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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 3 years

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Honest and Truly

Summary: Spencer has his prom 10 years late, but none of that matters when it's with the girl of his dreams.

Word Count: 4.8 k

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female (She/Her)-- Fluff

CW: Minimal vulgar language (PG-13)

Author's Note: This just might be my most favorite thing I've written in a very long time :) Also listen to the song I linked, it makes the title and the ending make more sense! thank you to @spookydrreid and @writhingintheroses for helping me a particular scene!!

Add yourself to my taglist! It makes it much easier for me :)

Honest and Truly

“A prom?” Spencer asks, realizing that the conversation had entered uncharted territory, a territory in which he had not a single clue how to navigate. Spencer, being a preteen in high school, never attended prom.

“Yes, Reid. A prom,” Penelope says, staring at him over the many monitors and stuffed cats that littered her desk, “It’s going to be so much fun!” she says, excitedly.

“That sounds like, uh, I’ll have plans that night,” Spencer tells Penelope, spinning around in the swivel chair as he eats his turkey and cheese sandwich. He usually enjoys their lunches together, but when Penelope gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her.

@s“Now I don’t believe that for a second, Reid. The only time that you have plans is when you’re with Y/N. And Y/N is going to be at this prom,” Garcia says, her pink glasses sliding down her nose. She winks at Reid, almost like she enjoys watching him squirm.

“How do you know that she’s going? Did she say she’s going?” Spencer asks, unable to conceal his eagerness that Y/N could be attending. Spencer might hate dancing and those fancy shoes that are too tight on his toes, but all that can be talked away if Y/N is there.

“Yes, she’s going because you’re asking her. That and I’m making everyone go,” Penelope says matter of factly.

Spencer opens his mouth, attempting to talk away Penelope’s suggestion. But Spencer Reid is a smart man and he knows better than trying to argue his way out with Penelope. Especially when it comes to Y/N. He might have an excellent poker face, but Spencer can’t hide his love for Y/N.

“I’m not going to ask her. You know she’ll think it’s because-” Spencer says, prepping for a long winded rant before the door of Penelope’s office swings open.

Y/N, with two coffees in hand, floats into the room like she’s walking on air. Or maybe it’s Spencer’s mind that’s floating when Y/N walks in. He can never tell. Whenever he’s near her, it’s like everything is sweeter, lighter and airier. Wordlessly, she passes the coffee to Spencer. Feeling her fingertips graze his reminds him of how pathetic he must be. He nods, telling her thanks, knowing that he’s unable to fully articulate just how grateful he is for the littlest things.

“Who are you not going to ask and to where, Spence?” Y/N says, leaning against the filing cabinets and sipping her coffee. Penelope, never one to be quiet, silently watches as Spencer and Y/N converse. Spencer looks up at her, feeling that light and airy feeling again. He brushes his hair that falls against his forehead nervously thinking of an answer.

“I- uh, I was thinking of asking my mother to come stay with me for a couple of weeks. You know, she hasn’t seen DC in a couple of years. And I do have some personal days banked,” Spencer says, telling Y/N a small white lie.

“She’s in Vegas, right?” Y/N asks, interested in what Spencer is saying, which is something that he’s still not used to. Spencer nods, smiling awkwardly.

“Yeah, she says that she likes the heat,” Spencer says, hating how formal and cold the conversation sounds. It’s normally flowing with easy and familiarity, but something is wedged between them. Penelope, long forgotten by the pair, types rapidly on her keyboard.

“You know, Spence. If you’re up for it maybe we can have lunch or meet at Elmwood Park. I’d love to meet the woman that made my favorite person,” she says, staring directly into Spencer’s eyes. Her stare is so intense that it’s like she’s looking into his soul. He thinks that if she looks deep enough she’ll see her own reflection because his soul belongs to her.

“I-I uh,” Spencer says, immediately thinking that he should actually invite his mother out for a visit, “I think that’s a good idea. She likes the sites and all,” he tells her nervously, trying to ease his beating heart.

He’s her favorite person.

Out of all the people in this city, this world. He’s her favorite person. Spencer, a lover of math, is tempted to figure out the odds of being his favorite person’s favorite person. He knows it’s slim. He knows it’s rare. It’s something magical and Spencer is terrified he’s going to ruin it. He’s terrified he’s going to fuck something up that’s not even his.

“It’s a date,” Y/N says, turning to Penelope, who’s still long forgotten, “Oh, Penny, you need to yell at Morgan for me. He ate my leftovers,” she tells Penelope, who feigns horror, “And now I don’t have lunch”

“How dare he!” Penelope says, her exaggerated response inciting chuckles, “he can get away with murder because he’s pretty,” she says, shaking her head.

He knows that she’s pretending to be disappointed, but he still doesn’t like to see it. Spencer unwraps the other half of his turkey and cheese sandwich and hands it to Y/N. She looks surprised, as if Spencer just handed her a million bucks.

“Spence, you don’t have to,” Y/N says, softly, handing back the half of the sandwich, “It’s your sandwich, I don’t want you to feel-”

“Eat it, Y/N,” Spencer says firmly, looking straight at Y/N, “You need to eat something. We both live off coffee as it is,” he says, hoping that Y/N will take the sandwich.

He’s looking straight at her and she’s looking straight at him. Spencer wonders if he looks deep enough he’ll reach her soul. He dares to think that if he can find her soul, he’ll stare at his face. He’s her favorite person after all, that’s got to count for something.

“Thanks, Spence,” Y/N says, smiling softly, “You make the best sandwiches,” she tells him, taking a bite of the sandwich as Garcia’s eyes flit from Spencer to Y/N. Back and forth, she watches the pair engage in the world’s best miscommunication.

“Y/N, did you hear? I’m throwing a prom!” Garcia says excitedly, hoping that Y/N’s reaction will be more enthusiastic than Spencer’s.

“A prom?” Y/N asks, unconvincingly, “God, I hated my prom. I got punched spilled all over my dress and my date tried to sneak alcohol into the banquet hall. It was a shitshow,” Y/N says, remembering the less than happy memories from high school.

“I didn’t go to prom. You know, between being a 12 year old and a dork,” Spencer says, self deprecatingly, “It’s not the ideal scenario, but I am familiar with the cultural significance of proms in American high school,” Spencer says, speaking to no one in particular, yet looking at Y/N directly.

“Maybe we’ll both get the prom night we deserve, Spence,” Y/N offers, tossing out her wax paper wrapper. She walks past him and it’s like the air is sweeter. He believes in science, but loves magic. Y/N is magic.

“Maybe,” Spencer says, refusing to make eye contact with Penelope, “you know, sorry to uh, cut this short. I have some paperwork to finish. Hotch’s been on me all day about it. So, uh, see you later,” he says, walking out of Penelope's office like a bat out of hell.

He tries to ignore the knowing stares from Penelope and Y/N’s confusion as he ducks out and walks into the bullpen. Spencer doesn’t have paperwork. He finished all his paperwork by 11:12 am. But what Spencer does have is a flight from Vegas to Quantico to book.

And prom shopping.

___

As it turns out, Spencer doesn’t know much about teenage American culture. Sure he’s seen 90s movies that Y/N forced him to watch. But it was quite difficult to pay attention when all he could feel was Y/N’s fingers brushing up against his in their shared bucket of popcorn or her head laying against his shoulder when she got tired.

He doesn’t know much of anything when it comes to romance. But he knows that he loves Y/N— and hopefully that’s enough. He still hasn’t asked her if she’d go with him. Honestly, he’s not too sure why he even has to ask her in the first place. She’s going to be there already, but Garcia and Morgan convinced him that it’s part of the so-called “Prom Experience”

“Spence,” Y/N says, she’s perched on the tall bar stool and rests her elbows on her kitchen island, “did you find a suit yet? I was thinking that we can go to that vintage store on Rock Ave. They have a surprisingly good size selection, and I think that this whole vintage thing fits your aesthetic really well,”

“My aesthetic?” Spencer questions, again lost at sea.

“You know, you’re like nerdy chic. Equal parts dorky and equal parts handsome,” she tells him. He feels his cheeks burn at her words.

Handsome

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Spencer says, eyeing Y/N over the rim of his hot coffee.

“It is,” Y/N says like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like him being handsome is just as obvious as him being dorky, “And get your wallet. We’re going to the vintage store,”

Spencer has a hate-love relationship with weekends. He loves spending time with Y/N where it was so easy to pretend that she loves him as he loves her. He hates the weekends for the same reason he loves them. Spencer knows that it’s all fake. It’s a façade of the truth.

“Spence! You’d look great in this,” Y/N suggests, holding up a gray sports coat, “I think it will match your eyes perfectly,”

“If you think so, Y/N,” Spencer says, nodding his head in agreement. She continues eyeing him as if she’s imagining what he’d look like in the jacket. He has to admit, it’s a very nice jacket.

“Come on, Spence. There’s a mirror over in the corner. Try it on for me,” she requests and not even a second later Spencer finds himself being dragged by the hand to try on the suit jacket.

Y/N holds the jacket open for him as he slips it on through his arms. He’s surprised to realize that it fits perfectly. He looks into the mirror, staring at his face and Y/N, who tugs and smooths the jacket. Spencer can’t look too much longer because if he does the lines between reality and fantasy will be difficult to distinguish. As much as he wants to stare into the mirror all day long, pretending that this is real, he much rather it actually be real. But wishing and dreaming only ends up with battle wounds and broken hearts.

“You look very handsome, Spencer. Very handsome,” Y/N says, staring into the mirror too now. But she’s not looking at the jacket, she’s looking at him. The beat of silence lasts longer than what’s comfortable, “Um, I think, I saw some pants that would look good on you, with this jacket, I mean,” she says, stumbling over her words. She’s not looking in the mirror any more, her gaze is noticeably away from Spencer and the mirror.

“Okay, uh, whatever you think, Y/N,” Spencer says, “I’m not even sure why I agreed to this thing. I don’t dance,” he says, regretting his choice to go to Penelope’s prom, but feeling guilty for maybe disappointing Y/N all in one breath.

“Did you ask her yet?” Y/N asks, holding up a pair of similarly gray colored pants. She must notice his confusion, “You know Austin, the woman you heroically saved. Does any of it ring a bell, Spence?” Y/N teases. Spencer feels his cheeks burn and his heart tighten, that happens a lot around Y/N.

“Oh Austin, uh no. She wasn’t interested in me, after all,” Spencer says, shifting his weight and staring at his converse, “I mean, I should have seen it coming. It’s transference, that’s like Psych 101,” he says, feeling strange. It was odd when Austin broke up with him, even if you can consider it breaking up. He felt a strange sense of relief when it happened, like a weight was lifted off his shoulders.

Y/N clicks her tongue in annoyance as she walks over to Spencer. Tugging slightly on the sleeves of the jacket she says, “well she’s not as smart as I thought she was. You have to be a complete fool to let someone like you go,” she says quietly. She’s standing too close, looking too beautiful, and seeming too perfect for Spencer to not be completely enamoured.

Then it breaks, like shattered glass. The rosey glasses are lifted, leaving only cheeks that sting with nervousness and hearts the yearn for something a little more tangible.

“Stop staring at me and go try it on,” Y/N says, handing him the pair of pants, “Oh and I’m going to look for a vest and a tie to match. This store is unbelievable,” she tells him, pushing him into the makeshift dressing room.

Spencer puts on the pants, which fit, despite being maybe an inch or two loose in the waist. He looks into the tall mirror, which is noticeably empty without Y/N standing with him. A floating hand, belonging to Y/N appears. She holds a burgundy tie and a dark brown vest, both of which are very Spencer. He smiles slightly, strangely happy that Y/N has picked something out that’s perfect for him.

“Tell me when you’re decent,” she says, her voice muffled by the curtain that separates them. He sticks his head out of the curtain, his eyes immediately finding Y/N’s.

“Ohh, Spence, you look amazing. Very handsome,” she says, her hands clasped around the tie, tugging just like she did with his suit jacket before, “What do you think?” she asks, looking at him curiously.

“It’s nice,” Spencer offers, approaching this like he does everything: cautiously, “I do like the texture,” he says, running his hands up and down the sleeves of the jacket.

“You look more than nice, Spence. I know I’ve said it like 30 times, but you look very handsome,” she says. Spencer hopes that she means it. He needs something to be real. Sometimes besides what he feels, because what he feels is the realest thing in the world.

“It’s nice to hear,” Spencer says, “you know from someone who’s not my mother,” he jokes, shrugging off the jacket and grabbing the hanger from Y/N.

“You deserve to hear it,” Y/N says so softly Spencer wonders if she’s saying it all. That beat of silence, followed by the awkwardness is back.

“So, uh, I saw a dress that I’m going to try on,” Y/N tells him, her gaze shifting everywhere but Spencer’s eyes.

“I’ll go pay for this,” Spencer says, walking back into the dressing room and the mirror that lies to his face.

___

Back in Y/N’s car, Spencer shifts in the passenger seat trying to find a way to sit comfortably while holding his suit jacket, pants and vest. Y/N hangs up her dress, that’s wrapped in a gown bag. She wouldn’t let Spencer see the dress, despite her practically picking out his entire outfit.

“So what’s next,” Spencer asks, as Y/N gets into the car. She smiles over at him sheepishly, leading Spencer to think she’s got another trick up her sleeve.

“I’ve got a confession, Spence. And please don’t hate me for it,” Y/N says, her voice coming out a little nervous as she eyes Spencer.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you, even if I tried. And I’m certain I’ll never have to,” he says softly, resting his hand over hers on the console. He rubs the back of her hand gently, thinking about just how easy things are with her. If he could only be a little braver, maybe then the mirror wouldn’t be so empty.

“Okay. I knew that things didn’t work out with you and Austin. I overheard you telling Derek,” Y/N confesses, “And I know that it makes me a horrible friend or whatever, but I’m sorry that I eavesdropped,”

“Oh, uh how much did you hear?” Spencer asks, suddenly quite nervous. He can feel his heart drop, waiting for the moment when Y/N laughs at the thought of her loving him. He knows that it’s not fair to her, but then again all is fair is love and war.

“Enough to know that you’re still hung up or or someone else. I left once my conscience got the better of me. Once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout,” she says, making the three finger salute that’s common in scouting, “I just wanted to hear it from you, you know you’re my favorite person and all,” she says, a frown forming.

“I think, uh,” Spencer says, “That I was just a little embarrassed. You know how Derek and Penelope and Emily and JJ can get. It’s basically just you and Hotch who aren’t jumping down my throat about being, you know, alone,” he says, chuckling awkwardly.

“They just want to help you, Spence. In their own ways, but I’m always on Team Spencer. You never got to worry about that,” Y/N offers, squeezing his hand.

He considers what she says, not responding verbally, but nodding his head. He hasn’t ever had someone on his “team”, so it’s strange. But a good kind of strange.

“Spence, you okay? I wanted to give you something. To be truthful, I’ve been thinking about how I was going to do this for awhile,”

“Ask me what?” he questions, wondering what she has in store. He watches as Y/N rummages in his bag, clearly looking for something. He’s thoroughly confused when she pulls out a TI-84.

“What on earth?” Spencer says, as she places the calculator in his hands. Her sly grin, beaming up at him only further proves his point: his heart just beats faster around her.

“Just shut and press the on button. You’d think that a genius would know how to work a calculator,” she comments, rolling her eyes playfully.

“You know, I never used these. I can just do it in my head faster,” Spencer says, winking at Y/N when she pushes him teasingly.

“God, Spencer just turn it on!” she demands, very apparently getting more and more impatient.

He turns the calculator on and is brought to a green screen that has a picture of a graph. Spencer raises his eyebrow, as if to ask Y/N for the next direction.

“Press the graph button,” she says, getting quieter as Spencer looks at her.

He presses the button that she said to, waiting for whatever is supposed to happen. Spencer watches as the screen draws four black lines running parallel to each other. A curved line is drawn on the first two black lines, forming the letters “P” and “R”. The screen continues to draw, making an oval that looks like an “O” and the last two parallel lines are joined together with a “v” shape, forming the letter “M”. He takes a second glance, reading the 4 letter word slowly.

P-R-O-M

“Well?” she asks, waiting for his answer.

He’s speechless. Spencer blinks. It’s like his brain has stopped working. It’s a prom, a stupid prom that’s 10 years too late. But it’s the girl of dreams that’s asking him. And that’s the stuff those rom-coms he couldn’t pay attention to are made of.

“I mean, of course. Of course, Y/N,” Spencer says, dropping the calculator into the cup holder and leaning in to hug Y/N.

His heart stops again. Falling into that tricky habit of either speeding up or stopping when she’s around. He thinks he’s ready to implode when she pecks his cheek. Her lips don’t linger, hardly touching his skin for it to be considered a kiss.

“I don’t think I’d want to go with anyone else,” she says, mumbling into his skin. She seals his fate with her lips against his skin. Never again will Spencer imagine what it’s like to have her lips against his skin. Even though it’s a fraction of the time he’d want, it’s tattooed in his mind.

“I’m not much of a dancer, by the way,” Spencer says, reluctantly letting go and sitting back into the passenger’s seat, “so don’t expect too much,” he jokes.

“Oh you better watch it, Doctor Reid. I’m getting you on the dance floor, even if you hate it,” Y/N says, smiling as she backs out of the parking spot and turns into the street.

Spencer looks out the window, thinking to himself that there’s probably nothing he can hate if he’s doing it with Y/N.

Spencer didn’t go to prom in high school. He didn’t do a lot of the traditional things that most former high schoolers reminisce about at his age. He didn’t go to football games or have a best friend to make lifelong memories with.

He didn’t have any of that, until now.

But it’s prom night, 10 years late. His hands are sweaty and his mouth feels dry. Spencer wasn’t this nervous for even his first day at the BAU all those years ago. He tries to fix the burgundy tie that Y/N picked out at the vintage store. It looks crooked and twisted. Nothing like when Y/N tied perfectly in the store for him. He supposes that he can wait till she comes to pick him up.

The mirror, again, is noticeably empty without Y/N standing beside him. He can get lost in there, thinking about her standing with him. He does, because it feels like seconds later when he hears a rapid knocking on his apartment door.

Standing on the other side of the door is Y/N. She wears a sage green dress that looks like it’s made of softest silk. He smiles at her, not sure if he can trust his words. Spencer doesn’t think he’ll be able to do much thinking when all he can focus on is the tiny straps that rest on her shoulders or how the sage green compliments her skin tone.

“You look, god. You’re beautiful,” Spencer says, partly under his breath partly aloud to Y/N, “so beautiful,” he says again, focusing on her eyes.

“And you’re looking very dashing in that suit, Spence,” she says, pushing her way in, “do you need help with your tie?” she asks, looking at the tie he holds in his hand.

“Yes, please,” he says sheepishly. He holds out the burgundy colored tie, but takes his hand back as an idea crosses his mind, “oh wait here, I’ll be right back,” Spencer says, walking quickly to his bedroom.

“Alright,” Y/N says sceptically, “Don’t ditch me, Reid!” she calls out from the living room.

Spencer returns, hiding the new tie behind his back. He places an olive green tie with dusty blue and pink flowers in her hands. He notices her smile grow, realizing that he’s picking a new tie for a reason.

“I might not know much about prom, but I think that we’re supposed to match. You know, since we’re going together,” he offers, “but I need help putting it on,” he says.

“We’re going to match!” Y/N says excitedly. As she unbuttons the first button on Spencer’s cream colored shirt he holds his breath. He can’t breathe when she’s this close. Her fingers are quick and nimble as they feed the tie around his neck and elegantly create a knot. If Spencer wasn’t already in love, he knows that watching her eyes twinkle and her tongue poke out as she concentrates would make him declare it then and there.

“So handsome,” she says, using that quiet voice that makes it seem like she’s talking to herself rather than him, “I can’t wait to dance with you,” she tells him tugging the tie.

“I’m not going to be good, Y/N. I’m going to be a fool,” Spencer says, lamenting already about what an idiot he’s going to look like in front of Y/N.

“That’s nonsense, Spence,” Y/N says, waving him away with a toss of her hand, “You’re going to be the best dancer there,” she tells him rubbing her hand up and down his arm, like she did at the store.

“Would you believe it, if I told you I never danced with anyone?” Spencer says, being the most honest and true he’s ever been.

“We can change that,” Y/N says, stepping towards Spencer and linking her hand in his. She squeezes, restarting and stopping his heart all in one go, “oh wait we need music,” she says, feeling around for where her phone usually is.

“I got it,” Spencer says, stepping away from Y/N. He walks over to the small record player in the corner of his living room. He doesn’t play it too often, the records he has were once his mother’s and they’re too painful to play most days. But Spencer’s sure that he can make every exception to all his rules for Y/N. Maybe he’ll get some happy memories out of it.

“Going old school I see,” Y/N says, teasingly as Spencer walks over grabbing both his hands in hers, “everything about you is very charming, Doctor Reid,” she says, softly swaying to the jazzy tunes of Sarah Vaughan.

“I’m not too sure about that,” Spencer says, following Y/N’s lead as she floats around his living room, carrying him everywhere she goes. She rests her head against his chest and Spencer swears that she’s going to get a concussion from how hard his heart beats.

They’re alone, no audience to witness the moment that Spencer wonders if he can dare to call intimate. It’s intimate to him because every moment with Y/N is intimate. Maybe if someone had told Spencer that dancing like this could bring pure paradise all the way from your fingertips to your eyelashes, maybe he would have done it sooner.

“You’re quite the romantic, Spencer,” Y/N says as the song comes to a close. The record player stops, but they don’t stop swaying, “And you told me you couldn’t dance,” she scoffs lightly, with her head still resting against his chest.

“Is that okay with you?” He asks, “me being romantic,”

“I don’t think that I’d want it any other way, Spencer,” Y/N says, removing her head from his chest and her hand from his. She cups his face, touching him lightly. Y/N holds him like he aches to be held. It’s gentle and tender, yet leaves him desiring more.

“Honest?” Spencer asks, daring to be brave.

“Truly,” she responds.

Spencer shifted slightly, so he can also hold her face in his hands. Y/N drops her hands though, wrapping them around Spencer’s waist to pull them closer together. Spencer’s phantom fingers are like that dance around that dance around Y/N’s skin.

It’s Y/N that initiates the kiss. She moves in slowly and tenuously, looking just as nervous as Spencer is. He’s shaky slightly, the anticipation getting to his head when all he can see is Y/N’s eyes looking into his and all he can think about is how soft her skin is. It’s all he’s ever wanted to think about. Her lips are soft and pillowy.

But it’s more than that.

Kissing her is everything to Spencer. It’s the breathy sighs she lets out as he moves his hands and rests them securely behind her neck. It’s the peachy scent of her perfume that’s so sweet and strong it should be overwhelming when all it is, is intoxicating. Kissing her is dizzying and terrifying, but wonderful and sweet. He can’t tell where his lips start and where her’s end, but it doesn’t matter.

He doesn’t open his eyes because he knows he’s facing the mirror. But unlike before, he doesn’t need a mirror to know what he’s looking at. He can look into his soul for that.

“Very romantic,” Y/N says, smiling through the quick kisses she plants on his jawline, “I always thought you’d be a romantic,” he tells him.

Spencer brushes his thumb over Y/N’s bottom lip. It’s puffy and bitten from his kisses, but he thinks that it would be a shame to not bite and kiss it some more. He smiles so hard he knows that he’ll wake up in the morning and his mouth will hurt. But that’s the least of his worries if Y/N’s there to kiss it better.

“Honest?” Spencer says, calling back to the song, that’s now their song.

“Truly,”

---

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#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #dr spencer reid #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x reader fluff #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds fics #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x reader happy ending #spencer reid x reader one shot #spencer reid deserved a happy ending #criminal minds fanfiction

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avengerscompound · 3 years

Text

Moving On - Chapter 1

Moving On: A Falcon & Captain Marvel Fanfic

Masterlist

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing: Sam Wilson x F!Reader, Carol Danvers x F! Reader

Word Count: 1764

Rating: E

Warnings: None for the chapter, Smut, pregnancy, character death, grief, angst, on series.

Synopsis: You thought Sam Wilson was the love of your life. You had planned to do it all with him - marriage, kids, see the world. Even when you’re life gets turned upside down, and you both end up international fugitives, he’s there by your side.

Then Thanos comes.

When Sam is one of the many turned to dust, leaving you alone and pregnant, you don’t think you’ll ever stop grieving. Yet, everyone tells you that Sam would want you to move on and live your life - that he’d want you to be happy. Gradually you open your heart up to another. Carol Danvers has lost people too. First her daughter, then her wife. As the two of you lean on each other, feelings grow and you move on together.

So what happens when Sam is returned to you?

A/N: Still working out how I plan to end this, so be aware it could go down a polyamory path or it could go down in a ball fire with much wailing and screaming and beating your fists against the wall.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TAGGED IN THIS LET ME KNOW OR ADD YOURSELF TO THE TAGLIST

Chapter 1: Sam

You met Sam Wilson on a Tuesday morning. You’d seen him around and obviously knew who he was, but you had assumed, much like with the other Avengers, you weren’t really on their radar.

You liked to refer to yourself as a redshirt. The cannon fodder that ran into battle after the supers and if they got themselves killed, no big deal, there were plenty more of you, and besides did any of you even have names?

You’d been projecting.

The Avengers were good guys for a reason, and on the day you met Sam you’d realized that it wasn’t just a need to save the world. They actually cared about the people living in it.

He’d greeted you by name and told you that you’d been doing great work with the team. He’d asked you how you were handling things and if you needed anything or had any suggestions for keeping up morale and when you answered, he’d listened. Really listened and not just nodded and placated you before ignoring everything you had to say. In fact, a few of your suggestions were even implemented a few weeks later.

It was a Thursday afternoon when he began talking to you as a friend. A small group of you and the other redshirts had gone to a bar near the compound. He and some of the Avengers were there drawing the attention of the locals. Sam approached you at the bar when you went to buy a round for your friends.

“Can I get this for you?” Sam asked as you waited for the bartender to finish serving someone else.

“Trying to lower my inhibitions?” You asked, raising your eyebrow at him.

He laughed and shook his head. “It’s smart to be wary. What about some mozzarella sticks? No one feels like having sex after they’re full of cheese.”

You laughed hard and you knew then it didn’t matter what happened tonight, Sam Wilson was someone you wanted to get to know intimately.

He’d ended up paying for the round for your friends and leaving you to get back to them. Your friends had all called you crazy and told you to go back to him. You didn’t. Not right away. You didn’t approach him again until people had started calling it a night.

“Hey,” you said, as you reached his table.

He kicked out the chair beside him. “Hey, yourself,” he said.

You sat down and he bought you a basket of mozzarella sticks and you bought him a beer and the two of you sat and talked until the bar kicked you out.

You had been dating ever since. You were well and truly head over heels in love. While you couldn’t claim that the two of you were inseparable - Avenging and spy work meant that there would be long periods where you were apart - you were each other’s person. You trusted him completely and he trusted you, and when you could be together, you made the most of it. You’d been sharing a room at the compound for over a year and were having all the big talks about marriage and family and all those things people talk about when they’re planning on spending their life together.

So when he took you to the only four and a half star restaurant within an hour of the compound, you had an inkling what was up.

It was located in a big red building that looked a lot like a barn and didn’t exactly raise your hopes for an elegant night out, but inside was decorated in a way that perfectly hit rustic and contemporary. Something that very few places could pull off. The hostess seated you at a table by the window that had a crisp white table cloth on it and beautiful linen napkins.

“Wow, Sam,” you teased, as the hostess left you with the menus. “This is fancy. I wonder what the occasion is?”

“Hey now!” Sam laughed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Maybe I just want to have a nice romantic night out.”

You laughed too and raised an eyebrow at him. “Of course. You’ve just never done this before so that makes total sense.”

He stifled a laugh and perused the menu. “Want to get a bottle of Champagne?” He asked.

“Why? Are we celebrating something?” You teased.

Sam hid his face behind the menu as he broke down into a fit of giggles. “Will you cut it out? You’ll make me chicken out.”

“Chicken out from doing what, honey?” You asked, feigning innocence. “It looks like they don’t have any champagne anyway. They only have Prosecco.”

“What? But they’re French fusion,” Sam yelped, turning to the wine menu. “What? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“French/Italian,” you said. “I guess when it comes to sparkling wines, they pushed into the Italian. They have a Rose from the Champagne region of France. Do you want that? It only comes by the glass though.”

“Let’s get the Prosecco,” Sam said.

Almost as if that decision had summoned her, the waitress appeared at the table and took your drink orders. She disappeared as quickly as she appeared, and you noticed Sam tap the stop on his jacket where the inside pocket was before going back to the menu.

“Do you know what you’re having?” Sam asked.

“Mmm… not sure. What are you thinking?” You asked.

“So there’s lobster...” Sam said.

“Ohh… you’re really going all out, huh?”

“...but I think if I order that I’d just be getting it because it’s Lobster and not because I want Lobster. You know what I mean?”

“It does come with seared scallops,” you said with a shrug.

“I might get the New York strip,” Sam said. “Herb butter is good, but what’s Au Poivre?”

“Pepper sauce,” you answered.

“Oh… yeah I’ll go herb Butter,” he said with a nod. “I was thinking that sharing a starter might be nice. They make their own ricotta cheese. Did you see?”

“I did see,” you smiled. “We can share, but Sam…”

He looked up at you and smiled. “Yes, gorgeous girl?”

“I have a question,” you said, digging around in your purse.

“What is it? Do you need to know where they sourced the milk?”

You bit back a laugh and shook your head. “No…” you said and got down on one knee.

“No…” Sam gasped. “No! No, no, no.”

“Sam Wilson,” you began, pulling out the ring box from your purse and popping it open.

“You little shit!” Sam said, quickly dropping to his knee in front of you and whipping the ring box from his pocket.

“Will you marry me?” You both said at the same time. You both started laughing loudly and you tipped forward slightly and had to grab hold of Sam to steady yourself. The noise you were making drew the attention of the whole restaurant and people had started watching on both to figure out exactly what was happening and to hear what the answer was.

“Of course, I’ll marry you,” you giggled, leaning in and capturing his lips. You could feel his smile as he returned the kiss. His hand went to your neck and he held you in place as his lips moved with yours.

He pulled back and grinned at you. “I guess I’ll marry you too, ya dork,” he teased.

You laughed and took out the ring and slid it onto his finger. It was black titanium with a line of red right down the middle and he took a moment to admire it before he slid your engagement ring in place. You both stood looking at the rings as you sat back at the table and people around clapped for you both. The ring Sam had given you was white gold with a single round cut diamond in a claw setting. Curled around the side of the diamond was a silver feather inlaid with black opal.

“I can’t believe you just did that to me,” Sam said as the waitress approached.

“Congratulations,” she said, showing the bottle of Prosecco to both you and Sam.

“Thank you,” you said, nodding to let her know the bottle was fine. She popped the cork and poured you both a small taste.

“I’ve never seen people propose at the same time,” she said as she waited for you each to try the sparkling wine. You took a sip and nodded, holding your glass out to be filled. “It was really cute. You’re a cute couple.”

“Thanks,” Sam said. “She is pretty cute, huh?”

She poured your drinks and took your order, and when you were alone again Sam held up his glass to you in a toast. “To; spending the rest of our crazy-ass lives together.”

You giggled and clinked your glass with his before taking a sip. “I seriously can’t believe you just did that,” Sam said, looking at his ring. “You were supposed to let me ask you!”

“Who says? The patriarchy?” You joked.

Sam laughed and shook his head. “Yes, dear,” he teased, putting on the voice of a hard done by television husband. “It’s the patriarchy.”

“Besides,” you continued. “If I hadn’t asked - you wouldn’t have that sweet ass ring.”

“It is a really nice ring,” Sam said, looking down at it again. “How long have you been planning this? How did you know it was going to be tonight?”

You laughed. “I didn’t know it would be tonight until you told me to dress up. I’ve been planning it for a long time. We’ve been talking about it so much, I just thought it would be funny if we both had rings ready at the same time.”

Sam’s eyes softened and he tilted his head as he looked at you. His thumb ran over the engagement ring sitting on your finger. “I love you so goddamn much, you know?”

You lifted his hand to your mouth and kissed it. “I do. And I love you at least twice as much as that.”

“Hey now!” Sam yelped. “Don’t make me take you over my knee.”

“Promises, promises,” you said. “So… about this wedding… is it going to be a big one?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam said. “The biggest.”

You laughed a little picturing a wedding with all your families and the Avengers all in attendance. Him in his blue formal uniform, you in an over-the-top white dress. It was a fun little vision and you couldn’t wait to start planning it properly so the two of you could get on with spending your whole lives together.

// NEXT

#sam wilson #carol danvers #falcon #captain marvel #sam wilson x reader #carol danvers x reader #falcon fanfic #captain marvel fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #long post #moving on

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nxrthmizu · 3 years

Text

love in bubble wraps.

fandom | haikyuu!!

pairing | kuroo tetsurou x reader

genre | fluff

w.c | 1.9k

author's note | based on a real life experience... :)

Love, you think, comes in many forms. Sometimes love is a warm, home-cooked meal that is now cooked at least once a week because you told your mother you liked it. Other times, love is laughing and crying alongside the friends you’ve known since pre-school because everyone passed their highschool finals with flying colours. Throughout our lives, we gradually come to meet the different forms of love, because it comes in all shapes, colours, and sizes.

First, we learn that love is a roof that you can always turn to when a storm blows in. Then, we learn that love is knowing that there are people who will drop everything to help you when your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Lastly, we learn to interlock our fingers with the one we wish to walk to the end of time with.

Then again, love varies from person to person— Just like how the goddess of love, Aphrodite, looks different to every soul that sets its sights on her; Beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder. For some, love comes in the form of a warm body to cuddle next to on a rainy day. For others, love comes in the form of a jewelled ring. For you, love comes in the form of a 6’2 man who still doesn’t know how to tame his bedhead.

Tetsurou is often too busy for his own good, always running around here and there to secure contracts, ensuring that Japan can make a name for itself during the Olympics. He books train tickets to opposite ends of Japan at least once a month, leaving before the sun rises and returning after it sets. The sun never dictates his work day, because while his coworkers work from nine to five, Tetsurou works until he finishes his tasks.

Okay, so your husband is a bit of a workaholic. And maybe not just a bit.

“L/N-san,” Your colleague asks one day out of sheer curiosity. A group of women are gathered around the snack station, sipping on cheap, machine-produced instant coffee as they gossip about their marital lives instead of working. “Now that I think about it… I’ve never met your husband, have I?”

“Ah,” You sweat-drop nervously at this. Wonderful— Your parents are already pressuring you about how Kuroo rarely visits with you— And now your coworkers, too? “He’s quite busy. He works very hard to make sure that we’ll be well-off in the future.” You respond, knowing that your reply is just a thinly-veiled way of saying ‘He’s rarely home,’.

“Oh, that’s awful,” Wherever you go, there’s always a middle-aged lady who has nothing better to do than to prey on the weak spots of your life, “It must feel lonely. You must feel so sad when you see my husband pick me up from work.” A smirk dances up her lips as she waits for you to walk into her trap, smiling as widely as a spider watching its incoming meal.

“Not really,” A practiced smile counters hers as you take a sip of your coffee. “I know Tetsurou loves me— There’s an unbreakable trust between us. He might not be home often, but I know that he’s working hard so that we can have a better tomorrow… And that’s sort of comforting, in a sense. Knowing that Tetsurou wishes for a future where we’re financially stable, where we can just spend a whole day doing nothing in each other’s presence…”

A chorus of ‘awws’ makes you blush. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the middle-aged coworker huff in failure. You mentally fist-pump the air at your victory.

“Anyway, I heard that you got engaged last weekend, Shiho-san,” Changing the topic quickly, you smile when the attention of all the ladies instantly redirects to the said woman, who blushes fiercely as they all coo at her ring. “Congratulations!”

“Oh my! He bought you such a beautiful ring… Ah, Shiho-san, you’re so lucky!”

“My husband also bought me a new bag last week,” The middle-aged woman chips in proudly, cocking her head towards her cubicle, where the leather handbag sits atop a tower of documents. “It’s very expensive.”

“That’s nice of him! It’s been forever since my husband bought me something.” Sighs another lady. Most of the group hums in agreement, sharing sympathetic looks with those that share the same fate.

“At the beginning, when we were still dating, Hayato used to buy me so many things, now…” The coworker that brings homemade cookies every New Years’ party says, looking dejected. “It’s like once we’re married, they don’t have to worry about making us happy anymore…”

“Ah, what about you, L/N-san? Does your husband buy you things often?”

You groan internally when the attention shifts to you once more. Honestly, you’re just there to listen and enjoy your coffee— Must you keep getting dragged into the conversation? “Well, personally I don’t really need my husband to buy me things to keep me happy, but… He does bring back trinkets whenever he travels.” You think about it for a while, then brighten when you remember the latest thing Tetsurou brought back for you.

“What is it?” Your change in expression isn’t missed by your coworkers, who preen with curiosity, excited to know what made you brighten up.

“Ah, it’s nothing… I promise, you’ll be disappointed if I tell you.” You chuckle.

“Come on!” “Be a good sport, L/N-san!” “We’re curious now, you can’t not tell us!”

“Oh, fine.” You sigh, “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

[ Three days ago, Saturday ]

You were on the couch, binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy with the Netflix subscription Tetsurou got for you to occupy yourself with while he was out of town. Your cat, Kazume (nicknamed after your husband’s best friend) lazed on your lap, yawning once in a while and swatting at the stray threads from your sweater.

Somewhere in between your fifteenth and seventeenth episode, the front door chirped with the sound of someone inserting a key into the lock. You perked up at the noise, Kazume yelping in protest as he almost slipped off.

“Oh, sorry Kazu.” You said quickly, a smile widening your lips as the front door opened.

“I’m ho—” Before your husband could finish his sentence, you were already at his side. Kazume meowed loudly from the couch, complaining about you abandoning him for another man. Tetsurou’s eyes softened, the edges of his hazel irises worn down by exhaustion. You took his laptop bag from him, as well as the folders he has in hand, balancing them like how you would balance your three grocery bags when Tetsurou wasn’t around to help. “I missed you too, but are you sure you can carry all of my files with one hand?”

“Yes!” You replied confidently, showcasing your balance as you wobbled through the living room with all of your husband’s stuff. Tetsurou’s laugh echoed through the apartment as he followed you, his reflexes coming into play as he dived for a falling file. “Oops.” You giggled, helping him up after he practically hurled himself at the floor.

Tetsurou shook his head, sighing fondly while he hugged you from the back, taking comfort in the familiar smell of your hair shampoo. “I missed you.” He mumbled.

“Me too.” You hummed, reaching back to stroke your hands through his still-untamed bedhead.

“Oh, before I forget,” Tetsurou leapt up suddenly, chucking his backpack onto the ground. “I brought back something for you!”

“I already have like, twenty-five keychains from Hyogo,” You reminded him, “Please tell me it’s not a…” Your voice trailed off when Tetsurou proudly whipped his gift from his backpack, hazel eyes shining for your reaction.

“... So?” Tetsurou grinned widely, like a five-year-old child holding up his drawing for his mother to critique.

“Oh my god, I love you.” You declared in your 80 sq ft kitchen, grabbing the gift from him. “I’ll clean up your stuff, go take a bath and we can have dinner while watching the…'' You pursed your lips as you try to recall the information that kept evading you like an annoying fly. “... 15th? 16th episode of Grey’s.”

“You started that without me? I said I wanted to watch that.” Tetsurou pouted petulantly like a child.

“I finished all the other stuff I wanted to watch,” You told him unapologetically. “And Kazume wanted to watch it too. Now hurry and take a bath or I’m starting without you.”

Twenty minutes later, you were cuddled up to your husband, who did not bother to comb his hair (“It’ll just be messy later anyway,” His reasoning was). Every few seconds, he would scoop some cold mash potato out of the giant bowl (The two of you were too impatient to heat it with the microwave) and feed you. All throughout the episode, there was the constant pop-pop-pop of you working your way through the giant piece of bubble wrap Tetsurou had brought home for you.

“You know, I was thinking,” You hummed as Tetsurou pressed ‘Next Episode’. “If It were any other woman, they might have slapped you for bringing just bubble wrap home after a whole week away.”

“Well, then I’m lucky that you aren’t ‘any other woman’, am I?” Your husband smiled, pressing a gentle kiss onto your lips before picking up the mash potato bowl again. “Are we just going to have mashed potatoes for dinner?”

“I bought spicy instant noodles yesterday, we can have that later if you want.”

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

[ Present, Tuesday ]

“That’s actually so sweet of him!” Your colleague coos as you finish your story. “Wish I had a husband like that…'' Even the middle-aged lady begrudgingly nods in agreement. For a moment, you feel a surge of pride— It was your husband they were talking about— Your sweet, hardworking, dork of a 6’2 bedhead.

“You wouldn’t be able to survive.” Another lady snorts. “That guy is away for weeks at a time.”

You hum. “Well, at least he calls back every night, regardless of how tired he is.” In the corner of your mind, you remember that he makes sure to call his grandmother every weekend, and that he sends his parents (and grandparents) money every month, that he visits your parents the first Sunday after he’s back from his trips— Not to mention that he always brings a gift of wellness products (The most recent one was a box of abalone).

The group of women swoon once more.

“Well, I guess we should get back to work,” You dispose of your paper cup in the trash, brushing your hands off. “See you ladies later.”

The moment you’re back at your desk, you take out your phone to text your husband, who is, no doubt, going to be very, very confused.

[ y/n ] 2.37pm

— we have a problem

[ tetsu <3 ] 2.39pm

— what’s wrong???

[ y/n ] 2.38pm

— i may have accidentally caused 20 women in my office to fall in love with you

[ tetsu <3 ] 2.38pm

— what ???

──────── ⋆⋅❉⋅⋆ ────────

you know it's love when your dad comes home with this giant piece of bubble wrap and your mom literally squeals and snatches it to immediately start popping it on the couch while browsing facebook on her ipad

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! fluff #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader fluff #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo #kuroo tetsurou x reader #kuroo tetsurou x y/n #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsurou x you #kuroo tetsurou fluff #[ris writes]—✧

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btsandvmin · 3 years

Note

What made you like Jimin individually and Taehyung individually ? And do you have a slight preference between the two ?

I love all the members so much, and for me picking a bias is still kind of difficult. I have concluded that I do bias both Jimin and Tae but kind of switch between them at different times for different reasons. As for a bias wrecker I legit cannot choose and it changes all the time.

The way I got into BTS was through the BST MV and then trying to learn the members (the first one I learned and checked up on was Namjoon). I also got fascinated by the BU storyline as storytelling and analysis/reviews is a big hobby of mine (the fandoms I’ve been in are many, and character/story analyses/reviews/theories are something I have engaged in a lot).

On top of that I work in the media industry and have an interest for visual storytelling as well and I got hooked by the concepts, the beautiful MV and the both story-based and symbolical clues they left. I also loved their music and like groups in general because of the interesting vocal dynamics you can create. Basically, BTS managed to hit all my buttons and I had to look up more.

Mind you, I barely knew the members' names properly and I was already investigating the meaning of their MV and storyline. I listened to their album and loved the songs before I could tell which member was who. (Both Awake and First love made me cry without even knowing the lyrics). I also have to mention how much I love both of Vmin’s voices, who are both very unique and interesting. I basically biased their voices before I knew who they were. (Fun or sad fact but I am really bad with faces and actually learned the members' singing voices before their faces.)

Let’s just say that I got into the music and visuals/concept first, and then started to consume material to get to know the members. They all also had incredible chemistry between each other and reminded me a lot of one of my favorite j-pop groups with their dynamics.

What I started to watch was “get to know them” videos and recent interviews and clips, meaning from BST era. It was hard for me to not notice Jimin (even though vocal line were the ones I had the hardest time separating from each other in the very beginning). And perhaps even more so since the introduction videos tended to have a lot better and varied things to say about Jimin amongst vocal line. But even on his own Jimin simply stood out to me during the BST era when I joined. He took a lot of space in the group as a performer (especially with his high notes, his dancing, his hair and his outfits all combined) but also as an individual in off stage material. I fell for his voice and performance and the “Jimin effect” was hitting me hard.

I also related to him a lot. I am a sort of clingy but shy person who is a perfectionist and likes being in control. I also thought he was both cute and funny without being too over the top with things like aegyo (I mean, we all know he is horrible at it when he tries to do it on purpose). I think the way Jimin is so open (though private) makes him easy to understand and relate to. He has a lot of different moods and there is an honesty in how much he shows us even though he clearly still remained in control.

As time went by, I found myself focusing on Jimin more than the other members and I realized my bias. I was simply drawn to him more than the others from the start. That in turn brings me to Taehyung... Because honestly, at the time it was impossible not to notice their closeness. And looking up a lot of old material, where Jimin was there was also Taehyung. They were very clingy and had a lot of cute interactions. One of the first things I watched of their more off-stage material was also Bon Voyage in Scandinavia (being from there myself I was extra curious) and the Vmin moments in there just cemented their bond for me.

I am not saying I only appreciate Tae for ship reasons, simply that Vmin got my attention early on and that did make me focus more on Taehyung as well. I thought as many that he was a bit odd, but very funny and playful, that he was incredibly good-looking (my opinion from the start was that JK and Tae were the most good-looking) but also a bit difficult to read. Taehyung made me want to understand him, and I was interested in him for quite different reasons than how I related to Jimin. I love him for his way of thinking and how he seems to have this innocence or happiness in the small things about him. Like, Tae getting lost in Sweden but still being happy about the small adventure, enjoying himself and stopping to blow on a dandelion might just be one of the most endearing things I have ever seen. (Honestly, another point I relate to Jimin on so much is his love for Tae and how he just makes us smile no matter what he does.)

Of course, as they change and as I get to watch them more, the more I find to love and appreciate (as well as flaws of course) and now I would say all the members are just very precious to me and I love them both for who they are on their own and for their bond as a group. It is impressive and not to be understated how rare it is to find a bond like theirs. I have seen many groups, and few are as compatible as BTS, and few seem to truly love each other the way they do.

But as for bias it will likely always be Jimin and Taehyung unless there is some drastic change.

For Jimin I love the way he dances while controlling every fiber of his body, the way he pours love into all his relationships but isn’t afraid to call people out, the way he keeps getting funnier (I think Jimin’s sense of humor is so underrated), the way he acts like an angel but actually has the whole world fooled (and he knows it), the way he shows his emotions so animatedly no matter if he gets annoyed or laughs with his whole body, the way he knows his principles and stands his ground when he believes in something, the way he works so hard to improve and better himself both as a performer and as a human, the way he thinks about things deeply and is so eloquent with how to express it, the way he is there for both ARMY, his members and even strangers because he is empathic to his core. There is a lot to love with Jimin, and he always makes sure to return that love when deserved.

For Taehyung I love the way he stand against the norms, the way he shows it’s ok to be different and embrace himself and others without judgement, the way he almost plays with us when he performs, the way he sings with such emotion and how he loves to express himself through all kinds of art forms, the way he learns and take in valid criticism but isn’t afraid to call bullshit, the way he knows when to be serious but also the importance of having fun, the way he is both the biggest dork and a fierce performer at once (I mean he can be so unapologetically silly and then suddenly switch to lethal seduction), the way his unique way of thinking opens up to new points of view, the way he can’t help but show his excitement or love for something and wants to share it with the people around him. He goes all out when he loves something and doesn’t hide his opinions when he doesn’t. Taehyung is just a very honest (though perfectly capable of lying and fooling us thank you very much) and incredible person that I both admire and adore.

There is just so much, and even small things get to me, like don’t get me started on their smiles, or even just their habits when they laugh... (how Tae usually laughs quietly but once in a while will let out these light giggles, or the way Jimin seem to automatically covers his face when he laughs).

I love them both to death (as all the members). It is not easy to just sit down and pour years of love into words, but I tried. I love them both as singers, performers, artists, and humans. I also love them as soulmates and how much they both just spread love and positivity to the people around them. The impact they have had on me, and surely many of you, is hard to comprehend. I am so lucky and happy that I decided to become a fan of this wonderful group and these wonderful people.

Phew, that was a lot wasn’t it? All opinion based, probably a bit hard to understand and not very well structured either. This is all just a flow of consciousness, and I likely forgot to mention a lot of things I could have said. Even so I hope you found it a nice read. :) Thank you for the ask.

#taehyung #jimin #vmin #kim taehyung #park jimin #my story #vmin appriciation #my post #btsandvmin ask #btsandvmin answer #btsandvmin #vmin blood sweat and tears #bts

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nezumi-writes · 2 years

Note

Hiii! Can I have a bsd matchup please 🖤(I'm all caught up with the manga)

She/her pan (so I'm happy getting matchup with any gender).

I'm 5'6 and look like this

Personality: I am very empathetic, always trying to keep the people around me happy (even if I'm not in the end) I hate disappointing people so I can over work myself sometimes. Mostly I am kind and polite, but a I get very sassy moments (I can also be very sarcastic). Im also kind of reserved when I first meet someone and it can take me awhile to show my fun, goofy, happy side to them

Aquarius, infj

I like reading books, writing, listening to music (mostly kpop). I also like to go exploring like in the forest or even abandoned places I also love cooking and baking (more so baking tbh)

My favorite song is- maniac (stay kids) and tomboy (g idle)

I love horror movies, but also love studio Ghibli movies

sometimes I stop in the middle of talking because I think I talk to much (I've been told many times that I do so I just try not to really talk in a way)i play with my hands a lot, I have a really high pitched (idk sorta cute?) sneeze, I can be very clumsy (I literally tripped on air once😂) when I do something scary my hands shaky after I've done the scary thing (if that makes any sense)

What I look for in someone: someone who has a good scenes of humor, is kind and friendly, who can match my level of dork also 😂 and who won't judge me ( and also give me food and cuddles). Also someone very kind and nurturing in a way

Ideal date- watching a movie at home, going to carnivals/arcades

Thank you❤️

Thank you for requesting!

Your match is Higuchi Ichiyo

Ok ok I know Higuchi isn't super popular but hear me out

She isn't a huge fan of horror movies but will watch them with you without complaint, please just let her cuddle with you when the scary parts get going

She loves ghibli movies though and will more then gladly have a marathon with you

She does worry over you and your clumsiness, but will patch you up after an accident with very minimal scolding

She tends to dot on you a bit, but ultimately she just wants to be there when you need her

She's witnessed too many loses and gets scared she'll lose you too

She was taken off guard when she first witnessed your sassy side

Your just so nice, she never thought you could be so sarcastic

She does love it though and thinks you look super cool

If you bake something specifically for her she will get so flustered and she swears her heart skipped a beat

The same thing happens when you sneeze, it's just so cute!

If you are really into a show, book, or band she'll want to listen to you talk about it all day long and engage in it with you!

You honestly could never disappoint her, she loves you so much and only wants to be there for you

I really hope you like these, Higuchi needs more love in my opinion and you two felt like such a good match to me, but I'll gladly redo this if you aren't happy with them!

#bungou stray dogs #bungou stray dogs matchup #bsd higuchi #higuchi ichiyo #higuchi x reader #011tsukishima

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justjstuff · 3 years

Note

19 for the Salty ask pls? Im ready for dead sea levels of salt

Hiya, Anon-san!! I really hope you're from the KakaSaku fandom because that's what I'm going with here haha Thanks for the ask! <3

Before I answer I want to start by saying that I hope everyone can keep in mind that: These are all my personal opinions and you shouldn't base your worth as a writer/fan on them. What I think has no impact whatsoever in your life and this is just a personal rant about what I think it's right. Also, the fun of fandom is that you get to play with the characters so don't be too hung up on what the fandom is currently thinking Character A should act like. This fandom has been alive for over a decade and opinions changed drastically so stop thinking about what everyone thinks and you do you. In the end, there's always going to be someone who REALLY agrees with you and is glad you said something or wrote said fic and others that will never want to see your name again. That's life.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

r: :x I kinda want to say a lot of things here. I'll start with Weak Sakura. It feels insane to say this when I know we all love her but I see so so sO MANY fics that never take Sakura to her full potential and that makes me a bit mad. Sometimes she's a chunin who still didn't make it to jounin even after she's turned 18, sometimes it's post-war and Sakura is just suddenly very content staying in the hospital while her teammates go out on missions (it seems like everyone forgot that Sakura NEVER had a dream of being a medic? That was actually Tenten's dream to be like Tsunade. Sakura wanted to PROTECT. She wanted to be able to stand alongside her teammates, she didn't want to be a liability... all of that means that she would want to be by their side no? As in... not working as a civilian medic inside the hospital), sometimes it's Sakura being a liability during missions (re: she's a bad liar! she's not strong enough! she can't be trusted with this and that bc she's too emotional!).

Okay, this about characterisation for Sakura. About the fandom as a whole I think we have a very big problem with how... I dunno how to say this in english but like. Oh man, I think we all idolise the old og fics a bit too much. Don't get me wrong, some of them are really really good and I like how back then people weren't scared to go down some routes that aren't safe and sound and everyone's over 21 folks! like there seems to be a trend nowadays. That being said... I think we've got some amazing fics these past five years that don't get nearly enough recognition because people keep focusing on the old works...? I'm not saying we shouldn't hype the og works but instead that we should ALSO hype up the ones being written now, y'know? We've all seen a HUGE decrease in engagement in fic in general so I really hope we can start giving more attention to our community now. Also, I don't like that there are people that only from the fact that I'm criticising this will be annoyed with me or whatever. About the og works, again, I absolutely love that people weren't so clean cut as rn, but I can criticise some of the things written a while ago without having people believe I'm shitting on the og authors or that I don't think they wrote very complex and interesting stories. Y'all, this may shock you but you can make criticism and not "cancel" whatever it is you're criticising.

Moving on to Kakashi. LOL. I know the point of the question was that second paragraph but I genuinely think our fandom is awesome and that's the only thing that kinda makes me go meh. So I'm gonna talk characterisation instead.

So. Kakashi. Listen, I'm all for some fluff from time to time. BUT. Kakashi is Kakashi because of his trauma. I get that some people want to give him a soft and happy ending but I really don't like reading a Kakashi that isn't impacted by his trauma. As in, canon Kakashi that is really sweet and a total dork and suddenly wants a big happy family and a perfectly happy ending. Nah, I can't read it. (which isn't to say that people can't write it, pls note the difference). I think Kakashi has many many facets to his personality, in the end, and it gets on my nerves when I only get to see one. Like, I know deep down what Kakashi wants or needs is to form deep connections but I don't want to see him just like that. I know that he can be a dork and playful, but I don't want to see him like that all the time bc he's also very diligent and serious. I know he must have been terrifying to thrive in ANBU for a decade but I don't want to see him being like that for a whole fic. Ya feel me? I want him to be like a real person and have faults and make mistakes and change his mind and all that.

#ask #answered #anonymous #ask meme

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ilooklikeaburntchickenugget · 3 years

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Jealousy

A/N: I got this idea randomly and wrote it in like an hour. Hope you guys like it! (Also, if you’re seeing this right after it’s posted, Happy New Year!) Pairing: Gerard Way x F!Reader Word count: 1,505 Warnings: Swearing, mentions of alcohol

You were never one for dinner parties, or anything remotely formal. But when your closest of friends asked both you and your fiancee to attend, you couldn’t say no.

You felt as though your black dress was a little too much, maybe a little too scandalous, so you paired it with a thick light pink cardigan, one shoulder being bare and held up by a small spaghetti strap. Modest. You were sat next to Frank, Ray besides him, Mikey besides him, as you were all at a trendy restaurant in Manhattan, 12 of you all surrounding a rectangle wooden table. The empty seat to your left was saved for your lover, Gerard, who was currently as his parent’s house, his mom calling him because there was an “emergency” (their WiFi router was just unplugged) and was now stuck in traffic.

The lights were dim and the ambiance was much of excitement and enthusiasm. You sipped some of yours chardonnay casually, listening intently to the various conversation being passed around. You couldn’t help but notice one girl, who all three boys besides you had warned you about. Her name was Savannah, tall, thin, and blonde. Not that there was anything wrong with that, it was just an observation. You had to admit she was pretty, but clearly she thought she was all that, judging by her attitude and larger than life ego.

She had, apparently, been trying to get at Gerard for years, but he kept friend zoning her. Her Barbie-like everything was too much for most to handle, let alone Gerard. Yes, your fiancee was insanely hot, you had to admit, but he was a complete dork at heart (all the more reason you loved him), and would probably not match well with a real life doll.

“So Y/N,” One of the guys, Cam, began, “How’s your job going?” He asked, “Miss ‘Big shot English professor’.” You all lightly laughed.

“Great, actually,” You nodded and smiled, “I just got promoted to one of the Chairs of the Department.” “No way.” Your friend Sam smiled brightly at you, “For real? That’s huge! And at Rutgers?” You nodded again.

“Yeah it’s kind of crazy. I mean it’s great, I love what I do, but the slight addition to my paycheck also made it great.” Everyone laughed.

“And I’m sure the short commute makes you-know-who happy.” Another one of your friends smirked. Obviously, everyone knew it was Gerard, other than Savannah, who seemed to naive and obsessed with herself to care.

“Oh yeah,” You smiled at the thought of him, “It’s not more than 25 minutes from where we are, and usually around 10 to his parents.”

“Show us the ring!” Cam insisted, as it had only been a few weeks that you had been able to call Gerard your fiancee. You proudly showed off the large emerald cut diamond that he had picked out for you, surrounded by smaller diamonds. A few people whistled. “Holy shit that’s huge.” You nodded and smiled.

“He did great.”

“Dude, he was worried for weeks about proposing.” Frank explained, “Non-stop it was, ‘what if she says no?’ but we all knew you would say yes.” You nodded to that too.

“I mean, he’s so perfect, I couldn’t have said no.” You lightly laughed.

“How did he propose?” Sam asked.

“We were just sitting on the couch, eating take out.” You began explaining, “It had been a really long day, I had a bunch of kids who didn’t turn in their essays which turned my lecture on Faulkner into a lecture on time management, and after I finished he just got down on one knee. It was honestly so perfect, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.” “Not more formal?” Savannah asked, as if judging you in a way, “Ya know, more special?” “I think that’s pretty damn special, still.” Ray began, everyone besides her agreeing, “I mean, to each their own, that honestly embodies your relationship so well.” You lightly laughed and nodded agreeing.

“Boring.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. You were never one for using misogynistic terms against other women, or in general. It was the feminist in you. But maybe you could make an exception this once in calling her a bitch.

The group ended up splitting up into sub-conversations, two or three people talking together about various things. “So,” You heard Savannah from across from you ask, “Got any plans for a wedding?” “Not yet,” You shook your head, “He and I have got so much going on at the moment, we’re not super worried about a wedding.” “Well ya know a wedding and marriage would make your relationship all legal and whatever, right?” She asked and you awkwardly nodded.

“Uh, yeah, that’s why we’re engaged.” You lightly laughed at what you thought to be the ridiculous and unnecessary explanation.

“Well, ya know, I would just be worried about him, I don’t know, getting bored.” “Bored?” You asked, “Our relationship is very stable.” You clarified. “Well with a girl like you-” “You mean a woman, like me? A successful woman like me?” You corrected and she seemed to be taken aback for a moment. Just then some of the table erupted in cheers. You looked up to see your fiancee walk in, leather jacket and black jeans, shaggy black hair going in every direction with a huge smile.

“Finally you’re here.” Mikey sighed, “It was like we were on the edge of our seats. For you.” He eyed him which Gerard did back. He went around the table quickly shaking people’s hands and hugging them. Obviously, Savannah got a slightly different idea as she kissed him on the cheek which made him visibly uncomfortable and he nervously laugh. He immediately noticed you, his smile turning into a genuine one as he leaned down and gave you a loving kiss which you happily melted into, him sitting next to you right after and placing his hand on your lower thigh, which was partially exposed due to the short length of your dress. You looked up only briefly at Savannah, her mouth now wide open and her eyes in shock. You smirked a little to yourself, turning back to Gerard.

“So, you fixed your parents emergency?” You lightly smiled sarcastically and he lightly laughed with a smile, nodding.

“Yeah, because their router being unplugged was life or death.” He rolled his eyes, “They’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.” You lightly laughed, placing your head on his shoulder.

The conversation was vibrant and fluent as food came out and you continued to drink some. You ended up switching over to water as Gerard always did so he didn’t feel as alone and isolated with everyone else drinking. Plus two glasses of wine was enough for you. You continually noticed Savannah’s eyes graze both you and Gerard, in a way of disgust. So, naturally, you decided to take matters in your own hands.

You slipped off your cardigan, claiming it was “too hot”, and letting your curves show. You looked over at Gerard who looked you up and down once, biting his lip and you lightly laughed. “What?” You looked at him innocently.

“You know damn well what.” He sighed in frustration. You nudged him playfully and he lightly smiled, placing his hand further up your thigh and giving it a squeeze.

It was only a few more minutes before everyone was saying their goodbyes, your dinner had been paid for with all drinks, and everyone was leaving. You placed your cardigan back on, saying goodbye to everyone. “Let me know about the wedding, alright?” Savannah asked as you two finished up your departing encounters, her voice laced with bitterness.

“Oh, yeah, of course!” You smiled, trying to rub it in a little more, “When we make it, ya know, legal.” You said, grabbing Gerard’s hands and saying goodbye to the greater group, waving. You couldn’t help but notice her tight face with squinted eyes and a frown as you two left hand in hand.

Gerard began lightly laughing when you two got into the car. “What?” You asked, putting your seatbelt on.

“You’re so petty sometimes.” He lightly smiled, “I love you for it, but still.” “Hey,” You fought back, “I had to make it clear that you were mine. And she was making some very bitchy remarks before you came.” “Oh I bet she was.” He smiled and pulled away. “But that doesn’t matter, she’s just jealous of how perfect you are.” “Oh please,” You rolled your eyes, “You’re not wrong but you kind of are.” He lightly laughed, “But I always have to ask myself how I got someone as perfect as you.” “I got the better half of the deal, still.” He smiled. “You have to put up with me.” You nudged him playfully.

“I love you,” You took one of his hands that was free from the steering wheel, “So much.” “I love you, too.” He smiled, “Even more.”

#gerard way x reader #gerard way #mcr gerard #gerard way fanfiction #my chemical gerard #my chemical romance #My Chem #my chemical gee #my chemical romance x reader

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elyvorg · 4 years

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Kaito Momota: How ADHD Can Be

It’s about time I properly shared a take of mine that I never really talk about in my usual analysis posts, which is my very firm headcanon that Kaito has ADHD. While this is partly thanks to me having ADHD myself, self-indulgence is far from the only thing making me think this. There are so many reasons why this makes every single bit of sense, and this post is going to talk about all of them.

And, see, I don’t want to alienate anyone by having them think I’m about to present an interpretation of Kaito that looks nothing like the Kaito we know, because that’s not it at all. I’m here to talk about how so many of the things that were already abundantly true about him also happen to fit perfectly with ADHD. Really, you could think of it more as me talking about how ADHD actually looks a lot more like Kaito than most people might have realised.

After all, ADHD is a frustratingly misrepresented disorder that’s way more complex and interesting than most people are aware. So not only does it make a huge amount of sense to see Kaito as ADHD, it’s also just genuinely fascinating to think that this could be influencing how his mind works and the way he reacts to things throughout the story. Imagining that Kaito has ADHD could never make him any less Kaito, but I do think it makes him yet another layer of interesting on top of everything else he already has going on.

So even if you don’t have any personal investment in ADHD yourself, I hope you can follow along with me for this. There’s a lot of fun stuff to talk about here.

(Since ADHD is so horribly misrepresented that I can’t expect the average person to know what it really involves, this post is also going to include something of a whirlwind explanation of ADHD itself, in order to help people better appreciate why all these things about Kaito are potentially ADHD things. With that said, obvious disclaimer: I am not remotely a mental health professional, just someone with self-diagnosed ADHD who’s read up a lot about it. Some of this will be from things I’ve read, and some of this will be from my own experiences that I’m now pretty sure are an ADHD thing. My descriptions of these symptoms are likely to be somewhat oversimplified because I’m focusing on explaining this headcanon rather than explaining ADHD itself, so please don’t take this as a definitely-100%-accurate ADHD resource. I’m happy if this can raise awareness of what ADHD is really like, but you should look elsewhere to learn more.)

Hyperfixations

One major thing that ought to be more commonly known about ADHD is that it’s really not a lack of attention; it’s an inability to properly control where our attention goes. It’s been described as an “interest-based nervous system” – we’ll involuntarily focus on whatever seems most interesting to us in any given moment, regardless of its objective importance.

This plus a reduced amount of dopamine receptors means that when we manage to find something that gives us a lot of dopamine, ie, is fun and engaging to think about, we cannot stop thinking about it even if we wanted to. Our entire lives will begin to revolve around this Thing that we enjoy, thinking about it, doing things related to it and consuming more information on it to get as much of that sweet dopamine as possible. This can often be to the detriment of everything else, including more objectively important matters, because who cares about that stuff when Thing is the best thing ever!?

As an example: as you might imagine, I have been hyperfixated on DRV3 and especially on Kaito for over two years now. I have not been able to stop thinking about Kaito even when I’m supposed to be doing other things, and there’s literally nothing that’s more fun for me right now than sharing all these thoughts of mine with other people. We also love to infodump about our hyperfixations to anyone who’ll listen, after all. That’s precisely why this post exists, along with many more like it on both my blogs.

SPACE

So, this is perhaps one of the most easy-to-spot signs that Kaito might be ADHD. Because, man, he really loves space. Sure, any astronaut would have at least some level of interest in it, but Kaito is so obsessed with space that he introduces himself with a grandiose space-themed title, wears a galaxy print on his slippers and the inside of his jacket, and simply couldn’t wait for a college degree and had to make sure he got up there as fast as possible.

Granted, it’s not like Kaito talks about space 100% of the time. He is stuck in a killing game, after all, which is also kind of important to pay attention to. But, still, no matter what more-objectively-important things they can push themselves to focus on when necessary, there’s always a part of an ADHDer’s brain that’s near-constantly thinking about their hyperfixation anyway and will take any opportunity to bring it up and make things about that if they possibly can. And, well, Kaito still talks about space quite a lot considering that he’s in a life-or-death situation that doesn’t have anything to do with space at all (at least, as far as he knows for most of the story).

There’s one delightful bit of white noise I absolutely love in a debate in trial 4 where Gonta is suggesting a vehicle could have crossed the river. Someone responds to this with “Like a rocket?”, despite the fact that, A, there were obviously none of those in the Virtual World, and B, you don’t use those to cross rivers. Kaito, you dork, now is not the time. But of course now’s the time, there is always time to be thinking about space-related things, no matter how impractical and irrelevant it might be. Someone has been murdered, everyone else’s lives are on the line – not to mention his illness and the huge pile of inferiority issues he’s struggling with at this point in the story – yet amongst all that, Kaito’s brain still found time to go, “hey, speaking of vehicles, aren’t rockets the coolest!?” And… yeah, that’s genuinely what hyperfixations are like.

Then there’s the time Kaito asked Maki what her favourite spaceship was, like this is just an obvious go-to conversation starter in his mind, because of course he has a favourite spaceship. He has thought a lot about his favourite spaceship (or spaceships; let’s be real, there’s probably several that he thinks are SO COOL and might call his favourite depending on the circumstances) and could fill ages talking about nothing but that. Even though he knows this conversation ought to be making its way towards helping Maki open up about her past – this is one of his training sessions, after all! – there is still a part of Kaito that really just wants to talk about space, because a part of him always wants to talk about space.

We can see this as well in multiple FTE invitation dialogues (those brief lines describing how they hung out before the actual event starts) in which Kaito apparently spends it talking to Kaede or Shuichi about space, just because he can. There’s also several of his hangouts in the Salmon Team bonus mode where Shuichi’s suggestion of what to do doesn’t really have anything to do with space, but Kaito finds a way to make it about space anyway. ADHD minds are hyper-associative and make connections between concepts very easily – and, naturally, they’re particularly liable to make connections to the thing that the mind is already spending the majority of its time thinking about. So it’s really not so surprising or remarkable at all that Kaito can find ways to make even seemingly-totally-unrelated topics about space somehow, not if he’s ADHD.

(…To be fair, a particular fixation on a certain topic to the point of repeatedly bringing it up when it’s not called for isn’t necessarily that uncommon among Danganronpa characters, what with their talents. But hey, that doesn’t have to make Kaito any less likely to be ADHD. Rather, it would actually make sense for Ultimate students to have a higher than average proportion of ADHDers among them, since an ADHD-fuelled level of intense interest in a thing is more likely to make someone become hugely talented at it out of accumulated knowledge and practice. I’ve been increasingly thinking that Kaede could perhaps be ADHD, too, for example. But that’s not for this post; we’re talking about Kaito here.)

The longevity of space

ADHDers will generally go through many different hyperfixations throughout their life, sometimes one at a time, sometimes somehow managing to juggle more than one. An individual hyperfixation tends to last anywhere between a few weeks to a few years depending on its intensity and the longevity of the topic, but it’s rare for it to be more than that. Usually, sooner or later, the overwhelming passion for the thing will wear itself out.

And admittedly, Kaito’s passion for space has been there since he was a kid and never faded – and never will, of course! – which is far more persistent than most hyperfixations tend to be. But then again, there’s so many different things related to space for him to get excited about! Hyperfixations fade either when something else comes along that’s more exciting because it’s new and fresh, or when you’ve squeezed every last possible drop of dopamine out of it such that it no longer holds quite the same thrill. But with a topic as vast as space, there’s always more to learn to keep the excitement fresh, especially now that Kaito’s an astronaut trainee and is really on the front line of new space knowledge and technologies and is actually going to get there himself one day!

Besides, it’s not like ADHDers’ hyperfixations are completely outside of their control. My own hyperfixation on V3 and Kaito would probably have faded ages ago if I hadn’t kept it going by constantly making more content about it such as this. And similarly, there’s no way Kaito would have wanted to let go of his passion for space, not if he had any say in it himself, so he’d have done whatever he could to keep it burning during the times when the spark maybe wasn’t quite there as much. I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable that Kaito could have remained hyperfixated on space for so unusually long and still be showing no signs of stopping. We all know how stubborn he is.

(House plants)

Kaito has probably had a few other, lesser hyperfixations alongside his lifelong passion for space. For example, I like to think that his fondness for house plants, according to his report card, is to such an extent that he was once hyperfixated on them. (This would have been for reasons that totally don’t bear a suspicious resemblance to other things he cares about.) I doubt he’s currently hyperfixating on them at the moment – at no point does he ever try to shift the conversation to being about house plants unprompted – but that wouldn’t stop him from still being generally fond of them and retaining all of the “useless” information he learned about them back when he was obsessed. One very rarely ever stops caring about a hyperfixation topic entirely; rather, the fixation just fades and the topic becomes no longer constantly on someone’s mind. I’m sure Kaito still could and would talk your ear off about house plants just as much as he would about space if you happened to get him started.

People

More importantly, though, I think that another of Kaito’s less obvious and intense hyperfixations – but still a very long-lasting one that’s active right now – could be, simply, people. Just, people in general: their flaws and complexities and differences, all the many ways in which they can communicate and work together, and the amazing potential they have to achieve great things if they do so. Kaito is so passionate about this stuff and has so many fully-formed opinions on things of this nature that make it seem like he’s spent a lot of his free time thinking about this, just because he can. Maybe he began to get interested in it after realising that communication and teamwork is important for an astronaut – but it also reads to me like Kaito is into this kind of stuff not because he needs to be for the sake of getting into space, but simply because he finds it genuinely fascinating and couldn’t stop thinking about it even if he had to. (Which would also help keep him interested in space, because it’s intrinsically linked to this other topic that Kaito finds fascinating!)

And within this, Kaito definitely hyperfixates in particular on his sidekicks. Once he’s made someone into his sidekick, which functionally means that he’s going to devote himself to supporting them through their issues and helping them reach their potential, he really devotes himself. It’s his hyperfixation on people in general, but concentrated on a specific person(s) that he can have a direct and tangible impact on, which means even more to him than just his feelings about how awesome and fascinating humanity is as a whole.

Kaito is really, really good at supporting his sidekicks, after all. He spends so much time, even when he’s not around them, thinking about what their problems are and the best ways he can help them. He was clearly eyeing up both Shuichi and Maki as potential sidekicks at least a day or two before actually acting on it and inviting them to training, as if he was trying to gauge exactly what their struggles were and how best to help before jumping right in. He approaches helping each of them in very different ways, making it clear that he’s specifically thought about who they are and the best tactics to help them individually instead of just carelessly using the same old script each time. On more than one occasion, he drops something on them one morning – the nickname “Maki Roll”, and the “bonus” training that becomes the katana scene – that he hadn’t mentioned at all the previous night, meaning that he’d been thinking further about how to keep helping them while on his own overnight.

So it seems to me like maybe it’s not just his selflessness, or his somewhat unhealthy co-dependency (more on that later, actually) that makes Kaito so good at this. I don’t think he could even stop thinking about helping his sidekicks if he tried. Figuring out how to help another human being grow and change and reach their full potential is so fascinating and engaging and rewarding to him that how could he ever not be compelled to do that as much as he possibly can?

The price of caring

This does, however, come with a downside. Because Kaito is fixating so strongly and uncontrollably on supporting his sidekicks, because doing that matters so much to him, it’s only going to hurt him more when he begins to feel like he’s failing at it. He can’t just brush something like that off as not really a big deal, because of course it’s a big deal. It’s everything to him, and it’s literally not possible for him to make himself feel like it isn’t.

It’s just as bad as if space suddenly twisted and became painful to think about somehow. Which… I guess that actually kind of happens too, when Kaito starts to realise that he’s never going to make it up there. And he can’t deal with that by trying to tell himself it was never that important, either, because space is always important to him. Even if he wanted to switch that part of his brain off or ignore it to help himself cope, he just couldn’t.

Caring so intensely about things feels amazing and makes a person wonderfully passionate, but it can also be a double-edged sword.

(Executive dysfunction?)

One big negative side to ADHD is that it tends to cause executive dysfunction, which, to massively oversimplify it, more or less means the profound inability to get yourself to do things that you know you’re supposed to be perfectly able to do. That interest-based nervous system does not do well with motivating us to do tasks that are objectively important but aren’t interesting or fun to actually carry out, resulting in a mental block that can appear to the outside observer like wilful laziness, even though it really, really isn’t.

This appears to be one part of ADHD that Kaito manages to avoid having to deal with. (He may superficially seem “lazy” during training, but that has nothing to do with his brain and everything to do with his body and the fact that he’s sick and doesn’t want anyone to know.) But I think that’s mostly because none of the reasons that ADHD causes executive dysfunction actually apply in the killing game.

One of the few things other than interest that motivates an ADHD brain is urgency – suddenly they can do that boring essay they’ve been putting off when the deadline is tonight, showing remarkable speed and focus in a fit of nervous anxiety over the potential consequences of turning it in late. And there’s plenty of literal do-or-die urgency to motivate Kaito during the killing game, so there’s no way he’d ever not be motivated to do what he feels he needs to do to help everyone there. Plus, the things he’s trying to do involve helping people, something he inherently finds interesting, so he’d be motivated for those reasons anyway even if it wasn’t quite so life-threateningly vital that he does so.

(Kaito is a bit flakier and liable to miss important details during the investigations and trials, mind you. This might be because, while the urgency of “if we don’t solve the case we die” is looming over him, the actual details of the case aren’t something that instinctively feels urgent or that he inherently finds interesting, so it’s harder for him to pay proper attention and take it all in even when he’s trying to. Kaito has plenty of intelligence in a lot of ways, but his brain is evidently not wired for investigations and deductions like Shuichi’s is – he’s perfectly capable of following Shuichi’s logic and understanding it, but not of figuring any of that stuff out himself in the first place. This could partly be down to Kaito having ADHD and just not being interested enough in these particular kinds of mental exercises to be able to get his brain to focus on them as much as he’d need to in order to solve them.)

I also don’t think executive dysfunction would have got in Kaito’s way much during his regular life before the killing game. (You know, if he’d actually had one, but let’s pretend for now that he did.) Motivation issues can be helped a lot by an externally-imposed structure telling you what you need to do and when, which is why a lot of ADHD people don’t even notice any problems while they’re in a school system and only fall apart once they’re adults and are suddenly expected to structure their own life. Kaito’s astronaut training would definitely give him plenty of structure to work from so that he always knew what he needed to do and never had this issue. It’s also really challenging, which is another thing that helps keep ADHD people interested and motivated. And while the actual end goal of getting to space is far-off enough that it wouldn’t be able to work as a direct motivator to an ADHD brain (we are bad at things with delayed gratification), everything Kaito’s learning would still be related to space and communication and teamwork, so he’d be interested in learning all of it simply for its own sake.

Emotional hyperarousal

Another big defining feature of ADHD that isn’t nearly as well-known as it ought to be is that it amplifies emotions to a far greater intensity than those of neurotypical people. ADHDers’ feelings and reactions are naturally bigger and louder and just more than most people’s – which sounds a lot like Kaito, doesn’t it? He’s always larger than life, energetic and passionate about everything, not just his specific hyperfixations. Look at how excited he gets about just seeing snow! And he has so much enthusiasm for so much else, too – as he puts it: “there’s nothing unnecessary in this world!” When Kaito feels things, he feels them full-throttle, with no half-measures, which is just how Kaito would always want things to be!

…But, whether he likes it or not, that also applies to the painful feelings just as much as the good ones.

Emotional dysregulation

Kaito can often be very reactionary and get unnecessarily riled up over minor things that don’t really warrant such a dramatic response. If you think about it, this isn’t really something he’d want to do, because he’s always trying to stay positive and keep people on his side. So apparently it’s something he simply can’t help, as if his brain is just wired to make him more liable to do that.

If even minor slights can cause an overreaction like that from an ADHD brain, then imagine how much worse it is when the stimulus is something genuinely worth being upset over. That already-painful emotion gets amplified to even greater levels, to the point that it can be almost unbearable. People with ADHD can often have a more difficult time dealing with things, not necessarily because they’re emotionally weaker, but because they simply feel things harder than most other people do.

Kaito goes through a lot of emotional pain throughout the story – and he’s really pretty bad at dealing with it all. He basically has only two not-very-healthy methods for doing so. One is to try to ignore it entirely by focusing on something more positive, which on its own could be put down to his desire to come across as an invincible hero who can inspire people. So this particular unhealthy tactic doesn’t necessarily mean that he wouldn’t be able to properly deal with these emotions if he actually stopped being an idiot and tried to.

However, Kaito’s second unhealthy coping mechanism is to turn the pain into anger – sometimes to the point of lashing out in ways he doesn’t mean to. Punching Shuichi at the end of the first trial is very much caused by Kaito being unable to contain his pain over Kaede’s death rather than any controlled attempt to push Shuichi forward, since he regrets it and apologises for it the next morning. And then the agonising truth that Gonta killed someone is even harder for Kaito to bear, leading to him lashing out at Shuichi again in what was very much desperate pain-fuelled anger with no rational basis for it. Unlike with simply hiding his pain, lashing out like this is not something Kaito would ever want to do; it’s not exactly very heroic of him, after all. So this suggests that there’s more to Kaito’s bad coping mechanisms than just him trying to appear strong and not worry people – that sometimes the pain gets so unbearably intense that ignoring it isn’t possible and he just can’t deal with it and loses control of himself.

Uncontrollable bouts of rage can be a common problem that comes with ADHD because of the amplified emotions and difficulty properly regulating them – and it’s definitely a problem Kaito suffers from, too. That part of Kaito that lets him get so wonderfully passionate in helping everyone around him might well be exactly the same part of him that simply cannot handle it when he realises Gonta murdered someone and leads to him lashing out at his best friend.

Moping (…not a technical term)

…Okay, I just said Kaito has only two unhealthy coping mechanisms for painful emotions, but maybe there’s also kind of a third: unconstructively moping about it. This doesn’t sound like Kaito at all – he frequently gives others advice about not doing exactly that – but he can actually be seen falling into doing so a couple of times if you look closely.

In chapter 2, when Ryoma’s behaviour bothers him for all the wrong reasons and he has no intent of actually doing something about it, Kaito really should be just trying not to think about it at all and focusing on something more constructive like helping Shuichi. However, the places he hangs out in for his chapter 2 FTEs and his invitation dialogues indicate that he spends a whole three FTE slots just brooding unhelpfully about the state Ryoma’s in. This is definitely not something he wants to be doing, since he hastily changes the subject if Shuichi hangs out with him.

And in case 4’s investigation, after Shuichi’s cell phone experiment makes Kaito feel useless and unneeded (he thought Shuichi needed his help! – but, no, turns out he actually really didn’t), the pain of that feeling noticeably lingers with him for most of the rest of the investigation. He’s in enough of a bad mood about it afterwards that Maki notices it through his less-expressive virtual avatar, and he doesn’t even come with her to call Shuichi back from the rooftop and just logs out on his own in a sulk. Then he also ends up explicitly unaware in the trial of some of the information Monotaro shared with the whole group once they’d logged out, meaning he was apparently still too wrapped up in feeling useless to be paying proper attention.

(And these are the two examples of Kaito doing this that are noticeable thanks to subtle clues in his behaviour – but since Kaito would obviously never draw attention to it, maybe he actually does this a lot more than those two times and we just can’t normally see it.)

See, another thing about emotional dysregulation – plus the difficulty in controlling the focus of your attention that comes with ADHD – is that it can be hard to stop yourself from thinking endlessly about painful things, even when you very much don’t want to be thinking about them. I once saw a tumblr post describing ADHD as Chronic Cannot Leave It Alone Disorder, and I can confirm that, yes, this is very frustratingly accurate, for the bad things as well as the good. It’s possible that Kaito’s advice about not moping when you could be doing something to make a difference might have originated for himself, to try and mitigate his brain’s tendency to do this. But while I imagine this helped quite a bit in letting him control his thoughts and stay focused on the positives, it appears that, despite his best efforts, it still doesn’t always work.

Impulsiveness

The Primarily-Hyperactive subtype of ADHD (aka the one that’s definitely the subtype Kaito has, for obvious reasons) is sometimes called Hyperactive-Impulsive type, because impulsiveness tends to be a big part of it, too. I think this is kind of a combination of emotional hyperarousal and inability to control attention – the impulse to Do A Thing gets amplified to the point that it floods the entire brain, and it becomes nigh-impossible to ignore it and consider the potential negative consequences before acting on it. It’s like that Chronic Cannot Leave It Alone Disorder gets concentrated into a single instant of frequently-terrible decision-making.

It’s no secret that Kaito is impulsively reckless – and if you think about it, it’s to an extent that’s honestly kind of pathological. Cheating his way into the astronaut exam early, for example, could very well have permanently ruined his chances of ever being allowed in and making it to space. He should never have considered that a risk worth taking. So apparently he just wasn’t properly considering the risk at all – not even for the most important decision of his life.

A lot of the time, these kinds of bad decisions can be fuelled by those amplified painful emotions that get turned into anger like I talked about before. The stress of the killing game causes Kaito to very nearly get himself killed on two occasions early in chapter 1, almost lashing out in a way that would have broken school regulations. Kaito is perfectly aware of the consequences for doing that – but in the heat of the moment, it just doesn’t matter to him. His overwhelming desire to express his pain-fuelled rage simply blocks out everything else from his mind. A similar thing happens in chapter 5 when Kaito’s attempt to punch Kokichi after the supposed mastermind reveal only results in him getting knocked out and captured by the Exisals that were very obviously there and under Kokichi’s control. It’s summed up pretty well by the fact that Kokichi outright tells Kaito that punching him won’t fix any of the things he’s angry about, and Kaito’s response is, “Even if that is the case… I can’t get over it if I don’t punch you!” To Kaito, in these moments, it’s never about the consequences; it’s about needing to let out his too-strong emotions right now and to hell with everything else, even if that “everything else” literally might include his life.

Then there’s everything that happens with Kaito at the casino. The consequences for him here aren’t exactly dire, since all he loses out on is the chance to buy a prize, but still – that uncontrollable fixation on the anticipated thrill of winning and the inability to consider the really-very-high possibility that he’ll lose is exactly the type of reckless thrill-seeking that people with this type of ADHD often have.

In fact, the bonus scene at the casino is literally titled “Kaito’s Gambling Problem” – and as you might imagine, impulsive-type ADHDers are at a higher risk of developing harmful addictions to things such as gambling. While this isn’t an actual gambling problem here because no real money is involved and it does seem that he never gets tempted by the casino again after the second time, the scene’s title apparently wants us to consider that Kaito has the potential to develop a legitimate gambling problem should he ever get old enough to legally gamble in the real world. Which is a weirdly specific thing for the writers to make a point of when it has no bearing on the plot… so it makes me wonder if they could have actually been trying to tell us something here.

This kind of impulsiveness can also cause people to blurt out their thoughts without thinking about the consequences, potentially resulting in upsetting someone or embarrassing themselves. At first glance, considering that he has a lot of thoughts he’s determined to hide from the surface, Kaito doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem with this kind of impulsiveness. If he did, you’d think he’d find himself muttering stuff like “I feel like crap”, or “I hate this place” all the time and then having to hastily paper over it and insist that no that’s definitely not how he’s really feeling at all. So apparently, he’s fairly good at thinking before he speaks when it matters to him?

Except, when he’s in the Virtual World, Kaito makes multiple unthinking comments to the effect of “I like this avatar body”, which he has to awkwardly brush off when Shuichi questions him, since it rather hints that something’s up with his real body. He’s suddenly really bad at this, even though he was pretty good at it the rest of the time.

So maybe what’s going on is this: in an effort to stay positive at all times because he’s Kaito, Kaito trained himself to have a constant, unshakeable mental filter that prevents himself from impulsively blurting out how he’s feeling if it’s something negative. However, he can’t stop himself from still randomly blurting out whatever positive things are on his mind. This usually isn’t a problem, but it can sometimes include things – it feels so great to not be dying for once! – that he really doesn’t want to be voicing either, if he only gave it a moment more thought.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria

Often shortened to RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria is a specific and especially nasty kind of emotional hyperarousal / dysregulation that almost all ADHDers suffer from. (At least, I feel like it should probably be classified as a subtype of that, though I’m not sure if that’s the official take, so don’t quote me on this.) The ADHD researcher who coined the term defines it as: “extreme emotional pain triggered by the perception – not necessarily the reality – that a person has been rejected or criticised by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short and failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.” That second sentence is important and frequently overlooked, because it indicates that, despite the name, this isn’t only about perceived rejection by others; it can also be about an entirely personal sense of failure.

I first read about this concept while I happened to be hyperfixating on Kaito’s mindset specifically in early chapter 5, aka that time he avoids Shuichi out of shame over feeling like he failed him in the previous trial, due to his own unreasonably high standards for being a “hero”. (If you didn’t realise that this is what’s going on with Kaito in early chapter 5, go read this other post of mine and get caught up, because you’re going to need to be for the rest of this section.) And, naturally, though I was supposed to be reading that article about RSD to help me figure out if I had ADHD, my brain made some connections. That was the moment I began to have this headcanon; everything else in this post blossomed from that as I thought about it more and realised a lot of other things about Kaito also fit this incredibly well.

The null hypothesis

So, let’s consider early chapter 5. In fact, let’s assume for a moment that Kaito doesn’t have ADHD and his emotions function like a regular person’s. He would still, of course, feel like he’s utterly failed Shuichi by showing himself to be weaker than him and doing the opposite of supporting him during trial 4. That part’s not specifically based in anything ADHD and is just a product of Kaito’s psychological issues about heroes, which I’ve already talked about plenty in that post I just linked. (I don’t want anyone to think that my ADHD headcanon is getting in the way of or diminishing any of that; this is just another layer on top of it.)

Kaito really wants to make things right and apologise for his mistakes in the trial (and for his really-not-actually-mistakes too, for that matter). He really wants to fix the rift between him and Shuichi and not leave the two of them painfully torn apart like this. He knows the responsibility to do so is on him and not Shuichi. But… he doesn’t do it. Why not?

The only possible reason would be that he’s just being a coward and running away from the guilt and shame he’s feeling rather than facing up to it. Except… Kaito’s not a coward. He may arguably seem like one in some ways given how he refuses to acknowledge his weaknesses to his sidekicks – but that’s not to protect himself and his own emotions; it’s because he’s idiotically convinced that it’s better for them that way. Here, now that he believes he’s already failed Shuichi as badly as he ever could, he should feel like he has nothing more to lose on that front (and Shuichi never even needed him anyway, right?), so there should be no harm in owning up to it and at least apologising for what he’s done wrong.

Granted, Kaito is busy trying to make up for his failure through his totally-great escape plan – but that’s still no reason why he can’t also apologise first and then keep trying to make up for things with the plan anyway. And it��s not at all like it was in the trial itself, when he was too wound-up in the heat of the moment to be thinking clearly. He’s had plenty of time to process what happened and regain control of himself and become consciously aware of what he knows is the right thing to do here.

The guilt and shame Kaito would be feeling from his belief that he’s failed Shuichi would still hurt pretty bad, sure – but I don’t think, if it really is a proportionate emotional response to what he feels like he’s done, that it’d be something he couldn’t face up to. He’s incredibly resilient and knows that sometimes you’ve just gotta face painful things head-on, and he should be more than willing to do so for the sake of making things at least slightly better between him and Shuichi.

So, I argue this: Kaito avoiding Shuichi the way he does in early chapter 5 doesn’t quite make sense unless he has ADHD. (Or perhaps some other neurological disorder that would have a similar effect on his emotions, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to be sure what other possibilities could fit.)

Too much pain

I can confirm from experience: RSD freaking sucks. Any feeling of “I should be able to do this, but I messed it up”, or any seemingly innocuous comment from someone you care about where they either point out a mistake you made or that could possibly be interpreted to mean they don’t really care about you that much – these things can hurt like hell, so much more than they have any right to. It’s as if that insignificant twinge of disappointment that most people would feel just gets multiplied by like a thousand until it practically feels like you’ve been stabbed in the chest. And I should note: the rejection version tends to be triggered by people important to you, but I find it’s especially bad if it’s someone I not only care about but also look up to. You know, like Kaito very definitely does to Shuichi.

Case 4 has plenty of things that would trigger RSD for Kaito before even getting into the worst parts of the trial. That cell phone incident in the investigation I mentioned earlier, where Kaito thought Shuichi needed his help for a second and then ended up feeling like he really never did at all? And all the times Shuichi shoots down one of Kaito’s arguments in the trial and tells him he’s wrong (which happens seven times, by the way)? Every single one of those seemingly-minor moments would have hurt Kaito not just a little, but one hell of a lot. It’s honestly really impressive and a testament to Kaito’s resilience that he managed to keep himself together and show barely any signs of how he was feeling for as long as he did.

It’s also very relevant that RSD is known to potentially trigger an externalised response of instantaneous rage, exactly like the outbursts of anger I mentioned in the previous section. I’ve already talked plenty elsewhere about how a lot of the pain that’s causing Kaito to lash out in trial 4 isn’t just over Gonta’s guilt but is also over how he’s being made to feel like a horribly inferior failure compared to Shuichi – and, yep, that’s still a perfect match to Kaito having ADHD.

By the end of the trial, Kaito’s issues and irrationalities have rendered him convinced that he’s utterly failed to be the hero he’s supposed to be, and that Shuichi obviously doesn’t need him or care about him any more (if he ever even did in the first place). That’s giving Kaito plenty of genuine conscious reason to be hurting pretty damn hard to begin with, before his ADHD brain-wiring even sinks its claws into it. Now try to imagine that pain getting disproportionately multiplied by like a thousand – fucking ouch, and then some. Nobody, not even someone as brave and resilient as Kaito, should ever be expected to be able to face up to that, to actively make it even worse by talking about it and bringing those feelings to the forefront, especially not when doing so would just be showing even more weakness to the person it hurts so much to show weakness to. I don’t believe it’d be fair to call anyone a coward for that.

Kaito’s not a coward; he avoids Shuichi in early chapter 5 because he is genuinely in too much pain to bear. The only way he can deal with it at all (now that he’s not in the heat of trial 4 and is very determined to at least not make things even worse by lashing out in anger again) is by simply trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. If he manages to prove himself as a hero, maybe it’ll stop hurting quite as much and he’ll be able to face up to it, but until then, avoiding the pain is all he can do.

(Obligatory Harmonious Heart mention)

Since I relish the opportunity to bring this scene up whenever I can, I might as well add that Kaito’s Harmonious Heart event is another instance in which he’d be feeling some pretty rough RSD – at least, in every outcome except the best one in which Shuichi reassures him that they’re friends and it’s okay to open up to your friend. It’d be especially bad in the worst outcome where Kaito realises Shuichi has seen his “weakness” and feels like he’s failed him. Probably not quite as bad as in canon, but still, ouch.

In fact, an interesting thing about that worst outcome is that Kaito specifically says he feels “so embarrassed”, which, when you think about it, doesn’t really sound like the kind of thing anyone would expect Kaito to ever describe himself as feeling, even at a time like this. However, I know from my own experience that “embarrassment” is in fact something that it’s easy to mistake RSD for when you don’t know what it is – just an embarrassment that’s somehow agonisingly painful, because that’s totally how embarrassment usually works for most people, right. So, A, this fits perfectly yet again, and B, since you’d usually not think to have Kaito ever use that word… it makes me wonder if the writer for this scene knew.

Coping methods (and why Kaito doesn’t have them)

Of course, it’s not like there aren’t methods to try to combat and mitigate the incredible pain that RSD can bring. One that I’ve found works really well (thanks to Kaito himself!) is exercising. It really helps to burn off that excessive emotional energy – and not necessarily just RSD, but any of the disproportionately painful emotions ADHD brings – by translating it into physical energy. “Let your sweat wash away all your sadness, fear, worry and hardships; just start moving your body and your pain will become memories before you know it,” actually sums up how this feels pretty well! It’s quite possible that this advice – heck, maybe his entire exercise-to-help-the-mind thing in general – is something else that Kaito first came up with for himself, after he found that it helped him calm down and feel better whenever he’d get too upset about something.

…So it’s really rather cruel that Kaito’s worsening illness also happens to lock him out of one of his only genuinely-healthy coping mechanisms for what he’s going through emotionally in chapters 4 and 5, isn’t it.

Another thing that’s really helped me in dealing with my own RSD is simply understanding it. When you know that it’s a disproportionate emotional response, you can remind yourself that things aren’t truly as bad as the pain is making them feel like they are, which makes it easier to take steps to stop it hurting, such as talking to the friend who unintentionally triggered it and having them reassure you that of course they care about you. Without that understanding of it, it’s all too easy to think, “if it hurts this much, I must deserve to be hurting this much,” which, yeah, that’s a bad path to go down.

One pretty important part of my headcanon that Kaito has ADHD, then, is that he definitely has no idea he has it. If he’d been diagnosed with it at some point in his life, he’d understand these problems of his better. Even if the doctors never told him all these things I’ve been mentioning here about how ADHD actually works (which is way too disappointingly common, so I gather), Kaito would have researched this stuff himself at some point, in order to better understand himself and know his limits so that he can work around them to be the best person he can be. He wouldn’t want to let anything get in the way of him helping others as much as he can and achieving his dream of going to space, not even the idiosyncrasies of his own brain. And, heck, he’d probably find it interesting if only he had a reason to look into it in the first place! Many ADHDers hyperfixate on ADHD, and Kaito definitely seems like someone who would have if he’d known.

So, if Kaito was aware of his ADHD, he’d be able to recognise what he’s going through in early chapter 5 as RSD and handle it better. He’d know that, no matter how much it hurts, things aren’t actually quite as bad as it feels like, and that apologising to Shuichi sooner rather than later is almost certainly the best way forward even if the prospect of doing so seems terrifying as all hell. For that matter, if Kaito knew about his ADHD and what it really involved, he’d almost certainly have trained himself to be able to deal with a lot of his more troublesome symptoms better than he ever does in canon.

Friendship difficulties

Because of their differently-wired brains, ADHDers can often struggle to connect with the rest of the world that doesn’t think the same way as them. And here’s a fun subtle thing about Kaito that ought to get talked about more: he’s not actually very skilled or experienced at making friends. Having sidekicks that he can inspire and support, and being a general encouraging influence on a wider group of people to keep them working together – sure, that stuff comes naturally to him. But regular, everyday friendship? Not so much.

This isn’t that easy to spot, because most of the time we see Kaito, he’s deliberately focusing on motivating people, which he’s great at. But there are a few instances here and there where Kaito interacts with people in a not-specifically-motivational way: his attempts to befriend Kaede (who doesn’t need his support), his earlier FTEs with Shuichi (which should be happening before training starts), and the conversation with Shuichi and Maki in chapter 4’s second training scene (before Maki begins talking about her past).

In all of these, Kaito turns out to actually be a huge awkward goof who doesn’t seem to have the first clue how to do regular interpersonal interactions. And basically everything about him being this way can potentially be explained by ADHD.

Too many thoughts

It’s never quiet and organised in an ADHD brain; whenever we’re not hyperfocusing on one specific thing, our minds always have like five different thoughts rattling around in them at once. So, consider the conversation with Shuichi and Maki, which Kaito was attempting to treat like a Regular Conversation (rather than the chance to help Maki open up that it definitely actually was in his head). Perhaps, in his efforts to do small talk, not one but several different possible small talk questions popped into his head at once and clamoured for his attention, such that a couple of them – “what blood type are you?” and “what [something] do you like?” – got accidentally merged together when he opened his mouth to speak. That plus his impulsive lack-of-filter meant that out came “What blood type do you like?” and Kaito sounding like a doofus.

(When Maki points out that this is a strange question, Kaito awkwardly laughs it off. It almost seems like he’s used to accidentally saying things people consider weird during his attempts at normal conversation and has learned to try and act like it’s nothing so he doesn’t push anyone away.)

This disorganisation in ADHD minds also tends to make them get too caught up on unnecessary details they find interesting and wander off down random mental tangents rather than whatever they’re supposed to be talking or thinking about. I once saw a tumblr post that said ADHDers are likely to tell “stories that start sooner than they need to and end somewhere other than the point” – and this happens to be a literally perfect description of the story Kaito tells Shuichi in his second and third FTEs. He was supposed to be telling Shuichi how he became interested in space. He began by talking about finding a treasure map and conquering the seas, and he finished with how he was busy conquering the land when his summer vacation ended. At no point did he mention space; he’d got so wrapped up in the story itself that he’d completely forgotten that was meant to be the point.

Kaito also has a bit of a tendency to make strange statements that appear to make perfect sense to him even though they kind of don’t to anybody else. He wants to learn to play the piano for when he goes to space? Well, of course; he might meet an alien! You can’t ever know how malicious other people’s secrets are? Sure, but that’s why you just gotta believe in… yourself! These really do make perfect sense in Kaito’s head (the first is about communication; the second is about people-reading skills). But it seems, perhaps, that his overly-active mind made connections too fast and jumped several tracks at once, to the point that he didn’t realise he was skipping a few steps of his explanation and that it wouldn’t make so much sense to the people listening. Which is also a thing that ADHD people are liable to do.

Too loud and excitable

A less immediately obvious thing that’s strange about Kaito’s behaviour in the chapter 4 training chat is that, when Shuichi essentially just straight-up asks Maki to start talking about her issues, Kaito admonishes him for being too direct and claims he can’t just do that. This seems odd coming from Kaito, who’s usually nothing but direct in his approaches to encouraging people, and who definitely also intended to prompt Maki into talking about her issues here.

But, apparently because he’s trying to present this as a Regular Normal Friend Conversation, Kaito didn’t think he was meant to be so direct in this context. Which suggests he’s learned through experience that his usual kind of directness that works great for encouragement apparently just kind of puts people off when it’s used in a regular conversation. So instead, he was trying to work his way towards hopefully maybe getting Maki to open up through awkward small talk that he must know he’s terrible at – no wonder he was miffed when Shuichi casually went and committed the exact social “faux-pas” he’d been trying to avoid, with complete confidence that it’d actually be fine, and it turned out it was. (Whoops, there goes Shuichi effortlessly being better than him at everything Kaito finds difficult, like always.)

Nonetheless, Kaito probably has good reason to be worried about coming across as too direct (outside of sidekick contexts, where that’s just the best way to get through to someone and help). Because, when he’s not actively trying to avoid it, he does have a tendency to get a bit carried away with things and put people off as a result. Remember the time he asked Kaede for a hug? There’s absolutely no reason to assume this was romantic or sexual in nature, because it already makes more than enough sense to think that Kaito was just so excited at meeting someone so similar to him and thought she was Super Cool and just really wanted to be her friend!!! So he impulsively expressed that sentiment in a rather-too-forward way that he was too caught up in his excitement to realise was going to come across as rather inappropriate.

Not that being too overly excitable and direct about things necessarily has to lead to behaviour that’s outright inappropriate in order to cause problems. (Though please never forget that Kaito asked for the hug and respected Kaede’s boundaries when she said no.) Even if he’s not doing anything wrong, Kaito being his usual larger-than-life self all the time might just come across as a bit Much and be kind of weird and off-putting for a lot of people. It’s that emotional hyperarousal again, which I mostly talked about the negative side of in the earlier section – but the positive side of it, amplifying the good emotions to make someone more enthusiastic and passionate, can still (completely undeservedly) be a negative thing in a social context with others who just aren’t wired the same way.

In Kaito’s second FTE, wrapped up among his ridiculous overblown childish fiction, he appears to potentially be talking about an actual playmate he had at the time who joined in his game of pretending to be a sea captain. Then they had a fight and Kaito never saw him again – and he presents that like it was just part of his game, too, but this can likely be taken to mean that they had a falling out that never got resolved and stopped being friends. If so, I can’t help but assume that this was probably because tiny Kaito was a little bit too boisterous and excessive in his playing – while still not necessarily doing anything wrong – that it overwhelmed this other kid to the point that he didn’t really want to join in any more.

There’s also one bit of FTE invitation dialogue where Kaito claims he’s about to teach Kaede how to have peace of mind… and then he tells stories that make her question his definition of that. Which makes a lot of sense considering that ADHD minds, particularly hyperactive-type ones, are never relaxed for even a moment. Kaito doesn’t know how not to be energetic and over-the-top even when the people he’s with just want to wind down and relax, which also wouldn’t really do him any favours in terms of making friends.

But none of that is Kaito’s fault; he’s not trying to be selfish or drive these people away. It’s simply the way his mind is, always going full-throttle when most other people’s usually aren’t. He just gets so excited about so many things and has a hard time toning that down. Besides, why would Kaito even want to tone it down and be boringly down-to-earth when his mind could be up in space instead!? That’s much better! …except that most other people don’t see it that way.

Too much infodumping

In the training chat, after embarrassing himself with a bungled small talk question and being shown up by Shuichi making it look like it’s actually somehow not a problem to be too direct after all, Kaito attempts to bring things back around to small talk with the, uh, “safe” option of asking Maki what her favourite spaceship is. Which isn’t really small talk at all, of course – but then, actual small talk is hard for ADHD people, because it’s not interesting enough to care about paying proper attention to. They’d much rather be acting on that constant desire to talk about something they’re interested in, such as one of their hyperfixations, which is not always the best way to connect with others who don’t happen to be interested in the same thing.

(Fortunately, since another of his hyperfixations is Maki and her issues, Kaito is perfectly happy to listen once she starts talking about her past, and the conversation shifts back to a comfortable hero-and-sidekick situation again rather than an awkward and confusing how-do-I-friends???)

There’s another of those FTE invitation dialogues in chapter 1 where Kaito tells Kaede he’s a good listener… and then apparently Kaede spends the entire time listening to him instead. Except, obviously Kaito really is a good listener when it’s in his hero-and-sidekick context and he’s helping someone with their problems, because he’s invested in supporting them and so it’d be easy for him to pay attention. But perhaps, when it’s in a regular friendship context and the person he’s talking to doesn’t need his help (like Kaede doesn’t), Kaito’s not quite so good at listening because he’s not necessarily as interested in what they have to say. So he might be liable to just impulsively act on the desire to talk about the things he wants to (such as SPACE; there is always time for space) and then get so focused on it that he overlooks the other person’s feelings and genuinely doesn’t realise he’s coming across as kind of brash and self-absorbed.

Kaito’s second and third FTEs with Shuichi are an even better illustration of this. Upon Shuichi choosing to hang out with him for a second time, Kaito apparently realises Shuichi is interested enough in him to possibly want to be his friend. So he responds to this by… launching into a huge ridiculous story about his (completely make-believe) heroic adventures as a kid. This kind of one-sided conversation and bizarre topic choice is not, in fact, a great way to make friends with someone, but Kaito doesn’t seem to realise this. He finds his story so cool and exciting that he impulsively assumes Shuichi would too and jumps into it without actually confirming whether Shuichi wants to hear it or not. And, honestly, it seems like Shuichi doesn’t, at least not particularly, and is only listening out of politeness and an inability to get a word in edgeways. His less-than-enthusiastic response to Kaito’s story suggests that these FTEs are canonically meant to happen before training begins and Shuichi comes to properly consider Kaito a friend – and therefore that Kaito’s not really doing the best job here of making Shuichi begin to consider him a friend.

Still himself despite it all!

All of these potentially-ADHD-fuelled idiosyncrasies of Kaito’s make it a lot harder for him to make friends in the normal way – and he seems to be somewhat aware of this. Some of the things from the chapter 4 chat hint that he’s slightly insecure and afraid he’s going to put Shuichi and Maki off by being so dorkily himself. There’s also a little more of this in the Salmon Team bonus mode, in which friendship is the entire point, and yet a few lines when he’s inviting Shuichi to hang out hint that Kaito isn’t completely convinced that Shuichi would want to hang out with him as a friend rather than as a sidekick who needs his advice and support. If he was more used to having friends, he probably wouldn’t still be so insecure about this – so this honestly kind of suggests that Shuichi and Maki could be the first real friends Kaito’s ever managed to make.

Because of these kinds of issues in connecting with people, a lot of ADHD kids grow up unconsciously learning to suppress their true selves, hiding their boundless enthusiasm and unusual interests to seem more “normal” so that they can fit in. I know this because I was one such kid, and I’m still struggling to unlearn this as an adult. So I have huge admiration for Kaito having managed to not do this, refusing to let anything stop him from being himself at all times. His convictions about staying true to himself are even more impressive when you realise that he would have felt so pressured to break them and pretend to be someone he’s not in order to more easily make friends.

As strong-willed as Kaito is, I doubt he’d have been able to do this as a kid without help. His parents and grandparents must have been really, really good in validating his passion and energy and never making him feel ashamed for being the way he is, assuring him that if other kids can’t see how great he is then that’s their problem and not because he’s doing anything wrong. He wants to go to space more than anything else in the world? Awesome; he should chase that dream with everything he has and not care how ridiculous and childish and impossible everyone else seems to think it is! Not all parents would do that.

After all, there are a lot of occasions in which Kaito does just brazenly present his larger-than-life self to someone in a clumsily overbearing attempt to make friends, without showing even the subtlest sign of being worried it might put them off. For that matter, Kaito is generally very willing to just throw himself into things he’s unfamiliar with and possibly end up failing spectacularly and making a fool of himself – something that’s likely to be pretty painful for him, given how RSD is. While some of this is probably down to his impulsiveness and not even considering that he might fail, I’m sure sometimes he’s got to be aware of it, and if so, that’s some impressive resilience and determination. People with ADHD can become unconsciously inclined to never try at anything out of a fear of that painful failure, but of course Kaito would refuse to let that happen to him – which is really quite admirable.

Interestingly, all of the times Kaito is subtly insecure about his social skills – the chapter 4 scene, the Salmon Team bits, and maybe that time with the former friend in his FTE if you assume that him wrapping it up in a fiction means he’s still uncomfortable about what happened – involve someone he’s already friends with. After all, it’s probably easier for him to fearlessly dive in with someone new, because it’s less of a blow if he messes up in that context – not everyone’s going to click with him and that’s just how things go. But once Kaito’s already built a strong connection with someone, he becomes more afraid of messing up, because being rejected by someone important to him would be agonising. You might think that he ought to feel more comfortable around people he’s already friends with because he should trust them and know they’re not going anywhere no matter how much of a dork he is – but when RSD is a factor, it makes perfect sense for it to be the opposite.

Sidekicks can be friends, too!

Perhaps part of why Kaito is able to remain so confident in himself most of the time is because he nonetheless hasn’t grown up alone and lacking meaningful connections to other people. Despite his difficulty in making regular friends, he’s compensated for this by having sidekicks, which are a very different matter that his eccentricities conversely make him very good with. Being enthusiastic and energetic and over-the-top like Kaito can never not be is helpful when he’s being an inspiring hero, not weird or off-putting at all!

Still, while Kaito has a far easier time forging that initial connection with someone through the sidekick approach rather than the friend approach, that doesn’t make him worse at actually being someone’s friend (and not just their “hero”) once he’s got his foot in the door. If Kaito had told the story from his FTEs to Shuichi after they’d started training and properly bonded, Shuichi’s reaction would have been completely different: still probably exasperated, but in an affectionate kind of way, because he knows that’s just part of what makes Kaito who he is, and it’s actually pretty fun to be around. He has a lot of this sort of response to Kaito once they’re friends, and it’s adorable. It’s the same in the chapter 4 training chat – neither Maki nor Shuichi are at all put off by Kaito’s awkwardness, partly because they’re not exactly great at social skills themselves, but also because they know how much Kaito cares about them, and no amount of arbitrary social missteps could ever change that.

When someone becomes Kaito’s sidekick, meaning they’ve accepted his support and understand how much he wants to help them, they can see everything else about him that they might have found weird before in a new light. They learn that his eccentric behaviour isn’t him being deliberately rude or self-absorbed at all. It’s just genuinely how he is, and it’s part of how he can support them so well like he does, but that’s not all it’s good for. They come to appreciate Kaito not just for his incredible supportiveness, but for everything else about him, too. He’s not just their hero, but also their friend.

However… Kaito apparently can’t see that. Since he’s never been that good at forming regular friendships with people who don’t explicitly need him, he’s all too liable to assume that the people who do need him are only sticking around because of that, and no other reason. That co-dependency of Kaito’s I mentioned earlier, aka his rather unhealthy need to be needed? While the stressful context of the killing game definitely made it way worse throughout the story, it seems it was already slightly a thing in the first place – and if so, Kaito having ADHD could very well be the root cause.

Kaito is Good

Being realistic about how sadly uncommon well-represented neurodivergency is in fiction (and how misunderstood ADHD tends to be), I don’t know if I should try to assert that Kaito being ADHD was definitely the writers’ intent. However, almost every major facet of his character and personality fits with it so damn well that I want to think it’s at least possible that someone on the writing team could have had it in mind. Especially with the couple of bits I mentioned that seem like they could have been deliberately included by someone who Knows.

Still, even if it wasn’t intended, it’s amazing how good of a fit this is. Maybe it’s just that, in creating a character as intensely passionate as Kaito, the writers naturally wrote into him all the downsides of being that way as well, without even realising they were near-perfectly modelling the highs and lows of ADHD. After all, the human mind’s ability to simulate other human minds even when they’re not real is freaking magical. Kaito is such an incredibly well-written character with so much thought put into him whether or not he was meant to be as extremely ADHD-coded as he is.

I’ve always believed that Kaito is a fantastic example of how the best way to write realistic and interesting flaws into a character is to have them organically draw from traits that, in other situations, can be that character’s greatest strengths. And in my opinion, this is also kind of true about ADHD. When I figured out I had it and what it really meant, it was hugely validating for me, because I learned that almost everything I’d been struggling with was basically just the logically-inevitable downside of some of the things I’d always liked about myself, such as my ability to get so ridiculously analytical about stories I love like this. I wouldn’t trade those parts of myself away for anything – and I can’t imagine Kaito would, either.

I’ve seen a few posts and articles focusing on the bright side of having ADHD by listing some of the positive traits ADHDers often have because of it, and, delightfully, so many of them – fun to be around! compassionate! persistent! to name just a few – are things that Kaito has in spades. So, well, if ADHD can look so much like Kaito… then surely it can’t be all bad.

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(P.S.: High-five to anyone who headcanons Kaito as autistic! There’s a lot of overlap between that and ADHD. Many of the symptoms I’ve talked about here can also be symptoms of autism, and even with the non-overlapping bits, a lot of Kaito’s idiosyncrasies that I linked to ADHD could be interpreted slightly differently to link them to autism instead. I believe ADHD fits him somewhat better than autism does, but then I’m more knowledgeable about ADHD so my data is skewed, plus I’m pretty obviously biased since I’m personally invested in the idea of Kaito being like me. Taking a step back from my more specific headcanon here, though, there’s still every reason to assume that Kaito is at least some flavour of neurodivergent, and I think that’s pretty awesome.)

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #kaito momota #character analysis #kaito's hero issues #ramble #adhd #adhd headcanons #creating that tag because i can already tell kaito won't be the only adhd headcanon i make #oh my god this ended up *longer* than the hero ramble how did this happen #and yes i will link to the hero ramble in every single other kaito ramble because it is always important #i also talked about myself in this more than i ever usually do on here so uh #personal?

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dlwritings · 4 years

Text

Explode | Tom Holland

masterlist found here

pairing - roommate!Tom x reader word count - 2,771 warnings - language A/N - for the anon who requested x

summary - Things between you and Tom have been tense, and you can’t figure out why for the life of you. At an engagement party for your sister, emotions run a little too high, and one of you is bound to explode.

You and Tom had been in a bad place lately. You weren’t sure what it was, but something was causing a serious strain in your relationship. Well, not relationship. Friendship. Roommateship. Whatever.

Tom had been abnormally snippy about everything. No matter what you did, you set him off. You guys lived together. You had for a long time, and you had been friends for even longer. All of a sudden, things changed. It was like one day he woke up in a shitty mood that never went away. Never in all your years together had his attitude been like this. All you wanted was for him to talk to you, but he wouldn’t open up, and you didn’t want to press.

In reality, you should’ve pressed. This was your best friend, for god’s sake. It wasn’t pressing to talk out a bump in your friendship. But you were a peacekeeper at heart, and the last thing you wanted to do was start a fight. Still, it was getting to be a little much, and you had no idea how to handle it. So you did what you always do. Ignored it and hoped it went away on your own.

You were at home when your sister FaceTimed you with her announcement. The ring on her finger was huge, and you couldn’t contain your squeal of excitement. “Oh my god!” you said. “It’s beautiful!”

“Thank you,” she gushed. You were sitting alone in bed with your headphones in so you could have some privacy while you chatted with her. “We’re having an engagement party on Saturday. You and Tom will come right?” At that, your face dropped a bit. You hoped she wouldn’t notice, but the two of you had always been close, so she could read you well. “What’s wrong?” You glanced at the door to your room -it was closed- then looked back at the screen. “He’s home?”

“Yeah,” you said.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll try and ask yes or no questions.” You managed a smile and nodded. “Are you guys fighting?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “I think so?”

“For how long?”

“Ages now I feel like. But I have no idea why.” You wanted to dive into more detail, but you were scared Tom might overhear you. “Let me text you.” She agreed, so you hung up and opened your messages.

He’s been so pissy and I have no idea why

Have you tried talking to him?

I don’t know how! I don’t want to turn it all into a big thing

If he’s mad at you don’t you want to know why?

Yeah but what if he wants me to move out or something?

Wouldn’t you rather know than walk around him on eggshells?

Honestly I don’t know. If we’re like this I can pretend like we’re normal but if I find out he hates me our whole relationship will come crashing down

You’re still pretty crazy about him, huh?

I don’t want to talk about it

I’m sorry :( Is there anything I can do to help?

Nah. Just pretend like everything’s fine if we come on Saturday. Hopefully he’ll do the same. If he agrees

When you finished texting your sister, you decided to go talk to Tom about the party. He was sitting in the living room playing video games, and you felt yourself tense as soon as you saw him. You didn’t want to interrupt his game, knowing doing so would likely set him off. So, you sat on the other end of the couch and started scrolling through Instagram to occupy yourself until he was done.

“Damn it!” he shouted after a few minutes. He dropped the controller on his lap and ran a hand through his hair. You tentatively looked up at him to see his jaw clenched. Had his video game made him mad enough that he’d explode at you? God, everything made him mad these days. There was no guessing what would make him explode.

“Hey,” you said, clearing your throat awkwardly, “um, can I ask you something real quick? Or are you, if you have to start another game or whatever it can wait.”

“No, what’s up?” he asked with a heavy sigh, turning to look at you. He tucked one of his legs under himself and pulled his other up to his chest.

“I just got a call from my sister,” you said, “and she just got engaged.”

“Cool,” Tom said halfheartedly. He picked up his phone, clearly assuming the conversation was over. You felt that familiar pit in your stomach -the one you got every time you talked to him these days- but continued.

“She’s having a party on Saturday,” you said. “Do you want to, uh-” You cleared your throat. “Do you want to go with me?” Quickly, you added, “We don’t have to stay long. It’s just a big day for her and I told her I’d be there, and she asked if you’d go, and-”

“Fine,” he huffed. “Whatever. We can go.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” you mumbled.

“I’m not gonna pretend like I’m excited to socialize with people I don’t know while your sister flaunts her engagement,” he said.

“You don’t have to go,” you said. “I can go by myself.”

“What, so your sister can convince you I’m a shitty friend?” he said sarcastically.

“She wouldn’t do that,” you said, lowering your voice and hoping he might do the same.

“Your sister would gossip about a rock if she had the chance,” he said. You pressed your lips into a tight line and picked at your fingernails. “What time is it at?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” you said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

The party on Saturday was at 7:00 in the evening. It was a cocktail party with all of your sister and fiance’s friends and family, and you knew you’d need at least two drinks to feel comfortable. You got dressed in a short red floral dress and a jean jacket and curled your hair. By the time you were satisfied, Tom had been ready for a few minutes already. He was sitting on the couch on his phone waiting for you. When you walked out of the room, you held onto this twinge of hope that he would compliment you. That he would at least look at you in a way that made you feel beautiful. Just like he used to. He was always your biggest hype man.

He didn’t.

The drive to the party was quiet conversation wise. The only sound was the hum of the radio and your occasional direction, telling him how to get to the rooftop terrace the party was being held at. When you got out of the car, you hoped he would hold your hand -you guys held hands a lot- but he didn’t. You glanced at him, but his eyes were trained ahead. Holding back a sigh, you pressed the button for the elevator, and the two of you headed up to the party.

There was a DJ, a bar, lights, and tons of people littering the roof. You locked eyes with your sister right away and she squealed and ran over to you. You held your arms out to embrace her in a hug. Her fiance wasn’t far behind. When you looked at Tom, he had his camera ready smile on. From the outside looking in, no one would know anything was wrong between the two of you. And that was the goal.

“Congratulations,” Tom said to your sister and her fiance.

“Thank you for coming,” your sister said to him.

“Of course,” he said, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. Your sister eyed you curiously, but you wouldn’t meet her gaze.

You and Tom wandered around and socialized. Tom was an expert at pretending. He was an actor for a reason, after all.

“Attention, everybody!”

You turned to the direction of the DJ booth to find your sister holding a microphone. “We just want to thank you for coming out tonight,” she said. “Matt and I are so lucky to have so many amazing and supportive people in our lives.” Matt was standing in the crowd, smiling up at his fiance. He was so in love. You could see it in his eyes. “When I first met Matt, I just thought he was the biggest dork. Honestly, I didn’t see myself ever dating him, let alone marrying him. I mean at first, I didn’t even like him. But then, then I did. And then I started to love him. And now, I can’t see myself with anybody but him.”

You glanced at Tom but his eyes weren’t on you. He was watching your sister, so you couldn’t get a good read on how he was feeling or what he was thinking. You hated that.

“One of our favorite shows to watch together is Parks and Recreation,” your sister said. “And the two main characters have this thing where they say I love you and I like you. When I look at us, that’s what I think. I always think about how lucky I am to have found someone that I love and genuinely like. I like spending time with you. I like listening to you talk, even if it’s over the dumbest stuff. I like who you are, and I like who I am when I’m with you. I don’t just love you, Matt. I like you. I like you so much. And I think there’s so much weight in that.” She lifted her glass with teary eyes and a wide smile. “So here’s to spending forever with the person you love and like. Cheers.”

Everyone chorused back cheers, and your sister handed the microphone back to the DJ. He began to play a slow song, and you saw your sister’s fiance approach her with an extended hand. The two of them made their way to the dance floor along with a few other couples. You turned to Tom with a nervous smile.

When did being around your best friend make you this nervous? This uncomfortable?

“Do you want to dance?” you asked him. Tom looked at you for the first time since your sister started speaking, and all he did was shake his head and walk past you, making his way to the bar.

This is over, isn’t it?

You sat at a table by yourself and put your chin in your hand. You stared off at your sister with tears in your eyes. You were so happy for her, obviously, but your heart couldn’t help but feel broken. It didn’t take a genius to know that whatever was going on between you and Tom was leading to the end. Your friendship was falling apart, and there was no way to stop it. After tonight, you’d have to move out. There was no other option. Not if he was going to keep treating you like this.

Tom downed another sip of his drink and stared at the crowd of people on the dance floor. He couldn’t help but let his eyes wander over to you. You. His best friend. The love of his life. God, where had everything gone wrong?

Of course, he knew where it all went wrong.

About two months ago, Tom came home from a day of working on the script he was writing with his brothers. It had been a long day, and he was ready to fall into bed. When he came home, he found you dancing in the kitchen making brownies. You were wearing one of his shirts, a pair of pajama shorts, and some fuzzy socks, and you were singing along to some One Direction that you had blasting through your bluetooth speaker.

He knew then that he was head over heels in love with you, and he probably had been for a long time.

And that just wouldn’t do.

Because there was no way he was going to fuck up your friendship like that. This was his fault. Sam, Harry, and Harrison all told him he’d fall in love with you if you moved in, but he assured them they were wrong. You had been friends for ages. There was no way your relationship would change, and if it did, he certainly wouldn’t be the one to change it. And yet, here he was. Watching you cry at your sister’s engagement party because he was too much of a pussy to tell you how he felt.

Tom got snapped out of his trance when he saw you stand up from where you were sitting and rush off to the exit. You weren’t out of his sight before you wiped your fingers under your eyes. Without any hesitation, he stood up and rushed after you.

“(Y/N)!”

You kept walking despite Tom calling after you. All you wanted was to go in the bathroom and compose yourself. You had to get through this party for your sister. And while you didn’t want to face Tom right then and there, he was faster than you, and he was able to catch up and grab your arm.

“What?” you asked, your voice cracking. “What do you want?”

“I just-” He hesitated. “Are you okay?”

You laughed.

You actually laughed, though it was full of sadness and made your stomach queasy.

“No, Tom,” you said. “I’m the exact opposite of okay. Because I, I don’t know what’s going on with you, and it’s killing me. For the past few months you have been, you’ve been blowing me off and yelling at me and ignoring me and, and I just don’t know what I did wrong. You’re my best friend, Tom. And it’s killing me that I don’t know what’s going on. Everyday I’m scared to be in the same room as you because I feel like you’re going to explode when I breathe. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure this out, and I can’t do it.” You laughed again, throwing your hands in the air. “So you have to talk to me! Because if you don’t, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going home, and I’m packing my shit, and I’m leaving.”

Tom opened his mouth and closed it again. He felt stuck. He was trapped. Tell you how he felt, or let you run away?

When you were sure he wasn’t going to say anything, you started to turn, but Tom stopped you. He grabbed your arm again, pulled you close to him, wrapped his arms around you, and kissed you. Immediately, you pushed him away. Tom felt his heart drop to his stomach as you searched his eyes for what was happening. He figured you must’ve found what you were looking for, because you stood on your tiptoes and kissed him back.

You didn’t know how long you were standing there, but eventually you pulled away. You stayed on your tiptoes, keeping your forehead pressed to his. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve been such a dick lately. It’s just-” He hesitated and closed his eyes, gaining the courage to speak. “I love you, (Y/N). And I’ve been really scared of ruining our friendship, so I thought I should just push you away instead.”

You scoffed. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You should’ve just talked to me. Clearly I feel the same way.”

“Well it’s clear now,” he chuckled. “But it’s never been clear before.”

You sighed. “You still should’ve talked to me. I’ve been hurting for so long. I thought I did something wrong.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.” He nuzzled his nose against yours, and you couldn’t help but giggle. “You really love me?”

“I know,” you said with a roll of your eyes. “I can’t believe it either.” Tom licked his lips, swallowed nervously, and closed his eyes.

“I need to hear you say it,” he said. You frowned and pulled back to stroke his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just-”

“Hey,” you whispered, running your thumbs across his cheekbones. He glanced up at you with his puppy-dog eyes. “I love you, Tom. I really do.” He smiled softly, then sighed and hung his head.

“And I know I can’t fix all of this with a kiss and an I-love-you,” he said.

“No,” you whispered. “That’s true.”

“But I swear, (Y/N), I’ll make it up to you. Whatever it takes.”

You nodded and mirrored his nervous smile. “I just need some time,” you said. “And lots of cuddles,” you added.

He chuckled. “Like I said. Whatever it takes.”

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