#i am a sentimental fuck and i insist on converting the first

[pristine-starlight]

Aaand I just realised I’m probably about to hit a stagnating part on the power curve in warframe

I had expected a previous one to happen around Mars/its moons back when, bc my weapons and frames weren’t gonna get any stronger (and the progression of what frames you can get has never been from weak to strong) while the enemy levels keep ramping up. Then I got the xoris, and it’s carried me all the way to Sedna (and likely beyond) wonderfully (later also adding the lenz so that I have something that’s actually like half a gun)

And don’t get me wrong, the xoris and the lenz still handle everything i need right now beautifully. Nidus and Nezha can both keep me alive almost indefinitely. When I’m not trying to just tank everything, the rest of my potatoed frames also hold their own

But I’m not sure what’s the steps between now and, like, a Kuva Lich, bc I’ve seen both liches and sisters in action before and goddamn are they tough. Or comfortably doing ESO. Or doing a few rounds of C rotation in Sedna/Lua disruption

There’s not much of the starchart left to go (I still need to actually bother to go to Eris, and then it’s going back to clear nodes over time. The Kuva Fortress can leave me the fuck alone for a bit tho, i hated my first visit there) and while there’s certainly higher mr weapons, I can’t tell what’ll actually be good. But i highly doubt lenz and xoris can carry me forever (the other day we got lvl70 eximus units from a death squad on Hydron, and my xoris was barely doing anything against their overguard. I had a wholeass crisis before i noticed their level)

Idk i’m just talking myself in circles here i guess. Just no clue where to, eventually, go from here to someday reach that legendary level of dealing with liches and high level enemies

[softowlhours]

by the lakeside

bokuto koutarou(horror!AU)

it should’ve been the perfect summer getaway. you were both in need of some down time away from your busy careers. but things get a little eerie when there’s a voice in your head that isn’t yours and you find out that you’re not alone in that pristine white house on the hill.

genre: horror, angst, fluff if you squint

tw: descriptions of drowning, asphyxiation, strangulation. suggestive sexual situations.

a/n: i promise i’ll proofread this later and also write an epilogue but until then please enjoy this story it took me way longer than necessary to write. i’ve read it so many times that i don’t find it scary anymore. but i hope you do! :)

word count: 6k

my body feels like an empty shell sometimes, a carcass I am dragging around. when I look into the mirror I don’t recognise myself. i don’t recognise him, either.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

bokuto’s hair gleams silver in the glorious morning light. wind blows through your own strands as you zip past the lush green meadows. you could see the sheep dotted on the grassy planes like puffs of pure white clouds. far away, there stood giant mountains. their high peaks looked like they were breaching the baby blue ceiling of the sky. you only notice your gorgeous surroundings with half a mind, because your eyes keep trailing back to the man besides you. you admire his profile, the sharp slope of his nose, the chiselled cheek bones and jaw line. you zero in on the plush of his lips and it is then that you notice his teasing grin.

‘admiring the view?’ he asks.

‘mhmm. a sight for my sore eyes.’ and he truly is. your gaze drops a little lower. his toned chest peeks from where the buttons of his shirt have come undone. his biceps flex and strain against the fabric as he manoeuvres the steering wheel. he looks like a movie star, straight out of the golden age of film. the red vintage convertible he drives only adds on to your day dream. you can’t help but feel like a heroine starring in your own block buster romance. heat rises to the tip of his ears and the back of his neck at your shameless appraisal. bokuto notices the way lust is barely concealed on your face. he fucking loved the way you looked at him, like he was the guiding star you were always attuned to. the one for whom you’d always search for in an endless night sky.

‘your eyes are sore from staring at your computer screen all day everyday.’ he  ignores your attempts at flirting,  and instead addresses what has been eating away at his mind lately. he’s been worried about you. you often called him out for pushing himself to the point of breaking when it came to volleyball. but, you never noticed how you were inclined to do the same when it came to you own work; buried under papers and ink, day after day as your work ethic kept you confined to your study room. you being a best selling author, him a pro volleyball player; you truly were the power couple worthy of everyone’s envy and admiration, but your lives could get stressful at times.

‘kou, I’m sorry ‘m dragging you away from your routine. the game season starts in two months. you should be hitting some balls right now.’ you withdraw your hand, and he instantly misses your touch. you appear a little crestfallen as you opt to idly fiddle with the lace bordering your sundress.

‘hey,’ his voice is silky, tone slightly chastising. ‘don’t apologise. this was my idea anyways. we need some time away. from everything.’

‘you know that,’ he continues, ‘i’ll never be too busy for you, right? it makes me feel lonely when you just withdraw from me... shut me out.’ his face eyebrows furrow a little. ‘for you I’ll always carve out  time.’

bokuto had a way with words that always left you stupefied. they weren’t embellished and gaudy, like yours. all you ever did was spin fairy tales. Yes they were beautiful, but they were also false. unlike you, he always spoke from his heart, and you wonder if that was why his sentiments without fail reached others.

‘oi- don’t fall asleep.’

‘i’m not sleeping!’ you snap out of your reverie. ‘i’m sorry i… never realised you’d feel that way’ puffing out a sigh, you lean back lazily on the leather seat. ‘i haven’t been feeling much inspiration lately, and when i do write i just hate every word of it.’ 

‘maybe I should retire,’ you muse. ‘never write a word again. let people remember me as the genius author I’m not.’

‘but you are a genius writer!’ bokuto insists. ‘give it a fifty years and they’ll be teaching your work as a part of the curriculum. i’ve never read anything better!’

‘that’s because you rarely read!’

‘i am a picky reader,’ bokuto shrugs, cocking an eyebrow as he looks at you haughtily. ‘so congratulations that your writing actually piqued my interest.’

snorting, you pinch his thigh.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

it’s almost evening by the time you drive past a small sleepy town. the few houses have their curtains drawn. there’s a small supermarket and a polyclinic but you notice how the streets are mainly empty, save for a couple of children who play seven tiles on the roadside. fifteen minutes and more grassy meadows and sheep later, you arrive at what looks like the edge of the world. surely you’re being a little dramatic calling it that, but the road winds up the gentle slope of a hill and on top of it sits a pristine white house. bokuto pulls up the car in front of massive wrought iron gates, a chain holds it shut.

‘okay, but when nori said ‘vacation home’, this is not what I had in mind. Is he actually the heir to a conglomerate or something?’ you observe, definitely appalled.

‘uh- knowing his stingy ass, i’m not sure?’ bokuto sounds and looks puzzled as well, so you know he wasn’t expecting it either. he reconfirms the address konoha had messaged him. ‘do we climb the gates? because he never gave me a key or anything. he said the place has a caretaker who’d-’

‘how can I help?’

your heart leaps to your throat, and both you and bokuto snap your heads to your left to look at a man who stands on bokuto’s side of the car. neither of you had seen him approaching and it  was as if he were a magician, materialising out of thin air. old, sinewy and dressed sharply in a suit, he’s hunching to be at your eye levels. upon closer look the fabric of his clothes looked worn out and they fray at the edges. his hair is slicked back and he wears gold rimmed spectacles, its lenses the shape of half moons. his smile is serene, demeanour dignified but there’s shrewdness in his tone.

‘um- hi.’ bokuto greets recovering first. ‘i am konoha’s friend. i assume you’ve been expecting us?’

a beat passes.

‘indeed. allow me to show you around.’

bokuto parks the car under a shed close to the gates and you walk down the stretch of the garden. it is immaculately kept, and roses of all colours bloom neatly in rows. a giant sycamore tree stands close to the house, its branches brushing the roof. when you stand on the porch of the house the gate seems miles away. bokuto wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you close to his side. he sneaks a soft kiss under your left ear as the caretaker opens up the door for you.

the inside of the house is splendidly furnished and it leaves you awestruck. simple but gorgeous, a modern castle of sorts. a cream colored leather sofa sits in the centre of the living room, the rug in front of it is white and fluffy. There is a box television- the kinds popular decades ago, and you wonder if it actually works or if it’s just for show. the chandelier above is a million crystals and an open kitchen makes up the far end of the living room. a stair case winds its way up. but, what truly catches your eye are the massive french doors which open up to the stretch of a green lawn. calling it a backyard would be a bit inadequate; for the trimmed grass meets the surface of a great lake, its water like molten lava reflecting the evening sky. you can see the outline of ducks waddling away, probably on their way home. the lake stretches out for almost a mile and after that you see nothing but the thicket of the woods. it is almost the end of july, so while the days are warm, the temperatures tend to dip quite a bit at night. you shiver a little and snuggle closer into bokuto’s side. the caretaker, in his monotonous voice,  explains to you how your room shall be upstairs,  the one to the right. there were four other rooms which were mostly empty and locked for the sake of easy maintenance. you tune him out when he moves on to the instructions regarding the heating and locking systems.

you’re entranced by the house, and standing there in its magnanimity you feel like you’ve been drawn into a picture book. you can imagine breakfasts every morning on the front porch. afternoons spent lolling on the grass besides the lake. you would keep a vase filled with freshly cut roses from the garden, in the centre of the kitchen table. spend the nights sitting in front of the fire place when winter laid its thick blanket of white snow outside. your high flying careers felt like a distant dream. your laptop back home could collect all the dust it wanted to. you could just stay here forever wrapped up in each others arms.

i’m lonely. i hate how you’re always away from home because of volleyball.

bokuto notices your distant look , the slightest way your lips are set in a grimace. it tugs on his heartstrings. makes it difficult for him to breathe.

bringing his mouth close to your ear, he whispers your name bringing you out of your head. you blink, biting back the ugly realisation that had just intruded your brain. you had never felt that way before, you had forced yourself not to. it was long ago when you had decided that you’d never make him choose between you and volleyball. or maybe that loneliness was something you’d always felt. but because you were afraid of it; you had hidden it under your skin, in between your bones.

if i could, i’d steal you away and keep you all to myself. in a cage just for me and you.

too afraid that he’ll somehow read your mind, you step away from him, disoriented by the venomous voice of your subconscious as you look around for the old man.

‘he left while you were zoning out, princess. said he’s going home.’ he pulls your back against his chest, long fingers begin snaking up a well known trail up your thighs. your cute little sundress does little to stop him. ‘he’ll be back by noon tomorrow, to tend to the garden and all that.’ bokuto speaks in between the kisses he’s placing along the side of your neck. ‘apparently, he lives in that town we drove by earlier.’

‘mhmm.’

‘want to live in a house like this someday.’ he asks you, his voice hushed.  you rest your head back on his chest, as love and lust pools in your stomach and clouds your thoughts.

i’m scared someday you’ll leave me behind.

“me. you. maybe a dog. maybe… children?” he continues and your eyes widen at that.

‘you want all that?’

‘with you? yes I want everything. i’ll take everything that you can give me.’

liar.

you turn around and pull bokuto into a heated kiss. his chapped lips meld into yours and your teeth clack a little from the suddenness of your movement. by now it is completely dark outside and the living room is dimly lit by a lamp. bokuto seems unaware, too lost in you to be notice space and time. but, a weird sensation surrounds you. you feel the whisper of a cool breeze, a murmur disturbing the stillness of the house. with one hand, bokuto cups your behind. the fingers of his other rake through your hair. it’s a buzz now, like a thousand bees hovering over your heads. you feel dazed, you’re needy, you’re confused.

there’s someone else here. the two of you are not alone.

‘ow,’ you yelp in pain.

bokuto jumps away from you, but his hands are badly tangled in your hair.

‘I told you to tie your hair in the car!’ he is laughing. ‘it’s a nest in here!’

the buzzing dies down. the silence that follows is deafening. you wonder if you’re delusional with the lack of sleep.

as bokuto carefully weaves his fingers out he places a chaste kiss on the little crease in between your eyebrows. he finds you so cute, it physically hurts him.  

‘don’t worry, babygirl,’ his voice drops a few octaves. ‘windswept looks sexy on you.’

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

later that night as you are lie under the drapes and canopies, you notice how the bedroom is much like the rest of the house- fit for royalty. bokuto snores softly, but you lie awake with your head on his chest. his heartbeat is a mind-numbing rhythm. a thin sheet of sweat covers your bodies and you try to ignore the wetness in between your legs. you should probably change the sheets as well, but your body refuses to move and you don’t know where to find any new ones. sleep evades you so you let Bokuto’s question roll around in your mind. a forever with him. of course you would say yes. there was nothing more that you wanted than that. but the dread from earlier which you had managed to keep at bay with lust, slowly begins to resettle in the pit of your stomach.

he promises you an eternity now, but he’ll leave you behind soon.

you somehow clamber out of bed, making sure not to awaken bokuto. picking up his shirt from where it lies on floor, you put it on. the bedroom has identical doors from the living room, made of glass, and they open onto a small balcony. you draw open the lacey curtains and step out into the chilly night air. the sight that awaits you makes you gasp.  a fine mist rolls over the water, but the lake itself is still.  its surface is like taut cellophane. beyond the lake where the woods begin, it is pitch black darkness and you cannot tell where the woods meet the moonless sky. it’s a new moon night, but where you expect to see the stars is an empty hollowness. its eerily silent. too silent. no insects trill. no wind blows. you stare intently into the water for so long that you swear you see something lurking just underneath its surface.  the mist that hovers slowly inches towards the house, coiling like endless bony fingers.

that pool of velvety darkness, i wonder what it’d feel like against my skin.

come to me then. feel it for yourself. your voice, no, her voice purrs.

you whirl around to see bokuto. he’s standing a feet away from you, rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

‘whoah! easy,’ bokuto exclaims, surprised by your jumpiness. no way it had been him who had spoken moments ago. ‘what are you doing outside?’ he asks. ‘i nearly got a heart attack when I saw someone standing out here.’ 

you look back towards the lake, and you’re utterly confused. the mist seems to have instantly vanished. you can even hear the water now, softly undulating. it appears akin to a creased sheet of silk.

had you been hallucinating? dreaming with your eyes open?

you fight down the growing panic and instead walk over to him, squishing his cheeks. you softly kiss his pout. ‘aww. baby’s scared?’ you coo.

he grumbles something about you catching a cold but tugs you inside and you decide to let it all go. you’re tired and tomorrow will be a new day.

had you turned around, you’d notice how the stars were glittering like cold hard gems in the night sky.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

you were pleasantly lazing about in the sun. the lake was a glittering blue and the woods looked benign during the day. they weren’t as dense as they appeared to be in the absence of light. from where you lay, the house looks like an entity of its own. imposing and regal. bokuto is dressed casually in a t-shirt and sweatpants as he plays around witha volleyball, tossing and spiking it all by his lonely self. you didn’t remember seeing him pack a volleyball, but then again somehow he always seemed to miraculously have a one at his disposal. today,  he hasn’t gelled his hair up in its usual style, so it flops onto his  forehead in a way you wished he’d leave it more often.

‘y/n! nice receive!’ he hollers at you.

he spikes the ball aiming straight for your stomach and you somehow manage to block his assault. thank god he hadn’t used a quarter of the strength he usually puts into his spikes.

your strong and annoying man.

‘you trying to murder me or what?’

he pulls you up to your feet. ‘i’ll be teaching you how to spike, drama queen. it’s insane how you’ve been with me for all these years and haven’t learnt a thing or two about volleyball. people would die for a one on one training session with me.’ he brags as he fetches the ball from where it had rolled off to.

you try to copy his motions, but what he can effortlessly pull off is an impossible feat for you. you send the ball upwards and jump as you try to match your timing to spike it. but before you can hit the ball it lands on your head.

bokuto is losing his shit, doubling over with laughter. and you try to look angry but end up giggling with him.

‘i give up!’ you complain. plus my boobs jiggle since i’m not wearing a sports bra,’ 

‘babe, thats kinda the point!’ he beams.

a perfect spike lands on his face.

‘owww, that’s foul play, y/n! ’ he yells. rubbing his nose, he walks over to you.

‘you should be punished!’ he scolds you, but places a kiss on your temple. his hands wander downwards to unzip your dress. he lets it fall to the ground. you know where this is headed. you think he’s going to kiss you so you close your eyes and lean towards him but before you can react, he’s bending down and suddenly you’re being lifted. he has you over his shoulders and your peals of laughter warm his heart. he hadn’t heard that sound in a while.

bokuto marches straight into the lake and dumps you in. the water is cool and refreshing, just as you had imagined it. it’s shallow enough so you’re chest deep in the water when your feet are planted at the bottom. his body glistens with dampness, hair a floppy wet mess. he was so beautiful, that even though it was irrational you felt a little bit shy. you’re splashing each other with water, the atmosphere’s light and bubbly with amusement. bokuto tries to catch you but you slip out of his reach. he is being his loud and  dramatic self as he falls face down into the water, complaining as he comes up with his eyes screwed shut. 

‘i swear i’d rather be blinded by your beauty than this water.’

you shake you head, feigning disdain and then you’re swimming away from him, towards the safety of the house. it must almost be noon, and you vaguely remember its time for the care taker to come around. you did not want to be seen in your wet underwear. bokuto calls out to you, apologising. there is water in your ears, it laps all around you as you swim. it dulls all sound and every other sense until the only thing you hear is your thumping heart. when you come up for air, you can see the blue sky, when your face is in the water you can see the stones and pebbles littering the bottom.

but, when you come up for air again, the sky is overcast. laden with dense gray clouds.

the water runs icy, lead flows through your veins. your body is sinking like a ship. it feels like you’re trying to move through viscous jelly. when you try to pull up for air you cannot break through, the surface traps you like its the cellophane you remember seeing the night before. a tight grip on your waist, abruptly pulls you under. your flailing hands try to grasp at nothing in particular. you wonder if its bokuto just messing around, but you know it isn’t. you don’t feel his presence anywhere. your fingers suddenly entangle into something. your eyes burn when you try to open them and look. jet black strands of hair, a bone white face, a mouth that is open like a gaping wound. you scream and nothing but gurgles and air bubbles escape you. you try to pull back but your hands are stuck in the weedlike hair. Funny you think of the evening before, when bokuto’s fingers had entangled in your messy hair the same way.

‘kou…koutaro!’ you try calling for him. you hear your disembodied voice, feel the water flood your mouth, your nose. but you feel all alone with that woman straight out of nightmares. fear has you in its grip, your minds a mush.

you hate him so damn much. you hate him, you hate him, you HATE him.  a voice repeats the same words in your head. you wonder if it sounds like your own or someone else’s. you cannot tell the two apart.

you feel a hand wrap around your arm, its large and warm and it feels like home. as it drags you out of the water the ashen face seems to quiver and distort. her eyes flicker open. they roll in their sockets but when they fixate on you, you see eyes just like your own. but they are transparent like marbles; burning with betrayal and accusation.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

you wake up with a start to screams piercing the air. they are shrill and blood curdling. your hands are on your ears as you try to block out the sound but it only gets louder. it takes you a moment to realise that the screaming had been you. bokuto holds you in his arms, you can feel him shaking underneath your palms that grapple at his back.

he’s crying.

no! why is your bokuto crying? you pull away a little just enough to look at him, but the way his features are twisted in melancholy punctures a hole through your heart.

‘y/n, babe… babe,’ his lips quiver stealing away speech but he forces himself to speak. ‘ i looked everywhere in the water but I couldn’t find you. you were swimming and then you just stopped. i thought you were fooling around but you were down there for too long. so i come over but... I couldn’t see you anywhere at first. i panicked! holy shit... i was panicking.’ he shifts away from you, an arms length away. leaning back on the sofa, he stares up at the ceiling. ‘You weren’t even struggling, just stopped moving. Do you remember what happened?’ bokuto drags a hand down his face. he’s visibly distressed.

‘i don’t know what happened,’ you croack. ‘it felt like I was stuck. my feet wouldn’t come lose. as if someone was there with me in the water, holding me down…’ a sob escapes you.

bokuto pales a little at your description. but there had been no one but the two of you in the water. hell he hadn’t even seen any fishes.

he had pulled you under in the first place hadn’t he. there’s no one here but the two of you.

you remember not being alone in the water. you remember the heaviness. but nothing else.

bokuto opens his mouth to say something, but you cannot concentrate. the urge is too strong. before you can think, before you can answer. you are bending over and puking your guts out.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

you spend the rest of the day, clinging to bokuto. and he doesn’t mind. he seems to be craving that constant feeling of your skin on his. something to remind him that you were okay, that you were here now. he makes his way around the kitchen with you stuck to him like a little koala.

“sit down on that chair just for a minute, y/n. i can’t find the plates!” he tries to loosen your chokehold on him but you only tighten it and bokuto booms out a laugh.

‘i swear you’re lucky you’re cute.”  

‘just consider this weight training.’

bokuto had put together a light meal. you reckoned you’d be unable to stomach anything too heavy.

‘we were supposed to be having fun. i feel like i’ve ruined everything.’ you mumble gloomily. you’re sitting on the chairs you pulled up around the kitchen island. a make shift dining table.

‘it’s okay. its enough to just be together.’

‘oh no been away from you for a five whole minutes.’ your expression is of mock worry as you rush over onto his lap. you immediately bury your head in the crook of his neck, his familiar scent calms you down. he chuckles at your antics.

‘do you think we can just go home?’ you ask apprehensively, still feeling bad about having spoilt your perfect little getaway.  ‘i don’t feel like staying here anymore.’

‘sure, baby girl .’ bokuto replies in a heartbeat, and you wonder if he feels the same unease in remaining here any longer.

‘we can leave tomorrow morning.’ he suggests. ‘it might be a bit too late to leave now. plus, caretaker-san didn’t even show up today.’

‘is it okay to just leave?,’ you ask.

from where bokuto sits on the dining table in the kitchen, he can see the doors in the living room that open up to the porch. it’s around three in the afternoon. the weather was beginning to turn awfully gloomy.

clouds slowly fill the sky eclisping the sun that had shined all day. it leaves everything in shades of gray.

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

you wake up alone in bed. the remnants of an eerie dream still lingers in your mind. you had been combing your hair, which was unusually thick, dark and long. you kept brushing the silky smooth strands, on and on and on, until they started coming loose in your hands. shuddering as you recall it, you turn around to see the wall clock read nine p.m. where was kou? at some point you had fallen asleep although you did not remember coming upstairs to the bedroom. he must’ve carried you from where you and him had been lying on the sofa downstairs, idly chatting.

your body is still heavy with exhaustion but you force yourself to sit up. hearing the water running in the bathroom, you call out to bokuto. ‘kou?’  you pad your way over to the bathroom. when you open the door there is no one inside. water drips from from a leaky tap into an empty bath tub. strange. where had the sound been coming from then?

you find yourself mesmerised by your reflection in the mirror right across from you. when you step inside the bathroom, the tiles are dry and frigid underneath your feet. the lights are off, however, the bathroom is faintly lit up by the light filtering in from the frosted windows. the bags under your eyes are dark and puffy, your lips look ashen. you look like you had lost a tonne of weight over the span of the past few hours. tracing a finger along the outline of your reflection, you notice how your eyes were a forlorn abyss. hollow like the dead.

mine. stay with me. don’t leave me alone. a voice whispers to you and you listen, enchanted.

you see the corners of your lips quirk up in your reflection. your expression twists into that of deranged happiness.

so, you’ll stay?

you don’t feel the smile on your face.

you’re backing away slowly. a scream dies in your throat.

that isn’t you. it’s her.

you’re running full speed out of the bathroom and you make it just in time as the door slams shuts behind you. the edge of your thin white slip gets caught in between but you yank it loose with enough force. bursting out of the room like a bat out of hell you’re hurtling downstairs. you have to look for bokuto. you must leave. now!

you’re me, i am you. he doesn’t love you, so just stay with me. I’m lonely.

you try to call out to bokuto but you cannot find your voice.

and then you see him. sitting on the sofa. the relief you feel is momentary. the old television is on, and the screen is grainy with static but bokuto’s eyes are intent on it. he’s still as if he were carved out of stone. he doesn’t acknowledge your presence just keeps staring ahead with an owlish gaze. you place a shaky hand on his shoulder and he finally turns to look at you.

his eyes that usually are like pools of golden honey are dark and murky like cheap kerosene. his features are sharper, more cunning. a devil in your lover’s skin. the mist outside thickens, appearing as if they were pale white walls surrounding the house.

i told you to just stay with me. you should’ve stayed with me in that cool dark water.

he doesn’t love you, i do.

suddenly bokuto is stalking towards you, his movements hypnotic like that of a panther, sinuously fluid, predatory. a feral look glints in those foreign eyes. he slams you against the nearest wall, his hands tightening over your neck. your head meets the hard surface with a thud. those large arms that have always felt like home suddenly feel empty and cold like a prison cell.

you’re just a prisoner in his cage. he doesn’t love you like I will.

black spots fill your vision, as your air supply is slowly being cut off. ‘kou- please don’t.’ you whimper. a flicker of recognition flashes through those eyes, but the grip around your neck only tightens. ‘kou-’ you call again softly. tears fall freely down your face. your hands go limp by your sides and in the process you knock over a vase that had been on table besides you. it falls to the marble floor with an obnoxious crash. the ceramic splinters into a hundred pieces. bokuto’s eyes widen and the darkness from his face lifts. it is as if a thick patch of clouds obscuring the moon had drifted past, letting its pure light fall to the earth once again. he’s your bokuto once again.

horror struck he lets go of your neck and catches a glimpse of the angry red fingerprints left behind like a morbid necklace. you collapse to the ground.

a door bangs shut somewhere in the house, startling you both. bokuto is about to crouch down next to you when suddenly the volume of the television is cranked up. the harsh static sound grates your ears, like a drawn out growl. there’s thumping coming from behind every surface of the house- the walls, the floors, the ceilings. every door, every window  swings open only to shut back with a bang, over and over until shards of broken glass lie like a carpet all over the floor. the house is alive with the breath of countless souls that live in its every crack and crevice. you both look on with horror as heavy mist begins to pour into the house. bokuto’s teeth chatter with fear, and he tries to get you to stand. he follows your gaze which is fixed to where your bedroom had been. and he sees it then. on the door which opens into the room, there’s a shadow of a woman. he can discern the long straight hair which she combs on and on and on.

‘f-fuck!’ he spits.

he harshly pulls you over his shoulders but transfixed you crane up your neck to continue looking at the shadow. hastily he manages to grab the keys which he had hung on a hook by the main door.  the shadow grows darker, more defined as if  whoever it belonged to was coming closer. he feels you struggling and you scream to be let down.the main door to the house is already open so with one last glance at the chaos behind, you are both bolting out of the house.

‘y/n, run! to the car. hurry, hurry, hurry!’ he shuts the door, hoping it would buy you some time. he’s not really sure what he’d just seen or what any of it meant. but thinking would come later. he grabs your hand as you start the mad dash across the front garden. you notice despite your compromised vision due to the mist, how the roses look wilted. the grounds gooey and wet underneath, and your feet sink into the soft mud making movement sluggish. but you don’t stop. moments later, the door behind you flings open with enough force that it comes loose from its hinges. the whole house seems to be angry.

come back here.

don’t leave me alone.

an overgrown root coils around your calf and yanks you back. your hand slips out of bokuto’s and he turns around, horrified, to see you being dragged into the ground. like you were falling into quicksand.

‘hold on to my arm,’ bokuto bellows, ‘and just don’t. let. go!’

the circulation in your leg is being cut off and you cry in pain. you can feel the disgusting way the soft earth keeps parting further to let you in. you want to let go, give in to the struggle. maybe it’d be better to just lie buried here, decomposing till you forget whats fear, whats pain.

your name is rolling off bokuto’s tongue like a chant. his muscles burn with strain. the sweat and slick makes his grip on you weak and he notices how you’re  letting go. he reads the resignations on your face. but why are you letting go? why are you trying to leaving him alone?

bokuto loses his footing and falls backwards and almost loses you, but he manages to interlock your fingers. he’s grunting with effort, and roars with frustration when it doesn’t seem to be working. it is then when you see the blood covering his feet, the glass splinters buried deep into his soles. in your haste to get away you never noticed how he had walked all over the shards with you over his shoulder. the ache in your heart swells. you know he’d never leave you behind. it was the two of you, or none of you who’d make it alive out of here.

the thought of bokuto buried deep into the ground, lips blue and crusted with mud gives you a renewed conviction. with the last spurts of energy you hold tight onto bokuto’s arm with one hand. the other digs into where you find soft but solid ground. you attempt to claw your way out and fight the drag of the noose around you ankle that tries to pull you in the opposite direction. away from bokuto. bokuto is inching backwards, his voice hoarse with all that screaming as he does his utmost to haul you out. 

rain begins to pour in heavy cascades even though there hadn’t been a single cloud in the obsidian sky. and suddenly you feel earth’s hold on you go slack. bokuto and your efforts come to fruition as your foot comes loose and you tumble straight on top of bokuto’s body. but its too early to celebrate. a loud thunderclap spurs you both into action and you run and run, fighting the burn in your lungs until you reach the car. bokuto, is grateful, infinitely grateful that the keys had remained in his pockets during that struggle. he hands you the keys and with no time to waste you’re  running to the car, afraid that something inauspicious might happen again if you didn’t hurry. bokuto notices with relief that the iron gates are not chained shut like they had been upon your arrival, and with some effort he swings them open.  bokuto clambers into the passenger seat and you floor the gas as you drive straight out of the gates, into a calm quiet night. 

it takes you a moment to notice that the rain had stopped. 

∷  ∷ ∷  ∷ 

the two of you are covered in dirt, in blood. absolutely shattered with exhaustion. bokuto finally feels the pain that had been dampened by adreneline. it now ignites like an inferno. he almost tears his lip trying to bite back a whimper. in the rear view mirror, you catch a glimpse of the house. it looks regal and imposing, as it had when you’d first arrived. you can see the dimly lit bedroom, the curtains billowing gently in a slight breeze. the glass on the doors is intact. the garden is immaculate once again and you can see patches of soft grass spread out where the mud had almost eaten you up alive just a few moments ago. a shaky laugh escapes Bokuto, and before you know it, feeling delirious, you’re laughing with him. 

bokuto’s phone rings and the sound cuts short your hysteria. with some effort he retrieves it from the dashboard where he’d left it two days ago. he had planned on not letting anything distract him from you on this short getaway. he puts it on loudspeaker.

‘they picked up!’ you hear Konoha say to someone and the collective sighs of relief are audible.

‘dude, where have you both been? we’ve been calling you all day. ms. nakamura told me that you never made it to my vacation home?’

‘ms. nakamura?’ bokuto rasps.

‘yeah, the caretaker I told you about?’

‘the caretaker was a man!’ you snatch the phone with from bokuto with one hand while other remains on the steering wheel. you’re yelling at the receiver like a mad woman. ‘we came to your villa, but that man opened the gates. listen, there’s something wrong with the house and lake behind it is-’

‘what lake? there are only corn fields behind my house. which is, by the way, a traditional japanese one. where the fuck have you both been?!’

you and bokuto look at each other in confusion, and you hit the brakes. you glance back at the house which is now far, far away. if you squint your eyes you can see the outline of a man at the gates. the lamp in his hand glows golden like a distant star.

a woman’s shadow is dark and lonely against the delicate lace of the bedroom’s curtains.

[lilyev]

wassup my dudes, i’m bee and i’m a huge ass nerd who’s super excited to be here ! pls take my daughter lily and love her, or hate her, w/e, i’m fine with it either way

isn’t that LILY EVANS ? yeah that is HER, sitting there at the GRYFFINDOR table with those other SIXTH years and i think i heard sybill saying they look like ZOEY DEUTCH… whoever that is! when she looks into her crystal ball she sees fireflies, coffee with cinnamon, cigarettes in the backyard, honey-flavoured chapstick, chipped nail polish, lying on the roof during a thunderstorm, flowers growing from cracks in the pavement, the feeling you get walking out from a cinema.  anyway i’ve heard they’re pretty TENDERHEARTED, TEMPESTUOUS, and INDEPENDENT. apparently they’re a MUGGLEBORN but i’m sure that’s not related. 

aesthetic: fireflies, coffee with cinnamon, cigarettes in the backyard, the smell of bookstores, honey-flavoured chapstick, whispered secrets, the burn of firewhiskey in your chest, chipped nail polish, polaroids, lying on the roof during a thunderstorm, chapped lips, the summertime buzz of cicadas, flowers growing from cracks in the pavement, burnt chocolate chip cookies, jane austen novels, angry tears, happy tears, scribbled notes in the margins of old books, the red glow of a sunset, the feeling you get walking out from a cinema

CHILDHOOD

lily evans grew up in cokeworth, england, a “distinctly unmagical” town that is solely known for being the fourth-largest steel producer in england. the steel factory smokestacks in the west loom over the town and its winding alleyways, cinder blocks, and weeds growing out of pavement cracks.

lily’s childhood was that of mowed green lawns, challah bread, flintstones reruns in grainy black and white, and playing outside after dinner with petunia till the sky grew dark and the fireflies and mosquitoes came out and their parents would call them back home for bed.

her parents were both university professors who had met while getting their doctorates, her mother in german literature and her father in political science. they were both academic, intelligent people, and saw no reason not to treat their children as such. this meant lots of political discussion over the dining room table — at nine, little lily knew more about the government deficit than most of her schoolteachers probably did. petunia tended to tune out these debates, claiming disinterest, but lily loved them, listening in avidly even if she didn’t understand. as she got older she began to participate more and more, and often even brought up issues she was interested in.

but despite her brightness, contrary to popular belief, school hasn’t always come naturally to lily. she just could never quite bring herself to focus in school. some teachers labelled her a chatterbox, others simply labelled her trouble. really, it was more of a combination of a desire to befriend every creature she met with an inability to sit still.

because lily yearned for something more than life at the end of the cul-de-sac, yearned for some great adventure. she was a curious, fearless thing as a child, always leaping off of the swing and tugging tuney to go explore on the other side of the tracks, where their parents didn’t allow them to go.

so when she met a sallow-skinned boy from the wrong side of town, and he told her about magic, lily was enraptured by the thought. severus snape and the world he spoke of represented, to lily, the adventure she’d only ever dreamed of.

you all know the story — lily didn’t mean to, but she traded one best friend for another, and petunia was left behind, hurt and angry.

HOGWARTS

flash forward to eleven year old lily – small for her age, sitting on a stool in the great hall and listening to the hat debate between slytherin and gryffindor. after she ended up being sorted into gryffindor, and heard everything her housemates had to say about slytherin, she couldn’t help but wonder why the hat had thought it might suit her. ( like mother like son, am i right ? )

but lily is ambitious and proud, and ( especially as a first year ) overflowing with a desire to prove herself. but when it comes down to it, she has a softness under her skin that doesn’t suit the cold blood of a snake, and her instinct to protect those she loves vastly outweighs her self-preservation instinct.

and all of a sudden, she was doing better in school than she ever had before. hogwarts gave her eager, curious young mind the adventure and intrigue it had been craving. for the first time, she actually wanted to learn. the professors quickly became used to the wiry girl with messy auburn hair and bright eyes sitting in the front row of every class and peppering them with questions.

she became the gryffindor prefect last year, something she was both very excited and very apprehensive about. she’s very conscious about the influence she has on younger students, and she’s determined to prove that she was the right choice.

PERSONALITY

lily evans has two main motivators: sentiment and spite. on one hand, she’s romantic and nostalgic, clinging to her fairytale endings and her belief that everyone has at least a little bit of good inside of them. she’d like to believe that everything will turn out the way it should, and that all pain is temporary and useful.

but on the other hand, she has her temper. lord, this girl is stubborn and proud to her very core. she does not easily admit she’s wrong, and she’s often guided by her emotions rather than her reason. it’s not a great combination. she has been called tempestuous.

she tends to make snap judgements about people and stubbornly sticks to those snap judgements. it takes her a while before she admits that someone isn’t as bad as she had previously thought, or that someone is worse than she previously thought ( see: james potter, severus snape )

she doesn’t react well to personal criticism. she can be pretty defensive and even hypocritical sometimes.

but for all her faults ( and she has many — she’s stubborn, over-idealistic, proud, spiteful, at times selfish, hypocritical, quick-tempered, biased ) lily loves. and she hopes. with all her heart.

she cares so much about everything. she wears her emotions on her sleeves. she cries when she’s angry, and when she’s happy, and when she’s talking passionately about something she loves.

if you’re someone lily evans loves, you should count yourself lucky, because she will defend you to the death. and if you’re a person who lily evans hates, you should also count yourself lucky, because no matter how much she hates you, there’s a little part of her that believes in the good part of you.

sometimes she wishes she was tougher, less vulnerable. she wishes the word ‘mudblood�� wouldn’t sting each time it’s flung at her like a grenade ( but it does ), and she wishes she isn’t disappointed with every chanukah that goes by without a card from pertunia ( but she is ). but in true lily evans fashion, she stubbornly holds her chin up high and smiles and doesn’t let the world see her hurting.

HEADCANONS

she keeps trying to keep a diary but she always forgets to write in it, although she refuses to admit it’s a hopeless cause.

has a love for sweeping, dramatic classical music and movie soundtracks

lily comes from a progressive jewish family ! lily was never really super into it when she was little ( she enjoyed the chanukah dreidel games and the purim festivities, loved listening to the stories of esther and the exodus, but fidgeted all through hebrew school and hated the solemnity and fasting of yom kippur ) but she has a greater appreciation for the culture now she’s older. still doesn’t really observe kashrut though.

[ HOLOCAUST TW ] part of the reason she’s super super super against blood purity is bc of this and obvs also cause she’s a muggleborn ! her mother was eight when the second world war started, and as lily’s gotten older she’s heard more and more about her mother’s experience. and it chills her how much it reminds her of all this blood purity and voldemort stuff. [ END TW ]

petunia converts to catholicism for vernon when they get married and lily is so angry she cries for days, but then their mother sits down with her and talks about how everyone has their own faith and you can’t judge someone else for theirs

loves cats even though she’s allergic to them ( has a toad named gilbert, after gilbert blythe from anne of green gables )

has an irrational fear of seaweed – not the kind you eat, the kind that brushes up against your ankles when you’re swimming. also afraid of flying and airplanes

has an extensive collection of nail polish ( picks at her nail polish when she’s nervous )

a physically affectionate person – loves hugs, and cheek kisses, and platonic hand holding

loves old audrey hepburn movies 

she always loved when her parents read to her but she never had the attention span for actually sitting and reading books even though she loved them

[ DEATH, SMOKING TW ] she smokes …… she knows it’s bad but she started after her paternal grandfather died when she was 12 – they were going through his belongings and she found a half-used pack of his cigarettes and pocketed them. she just smoked them to try and catch his smell and feel closer to him but it developed into a habit and then an addiction ( although lily will insist she can stop anytime ) [ END TW ]

bisexual as FUCK thanks 4 coming to my ted talk

[skinny-boy-endeavours]

Warning: this message might shock most people, although I assume only people with an interest in these issues are likely to read it till the end, and if you are an ex-anorexic or bulimic, or a person scanning the web in search for potential culprits against your good sense, this is perhaps not going to please you. All the same, I will write it.

Since I have been living with eating disorders, more than a decade, and very nearly two decades have elapsed, and since I have joined Tumblr in a hope of finding some comfort and expressing myself at times like “these”, not even one decade has elapsed. I am a boy, I am twenty-eight, I have suffered from eating disorders for as long as I can remember, at about when switching from childhood to adolescence. I have taken a lot upon myself, and am still taking quite a lot, either out of habit or by sheer automatic resignation. I have finished my studies, I have my university diploma, I have remained at the same workplace for several years and I am both reliable and disciplined. But in the last ten years, I have been hospitalized a dozen of times, most of which upon my own free decision, and always seemed to recover a little more each time from I knew not what exactly, but that made me heartsick to the extent of driving myself to suicide on several occasions (at least 5, almost successful, by severe poisoning). I did not heed, at first, that my parents and their controlling temperament and conduct towards me might have the invisible cause behind all my self-destructive behaviours. I still find it hard to evaluate to what extent their pressurizing and eternally unsatisfied influence has driven me to hate myself only, to bear all the pain and to live only a small percentage of what is normally called “life” only to justify my existence and temper their grave looks upon my miserable person. The first thing to be said is that anorexia, bulimia, eating disorders in general and all feverous afflictions, when befalling a young person, girl or boy, is never a “fancy”, nor an invention of problems that were nonexistent beforehand, but a real discomfort, if not a living pain that is being converted into self-destruction, for want of a proper way out to an every-moment-guilt of being alive, under the control pf one’s parents, for they are authorities that are not to be gotten rid of as long as the child is a “minor” or is under their tutelage. Even when this comes to pass, the sentiment of the child who has lived under such a control for years, legally speaking, may and sometimes will inevitably reproduce his unhealthy patterns, either by the constant skin-deep memory of his former captivity of lack of freedom, which, after all, and I understand it now, is the sole and only motive for eating disorders in an adolescent and for an entire-life-wrecking nervous indisposition. I have noticed that at a healthy distance from my parents, I thrive rather well, although I still am fragile, and that when I am intensely with them for at least three or four days, this fragility is increased twice, thrice or more, proportionally to the albeit small time I have passed in the fateful company of my parents, who, despite what might be concluded from the above-written, are loving and caring, and wish nothing but my wellbeing. How then is it possible to feel, to declare oneself oppressed and pressed if one’s parents do not beat or ill treat one ? This is the whole issue: the pain inflicted by controlling parents is infinitely more subtle than any amount of “Physical” beating or mistreatment. All the more, that it is involuntary, and the parents do not realize the pain they are inflicting, and their ignorance of their very own misbehaviour is greater as they don,t understand that their love for their children is being counterproductive and is actually undermining their child’s development into healthy adults, and most of the time, driving them to self-destructive behaviours. This is no victim-playing, one has better things to do than looking, and even finding, guilt where it dos not have an actual existence. But in this lies the problem of nervous disorders into young people and their subsequent mark left upon the young people who have become adults and have to live with their self-destructive envies or direct behaviours, probably until they die, having half-lived only, become the ghost of their either living or dead parents has taken much of their energy and has achieved its final task: make oneself self-hating although alive and “functional” in society. I know why initially, eating disorder suffering patients were rightfully and tactfully removed from their families, from the sickening environment almost entirely manifested by the parent(s) or care-giver, of whoever while wishing the best for one’s child, drives her or him to seek freedom from the yoke through means by which they can escape, both physically and emotionally, and breathe, and while in the presence of the yoke-masters, feel themselves free, at least temporarily, by taking control over the only things they have any over: in this case, food intake, calorie outtake, etc. Drug problems, self-harm, and the like, are all ways of coping with a pressure than has become internalized and persists even when the subject is withdrawn from his familial environment for one’s best recovery or when one is definitely away from it. So tis is what I feel today, and what I come to realize. Of course, I am aware that this may be my case only, and that for all sorts of people, all sorts of circumstances are accountable for all sorts of joys and pains, and consequent self-building or self-destructive behaviours; that all cases of nervous indispositions are not imputable to the familial environment or the parental controlling facies, yet, this is my case and for my wellbeing, I must try to formulate it in a rational manner both for myself and for those whom it might be of use to to read these sentences and find that, as invisible as it is, the cause of their nervous disorders (I must insist, also, that a nervous disorder is not a mere nervosity or stress felt from time to time, but a fundamental indisposition of the whole nervous system, that affect the entire life and both physical and mental health of an individual, and it often drives one from depression to anxiety and back again, until one either is taken into a hospital for rest, or commits suicide although the material conditions in which he lives are what most of our “gentle-natured philanthropists would consider to be far above 2/3 of the world’s average material conditions). The whole point of this is not to throw guilt everlastingly upon one’s parents for all that happens, far from it. But if one is of a fragile nervous disposition and his parental environment does not help this disposition otherwise than retrogressively, as in my case of a till-here lasting eating disorder and as I imagine, of several if not most other people, girls or boys, with eating disorders, then severance from those austere parents is perhaps the first and most important step to be taken, either by the patient’s initiative or by his therapist. It may not be advisable in all cases, as the patient’s have different personalities and have received the more or less bad influence from their own different environments, but I am quite certain that in many instances of anorexia or bulimia or other EDs, this severance is salutary, and may, at the patient’s will, be prolonged as indefinitely as needed, for the invisible controlling influence can follow the patient, as I have already said, like a ghost, it matters not if the parents are still “physically” alive or not, or have been “objectively” demanding/austere/controlling/oppressing. The goal of this is not to spend one’s life in accusation of one’s parents, nor to remain mournful of one’s past, but once this step made, this important step, for the patient to be able to distinguish the part of himself that WANTS to suffer, to destroy himself and punish himself (eating disorders are self-harming coping methods, again, that can become internalized and last within the individual even years after the last definite severance from the individual’s unheeding parental environment/influence. I have repeatedly insisted upon this point, because once understood, as an underlying rule to unlock a difficult calculus of mathematics or physics, it will become not only easier, but truly feasible for the patient, whether he his 12 or 30, to know herself or himself and, as I had started to disert upon a little earlier, to know that his unhappiness is rooted in a self-hated that is rooted in a distorted perception of one’s worth and value as a human, as she or he perceives herself of himself as the direct product of his parents and must be perfect in every way and every instance, until it becomes untenable and metamorphoses itself into an altogether endeavour for irreproachability and self-control, which in its turn becomes what we call an “eating” disorder”. This is no freudian explanation of the mother or father sense within the child who either wants to kill the latter in order to freely fuck the former or simply hates them and eventually, himself, and strive never to resemble either of them by saying yes when they say no and reversely. This only means that the motive for an eating disorder is, in many cases, whether felt immediately and clearly or not, or only later, and to various degrees, a consequence of one’s unhealthy parental behaviour. I have written all this because it has become clear over time, gradually, and not all at once nor in a very definite and clear perception, for it is likely to change over time, as I live on, but these two tendencies, I have observed to remain constant and increasingly self-evident over time, regardless of individual circumstances: that is, 1) that my self-observation has always led me to understand that my self-destructive tendency varies along with my frequentation and near-sensing of my parents, who renew my self-hate, diminish or augment it proportionally, 2) that as long as eating disorders have been observed, whether they had already received a name of some sort or this generally nowadays accepted name, the tendency of the observer was that either the mother or the father had a devastating influence upon their child, an influence which, albeit invisible or at least very subtile, is very real and real enough to drive the child to self-destruction although their material condition is either normal or above the average. They are unhappy and feel oppressed enough to starve themselves, or to purge themselves, or have suicidal thoughts and or behaviours. Even in ancient cases, such as the all-too-famous on of Santa Caterina da Siena, the anorexic behaviour was associated if not entirely attributable to the mother’s controlling influence. In some other cases, modern or ancient, it may be the father’s controlling influence, which, of course, might not be physically agressive, but, upon a subtler plane, emotionally, intellectually, agressive, often when he has achieved some degree of intellectual authority and tries to impress it upon his child’s senses that she or he is to be at least equally rigorous, important or what not, which the child would have fain achieved even, and better so, without this moral pressure upon her or his nerves. Now, there are things upon which one cannot go back, but it is important, at least for me at this moment, to identify this cause, and to work from the knowledge of that efficient cause of the nervous/eating disorder to move forward, and have a decent life, because one cannot have it unless one makes this turn upon oneself and sees that what impedes one is the parental ghost, and I mean this without any psychoanalytical sentiment, for I do not see it as intervening in the eating disorder instance. This is equally true in the case of the freudian explanation of anorexia, that the mother being the material feeder of the child, the child stops eating when his mother’s will she or he fells antagonistic to its own. This is good for allegorical mythology, but not for practical problems that demand a practical solution: in this instance, what has to be understood, and what indeed HAS a relationship with either of the patient’s parents or with both, is that across time and space, this relationship is the root of the problem, which itself is not a one-sided guilt, it would be too easy, but rather a bad or shock meeting of genetic nervous indisposition on one side and of an austere or controlling parental influence on the other. Eating disorders become the only way out imaginable for this situation that involves no culprit but that involves as surely as possible at least one victim: the child who seeks freedom from a legal bondage, and tries to grow and to develop herself or himself under this constant nervous strain. The formerly eating-disordered children who, like myself, have gone into the adult age still carrying their self-destructive patterns and have tried to be a good citizen while waking with the envy of suicide in the morning and going to bed in tears, sleeping by the grace of strong drugs and working like a normal person by who knows whose grace, must, I declare it bluntly, turnabout and sweet is the cause of their lasting pain and poor mental health, which, in this instance, affects the whole physical organism equally, and can damage it permanently (the nervous indisposition has already a disabling effect upon the entire being, both during the adolescent growth wherein the individual is normally meant to build himself, and after the end of hormonal growth when one is an adult; the added problem of an eating disorder, superposed upon this already fragile nervous system, may be very destructive physically, and even more so as time rolls on, but also on the mind and the emotional faculties, which become prematurely tired and strained, especially when entertained over years, and eventually decades). I therefore conclude my long word, and also congratulate my reader upon his patience, by saying that an eating disorder is controlling parental influence + genetic nervous disposition and that the recovery can neither be forced upon the patient as an evidence nor even occur in the mind of the patient while her or his father or mother has not been identified as the cause of her or his emotional imbalance, and subsequently and consequently, been put aside from one’s life and definitely either discarded or healthily dealt with (by regulating, if not abolishing, the rapports one has with one’s parents or with the one in question that has an unhealthy bearing upon the child’s nerves). Now, this is only my opinion, and I perhaps imagine everything and I am not sick after all and all this is but a bad dream... But, on the other hand, I know not why, I feel that most eating disordered people, young or less young, will relate with the few statements I have abode made, and find that they describe their own cases quite accurately, because what I have singled out as the one invariable ou almost invariable tendency across time and space, in the case of EDS, is the parental influence, and it is a tendency because it cannot, totally at least, be dissociated from the very problem of EDs, and I am quite sure that those who have read this hitherto shall feel that they are not alone, and that behind their apparent madness, and underneath their emotional pain, there is something quite similar across the cases, and that something subtle lies at the foundation of it, something that has its constancy across the circumstances, and that determines the appearance of the coping method known under the name of eating disorders.

Saturday the 18th of May, 2019

[appreciate-kaimaki]

Could I request headcannons for SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki and SHSL Nurse Kaito?

Thank you, anon, for sending us our first AU/talentswap ask! This one was such a joy to write! I had to think a lot to make a scenario where a biker gang leader and a nurse could meet and grow closer together, but the ideas really started to flow pretty soon. And in the end, it became the longest piece I've ever written on this blog... so long, in fact, that I converted it into a full fanfic! Did I do your idea justice? What do you think? Your fic is under the cut, so please enjoy!

~Mod Shuichi~

Maki Harukawa is the roughest, toughest, most ruthless gangster the world has ever seen, standing at the very peak of street hierarchy and feared not only by the other gangs (many of whom are double her age) but also the police themselves. She routinely prowls the streets with her gang, clad in her signature red and black leather jacket with a dagger strapped to her thigh and revving her bike's custom engine as loudly as she can as she tears through the streets like the queen of the road she is. And this would have been like any other day, had a rival gang led by Shirogane Tsumugi not decided to mount a sneak attack on her to 'reclaim the streets'. Two of her goons got a van and t-boned Maki's bike in an intersection in a very underhanded move.

They should have known better. Maki Harukawa does not go down that easily - and even if she can't fight them right now herself, her well-trained subordinates are lightyears better than Shirogane's bear-handed misfits. Still, she knows she'd be dead if it weren't for her natural agility and reflexes, and she also knows she's extremely lucky to have gotten off on just a broken arm and leg.

She's rushed to the hospital and Korekiyo, her second-in-command, drops by with some of her gang members to check up on her once the operation's over. Maki tells him not to mind her too much, and to go wage war on Shirogane and her band of idiots instead. He heeds the command with much gusto, but not before pre-paying her bills to the best service the hospital can afford. Never say crime doesn't pay, she muses.

(Other gang leaders would be worried about their second-in-commands usurping their rule while they're out of commission. Not Maki, though. She knows her subordinates like the front of her hand, and they will never betray her while she's still alive.)

Now that she is effectively relieved from duty, the only thing left to do is to rest and mend her bones. Easy, huh?

Apparently not, as the personal nurse assigned to her is the single most annoying human being she has ever seen. His spiky purple hair and goatee clash horribly against his scrubs, and every fifth word out of his mouth is a space pun. He also doesn't appear to be intimidated by her at all - doesn't he know who she is? Any hope that he would be somewhat tolerable is dashed to pieces like her bike when he immediately gives her a despicable nickname in the first minute they meet.

"Hi, I'm Kaito Momota!" he announces way too jovially to someone who just had two limbs wrapped in a cast. "I'll be your nurse for the next four months. Nice to meet you, Miss Maki Roll!"

"Maki Roll?!"

He then proceeds to spend the next three hours explaining how he made her that nickname (because her first name is Maki, you see, and his mom just so adores his maki rolls that it's become a reflex whenever he sees the word, oh did he mention that he makes some wicked maki rolls?) and Maki is ready to either strangle him or rip her own hair out of her scalp when Momota is finally called away by intercom. The reprieve is short-lived, however, as the purple idiot barges back in a mere ten minutes later, ready to torture her with more bad puns and incessant storytelling. At this point, Maki would rather strangle herself. One thing is clear: she cannot take this for four effing months. She'd go mad by the second week.

She takes advantage of one of his bathroom breaks to flag down a passing doctor, a lady with deep purple hair and lavender eyes (was purple hair a thing in medical personnel these days?), and begs her to get her a different nurse, a doctor she could talk to, anyone other than Kaito goddamned Momota.

The doctor, 'Mikan Tsumiki' according to her nameplate, apparently cannot understand Maki's adverse reaction. "B-but didn't your friend ask for the best we had?", she replies quizzically. And right then and there Maki learns from Doctor Tsumiki that Kaito Momota the imbecile in purple is in fact the Super High School Level Nurse what the hell?!

"Everyone's so energetic and cheerful after meeting him," Doctor Tsumiki continues, and Maki can barely contain her incredulousness. Momota chooses that moment to reappear, and Doctor Tsumiki excuses herself. Maki forces herself to think for the best - if he's the Ultimate Nurse, at least he'll be good at treating her enough for her to ignore his prattling.

And he is very good at his job, indeed. He can change her casts without her feeling a single thing. He's always ready on call in case she needs anything, and he's making a visible effort to ramble less after the first few days. He still doesn't seem to acknowledge at all that he's treating the number one gangster in town, though.

He knows who she is. He'd be an actual idiot if he didn't, considering her name still shows up on the news at least once a week (including the report on her 'accident').

Yet he is still as friendly and, dare she say it, charming as the first time he met her. (What? He is annoying, but there is a certain charm to him.) It's nice, but it's also scary. If what he's showing her is a facade, it's a better mask than any she has ever worn and she's terrified of it.

One day she just goes 'fuck it' and decides to ask him herself. Time in the hospital is supremely boring, so Maki can at least blame the situation for her curiosity getting the better of her. She puts on her best game face and calls him over.

"Hey, Momota."

"Yes, Maki Roll?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"Well, duh." He gestures to her patient card at the foot of the bed. "Why wouldn't I? Maki Harukawa, the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. I'm not that stupid, you know."

"Then why aren't you scared of me? Why do you keep trying to get closer? Do I look like a joke to you?"

There. She said it. Now all she needs is answers.

Kaito pulls up a chair and plonks himself down on it. His eyes have a serious look she's never seen before as he opens his mouth.

"I'd be lying if I wasn't a little bit scared. Your eyes have that look down pat. But I'm not gonna let that bother me. At all."

"Why?"

"I became a nurse because I wanted to help people, make them happier and healthier, and I won't stop just because some lady has an unconventional job. The queen of England could be sitting here right now and I'd treat her exactly the same way. To me, you're not Maki Harukawa the gangster. You're Maki Harukawa, the girl with a broken arm and leg."

Maki is thrown for a loop at his words. Nobody had ever considered her identity seperate from her title before. No one has ever treated her like everyone else before. The nerve, part of her mind screams. It's kindness, another part yells back. Maki thinks the latter is more likely.

And as she's thinking, the idiot just has to add, "Plus, I think you're kinda cute."

She takes pleasure in watching Momota duck to avoid the pen she throws at his face.

As the days pass by, she finds herself opening up more and more to Momo... Kaito. (He had insisted upon calling him that, reasoning that they weren't strangers anymore. He wasn't wrong, so she obliged.) As the SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki is used to a life of hushed voices and fearful glances whenever she shows up, and she deals with it because being the top of the food chain means she has to keep her image intact. But Kaito is different. She feels like she can be actually personal with Kaito, in a way even Korekiyo cannot provide. Maybe it's because whatever she tells him, he doesn't judge - he just listens.

He listens to her past as an orphan, tossed from foster home to foster home. He listens to her recounting the brutal world of street crime and how it burned her childhood into ashes. He listens to what she feels about Korekiyo, how she's grateful for him because he was her first real friend. She can tell he's genuinely interested in whatever it is she's saying.

And then, when she's done talking, he'll share something about himself. He used to want to be an astronaut, before deciding his talents would better be used helping the sick and injured. His best friend is the SHSL Detective (one of them, at least). He helped set him up with his crush the SHSL Pianist, and they've been dating for almost a year. He can actually make some delicious maki rolls. (He brought some over one day to share with her at lunch and she's never tasted a better roll. Maybe the nickname isn't too bad after all?)

It's all very new to her, and Maki is both unnerved and excited by it at the same time. One thing is sure, though - it feels very good to have someone who understands her.

The four months are gone in a flash, and soon Kaito is removing the last pieces of her leg cast as she reads a text from Korekiyo saying he'll head over to pick her up. Maki steals a glance at the nurse busying himself with the cast saw. Is it too sentimental to think that she'd like to see him some more? First impressions aside, she's really grown attached to him - and a part of her wonders if that attachment could become something more. Dammit, Maki thinks. She's been away from action for too long. She must have gone soft. Lost in thought, she jumps in surprise when Kaito's face abruptly fills her field of vision.

"Earth to Maki Roll," he says, "As I was saying, your arm and leg have mended splendidly, so you'll be cleared in the next hour - so I got you a good health present!"

He hands her a bundle wrapped in glittery purple wrapping paper. She tears it open, only to find... her old jacket?

It's not her old jacket. Her old jacket got shredded to ribbons in the crash and they had to throw it away. But this one, also black leather with crimson highlights but shiny new, fits her perfectly in both style and size.

"I saw the interns throwing out your jacket the day you got here. I guessed you might miss it, so I got you a new one. It's not the exact same model, but..."

"How did you know my size?"

"You're joking, right? You went through more than a hundred hospital gowns. Of course I remembered." His smile is blinding, and Maki can't help but give a small smile back in return. For a split second, as she holds the clearly heartfelt gift, all her emotions do battle debating what to do. She settles for hugging him awkwardly around the midsection with a muttered "Thank you."

"You're welcome! It wasn't a big deal, really." Kaito's smile is positively radiant as he hugs her back.

She could really get used to this.

NO. Stop it, Maki. You're the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. You have a reputation. You can't be this soft.

Speaking of soft, Kaito's shirt feels really soft...

Maki. STOP.

She recoils quickly, ducking to hide the blush on her face, and spits out "I bet you give presents to all the patients you treat!" to hide her embarassment only to immediately regret it when his face visibly falls.

"I'm not that kind of person, you know," he mutters, "you were the first time I bought someone something." It's the quietest she's ever seen him. Great, now she's the one feeling bad.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. Kaito gives her a small smile as he escorts her to the doctor's office. "It's okay. I guess I should tell you you're also the only one to get a nickname?"

She laughs out loud, and it feels good again.

True to Kaito's word, the doctor soon gives her the all-clear. He does, however, remind her to go easy on her limbs and keep doing physical therapy for at least another month.

Korekiyo is, true to his word, waiting for her just outside the door with a full brigade of riders in tow. As Maki strides out to meet him, he wordlessly hands her a cracked pair of glasses and a bloody ribbon. Maki grins as she inspects the trophies. Shirogane won't be bothering them anytime soon.

He beckons her to the new bike he just dismounted and mounts the one next to it, just behind the rider. "It's all yours, boss. Just out from the shop."

But before she can get on her new bike and leave, she is reminded of Kaito standing just a few steps behind her, his eyes fixed on her back. Maki's no mind-reader, but she can clearly see the thinly veiled longing etched in his face.

It should be a tough decision. She has a reputation to keep, control to reassume, and underlings to whip into shape, after all. But Maki didn't become queen of the road by doing what everyone expected her to do, did she? It's that moment she decides to do what she does best - follow what her heart tells her. She asks Korekiyo for a pen.

Kaito has decided he's stared enough and just turned to go back inside when Maki's voice rings out from behind him.

"Wait!"

He turns back around. Maki saunters toward Kaito, new jacket glinting in the sunlight. She leans in close to his ear.

"I might come back a few times for my physical therapy... surely you wouldn't mind walking me through the steps a few times?", she whispers, her warm breath tickling his ear. Pleasant shivers run through Kaito's spine.

Kaito gets the message. His smile could call the Sun too dark as he replies, "I'd love to!"

Pulling the boy close into a hug, Maki stuffs a note in his pocket and plants a quick kiss on his cheek before walking back to her bike and the waiting Korekiyo. A few throaty revs and a hand signal from Maki later, the bikes all zoom away leaving only a small cloud of fumes and some skid marks behind.

Left alone in the parking lot, Kaito fishes out Maki's note and opens it, pumping his fist when he sees its contents - a phone number underlined twice, with the name 'Maki Roll' written next to it. The short message below simply reads 'Call me'.

Back at their headquarters, Korekiyo dares to ask Maki about the purple-haired nurse she seemed quite close to. Her only reply is a smile and "Someone I can tolerate being close to."