#but personally i relate to them both so much...

[justanotherhh]

some trailer things:

big fight around lust/ozzie's place that involves m&m and loona + we know fizzarolli is going to make another appearance, so i wonder how that'll connect potentially. also, new villain?

obvs the whole section of CHERUB working with DHORKS and this massive thing/portal:

john waters big villain episode???? (ghostfuckers from the looks of things)

also more crossdressing in that same episode + millie vs possessed blitz? both millie and blitz giving some evil dead type vibes?

more on stolas' whole social sphere and potential judgement and hell's class politics related to his dating blitz + p much confirmed that blitz will not take stolas' gift in the spirit it was intended

also, "you fucks think you can do this every time-" feels not just like it's about the wider class issues in hell, but maybe like it's personal (potentially with verosika? although it does seem like it's canon that he had more than a little bit of a hand in ending that relationship, so could just be him echoing everything he's been seeing in the treatment of imps and putting that onto stolas in this moment)

and then "thank you blitz, for making me so happy, even for a little while" is during this moment too. lot of teasers for how this is gonna go down (badly, upsettingly, emotionally)

the whole "do you feel any remorse for what you do" feels like a misdirect -- that is, it's edited to look like it's about blitz, but i feel like it's directed at stella or her brother

generally a lot of fun stolas visuals that i won't get into here, but am excited to see more contexts for

also this isn't new, but im always interested in blitz's heart/broken-heart forehead marking

blitz and tilla moment! generally more flashbacks (in the shape of blitz seeming to be almost at the movies, watching his own "failures") around the time of the fire! i didn't see any barbie stuff, alas, but the rest of it looks !!! also lowkey confirmed it was cash who stopped blitz from seeing fizz in hospital

who's this?

another sin? maybe related to ozzie and/or stolas and that judgement of the kinds of people they love?

blitz protecting stolas - maybe from the above, considering the hand motif of it all... stolas really living the life of blitz as a romantic hero, while blitz is barely holding it together as a person the whole time. different genres, my guys. different genres (that's their real communication issue)

this fuck-you-blitz cake looks like a verosika thing to do, esp considering it's her calling him shitty in the VO -- but yay, maybe giving that verosika catharsis, but also generally just verosika!

also the VO part where he says he doesn't want to be this way, he's wearing the same shroud as during his confrontation with verosika. idk, im just. contexts for things. i am curious

is the below also the same episode? I'd think so. it's set during halloween (?) and blitz is then maybe in the blood-covered shroud (costume? undercover? going undercover as a ghost? post-breakup stalking undercover ghost costume?)

MAMMON! and he looks pleased. oh dear.

this blitz + fizz moment

it kinda looks like blitz is wearing the same tee as when he and stolas have their moment + a horse bag + fizz casual wear. fizz generally in this trailer seems to be having the best time (outside the flashbacks). everything makes me suspicious all the time

(also generally hello all the different outfits coming up!!)

fascinated by this:

is that millie?

things we didn't see:

no barbie, no striker, no crimson, no asmodeus (directly, although his imagery is everywhere + fizz and mammon appear), no paimon -- this not to say none of them will show up, but am enjoying that a lot of this is clearly pulling from s1, with the focus on verosika, DHORKS, and CHERUB -- potentially a lot of the s2 villains need some time to lick their wounds a bit (and paimon was never a Villain, just a terrible parent... if he ever returns though...)

and barbie... i do want to see barbie again soonish ngl, she needs some proper introducing, but this is already giving so much callback and continuation of immediate plot-threads, very excited

[hurthermore]

hii!! ur writing has a choke hold on me!!🤯anyways, im so deprived of some comfort rn- could you maybe do something related to aftercare? For ex: Alastor comfort after a bit of degradation was taken too personally from reader :> (maybe some comfort while bandaging them up too idk)

Literally obsessed w ur shit ur like my fav hh writer, and ty for reading :3

Of course!<3 and TYSM!! That’s so sweet<3 warnings for sexual content, fluff? (Idk what fluff is apparently from my death one shot)

Your Alastor had always liked indulging in a bit of rough and degrading play; but this time he had went to far.

He had crossed one of your boundaries he hadn’t been aware of, calling you a degrading name you weren’t okay with; and as soon as that word left his mouth, you had become stiff.

Alastor had noticed immediately.

Stilling inside you, halting all movements, Alastor could only look in your eyes as he searched for consent within, searched for anything in your expression that still said you wanted him to continue; but he could not find it.

“Is everything quite alright, darling?” His tone harshly contrasted the nasty and rough demeanour he had with you only moments ago; now giving you a loving and soft voice as he checked in on you.

Looking to the side, you avoided his gaze as the word he used on you still pang through your chest. “Don’t call me that ever again.” You had spoken more harshly than intended, with a sharp snap in your tone, verbally indicating your distressed mood.

Immediately, Alastor had pulled himself out of you, only to wrap his arms around your torso, pressing his face in the snuff of your neck as he registered you were referring the to not so pleasant name he had called you as he fucked himself inside of you. “I’m sorry, darling.” He had meant it; truly. The dousing of guilt that consumed him as you emotionally pulled away from him had him panicking ever so slightly. “It won’t happen again.”

Sighing, you knew he had meant his apology, and despite how much the word he used had hurt you, you knew he had no ill intentions when using it; he merely indulged in a bit of degradation that you also found sexually arousing.

Placing a hand against the back of his hair, you tilted your face back to his. “It’s okay love; just please don’t say that again.” You had whispered ever so softly in his hair, only to feel him shiver from your breath cascading down his neck.

“Would you like to stop?” He had mumbled against your skin, asking for your consent to continue the sexual encounter.

“Yes…”

You weren’t in the mood anymore; and as soon as your deny for consent left your lips, Alastor clicked his fingers against one another. On command, the room you both inhabited slowly changed, warping from the confines of your shared room to a familiar one filled with items of pampering; a room Alastor only brought you to after he had made love to you or fucked you.

He had always been a gentleman to you, despite his preference to be less than gentleman-like whenever he pummelled himself into your walls, he always put your pleasure and your needs before his own.

It was something you were grateful for; and one of the many reasons you loved him.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, Alastor began hoisting you up, guiding your legs to link around his naked waist as he carried you to the large, hot bath imbedded in the floor; a bath which mimicked one of a hot tub in size.

Stepping inside, his hooves clicked against the metal alloyed bathing area as the two of you began to submerge within the hot water; it’s temperature relaxing all of your muscles as it began to douse your body.

Alastor had slowly settled you down in the bath, only to take a seat beside you as he held you close, his hands stroking parts of your body as he continued to comfort you.

You believed you would fall asleep if this were to proceed.

“I am truly sorry, my love.” He had spoken with such honesty and vulnerability as he held you, apologising to you yet again, despite doing so earlier.

“It’s okay, Al.” You only responded with a soft sigh as you leaned yourself against him.

“You know I don’t mean those things during our rougher sessions, don’t you, my darling?” He had asked ever so softly and gently, attempting to approach the subject in a calm manner, one that would be proefficient in cheering you up; his beloved.

You had only mumbled a yes, nodding your head as Alastors lips began pressing themselves against your neck. “I know, love. It’s just- that word.”

“It won’t be used again,” He quickly interrupted you. “My perfect little darling, I swear it.” He said between the pecks of romantic kisses he placed against your neck.

The smile that enriched your face wasn’t missed by your lover as you allowed him to pamper you, to echo sweet words of love and loyalties into you skin, to kiss sweet gestures of love along your body.

You were blessed to have such an evil man be your darling sweetheart.

[peachdues]

COMPASS

bad boy!Sanemi • gang AU • NSFW

A/N: Peach?? Not having any self control when it comes to writing a fic?? It’s more likely than you think.

This was supposed to be a bad boy!Sanemi takes your virginity drabble that spiraled into a meta-analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred that then blew up into a fic with plot. All of those elements are still present but surprise!! Enjoy 24k words of my brain rot.

Inspired by @homo-homini-lupus-est-1701 ‘s wonderful meta analysis of Sanemi’s self hatred and his scars.

CW: 24k • explicit sexual content • MDNI • gang-related violence • mentions of blood and broken bones • mentions of murder/death • loss of virginity • creampie • vaginal fingering • some angst

I have plenty more of this AU written, so if y’all want more, just let me know 🫡

There are three rules to surviving life in the Corps.

The first is simple: once you’re in, you’re in.

Never outwardly confirm or deny rumors; let others talk, but don’t even think about opening your fucking mouth about the things you see or the whispers you hear.

And don’t be stupid enough to think you can cling onto any vestiges of your old life. There’s no splicing your life within the Corps with the one you’d had before. No separation. You’ve whored yourself to their cause, and for better or worse, you’re there until either someone important says otherwise or you end up in a morgue.

This is especially true for someone like Sanemi, so hopelessly entrenched within the organization that he’d allowed himself to be branded at the age of seventeen upon his ascension from rank-and-file street member to full-blown Hashira — the elite of the Corps, just short of the higher-ups who ran it.

The hot sear of iron between his shoulder blades had hurt like hell, but it was a welcome pain. A reminder that he’d not only outlived his father, but had actually made an impact, enough to be noticed and entrusted with more strenuous duties.

Each Hashira is assigned to a particular field. Uzui, silver haired, boisterous and extravagant, deals in bodies — mostly women, but men too, and he runs all of the strip clubs and escort services west of center city. Kocho, a child prodigy in chemistry, leads an intricate narcotics network.

And then there’s Sanemi: the debt collector.

Largely monetary debts — collecting on behalf of loan sharks, gambling debts, or that which is owed to his fellow Hashira, when their customers forget that there are no friends in business.

But the brand seared into his flesh has nothing to do with money — it is a reminder that above all, he is to ensure debts of another kind are paid.

Life debts.

In the three years since his initiation, Sanemi has only had to carry out this oath twice. Both had been scum, responsible for the deaths of innocents.

Their executions had been quick and without fuss — or much mess. A quick trip to an overpass abridging the Wisteria River. A march to the barrier in the dead of night, when no other cars were out and about to see or hear pleading sobs and bargains for their pathetic lives. A bullet to the head would quiet them, and Sanemi would let the rapids below take care of the clean up for him. Job done.

But even though the spray of their brains hadn’t touched him, their blood still stains Sanemi’s hands.

He will never be able to wash them clean.

But this is the life he chose, so Sanemi will endure the consequences — for the sake of his brother, the only living person on earth he gives a damn about. For whom he’ll do anything — be anyone — if it means Genya does not have to pick up a gun and sell himself to the very gang that owns his elder brother.

The second rule is simpler: no patterns. Patterns signal comfort and comfort may as well be a target on your back, begging for someone to come and take their shot (or several).

And finally, the third and arguably the most important rule, is don’t get attached. Keep your circle small so there’s less collateral to be used against you — against the organization that owns you.

This rule applies to both Corps members and civilians alike.

For the longest time, Sanemi Shinazugawa found Rule Three to be the easiest one to follow. He has his brother and no one else. His parents are dead; he has no friends beyond those in the Corps with him, and he knows better than to get overly invested in any of them. His inner circle is as tight as it can get.

But then he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in and that’s when everything falls apart.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Sanemi mutters, anxious eyes tracking the large hand on his watch as it ticks the seconds by.

They were late.

The job was simple, and well within Sanemi’s capabilities. Maeda, a local dealer in stolen goods, had run up a sizeable bill at one of Uzui’s joints that he’d yet to pay. And while the slippery lech was quick to come sniffing whenever news spread that Iguro, a fellow Hashira, had managed to hijack a semi-truck full of luxury items, he was surprisingly difficult to connect with when it came time for him to pay for company he couldn’t get elsewhere.

He glanced down at his bruised, swollen knuckles and smirked. Sanemi couldn’t say he loved that his worth was measured in the number of bones he could break, or the amount of teeth he could punch out, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t relish the chance to smash the pervert’s face in whenever the opportunity arose. Nor could he deny the rush of satisfaction he’d felt when he’d thrown open the steel door of the Maeda’s small office, crowbar in hand, and watched the snot-nosed pervert piss himself, stumbling over his words as he’d begged for mercy Sanemi hadn’t been hired to give.

The stupid, greasy fuck.

By the time he’d finished, Maeda had been little more than a quivering, helpless lump curled in on himself on the sticky, slate floor. His office had been left in shambles, drawers yanked out and emptied, only to be thrown aside (or cracked over the vermin’s back as he sobbed). But he’d had found the money, right down to the last dollar, just as he knew he would.

And that’s how Sanemi finds himself standing in the alley tucked behind Maeda’s small warehouse, Uzui’s payment split into two rolls that he’d shoved down into boots. All that was left was for the two junior Corps members he’d brought along for watch to bring the car around, and then they’d return to the abandoned factory that served as their headquarters.

Normally, this would have been a solo job, and Sanemi would already be on his bike, speeding off to safety. But he’d received an order to take along two, new Hinoe so they could get experience with higher level jobs.

Conveniently, his instructions had omitted the part the fact that the two lugs were utterly useless, bumbling idiots, contrary to what their recent promotions otherwise suggested.

Because neither of the two juniors are anywhere to be found. Nor is there any sound signaling that his getaway ride is approaching.

Sharp, lavender eyes scan the alley before him, but to his dismay, it remains empty — disquietingly so.

Leave it to a couple of rookies to set his teeth on edge.

Sanemi’s eyes drop down to follow the large hand of his watch as yet another minute ticks by. It’s been six minutes and their window had only allowed for four.

He knows how to be patient when the circumstances call for it, but now is not one of those times.

One minute, he decides, shifting his weight between his feet. They get one more fucking minute and then he splits —

A sudden screech of tires at the opposite end of the alley makes his stomach flip. Sanemi looks up just in time to see his escape car grind to a sharp halt, its rear jolting up as the driver slams on the brakes.

The passenger door flings open, and one of the Hinoe stumbles out, his feet barely connecting with the pavement before the car guns away, the side door flapping open.

The familiar howl of police sirens accompanied by distant shouts is enough for Sanemi to know this simple little debt collection has now gone tits-up.

“Pigs!” The Hinoe who stumbled out of the getaway car calls to him. “Pigs!”

“Shit,” Sanemi growls. No doubt Maeda’s bruised ego sold them out. He should’ve taken the time to smash the asshole’s phone.

He’ll be dealt with later — and with relish. But right now, Sanemi needs to get the fuck away.

Part of following Rule Three means not worrying about your fellow comrades when the cops come. None of them are stupid enough to actually risk talking to law enforcement about the Corps’ operations, but the fewer of them who get caught, the better.

So Sanemi takes off, adrenaline pumping fast and jot in his veins as he hears the swine behind him split off. He can’t be sure, but he can make out two, maybe three pairs of footsteps trailing behind him.

He scowls; shaking one cop is a breeze; having to shake off three is a bitch.

He hurtles over a pile of wooden crates and shoves a stack of delivery pallets over behind him as he runs, darting down random alleys and side streets that he knows will eventually lead him to a safe house.

The backstreet he shoots down is a fork, but only the path straight through will lead him to a rust yard of abandoned warehouses and shipping containers that Sanemi knows like the back of his hand. He could lose them there, could vanish between freights and wait the bastards out, and once clear, he could slip back into the district marking the outer territory of the Silo and get back home.

Iron pumps hotly in his veins. Almost there, almost there —

A car skids to a stop at the end of the middle ting of the alley, police lights flashing and alarms blaring.

No good.

“Fuck.” It isn’t the end of the world, but the blocking of the alley meant he had to reevaluate his escape. While he’s familiar with the path now obstructed by the police cruiser ahead, he hadn’t the chance to fully scope out his only other two options — the side streets to the left and right.

Without much thought, Sanemi darts sharply left and prays to whatever deity is listening that he hasn’t fully fucked himself.

Only one shop remains open; a tiny hole in the wall, tucked in between two old apartment buildings at the end of the street — one that borders the city’s western wing.

It’ll have to do, he decides, especially as the police sirens grow louder with each passing second.

He explodes through the front door, wide eyed and panting. Vaguely, it registers to him that this is a bookshop — a thankfully empty, cluttered bookshop.

But his abrupt arrival does reveal that the shop is not totally empty. There is one other — the store’s lone employee, who startles out of her seat behind the clerk’s counter, nearly knocking over a small cup of coffee.

He regards her for a moment, and she him, with matching expressions of wariness and shock at the presence of the other.

Behind him, the police sirens grow louder; more urgent.

It’s now or never. And, because he’s desperate enough to try, he risks a move he knows better than to take.

“You got someplace I can hide?”

——-

You blink, stunned as you stare at the frantic, pleading man anxiously looking between you and the door behind him.

His name registers dimly in the back of your mind. Here. In your store. And, evidently, on the run, if the distant echoes of police sirens growing steadily closer to your store is any indication.

Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You know him; you’d known him most of your life, even if you’d never spoken to him. You’d gone to the same school in your youth — all thirteen years of it, in fact. He’d been an abrasive loudmouth in the hallways, but a quiet, even polite boy in the classroom.

You know he’s from the Silo — a worn down, derelict part of the City that housed only the poorest residents. A cruel nickname meant to mock the poverty of its population.

But the Silo was also well known for being the epicenter of operations for the notorious group known only as the Corps.

It was the Corps who owned a majority of the City, its reach extending from the Silo, through the West and East wings, and all the way into Midtown. And, as was the case with most leeches, the Corps relied on the most desperate and hungry to carry out its biddings, offering some level of protection and security for the poor souls who needed it most.

Hence, its presence in the Silo.

So you hadn’t been surprised when you’d heard Sanemi had joined the Corps. Most kids from the Silo did; what had surprised you were the rumors that he became a high-rank member by the ripe age of seventeen, before he’d even graduated high school.

You shudder to think what he had to have done — what he’d become — in order to achieve such status and notoriety.

If he’d been anyone else, you wouldn’t have helped; you would’ve screamed, alerted the police to his presence, maybe even outed him as a suspected Hashira.

But you owed him.

Years ago, before either you or your siblings could drive, you all relied on the city bus to get to and from school.

But one afternoon, when you’d had to stay late for a club meeting, your little sister accidentally got on the wrong bus. Rather than being dropped safe and sound a block away from home, she’d ended up in a bad part of town that just so happened to have been the stomping grounds of the scowling delinquent now shoved under your cabinet, contorted between boxes of blank receipt rolls and stacks of returns.

Had anyone else found your sister, there would be no telling what would have happened to her. The Silo was not a place known to be kind to lost little girls.

But it was Sanemi who discovered her, sniffling and red-faced at the dilapidated bus stop. And though he’d been nothing more than a scrawny ten year old, he’d put your sister on his back and carried her not just the six miles back to safe part of town, but the additional two that led right to the front doorstep of your parents’ home.

You’d watched him curiously from the stairs as your parents profusely thanked your sister’s white-haired savior. They’d offered Sanemi dinner, or at least some sort of reward for his efforts, but he’d only waved them off, briskly telling them it was “no big deal.” As though carrying a six-year-old nearly eight miles was par for the course, as far as he was concerned.

His eyes had flitted over to you once during the exchange, briefly lingering before he turned and left, a single hand held up in casual farewell.

You’d been ten at the time. And now, here you are, twenty years old, running a shabby bookstore, and the opportunity to pay him back has finally arrived. The chance to show your gratitude for sparing your sister of a fate he himself, had not been able to escape.

Quickly, you motion him to you and without explanation, you cram him under the clerk’s counter, holding the cabinet door shut with your knee just as the police burst through the store entrance.

There are three of them, and they do not bother announcing themselves to you. Instead, they begin to prowl through your aisles, flashlights out and guns drawn while they comb the quiet corners of the store, searching for signs of anything that did not belong; anything misplaced.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of your neck, but you keep your face and your stance casual. Below the counter you cross your fingers, hoping and praying that the criminal stuffed inside your cabinet isn’t stupid enough to try and shift.

One officer rounds back into the main part of the store and locks in on you, stiff and anxious behind the counter.“You haven’t seen anything suspicious?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

The cop grimaces. “You haven’t seen anyone who looks out of place? Maybe seems like they’re running?”

You feign an easy, sweet smile, even as the leg holding the cabinet door shut begins to tremble. “I’m afraid you’re my first customer of the day, sir.”

The officer grumbles under his breath something along the lines of not your customer, but he questions you no further. He only waves to his comrades and the three of them shuffle out through the door, one muttering into the walkie strapped to his shoulder.

Several moments pass, tense and thick. The silence is broken only by the sound of your heart hammering against your sternum. You remain still, fingers curled tight against the counter’s edge listening for any sound signaling the cops have returned, that their stiff departure had been a ruse to lull you into a false sense of security, as they waited for you to reveal your deception.

But all remains quiet. And you cannot stomach the silence any longer.

“They’re gone,” you mutter, finally moving aside to let the cabinet door below you swing open.

There’s a faint thumping and a few, muffled curses as the scar-speckled fugitive unfolds himself and spills free from the under-cabinet.

In a way, Sanemi still resembles the boy of your memories. His eyes and hair have always been distinctive: a shocking contrast of violet framed by thick, dark lashes that do not match the mop of silvery-white atop his head. But it’s the faint scowl he wears as he stands, the tinge of annoyance that tugs at the corners of his mouth, that scrunches his pale eyebrows, that feels familiar.

That expression, a portrait of vague irritation with the world around him, was one you came to know well — at least, at a distance. One that remained constant even as you grew; his default.

However, it is still not nearly as memorable as the shy embarrassment that had turned his cheeks slightly pink, had made him cast his eyes down as your parents showered him with gratitude.

But that earnest bashfulness is nowhere to be found now.

He wears a patterned, short-sleeved button down. Though rumpled and a tad dirty, you suspect the top three buttons were left open intentionally, rather than being the product of whatever scuffle he’d found himself in before he decided to make it your problem.

You try not to linger on the very obvious hint of the well-defined muscles revealed by his open collar. Nor do you let yourself consider the bulging mass of his biceps as he runs a hand through his cornsilk hair.

He has scars he’d not had in your youth — jagged, silvery lines that cut halfway across his cheek and forehead. Yet their presence does not dull his good looks.

A scrawny ten year old no longer; Sanemi Shinazugawa is now tall and roguishly handsome. But his infuriating good looks aside, your debt to him has been repaid; now, he needs to get the fuck away.

“Can’t thank ya enough,” he shoots you a devilish smile as he straightens his shirt. “You really saved my ass —“

“Get out of my store.” You order, your voice hard. “Take your trouble somewhere else and leave me out of it.”

Sanemi’s eyes narrow at your use of the word trouble, but he says nothing. Instead, he only rounds the counter with a loping, infuriating swagger, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“As you wish, Princess,” and you bristle at the sarcasm dropping from the word. He pauses to scan the shelf marked New Releases. “Just need somethin’ for the road.”

He snags a small novel — a fantasy story, judging by the cover - and he tucks it under his arm.

“Later,” he calls, waving a lazy hand over his shoulder.

You stare after him, slack-jawed and incensed. “You have to pay for —“

But the door bangs shut behind him, and Sanemi Shinazugawa disappears into the night.

—-

By the time Sanemi returns to his shabby apartment, it is well after midnight. He’d met up with Uzui and forked over Maeda’s payment. Though, the Corp’s head pimp hadn’t been particularly pleased that his money rolls had been shoved deep down in his boots, his nose wrinkling as Sanemi dropped the crumpled, slightly damp wads of cash into his waiting, magenta-nailed hands.

As it turned out, Maeda hadn’t sold them out. Rather, one of the Hinoe had stupidly gotten into a scuffle with some brash, young teenager and in his anger, pulled his gun on the kid.

Right in front of two, marked cop cars.

One of the idiots had been caught and cuffed, and was now spending his evening locked in the damp, cold jailhouse pending bond. The other — the driver — had managed to escape, though he’d been carted off to Iguro for punishment.

There’s a reason he prefers working alone, he thinks bitterly as he kicks his boots off. He fucking loathes incompetence.

He pulls his gun free from its place in his waistband and sets it gently atop his ratty kitchen table. Sanemi then trudges over to his futon, collapsing heavily on it with a groan. A shit day, he decides, pulling the stack of cash he’d received as his cut for the job free from his pocket, thumbing through it. A shit day with shit juniors.

He shifts against a lump that sits under his ass. Frowning, he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the book he’d swiped from your store and turns it over in his hands. Surprisingly, it has managed to remain in pristine condition despite its rather unceremonious storage in his pocket.

Your face flashes in his mind, but before he can fully appreciate it, your words echo in his ears.

Take your trouble somewhere else.

Sanemi scowls, tossing the book onto his coffee table, annoyed. The implication underlying your use of trouble and the venom with which you’d spoken it is a thorn in his side he cannot ignore.

You know what — who — he is. In Sanemi’s world, that’s a liability.

Though, in fairness, he can’t really be surprised that you do. Gossip is a free commodity in this town, and it’s a coveted one. It wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that you’d overheard one of the rumors about him and his ties to the Corps.

What concerns him is he doesn’t know what your connection is, if any, to his world. Maybe you’re really just a girl in a bookshop who paid back a decade-old favor.

Or maybe you’ve got an in with them.

The Corps isn’t the only gang operating within the city; there is another, crueler and far more violent that had arisen west of the Silo.

The Kizuki.

In the last six months, the Kizuki have managed to overtake the Western Wing, nearly expanding their reach into center city.

Their takeover had been swift; practically achieved overnight, following the systematic execution of every known Corps members in the area. And their violence hadn’t been limited to active members; the Kizuki had brutally maimed and murdered anyone tangentially connected to those Corps members.

Neither women nor their children were spared. And now, it seemed the Kizuki had set their sights on the Silo.

There are whispers that they’ve expanded into their operations into the neighborhood adjacent to the one in which the bookstore sits. That alone is enough to make Sanemi suspicious — perhaps you’re in league with them, and you’ll hand him over the moment it’s most convenient for you to do so.

Admittedly, that theory seems doubtful. You’re a bookseller. Not the kind of girl he knows is prone to becoming involved with the seedy underground world of organized crime. And your apparent disdain for him and his trouble only supports that theory.

But that’s an assumption, and in his line of work, assumptions are precarious; risky. Too much so for comfort.

Either way, he doesn’t know, and that uncertainty is a breeding ground for the parasite that is doubt. Toxic enough that were it to take root in his brain, his judgment could be compromised, leading him to mistakes he can’t afford to make.

Sanemi doesn’t tolerate blind spots. He will keep you on his radar until he determines the threat you pose and once he knows its severity, he’ll decide how to proceed.

He eyes the book he’d swiped from your store. He likes reading, though he hasn’t had much time for it lately (or, ever). But, if he’s going to hang around you while trying to identify the threat you pose, he might as well have a strategy for getting you to talk.

Sighing, he grabs the novel from his table and thumbs to the first page as he pads into his kitchen, in search of something to quell the grumble in his stomach.

—

His inquiries into you and your life reveal shockingly little.

You work at a bookstore. Your parents sold off your childhood home and retired to some beach down south. Your siblings are spread out across other cities and don’t visit home often, if ever.

Only you remain, abandoned by your family to fend for yourself in a crumbling city with only a shabby bookshop that sits on the furthest end of an otherwise safe street to keep you busy.

Truthfully, the bookstore probably is more interesting than you, at least on paper. But it’s that dirge of information that piques his interest; makes him look at you more as a mystery worth unraveling.

Besides, the smart thing for him would be to keep a tab on you until he can confirm you are in fact, as boring as you appear.

Or so he tells himself.

The image of a ten-year-old you peering at him from your parents’ stairwell flashes through his mind once more.

He’d felt your gaze burning a hole into his head, and shyly, he’d looked back at you, only to find himself unable to look away. Only your mother’s prodding about him joining your family for dinner had broken your temporary enchantment over him.

The memory of how you’d looked at him — a mixture of curiosity and awe highlighted by a faint blush in your cheeks when he’d met your stare head on — remained fixed in his brain for years after.

And though the two of you never spoke, you always smiled at him whenever you locked eyes in the school hallway or cafeteria. A real, genuine smile.

He wonders if he ever smiled back and finds himself irritated that he can’t remember if he had. He should’ve; especially now when it seems as though he’s unlikely to ever see that gentle, radiant smile again.

Sanemi’s phone pings and all thoughts of you come to a screeching halt. The message that flashes on his screen — instructions, only by way of an address and an amount — chase away the images of you and your sweet smile, like a hand scattering smoke.

With a sigh, Sanemi dials the number for two, lower-ranked Corps members to serve as scouts. With watch secured, he shoves his phone into his pocket and runs a tired hand over his face.

He wonders what will kill him first — whether it will be a bullet or whether it will be because there’s nothing left of him to whore out on the Corp’s behalf.

Ultimately, he knows it doesn’t really matter. He won’t die as himself; as Sanemi, the boy from the Silo who wants a life that’s anything but this. He’ll die only as Shinazugawa the Hashira. He’ll die under the mask he’s forced to wear so often, he wonders if it hasn’t yet bonded with his skin.

But as long as he remains in one piece, he must continue on as a puppet in this this tedious show. So, Sanemi grabs his gun from where he’d placed it on atop the cheap plastic of his kitchen table and he tucks it into his waistband.

And by the time his apartment door slams shut behind him, Sanemi has slipped the mask down over his face, and he is Shinazugawa once more.

—

Two weeks pass before he ends up back in front of your bookstore.

Sanemi doesn’t really remember how he got here. He awoke well before sunrise to his phone chiming with orders that he go collect on a sizeable gambling debt owed by one of Iguro’s regulars, an owner of some pawn shop.

The sun was already high overhead when he finally left the pawn shop, knuckles bruised and arm aching. He’d kicked his bike into gear in a familiar daze, one that always slipped over him after he completed a job. A kind of numb quiet that settled into his bones, a dull static in his brain that did not fade until the tremor in his hands subsided.

That paralysis needs to be broken. Contrary to popular belief, desensitization was not an ideal state of being for someone like him. It made him apathetic and careless to the world around him, and that was little better than painting a giant target on his back, begging his enemies to come and do their worst.

So, when the numbness still lingered by the time his bike roars past a rusted water tower that marks the outer limit of the Silo, Sanemi knows of only one cure. His go-to.

His bike is still hot by the time he lifts his phone to his ear, just outside his shithole of an apartment.

He doesn’t know her by name — only by description, as told by the series of emojis that accompany her number on his phone. But it’s surprisingly easy to charm her, though perhaps that’s because she’s looking for an escape just as much as he is.

Less than ten minutes later, the girl pulls up beside him in the parking lot.

Her hands are already roaming down his chest and playing with the buckle on his belt as Sanemi unlocks his door and pushes her inside.

At some point between the front door and his bedroom, the girl has stripped herself of her outer clothing, leaving her only in her undergarments as she tugs Sanemi down by his neck and into her kiss. She’s licking and nipping at his lips in a way he’s not sure he likes, but he allows it because his cock is painfully hard and throbbing where it strains against his pants.

And, after all, he’s the one desperate for relief.

“I’ve only got ten minutes,” she warns, kicking off her underwear as she falls back onto his bed. Sanemi only smirks as he slides his hand down the length of her leg, gripping her by the ankle and flipping her to her stomach.

He shifts away long enough to quickly wiggle free of his pants. He grabs a condom from his nightstand and rips the foil with his teeth. Fingers toying with the girl’s clit as she moans into his mattress, Sanemi rolls the latex down his cock. Protection secured, he reaches for her again, yanking her by her hips until her backside is flush against him. One hand pushes down between her shoulder blades while the other snakes up her neck, and Sanemi nudges the tip of his cock up against her entrance.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” he winds the long tresses of her hair around his fist and gives her a sharp tug. “We’ll be done in five.”

—-

Even an hour after he tossed the girl her clothing and not so casually suggested she leave his apartment, Sanemi still feels restless.

He cannot shake the images of the afternoon from his mind, and so, Sanemi resorts to walking.

He does so without thought as to destination or the rapidly setting sun. Sanemi only focuses on the activity itself. One foot in front of the other; pace even and quick, each step accompanied by a flash of that day’s sins.

The crash of a garage door as it slammed back against the wall. Wide eyes that quickly filled with panic at the sight of him and the flash of metal tucked against his hip.

Step.

A plea; a desperate promise to pay, one that he’d heard a thousand times from a thousand different mouths. None of them ever seemed to understand their word wasn’t worth shit when they’d already defaulted on their obligations. Yet still, they begged.

Step.

The breaking of teeth beneath his fists.

Step.

The crush of bone under the iron pipe he’d found discarded on the garage floor. The agonized futility of trying to scoot back and away from him, despite a shattered leg.

Green; the color of the money he’d found stashed in a duffel, the debtor’s desperate attempt to hoard the wealth owed to the Corps.

Step. Step. Step. All the way down the street leading until he finds himself on a distantly familiar stretch of pavement that ends at the bookstore’s front steps.

For a moment, he lingers outside the shop, hesitant. He should turn around; there is no reason for him to be here. His investigation into you is not a priority by any means, especially where whatever poking he has done has revealed so little.

The book he lifted from the New Releases shelf is tucked carefully in his jacket pocket. He doesn’t know why he’s carried it around with him, all this time. Sanemi finished the novel the very night you’d helped hide him from the cops.

He should leave; but then his feet carry him up the walk leading to the store, and he’s pushing the door open.

His arrival is punctuated by a cheerful ring of the old bell nailed above the door. At first, the store appears deserted; but then you pop up from under the counter, surprise coloring your features.

That surprise melts quickly into cold disdain that makes something in his chest flutter as he strolls toward you. With every step, that numb haze of his disperses and instead, Sanemi feels himself returning to normal the closer he brings himself to you.

“This isn’t a library,” you chide when he plops his borrowed novel back down on your counter. “You have to pay for the books here.”

It’s incredible how easily he is able to slip back into the skin of the suave, smug playboy, and your adorable glare only makes him smirk. “I brought it back, didn’t I? Look — didn’t even crack the spine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you reply coolly, snatching the book up and tossing it on a small cart marked Restock. “That loss came out of my paycheck — which is scant enough.”

That piques his attention. “Didn’t you say this was your store?”

His question makes you turn pink, and you’re quick to put your back to him, pretending to shuffle through new releases waiting to be shelved. “I work here,” you mutter quietly, but when you turn back around, you stick your chin out, defiant. “But I am the only employee, so it is my store, in a sense. The owner doesn’t ever come by.”

You wrinkle your nose. “So yes, lost profits affect me, and me alone, you thief.”

Sanemi cocks his head, his eyes running over you in consideration.

You’re beautiful; he’s always found you cute, even as a kid, but the transition between your teen years and adulthood have been kind. Even if you’re glaring at him like you would a crushed bug stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

But your words strike a chord in him. His job is to collect money from those greedy lowlifes who waste it; who use money to carry out their bad deeds, who use it to fuck over others.

He doesn’t take it from those who need it; from those who are barely scraping. by. Sanemi knows the agony of having to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding a hungry stomach far, far too well.

“Fine, here,” he tosses a random novel on your counter and a crumpled twenty dollar note. You ring him up, eyes flicking up to glare at him every so often as you count out his change.

He only continues to watch you, the heat of his stare ignites an itch under your skin that makes you squirm.

Your restlessness boils over. “What?”

“Nothin,” he shrugs. “Just think it’s interesting that you of all people are still lingering in this shit hole.”

Your head snaps up, your task of totaling out his change forgotten. “I live here, idiot.”

He snorts. “Didn’t you want outta here? Do somethin’ different?” He leans forward, elbows propped on your counter as he rests his chin on his fist.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” He’s dancing dangerously close to a sore spot of yours — that you are alone in your hometown, working at a failing bookshop, with no one and nothing to justify your stagnancy.

“This can’t be your dream life.”

You don’t have to answer; you know that. But his line of questioning is puzzling. Because, no matter how casual he manages to keep his tone, his nonchalance is betrayed by his eyes, sharp and inquisitive.

Like he’s waiting to dissect whatever answer you give him.

Sanemi continues. “It’s strange for people not to want for more — to not dream about somethin’ different.”

“And who are you to say I don’t?” You bristle, slamming your cash drawer shut with more force than necessary. “I have a dream of my own. Just because it’s not one you would pick for yourself doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

He blinks, taken aback. “Woah, woah, I never meant any offense.” He pushes back from the counter. “My bad.”

His response feels genuine but your ego is already bruised. Stiffly, you finish counting out his change and drop it into his waiting palm.

You slide his book across the counter. “Have the day you deserve.”

His surprise morphs into amusement at your iciness. So haughty, he winks. “You too, Princess.”

You turn aside in clear dismissal. He makes a show of taking out his wallet and stuffing his change inside, but your pointed ignorance of him means you don’t see him toss another note on the counter.

He’s already halfway out the door when you call after him, urgent. “Sir, you dropped your —“

“Nah, I didn’t,” he raises his hand in farewell as the bookstore door bangs shut behind him, leaving you to stare open-mouthed after him.

Clutched tightly in your hand is his crisp, one hundred dollar note.

—

His next visit is unplanned, but not in the way that Sanemi avoids routine. It’s unplanned in that he’s annoyed and it’s partially your fault, so that means the onus is on you to fix it.

You’re in the process of double checking delivery logs to ensure all your new inventory has arrived when a large thud against the clerk’s counter startles you.

You frown. It’s him again — all ivory hair and silvery facial scars that somehow are less imposing than the irritated scowl he wears.

“This book was shit,” he scoots the novel across the counter to you with distaste. “I want a refund.”

You level his pout with a frosty glare of your own. Wordlessly, you lean over the counter and tap a single finger against a laminated sign duck-taped to its edge.

Return-exchange only. No refunds.

“But it was shit,” he repeats, as though that will somehow spur you to change a policy you didn’t create. “You let me waste twenty bucks.”

“I did nothing,” you rustle the pages of your delivery log in pointed dismissal. “You’re the one who decided to buy a book before checking it out.”

You glance down at the discarded novel. “Figures,” you scoff. “He’s not even an author. He uses ghost writers and takes all the credit.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d told me that before you let me give him my money.”

You hum idly as you cross off the log’s boxes for new releases. “I suppose I was too stunned that you even knew how to read. Guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your shit choices.”

“Oh?” And you glance up to see Sanemi smirking at you. “The Princess has claws, does she?” He leans against the counter, propping his cheek under a loose fist. “So, what are your recommendations, gorgeous?”

“I’m not your Princess,” you snap imbuing the nickname with as much venom as you can muster. “Call me by my name or call me nothing at all.”

His eyes drop to your name-tag, pinned neatly on the front of your sweater. That insufferable smirk of his only widens. “Alright, alright. What are your recommendations, Y/N?”

The syllables sound rich and honeyed and suddenly, you wish you’d let him stick with Princess, as grating as it was.

Because your name should not sound so sweet, should not roll off his tongue so seamlessly, as it just did.

You’ve never been one to indulge in rumors. But in this city, as economically fractured as it is, gossip is a currency everyone keeps in their back pocket. And though you keep your head down and mind your own business, even you have heard the rumors swirling around town about the eldest Shinazugawa child.

Rumors that he has ascended the ranks of the same Mob that claimed the life of his deadbeat father long before the bastard was shived in the back for a debt he’d owed (their words, never yours).

Rumors that he holds a unique position within the gang, known clandestinely only as the Corps, and that position requires him to do things most won’t speak about.

But the rumor that screeches to the forefront of your mind has nothing to do with his alleged status with the Corps. It’s his reputation as a flirt; a rumored womanizer, through and through, that is a splinter under your skin.

Determined to pick him out, a wicked idea blossoms. “Fine, here.” You stalk purposefully to the section marked Literature. Your finger drags down a line of titles before finally settling on one. You pull it free with a soft grunt, the book sitting thick and heavy in your hand as you dump it into Sanemi’s.

“Read that.”

His eyes flick between its cover and you, incredulous. “This ain’t a book; it’s a brick.”

“It’s a classic,” you counter. “One that examines age-old question of destiny versus free will, generational curses.” Your head cocks to the side, a challenging smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth. “Love and lust.”

His eyebrow raises and you cross your fingers. If he falls for it and ultimately ends up hating the book, then perhaps he’ll decide your taste in reading material is indeed shit, and maybe then he’ll leave you alone.

Sanemi considers you for a moment but then he takes the bait. “If you say so,” he sighs. “But if it’s shit, I’m taking my refund.” And then he leans in close, so close that you can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

His breath is hot against your ear. “Regardless of your shitty little policy.”

You refuse to let him see how much he’s knocked you off-kilter. “So I can expect to be robbed? Will it be at gun or knifepoint? Just so I’m prepared.”

His chuckle, low and dark sends goosebumps skittering down your arms. “Worse,” he promises before he draws back. His grin is wolfish, all teeth and feral hunger. “You’ll owe me a date.”

He looses a low, appreciate whistle as he steps back and takes his eyes over your rigid form. “Though, I might just take you out anyway.”

“You assume I’ll say yes — or are you planning on kidnapping me? I’m sure you’re rather proficient at it, given your occupation.”

Something dark flashes across his face, and it’s enough to make you step back, a sudden fear creeping up the back of your spine.

Stupid, you chastise yourself. You never know when to keep your mouth shut.

But the shadows in his features recede as quickly as they appeared, and Sanemi’s mouth eases back into that same, cocky smile.

“You’ll say yes, Princess. You won’t be able to resist the temptation.”

“Temptation?” You force out a laugh. “And what makes you think I can’t?”

Sanemi’s eyes find your current read, open flipped over on the counter, marking your current page.

It’s a mystery novel. Your third of the month, born of a new hyperfixation on the genre.

You want nothing more than to wipe that smug grin of his clean from his face. He gives an affectionate snake of his head as he turns and makes his way toward the door. “Habits, Y/N. It all comes down to habits.”

You should throw it at his head, but Sanemi exits the store before your hand can find its spine.

——-

Over two weeks pass without so much as a whisper from the enigma that is Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Loath though you are to give him that sort of credit, you cannot deny that he utterly confounds you. He is everything you expected while simultaneously nothing at all what you’d imagined. He is brash and cocky, and he struts around with an insufferable self-importance that can only come from years of being at the top of his game (no matter how he got there).

Yet, he also reads. Enough to have opinions, even decent ones, about certain authors, and he’s open minded enough to accept your recommendation even if it feels as though he has an ulterior motive for doing so.

And, he’d been bothered by the dock in your pay as a result of his mischief; so much so, that he’d slipped you more than enough to make up the loss. That is the action that puzzles you the most, even weeks later. You’d assumed that someone like him, so used to ensnaring people into various schemes, wouldn’t have given two shits if he’d stolen money from some broke girl at a bookstore. After all, his business was all about money — and the lengths some would go to keep it.

Yet he’d paid you back — paid you more than you needed, if you were honest.

Since that day, you’ve had your ears tuned to any mention of his name, any whispers of the mysterious, scarred gang-member who has occupied nearly all the open space in your head. You’ve managed to glean small things here and there. That he’s a Hashira, and Hashira means he’s only one step below what is known ominously as the Master Family — the heads of the entire organization.

That he’s rather feared, even among seasoned Corps members; that he’s known for his swift brutality.

That he’s more than just a flirt; he’s a virile lover. Not picky in the slightest about who warms his bed, though no one has ever been able to pin him down longer than a handful of one-night stands.

You stop poking around after that particular revelation, embarrassed that you now know exactly what makes him so popular.

Apparently, his flexibility pairs well with his near inhuman stamina. And he’s said to be very well-endowed.

It’s more information than you care to know, but you can’t deny that your curiosity lingers.

You brush aside your inquisitiveness as nothing more than a natural side effect of your own inexperience. And you’ll be damned before admitting that your interest in Sanemi Shinazugawa isn’t limited to rumors of how good he is in bed. That, perhaps your curiosity stems from something deeper, from a desire to know if that bad boy persona is authentic or a mere facade, and boy on the stoop still lurks somewhere beneath his mask.

—

“You look like shit.”

You startle up from where you’d been resting your head on your arm, wavering between consciousness and sleep.

You know that gravelly voice before you lay your eyes on him, and your irritation is quick to flicker to life.

Nearly a month has passed since your last encounter, and for a moment, you’d thought you’d been freed from his nuisance. But now, Sanemi stands in your store, wearing a half-amused expression on his stupidly handsome face.

“Is that the only descriptor you know?” You ask miserably, hands working quickly to smooth down your mused hair. “Is everything either shit or not-shit to you?”

Sanemi shrugs. “Pretty much,” and he holds something out to you, waiting. “Here.”

It’s a to-go bag from a cafe two blocks away. One known for their almond croissants, for which you have a particular penchant.

Your stomach grumbles fiercely. You’d foregone eating breakfast when you realized you’d overslept your alarm, and had to rush out of your apartment to ensure you’d be here in time for the weekly delivery truck.

The sweet scent of butter and sugar wafting from the bag makes your mouth water.

But this is Sanemi Shinazugawa, and you should think to know better. “Is it poisoned?”

He rolls his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, sweetheart, I’d pick a far more convenient way to do it — and one that didn’t involve me getting up at the ass crack of dawn for some overpriced pastries.”

Warily, you accept the paper bag, and Sanemi surprises you again by handing you a to-go cup of coffee. He watches as you, ever the dramatic, sniff tentatively at the lid and frown, apparently dissatisfied that you can discern nothing but the rich, aromatic scent of espresso.

Sanemi takes a deep drink from his own cup. “It’s a thank you. For that book you recommended,” He smirks. “It wasn’t shit. It was good.”

You fish a pastry out of the bag, and nearly drool as you behold its buttery, flaky goodness. “You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I was. Your success rate was only fifty-fifty. I had every right to be skeptical.”

“You’re the one who grabbed that last book,” you take a large bite out of your croissant and you fight to keep yourself from moaning. “That had nothing to do with me.” You swallow thickly before taking a large sip of coffee to wash down the pastry. “So, no date, then?”

The smile he gives you is almost apologetic. “Sorry, beautiful. I don’t actually date.” And you nearly double over at the bewildering taste of disappointment creeping sourly up the back of your throat. “Gotta keep things casual in my world.”

The once-over he gives you is razor-sharp. “And you don’t look like a casual girl.”

You resist the urge to cross your arms. “You seem awfully certain, Shinazugawa.”

“Experience,” he offers easily. “I know casual women.” He turns his head away before quietly adding, “And you ain’t one of ‘em.”

It’s odd; you know of his rather wild reputation among women, and yet he seems almost embarrassed by its acknowledgment. But as you’re slowly learning, Sanemi Shinazugawa is a conundrum you haven’t yet been able to pick apart.

You could throw it in his face; you could spew some barb about his experience, rub your salt right into his obvious wound. You have no reason to spare his feelings, not when he’s been such a consistent pain in your ass.

Your eyes drift to the empty pastry bag and coffee cup before they find him again, and suddenly, you don’t see the swaggering, cocky Corps member with a reputation for being just as dangerous and violent as he is flirtatious.

You see only the boy on your stoop; the one who’d gently removed your sister from her place on his back and handed her back to your tearful, relieved parents.

And it’s because you cannot stop seeing that boy, that you offer before you lose the courage to ask, “So, friends, then?”

Sanemi whips back to you, surprise coloring his features that quickly melts into a smile — a real, genuine smile.

And thus, Sanemi Shinazugawa, ruthless member of the Corps and a ranked Hashira, befriends a girl who runs a bookshop.

—-

In retrospect, Sanemi knows he’s probably fucked himself.

His only intention in visiting your shop after that first day had been to discern what level of threat you posed to him, if any, and to address it accordingly. Befriending you was never his goal. After all, he prided himself on his staunch ability in following the unspoken Rules of the Corps — number Three, in particular.

But he has always interpreted Three has a warning against forming bonds within the Corps. And though he knows it’s good practice to keep his circle outside its operations small as well, he rations he’s entitled to indulge his curiosity in you. He doesn’t have friends, not really. Just Genya, and his little brother lives well over an hour away, enrolled in a school in a far better — far safer — city.

It would be nice to have someone a little closer to home that he could relax around.

Yet, he can’t recall whether Rule Three would bar him from associating you outside work hours. Caution would dictate he shouldn’t, but Sanemi never claimed to be a careful man.

He never visits the same day or at the same time. Rule Two says no patterns, and though he’s steadily blurring the lines of Rule Three with each passing day, he convinces himself that as long as he abides by the first two, he won’t be in as deep shit as he, in theory, could be.

It starts out slow; tentative. Despite what he’d thought otherwise, you’re not nearly as prim and haughty as you’d tried to make him believe.

You’re sweet. Genuine, in a way that’s rare for him to encounter in his world.

Gradually, he begins spending more time with you. At first, your relationship is confined strictly to discussions of books. You swap favorites, debate which author is at the top of their genre, and you occasionally needle each other over your respective guilty pleasure: yours, bodice rippers. His, fairytales.

He spends a great deal of his free time at the bookstore, though he’s never consistent with his visits. You never ask him about it, and for that, he’s grateful. But eventually, your conversation turns to other interests — movies, shows, music — and each new mutual interest only further enamors him with you.

And when you invite him over one day after you close the shop to watch an old movie you’d swiped from the store’s limited collection, he can’t find it in him to tell you no.

The first time he visits your apartment, he is appalled.

For starters, the neighborhood you live in isn’t the safest. It’s not the Silo, by any means, but it’s an area he frequents as part of his job and that fact alone sets him on edge. He knows what kind of people linger here; knows that they tend to borrow cash that ends up in Uzui’s business — another Hashira.

And when he sees the shoebox you live in (a studio, you’d proudly boasted, as though the distraction of exposed brick and industrial piping made up for its shit location and shit security), Sanemi finds himself clutching his proverbial pearls.

He supposes he can see its appeal — you’ve certainly turned it into a home.

You’ve made a small living room out of a single couch, thrifted coffee table, and a faintly stained rug. Your TV is laughably small, but he supposes it gets the job done.

A small kitchen stands to the right of the entryway, and there is a bathroom to the left. You have a wall of closets with folding doors, and the wall directly opposite of him boasts three large, arched windows. Sanemi supposes during the day, they provide enough natural sunlight to negate any need for any overhead lighting, of which you have none. But he can’t tell if they open from the outside, so he resolves to furtively check once you’re distracted.

Your bed stands on the furthest wall, tucked into a corner and laden heavy with colorful pillows and plush throws. Books are stacked everywhere — in shelves, in corners, by plants and furniture. All well-worn and loved, their spines cracked and covers stained.

It’s lively; warm. And it has you written all over it. That alone is enough to slightly endear the place to him.

But it’s still a shit apartment in a shit neighborhood.

Worse, your door is little more than a flimsy piece of wood that latches with a single turn lock — the easiest to break, if someone was determined enough to try. He tells you as much and you roll your eyes, brushing aside his concerns as though he’s not precisely aware of what kind of filth might linger around the corner.

The next day, he brings over a deadbolt, a chain, and a drill. He bats off your indignant protests as he installs it on your door. And, because he’s petty, he forces you to sit through a painfully detailed demonstration of how to properly latch and unlatch the chain once he’s finished.

The weeks blend seamlessly into months, and Sanemi finds himself spending more and more of his free time with you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working at the bookstore or enjoying a night of brain-rotting entertainment on your shitty little television. He just wants to be near you, and he finds himself unable to stay away.

Four months into your friendship, you start a weekly movie night, though the date is always subject to change. Still, Sanemi finds himself craving more of that precious time with you. The hours spent in your store or at your apartment fill a void in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been harboring, and it’s a fullness he quickly becomes addicted to.

It is an odd thing, this new ritual (never routine) of his. The alternation between visiting the scum indebted to the Corps, to feel bones crush and snap beneath his hands or the iron of a spare crowbar, or blood griming to his knuckles, only to return to your bookshop or apartment, cheap beer and greasy takeout in hand, isn’t the kind of switch he imagined he’d ever make. But you make taking off his Hashira mask so damn easy, and every time he leaves he finds it more difficult to slip back on.

With each passing day, he learns you more and more. He gathers information like a dragon hoards its jewels, each new tidbit a precious gem that he tucks safely away in a mental box labeled with your name.

He learns that, while he prefers tea, you prefer coffee, but you’re picky about your order. If it’s hot, you want it black or with only the faintest splash of cream. If it’s cold, however, you want every sweet syrup and topping known to man, even though it only makes you crash like a freight train once the sugar high wears off.

He learns you think cooking means pouring yourself a bowl of cereal and calling it a day, and it’s a revelation that makes him have to walk away and collect himself, lest he start lecturing you on the importance of proper nutrition, just as he does with his brother.

In exchange, he opens up about the more sacred aspects of his life — namely, Genya. He confides in you the great pride and adoration he has for his little brother, and admits his deep-seated fear that Genya will somehow be pulled into his violent, hostile world of his. And each time Sanemi begins to feel that anxiety rear its ugly head, threaten to settle into the marrow of his bones and send him into a spiral, you’re always there to pull him back.

Sometimes you ask questions, and Sanemi tries to answer them as best he can. But there are some subjects he can never touch. Never wants to.

He can’t tell you whose blood stains his knuckles or is splattered across his shoes. He can’t tell you where he goes when his phone vibrates late at night or at random during the day. He can’t tell you what his fellow Hashira do; the specialties they oversee.

Sanemi does make a point to assure you there is one sacred creed by which they all abide: no kids. This seems to put you at ease, as though this tepid moral line somehow absolves him of the other shit he’s guilty for.

It’s selfish, this thing he has created with you. He knows that. And his blossoming friendship with you likely breaks more than one of the sacred precepts of the Corps. But you’re the first person he’s met since his initiation who knows what he is and doesn’t cower in fear, and that makes him desperate to cling onto you. You know what an ugly, beastly creature he is, and yet you do not run away from him. Even when you probably should.

So, he makes a promise. He won’t show you the Shinazugawa who belongs to the Corps; a formidable member of the Hashira, known because of the things he can do to others to make sure they pay their debts. What he does to them when they don’t.

With you, he wants to be Sanemi; only Sanemi.

And so it goes, for the better part of a year, the two of you learning one another, pretending the ease you feel in the company of the other is merely the product of two people relieved to find a friend in a city that cautions against such ties, and not something in danger of becoming more.

As though the metamorphosis hasn’t already set in.

—

“You never told me what your dream was, y’know.” Sanemi says one night while you finish up inventory at the store.

“What dream?” You hum as you scan the shelves reserved for non-fiction releases, your lips pressed into a firm line as you run your pen down the entries of your log.

He leans against the bookshelf, arms folded across the considerable mass of his chest. “Your big dream — the one you bit my head off for insulting that one time.”

You look up long enough to roll your eyes at him. “Where’s this coming from?”

“Dunno. Curious.”

“Thought you’re not supposed to ask questions in your line of work.” And you shoot him a sly grin. “You ought to be careful.”

Sanemi snorts but he nudges your foot with his. “I’m serious.”

Your eyes dance back and forth between him and the log before you. There’s no real harm in it, you decide. After all, he’s the only friend you have. “I want my own bookstore.”

“Yeah?” He raises a pale brow and waves his hand vaguely around behind him. “Aren’t you practically running this one? That ain’t enough?”

“I don’t own it, though.” You frown, setting your clipboard down. “I just work here. You’ve seen my paycheck.”

And he had, having found a paystub when he’d gone snooping under your counter. You would’ve been furious at his invasion of your privacy had you not been so mortified at the way he’d stared in horror at the pitiful figure reflecting your earnings after two, grueling weeks of work.

His insistence on bringing you meals at any and every opportunity afterward only compounded your embarrassment.

“I want something that’s mine — that I own.” You continue. “I’ve begged the owner to let me organize author meet-and-greets as a way to promote the store for months, and he always says no. If I owned my own store, I wouldn’t need anyone’s permission.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. “I wouldn’t have to live under anyone’s thumb.”

Something shifts in the way Sanemi watches you, a certain profundity creeping into his eyes.

Your cheeks heat. “I know it sounds stupid —“

“It doesn’t,” Sanemi says earnestly. “Wanting your freedom can never be stupid.”

You soften then, as understanding passes between you. Of course he would know all about that — arguably better than anyone you know.

Sanemi clears his throat. “So, a bookstore?” And he gives you a broad smile as he pulls out his wallet and tosses you a twenty dollar note. “Consider me your first investor.”

—

Sanemi spends the rest of the evening watching you work, fascinated by the way you meticulously organize your store shelves, and count the cash in your register. When it comes time for you to heave boxes of excess inventory to the back storeroom so they can be shipped back to their distributors, Sanemi plucks them from your hands, batting off your protests as he carries them for you.

By the time closing arrives, every new shipment has been unpacked and its contents have been shelved.

You flick off the overhead lights in the main store, relying on the backlight of the exit door to light your way out. You tug on your coat and find him watching you, expectantly. “Are you walking me home?”

“Tch. Don’t I always, when I can?”

You grin and it’s enough to chase away some of the sourness twisting in his gut. He shouldn’t do it, as often as he does. He’s risking enough as it is by constantly redrawing the lines around Rule Three to justify the way he’s beginning to bend the parameters around the rule against patterns. But it’s dark and late, and you don’t have a car, and he’ll be damned if he lets you brave the walk home alone.

Better he’s there to protect you from the dangers he can anticipate and see than to stick to his code and risk your harm from those he cannot.

Thankfully, the journey back to your apartment takes no more than fifteen minutes, even when he stops to thumb free a cigarette from the spare carton he keeps tucked in his jacket. You wrinkle your nose at him in mock-disgust as he lights it, the smoke curling out of his mouth reminiscent of a fire-breathing dragon.

He wouldn’t do it if he knew it truly bothered you. But you’d once shyly confessed you liked the faint smell of tobacco that clung to his jacket, especially in cold air like this. So he only shoots you a wink as he brings it to his lips and takes a long drag.

Besides, he thinks as he looses a slow exhale. He needs something to help him take the edge off; to guide him in making that transition between Hashira and Sanemi.

He escorts you all the way to your front door, the two of you trading quips and jokes. And Sanemi savors how utterly extraordinary something as ordinary as walking you to your door feels. Almost as if he’s ordinary, the way he so desperately wishes he could be.

You fidget with your keys, sliding them into your lock. “Did you finish that series I recommended?”

Sanemi grins. “Last night. I think it was your best suggestion yet.”

You duck your head, a bashful smile spreading across your pretty lips and its sight fills him with a golden warmth.

Your door gives way and you turn back to him. “‘Til next time?”

It was what you always said; you never asked him when you could expect to see him again, and he appreciated it. Appreciated not having to explain himself, when most outside his world would likely demand he try.

“‘Til next time,” he confirms, returning your smile with one of his own.

You hover in your doorway, fingers drumming on the frame, eyes roaming his.

“You never told me yours — what your dream is.”

He should leave. You’re treading in murky waters, ones made dangerous because he almost wants to tell you — tell you the truth, at that.

That he dreams of more. More life. More stability. More everything. He’d settle for anything, really; anything at all.

As long as it was more than this.

But Sanemi only responds with a wry grin. “To wake up in the morning, Princess. That’s all I can ask for.”

———

Sanemi’s answer lingers with you long after you emerge from your shower, warm and toweling your damp hair.

To wake up in the morning, Princess.

He’s full of shit and you know it.

Over the course of the last year, you’ve learned a handful of crucial details that make up Sanemi Shinazugawa.

You’ve learned he loves matcha, but he really loves the expensive kind. While you can’t afford to buy the high quality powder, you make do with what you can afford at the grocery, and you make it for him as often as you can.

He drinks it every time, bitter dregs and all.

More importantly, you’ve learned what it means to have a friend involved in the Corps. Not that he’s merely involved with the notorious gang — at least, not any more than the two of you are just “friends.”

Town gossip aside, Sanemi’s affiliation with the Corps is made obvious by his own actions. Like the way the two of you only ever hang out at the bookstore or your apartment; how he never invites you to visit his place, over in the Silo.

Or how he insists on scoping out your apartment every time he comes over, his eyes alert and sharp as his hand lingers at his hip, ready to pull out the gun you know he keeps tucked into his waistband at all times.

It’s evident in the way Sanemi never sticks to a consistent schedule. He varies the days and times of his visits at random, never allowing himself to settle into a routine, even if that means going an entire week or longer without seeing you.

But perhaps the most significant detail you’ve learned about Sanemi over the year of your friendship is this:

He wants out. Dreams of it, even.

This revelation does not come from the scarred Hashira himself. It is the product of months of observation, of studying how his face darkens when his phone pings! while you’re watching some sitcom on television, or when he sees a familiar face pass by your shop window, and suddenly he has to leave because he must be Shinazugawa again, and you won’t see him for the rest of the day.

It is evident in the way he talks of his younger brother, who, by all accounts is a star student and athlete, with a promising future in collegiate archery.

Sanemi is saving every penny he can to send his brother — Genya — to school, far, far away from the Silo. The conviction with which he speaks of Genya’s future, full of college and internships and promise, breaks your heart, because you know Sanemi hadn’t anyone to want those things for him.

Sanemi does not speak of any future of his. You suspect it’s because he doesn’t believe he will have one.

That has to be why he answered your question with his vague desire to wake up every morning. It was an easy answer. One that relied on you making certain connections between his life and his words and deduce that he truly had nothing more to live for other than life itself.

A cop-out, is what it is.

But his reading habits betray his darkest secret — betray the truth — and that’s exactly how you know his flippant answer is utter bullshit.

The book Sanemi carries around the most is a series of classic fairy tales, bought off your sale table a few months back. He’s read the whole thing cover to cover, but he keeps a bookmark on one specific page, and periodically, you catch him flipping back to it.

He made the mistake of leaving the book on your coffee table one night when he excused himself to use your bathroom. Realistically, you knew it was no big deal to flip through it, but somehow, the thought still felt like an invasion of his privacy.

But your curiosity got the better of you so you snatched it up, and thumb quickly to the bookmarked page, desperate to know which story has so captivated him.

You opened to the first page of of a tale — an old French story, about the daughter of a merchant who is sent to life with a beast in a distant castle, as penance for his theft of the beast’s rose.

You smiled to yourself; you were familiar with the story. You know how it goes — the beast everyone believes to be the villain is saved by the woman, and revealed to be a handsome prince. And the two live happily ever after.

Your smile faded as you recalled how the woman saved her Beast. True love’s kiss, or something along those lines.

True love.

And as Sanemi returned from the bathroom and plopped down next to you on your couch to watch a rerun of some old sitcom before he has to leave for the night, you mulled over Sanemi’s apparent fascination with the tale of the beast and the beauty.

And that’s how you drew the series of conclusions which enabled you to see right through his thin facade.

He wants out.

He wants a happily ever after. He doesn’t think he’ll get it.

And, above all, he dreams of love.

—

If any doubt lingered as to the magnitude of his ties to the Corps, it disintegrates one night, about eight months after he’d first burst into your bookstore.

It is well after midnight, but you are still awake, too engrossed in a new fantasy novel to pay particular attention to the lateness of the hour when your phone buzzes on your bedside table.

Sanemi’s name lingers above the notification, which reads simply, Outside.

You untangle yourself from your blankets and pad over to your front door, hastily tugging on a pair of sleep boxers over your underwear.

You open the door and the flutter of excitement you’d felt upon seeing his text is chased away by shock at the sight before you.

There is a bruise forming along Sanemi’s cheek that you almost would have mistaken for dirt if not for the swelling. His hair is rumpled, his clothes in disarray. Though it winks away the second he sets his gaze on you, you swear you were able a cold fury in his eyes; foreign, and violent.

The fury that belongs to a Hashira, not to the friend you know.

Wordlessly, you step back and allow him to limp past you.

“You got liniment?” He rasps, plopping heavily down in your kitchen chair. “And water?”

“You mean icy-hot?” You’re already filling a glass from the tap that you set on the table next to him before you retreat to your bathroom to rummage the cabinets.

You return a few moments later, tub of minty topical gel clutched in hand. You nearly drop it when you realize that Sanemi has stripped himself of his shirt already and is now bare from the waist-up, his forehead resting against his arms where they’re propped up on the back of your chair.

You’ve known for a long while that Sanemi is well-built (obscenely so).

Once, in the early days of your friendship, you’d snapped at him to button his shirt properly if he insisted on hanging around your store, dramatizing over how obscene it was for him to prance around with his chest half-exposed.

Sanemi had only grinned at you before he unbuttoned two more, revealing a generous glimpse of infuriatingly toned abs. Your open-mouthed, scandalized stare was met only with a wink.

He kept his shirt like that for the remainder of the day. You’d hardly been able to look at him without flushing a deep scarlet that only seemed to inflate his already generous ego even further.

But, you’re only human. And as the months passed by, and your friendship with the scarred mobster grew, you found yourself sneaking the odd peek every now and then. A glimpse of pectoral here; a hint of his rigid v-line when he stretched his arms over his head there.

And now, here he is, sitting in your small kitchen area awaiting the relief of the icy hot clutched in the tub that grew more slippery between your rapidly sweaty palms, every mouth watering inch of his upper body on display.

Beautiful. Your mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Sanemi is unbelievably beautiful.

“Need ya to rub it into my shoulder, if you don’t mind,” his voice is muffled against his arm. “I hate asking, but I dislocated the damn thing and had to reset it — fuckin’ hurts, now.”

You know better than to suggest he go get an x-ray. No hospitals, he’d once explained. Not unless you’re bleeding out.

You also know better than to ask how he dislocated it, and so you only pad silently over to him, grateful he’s turned away from you so he cannot see the tremble in your hands or the blush creeping across your cheeks.

Eager to give yourself something to do besides ogling, you focus on unscrewing the lid on the jar of liniment, your nose wrinkling under the burn of its stringent odor. You scoop a generous amount of the salve into your palms and warm it between your hands.

“Motherfucker,” Sanemi hisses as your hands spread gently across his shoulder, your fingers gingerly massaging the topical into his swollen joint. “Shit stings.”

“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” you chide, carefully prodding along the joint in search of anything that may be amiss — an odd lump or gap, signaling something hasn’t been reset properly. “At least, I don’t think it is.”

“Your medical expertise is astounding,” Sanemi drolls, but he winces again as your fingers press against a particularly tender spot. You step away from him with a huff and fish your phone out of your pocket, hands still slathered with ointment.

“I’m not a doctor,” you shoot back. “And since you refuse to go see one, the best I can do it give you the advice of the internet.”

You ignore his grumblings as you search for treatments for dislocated joints. You tap on the first link that appears and scroll, eyes narrowed as you read.

“You’re in luck. It seems like you won’t die,” you say dryly. “But you’re going to have a nasty bruise.” You purse your lips, eyes scanning the article on your phone. “And this says you’re supposed to rest — not overexert the joint.” You reach to tug playfully on a lock of his hair. “I don’t suppose you’re actually going to do that, though.”

He twists and flashes you a mischievous smirk over his shoulder. “You know me too well, Princess.”

You roll your eyes and snort, tossing your phone onto your table in favor of reaching for a discarded kitchen towel to wipe off the excess icy hot from your hands.

You’re about to tell him to put his shirt back on and stop flaunting the muscles he just can’t seem to help but show everyone he has when your eyes snag on a mark that rests squarely between his shoulder blades.

You wouldn’t have noticed it but for the shiny redness surrounding it, a clear contrast to the rest of his skin. But the longer your stare at it, the more clear its abnormality. The mark is puffy and raised, but there’s a distinct pattern to it that makes the hair on the back of your neck curl.

A brand, you realize with horror. Someone has branded him like cattle.

Your finger reaches to trace over the ridges seared into his skin before you can think the better of it. Sanemi twitches under your touch, a small shudder skirting down his spine as he tilts his head back toward you.

“Ugly, ain’t it?” His tone is unreadable. “Like a collar, ‘cept it’s permanent.”

Though he tends to err on the side of caution when it comes to discussing the Corps, you at least know what is role is within it. He told you: debt collector. Mostly monetary debts.

But the brand has nothing to do with money. No, the symbol burned into his skin — the one that stands for Kill — is a neon sign of a reminder that Sanemi’s duties can and do entail another kind of collection.

A chill snakes down your spine. You’d had your suspicions, of course, you’re not stupid. But seeing it confirmed by a brand of all things is a lightning rod through your chest.

Sanemi must sense your stare against his back, and you hear his rueful smile though you can’t see his face. “Guess it’s fitting, since I’m their dog.”

There it is; confirmation of what he is, as though it were possible to forget. You don’t know why you’d held out in letting its weight settle over you. Nor do you know why your brain had refused, for a moment, to reconcile the Sanemi who brought cheap beer and greasy fast food to your apartment for a night of trash television and book reviews with the one before you now, branded with inexorable reminder of what his duties are when he steps outside and debts go unpaid; when scores go uneven.

Your eyes slide to his gun, resting atop your table. It may has well have been smoking.

“It’s barbaric,” you murmur. You never offer much of an opinion on the tidbits of information about his life he shares with you, unwilling to make him feel as though you aren’t someone he can confide in.

But the sight of the brand scorched between his shoulder blades stokes something ugly and angry within you. You’re grateful his back is to you so you can furtively rub your hand over your prickling eyes before he can see you do something stupid, like cry.

He tilts his head back until it rests against your abdomen. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his eyes drifting shut.

You freeze for a moment, your anger temporarily suspended against your uncertainty of whether you should step back or remain. You’ve touched Sanemi a thousand different ways — you’ve grabbed his arm, smacked him upside his thick head, and elbowed him more times than you can count.

But this; this is something far different from your teasing nudges of the past. This small gesture feels infinitely more tender. Gentle.

Intimate.

Sanemi has never not been the picture of cocky brashness, especially around you. His priggish smirk was a constant, only ever dampened by the occasional alert on his phone — the one that meant he had to stop being yours for the night, and go be theirs.

But this Sanemi? This peaceful, eased, vulnerable version of your best friend is wholly uncharted territory. And perhaps it’s because he looks so unguarded this way, his face relaxed and his eyes closed, that you feel so flustered.

You brush his hair away from his forehead. At the first graze of your fingers along his scalp, Sanemi leans further into you with something akin to a moan.

Hot; everything feels so damn hot, the air in your apartment suddenly too thick. Too oppressive.

Yet, you don’t stop; your fingers keep raking through his hair, surprisingly silky.

You think he may have fallen asleep in your chair, but after another moment of your hands carding through his hair, Sanemi stands. You step away instantly, and you avert your eyes while he pulls his shirt back over his head, cursing softly as he works it over his injured shoulder.

Sanemi turns to you and clears his throat roughly. “Thanks again. Don’t know what I would’ve done without ya.”

You wave him off with an exaggerated eye roll, eager to conceal the redness in your cheeks. “Oh please, I’m just your neighborhood book supplier and occasional first aid nurse.”

A sudden sobriety passes over his features, clouding over that all too familiar smirk with something heavier.

“No,” he murmurs and his hand absently lifts to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “No, you’re more than that.” His palm lingers against your cheek and his voice quiets to a hoarse whisper. “Much more.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’ll lean in; if he’ll show you whether his lips are as warm as his touch.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth and your stomach somersaults at the thought he might be considering it, too. But the clouds part and Sanemi withdraws from you with an affection flick against the tip of your nose.

And then he turns and leaves.

You sink back against your door after you close it behind him and slide to your floor. You remain there for a long while after, your mind little more than a gnarled tangle of brambles you can’t begin to pick through. But even despite the complicated mess of thoughts and emotions knotted together in your head, one thing stands clear: you’d wanted to kiss him.

And for a moment, you swear he’d wanted to, as well.

An old rumor, one you hadn’t considered since your very first interaction with him, resurfaces in your mind. The one that had less to do with him in the Corps, and more so involved his activities outside of it.

The rumor that he cycles through the bodies he uses to warm his bed more frequently than you change the sheets on yours.

Your cheeks heat, and you shake your head to clear away the sudden, intrusive images of Sanemi tangled in the throes of passion with some faceless stranger that fill your imagination. You don’t care what those blasted rumors claim; you know him. And what’s more, you know that what you feel for him is stronger than anything you’ve ever felt toward anyone.

You’re in love with Sanemi.

It is his face you see at night before you fall asleep; it’s his touch you imagine in those secret moments in your bed or in the shower, when you’re desperate and aching.

It’s he who makes you feel most at ease; the one person you feel truly sees you, thinks you’re actually worth something.

You’ve never really known love before. But it’s because you’re such a novice that you know your feelings are true; powerful. You know what he is — what he thinks he is. And you know that you will never want anyone else; you can’t.

You won’t.

—

Three rules. That’s all he had to do, was follow three simple fucking rules.

Don’t speak. No patterns. And don’t get overly attached.

It had been easy, so easy, to follow them. If there was one thing Sanemi believed he could pride himself on, it had been his steadfast adherence to the Corps’ rules. Number three, in particular.

Until you. Until the day he’d chosen your bookstore to hide in.

Because that was when Sanemi decided that those rules were really more like guidelines; malleable. He’d let himself cast them aside out of a desperation for human connection. And he’d justified his carelessness by convincing himself that as long as he maintained some semblance compliance with the unspoken code of the Corps.

Sanemi had built his own set of rules around the foundation of his friendship with you, a wall of stone around the glass castle meant to ensure you would not be cut by its shards should it ever shatter.

He would not be your liability, nor would you be his.

But now, he’s too deep; Sanemi knows he’s gotten in way too fucking deep with you.

Until this moment, he imagined he’d managed to toe the line of this internal code that applied only to his relationship with you, save a handful of instances when he’d let himself blur it.

As it turns out, he’d been dead fucking wrong. Because he’s pretty sure you just asked him to cross the last major boundary he’d set for himself when it came to you.

So, Sanemi only gapes at you. “What?”

You huff, impatient. “I want you to fuck me.”

You say it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world — as though you haven’t just ripped the floor out from beneath him and sent him falling directly on his ass.

If he didn’t know you were dead serious, he would’ve laughed in your face. And that’s how he knows he’s fucked.

You’re a virgin; he knows that, because you’d drunkenly confessed it to him two weeks prior, tipsy on the cheap beer he’d brought over for your weekly movie night together.

Admittedly, he’d been surprised. You were beautiful — not that beauty was a requirement for a good fuck, but you didn’t seem the type to go for random hookups, unlike him. Still, he would’ve thought you’d had some prior relationship where the opportunity would have arisen.

As it turned out, you’d never been in a relationship, either.

Between long gulps of your drink, you’d asked him to fix it and he’d turned you down — his tolerance for watery beer far surpassed your own, and Sanemi Shinazugawa wasn’t the type to sleep with someone who couldn’t fully consent.

So he’d let you down — but not before he kissed you. It was only once; soft, the way you deserved to be kissed. His lips met yours and suddenly, the gaping hole in his chest felt smaller; fuller. Kissing you felt like coming home, even though Sanemi was sure he’d never fully known what home truly felt like.

And then he parted from you with an affectionate flick on your nose to cover the way his heart clenched at the visible disappointment in your eyes.

He’d boldly kissed you twice more after that night — one a quick, cheeky peck when you went in to hug him, an act done more to fluster you than to sate any desire of his, no matter how he craved more of you.

The other happened only three nights prior, and it was anything but soft and sweet.

One of Sanemi’s fellow Hashira, Kanae, hadn’t been seen in several days, and no one had been able to get in touch with her. When she’d missed a scheduled patrol of one of the neighborhoods in the Silo, he and another member, Iguro, had been sent to check on her.

They’d found her in the kitchen of the small home she’d shared with her two sisters with a hole in her head and her brains splattered across the floor.

Curled under the protective stretch of her limp arms, had been her two sisters, both bearing matching bullet wounds to their skulls.

Kizuki, most likely. They were the only ones brave enough to target someone as high ranked as Kanae.

Their blood had still been fresh, and the stench of decay and rot hadn’t yet set in, which only told them that the girls had been held for several days, forced to endure unknown horrors at the hands of their murderers.

He hadn’t been particularly close with the woman, but as his rank equal, she’d had his respect. But now she and her adolescent sisters were nothing more than smears of brain matter and skull fragments to be scraped off the linoleum of their kitchen floor and quietly buried. Forgotten.

The hours passed by in a blur once Kocho’s death was called into the higher-ups, and Sanemi didn’t remember cleaning up the scene anymore than he remembered the solitary trek back. His mind and his body disconnected, and he only snapped back to reality when he realized he was standing in front of your apartment, unsure of how or when he’d begun walking in its direction.

He knew he should turn around and go home; there was nothing you could do for him right then, he shouldn’t bother you —

His fist was pounding on your door before he could think better of it.

Despite the late hour, you’d greeted him with a broad smile and a shy hi. Your hair had been damp, and he could smell the floral sweetness of your shampoo still mixed with the steam from your shower as it spilled into the hall.

Safe; you were safe.

Your door had still been hanging wide open as Sanemi surged forward, trapping your face in his hands to crash his lips down against yours, his kiss heavy and hot.

You’d broken away long enough to ask, “S-Sanemi — what —?”

“Shut up,” he’d snarled, slanting his mouth back over yours, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip. He’d half expected you to shove him away, perhaps to even aim a knee right at his crotch, yet you’d only buried your fingers in his hair and tugged him closer.

He backed you up against the wall opposite of your entryway, though he’d moved his hand to cup the back of your head to keep it from banging against the exposed brick.

You moaned into the kiss and Sanemi lost whatever shred of sense he’d managed to cling onto. His tongue swept along your bottom lip, and the hand cupping the back of your head loosely pulled at your hair, tugging your head to the side and signaling you to open up — to let him in.

And you did. And the first brush of his tongue against yours as he licked into your mouth ignited an inferno within him that he did not know how to tame.

His hands pushed under your sweatshirt, seeking out the comforting warmth of your skin. Higher and higher they rose, until they came to rest against your ribs, and Sanemi realized you were bare — completely bare — beneath your hoodie.

That you’d allowed him to toe so dangerously close to a line neither of you could cross had clouded every bit of his judgment. The thought that he’d only have to move his hands mere centimeters to touch you in a way no other had before had sent him reeling, and his hips were beyond his control when they pinned yours against the wall and ground into you.

But your single gasp into his mouth broke the spell, and with more regret than Sanemi knew he should feel, he broke away, leaving you both breathless and panting.

Without a word, he’d turned around and stalked right back out of your apartment, closing your door firmly behind him.

He’d sent a text only a few minutes later — a single, ominous reminder to you to lock your door, deadbolt and all.

He hadn’t the stomach to explain his cryptic warning; not as the sight of Kocho remained burned into his retinas.

So, yes, he’s blurred a few lines when it comes to you. But those had only been kisses; heavy touching aside, he’d never allowed himself to go further than that.

No matter how much he wanted to.

And it’s because he knows he can’t cross this last line — can’t open you up to risk more than he already has, that he meets your expectant stare with a rueful smile.

“You’re better off asking someone else, Princess. You don’t want to get tangled up with someone like me.”

Never mind that you’re already tangled up with him — but he’s managed to uphold this last boundary, and Sanemi has convinced himself that as long as it remains in place, he can’t ruin you the way Kocho and her young sisters were ruined.

“I don’t want to ask someone else,” you fold your arms across your chest and cock your hip out, defiant. Normally, Sanemi finds your stubbornness endearing, if not adorable, but not now; not when you should know better.

A low growl of your name is his warning. “You don’t know what you’re asking —“

“It’s you I want. I don’t care what the rumors say, I don’t care what anyone thinks — including you.”

The sincerity in your eyes nearly scalds him. “And I am not asking as a friend. You and I both know this is more than that.”

He wants to throttle you. Not literally of course, he could never — but he wants to shake the sense you’re so clearly lacking back into you until you see; until you understand.

Of course he wants you. He has wanted you for months — so much so, he hardly can focus on anything else. And he’s pent up. He hasn’t had the stomach to fuck anyone else. Not since he began falling asleep and waking up to thoughts of you and your touch, of how you might look under or above him, wanton and desperate. Or how you might feel in his arms; on his tongue.

Really, it’s been quite a blow to his rather wild reputation throughout the Silo. But God knows he has tried to fill the you-shaped void in his heart, but nothing — no one — has come close.

More than anything, he wants you to be his, and for him to be yours. He longs to be the Sanemi who takes you out on dates, who kisses you freely without the compulsive need to check over his shoulder, to make sure there aren’t any enemies watching and plotting to strike him right where he’s weak. He wants to be the Sanemi you come home to after a long day at the bookstore. The one with whom you plan a future, utterly and completely yours.

But he can never be just Sanemi. He is nothing more than the property of the very organization he’s sworn allegiance to; the group whose brand he bears on his skin.

He is not good. He is a curse that will infect you, a poison to your life.

He will rot you from the inside, out.

His friendship with you is selfish. He knows that — he’s always known that, and yet he did not stop. It is selfish because he deluded himself into believing he could actually be someone else when he was with you. Someone worth befriending; perhaps someone worth a little more.

You were right to call him a thief, that day. All he does is take your time and affection when he knows damn well he won’t give you anything in return, no matter how he wishes he could.

Sanemi won’t label that thing he holds deep inside his heart which is formed in the shape of your name; not when it could so easily doom you both. But he knows his feelings for you are dangerous, and he cannot allow you to sniff them out.

Because if he does, then this only ends one or two ways: either he lets you in only for you to abandon him once you realize the truth of what he is, or you’re used as a weapon against him.

In either event, he loses you. So it is better to cut this off now, to force you away before either of you become more invested than you already are.

He will not hurt you, but neither will he allow himself to be hurt by you.

You take a step toward him, and the soft whisper of his name sounds like a holy prayer on your lips and that’s how he knows this is wrong.

Your obstinate refusal to recognize him for what he is is a needle digging into his skin, one that whittles away at every wall he has managed to build around his heart, that damnable, soft, dangerous thing that he will not allow you to find; he cannot.

You’re confusing your roles. He is the vulture and you are his prey, not the other way around. he is not here to give. He is here only to take, and you will let him and then he will leave.

And he will not be the carcass you pick clean only to discard once you’ve had your fill.

(A lie, but it’s one Sanemi almost believes. Almost.)

But Sanemi knows you; he knows you better than he knows anything else. You are a constant he has become far too dependent upon, and you are precious — far too precious to him to continue to indulging.

He knows you are too good, too loyal in your feelings to forget about him, even if he disappeared from your life entirely.

A clean break. it is the only thing that will force you to forget him and move on, find another, someone good and whole and not a broken, misshapen thing like him.

He will show you who he really is. He will show you that he could never be just Sanemi, and he sure as hell can’t ever be yours.

Better; you deserve better, so he will become worse.

He advances on you, his step heavy and imposing, and you have enough sense to scurry back from him. But he is too quick and soon he has you caged against the wall of your studio, literally backed into a corner.

“You want me?” He is scathing and he loathes himself for it, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s desperate to save you from the blight of himself.

You shouldn’t; you can’t.

But you nod, damn you. Wide-eyed, you nod and he resents the certainty reflected in your gaze.

His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. “You want to say you’ve had a taste of the lowlife, huh?“

Your eyebrows knit together. “Sanemi, that’s not —“

But he can’t stop his venom. “Bragging rights, that’s all you’re after, right? You want to be like one of the characters in your stories — the good girl who makes an honest man outta the good-for-nothing villain.”

“Stop it,” you bite, and your eyes harden. “You’re acting like an asshole.”

You’re angry. Good. Sanemi knows how to deal in anger.

“Hate to break it to ya, sweetheart, but I’m not acting like an asshole. I am one.”

Your hackles raise, and you step away from the wall and toward him, bold in your fury. “I know you want to believe you are, but you’re not —“

Sanemi’s hand shoots out to grab a fistful of your hair. “Is that so?” You yelp as he wrenches your head back, your neck straining. “Then maybe I oughta bend you over and fuck you like I would any other cheap whore. Then you can tell me what you think I am.”

Your eyes water as the grip in your hair tightens.

Good, he thinks savagely. Let you see the monster he truly was, let you know he was his bastard father’s son, and that he’d be no different, no different at all. He’s a brute, and you don’t want that, you don’t want him —

“You can do whatever it is you want,” you manage, you throat tight. And Sanemi’s eyes blow wide at the soft, watery smile that forms on your lips despite the tears that escape the corners of your eyes. “Do to me what you like; I don’t mind, as long as it’s you.”

All at once, his ire with you and your bewildering devotion to him melts away, leaving nothing behind but a deep well of guilt, bitter and acerbic.

It isn’t that you think he might take you forcefully and harshly; after all, he’s only shown you he’s entirely capable of doing so.

It’s that you would let him. Without a shred of doubt, he knows you would offer yourself to him to use however he wants, and that you’d do it with a smile not unlike the one you’re wearing right now, soft and earnest.

Fuck, you just did.

And it’s that realization that has Sanemi’s hand loosening from your hair, his eyes softening. An errant tear escapes down your cheek and he moves to brush it away, but you close your eyes the moment you spy his knuckle nearing your face.

You do not flinch, but you are steeling yourself in anticipation of expected cruelty, and the front he’s put forth crumbles to dust.

He is a monster, but not for the reasons he’s used to justify this ugly display of his. He’s a monster because he has made you believe that this treatment is acceptable — an unavoidable cost of intimacy, no matter how fleeting.

Worse, he’s done the one thing he’d sworn never to do to any woman, let alone someone as good and as dear as you.

He’d only wanted to disgust you; enrage you, so that you would kick him out of both your apartment and your life, right out on his sorry ass like he deserved.

But this is worse. He has frightened you.

He recoils from you like a kicked dog. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He stands awkwardly as you stare at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, and each second that ticks silently by only amplifies the oily well of guilt in his stomach.

He clears his throat. “I’ll go,” he says roughly, too ashamed to meet your eyes. “‘M sorry, I didn’t —“

Your hand grabs his bicep, anchoring him in place. “I want you to stay.”

“You don’t owe me anything —“

“It’s not about owing you,” you interject, lifting your hands to take his face between your palms. “I want you. I want this.”

You prove your point by taking his hand and guiding it to your waist. You hold it there, mouth set in a determined line as you inch closer to him.

“You deserve someone else,” Sanemi can’t stop the admission from rolling off his tongue. “Better.”

But you’re already shaking your head, as though you somehow know different. “There is no one better; I only want you.”

Idiot, he thinks as you rise up on your tiptoes, your arms winding around his shoulders as the distance between your bodies grows narrower. You’re an idiot.

You can’t possibly believe he’s as good as it gets. He’s used you as a distraction this whole time, a chance to forget the things he’s done and what he’ll be required to do in the future. Surely, you must know that.

He will hurt you; it’s in his nature. It’s unavoidable. He can’t be what you deserve.

But then your lips brush gently against his and the last of his resolve crumbles.

Sanemi melts into your kiss. He brings one hand to cradle the side of your face as the one braced against your waist shorts, until he wraps his arms around you and tugs you closer to him.

This kiss is gentle in every way the last was not. Sanemi’s lips are soft moving against yours, his hands almost hesitant in how they hold you. For a moment, he imagines himself not as the selfish, hard brute he knows he is, but instead as the gentle, giving lover he wants so desperately to be. One who is worthy of someone as kind and vibrant as you, and not the trash you’d be better off leaving out on the street.

The tentativeness with which he kisses you tempers some as his tongue flicks out against your bottom lip. You answer his silent request with enthusiasm, your fingers burying themselves in his hair as you haul yourself closer. The moment Sanemi’s tongue sweeps into your waiting mouth, you buckle against him with the sweetest sigh he’s ever heard. One of pure relief, as though you’d been burning and he was your balm.

Ironic, considering he’s only adding gasoline to this fire between you.

But there’s nothing he can do now except allow the flames to consume you both.

Soon, the shy curiosity with which he explores your mouth gives way to a mutual hunger, evident by how he feels as though he’s boiling alive while you gasp and sigh into him, your fingers tugging pleadingly at his hair.

You want more, and he needs you, too.

His nose nuzzles against yours as he bends down, his hands running along the bare expanse of your legs. The ground beneath your feet disappears as Sanemi gathers you up easily into his arms.

One of your arms is looped around his neck while your other hand cups his face, turning it toward yours as he carries you to your bed. Your thumb smooths absently over the scar that cuts across his cheek and then your lips seek out his once more. His kiss is as gentle as the hand squeezing your waist, his fingers slotting into the gap between your sweatshirt and the top of your sleep shorts, stroking your skin.

He lays you out upon your mattress, grateful you’d at least purchased a full bed rather than some shitty twin. Your hands untangle themselves from his hair and instead seek out the waistband of your sleep shorts, but Sanemi covers them with his, halting you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs between quick, messy kisses. “Let me — please.”

Before you can respond, Sanemi sits back and grabs a fistful of his own shirt, yanking it over his head.

Your pupils blow wide at the sight of him and he feels himself hesitate. Sanemi has always felt an easy self confidence when it came to stripping in front of his partners for the night. He’d always been quite proud of his physique, relying on his considerable muscles to mask his deep loathing of his scars.

But in front of you, all sense of self-assuredness goes flying out the window, and suddenly he feels too exposed. His eyes drop to scour the planes of his chest — have his scars always been this prominent? This thick?

“Holy shit,” your soft sigh snaps his attention away from the howling inside his head. For one, petrifying moment, he thinks that you are as disgusted with his body as he is, but then he sees the pink flush staining your cheeks.

Your eyes roam hungrily over him and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. You meet his gaze and your pupils are blown wide with desire — rich, hot need for him.

Your voice is little more than a sultry whisper. “Come here.”

He moves eagerly to cover your body with his, his hair rumpled and his eyes bright as his lips press hurriedly against yours. Your hands smooth over his pectorals and tease down his abdomen until he’s panting, but the moment your nails rake along the skin on either side of his navel, Sanemi moans.

More. He needs more.

He hauls you up from the bed, straddling you across his lap, his hands notched behind your knees as they press into the mattress. You reconnect your lips in a heated kiss, one hand playing with the ends of his snowy hair, the other dropping down his back, settling over the brand seared between his shoulder blades. Covering it.

Yes, he thinks as he nips your bottom lip, urging your mouth to open so he can slide his tongue in to dance with yours. Yes, this is fitting. Because in his ideal world, his life with you would come before any other — including his with the Corps.

Sanemi’s lips begin trailing hotly down your jaw, pausing when he reaches your neck. He finds a particularly sensitive spot with a nip of his teeth that he soothes with his tongue, and he hums in approval at the faint, breathy whimpers that squeak past your lips as you tilt your head, offering more of yourself to him.

The ache burgeoning in his groin in response to your display is enough to drive him insane; he has never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wants this — you.

As his mouth continues its heated path, his hands find the hem of your hoodie. With a gentleness that surprises even him, Sanemi begins charting your skin with his fingers. With every new plane of your body he explores, he pushes your sweatshirt up, up, up, until he guides it over your head.

He tosses it to the side, not caring for where it lands. His attention is focused solely on you as you fall back against your bed, now bare from the waist up.

“Beautiful,” he marvels, eyes running over the slope of your shoulder and tracing the curve of your breasts. “So fuckin’ beautiful.”

He savors every hitched breath, every chill that ripples over your skin as he explores your body with his mouth and hands. Over the years, Sanemi has become well acquainted with the magic of the female body. He’s always liked how soft women were compared to him. He isn’t a picky man; he’ll celebrate them all, regardless of their shape or size.

But you? Celebration isn’t enough; you deserve nothing less than outright worship.

“You feel so damn good,” he mutters against your breast before closing his lips over your nipple and sucking hard. You bow off the bed with a keening moan that gutters out into something more ragged as his hand covers the other, pinching and rolling your stiffened bud between his fingers.

He could spend all night like this, lavishing your soft mounds with his mouth. But Sanemi knows that won’t be enough to satisfy the hunger gnawing at both of you, so with a tinge of regret, he forces himself to move on, descending your body in alternating kisses and nips.

He reaches the waistband of your shorts and his eyes flash to yours as he tugs on it with his teeth. The hot exhale of his breath below your navel sends goosebumps across your skin. Sanemi’s fingers inch below the hem of your shorts until he loops his hands around the waistband, and he yanks them down your legs in a single, fluid motion.

His eyes rake down your body, taking in every beautiful inch. A blush forms on his cheeks as he realizes all that separates you from him is your simple pair of black underwear.

He sits back, eager to join your near-nudity. His hands are quick, if not a little clumsy, as he finds his belt buckle. The instant the metal clicks and the leather around his hips loosens, Sanemi shoves off his pants, eagerly kicking them off your bed until he is left in nothing but his briefs.

Your eyes fall to where the evidence of his desire protrudes stiffly from between his legs. Sanemi watches your throat pulse as you try to stifle your small gulp, your thighs tensing beneath him in an effort to press together.

He can sense your nerves; can see by the way your eyes dart anxiously between his and the rigid tent in his briefs.

With a gentle smile, Sanemi leans in and soothes your unease with his lips. “We’ll take it as slow as you want. I’m not in any rush.”

“N-now?” You murmur between kisses, and he nearly seizes at the hesitant, questioning brush of your fingers against the underside of his shaft.

“Not yet,” he groans against your mouth. “I gotta make sure you’re ready first.”

“I am ready -“

“Not like that,” he cuts off your protest by ghosting his fingers up the covered seam of you. Sanemi circles his finger around where he thinks your clit is, and he smirks when your head tips back against your pillow, your mouth widening in a silent o.

“Found you,” he croons, repeating the movement again until your legs begin to twitch beneath him.

He makes quick work of your underwear, tossing them over the side of your bed without much thought. The sight of you bare beneath him nearly stops his heart dead in his chest. His eyes drop to the neat thatch of curls resting at the apex of your thighs, and his mouth waters.

You blush under the intensity of his appreciative stare, and your legs twitch, as though you mean to close them.

A hand sliding between your thighs restrains you from doing so. “Uh-uh,” he tuts. “Can’t hide from me now, sweetheart’.”

He smooths his hand down the length of your leg until it hovers just outside where he’s most eager to explore. The heat radiating from sends his pulse skyrocketing.

One, tentative finger circles your entrance, testing. Sanemi leans in to capture your lips with his as he pushes in, swallowing your soft gasp with his tongue that he slides into your parted mouth.

A moan vibrates in his chest in time with a faint whimper that sounds in the back of your throat as Sanemi begins exploring you. You’re tight; almost impossibly so, clenching and pulsing around the single finger he gradually sinks inside you, pushing deeper with every gentle pump of his hand.

The thought of your tight, wet heat constricting around the aching length of him just as you were around his finger makes him dizzy with want.

He won’t go down on you, he decides. Not tonight. Not when he’s throbbing this badly after just a couple of fingers; not when your breasts are so plush and soft pressed against his chest where you’re already arcing up into him, sending his mind wild with thoughts of how you’ll move under him; how you’ll moan.

His lips are hot against your neck, trailing down past your collarbone. Left behind are a series of purplish-maroon whorls blooming beneath his mouth, your skin quickly becoming a tapestry for him to display how badly he wants this. You.

You cling to him, one hand buried in his hair, pulling and tugging at him as the other clutches wildly at his shoulder, your fingers digging hard into his muscles. Your teeth are buried into your bottom lip in an effort to stifle your whimpers, but a needy whine slips out as Sanemi sucks one, soft breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking out across your pert nipple.

Another finger slides into your entrance as his thumb works your clit, and before long, you’re vibrating beneath him, unrestrained in how you moan and cry out for him so beautifully.

“Sanemi! I think — oh, I think I’m -“ but then he crooks his fingers, brushing against a rough spot deep within you that makes you writhe. You thrash back hard against the bed, your hips grinding against his hand with abandon.

He smothers a curse into your skin. You’re close and he knows it; can feel it in the way your walls flutter and pulse around him. And as desperate as he is to study how you fall apart, it’s too soon.

“Not yet,” he pants against your breast, circling your nipple with his tongue before imparting a final nip at the soft flesh and drawing back.

Remorseful, he pulls his fingers away from you, leaving you panting and flushed under him. But the hot, searing flames of desire burning beneath his skin intensify still, as he takes your hand and guides it between your legs.

“There. Feel how wet you are?” His voice is husky with want. You peer up at him through heavily lidded eyes as you nod, a whimper vibrating in your throat as Sanemi grinds your hand against your sensitive flesh.

“For you,” your voice is syrupy and warm, and damn if Sanemi doesn’t feel like he could get drunk on it. “It’s all for you.”

His tone sharpens into something possessive; hungry. “That’s right,” and he pushes your hand firmly against your clit and rotates it, eliciting a deep moan from you. “Because you’re mine.“

It’s not fair. But he wants to pretend like it’s true, if only for a while.

Once your fingers are sufficiently shiny with your own wetness, he brings your hand to his mouth, his tongue peeking out from between his lips. Slowly and languidly, he drags it up the side of your digits, and his eyes burn into yours as he slides your fingers into his mouth and sucks them clean.

It takes everything in him not to moan at the sweet taste of you that floods his tongue.

He’d made the right decision in not going down on you. If he had, he’d never be able to pull away; not until his face had become so adorned with your essence that he could not comprehend anything that wasn’t you. Not until you were trembling under him and begging for a break.

The first time you cum will be on him; with him. So as much as it pains him, he resists your temptation.

But not before you know; not before you understand exactly how wild you drive him. How much you threaten his sanity.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps as he pulls your hand away from his mouth. “Here.”

His hand his gentle but firm as he grips your chin, squeezing your jaw until your mouth parts. The question in your gaze dissolves, your eyes instead rolling back into your head, as Sanemi slides the two fingers he’d just had between your thighs, still covered in your wetness, past your lips.

“Go on,” he orders, his other hand brushing your hair from your face. “Taste how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

The moan that slips free from your lips is one he wishes he could bottle up as your tongue caresses his fingers, your cheeks hollowing so fucking perfectly around him as you dutifully clean yourself from him.

Fuck, you’re trying to kill him.

But some of the burning he feels ebbs as the sobering weight of what’s to come settles over him; the magnitude of what he is about to do. Because no matter what happens after, nothing between you will be the same. Whatever else you are after tonight — whether that’s something or nothing — you will never be just friends again.

Sanemi supposes the punishment fits his crime; this is what he gets for getting in too deep with you, even if it means losing you entirely.

He chases away those thoughts by running his hands down your sides before he pulls back, leaving you in favor of shucking his briefs down his thighs.

Finally bare, he’s quick to drape his body over yours once more, his hands smoothing up and down your sides, unable to quench his need to feel your skin against his. But a foreign uncertainty stills him, and his eyes flash to yours, hesitant.

“Are you sure?”

You answer only by reaching to grip the back of his neck, tugging him down to meet your lips, your kiss feverish and urgent.

He doesn’t have a condom but he’s in too deep now to stop. In a way, what is about to happen is new to him as well. He’s never fucked anyone raw before. No matter who he’d had in his bed, no matter how much they begged him or assured him they were on birth control, he’d always been sure to have protection on hand.

Children are a gift, but he’d be damned if anyone tried to come after him and demand he raise one in his fucked up world. Either Sanemi got out or he never became a parent; there was no middle ground.

But once again, he is blurring boundaries where you were concerned, and Sanemi doesn’t think he knows how to stop himself from having the full taste in the indulgence that was you.

“It might hurt a moment,” he admits against your mouth, his voice raspy. “But I promise I’ll be gentle — as gentle as I can.”

You stretch to kiss him again, your lips soft and warm and everything he loves. “I trust you.”

You shouldn’t, he wants to say. You shouldn’t, and you should run far away from this — from me.

But Sanemi knows you won’t just as much as he knows he doesn’t have it in him to try and chase you away, and so he only kisses you back, slow and indulgent.

He breaks away from you with a soft groan and sits up on his knees. His back straight, Sanemi’s hands curl around your hips and he tugs you forward until your backside is flush against his thighs.

The heat radiating from you pulls him in like a magnet as he lines the tip of his cock up with your entrance. A vein above his brow ticks, the only outward sign of the battle raging within him as his self restraint wars with his tantalizing urge to impale you on the thick, throbbing length of him, desperate for the sweet relief only your body can give.

Every inch of him trembles as Sanemi presses his hips forward. “Fuck,” he exhales shakily, pushing his tip past your entrance. “Fuck.”

His head falls back and the muscles in his throat strain. Some small, needy sound leaves him and the fingers on your hip tighten nearly to the point of pain.

The noise registers in the back of your mind, and vaguely, you recognize it as a whimper. You wonder whether he makes that sound for the others; somehow you doubt it, given that he does it again, only now in the shape of your name.

The rumors always said he never asked for names; he was a one-and-done kind of man. A great fuck, but not someone to go to if you were looking for comfort; softness.

Once again, Sanemi is nothing but a collection of contradictions, especially where you’re concerned.

Sanemi hisses as he slowly eases into you. Despite your wetness, you’re impossibly tight, and your body is a live wire hell bent on pushing out his intrusion.

With a deep groan, he falls forward, one arm shooting out to land near your head to catch himself before he can crash into you. His weight carefully braced above you, Sanemi shifts, widening the stance of his knees. Your legs slide up his waist, locking at your ankles at the base of his spine.

His cock is barely a quarter of the way inside your heat when he pulls out. A whine of protest mounts in your throat, but it quickly flickers out when he presses his leaking tip to your clit and grinds. A soft moan slips out of you when he repeats the movement again, and your thighs widen, your hips tilting up to allow him easier access.

Sanemi circles the head of his cock once more against your sensitive nub, coating himself in more of your sticky wetness, before he slides back into your entrance. This time, your body parts more easily around him, sucking him in rather than trying to squeeze him out.

“There you go, that’s it,” his breath is hot against your ear, his lips trailing silkily across your jaw. “That’s my girl.”

Halfway in, Sanemi brushes against that thin barrier that separates him from the rest of you, and he stills.

He pulls his head back from your neck, and moves his hand out from between your legs to cup your cheek.

“Ready?” His thumb strokes over your cheekbone, tender and soft.

There is a tightness building in your abdomen, a foreign pressure that isn’t entirely unwelcome, but neither is it wholly comfortable. You brace a hand at your side, balling your sheets into your fist as you steady yourself, flushed and panting beneath the scar speckled man holding rigidly still above you.

Your eyes flick up once, and you see the tightness in his jaw; the tremble in his limbs as he fights against the urge to relief the friction mounting where you are joined.

You swallow around the lump of anticipation lodged in your throat. Your breath is shaky, but at last, you manage a single “Please.”

With a groan, he grips himself around his base and slowly, he presses forward. There is a sharp prick that shoots deep in your lower abdomen as Sanemi surges past that thin inner wall.

You cannot stop your cry of discomfort from ringing out anymore than you can stop the surprised tears which escape the corners of your eyes as the sharp pain between your legs intensifies.

But then Sanemi’s lips are there, kissing away your tears, and the hand he’d used to guide himself into your body skims along the outside of your thigh, hiking your leg higher up his waist before it drops to rub gentle circles into your hip.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between soothing caresses of his lips against your cheeks and across your eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He coos his string of apologies as his cock continues to push into you. On and on he sinks, his length endless, and you begin to think your body will split in two before you find the end of his.

Just before you reach your limit, Sanemi stills, fully embedded in your heat. He pants through gritted teeth, his jaw locked against the way you’re constricting around him so tightly it’s nearly painful.

It’s unreal; not only does Sanemi realize how much fucking better sex feels without the restriction of a condom, but he’s also bashed over the head with the realization that you were made for him. For nothing, no one has ever felt as incredible as you.

Nothing in his life has ever felt so right.

Sanemi has always been someone who fucks fast and hard. He’d had no objective other than to escape for a few, blissful moments in the body of another as he pretended not to feel the hollowness in his chest, or the throb of his own self-loathing.

With you, however, he wants nothing more than to relish every movement of your body against his, to savor your every gasp and sigh; to learn what makes you lose control.

You are no temporary distraction; he wants to know you.

He drops his forehead against yours and waits, allowing you to adjust to the intrusion of him.

He trails his lips across your collar bone and down to the twin swells of your breasts, sucking softly at your plush skin as you fidget and squirm beneath him. One broad hand skirts down the outside of your thigh until he finds your knee, and gently he guides your leg around his hips. The other he leaves relaxed against the bed, your foot resting somewhere against his calf.

When your eyes flutter open and find his, he knows you’re ready. So he moves his arm out from between your bodies and winds it instead around your waist, deepening the arch in your back until his chest is flush with yours.

His lips press to your forehead, a silent warning that he is about to move.

And then Sanemi begins molding your body to the shape of his.

He starts slow. He doesn’t withdraw far from you, instead focusing on rolling his hips against yours. Each churn of his groin pushes his cock deeper into your warmth, and soon, your timid whimpers melt into soft moans as your initial discomfort gives way to pleasure.

Encouraged by the way your body starts to relax in his embrace, Sanemi tests drawing his cock out a few inches before plunging back into you.

Before long, the room fills with the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin, and Sanemi’s moans join yours as he rapidly becomes lost in the euphoria of your wet, tight heat.

One of your arms jumps to lock around his ribs, your nails sinking into his skin as you anchor yourself to him.

His hand snakes across the sheets in search of yours. When he finds it, fisted against your sheets, he pries your fingers loose, winding them with his and he wraps your arm around his shoulders.

“Tighter,” he gasps. “Hold me tighter. Please.”

Your fingers dig into the muscles of his back and Sanemi groans his approval.

And then he’s rolling to his side, pulling you along with him until you’re stretched out across the length of your mattress, chest to chest.

His hand grips under your thigh, tugging it over his hip as he rocks harder into you. “Talk to me, angel,” the hand under your thigh moves to splay across your rear, pushing and pulling your hips in time with his as he grinds. “Tell me how you feel — tell me what you want.”

You cry out, mournful, as Sanemi draws out his cock nearly to its tip before he plunges back into you.

The fullness you feel is overwhelming. You can’t stand that empty feeling, even for a moment. So you hitch your leg higher around his hip, and dig the heel of your foot into the firmness of his ass, limiting his movements.

“Closer!” You gasp. “I — I need you closer.”

He needs that too, he decides; craves it. He doesn’t want to feel any space between your bodies. He wants — he needs — to be so enraptured with you that there is no point in trying to separate. That way, he might get to keep you for just a little longer.

Sanemi’s hand massages your backside, his cock throbbing with every push into you. “Deeper,” he confirms between throaty groans. “You want me deeper?”

You bury your face into his shoulder. Your teeth sink into his skin and with a moan, you nod.

He can do that; is more than happy to, as a matter of fact.

So, with a faint snarl, Sanemi grips the fat of your ass and spreads you wide, and he begins thrusting, hard.

The new angle allows the tip of his cock to bump up against a sweet spot deep inside you. Sanemi’s eyes narrow at the way your head drops back, a loud cry tearing from your throat.

Determined to hit that point within you again and again, he shifts his hips under you while hiking your leg higher up his hip, his fingers digging into the curve of your ass.

It’s a success; soon, your wails echo throughout your studio, punctuated by every punishing slap of his skin against yours.

Really, he can’t give less of a damn at how thin your apartment walls are. The sounds pouring from your mouth are the prettiest fucking thing he’s ever heard.

Something hot and electric mounts quickly in your stomach with each of his frenetic movements. You’ve come before with your own hand, but this — this is something different. Something far more intense, something that threatens to rip you apart from your very sanity until you know nothing but him.

You try and tell him you’re losing control but all that comes out is a pitiful whimper.

But he knows; he knows exactly what you need.

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. I’ve got you.” And with that, Sanemi rolls you back underneath him, settling into the cradle of your thighs and pushing his cock faster and deeper into you. His arms gently unwind yours from his shoulders, and he brings them up over your head, one large hand pinning them down.

“I’ll take care of you, sweet girl,” he promises, and he weaves the fingers of the hand keeping you pressed against the mattress with your own. “Just keep your legs around me.”

Your thighs squeeze his waist in silent answer, your mind far too suspended in the throes of your pleasure to do anything else.

With his lips trailing along your neck leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses in its wake, his free hand slides between your sweat-slicked bodies. He wedges it between where his groin is pressed to yours, and he searches along your sensitive, swollen folds, seeking the spot between your thighs that made you tremble and whine for him earlier.

You jolt under him as his fingers find you again, that foreign, electric sensation sparking deep in your abdomen. “Sanemi —“

“It’s okay,” he murmurs sweetly, pressing down on your clit until you arch further into him with a gasp. “It’s gonna feel so good, baby, I promise. Just focus on me.”

Each rotation of his hand against your sensitive bead matched the deep, pointed roll of his groin, with Sanemi capping the end of every powerful thrust with alternating pulses of his thumb. The pressure he uses mounts with every churn of his hips, and the moan vibrating in your chest as another surge of sticky wetness gushes from your thighs is the sweetest sound he thinks he’s ever heard.

A broken chant of please please please stutters its way out of you, spurning him to go faster; hit deeper.

And Sanemi only knows how to oblige you.

“You’re doing so fucking good, sweetheart. Just keep letting me take care of you —- that’s it.” He curses as you clench down around him, crying out in approval at his praise. “Yeah, yeah. You’re my fuckin’ girl, aren’t you?”

A single wail of his name is your only response, but it’s enough of a confirmation to damn you both.

“You are,” he affirms, his voice taking on the timber of a growl. “Mine. You’re fuckin’ mine.”

His thrusts grow sloppier with every second, though each is punctuated by a silent, recurring chant of mine, mine, mine. Though your eyes are closed, Sanemi can spy a faint sliver of white peeking out from between your eyelids.

You’re close; he can feel it. And he knows, as the walls of your cunt flutter and tighten around him, that your climax will be his undoing.

The hands he has pinned against the mattress over your head flex as you twist and writhe beneath him. your head tosses from from side to side, and the vibrato of your cries rises octave by octave. Every muscle in your body is tense; you are a live wire thrumming with a need to come apart that he knows you do not fully understand.

Sanemi grunts as he fucks you harder into your bed, no longer concerned with keeping his weight off you. He will show you; he will show you how to shatter, and then he too, will break.

But he needs to see you, first.

“Look at me,” his voice beckons you back from the precipice of ruin. “Look at me, Y/N.”

Your eyes open to meet his and suddenly you’re right back at that edge, only this time, you’re falling freely over it, plummeting down a drop that has no end.

“S-Sanemi —!” It’s all you can manage before the knot steadily building in your stomach unravels. Your back arcs sharply away from your bed, and Sanemi ducks his head to smother his own cry against your breast as he takes its tip into his hot mouth.

Your hips jerk and twitch against his, your cunt seizing around him with force that threatens to squeeze the life out of him. Above you, your arms strain and pull against his grip as you writhe and sing for him.

“That’s it baby, that’s it,” Sanemi’s praise is muffled against your sternum, though it is strangled as he nears his own end. “Fuck!“

He’ll have to buy you the morning-after pill tomorrow, he realizes as you continue to come apart so beautifully on his cock, a soft chant of his name the only thing on your lips. He will not force you to bear the consequences of his own selfishness; he will not saddle you with his burden.

But he’s also not strong enough to pull out; not when your body feels like it was made for him, not when your sweet cunt is gripping him this hard, is this wet — all because of him.

He is selfish and he is weak; it’s a toxic combination, and yet he knows cannot stop.

Sanemi’s hips snap a final time against yours, pushing them up and away from the mattress, pressing deeper than he thought possible. His eyes roll back as his own orgasm rocks through him, powerful and blinding, and the growl that built in his throat melts into a strained groan.

He holds you in place, his cock pulsing in time with your cunt while the two of you ride out the waves of your climax together, his cum steadily filling you with his warmth. Your hands skirt down the length of his arms, blindly searching for his hips. When you find him, you pull and tug, a faint whine sounding from the back of your throat. Sanemi answers your plea with a broken moan of his own and he rocks against you, your hips circling with his until he finally lets you collapse against your mattress, limp-limbed and exhausted.

He follows you down, smothering you with his weight as he clings to you like a lifeline, his face buried in the crook of your neck.

“Fuck, you did so good, sweetheart. So fuckin’ good.” He moans into your ear before he pulls back, his eyes searching your face as he pants.

One hand cradles your jaw and his thumb strokes repeatedly over the flushed curve of your cheek. “You okay?”

You don’t answer right away, your eyes shut tight, and Sanemi feels panic bubble hot in his stomach. The hand cupping your face tightens with his worried call of your name, his fear rearing its ugly head, ready to rip him apart, to turn him into the horrid monster he’s always known he was —

“I love you,” and then you’re peering up at him, eyes round and shining with emotion he does not deserve to feel. “I love you, Sanemi.”

It would’ve hurt less if you’d shot him.

Whatever wall remained around his heart cracks and crumbles under the weight of your confession. Sanemi does not answer, cannot find the words to adequately capture the depth of his feelings.

Instead, he snatches you up into his arms, crushing your body against his.

He kisses your lips and then your cheek. One hand cups the back of your head, his fingers burying into your hair as he presses your face into his chest. His arms tremble as he holds you close, every hard ridge of him cradled against your soft curves. He feels your smile against his collarbone, and the way your fingers dance up and down his spine that makes him melt.

It hits him, then. You aren’t waiting for an answer — you said it only so he would know, and you’d not expected anything in return.

All you’d done was give while he took and took. Your body. Your love.

He doesn’t deserve any of it.

Whatever or whomever came after this would never compare to you. Truthfully, Sanemi doesn’t think it would be worth trying anything different. Everything now began and ended with you — including him.

He twists his head to kiss you again and again, your lips meeting his with a sleepy enthusiasm.

He pants as he breaks away. “‘M gonna pull out — might be uncomfortable for a second.”

You wince at the sudden stab of cold left behind by Sanemi’s retreating warmth. He shifts back onto his knees and slides his hands down your thighs, parting them.

A low whistle blows past his lips. “Damn, I made a mess outta you.”

For a moment, Sanemi can’t tear his eyes away from the sight between your legs; the sight of him trickling out you, staining the sheets below. But some of that hot, possessive pride that wells in his chest tempers at the small smear of blood staining your inner thigh.

His fingers massage your legs in silent apology. “Let me clean you up.”

Your hands shoot to grasp at his shoulders, a pleading whimper on your lips. “Don’t leave — not yet.” You bite your lip, your eyes wide and anxious. “Please, can you just hold me for a bit?”

Sanemi’s eyes soften and his heart throbs painfully in his chest. He can’t imagine leaving you; not now, not ever. No matter how stupid and selfish that makes him.

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know the source of your anxiety — or that you didn’t have reason for it. Sanemi isn’t known for lingering.

But this is different — you’re different. You’re not some temporary distraction. You’re everything. His everything.

“Shhh,” he maneuvers you easily atop him, settling you in against the length of his torso, his hands smoothing up and down the column of your spine. “I’m staying right here, sweet girl. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He seals his promise with a gentle kiss against your forehead before laying his cheek against your temple, cradling you to his chest.

Finally, you relax against him, convinced. He lays with you for a long time after, one hand on the back of your head, his fingers rubbing against your scalp until you fall asleep on against him, safe and sound and warm.

Minutes pass, or maybe hours. But Sanemi’s head does not quiet, not even under the soothing sounds of your deep, slow breaths as you dream.

He must have lost his mind. There is no other explanation for the way he’s disregarded every rule, every boundary he’s ever made sense of, all in the name of you. In a single evening, you managed to obliterate every last defense, every barricade he’d safely cowered behind, and now that the castle has fallen, he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to do with the rubble.

What he does know is that there’s no putting things back to how they were.

His eyes search your sleeping face because if you were able to make him question nearly everything that made sense in his life, then surely you must also have the answers he needs to re-strike balance in his tilted world. Maybe they lie among the lashes that tickle your cheek, or in the occasional twitch of your mouth between your deep inhales.

But Sanemi is only left feeling more confused the longer he watches you. Because, despite the way he feels vulnerable and exposed at how easily he has been stripped of his guard, he can’t quite bring himself to believe it was entirely your doing.

His eyes widen. There’s his answer.

Perhaps you are not trying to sink your nails into his flesh to peel it back, to demand he be stripped to the bone for you to inspect, to scrutinize and use as you please.

Perhaps that is what you’ve done to yourself, and you’re waiting to see if you will join you; to know if he can volunteer his vulnerability, rather than wait for someone to come and force it from him.

He cannot make any promises. He has spent so much of his life cowering behind the armor he crafted out of his scars and his sneers and barks that were always more ferocious than his bite, that he does not know how to take it off. He does not know how to navigate the world without its weight, both his safety net and his chain. And there is an understanding in your eyes that signals you know that, too.

But he can try.

He mouths I love you against your hairline — he does not voice it, not yet, though it’s what he feels. But your love is a compass that just might point him down the road the leads to a life he so desperately wants; to you.

And he’ll get there, maybe.

In time.

LIKES, REBLOGS, COMMENTS APPRECIATED!

[acapelladitty]

NSFW Alphabet: Cooper Howard

Summary: A full NSFW alphabet for Cooper Howard/The Ghoul from Fallout (2024).

Fic Masterlist

Link to AO3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Pretends that he's not needing anything after sex but actually loves it when his partner wraps themselves around him like a second skin. Won't ever admit to it, but the way his arm snakes around to pull them even closer is hint enough to his real desires.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Likes his hands because they're quick and dexterous, and can justbas easily gut a gulper as they can seek out and tease a clit. Not much pride in his own appearance aside from that. He's also a tit man and the pillowy softness of them is so opposed to his own body that he only enjoys them more, usually with his mouth as much as his hands.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Sterile as all fuck, he can do what he wants with his cum and it makes no difference. Enjoys the taste and likes oral because of it. He does love for his partner to hold onto his cum though, either by swallowing or by pushing it back up their holes with his fingers. They earned it so they're going to keep it.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Has experimented with his new abilities as a Ghoul in some interesting and intense ways. Usually pushing the edge of pleasure and pain as he tests his own limits. His leathered skin is less sensitive than most so he's spent some of his more boring nights doing things to himself that would have a normal man in fucking hysterics.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He knows his way around a hole that's for sure. He slept with one or two folks before Barb but he was pretty monogamous after that despite the sleaze of his acting career. He and Barb did share a very healthy, vibrant sex life and he was eager to experience new things with her but nothing too outside of the 'vanilla' realm.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Seated with his partner riding his lap like any good cowgirl should. The close skin-to-skin contact, plus the easy access to their chest, makes it a firm favourite as he's generous with his tongue and teeth. Plus, it lets him enjoy their facial expressions and hold some eye contact as he drinks in their pleasure.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Never 'goofy' is a daft sense but isn't above using filthy talk and double entendres while cracking a wicked smirk. Lots of word play around his status as both a cowboy and a monster and he likes to remind his partner of BOTH of those facets of his personality.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Look at the poor cunt 😭 he's a great big baldy bastard with nary a pube on him. The only hair he has are the follicles that fall off the folk he occasionally scalps.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Surprisingly romantic given how gruff and generally detached he is, but only with a romantic partner. A random fuck gets a casual pump and dump while sex with a partner has some meaning for him and he likes to feel his partner close and ensure that they have a good time with him.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Not at the top of his priority list in the grand scheme of things. If he's feeling horny then he'll deal with it and leave the mess splattered on the ground where it fell.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Roleplay is a kink of his and he would be at his happiest role-playing a very traditional "cowboy saves a damsel and she's looking to repay the favour" type scene. His most 'out there' kinks include a mild touch of erotic cannibalism, ropework, and dom/sub dynamics relating to discipline and cnc.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Strong enough to make any vertical surface a viable spot for a fuck, there are very few areas that Cooper can't turn into a good spot for sex. His preference is for a bed though because he can be a lazy fucker when it suits him but that's an indulgence he's very rarely afforded.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Very easily motivated if he can sense his partner is down for a rough tumble in the sheets. All he needs is a WHIFF of a chance of hole and he'll be rubbing himself across you like a cat in heat. Hand straight to the groin like it was magnetic.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Sharing his partner? Oh no. He'd fucking kill any third party before they could do anything too untoward. He's jealous as hell and volatile with it as he claims so little in the shithole that is the wastelands. Will threaten to tie his partner up and leave them for the raiders and beasts but that's just a horny threat.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

One leftover from his previous life is his love of giving oral. His wife loved it and he loved receiving it in equal measure. However, with things as they are, he'd rather get his rocks off in warm hole when the opportunity and time arose.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Normally? Fast and rough. However, in the quieter moments when the sun hangs low and he feels relaxed enough to enjoy some time with his partner, he takes great pleasure in some slow and sensual sex.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Due to his circumstances, quickies are often the only option for some hole so if he and his partner are frisky then it's as and when the potential arises.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

I think choosing to fuck someone in the wastelands automatically qualifies as a considerable risk. But, yes. He's fond of risk and it's something that he'll continue to push and push until he's satisfied.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Ridiculous stamina. The kind of stamina that will have smoke pouring from your hole if he's not careful lol. As a ghoul, his skin is slightly desensitised so he can go for longer but usually only lasts one good round.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Not really a big fan of toys (finds his cock and mouth MORE than capable thank you VERY much) but will use easy-to-access objects like his lasso and knife for some kinky play.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Only teases when it's a game he's playing. Most of the time, he's looking for some quick, rough action that he and his partner can enjoy in their limited, quieter moments. In terms of vocal teasing? He's very quick to spout off with some sleazy promises and demands.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Tries to be very controlled but does have a tendency to grunt and growl a lot which makes him more animalistic than vocal in terms of his speech when he's fucking someone.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Cooper would like to eat a little bit of his partner if they were willing and had the bit going spare. Most of his meals are a necessity but to have a willing offering would be quite erotic and a big deal for him.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

His cock is the same shade as the rest of his skin but with a slightly deeper tone in his cockhead. Very average length but on the girthier side with a slight lean to the right when he's fully erect. No pubes, obviously.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Makes a lot of inappropriate comments and touches which would have you believing that he's constantly looking for some tail. That's only true because he tends to be hornier in high-stress situations which, unfortunately, is most of the time.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He doesn't sleep much and there's something possessive in him that makes him happier watching over his fucked-out partner as they sleep rather than sleeping himself.

[ashtavula]

Hi, I've been reading a lot of your work lately and I absolutely love them!

If it's not a bother can I request Jamil, Azul, Vil and Riddle with their S/O being the children of the great seven? Like they got isakaid there instead of yuu (I'm going to ask for all the Overblot boys because personally I think Idia, malleus and Leona are somehow related to the great seven, either a direct Descendants or distant relative)

Anyways thank you so much if you decide to do this and it's alright if you don't I just really love your writing style and works on the Overblot boys!!

This is a really interesting idea, considering all of the boys really respect the great seven!

Jamil, Azul, Vil, and Riddle with a reader who is the child of the great seven

Jamil:

-Jamil is usually reluctant to show off how smart he really is, but he feels like he has to prove his intelligence when he's with you. You are, after all, the child of the Sorcerer of the Sands. He fully believes that you must be just as wise as your father, even if you actually aren't.

-Jamil never refers to you by title, since it just reminds him that he's a servant, and you are the child of a grand vizier. He knows that you don't care, but he'd rather avoid bringing it up. Instead, he calls you habibi when you're both alone, and he can be more affectionate.

-He refuses to hear anything about you possibly returning to your home. Jamil knows that your father wouldn't approve of you dating a servant, and he can't stand the thought of losing you forever. All he can do is hope that you'll stay, against all odds.

Azul:

-Azul practically begs you to share what you know about your mother. He's always admired the Sea Witch, and he wants to know all there is to know. He'll light up if you reveal some of her wisdom to him, or show him how some of her magic was done.

-I assume that you're also an octopus mer, and that puts Azul at ease because you're like him. The two of you will both curl up in his octopot, giggling as his tentacles tangle with yours. Azul sweetly calls you his precious pearl as holds you, though he'll blush if you give him a pet name too.

-Azul is terrified that you'll leave him one day, and he tries his hardest to make you want to stay with him. He'll spoil you, and he constantly strives to prove that he's worthy of your love. He loves you too much to be able to bear losing you.

Vil:

-Vil doesn't want to push you too much, but the Fairest Queen is well-renowned for her poisons. Surely, you've learned from her, and can teach him. He also asks a lot about her beauty routines. He'll be ecstatic if you share any of her secrets with him.

-Vil adores being able to call you his beautiful prince/princess, and he tends to flaunt your relationship. He preens if you compliment him in return, and gets ridiculously happy if you call him your perfect prince. He feels tempted to record you telling him that, just so he can play it whenever he wants.

-He acts like he's not worried about you potentially leaving, but deep down he's scared that it will happen. He'd do just about anything to get you to stay with him, even if it meant facing off against the Fairest Queen.

Riddle:

-He gets even more serious about following the rules of the Queen of Hearts after realizing that she's your mother. Surely, you're pleased that he remembers all of them, right? Riddle would be baffled if you told him it wasn't necessary, or if you went so far as to criticize your mother for making up so many ridiculous rules.

-Riddle still refers to you by your title, but it's become a term of endearment. He'll kiss your hand as you stroll through the rose maze, and will affectionately call you his prince/princess. He also gets flustered if you refer to him as your prince. Or even better, your king.

-He worries that you miss your mother and your old home, but he desperately hopes that you'll stay with him. If it came down to you going back to your original place, Riddle would choose to go with you. Nothing is more important to him than his love for you.

[03jyh23]

— shooting stars!  || park seonghwa

loosely inspired by the drama shitting stars!

Most people aren’t interested in the truth. They just casually gossip to entertain themselves. No one takes responsibility for the caused pain.

idol!seonghwa x prmanager!reader

genre: angst, fluff, smut

trigger warnings: vanilla sex, honestly there's not much just kissing, touching, and... lovemaking. really soft smut. it's embarrassing, jealousy, argument, emotional distress, career-related stress, and difficult decisions

words: 8.2 k

reminder: what you're about to read is purely fiction, so let's keep it separate from reality.

!minors do not interact!

— hi there! this is my longest story so far! i've been working on it like crazy for the past few days and here we finally are. so the smut... it's not really a smut but still? i tried oh god, i feel so embarrassed but yeah i just decided to go for it. it's again requested work but i actually changed some of it to fit into my idea... anyway thank you so much for requesting!

love, monika. ♡

if you enjoyed this post, i'd be so grateful for a little love – a like or comment would truly make my day!

The office in Mapo-gu, Seoul, felt stiflingly hot, despite having already downed three cups of iced coffee. With the air conditioning out of order and repairs not scheduled until two days later, you found yourself drowning in a sea of work. Who would have imagined that working at a medium-sized entertainment agency would entail such an overwhelming workload? You should have felt grateful for landing this job, considering the effort you had put into securing it, but at times, it felt overwhelmingly demanding. Being the head of the PR department at KQ Entertainment was certainly something to boast about, especially after ATEEZ's success. You joined the company a few years back when you were the sole member of the PR team. If you claimed you believed in the company's success from the beginning, you'd be lying. When you first entered, fear outweighed optimism regarding the future. Indeed, it was no small feat for eight teenage boys to shoulder the weight of an entire company, but ATEEZ rose to the challenge with unwavering determination and passion. Now, with two active bands under KQ's wings, you find yourself constantly occupied.  

Managing the members of ATEEZ was undoubtedly a challenging task, and surprisingly, it wasn't due to any misbehavior on their part. Despite their young age and the temptations that come with fame, the ATEEZ members remained remarkably grounded and focused on their careers. You truly admired that. But when a band from such a small company starts gaining momentum, rumors are bound to circulate. Your main priority was to prevent those rumors from leaking. Which wasn't easy, as people can be cruel when they're envious. But still, to this day ATEEZ has not been involved in any major scandals, which made you proud.  

In a small company like KQ, everybody knows each other. Initially, stepping into that environment, you couldn't help but feel a bit nervous around the members of ATEEZ. Their presence seemed to exude a magnetic energy that was both captivating and intimidating. As you interacted with them more and more, you realized that their aura was indeed something special. Each member brought their own unique charm and personality to the table. You and the members of ATEEZ grew slightly closer than others, due to your similar ages, but it was Seonghwa who stood out to you the most. His effortless humor, kindness, and genuine care for others made him a favorite. Right from the start, you felt drawn to him. However, you maintained a professional demeanor, knowing all too well the potential consequences of getting too close, especially considering his status as an idol. But at some point, company dinners and parties became regular occasions, where you celebrated each of ATEEZ’s success together. And as the alcohol in your system increased, your professionalism decreased. Your bond with Seonghwa deepened, you found yourself drawn to him more than ever before. Whether it was sharing drinks, engaging in playful games, or simply relishing heartfelt conversations over company dinner, you cherished every moment spent in his company. With each passing interaction, your admiration for him grew, and before you knew it, you were falling head over heels for him. Despite the looming fear of crossing a line you couldn't return from; you couldn't resist him. What started as a professional relationship evolved into something much deeper and more profound. The shy touches and lingering glances exchanged between you spoke volumes, conveying emotions that words alone couldn't express. In the midst of loud music and bustling crowds, you found yourselves leaning closer to each other, seeking solace in the warmth of each other's presence. His hand naturally gravitated to your waist whenever you stood side by side, a silent yet undeniable declaration of the connection you shared. 

The day had been long and exhausting, and you were just about ready to call it quits when the sudden intrusion of your boss jolted you from your thoughts. Startled, you looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a look of excitement and urgency written across his face. 

"Y/N! Have you heard?" he exclaimed; his voice filled with anticipation. You blinked in surprise, your exhaustion momentarily forgotten as you leaned forward in your chair.  

"Heard what?" you asked, curiosity piqued. Your boss couldn't contain his grin as he delivered the news.  

"ATEEZ just sold out an entire US Tour!" The words hung in the air, sinking in slowly as you processed their significance. And then, without warning, a surge of elation washed over you, and before you knew it, you were on your feet, a joyful scream escaping your lips. 

"What?" you exclaimed, unable to contain your excitement. Without a second thought, you rushed forward, enveloping your boss in a tight hug, overcome with happiness at the incredible news. It was a moment of pure exhilaration, a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in ATEEZ's journey. The exhaustion of the day melted away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment. The excitement in your boss's voice was contagious as he patted your back, a wide grin spreading across his face.  

"We are celebrating tonight!" he declared with enthusiasm, his words echoing through the office. A surge of anticipation raced through you at the prospect of celebrating ATEEZ's incredible achievement.  

"Absolutely!" you replied eagerly, already picturing the party ahead. With a playful wink, your boss continued,  

"So go back to your place, doll up, and I'll see you here at 7 sharp!" You nodded enthusiastically, a smile stretching from ear to ear.  

"You got it!" You exclaimed, already mentally planning your outfit for the evening. As you made your way out of the office, the excitement of the impending celebration filled you with renewed energy. With a spring in your step and a heart full of anticipation, you packed up your belongings and bid farewell to the office for the day. The thought of celebrating ATEEZ's success and the prospect of finally seeing Seonghwa filled you with an infectious excitement that bubbled within you. As you made your way through the bustling streets, the anticipation only grew stronger. The familiar sights and sounds of the city seemed to fade into the background, overshadowed by the promise of the evening ahead. Tonight was a night for celebration, a chance to toast to ATEEZ's success and revel in the joy of being surrounded by friends and colleagues. But above all else, it was a night to be reunited with Seonghwa, and you couldn't wait to see where the evening would take you. With a smile on your face and excitement in your heart, you pushed open the door to your apartment.  

After a quick shower to freshen up and wash away the cares of the day, you set about styling your hair and applying my makeup with meticulous care. With the luxury of extra time on your hands, you paid attention to every detail to ensure that you looked and felt your best for the evening ahead. After finishing your make-up, you reached out for your phone resting on the nightstand, your heart skipping a beat as you saw Seonghwa's name flashing on the screen. A surge of excitement coursed through you as you answered the call, eager to hear his voice after what felt like an eternity apart. 

"Hello?" You said, your voice tinged with anticipation as you brought the phone to your ear, butterflies dancing in your stomach. 

"Hey, it's me," Seonghwa's voice came through the line, warm and familiar, sending a rush of warmth through you. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you replied,  

"Hi, Seonghwa. I was just thinking about you." There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a soft chuckle.  

"Funny, I was just thinking about you too," he said, his voice filled with warmth and affection. "I will see you tonight, right?"  

"Absolutely, I wouldn't miss it for anything," you replied without hesitation, "We definitely need to celebrate!" 

"Honestly, the only thing that matters is that I will finally see you," Seonghwa's voice came through the phone, filled with warmth and affection. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you replied,  

"Same here, Seonghwa. I've missed you." And as you exchanged a few more words of affection and excitement, you couldn't help but feel grateful for the opportunity to be reunited once more. With a renewed sense of anticipation and joy, you ended the call, a sense of warmth and happiness lingering in your heart. Tonight was going to be a night to remember, and you couldn't wait to see Seonghwa's smiling face once more. 

Choosing the perfect outfit for the evening was challenging. On one hand, you wanted to look your best – to make a memorable impression on Seonghwa after being apart for so long due to his overseas schedule. But on the other hand, you didn't want to appear overdressed or out of place at the party. After rummaging through your wardrobe for what felt like an eternity, you finally settled on something. Opting for a timeless and sophisticated look, you selected a classic black shirt for the evening's celebration. Deciding to add a touch of allure to the ensemble, you opted to leave the top few buttons of the shirt undone, revealing a hint of skin. It was a small gesture, but it added just the right amount of intrigue to the outfit. Paired with a simple black skirt that hit just in the middle of your tights, the combination was effortlessly sexy. The monochromatic palette created a sleek and cohesive look that was eye-catching. With a few carefully chosen accessories – a delicate, gold necklace, a pair of understated earrings, and a sleek clutch – you completed the outfit. As you admired your reflection in the mirror, a sense of excitement washed over you. Tonight was going to be a night to remember. 

You entered the company building, the air was filled with electric energy, a tangible sense of excitement pulsating through the air. Everywhere you looked, you could see signs of preparation – colorful balloons swaying gently in the breeze, banners hanging from the walls, and a festive atmosphere that filled the space with warmth and joy. A smile spread across your lips as you took in the sight before you, feeling a surge of excitement building within you. It was clear that everyone had gone to great lengths to ensure that tonight's celebration would be a night to remember, a fitting tribute to ATEEZ's incredible achievement. With each step you took, the anticipation continued to build, fueled by the excitement of finally being reunited with Seonghwa and the rest of the ATEEZ members. After exchanging greetings with everyone and soaking in the festive atmosphere, you found yourself nestled in a cozy corner of the room, a drink in hand. As you scanned the bustling room, your heart skipped a beat with each familiar face that passed by, hoping to catch sight of Seonghwa among the crowd, but he was nowhere to be found.  

"Y/N!" As you heard your name called from across the room, you turned your head in the direction of the sound. Through the sea of people, you spotted a familiar face. 

"San!" You greeted him enthusiastically as he approached, a genuine smile spreading across your face at the sight of him. San was always such a warm and friendly presence, and you were genuinely glad that he had come over to you. "Congratulations!" you exclaimed as San pulled you in a warm hug. With a smile, you pulled back from the hug, meeting his gaze with genuine happiness in your eyes. "I'm so happy for you, San," you said sincerely, knowing that his success was well-deserved.  

"It's truly incredible," San replied, a smile tugging at his lips as he raised his glass to clink it against yours. The sound of glass meeting glass echoed through the room, a toast to success. "It's moments like these that make all the hard work worth it," San said, you nodded with agreement. "Here's to many more successes and celebrations to come." with a smile, you took another sip of your drink, savoring the moment and feeling grateful for the opportunity to share it with a friend like San. 

''Y/N! You look amazing!' You didn't notice when Hongjoong approached you, 

"Thank you!" You replied, feeling a rush of warmth at his words. Before you could react, Hongjoong took your hand and spun you around gently, causing laughter to bubble up from within you. His eyes scanned you appreciatively, and you felt a blush rise to your cheeks under his gaze. It was a simple gesture, but it filled you with a sense of happiness.  

"Am I interrupting something?" As the question hung in the air, you turned your gaze away from Hongjoong and met Seonghwa's eyes, feeling a rush of emotions wash over you. His presence seemed to fill the room, drawing you in with an intensity that was both exhilarating and unnerving. For a moment, time seemed to stand still as you locked eyes, a silent exchange passing between you both. In that moment, it felt as though the rest of the world faded away, leaving only the two of you standing there, caught in a moment. 

"No, not at all," you replied, as you tore your gaze away from Seonghwa's, turning back to face San and Hongjoong. "We were just catching up." your mind remained fixed on Seonghwa, unable to shake the feeling of his presence lingering in the air.  

"I was just telling her how amazing she looks tonight," As Hongjoong's words filled the air, a warm smile spread across your face at his kind gesture. It was a small reassurance amid the tension that lingered between Seonghwa and you, 

"Thank you, Hongjoong," you replied with genuine gratitude, meeting his gaze briefly before turning back to face Seonghwa once more. His eyes bore into yours, and you couldn't help but wonder what thoughts lay behind Seonghwa's gaze. 

''We will leave you two alone and say hi to the rest of the team.'' San spoke, as he took Hongjoong by his arm, and pulled him behind. 

"Of course," you replied, nodding in understanding as San and Hongjoong made their way towards the rest of the team. They disappeared into the crowd, leaving you alone. For a moment, neither of you spoke, the silence between you filled with unspoken words and unresolved tension. 

“I don’t like the way they look at you” Seonghwa's words hung in the air, breaking the silence with a weight that you couldn't ignore. His voice was soft, tinged with a hint of concern that sent a shiver down your spine. You couldn't help but feel a mix of surprise and curiosity at his sudden confession.  

"What do you mean?" you asked. There was a depth to his words that hinted at something more, and you found yourself holding your breath, waiting for him to elaborate. Seonghwa sighed, his expression troubled as he struggled to find the right words.  

"I mean... I just don't like the way they look at you," he confessed, his voice strained with emotion. His admission caught you off guard, and you were at a loss for how to respond. "It drives me crazy." As he downed his drink in one swift motion, you could see the tension in his shoulders easing slightly.  

"Seonghwa, are you... jealous?" you asked tentatively, your heart pounding in your chest. His eyes widened at your question, and for a moment, he was speechless. 

"Jealous?" Seonghwa repeated, seemingly taken aback by your question. He looked at you, his eyes searching yours as if he was trying to find the answer himself. After a moment of silence, he let out a soft chuckle, his gaze dropping to his hands. "Maybe I am," he finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. The intensity of his confession made your heart flutter, and a blush crept up your cheeks. You watched as he ran a hand through his hair, a sign of his nervousness that you had come to recognize. 

"I just... I care about you, you know?" He looked up at you, his eyes filled with an emotion that you hadn't seen before. It was a look of protectiveness, of possessiveness, but also of vulnerability. And in that moment, you realized that perhaps Seonghwa's feelings ran deeper than you had initially thought. Your moment was abruptly interrupted by someone calling his name from across the room. Your heart sank slightly, realizing that you wouldn't have the opportunity to delve deeper into the conversation. Seonghwa glanced at you apologetically, his expression filled with regret. 

"I'll be right back," he promised, his voice tinged with disappointment. You nodded in understanding, offering him a reassuring smile despite the lingering questions in your mind.  

"Take your time," you replied, watching as he made his way through the crowd, his figure disappearing into the throng of people. Left alone with your thoughts, you couldn't help but wonder about the true meaning behind Seonghwa's words. His confession had stirred up a whirlwind of emotions within you, and you longed for the chance to delve deeper into it. But for now, all you could do was wait, hoping for the opportunity to continue your conversation when the time was right.  

As the night wore on, you found yourself swept up in a whirlwind of conversations and celebrations, the opportunity to continue the conversation with Seonghwa slipping further and further away with each passing moment. Seonghwa seemed to be caught up in the festivities as well, pulled in different directions by the demands of the evening. Despite your best efforts to find a moment alone with him, the bustling atmosphere of the party made it difficult to carve out the time for a private conversation. Seonghwa was constantly surrounded by friends and colleagues, and you found yourself pulled in different directions as well, engaging in lively discussions and catching up with the rest of the team.  

The atmosphere in the company was quiet, with only the faint echoes of the recent party lingering in the air. As the party slowly wound down and the last of the guests trickled out of the door, you found yourself alone in the room, left to clean up the aftermath. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps approached, and you turned to find Seonghwa lingering in the doorway.  

"Can I help you clean up?" he asked, his voice gentle and earnest. You nodded, appreciating his offer of help and the chance to speak with him once again. 

"Of course, thank you, Seonghwa." You replied, welcoming his company. Together, you started to pick up the scattered cups and plates, the silence between you comfortable yet filled with anticipation. Seonghwa worked diligently, making quick work of the mess. You watched him out of the corner of your eye, admiring his focus. When he finished, he looked up and met your gaze, a small smile playing on his lips. 

"It's much easier with two people," he commented, breaking the silence. You agreed and thanked him again for his help. The room was now clean, but neither of you made a move to leave. Seonghwa finally broke the silence.  

"About what I said earlier," he began, hesitating slightly. You nodded, indicating that you were listening. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts before he continued. "I meant what I said. I care about you... more than I probably should." His words echoed in the empty room; the atmosphere suddenly heavy. You looked at him, surprised by his confession but also relieved. His feelings mirrored your own, and you found yourself smiling at him. 

"I care about you too, Seonghwa," you replied, his face lit up at your words, and for the first time that evening, you felt a sense of peace wash over you. 

"Can I kiss you?" His words sent a thrill of anticipation coursing through you, and without hesitation, you reached out to gently cup his face in your hands. 

"Yes," you whispered, Seonghwa’s eyes twinkled with happiness at your answer. You could feel your heart pound against your chest in anticipation. Seonghwa’s touch was gentle yet commanding as he pulled you closer by your waist, drawing you into his embrace with a magnetic force that was impossible to resist. As his touch sent shivers cascading down your spine, your body reacted instinctively, responding to the electrifying sensation with an intensity that took your breath away. Every nerve seemed to ignite with a fiery spark as his fingertips grazed your skin, leaving a trail of tingling sensation. Seonghwa's lips were warm and soft against yours, each gentle brush sending sparks of electricity dancing across your skin. The moment his lips met yours, everything around melted away. All you could feel was him; his lips on yours, his heartbeat echoing your own. The kiss was soft, tender, filled with all the emotions that had been building up between you. With each press of Seonghwa’s lips against yours, you felt yourself melting into his touch, losing yourself in the intoxicating sensation of his embrace. Your heart pounded furiously in your chest, a steady rhythm echoing the urgency of the desire that coursed through you. With each caress, your senses were heightened, attuned to every nuance of his touch. It was as if a spark had been ignited within you, setting your entire being ablaze with a fierce longing that threatened to consume you whole.  

"Seonghwa, we shouldn't," you whispered breathlessly against his lips as you pulled away, a pang of hesitation gnawing at your heart.  

"Why not?" He murmured, his breath hitching as he stared at you with a look of surprise and confusion. His words resonated within you, forcing you to confront the fear that had been lingering at the back of your mind. You swallowed hard, your mind wrestling with the feelings that had been building up inside you. 

"You're an idol, Seonghwa, and I... I work for your PR team," you started, your voice barely a whisper. You watched as the confusion in his eyes shifted to understanding, his grip on your waist loosening slightly. "The rules... the... the consequences," you stuttered, your heart pounding as you tried to put your fears into words. "We could get caught... I could lose my job... and it could ruin your career." For a moment, Seonghwa was silent, absorbing your words. You could see the struggle in his eyes, the battle between his feelings and the harsh reality of the world you both lived in. But then, he pulled you closer, his eyes never leaving yours. 

"I understand," he said softly, his voice barely audible over the pounding in your chest. "But I can't help how I feel about you. We'll figure this out... together." You tried to say something, to voice the concerns still swirling in your mind, but Seonghwa shook his head and placed a finger on your lips.  

"Shhh... I've waited too long for this," he murmured, and before you could respond, he leaned in once again, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss that left no room for argument. His touch was electrifying, his lips hungry and insistent against yours, and you found yourself returning his fervor with equal intensity. There was no gentleness, no tender caresses. Instead, your kiss was raw and unbridled, fueled by a primal hunger that threatened to consume you both. With each brush of your lips, the barriers that had once held you back crumbled, giving way to an overwhelming surge of desire. In the heat of the moment, there was no room for hesitation or doubt. All that mattered was the fiery connection that blazed between you, igniting a flame that burned brighter with each passing second. And as you lost yourselves in the intoxicating rush of passion, you knew that there was no turning back. As the world around you melted away, you found the courage to voice the words that had been on the tip of your tongue.  

"Let's go to my place," you breathed out, your heart pounding in your chest as you waited for his response. Seonghwa looked at you, a slight surprise in his eyes. Then a slow smile spread across his face, transforming his features into a look of pure happiness.  

"I'd love to," he replied, his voice husky. You reached out, gently grasping Seonghwa's wrist and pulling him to follow you. His eyes widened slightly in surprise, but there was a glimmer of excitement mirrored in their depths. With a sense of urgency, you swiftly took your purse. Every movement was propelled by a heady mix of anticipation and desire, your heart pounding in rhythm with the rapid pace of your thoughts. As you made your way to the back door, Seonghwa paused for a moment, reaching for his jacket, glasses, and a mask before stepping outside. You were struck by his thoughtfulness and attention to detail. In that simple gesture, you saw a glimpse of the considerate and caring person he was beneath the surface. With a soft smile, you followed, grabbing your own jacket and slipping on a mask before joining Seonghwa outside. The cool night air greeted you as you stepped onto the pavement, wrapping you in its embrace. Feeling the warmth of Seonghwa's hand intertwining with yours sent a jolt of electricity. With your fingers intertwined, you set off together, following the familiar way that would lead you to your apartment. You couldn't help but feel a sense of gratitude as you made your way through the quiet streets, it was a relief to know that your apartment was only a short distance away from the company. 

As soon as the door to your apartment closed behind you, Seonghwa pulled you hard into his chest, your bodies pressing on each other. His kisses became more urgent, his grip on you tighter as if he was afraid you would disappear. His lips found yours in a passionate kiss that left you breathless, his taste intoxicating, leaving you wanting more. In this moment, there was no room for remorse or second thoughts, only the overpowering need for each other. You were lost in him, in the overwhelming sensation of his touch, his taste, his scent. As the intensity of your shared passion escalated, Seonghwa moved to unbutton your shirt, his fingers trembling slightly with anticipation. 

"Wait," you murmured, pulling back just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark and filled with desire, but he stopped at your words, his hands coming to rest on your waist as he waited for you to continue. "I... I just want to make sure we're both on the same page," you said softly, voice trembling slightly with the weight of the moment. "I care about you, Seonghwa, more than I can put into words. But I want it to mean something, for both of us." As you spoke, you searched his expression for any sign of hesitation or doubt, but all you found was a profound sense of understanding and respect. In that moment, you were sure that Seonghwa shared your desire for something deeper, something more meaningful than just physical intimacy. His lips curved into a tender smile, and he reached up to gently cup your cheek in his hand.  

"I understand," he whispered, his voice filled with sincerity. "I want this to mean something too, Y/N. More than anything. I’m not leaving you." With those words, the last of your doubts melted away, leaving only a sense of trust and connection between you. His touch, careful and loving, trailed down your body, taking the time to appreciate every inch of you. Seonghwa’s fingers traced over your skin, leaving a trail of warmth and desire in their wake. He took his time, his hands exploring you as if he was memorizing every curve, every line of your body. Your hands found their way to his hair, tugging gently at the soft strands. He let out a soft groan, his hot breath fanning against your skin, sending shivers down your spine. His lips found yours again, stealing your breath away with the intensity of the kiss. His hands moved to the buttons of your shirt, unbuttoning it and tossing it aside. His gaze was full of admiration and desire as he looked at you, his eyes taking in your form.  

"You're beautiful, Y/N," he murmured against your lips, his voice low and filled with emotion. You blushed, a smile spreading across your lips at his words. Seonghwa leaned in, pressing kisses along your neck, collarbones, down to your chest. His hands finally moved to unclasp your bra, letting it fall to the floor. His touch was electrifying, each kiss sending waves of pleasure through your body. Seonghwa was patient, taking his time to make you feel loved, and cherished. He moved lower, his lips trailing down your stomach, making you gasp with anticipation. You arched into his touch, your fingers tangling in his hair, guiding him closer to where you needed him. "So impatient," Seonghwa commented as he moved back up, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him closer. Craving the feel of his skin against yours, your hands moved to his shirt, unbuttoning it and pushing it off his shoulders. You took a moment to admire him, your gaze trailing over his muscular chest, and the defined abs. Seonghwa was beautiful, every inch of him perfect. You reached out, your fingers tracing over his skin, feeling the warmth radiating from him. Seonghwa’s hands roamed your body, the touch igniting a fire within you. He moved lower once again, his lips trailing down your stomach, making you gasp with anticipation. His hands moved to your skirt, unzipping it and sliding it down your legs. Seonghwa’s lips found the skin on your thighs, his hands gently creasing them, each touch sending waves of desire coursing through you. His lips moved up your tight, his lips finding all your sensitive spots, making you arch your back and gasp out his name. You felt his breath dangerously close to your panties, which by now were soaked completely with your arousal.  

"Seonghwa," you moaned, your voice thick with longing as you arched your back, surrendering to the intoxicating sensations that washed over you. "Not here," you murmured, your voice trembling as looked down on him with a mixture of desire and urgency. "Bedroom... Let's go to the bedroom." Seonghwa, with a deep and magnetic gaze that held you captive, guided you gently towards the bedroom. He led you to the edge of the bed, his hands never leaving your body. Carefully, with an affectionate touch, he laid you down on the soft sheets. Seonghwa's gaze was intense but tender, as if he was committing every detail of you to memory. The look in his eyes held a fervor that was both thrilling and comforting. The last piece of your clothing was slowly discarded, your lace panties landing softly on the floor. His hands, now free to explore, traced a path of heat down your bare body, each touch igniting a spark of anticipation. He kissed you deeply, a promise of more to come, before his eyes met yours once more. Seonghwa's gaze was full of adoration and hunger, a testament to the intimate connection that was about to deepen. Slowly, Seonghwa began to undress himself, his movements unhurried and deliberate. As the last piece of his clothing dropped to the floor, he positioned himself atop you, his bare skin against yours sending tremors of desire coursing through your veins. His eyes continued to hold your gaze, their depths reflecting the shared anticipation of the intimate moment that was about to unfold. 

"Is this alright?" Seonghwa whispered against your lips. 

"Yes," you murmured, your voice barely more than a whisper, "Yes, Seonghwa... I'm yours." Your affirmation seemed to ignite something within him. A slow, intoxicating smile spread across his face, his dark eyes twinkling with a mixture of love, desire, and a hint of possessiveness that sent shivers down your spine. His gaze never wavered from yours, maintaining eye contact as he leaned down, his lips meeting yours in a searing, passionate kiss. One of his hands, tender and firm, cradled your face, his thumb gently brushing against your cheeks. With the other one he steadied himself between your legs, and you finally felt him entering you slowly and gently, his movements measured and full of care. The feeling was intoxicating, overwhelming in its intensity but filled with a tenderness that only Seonghwa could provide. As Seonghwa moved, you felt a surge of pleasure that left you gasping, your fingers trailing over his back, your nails gently digging into his skin. His name fell from your lips in a breathless whisper, the syllables intertwining with the soft moans and gasps that filled the room. Each thrust heightened the pleasure, building up tension that had you moaning his name louder. He responded to your every sound, his movements shifting and adapting to your responses. It was as if he was attuned to every part of you, each touch designed to elicit the maximum pleasure. 

"Seonghwa," you moaned, as he continued to move, his rhythm steady and deliberate. He looked down at you, his gaze filled with love and desire, his expression mirroring the pleasure coursing through you. "I’m close" you whimpered as the pleasure started to overwhelm you. 

"I know, baby," he responded, his voice low and soothing. His eyes never left yours, holding your gaze as the room around you both seemed to fade. Each of his movements were measured, calculated to draw the maximum response from you. He knew exactly what you needed, when you needed it, and he wasn't afraid to take his time in delivering it. Seonghwa was completely in tune with your body, knowing just how to touch you, how to move, to bring you to the edge. A gasp escaped your lips as his rhythm increased, the intensity building as he moved. His name was a whispered prayer on your lips, the only word you could manage as you clung to him. The world around you narrowed to the feeling of him, the sight of him, the sound of him, the scent of him. 

"Let go baby," he murmured against your ear, his voice a soothing balm, grounding you in the moment. With a few more deep movements, he guided you both to the peak of your shared pleasure. The feeling was indescribable, a release of tension that left you both panting and gasping for breath. And through it all, Seonghwa was there with you, his gaze never leaving yours, his love and desire for you clear in his eyes. As the waves of pleasure subsided, Seonghwa collapsed beside you, pulling you into his arms. He held you close, his heart beating in time with yours as you both lay there in silence, the echoes of your shared climax still reverberating through your bodies. Seonghwa’s fingers traced idle patterns on your skin, a soothing gesture that eased the lingering tremors racking your body. His lips pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, the tenderness of the gesture making your heart flutter. 

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. His concern was palpable, his eyes searching yours for any sign of discomfort. You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips.  

"More than okay," you assured him, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from his sweaty forehead. His answering smile was warm and genuine, a sight that never failed to make your heart skip a beat. 

"Good," he murmured, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. His breathing slowly became more regular, his body relaxing as he basked in the afterglow. You laid there, tangled in each other's arms, your heartbeats syncing in the quiet. There was no need for words now, the silence between you was comfortable and familiar. As you drifted off to sleep, his arms tightened around you.  

You were suddenly awakened by the sound of Seonghwa's voice, harsh and irritated, a stark contrast to the gentle tone you had grown accustomed to. His distressed voice pierced the calm tranquility of the early morning as he was on the phone, pacing around the room with furrowed brows, clearly in frustration. As you sat up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you noticed your phone blinking on the bedside table. Forty-three missed calls. A wave of chilly dread filled you as you unlocked your phone to see the flood of messages and notifications. The first one you clicked on made your heart drop. Pictures of you and Seonghwa, walking to your apartment, your hands intertwined, were plastered all over various media outlets. The headlines screamed about Seonghwa's secret relationship, a shocking revelation that seemed to have hit the fandom like a lightning bolt. The comments section was a whirlpool of emotions - shock, betrayal, and surprisingly, support. As you scrolled through the articles, you could barely register the words. This was your worst nightmare coming to life, the very reason you hesitated to start a relationship with Seonghwa in the first place. Seonghwa finished his call and turned to you, his face unnaturally pale.  

"It's all over the news," he said, his voice barely a whisper. The room felt suffocating as a heavy silence descended upon it, both of you too stunned to utter a word. The reality of the situation was sinking in, unfolding a terrifying scenario that you both had dreaded. Your mind was racing, scrambling to make sense of the situation. All your worst fears were coming to life - the fear of getting caught, of losing your job, and of potentially damaging Seonghwa's career. This was the adverse consequence of your secret relationship, the one you had feared and tried to prevent from the very beginning. Yet, amidst the turmoil, you couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. Your anger flared as you dialed your boss's number, your hands shaking as you held the phone to your ear. He picked up on the second ring, his voice tense, 

"You need to do your job and stop this information from spreading," he demanded, his tone cold and unyielding. You felt your heart clench at his words, a bitter laugh escaping your lips as you fired back,  

"How am I supposed to do that when I'm the one involved?" The line crackled with tension as you braced yourself for your boss's response, knowing that your conversation was about to take a heated turn. 

"You're involved!?" His voice was sharp, laced with disbelief and a hint of anger. "How could you let this happen, Y/N? Do you have any idea what kind of mess you've gotten yourself into?" His words hit you like a slap in the face, and you felt a surge of anger rising within you.  

"I didn't 'let' anything happen," you shot back, your own voice rising with frustration. "This isn't something I planned or wanted. And as for the mess, believe me, I'm well aware of it." There was a tense pause on the other end of the line, the silence filled with unspoken accusations and bitter recriminations. You could practically feel your boss's disappointment radiating through the phone, a heavy weight pressing down on you with each passing second. 

"We need to contain this," he said finally, his tone clipped and businesslike. "Handle the damage control on our end, write a press release. Stay out of the public eye, keep your head down, and for god's sake, don't make things worse." You clenched your jaw, struggling to keep your emotions in check as you listened to his instructions.  

"And what about Seonghwa?" you demanded, unable to suppress the edge of desperation in your voice. There was another pause, longer this time, as your boss considered his response.  

"Seonghwa knew what he was getting into when he chose this life," he said finally, his voice oddly cold and unsympathetic. "He's a public figure, and he needs to accept the consequences of his actions. Just like you do." The words hung between you, a bitter reminder of the harsh reality you were both facing. As you hung up the phone, a sense of resignation settled over you, knowing that no matter how much you wanted to protect Seonghwa, there were forces at play far beyond your control. Seonghwa, who had been a silent witness to your conversation, finally broke his silence. His sobs filled the room, each one stabbing you like a knife to the heart. You turned to him, your eyes filled with regret and sorrow.  

"I was supposed to be the one protecting you," you said, your voice choked with tears. You could see the pain in his eyes, reflecting your own as you confessed, "This was a mistake. I'm going to get fired, Seonghwa. There's no future for us." His face crumpled at your words, a look of utter devastation replacing his earlier confusion. 

"No, Y/N, please..." he pleaded, his voice cracking with emotion. "I can't lose you." he retorted, his voice filled with a mixture of anger and despair. His words hit you like a punch to the gut. As the silence settled in the room, you felt a lump forming in your throat. The harsh reality of the situation was too overwhelming to comprehend. The words that had been exchanged between you two still echoed in your ears, haunting you. The room, once filled with love and warmth, now felt cold and distant. The air was heavy with unspoken words and suppressed emotions. Seonghwa, his eyes red and swollen from crying, looked at you. His usual cheerful demeanor was now replaced with a look of sadness and despair. He seemed like a completely different person. Seeing him like this broke your heart even more, the reality of the situation dawning on you. 

"I... I need some time," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He got up from the bed, picked up his clothes from the floor and walked towards the bathroom, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You sat there, numb and silent, as you processed everything that had happened. You felt a sense of guilt wash over you, realizing that your actions had led to this mess. Picking up your phone, you answered the incoming call from one of the reporters.  

"This is a delicate matter, and we are currently fact-checking all the information," you replied, maintaining a professional tone. "We will be releasing an official press statement soon regarding the matter. Thank you for your understanding." 

For the next several minutes, you found yourself answering a seemingly endless stream of phone calls, bombarded with the same questions over and over again. "Who is this girl?" "Is it really Seonghwa?" "Is it official?" With each call, your heart ached a little more, the reality of the situation sinking in. You were the reason behind this mess, and with each question, the weight of your actions became increasingly clear. Seonghwa finally emerged from the bathroom, he was fully dressed, his hair neatly combed back, and his face, although still showing signs of distress, was more composed. He settled down next to you, the distance between you heavy with unspoken tension. You could feel his gaze burning into you, his eyes searching for answers in the depths of your own. But as he heard you denying what happened during countless phone calls, a flicker of hurt flashed across his features, overshadowing the mask of composure he had worn moments before. 

"Y/N," he began, his voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and disappointment. "Why are you doing this? We can't keep pretending like nothing happened." His words cut through the silence like a knife, leaving you speechless in their wake. You could feel the weight of his gaze bearing down on you, demanding honesty in the face of your denial. But as you met his eyes, you saw the pain reflected in their depths, and a pang of guilt surged through you. You had hurt him deeply with your words, and now, as you continued to deny the truth, you were only adding to his anguish. Tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you turned away, unable to meet Seonghwa’s gaze any longer. In that moment, you felt more alone than ever, trapped in a web of lies and deceit from which there seemed to be no escape.  

Once the calls ended, with a heavy heart, you began to draft a press release denying the rumors. As you typed, your mind raced with thoughts of how to properly word your denial, how to ensure that it would put an end to the rampant speculation. Seonghwa, who had been observing silently, finally spoke up, his tone filled with discontent. "Why are you denying it?" he asked, his eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and frustration. 

"Seonghwa, we have to," you tried explaining,  

"No, we don't," he retorted, his voice steady and determined. "We don't have to lie. We don't have to hide." 

"Seonghwa, we can't just admit to this. The backlash... it could ruin your career," you argued, your voice tinged with desperation. 

"And what? We lie? We hide?" Seonghwa countered, his voice filled with frustration.  

"We need to think about the consequences. The fans, the company... it's not just us we have to consider." you countered, trying to maintain your composure. 

"I don't care about that," he said, his voice softening. "I care about you. I care about us. I don't want to lie about that." 

"But this isn't just about us. There are other people involved. Our actions have consequences." you responded, your voice breaking slightly. 

"I know that" he said, his tone resolute. "But isn't our relationship worth fighting for?" he asked, his voice filled with concern. As the weight of your situation bore down, you felt the sting of desperation clawing at your heart, driving you to speak words you knew would hurt Seonghwa deeply. 

"What relationship are you even talking about, Seonghwa? We hadn't even had a 'what-are-we' talk, and everything is ruined," you spat out, your voice laced with bitterness and regret. "We kissed less than 24 hours ago, and now we're all over the news." The words spilled out of you like poison, each one laced with the bitter taste of reality. You could see the pain flicker across Seonghwa's face, his eyes clouding with hurt and confusion. But you couldn't stop yourself, couldn't hold back the flood of emotions threatening to consume you. "We need to protect you," you continued, your voice trembling with emotion. "There's no 'us' in this, Seonghwa. It's just you, and your career, and the future you've worked so hard for. I won't let you throw it all away for me." Tears welled up in your eyes, blurring your vision as you turned away, unable to bear the weight of Seonghwa's gaze any longer. In that moment, you knew that you had hurt him deeply, but you couldn't bring yourself to regret those words. For better or worse, they were the truth, the raw, unfiltered truth that lay at the heart of your impossible situation. 

"You don't get to decide that" Seonghwa replied, his voice steady despite the turmoil beneath his calm exterior. "You don't get to decide what I throw away or keep. It's my life, my career, my future. And you... you're a part of that, whether you like it or not." His words hung heavy in the air, an undeniable truth that weighed down on your heart. "We're in this together, and I'm not letting you walk away just because you're scared. So, let's face this together. Let's fight for 'us', for our future. Because, in my eyes, there's no 'me' without 'us'." You stared at him, your heart pounding. His words echoed in your mind, raw and powerful. The intensity in his gaze was almost too much to bear. Could you really fight for this? For him? Suddenly, the weight of your decision seemed more significant, more daunting. 

"I... I don't know, Seonghwa," you stuttered, your voice barely a whisper. "I don't know if I can do this. If I can put you at risk like that." 

But Seonghwa just shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. "That's not for you to decide," he countered gently. "I'm ready to face whatever comes our way. And I want you by my side. So, will you fight with me?" 

[digi-lov]

Alright guys here's my spoiler free opinion on Digimon Liberator Episode 0 and 1, and with spoilers under the cut.

Also starting next week I will also reblog Digimon Liberator stuff with the tag #Digimon Liberator spoilers, so make sure to blacklist/filter that if you want!

Ok, so I feel like the series had a good start! (besides the technical issues, but they fixed them within the first day)

To me, the main characters felt likable from the start! Both of them being passionate about Digimon (and the card game), and being in their late teens, makes them more relatable to the current audience of Digimon.

The art is great, love the colors, the characters are very expressive— And I think they did a good job visualizing the card game play.

Even if you don't know how the game works, it's simple enough to follow, and there are basic explanations when needed. With the colors and expressions and everything, it just all looks fun and it is fun to read!

While I don't have a lot of experience reading webcomic, and thus can't really compare it, I felt the artist used the layout of the vertcial medium well! I also felt like Chapter 1 had a decent length, considering its bi-weekly release, it didin't feel like we didn't get enough content for the wait.

Maybe I'm just a little too excited about another Digimon series, but I'm very much looking forward to reading more!

Ok for those who read it or don't mind spoilers

Something that really stood out to me is that the Digimon themselves just look really great!

Like I said above, the visual representation of the card game mechanics is done really well, and looks great!

I am also curious if the characters will continue to have multiple partner digimon? I love Muchomon and Junkmon as partners, and I how Pteromon and Shoemon don't completely replace them!

They also set up a decent amount of intrigue- Owen seems to be famous and popular, but Zenith is a newcomer who quickly rose up! He also participated in the Liberator beta! What kind of person is he, and how did he get to play the beta if he is new to the game? Who is the pretty mystery girl? Looking at promotional material she appears to be partnered with a Sunalizamon.

What is going on with that rogue NPC? Why are they chasing Shoemon? What's up with Pteromon? What does it mean by "This is my Island!"?

I don't know what to say guys, I'm just happy for more Digimon content in my life

[slasherstation]

I hate when people just water down like falin as like a “female version” of laios. Like they’re similar but not the same. Like i feel like it’s such a disservice to her character lowkey. It’s like characters can’t exist without their interactions with laios or laios in general. They both have autism but their traits manifested in two different. They can both be calm and gentle but laios is more direct and extroverted compared to falin.

It’s very true that they’re treated differently when they both have autistic traits and are seen as differently. Which is ironic since they both ARE similar. However i hate that people say she’s just a female version of her brother or like act like she’s toshiro/shuro’a manic pixie dream girl. Like why can’t she exist by herself without her relationship with men/being compared to her male brother.

It IS weird how he dislikes laios and not falin when they’re both autistic. However he relates more to falin which is why he liked her more. They’re both more reserved and aren’t open about their feelings. Also they share the same interest of bugs which is another reason why he liked her. The anime didn’t really do well showing that which sucks.

I completely understand what people mean but at the same time I feel like calling them the exact same person isn’t true. Especially when the way they interact with characters say so much different.

[the-cards-she-wont-show]

TTPD Twin Storylines weaved together & double meanings throughout! ✌️👯‍♀️💕

Attention ALL Swifties (particularly Gaylors) and associates of the Tortured Poets department

PLEASE READ!! (and read with an open mind!!)🤍

Listening to the amazing TTPD on repeat this past week, I am certain that I have made an important discovery that I haven't seen talked about anywhere else yet and would like to get the coversation going, in hopes that Taylor will see that we are all finally listening to her! I'm still piecing everything together, as there is so much to unravel and am far from calling myself an expert on her exact timelines and dates, so am looking forward to hearing thoughts from others that are more knowledgable in her history.

I have been of the belief for a while now that Mastermind and Dear Reader were foretelling of her future, and also that the album title had a double meaning (evidenced by the lack of apostrophe in 'poets'). That the tortured poet would be departing. Note that I am also a believer that she has been closeted by those closest to her and is preparing to ruin her name and perceived reputation, give up the false public version of herself and come into her own true self. Everything as we know it will be destroyed and it is all playing out now, coming together as part of her plan.

Falling in line with all of the two's - the double album, the double meaning in the album name, the two sides of taylor etc, I have found that there are two intertwining stories told throughout her tracklist, AND that all songs also have a double meaning!! None of which are about the perceived muses of Travis, Matty or Joe. The 'evidence' for those relationships are all red herrings (for example 'putting narcotics into all of my songs' - but only in the songs with obvious reference to her beards), to make it seem ambiguous and open to interpretation of who the songs may be about, which is seen often throughout her discography. She uses an incredible amount of metaphors and we must look beyond those to decipher her lyrics - do not take anything at face level with Taylor. Most should realise that she is so much smarter than making obvious songs about whichever male muse she is 'dating' at the time. She has always played into that public view to cover her true self. Many songs have themes of secret and hidden love, which juxtaposes with the public 'relationships' she is seen as having.

She tells us in 'The Manuscript' that "lookin' backwards might be the only way to move forward". Therefore we must listen to TTPD in reverse, from track 31 (13 reversed!) to track 1. I believe The Manuscript also acts as a bookend for both of her stories and should be listened to as a closer after the last song of the story 'Fortnight' ends, to get a complete picture. Once we have listened to the album in reverse order, can we see so plainly that each song tells a different story of a period/situation/muse/love/heartbreak in her life - beginning at her parents meeting in The Manuscript, to current day. I think the songs may also actually have a sister song from the corresponding album/period in time, with similar sound, lyrics or theme that connects them. I believe that each song also has a double meaning and can be interpreted as messages to her fans about things that have happened to her over the years or that are about to happen, and she is trying to communicate her feelings of being trapped, which is honestly so heartbreaking. Many relate to her being caged and forced to hide her true self, in particular by one person closest to her - her father. It is devastating to listen to.

The really brilliant part I discovered next, is that The Anthology tracks also have another hidden storyline being told which intertwines and intersects in the exact right place to fit in with her life story. It includes all of the "THE" songs and is in reverse order from the parallel life story and vinyl variants order of issue (but chronological track list order).

The Tortured Poets Department

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

The Alchemy

The Black Dog

The Albatross

The Prophecy

The Bolter

The Manuscript

Rather than presenting my interpretation of the timeline and each story told in every song, I urge everyone to listen to both stories, in these exact orders, with an open mind as to what she could possibly be describing! My mind was completely blown when I figured this out!! Her mind is incredible, there is no other way to describe the album, other than a masterpiece! I feel so much for the pain she has gone through. This album explains her feelings and reasons for hiding her true self over the years for any fans that will inevitably be feeling upset and deceived. We all need to show compassion for everything Taylor has sacrificed and give her what she needs. She truly deserves love, honesty, happiness and peace. ✌️💜

I'm in the process of creating a document trying to piece all of the hidden connections together just to wrap my head around this amazing body of work, so may possibly link this when I have it completed, otherwise I will add it to this post for anyone that might be interested.

I have a couple of extra personal thoughts, theories and hopes for anyone still reading…

The manuscript of her life story may possibly be the manuscript for a future book/film.

I think one meaning of "Fortnight" is a foretelling message to the fans that havent been noticing any of her many hair pin drops - she has been trying to get the message across but they aren't listening. For the fans she loses when she comes out - she touched them with this album for only a fortnight, before she lost them. She loves the fans but staying in the closet is ruining her life. I think something big could be happening a fortnight after release? Friday 3rd May is International Sun Day. ☀️ Karlie Kloss was always 'sunshine' to Taylor. According to Karlie, their first meeting was at the 2011 Met Gala on May 2, however, there is a possibility that they could have met at the afterparty - after midnight, making the anniversary May 3! 2024 Met Gala is a few days later, could they both make an appearance? If nothing big occurs, perhaps some seeds of doubt will be planted on the 3rd? Or.. It could also be a surprise rep TV (with or without Karma and Debut - surprise triple drop?) with wlw vault tracks?! Who really knows.. I honestly have no idea, but whatever happens, I know Taylor has it all meticulously planned out and everything will happen when it is supposed to.

Taylor is chairman of the Tortured Poets department - the leader of the mass coming out we are about to see. As Chely Wright put - 'we need someone at the top' to come out and pave the way for others to do the same, and to stop the forced closeting in the celebrity world. I think Travis and the majority of her former beards are also queer and there will be many more 'tortured poets' that will join 'the department'.

Karma will be album 1 (TS12) in the 3,2,1 countdown, TS13 is 0 - the album in which she gets all of her full colour back, reclaims her glitter gel pens and finally can sing her truth proudly! She has destroyed her own name and reputation, burnt down the lover house and all her former selves.

Last of all, PLEASE BE KIND! If anyone has made it to the end of this and doesnt agree, I'd love for you to have a listen to the songs in the orders above before commenting. If not, lets just agree to disagree! We all have our own personal takes on Taylor's lyricism and I would never dream of being unkind to another just for having a difference of opinion. 🫶

For Taylor - if you somehow happen to see this - please know you are truly a mastermind, you are loved and we've got you!

🌈💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛🌈

❤️ gerimegs

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi so I’m 15 and in a relationship for the first time so I don’t have experience with any of this stuff. My partner and I have been doing sexual stuff for a few months now I just have some questions.

First, I was wondering how we can do sexual things in a way that doesn’t bother other people in the house. Like maybe that’s a dumb question and the answer is just be quiet but idk it’s hard bc my partner is very vocal. Also there’s very few opportunities to do stuff without anyone else home so that’s not rly an option.

Also my parents have been very weird about my relationship with my partner. Making lots of odd comments such as “i wonder if they’re having sex up there” (to my brother who is a *child*) and giving me lots of looks that just kind of make me feel really bad about my relationship. I know that sex is natural but they make me feel really bad about it and I could use some advice on what to do about that

Next, my partner and I are both interested in getting in to kink but I don’t really know how to go about it. I’ve never heard of people getting into that stuff as minors and we don’t want to do anything too crazy especially since we don’t really have access to any supplies.

You’ve definitely talked about this before but could you tell me what kind of protection is best and easiest to use and obtain for f/f sex. School didn’t teach me how to use anything other than a male condom.

Thank you so much. Sorry for asking so many questions

hi anon,

your first question is going to be pretty circumstantial; I don't know what the layout of your house is like or how realistic it is to wait for privacy. the ideal if of course to wait until everyone else is either asleep or out of the house, but I recognize that the former may be difficult if not impossible for someone your age and you've already said the latter is hard to come by. using other noises, like music or TV or white noise, can be helpful, although it's unlikely to prevent your parents from speculating.

to address your second problem most directly, I'm afraid there's no much that I personally can do to rectify that. it is unfortunately very normal for parents to have an anxious, awkward, and difficult time adjusting to their children becoming sexually curious. I think the most crucial thing to remember here is that this has nothing to do with what you're doing being gross or wrong, and most everything to do with how your parents were raised to think about sex. unless they have specific concerns they want to raise with you about sexual safety, their reactions are most likely coming from a place of discomfort that they don't know how to channel appropriately. that's not a shortcoming on your part, but on the people who failed to help them develop a better way of understanding their own feelings about sex - and, yes, on them for how they're handling those feelings now.

I'm unsure exactly what you're interested in exploring, since kink covers a very broad array of activities and "supplies" could mean almost anything, but I would definitely recommend an abundance of caution in your explorations. kink is great, but that doesn't mean it's easy for for everyone. there's a reason that you seldom hear of people your age getting into kink, which is that it generally requires a great deal of practice with navigating partnered intimacy and communication - something that few teenagers have had time to develop the skills for. kink is also something that many people find works best as a communal activity, by finding others to help introduce them around and sharing experience to help safely explore their fantasies; for obvious safety reasons, few kink spaces are looking to admit 15 year olds. by all means, do your research - Evie Lupine's youtube channel is a great place to start, with a backlog of hundreds of videos covering all kinds of kink-related topics - but be careful with how you act on it, and recognize that kink comes with more potential complications and risks than "vanilla" sex that cannot be taken lightly.

if both parties have vulvas and vaginas then you can use dental dams for protection during oral sex, latex or nitrile gloves or finger cots to cover hands/fingers, and external ("male," although there's nothing inherently gendered about them) condoms for any penetrative toys (or cut them down one side to flatten them out and make the aforementioned dental dams).

please don't apologize for asking questions! questions are how you learn and stay safe :)

[blueiight]

“…i was haunted by my brother’s death, by the abandonment of my sister…”

majority of the conversation around paul in the amc setting revolves around the question of whodunnit, jokes about him at the second dinner table scene of the pilot, or paralleling his mental illness to louis [a parallel the show admittedly draws upon - with louis stopping his suicide attempt bc “paul forever ruining grace’s wedding night, and [louis] not wanting to do the same to claudia on the anniversary of her escape”] what i intend to focus on, is the specific nature of paul’s complaints with respect to levi, and what paul and claudia represent to louis.

in the book, paul wants louis to sell the plantations & town homes they own in new orleans, and give louis the money so that paul could travel and become a missionary saving france from the godless jacobins. the paul that we’re introduced to in the show is… similar in motivation, but fundamentally divergent. tithe the money over to st. augustine’s so the house dont fall in on them, but the first dinner table goes as this after he says that:

whats of note too is the divergence of the draft v the pilot release. the show excises the freniere family w the exception of levi himself to drive home how paul’s objections to levi’s religious and ethnic background are overruled by the lingering shadow of jim crow.

paul is also reminded that his autonomy is conditional in this first dinner scene here: louis quips back to his point about sugarcane with “if daddy was still here, you’d be locked up in that asylum over in jackson”. its a reminder of the earlier point, but also speaks to something else.

bc of paul’s profound mental illness, he would never be allowed to live an autonomous life, much less hold authority over anyone: whether its the man of the house [as louis was in the du lac family], or as a bride [grace] or as the mother [florence].

this is strongly reminiscent of claudia — someone whos personal autonomy is entirely dependent on the purview of physically mature vampires by nature of permanently being trapped in the body of a preteen. it is also reminiscent of claudia in that louis in both cases plays a sort of savior in relation to them — whether its louis taking paul out of the asylum, or louis taking claudia out of the burning rooming home. louis views paul and claudia, especially claudia, as people that save him from his own self-loathing.. claudia somehow possessing this redemptive quality re: baby jesus…

louis loves both of them deeply, but as iwtv has established, love as a feeling does not exempt someone from enacting violence toward you. in fact, the very loved one that harmed you has an entire framework of rationalizing that violent act as being ‘for your[my] own good’ as is.

the title of this little post comes from the season one finale, where louis collapses in on himself to try to make sense of why he spared lestat, invoking paul and grace to create this red herring to the ‘murder of lestat’. but truly, the thread is false. louis did not abandon grace, and lestat’s death was only an attempted murder sabotaged by louis. modern day louis in the season finale triggers himself through daniel in order to provoke armand, the “protector of his pain”, to reveal himself + question him on the death of claudia, just as he questioned lestat on the death of paul in s1e6.

[wolfs-archive]

"Woah, now I know why you don't drink with us!!!!" || Part 1

Part 2 || Masterlist

Summary: Y/N has a secret crush on Felix. Little did she know he too liked her. All the boys are Y/n's friend as they go to the same college and live under the same roof. The other boys did know of Felix's crush but are clueless about Y/N. Little did the blooming couple know that an anesthesia would be the one bringing them together.

Pairing: NonIdol!Felix X Female!Y/N

Genre: slightly suggestive, fluff maybe, mentions of alcohol, high Y/N

Note: Y/N is sedated, The Felix or his other roommates mentioned here are no where related to the idol Stray Kids and are just a fictional character. Minors DNI please!!!

"Initially we give less dosage of anesthesia to patients who come for the wisdom teeth removal, since Y/N's so sensitive, we had to give her higher dose. So she would be high for some time, and would come to her senses after 8 hours. Meanwhile, if she faces any issues you can tell her to take the prescribed tablets. Also she is advised not to have any spicy or hard food for a week. Only liquid food for an entire day and soft food for the rest of the week." said the Dentist. "Thank you Doctor", Han said as he helped Y/N get up and made her go out . "Y/N, I'll get the medicines and you stay here" he babied her. "Who are you? I do what I want to." Y/N retorted. "Y/n ah, I know you are a brat, but I'll let this pass once, only just because you are under sedation" a triggered Han said as he left her on the chair to get medicines. On his way to the pharmacy, he met Hyunjin. "Han ah, where is Y/N? Chan asked me to tag along in case you needed help". "Bro, I have made her sit on the chair, can you please take a look at her. She is spewing nonsense. Such a menace she is." Han replied. After the medicines were bought, Hyunjin and Han helped Y/N walk on her way to their car. Hyunjin sat in the driver's seat and a staggered Y/N went to occupy the passenger seat. Not even 5 minutes later, she was transferred to the back seat and was made to sit with Han with all the fuss she created. "Chan, we are on the way back and .... Y/N!!! stop pulling my specs" Han yelled and after a heated argument Han relied to Chan about Y/N's diet and the dentist's advise.

Y/N is usually a bubbling extroverted girl. A beautiful girl who is one year younger than I.N. A person with both beauty and brains, had a lot of people courting her, but her eyes laid only on one of her roommate, Lee Felix Yongbok. Being a bratty roommate with others and making fun of everyone with all possibilities, she has always had a soft spot for Felix and has never made fun of him. The others had never doubted this because, she had treated him like how all would treat him. But be it arriving on time for a class, or making any meal, or saving a book she had all done it ready for him. Often the members would have late night outs and parties and she being the only girl was literally treated like a younger sibling and was never allowed for any late night parties. Whenever it would be, just "Saturday Nights" at their dorm, she would always insist on having orange juice or sparkling water rather than alcohol. The members though knew it, that it was because of her lower tolerance level and that she would be difficult to handle, didn't force her. On the other hand, she didn't want to because, she knew she would pour her heart out if she drank and didn't want to miss the friendship she cherished. So, it was only when she was with he girls that she drank. That was how much she loved him.

Similar to Y/N, Felix liked her but didn't open up his heart to her for the fear of loosing her friendship. He kept it to his heart, until one day, where they had a game of truth or dare during their "Saturday Nights" and he confessed to have feelings for a particular girl. Upon closely watching his previous movements, the group concluded that it definitely was Y/N. When he asked how, each of them had their own answers for confirmation. Seungmin said, "I saw you waiting for her after class, to walk along with her to our dorm, even thoug you didn't have class that day". " One night when I went to drink water, I saw you tucking up her bedsheet " Hyunjin replied. "I saw you having her as your wallpaper on your phone" replied Changbin. He also added, "I didn't mean to peak at your phone, remember; when I had asked for your phone to text the professor. It was that time I realised it". "Not to mention, we share the same room and one day I saw you texting her, you slept with your phone. When I tried to keep the phone on the table beside, I saw a notification with Y/N's name along with a light blue heart." replied the youngest. "Don't you think I know the way steal glances of her during our combined sessions?" asked the eldest. "I knew it the moment you told me weeks ago about how you wanted pasta for dinner just because Y/N had a bad day at college. You have never done it for anyone else" said Lee Know. "Remember the one day I borrowed your book for reference? Do you not remember what you had written in it? The entire book had Y/N's name on it just like how a psychopath writes a person's name" said Han "You have been too obvious with it around us. Y/N must be either dumb or must be really clueless about it" he retorted.

Back in the car, when Han cut the call, Y/N "Bro, where is my love? I wanna meet him" she said. An astonished Han, asked who it was for which she replied that he knew him. Hyunjin in the driver's seat replied "I guess Felix is screwed!!!" Meanwhile, "You Quokka like human, where is my love? I want to meet him. Kiss him... Please bring him here." Han knew it wasn't easy and not right either to bring words out from her, so he decided, "Y/N let's play this game 10 questions. I'll ask you 10 questions and you have to answer them honestly. By the time you are done, I'll bring you your love. Deal? " he asked. "Deal" she challenged.

Even after 10 questions, he was not able to find out who it was and had arrived to their dorm. Han and Hyunjin had tricked Y/N into make her believe that they were at her "Love's" home and that she had to go in to see him. As soon as she entered, she started yelling "Lee Felix Yongbok!!!! where are you?". Hearing her voice, Felix came out to see what was going on.... "Come here!!!!" she ordered as she sat on their sofa, pointing her hands, implying him to sit near her. "What is it Y/N?" asked Felix as he sat near her. A wild Y/N, grabbed Felix's shirt by the collar, just leaving a gap of 2 inches between them. She could feel his breath pace take off and her cheeks now tinted with red. With a raspy voice, she said "Do you know how much I love you? Those freckles and the cute smile is definitely the death of me. In the future, if I get married, I want it only with you and our kids will have beautiful freckles just like you" she confessed. Everyone were too stunned to speak at the confession. Meanwhile Hyunjin, "Han, we were so clueless, the entire ride she was talking about.... was it Felix????" Han replied "Now with what she confessed, I think, no conclude that it was definitely Felix." "You know why every time you call me to have drinks I deny? It is because, if I drink, I would pour my heart out. I don't know what is in your mind and if you don't like it, I would crumble into pieces. i wouldn't be even able to face you" she said. Her hands now across his neck as she pulls him in for a deep kiss. Breaking out from the kiss, Felix says" Who said I don't like you? I've always loved you, and will love you. " as he tucked the small fringe of hair behind her ears. " Woah, now I know why you don't drink with us. It's okay." he says, as he carried her to her bedroom.

Idk if y'all want Part 2. But if you want, please feel free to ask it in the comment section.

[42bakery]

One of my favourite interview from Dani has to be 'La Caja de DAZN'. This is an out of the box interview were DAZN asked close people to the riders to give them important objects to allow them to talk about the rider's career. The rider's can talk as much or as little as they want and sometimes, one object can have more than one meaning.

Those are the objects in Dani's box and what it meant.

That glue represents Antonio (he's a carpenter). It meant his job and the money they need for Dani to compete. It also represents Dani's origin as a rider and the passion for bikes that share. The first bike, the miniature bikes to play...

This represents Basilia and a period of time. Apparently people saw Dani on the street an remember Dani as the Colacao guy. The story behind the add is real. Basi has been the person to stay with Dani the whole time he has been in the hospital.

Dani is not very fan of football, but he's a Barça fan. The importance is in the detail that this shirt belongs to Iniesta. In a Catalan GP Dani wore a racing boots with Iniesta's name due to Alpinestar doing a special edition related to the World Cup. Dani choose Iniesta due to his values in and out of the pitch.

This also helped to talk about his retirement. How he needed it, but he still misses it.

Dani's 125cc winning shirt (2003). Dani says people still have it and show it to him.

They mention that Puig told him that after 5 years with the same bike it was time for Dani to finally win the championship (or something) with this bike. They always had it present in their mind.

Dani explains that the 2 stoke bikes and the learning curve. First it was learning how the two strokes worked, then how to be fast and do the proper setting of the bike and on top of that the process to get the 'good' parts. So when you do the good results you get the parts. According to Dani, currently riders all have the same materials properly set up.

This represents both 250cc years (and championship) Dani did. For Dani is a glorious period of time. He had no pre-season and no real training that winter break. Added with his short stature and lack of weight, people weren't really expecting a lot, but Dani settled very well with the bike and the category. He did so well that he actually won the first race.

He also confesses that he has this bike (250cc) at his house.

It's also mentioned his rivals in that category. In 2004 it was Sebas Porto and in 2005 it was Jorge, Casey and Andrea (Dovizioso)

And not so well know detail of this bike is that there was a special sticker that was Puig's idea (yes Puig had a big hand and influence in young Dani).

Dani didn't reveal what it was, but it was something between Alberto and his dad. What people though that C.N.O meant Centro Nacional de Operaciones (National Centre of Operations), but Dani said is not really that, it's close but not that.

Do I need to say this is a mini-replica of Jorge's X-Fuera helmet?

This bring us back to 2005, when Spanish media sometimes talked more about 250cc (and Dani-Jorge battles/rivalry) than MotoGP. Dani notes that their 250cc rivalry moved and shifted when they moved to MotoGP. For him, in 250cc it was them (managers and riders) talking to the media and responding through the media more than track rivalries (not that it lacked), but in MotoGP in was more on track than media.

Dani confesses that for them sometimes it wasn't about who was going to win the race, just to be in front of the other because they had other rivals on track such and Vale or Casey.

This took a trip to memory lane where Dani explains how he and Jorge meet, then become rivals and finally friends. They also explain the infamous handshake in Jerez 2008.

This is tape to explain the injuries. They mention the one in Australian GP in 2003 when he broke both ankles. Dani is a rider that didn't crash a lot, but unfortunately, he broke every time they did.

This lead to Dani's neardy side, which is that he apparently calculate the number of crashes per year he had. According to his data, he did it 2-3 times per year test including (5 or 6 the year he crashed the most). And for half of those crashes he ended up in the hospital (Poor Dani had to have surgery twice a year). In comparison, Marc his teammate at the time crashed more than 30 times and only once or less did Marc need surgery.

At the end of his career, Dani was mostly affected of the collarbone, but at the start it was mostly extremities (hand and feet).

This is a phone, but the important isn't the phone itself, it's the Movistar logo on it that can't be seen. This brings us back to Dani's origin. When Dani's family didn't have enough money for Dani to keep going in bikes and then the add of the Movistar Joven Activa Cup appeared in their life. It was a promotional cup with DORNA's approval and the support of Movistar as an sponsor.

It was Antonio who encouraged Dani to send the application despite knowing Dani didn't have the age for it, but it was the only way for Dani to stay riding motobikes and not change to bikes. That was the ladder to took Dani to MotoGP.

When Puig proposed Dani to move from the Cup to CEV, Antonio told Dani to not accept and do a second year in the Cup to win more experience and not suffer from his lack of height and experience, but Dani decided that he wanted to move to the CEV.

They reveal that Dani raced with the number 26 in his first year in the World Championship (2001).

This is the film 'The last samurai' which allows us to know where the 'little Samurai' nickname comes from.

When the film came out, Dani went to the cinema to see it, and a scene left an impact on him. Added to the message and values that the film had, let him to the samurai path. He also was riding for Honda that they are like that, so it ted nicely.

This is an orange, and is just there for the colour orange. it's supposed to be the moment to talk about KTM, but Dani also wanted to talk about Repsol. Dani started his career racing with the colour blue (his favourite), but since he moved to MotoGP, the orange has followed him.

Dani talks about how an objective have to be followed by the appropriate tools, and how KTM has been growing since their objective have been growing too.

Golden wings to represent Honda. Dani has been racing with Honda his whole life including the Movistar Cup and the CEV. For Dani it always has been Honda because all the big names and his idols have been there. There wasn't any other team for him.

Even his leathers in minimotos where the Repsol replica!

That is a piece of titanium, and Dani's first tough is that the metal is there because he has so much inside him. But no, the meaning of this object is because Sete (Gibernau) used to call Dani Titanium because Dani was small and strong; lightweight and tough/hardy.

The nickname made the aparence for the first time when Dani broke his ankles in 2003. Sete has holding a piece of paper with it.

'Titanio' Pedrosa mejorate pronto. Estamos contigo - Titanium Pedrosa get well soon. We are with you.

From then on, every time Sete and Dani had an event together, both raced in the Movistar team, Sete called Dani Titanium.

Ernest ventured to ask Dani if his life would have changed had he become MotoGP World Champion. Dani said yes (no hesitation) and explains that some colateral things would have changed, but doesn't further elaborate. When asked of if he still feels as it's missing, Dani said that not at the moment, but he felt it in the past. And that he had to digest and work on accepting it.

Source: La Caja de DAZN (DAZN's box).

[libra-cant-just-dance]

Headcanons/Thoughts for Every Main Five Just Dance ship

Obviously I have my favorite but sometimes it’s fun to just think about other ships so I wanted to make a post about ALL of them. For some reason. PS don’t reblog/reply to this with “well actually that one ship sucks and I don’t like it”. As far as we know all of them are the same age and not related so there’s really no reason why any ship is wrong, let people like what they like.

Wanderlust x Jack: I don’t need to rant about them, you all already know. Go read my fanfiction

Wanderlust x Sara: He brings her into this magical world, she loves it and she loves him. It’s a bit cliche but cliches are cliches because they WORK. Also, we know Sara loves the Danceverses, but what if Wanderlust loves Earth? What if he’s got a Little Mermaid thing going on? Imagine Sara showing him around Earth and him being excited by the silliest little things

Wanderlust x Brezziana: They’re both the most energetic ones of the group. Imagine them teaming up on adventures and charging ahead together when the others get tired. Neither of them can always find a friend to keep up with them, but they always have each other

Wanderlust x Mihaly: They’re kind of like two different sides of the Flow? Wander is more energetic and Mihaly’s more chill, so I think they’d balance each other out well. Mihaly gets Wander to slow down every once in a while and appreciate things he’d otherwise miss. Wanderlust shows them how to be more spontaneous and free

Jack x Sara: Sara falls for the bad boy except he’s not actually bad. So much in the Danceverses is bright and crazy and overwhelming, so Jack being more down-to-earth is refreshing for her. Jack loves the way she treats him. Aside from the events of story mode, she doesn’t have the background on Night Swan and Eternyx that the others do, so she doesn’t know his reputation as well. He feels like she really sees him as his own person while everyone else will always remember his mother’s shadow

Jack x Mihaly: I think both of them being the more practical ones of the group could mesh well. We also know Mihaly used to idolize Night Swan in some way, so they both can relate to having wanted to live up to her legacy and now realizing she was wrong. Jack is also always expecting some sort of punishment or consequence if he does something wrong, but Mihaly is so chill about everything that they make him feel like everything’s okay

Jack x Brezziana: Brezziana will drag Jack out of the house to go do stuff when he’s stuck moping around. Theyre SO opposites attract. She’s also ready to stand up for him whenever necessary. Jack will just turn the other cheek to insults and pretend nothing bothers him, but Brezziana won’t let him bottle things up

Sara x Mihaly: Another case of chill vs energetic balancing each other out. I think Mihaly brings Sara to meet Master Panda and he really likes her. What if they try training together to see if Sara is gifted with the Flow like people from the Danceverses are? Again, I feel like Mihaly is also a grounding presence for her amongst the chaos of the Danceverses.

Sara x Brezziana: They go on mall dates a lot! Cute dates where they pick out outfits for each other and try them on. They’re very giggly. They post very cutesy Instagram posts about each other all the time. Connected at the hip when the gang goes out places.

Mihaly x Brezziana: This one’s popular. Again it’s energetic vs chill. Mihaly will often open their home to fourteen texts from Brezziana about something crazy she just did and Mihaly just shakes their head and smiles.

[cursedvibes]

I know you like tenken, takaken and sukume but what are some other relationships or dynamics do you like in jjk and why? Could be romantic, platonic, familial, antagonistic or just plain toxic and fucked up, anything.

Thanks for the interesting ask! These are my favourites at the moment.

Mahito & Yuuji

I think it's the best antagonistic relationship Yuuji has in the entire manga. I like them both as a ship and platonically for what we get in canon. Although considering the scene in the anime where Mahito tries to murder kiss Yuuji, you could say it's one-sidedly canon.

I miss Mahito a lot lately and come to only appreciate him more and more with time. He was very good at building up a sense of dread and he has a viciousness to him that's lacking in the current Shinjuku fight for me.

He mirrors Yuuji without literally being related to him (so far, who knows what else Gege will reveal to be in Yuuji's gene cocktail). Yuuji learns something from him, reflects upon himself, his actions, who he wants to be and why he fights. They are both still figuring each other and themselves out. Both of them grow during their fights and become more dangerous, desperate and feral any time they meet. I love how Mahito is not only able to break Yuuji, but also to break him. Yuuji's hatred for Sukuna is smouldering, while for Mahito it is a raging fire. Yuuji has nothing to learn from Sukuna and no interest to engage with him anymore, while for Mahito it was raw and personal and resulted in Yuuji embracing the disgusting and ruthless side of himself that makes him so cold against Sukuna.

It's been great to see how even now Mahito still influences Yuuji. He was the first one who really taught him about the soul and what it can be capable of. Any time the soul is brought up, Yuuji's first thought is how Mahito was able to manipulate and contort it. He is able to hurt Sukuna so much because of what he learned from Mahito. As much as I miss Mahito and his personality, it wouldn't make sense to bring him back now, so I'm glad to see his continued impact on Yuuji this way. Overall, what I like about the two is how "juvenile" their conflict is. Cruelty of a child and innocence of a child clashing and both of them improving, growing and maturing through it. I also think it's very fitting that Yuuji never got to exorcise Mahito because the message is that Mahito represents a different side of him and he shouldn't ignore or destroy that side, he has to embrace it to be able to stomach what lies ahead.

Maki & Mai

If done right, I'm always a sucker for twin relationships, especially the codependency in it. I wouldn't say Maki & Mai are my favourite example of them or the best written one, but I still like them for what they are, particularly everything in Perfect Preparation and the Sakurajima colony. It could've been better and more consistently set up, but the payoff is still emotional and impactful and that's what I like them for.

Both of them need each other, wanted to help each other in their own way, but they never saw eye-to-eye or managed to communicate properly until after Mai's death. They were holding each other back through more than just the jujutsu consequences of being born a twin. Mai wanted Maki to give up and live with her at the bottom and Maki thought she had to shoulder all responsibility and could only go on and pave a way for them alone. Even after the have "become one" in a jujutsu sense and Maki unlocked her Heavenly Restriction, they don't immediately work together and have to learn how to communicate with each other and lift each other up, make up for what the other can't do. And through understanding Mai better and learning to hold her and fight together with her, she also begins to understand herself better.

I wish we got a more in-depth look at them, their past and relationship while both were alive before the Perfect Preparation arc. I hope Maki's arc will have a satisfying end and she will find something meaningful to do with her life.

Hakari & Uraume

Every time the leaks come out, I'm hoping for at least a glimpse at these two. There's been setup for some really interesting exploration of the themes of humanity and strength here. They are also just such a funny duo and it gets more and more hilarious the more chapters pass by and we don't see them. While Sukuna plays whac-a-mole with the main group, Hakari and Uraume have been "fighting" for 20 chapters now without seemingly getting anywhere except gossiping about what happens over at the main source of action. Wouldn't be surprised if we skip back to them to see them eating ice cream while watching the others get beaten up.

On a more serious note, I really hope the little speech Uraume gave in ch 245 gets picked up again and explored upon because it was the most interesting commentary we got so far on the source of sorcerers power, what it means to be human when you are so strong and also Uraume's background. Uraume's view of humanity and strength seems to slightly differ from Sukuna's and they also seem to reflect upon it more. They say forming relationships and fear of losing said relationships is what makes you weak and yet they have no problem following Sukuna and worrying about him. They are even open to forming bonds with others like Kenjaku or even Hakari. Hakari is actually the person we have seen them be most relaxed and friendly with so far. With Sukuna there is always a remaining formality and Kenjaku annoys them, but with Hakari they chat like a normal person. They make fun of him, but it's very colloquial. It seems like they actually came to see him as a true equal. There is no binding vow or old history binding them together, they simply want to keep Hakari from interfering with the fight and through that they got to engage with him without any pretence.

I just wish we actually got to see how their relationship developed over that now pretty significant amount of time and to see more of Uraume's worldview and maybe Hakari's too. He broke away from Jujutsu Tech and was left to build up his own independent existence together with Kirara. Very similar to Uraume and Sukuna. Now if we could only explore that connection between them more. On page. Not off-screen. I would've taken that any time over the pointless intervention from Geto's cult members or Kusakabe sacrificing himself.

Kusakabe & Yaga

I think this is Kusakabe's most interesting relationship and what actually gives him some depth beyond Exposition Guy. It's also where we see Yaga's more overtly caring side beyond his interactions with Panda. Unfortunately, it gets overlooked a lot, in part because Gege doesn't linger much on it beyond one or two chapters and Kusakabe's last words before getting cut down. There is literally nothing about this ship in fandom spaces. Probably because for some reason people think Yaga isn't hot enough (he's the literal definition of a dilf what more do you want?)...

Chapter 147 is interesting because it shows us the closest relationships and most hidden secrets both Kusakabe and Yaga have. We learn that Yaga not only makes autonomous puppets, but he actually has a whole Hundred Acre Wood-type of retreat full of the souls of dead people, children in particular. They aren't weapons like Panda, they don't fight, they are just allowed to live there. Protected by Tengen interestingly enough. She probably just doesn't care what he does or thinks it mildly interesting/quirky. This is also where we find out that Kusakabe has a sister (Usami?), who has been severely traumatized to the point of being catatonic and lost her son, Kusakabe's nephew. Despite the taboo, both Kusakabe and Yaga are willing to raise the dead not only to help her, but also to give Kusakabe something of his family back. It's the most vulnerable moment we've gotten of him and it speaks of their deep bond that Yaga was willing to do this. Doubt he would do this for just any jujutsu teacher (who doesn't even work for him). Creating that kind of cursed corpse isn't easy after all. But nothing strengthens a bond like necromancy. Kusakabe's last words about Yaga in ch 254 are also interesting. He fights for Yaga, knowing he wouldn't force him to do this, but reflecting on how they used to be able to fight together. They must have known each other for a long time. Kusakabe tells himself multiple times to not linger on the dead, but any time he does, it's because of Yaga.

A very interesting relationship with much potential that goes underexplored. I would've much preferred for his relationship with Yaga to be highlighted more in his fight against Sukuna than that out of place "interview" where people who barely know Kusakabe explain his character to us. If they could bring Gojo and Nanami back from the dead, they could've shown Yaga too. If you really want me to believe that Kusakabe is a kind person, show me more of how he acts around the people he actually cares about, i.e. Yaga and Miwa. He's a very different person around them, particularly Yaga and that's when he allows himself to be vulnerable.

So yeah, I think they explored each other's bodies to help each other through their grief.

[sageistrii]

https://www.tumblr.com/sageistrii/749080074375086080/i-am-not-gonna-lie-i-find-it-a-tad-bit-funny-that?source=share

But do you think that because of jk's songs like seven, snty and 3D which were like gp friendly jk's popularity in sk might have increased? See i know that the sk industry or gp does challenges that fit the tiktok kinda vibes and even jisoo's flower was done by many many ppl (it actually reached my country too where i didn't just see the kpop fans doing the trend but even some celebs who never does anything related kpop doing the challenge or using the song) and jk's all these three songs were are actually pretty popular in sk. alot of idols has mentioned him as their fav/role model and even has recommended other songs from his album too. isn't it like being popular and having strong fb a different case? So do you think jk is more popular?? I'm just talking about it based on how much ppl i have seen doing his challenge/mention his songs/mention him as their fav etc. If there's other criteria through which this get's calculated then I'm not well aware. I actually saw someone asking this question so i was wondering too.

Seven did well in SK because it did well all over the world. 3d and snty not so much, like crazy did better than both those songs in all major aspects. If a song's acclaim and chart placement lies on how many people joined it's challenges, then I luv it by Kamila cabello would be number 1 on the hot 100 right now. Some people just join these challenges for fun, doesn't mean they're listening to the song. Like we can all see the chart placements of both songs

Also this man has been everywhere since 2022, Hybe made sure of that and you're surprised he's being name dropped by every kpop idol. That's literally how idols move, they name drop songs or artists that are trending at that particular moment. If this year some other soloist that isn't jk gets the same coverage and success that jk got in 2023, they're going to ignore him and talk about that person. You think none of those idols listen to other BTS members especially jimin? Or have y'all deluded yourself into thinking jk's album was the only one these idols listened to and liked? I guarantee you that they're also tons of idols who listen to rapline and love their music.

But they're going to mention the one member that was being shoved down their throat because that's how they also get publicity for themselves. And it's one reason why unlike some pjms I will never hype these random name droppings from idols because I know how it goes. Next year they're going to focus on the next trending idol or group and not even acknowledge your fave. It's like how idols jump on TikTok trends, it's not because they like the song or the singer, it's for visibility.

Let me use le sserafim as an example (no shade to them), during their promotions last year they danced to flowers by Miley because it was popular when they probably don't even listen to it but what they got in return was publicity because Miley posted them on her Instagram. They mentioned Taylor repeatedly during the time when her name was all over the media for the release of her re-recordings, they've name-dropped Beyonce in a song they teased in Coachella which makes sense because she's been the most talked about person on social media this year and has one of the most popular songs of the year so far, now they've also been linked to Sabrina carpenter in Light of her new found chart success. That's how the industry works. Name dropping or joining challenges doesn't necessarily mean they're listening because those idols could drop their 2023 Spotify wrapped, and you probably wouldn't find any Jungkook song.

Jimin has spent a long time at the top of Spotify Korea and like crazy got almost 200k unique listeners on melon, just a 100k+ below seven, you think none of those listens came from idols? But why would they name drop him after all the shit that happened with his debut and also when bang and scooter made sure all jk's achievements stifled his?