#eh maybe people are just ignorant.

[project-sekai-facts]

How are we feeling about ensekai’s emu3 translation!!! (I’m mad)

(if you remember the 3 whole posts i made when asahi got de-gayed on EN you'll know i am mad too and that this is probably going to get long)

i don't like to be too cynical but it was so obvious that they were going to change that line, i had a feeling since the event first released on JP and after the incident with Asahi where I went through and tracked down multiple other examples of EN removing queer subtext it became clear to me that in no way shape or form was "emu-chan really loves nene-chan" making it to EN without getting changed. what i didn't expect was them changing Nene's line after Luka's comment, which actually makes this whole situation far worse than many of their other instances of toning down queer subtext.

for anyone who isn't aware of what happened, in chapter 5 of the current Emu event, there's a scene where Nene, Rui and the Virtual Singers are talking about what would cheer Emu up. The vsingers all talk about how much Emu loves spending time with Nene, leading to the following exchange

If you look for them, any fan TL of this scene will be something similar to this:

Luka: ...Fufu. Emu-chan really loves Nene-chan, doesn't she? Nene: Th-that's nothing special...

EN's official translation is this:

So what's the issue? I'll start with Luka's part. In the original text, she uses the word daisuki, which can mean to "like a lot" or "love". It's a word you will see frequently in the idol/idol-adjacent genre of games, due to its ambiguity in that it can be read as either platonic or romantic when used towards a person, and often will be used in ambiguous situations so that it's harder to confirm the writers' intentions either way. so here, fans of the emu/nene ship could view the fact that emu loves spending her time with nene as more on the romantic side, but people who don't like the ship could view it as platonic and move on.

while they didn't translate daisuki directly, Luka's line still works, and still contains the ambiguity that works as ship tease in the original text. it's a perfectly fine localisation that still conveys the original intent. despite that, there is something to be said about EN's consistent refusal to translate daisuki as love in most instances when it's not used on An/Kohane (but then again, EN has literally teased An/Kohane on their twitter account so is it all that surprising?).

Here's some examples:

Aibou no koto ga daisuki de / he loves his partner -> he cares about his partner very much (The Power of Unity chapter 7 when Kaito is comparing Arata to Akito and Toya)

HARUKA-CHAN, DAISUKI DAYOOOO!!! / HARUKA-CHAN, I LOOOOOVEEE YOU!!! -> You're the best!!! (Dear Me, As I Was Back Then chapter 4 when minori is at an ASRUN concert. this one isn't actually that great of a localisation)

Honachan no koto daisuki dakara. Kore de iinda yo. / I love Honachan, so this is fine. -> I want what's best for her. And this is it. (Leo/need main story chapter 14 after Saki tells Honami she won't bother her anymore)

Minna daisuki de - taisetsuna tomodachi na no / I love them all - they're my dearest friends -> They're all amazing, and very dear to me. (Leo/need main story chapter 17. this isn't good either)

What's particularly amusing about that last one is that there's a second official translation for it that I assume was done by JP staff (since EN never promoted doing the Journey to Bloom subs like they did back when they provided subs for Petit SEKAI) that actually keeps the word daisuki as love.

Yeah. I love all my friends - and they mean the world to me.

It's a better localisation than the official EN team one.

Questionable localisation choices aside, Luka's line is fine and is actually in line with the original. The issue with this localisation very much lies with Nene's part, because that is an entirely new line.

In the original text, Nene's "that's just normal" or "that's nothing special" or however you choose to TL it, is meant to be her questioning Luka's statement, since all the things that the other vsingers said that Emu liked were pretty normal things like going shopping and playing video games with nene. To Nene, these things are normal activities for them to do together, so she gets embarrassed by the fact that Luka concludes from that information that Emu loves Nene. When I dissect it like that I think you can really tell what the writers were going for here lol.

"That's just us being friends" does still convey the idea that Nene thinks these activities aren't anything out of the ordinary and she isn't sure why the vsingers are picking these out as some of Emu's favorite things to do, but it's very different from the original line. "But those are just normal things we do together" is something I just came up with on the spot, but it's a lot closer to the original text and still conveys the same meaning. The fact they changed the line to "that's just us being friends" is, honestly, not even subtle that they're covering up queer subtext. The original scene was very clearly written in as ship tease, and EN mentioning "friends" for no reason, especially since the word nor anything close to it was not used in the original, is instantly a red flag because it's like the go-to for queerbaiting and censorship. This was intentional. There was no need for them to specify that the relationship is platonic, Luka's part is ambiguous for a reason so that fans can view it how they like.

Just to top all this off, here's Rin's original line just before that Luka+Nene interaction:

Oh, and! And! She said that playing games with Nene-chan is also super fun!

And here's Rin's line from the official EN translation:

That's not the same thing, but even more weirdly, the incorrect part (super fun->really loves) is a correct translation for the part changed in Luka's line. So, they can do it, they are willing to say "really loves", just not in the right places. Maybe because Rin's part is less personal than Luka's part? It's strange actually, this isn't the first time they've done this either. Off the top of my head I can think of an example from Shiho's Varied Kindness 2* story where they translated the word "suki" as really loves, despite that being much stronger than the original word used (and the fact that daisuki is used a lot in the Leo/need stories and it's incredibly rare if not entirely unknown for them to translate it correctly).

It's not subtle that they're trying to remove implications of the characters possibly being queer, they did it in curtain call and they did it in walk on and on, and multiple times before then too. And considering some of the content in this year's events and the amount of times they say daisuki alone, it's gonna keep happening. honestly i hate the fact that i keep trying to justify the translations in these posts. these translations are intentional. what happened in the curtain call translation back in october says enough. when a character who uses explicitly romantic language towards another guy passes as a straight character in the translation you know they're doing it on purpose.

oh and once again, it's only the EN server that has this issue. The scene in question was translated almost word-for-word on the TW and KR servers.

read fan translations. they're better than what EN gives us and people put a lot of effort into them.

[storfulsten]

eaouuugh

[whatudottu]

It's been a bit since I've rambled about xenobiology headcanons, and this time because I've been thinking about Andreas I thought today's edition would be about talpaedans, seeing as how I made a list that I haven't put into a post yet-

Let's go!

Between all members of talpaedan youth and development, there is an innate basic understanding of construction, as comparable to human's ability to recognise patterns and facial language (give or take a few neurodivergencies). And specific construction comprehension is linked to whatever tool talpaedan youth are integrated in, which develops over time based on what materials are consumed (a diet of concrete may make cement mixers, or a diet that requires a lot of digging may develop jackhammers) as well of course the genes of the parent/s.

And on to that 'parent/s' thing, let's bring up haplodiplody again.

On Earth, haplodiplody is the system where one sex is developed from a fertilised egg (which tends to be the females) and thus are diploid with DNA of the mother and father, while the other sex is from an unfertilised egg (males would technically be the result of asexual reproduction) and thus is only haploid with only the mother providing DNA. Talpaedans are not an Earth species, but functionally that is the basis of their sex-determination, where females would be best translated as architects and males best translated as tradies, which in of itself is rather contextually slang in English.

And even with haplodiplody, talpaedans still have a bimodal sex distribution, though tradies are neither part of the equation. Instead, fertilised eggs though typically expected to produce architects also just as often produce workers, non-reproducing talpaedan youths that are born an raised to be the most common labourers of the colony they were born under and never leave the hive, as opposed to architects who work higher profile jobs and are in line to be promoted to site queens, and tradies who pre-war were lower rung workers who took to training younglings for work as well as in general raising them. Being bimodal it's not a perfect list of traits to be considered as either an architect or a worker, though there is a bias towards architects being able to reproduce as that would be the key factor needed in promotion. Tradies that are infertile or more characteristically architects would be considered workers and are more of a consequence of asexual reproduction and the lack of genetic diversity.

Talpaedan gender has been typically correlated with sex throughout most Poiana Lüncas colonies, with the architects being the talpaedan equivalent for women and tradies as the talpaedan equivalent for men, but workers have a more diverse gender identity even in more conservative colonies, either being a third gender or having men and women and in between identities being formally acknowledged as such in worker populations. There might be a few general issues about identity especially among architects and tradies, but colonies are less focused on the individual and most of their aggression is directed to other colonies rather than it's own population.

It is this tension towards other colonies that had eventually and near inevitably sent Poiana Lüncas into many wars, though the most recent one had been the worst and the last in many years, a war that fundamentally changed how intercolonial relationships worked. A very large colony had been expanding it's borders to accrue even more resources for it's ever growing population, in turn threatening the smaller colonies on it's outer borders, elevating tensions to an all time high. The whole shtick lasted for years until a few colonies realised that alone no one could stop this large megacolony from wiping out each of them one by one, but through an alliance they could stand together and beat the ever loving crap out of the aggressor.

And how their alliance worked was through the sharing of resources and ensuring the protection of youths especially, and so began the first war-era runs of arranged 'marriages' as tradies live up to their name in a more eh... dubious sense. By sending in tradies (who's lower rung work was mining for resources and food) from colonies not on the front line, the colonies along the border had assurances that their home had well fed and well protected populations - as well as a general diverting of power - to beat back the aggressor colony and in fact not only raze it to the ground, but dug it completely out and functionally turned it into a mass grave reeking of death; No Queen's Land it would later be named, for no surviving members of the colony were left alive to name it after themselves.

With a combination of a clearly war-created desert and the whole 'ant death smell' thing that exists in ants aka the big inspiration for my talpaedan headcanons, makes No Queen's Land an omen that trade routes never cross, instead creating what would be a ring road surrounding the outer reaches of the ex-colony that would direct trade routes through the border colonies one by one. Direct trade or travel between the colonies on complete opposite sides of the pock marked, crater desert is both impossible and otherwise detested by Queens and the architects responsible for trade routes, instead being a multicolonial multigenerational process that circles the border colonies until reaching the 'opposite side of the world'.

To this day (or at least to the day that exists universally in the moment that Andreas would consider a 'this day') the trade routes affect the lives of tradies post-war. Instead of being completely locked to the hive like workers and architects, tradies at a certain age are sent to travel in as both tradesmen and concubines to whatever colony they have been raised for, a fact that had been determined early on at the development of their tools and the needs of the recipient colony. The host colony would arrange their young to be raised by tradies that once came from their own host colony, determined by their last name of [birth colony-trade colony] (as opposed to architects and workers whose last names are simply [birth colony]) in order to be raised as bilingual to understand the majority language of their trade colony and to be an example of the future youth they would need to raise speaking their birth colony's language.

Andreas was on one such trade route when Aggregor snatched the talpaedan for materials in functionally a fusion experiment, being part of a group about to be married off to a queen, an architect or as a working tradie, technically 'divorcing' the deal when Andreas was stolen away. Considering that Poiana Lüncas isn't the most peaceful environmentally, the trade routes also serve as a double use, a sharing of resources and a preventative measure for overpopulation. I mean, a colony would be pissed if absolutely none of their trade gets to them - probably spark a conflict that may get hairy - but losing numbers is an expected consequence. Andreas doesn't expect anyone to particularly care that they're missing the one or few talpaedans that disappeared in the night, especially with the generally large number a trade route sends, and Aggregor isn't going to take out a whole line of talpaedans just to get to one; a simple 'cutting off from the group' works fine enough.

And one final thing to note, now more focused on Andreas as an individual rather than talpaedans as a species. I've mentioned death smell and thought to bring it up here since, if you've seen my stuff before or straight up follow me (for my rambling or long enough to see my rambling), I love stealing @kariachi's necromancer Argit and the whole idea of him killing, healing, and reviving Andreas in the titular episode Andreas' Fault. I looked up how ant death smell works and apparently it's a constant thing that's only combated by a constant flow of life smell, so with a brief touch of death even if Andreas doesn't REEK of death, a talpaedan would probably suspect Andreas stepped into No Queen's Land and got cursed by something. But for those of y'all buried deep enough in my rambling would be confused; 'if one can smell actual literal death and associate it as actual literal death why doesn't Andreas at least even slightly suspect the idea of being briefly dead when the castle crashed?'

Well babes, you know what's an easy simple solution for this? Andreas is anosmic :D! Of course Andreas would be the last to know, Andreas' would have no frame of reference for what a 'death smell' is. Could even be how Aggregor got Andreas separated, if everyone else can smell death smell they might notice the fact that No Queen's Land reeks of the stuff. Not a great way to find out that one is anosmic admittedly, but I mean if Ra'ad is finding out that among the many neurodivergencies he does have much of his overstimulated suffering is magic and mutation that he thought every other amperi had to deal with because you find out your husband died and now has a magical mind barrier well...

Okay okay, one more final note. Given that Andreas is a tradie, Andreas's full name would be [birth colony]-Andromeda after the name Andreas actually gets married into because Earth and especially English dominated areas of Earth like last names. And I guess if Andreas gets adopted into any Earth-based packs thanks to being attached to Argit like a puppy you can shove in another last name like [birth colony]-[pack]-Andromeda.

This has been in my notes since August woops-

[untouchedsoap]

i know this is mostly just my preference and my protective nature of mickey but it's like uncomfortable for me when people write him new oc partners. and it's so weird because usually i'm someone who does like to mix and match and see how different people fit together etc not necessarily with ocs that's less my taste but still with mickey it's like absolutely not. he knows where he wants to be

[theultracharmingladynoire]

I tried to stop myself from posting this but the whole 'victuuri is unhealthy because x or y or they are codependent/yuuri is always selfish and cold to victor' take that seems so prevalent across the post I came across genuinely upsets me so much it has been making me feel low-key physically nauseous when I think about anything related to the show and it sucks honestly

[sharlmbracta]

so maybe the point of living is of the one reason to live instead of the other reasons not to

[llycaons]

op was a mutual in law so I'm not trying to be mean but I just saw a post and uh mu qing and wen qing are literally not canonically ace

[ohnomysoul]

i don’t like blocking people but somehow the e/colo and sch/ezo shipper can’t take the hint…

blease i know e/colo’s age is like undefined but a… 🥺… i dont wanna see…

[yuwuta]

PEOPLE TOLD ME ABOUT THE FLAMES, I COULDN’T SEE THROUGH THE SMOKE — MEGUMI FUSHIGURO

cw some kind of college au/boarding school au? this used to be for rodeo station and now just... exists on its own, friends to lovers, megumi has toji and satoru as father figures so are we surprised that he’s a bully and doesn’t really grow out of that phase… anyway, apologies to muta and miwa, 1.3k words

Nobara makes a poor effort to stifle her laughter as Kokichi stomps up to stand in front of you, hair and clothes drenched in chocolate milk, shoes sloshing with each step, and the bandage on the side of his cheek peeling from the wetness.

When you look up at him, you’re unimpressed, and unsurprised, so you resume annotating your lecture notes as if you weren’t interrupted. If Kokichi wanted to stand in a puddle of dripping milk, then so be it—you should have finished your notes yesterday, and you couldn’t get through your other tasks without catching up first.

“Look, I already said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have kept bothering you for your number when you’d already said no,” Kokichi starts, wiping dripping milk from his chin, “Now, will you please call off your guard dog.”

You don’t reply immediately, focused on finishing the last paragraph of the page, much to Kokichi’s dismay, and Nobara’s amusement. He huffs at your silence, frustrated and humiliated, but there’s nothing for him to say or do until you respond. Maybe that’s something he should have considered when he kept trying to talk to you in class. Still, even now, you’re not ignoring Kokichi to embarrass him or string him along; you just want to finish your godforsaken anthropology homework.

“You seem to be under the impression that I can make Megumi start or stop doing anything,” you sigh, put your highlighter down, and tiredly look up at Kokichi, “But I regret to inform you that you’re wrong.”

Kokichi’s nose scrunches in disbelief, an angered hand coming to wave in front of his face, but his dripping clothes result in splashes to his face—and further laughter from Nobara. He sighs out of frustration, trying to put away his pride, but Nobara’s giggling and your nonchalant attitude are really making it difficult for him to take this in stride.

“Okay, you’re fucking with me—and I deserve it, alright? But, Todo already gave me a fucking lecture, Mai won’t look at me, and Megumi is going to rip and stain every single shirt I own at this point.” 

“That sounds like your problem,” Nobara snickers, rolling her eyes when Kokichi gives her a glare. 

“I'd love to help, Muta, but this is out of my control,” you loll, capping your marker, “Maybe try apologizing to Megumi instead of dripping chocolate milk over notes and shoes.”

“Eh? The hell am I apologizing to him for?” 

“You’re the one who pissed him off—how should I know?” you sigh, sliding your pens and markers into your bag, and closing your folder. 

Nobara pipes in to taunt, “You’d better figure it out soon, though. I hear they’re serving spaghetti tomorrow, and that definitely stains.” 

You swear you hear Kokichi growl, but it only makes Nobara laugh harder. The two of them together is a bad combination—Kokichi is easily aggravated, and Nobara easily aggravates. You’re certain that if Megumi weren’t already on his ass, Nobara would have stepped in to bully him just for the fun of it.

Still, you’d rather not have to testify on either of their behalf, so you bid Kokichi a goodbye, offering him your best advice about cleaning milk stains out of white shirts, and drag Nobara by the arm before she can make another quick quip to finally make him snap. 

She’s still laughing at Kokichi’s expense all the way back to your dorm, “As much as I like seeing Megumi pummel Muta, he’s definitely gonna get written up, at the very least, if he keeps it up. Just tell him you’re not mad about it anymore, and he’ll piss off.” 

You stuff your hands into your pockets, “I don’t control megumi. I didn’t tell him to egg Muta’s car, and pour milk all over him. ” 

“Like hell you don’t,” Nobara scoffs, “Kokichi was right about one thing—Megumi’s a doberman on a leash and you’re his owner.” 

“I didn’t even tell him that Kokichi kept asking for my number. I’m pretty sure Todo told Yuuji, and Yuuji told Megumi.”

“Yeah, that’s almost worse,” Nobara huffs, “He’s just moved to protect you out of undying loyalty—it must be nice to have a knight in shining armor. Does he call you ‘my liege,’ when you’re alone? He might as well bow down and kiss your shoes with the way he worships the ground you walk on.”

You know Nobara is teasing. The rhetoric that you have influence on Megumi isn’t new to you, but it’s always confusing for you to hear. You’ve known Megumi since grade school, and one thing you’re certain of is that he does things of his own conviction, and when he’s decided something, there’s little anybody can do to convince him otherwise. He’s the true definition of steadfast, and sometimes you wonder if his beliefs have inadvertently made him gain masochistic tendencies, because you’ve seen Megumi suffer in pain just to prove a point. 

“Megumi’s his own person, and he’s not easily influenced,” you chuckle, “If anything, he’s more of an attack dog—he bites whenever he sees something he doesn’t like.”

“In any case, he’s your dog,” Nobara shrugs. She pauses for a moment, skipping to catch up to you with a scrunch to her face, “I change my mind though, he’s definitely not scary enough to be a doberman. What are the puffy ones—the really small ones that yap a bunch?” 

“Pomeranians?”

She lights up—“Yeah, that’s way more fitting! Plus, he’s got spiky hair like those little mutts, a really bratty, spoiled one too. Gojo probably kept him in his Birkin as a kid.” 

You giggle as Nobara searches for an image to compare to one of Megumi. She goes as far as to make a collage and send it in your group chat for approval, instantly getting a rave reaction from Yuuji, and predictably, no response from Megumi.

Nobara walks you back halfway to your dorm, leaving you on your own to head to the gym to meet up with Yuuji. When you get back to your room, you’re not surprised to already see Megumi inside, sitting snugly on your worn-in couch with a book in hand. It’s Wednesday, so he only had morning classes, and prefers to spend his afternoon studying in solace, usually taking advantage of your larger, empty room to get his work done. He gives you a small wave, enraptured in his reading, and you know better than to try and disturb him, so you take your place on the opposite side of the couch with the remainder of your notes in hand, finally having the peace and quiet to finish your annotations. 

Megumi finishes his chapter before you’re done, but he waits for you, quietly scrolling on his phone so as not to interrupt you. You don’t face him when you speak, keeping your eyes on your notes, and simply stating, “Kokichi apologized.”

You hear him hum. you know he’s looking at you, but you don’t meet his gaze, and do your best to bite back a smile before he asks, “You forgive him?”

You finish your annotations with a final asterisk at the bottom of your page, so you cap the marker, and finally turn to face Megumi. He doesn’t ask a second time, even as you silently observe him, even if your smile is confusing to him.

“I wasn’t ever really upset,” you explain, “It was annoying, but he wasn’t harassing me or anything.” 

He hums again, but it’s not agreeing. “Tsumiki is gonna get mad if you get suspended.” 

Megumi calls your bluff with his hum this time, and you sigh. Tsumiki won’t get mad, because Megumi would never get suspended, not as long as Gojo is around as headmaster.

Megumi turns his body inward, raising an arm to rest his elbow against the cushion of the couch. He lolls his head to rest against his palm, cheek squished, and almost mischievous glimmer in his eye. In this light, you see Nobara’s argument—with sleep-tousled hair and expectant eyes, Megumi looks an awful lot like a puppy waiting for a command. 

It’s cute, until you realize that Megumi is awaiting your command. Is he?—why would he, he’s never been known to listen, and yet, you’re tempted to see if you truly do have him on some proverbial leash, like everyone else seems to believe.

“Megumi,” you call, softly, “He’s learned his lesson, and I’m fine, alright? Leave him alone.”  

Megumi blinks slowly. His features soften, only for a moment, before he’s turned away from you to pick up his book again. He doesn’t respond verbally, doesn’t touch on the topic for the rest of the evening that you both spend studying in your room, but the following day, you walk past Kokichi and Miwa heading into their chemistry lab, and notice a distinct lack of milk or food residue on his clothing or in his hair, so there isn’t anything more to be said.

Megumi is waiting outside of your lecture hall after your last class of the day, offering you a carton of strawberry milk—unopened, and un-thrown. You accept it, reaching up to ruffle his hair as a thank you, and you’re surprised when you feel him move into your touch. He dips his head down a bit further, gently knocking it against yours before straightening up with a sly smile. He nods his head, wordlessly, and turns towards your dorm, ready to walk you back. 

You follow, dazed, as you stab the straw into your milk. You’re a half-step behind Megumi, head clouded with confusing new daydreams about the boy in front of you, and now you can’t help but to wonder if you’re the one left to follow Megumi’s whim, or if he’s just pulling you by his own leash. 

[kenntolog]

need to know how does cool boyfriend sukuna met loser!gf reader…. and how did sukuna likes her djbekwbsks

𝝑𝝔 an: this is so corny but i hope u like it!! more about cool bf sukuna x loser gf reader here! cw: a lil blood and a minor injury.

i think before meeting loser reader properly, sukuna was like angrier and more intimidating to his surroundings; a constantly irritated expression on his face and ready to curse everyone and everything. these characteristics didn’t seize with the start of your relationship, but they have died down significantly ever since.

so of course, sukuna getting angry about losing a game(yes, him meeting loser reader on the game he lost lol) and the ball in his hand turns into a weapon as he throws it away blindly, not turning around to see what happened even after registering the sound of a loud thud and a round of gasps.

it’s only when uraume, the team’s manager, calls out to him that sukuna’s angry face turns irritated and he rolls his eyes, cursing under his breath, before looking over in their direction.

the view is so unexpected sukuna can barely keep his laughter intact, eyes lazily scanning through the small crowd of people to find you on the previously squeaky clean floor of the court — the victim of his angry fit — with blood gushing out of your nose and face red from crying. it’s such a pitiful sight(he is such a menace) that he just lifts his arms behind his head, locking them in a relaxed manner, and continues staring.

uraume gives him a cold glare, “take her to the nurse’s office.”

the commanding tone of their voice makes him roll his eyes, “tsk. take her yourself.”

“sukuna.”

coach yaga’s voice contains more warning and sukuna groans, holding his hand out for you to take from the fear of being suspended from trainings, which has happened before because of his anger issues.

you look up at him with surprise and gently place your hand in his, not expecting him to tug you up roughly. the walk to the nurse’s is silent, with you occasionally sending shy glances his way while you’re holding a cloth to your nose.

“where the fuck is the nurse?” he asks impatiently, sitting down on the stool while you settle on the examination table.

he doesn’t really care for the answer, but he still hears your meek voice mumbling, “it’s her break time.”

sukuna is too restless to just sit there and wait for the nurse to come back. he shoots up from his spot, looking around for something before he steps closer to the table you’re seated on. the way your eyes widen, body instinctively moving back to avoid his space makes the corners of his lips curl upwards in a satisfied smirk. he makes a point of standing between your knees.

he tugs the bloody cloth out of your hands, ignoring your little ‘hey!’, and cups your jaw a little too roughly, angling your head a bit higher to inspect your nose.

for a totally bleak loser you have a pretty face, he notes in his head, a sight for sore eyes. eyes looking up at his like he’s from the outer world, a little scared and maybe even mesmerised, lips parted slightly with one side covered in dried blood, hair disheveled and eyes still a bit watery. his interest was piqued maybe a just a little.

sukuna tilts your head forward and pinches the soft part of your nose between his thumb and index finger. you hiss in pain, hands flying up to grip his wrist, which makes him roll his eyes.

“tsk, what a crybaby.”

you pout at him, a small whimper escaping you as he continues scanning your face intensely. you mutter something under your breath, looking away from him.

“… didn’t hit me with a ball—”

“what did you say?”

“nothing!”

his grip on your nose tightens and you whine.

“oww~” you pull away from him, hiding your nose from him with a wary look before you quietly confess, “i said if you didn’t hit me with your ball then i wouldn’t be crying, y’know.”

“i didn’t hit you with my ball.”

“eh? you totally did though…”

“i threw my ball and you just fell under it. your fault, loser.”

you stare at him in bewilderment and sukuna doesn’t hide his great amusement. he steps away, lazily looking through cabins; he finds wet wipes and a pack of bandaids. throwing them at you without looking he once again stands in front of you, watching the way you messily wipe the blood from your face.

but he hates when things aren’t neat so he takes the pack of wet wipes from your lap, pulling out one, and cleans the blood where you missed, his free hand on top of your head. he throws it somewhere behind himself and takes the pack of bandaids, picking out the ugliest one in his opinion to plaster it over the little bruise on the side of your nose.

you say ‘thank you’ with a small bow and stumble out of the nurse’s office, tripping over your own feet, while he just stares at you indifferently.

you bake him little cupcakes, as a sign of your gratitude, not knowing that he isn’t that fond of sweet treats. sukuna still eats them, begrudgingly enjoying their taste.

though he can’t deny that he is amused by you. and that’s how it started, you know, sukuna just being amused with the way you get flustered when making eye contact in the hallways and lecture halls, the way you still always shyly wave at him in greeting, eyes shining a bit brighter when he gives you a little smirk or a nod.

you’re such a loser, sukuna thinks, always so shy around him but also ready to do anything he says. so at first, of course, he thinks of using that obedience for his own benefit, but soon those thoughts leave his mind when sukuna realise how sincere and interesting you are once you really get into the conversation.

what first starts as little jabs(i would say bullying) from him and you getting frustrated with every teasing and insulting word he throws in your address, soon enough transforms into something more; sukuna’s interest only rising along with the adoration that builds up inside his usually unresponsive heart.

[harunayuuka2060]

MC: 'There has been an increase in people seeking after Vil that they're failing to respect his privacy.'

MC: 'Even his manager is getting worried about it.'

Neige: Vil, don't you think it's time for you to increase the security in your house?

Vil: Everything is fine, Neige. MC is here to make sure of that.

Neige: Eh? Have they agreed to work for you?

Vil: Yes. Isn't that right, MC? *smiles*

MC: *nods*

Neige: But how about your job at the nightclub?

MC: I have submitted my resignation to them, though I have also offered assistance whenever they need it.

MC: For now, I have to focus on Vil's safety.

Neige: Does that mean... your schedule is booked 24/7?

Vil: Why are you making that expression, Neige?

Neige: Well... Vil, you can be quite bossy sometimes.

Vil: And?

Neige: ...

Neige: Ah, I almost forgot to ask. How are you and Che'nya? *giggles* Is he still staying at your house?

MC: Yes. He insisted on living there for a while.

Vil: ...

Vil: You should kick him out and change your locks.

MC: ...

MC: *brushing Vil's hair* Are you getting sleepy now, Vil?

Vil: Yes. You should go to bed with me.

MC: ...

MC: *continues to brush his hair*

Vil: Hm? Did you just ignore me?

MC: No. I might've misheard what you said earlier.

Vil: You didn't.

MC: ...

MC: You never like sharing your bed to anyone, Vil.

Vil: *chuckles* Still, will you watch me sleep?

MC: ...

MC: If it does make you feel safe, I will.

MC: *stays on guard even after ensuring that everything is clear as of the moment*

MC: ...

MC: *receives a text notification from the phone*

MC: ?

Cutie Nya :3 - I'm gonna borrow your pajamas nya. >:3

MC: ...

MC - No.

Cutie Nya :3 - What are nya going to do? Stop me? When nya still working? 😹

MC: ...

MC - Do as you want. I don't care anymore.

Cutie Nya :3 - Love nya 😻

MC: ...

MC: *smiles*

Vil: Who are you smiling for?

MC: !!!

MC: Vil?

Vil: *giving them a stern glare*

MC: Why are you awake?

Vil: Nothing. I'm going back to sleep. *turns to his side, his back facing them*

MC: ...

Vil: ...

MC: He seems dissatisfied about something.

MC: Maybe I should exit the room-

Vil: Where do you think you're going?

MC: ...

Vil: Stay where you are.

MC: ...

MC: Yes, Vil.

Vil: ...

Vil: It's been a while since I felt something like this.

Vil: What am I getting jealous this time?

[luvyeni]

❛BRUISES AND BALLET SHOES❜ ( l. jeno )

💬nia's notes: based on this drabble. is this late? absolutely but was hidden with all the other unfinished drafts.

p. badboy!jeno x goodgirl!reader w. 1.5k+

warnings? unprotected sex, breeding kink, dirty talk , name calling.

— 𖦹 ( jeno gets into a fight and almost misses your preformance ) !

you peeked your head out the curtain — the reserved seat still empty as people began to fill up the stadium. you pouted , closing the curtains. 'where is he? he promised he'd make it'

"(name)?" your director tapped your shoulder. "you okay?" you nodded. "good , we need you ready , there are a lot of people here to see you." you smiled , shaking your head. "i'm alright." there were many people here to see you , but not the one you wanted.

"jesus you guys look like crap." renjun sat at the computer as the rest of them came limping back in. "yeah well we can't all stay behind the computer." haechan opened up the freezer , grabbing a frozen pack for his eye. "some of us have to fight."

normally jeno would've entertained them , but he looked at the clock and went into panic mode , he was gonna be so late. "shit." he hopped up , looking into the mirror. "what's your problem?" he ignored chenle , he had bigger problems — he had a black eye and multiple little cuts littered all over his face. "she's gonna kill me."

he grabbed his helmet , normally he didn't wear it , but he was going to see you and he knew you'd be upset if he didn't. "what are those?" haechan laughed , pointing to the pink glitter stickers scattered all over the helmet. 'so you'll know what one is yours.' he remembered your voice. "she put them on there , are you laughing at her?" mark jumped in before jeno beat haechan to pulp. "haechan stop it."

he really didn't have time anyway. "i'm leaving." he rushed out , he'll make it if he rushes , jumping on to his bike , putting his sparkly helmet on before speeding off.

"(name) , you have to go on now , the show is about to start." your director called , you sighed , nodding. "okay." you made your way to the side of the stage. "you can do this." you said to yourself. 'i just hope he's safe and not in any trouble.'

he made it just in time , handing the lady — who definitely thought he was in the wrong with all the bruises on his face the ticket. "thank you." he ran to the to concet hall , swinging the door open , just as the music started.

everyone gave you a standing ovation , you were incredible , so graceful. you took your final now , before making your way off the stage where everyone was waiting to give you hugs and congratulations. "thank you everyone." you said smiling.

"we're all gonna go out and celebrate." your director said , you really didn't want to , just wanting to go home and crawl into a ball. "honestly i just wa- baby." you turn around upon hearing his voice. "jeno!" you smiled , the first real one of the evening. "maybe next time , excuse me."

you ran over to him , running straight into his arms. "you made it!" he smiled as your eyes lit up. "of course i did you were amazing , you'd really think i'd miss your preformance?" you pouted. i thought you got caught up." you finally noticed his face. "you were out fighting again."

he frowned , "baby it's apart of the job." you touched his busted lip , he hissed in pain. "eh , i told you to be careful , let's get you home so i can fix you up." you grabbed his hand , guiding him to his bike. "put your helmet on." you said. "baby." he whined. "now , you don't need anymore bruises on your face."

"ow , baby that hurts." he hissed as you sat on his lap , applying the alcohol to his busted lip. "you should've thought about that when you were out fighting." you scolded. "you told me you'd calm down." he sighed. "i know princess , but you know it's not easy."

you finished him up , throwing the trash in the bed next to the bin. "renjun's girlfriend said he never comes home with bruises." jeno rolled his eyes. "that's because renjun sits behind a computer." he kissed your lips. "maybe you should do that then."

he laughed , kissing your pouty lips again. "i'll ask mark next time." you knew he wouldn't , he loves the thrill too much , but you decided not fight it. "now let me give you some love as a reward for a fantastic show." he kissed your neck , making sure to mark you up. "j-jeno , no marks , my director is gonna be pissed."

"good." he said , leaving a few more. "maybe he'll get the hint that you don't want to fuck him and that you're taken." he growled against your skin , your panties soaking , his jealousy was always a bit of a turn on.

he flipped your bodies around , hovering over yours. "you're getting jealous for nothing." he lifted the shirt you stole from him above your hips , revealing your pink panties. "such cute panties."

you whined , squirming around impatiently. "calm down." he stilled your hips. "so eager to have your little pussy stretched , i have go make sure you're ready for me." he said , pulling your panties down your leg. "look how wet you are."

he toyed with your clit , rubbing slow circles to annoy you. "j-jeno , please." you whined. "n-no teasing." he chuckled at how needy you could be. "okay baby , okay , i won't tease." he pushed a finger into your hole. "fu-fuck jeno."

he moved his finger , watching your cunt suck in his finger. "fuck princess , only one finger and you're barely taking it." you moaned. "a-another." you barley got out , he cooed. "you want another?" he added another , your juices soaking his hand. "so wet baby , you're making such a mess on my hands."

"j-jeno." you moaned out. "jeno , im gonna cum." he curled his fingers up. "fuck , im cumming!" you screamed out , he pulled his fingers out , bringing them to his lips , tasting your reminisce. "just as sweet princess."

he pulled his sweats down , his cock springing out , hitting his abdomen. "look at you drooling over my cock , you want it in your mouth?" you eagerly nodded , he chuckled. "maybe next time baby." he rubbed your folds with his hard cock. "i really need to split you open with my cock."

he slowly pushed his cock into your cunt , your hole clenching around his tip , squeezing him. "fu-fuck, no matter how many times i fuck you." he groaned. "you're always so fucking tight."

he finally bottom out , holding your legs around his waist , rocking into you. "s-so big." you moaned , jeno was on the bigger side , so it was always a tight fit when he was fucking you , but it felt good , the way he stretched your poor cunt out. "yeah , but you always take my cock like a good girl."

"f-faster." you stuttered , he listened , fucking into you faster , hitting your cervix. "j-jeno , fuck!" you screamed , he groaned , holding on to the headboard. "oh fuck , you feel so good , moaning my name like a slut." he growled.

"e-everyone thinks you're such a good girl -shit- they don't see it when you're screaming my name like a whore , letting me stretch your tiny cunt out on my cock." he moaned. "ngh fuck , gonna cum in this tight cunt." you felt it coming , your orgasm about to hit you like a ton of bricks. "gonna cum."

"you can cum princess , cum all over my cock , so i can breed you , fill you with my cum." he felt his orgasm , holding it , waiting for you to finish. "would you like that?" he grunted. "for me too breed you? make your stomach all round." you nodded dumbly. "p-please."

"fuck- then cum for me." on his comand , you came , tightening around so tight you almost pushed him out. "oh fuck , fuck im cumming." he grunted , his cum filling you up. "sh-shit jeno." you mewled. "t-too much." he kissed your lips. "you can take it , your a big girl." he whispered. "you can take it."

"fuck look at that." he slowly pulled out of , his cum leaking out. "your tummy all bulged because of my cunt." you whined. "such a good girl , taking all of me like that." he praised.

he helped you get cleaned up , he was really inattentive when it came to things like this , making sure to be softer , washing your skin with your favorite sent , putting a towel in the dryer so it can be warm for you when you get out , wrapping around you.

you laid in bad , tracing his tattoos as he play with your hair , your favorite movie playing on the tv , your laughter breaking him away from it. "what's so funny?" you shook your head. "nothing." you smiled. "it must be , you're so giggly princess , what is it?"

"it's just that , to everyone you look so scary , but in here you're like a little puppy." he whined. "stop that." you chuckled. "i already get made fun of because of those stickers you put on my helmet." he said and you pouted. "then take them off." he pulled you closer , kissing your forehead. "and why would i do that?"

"my favorite girl did that , im keeping them even when they fade."

©️LUVYENI

[thefullwomb]

Roommates Pt. 1

Hailey had come to college as a bright-eyed academic. She had been accepted to one of the top bio-anthropology programs in the country and fully intended to earn her PhD. She'd gotten through her freshman year without incident. She didn't party or chase romance. She was dedicated to her studies, and her 4.1 GPA proved it.

Then, something changed during her third year. She moved in with a new roommate. His name was James, and he was HOT. This change in her living arrangements had been made necessary because her landlord had dramatically raised her rent. What had been a decent, if utterly unimpressive, two bedroom apartment was now being marketed as "luxury off campus living". With the simple addition of the word "luxury" came a $700 per month rent hike. In a panic, Hailey had put out an ad for a roommate and accepted the first candidate who didn't seem like a total loser.

James was six feet tall and slim. His mop of curly brown hair and pale angular face looked like a sculpture brought to life. But his most striking feature was his emerald green eyes. They held an intensity that left Hailey weak in the knees if she held his gaze for too long. She wanted him from the moment she laid eyes on him.

She tried her best to get his attention, but flirting wasn't exactly a skill she had developed. More often than not, she ended up feeling like she was humiliating herself as she failed over and over to get James to take her hints. She couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong. Could it be that she just wasn't his type? Maybe he preferred taller girls or heavier girls, or maybe he didn't like girls at all. She had to know, were her efforts in vain. She worked up the nerve to ask him directly, but his reply was as vague an answer as she could imagine.

"Eh, I'm not super picky. I think all kinds of people are hot." He has said with a shrug of his shoulders

Hailey wanted to scream. Not picky? If he wasn't picky, then what was so wrong with her? She wasn't a supermodel, but she was far from ugly... wasn't she? She felt her self-confidence eroding. What was wrong with her, and why wouldn't James even give her a second look? She had to know.

It didn't take long for an opportunity to present itself. James had gone out to get dinner from the nearest Chinese food place. He had also left his bedroom door open and by the flickering blue how that slipped out of the doorway it appeared he'd even left his computer on. As she snuck into James' she felt like a creep. This was wrong. She was spying on her roommate. She should just let this go, give up, and go back to being a straight A student who ignored cute guys, she thought even as she tapped the space bar and the computer screen flared to life.

With that single keystroke, Hailey suddenly got an eye full of exactly what James' type was. His computer opened up to a gaming stream, but the streamer in question wasn't the stereotypical petite e-girl. Instead, this streamer, named Charlene, was immensely pregnant. She looked to be more belly than woman. Every inch of her insanely gravid middle moved with a riot of kicking, squirming babies. As she played her game, she bragged about just how big her subs were making her as she rubbed the almost absurdly round orb that seemed to dominate her form.

Hailey was blushing hard as she continued watching the stream. She was transfixed by this impossibly pregnant streamer. Her hands involuntarily began to rub her own flat belly as some deep, primal part of her began to awaken. She had never put much thought into having babies beyond imagining it as some far away possibility. But, in that moment, she craved being filled to bursting with her lovers, with James' offspring.

Suddenly, Hailey was snapped back to reality when she heard the front door being unlocked. James was home, and she was still in his room and on his computer without his knowledge. Hailey let out a small squeak as she hurriedly fled to the privacy of her own room. She laid on her bed, so wound up and horny that the thought of tackling James and forcing him to plant his babies in her womb almost sounded like a good idea... almost. Instead, she put her favorite vibrator between her legs and screamed her newly unlocked desires into a stack of pillows.

It took a few weeks for Hailey to come up with a plan. After all, how could she get the attention of a guy who was clearly VERY into pregnant girls without risking becoming a single mother? It turned out that the answer was surprisingly simple: she would carry a surrogate pregnancy. It was the perfect plan. She would get to live out her newly discovered pregnancy fetish, make a decent amount of money, and, hopefully, bag her crush.

She signed up to carry a set of quads just before Christmas break. She wanted to make sure that she'd be on summer vacation during her final trimester. It didn't take her long to stay showing, and by spring break came around, she looked ready to pop. Onlookers could have been forgiven for assuming that she was overdue with twins by the time summer vacation began. As she grew bigger, rounder, heavier, and more pregnant by the day, she made sure to put herself on display for James' benefit. She would waddle around the apartment in her pre pregnancy clothes, which clung to every curve of her gravid body. She made a big show of being stuck on the couch and needing James to help her up.

Finally, near the end of her eighth month, she was lying on her bed and attempting to lotion her belly. There was so much that she couldn't reach and the babies kicked and squirmed, making her belly bulge and writhe as she tried to fight off her stretch marks and soothed her overstretched skin. She hadn't expected it at the start of her pregnancy, but as she'd grown bigger and bigger, Hailey realized that it turned her on being too pregnant to rub her entire belly, too pregnant to get off the couch unassisted, too pregnant to walk out of the apartment without being winded. She imagined how much better it would be if the babies that had all but taken over her body were hers. Between her fantasy, her hormones, and the sensations of her womb packed tight with squirming babies, Hailey felt a climax building. She was so lost in her own lust that she forgot that James could hear her as she screamed his name and came with a shudder.

She nearly screamed again as James burst into her room thinking that his hugely pregnant roommate was in trouble.

“Are the babies coming?!” He asked, still panicking

Hailey’s head was still spinning from her orgasm. She could barely form a thought let alone think up a convincing excuse for screaming his name.

“I… umm… I uh… I needed you to.” She stammered, still rubbing her tremendous belly like a fidget toy “C-could you help me rub my belly?”

Still, confused and now a little bit flustered himself, James sat on the edge of Hailey's bed. As he began rubbing the coco butter onto his roommates belly he felt his pants growing tighter by the second. Since the moment they'd met he'd had a crush on her. One she got pregnant, and especially once she'd started showing, his crush had only become more pronounced. But he hadn't said anything, he had done his best to keep his feelings to himself. He was so scared that if he admitted his feelings that they wouldn't be reciprocated and that things would get awkward.

But, in that moment James' arousal managed to overpower his apprehension. “I think your really hot, and I've wanted to ask you out for a since I met you but I was scared you wouldn't like me and it would be awkward and I know you're pregnant and everything, but I think that's kinda hot and I know that probably sounds weird but… but I… uh…”

James' confession flowed out of him in a single, panicked breath. As he spoke, his cheeks developed a burning red blush. He felt like an idiot, but he had already committed. He couldn't unsay what he'd already confessed. Then he noticed that Hailey looked just as flustered as he felt.

“Fuck, I'm… I'm sorry that was stupid… I'm an idiot, I'll just go.” James said as he prepared to flee back to his own room

“Wait!” Hailey called out, she tried to jump out of bed, but the weight of her full womb kept her pinned in place. “I uh… I don't think it's stupid or weird, in fact I've had a crush on you since we met.”

“You did?” Asked James, almost too stunned to believe this was truly happening

“Yeah…” replied Hailey sheepishly

The two held each other's gaze for what felt like an eternity. The tension that gives between them was nearly electric. Then, James rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Hailey. He started into her eyes for one last moment before kissing her with the passion of a long lost lover. She melted in his arms and returned his kiss. It was impossible to tell who started it, but within moments they were stripping each other naked. Clothes flew to the floor with haphazard abandon.

“I want you, Hailey.” James said as if that wasn't the most obvious statement in the world at that very moment.

“I need you, James.” Hailey replied

In a moment Hailey was on her hands and knees. Her huge, pregnant belly pressed into the mattress as James took his place between her legs. His hips pressed against the pillowy curve of her ass and the tip of his cock slipped between the dripping wet lips of her pussy. He held his tip just at the entrance of her birth canal for a brief instant before slowly sliding the throbbing shaft of his manhood deep into Hailey.

They both let out moans of ecstasy as their bodies joined together in a primal union. James leaned forward and grabbed Hailey’s arms pulling them back as his hands did down to hold hers. She was rocked forward, balanced on the gravid orb of her womb as James began to thrust. His member hit spots that she didn't even know she had as he ravished her like an animal in heat.

Their moans and cries grew louder and faster as they approached the event horizons of their climaxes as one. Hailey could feel the babies in her womb moving with and thrashing, agitated by her weight pressing down on her belly and the violent shaking of James’ thrusts.

“I WANT YOUR BABIES!!” She cried out “I want you to get me pregnant. Please, PLEASE get me pregnant. I need to feel your babies inside me.”

“Fuck, Hailey I want to knock you up so fucking bad.”James replied, his voice carried a desperate edge that made it clear that the very thought of impending her was beginning him that much closer to blowing his load “I want to make you pregnant over and over again. I want to watch you waddle around with a heavy belly full of my kids forever. And I… just want… to keep you… pregnant FOREVER!!!!”

James' voice rose to a guttural shout and Hailey’s rose to match it as they came together in a moment of pure, carnal bliss. James cock exploded its hot load of his seed, plastering the walls of Hailey's pussy. Her walls quivered and milked his cock for every last drop of his potent sperm.

Exhausted and high on a potent cocktail of hormones, the two young lovers collapsed into a spooning snuggle and passed out. The last thing Hailey could remember before skipping into the velvet embrace of sleep was the feeling of James’ arm wrapping protectively around her belly.

A huge shoutout to the ever lovely @pr-g for inspiring and providing the image for this story. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: give her a follow, and you won't be disappointed.

I'll be posting part 2 very soon. When it's up, I'll be leaving a linking it in the comments of this post to make it a little easier to find. Stay tuned!

[recklesssturniolo]

Live - M.S

cockwarming, based on req, dom!Matt, reader & him are dating

A/N: not too sure how I feel about this one but

NSFW below, leave if you're a minor

"Baby you know I have to stream" Matt says at my attempt to make a move by kissing up his neck.

"Mmm they can wait a bit longer" I mumble, moving my hand down to the growing bulge in his pants and palming him.

Matt and I had been dating for a while now, and although the fans had themselves came to the conclusion we were, we'd never confirmed it directly.

"You're just gonna have to wait" He says, shifting me slightly from my straddling position on his lap and turning me to face the camera.

As he starts setting up his stream, I move to my knees below the desk, a groan leaving his mouth as he watched me do so. Continuing to palm him through his pants, pulling his pants and boxers down just slightly and beginning to stroke him.

"Fucking hell" He mumbles.

Swiping my tongue from his base to the tip, and circling it around his tip before taking all of his dick into my mouth, he lets out another groan but pulls me up from under the desk.

"I said you're gonna need to wait" He says, looking directly into my eyes.

Smirking at him, I turn around and remove my shorts and pull my panties to the side.

"I - what are you doing" He asks.

"Nothing Matty, just set up the stream" I reply.

Slowly I angle myself above his dick before lowering myself onto him. A whimper leaving his mouth as I fully sat.

"Start" I practically demand.

"I'm fucking fully inside of you and you're wanting me to start the stream?" He questions.

Ignoring him, I start the stream myself, making sure to keep my expression normal as it started.

Viewers immediately flow in, Matt letting out a cough before finally speaking.

"Uh - sorry hey guys! As promised I'm gonna stream some Fortnite for you all today" He smiles.

"And I'm here to simply commentate" I laugh out.

I see in the small mirrored video of us in the corner of the PC Matt roll his eyes. He begins playing, both of us making comments and laughing at the fans comments as he did. I move my hands to his thighs and push myself up every so slightly, moving myself up his dick before lowering myself back down - as he was mid-sentence. A low groan falls from his lips that he immediately covers up with a cough while I had to hide the smirk wanting to form on my face.

"Jesus fuck Matt you are sucking so badly right now" I smile.

"Yeah well maybe if - uh if you weren't distracting me with your stupid comments I could play better" He replies, knowing he almost just outted us.

He focuses back on the game, his hands gripping the controller tightly as I rocked myself back and forth acting as if I was repositioning myself, seeing him bite the inside of his cheek, but my eyes widen as he slams controller on the table.

“Sorry guys Chris just texted me something and it’s urgent so I’m gonna have to end the stream early” Matt said before quickly ending the stream, shutting everything off.

“You think you’re funny eh? Egging me on with thousands of people watching?” He says.

I shrug my shoulders in response, not knowing what exactly to respond with. Before I realize it, Matt’s lifted me up and practically thrown me onto the bed.

“Matt” I whine, my need for him only having grown throughout his stream. My pussy now throbbing.

“So fucking needy” He growls.

He spreads open my legs, slipping my panties to the side - not even bothering to take the time to remove them and lines himself up with me and without another word slams himself into me, a whimper leaving my mouth as he stretched me out.

“Take it. You’ve been begging for it, don’t act like you can’t handle it now” He groans, his hands tightening around my hips.

“Fuck feels so good” I moan, as his thrusts speed up.

He removes his hands from my hips and uses them to grab my arms and pin them above my head, his face inches away from mine now.

“This what you wanted? Me treating you like the whore you are?” He asks, his voice raspy as he continues slamming into me.

“I - yes oh my god” I stutter as I feel my climax starting to creep up on me, my eyes squeezing shut as I feel him hit my g-spot.

“Open your eyes. I want to see your pretty face while I fuck you” He groans.

I do as he says, whimpers flowing from my mouth the closer my climax gets. My head tilting back and my back arching as Matt continues, and smirks as he watches me beneath him.

“I know you’re about to come, let it go then, you’ve been fucking waiting for it. Show me how good I make you feel” He groans, himself close as well.

My legs wrap around him in an attempt to get him to be even deeper inside me, my moans filling the room as I come. My body shakes slightly as it takes over me, the sensation I’s been yearning for all day.

“So fucking pretty coming for me” Matt groans, his forehead resting on mine, “Keep your legs like that I’m about to come”

I struggle to keep my legs wrapped around him as my high dies down, but watch as he releases himself inside of me. His grip around my wrists tightening as he did, and his breathing heavy.

Slowing his pace and dropping his head into the crook of my neck, silence takes over as we both lay there, both of our breathing beginning to return to normal.

“If I see one fan comment about how you or I acted on that stream, so help me god you won’t be able to walk properly for a week” He mumbles.

“Mm but I got what I wanted in the end didn’t I? Seems like a win win situation for me” I laugh.

“Yeah keep laughing, you won’t be when you’re limping everywhere”

TAGLIST: @sturnphilia @thatonekid536 @loveesiren @daddyslilchickenfingers @christinarowie332 @ilovemattsturn @its-jennarose @lovingsturniolo @iwantmattsobad @secret-sturniolo @soursturniolo @knowingnothingnoel @mwah0mwah @urmyslxt @sturniolosreads

[phfenomena]

❝state of grace.❞ || tom blyth x f!reader

| request- state of grace by taylor!!!!

| A/N- i’m using every goddamn line of this song in it. it’s too good to be ignored. justice for state of grace it’s my fav on red 😞😞

| WARNINGS- strange men in cafes, wine, monopoly, mentions of murdering josh, mentions of robbery, two goofballs in love, and big ol’ smooches

(divider by @v6que)

i’m walking fast through the traffic lights, busy streets and busy lives.

you’ve scrambled out of your apartment and are speed walking throughout the brooklyn streets in hopes of getting to your audition on time. being an aspiring actress in new york isn’t easy, but it’s all you wanted to do. nothing else called to you like acting, but the constant state of franticness and stress was taking a toll.

your mind begins to wander around the fact that the thousands of people you see tonight have their own lives, they’re trying to get home to their families, or their significant other, they have something to go home to.

all we know is touch and go.

after the disaster that one could call your audition, you figured you deserved a coffee. the cozy and serene café was one you frequented, on the days you had time. the chipper and almost too happy barista starts your drink the second she sees you cross the threshold of the doors. you go to take your usual seat by the window but stop upon seeing a man sitting there.

you stop and stare before ultimately deciding to just take the seat next to his, no, your usual seat. being too tired to even try to muster up the emotional strength to be upset, you plop down and place your head on the table. “you look like you really need this today.” jessie, the barista, says and places the mug of coffee next your head. you offer a small thanks and stare into the dark liquid.

we are alone with our changing minds, we fall in love till’ it hurts or bleeds.

the man occupying your space turned to look at you and he looked completely contrary to you, bright blue eyes, a smile, and he just looked content. he’s definitely attractive, but your brain couldn’t find any room for this man to move into.

“rough day, eh?” his accent makes you tilt your head towards him, he is really cute, you can’t lie. you nod your head tiredly and sip on your coffee. he stand up and takes the seat across from you and stick his hand out. “i’m tom, and you look like you could use a friend right now.” you shake his hand with a small smile and place the mug back down. “well, tom, how are you so good at reading people?” you pipe up after telling him your own name.

“it’s a talent i posses, love. can’t help it. i’m an empath.” his answer makes you laugh harder than you have in months. maybe this day wasn’t so bad after all. “there we go! you laughed, that was my whole goal. reckoned it would’ve taken longer, but i did it.” tom patted himself on the back as you shook your head with a small smile. “a woman of very few words, i see?”

you hum “i don’t know what to say to you, tom. a strange man approaches me in a cafe after i’ve had a bad day, what do i say to that?” he puts a finger on his chin to over exaggerate his thinking. “you could tell me about yourself, or i could tell you about myself. you just look lonely.” his eyes widen as he realizes he just called you lonely. he wasn’t wrong, but still hurt your feelings nonetheless.

“okay, i’m from california. everyone i know still lives there so it’s a little difficult to not be lonely here, but you don’t seem to be very not lonely. you’re sitting in a cafe by yourself and talking to strangers.” he throws his head back laughing. yeah, he’s really cute.

you come around and the armor folds, pierce the room like a cannonball.

after consistently hanging out with tom for a few months you’ve gotten into a routine. text tom good morning, tell him what you’re doing that day, and that you hope he has a good day. through him you’ve met some great friends, but you and rachel stuck together like glue instantly.

“so you’ve known tom for like seven months, and he still hasn’t come over to your apartment?” rachel asks in between sips of wine. you both sit on toms couch as the others are in the kitchen mixing drinks. “yes! i don’t know why i’m so nervous about it, it just feels too intimate for him to see it.” you and rachel giggle into eachother. it might be the wine, but you’ve never felt happier.

tom comes running into the living room, obviously drunk. “try this, i’ve perfected my concoction.” he shoves a foul smelling drink into your face. you look up at him and smile, “tom, this smells terrible. what the hell is in this?” he smells it himself and shrugs. “about a pour of everything.” you turn to rachel as if pleading for her to help. “i think i heard josh say he needs your help in the kitchen.” tom pipes up and struts back to the kitchen.

“someone needs to cut him off, he’s gonna be so sick tomorrow.” you manage to squeeze out in between your laughs. rachel wiggles her eyebrows at you “and you’ll be the one taking care of him.” you turn your head away from her with a pained expression. “i’m going to the kitchen to see what the hell they’re doing.”

so you were never a saint, and i loved in shades of wrong.

you lay flat on toms floor while he sits next to you, you’re talking about how you were as teenagers and before you met eachother. “no i was literally evil, i would ghost any girl that liked me.” toms cheeks are blushed from all the laughing. “i was the same way! i just never loved anyone right, and i was just really mean.” tom brushes a stray piece of hair out of your face that was stuck on your eyelashes. you stare up and him and swallow, you jet up to your feet. “i’m hungry, let’s go grab something.”

this is a state of grace, this is the worthwhile fight. love is a ruthless game.

josh, rachel, tom and you sit circled around your coffee table. monopoly laying on the table and wine in all of your hands. “that’s not fair! i’m in jail and josh gets to buy my properties?” you yell out as josh wheezes next to you. your eyes meet toms and you glance down at his wine stained lips. “you’re the bank, tom! tell him no and that i’m still a citizen!” “afraid you’ve dug your own grave, love. robbery does land you in jail.” he knowingly points his finger at you. “who said i committed robbery?! this is a corrupt world.”

rachel decided it might be best to put the game away before you actually do end up in jail for killing josh. the four of you sit on the couch watching some marvel movie. you turn your head to tom and whisper “so how did i commit robbery? what did i steal?” obviously still stuck on how you never won the game. he smirked down at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “my heart, love.” you pull away from him and pretend to gag onto rachel, who is sound asleep.

this is the golden age of something good and right and real. and i never saw you coming.

you wake up blearily and sit up. then a wall of pain shoots into your head as you look to your surroundings. tom is in your bed next to you. oh my god. tom is in your bed. he groans and grabs his head “what time is it? and how much wine did we drink?” he asks, acting like this is just a normal situation. “i have no idea where my phone is and apparently a lot because i feel like i got hit by a train.” you croak out laying back down.

toms arm finds its home around your waist and he cuddles into your back. “let’s just go back to sleep.” you nod and try to push down the sheer panic rising throughout your form. when you awake a few hours later, tom is gone. almost disappointed you walk out into your living room and find rachel and josh sitting there looking quite grumpy. “are you guys oka-” josh shushes you and goes back to rubbing his temples. you mutter a small sorry and walk into your kitchen, seeing tom making coffee. his bed head and sleep ridden eyes make your stomach feel warm and fuzzy.

“good morning.” you grumble and he laughs. “it’s three o’clock in the afternoon.” you laugh with him and rest your head on the counter waiting for the coffee. “i didn’t think we drank that much last night, i don’t even remember most of it.” you confess with furrowed eyebrows trying to rake back through your memories.

tom looks almost solemn at your confession and nods. “yeah, me too. it’s all blurry.” he remembered everything. last nights escapades slowly come back as you think and you excuse yourself to the bathroom. thinking of what happened last night.

you and tom sat on your bedroom floor as you showed him all the books you’ve collected and his smile was so wide it made your heart jump at the sight. you rambled on and on about how you read the ballad of songbirds when it came out and how he channeled coriolanus so well but he was just staring at you, the wine coursing through both of your bloods. he lunged forward and captured your lips with his causing you to drop your book and wrap your arms around him.

you quickly brush your teeth and comb through your hair, trying to look somewhat decent. you slowly tread back into the kitchen and stare at tom. “i remember last night.” you quickly confessed. biting the inside of your cheek as tom turns to look at you. “do you regret it?” he quietly asks before you shake your head and step closer to him. “no, i don’t. i’ve liked you since i met you.” he smiles and wraps his arm around you while pouring your coffee into your favorite mug.

these are the hands of fate, you’re my achilles heel.

[writingjourney]

a message from the bulletin board | cardinal copia x gn!reader

summary: the ministry’s bulletin board, ordinarily used for missing items or party announcements, contains a particularly interesting request this week – a lonely hearts ad.

content: 9k words, gn!reader, slightly suggestive at times, first date/first kiss shenanigans, sad lonely awkward cardinal fluff, you know the drill

Masterlist – Ao3 link

You ignore the knot of people in front of the bulletin board.

As much as the whispers and giggles garner your attention, someone else attracts it even more. Cardinal Copia, red cassock, red biretta, arms filled with two boxes worth of files and papers, is trying to push the door to his office open with his hip under a swell of Italian curses. Certainly, his hip swing is impressive on most days, especially on stage, but today it seems more like a helpless, uncoordinated bumping that the door is fighting with every ounce of its wooden strength.

Evidently, he’s struggling.

“Good morning, Cardinal, do you need a hand?”

His eyebrows shoot up when he hears your voice and he stops dead in his tracks, slowly turning his head until he catches you standing right behind him. Despite your announcement, he visibly startles, nearly dropping the boxes in his arms.

“Oh, eh… yes, if you could open the door for me, Sibling?”

“Of course.”

With your hand on the knob, you watch as he hurries inside of his office, wheezing under the weight and dropping the boxes onto his desk with a dull thud that echoes loudly in his mostly bare working space. Apart from books upon books strewn across and around his desk as well as an old weathered couch, there hasn’t been any love put into decorating the space. You wait patiently for him to turn back around to you, a hint of red dusting his cheeks when he finally does.

“Thank you,” he squeezes out, trying very hard to swallow his heavy exhales. “I carried them here all the way from the archives. Long way, you know, even for my…” He holds up his arm, flexing it exaggeratedly. “My strong, powerful muscles.”

You giggle and he perks up in delight, eyes wide and shiny. “No problem, Cardinal, I can imagine they’re very heavy.” 

You smile at him and he smiles back, so sweetly, and you’re momentarily at an equal loss for words. A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead, down the prominent bridge of his nose. He brushes it away with a leather-gloved hand and you can’t help but stare as he wipes it clean on the heavy fabric of his vestments, shaking out his fingers once he’s done. You can’t look away as they flex and release, flex and release. They’re surprisingly long and so… nimble.

Copia’s violent cough startles you awake and you’re not sure if it’s his own nerves that make him clear his throat, if his overexerted lungs are protesting or if he caught you staring. Either way, you feel your own cheeks getting hot now, the moment of hesitant silence slowly transitioning into a gooey sort of awkwardness.

“So, ugh… I better get back to my own duties,” you say. “Lots to do, spring cleaning and all that.”

He nods. “Yes, yes, you are busy, of course. Such a busy little bee. Bzz bzz. Hehe.”

You awkwardly giggle back, trying hard to think of a clever joke. Maybe something that has to do with stinging? But before you can settle on one, the time for a witty come-back has stretched thin and so you just awkwardly wave at him, mutter a “see you later” and close the door.

With your back pressed to the wood, you let out a deep exhale, the butterflies – or bees – in your stomach making it very hard to breathe at a normal pace. Once you’ve recollected your wits, you notice that the hallway is still as busy as before, maybe even busier.

Like lions gathering around an animal carcass after days of starvation, what feels like half the abbey has been flocking to the big rectangular corkboard. You cannot possibly imagine what would warrant such intense interest. The most exciting messages on any given day are unusual sex requests, the invitation to a weirdly themed party or a call for applications to a particularly intricate sex ritual to honour the Dark One.

You push through the crowd to check what’s causing the repeated giggling and excited whispers amongst your peers when you spot a pristine piece of paper on the board. It’s thick, stark-white, shaped like a heart at the top and with pieces to rip off at the bottom that contain a phone number. You squint, move in even closer until you can make out the text – hand-written and in cursive.

I (m, 50) am looking for a partner to spend the rest of my life with. I don’t have any preferences but it would be coolio if we had similar interests, so we can have some fun together.

I like: watching movies, playing video games, going on walks, rigatoni, juice, small animals

I don’t like: coconut flavour, being barefoot, swimming, touching wet dishes, bullies, dentist appointments

If you think we are a good match I would like to take you on a romantic date. Please call or text me.  Bye bye!

You smile at the note but quickly find back down to earth when someone rams their elbow into your side. No one has taken one of the numbers yet, so you assume the excitement is more about the fact that there is a lonely hearts ad on the bulletin board at all than any actual interest in the person. You have to admit, it is a bit odd. Most younger clergy members just use dating apps these days or social media. But the lonely heart in question is fifty, so they may not be familiar with modern methods, and it’s oddly endearing that anyone would go through the trouble of creating such an ad. At the same time, it breaks your heart that someone in the abbey is so lonely that they risk the ridicule of half of the clergy members just to have a chance at finding love.

“Well, there are a bunch of people who it could be,” you overhear someone say. “Maybe one of the older Brothers, a bunch of them are single. Could also be that new bishop who just arrived, I heard he’s a cinephile and walks around the gardens quite often.”

You ignore the whispers of speculation, making your way back through the crowd to return to your duties. It’s almost dinner time by now and you need to get two more loads of laundry done before then. But even as you sort through piles of habits, cassocks and veils… you can’t stop thinking about the ad. You sincerely hope the person receives a few serious and not just prank calls. The note did sound endearing and you definitely see similarities. At the same time you’re far too busy nursing your hopeless crush on the Cardinal to actually entertain the thought of dating someone else. 

You decide to check on the ad again tomorrow, see if anyone took a number, and if not, you could at least save it to your phone… just in case.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

Two birds land on his window sill, rubbing their beaks together in a kiss before happily chirping at each other. They’re in love, literal love birds, building a nest on the little protrusion in the wall right below his window. He’s been watching them occasionally, unreasonably envious, as they bring in twig after twig, ready to start their family. From the same window, Copia can make out the spring-filled gardens with their colourful patches of pink and red tulips, bumblebees hurrying from blossom to blossom, drunk on pollen and greedy for more. He can overlook the bright green meadow leading down to the pond, speckled with lush, budding trees. At this time of the day, after everyone finished their daily duties, the grass has almost completely disappeared under a plethora of picnic blankets.

Spring fever, he assumes, has to be the reason why everyone seems to be in love. Couples dozing in each other’s arms in the shade of the trees, feeding their lovers berries or grapes, taking a stroll down to the pond with their joined hands dangling between them, kissing without pause in the archways of the cool stone walkways leading outside. Just now he spots two Sisters rubbing sunscreen on each other’s bare shoulders, one of them kissing the other's head before they fall back onto their blanket, giggling happily at each other.

He feels so incredibly lonely.

This has been going on for weeks now and he’s tired of feeling so shamefully worthless of affection. Instead of the arms of his lover, he sinks into his tattered old desk chair and drowns his sorrows in boring paperwork. Not that that’s going well, but for lack of alternatives, he’d rather do budget calculations than sit in his quarters all alone. Every evening, the spring breeze carries the sound of happy laughter through his windows, usually while he’s playing video games all by himself, but he can’t keep them closed if he doesn’t want to sweat to death. Besides… that same gentle breeze is the only thing caressing his skin as he tries to fall asleep at night and if he closes his eyes, the wind almost feels like fingertips ghosting over his arms.

As he leaves his office that night, he receives another heavy but sadly much expected blow. Almost a week now and still no one has taken one of the numbers from his lonely hearts ad. Of course it doesn’t mean no one saved it to his phone, he tells himself, people are shy or they just don’t want to date an anonymous person. It has nothing to do with him, they don’t even know it’s him. And yet… if his dating streak continues so poorly, he’s not sure if he can stay sane for much longer. There are only so many tears you can cry in bed at night before it starts to take a toll on you.

His heart is especially heavy as he makes his way to his lonely quarters. One more day and then he’s taking it down, he decides. No use in waiting any longer now that surely everyone in the abbey has seen his request and the last thing he wants are pity calls.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

“So, are you going to call the Cardinal?”

You look up from your breakfast plate. Your friend Lily is sitting opposite of you, chewing on a blueberry muffin, and you narrow your eyes at her. “The Cardinal?”

“The number in the lonely hearts ad,” she says. “It’s still there, I checked earlier.”

“It’s the Cardinal?”

She nods, popping another piece of muffin into her mouth. “Duh.”

You feel your cheeks heating up and set your fork down to hide the sudden tremor in your fingers. “Which Cardinal?”

She gives a soft groan of annoyance. “Babe, there is only one of the Cardinals who would ever hang up such a goofy thing. Now, will you call him?”

Copia. She knows about your… slight infatuation with him. And despite being kind and not teasing you too much, it was just a matter of time until the occasion popped up. If he is looking for a serious partner… maybe it’s too late for you soon. The ad has been up for days and while you’ve been toying with the idea of calling, you just haven’t found the courage yet.

You continue eating, trying to act casual, but it takes you three attempts to pick up a stray piece of cucumber from your plate. “How do you even know it’s his number?”

Lily takes a deep breath, setting the muffin down to ready herself. “Sooo, Michael wanted to call the number to check who it is, right? Well, turns out his girlfriend already knew it’s the Cardinal’s number and his girlfriend is Sister Jill who knows it from Sister Mary who is roommates with Sibling Jessie who works with the treasury and their colleague Brother Paul works as the Cardinal’s assistant two times a week and that’s how he has the Cardinal’s number for emergencies.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. Now, will you?”

Eyes on your empty plate, you bite your lip until you can taste blood. It’s Copia’s number, the number of your crush of about six months now, and he’s looking for a partner, unspecified. That’s… big news, intimidating news, news that calls to an action you’re not sure you’re prepared for.

Glancing at Lily, you catch her smirking at you and promptly give her a scowl. “I don’t know. What if he already got better options?”

She cocks her head to the side. “Better than you? I doubt it.”

“You’re biased because you’re my friend.”

A shrug. “You should try. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“He could be disappointed.”

“He’s more disappointed if no one calls,” she counters.

“Yeah but–”

You stop yourself when you see Nora, Lily’s girlfriend, approaching the table. Her arms wrap around Lily from behind as she presses a loud, lingering kiss to her cheek, both of them giggling.

“You scared me,” Lily says, turning around for a proper kiss.

“Sorry, love, but I can’t leave breakfast without my sweet treat.”

You avert your gaze, involuntarily feeling like an intruder. They’ve been together for a few weeks now, sickeningly adorable. Lily had been pining after Nora for months, a little bit like you with the Cardinal, only that she eventually found the courage to ask her out. To see her bravery being rewarded like that makes you incredibly happy for both of them. But at the same time… you have rarely ever felt your loneliness so sharply, the heaviness of your unreciprocated crush such a weight on your shoulders.

You know that if you want this to be you and the Cardinal, then there’s only one real answer to her question: You have to reach out to him.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

He’s ready to toss this day into the trash bin already and he only just got up. 

Last night, after tossing and turning for hours, Copia fell asleep only to promptly land in a hysterically embarrassing dream that made him jolt up whimpering like a kicked dog and hiding his face in the pillow. Bringing himself close to suffocation, he finally realised that he had not actually stumbled right in front of you, spilling juice all over his robes, scrambling to get up only to slip in the puddle by his feet, falling onto his butt with a high-pitched cry. You had been standing there motionless, watching the spectacle unfold until you turned around to leave.

This is the reaction he would expect, should he ever actually find the courage to ask you out. However, this is highly doubtful, because upon walking to his office half an hour later, he catches you with a group of friends. He often sees you with them – attractive young Siblings, evident chemistry between all of you, and every week he suspects a different one to be in love with you. He recognizes the two Sisters he saw from his window earlier this week. One of them presses a loving kiss to the other’s cheek and he wishes he could just walk up to you and do the same.

His heart hurts. No matter how much kindness you extend to him, you’re a beautiful young soul who could never be romantically interested in an aging loner. Copia is not disliked per se, he gets along with pretty much everyone, but he struggles to build meaningful connections. Between working his butt off to satisfy the clergy and spending time on his mostly solitary hobbies, it’s hard to meet people. He had to actively put himself out there but neither online dating nor any of the singles’ events Terzo sent him on brought any results – only what the young Siblings call getting “ghosted” or “benched”.

His ad is his last chance. And even that failed miserably.

As he ponders his options, your eyes suddenly meet his and he swears you’re smiling. Then you lift your hand in a cautious wave. For a second, he’s too scared to wave back because there are people around him, all of which could be your target. Your hand sinks after a moment as your smile slowly straightens and he suddenly knows that you do mean him. He lifts his hand far too excitedly in a reciprocative wave. Your smile returns, a shy one, but before he can even think about possibly approaching you, his knees suddenly give out.

No, they don’t give out, someone rams a trolly filled with supplies for Black Mass into him. Some of the tall candles roll off the top and clatter to the floor, breaking in half just like his dignity. 

“Oops, sorry, Cardinal,” the Sibling says, scrambling to help him up. “It’s so hard to steer this thing.”

“It’s fine,” he chokes out, the pain in his knees anything but fine. “It happens.”

“I’m truly so sorry.”

He smiles, a hand on their shoulder now that he’s on his feet again. “It is okay, eh? No worries.”

When his eyes try to find you again, you’re not there anymore and he can’t decide if he’s relieved or sad. He prays to Satan that you didn’t see him fall but there is no way you missed it. His dream, if slightly watered-down, did come true after all and perhaps now you won’t want to–

“Cardinal, are you alright?” 

Copia, still dizzy and skittish, spins around so hard he nearly stumbles again. He smooths out his now crumpled cassock, the dust he collected on the floor even more visible on today’s black vestments. In an attempt to retain his dignity, he straightens his spine and looks right into your beautiful eyes. You have a tendency to startle him like that and he wishes he could be more smooth about these encounters.

“Yes, yes, Sibling, thank you. It was… it was nothing, just a little stumble, eh?”

“Are you sure?” You inspect him from head to toe, your brow creased in concern. “It looked painful. Your knees…”

“Oh, my knees are fine!” he lies. “I kneel all the time, Sibling. You know this.” Your eyes widen and he continues to stammer. “I mean in prayer. I pray a lot. On my knees. I am a Cardinal, yes? It’s my job.”

 You nod heavily. “Yes, of course.”

“So, ugh… I better just fuck off.” He presses his lips together to keep more silly words from coming out. “I mean I’ll go back to work. ”

As he tries to leave, your hand shoots up, squeezing the muscles in his forearm. He’s not as much startled as enthralled by your touch, so unexpected that he has no time to feel insecure but so welcome that it almost feels natural to have your fingers on his arm. He swears there is a hint of nervousness in your eyes now and despite knowing it’s silly, his heart wants to interpret it as bashfulness.

“Cardinal, please. I… ugh…” 

You look beautiful from up close. Even if you weren’t stuttering he’d have a hard time listening to your words. It seems like you stopped breathing, your cheeks now a sweet shade of rosy, and you open your mouth to speak but no words come out. Eventually, you shake your head and run your fingers over the fabric of his sleeve. He thinks he’s about to pass out, his nerves rising until he can feel his heartbeat all the way up to his neck. Your hand is so gentle, so… affectionate.

“I’m sorry, Cardinal. I don’t mean to keep you. I was just thinking that I really like the black cassock. It suits you.”

A compliment. His mind is racing. This is not what you really wanted to say, he can tell, but he grins anyway. You like his cassock? Well, you should wait until you see him in a suit. Maybe on a date. He should ask, he realises. This is the moment he’s been waiting for for months now. But as he continues to stare at you his tongue becomes too heavy to form the words, and then your hand is suddenly gone and takes his courage right with it.

“Thank you, Sibling,” he says instead. “I also really like your ugh… your outfit.”

Only when the words leave his mouth does he realise it’s the same everyday habit you’re wearing all the time. Somehow, the silly compliment still manages to conjure a smile onto your face and so he stops berating himself because he made you smile. The sight stuns him, butterflies erupting in his already nervous stomach.

“I’ll see you later, Cardinal,” you say then, your eyes leaving his to glance down the hallway where your friends are waiting, beckoning for you to hurry.

Copia nods and he looks down at your hand in silent fascination, staring at your fingers that are dangling by your thigh without any use as if he could magically make them touch his arm again. “Yes, yes. See you,” he mumbles. “Bye bye.”

When he looks back up, you’re already hurrying off. Copia stays frozen, his gaze trailing after you as though his eyes are glued to your form. Even when you’re out of sight it takes him a while to start moving, to start breathing again.

Around him, the hallway slowly empties as everyone starts to tend to their respective duties. Copia can’t help but feel the nagging disappointment about not asking you out. A chance like this won’t suddenly appear again and even if you refused him it would still be less humiliating than the untouched ad at the bulletin board. He should take it off right now, he figures.

Only when he enters the hallway leading to his office, something looks off about the postings. He notices the change from the corner of his eye at first as he walks past the large corkboard. More party flyers have appeared, someone took down the “diamond butt plug set missing” request that had been hanging there since an orgy in the Siblings’ wing went wrong last month. Instead, Copia notices a large poster promoting condom usage that partly covers the request underneath. Which is how he recognises it.

His ad. 

And one of the numbers is missing.

Copia nearly lets out a loud squeal as realisation dawns on him like the gentle spring sun rising over the hills every morning, bringing warmth and happiness after a cold, dark night. It seems like Cupid finally answered his prayers, like Aphrodite found sweet mercy for him.

Someone took his number. Someone wants to reach out to him.

For the rest of the day, he feels like he swallowed a swarm of bees, staring at his phone like it’s going to light up any second. Which it could. He could receive the message or call that changes his life any second now. Any second. Any… any second.

Nothing happens. Not in the next hour, not in the next two hours. All day, in fact, his phone stays quiet. His initial happiness deflates like a balloon. As he heads towards his quarters that evening, he observes how everyone piles into the dining hall, their happy laughter and cheerful spirits spoiling his usually solid appetite. He hates the sour feeling of envy in his stomach but he can’t help but suspect that everyone conspired against him.

Copia decides to skip dinner in order to cry into a big bowl of gelato. His nightmare might not have come true but his brain tortures him with pictures of your smiling face instead, with the phantom feeling of your warm hand lingering on his arm, and he can’t help but feel crushed anyway. He’d sell his soul to come home to you, to eat with you, sit with you, watch silly movies with you, fall asleep with you in his arms and wake up with your smile as the first thing he gets to see every day. It becomes increasingly clear to him that every day he misses out on being with you is a day tragically lost.

If only he was brave enough to change that.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

You’ve been pacing your bedroom for the better part of the evening now, back and forth and back and forth to the point where you’re seriously concerned about wearing down your carpet. The day passed uneventfully apart from your encounter with Copia in the hallway where you made a complete fool of yourself. You would have loved to skip all of the unnecessary fuss of texting back and forth but you barely spoke more than two words to him before you chickened out. Surely, if his interest in you was romantic, he could just ask you out instead of advertising himself on a public corkboard?

In any case, you’ve been typing out messages for over an hour now, deleting every single one of them only to throw your phone onto the bed multiple times before picking it back up to risk another attempt.

The reason you haven’t given up yet is that Lily knows you have his number now. Last night, when you thought everyone was asleep, you snuck out of your dorm feeling like James Bond with your torch and black clothing, tiptoeing down the empty corridors of the abbey. You didn’t want anyone spreading any premature rumors but a part of you was hesitant to take one of the numbers at all. Even if you called him, it wasn’t certain that he’d want to go on a date with you.

Still, you ripped off one of the thumb-sized pieces of paper and headed back – only to promptly run into Lily as she snuck out to meet Nora. You’re never going to forget her self-satisfied grin as she spotted you with the crumpled number between your fingers.

Begging your creative juices to start flowing, you stare at the empty message box. Perhaps you should be funny. You wonder if he knows the Piña Colada song. It is about a lonely hearts ad after all and he’s a musician. You type and type, delete and retype until you end on a rough draft to show Lily when she gets home. But no, upon rethinking, the joke is too silly even for you and there’s probably a better way to phrase this–

“Hey, have you called him yet?”

You jump, your heart rate doubling in shock. Lily appears in the open doorway and her voice startles you so fiercely that you clutch your phone to your chest. To your utter horror, the swishing sound of a sent message reaches your ear as your palm connects with the touchscreen, and when you glance down, the bubble with your typed out message sits at the top of your chat history.

“Oh no,” you whisper.

“What?”

“I sent my stupid silly joke message to him.”

Lily picks your phone from your hands, reading the solitary message from the display. “Well, at least now you’ll know if he shares your weird sense of humour?”

You grasp her shoulder and release a deep, throaty groan. Her words don’t calm you in the slightest, if anything, they only make it worse.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

Driving Miss Daisy can’t distract him anymore.

Every two minutes Copia reaches for his phone to check for any missed texts or calls only to have the gapingly empty home screen staring back at him. He never figured out how to change the pre-set wallpaper. Perhaps he could try again when he has a cute couple picture of him and his future partner. The thought makes him smile. It’s one of many little things he would change – if they only called.

Despite putting it on vibrate, he doesn’t trust the device to inform him of any news. He even carried it to the toilet twice already, just in case something happens while he’s gone. His ice cream doesn’t satisfy him tonight, everything feels bland and devoid of flavour, but he refills his bowl anyway. One big spoon and a bit of spray cream… and as he walks back over to his bed, he realises that he should definitely check his phone again because this took way longer than two minutes.

Right as he pulls the device out his pocket, it vibrates violently in his hand. For a moment he is so shocked to see a message pop up that he throws it away. It lands on his bed, bouncing a few times, display still lit up with one new notification glaring at him from the centre of his screen.

He takes a deep breath. This is real. He got a message.

No, he can’t look at it, he’s going to lose his nerves. A few more deep inhales and slow exhales, then he can’t fight the suspension any longer. 

Hey, stranger :) You don’t like coconut, so you probably don’t like Piña Coladas, but maybe I’m still the love that you look for?  I would love to go on a date with you, if you are still looking for one. 

It takes him a second, then another one. The ice cream melts in his bowl as it sits forgotten on the floor next to his bed. Suddenly it clicks and he chuckles, in relief as well as amusement, thinking that he knows that song, that he gets the reference. That means this person is funny. They made a joke. He smiles to himself. A funny person wants to go on a date with him.

He types back, deleting, typing again. After five minutes, he comes up with a reply.

Hello, stranger! 👋🏼 I do not like Piña Coladas 🍹 but I have many better things to offer if you want to go on a picnic 🧺 with me tomorrow? I will bring food 🥪 and drinks 🧃 of course. Hopefully we do not get caught in the rain 💦😀

He thinks about how he could sign the message but then his nerves start to kick in. If he tells the person who he is, they may reconsider their choice to go out with him and that’s the last thing he wants. Even if the date doesn’t go well, he wants to try his best, so he shoots another message after the first: 

Oh. It will be a blind date, if that is okay with you?

The next minute is the longest of his life. An eternity passes. He thinks he might have stopped breathing with how tight his chest feels. That is, until his phone lights up and shows the same number again, wringing a deep sigh of relief from him.

That’s fine with me. Where do we meet?

The squeal he lets out vibrates in his chest and bounces off the walls.

He’s got a date. Finally.

✦ ✧ ✦ 

Copia hears his bad conscience somewhere in the back of his mind whispering that blocking the best spot in the gardens all day is selfish. Perhaps it is true, perhaps he feels a little selfish today. And yes, besides feeling selfish he also feels a little guilty. Is it fair to go on a date when he has such a horrible crush on someone else? No. No, it’s not fair. But he can’t let another chance at love run through his fingers like sand on the beach. He simply has to grasp this opportunity.

His red-checked blanket lays untouched underneath the tall chestnut tree, its big, hand-shaped leaves rustling in the soft breeze as he approaches. The head of a rat is stitched into all four corners  of the fabric – a gift from Sister for his latest birthday – and it’s been sitting here since nine o’clock when he took the liberty of… reserving… the spot. He picked the north-side of the tree so that the shade falls exactly where he’s going to be sitting with his date in approximately fifteen minutes. If they prefer the sun, he can just pull the blanket over a little, but he’d never forgive himself if they got sunburn because of him.

Copia took the day off, his first day off all year in fact, risking his next employee of the month award to spend all morning in town, running errands. With the end of May and strawberry season starting, he visited every grocery store within walking distance to find the ripest, juiciest ones they offered. He was lucky enough to obtain a small basket filled with the most delicious-looking red fruits and some additional fresh ingredients for his sandwiches. While he was quick-witted enough to ask about his date’s allergies yesterday, he completely forgot to ask them about their favorite snacks and so he’s decided to just bring anything he could think of that wouldn’t melt in the sun.

The basket he packed feels heavy in his hand for that exact reason and when he sets it down on the blanket, he can feel the strain in his arm. The past hour was spent obsessing over his outfit until he decided to just go for the white suit combo. Yes, white fabric near grass and juicy red fruits is not the most brilliant idea, but he wants to look his best and that means going the extra mile, even if he has to wear the tiny, itchy underwear underneath.

His heartbeat is going a mile a minute now. He can’t unpack yet, he doesn’t want the food to be out for too long, and so he sits and waits, his hands sweaty under his black and white leather gloves. The fact that the gardens around him slowly become crowded as the afternoon rolls around does nothing for his nerves. He can feel the curious glances, can hear the hushed whispers, and as the hour nears, he starts sweating even more despite the shade. If the unanswered ad had been embarrassing, being stood up so publicly would be even worse. 

And then the most horrifying thing ever happens.

Copia sees you walking along the path, wearing a weather-appropriate, slightly dressed-up outfit that makes his eyes involuntarily roam your whole form. But he can’t fully focus on your loveliness. At first, he’s panicking that you’re meeting your friends somewhere close by where you could see him with his date. He would be so embarrassed, so distracted, so uncomfortable. But you walk straight towards him and that’s even worse. If he has to tell you that he’s busy meeting someone else he might spontaneously combust, explode into tiny particles of humiliation. It would ruin everything, his date and his crush on you. What if his date shows up and sees you with him? What if–

Oh no, you don’t stop approaching, you don’t take a turn, you walk up straight to where he’s waiting – with a hint of hesitation, yes, but very directed steps. Copia jumps up immediately, his black hat nearly falling from his head.

“Oh, Sibling,” he stammers, lifting a trembling hand to adjust his fedora. “Hello, hi. Are you spending some time outside today as well?”

Your mouth opens and you wring your hands before hiding them behind your back. “Hello, Cardinal. I ugh… I’m supposed to meet someone here under the chestnut tree.”

Copia furrows his brow, slowly registering your words. “Meet someone. Under the chestnut tree.” 

“Yes.”

“Oh, Satan. It’s you?” He stops, stares, comprehends. He sounds incredulous, his voice a higher pitch than usual. “You’re my stranger?”

You nod, big eyes staring into his mismatched ones in silent expectation, hope and fear muddled together in the crease of your brow. He doesn’t know how to react, just rubs his thumb and index finger together as his mind races faster than speed limit.

“Is this… is this bad?” you finally ask, breaking the awkward silence.

“No!” Copia exclaims. “No, no, no. Please, please sit.”

You do, kneeling down on the blanket a little hesitantly. Copia joins you, still not fully trusting his senses. This feels like a hallucination. His disbelief has to be the only reason he hasn’t passed out yet. Is he really on a date with you right now?

After another moment of silence, Copia notices you eyeing the basket and snaps back into reality. His plans, his very detailed plans for how this date is supposed to go, flood his mind and he remembers the first step now. Swallowing his shock, he sits up a little straighter.

“Ah, eh… yes, I got you something.” He reaches behind the basket and procures three deep red roses he stole from Primo’s rose garden on the way here. Their intense smell hits his nose as he whips them past his face and hands them over. “These are for you. I hope you like roses. I know it is a bit cliché but also a classic, no?”

“I love them,” you assure him, holding them up to your nose with a smile. “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”

He smiles. “Good, good. Yes. So… I thought about what we could do and–”

“Cardinal,” you interrupt then. 

“Oh, no. No, call me Copia. Please.” He gives you a shaky smile. “We’re on a date, no?”

“Copia,” you try but feeling his name on your tongue doesn’t make you feel any better. Ever since getting here your bad conscience made it hard to fully settle into this date and with his visible distress upon discovering it’s you, you feel like now is the time to address it. “Before… before we do this, I have a confession to make…” 

He hums and wriggles his eyebrows. “Oh, really? Well, I would love to see you in confession soon…”

You blush furiously. “Oh, no. No, that’s not what I meant.”

A flash of concern and you can practically see all of his insecurities mirrored in his eyes. You’re both tiptoeing around the same question, you assume, but it’s on you to take the plunge.

“What… what do you mean then?” he asks.

“About this date…” His lightheartedness completely disappears. You feel bad for ruining the mood but it’s too late now and you need to get it out, you owe him that much. “Copia… It wasn’t a blind date on my part. I… I knew it was you.”

“You knew it was me?” he asks and again his features change, eyes wide now. He really had no idea that people knew the ad was his and suddenly he feels like a fool.

“I’m so sorry, I should have been honest from the start.” You stare at his gloved hand but you’re too scared to take it. “I hope you can forgive me for keeping this from you.”

“You knew it was me and you still… you still wrote to me? You still came?”

You furrow your brow. “I didn’t tell you because then I would have had to admit that it’s me and I was scared that maybe you wouldn’t want to go anymore.”

“Me? Not… not…” He shakes his head so fast that his fedora once again threatens to fly off. “Oh, tesoro, I would have… I would have been on the moon with joy, as they say. Yes, yes, I would have.”

You don’t correct him. Instead, an insecure smile settles on your face. “You know you don’t have to say that, Copia, it’s okay if you were hoping for someone else… That’s the risk of going on a blind date, right?”

He yanks your hand out of your lap, wrapping it up in both of his gloved ones. “Tesoro, can I be very honest with you?”

You nod. “Of course you can. Always.”

“I was hoping it was you.”

Your breath catches and steals your next words. The same incredulity that hit him earlier now settles in your chest and you can’t find it in you to question him.

Copia immediately fills the silence. “I never… I never thought…” You watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down, a nervous swallow, before he wets his lips. “Tesoro, you were always very good to me. I always saw your kindness, you understand this, yes? Don’t get me wrong, I just… I never thought you were interested in me like this. In such a silly old man.”

You have to giggle through your nerves. “I love that you’re a silly old man.”

He smiles shyly. “You are very sweet, tesoro.”

“I’ve actually had this crush for a few months now,” you admit, encouraged by his positive reaction. “And I want you to know that when I saw your ad I thought about calling even before I knew it was you.”

His smile grows impossibly bigger at that. “Did you?”

A nod. Copia squeezes your hand, then brings it to his face for a kiss. You feel his wet lips on your skin and they’re so soft, so gentle. When he sets your hand back down you see a trace of black lipstick on its back and instantly feel warm and fuzzy inside.

“Should we start then?” he asks. “I brought a lot of things, let me show you.”

The basket opens to reveal a plethora of food and drink options. Copia sets down a foil-wrapped plate with sandwiches that look a little wonky so you assume he made them himself, then some juice boxes, apple and orange, a box of fresh, delicious-looking strawberries, two bottles of water, reusable plastic cups and plates. At last, he hands you one of many different muffins he must have stolen from the kitchens.

“For my dolcezza,” he says with a smile.

More heat spreads in your cheeks as you take the little treat from him with a thanks. You’re both visibly losing your nervousness now, your postures less cramped, stretching out your limbs on the blanket with your bodies angled towards each other.

“Maybe we should… talk a bit about us?” Copia proposes. “To get to know each other, sì? I would like to learn about you.”

“Oh, yes, that sounds good. Do you want to start?”

He thinks on a good starter question, the pressure clouding his thoughts for a moment but then his silence grows thick and he has to say something. “So, ugh… do you like Star Wars?”

This is not one of the questions on his list of conversation starters. For some reason, every single meaningful thought suddenly leaves him. Luckily, this simple, safe question seems to put you at ease and you relax even more.

“I do,” you say. “I watched all the movies.”

“Oh, good! And what is your favorite?”

You pluck a piece from your muffin, popping it into your mouth. “Hmm… The Empire Strikes Back, I think.”

“Hehehe, sì, sì, I am your daddy.” His eyes widen. “Not that I’m… I don’t mean… you know, the scene with Luke… ugh. So, anyway, yes, that is my favorite as well.”

You giggle and he lights up, smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt. You reach for one of the sandwiches then. Copia helps, holding the plate up for you.

“So, these are all inspired by Italian foods. I have ugh… caprese. Mozzarella and tomato?”

You reach for the one he showed you. “That sounds great, thank you.”

Copia can’t help but stare as he awaits your reaction. You hum in delight and immediately take another bite of the soft bread. Satisfied, Copia allows himself to grab one as well now. Conversation slows down as you eat but you continue to talk about your interests between bites, finding more and more similarities as the minutes pass. 

Your little spot is beautiful, cool enough to sit comfortably but warm enough to feel the reviving effects of spring. The leaves above you rustle every now and then, birds and bees flying past, the odd ant crawling over your blanket in search of some crumbs. Neither one of you is bothered as you sip on your juice boxes in tandem and intuitively increase your proximity.

With your bodies gravitating towards each other like that, you end up sitting very close after a while. Copia reclines against the tree trunk, pulling his hat down to grant him more shade, a little bit like a cowboy leaning against the walls of a saloon. His white suit is an odd contrast to his relaxed pose, not the most comfortable outfit to lounge in. Without thinking too much about it, he pulls you close to him and angles you so you can rest your head in his lap. 

You’re only tense for a short moment. Copia gets rid of his gloves and you can feel his bare fingers running over your scalp. The steady pattern he draws calms you and you sigh, closing your eyes for a few minutes as a warm feeling of safety spreads out in you.

Copia can’t help but stare. Despite the initial hiccup, you’re so comfortable around each other that he feels like he’s known you forever. This is a dream come true for him, all his fantasies, his wishes, his longings, they all seem to come together in the lovely face dozing in his lap. You’re the most stunning sight he ever had the pleasure to behold. Every line, every hair, every mole, blemish or scar combines into the most beautifully painted canvas – and to him, it’s perfect. You’re perfect.

“Do you want a strawberry, tesorino?” he asks then.

You open your sparkly eyes and they reflect a speck of sunlight breaking through the canopy. Blinking a few times, you shift in his lap to avoid being blinded. He tenses as your cheek narrowly misses his groin, but then you nod and he distracts himself by reaching for the box of strawberries. 

With careful fingers, he grabs one of the shiny heart-shaped fruits, making sure to touch the stem to avoid any stains, and then guides it to your mouth. He can’t help but stare as he sees your lips part for him, the tip of your tongue peeking out to welcome the sweetness. You sink your teeth into the red flesh, so eager, and spatters of juice stain your lips. They appear even more saturated as you lick them clean, wetting them with your tongue, and he so desperately wants to kiss you.

“They’re so sweet already,” you say, taking the rest of the fruit from his hand.

“Yes, I agree.”

You giggle. “Copia, you haven’t even tried one yet.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean the strawberries.”

You huff out a flustered breath, fighting the still evident smile on your face, and hold the half-eaten strawberry up to his mouth. “Try.”

He lets you feed him with burning cheeks, keeping his eyes locked on yours. As his teeth meet the flesh, a few droplets of juice fall astray but he doesn’t even care if they ruin his suit anymore. He can’t stop looking at you, thinking about your soft hand so close to his mouth. He wants to kiss it again, desperately, and so he traps it with his when you try to pull away. With his lips pressed to your palm, he closes his eyes, kissing all the way down to your wrist where he lingers.

You gasp softly, lips parting as Copia continues to drag his lips over the delicate skin. Your reaction brings a smirk to his face, another moment that he’s going to think about for days to come.

“I tried, dolcezza,” he says. “And I think you’re still sweeter.”

You blush so prettily at that. Flustering you is easier than he expected and he takes notes of every little thing that draws a reaction from you. You spend another hour like this, eating fruit, drinking juice, chatting about all sorts of things while you exchange soft touches and words of your blossoming affection. At some point, the gentle breeze that carries on throughout the afternoon becomes stronger, and more and more people head back inside to escape a possible weather change.

Neither one of you wants to leave but as you start to shiver more violently, Copia’s worry about you catching a cold wins over his desire to prolong your date. He proposes to head inside as well, running his hands over the goosebumps on your bare arms to warm you up.

When you reluctantly agree, he starts to pile your dishes and the leftover food into the basket. You move to help but he stops you with a tut. “I will pack this up, eh? Don’t worry about it.”

“I could help you, you know.”

“Ah, no no. I invited you, yes? It is my pleasure.”

It only takes him a few minutes to pack everything up. You grab your flowers in the meantime and he watches from the corner of his eye as you sniff them with a growing smile on your face, swaying slightly from left to right. As Copia shakes out the blanket, folding it messily in the middle, you hesitate by the edge of your little picnic spot.

“So, do you want to walk back together?” you ask.

Copia smiles, glad that you don’t want to leave him quite yet. “I would like that a lot, tesoro. Should I carry the roses for you?”

You hand them over and he places them on the lid of the basket before he carefully picks it up. When he’s by your side again, you stop him with a hand on his forearm, the same gentle squeeze you gave him the last time. Only this time you don’t leave. Instead you lean in and press a soft kiss to his reddened cheek, your lips lingering for a few seconds longer than necessary. Copia opens his mouth but he can’t think of anything to say. Instead he uses his unoccupied hand to fish for yours.

Hand in hand, palm against palm, you walk past the leftover groups of Siblings that make use of the last few moments of sun. Neither of you spares anyone else even a glance. Whenever your eyes aren’t focused on the path ahead, they meet each other, giddy, love-sick smiles gracing your lips.

As you finally pass the first archway and enter the cool stone corridors of the abbey, Copia suddenly stops. Your arms slowly extend as you take a few more steps but before your hand can slip from his, he pulls you back. Maybe he used a little bit too much force or maybe he just caught you by surprise, but you practically stumble into his arms. A gasp falls from your lips. You make no attempt at breaking away and so Copia gently guides you against the frame of the archway, setting down the basket in the process so he can place his other hand on your hip.

Big eyes look up into his. He leans in slowly. The rim of his hat catches the stone and it finally slips from his head, dropping somewhere. Copia doesn’t care because he can already feel your sweet strawberry breath on his lips and nothing could stop him from getting a taste. Your hands impatiently grab at his lapels, then, pulling him even closer, and he gasps at the force of your need. With your eyes falling closed, lips slightly parted and your chin tilted up, Copia feels like he’s in a dream.

“Please,” you whisper.

He has to fight a moan, the word resonating somewhere deep inside his belly. Still, he draws out  the moment for as long as he can, stalling as the tension crackles in the tiny space that separates you. He starts by nuzzling your nose while he pushes his hand upwards until he can grasp your jaw. As he angles your head just right, he feels your lashes fluttering against his cheeks. He fights off a giggle as they continue to tickle his skin and you shift slightly against him, growing impatient.

“Co–”

His mouth swallows your next syllable. You hum against him as his lips capture yours with gentle adoration. The grip on your waist tightens at the same time as his thumb presses into your cheek. Want, need, trickles into your belly and Copia feels the same way, moving his mouth against yours with slightly more pressure. The kiss is still slow, still tame, but it’s unmistakable how much stowed up desire for the other you both hold inside.

For a while you continue like this, your body trapped between Copia and the cool stone and the world around you a mere shadow. You open your mouth for air and that’s when you can feel his tongue cautiously pushing against yours. The sensation makes you feel even more fuzzy, the need for oxygen forgotten as you tangle your tongue with his. The taste is sweet, residues of fruit and juice, and underneath it all you feel Copia. Copia.

You only break away when you’re both struggling to keep up the pace. He’s a mess, his lipstick gone, black smears covering his chin and cheeks where his eye make-up rubbed off. You lift your hand to wipe some of your mingled spit off of his chin and the blissful expression on his face makes you smile. You love to see his face ruined like this, you decide. And Copia, seeing the lipstick-smears all over your kiss-swollen mouth, unknowingly thinks the same.

“We should do this again sometime,” you say. “The date but also… this. Actually, I think we should do it again right now.”

Copia chuckles, resting his forehead against yours. “How about we never stop doing it?”

You nod your approval, wrapping your arms around him to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s soft, if a little bit sweaty, messy from the loss of his hat. “I would like that a lot, Copia.”

“I mean it, tesoro,” he whispers with a hint of insecurity. “I don’t want to stop spending time with you. Ever. We already wasted enough of it.”

A big smile breaks out on your face. Copia can’t help but return it, squeezing you a little tighter to his body, and you giggle happily as he kisses your nose.

“You’re right,” you finally say. “Let’s not waste another moment.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this silly little story – kudos, comments, rbs etc are as always much appreciated ♡

Masterlist – My Ao3