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mcmansionhell · 1 year

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this house may or may not be real

on grayness in real estate

Allegedly, somewhere in Wake Forest, North Carolina, a 4 bed, 5.5 bathroom house totaling more than 6,600 square feet is for sale at a price of 2.37 million dollars. The house, allegedly, was built in 2021. Allegedly, it looks like this:

A McMansion is, in effect, the same house over and over again - it's merely dressed up in different costumes. In the 90s, the costume was Colonial; in the 2000s, it was vague forms of European (Tuscan, Mediterranean), and in the 2010s it was Tudor, dovetailed by "the farmhouse" -- a kind of Yeti Cooler simulacra of rural America peddled to the populace by Toll Brothers and HGTV.

Now, we're fully in the era of whatever this is. Whitewashed, quasi-modern, vaguely farmhouse-esque, definitely McMansion. We have reached, in a way, peak color and formal neutrality to the point where even the concept of style has no teeth. At a certain moment in its life cycle, styles in vernacular architecture reach their apex, after which they seem excessively oversaturated and ubiquitous. Soon, it's time to move on. After all, no one builds houses that look like this anymore:

(This is almost a shame because at least this house is mildly interesting.)

If we return to the basic form of both houses, they are essentially the same: a central foyer, a disguised oversized garage, and an overly complex assemblage of masses, windows, and rooflines. No one can rightfully claim that we no longer live in the age of the McMansion. The McMansion has instead simply become more charmless and dull.

When HGTV and the Gaineses premiered Fixer Upper in 2013, it seemed almost harmless. Attractive couple flips houses. Classic show form. However, Fixer Upper has since (in)famously ballooned into its own media network, a product line I'm confronted with every time I go to Target, and a general 2010s cultural hallmark not unlike the 1976 American Bicentennial - both events after which every house and its furnishings were somehow created in its image. (The patriotism, aesthetic and cultural conservatism of both are not lost on me.)

But there's one catch: Fixer Upper is over, and after the Gaineses, HGTV hasn't quite figured out where to go stylistically. With all those advertisers, partners, and eyeballs, the pressure to keep one foot stuck in the rural tweeness that sold extremely well was great. At the same time, the network (and the rest of the vernacular design media) couldn't risk wearing out its welcome. The answer came in a mix of rehashed, overly neutral modernism -- with a few pops of color, yet this part often seems omitted from its imitators -- with the prevailing "farmhouse modern" of Magnolia™ stock. The unfortunate result: mega-ultra-greige.

Aside from war-mongering, rarely does the media manufacture consent like it does in terms of interior design. People often ask me: Why is everything so gray? How did we get here? The answer is because it is profitable. Why is it profitable? I'd like to hypothesize several reasons. The first is as I mentioned: today's total neutrality is an organic outgrowth of a previous but slightly different style, "farmhouse modern," that mixed the starkness of the vernacular farmhouse with the soft-pastel Pinterest-era rural signifiers that have for the last ten years become ubiquitous.

Second, neutrals have always been common and popular. It's the default choice if you don't have a vision for what you want to do in a space. In the 2000s, the neutrals du jour were "earth tones" - beige, sage green, brown. Before that, it was white walls with oak trim in the 80s and 90s. In the 70s, neutrals were textural: brick and wood paneling. We have remarkably short memories when it comes to stylistic evolution because in real time it feels incremental. Such is the case with neutrals.

Finally, the all-gray palette is the end logic of HGTV et al's gamified methodology of designing houses with commodification in mind: if you blow out this wall, use this color, this flooring, this cabinetry, the asking price of your house goes up. You never want to personalize too much because it's off-putting to potential buyers. After twenty years of such rhetoric, doesn't it make all the sense in the world that we've ended up with houses that are empty, soulless, and gray?

A common realtor adage is to stage the house so that potential buyers can picture their own lives in it. In other words, create a tabula rasa one can project a fantasy of consumption onto. Implied in that logic is that the buyer will then impose their will on the house. But when the staged-realtor-vision and general-mass-market aesthetic of the time merge into a single dull slurry, we get a form of ultra-neutral that seems unwelcoming if not inescapable.

To impose one's style on the perfect starkness is almost intimidating, as though one is fouling up something untouchable and superior. If neutrality makes a house sell, then personality - at all - can only be seen as a detriment. Where does such an anti-social practice lead us? Back to the house that may or may not exist.

In my travels as McMansion Hell, I've increasingly been confronted with houses full of furniture that isn't real. This is known as virtual staging and it is to house staging as ChatGPT is to press release writing or DALL-E is to illustration. As this technology improves, fake sofa tables are becoming more and more difficult to discern from the real thing. I'm still not entirely sure which of the things in these photos are genuine or rendered. To walk through this house is to question reality.

Staging ultimately pretends (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) that someone is living in this house, that you, too could live in it. Once discovered, virtual staging erases all pretensions: the house is inhabited by no one. It is generally acknowledged (though I'm not sure on the actual statistics) that a house with furniture - that is, with the pretense of living -- sells easier than a house with nothing in it, especially if that house (like this one) has almost no internal walls. Hence the goal is to make the virtual staging undiscoverable.

If you want to talk about the realtor's tabula rasa, this is its final form. Houses without people, without human involvement whatsoever.

But what makes this particular house so uncanny is that all of these things I've mentioned before: real estate listing photography, completely dull interiors and bland colors all make it easy for the virtual furniture to work so well. This is because the softness of overlit white and gray walls enables the fuzzy edges of the renderings to look natural when mixed with an overstylized reality. Even if you notice something's off in the reflections, that's enough to cause one to wonder if anything in the house is real: the floors, the fixtures, the moulding, the windows and doors.

This is where things are heading: artifice on top of artifice on top of artifice. It's cheap, it's easy. But something about it feels like a violation. When one endeavors to buy a house, one assumes what one is viewing is real. It's one thing if a realtor photoshops a goofy sunset, it's another to wonder if anything in a room can be touched with human hands. I won't know what, if any, part of this estate costing over 2 million dollars actually exists until I visit it myself. Perhaps that's the whole point - to entice potential buyers out to see for themselves. When they enter, they'll find the truth: a vast, empty space with nothing in it.

The better this rendering technology gets, the more it will rely on these totally neutral spaces because everything matches and nothing is difficult. You are picking from a catalog of greige furniture to decorate greige rooms. If you look at virtual staging in a non-neutral house it looks immediately plastic and out of place, which is why many realtors opt to either still stage using furniture or leave the place empty.

Due to the aforementioned photography reasons, I would even argue that the greigepocalypse or whatever you want to call it and virtual staging have evolved simultaneously and mutualistically. The more virtual staging becomes an industry standard, the more conditions for making it seamless and successful will become standardized as well.

After all, real staging is expensive and depends on paid labor - selecting furniture, getting workers to deliver and stage it, only to pack it back up again once the property is sold. This is a classic example of technology being used to erase entire industries. Is this a bad thing? For freelance and contract workers, yeah. For realtors? no. For real estate listings, it remains to be seen. For this blog? Absolutely. (Thankfully there is an endless supply of previously existing McMansions.)

The thing is, real estate listings no longer reflect reality. (Did they ever to begin with?) The reason we're all exasperated with greige is because none of us actually live that way and don't want to. I've never been to anyone's house that looks like the house that may or may not exist. Even my parents who have followed the trends after becoming empty nesters have plenty of color in their house. Humans like color. Most of us have lots of warmth and creativity in our houses. Compare media intended for renters and younger consumers such as Apartment Therapy with HGTV and you will find a stark difference in palate and tone.

But when it comes to actually existing houses - look at Zillow and it's greige greige greige. So who's doing this? The answer is real estate itself aided by their allies in mass media who in turn are aided by the home renovation industry. In other words, it's the people who sell home as a commodity. That desire to sell has for some time overpowered all other elements that make up a home or an apartment's interiority to the point where we've ended up in a colorless slurry of real and unreal.

Fortunately, after ten years or so, things begin to become dated. We're hitting the ten year mark of farmhouse modernism and its derivatives now. If you're getting sick of it, it's normal. The whole style is hopefully on its last leg. But unlike styles of the past, there's a real, trenchant material reason why this one is sticking around longer than usual.

Hence, maybe if we want the end of greige, we're going to have to take color back by force.

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#architecture #design #2010s #mcmansion #mcmansion hell #nc #2021 #essay

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luveline · 10 months

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hi sweetheart , ur amazing , was wondering if you could write an eddie & roan fic , where whereas eddie was in the hospital that one time , its r’s turn , not to serious but definitely something youd fine yourself worrying about ! and ed and roanie r so worried , sorta like the scene from the work trip 🥹

PLS i love u angel

thank you for your request, ilove u! eddie and roan —dad!eddie juggles his daughter roan, nearly step mom!you, and his own rollercoaster emotions when you end up in hospital for a few days. 4k

cw hospital stay, seizure recovery, temporary paralysis

Eddie's never been this tired in his entire life, and he can't sleep.

He looks up at his bedroom ceiling (your ceiling, your house), hands under his back in the same clothes he wore yesterday. She'll worry if I show up looking like a slob, he thinks eventually, getting up to shower. The last thing he wants to do when he can't take care of you is take care of himself, but he has to, because that's what you'd want if you were home.

Roan is stirring by the time he's dressed again. He tugs his socks on and walks across the landing, residual steam from the bathroom warming the air, his hair dripping a cool path down his back.

He creeps over a mess of things that hasn't been touched in two days. Roan's eyes fly open at the sound, but she sees him and they squint to a more sluggish expression, little hands rubbing sleep from her eyelashes.

Eddie thinks maybe she thought he was you.

"Hey, bubby," he says, as loving and bubbly as he can manage, "did you have a nice sleep?"

"Can we go see Y/N now?" she asks hoarsely.

Eddie sits on the side of her bed and pulls her effortlessly into his lap. She's boiling from the sheets, her hair curled tight at her neck from the heat.

"Remember what I said yesterday about visiting hours?" He strokes hair from her face gently, an arm wrapped around her waist to say I'm here. "They won't let us in until nine, and it's not eight yet."

He drops his nose into her hair.

"Maybe we can go get a really yummy breakfast," he suggests, thinking about you. You're probably awake, and if he's lucky you've eaten your own breakfast, but it's more likely you've refused it if you're as lethargic as you were yesterday.

"I don't want diner burgers anymore," Roan says.

Eddie gives her a kiss and her back a rub. "No, I bet you don't. Sorry, sweetheart, it's not nice having the same foods for two days in a row, is it? That's my fault."

"It's okay. Let's make waffles."

He kisses her forehead, taking a contemplative breather, just the two of them in their quiet house, her body a familiar weight in his lap. The sun is up and shining through her window, sunlight across the floor and her spilled toybox. It doesn't quite reach them on the bed, and Eddie snorts at it. Of course it doesn't. Home without you isn't sunny.

"Waffles," he agrees.

They make waffles with leftover strawberries and squirty cream. Roan is perky enough to want to have some straight from the can, giggling a storm when he plops a dollop of it onto her nose. He gets her ready as she eats, brushing her knotty hair and changing her pyjamas for a striped long sleeve shirt, wool leggings, and a dungaree dress you'd begged him to buy for her. The front pocket sports a small embroidered Russian doll.

She should've had a bath, but it's getting on, and Eddie wants to get to Hawkins General dead on visiting time. She's not dirty, just her hair isn't as nice as it could be. He figures the universe will forgive him.

He really has to see you.

Getting Roan into the car rehashes a fresh memory. The day before yesterday… things should've been normal. Eddie was walking out of the shop, keys swinging around his finger ready to see his girls for your usual Friday plans: movies on the couch until one or all of you falls asleep. He's thinking kettle corn, a sheet of a dozen donuts, a gallon of Roan's favourite grapefruit juice and maybe another punnet of strawberries so she can dip them in chocolate and sugar.

But Wayne jogged out after him calling his name. There was a phone call from your work, your coworker frantic.

Eddie blinks and shoves his keys into the car, listening to the engine sputter, trying to focus. A tonic-clonic seizure, seven minutes counted before it stopped. You were already in the ambulance when they called.

"What do I do?" Eddie'd asked, frozen to the spot. His heart pounding unsteadily in his chest, the image of you in convulsions behind his eyes. "What do I–"

"You go to the hospital," Wayne said, because of course that's what he had to do.

Wayne vowed to pick up Roan and Eddie got in the car. His hands shook so bad he couldn't turn the key at first, but he managed it, and he got to Hawkins General in one piece, and he didn't panic at the reception desk asking if you'd been checked in yet.

Eddie doesn't think he'd described you as looking small before, but you looked small. They laid you out in a snug bed with square orange stickers on your head, chest, and arms, unconscious. You didn't wake up for hours.

And that was normal, Eddie reminds himself now, the car huffing and puffing its way down roads he's been driving on for almost a decade now on autopilot. You had a standard generalised tonic-clonic seizure. It started from nowhere, though they later found your blood sugar had been very low. That was deemed the cause. Eddie blames himself for it in a hundred different ways, remembering that morning, how he'd made you late for work cuddling you when you should've been getting ready.

You skipped breakfast. He thought you'd have something on the way, but you never did.

It's my fault, he thinks, then and now, the same thought that's plagued him for three days.

"Do we wanna talk about how we feel today?" Eddie asks, tearing himself away from the aching remembered fear and back into the present. Five minutes until he gets to see you again, until he knows for sure you're alright.

"I feel okay. I want to see mom."

"We're almost there. You have your flowers from the back yard?"

Roan waves her picked daisies at him assuredly. Eddie hadn't thought to buy you flowers. He could barely manage the essentials; pyjamas, toothpaste and lip balm. He forgot to get you a toothbrush. He forgot underwear —he had to go back to the store. It was a disaster.

"What about scary feelings?" Eddie asks softly, reaching back to make a grab for her knee.

"You said she's okay now." Roan sits forward. "What if her arms stop working again?"

It was only one arm. You could've come home yesterday if you hadn't been experiencing a weakness called 'Todd's Paresis', a paralysis of the limbs. You slowly regained functionality of it throughout the day, but your headache and confusion remained.

Eddie thinks that was the worst part. You, in bed, crying because you didn't understand. His eyes burn and well with tears every time he thinks about it. Eddie, I feel sick, you'd mumbled tearfully, reaching for his arm, smudging his tattoos between your careless fingers, I don't know what's– why are we here?

But you were genuinely going to be fine, even if you were scared. In the same way Eddie's going to be okay, and Roan will be, too, as long as he makes sure this isn't hurting her as it's happening.

"Baby, I promise you her arms won't stop working again. When she had the seizure," —he doesn't like using a big word like that with her, only there's no alternative and she needs to know— "her brain was confused. It was confused for a couple of hours, 'n' when she woke up her body needed time to catch up." He doesn't know how true it is, but it's for Roan to understand her feelings, not to help her medicinal education. "When we said goodnight she could wave bye to us, yeah? So don't worry about mommy's arm."

"I'm worried about mommy's everything."

"Yeah?" Eddie feels a mixture of stress at her admission and relief as the hospital parking lot creeps into view. "You want to tell me?"

"What if she gets another one?"

"Another seizure?" Eddie asks, turning the wheel. All he has to do is drive into the lot and find a space without crashing.

"Will she have to come back to hospital?" Roan asks.

"Yeah, she would have to come back. But… okay, sometimes, people have lots of seizures all the time, and they aren't dangerous. Sometimes they are dangerous," he amends. "But lots of the time they're not. So if she did have more, I would make sure she didn't get hurt and we would have to be brave all over again. We can do that, can't we?"

He parks the car.

Roan doesn't look as though his explanation helped. Eddie's running on an empty tank, scrubbing his hands through half dried hair and wishing he was better at this. He gets out of the front seat and opens her door, unclicking her straps, helping her down onto her feet.

"Babe, I forgot your jacket," he says, surprised at himself as he realises she only has two layers. "Are you cold?"

She holds out her arms and assesses for herself. "I think so."

"You'll have to come inside my hoodie. Shall we do that?" he asks with a grin.

Eddie picks Roan up, has her cling to his neck, and zips his hoodie up over her body, their head sticking out of the hole all squished together. She's a laughing mess as they cross the lot and head into the main building of the hospital, infectiously happy as she calls him, "so silly, daddy."

They do look silly, but Eddie's glad he forgot her jacket. It's nice to hear her laughing like that after such a tough weekend, far from the one he'd pictured.

He tries to set her down after they've entered the elevator, but she won't go. He holds her tighter instead.

"We're going to be nice and quiet on the ward 'cos there are other grown ups here, and some of them are in a lot of pain," he reminds her.

"We should've brought flowers for everybody."

"How many do you have, sweetheart?" he asks, watching the floor number tick upward.

"I have, um." She pulls her hand back from his neck, four rumpled daisies choked in her fingers. "No, I can't give them to everyone else, I only have enough for mommy."

Eddie's noticed a very high ratio of 'mommy' when compared to Roan's usual mix these last few days. If anyone asks who her mom is she says it's you enthusiastically, but if she's talking to you face to face she'll call you whatever she feels like. Mom tends to come out more when she's tired, when she's feeling adored, or when she's upset, but that isn't to say she won't call you mom at random moments. Why is the window glass all blurry, mom? I didn't 'member to feed Lucky, mommy, you have to get the fish food. Mom, I need more soda.

Roan was too old when you met to mistake you for her mother. You're growing into the title. Roan's growing into using it.

"That's okay. You keep them all for mom," he whispers.

"We won't show anyone so they don't feel left out," she whispers back.

"Good plan."

When Wayne brought Roan by the first night, she was just happy to see you both. Unlike when Eddie burned his arm, you weren't alert enough to be in any pain, and so she didn't have to be scared of that. Wayne kept his cool when he picked her up, mitigating most of the panic she probably would've felt had Eddie been there. She wasn't happy to see you unwell, but she wasn't scared. She hasn't cried.

Eddie knows from experience that a lack of tears now doesn't mean they aren't coming.

You're sitting up in bed, showered, in a fresh pair of pyjamas with a cup of coffee held between two strong hands. You have a magazine on your knee. Even your hair looks nice. It's a goddamn miracle in Eddie's eyes —he nearly drops Roan.

"My Munsons!" you say happily, putting your coffee on the tray table wheeled over your bed. "What the heck, you told me you'd be here at nine and it's nine oh seven. I thought we loved each other?"

Oh thank fucking God, Eddie thinks. You're okay. You sound yourself again, no pain, no hazy confusion.

"You're conjoined," you say, smiling.

Eddie scrambles to unzip his jacket. Roan throws herself out of his arms and on to the end of your bed. You push your tray table and coffee sloshes everywhere in your rush to make room for her.

"Good morning," she says, slamming into you. Eddie winces at her force, and Roan must recognise her brutality, saying, "Sorry, I hugged you hard."

"That's okay, I like hard hugs," you say, wrapping your arms around her.

Eddie gets his knee on the mattress to grab you both in his own hug. Tears burn in his eyes. He doesn't have the wherewithal to blink them back, dropping his lips to your forehead. "I was so worried," he says, unable to hide how high and fraught his voice is.

"Eddie," you murmur softly. "My love, it's okay. I'm just fine, you didn't have to worry about me."

"But I did, you were–" He clears his throat. "I love you."

"I love you too," you say, your hand crawling up his front. You curve your palm around his neck. "Baby, I'm so sorry."

Eddie laughs and sniffs, sitting back on your bed to wipe his eyes with his wrist. His hands are shaking. "It's okay, it's alright. I don't want you sorry for nothing. We just wanted you to get better. Isn't that right, Ro?"

Roan picks her head up from your neck, tears pumping down her face.

Eddie's heart hurts seeing it, even if he was expecting it. You, on the other hand, hadn't had that foresight. You look at her like she's split you clean in two.

"Princess, what's the matter?" you implore, cuddling her back into your chest. "I know it's really scary being here, lovely girl, I know. It's okay."

Roan doesn't explain herself, just sobs little sobs into your shirt, clutching you as though she's worried you'll push her away.

Eddie puts his hand on her back.

"I'm sorry," you say softly, sounding weak yourself.

"Don't be sorry, are you kidding? It was my fault," Eddie says.

"What?"

"I made you late, you didn't eat breakfast–"

"Eddie–"

"Don't fucking say sorry–"

"Eddie," you say again, rubbing Roan's back. You give him a soft look.

"Sorry," he says. He takes a big breath, victim of an overflow of emotion.

Eddie slides further up the bed to get a better hold on Roan where she's being hugged. "I'm very sorry for cussing, baby. How are you feeling, huh? Happy to see mommy with both arms, is that it?"

"So happy," she sobs, pushing her lips closer to your ear and her flowers into your neck. "I brought you flowers to help you get better but you're better already."

Eddie doesn't know what to do besides pat her back and cling to you.

After a big healthy cry fest, you lay back in your pillows with Roan propped against your front, speaking at a much more acceptable volume considering your three neighbours in the room. You rub her back with one hand and feed her hard pretzels with the other, passing your pinky finger over her cheeks as a makeshift handkerchief to collect the last of her tears. Her daisies wilt in a cup of fruitless water on the nightstand.

"Is that what all the fuss was about? You worried daddy wasn't gonna enable your snack addiction?" you ask fondly,

"Dad gives me lots of snacks. We had Benny's two times yesterday and then we had ice cream with every topping for after dinner."

"I'm glad he's been spoiling you," you say.

"Too much Benny's, wasn't it?" Eddie prompts, meeting your eyes with a bemused grin, his head twitching with a headache that doesn't fit the mood. "She said to me before breakfast she didn't want any today. We had waffles in the waffle maker and blueberries and strawberries."

"With squirty cream," Roan says, opening her mouth wide for another pretzel.

You indulge her and feed her.

"You didn't enjoy burgers for lunch and dinner?" you ask.

"We had Reuben sandwiches and loaded fries for dinner, it wasn't as torturous as it sounds."

"It sounds delicious," you say, kissing Roan's pale forehead. "I wish I'd been there to steal all the bacon bits off of your fries. Now I'm better, maybe we can go and have them again, give me a fighting chance."

"No!" Roan says with a laugh.

"No? So selfish, Ro, you know I want whatever you're eating." You kiss her crown and adjust your arms around her.

"Now you're better, I think we should have the, um, the special curry dad makes with rice and peas."

"Oh, yeah?" Eddie asks. "Mom's better so dad can go back to his life of serfdom. That's awesome."

In actuality, Eddie would make you complicated, exhausting meals multiple times a day for the rest of your life if it meant you didn't end up here again. He has a strict breakfast plan forming in his mind as you speak.

"They said they were gonna check me one last time and if I'm okay I get to go home. Soon as the doctor can come and see me and make sure I look okay," you say, planing a pretzel past her mouth and into your own with a self satisfied smile.

"You look beautiful," Eddie says, squeezing your knee.

"Dad! I was going to say that!" Roan stands up from your lap and pushes him. "You steal everything!"

"I do not!

"You do! You stole my strawberry at breakfast and you took my soda straw last night!"

"I did do both of those things but that doesn't mean I steal everything," Eddie says, looking up into her face happily.

She has fire behind her eyes, even though her lashes are still wet and clumped together from her earlier tears. Roan harrumphs at him. "You do. You stole one of my gingersnap cookies–"

"Baby, those were mine. Uncle Wayne got them for me 'cos they're my favourites and I was upset," he says, laughing.

"Well. Why did you let me have them?"

Eddie finds her hand to roll her fingers. "Because I'm good at sharing, something you never learned how to do."

"Don't listen, bubby," you say, tipping pretzels into your mouth. "You're a good sharer."

In the end, the doctor comes by and tells you to stay until the shift changes for a last set of observations. Eddie and Roan stay just past visiting hours to wait with you, Roan now firmly wedged in his lap, you with his hoodie over your shoulders. In all the chaos, he didn't remember to bring your jacket either.

"This is why we're getting married," you say.

"Why, so someone remembers to put jackets on you both?" he asks ruefully, Roan in his lap, your bag packed and ready to go at your feet.

"No…" You tip your head toward your shoulder a touch. "Because you've done such a good job looking after me, sweetheart. You really have. Thank you for taking care of me."

"I think the hospital did all the looking after," he says.

He tries uselessly to shove down that awful feeling again. The memory of you prone in bed with your IV and your heart monitor beeping. It felt like it was beating behind his eyes.

It's easier to forget now you're feeling almost one hundred percent again. Your hand at his elbow, in your nice white and blue pyjamas, content to be going home again.

"That's not true… I can't imagine how tired you are right now. If it were you in here, for three days…"

"Only two," he says. "Today doesn't count."

"It absolutely counts."

You pout for a kiss that Eddie eagerly gives you. He kisses you, your cheek, your ear, a line of gratitude because he doesn't care how tired he is or how hard this was. You're better. You can rest at home.

"I'd be a mess. Don't feel bad about the jackets or start thinking you did a bad job," you say, combing your fingers through his hair. You scoot back to look him in the eye, a ridiculous amount of fondness lining your own, your pinched brows. "You did awesome. A-plus for everything."

"It's not over," he says, stroking Roan's arm where she squirms in his lap, bored. "You're on bed rest, I don't care what the doctor says. And you're taking time off work. Promise me."

"Promise," you say, holding your hands up.

"Can I have the time off too from school?" Roan asks.

Her big doe eyes and her tiny frown would convince him if he hadn't already thought about it.

He squeezes her chubby cheeks in his palms. "You need a few days to feel better," he agrees.

"Really?" she asks with a gasp.

"Yeah, really. You've been really, really brave." He kneads her cheeks gently. "You're such a good girl. You're my brave girl."

"Super brave," you agree, cheek on Eddie's shoulder.

Roan sits back with a proud shrug, arms wrapping around her stomach. "I was a bit brave."

Eddie chucks her under the chin with his knuckle. You get discharged a little while later, Roan and Eddie like a small parade pushing your wheelchair. You hate the attention, complaining to the nurse lightly that you can walk to the car without falling. No one wants to hear it.

"You're legally required to take it easy for a few days," Eddie says. "You promised me."

You slump back in the chair. "Fine. Ro, come and sit in my lap, at least? This hospital is a maze, I need company while they find our way out."

Roan loves that idea. She sits on your knees, back to your chest, your hands around her waist like a seatbelt.

"Can I push her the rest of the way? I'm sure you're busy," Eddie says to the nurse. He says it so nicely, so politely, that despite his tattoos and his long hair, she doesn't put him in the 'hooligan' box as people tend to do. She hands you over.

Eddie waits for her to round the corner before ducking down, your backpack in the crook of his elbow, hands tightening around the wheelchair handles.

"Girls. You better hold on tight. I'm sick of this place and we're leaving right now."

"Don't you dare."

"All arms in the ride?" he asks, charging up his push. He takes a preparatory step back. "On three. One, two–"

"Three!" Roan shouts.

Eddie races you down the hallway, your nervous laughter so loud it bounces off of every wall on the way out.

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diodellet · 4 months

Note

Advanced Happy Valentine’s Day, bestie!! For your event, can I pls request Capitano #9, Pantalone #13, and Dottore #20?? I’ll let you decide if you want to attack me with sugar or spice (*´꒳`*)

💌Capitano + Prompt #9 ("When I am with you I am real." (x)

Some days, you find yourself reminiscing about your past. The time before you were brought to Snezhnaya. Those days felt no different from the fairytales you liked to immerse yourself in, at times unpleasant to remember, but ultimately, just a dream. A mere memory. And isn’t that a good thing? To leave your lonely past behind?

Unbeknownst to you, the Captain finds himself caught off-kilter in the precious idyllic moments that he shares with you. The rare light of your smile is warm, a ray of sunlight gently erasing any trace of the ever-present ice that permeated Snezhnaya. And isn’t that a good thing too? To be reminded of his own fallibility as a human, as a man with a cherished lover? No amount of prestige, no title, nor victory could hold as much weight as the simple joy of being able to return to your side.

You’re currently seated in his lap, reading a newly purchased anthology of classic Fontaine fairytales, artfully translated into Snezhnayan. Capitano has one arm around your waist, he has already reached the end of the page. He estimates that you’ll turn to the next one in a few more moments. Or you could just ask him to help you translate that difficult paragraph.

But he won’t overstep.

“...Poor girl,” you whisper, flipping the page and adjusting your hold on the book.

“Why do you say that?” Capitano asks,

“...Isn’t it obvious? She died, cold and hungry. It’s pitiful.” And in that response, there is a note of self-derision.

He can’t disagree with that observation. “That is how she appears to onlookers in the end.” Capitano’s free hand encompasses yours as he helps you hold up the book. “Though one cannot disregard her joy in her final moments, however fleeting it was.”

Was it so wrong to linger in—no, to savor—this dreamlike reality?

You’re silent for a while, hand resting limply in his. Until he feels your fingertips skim the lines of his palm before loosely entangling with his. “I suppose one cannot.”

💌Pantalone + Prompt #13 ("If soulmates do exist, they’re not found, they’re made."(x) ++mild spice (of the body worship variety) if you squint

It should be a marker of praise, it should make you feel pleased to hear passersby and acquaintances and business associates praising you as the Regrator’s wife.

And you do, you muster a gracious smile in response. Press yourself against Pantalone’s side and hope that the rest of your body language doesn’t give away the pinprick of nervousness that passes through you.

They sounded just like when you first got engaged. Devoid of well-wishes, a mere platitude.

Your husband is the epitome of grace and propriety, effortlessly redirecting the conversation to the hosts. Asking about their recent vacation and laughing politely at the same anecdotes they’ve rehashed for the third time.

(Yours, in comparison, sounds weak, strained, fake.)

You feel the slightest reassuring squeeze against your hand. There’s a flicker of something gentle in Pantalone’s gaze as he glances over at you and that’s enough for you to recenter yourself.

It is in the safety of your home that you can let yourself breathe. Only in his touch do you find solace as his partner. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re completely bare in his company. When he lays his ungloved palms against your body, the buzz of your thoughts and the holes in your memories all fade away.

An amused smile quirks at Pantalone’s lips as he pulls away from the tender kiss you share. You apologize out of reflex.

His expression softens. “No, no need for that, my dear. I was merely… surprised with your sudden affection.”

“You… you’re not mad about a while ago?”

Pantalone hushes you, stopping your self-admonishment. “The event is already over. You do not have to worry about it anymore.” The rough, callused skin of his hands sends a shiver through your frame. “Will you let me reward you?” he asks.

At your small nod, his touch drifts lower.

Yes, all that mattered was entrusting yourself to him.

💌Dottore + Prompt #20 ("They say we are asleep until we fall in love."(x)

Alongside the lantern’s light, there are fireflies dotting the landscape and edge of the water’s surface. Right in front of you is a Nilotpala Lotus in full bloom under the moonlight. This specimen isn’t as large as its neighbors, but there’s something in the gentle glow that it emits…

“You were supposed to return ten minutes ago.” A sharp voice calls from behind you.

“Gah!” In your surprise, your pencil drops into the water. Shame coating your expression, you turn to face Dottore. Whatever excuse you had prepared dies in your throat.

“...Well?” He isn’t donning his Fatui mask.

“I already completed my other objectives…” And you got a bit nostalgic on the way back to the lab. Which was half-true, surprisingly. Returning to the rainforests of Sumeru ended up becoming more pleasant than you expected.

“...Hm. I did not think you would be so keen on revisiting Nilotpala lotuses.” Dottore muses, somehow your sketchpad had transferred into his hands.

“Hey—those aren’t finished!” And even as you protest, your superior easily dodges your attempts to grab it back. “They’re just some useless doodles!”

At that, Dottore lightly taps the back of your sketchpad against the top of your head. “I will be the judge of that, my dear assistant.”

This felt no different from the all-nighters you used to spend with Zandik. Trailing after him like a dog as he marked your notes, inevitably submitting to the call of the night and letting him hear out your worries, and of course, the brief moment of complete lucidity, fatigue siphoned from your bones, feeling like you were the sole inhabitants of the world.

“Your attention to detail is exquisite,” he remarks in a soft voice, lightly tracing the lines of your sketch with a finger, careful not to smudge the graphite.

Your annoyance wanes, leaving warmth in its absence. “Thanks…” You glance back at the blossom, small but humming with light. An insignificant, inconsequential part of nature, yet utterly free and alive.

You’ve never been more glad to bear witness.

a/n: AHIHI HAPPY VALENTINES DAY BESTIE!! i hope i did the darlings and the fatchooey harbingers justice with dis meager writing, augh... u jus had to pick the prompts that were most free to interpret 🥴🥴 (thus i have chosen to attack with sugar and spice HA!)

#dellet-writings #dellet-asks #jessamine-rose #capitano x reader #pantalone x reader #dottore x reader #fem!reader #genshin impact x reader

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shxtodxroki · 5 months

Text

𝙽𝚘𝚝-𝚂𝚘-𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚂𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚊

Summary: Your past friendship with Satoru Gojo is ancient history by the time you’re both well into your teaching years, the man a mere memory from your past you can’t help but reminisce on more often than you should. But when Christmas-time rolls around and you get roped into a faculty Secret Santa event alongside your sister school, your not-so-secret Santa causes old, unresolved feelings to resurface, and gives you a chance to finally rehash and truly release them.

Warnings: Swearing, some angst, this fic was written as a gift so it’s a fem reader instead of my usual gender neutral reader! There’s also a few small descriptive details of the reader’s personality/likes since it’s targeted towards the person I wrote it for, but there are NO physical descriptions of the reader! Geto, Nanami and Haibara are also all teachers in this! (Nanami and Geto work w/ Gojo in Tokyo, while Haibara works w/ reader and Utahime in Kyoto!)

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x Fem! Reader

Word Count: 6.8k

Note: This fic is a gift that I wrote for @planetnini for this JJK secret santa event! :D Hi Nini, I was your secret santa! :D I had a lot of fun getting to know you and chatting with you through asks throughout this event, and I hope you like the final fic I made for you! I tried to take into account some of the things you told me and personalize it a bit, and I’d love to know what you think! <3 Happy holidays Nini and anyone else reading this, if you celebrate any holidays around this time of year then I hope you had a wonderful time, and even if not, I hope you’re having an amazing end of the year! :D

The scent of the town-famous bakery always managed to fill you with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia, memories flooding your senses as flashes of bright blue eyes and teasing grins flashed behind your eyelids in response to the familiar scent. It makes your stomach twist in mild discomfort, pushing the fond childhood memories that spring up back into the crevices of your mind where they belong as you feel a small, long-residing pang of longing.

He had always loved sweets.

Being friends with Satoru Gojo, the honored one who took Jujutsu society by storm from the very moment he was born, was an experience you reflected back on far more often than you’d ever admit out loud. Considering how long it had been since the two of you last had any significant contact, it would seem odd to admit just how often your mind still wandered to him, to the many soft moments and bright memories you shared in adolescence, and to the one true best friendship you had ever known. People have come and gone through your life in waves since then, and you’ve had dear friends who meant the world to you, but nobody could ever come close to the role Satoru had once filled, the way he made your heart feel so full of affection and love that it just might burst. It was the kind of friendship you felt you would only find once in a lifetime, and thus the kind you could never forget. Maybe it wouldn’t sound that ludicrous after all, but you still kept this longing to yourself, and most days, you managed to dull it to a gentle simmer beneath your ribcage as you went about your days.

You have other things to focus on now. A job and your loved ones and the upkeep of your home, all essential parts of your daily life that keep you from lamenting on the mere wisps of memory of the boy you knew. Knowing that he wasn’t far away, living a life far busier than your own but in the same profession at your sister school, did come with the occasional urge to reach out, to reminisce or catch up or ask why your whole friendship had fallen apart in the first place. But you’ve always managed to resist the urge, to fight back the desire to reach out and pry yourself away from the open yet long-ago unfollowed Instagram page on your phone (though not always without help, you had to thank Utahime for keeping you from your nostalgic urges every now and then).

So with all the work you had put into moving on from a friendship you honestly should have long ago, you would admit (at least to yourself) that you were less than excited to find out that you’d be participating in a winter retreat with the sister school where Satoru now taught at. You were even less eager when it was revealed that there would be a staff-wide Secret Santa event between the two schools, and as the days counted down towards the trip, you found yourself wishing that the universe would cut you a break just this once and give you anyone else besides Satoru to buy a gift for. You knew so little about the person he was currently, now that so much time had passed between the two of you, and truthfully, you had no clue if he even remembered who you were at this point. The sting of realizing that he didn’t remember you was a pain you truly didn’t long to feel, and having to get a gift for your former best friend under such uncertain conditions was simply a fate you wished to avoid at all costs.

“Quit glaring, you’re drawing attention to you, and me by proxy.” You mutter to your best friend as she glares daggers into the back of the man you wished to avoid. Luckily for you, the interaction was anything but uncommon for the two, so it was unlikely to truly draw attention to either of you. Yet it still wasn’t a risk you wanted to take, not wanting to face even the slightest possibility of being forced to suffer through awkward small talk with the man who had once known all your deepest secrets.

“How did that idiot manage to become a teacher? His students would be better off with a fucking rock as an instructor, I swear to god.” Utahime grumbles back from beside you, paying no mind to your words as she continues glaring at the man from afar. Her disdain for the man was amplified when you told her of your shared past, but she had held a strong dislike for him from the moment the two had first interacted at school functions, leaving you hopeful that he wouldn’t be phased from the typical distant hostility and annoyance he received from your best friend. These days, Satoru Gojo rarely managed to spare you as much as a glance, and it had been years since he had uttered your name (a fact you were ashamed to admit you had been keeping track of, in the brief and meager conversations the two of you had shared over recent years). The feeling of being forgotten stung deep in your bones, but you outwardly portrayed the same level of unbotheredness and nonchalance he did whenever the two of you would be put in the position to briefly interact, so most of your colleagues (including Satoru himself) were hopefully none the wiser to your inner predicament.

“Alright, everyone come draw a name! And there’s no switching or re-draws unless you pick yourself!” You suddenly hear Suguru Geto’s voice echo through the room, sounding controlled and put-together as always as he drew you from your reverie and back into reality once more. It didn’t take long for the air to grow stuffy as all of the evening’s attendees crowded together around the bag of names, the small crowd still managing to tightly press together as everyone crowded in to select their recipients for this year’s secret santa event.

Some were more eager than others, but the process was still able to remain somewhat orderly as everyone pressed together and took turns grabbing a folded up paper from the bag. The rotation went counter-clockwise, and you watched as your coworkers and fellow faculty went one-by-one until the line reached Utahime to your left. As she plucked a name from the bag, you blurted out a quip that wasn’t meant to particularly be hidden, but one which you really only intended for her ears as a small grin made its way across your face.

“Thank god Gakuganji’s off on business this year, imagine what a nightmare it would be to buy a gift for him.” You laugh at your own comment, watching your best friend’s face light up in acknowledgment of the joke before opening the slip of paper in her hand. The voice you hear responding to you, though, is much lower than that of your friend’s, and the sight of her mouth not moving causes your stomach to drop as you suddenly grow aware of the presence to your right.

“God, I think getting a gift from that geezer would be worse. He’d bring five dollar socks and expect ‘utmost gratitude’.” His voice felt like honey coating your ears, deep and smooth as the scent of his cologne suddenly engulfed your surroundings. You couldn’t believe you had let his presence slip out of your awareness, that you had been oblivious to him standing right beside you even if only for a few moments. You were so used to being tuned into his movements during gatherings like these, doing your best to avoid him whenever possible and to maneuver your way subtly through awkward small talk on the occasions where avoidance wasn’t possible. And yet here he was, appearing beside you without a shred of awareness on your part. And he was joking with you causally, as if the history between you meant nothing to him at all.

He may not remember your history at all at this point.

You could feel heat rising to your face at the thought, the painful stab of acknowledging that you may not have meant as much to him as he did to you causing your form to grow rigid where you stood. You knew you shouldn’t still be so affected by him, so in tune to everything he did and so easily reactive whenever he was near. His quick remark to you showed that he held no similar reservations when interacting with you, and it had been plenty of time to let go of the torch you had been carrying. But you were the one who left the friendship with unresolved feelings you never got the chance to express to him, with an attachment deeper than just friendship. And he obviously wasn’t, which was clearly why he had managed to move on so much faster than you had.

You were thankful as you realized it was your turn to pull from the bag, eager for a distraction so you wouldn’t have to think of a response to Satoru’s remark. You needed to calm down, and hopefully you could occupy yourself with thinking of potential gifts for your recipient through the rest of the night rather than putting so much energy into a man who wouldn’t reciprocate. Your hand plunged in and out of the bag in a flash, just desperate for any name that wasn’t Satoru’s, and you let out a soft sigh of relief as you read the name inscribed on the paper in your hand.

“Yu Haibara”.

Thank god, fate seemed to be on your side this time. Not only did you not pull Satoru’s name, but you were close enough with Haibara, as you saw one another nearly every day, to comfortably pick out a gift you knew he’d enjoy even without the list provided to you. He was easily one of those you were closest to among the participants, second only to Utahime, and despite the melancholy that had been simmering within you throughout the evening as thoughts of Satoru filled your mind, you felt a sudden wave of confidence and excitement as you thought of what you could get him that you knew he’d love. Perhaps this was what you needed, to stop focusing so much on a long-dead friendship by instead putting that energy into pursuing closer friendships with those you cared about now. This was going to be the Christmas to turn around your attitude, you were sure of it.

And in the self-improvement spiral you sent yourself down in that moment, for once you missed the small, almost imperceptible yet genuine smile that crossed Satoru’s face as he pulled a name of his own from the bag.

The next morning, as you woke up and stepped out of your hotel room for the morning after dragging yourself out of bed at the sound of your alarm, you found yourself nearly falling face-first into the floor as you tripped on an unfortunately-placed object directly outside your doorway. The fall caused you to let out a shriek as you braced for impact, and though you were luckily able to catch yourself before you crashed, the event still left a small, tired scowl on your face as you pulled yourself up and took a glance at the item that had nearly left you bruised and sore first thing in the morning.

The sight in front of you, however, quickly melted your annoyance into curiosity as you saw a soft, pale yellow bag obstructing the walkway outside of your hotel door. Your mind was racing for a few moments as it tried to catch up with the morning’s events, and when you were eventually able to recall the secret santa exchange that you had signed up for the night prior, you felt a small giddiness bubbling within you as you grabbed the small bag by it’s handles and returned with it in hand to your room. Perhaps you could forgive whoever had left the bag in prime tripping position, as the excitement of receiving your first gift of the week outweighed any prior frustrations you held.

You opened the bag expecting a small gift to start off the exchange, maybe flowers or a nice snack. Your secret santa had only had hours between the choosing of the names and this morning, after all, and you would perfectly understand choosing to go light on most of the gifts even without the rushed nature of this first morning. So when you stripped the bag of its tissue paper only to be faced with a brand-new copy of a new game you had mentioned in your list of potential gifts, you couldn’t fight back the widening of your eyes in surprise. A brand new game surely wasn’t cheap, and to get it at such short notice felt like nothing short of a miracle. (Or incredible effort on your Secret Santa’s part). Taped onto the game was a note, short and simple:

“You’ve seemed extra stressed the past few days, so why don’t you take the day off and relax? Kick your feet up and have fun playing your new game ;)

- Secret Santa”

The note gave little away of the one who had left the gift, yet their kindness and effort was clear in both presentation and product as you grinned to yourself. Fate truly did seem to be on your side this holiday season, as you had seemingly been blessed with the loveliest secret santa in all existence. While the gift was much more than you had expected, and you had barely even gotten a chance to wake up that morning, you were quick to shoot a text over to Utahime telling her to come over to your room to share your excitement with someone. Though you unfortunately couldn’t play the game yet as your secret santa had advised, since you hadn’t brought your console with you on the trip to Tokyo, you still wanted to enjoy the gift in some way as you silently sent your gratitude towards your mystery gift-giver. You’d have to thank them when they finally revealed themself on Christmas eve, but for now you’d wait for your best friend to arrive so you could brag about your exceptionally generous secret santa and the gift you couldn’t wait to try out once you returned to your cozy home in Kyoto at the end of the week.

On the second day, you thankfully did not wake up to a tripping hazard outside of your door, leading you to assume your secret santa would drop off your gift later in the day. Honestly you were thankful that it wasn’t left first thing in the morning like the day prior, as you had accidentally overslept after staying out a bit later than usual picking out a gift and writing a fun note for Haibara for day one of your secret santa exchange.

You had offered to chaperone a sightseeing day around Tokyo for the students (one the Tokyo students would also be attending, though more on the basis of shopping than sightseeing) alongside Utahime and two Tokyo instructors, and after sleeping through your alarm, you were already short on time as you scrambled to get ready and meet your students on time. Having a gift to open would have only added to your hassle, and now you could look forward to receiving one at the end of the day instead as you rushed to the meeting spot, just barely making it in time.

Utahime and all of your students were already waiting, and you watched as your best friend’s face drew into a small smile as she saw you approaching. Your eyes quickly caught sight of Satoru and Suguru standing beside her, seemingly the volunteers to chaperone the Tokyo students for the day, but you were determined to stick to your new outlook of no longer fixating on Satoru, so you forced yourself to brush past his presence even as he mocked and teased your best friend beside you. The four of you set out with the students in tow, allowing Suguru to lead the way as a Tokyo native (and out of a lack of trust in Satoru’s navigational skills), and you did your best to stop your mind from drifting to thoughts of Satoru as you tried to keep your students engaged and having fun, while also taking some time to chat with Utahime and scan the area for potential gifts for Haibara.

You made many stops throughout the day as you passed through various shopping districts and interesting stores, and it brought a smile to your face to watch your students interact and have fun with one another as well as their sister school peers as they spent the day shopping and chatting altogether. The poor kids were faced with the monstrosities of the Jujutsu world on a daily basis at such a young age, and it warmed your heart to at least be able to give them the chance to simply have fun and act like teenagers every once in a while. For today they weren’t Jujutsu sorcerers in training, they were just kids hanging out with their friends, and the thought made you smile as you, Utahime and Suguru hung back and watched the kids do their shopping and sightseeing (as Gojo had turned his attention from Utahime to Megumi Fushiguro for the time being, much to the young boy’s chagrin.

The day was long and covered quite a bit of land, taking you all through the streets of Tokyo as you reminisced on your youth and saw places you hadn’t visited in years, since leaving Tokyo for Kyoto to become a Jujutsu instructor and get away from your (admittedly not that dramatic) past. Sure, the nostalgia of it all did bring memories of your childhood with Satoru to the front of your mind on occasion as you passed a shop that the two of you used to always visit with your allowance money, or a favorite restaurant you would visit together on special occasions.

But you managed to keep your focus on the students and enjoying the night out rather than letting yourself drown in the memories, and you were proud to say you even managed to be friendly and courteous to Suguru despite your usual awkwardness around your former other half’s new best friend. You were so focused, in fact, that you failed to notice when Satoru’s watchful eyes fell on you and refused to leave as he saw you interacting with his best friend with ease, or the way his expression faltered into an unreadable look at the sight.

As the sun begins to set, and all the adults begin to discuss plans to turn in for the evening, you catch a brief whiff of a scent that sends you hurdling back into your adolescence full-force, your common sense momentarily leaving you as you step out of the ongoing conversation and quickly make your way to a place which was once your sanctuary, your home away from home in your younger years.

Your favorite bakery, a small, family-owned shop whose delectable treats you hadn’t tasted in years was still standing in the same spot it always had been, and the scent of the pastry that had been your favorite since childhood made its way to you as your eyes widened at the sight. You were so caught up in trying to keep yourself from drooling at the delicious scent that you failed to hear your colleagues approaching behind you, nor the way Satoru’s eyes were trained on you once again with the slightest hint of guilt reflecting in them.

“Mmmm, looks yummy.” Utahime praises as her eye lands on the pastry you had been staring down, the two men beside her nodding in agreement. You allowed yourself another moment to stare at the delicacy inside of the shop before turning to face your comrades, though you felt your stomach do a small flip as you finally registered the way Satoru’s gaze seemed stuck on you, and the unreadable look on his face.

“Yeah…. Sorry guys, I just got a bit distracted. We should be heading back to the hotel.” You mumbled out your apology as you returned to your spot beside Utahime, trying to ignore the way thoughts of Satoru once again flooded your mind as you tried to make sense of his strange expression, or the unusual silence he was now emitting.

But there was no way that bakery brought back the same feelings for him that it did for you, and you weren’t even sure if he remembered the time the two of you spent there so long ago at all. You were sure he had long-forgotten your love of that specific pastry as the years had passed, or the way he used to always steal a bite from you whenever you bought one for yourself. Those days had long passed, and you forced yourself to shake off his sudden change in attitude and assume it was a coincidence as the four of you saw all of your students to their sleeping quarters for the evening, before parting ways to get ready for bed yourselves.

Though you were a bit sad to see the sight of an empty doorway as you made your way back to your hotel room alone that evening, you felt your heart rate pick up a bit a your mood turned to something more hopeful when you heard a quick knocking on your door as you finished up your skincare routine for the evening. Of course, your elusive secret santa was gone by the time you opened the door, but the scent that practically smacked you in the face as you reached for another pale yellow bag suddenly had your stomach twisting and turning once more as you felt your suspicions begin to raise.

And as you suspected, inside of the bag you were met with the same pastry you had just been admiring less than an hour prior, the sight making you a bit less happy than it usually would despite your gratitude for the gift as you began to realize that your secret santa had to be one of the other three people you had spent the day with. And despite your hopes that things weren’t as they seemed, the note taped to the side of the bag only caused your heart to sink further as it practically spelled it out for you, so early into the week of secret santa exchanges.

“These have always been your favorite, and now you have a whole batch all to yourself, so you don’t have to share. Though, I wouldn’t mind if you’d be kind enough to slip me a piece ;)

- Secret Santa”

You spend most of the third day - another free day, thankfully - relaxing and trying to distract yourself watching all of your favorite movies and TV shows, doing practically anything to try and keep your mind away from your discovery last night. You did end up eating the pastry that you had received the night prior (at first the thought made you shiver, as the treat felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds with the loaded memories packed within, but the temptation had eventually been too strong to resist as it’s sweet scent bombarded your senses) but you were making it a point to stay in your room for the day unless one of your students needed you, determined to avoid Satoru as you ignored your emotions rather than attempt to process them.

The note he had left the night prior seemed to indicate that the self-depricating idea that you had clung onto for so many years of him forgetting your friendship was in fact false, and the thought alone had your head swimming with conflict and served to bring up more heartbreak than the reality you had created for the state of your relationship with him over the past ten years.

If he had forgotten about you, drifted off to other friends and bigger responsibilities until your bond faded from his mind, it would at least be a pain you were used to. A pain you had desensitized yourself to through the years of pining and pondering of a friendship long lost within the seas of time. But the thought that he may still remember it all, could still recall the afternoons spent together and the secrets shared, seemed to hurt much deeper. Because that meant he had chosen something else over those memories, that they seemingly hadn’t meant as much to him even with the images still fresh in his mind.

It was a painful stab to the gut you weren’t quite ready to acknowledge, so you were content to play the fool for now as you distracted and tried to deceive yourself.

When another swift knock sounded out from the end of your room, late in the evening once more (just after you had returned from your brief venture out of your room to deliver Haibara’s gift for the day), you were truthfully hesitant to open the door at all. You were currently clinging on to plausible deniability that the note from yesterday may have somehow been a coincidence, that Satoru may not be your secret santa after all. But given how willing he was to completely give himself away as early as day 2, you had a feeling that you wouldn’t be able to live in denial for much longer once you saw what your secret santa had left for the third day.

Nonetheless, you eventually worked up the courage to rise to your feet and slowly make your way to the door, staring down the baby-blue bag standing in front of you as if it were a weapon of mass destruction. A few minutes of deep breaths and self affirmations later and you were slowly, carefully removing the tissue paper from the small bag, only to be faced with a sight that instantly caused your eyes to sting with fresh tears.

A mint green DSI, and a small collection of games. An artifact you thought you had lost long ago, likely forgotten amongst some move between houses.

You barely even noticed the tears falling down your cheeks or the way your heart seized in your chest as you reached for the note, hand over your mouth in both awe and devastation as you read the inscribed words.

“Sorry this one isn’t new, I wouldn’t mind spending thousands on you but I thought you’d prefer this. You left it behind, and I haven’t quite found the time to return it yet. Figured you’d enjoy ;)

- Secret Santa”

This was a confirmation of every thought that had been spinning within your head over the past 24 hours, and as you held one of your favorite childhood toys in your hands for the first time in over a decade, you felt more conflicted than ever on how to handle your relationship with Satoru, or what your feelings for the man were at all any more.

The following days went by in a similar rhythm, though the gifts thankfully became simpler and less nostalgic as time went on. (You weren’t sure if you could handle another late-night crying session as the result of any particularly thoughtful gifts).

Day four had left you with some typical teaching supplies, as Satoru had heard you complaining about the lack of traditional lesson plans within the Jujutsu education system and your desire to teach your students at least some of the things they’d learn in a typical Japanese high school environment over a faculty-wide dinner.

Day five, he had gifted you with some skincare products he noticed were running low after showing up unexpectedly at your hotel room in the middle of the day, pleading with you to let him use your bathroom since he had forgotten his room key inside and Suguru was asleep. The two of you hadn’t spoken much, as he was quickly in and out of your room, but he breathed out a silent sigh of relief once he was securely outside your door as he thanked the universe that you hadn’t thought too deeply into his excuse. It would look pretty ridiculous of him to be insistent on the chance to see you for a moment if you had realized that he didn’t need to stay in a hotel in the city he lived in, after all.

Day six had been the most difficult for you to process since the emotional roller coaster of the third day, and it had been the catalyst for you to finally cave and explain to Utahime what you had discovered about your not-so-secret santa, and what he had done since your revelation. You had done your best to keep her out of it, as you knew she wasn’t particularly fond of Satoru on his best of days and had listened to many of your previous venting sessions about your forgotten friendship with Satoru prior to this exchange. But when you saw what awaited you in your bag on the second to last day of the exchange, and the note that accompanied the gift, you threw your efforts out the window as you finally sought advice from your best friend.

In the bag you were greeted with a complete collection of the Haikyuu manga and a small collection of high-quality lip balms (a collection you had been growing well before you lost touch with Satoru), along with a note much lengthier than the others.

“I don’t know if you’re still all that into this series, but I know how much you loved it when we were younger. Figured this would be better than that body pillow I always threatened to buy you, hopefully you’ll read through them and get to ‘experience the story all over again’ or whatever it is you nerds say.

The lip balms I remember you loving for some reason, but I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll give you a reason to use them. We’re supposed to reveal ourselves anyways, and I’ve got some things I’d like to say. So if you’re willing to listen to an idiot like me blab on about feelings and shit for a while, meet me at our favorite bakery tomorrow night at 7.

- Secret Santa”

You knew that you’d have to face him at some point, as you did eventually have to reveal yourself to your secret santa and exchange a final gift to one another. Yet you were unsure if you should go to this meeting or not, if you were ready to face Satoru’s feelings and demand the explanation you deserved for what had happened so long ago, especially in a place that held such sentimentality to each of you.

You had expected Utahime to talk you out of it, almost hoping she would as you went to here and finally explained to her what had been going on throughout this secret santa exchange. Truth be told, you were terrified at the thought of all your feelings for Satoru possibly being laid out in the open, and were hoping she would give you an excuse to bail.

Unfortunately, she did the exact opposite of what you had hoped, and encouraged you to meet with him in the hopes that you’d finally find some sort of resolution for the feelings you had been carrying in your soul for so long, and that they’d finally either be laid to rest or be given a chance to flourish into something much better for you. Curse her and her rationality, and the way she always had your best interests at heart.

It took nearly a full minute of standing outside the small bakery, your heartbeat ringing through your ears like timpanis ringing through your bones, for you to work up the courage to open the door and step inside, pulling off your winter attire as you glanced at the cozy Christmas eve decorations lining the walls. The bakery was quiet on such a late hour the day before a holiday, and it was easy to spot Satoru (early for once, a fact that made your heart flutter the slightest bit in your chest) at a cozy table in the corner, the same table the two of you frequented throughout your pre-teen years. He didn’t even try to hide the way his eyes lit up at the sight of you, overjoyed that you had actually shown up as he waved you over to your table. His greeting, however, was incredibly lacklustre compared to the week-long build up of tension and emotions between the two of you as an effortless grin spread across his lips.

“Hey.” Was the only word that fell from his lips as you sat down across from him in the booth, the same careless attitude that had always emanate from Satoru’s very being coming off of him now. But this time you refused to play along, refused to ignore the way he had tugged on your heart strings all week long and make casual, meaningless conversation the way you always did.

“Don’t ‘hey’ me, Satoru. You know why I’m here.” You start, face fixed in a stern expression as you fought hard not to let your anxiety peek through onto your features. “Obviously I know you’re my secret santa, but I think we have bigger things to talk about here. Specifically, the way our friendship fell apart.”

Satoru wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the way you jumped straight into the heart of the conversation, he had seen the tension building on your face all week long as you received gift after gift from him. Hell, his own feelings had been much more difficult to contain than usual, with his desire to be close to you, to have you back in his life once more growing by the day. But Satoru was nothing if not unable to admit his emotions seriously, so his relaxed grin remained as he did his best not to let his heart get the best of it.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I did say I had things I needed to tell you.” He ponders gently, taking a bite of a sugary cream puff laid on the plate in front of him before meeting your gaze with his aqua eyes. “Look, I was an asshole teen, and everything that happened was on me. None of it had anything to do with you.”

Now it’s your turn to be shocked, completely amazed that the Satoru Gojo who had never apologized once as a child was currently admitting complete fault. You were stunned into silence at his words, though your face suddenly showed a layer of openness to his explanation as he continued on.

“When we got to high school I got so wrapped up in making new friends and advancing my technique and all that shit. Honestly, I was a total jerk back then, I dunno if you’d have wanted to hang around me anyways.” He laughs at the remark, but you could tell that this was the real Satoru, briefly peeking through his walls that seemed to melt so easily whenever he was around you. “Plus I had always kinda liked you, but it never really seemed like you felt that way about me. So I used my new friends and my status as a way to not have to talk to you, I was just hoping that it would give me a chance to get over whatever weird crush I had because it would just be pathetic for you to find out about it. But then it went on for longer than I realized, and by the time I figured out how much we had drifted, my pride wouldn’t let me admit why I stopped hanging out with you in the first place. Dumb, I know, but that’s really all it was.”

Satoru seemed so casual throughout his entire explanation, as if he was simply recounting his work day rather than delving into the intricacies of his thoughts and feelings and the reasons why your friendship had fallen apart. And his reasons were stupid, a part of you loathed the way younger Satoru had been so stubborn in refusing to communicate his feelings that he split the two of you apart as a result. Yet another part of you felt so incredibly thankful that the split hadn’t been because of something you did, or because he had stopped caring. It was the most idiotic behavior you had ever heard of, yet you were quick to find it in your heart to forgive him when you heard the next words that fell from his lips.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, though it was clear enough for you to hear amongst the white noise of the bakery as he tried to hide the bashful look on his face at his words. It wasn’t often that Satoru Gojo apologized, and in fact it was a sight you had never seen from the man in all your time together, and it took everything in you not to interrupt him with words of forgiveness as he continued on. “I considered doing something lame, like pulling a “your gift is me” or some shit, but I got you a real gift instead. I’m just gonna say that I know for a fact that I loved you back then, and I’m pretty sure I do now. So take this gift, and I’m just the bonus, if you’re willing to take it.”

You were practically on autopilot as you took the final gift of the week straight from Satoru’s hands, no longer hidden beneath any bags or bows as your entire body felt as if it were on fire from within. You were completely unable to muster words at the moment as you took in everything you had just heard, trying to fit what he had said into the puzzle pieces of your own emotions as you glanced at the two tickets Satoru had given you, tickets to a concert for your favorite artist.

“Hopefully you’ll let me go with you, but if you decide to kick my ass to the curb and never speak to me again, then you can at least bring a friend.” He told you as he carefully watched your reaction to your final gift, though Satoru was unable to fully hide the way panic spread throughout his entire body like a plague when he noticed tears streaming down your cheeks in waves. Before he could get another word in or even ask you what was going on, though, your eyes met his once more as your voice wavered with emotion.

“You are a complete idiot, Satoru. I spent years missing you and breaking my own heart thinking that you had just forgotten about me completely, that you didn’t remember out friendship at all. I thought my feelings would just be stuffed down and elft unsaid forever.” You chide him as your tears pour out, though the way your hand sets the tickets on the table before reaching out for his indicates that you have more yet to say.

“You’re just lucky that those feelings hadn’t been stuffed down into nothing yet.” You continue as you sneak your hand over to interlink your fingers with his, relishing in the genuine surprise that took over Satoru’s face at the warm feeling. “And the fact that you actually apologized to me for the first time helped too.” You add on, squeezing his hand gently in yours in order to prompt him to look into your eyes.

“.....Does this mean you do want the bonus?” The man in front of you mutters out after a moment, clearly feeling overwhelmed with how emotionally charged the moment is as he tries to lighten the atmosphere with a joke. And it makes his heart sing in his chest when he hears your sweet laughter in response, a sound he had missed most in all the years apart as the both of you began leaning in from across the table.

“......Yes, I guess I do want the bonus. It’s Christmas eve, after all.” You respond with a smile, before taking charge of the moment as you press your lips into his. The kiss is short and sweet, and you know you’ll have to take the relationship slow as you re-learn each other’s personalities and quirks now that you’ve grown into adulthood. Its’ obvious that it won’t be an easy process, that you’ll both have to put in the work to make the relationship work and move past the mistakes of adolescence. But you also know that there will be plenty more kisses to come, because if your childhood friendship with Satoru and the torch you still carried for him left you with anything, it was the knowledge that, to you, Satoru Gojo was worth the work if you could wake up to that gorgeous, smiling face every morning.

A/N: It’s kind of crazy to believe that it’s already the end of the year, and that this will probably be the last thing I write and post this year. I’ll release a longer post being all sappy over the new year later, but for now I just want to say that I’m so happy I found the motivation and excitement to return to this blog this year and branch out into so many fandoms, I’ve had so much fun writing and posting here and I look forward to continuing in 2024! Thank you all for reading this and any of my other works you’ve read this year, I’ve really appreciated the support and I hope I can continue posting good writing in the future :>

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