#and the dude in front of me is violently taking notes to prepare for tomorrow and I feel kinda bad just like chilling here scrolling tumblr

[gavindna]

It’s hashtag finals week and I have jackshit to do in some of my classes so you guys are never gonna guess who’s gonna reread homestuck

[millenialfanfictionaddiction]

Go Go Let's Go! Let's Go! Dateko! (Pt 2. Smut)

⚠️THIS FIC IS 18+ NSFW, MINORS DNI ⚠️

Warnings: swearing, gross amount of fluff, oral sex (female and male receiving), vaginal sex, unprotected sex, cum play, cum eating, implied shower sex

Word Count: 7,000 +

Kenji refused to tell you where the tournament was in hopes that you would just not show. But you knew better. Not only would you get to see your son play but lord that coach!

You wandered into the Date Tech section as you lean over the railings. The team is gathered around the bench ad the coach is giving them a pep talk before the game

"Futakuchi you're mom came" Obara laughs as he nudges Kenji.

"Please don't make eye contact with her it will only encourage her" he says as he places his hands on his face.

Coach Oiwake turns to see you beaming as you wave to the team. He gives you a small nod and a smile as you blush and take your seat.

"Miss Futakuchi?" A voice from besides you says.

"Oh Moniwa! It's so good to see you!" You smile as you wave to the other boys.

The boys look at you as Moniwa introduces you "this is Futakuchi's mom! Miss Futakuchi, this is Kamasaki and Sasaya both former third years on the team."

"It's so nice to meet you boys! I'd like to apologize for my idiot son's ignorance as an underclassmen. He deserves to feel the pain of being team captain" you say as you smile to the boys.

The game progresses quickly as you catch glimpse of the coach looking up at you when he is able to spare a second. You catch his eyes smiling at him.

Kamasaki whispers to Moniwa and Sasaya "damn coach has got it out for Futakuchi's mom. You see those looks." 

 Moniwa rolls his eyes "come on man knock it off"

He looks to you ad he sees his former coach staring right at you

"Ok you right" Moniwa says as Kamasaki crosses his arms laughing.

After the game you proceed the hallway to wait for the boys with the third years. Kenji and the team walk up to you as Kenji rolls his eyes and buries his face.

"Oh knock it off Kenji. You act like I'm the most embarrassing thing in your life" you say as the third years and the team laugh.

"Mom notice how no other parents are here? That's because they care about their kids reputations" he says as he glares at you.

"Awe baby I care. Just not enough" you say as you laugh walking past the boys.

"Good game guys" you say waving as you round the corner.

You walk straight into coach Oiwake as he's reviewing his notes.

"Oh Y/N. I'm so sorry I didn't see you there" he says flustered

"Oh gosh it was all me! I'm such a klutz" you says laughing awkwardly.

"Say thanks for coming out to support the team. I know the boys appreciated it" he smiles.

"Everyone but Kenji" you chuckle as he laughs.

"I'm sure Futakuchi enjoyed it too. He's just into his roll as captain" coach says as he looks down.

"Say Y/N I was wondering" he says as he scratches the back of his head "would you like to have coffee sometime?"

You smile softly "of course Takuro! Only if we don't tell Kenji."

"Deal" he says as he smiles at you.

You started seeing Takuro as often as you could. You could talk nightly on the phone and see each other when you could. It helped that Kenji was the team captain and had his own active social life. Still it was hard to sneak away without him noticing.

You had been secretly seeing Takuro for a few weeks. Things were getting pretty steamy between the two of you. You had several heated makeout sessions with Takuro but nothing even went further. You always had to leave because Kenji expected you home and you already hated lying to your son about your relationship with his coach.

Takuro had asked you to spend the night with him the week prior and you had agreed. All you needed was a plan to convince Kenji of your absence. You start pondering as you begin preparing lunch. You had to tell him something as go why you wouldn't be home. He knew you didn't work this weekend so that wasn't good enough.

"Hey mom I won't be home this weekend" Kenji said as he rushed into the kitchen

well shit that was easy

"Oh where are you going" you question.

"Obara invited me to a party tonight and them tomorrow we are having a game with the third years. Those losers keep hanging around so we might as well put them to use" Kenji says as he chuckles.

You laugh "ok well don't do anything I wouldn't do"

"Geez mom don't set the bar too high. You literally use to sneak out of grandma and grandpa's house all the time" he laughed

"Hey HEY" you say trying to stay serious "ok yeah I was an awful kid. Go be free my child". You wave Kenji off as he bids you goodbye.

You smile as you text Takuro that you will be over tonight. You tell him your going to run to the store to grab ingredients to prepare dinner for the two of you.

As the night approaches you leave for Takuro’s house. You arrive at the store as you begin to shop. Suddenly a hand snakes around your waist as a face presses to your neck.

"I SWEAR TO GOD I HAVE A TASER" you scream as the voice laughs.

"I can't ever be cute can I?" Takuro laughs as you calm down from your near heart attack.

"Well not if you're going to stalk me! Jesus Takuro" you huff.

"I couldn't wait to see you sweetheart" he says as he kisses your neck. You giggle as he focuses on your sweet spot. 

 Unbeknownst to you, 2 pairs of eyes watch from outside the store window.

"Futakuchi isn't that your mom?" Obara says as he stops walking outside the store.

Kenji looks up and sees you hugging Coach Oiwake as he kisses your neck.

"What the fuck?" Kenji says angerly.

"Dude let's go before they see us" Obara pushes Kenji past the store window as Kenji feels his face heat with anger.

How could you lie to him?

You grab your groceries as Takuro carries them to your car.

You arrive at Takuro's house as you prepare to exit your car. He runs up to your car door, swinging it open as he grabs you from the seat.

"JESUS CHRIST TAKURO YOUR'RE GOING TO GIVE ME WHIPLASH" you scream as he tosses you over his shoulder, spanking your ass as he carries you inside.

He sets you down as he starts to kiss you deeply, pulling his track jacket off as he pulls your cardigan from your shoulders.

You giggle as he releases you lips and travels to your neck "impatient much? I just got here what's the rush big shoots?"

"Can't wait any longer" he says as he pulls away from you looking at you "you just drive me nuts Y/N. I just need you so bad."

He kisses you neck violently as he grasps you ass pulling you up to him. He signals for you to jump as he carries you to his room.

"Wait the groceries" you say in-between his kisses as his hands start to travel up your tank top.

"It's fine baby" he says as he lightly tickles your skin as he kisses you. He licks your lower lip asking for access as you pull away. You get up on your knees and crawl away from him towards the top of the bed. You sit on your knees and you cross your arms over your chest.

The man is flustered. His head hangs low as his arms rest on the bed, his muscles stretching his white t-shirt.

"No more sir until you get my groceries in" you pout as you look away from him trying to keep a straight face.

"Fuck-ok" he says waving his hand as he walks to your car to retrieve the groceries. You take the opportunity to strip your clothes, revealing your matching lace bra and panties set.

You kneel at the edge I the bed, waiting for Takuro to come back. Your hands resting on your lush thighs.

"Ok baby no-" Takuro begins to say as he walks into his room.

He stops as his eyes literally bulge from his head.

"Fuck" he whispers as he falls falls to his knees at the sight of your gorgeous body clad only in a small amount of fabric.

"D-Do you like it?" You say shyly. It wasn't like you to be self conscious but then again you haven't had sex in years.

Takuro can't speak.

you literally broke the man Y/N. RIP Coach Oiwake Takuro 2021

He just stares as you start to feel self conscious.

He gets up and walks over to you as he leans in front of you face. He smiles at you as he grabs the back of your head pulling you into a heated kiss.

He guides you back on the bed as you toy with the hem of his shirt. He straddles you as he sits up removing his shirt.

Fuck the man is built. For being in his late 40s he's sculpted like a Greek statue. You feel up his chest as he kisses you deeply exploring your mouth with his tongue. He releases you from the kiss as he stares down at you.

"Y/N I'm going fucking worship you baby" he says as he kisses down your neck.

You feel your core heat up as your panties begin to get wetter and wetter with every kiss. You can't help but moan as he reaches your sensitive spots.

He works his way down your chest. He kisses your nipples over your lingerie as he moves the straps down to kiss your shoulders.

"We are going to leave this on because it's driving me insane" he says as he tugs at your bra. The straps down on your lower arms as the cups barely hold your full breasts.

He moves to your stomach as he kisses every square inch. The man is romantic as hell!

"You ready sweetheart" he says as he moves his fingers into your panties.

You nod as you pull your lip between your teeth. You can't believe how wet you are.

Takuro slowly pulls down your panties as a string of your essence glides with the panties.

"Fuck" he says as he rests his head in your thigh "whatever God decided to bless me fucking THANK YOU"

You giggle as he kisses your inner thighs. You moan at the feeling and growing sensation. He looks up at you as he spreads your pussy lips with his fingers and takes a long lick of your wet slit.

You shiver as your back arches. Takuro takes no time diving into his new home.

Fuck you were so wet and you tasted so good.

"Holy shit Takurō. Fuck right there" you screams as your back begins to arch high and higher. You've never had oral like this before.

"Fuck yes yes yes right there keep going. Omg fuck I'm going to cum" you say as you grab his head and push it further into your cunt. You rub your cunt on his face as the rope inside you snaps.

You screams as you cum hard on your lovers face.

Takuro backs up as he kisses your thighs. He slowly inserts two fingers into your already sensitive pussy as he begins to move them.

"Cum again sweetheart. I need more" he says as he pushes two fingers into your sopping wet cunt. You're still riding out the high from your previous orgasm as he leans over, pulling you up to meet him in a deep kiss.

He grabs your hair as he pulls it back exposing the column of your neck to his lips. He probes your cunt faster as you feel yourself building up.

"Ahhh ahh fuck Taku, ah" you cry as he kisses your neck quickening the speed of his fingers.

"Come on baby give me one more and then I'll fuck this tight little pussy. Please give me one more" he says as you feel your core snap as your cunt spasm around his fingers.

You fall back to the bed as he stands up removing his pants. You stare at his long cock with wide eyes.

"I'll be gentle angel" he says as he reaches for a condom.

You shake your head "I want you to cum in my mouth. Fuck me raw and cum in my mouth Takuro" you say seductively as you pull your lower lip into between your teeth.

"Baby you- you can't say shit like that. Fuck" he says as he flips you around to all fours as he lines up his cock.

"Let me suck you please" you say looking over your shoulder with doe eyes.

"Later baby later I-I'm not waiting any longer to fuck you" he says as he slowly starts to push is cock into your wet entrance.

"Holy- Y/N baby you need to relax" he says as he grabs your hips stopping himself from moving further.

"Relax? I haven't been fucked in years and you want me to relax?" You say as you trust yourself backwards impaling yourself on his hard cock.

"Fucking shit Y/N! God dammit I want to last longer than a minute" he shouts as he spanks your ass. You refuse to listen as you propel yourself back to his cock as he tries to hold you off.

"I swear to God if you don't fuck me-" you say as he flips you around standing up and yanking you down to the edge of the bed as you lay on your elbows.

"You'll do what Y/N?" He says in a sadistic voice as he pushes his cock all the way into your cunt in one swift movement.

"Shit" he chokes "God baby this is the tightest cunt" he says as he pulls back, setting a brutal pace as his balls slap your ass.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as you feel every single centimeter of his cock on your inside walls.

"Fuck Y/N baby are you close" he says as he looks down to you.

You're gone. Where even are you Y/N? Come back to earth Y/N!

"Shit baby I'm going to cum soon you feel so fucking amazing. Fuck I'm going to worship this pussy everyday until I die" he chokes

"Oh Takuro, fuck-fuck I'm going to cum please keep going" you manage to say as he pushes forward trying to bring you to orgasm.

You feel your core snap again as the quick rise and fall of your orgasms over sweeps your body.

"Fuck baby are you ready" he says giving you a moment to recover.

He pulls out as you sink to the floor between his legs opening your mouth to receive his juices.

He jerks his cock as you sit with your mouth wide open "Oh fuck Y/N- baby UGH" he says as he shouts rope after rope of cum into your mouth.

You happily accept his gift as he groans and pants, his abs retracting from the intense orgasm. He throws his head back as he finishes and you wipe up the little cum that managed to fall to the side your lips.

He pulls back ad he sees his fluids in your mouth and on your tongue. You close your mouth, reopening to show him that you had swallowed what he had offered to you.

He kneels down to your face as he pulls you into a deep kiss.

"That was the best sex I've ever had" he chuckles as you smile.

"Yeah it was at least a solid 8" you tease as his eyes widen.

"An 8? Well we can't have that now can we. Date Tech strives to be the best so I only accept 10 and above" he says grabbing you as he carries you to the shower.

He fucks you in the shower until your brain is numb. He suck is cock as you make him finish for a second time during your hour long shower. You both emerge completely blissed out and exhausted.

"I’m hungry" you say as you cuddle into his stomach and he pulls up close.

"Well it's a good thing I brought it those groceries" he says.

"You mean the groceries I MADE you bring in" you say looking up at him.

"Well the trip was worth it because look what I came back too" he says as he hoisting you above him to straddle his waist.

[talesofphantombandits]

JJ One Shot ~ Always Believe in you.

So this is my second time writing this Intro and the last part of this story because while I went off for one second to find a photo to use, my tab decided to refresh.  So I lost everything.

NOT HAPPY.

Here we go again. So I just finished Outer Banks, AMAZING. Must say the first few episodes I struggled with but then when I got on episode 4 that’s when I started really getting into it and from then on I was hooked. At the start my first impression of JJ was ‘dam this dude is so handsome’ then it turned into ‘Jesus this boy has issues’ and ended with ‘OMG PROTECT THAT BABY AT ALL COSTS’ So yeah......

There might be a second part with these two, I had another idea for another scene. But we shall see how this one does first. 

Pairing: JJ x Reader. Warnings: Mild language.

Summary: Y/N was forced by her parents to go to Italy to see some family, the only hitch her phone was taken off her after landing and put in a safe so she couldn’t talk to anyone back home. Safe to say your parents didn’t approve of you dating JJ and hanging out with the rest of the crew. Seen as they only told you this after landing, snatching the phone right out of your hands at the airport you didn’t have time to tell them you wouldn’t be able to communicate, they probably thought you’d forgotten them. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what JJ though. Safe to say he wasn’t very forthcoming when you saw him again.

(I will look over this tomorrow for mistakes, I’m just so angry right now that it was ready to post and then It didn’t save. So sorry if there is mistakes)

I’d been in Italy for the past few months, my family had decided that sometime away would be good for all of us. 

I hadn’t had any communication with the guys during the stay in Italy, which meant JJ too. I’d been cut off, “They were bad for you.” That’s what my dad told me but I loved them they were what true friends, true family was made of. It had broken my heart to leave JJ alone he’s been through hell and still going through it, but it was a little relief to know that he had John B, Kiara and Pope looking out for him. 

We were coming home for the Midsummer's party, It happens every year but my family insist on being there. To ‘keep up appearances’ they just wanted to keep their social status.

We arrived back home at about 7am, the only thing on my mind was raced up to my bedroom to take a nap. God I were exhausted, what I really wanted was to go straight to see the guys but that was impossible my parents weren’t letting me out of their sight. 

I woke up about 4pm and decided now would be a good time to take a shower and get ready for the party. I knew that Kiara would be there so that gave me a sense of hope and  motivation to look my best. I picked out a dark green velvet dress, deciding to do some darker makeup and curly my short shoulder length hair. When I was satisfied with the look, I got the black platform heels out of the bottom of my closet and sat on my bed while strapping them.

“Hey you ready?” Mum stood at the bedroom door putting in her earrings. 

“Yeah, as I’ll ever be.” I sighed rolling my eyes, I got up from my bed, heading to the door.

“You behave tonight.” My dad passed a kiss to the top of mums head on his way pasted, pointing his finger at me.

“No promises.” I said under my breath.

Walking down the stairs I waited in the front room on my phone until everyone was ready to leave.  My mind wondered to JJ, I wondered what he’d been up to and how he was coping with his father. My eyes started to brim with tears, I felt so bad leaving him without no contact but it was hardly my fault. I’d feel better when I could finally escape and see him.

Arriving at the party the first person I saw was Kiara looking extremely bored, sipping her drink leaning on the wooden railing outside.

“KIE!” I screamed, running as fast as my heels would take me.

“AHHH! Y/N!!!!” She screamed back and held her arms open wide.

She gave me a bone crushing hug. “God I’ve missed you!” I whispered in her ear. 

“Me too! why didn’t you call or text? We were all starting to worry that you were never coming back!” We, we were starting to worry. I gave her a sad look.

“Yeah about that, I was cut off.” She looked at me sympathetically. “They locked my phone away, said I needed to keep away from you guys.”

“You better tell that to JJ when you see him.” 

“What, why?” I said confused.

“He erm kind of thinks you’re ignoring us, and abandoned him.” She said looking at the ground.

“Why would he think that? I said breathlessly. The thought of JJ thinking I abandoned him broke me.

She just shrugs. “Who knows what’s going on in that head of his. We tried to tell him that it was probably your parents stopping you but.” She gestured off.

“He doesn’t listen.” We both chuckled softly.

“I’m glad you’re back, I know you’ll be able to sort it out with him. I’m glad you can be here to help me cope with this party.” She smiled sweetly at me patting her hand on my bare shoulder.

“Me too.” I smiled back as we went to sort out drinks for ourselves.

A few hours had past and Kiara told me that her and Sarah had sorted their differences out, that they were now friends now. I was very surprised at first but happy because that meant that there would be no awkwardness when I started dancing with Sarah and her sister on the dance floor.

This was the happiest I’d felt in a while, just dancing and loosing myself in the music.

Just then a arm came over my shoulder, I looked at it then at Sarah who stood in front of me confused.  She inspected the note in the hand. “From Vlad.” I knew that voice! Sarah took the note, smiling into it and rushing off.

I turned to come face to face with JJ. He was wearing smart black pants, a crisp white top and a strange coloured bow tie. He stared me dumbfounded, I looked down to his chest.

“That bow tie is horrible.” My eyes snapped to his face as he scoffed at me. When I finally studied his face I could tell he wasn’t happy, and I finally noticed the scratches all over his cheeks and the bust lip that looked all swollen.

My smile fell. “ JJ your face, what happened.” I raised my hand to cup his cheek but he slapped it away. I looked at him shocked, It wasn’t violent but there was enough force in it to make me flinch. 

He looked angry now, he step backwards then shook his head and turned to leave.

“JJ!” I stepped to follow him but my dad caught my arm, pulling me to go chat with his friends.

“Y/N I want you to meet someone.” My dad introduced me to a tall dark haired preppy boy, he looked my age. He also looked very familiar.

“Hi.” I said uninterested, my mind still on JJ but mainly the state his face was in. 

“I’ll let you two talk, you both have a lot in common.” That snapped me out of the daze at the words of my father, was he seriously trying to set me up with this tool? and how did he know what likes I had, I don’t think he knew me at all.

I looked up to the guy next to me, he was smirking down at me. It made me feel sick.

“Look sorry to disappoint.” I patted him on the shoulder. “But I’m already seeing someone.” 

I went to walk away but he called out. “That’s not what your dad says, So either you’re lying to me to get me to go away. Or you’re dating someone daddy wouldn’t approve of.” 

I turned giving him an unimpressed face. “What’s your name?” 

“Rafe.” I scoffed.

“As in Sarah’s brother?” He just nodded at me enthusiastically.  I just laughed. “Yeah no chance in hell.” 

I walked off to find Kiara. 

___________

I was speaking with Kiara and her family when JJ frantically entered the room being pushed around by a security guard, he was screaming and shouting. Me and Kiara just looked at each other concerned.

“What the hell.” I whispered under my breath. “Hey! Let go of him.” 

The security guard didn’t let up and pushed him further towards the porch. 

“It’s okay everybody, do not panic leave it to the men and women in uniform.” Everyone had slowly turned to look at who was making and fuss. Me and Kiara had slowly started to move towards the centre of the room.

“What is he doing?” I said to Kie.

“I have no idea.” She looked at me concerned.

“You can’t just boot him!” Kiara shouted to the guard. 

“I invited him here.” I said.  JJ turned to look at me but rolled his eyes, deciding to focus on Kiara instead.

I looked at him then turned slowly to look at Kie.  Both our parents where telling us to back down and shut up, but we weren’t going to take that.

Suddenly he’d pushed the guard away and turned back to Kiara. “Hey, mandatory power hour at Rixon’s, Kie.” 

He didn’t even look my way. 

“Pope, you as well. All right?”  He turned to leave off the porch still shouting at Kie and Pope to follow him. 

Kie grabbed my hand, I looked around confused but decided that JJ probably wouldn’t want me to follow. I told her I couldn’t, she stopped dead for a bit looking at me sadly. Her mother and father started tugging at her so she had to get away leaving me standing there staring at them all run off happily into the distance.  I sighed and decided to leave, clear my head. 

“I’m going for a walk.” My parents tried to get me to stay but fat chance that was happening, I didn’t want to be at this stupid party in the first place.

___________

I just let my feet lead me, I must have been walking Idly until I stopped at the smell of burning wood. I looked up to find my feet had carried me to John B’s house, If the others where going to be anyway they were going to be here. I sighed deep and prepared myself for the argument that I didn’t want to have but it was killing me that I had been home less than a few hours and I hadn’t touched JJ yet.

I walked around to the back where the smell was richer now, I looked to the left to find all four of my friends by the campfire. I walked over trying to think of something to say when a twig snapped under my heels.

They all turned quickly to look at me.  “Y/N!! You’re back! why did no one tell me she was back.” John B rushed to me and tackled me into a hug.

Least someones happy that I’m back.  He carried me in our hug the short distance to the fire and set me down beside Pope, who already had his arms outstretched for a hug.  I just smiled at him and gave in. 

“We’ve missed you! how come you didn’t call?” John B patted my thigh.

I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Yeah about that-” 

“What are you doing here?” I’d only heard the cold tone JJ was using when he talked about his dad. I never knew one day it would be directed at me. “I thought you’d get the message not to follow us when I didn’t call your name at the party.” 

“JJ.” Kie warned.

“What is wrong with you?” I could feel the lump forming in my throat. “I’m going to explain everything.” 

“I don’t want to hear it.” He stared at me with such malice, a sharp pain shot through my chest.

I stared at him but his face just seemed to harden more.  Finally I broke contact when I felt the first tear fall. 

“Fine.” I said quietly, I hoped no one would hear the crack in my voice. Luckily it was dark enough that I hoped no one noticed the tear flowing down my cheek. 

I got up and walked away without a word. I heard Kie call JJ a dumb ass as I turned the corner. When I got back to the road I bent over, my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath. Tears were free flowing now, I looked down both directions of the road. I could go home or go to my secret spot on the beach.

I decided that the beach would probably be best, I could cry it out and regain myself then go back home like everything was okay.

_________

I’d finally calmed myself down when I heard someone climbing up the dune to my right.  What I wasn’t expecting was to see JJ’s face pop up. 

“Hey.” I said quietly, a massive contrast from earlier. 

I just stayed silent, looking straight ahead to watch the moon reflect off the surface of the water. It always looked so beautiful and calming to me, that’s why I came out here when I was mad or upset. 

He came and sat next to me but not too close.

“I’m a jerk I know.” I just scoffed.

“That’s a big understatement.” I’d stopped crying a while ago but I could still feel the breeze making the tear stains cold.

“Kie told me.” I could see him mindlessly playing with the sand. “I should have heard you out, I’m sorry.” He dipped his head low.

I sighed deeply, the marks on his face are obviously a sign that his dad had beaten him again. they where fresh as well. I wanted to be so mad at the way he treated me but I just couldn’t bring myself to be mad anymore. 

I turned to look at him and reached for his hand. “What happened to your face JJ.” I whispered as if not to startle him.

“My dad.” He sniffed and interlocked our fingers.  I turned to fully face him, putting our hands on my lap. 

“Me and Pope did something stupid, Pope was going to get arrested for it but I couldn’t let that happen. He has a scholarship to look forward to, and a future I don’t. So I took the fall for both of us.” He looked at me now, tears brimming in his own eyes. “Dad came to bail me out, then proceeded to beat the shit out of me in the car.” 

I shut my eyes, my lip quivered.  When I opened them his tears had began to fall. I scooted towards him cupping his face and wiping away the tears pooling on his cheeks.

“Hey, It’s okay. I’m here.” He leaned forward in to me and put his face in my neck. He started sobbing now, I could feel the wetness on my collarbone.

All I could do was sooth him and rub his back. 

When he’d calmed I lifted him to sit up straight.  “You never have to hide from me JJ, I’ll be here supporting you forever.” 

He just smiled reaching up to turn strands of hair from my face that the breeze had blown everywhere. 

“What would I do without you?” He leaned in, I met him half way. Our lips met in a sweet kiss. “Now that’s how I should have greeted you at the party.” He smiled closing his eyes to savour the moment, leaning our foreheads together.

“Would have been a better greeting.” I just laughed.

I grabbed his hands and pulled him up with me, Slowly making my way down the dune.  “Where are we going? You’re not going to kill me are you?” 

“Maybe.” I said absentmindedly, he stopped short dragging me back until I crashed into his chest. 

“Ouch, why’d you stop.” I looked up at him.

He looked down at me dumbfounded. “You just told me you’re taking me to murder me.” 

I huffed. “Babe, it was a joke. I just want to walk along the beach, at the edge of the waves with you.” laughing at him now with his cute little pout.

He leaned over me, snatching my heels out of my hand. “lets go then.” 

The silence was beautiful, it was dark and the only sounds were waves crashing against each other.  This had always been my favourite past time with JJ, this is when the boy who had the most chaotic energy was the most calm. I thought it was a simple treasure that only I got to see this side of him, let alone that I was the only one that could bring out this calm in him. 

He stopped again, but this time he hugged me from behind. His head leaned on top of mine as we just took in the sea and the moon.

Things were definitely going to get worse before they got better, little did I know just how bad they’d get.

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles: Reignition Book 1 Chapter 5: Out With a Bang

I AM STILL DOING THIS

“Take me to someone who can teach me about magic.”

At least, that's what Evan thought he wrote on the skin-wick he'd prepared for the lamp. Bleeding himself wasn’t hard; during his restless, do-everything college years he'd studied to be an EMT in the evenings, and hooking up an IV was child’s play.  Making the wick was a bit messier, but a potato peeler proved effective for procuring a slice of skin of the appropriate size.  The tricky part was deciphering the arcane pseudo-language the lamp required.  Fortunately, some of the symbols in the book he'd gotten from Delman matched those from pre-brain-drill Evan's notes on the Book of Fate, but even so he could only approximate the words.  There were just too many concepts missing from the translation.  

But the wick had inexplicably ignited when held to fire, burning with a disturbingly large and deep red flame that wavered for a moment, then bent at the middle at an uncanny right angle, pointing west.  So west he went.

By the time he'd passed through the Navajo Nation, the flame was pointing decidedly more north. After the third time he filled the lamp (it seemed to burn for about a day per filling), he estimated that it was taking him to central Nevada.

Then the RV's air conditioner broke down.  In the middle of June in the middle of the American Southwest.  Evan found he didn’t mind the heat as much as he used to—a fact that he chalked up to his newfound supernatural vitality—but he was sweating a lot.  It felt wrong to drive much longer with part of his home malfunctioning, so he decided to stop somewhere to get it fixed, if only for the upholstery’s sake.

The lantern burned out about half an hour before he found the appropriate off-ramp, but his priorities had shifted.   The sun was dipping below the horizon and, as it turned out, it was too late for him to get the problem fixed in one day.  He threw a few necessities into the Volkswagen and drove a few blocks across the small town to a motel.

Once he was back in the blessed embrace of air conditioning (okay, maybe he’d missed it more than he had wanted to admit), Evan went through the painful process of re-lighting the lamp.  Something seemed to be wrong, though—the skin caught fire as it had before, but the flame sat fat and squat at the base of the wick.  

Evan sat on the creaky bed and stared at the flame for nearly fifteen minutes, hoping that every little wiggle and twitch of the flame was an indication that it was working again.  Eventually he gave up, dumped the burning blood into the toilet, and went to bed, frustrated.  Tomorrow he’d double-check that he’d gotten the language right and try again.  He had to make it work.

  Evan couldn’t say what woke him up.  He didn’t violently start awake, like he might from a sudden noise—in fact, there was no noise at all save for the air conditioner.  But he was suddenly wide awake, his heart rate picking up speed. He didn’t move except to open his eyes ever so slightly.  What he saw made him inhale sharply and kicked his heartbeat up a notch from ‘pounding’ to ‘hammering’.

By the combination of moonlight and sickly streetlamp light filtering in through the room’s cheap blinds, Evan could see the small entrance hallway in the reflection cast by the window. Something was sliding silently up the door towards the handle.  Moving as quietly as he could, Evan reached over the edge of the bed to where he’d left his clothes and eased his revolver out of its holster.  Then he lay back down, pistol gripped in his right hand under the pillow.

He could see now that the thing moving up the door was a wire with a hook on the end, and he saw then that it wasn’t going for the handle.  Whoever was manipulating it from the other side of the door had done this before; it caught the loop of the swing-bar lock on the first attempt and pulled it away from its bolt.  Then the handle began to turn—the person outside must have already picked the lock. Evan thumbed back the hammer on the revolver as the door opened noiselessly.  

A man slid into the room as soundlessly as he’d opened the door.  Evan couldn’t get a good look at his features, but he could tell that he was nearly as tall as Evan, but much thinner.  He was wearing some kind of hat and had something on his face, but the more important detail was that he was reaching into his jacket and pulling out a gun of his own.

Evan swung his arm out from under the pillow and sat up as fast as he could, levelling the revolver at the man.  

…who wasn’t there.

Something hard pressed against the back of his skull.  

“Put it down.  Nice and easy.”

The voice was measured and calm, but a little louder than Evan would have expected for someone breaking into a motel room in the middle of the night.  Evan slowly raised his left hand and gingerly laid the revolver on the bed with his right, then raised that hand as well. There was a slight shuffling behind him and what Evan had to assume was the barrel of a gun moved away from his head for a moment.  The man was reaching past him with his right hand, moving to pick up Evan’s gun.  

Evan whirled in place, swinging his right arm down to trap the man’s arm.  The man yanked his arm back, causing Evan’s revolver to slide off the edge of the bed and onto the floor.  Evan caught a quick glimpse of the man’s face—tanned and gaunt, a scruffy goatee and sideburns, a medical eyepatch over his right eye (the one-eyed man!), features tightening into an expression of irritated surprise—before the man simply vanished.

There was no flash of light, no puff of smoke, no eye-watering blur of speed, no Bamf. He was just suddenly several feet away from where he’d been, glaring at Evan and holding the pistol at arm’s length. Evan thought he might have felt a small movement of the air, but nothing like what should have been generated from someone moving that fast.

“Real cute, shithead,” Eyepatch growled, his nostrils flaring as he breathed heavily.  “Now if you don’t want me to add a third nostril to that trash fire you call a face, you’re going to—son of a bitch!”

Evan dove off the bed for his gun.  Before he hit the floor, he felt his left arm suddenly yanked back and the landed ungracefully on his face.  Eyepatch was suddenly in front of him again, kicking Evan’s gun away from him and under the dresser.  There was that weird breeze again, too…

“What the hell--?” Evan pushed himself up with his right hand and looked at his left.  His wrist was connected to the bedframe at the foot of the bed by a set of worn-looking handcuffs.  The metal was strangely hot against his skin.  

Before Evan could work out what had happened, Eyepatch kicked him in the side of the head, sending him backwards with his arm painfully stretched over the mattress. Eyepatch was gritting his teeth now, and spoke between deep, hissing breaths.

“Where… the fuck… is Moreno?” he wheezed.  Evan could see sweat beading under the brim of his tweed flat cap.

Evan titled his head. “Who?” he asked, with a tone of confusion that was only partly exaggerated.  

“Do not.  Play fucking dumb.  With me,” Eyepatch hissed.  “Caesar. Fucking.  Moreno.  Your boss. The dipshit who sent your ugly ass after me.”

Evan adjusted himself into a sitting position on the floor.  “Seriously, dude,” he said, holding up both hands, “I don’t know who that—agck!”

It was more of a yelp of surprise than a cry of pain when Eyepatch shot him in the thigh.  It sure hurt more than the .22 to the gut had, though. Definitely a bigger caliber. Though it no longer came as a natural reflex, Evan clamped his hand over the wound (and the hole in his favorite boxers) and hissed through his teeth.

“Jesus, man!  I'm serious!” he gasped.

Eyepatch sneered, then stomped over to the dresser and snatched up the Guiding Light.  “Christ, of course.  Fuckin' amateur hour in here.  I wonder if your boss even knew he was setting you up with a cursed tool.”

That worried Evan a lot more than the bullet fragments he could feel pushing their way out of his thigh.  “The Guiding Light's cursed?”

Eyepatch laughed a sharp, humorless laugh.  “’Guiding Light'?  Fuck, did you seriously believe that something with a name like that was the real deal?  Are you fucking retarded?” He shook his head, chuckling dryly.  “This is a Finder's Folly.  Anyone you search for with this will know you’re coming.  Sure, normies may just write it off as a feeling of foreboding, but anyone who knows dick about shit—which you clearly don’t—knows something's comin' for them.”  He tossed the lamp into the corner with a look of disgust.  “Oh, and speaking of comin' for you, don’t expect anyone to come check up on that gunshot.  Nobody outside this room can hear anything that happens in here.”  He reached in his shirt and let a necklace drop in front of his skinny chest.  A chipped ruby set in tarnished brass glinted faintly in the half-light of the room.

Does everyone have one of those?!

“Is that so,” Evan said flatly.  “Well, I have a magic trick or two of my own.”  He lifted his hand from his leg, revealing the completely healed wound. “Ta-dah!”

It had the effect he’d hoped for.  Eyepatch’s unpatched eye widened in surprise, his mouth started to drop open, and he began to recoil.  Evan didn’t waste the opportunity.  He swung his right hand across his body, grabbed the corner of the bedsheets, and violently yanked them off the bed.  For a moment, the space between Evan and his attacker was completely filled with billowing sheets, and Evan took the opportunity to lunge to his feet. Eyepatch suddenly was on the other side of the bed, panting again.

“What… the fuck… hey! What the hell--"

Evan had planted his left foot on the bedframe and was pulling his left arm back as hard as he could. Veins began popping out along his arm as his bicep bulged in what he hoped was an intimidating fashion.  He looked up at Eyepatch and grinned a theatrically wide grin, his eyes bright and manic.  Then, mostly for effect, he began to yell.

“RrrrrraaaaaaaAAAAAAAA----"

Eyepatch was shouting something and gesturing with his gun, but Evan couldn’t hear him over his own dramatic roaring and the sound of warping metal.  Then, with a ping, the cheap bedframe gave up the ghost and Evan lurched backwards, an unattached handcuff hanging from his wrist.  

Evan and Eyepatch both stared at the dangling cuff.  Evan held it up, gesturing to it as it swung in front of his face.  He waggled his eyebrows.  "Ahh? Ahh? Ahh?"  

Eyepatch gawked for a moment, and Evan seized the opportunity.  He lunged toward the bed, grabbed a bottle of water off the nightstand, and squeezed it.  The flimsy plastic lid burst off under the pressure, sending a spray of droplets towards Eyepatch.  Evan followed them, vaulting over the bed with his other arm.

Eyepatch moved without moving again, but instead of circling around behind Evan again, he moved backwards towards the door.  Evan chuckled inwardly as everything seemed to slow down around him while his brain kicked into high gear.

He moves through the intervening space between his positions, so he's not teleporting.

The air isn't whipped up like it would be if he was moving super fast.  

He moved away from the water instead of through it.  He can't touch or maneuver things while he moves, except what he's got on him.  

It's crazy, but that has to be it!

"I've got you figured out!" Evan roared gleefully, rushing towards Eyepatch with his arms spread wide.  The other man vanished again, but as soon as Evan registered his disappearance, he threw himself backwards and to the side, into a gap he'd left intentionally open. His hip collided with the man's back, and he heard a surprised gasp as his attacker tumbled forward.  The gun clattered to the floor.

Evan spun in place, dramatically pointing a finger in triumph. "You're stopping time, aren't you!"  

 He didn't wait for a response--a suddenly grimace of shocked anger from the prone man told him all he needed to know.  He dove towards the man and managed to get a hand around his ankle.  Then something unexplainable shifted.

Everything went dark. All Evan could see were grayscale outlines of the room, lit by light that didn't seem to quite reach any surface. It seemed like the beams of streetlight shining in through the window were caught in their own shadow, which gave him vertigo to even try to comprehend.  When he involuntarily gasped at the realization that he was literally out of time, his lungs failed to inflate.

There's no air here! he realized, fighting rising panic.  Of course--nothing can move!  He has to hold his breath when he does it!  That's why he was getting so winded!  

Fighting the urge to grab his throat, Evan raised his head to look at his opponent.  It was difficult; the air felt like it was an infinitely thick chunk of wet cardboard.  The blood was pounding in his ears by the time he managed to raise his gaze, and he felt a surge of anger in his fading consciousness when he saw Eyepatch smirking down at him through tightly clamped lips.  He almost didn't notice the shimmering emerald light beaming from behind the eyepatch.

Son of a bitch is trying to suffocate me!  If I let go now, he'll have the upper hand again!  I've got to get him to undo this...

Evan's could barely see through his own veins throbbing in his eyes. With agonizing slowness, he reached his arm upwards.  Eyepatch's eye widened as he realized what Evan was doing.

See you hold your breath through this, you scrawny sack of--

Evan clenched his fist around Eyepatch's crotch and twisted.  

Evan would later swear he saw the man's eyes bulge so much that his eyepatch nearly popped off his face. For a moment his cheeks puffed out comically, then the world snapped back to normal as he exhaled in an explosive wheeze.  Evan gasped and coughed as the air found traction in his lungs once again, but he did not let up.  He let go of Eyepatch's groin, raised his hand, and brought his fist down in a hammer blow on the man's abdomen.  There wasn't much air in his body to expel, but what did come out was accompanied by streamers of thick, phlegmy drool.  Still gasping, Evan pushed himself to his knees and crawled up his enemy's body, straddling his hips and grabbing both his wrists.  As the other man struggled weakly while fighting for breath, Evan set his jaw and concentrated.

Reach out with the idea of your arm...

When Evan had shut down the pain monster's powers, he had gotten the impression of shoving his arm into a pitch-black barrel of angry, leprous eels.   It had been disgusting and painful and extremely unpleasant, but it felt like it was supposed to feel like that.  It made sense for a monster.  

This was something altogether different, and somehow at the same time less awful and much, much scarier.

Evan didn't see or hear or otherwise actually perceive anything different with his normal senses, but the instant his 'cords' made contact with the other man's, he got the impression that he was inside a massive machine.  The feeling was claustrophobic and kenophobic at the same time: Evan could sense an impossible density of gears whirring and grinding and clacking, pressed around him without even a nanometer of space between them, but at the same time, the space felt so immense and empty and unknowable.  He couldn't tell where the walls were.  He couldn't tell if there was a floor.

Evan felt himself start to lose it.  The paradoxical combination of fears was pulling at his psyche in ways he'd never even thought possible.  But Eyepatch was still struggling beneath him and glaring at him, and if he stopped time again, or even just got his breath back, there would be trouble.   Evan gritted his teeth and thrust his imagined arm into the maybe-existent gears.

Evan felt a recoil like the sound of a fuse blowing and both he and Eyepatch froze.  Evan knew he'd done it.  He grinned.

“Alright!  Now, why don't we--”

Eyepatch's right hand shrunk and slipped out of Evan's grip, then contorted into a narrow point and plunged into Evan's left eye.  

Evan screamed as the left half of his face exploded in agony and half his vision vanished.  The pain hit without any of the buffers he'd thought he 'd gained from the pain demon and he involuntarily let go of Eyepatch's other wrist as he grabbed for his face.  This turned out to save his other eye, as Eyepatch lashed his left arm like a whip at Evan's face.  As it was, the impact of the blow was enough to knock Evan off-balance and he toppled to the floor as Eyepatch bucked his hips.  The smaller man thrashed his body again and was suddenly on his feet, ripping the eyepatch off his right eye.

“What did you do to me, you motherfucker?  What the hell did you do?”

Through his remaining watering eye, Evan saw that Eyepatch’s now-unpatched eye was surrounded by a spiderweb of fine scars, like cracks spreading out from the epicenter of a broken window.  Eyepatch blinked the eye hard a couple of times, then rubbed it, blinked again, and then glared at Evan again.  Evan saw his head jerk towards his gun, which lay on the carpet a couple of feet from Evan’s left.  Evan thought he saw him tense to pounce, so he rather impotently kicked at him with his right leg.  

That turned out to be a mistake.  Moving with a furious grace that didn’t match his scruffy appearance, Eyepatch caught Evan’s foot in both hands, then twisted it sideways and lifted it upwards.  Evan dug his hand into the carpet to resist being turned over, but he realized too late that he wasn’t going for some kind of hold or joint lock.  

Hot-cold terror shot through Evan as Eyepatch opened his mouth just a little too wide.  He didn’t have the time to kick with his other leg or the leverage to wrench himself away.

Eyepatch sunk his teeth deep into Evan’s ankle, just above the heel, and ripped away a three-inch chunk of flesh.  Evan screamed as horrible agony raced up his leg and his foot went limp.  

“What the fuck, man? What the fuck!”

His voice was cracking and warbling with pain, but dignity was the last thing on his mind.  

Why does it hurt so much now?  Why am I not healing?!

As if on cue, a disgruntled, hollow gurgling sound resonated from his guts.  He was suddenly aware of how long it’d been since he’d last eaten. After the frustration with the AC and the Guiding Light, he’d gone straight to bed without dinner…

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kiddi—augh, what the fuck?”  

Eyepatch had spat Evan’s own Achilles’ tendon into his face.  Combined with the fluid from his seeping, ruined eye, Evan’s face was now completely slick with his own gore.  But through the blood and tears, Evan could see Eyepatch opening his mouth freakishly far again to take another bite—this time behind the knee.  

“Oh no you don’t!”  

Evan swung his left leg up and cracked Eyepatch in the back of the head with his heel, then squeezed him between his legs as best he could.  Even before he’d bulked up, Evan had thighs that could crush a watermelon, but Eyepatch somehow managed to go limp and slide out from between Evan’s legs, winding up on top of him.

As Evan raised his hands to stop Eyepatch’s renewed attempts to relieve him of right eye, Evan realized he was shaking.  It may have been exhaustion or pain, but Evan realized he was also afraid.

It’s like I’m fighting a cat!  He’s some kind of monster!  He just looks human!  What is he?! What else can he do?!

Eyepatch had given up on the gouging and now was punching fiercely at Evan’s head and shoulders while straddling his chest.  He was stronger than he looked, and the punches had a rough sort of finesse to them—quickly in and out, never two to the same spot in a row, a staggered cadence that made it hard to anticipate when the next one would come… his torso was twisting back and forth, whipping his wiry limbs at Evan like a willow tree in a whirlwind.  And his movements were getting faster.  Through the flurry of blows, Evan could see the greenish light beginning to shine from Eyepatch’s right eye again, as if a lightbulb was slowly turning on inside his head and the light was seeping through cracks in his skull.  

Shit!  His power’s coming back already!  Time’s slowing down for him!

Eyepatch’s outline began to blur as the punches increased in speed.  They were beginning to scrape Evan’s skin where they landed, like tiny carpet burns.  Evan realized it was now or never.

He’s not a monster!  He’s just a man with special powers, like me!  He must have some kind of abnormal range of joint motion!  He’s just another freak!  I can beat him, but I have to do it now!

It was time for a sacrifice play.  Evan dropped his guard and thrust his left hand up into Eyepatch’s face, wrapping his fingers around his face like he was palming a basketball.  Eyepatch twisted his head, opening his mouth to pull Evan’s ring and little fingers between his teeth.  

Evan felt his face twist into a grin.  You can have them!

Before Eyepatch could bite down, Evan yanked his arm off to the side, pulling Eyepatch off-balance. Then he planted his left heel on the floor for leverage and twisted his whole body.

Different fighting styles have different opinions on where the strength of a punch really comes from, but many martial arts depend on rotational force generated by the twisting of the midsection and hips to generate the force of the blow. Normally, it would be very difficult to utilize this sort of motion from a prone position, but Evan was far from normal.

The practice of multiple forms of dancing throughout his life had taught him to manipulate his abdominal and oblique muscles with an unusual degree of strength and control. And now, those muscles were huge.

So when Evan swung his right fist into Eyepatch’s ribs, it was not a desperate ‘get off me’ punch; it was akin to a heavyweight’s knockout hook.

Eyepatch seized up for a moment as the blow rocked him.  His teeth were halfway through Evan’s fingers, but that worked in Evan’s favor. Since Eyepatch couldn’t easily slip free, Evan was able to half-fling/half-drag him off his chest. Then, using the smaller man as leverage, Evan pushed himself up on his good leg.

Eyepatch was also trying to stand, but Evan’s weight on his head was forcing into a sort of hunch. He was still trying to bite through Evan’s fingers.  Evan gritted his teeth and yanked his left hand back.  

The sensation of his fingers being torn off was traumatic, but Evan was already executing his next move. As Eyepatch straightened up from the sudden removal of weight, Evan pushed off with his left foot and threw his right fist forward, using the momentum of his fall to punch Eyepatch square in the stomach.  

It was as a clumsy blow, but neither man was steady on his feet.  Eyepatch was thrown back against the dresser, his breath forced out of him. Evan toppled after him, but with only one functioning foot, he couldn’t keep his balance well enough to maneuver strategically.  He slammed into Eyepatch, smashing him against the dresser again, but their bodies separated as Evan bounced back from the recoil.  Evan frantically flailed at Eyepatch as he started to fall forward again, but the smaller man was out of his reach.  Then, as Evan began to fall forward for real, Eyepatch blurred into near invisibility for a split second just before Evan landed on him.  

Something hard and blunt stabbed painfully into Evan’s chest, right on his left nipple.  Gasping in pain, Evan looked down and saw his own huge revolver, the barrel pressed so hard into his skin that blood was leaking onto the barrel.  Eyepatch’s right eye was closed again, his scars glowing faintly as he fixed Evan with a furious glare from his other eye.  For a moment, both men simply breathed, slow and hard, staring at each other, frozen in an uncomfortable, gory tableau.  

Evan finally spoke. “Go ahead,” he said, breathing heavily through his nose, “it won’t do you any good.”

Eyepatch regarded him, unmoving, for a long moment.  Then he shrugged.  “Okay.”

[scullyy]

Two Sides Of The Same Street / Chapter Four

Title: Two Sides Of The Same Street  Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four

Pairing: Clementine x Louis

Word Count: 3754 (damn this is a long one)

Summary: Louis helps comfort Clem during a blackout.

A/N: This is quickly becoming one of my favourite stories to write! I hope you’re all enjoying it :)

-

“Seriously dude, go home. I can clean up just fine by myself.” Louis passed Marlon his third tissue, wincing at his violent sneeze. His third sneeze of that nature within the last ten minutes.

Marlon quickly grabbed the tissue, emptying the contents of his nose into it. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine-d.”

“When you put a ‘D’ at the end of fine you’re not fine,” Louis teased, yet there was some merit to it. This idiot Marlon was showing telltale signs of illness; pale face, a blushed nose and non-stop sneezing. “We’re closed now anyway, so technically you can leave.”

Marlon threw the tissue into the bin, straightening out his shirt. “I guess,” He poked Louis’s chest sharply. “Don’t do anything stupid.” His face screamed ‘I am sick with the plague’ but his eyes said ‘I will kill you in your sleep if you try anything’.

Louis feigned a laugh as he passed Marlon his jacket. “You’ll be seeing it on the security cameras if I do. You still going to Brody’s?” Marlon graciously took his winter coat, shrugging it over his shoulders.

“Not in this weather and not when I’m like this. I’ll give her a call when I get home. Catch you later Lou.” He gave Louis a classic finger gun as he trudged out onto the thick layer of snow outside. He quickly hobbled through, trying desperately to not fall on his ass.

Louis grabbed the wooden broom from the far corner of the store, sweeping away a combination of dust and crumbs into a neat pile by the bin. “Cinderella has nothing on me.”

Suddenly the centre light above his head began to flicker like crazy. Louis had seen enough horror movies to know where this was going, but before he could reach the door for his getaway every light in the store went out.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Blackouts were common during snow storms, Louis had a small backpack hidden away in the storeroom for emergencies. It was originally his apocalypse survival bag, but that’s just crazy! He dug around the backpack for one of the flashlights Mitch had given him after the store experienced their first blackout.

“Always be ready for anything dude.”

Louis made a mental note to kiss Mitch next time he saw him.

He fiercely pulled out the flashlight from it’s hiding spot, his bright smile could threaten it. Louis pressed the small power button once, then twice...three, four, five times.

“I guess they’re not kidding me,” He huffed. It had been a while since he replaced the batteries. “Maybe Clem might have something I can borrow. A fancy candle or something.” Louis glanced at the antique store from across the street, there didn’t appear to be any lights on either. Also, an excuse to see Clementine was valid in every sense.

Louis waddled through the snow like a baby penguin, some of it seeped into his shoes through the holes by his ankles. “Kiss Mitch, buy new shoes.” He gently tapped his knuckles against the front door, trying to peek in through the frosted windows. It was eerily pitch black and Clementine wasn’t answering the door.

Louis slowly opened the door, flinching when it creaked. “Clemster, it’s Louis. I’m coming in, please don’t attack me.” He called out into the desolate space. Never had it been so quiet or so cold. Louis closed the door behind him before treading lightly around the store, if he broke any of these artefacts he’d be making an early call with Death. His arms were waving around in front of him, trying to piece together where he was. “If I were in Bird Box I’d be fucking dead.”

There was a very faint light emerging from the gap beneath her storeroom door. It was soft but noticeable. Louis knocked on the door, hearing a soft gasp coming from inside. “Clementine? It’s Louis, you in there?

He heard very faint cries from inside, the light was trembling slightly. Louis immediately opened the door, stopping in his tracks when he saw Clementine cowering in the corner. Her head was buried in the crevices of her elbows, her body rocking back and forth. The flashlight was being grasped in her hand, squeezing the life out of it.

“Woah now,” Louis immediately slid in the gap beside her, her cries becoming more audible. “What happened?”

“It’s...it’s the lights, the blackout.” She murmured. Louis wrapped his arm around her, allowing Clem to fall into his body. She clutched at his shirt with a tight grip, her tears staining it.

“Where’s Lee?” 

Clementine sniffled. “He went to an auction earlier today to pick up some more antiques for the store, he won’t be back until tomorrow morning.” It was just her and her little brother in the house, but of all the days Lee had to go trapesing off after some artefact, it’s the day there is a blackout.

Louis didn’t like this, not one bit. “Okay, do you want to tell me what has you so upset?” She always seemed so strong, so level-headed. The flashlight in her hand began to flicker, sending the two into brief darkness. Clementine buried her face further onto Louis, squishing her nose.

An ironic lightbulb went off inside Louis. “You’re scared of the dark, aren’t you?” He gently squeezed her shoulder. “That’s why you don’t like walking home alone at night.”

Clementine wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “Even with a light on, I still hate it,” There were things that hid in the darkness; childhood monsters, recurring nightmares and haunting faces. They crept into her head, only disappearing at morning light. Lee was strong enough to help fight them, but without him...”Why are you here Lou?”

“My lights went out too and my flashlight wasn’t working, I thought you might have a spare I could borrow. I think you need it more than I do.” His goal had also changed too; get Clementine to laugh.

“You could have just used your phone flashlight.”

Oh, yeah. “Well, I also wanted to come and see you,” He grinned. “Tell you what, I have a secret snack pile back at my store, you want to come over and we can have a spontaneous picnic?” 

Clementine had composed herself to the point where there were no more tears. “You have a secret snack pile at work?”

“Who doesn’t?” Louis completed his goal. It was rough and broken, but she laughed. “Is that a yes?”

She nodded. “Yeah, you better have good snacks.”

Louis quickly stood before her and let out his hand. “Only the best,” Clementine embraced his hand, squealing at how easily he lifted her from the ground. “There’s Skittles, Sour Worms, basically anything that has preservatives.” 

“Well you certainly have a sweet tooth,” Clementine reached for the spare flashlight on the top shelf. Before she could even touch it Louis reached over her head and took it down for her, casually juggling it between his hands. “Show off.” She mumbled.

“Don’t blame me, blame my genetics,” Together they made their way through the store, with Louis by her side Clementine was a little less afraid of what the dark had to offer. He helped her make her way through the snow, the blanket that covered the entire street somehow seemed thicker. “You’ll find the snacks in a little red box on the top shelf in the storeroom, it’s the best place to hide it from my boss and don’t worry, it isn’t that high.” Louis flipped through the keys before finding the one for the front door.

Clementine slid her way through the darkness carefully and into the cramped storeroom, ignoring Louis’s jab at her height. She turned the flashlight to the shelf and pulled out said red box, barely needing to stand on her tiptoes. Grabbing the box by its handle, Clem pulled it towards her and accidentally took down with it a black satchel. Everything inside it split by her feet, it seemed to be random junk; a couple of pens, a notebook, a pack of gum, headphones and a loose piece of paper.

Clementine scooped up the mess swiftly, her curious eyes glancing at the exposed piece of crumpled paper. She slowly unwrapped the paper, trying to make sense of the rushed handwriting. “Lou, what’s this?”

And like a cheetah bouncing after its prey, Louis leapt through the open door and snatched the paper from Clem’s hand. “Nothing, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She pointed to the obvious ball of paper glued to his hand. “Don’t play dumb with me.”

Louis sighed, preparing himself for the ridiculing he was about to face. “Sometimes whenever I’m bored I write poems.” He felt his body retreat back into itself, everyone always made fun of his poetry-

“Really? That’s pretty cool,” Clementine leaned against the wall, opposing Louis. “Can I hear it?”

She somehow magically played the strings to his heart, did she really want to hear? He saw the curiosity burning in her eyes. “I can’t say no to a face like that,” Louis took in a deep breath, bracing himself for the hard impact. “With all that remains, dare I say, she takes me back to my best days.”

The softest smile graced Clem’s face. “That’s really sweet Louis. Do you have a favourite poem?”

“I do! It’s by Shel Silverstein, it’s about this girl who is blue and she’s going around trying to find someone else who is blue but she is wearing a mask and the other blue person is also wearing a mask so the two just walk right by each other. They never knew that there was another blue person out there because they weren’t being their true self, it ties in with my life motto. You just need to be the best you possible and all of the good people will come out of the woodworks,” Louis smirked. It wasn’t life advice he had always followed, especially when he was living under his parents' law. “Do you have a favourite poem by any chance?”

Clementine tried to remember all the poems she had to study for her English class in high school. “To This Day by Shane Koyczan. It’s about bullying and since I was bullied in high school it just resonates with me.”

Louis’s shoulders fell. “You were bullied? What for?”

“Some kids in my school found out I was adopted and felt the need to make it their business. It stopped after I socked a kid in his dick.” She giggled, making Louis just a tiny bit afraid.

He pulled at the collar of his work shirt, trying to suppress the lump in his throat. "What uh, happened to your birth parents? If you don't mind me asking."

Clementine crossed her arms and looked at the cracks in the floor. "They went on vacation when I was eight and never came back. I was put into the adoption system after that, luckily Lee found me and took care of me not long after." It was the best day of her life. She was sitting in the playroom of the adoption centre when Lee leaned down to her height and asked about her drawings.

"Oh, I'm sorry Clem," Louis gently kicked his own ankle as punishment for prying. "I can tell you about my family, to make it even."

Clementine pulled up a chair. "I was hoping to know more about you than random small talk, considering that we're now...y'know, dating."

"So we are dating? I like that very much," He grabbed another chair and sat directly across from her, her pretty face dangerously close to his own. "So like I told you, there's my mom, dad and my little brother. His name is Edward but I call him Teddy, he's turning twelve next month and I haven't seen him since I moved out. He's a good kid though, he sticks his tongue out when he colours. I could listen to his stories all day." Louis found himself falling into the past, a dangerous pathway for him to traipse down.

Clementine waved her hand in front of his face. "Louis?"

He shook his head from such daydreams. "Sorry, I just miss him. My parents kinda...forced me to move out before I was ready. I was relying on their money to help me find a place but then they cut me off after I told my dad I wouldn't be following the family business, telling me that I could either be happy or rich, not both. I chose happiness."

She reached for his hand and held it softly, her thumb grazing his knuckles. "They kicked you out?"

"I mean, I had been wanting to move out but I just hadn't found an apartment yet. Marlon let me stay with him until we found a place together," Louis tried his best to smile past the painful memories. "So, you have a little brother don't you?"

Clem knew what he was trying to do. "Yeah, he's only ten," And she played along. "He isn't my brother biologically. Lee was close friends with his parents, they were good people. His dad was gunned down during a robbery and his mom died during childbirth not long after. Since Lee was mentioned in their will as his next form of custody, he was given AJ.”

"AJ?"

"Alvin Junior. His dad's name was Alvin. His mom mentioned to Lee once how she wanted to honour her husband by naming their son after him," Clementine sniffled once more, surprised at how she still had tears to shed. "I was eleven when it all happened, I've watched him grow up."

Louis swung her hand back and forth. "I'll have to meet him someday."

"Bring him some sweets and he'll be your best friend," Clementine reached into the bag of Skittles and threw a purple one into her mouth. "I should probably go home soon, make sure he's okay."

Louis glared at her. "You think you're going to be able to drive in this weather?" He gestured to the front door where snow was falling quickly to the ground. "The roads are covered in snow, you wouldn't get anywhere."

"What the hell am I supposed to do then?"

"You could..." His foot tapped against the wooden floor on instinct, he stopped when an idea came to him. "You could stay at my place tonight."

Louis couldn't tell if Clem wanted to slap or kiss him. She tried her best not to cough back up the Skittle she just had. "Seriously?"

"The bus is going to be late cause of the weather, so I was going to walk home anyway. I don't live too far. You can call your brother, sleep on my couch and I'll walk you home in the morning."

Clementine tried to figure out his plan. "Don't you live close to me? I mean, you got off at the same stop as me on the bus."

"Well, about that," Yeah he was going to get slapped. "I may have gotten off at an earlier stop so I could spend some more time with you..."

"Louis," Clementine leaned in closer and pecked his nose. "You're so weird."

He giggled, trying to burn into his memory how soft her lips were. "Yet you're the one who kissed me first, admit it, we're both weird."

Clementine rolled her eyes as she got up from her chair. "Did you wanna go now?" She was gently pulling at his arm like a bored child.

"Seems as though I don't have a choice,” He allowed himself to be controlled by her strength, quickly grabbing his coat from the hook on the wall. “It’ll be nice to have a companion to talk to again. I miss my bus buddy.”

“Why doesn’t Marlon catch the bus with you?” She inquired.

Louis opened the door for her gracefully. “He always visits his girlfriend after work and catches a later bus home. Usually, I don’t mind being alone, I get to listen to my music and talk to Wilson. But now that I’ve been spoiled by your company I can’t imagine anything less.” It was true, the rides home were longer and the empty spot next to him was more noticeable. 

“I hope I’m not intruding, would he be okay with this?” Clementine rubbed her shoulders ferociously. Of course, she left her damn jacket back at home.

Louis had one arm in his jacket when he noticed her shivering. “You cold?” 

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine-”

There was no point in arguing with Louis, his jacket had been whipped off of his body and onto her shoulders within two seconds. The trench coat cascaded down her body, hovering slightly above the snow.

“Here, I hope this helps.” Louis dusted off the snow that had already settled atop her hat. His coat was a blanket on her.

Don’t combust from cuteness, don’t combust from cuteness.

Clementine settled into the warm inner fur lining. “Thank you, Lou.” 

He grabbed her hand once more and began to pull her along through the winter wonderland. “And don’t worry about Marlon, he’s a good guy. If by some chance he isn’t okay with it he better be ready to catch these hands.” Louis karate-chopped the air, feeling like a master of the air when he heard the ‘whoosh’.

Together they admired the few Christmas lights store-owners had begun to set up, some were extravagant whilst others kept it simple. “I need to put up my Christmas tree tomorrow.” Clementine felt a rush of excitement, the tree decorating aspect was frustrating but AJ always got super keen about the bright lights, so it was all worth it.

“Marlon and I have a cactus in the kitchen we use as a Christmas tree. Her name is Carrie cause of her small red flower.” Kiss Mitch, buy new shoes and get a new friend for Carrie.

Louis pointed to a tall building around the corner. “That’s me!”

“You do live close, seriously why do you catch the bus?”

“Cause Wilson, duh,” He thought it was obvious. Louis skipped up the stairs leading to the ground floor of his apartment building. “Welcome to castle Louis, mi casa es su casa.” He beat Clementine to the door, opening it for her again. 

She eyed him down as she entered the building. The walls were bathed in old artworks, Clementine was instantly drawn to an original Hans Heysen watercolour by the mailboxes. “If this painting ever goes on sale or gets thrown away let me know.”

“Sure thing my little historian,” Clementine followed him up the stairs, wincing at how loud the neighbours were. “You learn to ignore them.”

Louis slowly turned the doorknob and stuck his head through the gap. Marlon was laying on the couch with a bottle of Pepsi in one hand and his phone in the other, his finger carefully typing away. 

“Hey dude,” Louis entered the quiet space, chucking his bag onto the small coffee table. “I brought home my girlfriend-friend.” He stuttered over the term, was Clem his girlfriend now?

Marlon almost spat out his drink. “So you’re the girl he keeps spending his lunch breaks with,” He set the drink down onto the table and rubbed his hands on his knees. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m Marlon.”

Clementine waved. “Nice to meet you too, I’m Clementine.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you. Louis here hasn’t shut up about the pretty girl across the street.”

Louis stared Marlon dead in the eye and ran his finger along his throat slowly. “I will kill you.” He mouthed.

Marlon took his friends warning to heart. “What brings you here Clem?”

“It’s not safe to drive in this weather and my home is a bit of a walk, so Louis is letting me stay the night if that’s okay with you?” It was a lovely apartment. The walls were a faded green with pictures of Louis, Marlon and the rest of their friend group scattered around. They were smiling in every single one, doing various poses and funny faces. 

“I don’t mind, I’ll make sure to not disturb you two.” Marlon wiggled his eyebrows at Louis before grabbing his drink and sauntering to his bedroom.

“She’s sleeping on the couch, you animal!” Louis kicked his shoes off and gestured for Clem to do the same. “Sorry about him, he is a fun guy to be around I swear.”

Clementine sat herself down on the lounge and pulled her phone out from her backpack. “I’m gonna call AJ, make sure he’s okay.”

“And while you do that I’ll grab some blankets and pillows.” Louis headed down the small hall, clasping his hands together before opening the linen closet. The blue blanket and black pillow that had been hiding in the back corner of the closet for who knows how long called out to him, finally they had a purpose. Louis slid them both beneath his arm, hearing Clementine’s soft-spoken voice made him smile, she was in his apartment!

Clementine shoved the phone back into her bag. “AJ’s okay, he still has power which is good. I told him to not answer the door until Lee gets home.” She took the pillow from Louis and set it down along the side of the couch.

Louis set the blanket down by the pillow. “Good advice. I hope the blanket is warm, our heater is broken at the moment.”

“I’m sure it’ll be good, you’ve already done enough,” She played with the sleeve of the coat, suddenly remembering that it wasn’t hers. “Oh, here’s your trench coat back. Thanks for letting me borrow it.” Clementine slid it off and handed it back to Louis.

“Anytime Clemster. You need anything else?” Already he was wishing she would put it back on. Somehow it looked so much better on her.

Clementine set her backpack onto the floor and threw the blanket over her body. “I’m alright Louis, thanks again for this.” 

Louis leaned down and plucked her hat off, chucking it onto the coffee table. “Don’t mention it. Goodnight Clem.” He saluted.

“Sweet dreams Lou.” 

Louis slowly turned on his heels and marched to his small bedroom. His soft bed sheets called his name as he fell face first onto his pillow. Sleep came fairly quickly for him, his dreams were blessed with visions of a beautiful girl laying in bed beside him, arms wrapped around his own.

[maybegrammy]

Average| Chapter 1

Summary: Mediocrity is the goal...maybe.

Pairing: Female OC x ???

Word Count: around 1k

Warnings: some curse words?? maybe?

“Hey!”

You looked up toward the voice only to find your co-worker staring at you with a hopeful look on his face.

God.

The headache that had been building all day had finally reached its peak thanks to your co-workers’ loud and cheerful voice. The man in question: Kim Namjoon. He’s nice, minds his own business, and not to mention kind of gorgeous. Though, you’d rather die than voice that last part. 

The one problem with Mr. Gorgeous is his incessant need to call out and rope you into covering his shifts. While the influx of money is good, a girl can only take so much. It’s difficult when you have an inability to decline the requests. A curse that adults loved you for as a child. Now? They’re annoyed that you have no backbone.

This is why, despite being an angel sent from God himself, your head throbbed at the sudden presence Namjoon.

“Yes?”

You prayed he would tell you about the latest book he read but alas your fears were confirmed.

“Sorry to ask but do you think you can cover my shift tomorrow?” He scratched the back of his head as he awaited your answer.

You sat in silence trying to find the boldness to tell him no but your mouth seemed to have a mind of its own and you heard yourself agree all while your brain was screaming at you.

His smiled which made his eyes crinkle, and for a moment you were glad you said yes if it meant you could see his face light up like that. However your brief episode of joy ended after he thanked you and went back to sweeping the store floor.

“Why did I do that?” You whisper to yourself.

“Do what?”

Heart racing, you spun around to see Park Jimin, a fellow co-worker and apparently extremely quiet walker.

“Damn dude, warn a girl next time” You exclaimed hand over your heart. He chuckled as he apologized.

“Sorry, I can’t help that you have the heart of an 80 year old.” He continued,”So what were you just whispering to yourself?”

You sighed as you debated on whether or not to tell him. Eventually you gave in and told him your predicament.

He pursed his lips before answering. “Why didn’t you just say no? Namjoon’s a nice guy, he’s understand.”

“I know! I just feel like I’m being rude if I say no.”

“You should work on that,”

Yeah, no shit.

You turned to your vacant register almost wishing a customer would walk in.

Almost.

***

The drive home was short and uneventful.

As you returned to your apartment you did nothing but think of ways to get out of Namjoon’s shift the next day. At the rate you were going only certain death would stop you from going in the next day. At that thought, you silently prayed that a violent case of the stomach flu would visit you during the night but as you woke up the next morning, puke free, you realized your dream of staying in would never come to be.

You stayed in bed on your phone for about 2 hours before the need to use the bathroom overcame the want to stay comfortable. Tossing the blankets to the side, you slowly get out bed to prepare yourself for the day ahead.

Going to the bathroom you trip over some clothes cursing yourself for not having done laundry but also knowing that it probably wouldn’t get done for another week.

You decided to put on some mascara after washing your face, hoping it would make you seem more awake. You then put on your work uniform and tied up your hair before making your way toward your purse.

Without a glance back, you shut your front door and headed off to your own personal Purgatory.  

***

5 hours into Namjoon’s shift and you want to shove your head through a wall.

When it isn’t agonizingly slow, customers storm in seemingly determined to rub you the wrong way.

If I get one more rude customer…

As your angry thoughts stewed in your mind, you notice Jimin fixing a display of toilet paper some kids decided to over 5 minutes prior. You walked over to help before another customer could stroll in.

You silently stacked the rolls and watched Jimin stand with his hands on his back and pained expression on his face.

“I shouldn’t be having this much pain at my age. This job is aging me, I swear.” He ran his hands through his hair as he stared at you, It was little moments like this where you remembered just how handsome Park Jimin was, even in the God-awful orange uniform.

You chuckled at his comment as you both move toward the the office near the back of the store. Your supervisor was dealing with a customer and you desperately needed a break, even it was a 30 second water break.

“I’m done. I quit,” You say as you bring the cup to your lips. Head leaning against the wall, you sigh and watch as Jimin sits on one of the plastic chairs waiting out the last 5 minutes of his shift.

His head rolls to look at you as his posture relaxes slightly. “No you don’t,” he smiles,”you’d miss me too much”

“Pssh. Don’t flatter yourself.”

He opens his mouth to respond but is cut off by your supervisor walking through the door.

“Where the hell have you been? Customers are waiting to be rung up and I really don’t want to deal with anymore complaints.”

With wide eyes, you threw a fake smile at Jimin and walked past your supervisor before she could start to lecture about the importance of staying at the register.

There was a man waiting and you cursed your supervisor for making such a big deal about one person.

“Hi, sorry about that.” You placed your hands on the counter as you reach your only customer. On first glance, you notice how striking the man is. After being so used to Namjoon’s light brown hair and Jimin’s blonde locks, you were a little surprised to see this guy’s bright blue mop. However, on second glance, you notice that he didn’t have anything on the small conveyor belt or in his hands.

This prompted your first question.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

The blue-haired man licked his lips before answering.

“Yeah, um, is Kim Namjoon here?”

“No, I’m sorry he’s not,” Your head tilted as you could hear your customer service voice slowly take over.

He sighed in frustration and tilted his head back. Trying to get on with your day while still seeming polite, you asked,” Is there anything else I can help you with?”

He simply replied ‘no thank you’ and told you to have a nice day. You offered your own pleasantries as you admired his face a second more before he turned and walked out of the store.

Once your shift was over, you texted Namjoon letting him know that someone was looking for him. When he asked who, you realized you had never asked the man for his name but figured that the description of blue hair would suffice as explanation.

Namjoon: OH! I know him, he’s a friend of mine. He managed to find me earlier :) Thanks for letting me know! See you at work!

Sighing as you read over the text you wondered how you ended up with this awful job and how you ended up being so weak for the man named Kim Namjoon.

***

Notes: wow okay so i hope if anyone reads this that they at least liked it a little bit! i know it’s short and boring right now but i hope to produce more chapters, longer chapters, in the future. believe it or not this isn’t my first time putting some of my stuff out on the internet but it is my first time fo BTS stuff! feel free to tell me what you think and if you have any criticisms let me know! help me out! lol thank you!

Tagged: @spiicyari

[animeniac]

Starbomb Ch. 6

Fandom: BNHA Pairing: Bakugou x Uraraka Genre: Romance and Comedy probably Chapter Summary: Embarrassed that Uraraka told others of their platonic rendezvous, Bakugou attempts to avoid her. However, being the tenacious friend that she is, Uraraka isn’t prepared to let that happen. Hopefully, she doesn’t get too close too fast. (See Chapter 1 for story summary.) A/N: I guess I’m not good at burning things slowly. I reposted this because Tumblr was glitching out and eating my story! Disclaimer: Get clear, verbal consent to bite people, kids.

Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI

"Oi!" Bakugou shouted from outside Uraraka's door as he pounded his knuckles against the wood. "Oi!" He had been doing this for a solid minute, and he swore that in a few more moments, he would burst down the door.

Kirishima who gently guided him to the poor girl's door regretted doing so. Sweat slid down his temple as he sighed, "Dude, she's probably getting dressed or something. Maybe you should give her a minute." While catching Bakugou and Uraraka at the arcade impressed him, he had second thoughts on whether or not Bakugou should continue to hang out with her.

"I don't have time to wait until she decides to do with her life. I gotta go eat, and this is about our project. If she doesn't come out in the next five seconds, I'm going to BUST DOWN THIS DAMN DOOR!" the explosive young man threatened. He had just finished his shower, so theoretically, he could have gone to finish getting dressed. After all, he only had on green shorts and a white undershirt. The fact that his partner had the audacity to ignore his knocking disturbed him.

When a pink pajama-clad Uraraka emerged with a cell phone that she held close to her ears with two hands, she had a small smile pop onto her face when she looked up at Bakugou.

Kirishima lifted an eyebrow. Did she enjoy their turbulent interaction? No, she must have had such a light-hearted expression because of the person she talked to on the phone. He wouldn't take her for a masochist.

Bakugou barked, "Are you makin' fun of me?"

To the person on the phone, she whispered, "Hold on, Papa, my study buddy's here."

"What the fuck did you just call me?" Bakugou growled as he tightened both of his fists. So that he could continue the ruse that what he had to say was urgent, he continued, "We're going to spend two hours at Kotone's tomorrow. Got that?"

The girl that defied gravity accepted Bakugou's request and nodded, "Yeah, okay. That's fine. We have that test on Friday. I think she'll understand."

"And another thing," added Bakugou as he leaned down to snatch her phone from her grasp. He held the cell phone as he twisted his body so that it was at the highest point possible while pressed against his ear so that she couldn't reach it. "Hey, this is Bakugou Katsuki. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'm going to marry your daughter at all costs - no matter what. From now on, I'll be the one to take care of her." Despite his need to cover his face as he spoke, he could finally manage to say the word marriage as long as he averted his eyes from Uraraka's round face.

Even if he couldn't immediately afford to take care of her, he'd find a way to find the money somehow. With that, he tossed the phone to Uraraka. He had no way of making his point more clear to her - he would not let her out of his grasp.

When Uraraka finally caught it after jumping and squirming beneath him, she staggered back into her doorway and narrowed her eyes up at Bakugou. "I can't believe you!" she whined before resuming her phone call. "P-Papa, that's not true. He's just joking around."

"I'm not fucking around!" Bakugou snarled as he flashed his teeth. For that short conversation, he kept his language as neutral as possible, too. Neutral as in not extremely disrespectful.

Damage control! Uraraka's conversation had spiraled out of control until she physically became dizzy. With a straight face, she assured, "No, he's not my boyfriend. He's my study buddy."

Kirishima could hardly handle the intensity of these two. "Dude," he muttered as he covered his face. If Bakugou wanted to marry this girl one day, even the inexperienced Kirishima knew that this tactic wasn't the way to do it.

Bakugou ranted at the audacity of such a title. He complained, "A study buddy? Are you kidding me?" Before he glared back down in her direction, he would have corrected her, but her direct stare halted his declaration as her deep, brown eyes made contact with him.

"Yes, don't worry. I'm safe - I can handle myself," sighed Uraraka on the phone as she closed the door in Bakugou's face. "Violent? No, he's alright. He's my friend, and he's protective of me." She paused before she mentioned his protective nature, for she had no better explanation for his behaviors. In a way, he had been protective of her in the past - or else, why would he want to escort her home or kill that pervert on the train? Of course, she couldn't mention those incriminating moments to her father.

Like clockwork, Bakugou began pounding on her door again.

Uraraka nervously laughed, "I'll call you back later, Papa. I promise to be safe. Don't worry." When she ended the phone call and opened the door, she reminded herself to let Bakugou know whatever came to her mind. Jerking the door open, she planted her feet firmly to the ground to compete in Bakugou's glaring contest as he huffed and puffed like the wolf that he was. "What do you want? Why did you have to embarrass me like that? My dad's gonna be super worried now!"

Crossing his arms, Bakugou thought he matched her resilience, "I just told him the truth."

"What truth? That's not the truth! I'm not going to marry you."

Her lack of acceptance had zero relevance, but when she uttered the word "marry," he had to turn away. "Don't shit around here all day like an idiot. Go eat breakfast."

"Yeah, I'm about to go with Deku now. I just gotta get dressed for school first. Thank you for caring about me," she muttered before shutting the door in his face. While she did not intend to provoke him by mentioning Midoriya, she certainly had a slightly haughty tone in her gratitude for his concern.

Bakugou's eyebrow twitched as he turned around and yelled, "Fucker! I don't give a shit about you! I don't want to be lumped in with idiots who skip meals."

Maybe Kirishima should have left earlier. This awkward scene between them was too difficult for him to witness. By association, he became embarrassed by Bakugou's awkward attempt at whatever kind of confrontation he just had with Uraraka's father. He began to lose faith that Bakugou liked her at all.

Upon recalling the expressions on Uraraka's face, he supposed that she could properly handle him, so he had no reason to worry.

On the other hand, Bakugou panted as he finally willed himself away from Uraraka's door. She mentioned Midoriya, and he only thought of his old, childhood friend for a split second upon the realization that Uraraka seemed specifically fond of him. A vein in his forehead twitched as he nearly connected the dots to deduce her crush on Midoriya.

"Are you okay, man? Let's go get something to eat."

Kirishima snapped him from his contemplation.

"Yeah. Yeah, alright."

Casual. And fun. Even when Bakugou argued with Uraraka, he anticipated more moments of her company - not in the romantic sense like some of the couples he noticed around the world as of late. He would rather die before he allowed another person to cling to him. Sure enough, he had quite the troubling Monday.

"Kirishima said you disappeared yesterday. Where did you go?" Hanta asked with his signature grin. They also invited him to the arcade. While Kirishima had eerily failed to question Bakugou's disappearance, both Hanta and Kaminari couldn't abate their curiosity.

Bakugou said nothing at his desk that morning. He continued reviewing his notes from the past week and avoided eye contact with whoever asked him about his whereabouts over the weekend. When Hanta repeated the question, Bakugou glared up at them and replied, "I didn't feel like being around you guys." This response had to be an obvious lie, for he was one of the few people willing to traverse the city for his favorite arcade.

Out of nowhere, his round-faced partner appeared in front of his acquaintances, and out of turn, she answered, "Where did Bakugou go? We went to a restaurant. I didn't know he was supposed to be hanging out with you. Were you guys at the arcade, too?"

Kaminari, the busy body, stifled a chuckle as his eyes watered. "You were hanging out with Uraraka, huh?"

Gritting his teeth and lowering his brow, Bakugou glowered and intended to pierce Uraraka with a furious, red glare.

Kirishima chimed in from the comfort of his desk. Matter-of-factly, he added, "Yeah, I knew about it. They had to work on some project stuff." He knew that would only be a temporary band-aid, but there was a chance that Bakugou was serious about Uraraka. He had to do something to help.

The anti-gravity girl shook her head. "No, it wasn't stuff for the project. We just bumped into each other and spent the day together," Uraraka corrected him with a smile as she stepped closer to Bakugou's desk. She failed to understand the message encoded into his glare, and she knew that his reasoning could be anything that happened. He probably didn't like the fact that people interrogated him that early in the morning. The least she could do was explain some discrepancies. "We had a lot of fun, too."

An uproar of laughter came from someone behind him.

"Shut your damn mouth, round-face," threatened Bakugou as he gripped the edge of his desk with sweaty hands.

Still laughing and spectating the scene, Kaminari chuckled, "Having fun, huh? Sounds like a fateful encounter."

"You shut the fuck up before I blow your fucking head off," Bakugou shouted. Every damn day with this bull shit. He grabbed his head and ruffled his already messy hair as he rued announcing his plans to the world. For some reason, his paranoia sky rocketed as he figured everyone hung on every word he said. Around the classroom, quieter classmates probably listened in on their conversation. His heart raced, and when he glanced up to glare at Uraraka until she somehow remedied the situation, but she left.

Midoriya had entered the room, so nothing else mattered to the anti-gravity girl.

"See? You drove her away."

That didn't matter if Uraraka fled for a time, for he would eventually drag her back to him. She seemed to respect him enough to hold a proper conversation, and at that time, that's all he could admit that he wanted out of their interactions. As his stare traced her every move, he complained, "Like I give a shit. That girl can do what she wants with who she wants."

That day he decided not to share his intentions with anyone else. Whenever he mentioned or even thought of marriage, his heart sank into uncertainty, and that weighted sensation could only hold him away from his goals. Much like his reasoning for expelling the word from his vocabulary, he wanted to avoid the public exposure of his vulnerability.

No, he had yet to find the words to articulate such a mortifying Achille's heel. In his mind and words, he rationalized his fear as a proper precaution to prevent others from misinterpreting his goals for offspring. He certainly didn't want for others to see him as insufferably maudlin.

Surely, he had been protective of his reputation in the past, but this kind of guarded pride differed in that he felt a limitless void of a risk.

Kirishima saw a lot over those past few days, and he already knew that Bakugou's fixation with Uraraka must have grown into a full-on crush. If everyone kept pushing him too much, then he would do something drastic and ruin his chances with her.

Uraraka would have had a quaint and peaceful lunch with her friends. Being near Midoriya was always enough to energize her for the days like that day when she didn't have any food to eat. Conveniently, she told them that she had a hearty breakfast which she also skipped.

Until she could figure a proper way to deal with her love for him, those lovely afternoons with their friend, Iida, would be all that happened. She solemnly smiled in their direction as the comfort of their company warmed her.

She deeply regretted not telling Midoriya and Iida about her weekend excursion with Bakugou. She couldn't figure out why. After all, she only met him for video games and food. Family members did that with each other, so doing that with an acquaintance should not have had any shame attached to it. By the time Iida asked her where she had disappeared to the day before, she hesitated to answer.

"Oh, I just went to the arcade with Bakugou," she raised a finger as if she suddenly remembered her whereabouts.

Iida and Midoriya both raised their eyebrows, but her quick friend was first one to interject, "Just Bakugou? Why?"

Her heart thumped. Uraraka knew there would be cautious curiosity. She explained, "You know, I just didn't feel like hanging out with anyone, really. Then, I ran into him by coincidence. We went to the arcade and to some restaurant."

Unbeknownst to her, the excuse she gave her friends minimally differed from Bakugou's.

Straightening her collar, she further concealed the star necklace that she had won alongside Bakugou. She also hid the fact that she literally staked out in the facility before he arrived. Eagerly, her ears perked to await her crush's response.

Midoriya smiled, "Did you have fun? That's pretty cool that you two got to hang out outside of class."

"Y-Yeah," nodded Uraraka. While she could ease her fear that she may have hurt Midoriya, she wished to know more about his opinion and sentiments. At least, he wasn't jealous.

Without hesitation, Iida voiced his concern as he pensively frowned. "Just be careful, Uraraka. If you get too close to him, then he might take advantage of your kindness. Don't forget that he had that vicious outburst in front of everyone a few weeks ago, and I have many reasons to believe that he's a danger to you as his target," he sternly warned her.

Before she could respond, Midoriya interjected, "I'm glad you guys are friends now. From what I remember, he's amazing at video games. Also, I don't think Kacchan would hurt someone like you."

"He already did," reminded Iida. He referred to the Sports Festival.

Midoriya remembered that nail-biting spectacle that had him on the edge of his seat. He chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head, "Oh, right, but that was during a tournament. He did that out of respect."

Without a verbal response, Iida merely sighed.

Not only did Uraraka feel like she betrayed her crush, but she worried that she took an old friend of his that he still admired. "Maybe you two can be friends one day, too. I think you're way cooler than him anyway, so he'd be the lucky one. You're kinder than him and stronger than him and just an all around better person to hang out with - I'm sorry I didn't invite you," she apologized with a heavy blush at the tip of her cheeks.

Pausing to think, Midoriya chose his words carefully when he stuttered, "T-Thank you. You don't have to apologize. We probably wouldn't have gotten along anyway." He appreciated the adulation coming from such a cute girl, and while he could acknowledge his personal growth, he still felt inferior to Bakugou. The guarded Midoriya could only interpret his friend's applause as platonic respect at most, for he had a difficult time believing that such an attractive, wonderful girl would have any romantic interest in him. Despite her praise, a slight tinge of pain had shot through his racing heart when he heard that they casually met alone.

Guilt sank in as he hoped that she didn't pick up on that slight notion of disappointment in his gut.

Fortunately, she only saw an unyielding plaintive smile as he stared at the ground. To mask her true feelings, she wanted to dial back her compliments. After all, those sentiments impeded their goals as future heroes. "I'd never marry someone like him or even fall for him," she promised as her heart jumped. Oh no, hopefully, Midoriya didn't see that as an implication that she saw him as a future husband.

Husband? Midoriya as her husband? Why did she think of that?

"I've heard rumors that Bakugou just likes you because Midoriya hangs out with you a lot. You know how he is with him," Iida explained as he straightened his glasses.

"Wah? Bakugou doesn't like me. We're hardly friends," she immediately denied the slander as her fluster straightened into a distraught grimace. "Who said that?"

Iida smiled, "Yeah, I was aware. I heard it in the hallways." He half-way lied, for he had speculated that Bakugou had some attachment to his floaty friend.

Midoriya had his opinions on the matter, and he also believed that Bakugou had developed a peculiar and unique attraction to Uraraka. He never acted as he had with anyone throughout their lives. "He might not like her in that way, but he definitely respects you, Uraraka," he assured her.

However, she bit her lip and delved deeper into her thoughts as she reviewed their interaction a little earlier that day in class. If people talked about them in the hallways, then he would have been especially callous and under pressure. Her eyes further opened as she gasped. "I have to go," she excused herself. "I'll see you in the next period, 'kay?" She had to fix the conflict before Bakugou pushed her away again.

Knowing him, he probably resented such accusations as a threat to his strength.

Although Midoriya jumped at the urgent concern in her voice, he stayed still and watched her gather her belongings and dash away as he weakly raised his hand to wave.

After departing from her friends at lunch, she did not find Bakugou until class resumed. Before she reached his desk, the bell rang, and a teacher promptly entered. He didn't even look up at her when she passed by and grazed her knuckles along the edge of the desk like he hated.

He must have dashed out of the room when class ended as well, for she had to force herself through troves of people just to get a glimpse of his backside. On Mondays, he usually went to the gym earlier. So then, when she darted down to that facility and changed out of her school uniform, she nearly collapsed when she met him there. Out of breath, she reminded herself to keep a distance and allow him to sniff her hand like the wild animal that he was.

"You sure have a knack for stalking me, round face," Bakugou sneered from his treadmill. He noticed her shirt on backward and inside-out.

"I thought you were gonna run away from me again," she panted as she took a seat on a weight machine.

Once he saw her set up her machine, he knew that he wouldn't be able to get away from her that easily. "I never run away," Bakugou lied, for he had tried to avoid her for most of that day and last week for a separate reason. "Now, fuck off."

Beginning her work out, she continued as if they had an amicable atmosphere amongst them. Denying the glare in his crimson eyes, she explained, "I know why you were super strange this morning now. Don't worry - I know you don't like me. You just wanna marry me for my quirk. So, I won't get the wrong idea, alright?" She gulped as she strained herself to talk and work out. For some reason, she had to push herself more than usual. "Do I get in your way?"

Sometimes, she saw herself as a burden for Midoriya on the off moments that she allowed her infatuation to distract her from combat. A lot of her most contemplative moments revolved around him. Her turmoil centered on whether or not she had the right to hang out with someone else.

Keeping an eye on her reflection, Bakugou noticed her crooked hips and curved back - attributes unfit for such an exercise. Two noticeably dark semi circles bordered the bottom of her heavy eyelids. He snorted, "Ha, nothing gets in my way - especially not you." Truthfully, he had an impromptu early morning workout for the hell of it that morning where he surpassed every goal he put on himself.

"When I think about Deku, I feel happy and proud and invincible. He's someone I wanna be like, and I wanna be close to him, too. But then, he's all I think about. I don't want to get in the way of his dream, and I don't want my feelings to mislead me," she explained as she pulled the pulley and lifted the weights behind her.

Agitated at the fact that she would ever allow a dolt like Midoriya to get in the way of her aspirations, he stopped his treadmill and stomped over to her. Stress reddened his eyes when he pushed her cheeks together and growled, "Will you shut up about Deku? Look at yourself - look at what you're doing right now. Your posture looks like shit, and so do you. If you don't shut up and straighten yourself out, I'm gonna blow your head off."

Why did she let her guard down? Bakugou wondered as he seethed.

Uraraka said the one thing that knocked him off of his ego. "You're not gonna hurt me," she replied with dry eyes free of fear or emotion.

With a pause, he continued his rant, "Give me a break. Do what you want, and stop thinking about him. I thought you were better than this schoolyard crush bullshit, but you're drooling over him and fucking yourself over in the process."

A jolt of electricity pulsed through his body when Bakugou looked down into her endlessly brown and tearful eyes. Lowering his hands to her shoulders and the other down her back to her waist, he pulled her up to his chest. His nose, centimeters from her milk chocolate hair, inhaled her sweet scent as his heart pulsated as his face neared the succulent nape of her neck.

Bakugou obeyed his instinctual desire and brushed the tip of his nose down her soft, round cheek. His tongue slid out to graze her collarbone. Hungry, his teeth gradually followed and brushed the luscious surface of her wan flesh. Slowly, he pinched his teeth around her skin which failed to fully satisfy his voracity.

Uraraka could only hear her heart as her tears halted and dried beneath his thick, hot breath. The same current of electricity flowed through her as well. Her breaths took a tune of their own as she stared him down. How could such lurid behavior tenderly comfort her?

"Dammit, Uraraka," he groaned each syllable of her name or perhaps, he pleaded from his conscience for her presence to have mercy his primal passion. Begrudgingly, as his nose met hers once more, his hand gripped her waist and pulled her closer.

She hadn't had a single coherent thought pass through her mind since he pulled her towards him. The anti-gravity girl realized that the heat on her cheeks came from more than just his breath. As she parted her lips, she expected words to come out, but she stayed silent as Bakugou neared her face. Their eyes never left each other. Somehow, they remained entirely cognizant of each other - and only each other.

"Sorry. Did I - um, I can go. Sorry," apologized Midoriya after he walked through the door.

How long had he been standing there? Neither of them had noticed him enter the otherwise empty room.

Bakugou exclaimed, "Hah?" Despite the outburst, he unconsciously held Uraraka in the same position. Just then, she pushed him into the air with the tip of her fingers and freed herself to run out of the room. Grabbing onto whatever he could, he held part of the weight machine. "Fuck!" he cursed. That obnoxious girl used her quirk on him again. He hated that he let her get the best of him in more ways than one.

"Are you okay, Kacchan?" asked Midoriya as he would have helped him back down to the ground.

"What the fuck are you looking at me for? Go get her you idiot!" ordered Bakugou.

Midoriya hesitated before he ran out the door.

As Bakugou floated grabbed a stationary weight and attempted to pull him towards the ground, he listed out as many unbiased differences between him and Midoriya as he could. Then, he cursed to himself as he wondered why he lost control of himself.

As if amnesia stole his memories, he could not recall his intentions. Certainly, he could not fathom what he would have done if Midoriya never interrupted the scene. Nonetheless, lingering warmth called attention to his arms as he thought aloud, "She better not run away again." Even if Midoriya managed to steal her away, Bakugou would go to the ends of hell to drag her back to him.

Like a harsh reminder, gravity forced him back to the ground. She must have gotten away far enough.

On the way out of the gym and back to her dormitory, Uraraka wanted to puke, and if she saw her reflection embracing Bakugou one more time, then she would have. As much as she could ascertain from the recollection of the mirror's perspective, her fatigue claimed her memory.

Midoriya! He witnessed her thoughtless incident. Midoriya was the only person from that scene that mattered to her. What did he think? Hopefully, he didn't misconstrue the situation as far as to assume that she enjoyed what happened.

As Uraraka passed through the commons, Jirou casually approached her along with Ashido and Yaoyorozu. Unfortunately, they seemed to want to talk to her. The dizzy and despondent anti-gravity girl could hardly stand up straight.

"Hey, are you alright?" commented Jirou.

Ashido offered, "We were headed to the cafeteria. Do you want to come, too?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," answered Uraraka as she barely kept up with the polite concern. "I jogged on the way here. That's why I'm out of breath."

No one asked about her breath specifically, but now that they realized it, she seemed ill.

"Do you need to go to the infirmary?" Yaoyorozu asked as she reached out to touch her clammy shoulder.

Already sludging in the direction of her room, Uraraka shook her head. "Nah, I'm just really tired. Thanks." When she reached her bed, she plopped down and pushed her head into her pillow. A headache set in as her heart rate surged. She could still feel the sensation of Bakugou's tongue against her shoulder. Finally, tears built up in the corners of her eyes. "Deku will never be with me now," she lamented as she covered her reddened face.

Maybe the action itself would have been forgivable, but Uraraka knew that she yielded to the sinful excitement that beckoned her to yearn for more. When she had spotted herself in her reflection, she saw a girl without a trace of fear. Throughout her somnolence, she could not deny the insufferable intrigue that crescendoed in their moment together.

Rubbing that spot that he nearly marked, she loathed Bakugou for pouncing at her in a time of weakness. He probably did it to spite Midoriya. She'd be damned if she ever let him get that close again. They would have to have a long talk if he ever wanted to be friends with her again.

That's how she vowed to remember the occurrence upon awakening. Therefore, she had nothing to be ashamed of, or else, how could she resume their friendship?

Suddenly, she recalled planning to see Kotone tomorrow, but that would require seeing Bakugou. So then, she decided to text her student with trembling hands, "I'll have to push back our tutoring a little bit further. I hope that's okay. Don't worry, I'll tell Bakugou. We'll have tons of fun when we finally see each other."

Then, when she pressed send, she slowly descended into her slumber.

[individuationfic]

Seeking to Seize Chapter 8

AO3

The team decides to go visit Tatsumi Textiles.

Yu’s pretty sure the next victim is going to be Tatsumi Kanji. Sure, the face on the Midnight Channel wasn’t clear, but his silhouette and body language was a perfect match. If Yukiko hadn’t suggested going, he would have.

Tatsumi-san is speaking to someone who is decidedly not her son when they arrive. They’re dressed in men’s clothes, but Yu doesn’t think they’re a boy. Their body shape reminds him more of Yukiko or Chie than of himself. If it is a boy, he’s probably very young—he probably hasn’t even gone through puberty. He makes a mental note to ask the others about this person’s voice.

The older woman welcomes them with a warm smile when the strange young person leaves. “Amagi-chan, it’s good to see you! Does your mother need a new kimono?” She looks kind, Yu thinks, with laugh lines around her mouth and wrinkles near her eyes that suggest wide smiles/ Looking at her, Yu starts to wonder how much of Tatsumi Kanji’s roughness is an act; he can’t picture a woman like this raising a violent delinquent.

Unfortunately, they don’t get much out of Tatsumi-san. She hasn’t noticed any strange people hanging around, nor has her son displayed any radical personality change. “He’s always had a hard time making friends,” she says, eyes sad. “He’s a good boy; he’s just a little rough around the edges.”

Yu sees the dismay in his team’s faces and feels a similar emotion rising in his own chest. Yukiko thanks Tatsumi-san for her time and they all bow before exiting the shop.

They don’t expect to run into Tatsumi Kanji and the strange young person speaking to each other.

Later, after they lose Tatsumi Kanji, Yu signs, ‘What were they talking about?’

“Tatsumi and that little guy are going to meet at the school gate at the end of the day tomorrow,” Yosuke says. The way his chest is heaving makes Yu thinks he’s out of breath. Yukiko is having a bit of a rough time, too, doubled over with her hands on her knees and her head hanging between her arms. Only Chie, who actually kind of works out, is unaffected by the chase. Yosuke takes a few more deep, shuddering breaths and continues, “What’s our game plan, partner?”

Partner. Something warm blooms in Yu’s chest. He doesn’t take the time to dwell on it, though, so he forces it down. ‘We need to know what they’re talking about,’ he signs instead. ‘I think two people should follow them, and two people should watch the shop and see if any weird people come around.’

“Then you and I will spy and the girls will watch the shop.”

Yu levels him with a bland look and slowly signs, ‘I would be less than useless at eavesdropping.’ To emphasize, he taps on his ears. ‘Yukiko and I can watch the shop. She’s the one who will cause the least suspicion since she’s a regular customer.’

Something odd flashes in Yosuke’s eyes and his mouth turns downward, but he agrees and fills the girls in on their new plan.

Yu stops back by the shopping district before he heads home. He wants to be prepared if they have to go into the TV tomorrow, so he stocks up on energy drinks, snacks, and, after some consideration, a Goho-M. Someday, he’ll have to ask someone how it works, but for now, the fact that it does is enough for him to trust it.

Exiting the shop, he finds the stray cat again. Now that he’s not as rattled, he’s able to take a good look at it. It’s mostly black except for white on its paws, nose, chest, and tail, and it has the most electric blue eyes he’s ever seen. He squats and gives the cat a quick scratch under the chin, feeling it fumble a purr against his fingers. Strays in Tokyo aren’t nearly this friendly.

The cat abruptly loses interest and trots around him. Yu cranes his neck and sees it get scooped up by a man with long hair and sunglasses. I guess it wasn’t a stray after all. He pushes his momentary sadness at the thought of not petting the cat aside and heads home.

He can’t say he’s too surprised when Yosuke and Chie get run off. They’re not exactly subtle individuals, after all, and they have a tendency to work each other up. Yu silently hopes Yukiko can be a calming influence on Chie, though he’s not getting his hopes up.

Just as they’re about to discuss their next move, Tatsumi Kanji arrives home and drives them away once more. At least I can tell Mom I’m getting some cardio in.

New Chat

[Amagi Yukiko] → [Narukami Yu]

[Amagi Yukiko]: Kanji-kun is missing!

Yu’s head reels and he places himself firmly in front of the TV in his room just in time for the Midnight Channel to start. Sure enough, there’s Tatsumi Kanji, face red and wearing only a bath towel. Where Yukiko’s weird TV show was based in a castle, it seems his is set in a bath house. And, judging by the rainbow colored, Bara-style subtitles, it’s a very specific kind of bath house. Tatsumi Kanji’s aggression suddenly makes sense. How is it, he asks Izanagi, that I’ve bet more LBGT people in Inaba than in Tokyo?

Like attracts like, Izanagi says, sounding amused.

Yu is spared from having to respond when his phone vibrates.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: Did you see that?

[Hanamura Yosuke]: What the hell was that?

[Narukami Yu]: Looks like we have our next lead.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: But do you think he’s really

[Hanamura Yosuke]: Like that?

[Narukami Yu]: There’s nothing wrong with being gay, Yosuke.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: I know!

[Hanamura Yosuke]: I’m not a dick.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: But do you think he is?

[Narukami Yu]: It doesn’t matter if he is or not.

[Narukami Yu]: If this is going to be an issue, you don’t have to come with us.

[Narukami Yu]: It would be hard with one less team member, but it would be doable.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: Of course I’m coming!

[Hanamura Yosuke]: We’re partners, aren’t we?

[Hanamura Yosuke]: It won’t be a problem, I promise.

[Narukami Yu]: Good.

[Narukami Yu]: We’ll all meet up tomorrow to make a plan.

[Narukami Yu]: Good night.

[Hanamura Yosuke]: Night, partner.

Yu sets aside his phone and sighs. Do you think Yosuke is homophobic?

I think he is simply ignorant, Izanagi says. You were the same a few years ago, correct? For what it’s worth, you handled that well. Continue to educate him without tolerating his intolerance and he will learn.

I hope you’re right.

Did I sound like a jerk?

A little, yeah.

Yosuke groans, falling back against his pillows. Like, I know there’s nothing wrong with dudes liking other dudes, but what if he ends up liking me? I’d never feel safe!

He hears Jiraya’s forlorn sigh. Not every gay man you meet if going to be attracted to you. And even if they are, you can’t assume they will be predatory.

I’m just not comfortable with it!

Well, you better get comfortable, or your partner isn’t going to let you fight with the team.

Yosuke presses his face into a pillow and screams.