

“Okay,” she answers easily. Her mother relaxes until she adds, “For how long?”

The adults trade glances. Ochako is not given an answer.

When night falls and Ochako is tucked into the covers, she is restless. 

The water calls for her, floods her ears with the ghost of its song. Her mind is powerless to her body, watching as she rises from her futon and makes for the bedroom door. The house is silent, her parents in slumber. She shuffles to the genkan without a sound.

The night is alive, loud as despite its darkness. Humidity thickens the air and buzzes with the call of insects. A dense cluster of yellow twinkle above the stream, and Ochako’s breath catches.

Fireflies.

They breathe along the water, one entity dancing through the branches. Their trails smear behind them, illuminated strokes of a pen. They are the only light littering through the woods, miniature lanterns tracing the stream back to its source. 

Ochako follows obediently, walking the trail of water through the neighbors’ territories, through the thick wooded land and up the hill to the river. Her heart is steady, mind too concentrated to let unease seep through her skin. In an instant she is at the top of the hill, stepping down towards the bank. The fireflies thin as she nears the water. They flicker for a moment more, then fade away just as the moon breaks over the trees. The river stones bathe in its gaze, bands of brilliant white creeping along their surfaces. 

The night is quiet here. Ochako’s never stood in such darkness alone, never even considered it. She thinks she should be scared, filled with jitters to run, to get away and get safe as fast as she can. Instead she’s calm, at peace. The night has a special sort of serenity.

Or it would, if it weren’t for the stench of death.

It’s the same smell from last time, sourness that pulls her attention to the carcass on the shore. There the same dolphin rests, tipped on its side and properly rotting. The flesh is a patchwork of black and grey, body half decayed to reveal the skeleton beneath. A spine rests in the center, attached to an unbroken cage of ribs. The skull is partially visible, skin peeled from its mouth. Even in the darkness, the bones shine like pearls, like the stones along this shore, bleached from time in the sun.

It almost looks human, Ochako muses, with shorter arms and a misshapen head.

Human, with a tail.

She thinks of Koji, his ability to speak to animals. Would he have understood that last dying breath she witnessed? Would he be able to talk with it now, with its body half gone and more bone than flesh.

Ochako wishes she had such a gift, something to connect her to the world she inhabits, to make life clearer. To make it her’s.

A splash erupts from the river.

She turns, heart racing. The water ripples, waves echoing from the cluster of jagged rocks. The wrinkles gather moonlight in a woven pattern, scaly slithering skin. Something is lurking, dragging its body through the shallows.

A limb appears, breaking through the surface. It’s scrawny and withered with a misfigured hand attached to the end, sharp claws hooking into the divots of the rock. It tenses, weary muscles twitching to heave itself upwards. Another gurgled sound passes as it fails to lift itself. Ochako steps away from the bank carefully, wide eyes trained on the creature’s arm.

Her heart leaps when it rises above the rock, a face coming into view before it slumps over, grunts and wheezes shuddering through the air. Strangled sounds.

The rest of its body is as withered as its arm, flesh tight to the bone—

Human bones, Ochako thinks. Human mixed with the remains of the dolphin beside her.

It has a human face, at least, but its body is akin to a ningyo. Sharp fins creep out the side of its head, darkness pooling at the edges. It has something like hair, something matted and mangled with tufts of feathers slicing through the scalp, jutting out as if placed by force. The torso is gaunt, skin tight against a hollow stomach and quilted with the skin of other creatures: more feathers, slippery dolphin skin, the hard shell of shrimp. They’re scattered along the body, dipping down the length of a withered tail. 

Despite the fear shooting through Ochako’s veins, pure ice frosting her blood, she can’t move or look away. She is enchanted by this creature, drawn to its angles and curves, the slices of fins that sprout from its arms and tail, matching the webbing between its fingers. It’s mangy; it’s starved. 

It’s something she never knew existed.

“It’s hideous,” her father would shudder.

In one hand—one claw—is the squelching body of an octopus. It splats against the rock, tentacles lolling into the water as the body slides between hasty fingers. Under the moonlight, the faintest tint of red is visible.

The ningyo lowers to its prey, lips parting to bare pointed teeth. They lurch forward, sink into rubbery flesh, hands clenched so tight that fingernails pierce through the cephalopod. Dark liquid dribbles down: blood, a blue hue, splattering on the rock. The skin immediately loses color.

This is a hunger Ochako does not know. Every movement strikes a tremor through the ningyo’s body, hands shaking as they struggle to hold their meal. Its face, almost human (almost girlish), is smeared with fluids, a long tongue lapping the excess. A twisted face, sharp and angled and boney.

An honest face, a lively face that Ochako can read. When claws sink into the octopus for a second time, tearing open its body to drain every drop of fluid, the creature’s eyes soften. Jerking movements smooth, now reduced to lazy mawing. Its mouth curves into a crescent moon—a grin—and Ochako is captivated, paralyzed by fascination and fear. It looks happy, almost euphoric. Ochako has never seen such a pure expression of joy.

When the ningyo finishes it drops the scraps of its meal in the water. A slithering tongue laps over its hands and arms, boney things splattered with scales. In the unreliable light of the moon it almost looks like its forearms are darkening, the underside spotted with growing suckers.

Ochako has no choice. Her feet carry her forwards without permission or warning. In an instant she is ankle deep in the water, wide eyed under the spotlight of the moon.

Her steps splash loudly. The ningyo snarls, twisting its face into a glare before jerking its body off the rock and into the water. A tail breaks through the surface, glinting before thrashing downwards, splattering Ochako with a quick pelt of rain. In the next moment, the water calms and the girl is once again alone on the shore. Alone except for the skeleton laying behind her.

Standing in the water, in occupied water, Ochako is no longer cold with fear. There is no warning repeatedly blaring stay away, stay away, stay away. She is still and quiet, frozen except for the one thing she can process:Whatever this creature is, it’s beautiful.

No fireflies blink along the stream the following day.

Ochako stands in the water, chest vibrating with an urgency she’s never felt before. Despite the lack of light, she trudges forwards to the river. When she arrives she is left only in the company of the rotting dolphin.

She yearns for another glimpse. Somewhere in these strange sights and terrifying encounters lay answers. Answers about living, about love. They’re at the edges of her fingertips but still too far away, an insect flying just out of reach.

The fireflies don’t glow for two more days. The following night they return, but fade moments later. Still, the girl slips from her bedroom to the genkan, and then up the stream. Five days pass like this, with each visit the dolphin fading further to bones.

The next night she leaps the instant her parents quiet, pacing down the hall and past the kitchen. She stands at the entrance of the genkan, peering out the window of the door to the stream. It’s dark, her eyes needing time to adjust before the forms of the trees become visible.

“Ocha-chan?” 

The girl jumps, body tense with caught, caught, caught as she faces her mother.

“What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t know what to say. Even though this is her mother, something in her stomach yells that she can’t be trusted. If she speaks honestly she will be scolded, or worse banned from playing outside altogether. If she is dishonest, she will have to carry the weight of her guilt, of deceiving someone she loves—of someone who loves her.

Silence, she quickly learns, is another poor choice. Silence makes room for suspicion. It grows in her mother’s eyes with each passing second.

“I was looking outside.” It’s the best answer she can conjure.

“Oh,” her mother says plainly. Ochako can’t read the tone of her voice. “Do you want to play in the stream? It’s late.”

Ochako shakes her head honestly. She doesn’t want to play.

“Did you see something?” her mother tries again.

The girl nods. It is also honest, but delayed. Does it hurt her mother to keep secrets like this? Her parents do the same, having hushed conversations that Ochako never hears about, discussions with her name spoken softly, secretly.

“What did you see?”

Ochako’s chest flares with something prickly and tight. She doesn’t want to answer.

“I don’t know,” she answers, and that’s the end of it. She returns to her room.

The next day when night settles in, she can hear her parents murmuring in the kitchen when they would normally be in their room. Ochako, for the second night in a row, is forced to stay inside. She sits under her covers, staring out the window towards the stream.

The fireflies dance again.

Excitement vibrates through her veins when the family leaves for the docks, Ochako teeming with questions she wants to ask Hanta. But her dad’s grip on her is tight while her mother exchanges bills and coins for today’s purchase—a bag of crab legs, long and orange with spikes stretching the plastic.

“Ocha-chan, we don’t have time to stop today.”

Disappointment floods the girl and her instinct is to pout. Why didn’t they say anything ahead of time? Why tell her now, when they know her sparse conversations are the best part of these trips?

Her dad furrows his brow. “Do you need to tell them something?”

She turns to the boys perched on their stools. Hanta is watching curiously, eyes wide as ever, searching her face and what lies beyond it. Those questions she wants to ask, but questions that can only be shared in confidence: Do you know what I saw? Is it the same thing Higa sees, what everyone else is so afraid of?

Hanta follows her example, silent as he holds her gaze. Something in his expression shifts, something subtle, like the glint in his eyes.

Will she come back?

Koji clutches his friend, a hand to the wrist. Hanta’s head twitches, offering the tiniest nod. Ochako inhales, brightening.

The stream is calm, capturing Ochako’s gaze through dinner as the yellow blinking of fireflies settle along the bank. Her parents tuck away in their bedroom when it’s time for bed, and finally she can run along the water, through the forest, up the hill to the steady river.

The moon isn’t present except for the bugs holding the remnants of its light. Ochako’s eyes adapt, allowing her to trace the silhouettes of the river bank, the skeleton, the large stones in the water. 

The creature strewn atop them. Feasting.

Ochako’s heart pounds as she watches sharp teeth sink into a fish, the wet smacks of its tail sounding against the stone. The predator growls, almost a high pitched hiss. Ochako steps forward unconsciously.

This time when their eyes lock, neither are shocked. The ningyo halts, eyes darkening. Fins flicker, glinting under nonexistent light. Ochako holds her breath. She can feel her blood pulsing through her skin, pounding against her ears.

The creature lowers its head to resume its meal, but its gaze never falls. When it finishes and drops the corpse into the water, it cleans itself, tongue tracing every smeared remnant of blood. Ochako takes one step forward, fascinated.

The ningyo hisses before disappearing into the water once again.

Days pass. Ochako slips away every night dutifully, wanting to catch another glimpse. She wonders if she visits often enough, just to watch it feed, will these moments eventually add to an entire conversation? Could fragments of standing at a distance in careful observation lead to flickers of understanding—could she learn to distinguish its sounds and motions, grow to know what each one means?

But she wants more than distance. She wants to take one step and then another until her skin is pressed against the ningyo. She wants to run her hands over scales and fins and the slivers of other beasts nestled into the skin. She wants to hold the creature’s face close and stare into its eyes. She wants to whisper questions between them: to ask what inspires it to make such complicated faces, faces that look like love while draining a life of everything it had.

If Ochako steps forward she will instead witness the twist of a horrible glare, a growl, and loneliness for the remainder of her night.

“Hanta,” she says firmly, though breathless. She rushed through the markets to reach him, her parents bobbing through the other tables as they make their way over. “How—how do I get closer to the water?”

He blinks and looks at Koji. The latter averts his eyes.

“I want it to trust me. How…”

Hanta hums, turning his gaze to her again. “You have to give.”

“Give?”

“Mhm. Every time you take from the water, you ask for permission and offer something in return.”

Ochako frowns. “What do I give?”

“Depends,” the boy answers plainly. “I sing before each dive and I leave flowers where I catch mussels. Stuff like that. Koji braids the grass.”

Ochako wonders what she has to give. Her eyes fall to the bins of shrimp and oyster, the piles of sleek fish shimmering on the table. But the ningyo only takes blood, and Ochako is not sure if it will eat prey from the Uraraka refrigerator. Maybe she can catch a frog—though the thought makes her stomach queasy. A flower is easier to start with.

Koji nudges his friend with an elbow, glossy eyes dancing as if to communicate on their own. Hanta gasps, a grin spreading across his face as he digs into his pocket.

“Oh yeah! Here.” He stretches out his arm, his fist clenched.

Ochako raises her palm to receive the gift. It’s a soft and small bundle of thread. When Hanta’s arm retreats, she sees a band of braids. The width is the same as the anklets the boys wear, only the string is a deep pink.

“You’ll be safer with that in the water, especially with a Kono. We can make a different color if you don’t like pink.”

“Kono?” The girl holds the bracelet carefully. “I like pink.”

Hanta’s grin grows. “Perfect. Put it on your right leg, ‘kay?”

Ochako nods dutifully. A promise.

The fireflies do not shine for several days.

When they finally light again, sparks flickering in the trees, Ochako leaps with excitement. A feeling deep within her says that this time will be different, somehow. The touch of her anklet is barely noticeable as she hurries along the creek, whispering thanks to the miniature lanterns for lighting her way.

When she arrives, the ningyo is not present.

The girl frowns, turning to the woods where the fireflies still bob. She inches towards the water to get a look, stones shifting with each step. Maybe they just missed one another. She sighs.

The river is cold against her skin when she dips her feet into the shallows. A shudder rattles up her body, raising the hair along her arms. Only the thrum of bugs carry through the night. Ochako’s stomach sinks in disappointment. Maybe the creature could sense she did not find anything to give.

Something lurches from the water.

It’s just in front of Ochako, a roaring splash against one of the larger stones. A tail whips through the river while spindly arms grip and heave. Droplets scatter through the air, pelting Ochako in a moment of rain. Her chest blossoms with hope.

The feeling tightens when she is met with hissing and growling, voice holding the coarseness of a thunderstorm. A voice of thirst and a voice of fear.

Back away, Ochako can hear it scream. Your kind are not meant to come this close.

She swallows the onslaught of tears that threaten to spill, stinging her nose with something close to shame. Why is she always forbidden from the places she wants to be? Would she be welcomed if she had something to give? But what does she have to offer? Her eyes dart along the creature—the marred face of a bird protruding from its shoulder, amphibious legs twisted within its skin. She thinks of Hanta and his eagerness to share, whether he is offering snacks or jewelry or knowledge. He gives what he has, whatever Ochako might want.

She moves without thinking. With empty hands, she stretches out her arm.

The beast reacts with a flinch and a hiss, backing away as if threatened. Then it pauses, fins flickering while its eyes dart skeptically.

Ochako nods. She takes one step forward and rolls the sleeve of her nightshirt. Her chest and stomach ache with nerves but she does not move. 

A growl erupts from the belly of the creature while it bares its teeth. Ochako’s breath hitches as it lurches forward, moving erratically to latch a claw onto her arm. It stings, but brown eyes don’t waver from the ningyo’s glare. The air stills, as if the insects are holding their breath in anticipation.

This is all I have. The words are buried at the base of Ochako’s throat.

Gentleness is not what she would have expected, but when the creature leans forward, the first thing Ochako feels is the featherlight touch of lips against her skin. They’re soft, ghostly, careful. Until they curl back to unleash sharp fangs. The pinch against her forearm is painful when they puncture the skin. Blood begins to trickle—only for a moment before soft lips return. The slippery wetness of a tongue laps along the trail, saliva like a balm that turns the pain to a buzz.

A thrill runs through Ochako as the ningyo drinks from her. Part of it comes from the novelty and the risk—this adrenaline of disobeying, doing that she wants. But the other part is something much deeper, something inexplicable. Watching the creature’s face soften as it eats, sucking at the life running through Ochako’s arms, blooms a warmth through her body. 

Being relied on and having capacity to give—Ochako has never experienced this before. This is intimate beyond her imagination.

Maybe this is how love begins.

When the two finally part, the ningyo slipping away unceremoniously, Ochako is left lightheaded under the first glow of the moon.

The trek home is both endless and instantaneous. The forest stands still and dark when Ochako turns to take one final glance back. She enters her home with trembling legs. 

When she lays to sleep, she presses two fingertips against her arm, imagining them as pointed teeth. Her vision suddenly bursts with flames of static and her body goes limp, trapped beneath the weight of the blankets.

When the sun rises and morning arrives, she is too weak to wake.

Two days pass. While fevers wrack her body, Ochako is plagued by visions of the water—of dark fins and a bright tail, of a smile like the crescent moon. Her parents fuss diligently, clouds of worry spilling from their bodies and gathering by the bed, ready to suffocate and swallow Ochako whole. But as she slips in and out of consciousness, eyes heavy with exhaustion, she fixates on the bedroom window.

“Ocha-chan?” her mother asks after the girl mumbles something incoherent. Lines run through the skin of her forehead—an unending tide. “Is something wrong?”

The girl groans. “Hngh…f—flies.”

“Ocha-chan?” Her voice rings with the pitch of panic.

“Fireflies,” the girl manages, gasping. Her vision is too unreliable—smearing every color and shape together—to see if the bugs are dancing through the trees.

“What about them sweetie?”

Heat courses through her body, swallowing her brain. She whines, breath quickening as tears of futility pool in her eyes. Everything feels so urgent, and she is imprisoned in her bed.

“Ocha-chan… Ochako!?”

The girl sighs in defeat, losing to the force of her eyelids. Like a wave against the shore, sleep washes over her with ease. She has no choice but to surrender.

But she can’t stand the thought of the ningyo waiting for her, alone.

When Ochako is finally strong enough to stand, she spends her day feeling restless, anxiously waiting for the sun to fall and darkness to seep through the sky. She routinely lifts the sleeve of her shirt to stare at the markings on her arms, a finger running over two small, dark scabs. During dinner, her eyes focus on the window, waiting eagerly for a spark of yellow.

“—chan? Ochako!”

She jolts from her trance, turning to face her mother.

“Are you still not feeling well?”

She shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

“Really? You still seem out of it…”

“Try to eat more,” her father encourages. “Meat will help you regain your strength.”

Ochako nods as her eyes descend to her bowl, watching shrimp wontons bob through a thick soup. The meat is sweet on her tongue, chewy and coated in salty broth. Her stomach tightens when she imagines the animals in front of her, long and spindly bodies skittering out of the bowl and across the table. They track soup along the floor as they make their escape, leaping when they reach the stream. Skinny legs shuffle through the water, leading all the way to the river she yearns to return to.

“Ocha-chan—” her mother’s voice tears her from the window once again. “Are you sure you’re okay?Her spine straightens as she nods, spooning another dumpling into her mouth. This time as the flavor floods her tongue, she has the morbid curiosity of what she tastes like.

She is not the first to arrive at the river. 

When she crests the hill she immediately looks for the water, searching for the stones standing in its darkness. A figure rests on the one closest to the bank. Ochako’s heart stirs as she descends to the shallows, itching to run but restraining herself. Heated excitement boils along her skin when she finally stands before a slippery tail and sharp fins. Her eyes shine as they trace claws and teeth and scales. 

“Hi,” she whispers, a reverent breath. 

The ningyo inhales, eyes rapidly scanning the girl’s skin. It leaps into the depth of the water.

Ochako blinks, swallowing the disappointment rising in her chest. It floods her lungs while a weight sinks in her stomach, plummeting somewhere deeper than she knew existed. Her eyes water, brown lakes of hurt and confusion. Should she have tried to return sooner? Was that enough to lose her merit, her trust?

The water stirs.

A head slices through the surface, ripples circling pale hair. Ochako’s breath catches. It’s too easy for her to hope, her heart switching between guilt and glee with commitment she is not prepared for, rocking her like a ship through a storm. The ningyo inches closer, carving through the water until it begins crawling along the bank. Its stare is enough to beckon Ochako forwards.

Yes, she feels the answer nestled in her chest. Always yes.

The two meet in ankle deep water, where a stone is wedged into the sand. The ningyo heaves itself on the flat surface, dragging with it the writhing body of an eel. It’s long, longer than Ochako’s legs, and wide enough that the beast's fingers don’t touch in their grip—instead digging sharp nails into the flesh. The animal wriggles desperately, tail slapping against the rock and water in protest.

The ningyo extends its arm. An offering, Ochako realizes—for her.

She immediately shakes her head, hands raising in gesture for the creature to take it back. Her eyes scan spindly arms and visible ribs, the hollowness of the creature’s cheeks. “I don’t need it.”

Pale eyes twitch, furrowing in a glare. The ningyo’s lips part, exposing teeth as they lower to piercing the slippery skin. The head of the eel squirms violently, beady eye twitching as fins flare, making futile attempts to breathe—or maybe scream. Blood pours from the puncture wounds, a line of crimson. The ningyo extends its arm a second time.

Panic bubbles in Ochako’s chest as the liquid rolls down the side of the eel, threatening to drip from the bottom of its belly. Without thinking, she reaches for it, cupping the animal where it’s bleeding before it can be wasted, and pushing her hand towards the ningyo’s mouth. 

“Take it,” she insists. “I’m okay.”

Hesitantly, the creature obeys, finally lowering its head. It refuses to break her gaze as it drinks, lips touching the slippery flesh before sucking. It laps hungrily, hurriedly, claws digging to keep the animal still. Eventually the eel goes stiff, unmoving as the last of its life is drained. Ochako watches in fascination, stomach twisting the way it did at dinner.

This feels different than the shrimp, somehow. 

When the eel is discarded, thwacking against the stone before sliding into the water, Ochako’s hands are all that remain between the pair. They are still smeared with scarlet, precious blood.

The ningyo reaches for them, clutching her softness between careful claws. Its tongue laps through her fingers and the lines of her palm, tracing every bump and curve and wrinkle. Ochako is frozen, watching with bated breath as if this moment will end if she makes the wrong move. Her eyes dart with greed, roaming with the intention to memorize every detail of this creature—the sharpness of its eyes, the softness of its lips. Wet hair clinging to its face. The occasional flicker of fins.

The creature’s touch is warm despite the chill of the night. Heat radiates from her hands until it nestles into her chest. This feeling blooming inside her, this buzz, is like the warmth of the sun. Something divine. Something like love.

“Himiko.” Ochako breathes the word like a prayer, a promise. She doesn't know why she says it; what depths it bubbled from. But it rises with urgency, like a secret impatiently waiting to escape its confines and make itself known.

The ningyo pauses, Ochako fears from displeasure, until a moment passes and those lips (so, so, so soft) curl against her skin.

Something akin to a purr rumbles through the chest of the ningyo—of Himiko. It—she—grins while nuzzling her face into Ochako’s palms. A hum sounds, high and clear, the trill of a bird's sweetest song. Ochako’s skin is alive, hands searing as she dares to press them firmer against Himiko’s cheeks.

“Himiko,” Ochako repeats, this time louder. Confident.

Himiko’s head shakes, burying itself further in Ochako’s hold. Another sound releases from the ningyo’s lungs: a high pitched babble. Ochako’s grin grows uncontrollably, cheeks tight with glee. Her heart is warm, so warm.

A sudden pressure captures two fingers, a firm but dull row of edges and points. A bite—soft and playful. Ochako watches with awe as Himiko scrapes her teeth over skin, the vibration of giggles accompanying the rough sensation. The girl is reminded of a cat: their flickering ears and affectionate gnawing. Himiko’s eyes flutter closed and open again, holding Ochako’s gaze. Her irises flood with the blackness of the sky, and her mouth pulls sharply into the curve of the moon.

Ochako’s chest tickles, and all she can think is—

Cute.

The remainder of Ochako’s summer break flies by, passing like a riptide—all at once, exhilarating. The night becomes her ally, the fireflies her friends. Her parents’ sleep and lack of attention a source of peace. 

Himiko waits for Ochako as dutifully as Ochako waits for the evening. The ningyo perches along the stones, fins flickering with anticipation. The human finds a special warmth in knowing someone is waiting for her—someone who counts on her making an appearance, who will sit with the anticipation and the urgency for her.

One night, Himiko offers a return gift: a handful of pearls. They’re perfectly smooth, shining like tiny moons in her palm. Ochako inspects them under the lamp in her room, marveling at the variety in color. Cream, pink, gold. A single black one. They make soft clicking sounds as they roll through the divots in her hand, and Ochako is taken by their perfection. Afraid of what her parents will do if they find them, she keeps them in a bag under her pillow. 

On nights when the insects take longer to light, she rolls her hands through the pearls while glancing out the window, urging the clock to hurry.

Ochako wants to know if Himiko’s heart also hurts when the time moves too slow. Does she pray the sun will fall faster, plummeting the sky into darkness just so they can meet a few minutes sooner?

The cynical part of Ochako’s heart—the one weathered by her parents’ view on the world—says yes, but only because of what the girl can offer. It says Himiko’s grin is only a display of sharp teeth eager to sink into her flesh, to taste and to drain her.

(The desperate part of her heart says she doesn't care. That this is an exchange where she can feel needed. Why should she care why Himiko waits and grins under moonlight, eyes shining like the moon itself?)

But Himiko takes from Ochako sparingly, spaced out by days and in small quantities. The hopeful part of Ochako’s heart assumes this is a form of consideration, for her small body that fell ill days ago. During the nights in between, Himiko eats from Ochako’s tender hands, letting the human watch as the ningyo steals life from other creatures, breathing them into herself before discarding them to the water.

How many corpses live in this river, Ochako wonders. How many skeletons line the murky floor? All these stones that cover the bank, sun bleached and brilliant white—are these pebbles the smoothed fragments of bone? Is Ochako sifting her feet through a cemetery every night, walking along a graveyard where the deceased are never buried? The skeleton of the dolphin is still in sight, greeting her every time she visits.

Now, she finds its presence comforting.

After each meal, Himiko will clean Ochako’s hands and steal any evidence of their encounters. Ochako places those hands on Himiko’s cheeks, runs fingers along the fins that sprout beneath her temples. Himiko’s eyes flutter, mouth stretching into a smile that Ochako can only describe as sweet before the creature’s head shakes to latch her teeth onto fingers, gnawing down chubby knuckles and grasping the plush skin of Ochako’s palm. 

Ochako feels a rush every time she gives herself to Himiko. The sting of fangs pierce through her skin and tear through the scabs attempting to heal, but the pain brings a rush of heat through her body, settling in her stomach and chest. She loves the feeling of being relied on, not coddled and fussed over. This is a love of need. Ochako is used to a love outlined by borders—limits on what she can do, what she can give, what she can take. But Himiko takes and takes and takes. And Ochako wants her to.

Ochako lets herself be greedy in return. She pulls Himiko closer, runs her eyes over her body, touches her skin and nails and teeth. Fingers thread through the creature’s hair, prodding at the clumps of other animals that are forced into her flesh. Himiko lets her, happily preening under the attention and the touch. It makes Ochako greedier, hungrier to know this unusual being.

Ochako learns that there is a part of her heart she did not see before, one that clings and aches and yearns. One that wants to spear inside of Himiko the way the ningyo sinks teeth into Ochako’s arms.

It scares her.

“Ocha-chan, are you picking at your arms? Those cuts aren’t getting any better.”

The girl’s heart quickens, instinctively running her opposite hand along the scabs—scabs that have not faded in a week. Luckily they’re small and easy to keep out of sight, but with her mother holding her hand as they walk along the dock, she scrutinizes them closely.

Ochako doesn’t answer.

“What’d you do to hurt yourself, anyways?” her father interjects. “They’re weird marks.”

She shrugs on instinct, frowning at her arm in a manner that convinces the adults of her ignorance. Ochako has learned that this is her failsafe, the best way to avoid outright lying or telling truths that will take important things away from her.

“Try not to make them worse,” her mother adds softly. “You’ve never had this problem before.”

The girl nods, only half listening as the trio enters the market. Brown eyes spot her friends before glancing towards her mother, pleading.

“Can I talk to Hanta?”

The response is as usual: an apprehensive nod. “Don’t leave their table, okay?”

Ochako bounds over, openly grinning when she stands before the table. She turns to wave at her parents before shining eyes meet wide, black ones.

Black eyes that drop to her arm.

Her heart stutters, hesitating at the shock on Hanta’s face. He’s never looked so surprised.

“Woah,” is all he says. 

Koji doesn’t share his disbelief. Ochako watches them both, brow furrowing.

“You… the yellow one? At the southern shore?”

Her frown deepens as she shakes her head. “The river in the woods. I don’t know what color she is.”

“The river…” he trails off, turning to Koji.

The shorter boy responds with a nod and series of hand gestures. One includes him opening a balled fist, like sunrays flaring, or a blooming flower.

“That’s Musu land,” Hanta says, watching Koji’s hands as they continue dancing. “And freshwater. The Kono live in the ocean. Maybe she swims upshore for food, to avoid the boats.”

Kono, that word again. Ochako repeats it. “Where… where do they come from?”

Hanta shakes his head. “They’re people. Lost people.”

“People?”

“Usually kids. Younger than us.”

Ochako frowns. “But they become—” monsters, her brain continues. Beasts that incite fear and inflict pain. Though, only if you see them that way, if you choose to be afraid. “They become Kono?”

Hanta nods.

“Why do they change?”

He shrugs. “Sometimes the water is the only place you can go.”

Her frown deepens. What circumstances would force someone to the water, for it to be their only solace? What happened to Himiko for this to be her life—darting between river and sea, no choice but to drink from animals, to be reduced to skin and bones.

“Do they…” her eyes widen. “Can they turn back into people?”

Hanta blinks, processing the question. He doesn’t know.

Ochako wishes she could sit here forever, sharing questions with Hanta and Koji. They answer her freely, honestly. They admit when they don’t know. She wants to share more, to share the beauty she was shown, to ask if they have seen it too. Admiration waits on the tip of her tongue, descriptions of Himiko’s smile, the unexpected gentleness hiding in her claws and teeth.

She thinks they already know.

“Thank you,” she says instead, voice low and soft. “For teaching me.”

Hanta shakes his head. “You already knew.”

Ochako has hardly a moment to consider what that means when a commotion stirs at the entrance of the markets. A deep shout, followed by a thrum of voices chattering at once—panicking. Ochako frowns as the crowd shifts, people rushing by the table and forcing her closer to the boys.  A hand finds her arm, her father materializing to lift her on his hip.

“Sorry kid. It’s getting busy, so we’ll have to leave sooner than usual.” His voice is level, but he looks troubled.

“What happened?” she asks quietly, shifting in his arms. The crowd is thick around them. Her eyes don’t travel far. 

“Just Higa-san causing some excitement. He got something strange today.”

Ochako’s heart jolts, eyes scanning furiously. Her stomach sinks with the heaviness of an omen. Her father’s hand cups her hair—an attempt to redirect her attention. Her unease grows.

“I wanna see.”

“No you don’t.” His reply is rushed, unconvincing. Irritating. “We need to go.”

Ochako cranes her neck, wriggling in her father’s arms. He grunts, voice hardening. “Ochako—”

She sees it. Past the tables lining the square, towards the exit on the docks, stands a swarm of people. With her hand pressing on her father’s shoulder, she has the leverage to skim her eyes overhead and catch the center of their attention—Higa-san, face twisted in a victorious grin. It’s sinister, sending chills through her veins.

In his hand thrusting triumphantly in the air is an arm: mangy, green, coated in scales. Purple fins protrude along the side and claws hang from the end. It’s been severed at the bicep, a loose tangle of flesh and skin, stringy muscle with the sharp splinter of bone.

Ochako panics, breaths turning to the staccato of panting. The air doesn’t fill her lungs, leaving her chasing for more, hurried.

“Ochako—”

She screams, a blood curdling sound. Harsh and high, raspy, one that floods any adult with fear. Heads turn towards the sound, eyes catching her twisted face, reddening furiously and flooding with tears.

Her parents move, attempting to calm her with soothing words that she can’t hear. Her father runs a hand along her back as he continues for the closest exit, people freely parting to let them through. But it only pushes Ochako further, pulling another round of wails from the depths of her throat, spilling from the sickness in her stomach. The cries are broken and unrelenting. Hands touch her face. Her mother’s mouth moves to catch her attention, but Ochako misses every word, deafened by her own screams.

“---be okay. There’s—safe, only—in the water. … protect—”

Ochako’s face crumples further, eyes squeezing with pain. She knows what her mother is trying to say: that she’s safe, the danger is only in the water, that people are here to protect her from whatever that was.

Ochako wails, but not from fear.

Or at least, not the fear her mother thinks she feels.

She cries herself to sleep and wakes in her room, staring out the window as soon as her eyes flutter open. The sun hangs low, casting orange through the clouds. The smell of cooked fish rises from the crack beneath her door.

Ochako hardly eats before returning to bed. She waits as the moon’s fullness lifts above the trees and dots of yellow blink above the stream. As soon as her parents close their bedroom door, she runs into the night.

There is no flirtatious dance with the shore. Ochako stomps through the water, charging straight to the stones where Himiko usually waits. The ningyo is present, pressed against her usual rock. She freezes at Ochako’s erratic movements, alarmed. Before the creature can react, small hands and arms engulf her shoulders and torso.

Only now is the unease in Ochako’s stomach settled. Himiko is here, alive and in front of her.

Himiko’s head jerks, nuzzling itself into the nook of Ochako’s neck. The girl sobs.

Red fins flicker against the brunette’s skin. The ningyo shifts and Ochako panics, arms tightening on instinct. Himiko stills. Ochako continues to sob, one hand shakily moving to Himiko’s forearm, tracing the skin, squeezing the flesh. She’s intact, whole. Both arms. Skin and bone and fins.

Confused, Himiko mirrors her actions. She runs sharp nails over Ochako’s skin, scraping as they squeeze in return. The pain is stabbing, sharp, but Ochako welcomes it, leans further into the touch.

Himiko is here.

The girl’s cries don’t wane for a long time, but the ningyo never protests or makes for an escape. Instead she lays pliant, easily held as if she welcomes the worry.

A sharpness grazes Ochako’s collarbone, the base of her throat. The girl doesn’t flinch, one hand raising to nestle into pale strands of hair. Encouraging. When the teeth finally pierce her, the sting comes with a wave of relief, body falling limp with relaxation. With Himiko wrapped in her arms and buried in her flesh, Ochako is reminded that she has something to give.

When Himiko finishes she runs her tongue along the skin, lapping until the runs of scarlet are fully cleaned. It tickles, pulling giggles from the girl. Himiko makes a throaty sound in response, the vibrations running along Ochako’s throat.

Bodies still wound in a tangle of arms and legs and tail, Ochako finds the strength to pull her head from Himiko’s. Under the full strength of the moon, she sees details that were previously secrets: the touch of gold that seeps through Himiko’s skin and scales, shimmering in her irises and every strand of hair. The fins lining her body are deep crimson along the edge, like blood seeping from her veins. Himiko—true to name—is the embodiment of light. Ochako is lost in the way Himiko’s body shimmers under the moon, illuminating the growing plush of her cheek, the point of her teeth. 

Then Himiko blinks, and something sparkles.

Pink sprouts from the center of Himiko’s irises, blooming to settle in the rims. Rosiness dusts her hair, runs along the veins that trail from flesh to fin. When Ochako finds the will to look away from Himiko’s face, she finds the sparkles trail down to her claws, clustered in her nails. They run along her tail, fluttering through scales and pooling in her largest fin.

The sight is beautiful, impossible. Here by the water with the Ochako’s blood running through her body, Himiko glows. Her light holds its own against the strength of the moon, her own lantern to navigate wherever she yearns to be.

Ochako thinks she is witnessing magic.

Is this what everyone fears—so much they won’t even skim their fingers over the water? Himiko grins, the glint of a knife, before yanking Ochako’s arm to drag her deep into the darkness. Ochako does not resist, does not know how to resist. She only hopes that Himiko will not let her go.

Ochako bursts awake, sitting upright with a gasp. Dreams and reality dance through her mind, still hazy with sleep. A hand reaches for the base of her neck, right beneath the collar of her shirt. The raw skin stings beneath her fingers. It’s sticky, the residual ooze glistening when she pulls away.

She flops backwards with a sigh. Memories of Himiko bloom behind her eyes: her pretty grin, her tight embrace, the pink bioluminescence that scattered along her body. Her teeth, piercing through the skin of her throat.

Ochako exhales, hands fisting the blanket.

Eventually she stands, stealing a glance out the window while she tugs up her collar and makes for the kitchen.

Her mother prepares an omelet, laid neatly across fried rice at the base of the bowl. The egg unrolls perfectly when cut.

“Did you sleep okay Ocha-chan?”

She nods.

“You’ve been waking up later than usual,” her father notes. “Try not to stay up so late. You start school again this week.”

Ochako nods again.

“I’ll be working again,” her mother adds. “So we’ll both be gone when you come home. Are you interested in any clubs? Maybe it’d be good to have something to keep you at school.”

Ochako pauses, considering. Nothing comes to mind. She isn’t particularly interested in sports, and the other clubs usually have fees or requirements to buy supplies. She shakes her head. She would rather spend that time elsewhere—with Himiko.

“That’s fine,” her father answers. “The neighbors will be around if you need anything. Just stick to the usual rules, okay?”

Stay in the backyard, Ochako thinks. A promise routinely broken. She nods.

Her mother frowns. “Are you sure you don’t want to try anything? I don’t want you to get lonely if we get back late.”

Ochako watches her parents trade glances, uncertain what they mean. Her father is uncharacteristically relaxed. Her mother is unusually stressed, pushing.

“Let her do what she wants,” her father’s voice is firm. His brow furrows before his eyes widen. Ochako doesn’t know what that means, but her mother sighs and nods.

The air has a tension Ochako is not used to. She prods, curious. “Why are you working late?”

Her mother smiles tightly. “Just changes in the company. Don’t worry about it.”

The tension thickens.

After her first day back at school, Ochako returns to an empty house. The neighbor waves as she walks home, letting the girl know she can call if anything happens. Ochako hurries after nodding, running inside to drop her bag and change clothes. There is no hesitation as she treads outside, beyond the boundary of her home. No fireflies light her path—this time wandering under the heat of the sun. 

Inexplicably, Ochako intuits that Himiko knows she is coming. She crests the hill, panting and flustered. Brown irises scan the rocks, the water—water incredibly blue.

A head bursts from the plane, scattering ripples across its surface. Himiko, hair like starlight and eyes molten gold, bobbing towards the shore. Ochako grins, racing forwards.

They no longer rely on the moon to meet, neither the darkness she rests in or the bugs that carry her light. Himiko is a ritual to Ochako, now under the sun.

Ochako thinks this is how it was meant to be, that Himiko was made to be seen in her fullness, in the confidence of day. She’s easier to understand, to watch, to know. The depth of her colors are apparent, the flashes of gold and flushes of pink. She internalizes that light, shines it along her scales and fins when she leads Ochako through murk and shadow.

Maybe Himiko is a star, a sun. A source of light and warmth. 

(Of love.)

Ochako knows she should return home when red blooms along the horizon; her parents will be home in less than an hour. She turns to Himiko’s delicate frame, her soft face. 

“Thank you.”

She struggles to elaborate. This is a thanks that holds weight in its ambiguity. She wants to add, For depending on me. For trusting me. For sharing with me things that are special to you.

“Thank you,” Himiko parrots, words coated in the scratch of thirst.

Ochako swallows. She can’t tell whether Himiko understands the words or not, if this language means anything to a creature of salt and claws and blood. But Ochako thinks she understands what Himiko has buried in her speech.

For seeing me. For taking me under your care. For coming back, time and time again.

Himiko’s body fills out with time, flesh over bone thickening with sturdiness and strength. Smaller animals still find their way into her skin—the sharp curved shell of a horseshoe crab, the spots of flounder. But her face remains soft, kind.

One afternoon, when the sun hangs hot at an angle, Ochako only has a moment to appreciate the sight of Himiko before the ningyo pulls her from the bank of the river. They fall into the crystal of water, clear aquamarine. Himiko holds Ochako tightly, the girl squeezing with equal strength as she kicks her legs.

Ochako’s gaze follows the now familiar floor of the river: large stones smoothed by time, white and banded and broken. Like bones of an unfathomable giant that used to roam the earth. Tufts of grass peek through the cracks. Fish dart through the hairs, small and silver, glittering when a ray of sun catches their scales. 

They pass banks Ochako knows, stones that she holds fondness for, pockets along the shore that she recognizes as homes. Her eyes light with familiarity, catching sight of other creatures she has come to love.

The river is a second home.

Himiko leads Ochako further than they’ve been before. When the river widens as it winds around a hill, the stones grow into boulders. They line an opening beneath the bank, a set of ancient teeth framing a mouth of darkness. Himiko carries forward without pause. Ochako does not resist.

A minute stretches slowly, rolling like a stone against the current. Light shortly fades to blackness as the pair is swallowed by the cave. The water squeezes Ochako’s temples, ears popping when she adjusts her jaw. Stone wraps around them, faults and fragments jutting just out of reach. Ochako’s heart races, lungs tightening.

Darkness claims her vision for an instant before it blooms with pink. Himiko’s body glows, dust sparkling along her form. It illuminates the walls, the shadows of figures dancing as they carry forwards. 

Himiko is the light—she is Ochako’s compass and way. 

The water shifts, heavier against their bodies. A chill rushes over Ochako as Himiko twists through the channels. Her lungs start to burn.

Before air comes, Ochako has her first taste of sea. Salty, sweet. A light streams ahead and brown eyes widen, catching a rush of colors blooming beneath her. 

They slip through an opening, one that overwhelms Ochako with blue. Blue when she takes her first glimpse of the open water, blue when Himiko drags her through the surface to breathe. Ochako gasps, heaving deeply as she clutches to the ningyo—her lifeline. Her heart races, fueled by her desperate breaths, and rooted in the warnings she remembers before anything else: Stay away from the water. 

Danger, danger, danger, blares through her mind, punctuated by each erratic heartbeat. 

Himiko adjusts her grip, wrapping an arm around Ochako’s waist. The calamity quiets.

Ochako’s breaths slow and her body relaxes, eyes roaming with wonder. The pair float next to a cliff: a slab of dark rock jutting between sky and ocean. Though she’s never seen it from this angle, Ochako knows cliffs like these only exist in the south of the island. The face of the rock curves around them, hugging Himiko who holds Ochako. Along its surface are blooms of coral, lengths of kelp, seagrasses woven together. The rocks are a second shore beneath the surface, a forest for fish to bury themselves in, before dropping straight down.

Ochako’s stomach sinks, falling through the abyss below her. Heights have never been an issue, but floating here, above a depth she cannot fathom, her body buzzes with a fear she did not know she could feel. She latches onto Himiko for life. 

The ningyo holds her steady. Her tail sways to propel them around the face of the rocks—slowly, to let Ochako take in the force of blue, the lives that drift within it, depend on it. Wonder swallows her and steals every sense in her body, coating her eyes and squeezing her ears. Something aches in her chest, hollowing out her heart in a yearning to understand, to learn. Himiko’s touch helps to soothe the sting, but the pain lingers.

When they round the corner, they glide over reefs—rooted in an ocean floor. Ochako’s stomach eases at the sight of sand and stone beneath her. 

Her stomach drops again when she looks up. A figure bobs in the water ahead of them, a notable distance from the proper shore.

In a panic she clutches Himiko and kicks her legs. It’s a futile attempt to escape, to protect the ningyo from being spotted. The creature doesn’t budge, her tail much stronger in the water than Ochako’s legs. The human struggles, eyes wide in fear and confusion.

“Himiko—” she wails, breathy. Doesn’t she understand that she’s in danger?

Himiko looks at Ochako with equal confusion, head cocked. The girl frowns, sparing another glance at the figure in the water. Her breath catches.

The figure is Hanta, floating on a surfboard. His dark hair sticks against his head, lean frame covered by a sleeved shirt she does not recognize. His head twitches before turning towards the pair, large eyes meeting Ochako. He freezes, then grins. The contact only lasts another second before he paddles through a wave, board sliding against clear blue and towards the shore—where Koji sits in the sand, Ochako realizes.

A heaviness tugs at her heart. Her lips twist in a pout as she rests her head in the crook of Himiko’s neck. Her stomach hurts with something. Something like envy.

When the ningyo returns her to the bank of the river, Ochako soaked in her day clothes, words bubble up her throat without warning, spilling with urgency.

“I love you.”

Himiko’s fins flicker against her head. Her lashes flutter twice before a grin spans her face. All sharp, bright teeth.

“Love you,” she echoes, voice the smoothness of a pearl.

Ochako’s eyes pool with tears. Her chest and stomach hurt. She wants to hear Himiko say it again and again. Himiko’s voice makes the words mean something she’s never known before.

“Wish I could stay,” she whispers, searching for an answer. A lump forms in her throat.

“Stay,” Himiko whispers back.

But she can’t. So Ochako walks home, that lump in her throat never settling.

“Ocha-chan,” her mother starts at dinner—this one rare, before sunset. Alarm bells had blared through the girl’s body during the afternoon, alerting her to come home just in time for their arrival. “Your dad and I are planning a trip to Mie for winter break.”

She nods, scraping the rice at the bottom of her bowl. It's a tradition for their family to visit the Ise shrine. “For New Years?” 

Her mother hums in affirmation.

Ochako frowns, pausing mid-bite. Will Himiko be okay alone for that long?

“Ochako?”

Round eyes turn to her father’s wrinkled face.

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, just—will we be there the whole break?”

“Mhmm. Your mother and I need to take a couple trips to a couple cities we haven’t been before: Kameyama and Suzuka.”

Her brow furrows further. Her grandparents are in Matsusaka; they only ever visit the south of Mie or east, where her other extended family live. “What’s in Kameyama and Suzuka?”

“Some businesses we need to visit for work,” her mother answers. “But we can also visit some of the historical sites. I’d like to see the neighborhoods, too.”

“Okay.” It sounds boring to Ochako, and she doesn’t get why a neighborhood would be worthwhile to see. “Why do you need to visit for work?”

They make a few comments, but none of them feel like an answer.

The last time Ochako runs along the stream, she doesn’t bother changing from her uniform. After dumping her backpack by the door she makes a run for the woods. Urgency pulls her, a fish reeled along Himiko’s line.

She bursts from the thick of trees, shoes sliding against the pebbles as she slows. Her eyes dart anxiously across the shore, feet stuttering when they catch pale gold glimmering above a stone. She steadies herself, marching forwards while Himiko clutches the rock in tense arms. Ochako grins as the ningyo pulls itself to shore—

Ochako nearly slips down the bank. Her feet freeze while her eyes grow to full moons.

Himiko walks.

They’re shaky steps on unpracticed legs, but she rises. The ningyo—or now human—stands. Her figure is bare except for the water rolling down her skin. It glistens in the sun, daytime stars raining against her body. A human body. A body like Ochako’s, with sturdy legs and a round face. 

Ochako’s heart stutters, lips parted as Himiko inches closer, soft feet pressing sharp rock. She carries herself with uncertainty, alien in a body that she once knew well. The brunette takes one step forward, encouraging.

“Himiko.” The sound is hardly a breath, lungs emptied in awe.

Is this what love can do: transform creatures, let them take the parts of one another that bring them closer together? Ochako’s every step, her diligence to return—is this the result of her careful questions, her patience? It must be her blood running through Himiko’s body, her flesh covering her bones. Every taste of Ochako’s blood was a pact, the whisper of a swear.

A promise that brought them here.

Himiko continues with the shake of a fawn. Ochako watches carefully, stepping slowly. Patiently, always patiently waiting for her. But her heart thrums, buzzing all the way to her fingertips as she imagines meeting Himiko’s hands. Their fingers can interlace into a basket of tenderly woven flesh, letting Ochako pull Himiko along her own world—through grass and trees and sky.

Ochako can bring her home. She can bring her two homes together.

She holds her breath for Himiko’s final steps, speeding her own so they can meet in the middle. Her hands raise, palms facing the sun—facing Himiko’s reaching for her.

A sharp snap sounds from another part of the woods. A spear releasing, shooting across the bank to pierce Himiko’s back. Ochako flinches and Himiko screams, teeth bared and eyes shrunken in pain. The sound is cut a second later when her flesh dissolves midair, cells bubbling into red liquid that bursts, coating Ochako’s front and splattering the ground before her. She stumbles, arms still stretched as she collapses, knees bruising against Himiko’s stain.

Sounds erupt from the side, chaotic but muffled while Ochako’s lungs tighten. She heaves, half gags and half desperate gulps of air, as she frantically shoves her hands against the stones. The world is split, torn into two as she wails. Saltwater floods her vision, splattering against the spill of Himiko. 

Commotion follows. A hand grasps Ochako’s arm and she screams, thrashing in the hold of someone wearing two shades of blue—a police officer. She catches similar figures scattered throughout the shore, surrounding her. 

Her cries are deafening. Under the scorching light of the sun, her body is hot, too hot. The sizzling crack of lightning. She doesn't want to be touched. She wants Himiko. Himiko’s flesh, her own flesh, a body she had yet to understand and love in its entirety.

She blinks through her storm, vision clearing enough to spot Higa-san by an officer. He holds his speargun in hand, face twisted in that sinister grin of victory.

For all her questions about love, all her curiosities and her doubts, Ochako is certain when she sits atop Himiko’s melted remains. Staring at Higa-san through her pinched face, all Ochako knows is that this feeling in her chest and stomach—this tightness and sickening void—is her first experience of hatred.

[thatsbelievable]

[euphoricsleeplucidity]

Day two of that short series of Christmas-themed Murder Drones fics. I should mention right now that these are all loosely connected and also, Nuziv is the end game but I'm not tagging it for all of these because it isn't focused on until the very last one on Christmas.

ii. Christmas Tree

"N, you are going to topple it," Uzi grumbles, watching as he climbs up the tree. It's large, yeah, but it definitely wobbles as he climbs it, since it's not natural and the only thing actually holding it up is the fact the base is buried in the snow. She and V had sent him to go see if he can find a tree suitable for decorating - and he winded up bringing this thing back. Apparently, he had found it in an abandoned holiday store.

Safe to say, Uzi was impressed that he had managed to carry it all the way back here. They set it up just outside the corpse spire, the fake leaves bristling stiffly in the cold, windy air of Copper-9.

She watches as he finishes putting up the very last ornament along the spiral of Christmas lights, a proud smile on his face. Uzi finds it cute. Uh, not that she'd ever admit that out loud, of course.

"See? It didn't topple," N replies late, climbing back down it.

"Wait until later," V pipes up from beside Uzi, startling her. She didn't even see her come out, 'nor hear her walk up next to her.

She voices as much. "Where did you come from?"

"The pod," V answers without missing a beat, a hand on her hip.

Uzi groans. "No shit," she grumbles under her breath.

"Now we need to put this up!" N says eagerly, and Uzi looks back at him just in time to see him hold up a tree-topper - some type of star ornament, which shines brightly in the moonlight. It's actually quite pretty, the light of the moon hitting it just right to illuminate the more translucent spiky outer edges.

A hand at her back, and she's shoved forward, stumbling to catch herself so that she doesn't fall flat on her face.

"Really?" Uzi snaps, turning her head to glower at V, who looks at her with a toothy grin and smugness written all over her.

"What?" V acts innocent, cocking her head. "You want to do the honors, don't you?"

Before Uzi can berate her, tell her that she did not have to push her like that, N pipes up. "Yeah! Uzi, c'mere," his arms are outstretched, and Uzi can't help the smile that spreads across her face at how happy and excited he looks. It makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know he's enjoying their little Christmas festivities, even if it's just the three of them out here.

With a pep in her step, Uzi approaches and allows herself to be picked up and hoisted over his shoulder. He hands her the tree-topper, and carefully aligns her with the tree. Reaching up, she can just barely make it, her fingers touching the tip… a little further and… voilà! Uzi carefully settles the star at the top of the tree.

"Ta-da!" She giggles. N's energy is evidently infectious.

He brings her down and spins her around in his excitement, and though it's dizzying and he squeezes her a little too tightly, she returns the embrace and buries her face into his jacket to hide her blissful little grin.

[alternative-morenita]

1.0 - Dear Friend Across the River

ACT I | DEAR FRIEND ACROSS THE RIVER contents: prologue | 1.1 | 1.1.5 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 |

DEAR FRIEND ACROSS THE RIVER

"No!" Hyde's voice calls, drowned by the explosive release of the enforcer's bullet.

A plume of red with a dramatic yellow flashes before her wide, gold eyes that watch the pointed projectile penetrate her mother's chest. The white haired woman recoils, teeth gritting with pain before lowering her eyes at the masked officer with a pointed glare. With an animalistic snarl, she squares her shoulders and launches for the officer.

In hand, the dark skinned woman carried a twin pair of circular red and silver tainted steel weapons. She tosses the one in her right hand, bending her shoulder inwards with the throw. The disc shaped weapon soars through the red smoke in an arch before returning its way back down, slicing across the enforcer's chest. Embedding itself into blood stained ground of the bridge, the blade shines with amongst the carnage.

Grabbing a back up from the holster attached to the back of her jacket, the weapon leaps into the air with a savage cry as she brandishes her blades. Stumbling back, the enforcer clumsily reloads his rifle, head switching from their weapon to the Zaunite rebel. As she descends, their gun releases the jammed bullet and replaces it with an active round, locking in place with a deadly click. Confidently firming their stance, the enforcer fires three rounds into the woman.

MY HANDS ARE COLD AND BARE

Hiding behind a tipped over wagon, encased with the fog filled with death and gun smoke, Hyde watches her mother's death in horror. Her small, calloused hands tighten around her green and gold chakrams as her braced teeth grinding against one another. Her clenched jaw tightens, forcing the cheap metal wires to twist as some loosen, cutting across her gums. 

In a blind rage, the young girl runs from under the wagon and its blanket of corpses. Her small feet quietly slap against the ground, pushing against the helmet clad head of another enforcer that struggled to their feet. Using the involuntary boost, Hyde spins counterclockwise and releases the disc from her right hand at her mother's murderer. At the last minute, the enforcer turns from the white haired woman's body.

Their shoulders lurch with surprise and in a last desperate attempt tries to shoot the weapon away. Failing, they watch as the bullet bounces off the steel before fleeing. With their back turned, their fear of death grows as the blade seems to have fallen quicker than before. Their gloved hand reaches out to a body of nothingness just as the blade tears through their neck. 

DEAR FRIEND ACROSS THE RIVER

Landing on her feet, Hyde falls victim to her panic as her lungs fail to regulate her breathing. Between the smoke that wrapped itself around her throat and the bile that threatened to rise, the pre-teen withers in pain as she drops to her knees. Using her hands to catch herself, her bottom lip quivers as her gold eyes drown against the wave of tears that break from its hold.

Her small yet strong arms wrap around her dead mother's shoulders, gently turning the limp woman onto her back. Tentatively, her small digits brush across her mother's soft face that now carried a wrinkled yet peaceful expression -- a stark difference to the youthful mask she'd uphold for her children and the war-torn glare she had worn just moments before her death. 

I'LL TAKE WHAT YOU CAN SPARE

Hyde lays her forehead against her mother's, silently weeping. Glimpses of her brother's face flashes in her mind. The boy was only 6, he was barely a year old when their father passed thanks to the Grey and now Piltover has taken their mother. Hyde can't be a parent, she's fucking 13. She doesn't know how to play the role of mommy and daddy, she only knows how to be her.

Ahead of her, more enforcers make their way closer to the Hyde and her mother when a warm presence appears behind her. She turns, eyes widening as Vander looks down at them with wet eyes. Replacing his metal gauntlets were two girls, clutching onto him in desperation as their small bodies quiver with quiet sobs. 

I ASK OF YOU A PENNY

His bushy eyebrows furrow, eyes glazed with desperation and silent pleas. Her lips twist until finally, her head falls, conceding to his words. Quickly, the young girl grabs her mother's chakrams and her own that had strayed beside the beheaded officer. With a shared nod, the two take their solemn walk of back to Zaun. 

MY FORTUNE IT WILL BE

[thebrickinbrick]

The Heroes, Part One

All at once, the drum beat the charge.

The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, rude force had, moreover, been unmasked, the cannon had begun the roar, the army hurled itself on the barricade. Fury now became skill. A powerful detachment of infantry of the line, broken at regular intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal Guard on foot, and supported by serried masses which could be heard though not seen, debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, imperturbable under the projectiles, charged straight for the barricade with the weight of a brazen beam against a wall.

The wall held firm.

The insurgents fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane of lightning flashes. The assault was so furious, that for one moment, it was inundated with assailants; but it shook off the soldiers as the lion shakes off the dogs, and it was only covered with besiegers as the cliff is covered with foam, to reappear, a moment later, beetling, black and formidable.

The column, forced to retreat, remained massed in the street, unprotected but terrible, and replied to the redoubt with a terrible discharge of musketry. Any one who has seen fireworks will recall the sheaf formed of interlacing lightnings which is called a bouquet. Let the reader picture to himself this bouquet, no longer vertical but horizontal, bearing a bullet, buckshot or a biscaïen at the tip of each one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one after another from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it.

On both sides, the resolution was equal. The bravery exhibited there was almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity which began by the sacrifice of self.

This was the epoch when a National Guardsman fought like a Zouave. The troop wished to make an end of it, insurrection was desirous of fighting. The acceptance of the death agony in the flower of youth and in the flush of health turns intrepidity into frenzy. In this fray, each one underwent the broadening growth of the death hour. The street was strewn with corpses.

The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and Marius at the other. Enjolras, who carried the whole barricade in his head, reserved and sheltered himself; three soldiers fell, one after the other, under his embrasure, without having even seen him;

Marius fought unprotected. He made himself a target. He stood with more than half his body above the breastworks. There is no more violent prodigal than the avaricious man who takes the bit in his teeth; there is no man more terrible in action than a dreamer. Marius was formidable and pensive. In battle he was as in a dream. One would have pronounced him a phantom engaged in firing a gun.

The insurgents’ cartridges were giving out; but not their sarcasms. In this whirlwind of the sepulchre in which they stood, they laughed.

Courfeyrac was bareheaded.

“What have you done with your hat?” Bossuet asked him.

Courfeyrac replied:

“They have finally taken it away from me with cannon-balls.”

Or they uttered haughty comments.

“Can any one understand,” exclaimed Feuilly bitterly, “those men,—[and he cited names, well-known names, even celebrated names, some belonging to the old army]—who had promised to join us, and taken an oath to aid us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and who abandon us!”

And Combeferre restricted himself to replying with a grave smile.

“There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.”

The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that one would have said that there had been a snowstorm.

[marigold-hills]

Dunes & Waters, part 6

PART 1 • PREVIOUS PART • NEXT PART

They make it back to the hotel, but Remus isn’t sure how. They apparate. It must be quick, he knows, but feels like an age, the hotel impossibly far. He’s been so careful of touching silver he’s almost forgotten how singularity horrid it is. Worse from waiting too long, wasting time on the stupid, stupid argument.

Small mercies: Black is furious. Doesn’t talk on their way back and doesn’t argue when Remus says “I’m going to work. Don’t bother me,” and locks himself in his bedroom. There is no singing outside the door, obnoxious or otherwise. Remus is sure he’ll get punished for this somehow – maybe all his newly acquired cigarettes will be gone by morning, or maybe he’ll find his morning crossword ripped to shreds. It doesn’t matter, it’s a problem for after.

The problem for now is throbbing and red. There is blood smeared on his trousers where the burn rubbed off. Remus is singularity minded, always prepared. A large trunk hidden under his bed always on hand, always stocked full.

He lays out the copper pan on his desk, fills it up with charmed water, grateful he doesn’t need to leave the room or carry it. Finds his little vial of wolfsbane and tips three drops into the water. It shimmers purple, lavender. Hesitates with his hand above it. He knows it’s going to hurt.

He’s used to pain, in a way. Tells himself this is nothing. In two weeks, your skull will break apart to make way for the beast. But that’s the problem with it – this pain, he has a choice. Not a good one because choosing not to use the potion is still choosing pain (and he’s crying now, no sound but the tears won’t stop coming because he was actually quite enjoying the market, and the weather was lovely, and there were things he still wanted to eat and to buy, and his hand really fucking hurts).

It’s a matter of being brave and submerging his palm or being a coward and submitting to the pain he’s already feeling, and he hates himself, hates himself, and doesn’t choose the easy way.

It’s a near thing, a scream ripping itself out of his throat. The water bubbles, steams, removes the burnt skin away from his hand. It smells like nights of the full moon: blood and hurt and a cold forest floor. Remus remembers the days after the moon, when his mum was alive. The salve she would put onto new parts of his body the wolf had destroyed. Misses it, the way her hands would smell like care for days after. Feels stupid and small for aching for it so badly, like a child.

He doesn’t think anyone has touched him like that since her, not with such attention, each careful ministration with the singular purpose of making it easier for him. He thinks the last real hug he had was the day his father left. Maybe before. By then, Lyal was a shell of himself, so maybe the hug was just a shell of one, too.

The water turns a russet red. The bubbling stops. He can see though it now, to where his hand is stripped off skin, strangely pale like that of a corpse. Pallor mortis.

He’ll have to bandage it up. Keep it like that for a few days. Hope to keep away infections and unwelcome questions.

First he has to take it out of the water, and he remembers this from before, he knows: it’s going to hurt just as bad as it did going in.

NEXT PART

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