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snowyquokka · 4 months

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MONSOON - L. MINHO

cw - mature themes MDNI, fem!reader, brothers best friend!Minho, swearing, angst, fluff (kinda?), mentions of alcohol, mutual pining, somewhat proof read, yada yada yada

wc - 3k

a.n - I FINISHED IT. im not sure how many parts there’ll be but here’s this for now :)

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Your heart is beating at the same frequency as the music blaring through your ears whilst making your way to the front door of the shitty little run down frat house. You’ve managed to throw back three rounds of vodka shots without puking and you were feeling a bit proud of yourself. But you have enough self respect to know when to call it quits. The cheap liquor did it’s intended purpose. That purpose being forgetting about someone.

Or not.

You roll your eyes drowsily as you push your way through the door and onto the surprisingly somewhat empty porch. Plopping down on the top step, you pull out your phone before pressing the only emergency contact you have.

“Aw you do care enough to call me,” Jisung’s grin is present in his soft voice.

“Mhm, yeah care- sure. Erm, busy?” There’s some muffled laughter in the background followed by some shuffling before he finally answers.

“I- are you-“ he cuts himself off and whispers something incoherent, “Scale of one to ten?” Due to your recent lack of responsibility, as Jisung calls it, he’s set up a scale system to determine how wasted you are.

One being buzzed, tipsy at best.

Ten being, well, absolutely plastered.

“Eight and a h-half?” you hiccup.

More muffled whispers are followed by, “What am I going to do with you.” and “Send me your location,”

After what seemed like an eternity of being surrounded by makeout sessions and college kids blowing chunks into the nearby hedges, a familiar car finally pulls up to the curb.

You stand up, albeit a little too fast, but you still make it to your feet. The sound of a car door slamming rings in your ears, leading up to warm, gentle hands carefully lifting your arm over their shoulder in order to help get in the passenger side of the car.

“Han- Minho?” Big brown eyes stare into yours as he leans over you and buckles your seatbelt. His expression’s blank, but it always is when he looks at you.

Minho looks at you for another moment before shaking his head, as if he’s snapping himself out of a trance, and shuts the door.

It was only about halfway to your dorm that you realized you didn’t have your keys and your roommate was out for the night.

“Ughh.” You whine and Minho eyes you like you’re crazy.

Maybe you are.

Crazy for leaving your stuff at home.

Crazy for catching feelings for your brother's best friend.

Crazy for trying to drown him out of your thoughts with shitty tequila and obnoxious music.

Crazy for actually thinking that you could distract yourself, let alone forget about him.

“Hello? Earth to her majesty.” he pokes your shoulder.

“Fuck off,” Please don’t stop talking to me.

“Ah, see I like bothering you too much for all that,” he glances from the road to your curled up form. Your ‘defensive pose’ as he likes to call it. It’s not the first time he’s seen you absolutely shitfaced.

“Wanna tell me why you’re throwing a fit over there?”

“No key,” you mutter and press your head against the cool glass of the window, reveling in the way it soothes your massive migraine.

“No k- what are you talking about? You went to a frat party with no keys? Are you out of your fucking mind?” Minho lets out a cross between a scoff and a laugh, making you curl into yourself tighter. He sighs softly and prays that Jisung won’t kill him for taking you home with him.

“Why are you smiling like this is funny? None of this is the slightest bit funny. You could’ve been hurt and then I would-” he snaps his mouth shut and grips the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turn white.

There’s a small amount of pressure on your stomach when you wake up and the sound of light purring fills the room. You peek your eyes open cautiously until you spot the orange and white cat resting on your lower abdomen.

“Soonie,” you hum with a smile.

Wait. Soonie?

You sit up fast making Soonie dart off the bed in surprise.

You’re in Minho’s bed. And not for the reason you would’ve preferred.

You’re engulfed in his scent, tangled in his sheets, hair spread across his pillows. You wonder how many girls he’s had here before and mentally gag at the thought.

“Morning,” Minho nods as he sets a tray with a bottle of painkillers and some water on it next to you.

Memories of the night before flash throughout your head and your cheeks flush red with embarrassment while your hands run down your face.

You made a fool of yourself in front of Lee Minho. This is a new low for you, you think.

But then again this isn’t his first time tending to you and your drunken stupor.

Maybe not in his own home, and maybe without you knowing but he’s done it enough to be well versed with handling you.

You down the water along with one of the capsules and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, trying as hard as possible to avoid Minho’s gaze.

“Better?” He whispers.

No.

“Mhm, fine.”

“Do you wanna talk about it now or-”

You climb out of his bed groggily, “I don’t want to talk about it at all, actually.” Minho does a double take and you realize that your dress slid up your leg and exposed almost the entirety of your legs, dangerously close to your core.

He looks away long enough for you to fix yourself before clearing his throat. “That sucks because we’re going to.” His annoyance is obvious, the tips of his ears pink from being flustered. As much as you really really want to push his buttons, your head is pounding and you feel simply, well - gross.

“I uh- I went and bought you some stuff so you could go shower,” he says, almost as if he read your mind. He rubs the back of his neck nervously with a grimace.

You look at him with a confused expression, “Huh? I’m sorry, I must not have heard you correctly.” Minho rolls his eyes at you. “Don’t argue with me. Just go,” he points to the adjacent door which connects his room to the singular bathroom in his one bedroom dorm.

He pauses and tries to gather this words, “See, the thing is I didn’t really get a chance to get you clothes…” Lie. “So you could just, I don’t know, wear some of mine?” You stop mid walk and turn on your heel to see Minho with a hoodie and sweats in his grasp.“Please cooperate with me for once.” You sigh and hold out your hands for him to place his clothes in them.

“This is the stupidest idea i think I’ve ever heard come out of your pea-sized brain,” you grumble and stalk into the bathroom unbeknownst to the massive smirk adorning Minho’s face.

You were right when you thought you’d look absurd. Of course you were, anyone could look at you and tell you wouldn’t fit in his clothes. You step out of the bathroom, freshly showered and teeth brushed.

You’re practically swimming in his shirt and you had to tie the drawstring on the sweatpants so tight that it was a literal struggle.

“You were in there for an hour.” He deadpans.

“How’d you know what shampoo I liked,” you ignore him and ask as he eyes you. His gaze drags up your body as you run your fingers through your damp hair.

“I don’t know. Lucky guess?” Minho shrugs it off and folds his arms over his chest.

“Okay then,” you roll your eyes and copy his stance. You two stay silent for a solid ten seconds until he finally speaks,

“This is ridiculous.” He says as he glares at you.

“If anyone’s ridiculous it’s you.”

“Me? You’re the one being an ungrateful brat,” he steps closer to you until you’re face to face, “I’m the one who came to your rescue. I could’ve told Jisung no, could’ve said I had better things to do than save you from yourself.”

You shake your head, “Then why didn’t you? I’m obviously just a bother to you, aren’t I? A burden that you can’t wait to be freed of.”

Minho furrows his brows, “Bullshit. That’s complete and utter bullshit and you know it.”

You inch closer to him so your chests are pressed against one another. “Do I, Minho? Because it seems like you only enjoy being a dick to me,” your hands curl into fists at your sides. Never in the four years you’ve know him would you have ever expected to have an actual argument with him. Usually it’s all meaningless jabs at each other, but right now you can tell that it’s more than that.

Minho’s eyes search yours as his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. “Don’t fucking do that,” his voice comes out in a harsh whisper.

“Do what?”

“Act like the fucking victim of the situation you put yourself in,” His expression has grown agitated which only pisses you off to no end. You decide you’ve had enough and turn away from him to collect your stuff. “What are you doing?”

“I am going to text my roommate and she’s going to take me home.” You don’t bother looking at him as you speak, grabbing your phone off of the nightstand and typing out a ‘send help’ message to your roommate. Before you could send it though Minho has yanked your phone out of your hands. “Seriously?” You huff. He holds it above his head as you poorly attempt to reach for it.

“No. Until you can have an adult conversation with me you aren’t leaving.”

“What, are you gonna hold me hostage? Tie me up?” You realize that was the wrong thing to say when a smug smirk tugs at Minho’s lips.

“You’d like that too much. Wouldn’t you, princess?” Your breath catches in your throat as you fall dead silent. You’re still leaning against him, using him as leverage to get your phone. “Cat got your tongue? Never thought I’d see the day where you’d fail to find a snarky response. Always need to have the last word, don’t you.”

Your brain is so fuzzy, a mix of emotions jumbling your thoughts around. You slowly stand flat and remove your hands from his arms with palms on fire from the contact with his bare skin.

“You’re a dick.” You say while you take a few steps away from him.

“So you’ve said.” Minho stares at you with ice in his gaze. He slides your phone in the pocket of his hoodie and folds his arms over his chest. “You can go when you tell me why you’re doing it.”

“Doing what?” You say though you know exactly what he’s talking about.

“You are quite literally self destructing. Why?” He narrows his eyes at you, waiting for you to explain yourself. Unfortunately for him, it’s going to take more effort than that to get you to spill.

“That’s none of your business. Now give me back my phone, I want to go home.”

“No. I’m not just going to sit back and watch my best friend’s sister practically kill herself over something that is probably meaningless.” You keep backing up as he walks towards you until you collide with the wall behind you.

How cliche.

“Just tell me so we can move on with our lives. But just so you know, I will not hesitate to keep you here as long as I have to until you help me understand why you’re acting so stupid when we both know that you’re far from it.”

Minho leans in closer, invading your space and allowing himself to be as close to you as he’ll ever be able to. He cares about you more than he cares about himself. His best friend’s little sister. At this point he’s a walking romance book trope.

“It’s nothing I’m fi-” Before you can utter another word Minho has his index finger pressed against your lips and an eyebrow raised.

“I’m going to give you another chance to rethink your words. Choose carefully.” You roll your eyes, prompting him to drop his hand.

“I’m trying to get over something.” You look down at your hands as you refuse to make eye contact.

“Something or someone?” You sink back against the wall.

You weigh your options: you could either lie to him, or you could confess and hope that you don’t die of embarrassment when he rejects you.

“Someone.” When you finally look up at him you’re surprised to see his boba eyes clouded with - jealousy? No, you’ve got to be imagining it. There’s no way.

“Who?” Are you imagining it?

“Just..someone.” Minho shakes his head as if saying ‘not good enough.’ But you’re not backing down that easily, this is just too good. So you do the next best thing: you mess with him.

“It’s someone from school..?” you wince, the statement coming out as more of a question.

Minho’s eyes narrow and he finally steps out of your way. He stares at you dumbfounded before pulling your phone out of his pocket and holding it out to you. As you reach for it your fingers graze his and you’re reminded of the situation you’ve put yourself in.

“Like I said, meaningless.” Minho’s voice pulls you out of the endless rabbit hole that is your stupid, insecure brain.

All of this for nothing, he thinks. This whole time he was dumb enough to believe that you had feelings for him but instead you were treating it like a joke.

“Whatever, come on.”

Two weeks have passed since you woke up at Minho’s place. Two weeks have passed since you came home trying to determine if you were being delusional or if he actually got jealous of the idea that you were thinking about someone else.

But hey, even if he didn’t actually feel that way you figure it’d be fun to play with him.

Why not? It’s all harmless anyway. What could possibly go wrong?

Luckily for you he’s supposed to be at Jisung’s place, where you happen to have just made a surprise appearance at. Your top tier excuse? There’s family drama that you want to gossip about with him.

Now you’ve finally comprised a seemingly fool proof plan to get a reaction out of Minho. You threw on his hoodie and a pair of shorts before leaving the house.

To your delight when the door opens to reveal Minho sitting on the couch he looks like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. He can’t believe you even kept it, let alone willingly wore it. He wonders if it still smells like him or if you washed it, ridding it of any traces of himself.

“Hi, Sungie,” you pull your brother into a hug and make eye contact with Minho over Jisung’s shoulder.

“Why are you- I mean don’t get me wrong, I love it when you visit but like…you never do.” Jisung pulls back and gives you a skeptical look, preparing himself for whatever you’re about to ask him for.

“You never invite me,” you pout and slip past him into the living room. “Did you hear about auntie?” You say, turning to Minho before continuing, “You remember her, right? The one with all the cats, tried to get you to take them all? Yeah, you remember.” You smile before sitting next to him on the couch. Meanwhile Jisung - completely ignoring your babbling - has moved into the kitchen to make you a cup of tea, just like any other time you’ve shown up at his place unannounced.

Once you can tell that he’s out of earshot you look at the boy next to you who is painfully obvious in trying not to look at the exposed skin right underneath where his oversized hoodie, that could be classified as a dress on you, stops.

You look down at your body with an amused pout, “What’s the matter?”

Just as Minho was about to open his mouth your brother comes in with your tea, setting it down on the coffee table in front of you.

You thank him before crossing your legs and sinking backwards into the couch. You play with the end of your sleeve which goes an inch or two past the tips of your fingers as you wait for someone to speak.

Just as you thought you’d be playing the quiet game for the next three hours Minho answers your silent prayers.

“So, I decided to take a BDSM test,” he says just as you took a sip of tea, you almost choke on it but manage to cover it with a cough.

Jisung’s complaining is drowned out by the words that have been engraved in your brain for the past two weeks,

“What. You gonna hold me hostage? Tie me up?”

“You’d like that too much. Wouldn’t you, princess?”

Touché, you think. This little game has gotten ten times more interesting.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

tags: @skzstarnet @godslino @seungseung-minmin @myseungsunglove @azuna-sz @solisyeah

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ausfortheheart · 1 year

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lust life - SIRIUS BLACK

(sirius black x female!reader)

summary: you've been hooking up with james potter over the summer, but when you return to hogwarts you find yourself drawn to his best friend. you've adamantly hated sirius black throughout your school years, and you're sure the feeling's mutual... or you were

warnings: sexual references, strong & suggestive language, description of injuries including blood, cuts and bruises, 14+

other parts:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3 (current)

PART THREE

The bold red and gold letters were unbearably obnoxious- something like this had Gryffindor written all over it. The bright colours were in stark contrast with the dark greens and black tones of the Slytherin common room. You didn't even have to walk up to the noticeboard to read the massive words plastered across.

'INTER-HOUSE PARTY

WHERE : gryffindor common room

WHEN : friday

TIME : 10 PM

(any snitches will be hexed- courtesy of Sirius Black)

You scoffed at the last part, looking around. no-one seemed to be particularly interested and neither were you.

Upon closer look, you saw rips and tears on the sides of the poster. Whoever had placed it there must have used a permanent sticking charm to prevent anyone from taking it down.

You left the room, rolling your eyes.

On the way to detention you stared aimlessly at your feet whilst you walked, completely submerged in your thoughts. A certain gryffindor boy weaseled his way into your mind. Sirius Black- the reason that you were currently headed to Filch's office on a day when you could be doing Charms homework, or spending time with your friends instead.

So when you felt a hand on your shoulder you spun around so suddenly you almost tripped over your feet. Two strong arms held you steady, as you met a familiar pair of green eyes.

"James?" You asked quizzically, glancing around to see if anyone was looking, "What happened to making sure no one saw us together?"

Still chuckling at how startled you had been, he quickly ushered you into a broom cupboard. You were fairly certain a second year had witnessed the two of you do so.

After the amused look on his face had finally faded away, the both of you just stared at eachother awkwardly. Just as you were about to ask why he was making you late to detention, James took a deep breath.

"I have feelings for Lily." He blurted out.

You weren't sure what you'd been expecting him to say, but it definitely wasn't that. You stared at him for a second, confused about the momentary wave of relief that washed over you.

James looked at you uncertainly, unsure of how you'd react. You'd suspected for a while. A long time, actually. And James' feelings for Lily Evans simply didn't bother you. Perhaps because you had known your time together was coming to an end anyway; the passion the two of you used to have was gradually ebbing away. The boy opposite you jumped as you began to speak, knocking the dusty cleansweep by his arm onto the floor with a loud clatter.

"Cool." You shrugged, "It was fun while it lasted Potter." And you left, leaving James in the dark with a pleasantly surprised look on his face.

It contorted into one of shock as Remus slipped in not even seconds after you'd left.

He looked sickly pale. His footsteps were small, and he moved slowly.

"Erm.." James sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, "Shouldn't you be resting, Moony?"

But Remus ignored him, "(Y/n)? Really? Out of all people- the one person your best friend despises?" Despite his weakened state, Remus defiantly crossed his arms, "Don't you think he deserves to know?" But James had already stepped out of the cupboard, and was lingering by the open door.

He gestured to his friend's frail figure, "You need to be resting, it isn't healthy for you to be up, especially not when it's almost time." He paused, "And anyways, it's over." James shrugged, "It was just a fling, and now we're going our separate ways."

"Are you sure Sirius will see it that way?" Remus inquired knowingly, but James had already left.

⚜

"Your wand, (L/n)." Filch snapped, snatching it the second you pulled it out of your robes. You raised a hand towards the doorknob hesitantly, the grime on it so thick that what you imagined had used to be a shimmering gold, was now a dull grey.

Filch glared, "What're you waiting for then?"

The caretaker's threatening glare encouraged you to open the door and enter. Filch immediately closed the door behind you. As you grudgingly looked around the room, it became clear that it must've been used for storage. Boxes were stacked up the walls, the air was stale, and the only source of light came from the full-moon which illuminatined the room through a large, floor length window opposite.

You groaned, checking the likely broken clock on the wall. Black was late, which wasn't suprising, but you knew that to clean this place without magic you'd need an extra pair of hands.

Heading to the moudly cardboard box closest to the door, you opened it up, coughing as dust billowed in your face. The contents seemed to be random trinkets that didn't have any practical function. Great, you thought to yourself, setting to work.

An hour passed. 9 pm. Black still hadn't turned up.

As time slipped by, not only had you finally realised that Black wasn't going to come, but also that Filch had locked you in.

The room was pitch black by the time Filch opened the door. Mrs Norris stalked inside as Filch took a look around, candle held high. Once he was satisfied with the cleanliness of the room he gestured for you to leave, reluctantly handing back your wand as you did so.

The hallways were dark and quiet. Even the portraits' inhabitants were asleep as you headed back to the Slytherin common room. You were exhausted, covered in dust and grime with aching limbs, but only one thing was on your mind.

The fact that Black had bunked that definition made you almost shake in anger. It was now midnight. You had spent four hours cleaning that room, and the person who had gotten you into the situation couldn't even be bothered to show up. Engulfed in spite and bitterness, you didn't notice the person ahead until you crashed into them.

"Sorry." You grumbled, prepared to walk past when you suddenly realised who it was.

"(L/n)?" Sirius Black stuttered in shock, as your wide eyes took in his appearance.

His hair was matted, and stuck to the sweat beaded on his forehead. A deep gash was just above his cheekbone; red glittered his face.

You stumbled backwards, hand shakily rising to your mouth, "Oh-- oh my god--"

Black looked at a loss for words, "I-- uh--"

"We've got to take you to Madam Pomfrey," you stated urgently, all previous anger dissipated in an instant, "you stay here, I'll go get--"

"No!" Black snapped, causing you to jump. His eyes were bloodshot, and were full of such a desperation that you had never seen before. Then, in a much more subdued and pleading tone, "She can't--" He rubbed his forehead, and you noticed his hands were coated in blood, "--no one can know."

You hesitated.

"No one." He emphasised, still tense, unsure whether you'd make a run for it or not.

Shaking your head in disbelief, your mind snapped into action, "Fine. Come with me."

Taking his elbow, you began to lead him away.

"(L/n) I don't have the time--"

You stopped so abruptly that Black crashed into your back.

"Listen to me," You faced him, eyes practically blazing, "You are going to come with me, and I am going to help you because I swear to god I refuse to be the one responsible if you're discovered tomorrow morning dead." Your breathing was heavy with adrenaline as he stared back at you silently.

"Okay?!" You snapped without meeting his eyes, immediately beginning to tug him again.

"Okay!" He said exasperatedly, "but it won't help if you tear my bloody arm off!"

"I ought to do just that after you left me in a four hour detention to clean up some disgusting room by myself." Ignoring his protests and unsympathetic apologies, you pulled him inside a room you often frequented, but with a different boy.

"Is this the prefect's bathroom?" Black raised an eyebrow as you pushed him down onto the toilet seat. Ever since you and James started having regular meet-ups, he had given you the password to enter the Prefect's Bathrooms. Apparently it hadn't been changed yet.

You nodded, quickly wetting a tissue and wiping off the blood from his face before taking out your wand. Black sank into silence as you worked, but his pained expression and sharp intakes of breath whenever you dabbed at a cut didn't escape your notice.

Brushing aside a few strands of hair stuck to his forehead, you murmured "Episkey!"

And the gash on his cheekbone quickly closed up.

"Where'd you learn that?" Black asked in awe, absentmindedly running a hair through his thick hair.

"Just because you don't pay attention during Charms doesn't mean everyone else doesn't." You stated, looking up briefly from rolling up his trouser. He had leaned back with a wolfish grin on his face, and you briefly revelled in how someone could look so handsome so effortlessly, before snapping back to your senses.

"Immature prick." You sighed, moving your hands down to the bottom of his shirt. It was soaked in blood. Peeling it up cautiously, you bit the inside of your cheek as you saw the wounds littering his abdomen.

"Didn't realise you were so eager to undress me," He smirked, as you instantly withdrew your hands in disgust.

"Can you not give it a rest for one second ?!" You snapped.

From then on he stayed silent, opting instead to rest his head against the cold wall and close his eyes. You began to murmur charms, working on each open wound until most of them were gone. The deeper ones would inevitably scar. His smooth skin felt warm against your fingers, and you observed how his muscles tensed whenever you accidentally brushed against them.

You began to wish you hadn't said anything.

After a few more anxious minutes, you sat back. There would definitely be some bruises the next day, but without a professional healer there was really nothing that could be done.

The silence was so prominent between the two of you, and your thoughts so loud, that you began to wonder whether he in fact could hear them. But Black made no semblance of opening his eyes or moving, and you wondered whether he really had fallen asleep. You cleared your throat to let him know you'd finished.

His dark eyes fluttered open, and you stared at the bruises forming under his eyes. Without much thought, you lifted your fingertips and brushed his right eyelid. Whatever had happened, it was no normal courtyard fight. These injuries had to be supernatural.

"I'm sorry." You whispered finally, fingers dropping as you began to tap them against the cold tiles on the floor.

He stared intensely, and you struggled not to squirm.

"I don't mind it when you touch me." He said bluntly, causing you to get flustered.

"No-- I meant--"

Sirius Black looked as though he could laugh, causing you to descend into an ashamed silence as he spoke, "Oh about yesterday? I deserved it I--"

"--about what happened at the Malfoy's." You interrupted, finally making eye contact, "I didn't know."

He stayed silent, but Sirius' grey eyes resembled a storm, the emotion so prevalent you found yourself lost in in them. His eyes bore into yours as you sat there, with bated breath, unsure whether he understood to what you were referring.

"I judged you. Unfairly. Just like Elizabeth did to Darcy..." You trailed off, cringing at what you had just said- internal monologue was internal for a reason.

Besides, he had likely forgotten and was probably wondering if you'd had too much pumpkin juice to drink during lunch.

You attempted to salvage your apology, "At the Chrismas ball, in the--""

"--in the broom cupboard." He almost smiled, eyes twinkling as he remembered your first proper encounter. As though it was a happy memory shared between two childhood friends.

"I'm sorry." You repeated, and he smiled so broadly, radiantly, that you couldn't help but blush, cheeks aching as you both began to laugh.

⚜

Everything seemed to shift. Much to the majority of Hogwarts' students' shock, you and Sirius began to be civil to one another. You exchanged smiles when passing in the corridor, you laughed when he pulled a prank in class, you even walked to Potions with him at the beginning of third period the following day. People couldn't seem to believe that a Gryffindor and a Slytherin who had despised eachother for years had suddenly begun to exchange niceties.

When Friday finally came around, Serafina couldn't contain her suspicions. Fully aware of what the gossips in Hogwarts could be like, she hadn't wanted to offend you by believing the talk of the school. You hadn't yet told her about what had happened that day - only about you and James breaking it off - and so she was desperate to know what had changed between you and Sirius.

Eyes practically shining as the two of you sat underneath the large oak tree in the courtyard, you started to explain everything that had happened when Sera cleared her throat. Her eyes were focused curiously on something behind you.

Turning around, you grinned as you saw Sirius nearing you.

You waved as he stopped roughly a metre away from you. He didn't return it.

Lowering your hand slowly, you noticed something had changed in his demeanour.

All of a sudden James was at his side, out of breath as though he had been running, eyes wide in...

fear?

"Don't do this mate," He began to beg uselessly, as you glanced around in confusion, students had begun to gather around, "She didn't--"

"Tell me." He began in a low voice, as James looked at anywhere but you, "for how long exactly you've been fucking my best friend."

hi loves!

i had so much fun writing this chapter! hope you enjoyed reading it as much as i did writing<33

as always, i'd love to hear your thoughts<3

- L

taglist ;

@cumslutforaemond @blackst0nes7077 @s0vval @starsval @ttulipwritezz @xreaderbooksreads @thewiselionessfantasy @willows-lane @kieyriez

___

these works are the property of ausfortheheart

all written content is mine, do not steal, plagiarise, or publish any of my works without my permission

#sirius black x reader #sirius black #themarauders #the marauders era #james potter #james potter x reader #remus lupin #harry potter x reader #harry potter #enemies to lovers #hogwarts

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lizaluvsthis · 9 months

Note

if the boy do end up getting together in canon how do you think it would go?

Erm- ☝️

I dont know. :D

BUT- I do have something...

Maybe this is during the canon event of IGBP of getting together as in three admitting it officially that they're both friends. (Even tho he denied being his friend during 2020 wotfi)

Ive done alot of- stuff... to observe these idiots. Back and fourth.

During their close and mutual bonding. Smg3 is still labeled as his role of a tritagonist.

(If no one knows what a tritagonist role is- here :>)

In some other part maybe they'd both actually form a really deep connection to the point they'll start to be- close. (Like- close close.)

I'm not really sure if it would be called out canon during a new xmas episode (but if not?) Probably will happen in the future events (maybe 2024th wotfi?)

Not sure but no one knows how it will go (we cant just take a few glimpse from the future yknow?) I mean luke is aware.

"If luke doesn't make them both canon then we'll have to wait A FEW MORE YEARS- Imagine if they became canon right after we died. No wait- then luke would be the first to die since he's ol-"

- VC w @katjustvibinglmao / kat's words right after hearing that makes me want to cry- (I MEAN- LIKE- WHYYYYYYY)

(Dont take any of that death thing srs guys its just a joke-)

I'm just thinking... deeper... what if the Axoøny theory was right? What if Three DOES die... during PuzzleVision's. What if Three WAS really self aware (I'm NOT forgetting the part I said from western spaghetti where he puts the dialogue of "100 years asleep" NO CAN DO SIR I AM NOT GETTING THAT MIND OFF NOW." :))

Maybe it would be an angst...? -ish...

I DONT KNOW- I'M NOT SURE- STOP ASKING ME- (not literally)

-BEEP-

#lizaluv #smg34 #smg4 #smg3 #smg4 smg3

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nylon-vintage · 6 months

Text

"Hmm."

☓ ⁑ all below is /ooc

erm,, hi. i don't know how to do a 'good' introduction so uermm uh yeah lets like. do this. i do not know what the fuck i am doing. help.

this blog is run by @x-z0ne !! call me kir, please !!! cough anyways

also, heres a masterlist of most other coroika askblogs, courtesy of my mutual @/violethursday.

asks i will not accept

⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎

* anything thats like, overly sexual towards the character or just something like that in general

* please just don't be creepy ngl

* i don't really plan on building some sort of story or any plot points, so please don't try to do that for the time being

* basic criteria of shit that people don't accept on askblogs

(i might add more.)

asks i will accept, and somewhat encourage

⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎

* interactions with other askblogs. i love interacting like that, its pretty fun

* generic questions!! i love being boring!!

* more than one ask from the same person/spam asks that have no intention to be irritating. i don't actually mind this at all, i think its fun :3

* annoy the fuck out of vintage i don't care, its funny as hell

*PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! GIVE ME FEEDBACK. I WANT TO IMPROVE WITH THIS ASKBLOG SHIT. GIVE ME TIPS AND ALL THAT CRAP!!

tags i will use i think. what the hell am i doing

⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎

general asks ➡︎ '#vin - ask'

anything ooc ➡︎ '#vin - ooc'

posts with no asks attached ➡︎ '#vin - general'

replies to other askblogs i might interact with ➡︎ '#vin - reply'

might add more here later if needed!!

some side notes

⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎

* please use tone tags/indicators if it feels necessary, i suck at differing tones in messages rgrgh

* i am not expecting very much from this askblog, it's simply something i'm going to do for fun.

* let me know if i shouldn't answer asks so quickly, because i do that on my main.

* asks will probably always be open, idk why this is important enough to note, but just saying

* i am not good with different personalities. vintage might be a bit, or a lot, out of character. let me know if i fuck up badly

some info about my interpretation of vintage used in this blog

⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎⇩⬇︎

* he gets quite emotional under the mention of skull, they're exes in my headcanons

* he's a bit gay for a specific cocky spiky haired guy, but he's in denial (hes been getting bullied alot for this its kind of obvious. sorry im a chronic doublevin believer)

* he is a bit forgetful.

* vin has a bit of a problem when it comes to eating food. he'll only eat it if it's super spicy, if it isnt spicy at all or not spicy enough he refuses to consume it. water and other beverages are exceptions

* he growls sometimes. like. animalistic growling. he taught himself how to do it a long time ago and now it's just an instinct for him to do so when he gets pissed

* double egg is a salmonling in this blog!!

* vintage has three cats, (exclusively in this askblog) named nexus, leo & army. (blame the anon who gave him that cat.)

anyways, i think thats all i need to note down?? anyways yet again, this is my first askblog, i'm going in blind. this might be fun maybe!!!

☓ ⁑ buh bye..

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oonajaeadira · 1 year

Note

Hello! Absolutely no obligation at all to answer this, you just seem really lovely and approachable. Any words of advice you would be willing to share for someone who sort of just arrived here accidentally because they are chronically behind the times and didn’t realize there was a bandwagon and is now utterly terrified to interact anywhere in the fandom lest they make a problem worse and/or get lumped in with the portion of the bandwagon that is…erm, overboard and a bit scary?

(Which isn’t to say you or anyone else is being intimidating on purpose of course. Everyone seems lovely, the anxiety is just REALLY committed to winning this round.)

(Second add-on before I forget, your writing is absolutely bloody brilliant by the way. Thank you for sharing it with us!)

Hello you lovely, lovely, lovely human. <3

Breathe and stick close, honeybee. This is a good corner of the fandom....at least from where I'm sitting.

To be totally honest, I know that there's a lot of horror in the fandom, but I've actually not seen a lot of it with my own eyes. That's because when I landed here, I basically just kinda sat and observed folks for a hot second, started writing, and let friendlies come to me. If someone or the mutuals they would interact with seemed like a lot of drama, I mainly steered clear. My best friends here mostly approached me and were kind and gentle and funny and respectful to the man we all love. And because of that, I've pretty much just curated a really lovely corner of the fandom for myself.

As someone who deals with anxiety and depression though, I get you. Coming into a place where there are SO MANY of fans and cliques and strong friendships feels intimidating...like starting at a new school/job. There's really no short answer though. Like anything else, settling in and finding your folks and your path takes a little time.

You seem to be doing alright so far though...you marked me as someone safe to approach. So your powers of observation are working! Good start! 😄

But nobody's going to assume you're one of the scary ones right off the bat. Being kind and offering up a bouquet of niceness (like you did in your ask) opens the door up real quick.

So my question for you is...where do you want to live in this fandom? Are you a fic writer? A gif maker? An artist? A reader? A reblogger? If one of the first three, then start creating, kitkat! Learn how to tag your stuff and those who love it will find you! If you're a reader, I guarantee the fastest way to spread goodwill and make artists start to recognize your callsign and appreciate you is by reblogging and commenting on their work. I can't emphasize that enough--creators don't get paid for their work here. They share their creations in exchange for interaction and community. They want to scream joyfully about the fandom with other fans. Please, for the love of Pedro, come scream with us!

And that, my friend is what you bring to the table.

That's all you have to do. Openly share joy. Do it by sharing your art/stories/talents or by sharing the work of others and your love of it. And if you happen to share your joy with someone but don't receive it back from them, then you've found someone who may not be worthy of your collection of the fairest folk. That's okay. There are a hundred more who will acknowledge your joy. Turn around and you'll walk right into them around here.

But if you have anxiety, it's okay to go slow. Starting on anon is good, helps you get some practice in before you're ready for your debut. Just remember what my buddy @insomniamamma says..."the anon button is not for hate. It's for horny and embarrassed about it."

You'll get over the embarrassment soon enough once you realize we're all pretty horny (including sappily horny for fluff and romance) around here. Don't judge yourself for it. We sure won't!

Post some joy. Reblog some work with an "I love this!" Join in an ask game. All of those are loved around here.

And do it on your own terms. Take the time you need.

Nobody's gonna think you're one of the overwhelming ones, love. They'll just think you're one of the thirsty ones. And that's nothing to be ashamed of once you realize that you're no different from everyone else in your new favorite corner of the fandom.

(gif by damerondjarin)

#join us #we have pedros #joy and kindness and respect #and being hopelessly in love and admiration for one glorious chilean dork

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wmarximoff · 2 years

Note

Oh my god, 🤭 lmao! I’m sure you’re a great kisser. I honestly, didn’t even question it. It’s okay, we can be overthinkers together (one of the main reasons I can’t get to sleep 😪). For sure, if you can sit through it then what the hell, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen them all as well.

You do? Oh, you poor soul. 🤭 I don’t even know where to start, how does one even go about something like this? 🤔 (Oh no, don’t you dare… that’s the lowest blow of them all! 🫠 There you go again — mutual… it’s so mutual. 😩)

I suppose, but my plans were interrupted :( don’t tell anyone… but I’m thinking about sneaking off to bed to avoid my responsibilities. 🫣 Wait… just hold on, a walk at like three or four in the morning… by yourself? Forgive my paranoia but, like, are you trying to get murdered? 🤭 Curing boredom, maybe… uh, sleep? I know it’s the weekend and all — I’m a little jealous it’s only just Saturday where you are, my days go so much quicker — I’d like to be a day behind.

Sounds similar… my spotify is so neglected and I still need to listen to your DFTR playlist but I’m a procrastinator.

Kisses through the phone I can definitely do. 😘💗 Kisses sent, waiting on delivery. You’re very welcome!

Yep, no, definitely not a brat by any means. Of course you can’t I’m such a good girl most of the time and it just never happens.😌 Obviously. Not on here, not yet, no. I have some ideas floating around though.

You have a theory? I don’t know what else I can tell you, I’ve given you so much to work with already.

-🌸

I'm paranoid to the point of questioning myself right now if I'm really a good kisser. Maybe my entire life people have lied to me. And like, how could I even know about that? So many thoughts to think about right now, what the fuck. So yeah, let's be overthinkers together LMAO. Every time I have an identity crisis I'll cry in your lap.

Oh, I'm all about sneaking off to bed to avoid my responsibilities. We could just leave everything behind and go live in the woods for all I care (and it reminds me of my jokes about thayblossom and us being cult leaders… but on second thought I'd look good in a white dress in a self-sustaining community telling people that modern society is doomed, and i'm sure you would look so pretty in a white dress… not that i'm telling you to marry me haha 🤪). Well… in my defense it was only 2am when I left LMAO. And I'm back home, so… not this time, unfortunately or not. Okay I promise I'll stop with the self-deprecating jokes now, it's just stronger than I am.

Oh my god I totally forgot that we're living in like totally different days??? This is so weird lol. But yeah, I should probably sleep. It's five twenty-two am, fucking hell. I swear I'm gonna die.

But don't worry about it honey, that playlist is just a messed up brainstorm that I threw in there with no context at all lol. The songs readers rated are great of course, but mine are… well, mine 🫣 And I'm getting sleepy and dumb and would definitely like a kiss from you before I actually fall asleep. But life is unfair.

Ideas floating around… would you mind sharing them, good girl? 🤨

And it's not a theory, it's like… 99% sure and I just don't know what to make of it (and if I've totally thought of the wrong person it's going to be pretty, erm, uncomfortable LMAO 🫠)

#t asks #🌸

0 notes

whoreshijima · 4 years

Text

So me and @m-mortimer did a lil collab :) all we do is thirst at eachother so here enjoy our one braincelled thinking and horniness 🤍

Thank you Izzy for allowing me to post this ilyvm and Your smart brain :))

WC- 2.9k

CW// daddy kink, reader has a vagina, mutual masturbation, voyeurism, slight mention of breeding, FaceTime masturbation, choking, mentions of fem receiving oral, basically no prep fucking

Every time Ushijima goes away, he promises to call you everyday, even if it’s for two minutes before bed or as he’s eating his lunch on the small breaks he gets. You appreciate it so much, the way he thinks about you constantly. But sometimes it gets to be way too much, way too long. He’s been away for three days now, three days too long. Ushijima called you as often as he could, simply missing the sweet tone you’d greet him with, the smile on your face as you answered the call. He loved every part of you, from how you dance whilst making dinner as he watched through the screen. Or how, like right now, you’re trying to hide your whimpers from the microphone and how you’re trying to keep your face straight, keeping the casual chatter about what you’re going to do that day.

It started as a simple FaceTime call from his cheap hotel bed, like any other day he’s away. But the grumbling deep voice on the other end of the phone, mixed with three days without his touch, made you shivery and needy. You didn’t know Ushijima was thinking the same thing. The slight mess of your bed hair and bare skin around your shoulders and chest from the small cami you were wearing made his breath catch in his chest, blood rushing south instantly.

“I dunno I might go grocery s-shoppping” you mumble out, cursing yourself for stumbling over your words as your fingers ghost over your clit, the slickness from your arousal easing your movements between your legs. Ushi can hear the sheets shuffling, the way your legs spread to give you more space to slide your fingers deep inside yourself, the wet sounds not breezing past your boyfriend's ears without notice. “Get us some f-food for when you come home?” You can’t hide the way your breath catches in your throat as you catch the spot deep inside you, the spot that Ushijima knows makes you scream and gush around him. “W-what would you like to eat?”

If Ushijima could answer honestly, he’d want to eat you. Spend hours between your legs as he swirls his warm tongue around and over your clit, strong hands pinning your legs to the bed as he spits and devours your cunt. There’s nothing better than the idea of you cumming over his mouth, writhing and wriggling under his firm grip, as two fingers curl and scissor inside you, knowing that he’s prepped you enough for his cock. Prepped you enough so that the stretch around him doesn’t hurt you as much as it should.

Just the thought of him being between your legs, cunt stretched so beautifully around him as he pushes inside you, your soft, plush thighs wrapped around his waist as he bucks his hips up into your swollen cunt. Imagining the way your warm walls surround him as he pins you to the mattress, a large hand wrapped around your tiny throat, completely at his mercy, has him pushing his hips into the mattress.

“Erm, chicken of some type?” Lower. His voice was definitely lower, almost a snarl as he talks to you, the pressure of his cock against the mattress making his eyes roll to the back of his head briefly.

“S-stir fry?” You turn your head to meet his gaze through the screen, your eyes are glazed over. Your glossy ones meet his lust filled stare, his lips are parted in small gasps and grunts. You know exactly how his other hand is gripping the sheets, knuckles turning whiter and whiter everytime the head of his cock catches against the bumps of the sheets and mattress. Neither of you bothering to hide from eachother, you let out a whine, letting your mouth hang open as you speed your fingers up against your clit.

How you wish you could see his swollen, leaking cock right now. The way it twitches with every grind forward, how the pre cum beads at the head of his cock before dripping down the shaft. But the way his face is scrunched up as he closes his eyes, the few beads of sweat dripping down his forehead and how the hand holding the phone is shaking ever so slightly drives you insane. You can hear the squeak of his hotel mattress everytime he moves against it, the steady sound obvious to anyone near his room. The gentle banging of the headboard against the wall would make anyone think he’s Railing someone hard, but it’s just him, desperately rutting against the bed.

Ushi growls out a “Fuck baby” and that’s all it takes for you to arch your back and cry out for him, fingers rubbing speedily at your swollen clit and leaking pussy. The lewd sounds of your sweet slick dripping out of you mixed with the sweet Mewls you let out, driving ushi over the edge. His hips roll one, two times before he grunts out, body shaking as he cums, spilling all over his boxers and the sheets underneath him. His cock is throbbing over the thought of cumming inside you, marking you as his. Breeding you and filling you up with his cum. He lets out a shaky breath, staring into your eyes as he watches your arm moving fast in the view of the camera.

“Cum for me” he growls, voice low and gruff as he commands you to cum. And you’re not one to disobey him, your fingers move faster as you grind up into your touch. A high whimper leaves your mouth as you reach the point of orgasm, swiftly followed by a loud and needy moan, directing it at your boyfriend. Your body shakes and twitches as you ride it out, a layer of sweat adorning your skin.

“Fuck...” you whisper, finally going limp against the sheets and pillows “I miss you... so much” his gaze has softened as he smiles gently at you. He so desperately wants to reach through the screen to stroke your cheek with his thumb, hooking his fingers under your chin and pull you in for a deep kiss. To feel how your spit mixes together, and how it drips over your chin after he’s fucked you dumb on his cock.

He chuckles deeply, it rumbling through his chest “Oh just you wait till I’m home baby”

He was late. Which was a first, because there was no skirting around anything with him, either five minutes early or exactly on time. Maybe it was the nerves making you work double speed, looking at the clock every other second, turning on your phone and forgetting to actually look at the time and having to turn it on again, revisiting the last message he’d sent you - a blunt text telling you he was just getting a taxi from the airport and that he should be back in about thirty minutes.

Forty minutes ago. The skin around your thumb was raw with how you’d been nibbling at it, but not from nerves, if the dampness of your underwear and the tension in your core was anything to go by. No, you were ridiculously turned on, from what? From everything, from nothing, from him and that goddamn look he gave you two nights ago, paired with a few choice words that sparked lightning up your spine just remembering them.

“Baby.”

In that blunt, dark voice of his, croaky from sleep and strained from moaning your name, lips swollen from how hard he’d been biting it to stop himself grunting and snarling as loud as he usually did. God - that was what you were waiting for, the sounds of him, the smell of him, the taste of him, of his mouth, of his fingers, of his cock.

You shivered, a wave of lust clouding your mind for a split second, daring to slide a hand between your thighs, trembling and tensing already, and all you’d done was think about him. 3 days, 3 fucking days and you were reduced to this quivering mess on the couch at the thought of Ushijima coming through that door and finally - finally giving you what he’d promised during that call.

A muffled vibration and ding sprung you from your thoughts, from your quick spiralling down into a puddle on the floor, ripping your fingers from your underwear to pick up your phone, heart stopping and breath catching at the singular word on the screen.

Here

It was a fucking word and yet, a fresh wave of arousal flushed through your body and you struggled to stand, shaking with adrenaline and panting heavily, the implications of the word taking a toll on your body and if you were in your right mind - you’d probably slapped yourself and remarked on how desperately pathetic you were acting. But it had been 3 days, 3 agonising days of waiting and texting and barely being able to talk to him outside his strict schedule and your shifts at work.

And now? He was here, he was here and you could hear the elevator ding at the end of the corridor and the back of your neck heated, and all you could see was the front door and your hand gripping the handle, and something thumped to the ground and -

He was here. Ushijima - he was stood right there, at arm’s length, neck pillow tucked under one arm and duffle bag slumped at his feet. That must have been the thing that fell to the floor, but you don’t really care because he’s staring at you with the dark, dangerous look on his face and it should have struck playful fear into you but all you could do was whimper,

“Toshi,”

You sounded so much better saying his name in real life, fresh and feeble and sending blood draining from his head so fast, one hand shot out to grab the door frame. Ushijima strained, against everything, knuckles turning white and he probably could have cracked the woodwork, cock unbearably hard and aching within seconds of seeing you. It would have been a lie to say that he hadn’t been half hard the entire time after your call, unable to get the vision of you with your head tossed back and your eyes scrunching in pleasure, cumming deliciously from the frantic movements of your fingers beneath your pyjamas.

“Again,”

You squeak, he’s never sounded like that before, never been so low and so gruff, on the verge of snapping, avoiding your eye because if he could see the wrecked gaze you fixed on him -

“Toshi - please,”

His shirt ripped from the force with which he tore it over his head, one arm getting caught in his desperate attempt to strip and he very nearly tripped when his foot caught in the strap of his duffle bag, dragging it over the threshold before untangling himself,

“Again, say it again baby,”

He’s on you before you know what’s going on, kicking the door shut but neither of you hear it click, too consumed in each other to really worry about the fact his bag is preventing you two from having complete privacy. But you can’t think, you can’t form a single thought apart from,

“Toshi - Toshi more please!” Ushijima’s mouth swallowing your words almost instantly, one of his hands cupping the entirety of the back of your head, tilting you just so and allowing him to lick into you, feasting on your lips and tongue like a man starved and for a second, you realise he probably is. And so are you, god - you’re hungry for everything he has to offer, wrapping your hands around his waist and trying desperately to shove his sweat pants down, hissing when he accidentally bit your lip too hard but he’s dipping to your neck and delivering an even harsher bite -

“Fuck,”

Your legs give out, like they usually do under his rough assaults of your neck but you often have a bed or a couch behind you, nothing cushioning you from the hard wood floors of the hallway except for the fat of your ass and his arms encircling your head and shoulders.

“Here - I’m fucking you here, I can’t wait,” Ushijima follows you down, mouth barely leaving yours, form engulfing yours, hands trapping yours. He spreads you out on the cold floor, snarling when he gets a face of your chest from how violently you arch at the temperature and the painful nips left over the skin of your collar bone.

Ushijima isn’t much of a talker when he’s got you trembling underneath him, but the comments that are spat unfiltered from his mouth do absolutely nothing to curb the bright hot lust making you loose all semblance of control,

“Fuck - you’re soaking, did you wait for me? Did you make yourself cum again after I ended the call? No? I didn’t - I’ve been waiting for two days to do this, to touch you like this, put my hands on your body like this - fuck baby you’re so needy - no, here, look at me,”

You hadn’t even realised you had closed your eyes and thrown your head back, feeling thick fingers digging into your jaw and forcing you to look at him, dark eyes tracing every inch of your face while he dragged the other hand down your torso, short nails catching the loose fabric of your dress. It was a short moment of clarity; him looking at you, you looking at him, eyes softening so something akin to affectionate love before it was overwhelmed with predatory intent, that soft touch of his hand shoving your thighs apart and sinking into your underwear,

“M’not - I can’t wait, I can’t - let me,”

“Yes! Yes! Toshi please!”

You two sound ridiculous, desperate and clawing at each other, your smaller fingers shoving his trousers down over his ass and your entire body jolts when his cock dropped heavily on to your cunt, hot and angry and hard as fucking steel, throbbing against your clit and you clench around nothing, the anticipation too much to contain.

Ushijima is in no better state than you, fumbling with his footing with snaps of his jaw and he’s entirely too rough with the way he pumps himself, grinding against the silk of your cunt in a feeble attempt to try and prep you, to make the breach less painful, less of a stretch but you need that, you do and it’s driving you crazy, and it’s probably driving him crazy too,

“Go - Toshi, please, I can’t - fuck me please!”

The strength that emerges from the man astounds you every time, hoisting your thighs high up his waist and then apparently changing his mind, throwing your ankles over his shoulders and looming over you, sinking into you with once, debilitating thrust of his hips. And the noise that left him, oh god - it was borderline animalistic, debauched and wrecked, and one of the hottest things you think you’ve ever heard.

He’s got his hands either side of your head, clawing against the floor for purchase, immediately starting a brutal pace, the slap of his skin on yours echoing throughout the apartment, drowned out only by the high pitched squeals coming from your mouth and the filthy way he was talking down at you,

“Taking me so well baby, so fucking well - m’so proud of you, didn’t need any prep - fuck! So tight, so goddamn tight f’me -,” he doesn’t soften, not when the sounds of your pussy creaming around his cock grows louder with every sharp snap of his hips, shoving your legs into your chest and forcing harsh shouts from your throat,

“Yes! Daddy - missed you so, so much - harder, please! I’ll be s’good for you, so good just - hah - harder!”

Neither of you realise that every sound your bodies produce, every squelch and click of your cunt, every growl and deep snarl from his chest, every needy squeal and plea from your lips can be heard all the way down the corridor. The front door was still open, propped from where the duffle bag had prevented it from closing, the light from the corridor providing a perfect spotlight for the unsuspecting neighbour who dared venture out to see what all the noises were.

The vision of Ushijima’s back rippling and rolling with his bringing his hand to close around your throat, prompting a garbled hiccup and tears to spring in your eyes, and your little feet dangling uselessly over his shoulders probably should have rendered them silent, shocked and rooted to the spot.

But the quiet gasp was caught by the hulking creature on top of you, quirking his head and making eye contact with them for a split second before simply resuming his quick, paralysing thrusts, harder even than before - drawing a high pitched wail from your throat and there was no mistaking the fluid splashing on the floor, mingling with white and smearing over his balls, slapping against your ass.

A leg struck out, kicking the door shut and locking the duffle outside, looking as sorry for itself and your neighbour, cheeks flushed and eyes slightly glassy, still reflecting the vision of you cumming harshly on Ushijima’s cock, and him simply continuing to fuck you through it, the sounds of you two muffled but no less poignant against the calm stupor of the corridor.

And so what if it carried on, moving through the apartment and quiet possibly earning a complaint from the complex security but neither of you could hear the phone ringing over the bed creaking and slamming against the wall, too consumed in each other, too wound up in the sounds you could pull and the reactions you could bring forward. Damn - if him only being gone for three days turned you both into needy desperate animals, then how the hell would you cope with his next match that required over a week away in a completely different country?

Please follow Izzy she’s a genius and the reason for me being horny @m-mortimer

#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu!!#ushijima x yn #ushijima #ushijima Wakatoshi #ushijima smut #ushijima x reader #Haikyuu smut #hq smut #hq ushijima #Haikyuu x reader #Haikyuu x yn

627 notes · View notes

thessalian · 2 years

Text

Thess vs Brave New World

Every now and then, I try to pick up Brave New World and give it a re-read. And every time, I have to put it down pretty quickly. Honestly, I’m never sure which is worse - Brave New World’s ... what I can only call pseudo-utopian dystopia and 1984′s straight-up hategasm hellscape. Thing is ... see, I had this ex...

(Ah, and now we get into the ex stories. That’s always fun.)

So I had this ex, and he was ... erm ... put it this way: when he and I finally broke up, an awful lot of our mutual friends (who’d known him way longer than me) went, “Yeah, I did wonder what the fuck you saw in him”. One of this whole things was being really ... anti-emotional. Not unemotional (well, that too, kinda), but he was very much against the whole concept of getting emotional at all. He’d always say things like how my getting passionate about a subject meant I had automatically lost the argument because “you can only really win an argument with rationality and reason, and you can’t have those when you’re all worked up”. He said that caring about what was going on in the world was “unhealthy” for me, because caring stressed me out. Effectively, the fact that I got passionate about anything lowered my intelligence, in his eyes.

Of course, he also didn’t really seem to get ... well, anything that wasn’t straight-up logic. Take for instance food. I used to cook all my best dishes for him and take him to nice places to eat and he just wasn’t interested. In fact, he actively scorned any food that took more than one utensil to eat and more than three chews to swallow. He’d tell me that if he could just take a pill that gave him all the calories and nutrients he needed for any given day, he’d be happy. Food was not an experience for him; it was a chore.

But what does this have to do with Brave New World, I hear you ask? Well, at one point midway through our ill-starred relationship, he was watching my reading habits trying to logic out what I liked to read. (He finally broke down and ... well, exasperatedly asked, “Look, I’ve watched you for months and you read books from so many genres that I can’t figure it out; what do you like to read?!?”, like my tastes could and in fact should be pinned to a single genre. I just told him that “Primary criteria is ‘does it have words?’; I go from there”.) And somewhere in that time, I was in a ‘classic speculative fiction’ sort of groove and was midway through Brave New World. He said he liked that one ... and then he said something I have never forgotten and will never fail to make me feel really uneasy:

“I never really saw the problem with that society, though. I mean, you’d be programmed not to worry about anything and to be happy in your place; I’d actually really like to live in that world”.

I think I started backing away from him at that point, emotionally speaking. Because that’s fucking terrifying. I mean, Huxley’s society is oversimplified at best. There’s no room for queer people at all, and that means either they made not to be - whether by conditioning, eugenics, or (more likely) both. And given that we didn’t see any disabled people either, we’re back to eugenics again - I mean, when you’re mass-producing humans, you can afford to throw away a ‘bad batch’ now and then. Plus ... it’s hard to really bond with a guy who wants to live in a society where actual romantic love is considered taboo and kind of disgusting.

(Not to mention I think I was starting to figure out my asexuality at that point, though nowhere near there yet, and the whole “Everyone belongs to everyone else” thing ... I mean, we’re back to queer people again but societal expecation to have lots of sex with lots of people just grosses me out but he was entirely cool with that, so ... yeah no.)

Haven’t been able to read through the whole thing since. Not just because of the ex; because I acknowledge that there are others like him. There are people who think that ... well, that is the ideal society, even knowing what we know now. There are people who’d prefer that to this, even with the governments we have.

Look. The world is shit. I know the world is shit. I spend every day hearing some new bit of awful that is happening because the world is run by a very few people (mostly men) grubbing after money and power. And it enrages me. And no, it’s not a comfortable sensation. My stress levels could probably use some lowering. (Especially after the day I had at work today.) But I can’t imagine not being allowed to enjoy books, or writing. Or sunsets, or flowers. Plus I have enough trouble with the people who, on hearing that I am not nor will I ever be married, say “Oh, don’t worry; you’ll find the right one someday!” without the societal expecation of promiscuity. (I mean, I’m all for other people having sex; just don’t get me involved in it.)

I mean, I know that the book mostly highlights the issues inherent in a world like that one - that all the conditioning in the world can’t necessarily stifle bits of individuality. But Huxley ignores so many concepts which ... okay, written in 1931 so I can’t expect a whole lot from the pseudoscience or the inclusivity. But some people miss the point entirely - so very entirely that I end up blindsided with the knowledge that some people want to live in a world where they don’t think of anything beyond who they’re going to be ‘having’ tomorrow or their next game of Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy. And yeah, the point’s supposed to be that you wouldn’t know anything different ... supposedly, according to my ex. Except obviously that’s bullshit because there wouldn’t have been a book if Bernard or even Lenina hadn’t been the slightest bit deviant by their societal standards.

Meh. It’s just been a bad day, that’s all. But still not picking up Huxley again.

#Thess is a bibliophile

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spiltscribbles · 3 years

Note

Prompt 37 (from the first list) and bodyguard au seems interesting

By the way I love your writing please never stopped just finished your recent fic and its one of my favourites.

~Notes: 😭😭😭 baby u can’t be out here recklessly making me sob!!! I am so flustered right now!! Thank you so much for being a beautiful soul 😌😌 ok NEGL the bodyguard thing is not here Becs I’m dumb and couldn’t think of one, but there’s protective sirius💜 I hope you don’t hate this!!! ILU!!!

Smash Game | Send Me A Prompt💜 | A Reblog Means SO Much!!!!

Alphard Black was a good man, a man of his community, a man of the law. He taught the ins and outs of the constitution at Columbia, never went an inch over the speed limit, hell, he even separated his recyclables into their proper piles for the garbage collector, and all while spending his down time volunteering at some sort of virtuous charity or impactful outreach program for inner city youths—the man basically leaped right out of the screen of some cheesy, after school special, wacky ties and rumpled hair aplenty.

Alphard Black was a virtuous, humble man who abided by the laws set out for him to a painstaking degree—So Sirius sorta thinks it’s hilarious that he’s kind of the exact antithesis of his uncle— the man who brought him up after running away from his bat shit parents and their bat shit values as the top of the one percent. Just kind of though.

Sirius likes to think he’s still a good guy—albeit in the typical, non second coming of Christ wannabe kind of way. He gives spare change to homeless folks at Grand Central, doesn’t sneer at raucous kids inside of restaurants or busses… for fuck’s sake he even smiles at strangers more often than not—— just the typical, What a nice day isn’t it, smile and not, I’m actually a blood thirsty maniac ready to carve out all your organs and wrap your naked, dead body in saran wrap Dexter style, smile…Which is actually a type of smile Sirius has become intimately familiar with considering that unlike his Uncle Alphard, Sirius may have a problem with the whole “Laws are created for the good of the public,” ideology, and rather subscribes to the way of thought that thinks it’s kind of thrilling to see how much you can bend and skirt around the rules till they break, or till he gets caught. Which in turn mostly manifests into Sirius participating in a very high demand business—the sort that’ conducts it’s transactions within the metaphorical underground, and makes it so he spends his days with a group of brilliant assholes that he considers family, and a discretely wicked boy who he thinks is most probably the love of his god forsaken life.

Mother Mary, help them all.

~*~

“Padfoot too Moony, are you in, Moony.”

A moment of static passes before Remus’s voice trickles through the minuscule bluetooth snuggled in Sirius’s ear, and he can’t help but smirk. “Why are you still trying to make these codenames work—they don’t work, they’re all awful and trash, and we should just stick with the numbers we were given when Moody first scouted us.”

“Mmm yeah, Moons, talk dirty to me.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,”

“Say trash again.”

“I hate you,” Remus intones. He sounds all surly and bothered, and Sirius’s fingers curl together to card through the phantom strands of his hair, knowing full and well how adorably flustered Remus gets whenever they are having one of their little sparring sessions—It’s also the same look he gets whenever he’s incredibly turned on and has no idea how to handle it. Coincidence? Sirius thinks not.

“Ah, Moony, my love, you say that as if my perfect baritone isn’t the highlight of your day. Like you don’t write sonnets and odes about it’s every cadence and lilt in your little diary you think I don’t know about. As if—“

“I’m shutting you off now,” Remus cuts in with his best, I’m trying to pretend that I am so totally annoyed even if I’m actually really amused by you and all your antics, voice. It’s one that’s basically come second nature to him whenever he speaks to Sirius, ever since they had met three years ago and Sirius had to teach him the trick of the trade after Remus had been invited into the fold, while also trying not to completely accost him with his lips and hands and teeth until the work day was over.

“You would never.”

“You seriously have an overinflated sense of worth if you’re starting to doubt that I very much would,” Remus goads, but he forgets that Sirius can see every nook and cranny of the swanky penthouse from his perch in the getaway van, thanks to his very beautiful laptop monitor. And yeah, Sirius can so totally spot that little flicker of a grin tugging on the edges of his pink lips, where Remus is trying to hide it behind the flute of wine in his grasp—his very strong and capable grasp, one that’s wrapped around the neck of that glass just so tight—Oh, erm, yeah. That’s a thought Sirius should definitely not be having at their current predicament.

“Righto, beautiful, whatever you say.”

“Was there an actual reason for your little interference, besides you being pissy that you had to take the get away position this time around?” Remus sighs, long suffering before offering a subdued, half grin to a very haughty looking woman passing him, predatory leer on her plump lips. And jeez, Sirius bemoans her poor eardrums if they’re suppose to be carrying diamonds that thick all night long— Poor hag will probably end up needing stitches like his dear mother.

“I missed you is all, lover.”

“Goodbye, Sirius.”

“Oh fine, you total spoil sport. Just an FYI that Marlene’s gotten into the volt’s room, and she’s decoding it as we speak.”

“Oh, good. Should I-“

“Moons, it’s Marls, she’s got her shit handled. You just stand there and be a the good, pretty honeypot that we all know you can be.”

Remus growls somewhere deep in his throat, and it’s bringing a flurry of such beautiful imaginings to the forefront of Sirius’s mind— including last night, with Remus’s lovely, thin wrists tied up and Sirius’s mouth trailing up and down his every patch of skin.

God, was that a good night.

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“I know, it’s a point of pride for me that I get to say I tap that. But hey, always game to switch things up if you are?”

“You are the absolute worst person ever.”

“Ooo are we circling back around to speaking filthy things, because I’ve been having this fantasy including you and these lace—“

That’s when Remus actually does shut off the communication device, and starts chatting up some smarmy businessman who can’t stop staring at his protruding collarbones.

Sirius is most certainly not jealous.

Nope, not at all—Not even a little bit.

Sirius is not jealous.

Okay, fine…So he’s a bit bothered, but can anyone blame him? All of that—chorded muscles and sparkling eyes—is reserved for Sirius, and Sirius alone. It’s taken years of volleying barbs and really intense sexual tension that was all finally resolved after a way too dramatic spat outside some sleazy BDSM club on the wrong side of town where Sirius got himself fucking shot, and Remus couldn’t stop yelling at him for being such a mother fucking, idiotic, thoughtless prick, (Remus’s words not Sirius’s,) for them to finally get to this point. For fuck’s sake, it seemed as if Remus’s anger fueled diatribe would never end, so Sirius just took the dilemma into his own hands and slanted their lips together, bloody and breathless, panting out an “I love you too,” while Remus just patted up and down Sirius’s torso, not knowing where to put his hands, dumbfounded and eager. As if he could hardly believe that it was actually happening, as if he was shocked that Sirius had finally just put them out of their mutual misery and spoke out loud what’s been lingering in their gazes, and tailing the ends of too short exchanges for years at that point—ones always composed of banter and barbs but always to fearful to take the extra step they yearned for.

Yeah, so it wasn’t exactly a cinderella story level of romance, but the point is they’ve fought tooth and nail to finally get to this point in their relationship. Nights made up of spilt hair on warm sheets, and hungry kisses of farewell, and shirts tumbling together so many times that they don’t even know which belongs to who anymore—All of them lingering with a sent of both of them, together. Something intimate. Something remarkable. Something far too soft when considering their line of employment—But it works for’m, and that’s all that counts.

Before Sirius could get to lost in getting all starry-eyed over the life they’ve built for themselves, Sirius moves to sweep his hands across the keyboard, A cautious eye still on Remus and his unwanted suitor while dividing the screen so that he can check back on Marlene’s progress, which is quite impressive if he does say so himself.

“And Black Widow pulls through again,” He commends with a low whistle, watching her practically stroll out of the volt, ancient artifact securely settled in the bag swinging off her shoulder, and cocky sneer proudly splayed across her pretty face.

“You know it dweeb.”

“THat’s not my code name,” Sirius points out with a put upon exhale.

Marlene’s only response is to hike up her manicured brows in counterfeit surprise. “you sure? I could’ve sworn…”

Sirius legitimately contemplates just driving off and leaving her stranded, signaling to Remus a separate meet up point for just the both of them. But Eventually, he reasons that might be a bit of an over reaction. So he settles for just growling out a reminder for her to “Respect the name,” while a glowing Marlene slinks into the passenger seat.

“Your so precious.” Sirius swats her hand away where she’s begun rubbing her knuckles into his scalp. “Call pretty boy and let’s bounce, will you?”

Reluctant, Sirius listens—only and only because he’s about ninety nine point five percent positive that she could probably beat’m to a pulp with one hand tied behind her back and both eyes glued shut.

~*~

The mission was one they’ve been calculating for months, a huge catch with a credibility brought with it that doubles its actual monetary prophet—(And wowza, that price check is all levels of ridiculous.) Moody is beyond proud, and tells them as much with a crazy large celebration back at their little underground headquarters, (which is actually an entire floor on one of the top levels of a huge ass skyscraper in the meatpacking district that disguises itself as just a financial consultant firm in the light of day.)

It’s made even more wonderful considering how he, Remus and Marlene are basically the guests of honor for their success. So that night they drink, and dance and just generally get absolutely slobbered…Then subsequently remember nothing the following morning, as tradition always dictates.

Though Sirius does distinctly remember trading sloppy hand jobs in the bathroom with Remus while the latest Beyonce banger pounds in the space between them.

It’s a good night.

~*~

Unsurprisingly, the hangover that persists even two days later really makes Sirius question the worth of all that celebrating, and he ponders on whether or not being sober would be so bad.

“Morning, Black!”

Sirius cringes back at a crowing Dorcas—Looking as wickedly gorgeous and put together as always—Dark eyes clear and methodic, and long curls obviously freshly washed.

“Sorcerous!” He accuses with as much vehemence as he could muster. “your evil! How are you even so perky! Stop it! Stop! You’re hurting my eyes!”

Dorcas just preens with far too much amusement than what should be warranted—it’s almost as if she’s enjoying his pitiful disposition. “Not all of us got as sloppy as you Saturday night may I remind.”

“Then you’re doing your entire life incorrectly.”

“I just have a modicum of self restraint, unlike you.”

“Lies! Lies and slander! I am so very disciplined! I didn’t even tell you guys about the time Remus gave me a blow job in the middle of a glass elevator when we were shopping for Jamsie and Lily’s engagement gift!”

Dorcas just rolls her eyes heavenwards, painstakingly exasperated. “C’mon, dumb ass, Alice needs you to use those hacking skills of yours to get the money Lestrange still owes us for collecting those tears of the ocean. And her bank account is sealed shut.”

“Ah, no Cas ’s too early! And my head hurts! I can’t.”

“Shouldn’t have been such a drunken mess during the party I reckon,” Dorcas scoffs with an imperious tilt of the head, tugging him along without even an ounce of sympathy.

“Hey! It was a celebration!” Sirius flails, and Dorcas just looks at him with a decidedly unconvinced glower.

“It’s all in moderation Sirius.”

“Not at a party it isn’t!” He argues back, totally knowing he’s in the right.

“Yeah whatever, you’re just lucky you weren’t sent off to Shanghai with lover boy, which by the way,” Dorcas pivots on her heels to face Sirius straight on, prodding at the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. “Looks like you missed a hickey sweets,” she toots loftily, poking at it again, a flush blooming across Sirius’s cheeks in response. “Not good work decorum if you ask me.”

“You’re face ’s not good work decorum,” Sirius snarks back mulishly. Dorcas just laughs with glee.

“Do I need to talk to poor, innocent Remus about proper biting placement for you once he gets back?”

“Pff, Remus and innocent don’t belong in the same sentence.”

“Fine, then I can just give you some tips on how to properly layer foundation? I’m sure it’s a travesty how easily shit shows up with your Wonder Bread complexion.”

“You actually are evil! Aren’t you?”

Sirius could still hear Dorcas’s cackles from down the hall where Alice has set him up for the morning, and he idly thinks to himself how exactly he’s made it so that every woman in his life could destroy him with nothing more than a look.

~*~

Considering that all of their livelihoods are basically glorified bank robbers, Sirius knows that their jobs don’t really lend themselves to being able to check in on each other whenever they’d please—the only devices they’re allowed for communication are the bluetooth sets for the team deployed on the task at hand, and a single burner. It can get annoying sometimes, but Sirius and Remus always make it a point to send each other a message from the router phone whenever they arrive to the mission’s ground of operation—It’s a practice ingrained into them, one they began long before they ever started dating, one that they never break, not even if they’re arguing or it’s the middle of the night—It’s important. They’ve both lost to many people in their short lives, and they both know how it feels to be delegated to the worrying mess, wondering what’s happening to their loved one, being consumed by the most awful of possibilities. They do it because they respect each other far too much not to.

So Sirius finds it excruciatingly odd that he doesn’t hear from Remus in over thirty-six hours since he left to the Shanghai hit.

“Maybe he just forgot, Pads,” James shrugs, always the level headed ringleader. “No Proclivity is absolutely bullet proof—Ah, excuse me for the unplanned pun.” He scratches the back of his head a little sheepishly— the glasses of his wireframes glinting in the light of their shared workspace.

And the thing is, point. James is totally right. Remus just could’ve forgot. It was a long plane ride, he could’ve just been jet legged and a little dazed and it could’ve just slipped his mind to message Sirius when he landed. That’s totally a possibility.

But see the thing is, that’s also totally not a possibility—like at all. Remus is like the most diligent person on the face of the planet, which may kind of seem out of character considering how he’s more of the type to follow his heart over protocol when it counts, and his entire livelihood is based off the evasion of the law—But even still, Remus is also the guy who likes a true and tried method. He likes having security in the aspects of his everyday life he can control. Sirius knows how borderline neurotic Remus can get about certain things, like finishing all of his paper work the night it’s given, or having a stable workout regiment, and a bunch of other minuscule, everyday things that tethers him. But Sirius also knows that the texts Remus sends him blows all of those out of the water. They’re something crucial—something vitally important. If the roles were reversed, if it were Sirius who forgot to send the text, then yeah, Remus would have a perfect history to look back on and just shrug it off as Sirius having been thoughtless, no big deal. Remus would just make a note to give him an ear full when he gets back.

But the rolls aren’t reversed.

It’s Remus who didn’t send anything, and Sirius knows it in his heart of hearts that this is not normal, that Remus would never have forgotten. Remus would never have fucking been able to go to sleep without passing Sirius a message of safe arrival. It’s just not him.

James still looks unsure even after Sirius’s way to verbose and borderline babbling explanation of why he knows something isn’t adding up, so he decides to hit him below the belt.

“If this were Lily you wouldn’t be second guessing this.”

James jolts back as if Sirius had just smacked him, which Sirius guesses is kind of true, in the metaphoric sense at the very least. But whatever, Sirius’s right, and he knows it.

IF this was Lily— the beautiful, kind baker that James had met coincidentally on a random Sunday afternoon, someone completely divorced from this world— well, there would be no room for discussion.

“IF this were Lily you would trust your gut, and we’d already know what went wrong. We’d know that you were right, the she wasn’t safe.” Sirius’s face feels heated, and he knows that his throat is closing up, but he can’t help it god damn it. This is Remus—And even the thought of him being in any way hurt—No, Sirius refuses to think that way. Because he’s not, he can’t be. This is Remus god damn it. He’s brilliant and strong and he can handle himself. He’s what everyone in their group secretly strive to be—He’s not hurt, he can’t be hurt.

James just sits there, gawking at Sirius, for a moment of pure and utter silence. Sirius doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t fold back from the intensity in his best friend’s— his brother’s— gaze.

“This is Remus god damn it, James”

Something fierce rippling over his face, James nods, finally seeming to understand.

“Let’s tell Moody, and call a group meeting. We need to figure out what the hell’s going on.”

Sirius sags with the little relief he’s given, pretends that it doesn’t feel like there’s not a wildfire still spreading over his chest from the bone deep fear.

~*~

Two hours later finds their little ragtag group huddled in the largest meeting room they have, and Sirius hunched over a menacing letter that was hand delivered by one of Lestrange’s ghoulish little minions— Crouch if their intel is correct.

“Any news is good news, right?” Peter— their mousey little researcher— says in some weak attempt of comfort from where he’s silently been situated in the love seat the furthest away from the lump some, and Sirius replies by snarling viciously at him; making Peter shutter back, like the spineless weasel Sirius has always assumed him to be.

Sirius is not comforted. Sirius is furious and sick and he hates everything in sight. And all Sirius could think of is Remus, Remus, Remus.

“What do we do,” James’s voice is strong, convicted in the painful silence of the room—But when Sirius looks up, he could still see the worry etched into his handsome features, and the fear threaded into his stance.

James is scared, and that might worry Sirius more than anything else could.

“This is my fault, I sanctioned just stealing the money she owed us and I was the one who thought Remus would be fine on a solo mission—I thought it’d be a simple grab. I didn’t put two and two together—I just didn’t—“ Alice breaks off, looking away from the group, and Frank slings an arm around his wife’s slender shoulders.

“Hey now, ’s not your fault, ’s not no ones,” as if to emphasize his point, Frank gives a downright menacing grimace to everyone in the room, daring them to disagree. “It’s Remus, he’s resilient. And that bitch knows if he’s actually hurt we’ll destroy everything she’s ever built for herself.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Sirius’s surprised of the jaggedness of his own voice, leveling him with a look of utter fury. “She’s a psychotic, selfish, self indulgent bitch—There’s worse things than just beating him up or locking him in some cellar.”

From the corner of his eye he sees Alice shutter, is briefly reminded of that stint where she was badly injured after a run in with one of the darker ringleaders in their line of work, Riddle. And then he remembers, unbidden, how that bastard has some sort of fucked up Harley Quinn, Joker esthetic going on with Bellatrix Lestrange— and a sick, twisted part of Sirius that actually does blame Alice for sanctioning those two risky missions so close together, is savagely pleased of the effect that the reminder has on her. But the rest of Sirius is just disgusted by himself and hates himself even more when remembering where Remus is at this very moment, and what he must be going through. There’s no time to be pointing fingers, and Sirius knows it.

“Whatever, no time to think of it now,” Sirius rises, and the way all of their eyes follow his every move (Even Moody who is the actual boss— doesn’t go over his head.

“What do you think we should do from here?” Dorcas asks in a small voice, clutching onto the letter like a life line—She’s Remus’s best friend, Sirius knows that, knows that she stopped only skirting along the edges of this unsavory line of work until Remus came along and helped her wiggle out of her shell. And the reminder makes Sirius feel such a burst of aching for Remus all at once that he nearly topples over, just barely catches himself with a hand on the tabletop.

“Peter,” Sirius barks, making the blonde finally straighten. “Check out where Bellatrix is scheduled to appear next.”

“Ah, erm on it, of course.”

Sirius starts to feel a little better—no not better, balanced. He knows what needs to be done, what will happen next, knows that it’ll turn out all right.

It has to turn out all right, because he can’t fathom a world where it doesn’t— a world without Remus isn’t worth even a breath.

~*~

If there’s anything that Sirius knows about supreme bitch face herself, it’s that Bellatrix is cavalier to a fault. So it really doesn’t surprise him when Peter finds out that she’s holding a little gala for her new play things art exhibit in her own home that night, and Sirius intends on giving his congratulations, whether or not he’s on the guest list.

~*~

“Hey, can you hear me.”

Sirius presses an inconspicuous finger onto his eardrum when Dorcas’s voice breaks through, speaking the affirmative.

“All right, well Moody says that upstairs is most likely where you’ll find’m. Marlene and James will stay down at the party just incase anything goes wrong.”

“Right,” Sirius nods to himself, trying to put together all the new information that’s swimming in his mind. “Thanks Cas.”

“Stay safe, and bring him home. Don’t fuck this up, Sirius.” Her voice is small and fragile. Sirius could picture the gleam to her big doe eyes. “We need you both safe.”

“Of course."

~*~

As expected, the upstairs is a labyrinth of doors and alcoves that Sirius could barely wrap his mind around, the only constant thought is that it makes sense that Bellatrix would want to keep the money from the job she had them perform for her. The rent for this place definitely can’t be cheap.

Sirius tries at least ten different rooms before he comes across one that’s locked from the inside as well as a deadbolt, and His heart seizes with a choked sort of hope before he starts pounding against it.

“Remus! Remus! Are you in there!” His voice goes ragged at how loud he’s screaming, but Sirius doesn’t let up. He starts calling for him even louder if possible. “Remus!”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Sirius stiffens, his blood running cold before slowly turning around to a very amused looking Bellatrix Lestrange. Predatory sneer swept across her blood red lips, and weight slung to her left hip. The picture of radiance and leisure in her slinky, black dress. She’s having fun toying with Sirius, with all of them.

“Where the fuck is he,” Sirius spits out tersely—trying to sear wholes right through her disarming face. He thinks with a start that she’d be pretty in an almost unchanging way—a timeless elegance that kind of mirrors Remus’s. But where beneath Remus’s golden exterior is all passion and goodness and an endless capacity of love, under Bellatrix’s pale white skin and dark eyes and sheets of even darker hair is just ugliness and cruelty and Sirius has never hated anyone more, or so intensely.

“Oh sweetheart, I’m so sorry that they sent the best of their group to the den,” She swaggers up to him, each step premeditated—a lion closing in on her prey, and her leer right then— self assured and cruel all at once— is like a mirror of his mother’s so thoroughly that it’s painful. “I’d really hate to ruin those movie star good looks you’ve got going on,” she runs the back of her hand down his face slowly, tendrils of her warm breath edging his lips. “And honey, you really are so deliciously gorgeous. But Moody needs to learn that no one double plays me so flippantly. No respect, that kind of behavior really can’t be tolerated. You understand that, don’t you love?”

Right then, Bellatrix moves to gouge Sirius right in the stomach with a dagger she had hidden in the sleeve of her dress—but Sirius’s quicker.

He sweeps Bellatrix’s feet right from under her, twisting her arm behind her back and using her own weapon to chop off the doorknob, all in one fluid movement. Though, he only has a sparing moment to feel boastful before he steps into the room to find Remus—sickly looking with blood matted in his golden locks, before everything turns to a buzzing in the background—Sirius runs on autopilot, with the only crucial thought being to get Remus out safely.

“Baby, I’m here, I’ve got you.” Sirius tells him with the words catching in his throat, and feels such a drowning amount of relief when he hears a gargled retort from Remus. “I’d never let anything happen to you, love. I’m so sorry. I’ll never let something like this happen again.” Sirius tells him with all the earnestness in the world, gently collecting him into his arms. “I’ve got you now, I won’t let go.” The promise is as sure and true as the pump of his heart—Remus, Remus, Remus.

~*~

When they all return to headquarters, everyone circles a still limp and shallowly breathing Remus, while Dorcas figures out the extent of his injuries.

It’s the worst hour of his life Sirius thinks—The not knowing, it hurts like nothing else. And he swears once more, to himself and the moonlight and the stars peeking through the skyline that he’ll never let this happen, never again., doesn’t want Remus ever out of his sight.

~*~

A week later, and everything feels as if it’s back to normal—more or less.

Their bedroom smells like sage—thanks to the candles Lily bought Remus for his last birthday—And Remus’s swaddled into the most comfortable blanket Sirius could find—his twisted ankle elevated, and a fresh bowl of soup on his night stand.

It’d be the picture of absolute bliss… Now if Remus wasn’t scowling so morosely.

“You seem mad,” Sirius notes, standing over him with a freshly fluffed pillow. Remus looks up at him from under his spider leg lashes, so very unimpressed.

“You’ve never taken care of me nearly so intently a day in your life.” Remus charges.

“Untrue!” Sirius squawks in contrary.

“When I got food poising from that sushi place last year, you blamed me for eating it wrong.”

“Yeah, well it’s blasphemous to ever blame Kimiko! The woman is a titan!”

Remus’s mouth quirks up, his eyes twinkling with unadulterated adoration. “You’re an idiot.”

Sirius deflates. “Okay, so I might be kind of majorly mother penning it right now,” Remus cranes a incredulous brow. “Okay, okay so a lot mother penning it. But, Remus— love— you were missing—like legitimately missing. And then i found you and you were…” He trails off, can’t even speak the horrors of that night.

“Yeah, I was,” Remus links their fingers together, pulling Sirius closer, and opening his mouth so that when Sirius crouches to come face to face, he can kiss him properly. “But you happen to be a pretty all right boyfriend, you found me—I’m fine. You made sure of that.”

“More than all right prick,” Sirius knocks their foreheads together and Remus feigns being in excruciating pain. “I fucking hate you,” he snorts, saddling against Remus’s side, and nuzzling into his neck, taking in the miraculous scent of him— the citrus and cinnamon and sunlight that he’s come to crave at all hours of the day. “I love you sort of a lot, and it was the worst three days of my life, all right. Can you understand that?”

Remus only hums, kisses the tips of Sirius’s fingers before lacing them into his own.

“I understand, love, but Sirius, I’m fine. I’m here. You’re amazing, but you don’t need to protect me. Not constantly. This is our lives, and I need you to trust me that I can handle myself for the most part. All right?”

Sirius makes a displeased sound, lips curled distastefully, and it makes Remus actually giggle like they were school boys again. And Jesus, Remus’s smile is blinding and beautiful and fucking hell, he’s here. He’s back in there room, back in Sirius’s arms.

“God, I missed you.”

Remus crunches upwards, kissing Sirius, and it feels like a promise that he’ll never leave him again. “I love you Sirius.”

Sirius leers, isn’t ready to have the conversation about learning how to let Remus go out without him. So instead he traces his thumb over Remus’s beautifully plump bottom lip, and bends down to whisper into his ear. “So can we talk about the lace then, because I’ve made some purchases and—“

Remus pushes him off their bed, and Sirius feels his laughter punching out of him in response.

~*~

~My Wolfstar FIC Index💜

#WOLFSTAR #REMUS LUPIN #SIRIUS BLACK #SIRIUSXREMUS #WOLFSTAR FLUFF #REMUSXSIRIUS #HARRY POTTER SERIES #MARAUDERS #THE HARRY POTTER SERIES #spilt ink #love you angel #?!!!#This is edited from an old old FIC of mine #in my drafts #and i'm afraid my writing is so so contrasting #rip #sdlkjgalksdfjoiwpqgdsa

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fangirling-is-my-passion · 4 years

Text

🎃 Halloween Special 🎃 (Draco Malfoy x Reader)

Warnings: none, according to me

Summary: It’s your fifth year at Hogwarts and you decide to change things up a little bit by making a mix between muggle and magical traditions in Halloween.

A/N: Hellooooo, lovelies! I know it's been ages since the last time I posted any of my writings, but I got this idea the other day and I just couldn't let it die in my drafts. It's my first time writing for Draco, so if there's any mistake or stuff way too out of character, please, have mercy on me... 😔🙏 I love you and I really hope you enjoy it! Happy Halloween! :) <3

October was finally coming to its end and Halloween was just around the corner, so everybody's excitement was palpable. The Halloween celebration at Hogwarts was one of the most expected by the students and you were definitely not the exception, nonetheless, after already four years of spending the holiday the wizard style, you were kind of starting to miss the muggle celebrations you were so used to when you were only a child.

You missed the costumes so much. Everything was really cool, but why didn't wizards dress up for Halloween? I mean, can you imagine the possibilities?

And so your idea was born: A Halloween celebration in Hogsmeade with your friends and anybody else who wanted to join, but with costumes, like muggles did. It was going to be a little bit of a mix between the two worlds. And it was going to be fantastic.

"Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys!" you said excitedly on Monday morning, sitting at the Gryffindor table in a rush, "I was thinking, why don't we throw a costume party in Hogsmeade the night of Halloween? It could even be at the Three Broomsticks, if we ask for permission, of course, I gotta check that, but, a costume party! What do you think?"

"You mean like the muggle tradition?" asked Hermione.

"Yes! Exactly! I actually don't quite understand why wizards don't dress up for Halloween, but whatever. I think this would be great!"

"Of course, sounds amazing, (Y/N)! But we gotta plan it very well, so I'll help you with the organisation," said Hermione with a lopsided smile.

"Well, sounds like fun, so count me in," said Ron, "By the way, (Y/N), can you pass me the sausages, please?"

"Sure, there you go..."

"I'm definitely in too. It would be my first time dressing up for Halloween, so I wouldn't miss it for the world," Harry added, "Dudley was the one who went trick-or-treating every year; meanwhile I stayed at home, either inside the cupboard or doing whatever chores my aunt could come up with."

"Blimey, Harry, that sucks..." Ron commented before placing another sausage on his plate, which was already brimming with food. Harry simply shrugged.

"Erm, well, great then! I think..." you paused for a second and then added," Let's tell everybody else!"

"Who are you planning to invite?" Hermione questioned; she was definitely taking this organisation thing very seriously.

"I was thinking of simply spreading the word, so anybody who wants to can join."

"Oh, all right. That sounds fine," she said, although she didn't sound entirely convinced.

"Are you going to invite your boyfriend then?" Ron inquired with a sly look on his face.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend! We're just... acquaintances... who hated each other in the past... but not anymore..."

He referred to no other than Draco Malfoy, the so called Slytherin Prince. At the very beginning of your Hogwarts days, you honestly couldn't stand each other, with all his arrogance and his superiority complex, however, at some point and for some strange and unknown reason to you, he stopped being an utter arsehole, your mutual teasing became more of an inside joke than actual bullying and you kinda started getting along. At least you were able to be in the same room without trying to hex one another.

"Yeaaah, of course, and who also study together in the library..." Ron continued.

"That happened one time!" you exclaimed, a flush creeping across your cheeks, "Or was it twice?"

"Twice" Harry and Ron answered in unison.

"Actually," Hermione interrupted, "it happened three times if we count the one where they had to work on the potions project together."

"But that does not count! It was a project! We had to!"

"Mmmmm, it counts because you chose to work together" she explained, a sly tone in her voice.

"That was just because he's the only Slytherin I've had an actual, relatively decent interaction with... Seriously, Hermione? That's not even the point here, guys, let's focus. And yes," you said making emphasis en the 'yes', "I am going to invite him, 'cause, why not? He's probably going to instantly reject the idea anyways, you know how he is." You crossed your arms over the table and took a deep breath.

"Wow", said Ron, "I can't believe you actually said all that without pausing to breathe. However," he said emphasising that last word," I'm telling you, (Y/N), you're gonna end up together. But if you're so sure of the contrary, let's make a bet."

"What?"

"Yes, whoever loses will have to do the winner's homework for a week." Ron smirked.

"A week! Are you nuts?" you exclaimed.

"Well, you have nothing to worry about... Unless you do think you're gonna end up being Malfoy's girlfriend..." His smirk widened and your cheeks went a little pinker than they already were.

"All right, fine. It's settled then. I only hope you're ready to do all my homework for a week, Ronald Weasley."

"We'll see about that."

After a busy and tiring week trying to plan an amazing Halloween party at the same time as doing all your class work, Saturday had finally arrived and everybody was filled with excitement. The news of your party had spread like wildfire and soon you and Hermione had to recalculate the supplies you'd need in order to have enough for every single person who wanted to drop by.

Also, you'd indeed told Draco about the party, nonetheless, just as you thought it would be, he didn't seem very excited about the whole idea... Well, yeah, he might have implied that he would never in his right mind attend a muggle celebration like that and that you were nuts to think of the possibility, however!, he didn't really, explicitly say no, so you'd taken his response as a maybe and still hoped he'd go for at least a little while (wait, why were you hoping that? It's not like you cared that much about him attending or not... Right?)

Since you'd been very busy with all the planning, you'd started working on your costume a little bit late, but you were very satisfied with the result: you were going to be Medusa. I mean, she's iconic! Being able to turn people into stone if they look you in the eye? Wicked! (At some point Harry made a joke comparing Medusa to a basilisk, and I mean, sure, but to be honest he really had to work on his humour). You'd even enchanted a diadem with snakes so they moved like they were alive! (Because, come on, you were committed to this holiday, but let's be sensible, you weren't going to wear actual snakes on your hair, there are levels).

The point is that, like everyone else, you were incredibly excited about your party. And also a bit nervous, you didn't want to screw something up, but you also knew not everything could be perfect and what mattered most was that everybody had fun.

"(Y/N)! Are you ready? We gotta get going!" Hermione called from outside the bathroom of your dormitory. You opened the door and stepped out, ready to rock and roll.

"So? How do I look?" you asked, twirling so she could take a look of your whole costume.

"Intimidatingly gorgeous."

"Oww! Thank you! Wait," you said now focusing on Hermione's costume," what are you wearing? No, no, not that, forget that, but why didn't you tell me you were going to be greek goddess, Hermione?"

"For your information, I am Athena," she said and imitated your twirl, "and I wanted it to be a surprise, I kind of got the idea thanks to you, when you told me you were going to be Medusa."

"Well, yeah... It's perfectly okay, but I would've liked to know before! Also, dressing up as specifically Athena is so you, Hermione, and you look gorgeous, seriously, I'm in love with you. Draco Malfoy who?"

"Is that a confession?" questioned Hermione with a sly smile.

"It's a joke" you clarified rolling your eyes but with a lopsided smile on your face.

"Yeah, sure, truly convincing," your friend said with sarcasm "Anyways, we gotta go now, come on!"

And off you went. You met Harry and Ron in the Gryffindor common room (Harry had dressed up as a Gryffindor quidditch player who'd been hit in the head by a bludger, and Ron was simply wearing a Chudley Cannons uniform. Boy, if these guys were obsessed with quidditch...) and the four of you headed happily towards the entrance of the castle, where all the students gathered before going to Hogsmeade. In your way there you were able to see a lot of different costumes from the students who were attending your party and you were deeply amused (and amazed) by they're creativity. Wizards should definitely do this more often.

When you finally arrived to the Three Broomsticks, you found the entire place decorated just as you'd imagined, and Madam Rosmerta (whom you'd previously sent a letter asking for her permission to use the place for your party in exchange of a reasonable amount of money, and she very kindly had agreed and even offered to help you with the organisation and setting the ambience too) was just applying the final touches.

"Oh, hello, dears!" she greeted you with a smile; she really was a very beautiful woman, no wonder why Ron and many other students fancied her, "So? What do you think? Is it like you imagined?"

"It definitely is!" you exclaimed looking around the place in awe, "It's truly fantastic, thank you so, so much! Now all we got to do is wait for everybody else to arrive!"

It didn't take too long before the first group of students entered the place, only a couple of minutes after the time of the appointment, and from then on, people just kept flooding the pub.

"All right, guys!" you shouted over the murmurs of the crowd so everybody could hear you and be quiet while you spoke, "Here's what we've got: You are allowed to order two butterbeers free of charge, however, if you want more you'll have to pay them yourselves. Now, there's relatively decent food on that table," you pointed to the table on the corner at your left side," and in that other table next to the entrance you will find a bunch of various sweets that are definitely unhealthy if eaten in excess, so, please, don't get too excited, people," the multitude before you chuckled and you smiled widely," Also, dear Colin here offered to take pictures of whoever asked him to, so if you want one, just let him now... Ah! And I almost forgot, there will be a costume contest at the end, so be sure to write your name down on the scroll that's on that wall,"you said and pointed to the wall opposite to you," if you want to participate. I think that's all for now, so enjoy the party, and Happy Halloween, everybody!"

The crowd cheered and applauded you before returning to their chatting or heading straight to where the food was. You walked towards the bar to tell something to Madam Rosmerta and soon some upbeat Halloween-themed music started playing. At some point, a few students took a corner of the place as improvised dance floor and, frankly, everything was even better than how you'd pictured it at first. And that was saying something.

"Amazing party, (Y/N)! You should totally do this more often!" cheered Fred and George Weasley about and hour after the beginning of the party. They'd dressed up as some quite creepy zombie conjoint twins and you thought it was brilliant.

"Thank you, guys! I'm glad you're having fun!" you shouted over the music, "By the way, I think your costume is brilliant, suits you perfectly!"

"Thanks! Hope it's enough to win that costume contest of yours, but being honest, there's a lot of competition here," Fred replied.

"Yeah, I mean, just look at your costume! You look fantastic!" George continued.

"Oww, well, luckily for you, I'm going to be a judge, so I'm not participating..."

The conversation went on for a couple more minutes until Lee Jordan called the twins to the dance floor.

Although the party was an absolute hit, you couldn't help but think about a certain someone who wasn't there.

"You look a bit disappointed," said Hermione from behind you, making you jump a bit, "Thinking about somebody who didn't come, perhaps?"

Sometimes it was truly scary how Hermione could know so much.

"What? No! What are you talking about?" you asked trying to brush the topic off.

"Will you please stop trying to deny your feelings, (Y/N)?" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, it's pretty obvious that Malfoy isn't indifferent to you and, to be fair, I don't really mind! I mean, he's been a lot less annoying since you two started to get along a little better, so go ahead if you fancy him!"

"But what if I don't want to fancy him, Hermione?" you exclaimed finally giving in, "He was pretty awful to us in our first years and, yes, maybe we get along now, and he's been a lot better but... I just... I don't know! I guess I feel a bit guilty about it... Besides,he can still be considerably rude sometimes towards people and, even if we left that aside, what makes you think that he could possibly fancy me? I mean, come on, he didn't even come! And I don't... I don't want to be all head over heels for him or anything, and that's also the reason why I keep denying it! If I talk about it, it becomes more real, so maybe if I simply ignore it, my feelings will go away soon enough!"

Luckily for you, you were wearing your green Medusa makeup, otherwise Hermione would have been able to see your cheeks turn bright red.

"Okay, I understand that..." she said, "But I think you got something wrong there, (Y/N), he did come..."

"What?!"

"He just arrived, look, there he is! It's like you invoked him" You turned to look were Hermione had her eyes fixed. And, of course, she was right, there he was. Looking quite dreamy, but you shouldn't think about that, should you? "I'd give you my whole pep talk, but there's no time, you've got more important things to take care of right now. Just, I don't know, let it flow, okay?... But go on, then! Go with him!" she hurried you. You did as you were told and walked towards him changing your mood instantly and pretending that the previous conversation with Hermione had never happened. Just act normal, you thought.

"So you came!" you greeted him once you'd reached him.

"I did," Draco asserted, "Medusa, huh?" he said looking at you up and down with a raised eyebrow and... was that the spirit of a smirk? Once more your makeup helped you hide your blushing and you tried to act like there weren't some butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

...Ugh, this was exactly why you didn't want to admit you fancied him in the first place!

"Indeed," you replied smirking, "And a vampire, eh? Pretty simple if I'm honest, but you look good."

"I always look good, (Y/L/N), but if I'm honest," he said imitating your tone, "you look pretty good too."

"I always look good, Malfoy."

You explained him what you'd told the crowd at the beginning of the party and he decided to order a butterbeer. Then the conversation between the two of you simply kept on going without much difficulty; for some strange reason the fact that you had feelings for him and yet apparently not a single thing in common with him didn't affect your communication.

"All right, but this is insane," he said at some point, " how did you manage to pull this off? I mean, it must have cost you quite a fortune..."

"Well, I did get help from my friends with the budget, but, yes, I had to negotiate with my parents and trade my Christmas and birthday presents of the next year for some money to do this right."

"You're bloody insane..."

"I think you made that pretty clear when I first invited you to come, and yet here you are," you said with sufficiency, "so I guess I'm not the only one here who's gone a bit nuts."

He huffed and took another sip of his butterbeer. In that moment, Ginny Weasley, Parvati Patil and Hermione, who were currently dancing among a bunch of other students, called you and gestured at you to go dance with them. You nodded and turned to Draco in order to tell him that he could stay there while you danced for a while, but before you could articulate anything he said:

"No way you're leaving me here, you're the only person I can actually interact with in a mildly pacific way, so I'm sticking with you."

"Okay... But you're gonna have to dance, then."

"And you think am not qualified for the task?" he asked with his usual smirk.

"Are you really always such a showoff?"

"Only when I'm trying to impress somebody," that answer definitely took you by surprise, but you didn't have the chance to say anything, 'cause he added, "Go on, then, they're waiting for you. I'll go right behind."

And so you danced with your friends. And he danced. And you two danced together. And it was pretty unbelievable for everyone, including you, but nobody seemed to mind since they had never seen Draco in such an unproblematic mood.

A couple of hours later, the costume contest finally took place. The prize for the winner was a special package of sweets you'd prepared plus five galleons... Yeaaah, you'd definitely put a lot of effort in the planning of your party, and it had been completely worth it so far.

All the participants formed a line so each one could walk around showing their costume just as if it were a fashion runway. Meanwhile, you were arranging the seats for the judges. And, as a matter of fact, you had one judge missing. Your intention at first had been that there were four judges in the panel, nonetheless, since both Harry and Ron had declined the offer because they wanted to participate, you were only three: Madam Rosmerta, Hermione and yourself. And all the people you trusted also wanted to take part in it, so it seemed that you'd have to settle with only three judges. Unless...

"Hey, Draco!" Wait, since when did you address him by his first name? Oooh, this was getting out of control... You shouldn't have said anything!

"What is it?" he asked from the seat he had taken at some nearby table, just like all the other students who wouldn't take part in the contest, and were happy to simply watch, had done.

"Well, I was wondering..." you began doubtfully, "if you would like to be a judge too?"

"Me? A judge?" He frowned. "Why?"

"Because I wanted there to be four, but I've got one missing. And I think you'd make a fair judge, as long as you keep your good mood and you're not rude to our contestants... So?" you said bitting your lip.

"Erm, all right. Can't promise I won't be tough on them, though" there was that smirk again.

"Oh, shut up," you said playfully," You can be tough, just not rude. There's a difference."

And so the contest began.

An hour flew by and sooner than you'd expected, you found yourself deliberating with your three judges on whose costume was the best. A task which was pretty hard to do. Harder than you'd expected, actually.

At the moment, you had managed to leave only three finalists, each one provided by one of your fellow judges, and you were the one with the final word. The problem was that you couldn't make up your mind.

"I'm telling you!" Hermione insisted, "Harry's costume should win! It's creative and original and very thorough!"

"Granger, you're only saying that because he's your friend," intervened Draco," but come on! That kid with the Dementor costume? He is literally floating! And he's like in second grade or so! I really think he's the one who should win."

"Well, he definitely portrays a dementor better than you did in third year..." the girl countered.

"All right, guys, don't fight, we gotta make a decision quickly and you're getting on my nerves. Yes, both of you..."

"I still say that those Weasley twins are a lot of fun... They should win if you ask me," Madam Rosmerta mentioned, already losing interest in the matter; looking at three teenagers argue over a costume contest wasn't exactly her definition of "fun".

"Yeah, but they're costume is not as complex as Harry's, (Y/N)!" Hermione reiterated.

"But Potter is not floating, now, is he?" Draco retorted.

"Merlin's beard, you guys! Will you both please shut up?" you scolded, "If I'm completely honest, I wouldn't even consider any of them as my first option, I would choose Padma Patil!" you paused for a second thinking what to say next to state your point, "I mean, she dressed up as Celestina Warbeck! Are you joking? That's bloody brilliant if you ask me! And not only that but she brought Lavender, Parvati and that other girl whose name I don't remember at the moment as her Banshees! Come on! Creative, original... Besides, look at her dress! It looks pretty thorough to me! And yeah, she may not be floating," you added turning to Draco," but she's enchanted her necklace to play 'You stole my cauldron but you can't have my heart' to look like she's actually singing!"

There were a couple of seconds of silence, until Draco decided to break it.

"Then why on earth didn't you say that from the very beginning, (Y/L/N)?"

"Because you were so determined to say who you thought should win that I didn't want to cause more trouble with the decision!"

"Well, as a matter of fact, it makes it a lot easier for me," said Madam Rosmerta, "that girl and her friends were my second option. I simply love Celestina Warbeck."

"She was my third option, so I guess I don't mind," Draco stated shrugging and then leaned back on his chair.

You looked at Hermione.

"Well, yeah... She wasn't in my top three, but it's fine for me", she didn't sound entirely convinced, but it was enough.

"Okay, then..." you said finally, a little surprised by the result, yet satisfied," Brilliant! Then we've got our winner!"

The four of you stood up; Hermione, Draco and you walked to the center of the improvised runway while Madam Rosmerta simply returned to the back of the bar, clearly not wanting to take part in the decision-making of some fifteen-year-olds anymore.

"So, before we announce our winner, I wanted to say something," you began, "As you can see, it was quite difficult for us to make a decision, because all of your costumes are amazing. I truly think so! You're so creative and fun, and believe me when I say that if I had a larger budget I'd probably give prizes to all of you," you chuckled softly, " unfortunately, it isn't the case, so we had to choose only one... Are you ready to know who won?"

The multitude shouted a very enthusiastic "Yes" as response.

"All right, then... Padma Patil, congratulations, you and your Banshees are the winners!"

There were cheers, applause and a few disappointed sighs, but everybody seemed to be as satisfied with the decision as you. You gave the four girls their prize and the music started playing once more. However, the party was coming to its end and a lot of people were already saying their goodbyes and leaving. Therefore, before anything else could happen, you grabbed Draco's arm and dragged him all the way to where Colin Creevy was taking a few pictures of some third year students.

"What are you doing?"

"We're gonna take some pictures," you stated, "I've already got a few with Harry, Ron and Hermione, but since you arrived late..."

He didn't even get the chance to protest, because in that moment the third year students left and you dragged him once more to the spot where they'd been posing.

"What the... What am I supposed to do?" he inquired with a slight note of panic in his voice.

"Dunno, just think of cool poses! We've got two shots, so think fast!"

Your first shot was of you two in an average pose, you know, just smiling, you leaning on his shoulder, his arm around your waist and the butterflies in your stomach going a bit crazier about it.

"What now?!"

"I don't know! It's not like I'm used to doing this!" he exclaimed.

"I thought you were Draco bloody Malfoy, aren't you known enough to get a lot of pictures? You should be used to it!"

"I don't get a lot of fun pictures with weird poses!"

"Well, think of something then!" Colin could do nothing but stare in amusement at your absurd argument, trying to suppress his laughter.

"You think of something!" Draco countered.

"Why am I the one who always has to think of everything? Use your brain, mister!"

And you'd barely finished your sentence when, without a warning and almost against any common sense left on both of you, Draco's lips crushed against yours, his hands grabbing the sides of your face eagerly. Only an instant later he pulled away and looked at you, with his usually pale cheeks coloured in a bright shade of pink and his moon-like eyes reflecting the panic of maybe having done something very wrong. However, he quickly intended to hide it:

"Was that a proper use of my brain, miss?

You were flabbergasted. Totally. The whole night had been utter madness for you since this boy arrived... But it wasn't a bad type of madness, you were delighted. You fancied him. And now you knew that it was mutual.

"Well... Sure... but why did you stop?" you murmured, just inches away from his face, and then smiled bitting your lip. You saw his whole face lighten up as he smiled broadly, just before leaning in to kiss you once more, this time more passionately and intensely than before. You could feel the cold touch of his family ring against the soft skin of your cheeks, contrasting with the warmth of his palms.

The camera flashed and that single incredible moment was captured forever in a picture that would last for a long, long time, kept in scrapbooks and family photo albums.

"Oh, crap..." you grumbled after you pulled away the second time.

"What's wrong?" Draco asked, his voice hoarse due to the kiss.

"Now I'm going to have to do Ronald's homework for a week!"

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malfoymanortings · 4 years

Text

lavender and velvet //part six

SUMMARY: she had her fathers eyes, his aristocratic looks, her grandmothers spite, her mothers heart, but the one thing she didn't have was the love of her father that her god brother received. juliet black finally meets her father who has already decided who his child is.

PAIRINGS: to be decided.

hello! i am so happy to see im nearly at 200 followers! once i hit that milestone, i have something special for you guys ;) hope you all like this chapter! also, if any of you cared to give me your opinion, how are you feeling about juliet’s relationships with everyone, romantic or otherwise? i just want to make sure im doing a good job at portraying her and that she is not coming off as a mary sue. thank you all, and as always if you want to be added to the taglist, let me know!

Juliet had never so thoroughly misjudged a school year before in her life.

She really should have taken the summer as a forewarning towards the hell that awaited them at Hogwarts. Then again, she doubted anyone could have really predicted the horror that was Dolores Umbridge.

The wretched old toad was a horrible excuse for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She had told them they would not be doing magic of any kind, even though the entire point of them attending Hogwarts was to learn magic. To add insult to injury, she had the most disgusting personality, and for whatever reason, she absolutely fawned over Draco.

Well, not for whatever reason, she thought to herself, his father’s ministry contributions surely had a lot to do with it.

Of course, given her parentage, Umbridge absolutely despised her. Draco, because he loved being an utter twat, found it to be the funniest thing. It had caused a few genuine arguments between the two, because he didn’t understand that it truly bothered her. It wasn’t like the teacher didn’t like her because she was a bad student, because she wasn’t. Umbridge hated her because her father was the escaped alleged murderer Sirius Black.

Draco couldn’t seem to understand that, and per his usual behavior, he would beat a joke to death.

The only thing keeping her from being over the edge was the meetings with Dumbeldore’s Army. George had told her about it, and despite the tension that had been there between her and Harry, she had to admit he was a great teacher. It was easier for her to put aside her jealousy of him while they were at Hogwarts, as the presence of her father was absent, and she found herself enjoying his company. He was much more sassy than she would have thought, and could keep up a banter with her that would have the others annoyed in no time.

Being a Prefect wasn’t half bad, either. She enjoyed helping the younger students, finding it joyful to do so. It made her feel useful, and needed. The only thing that was annoying was trying to keep Draco in line, as he preferred bullying and intimidation rather than helping them.

Due to Draco’s behavior, there was a growing wedge between them. She didn’t know how to fix it, and it upset her.

“Black,” Blaise Zabini snapped his fingers, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Nott’s been trying to talk to you.”

“Oh,” Juliet cleared her throat, her eyes flicking from the fire to Theo, who looked at her with a smile on his admittedly handsome face. “Sorry, Theo. What is it?”

“I was wondering if you were going to Hogsmeade tomorrow.” Theo paused, waiting for his reply. His blue eyes stared at her, and she found herself self conscious under his gaze.

“Erm, I suppose so,” Juliet replied, lifting an eyebrow as she appraised the boy. “Are you?”

Theo nodded. “I was wondering if you would fancy grabbing a butterbeer.”

Juliet blinked. “With everyone?”

“Well, I was thinking just the two of us could,” he paused, raising an eyebrow. “Unless you don’t want to.”

“No,” Juliet paused. “I would like that.”

As Theo smiled, Blaise snorted. Juliet glanced at him, her eyes narrowed.

“That was bloody awkward,” he shook his head. “Good thing the two of you’ll be on your own.”

“Aw, so sorry Blaise,” Juliet fake pouted, resting her chin on her palm. “Perhaps if you catch Parkinson when she’s not sucking Draco’s cock, you could go with her.”

Theo laughed at that, while Blaise flicked her off and turned his attention back to his Transfiguration homework. Juliet smirked, looking back at the fire with her chin in her hand. She couldn’t help but think of George.

He had begun casually seeing Alicia Spinnet, or at least that was what was heard around the castle. She almost didn’t believe it, but she had caught them snogging once. She hadn’t said anything, instead she acted like she saw nothing. It had hurt her, and she really wasn’t sure why. She should be happy for George, that he had finally gotten himself a girlfriend. She should have teased him, when she caught them kissing, yet, she had backed away slowly as her chest tightened.

“I’ll be so glad when Christmas break comes,” Draco sat down next to Juliet, lying his legs across her lap. “I’m so tired of having to help pathetic little first years.”

“You used to be a pathetic little first year at one point,” Juliet reminded him, shoving his legs off her, ignoring his protest. “Now look at you, a pathetic little fifth year.”

“Oh, shove off,” Draco rolled his eyes, ignoring the laughter from their friends. “Yeah yeah, you all are right gits.”

Crabbe and Goyle had arrived with Draco, both sitting in separate arm chairs. They had snacks, obviously having just come from the kitchen. They ate loudly, smacking their lips and chewing roughly, making Juliet’s stomach churn.

“Nott’s asked Juliet to Hogsmeade with him.” Blaise informed Draco, flicking through his book.

“Did he now?” Draco looked from Theo to Juliet. “Shall I sound the bells?”

“Oh bugger off, Draco,” Juliet hit his arm harshly, standing up from her seat. She had felt her fake Galleon burn in her pocket, signaling a new date had been set for Dumbledore’s Army. “Just because you can’t get a friend to go to Hogsmeade with.”

“I’m going with Pansy tomorrow.” Draco responded smugly, crossing his arms.

“I said a friend, not a stalker.” Juliet called over her shoulder, smirking when the others laughed.

She checked the Galleon to see that they were set to meet tomorrow night at nine, probably their last meeting before they went home for holidays. Heading up to her room, she turned in for the night, thoughts of Theo and George swarming in her head.

“You’re going to miss breakfast if you don’t wake up soon,” Pansy woke Juliet up the next morning, swishing her curtains open. “Wouldn’t want to go to Hogsmeade with Theo on an empty stomach.”

“Blimey, word travels fast,” Juliet grumbled, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She stretched her arms over her head, her joints cracking as she did. “Draco told you.”

Pansy shook her head, her short black hair styled wavy this morning. “Theo did. He was practically grinning ear to ear. Made me positively sick.”

“Oh, little Parkinson can’t handle the thought of someone caring for someone other than herself,” Juliet mocked, making her way to the bathroom.

“Piss off, Juliet.” Pansy called after her, annoyance laced in her tone.

“Love you, Parkinson.” Juliet called back, smirking on her way to the shower.

After she had showered, she dressed nicer than usual. Instead of leggings and a sweater, her usual weekend attire, she wore a baggy cream sweater tucked into a short pleated black skirt belted at the waist with a thin green strap, and knee high socks. Her dark hair, usually tied back in a low pony, was free around her face. She put on more makeup than usual, spritzed on her perfume, and walked down to breakfast.

“You look pretty,” Theo complimented her, pouring himself pumpkin juice. “And you smell nice.”

“Merlin, Theo,” Draco rolled his eyes, stabbing at his eggs. “We get it, you fancy her. Save your lovey dovey talk for when you’re alone.”

“I pity your future girlfriend if you think compliments are saved for when you’re alone,” Juliet shot back, fixing her tea. “Thank you, Theo. You look nice as well.”

“You know Draco, she has a point,” Pansy sniffed, pointedly looking down at her seemingly new blouse. “Compliments are what you give when you like someone and want them to feel nice.”

“I love when they do this,” Blaise muttered to Theo, a smile on his face. “Get on his case. Teach him manners. It’s brilliant.”

“Oh, do shut it Zabini.” Draco snapped, rolling his eyes for the second time.

After breakfast, they split up, Theo and Juliet walked alone together to Hogsmeade. It was an unusually nice day, thankfully, even though snow dusted the rooftops and covered the ground with a thick layer.

Walking with Theo was nice. He was very kind, and intelligent. They spoke about their homework due Monday, and their mutual dislike for Umbridge. The latter conversation carried them all the way to the Three Broomsticks, where Juliet told him about how she had gotten two detentions from her so far; because she had pointed out that they were at Hogwarts to actually practice magic, whereas Theo had not gotten the lovely opportunity.

“Merlin, she’s awful,” Theo shook his head, looking down at her arm. “Is there still a mark?”

Juliet rolled up her sleeve to show him the faint scar that remained, reading, I must be respectful of authority. Theo’s fingers brushed gently over the raised lettering, his fingers soft against her skin, giving her goosebumps.

“I suppose Dumbledore can’t do much about her,” Theo said quietly. “After all, she’s ministry appointed.”

“She sure is,” Juliet murmured, pulling her sleeve down once more. “The ministry is a fool.”

“Right on that,” Theo said darkly, taking a drink of his butterbeer. “Suppose it makes it easier on us, though.”

“How so?” Juliet questioned, taking a drink of her own.

“Well, with our parents,” Theo shrugged, noting how Juliet tensed. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Theo,” Juliet paused, biting her lip. “Are you referring to Voldemort?”

“This really isn’t the place for that conversation.” Theo responded quietly, but nodded his head.

“You started it,” Juliet pointed out, her stomach lacing with knots. “Are you.. On his side?”

Theo shrugged again. “I think he’s got the right idea on some things. It’s kind of hard not to be a supporter, anyways. Family business, and all of that.”

“It’s not my family business,” she replied quickly, shaking her head. “I don’t think he’s got the right idea.”

“Not entirely, of course,” he agreed with her. “I’m just saying, it probably would be better for the muggles if they had our help, y’know? I don’t really believe in the mudblood hatred, of course, I mean look at Granger, muggle born and still the brightest witch of our year.”

“I like you, Theo,” Juliet began, pausing again to bite her lip. “But I don’t know that we can get anywhere if you really support him overall.”

“Perhaps you’ll have to change my views then,” Theo replied lightly, reaching out his hand to brush his thumb over her knuckles. “Open my eyes.”

“I can handle that.” Juliet cocked her head at him, a smile on her face. Theo’s touch was nice. She felt butterflies in her tummy as they continued talking.

At some point during their conversation, Theo had taken her hand in his, across the table. Their butterbeers were long gone, but they kept talking. She was trying her best to change his opinion, and by the time he suggested they head to Honeydukes before returning to the castle, he had admitted that she made some rather good points.

A familiar voice caught her attention from where she sat with Theo, and she turned her head to see the twins head in, with two girls trailing behind them. Angelina Johnson was holding Fred’s hand, while Alicia Spinnet held George’s. Juliet felt her heartbeat quicken, and she was suddenly hyper aware of her surroundings.

Theo noticed her change in energy, and clasped her hand in both of his as he asked if she was alright.

Juliet nodded, swallowing hard as Fred noticed her first. He caught sight of her holding hands with Theo, and nudged George while pointing over towards her. Juliet glanced away before she caught George’s eye, feeling her chest tighten at the thought.

“Looks like your twins are headed our way,” Theo remarked lightly, his hands tightening on hers. “Should I be nervous?”

“He-They, aren’t mine,” she corrected him, nerves tightening her tummy. “And no, you shouldn’t be.”

“Little Juliet, you look rather dashing today,” Fred greeted, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. “Long time no see. Out on a little date, are you?”

”Same as the both of you,” Juliet remarked, raising her eyebrows as she forced herself to look at the redheads. “Hey Fred, George.”

“Theodore Nott, hm?” George asked her, his eyes tight as they looked at each other.

“Alicia Spinnet, hm?” Juliet echoed him, raising her eyebrows and giving him a look as she dared him to say more.

“I’m with Angelina Johnson, if anyone cares to know,” Fred joked, breaking the tension. “Where are you two headed off to after this?”

“Honeydukes,” Theo replied, giving Fred a friendly smile. “I bet you lot just came from Zonkos.”

“Smart man,” Fred snapped his fingers, giving him a grin. “I like him, Jules.”

“Thank you.” Juliet murmured, looking away from George.

“Well, I suppose we’d better let the two of you be on with it then,” Fred gave Juliet a hug. “See you later.”

“Bye Freddie,” Juliet hugged him back, looking hesitantly at George, who was staring back at her with that odd look he had given her at Kings Cross, when he had said goodbye to her. “Bye, Georgie.”

George nodded, turning around with Fred as they headed back towards their dates. Juliet swallowed hard, unsure of the feeling in her tummy that had traveled to her chest and her throat.

“Shall we?” Theo asked, standing when she nodded.

They left the three broomsticks, and Juliet didn’t dare look at the twins again. She didn’t understand why she had gotten so upset when she saw George. They were best friends, so why did it seem like they were both upset with each other?

Theo bought her two sugar quills, and a package of Droobles Best Blowing Gum. He had gotten an assortment of other things, for Christmas presents, he informed her. Which then, of course, made Juliet realize she hadn’t gotten any presents as of yet. She would have to remind Remus to take her.

He held her hand as they walked back to the castle, his warmth welcomed as the wind picked up. By the time she made it back to the castle, her thighs were red from the cold.

“I should’ve given you my robe,” Theo blushed, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Juliet looked up at him, smiling. “I should’ve probably worn jeans or something.”

“I quite liked the skirt,” Theo’s voice was low, and he eyed her up and down. “You are positively gorgeous, you know.”

They were alone in the corridor outside the Slytherin common room, and it seemed both of them were much aware of that fact. Theo cupped her cheek, tilting her head up slightly. He pressed his lips against hers, his lips still sweet from the chocolate frog he had eaten on their way back. Juliet reached a hand to the back of his head, tangling her fingers in the light brown strands that brushed his neck. His lips moved against hers, his tongue tracing her bottom lip. His hand stayed against her cheek, keeping her head tilted upwards.

“Bloody hell, save it for somewhere other than the hallway!”

Juliet and Theo broke apart, their cheeks red from the lingering cold and embarrassment, to see Draco rolling his eyes while Pansy glared at Juliet with odd anger.

“Sorry, mate,” Theo apologized, although there was little sincerity behind it. “To be fair, this hallway was private until you two showed up.”

Draco shook his head, and he and Pansy entered the common room. Juliet and Theo entered next, and Juliet excused herself to go get ready for the meeting with Dumbledore’s Army.

The feeling of Theo’s lips lingered on her own, and for a reason she couldn’t fathom she felt slightly upset by the thought that he had taken her first kiss.

taglist: @person1839 @big-galaxy-chaos @spooderham @iamashlynmarie

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theheightofdishonor · 3 years

Text

Teen Wolf triads are something that can be so personal, so here’s a list of my faves

Scott/Stiles/Allison

The OG trio. The gang that dies together might not stay together, but they’re still iconic.

Scott/Stiles/Lydia

Any Scott/Stiles/X dynamic is brilliant, but few more than this one. These three have been there since the beginning and they’ve gone through so much together. There’s no Teen Wolf without them.

Scott/Stiles/Derek

They were the driving force in S1&2 and had some absolutely iconic moments together. Hate that there wasn’t more of them after that.

Scott/Derek/Isaac

Mostly based on S2/3. I was very invested in Isaac’s struggle to pick between these two.

Scott/Stiles/Isaac

This triad’s dynamic completely changes between S2 and 3. In Season 2, Isaac, as part of Derek’s pack is a slightly antagonistic figure and it’s very much Scott&Stiles vs Isaac but in S3, Scott and Isaac grow closer while Isaac and Stiles erm, don’t. It’s very fun to watch.

Scott/Isaac/Allison

My ot3 and the only trio on this list that I 100% ship.

Isaac/Erica/Boyd

Ayy, it’s the OG Hale Pack aka 3 teens bonding over being thrown headfirst into something they weren’t prepared for and Derek’s horrible leadership. Isaac should’ve ran away with Erica and Boyd for solidarity’s sake.

Chris/Allison/Isaac

Chris’s struggle between hating Isaac for dating his daughter and wanting to adopt him is hilarious. One of my favourites.

Scott/Melissa/Isaac

Who didn’t completely melt at Isaac joining the McCall fam? The scene where they’re ‘guarding’ Melissa was so cute. As a bonus, it made Stiles’s animosity towards Isaac that much stronger. Will forever hate that this trio was more or less non-existent in 3b even though I love Chris/Allison/Isaac.

Derek/Cora/Peter

The non-dead Hales. Why oh why did Cora have to leave? Their family dynamic was great.

Allison/Lydia/Cora

I know they only had a couple scenes as a triad, but there was so potential. We love antagonism with underlying sexual tension. And ofc, the only thing better than 1 terrifying badass that can secretly be super sweet is 3 terrifying badasses.

Derek/Isaac/Boyd

At one point, the only non-dead members of the Hale Pack (TW quickly amended that). I always think of the S3a Loft scene where Boyd and Isaac skip school to protect Derek. Despite how awful of an alpha Derek’s been, they still care about him and he cares about them (as actual people and not just betas that he needs for power like he did originally)

Derek/Allison/Lydia.

Yes it’s my 5th s3 based trio in a row, but can you blame me? This is 100% based off the classroom scene in 3x02.

Allison/Lydia/Jackson

Although Lydia and Jackson were both awful in S1, their friendship with Allison and their immediately taking her under their wing was beyond precious. Additionally, it combines both the asshole-who’s-soft-towards-1-person- dynamic (jydia w/ allison) and assholes-who-secretly-care-about-each-other (jydia) And ofc, the underlying tension due to Jydia’s disdain towards Scott and later, Jackson and Allison’s experiences/knowledge of the supernatural.

Malia/Kira/Lydia

Comedy gold. Their scenes speak for themselves and we needed more.

Liam/Mason/Corey

Their S6a dynamic is sooo underrated and should’ve been given more screen time. I loved watching Liam and Corey struggle to get along for Mason’s sake because they want him to be happy. It was all very wholesome and one of the few things that made 6a worth watching.

Stiles/Scott/Liam

Aka the best part of S4.Their dynamic is so fun and well-balanced and infinitely better because they’re a triad. You’ve got Scott and Liam figuring out their mentor/mentee relationship with Stiles co-parenting and preventing the Scott/Liam dynamic from turning unhealthy. (Liam and Scott’s S6 dynamic veered way too close to parent/child for my taste. They need Stiles to balance it out) It’s also hilarious how quickly Liam accepts being aggressively adopted by two idiots who are barely older than him. And Stiles takes so easily to playing older brother/co-parent. It’s adorable. They’re adorable.

Erica/Allison/Lydia

Very similar dynamic to Allison/Lydia/Cora due to Cora and Erica’s similar personalities but also not, which has a lot to do with Allison and Lydia’s reactions to Erica’s weaponized feminity. Also, there’s a lot more history between these girls and I want to know everything about what Erica thinks of Lydia after going to school with her for years.

Sherriff/Melissa/Chris

Of the top of my head, I can only remember that time where they were trapped under the Nemeton and that’s simply unacceptable.

Sheriff/Noshiko/Melissa.

It’s a crime that this triad never got scenes. Especially after the Sheriff tried to arrest Kira. I know Melissa bitch slapped him but I wanted to watch these two badasses gang up on the Sheriff together. ( the Noshiko/Melissa dynamic would be so iconic.)

Victoria/Noshiko/Melissa

Another triad that never shared scenes (obviously because Vic is dead) but their power would’ve been off the charts. I want to make a joke about milfs, but I’ll refrain.

The Yukimura fam

Seemed appropriate since my last two also included. Noshiko.I love family dynamics and the Yukimuras are no exception. The attraction of this triad, for me, is mostly the dynamic between Kira and Noshiko and how Ken navigates between them. They’re also a trio that we didn’t see nearly enough of in S4 and 5. Like seriously, where were they? Noshiko’s on the dead pool, but she’s barely mentioned. (on a mostly unrelated note, how is the 900 yr old Kitsune worth less than a girl that just found about her kitsune powers?)

Derek/Allison/Scott

I don’t need to explain this one. The angst, the drama, Derek projecting Kate onto Allison and Allison trying to murder Derek and their evolution to reluctant allies with a good dash of Scallison and Scott navigating his own difficult relationship with Derek. Aka the complicated, tension fraught trio we all loved/should love. ( ok, I kind of explained it)

Derek/Scott/Liam

And here we have a two for one deal; two mentor/mentee dynamics in 1 triad. People much smarter than me have written about this trio in extensive detail, so all I’m saying is that Derek’s that one uncle who occasionally comes around and gives somewhat helpful advice.

Braeden/Malia/Scott

Braeden and Scott were great in S4. Braeden and Malia were great in S5. Scott and Malia are pretty great when they’re not in a relationship. Combine, and you get what had to be a kick-ass triad that’s sadly never canonly shown together (I think)

Melissa/Chris/Isaac

Not actually featured in the show, but Isaac deserves all the parental figures and I want to witness the surely epic custody battle between Chris and Melissa.

Malia/Scott/Peter

That this trio is on here is actually pretty funny because I hate both Scalia and the forced Peter/Malia bonding in S6. But I loved the scene where Peter warned Malia not to fall in love with Scott because a) he has absolutely 0 right to advise her on anything and b) because of the history between Scott and Peter. In a way, a relationship with Malia is just another thing tying Scott to someone that’s repeatedly caused harm to him and his friends and was the initial cause for all the pain he’s suffered in the last couple years. I just find this dynamic worth exploring.

Malia/Derek/Peter

The Hales 2.0. Derek and Malia deserve to bond over unwillingly being related to Peter, that scumbag.

Malia/Stiles/Peter

Stiles and Peter are so fun together and Stalia is my jam. Throw in an antagonistic Malia and Peter relationship and they’re entertaining as hell. Much more lighthearted than Malia/Scott/Peter.

Stiles/Malia/Lydia

To clarify, this has nothing to do with a love triangle and everything to do with how their personalities play off each other. It’s one of those trios where together, they’re either terrifying or absolute morons.

Stiles/Cora/Derek

Admittedly, my version of this is very Sterek+Cora and the hilarity of Stiles and his attraction to Hales but it’s also 3x snark and you really can’t go wrong.

Scott/Stiles/Melissa

It’s Melissa and her boys 1.0. This woman is by far the best parent on this show, and I love the specific dynamic among these three. Melissa might not always like Stiles, but she cares about him and there’s the mutual understanding that they both adore Scott and would do anything for him. Also, Mel being exasperated by the dumbass duo is always funny.

Kate/Allison/Chris

Lowkey another custody battle because Kate and Chris do fight to be the bigger influence on Allison This is such a tragic trio to me, and the lesson here is basically that sometimes love isn’t enough. Chris and Kate both genuinely love Allison and she loves them too but can’t have both and at some point, she has neither. Kate and Chris care about each other, but that’s not enough either. In the end, they all lose each other. There’s no happy ending for them, at least not with each other.

Derek/Stiles/Peter

Stiles just has chemistry (not necessarily romantic) with all Hales and this trio really shines through in 3x01 and in S3 in general. “Chess is Stiles’s game” asgdhfjgh. I wanted more of that very specific dynamic.

That was a hell lot longer than I thought it would be, but what can you do. Feel free to tell me your own opinions in the tags/comments.

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polaristranslations · 3 years

Text

Shinobu Mustard Episode 4

028

"Kanbaru. Do you mind becoming a slave for tonight? Also, lend me your house."

"All right!"

Second slave, secured.

"Oikura. Tonight, become my slave, and cook for me."

"Don't think you'll be able to live until tonight."

Third slave, failed to secure.

The reason for that failure was most likely because I'd been a hurry and said "my slave"... Well, it wasn't like I could tell her to become the slave of a golden-haired, golden-eyed girl.

And because of her connections with Gaen-san, I couldn't exactly get Kanbaru fully involved in this either, so renting her house for one night should be good enough.

As the "citadel" of the king of oddities.

I'd heard yesterday that her grandparents were out on a trip, so Kanbaru could stay over at Higasa-chan's house or even Karen's room in the Araragi house and hold a pajama party there, while I was allowed to do whatever I liked in the meantime.

I knew it made me sound like an outlaw, but it was a decision I couldn't avoid—the only building I could think of in this town that could serve as a vampire's stronghold was Kanbaru's mansion.

Just as the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, had once taken up residence in the "Castle of Corpses", the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, needed a building of suitable pedigree in which to take up residence.

It was fairly Japanese-style for a castle—or rather it was just a Japanese mansion—but hopefully, this being Suicidemaster's first visit to Japan, she wouldn't be able to differentiate between castles and mansions in Japan... Not that I, a Japanese person, could.

"But no, I didn't say that just because I wanted to show off. If Suicidemaster were to learn that her former thrall who she came to visit had been rendered harmless and sealed in the shadow of a pervert—nay, human—she may close herself off entirely. We won't be able to hear a single shred of information. In the worst case, you might even be killed. Would you be fine with that?"

"No, I wouldn't, but..."

"In that case, become my slave again like you were in last year's spring break, and prepare a castle and a banquet. To make my reign more convincing. If you can secure two or three more fake thralls, then that would be great."

The slave sealed in my shadow stuck out her chest in pride and ordered me as such from the child seat.

Erm...

"So basically, you want to greet your old pal with a master-servant relationship in that sort of fashion?"

"Fashion is important in hospitality. I'm pretty strict on fashion. Like a Parisienne."

"No, rather than a Parisienne, you're more like a putting-on-airs-ienne. Respectfully speaking, Shinobu. Wouldn't a petty trick like this just be found out immediately..."

"Oh, you're already getting into it. 'Respectfully speaking', you say? Ka ka, you're an expert at acting like a slave already! Have you done this before? Wait, of course you have! Ka ka, keep it up for the real thing!"

With a loud laugh as if she'd already gotten accustomed to being the master, Shinobu sunk back into the shadows... It almost looked like she was assimilating with the child seat.

What a mess. She'd appeared as if she was going to listen to my concerns, but then she just said whatever she wanted to—however, as soon as I parked my New Beetle in the parking lot, before I went inside, it was then that I called Kanbaru, who'd been in the middle of her morning run, and Oikura, who'd been indulging in her slumber at her lodgings.

Kanbaru had eagerly agreed (it was scary how eager she was, but I decided to call her back and discuss it properly, as well as other things), while Oikura had refused (if I left her alone, she'd probably call me back, so at that point, I'll more or less apologize from the bottom of my heart... and ask for her home cooking separately).

Well, Shinobu putting on airs was the same as always.

I almost wanted to tell her to be more show-offy towards me, but considering the way she was cooperating for this case, I couldn't bluntly refuse that honesty... I had better properly inform Gaen-san about this, too.

Thinking about it, Kanbaru was the "niece of that Gaen-san", but in reverse, Gaen-san was the "aunt of that Kanbaru". What if Gaen-san casually went, "I'll do it, too! Let me be a slave, too!" after I went to her with our plans?... I didn't want to see Gaen-san like that.

What an odd family they were.

On the other hand, even though my parents were ordinary, upright public servants, why had all their children turned out like that?

Speaking of which, the fact that only the members of the girls' basketball team of Naoetsu High were being attacked could be rephrased as "only Kanbaru's juniors were being attacked", so maybe it was a good idea to think about things with her as the focal point.

Even if the gourmet Suicidemaster were only able to dine on "Princess Beauty", Kanbaru Suruga was the daughter (in other words, the direct descendant) of Gaen Tooe, who's practically talked about as if she were a legend—so for the club members that were under her influence, the possibility of them being targeted is...

Although, in that case, maybe Kanbaru herself would be targeted? Actually, it was fairly possible that that was the case—and if so, then using Kanbaru's house as a meeting place wasn't a bad idea, if only to see Suicidemaster's reaction, but Kanbaru herself should probably be kept far away.

That was what ran through my mind as I wandered around the campus of Manase University to kill time, having arrived earlier than expected (it was a fairly expansive university, and I still hadn't seen all of the campus yet. Supposedly, it would take over four years to check out all of the facilities—what was this, the British Museum?), but once it got close to 7:45 am, I knocked on the door to the lecture hall for my international linguistics class.

Although it was called "linguistics", it was different from classes on foreign languages in that it put languages from all over the world, both famous and unknown, on equal footing and compared them in detail. Ultimately, an unproductive course with no destination in sight—there were many incomprehensible courses like this in college.

But I liked that sort of incomprehensible stuff. Could this be Ougi-chan's influence?

It was a liberal arts course unusual for someone in the mathematics department to take, and it was hard to say that the course was particularly popular even taking into account how early in the morning it was, but for Meniko, whose goal was to work with codes in the future, there was no way she couldn't take this course—well, for her, international linguistics probably wasn't even an "incomprehensible course" (in exchange, Meniko was bad with normal foreign language study).

"Hola. Araragi-chan, you're ea~arly. How diligent of you~u."

"I dunno about being called early when you're here in your seat before me. Hola."

Not to mention, I planned on skipping class after this. Unfortunately (or not), today's lecture hadn't been canceled.

It seemed I'd have to borrow Meniko's notes another day—the number of favors I was asking her was increasing. Someday, I'd better do something for her in return.

I bumped fists with Meniko and sat down next to her, and then asked, "Do you mind if I asked you to decipher another code?", showing her the sequence of numbers that I had displayed on my cell phone.

"Hmm. Hmm, hmm?"

A normal person, after being asked to solve codes like these two days in a row, would find it strange and ask for my intentions before even trying, but this was Hamukai Meniko—she couldn't not solve a code that was put before her.

It was a difficult personality, but I liked that about her... It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but neither I nor my proud network of friends from high school were people that moved without some reason or purpose.

Even Hanekawa and Oshino.

And even the violent onmyouji Kagenui-san that was heading towards this town was actually a person of reason—she moved according to her own, unique logic.

As a result, there had been a time when I'd thought that people were just like that, but after becoming friends with Meniko, I came to learn that there were people who weren't like that—I'd been enlightened.

Meniko also seemed to be rather interested in the fact that I was (in a rough estimate) rather logical about things, so I suppose it was a mutual thing.

In order to maintain this relationship, I didn't dare introduce Meniko to any of my other connections, such as Oikura, even by mistake—of course, I had absolutely no intention of breaking off my connection with Oikura, who I had reconnected with after entering university, but as for her... Rather than our connection being broken off, it could be more like she herself would snap.

"A cell phone, huh. Was the code recorded in a cell phone?"

"Yep. Although I don't know if that holds any meaning..."

"That's tru~ue. These days, cell phones are like a part of our brains now, aren't they? Some people criticize the fact that when you go on a trip, you end up looking at the scenery through the small screen of your smartphone, but looking at something with the camera of your smartphone is basically the same as looking at it with your own eyes. Maybe when people complain about train passengers playing with their cell phones, it's a sign that they've failed to pair their phones with themselves?"

I hadn't exactly mastered the use of a cell phone myself, so it was hard for me to wholeheartedly agree, but, well, it wasn't like I didn't understand what she was saying.

"Anyway, this time it's only numbers, huh. Hm. I did solve it, bu~ut."

"Already? You're really the one that's early to things, aren't you. The truth is, I didn't have the slightest idea."

It wasn't like I didn't feel helpless when delegating the whole thing to Meniko, so I'd thought that I'd challenge it on my own in the period of time before I took it to her, but I'd spent most of that time on Shinobu's matter.

"It doesn't seem like putting it on a phone and not on paper really mattered? But numbers are easy to make into a code, aren't the~ey. Languages can vary from region to region, depending on grammar and culture, but numbers are worldwi~ide. No matter where in the universe you are, one plus one is two, and a prime number is a prime number, ri~ight?"

"That's not actually the case. For example, in Nepalese, the representations for '1' and '9' look similar, so when a Japanese person sees them, the math wouldn't add up at a glance. The logic would look completely wrong. Also, it's only in Japan where people use the '正' kanji to count to five, and for someone like me, the little horizontal bar used to distinguish a '7' from a '1' is enough to make me not think of it as a '7'".

"I see. For someone like me, a '7' with a horizontal bar looks kind of like the kanji for seven [七] upside down, so I end up getting those confu~used. So you're above me when it comes to that, huh, Araragi-cha~an."

There wasn't really an above or a below in this exchange, but aah, I wanted to have a conversation like this.

I suddenly realized.

When Shinobu—when Princess Acerola, as "Princess Beauty"—went about destroying countries... When she was a human, did she feel the same way as this when she met a vampire?

Even though it was a relationship of eat or be eaten.

The interpretation that they were vampire and thrall, or master and slave, was at odds with the lighthearted way in which she spoke of her as an "old pal".

She had said that she'd reflected from that time with Shishirui Seishirou, so I'd interpreted it as the master-slave relationship having been reversed, but what if it wasn't that? What if Suicidemaster really was just a "friend" to Shinobu?

Like, for example, Kanbaru and Higasa-chan.

According to Hachikuji, Suicidemaster had called Shinobu a friend as well.

A friend, huh.

There had been a fiercely determined class representative who had declared, "If I can't die for someone, I wouldn't call that person a friend". But what if Shinobu wanted to meet Suicidemaster with that in mind?

Did I have the qualification to stop her?

Talking about qualifications at this point was what made me, me—regret may always come too late, but logic always took precedence. If I ultimately acted upon my emotions, then I would most likely act too late to a disgusting extent.

I should learn a bit from my new friend.

What I wanted was not qualifications, but qualities.

"Hmm. Araragi-chan, what's the matter? Thinking about something?"

"No, I'm trying hard not to think about something. So, what's the answer to the code?"

"Like yesterday, I managed to solve it, but it's a dead-end that isn't really refreshing. Even though I managed to decode it, it just leaves me stressed aga~ain. But it ended up being letters of the alphabet aga~ain."

"Alphabet—then, 'D/V/S'?"

"No~ope. This time, it's 'F/C'."

"F/C"?

029

"If 'F/C' are also initials, I wonder if there's someone from the girls' basketball team who has those initials," said Gaen-san, the human representative of logic, after hearing my report.

We were once again in Naoetsu General Hospital, in yet another hospital room different from the three we'd been in earlier—the hospital room where Kanguu Misago-chan's mummy had been put up.

"I wonder if the message was left on a cell phone to hint at that. Since they had matching straps with their initials."

"Aah... That's right, they did have those," I said.

In that sense, I would've had more hints to decipher it than Meniko did.

It wasn't really a contest, but I did find it a bit frustrating.

"By the way, Kanguu-chan also had a strap. Since she's Kanguu Misago, it was 'M K'."

"Eh? But wait, Gaen-san. Wouldn't that mean that the vampire that we're looking for is actually among the members of the girls' basketball team?"

If, not the dying message, but the living message was indicating a specific member's initials, and Suicidemaster was being falsely accused of a crime, then that would be it.

"F C".

"Not necessarily. It could be that Kanguu-chan, in a hazy state of mind, was just trying to write the name of a friend she thought of. Or it's an act of deception to make us think that way. In other words, diversionary tactics by Suicidemaster."

A vampire trying to blame a human for their vampirism—it seemed a little narrow-minded, almost pitiful at that, and not at all in line with the image of a vampire. Well, if we can consider the possibility that the crime is being pinned on Suicidemaster, why can't we consider the opposite?

Taking it to extremes, it was even possible now that this was a diversionary tactic to make us think that everything was fabricated, like a deduction in a honkaku mystery.

Us people of logic.

"You're right. It would be too unexpected a truth for there to be a vampire among the club members."

"I don't remember explicitly denying that possibility. You can't say for sure that there aren't more oddities like you, Koyomin, that put on an air of innocence and casually attend school, right?"

"Again with the jokes."

And this was a bad joke, at that.

The phrasing of "air of innocence" felt like biting words.

"It's not entirely a joke, though. Well, this is just a brute force through all the possibilities at the moment. Like a canvassing operation done by throwing more people at the problem. It's true that, as a result of last night's events, the suspicion placed on Suicidemaster has faded. 'F C' seems like it would be fairly rare for initials, so I'm sure we'll be able to narrow it down to just a few girls out of the hundred on the basketball team..."

As she spoke, Gaen-san began flipping through the register of names borrowed from Higasa-chan, beginning her check. I'd promised not to make any copies of it, so it was the original document.

"For reference, do you mind if I ask, Koyomin? About how the code was deciphered. It's possible that the method can also provide a hint for us."

"Understood. However, I don't think it'll be very relevant."

"I'd like to hear it anyway. I may not exactly be a sciences person, but it's not like I hate number puzzles. It's a great way to exercise the mind and relax."

Relax?

Putting aside exercising the mind... She didn't really look like it, but was Gaen-san actually stressed right now? With this incident taking longer than expected, Kagenui-san drawing closer to the town with every moment, and my betrayal that must not be forgotten, well, there were plenty of things that could be cause for concern.

Well, if revealing the trick is somehow relaxing, then I'll gladly do so.

It's atonement for my infidelity.

"However, this code ended up not being a number puzzle. It had nothing to do with prime numbers, either—though it's still in the sciences, it was not mathematics, but the field of natural sciences."

"Natural sciences? If we're talking about fields, in middle school, they'd divide the natural sciences into the 'first field' for physics and chemistry, and the 'second field' for biology and geology."

"In that respect, it would be the first field—Celsius and Fahrenheit."

In other words, temperature notation.

Like numbers, temperature was the same throughout the world, or perhaps even throughout the universe, and high temperatures were high, low temperatures were low, and absolute zero was absolute zero—but temperature wasn't notated in the same way everywhere. The units differed.

And that difference was Celsius and Fahrenheit.

"Ah—that's why it's 'F' and 'C'?"

As expected of a logical person, she caught on fast. After speaking, Gaen-san flipped the register shut—it seemed she'd finished checking it all.

She was even fast at reading.

"But how does '820/280/610/160' become Celsius and Fahrenheit? Although, since Celsius is 'C' and Fahrenheit is 'F', perhaps I should ask how it becomes Fahrenheit and Celsius."

"For both Celsius and Fahrenheit, a '°' is placed in the top right direction to denote 'degrees'. In the same place where you would write an exponent."

"Do an explanation like that for a science major. I got it just from you saying 'in the top right direction'—don't go off in a completely different direction, Koyomin. And?"

"We look at the '0' in the code and interpret it as a '°'—basically, the '0' in '820', the '0' in '280', the '0' in '610', and the '0' in '160', all the zeroes at the end of the numbers, should not be taken as numbers but as symbols. Then, '820/280/610/160' becomes '82°/28°/61°/16°'."

"Aha. Highest and lowest temperatures, huh?"

That was exactly it.

The code that had been left behind was showing yesterday's temperature, represented in both Celsius and Fahrenheit—just like the Rosetta Stone, which could be described as the originator of cryptanalysis.

However, the essential letters of the alphabet were missing—"F" and "C".

"That's why, 'F/C' becomes the deciphered text to the code. Oh, but if they're initials, you can't really call that a text. But I see. It's amazing that someone could come up with something like that."

"Yes. Checking the daily high and low temperatures may be natural for an athletic person, but even then, I don't think they would have been able to come up with that in their hazy state of mind."

"No, my intention was to praise your friend, Koyomin."

It would be a bit troublesome if you show too much interest in her.

If you point your finger at her.

This was entirely my own self-interest, but I'd like to settle this case before I needed to ask for help with a third code...

But after relying on Hachikuji and getting Shinobu's cooperation and borrowing Kanbaru's house, I'd strayed pretty far from what I'd originally intended, so maybe next time I'd just give up and go to Ougi-chan for help with the cryptanalysis... Although, that girl likes to be befuddling, so she definitely wouldn't just give me the answer straight up like Meniko.

She was also a person of logic. A mysterious form of logic.

But anyway, let's return to the main subject.

For the sake of protecting Meniko, and for the sake of resolving this case.

"But anyway, how many people in the girls' basketball club have the initials 'F C'? Although we'd probably need to check whether that girl has a strap or not..."

Since the first mummy, Harimaze Kie-chan, didn't have a strap on her phone, it wasn't a given that everyone had a matching strap. Perhaps, within the club, that small level of resistance against peer pressure was allowed.

"There were as much as zero people."

"Eh? What did you say?"

"Sorry, that was a weird way to put it. Zero. There were none, is what I meant. Girls with 'F C' as their initials, that is."

030

"Have you looked for the reverse order? You know, when representing the name of a Japanese person, there's the pattern of 'first/last name' and 'last/first name'."

"Of course. There were none like that, either."

Could Meniko's solution have been wrong?

No, there was no way.

"I wonder if we should expand the range of possibilities. Should we include the third-years that have already retired as candidates?"

"Umm..."

It wasn't impossible to ask Higasa-chan through Kanbaru for a list of the OG members, but I wasn't sure. If we expanded it that far, it felt like the possibilities would be endless.

It didn't seem too productive to force the solution into the initials 'F C' and look for a person that matched, either... Rare as the initials might be, it wasn't like there was nobody with those initials.

"We did figure out that the victims were members of the girls' basketball team using the straps as the hint, but like with 'D/V/S', maybe there's a famous vampire with those initials?"

"The vampires here are from overseas, after all. It's normal to add a middle name... It's unnatural to have initials with just two letters."

"Is that so..."

I'd ended up bothering Meniko with this (though she'd been happy about it) and I'd ended up skipping class (though I probably would have skipped class anyway), but it didn't end up being that much of a hint... Well, even Oshino had said that fieldwork was a cycle of futility.

It was important not to dwell on it.

"By the way, Gaen-san. You don't seem to be in that good of a mood, so is it possible that you received more unpleasant news while I was out?"

"Hm? Did it seem that way to you? I was trying to act calm about it, but this onee-san that knows everything must be losing face to receive your concern, Koyomin. Even though I want to be an onee-san you can always rely on."

"No, no. Gaen-san, you're always an older woman that I can rely on..."

"I'm not trying to be a dependable older woman. No, but anyway, Koyomin. Your worries were right on the mark. The contents of a high school girl's cell phone weren't something we should have looked at."

And the fact that it hasn't produced any good results so far is nearly breaking my heart, said Gaen-san as she laid eyes upon the mummy on the bed—the owner of the cell phone, Kanguu Misago-chan.

Having been made to wear a patient gown and laid to rest on the bed... I didn't want to say I was getting familiar with the sight, but I was getting used to it.

When humans become nothing but skin and bones, it's hard to distinguish between them—their height became ambiguous when laid down, and since they were in a sports club, their hair was fairly short, so it was hard to distinguish them that way, too.

Kanbaru had also had a short haircut when she'd been active... Don't tell me it wasn't just because they were in a sports club, but because they were following after Kanbaru...?

Everyone doing the same thing... Hm?

"Even so, this onee-san won't be surprised any more. Seriously, after being shown the ugly side of human relations, I won't even be scared of vampires."

"Being shown? Gaen-san, you're the one who went and looked at it yourself."

"And I have nothing to say in response to that. They say you're not supposed to check your partner's phone, and that's completely true. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

What was in that phone, exactly?

Honestly, if she said it like that, it made me even more curious... However, it probably was better to not ask. For the sake of respecting their privacy, and for the sake of my own health... If Gaen-san ended up like that, I might even end up hospitalized as a result.

And if it wasn't producing any good results, then all the more reason not to.

"Well, I suppose the girls' basketball team is pretty unique. If this sort of thing was commonplace... Well, it's not something I want to think about, as an adult. Their club activities are certainly strange. It felt like they were bullying themselves."

"But aren't all athletic clubs more or less like that? Even more so if you're a powerhouse."

Or rather, a former powerhouse. In the case of Naoetsu High.

Of course, that may have intensified that athletic mindset...

"Mm. I've always had a commander-like nature since I was in high school, but even then, I was still pretty incompatible with those sports-minded people."

"So there was a time when you were a high school girl, Gaen-san."

"It's not like this onee-san was always an onee-san from the moment she was born. Or an older woman."

"That wasn't what I meant... But even so, the hardest person to imagine as a high school girl would probably be Kagenui-san."

She didn't seem like she would be in the liberal arts or the sciences, or in a cultural club or a sports club... What kind of high school girl would she have been?

"That girl was actually a surprisingly diligent student. Although I only knew her as a college student, not a high school student. She's the only one from that trio to graduate without dropping out."

Is that so.

Human beings really couldn't be described one-sidedly, huh.

"Oh nooo. While I carelessly stepped into a colony of high school girls and got my feet stuck in a murky, bottomless swamp, Kagenui will probably arri~ive!"

Even if you lament the word "arri~ive" all cutely like that, that in itself seemed more lamentable.

Please remain a reliable older woman.

"It may be fine for me to think this way, but Gaen-san, aren't you being a little too cautious regarding your junior? She may be a bit uncontrollable, but it's not like she completely ignores the orders you give her, right?"

In the first place, Kagenui-san was coming all the way back from the North Pole because she was called by Gaen-san—plus, if she were truly uncontrollable, she would've ignored any sort of harmless certification and gotten rid of Shinobu and me.

Though she was infinitely violent, that was just a matter of the way she did things, and it should be possible to talk things out—she was a person of logic, too.

"That's right. It's true that, if I explain the circumstances, she might understand the reasoning behind why it's not necessary to exterminate Suicidemaster. It might even be possible to certify her as harmless, with how much of a little girl she's become."

Even while stuck in a bottomless swamp of high school girls, it seemed she'd long since considered the things I'd thought of, with the way she spoke.

"Yes. In fact, as soon as I'd heard that Suicidemaster had broken through Hachikuji-chan's mayoi-ushi barrier, those thoughts had already crossed my mind. It wasn't that Suicidemaster had broken through the barrier with brute force, but simply that she had been weakened to the point that the barrier didn't even react."

"......"

Was that even possible?

It sounded pretty painful and distressing, considering that she was the progenitor who birthed and named the legendary oddity.

"Even in that state, she should still be able to suck the blood of high school girls, so just by being in this town, nothing has changed regarding her being the prime suspect. However, the reason she became a mummy might not be because she was attacked by someone, but because she'd weakened to the point that she entered cryptobiosis by herself."

"In that case, would that mean she was the one to bury herself in the mountain?"

"Yes, it would be safer in the dirt, after all. The cryptobiotic-sleep, hibernation-sleep, dozing-sleep vampire. In that case, perhaps she was attempting to make her way back to Hachikuji-chan who was in charge of immigration control, and collapsed along the way. Well, we're still just brute forcing the possibilities here—the strongest possibility is still that she grew so hungry that she attacked a high school girl, but for now, we can apply the principle of innocent until proven guilty. But the problem is, that won't work on Kagenui."

"...Why is that?"

She sure was stubborn in a weird way.

In a sense, she was pretty laid-back to even put her faith in someone like me, but right now, Gaen-san was being weirdly obstinate in regards to Kagenui-san.

"Well, this is just between us, but they share a bit of a past. The problem at hand, Suicidemaster, and the even bigger problem, Kagenui."

"The problem—and the bigger problem."

"Even if Suicidemaster happened to not be the culprit for this case, and even if it's possible for her to be certified as harmless after not having harmed a human for the past six hundred years—even then, they share a past that makes it impossible to stop Kagenui. Though justice is the only thing that can put that unorthodox onmyouji in check, she's very likely to move out of a personal grudge for this time alone."

G—grudge?

That bundle of justice?

"If I make the wrong move, I may find myself having to excommunicate yet another junior. And I don't want to do that."

031

Kagenui-san's personal grudge probably wasn't something that other people should be prying into, so let's return to the main subject. Although the main subject was a ghost story with intense pressure. But anyway, back to the main subject.

The risk of intruding into her private life had been clearly demonstrated, and Gaen-san, who had hinted at it, didn't dare tell me the details of her past—perhaps she'd let it slip after being embroiled in the high school girls' darkness.

Speaking of being embroiled, it seemed that the reason Gaen-san associated the initials "F C" with the members of the girls' basketball team was not only because of the alphabet strap, but because she'd looked into the darkness of the club displayed on Kanguu Misago-chan's cell phone and had been influenced by it (it seemed she even considered the possibility that, in her dazed state, Kanguu-chan thought she could pin the crime on a team member that she had some friction with). But in the register, there was no one with those initials—and, as long as there was no initial for a middle name included, it likely wasn't the vampire's signature, either.

Before expanding our reach to the OG girls, one more possibility came to my mind.

"What if these aren't initials, but an abbreviation for something in English?"

"Abbreviation? ...In other words, something other than a person's name?"

Normally, Gaen-san would have come up with something in an instant, but at the moment, she'd been caught up in the murky mires of those high school girls... And it could be even more damaging to her as an adult.

I've learned that the private life of others is nothing but poison.

"It probably isn't 'franchise (FC)'—then maybe it's something like 'football club (FC)'?"

It seemed appropriate.

First a basketball club, now a football club.

It also wasn't impossible to interpret it as a franchise of making vampire thralls, forced as it was—but there was no need to twist it that much.

But before we went to Naoetsu High's soccer team, we couldn't forget the other organization in that high school that we should consider.

"'Fan club (FC)'."

"Hm?"

"There was something like that. In the past—well, it wasn't that far in the past—an unofficial fan club for the superstar Kanbaru Suruga."

It was an organization separate from the girls' basketball team, yet was an organization that was strongly influenced by Kanbaru, in a way different from the girls' basketball team.

It was something that came to mind after thinking that all the mummies' hairstyles were the same—let's see, as I recall, that fan club's name was "Kanbaru Soeurs"?

"What's that? Is it something like the Rukawa Kaede Imperial Guard?"

"Exactly. But somehow they ended up getting involved with me and I forced them into disbanding—"

"That's something really scary you're saying as just an introduction, Koyomin. Forced them into disbanding. You really are a delinquent like the rumors say, aren'tcha?"

"I think the remnants of that fan club could be related to this case."

As much as the hypothesis that there was a vampire among the girls' basketball team members was incredible to believe, the possibility that there was a vampire mixed in with Kanbaru Suruga's fan club was just as ridiculous.

But we weren't in a situation where we could afford not to consider ridiculous possibilities just because they were ridiculous.

"That's a fact that this onee-san that knows everything didn't exactly need to know. Ah, yes, but my dear sister had a cheerleading squad like that when she was in high school, too."

"It doesn’t seem like it will have much of a connection, but I suppose I should do something now that I've thought of it. She wasn't a member of the fan club herself, but my little sister is pretty close with that organization, so I'll look into it just a teeny bit."

"Your little sister?"

I looked at Gaen-san's clouded expression.

"My little sister (the bigger one)," I amended.

After hearing that, Gaen-san seemed to relax, smiling.

"You mean Karen-chan. Okay, do as you see fit. But, out of concern—from this old lady's point of view—please don't bring Tsukihi-chan into this. Of course, Koyomin, you were originally the one who said you didn't want to cause trouble for your family, but even discounting the thing with Yozuru, things that go well just don't go well when Tsukihi-chan is involved."

She's talking about you in a pretty amazing way, my little sister (the smaller one).

"And, I apologize for the late report, but Shinobu laid out some conditions for her cooperation in Suicidemaster's interrogation."

I presented an outline of the master-servant reversal to Gaen-san. Even though the plan seemed like it would be laughable regardless of the time, place, or occasion...

"Right, that sounds good."

I received the commander's approval.

Of course, she didn't say anything like "I'll do it, too! Let me be a slave, too!"

"Although, rather than an interrogation, it's practically an undercover operation at this point—but if Suicidemaster mistakenly sees that Shinobu-chan is doing well in this country, then she might end up chattering away without any caution."

Mistakenly. Well, she would certainly be mistaken.

Rather than "doing well", she'd been on the verge of being exterminated, on the verge of being killed, and on the verge of death, and in the end failed to die, turned into a little girl, and then ended up sealed in a teenager's shadow.

At any rate, seeing as I'd gotten the go-ahead to put the plan into action, it was inevitable—I wasn't sure if I could pull off the part of a slave, but I would do what I could.

"In that case, even if it didn't have to do with the fan club, I figure I should have a proper discussion with Kanbaru about this, but is there anything I should be careful about when talking to her? The situation has completely changed from yesterday."

"Something to be careful about... I'd like if you could avoid the storm entirely. I know you might feel a sense of duty, but don't go poking your nose into the murky depths of your juniors."

Her advice was not as a specialist but as a person with more seniority in life, but I wanted Kanbaru, too, to follow these words of Gaen-san, who was called a senior by various people.

Even if I couldn't mention Gaen-san's name.

Even if I doubted that Kanbaru would actually follow them.

"I'll stay at this hospital and do my best with the cell phone analysis while waiting for a report from the search party and preparing for the night."

"I'll meet up with Karen-chan and Kanbaru, and if I have some spare time I'll go drop in on Oikura."

"Putting aside your childhood friend, when it comes to your little sister and Suruga, there's no need to wait up until they come back from school. Koyomin, I think you should go back home at least once for a nap. Though I know all-nighters aren't hard on you thanks to your vampire constitution, you must still be at your limit, right?"

That was true.

Thinking about it, vampires, being nocturnal, did go to sleep in the daytime... Just as Shinobu was doing right now.

The truth was, I'd been working out a plan to drop in on Oikura's place until school let out for the day, but it seemed I'd have to abandon that idea.

Even sleeping was work.

Well, if it was around this time, that mathematics maniac was probably in class, too...

"Ah. I know. I'll split the difference and go to Oikura's place to sleep. I have a spare key, after all."

"Childhood friendships are pretty hard for other people to pry into, huh."

032

I decided to just go to my own home. Of course I needed to catch up on sleep, but I wanted to take a bath, too. Alas, I didn't have any clothes to change into at Oikura's place. I'll do something about that later.

Afterwards, I thought about saying thanks to Ononoki-chan for last night—since I'd left in a hurry, I hadn't been able to talk to her about how she relayed Hachikuji's message to me, or how she called over Gaen-san to the mountain after that.

From Ononoki-chan's point of view, I'd gotten a fortune slip and left all of a sudden, and then decided to go to hell—I probably seemed pretty weird to her... I couldn't bear being thought of as a weird guy by Ononoki-chan.

With both parents working, the first daughter a high schooler, and the second daughter a middle schooler, the Araragi house was generally empty in the daytime—I would be able to speak to Ononoki-chan, who'd infiltrated the house as a stuffed doll, without reservations.

It was one thing to give my thanks, but I figured I may as well tell her that Kagenui-san was approaching this town like a hurricane—for Gaen-san and me, it was an approach that was currently fairly inconvenient, but it could be good news for Ononoki-chan, who idolizes (?) Kagenui-san as an "onee-chan".

Because Ononoki-chan was busy with something else, she wasn't participating in this incident, but it wasn't like she was intentionally left out of the loop, unlike Shinobu until she found out—if the conversation went well, perhaps I'd be able to learn about the past between Suicidemaster and Kagenui-san, which I had failed to ask about, or rather, which I had wanted to hear but didn't want to hear.

Perhaps those ulterior motives led to my ruin, for when I arrived home, it was not just my parents and sisters but also that expressionless, frilly-dressed stuffed doll that was absent.

It seemed that young girl was even busier than public servants and middle school students, though not college students.

Well, I'd like to hear as much as what she had to say, but I didn't think it was a past that I wanted to dig into myself... If anything, maybe what I should be doing is to let the foreshadowing die so that her past doesn't get revealed?

Araragi Koyomi, killing the foreshadowing.

With that, feeling a mix of disappointment and relief, I took a shower and crawled into bed.

It seemed I'd been more tired than I realized (perhaps out of worry, too), so I slept soundly until the afternoon, waking only to the sound of Karen's return—despite her training in martial arts, she was a lot noisier in her movements, so it was easy to hear.

"Yo, Karen-chan. By the way, I wanted to ask about Kanbaru's fan club."

"That's way too direct. I haven't even taken off my shoes yet! At least welcome me back. You gotta have some sort of introduction before starting off the main topic with a 'by the way'. What happened?"

Araragi Karen. 16 years old.

She was super tall. My bigger little sister.

Tsuganoki Private High School first-year. She did not take part in any clubs, and continued to attend a martial arts dojo—something like that.

Also, her hairstyle returned to a ponytail.

"Kanbaru-sensei's fan club? Ah, aah. The one that nii-chan smashed up, huh."

"If I didn't break them up, they would've broken me. Just remembering it now, it's super scary."

The fact that she was still calling her Kanbaru-sensei was pretty considerable, but then again, the way Karen yearned for Kanbaru was... pretty unique.

I couldn't exactly give a thorough explanation of the circumstances, so I simply said, "Have you heard anything about, say, them having resumed activities?" and continued the conversation without explaining my reasons.

"Mmm. No, I don't think they have. When an organization like that comes apart once, it's pretty hard to reorganize."

"Is that so?"

"The crux, Kanbaru-sensei, retired, after all. Fans easily heat up and easily cool down."

I see... I guess it was like that.

Just as Karen said, if Kanbaru had continued to be active, then perhaps the fan club could have been passed down to the next generation, but now that the target of their admiration had retired, it was probably hard to gather new members.

And Kanbaru herself wasn't the kind of person that liked attracting that kind of attention, too—I had to admit I felt a bit elated at the inspiration of reading the deciphered code "F/C" as fan club... But I guess it wasn't that easy.

When comparing the girls' basketball team, of which Kanbaru had been a member, with the fan club, which was unofficial and separate... The quality was certainly different—if it became a fan club full of stoicism that could enforce ironclad laws without the actual person in question, it would be one of the best in Japan.

If only it had been "C/F", then it could at least have been read as "center forward", a basketball position...

Well, whether the culprit was in the girls' basketball team or in the fan club, it didn't change the reality that the vampire might be nonchalantly attending Naoetsu High—if that was even possible.

Of course, even though Gaen-san had been trying to implicate me, there were quite a few students that had gotten entangled with oddities, like Senjougahara Hitagi, Hanekawa Tsubasa, Kanbaru Suruga, or Oshino Ougi.

Well, a high school girl being a vampire did make for a prettier picture than a high school boy being a vampire—oh yeah.

"Karen-chan. You're a high school girl now, right?"

"What's with that, all of a sudden? But, that's right. I've become able to get married."

"That's not because you're a high school girl, it's because you've turned 16 years old. If anything, you've gotten harder to marry. Especially for me."

"Nii-chan, for you I'm the most difficult person in the world to marry. I'm your little sister!"

"How does it feel to be a high school girl? Is everything going well with your new friends?"

Regrettably, I pretended to be an overprotective older brother and started a survey to try and collect some live opinions—could even Karen be mired in the murky depths that had been a downer for the easygoing Gaen-san?

"I dunno what sort of school life you mean by 'going well', but this new world is pretty fun. I almost want to go to school on the weekends, too."

That's pretty insane.

But that's true, it's not like all high school girls have a dark side to them. There are individual differences, and it depends on the environment and the situation.

To put it in a good way, Karen's personality was endlessly bright, and to put it in a bad way, she was endlessly idiotic, but that wasn't just it—when surrounded by a stiff atmosphere, even the brightest idiot would lose some of that excitement. However, Karen was a follower of Kanbaru—

"—Oh yeah. Can I ask one more thing, Karen-chan?"

"What is it now? Today, it's all questions and no groping my boobs, huh."

"Don't talk like groping your boobs is a regular occurrence. I'm not going to touch them. This year."

"It was a problem when you've been touching them for the last year. Touching a girl's boobs like you were kneading clay. And? What's the question you were gonna ask?"

"You know the Fire Sisters, that you and Tsukihi-chan were a part of? You guys disbanded after you graduated, right? What happened after that?"

"Whaddya mean what happened. I told you, didn't I? Now, Tsukihi-chan's working hard on her own as Moon Fire."

I may have heard that before, but regrettably, the information she had on her sister was a bit vague.

Not that I could speak for others, considering I was the same way when it came to that sister.

What I wanted to ask was how the community of Tsuganoki 2nd Middle School changed after Karen, the mainstay and core of the school, left, like with the girls' basketball team—wasn't there anything like a war to be the replacement for Tsukihi's partner, or any sort of factional strife?

"Oh, for that, Tsukihi-chan, as the staff officer, handled it pretty well. For better or worse, Tsukihi-chan thinks she's so special that she doesn't expect anyone else, including me, to be able to imitate her."

I see. I'd been worried about my youngest sister's (excessive) self-consciousness, but that was an insight.

As is often the case with hard-working superstars, Kanbaru's self-esteem was quite low, and she had a tendency to believe that "anyone can do what I can do if they work hard enough"—that was something I could appreciate from a human perspective. However, if someone that was charismatic on a national level said such empty words as "if you work hard, your dreams will come true", then it would lead to a generation of people that actually buy into it.

Even though it wasn't Kanbaru's fault, the current state of the girls' basketball team was probably a climate formed by such a belief in hard work.

If I had to say it, when Kanbaru retired from the club because of her left arm, she should've picked a proper successor instead of leaving everything to Higasa-chan—though it was useless to say that now.

"Tsukihi-chan is basically a 'wasted effort is wasted' kind of girl. She'll say stuff like, 'Instead of hard work, just do what needs to be done!' 'If you put in wasted effort, you'll get even farther away from your dreams!'"

"I can't say that leaves a good impression..."

"She'd always insist, 'Find a way to make yourself a lucky boy or Cinderella girl!'"

"Tsukihi-chan probably shouldn't publish any business books. Speaking of which, it worries me that Tsukihi-chan, a middle school student, is coming home later than you, a high school student. Rub rub. What in the world is Moon Fire up to now that she's gone independent?"

"I dunno either. Rather than being independent, Tsukihi-chan's always been a dependent person with an independent spirit. Nii-chan, what were those rubbing sound effects you tried to mix in for the first time this year, without even trying to get them lost in the confusion? And I've heard rumors that you were helping out a magical girl, but how much of that is true?"

"Hmm."

Especially with Kagenui-san's return, I wanted Tsukihi to stay quiet, but she wasn't exactly the kind of sister that listened to her brother.

If I'd been able to talk with Ononoki-chan, I could've asked for her to do something about that... Rather than worry, it made me a little anxious.

Being a big brother was a lifetime job.

"Then, Karen-chan. I'm going to leave the house now, and I don't think I'll be coming back today, so in the meantime, watch over Tsukihi-chan carefully, all right?"

"You mean, today also, right? College students shouldn't be so flashy with their playing around at night. Your new life is an important time for you, too, nii-chan. I don't want to see you get burned like you did when you became a high schooler."

"Those are useful words. Worthy of engraving onto a chest."

"Don't engrave them on my chest!"

033

My fearless (of even a god) strategy to get Hachikuji to sit in the child seat ended in failure.

In transporting the ancient vampire from the Kitashirahebi Shrine to Kanbaru's house while waiting for her awakening (sunset), I'd proposed the formation of putting Hachikuji in the passenger seat and Suicidemaster in the back seat, but considering the size of the target of transportation, I was defeated by the logic that it would be legally safer to secure Suicidemaster, a six-year-old girl, in the child seat.

Well, considering that, in terms of outward appearance, Hachikuji was fixed in the form of a ten-year-old in fifth grade, it was already kind of impossible to fit her in a child seat—and Hachikuji was fairly grown for a ten-year-old. Over the past year, I'd directly felt her measurements with my own hands, so this was for certain. Of course, if the child seat itself were to break, it would be the end of everything.

It was a child seat I hoped to use for many years to come.

However, I'd been worried that Suicidemaster would suddenly go berserk in the middle of the day after being taken out of the shrine and lowered from the sacred mountain, so I consulted with Gaen-san on the phone and ended up applying further seals before securing her in the child seat.

The seals that Hachikuji applied as instructed by Gaen-san were, in simple terms, a blindfold and shackles on her arms and legs, but the image of a blindfolded, shackled little girl in white clothes fastened to a child seat honestly did not make me feel the slightest bit of safety in the legal sense.

If I were to go through police questioning, it wouldn't just end with my license being revoked.

My life would be revoked. Societally.

"A~ah. It was fairly controversial for Araragi-san, who loved his bicycle, to start riding around in a car, but I have to admit that the mobility of a car is certainly different. You can go all over the place, in every direction!"

Hachikuji herself seemed rather happy-go-lucky from the back seat—incidentally, she was in outing mode, which meant she'd changed from her white clothing to her clothes for an outing through the town, with her rucksack on her back.

She was sitting backwards, looking out the rear window, and flapping her legs—was it like a field trip for her?

"Hachikuji. Did your daytime stroll have any results? If you went around looking but couldn't find it, then that would mean the fifth mummy has yet to be made—maybe?"

"I'm not sure. If my godly eyes were able to reach every corner of this town without any problems, you could say this incident would not have happened in the first place. Although it's not that I regret allowing Suicidemaster-san to pass through without security."

"Well, sure."

From Hachikuji's point of view, she might even be a lifesaver—upon Suicidemaster-chan's arrival in Japan, it wouldn't have been odd if she had trampled Hachikuji underfoot, mountain and all.

Even though she was a god, our Hachiku-jin wasn't all-powerful—even in her weakened state, it could be possible for Suicidemaster to defeat even an athletic high school girl in a single blow.

"Hachiku-jin? Please stop. Don't give me a weird nickname. It seems your respect for gods is lacking, you know?"

Hachikuji did a half-turn and took her seat in the normal position.

"I knew that, with the case of Shishirui Seishirou-san, Shinobu-san had messed up twice, after all. I hoped that this could be an opportunity to wipe away that irreversible trauma—although, it would be a lie to say that I wasn't worried about letting Suicidemaster-san meet Shinobu-san, who was currently practically enslaved by a human."

That's why I'm all for the master-servant reversal, said Hachikuji.

"Although, I think it would be better to be honest about it afterwards. It would be sad to lose a friendship because of vanity. When I was alive, there was a boy in my class that I was close to, but because I'd been too vain—"

"Let's save that story for another time, Hachikuji. When Gaen-san called earlier and taught us about the sealing methods, I tried probing a bit, but it doesn't seem like they've found the fifth mummy yet."

"You seem way too uninterested in my flashback scene, Araragi-san."

"The analysis of the cell phone is still in progress, but it doesn't seem like there's any traces of her having made a call or sent a text or used an app since Kanguu-chan went missing, so it's hard to pin down the time of the crime. In other words, we still don't have proof of Suicidemaster's alibi."

I glanced at the little girl in the passenger seat.

The golden-haired little girl fixed in the child seat, in white clothing, blindfolded, arms and legs shackled.

"Is that so? Well, my credibility is at stake, too. I'll cooperate to the full extent of my power. Is it fine if I pretend to be a slave, too? Uhehehe."

"You sound less like a vampire's slave and more like a slave to money. Mm, I've thought about it, but..."

"So you've thought about it? Turning Hachikuji Mayoi into a slave?"

"But ultimately, a vampire's slave should be at least a little vampiric, or the lie will be found out. If it were Ononoki-chan, I may have just barely asked her to, but she's on bad terms with Shinobu. Plus, she's away at the moment, so it seems I'll have to be the only slave. If anything, Hachikuji, you can act as the local deity and be a guarantor for the relationship between Shinobu and me."

Not a bondsman, but a bondsgod.

It seemed rather apt.

Just as we were about to arrive at Kanbaru's house, the cell phone that I had left in the cup holder between the driver and passenger seats buzzed. This time, a call from Gaen-san—had the fifth mummy, Kiseki-chan's mummy, finally been discovered?

I felt slightly nervous, but I was driving, after all, so there was no way I could be the one to pick it up.

I'll leave it to my secretary.

"Who are you calling your secretary? Yes, hello? This is Hachikuji."

Seems like you've taken a liking to it.

"Araragi is currently driving. Yes. Yes. —Yes, I see. Understood. I'll let him know."

Finishing up the short phone call, Hachikuji returned the cell phone to its original position.

"What was it. Did we make any progress?"

"Rather than progress, it's more like we've fallen backwards."

That was Hachikuji's response.

"Putting aside the 'F C' initials, it seems they've completed their brute-force investigation of the remaining members of the girls' basketball team who were on the register, but everyone has been confirmed to be safe."

Everyone was confirmed to be safe?

"Isn't that a good thing? It's the first good news we've heard in a while. What's so backward about good news that's really worth celebrating?"

"The fact that they're safe means that they're also innocent—the results of the investigation made it clear that there is no vampire among the remaining members of the basketball team."

Back to square one.

034

The girls' basketball team members were cleared of suspicion, the fan club was also cleared of suspicion, and there were no signs of another vampire that could be associated with "F/C".

With this, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster wasn't just the prime suspect, she was the only suspect—the only reason that could lead me to believe that she was innocent would be Shinobu's testimony that "Suicidemaster, whose diet is unbalanced to the point of refusing food, would never suck the blood of an immature high school girl".

Tonight's interrogation was becoming increasingly important—it wasn't an exaggeration to say that everything depended on my ability to act as a slave.

I never thought that I would get the opportunity to become a slave to a little girl and deceive another little girl, but I guess I never really know where life will go.

There were many things that made me think that my high school years were the peak of my life, but as I lived on, there were many more interesting things occurring.

And with that, a greeting to my sponsor, Kanbaru.

The sealed little girl and the deified girl had been left in the New Beetle parked in the parking lot of Kanbaru's home—of course, I'd made sure the air conditioner was left on. It certainly wouldn't do if I left two children in a car and came back to find that they'd been mummified.

"Hiya, Araragi-senpai. We only just saw each other yesterday, but it feels like it's been so long ago."

"It hasn't been that long!"

"Yes, now here, the key to the house. Use it however you like."

I figured it was impossible for an ordinary person to imitate this sort of openness—if you tried too hard to act simple, you'd crumble under the stress.

However, they say a person is only as unhappy as the number of keys they have... I wonder how many keys I will have in my lifetime.

"Tonight, we decided to hold a pajama party at Higasa's place. If you've made any progress with the matter from yesterday, I can pass it onto her."

It wasn't progress, but falling backwards.

But it was a bit hard to say that.

However, I couldn't turn back now, and I was committed to it—I wasn't going to pretend that I didn't know anything about the girls' basketball team now.

Regardless of the outcome of this case, I should work together with Kanbaru and Higasa to come up with a plan to reform, or perhaps break down, the current situation. Without going against Gaen-san. She'd called it a pajama party, but it seemed it was actually a gathering of the OGs of the girls' basketball team to brainstorm about the current situation of the younger team members...

This had nothing to do with Karen's remarks, but as a former near-dropout of that high school, I couldn't just leave behind the students that seemed like they would drop out. Even if it was odd to speak of me, who nearly dropped out on my own, and the club members, who were about to drop out because of their stranglehold from club activities, in the same breath.

"Oh yeah, Kanbaru. When you ended up reuniting with Hitagi-san, the senior that you yearned for, at Naoetsu High, what kind of airs did you put on?"

"Airs? What do you mean by that?"

Of course.

Even if the person she was talking to was a senior she admired, she wasn't the type to pretend to be something that she wasn't—she was the type of person to charge in just as she was. If anything, it was maybe Hitagi-san that was likely to put on airs at the time.

Or display her stubbornness.

As a result, it would end up taking over a year before Senjougahara Hitagi and Kanbaru Suruga, the Valhalla Combination, would reunite.

"Huh. You're talking as if you're looking for wisdom in regards to Shinobu-chan reuniting with an old acquaintance!"

"I didn't talk like that!"

I didn't even bring up Shinobu's name!

She certainly was Gaen-san's niece, and I couldn't let down my guard—if I let something slip, this capable junior might decide to get involved all on her own.

She might decide to pretend to be a slave all on her own.

As someone who felt badly about the fact that I'd gotten her involved in the case of Shishirui Seishirou because of my own personal circumstances, this was a situation I wanted to avoid.

I needed to make up some reason to change the subject and get rid of her as soon as possible.

"Oh yeah, Kanbaru."

"Araragi-senpai, you sure come up with things frequently, don't you. What is it?"

"There's one more thing I wanted to ask of you—"

035

Though we'd settled on Kanbaru's place for our choice of location, it would be effectively impossible to clean up my junior's disastrously messy room before sunset, and, even if she'd told me to use the house however I liked, it certainly wouldn't do to infringe upon the territory of her grandfather and grandmother, so we ultimately decided upon using the Japanese mansion's garden for the revival of Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

Much like at Ryōan-ji, it was a Japanese rock garden.

Well, even if it was a measure of desperation, the mansion gave off much more of a castle-like impression when viewed from outside rather than being inside.

Yesterday, it had felt like I'd greeted nightfall feeling like I'd run out of time without doing everything I had to do, but today, it felt like I'd done everything I could and was greeting the night having run out of material. Now, I wonder what will happen?

"Thanks for waiting. So, shall we begin?"

At the moment the sun had set about halfway, Gaen-san appeared with a one shou bottle—the ones to welcome her were me; Shinobu, who had woken up early and crawled out of my shadow; Hachiku-jin, our witness; and Suicidemaster, who had been laid down—it seemed a little too pitiful to lay a restrained little girl on the bare ground, so I'd put down a rush mat (I'd found the rush mat in Kanbaru's room—why did she have something like that?).

All the actors were in place.

The show must go on.

"I've set up a barrier going all the way around the mansion, so if by some chance a battle breaks out, we'll be fine."

"That 'some chance' is what I'd like to avoid... But, Gaen-san. What's with that bottle?"

"Well, I am a specialist, after all. Wine would be better for vampires, but I figured we could do this the Japanese way, with sacred sake for a demon."

I guess I couldn't rely on crosses and holy water in a Japanese mansion with a shrine's god present... Her behavior was as if she'd come to a late-night drinking party, but in this Japanese mansion it held an air of sophistication.

"You should've come in full dress, then."

"Did you want to see me in shrine maiden's clothes, Koyomin? Unfortunately, I don't respect formalities and ceremonies as much as Meme does. I may be a pacifist, but at the same time, I'm a rationalist."

Indeed, now that I thought about it, that careless-seeming middle-aged Hawaiian shirt guy was surprisingly pretty picky about arrangements and whatnot to the point of irrationality... And looking closely, Gaen-san's bottle was just a bottle of cheap sake from a discount store... It was a bit difficult to call that sacred sake.

I guess it's the Gaen way to push through what's difficult.

"Goodness, I never thought I'd be visiting the Kanbaru house that rejected my dear sister like this—the wheel of fate sure turns."

As she spoke in an amused manner, Gaen-san casually turned over the one shou bottle and poured it over the body of the little girl.

Rather than occult ceremony, if anything, it seemed more like the "magic kettle" thing they did in rugby clubs.

Good, judging from that composed demeanor of hers, it seemed Gaen-san had managed to safely get through the murky swamp of the high school girls.

"Ooh. White clothing getting wet and sticking to a little girl's body... Kind of erotic, don't you think?"

Hachikuji made a vulgar remark, unbecoming of a god—for the record, though I hadn't touched upon it (double meaning) out of kindness, when you were meditating under a waterfall for a joke yesterday, you looked the same way, y'know?

Putting that aside.

"By the way, Shinobu-sama."

"...... Hm? Ah, you mean me, my master?"

She wasn't getting into her role at all.

Her servile disposition was so deeply ingrained in her.

"I mean, my servant. What is it?"

"Even if you catch it right away... Well, it's fine. Listen, Shinobu-sama. My master. Would you allow me the honor of inquiring something of you?"

"If you bring that quality of acting to the real thing, it'll be your fault if we get found out, my mast... my servant."

I think it would be both our faults.

But since we didn't have time, I continued instead of retorting.

"I haven't really thought too deeply about this until now, but... What's it like, living for six hundred years?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, if I may be permitted to speak for myself, I believe I have undergone quite a few changes, just looking back over the past year."

"Speak normally. I can't tell what you're saying at all."

Right.

I didn't even know what I was saying at all.

"In the course of our lives, we change our opinions, change our minds, realize our mistakes, and learn right from wrong, right? I won't make friends, because my strength as a human would decrease—when I used to say that, I really believed it, and I don't think I could have believed back then that I would have normal friends in college."

And that was in just a single year.

If that had been six hundred years—I'd ended up suddenly wondering how I would feel when I looked back on the past.

"I can't tell what you're saying at all, even when you're talking normally—after all, I've been quick to cast away the past that I can't remember."

Was it because she couldn't remember, or because she didn't want to remember? She probably didn't even remember that.

Well, it's fine. I just wanted something to say at the last minute—not even I, speaking normally, could tell what I was saying at all.

Just because they were meeting again after six hundred years, didn't mean they had to make the same decisions they made six hundred years ago—is that what I wanted to say? However—if I ran into Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade on the verge of death in an alleyway again, what if I would offer up my neck again, just like I had done a year ago?

"In the first place, before oddities are immortal, they're unchanging, universal. They don't change so frequently, like humans do."

"Then, let me ask you the same thing I did in that spring break. Shinobu, to you..."

To you, what are humans?

When Oshino Shinobu had not been Oshino Shinobu, when she had been the vampire, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, she had responded immediately.

She'd responded—"food".

But for Shinobu now, that was incorrect.

Even under the premise that she was sealed—but when you took that out, it was still incorrect.

However, what she would respond was another matter entirely—and it was as if Shinobu had been caught off guard, because for a moment, she fell silent. But, as if aiming for that moment...

"O devourer, o imbiber, o lurker! Now that the holy sun has set, tear open the coffin and rise! Boil the flesh in blood, and stir it with the bones!"

Gaen-san started chanting something like a magic spell that had taken the world by storm a few decades ago—it seemed like a joke, but it was for real, right?

"Come together with the night! Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster!"

It seemed like the sort of hackneyed incantation that I would've been convinced if she'd said, "Just kidding," but in that instant, the little girl soaked in cheap sake began to glow gold—or so it seemed.

But it was just my imagination, and my misunderstanding.

In actuality, the girl who had been sleeping as if she were dead had suddenly opened her eyes—the blindfold flew open, revealing two eyes as golden as her hair, and it had felt to me as if they were glowing.

Miss Suicidemaster's facial features, who had previously appeared as expressionless as Ononoki-chan's, became clearer as she awoke—though they had the same golden hair and golden eyes, she gave off a different impression from Shinobu.

The sake that had been sprinkled over her evaporated in an instant—not only the shackles on her arms and legs, but even the sash of her white clothing flew off, just like her blindfold.

Had Gaen-san broken the seal, or had the little girl herself broken it? It wasn't clear from afar—but if anything, my impressions were more towards the latter, and I couldn't help but think, "What part of her is weakened?"

I was just beginning to regret my thoughtless act of treatment, which made me recall my actions last spring break, and was wondering if it would have been better to leave her as a mummy, but then...

Creak!

The little girl's face turned towards me.

Lying on her side, only her head turned to look towards me—no.

Not me. Those golden eyes had fixed their gaze upon the one standing on my shadow, the other little girl in this garden—within moments of waking up, the ancient vampire had sensed her former thrall.

And then.

"Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

She said—sprawled out on the ground, from the lowest position imaginable, her laugh rang out louder than I could have imagined.

And in response to that loud laugh, Shinobu, who had borne vivid witness to her former "master"'s revival—

"Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha." "Ha." "Ha."

She said.

"Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

She—laughed in return.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

If it weren't for the barrier, their loud exchange laughter would surely have disturbed the neighbors—it was like microphone feedback. How long had it gone for?

Six hundred years. A thousand years.

Did it go on for eternity?

It was quite the uproarious bout of laughter, as if Gaen-san and Hachikuji and I weren't even there in that garden, but it was finally brought to an end.

"Somehow or other, it seems I've died again."

That was the remark from the little girl on her back.

And, hearing that, Shinobu shrugged her shoulders.

"It seems we've both grown old," she said.

The two little girls had reunited for the first time in six hundred years.

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kooala · 4 years

Text

once you realize - chapter three

USERNAME CHANGE!!

!!used to be kookie-off-his-kookie but now it’s kooala!!

A/N: Hey guys! I’m glad you enjoyed my last chapter! Here is the third one and I really hope you enjoy reading as much as I loved writing it!

I also hope you guys will be happy to hear that it’ll turn out to be longer than expected so get ready for five, potentially six chapters! (: ✨

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader, Taehyung x his girlfriend Mina, Jaebeom!

Tags: best friend! Jungkook, idol verse, friends to lovers!

Genre: angst, fluff, mutual pining, basically the cutest falling in love story

Wordcount: 3k

Warnings: language! flirting!

Parts: chapter one / chapter two / chapter three / chapter four / chapter five / chapter six / chapter seven

Summary: After the nightly confessions seemed to have put Jungkook into a much better mood, he felt like there was no harm in being a little more bold.

masterlist

It had taken you a solid hour of laying in bed without moving an inch before you felt confident enough to leave your bed to get some water from the kitchen, maybe some toast if you felt brave.

“Don’t you look like a fresh spring morning.”, Mina laughed as she walked around the corner and spotted you sitting on a barstool, your head resting heavy on the cooling kitchen counter. The toast next to you, still untouched as the thought of food alone made you feel nauseous.

“I feel fucking splendid.”, you mumbled and only as you saw Taehyung cut the corner a few seconds after her, you sat up, looking at him confused. He waved to you, only dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, messy hair, maneuvering the pans and fridge as if he had done it a hundred times before. She could’ve at least mentioned he was here.

“So why did you drink that much? And how did things turn out with Jaebeom?”, she asked nosy, leaning her elbows on the counter and watched you. You shot a quick look to Tae who was making scrambled eggs in a pan and although the smell coming from the pan was tempting, you declined his offer to make you breakfast. It felt too risky.

Erm...,” you started the conversation, feeling a little uncomfortable with the new extra in the house “I actually don’t.. know.”, you mumbled.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”, Tae chuckled as he turned around with a plate of food, placing it down in front of Mina as he kissed her head softly and for a second you stared at them with an ugly jealousy raging inside of you. You didn’t want to be that jealous friend, but they seemed genuinely happy.

“I just can’t remember. I had too much to drink – I don’t even know how I got home...”, you mumbled sheepishly and watched Mina grab your toast you hadn’t touched.

“Jungkook took you home.” The shocked expression you must’ve had on your face, made her suspicious and she rose an eyebrow.

“Oh please no.”, you mumbled and covered your face with your hand embarrassed. Out of all the people to see you in this state, you really didn’t want Jungkook to be the one taking care of you.

Taehyung showed up with a second plate, offering it to you one more time and as you declined again, the both of them disappeared down the hallway together into Mina’s room.

Looking at the empty hallway for a moment, hanging after your thoughts, you eventually gathered yourself up and headed to your room as well, grabbing your phone anxiously.

You: 정국아~! Jungkook: 네? You: Did you take me back to the dorm yesterday? I’m so sorry for causing inconveniences... Jungkook: Don’t worry about it ㅋㅋㅋ Jungkook: How are you feeling? Hungover? You: I feel awful. Jungkook: ㅋㅋ I can imagine! Want to grab some lunch? Jungkook: I said I’d bring you breakfast but I think it’s good you slept in ... You: I don’t know if it would be a waste. I can barely even smell food... Jungkook: I’ll make sure to eat the rest of it! I’ll eat all of it ㅋㅋ You: Okay I’ll do my best and get ready. Lunch is on me though!!! Jungkook: Perfect - let’s meet at the one from last time in an hour! See you soon ((:

It took a deep breath and a lot of will power to peel off of your bed to head into the shower. Although seeing Jungkook made you feel all giddy and excited, nothing could overlook how awful you still felt.

Hoping for it to get better after the shower, you took your time to pamper yourself, taking your time to pick out some clothes, even if they were comfy and put on some make up just to make you feel somewhat human again.

The thing you were most thankful for at the moment wasn’t only the close friendship with everyone, it was also the fact that most of the promo was done. You finally had a little bit more lean way and although it wasn’t much, a day off like today was a day you could spend with your friends, especially Jungkook. It was rare that both of you were available at the same time and you wanted to take advantage of every second of it. He had always been a good friend and although it was never ‘easy’ to have a guy friend, Jungkook was very sensitive and caring and listened to you if you needed to talk about problems within your group of girl friends. He didn’t mind listening and giving advise which was one of his many amazing qualities you appreciated so much about him. This made the fact that he took you home while you had been knock out drunk yesterday, even more terrifying. Especially in combination with your confusing feelings you’ve been dealing with lately.

“Oh look at her, there she is! Party-queen, our Soju princess, give it up for the number one beer drinker in Korea!” You could hear him yelling from down the street while clapping his hands, cheering a couple of times.

Feeling the heat kick in, you put your hands on your cheeks and simply looked down to the floor, feeling absolutely embarrassed and terrified. All you could do now was pray that he would be decent enough to not exploit you right to your face today.

You looked back up, watching him make his way down the street, doing a little dance and you couldn’t tell if your cheeks felt hot from the embarrassment, or the way he looked today.

Jungkook looked like he hopped right out of a cover shooting in his ripped jeans with a tucked in t-shirt and a loose, open button up on top of it, looking even more put together than usual.

His fluffy hair was bouncing as he walked towards you and you couldn’t help but feel like you had to raise both of your hands and just slide them through his hair. “You know, there’s no need to be insecure about how cool I am. We can’t all be alike.”, you smirked as he walked up to you and you could see his bright smile, looking down at you. “Someone’s in a good mood. No headache?”, you asked and he shook his head, smiling brightly. “Not even a little. I am really good.” His dimples came out even more and he couldn’t stop the wide grin on his face as he opened the door for you to enter the restaurant first. “Thank you.”, you smiled and walked ahead, letting him go ahead though once you were inside since you quite enjoyed it when Jungkook was leading.

Both of you followed the lady guiding you to your seat and after taking off your coat and getting comfortable you saw him smiling at you suspiciously.

“Is there anything you want to tell me? Because I don’t know what happened last night, as embarrassed as I am to admit this.”, you mumbled after ordering your drinks and food and he rose his eyebrows, almost worried.

“Nothing? No memories at all?”, he asked, taking the drinks as they brought to the table and poured the small coke bottle into the glass for you.

“I can’t remember how I got home, first off. I also have no idea what happened after we played that shot game. I think the last thing I remember is having a very deep Soju fueled conversation with Jimin. Who I believe is the reason the night ended the way it did, by the way.”, you mumbled, thanking him for pouring your drink and taking a sip then.

Jungkook watched you in amusement and chuckled a bit at your innocent behavior, considering yesterday wasn’t one of your innocent nights at all. He got to putting the beef on the grill immediately while listening to you and you simply watched him work his magic.

“You had a conversation with Jimin, right. And then you had one with Jaebeom.”, he said and shot you a quick look to see if that sparked any memories and as you watched the meat sizzle on the grill, you remembered a couple of scenes of the night before.

“Oh god, I did sit next to Jaebeom...”, you mumbled quietly and put your hand over your mouth embarrassed since you remembered his hand around your hip. The worst part didn’t seem to be the hugging, it was the fact that absolutely everyone was there to witness it.

“Yea...”, Jungkook simply stated, not interested in getting into that topic too much because he didn’t feel like dimming his happy mood after the conversation yesterday.

He folded some meat and sides into a perilla leaf and held it over to you, offering. Bending in you took the bite and nodded thankful, covering your mouth while chewing.

“Why didn’t you say anything though? You’re my friend you’re supposed to protect me from dumb decisions, you know?”, you mumbled after chewing and chuckled. Jungkook didn’t seem too interested in the conversation and scooting a little bit on his chair, you could tell he was almost uncomfortable. He didn’t really reply to that comment and you just took a sip of your drink.

“What was I thinking though. Now I have to text him and tell him I’m not interested... Man this is so embarrassing.”, you mumbled quietly, dipping your pork into one of the sauces.

“Oh you told him alright...”, Jungkook laughed low, looking over to you to watch your expression carefully. Dropping the meat from your chopsticks onto the table you looked at him shocked.

“What?”, you asked in shock. “What did I do?”, you mumbled, your voice lower as you picked the piece of meat back up to eat it. Jungkook took a big bite and you could see that he seemed to thoroughly enjoy this conversation. “Well, do you want the long version? Or the short one.”, he smirked and took a sip of his coke.

You only stared at him and seemed to sink into your chair more and more, dreading the story that was about to come. With a worried expression, you nodded hesitantly.

“So, it started off with you sitting next to Jaebeom, right? And I mean it wasn’t bad but you seemed cozy. And then you walked off and so did I so I don’t know what happened in between, but when I returned with Yugyeom you were crying in the hallway with Jimin. I offered to take you home and as we were leaving JB walked after you and wanted to talk to you on the street – so I let you.”, he smirked and grabbed some of the radish. You listened to the crunchy sound it made while he was eating for a moment.

“You let me? Oh goooood.” Closing your eyes you covered your face with your hand again. You couldn’t even get yourself to look at Jungkook because you felt so embarrassed for everything he had already mentioned.

“Yea and he did the whole ‘hey, let’s meet up sometime’ and you did the dramatic ‘I’m drunk and I like someone else, we can’t’ and then I walked you home.”, he laughed and you couldn‘t help but reach over to smack his arm once for the smug smile on his face.

“I said I like someone else? God no...”, you mumbled, pushing your hair back nervous.

“I can’t believe I did that. And I can’t believe I don’t even remember it! God this is so awkward I’m sorry you had to witness all of it.”, you mumbled with bright red cheeks and Jungkook only smiled at you with an understanding look on his face.

Although he enjoyed the fact that you regretted all of it and from the conversation that had followed after he had taken you home, he knew that you weren’t going to end up dating Jaebeom, but seeing you like this made him feel guilty. He didn’t enjoy it when you suffered, no matter if it was a fun situation or not.

“Don’t worry about it, noona. It sounds worse than it actually is, it was no big deal. He was okay with it and it’s not like you were so black out you couldn’t walk or talk. It’s all good.”, he smiled and you crossed your arms on the table, resting your head on it embarrassed. If there was a super power you’d like to take advantage of, it would be disappearing into thin air. Right now.

Resting your chin on your palm for a moment you let your eyes trace over Jungkook’s face for a second, stopping at the little freckle on his lip and as you realized what you were doing, you turned your eyes back to the food on the table and started eating some radish quietly.

As you felt Jungkook ruffle through your hair for a second, you felt a warm tingle run down your back, followed by goosebumps. He ran his fingers through your hair again to tame the mess he had created and you had to take a couple of seconds longer to hide those red cheeks of yours.

“Please tell me you’re just trying to mock me.”, you mumbled then as you sat back up to look at him. He seemed to have trouble keeping that smirk off his face.

“Oh I wish. And when I took you home you tried to take my hand and asked me to take off your pants because you couldn’t do it yourself.” He blurted out the last bit without even noticing and although he felt a little guilty for exposing you that way, he really was looking forward to your reaction when you heard.

“How is that not bad?!”, you yelled way too loud and Jungkook turned his head to look around embarrassed, nodding excusing to the elderly couple next to you.

“Because it’s no big deal, Y/N. It was only you and me, no one saw. You had a moment, I helped you take off your make up and... pants and then you got into bed and it’s all history. I’m not going to tell anyone and I’m the only one who saw. Don’t worry.” He smiled over and you still couldn’t help but feel the embarrassment linger between the two of you.

“But you did say ‘I’m not asking you to grind on me, just take off my pants for god’s sake.’, or something along those lines. I may just dream of that.”, he joked and closed his eyes dreamy, forcing you to smack his arm one more time. With a bright laugh he rubbed his arm and shook his head.

“Won’t tell anyone, don’t worry.”

“You better not if I was only in underwear!”, you said and Jungkook couldn’t hold back his laughter now. He didn’t know why he enjoyed you being embarrassed about it so much but maybe it took away from the fact that he had in fact seen you only in your underwear and now he felt less bad about it once you knew.

“I mean you did ask me to take off your pants so if anything, we’re only closer now.”, he smirked and you couldn’t help but start laughing as well, playing with the glass in your hand.

“What are you doing tonight?”, Jungkook asked after finishing absolutely everything that was left on the table within a matter of minutes.

“Tonight? Nothing really. Probably listening to Tae and Mina making out.”, you chuckled and finished your drink while watching him pull out his wallet.

“How about you come over? A few people are coming over and we wanted to watch the new Avengers movie if you’re interested? Mina and Tae will be making out there for sure.”, he joked.

“But seriously, it will be fun. Also my schedule is going to be packed again so it would be nice to spend some more time together before I’m unable to.”, he smiled and looked over at you.

“Naw, look at you being a cutie.”, you teased a little bit and Jungkook jolted his head a little to the side, noticeably embarrassed about the comment and with a crinkled nose, he tried to hide his pinks ears by going through his wallet.

“Think about it. I’d like to have you there.”, he smiled honest and got up, walking over to the cashier to pay for the meal. The gesture absolutely surprised you because usually the both of you pay for your own meals. There was a tingly feeling that started spreading out in your stomach while you were watching him pay for lunch and you couldn’t hide your smile as he returned.

“What?”, he smiled, handing you your coat as the two of you walked out. “Nothing. Thank you for paying, Jungkook.”, you smiled over and he shyly waved it off, following you outside onto the street.

“Right then, I’ll see you tonight?”, he asked, pushing his hands deep into his jeans-pockets and giving you a breathtaking, dimply smile. Trying to collect your thoughts while looking at him you nodded, pushing your hands in your coat pockets to somehow cope with your nerves.

“Okay I’ll... come with Mina then she’ll know all the details.”, you smiled and Jungkook seemed to beam once you agreed to join.

“It’ll be fun, there’ll be loads of people and we can even share a seat if you want to.”, he smirked, walking backwards a few steps without taking his eyes off of yours.

“Get your head out of the gutter, Jeon Jungkook!”, you yelled after him and as he looked around worried to see if someone had heard you, you only chuckled.

“See you later.”, you waved at him. “Get home safe. See you later, noona.”, he replied with a smirk and you watched him walk down the street a little further before getting into a Mercedes.

If you’ve managed to read this far, I’d be more than happy if you could like and share my chapter if you enjoyed it! If you have any suggestions for improvement or any drabble requests - make sure to shoot me a message!

thank you so much for reading and I hope you’ll stay around for the fourth chapter! 💖

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