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jmbringitonworld · 2 years

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Visit to the Cottage

AO3 link for those who prefer to read fics there

There's an event called "Let Papyrus Say Fuck", which is about exactly what you'd think. Its aim is to show Papyrus doing and saying things that go against the common fandom misconception that he's just a child (mentally, at least; his actual age is debatable). The actual event is tomorrow (June 16th), but I'm not sure if I really want to take part in it, since there might be antis lurking about in a purely Papyrus-centric portion of the fanbase, and I don't want to have to deal with some asshole minors who think it's fun to harass strangers online for their shipping preferences.

That said, if anyone does feel the urge to harass me, just know that you won’t get a rise out of me. I ignore rude comments and will block those trying to bully me for enjoying what I love (and I report those whose behaviour is particularly egregious). I'm a grown-ass adult who ain't got no time to be playing stupid games with idiot children. I'm way too busy trying to squeeze as much joy out of life as possible.

But forget about all that, this is just a fun little scenario which takes place sometime after my fic "Good Girl Needs Kiss" (also here on AO3). You don't need to have read that, since you should be able to get a gist of what's going on while reading this, but just in case, the basic premise is that Witch!Reader messed up a spell, turning herself into a dog, and got found and taken in by Papyrus. This oneshot takes place after Witch!Reader has broken her spell, and she and Papyrus are officially a couple. I hope you enjoy ^^

____________________________________________

I was up bright and early this morning, to get my cottage ready for my very special visitors: Papyrus was bringing his brother, Sans, over for the very first time, and I was anxious to make sure that my friend, and older brother to my boyfriend, enjoyed his time in my home as much as possible. I’d finally broken that stupid botched spell not too long ago, and I desperately wanted Sans to like me just as much as a human, as he did when I was stuck as a dog. As such, I was rushing all about my cottage, sprucing up the place and making it as welcoming as possible.

I’d spent all morning clearing away any dust and dirt, tidying up my spell books and tomes, putting away all of my magical instruments and various knick-knacks and curios, and cleaning up any potion stains I could find. I’d even scrubbed my cauldron until it gleamed, and arranged my alchemy ingredients into neat little rows. I’d also asked the spiders to make their cobwebs as nice as possible, bribed the resident imps and sprites with honey to stay on their best behaviour around my guests, and even banished the hobgoblin squatting in my attic to the wardrobe, when he’d refused to comply and blown a raspberry at me instead. I dearly hoped Sans wouldn’t try to practise his knock knock jokes on that wardrobe.

Any potentially dangerous objects were sealed away in a secure lockbox, which I’d hidden in the secret storage compartment in the floorboards underneath the large, sturdy bed Papyrus had built for me. My previous bed had been no match for my boyfriend’s very ardent affections, whenever he spent the night here, but Papyrus had proven to be quite the skilled carpenter, and this new bed seemed very robust. Still, I’d added my own reinforcing enchantments to it, just in case. Papyrus was very strong, after all. He was also quite the artist, and had even carved flames and cute, little bones into the frame. So talented, my boyfriend , I sighed dreamily to myself, as I brushed my cat familiar’s fur until it was silky smooth.

As soon as the skeleton brothers had entered the forest I lived in, several tree nymphs had shown up outside my window to let me know all about it, and were currently giving me a detailed, running commentary on the brothers’ trek to my cottage. Nymphs were notorious gossips, nosy, yet reliable with their information, and I always appreciated being kept up-to-date on the goings-on of my home, especially where it concerned anyone coming to see me. Nothing happened in the forest without the nymphs knowing about it, and it was very reassuring to have these nature spirits keeping a close eye on my very important visitors.

I wasn’t too worried about anything untoward happening to the brothers, though. The ancient Forest God protecting this entire area had taken quite the liking to Papyrus (in large part thanks to all of the fun and creative puzzles he’d been coming up with to entertain the forests’ inhabitants), and had even named him an official “Friend of the Forest”, granting him safe passage through these woods whenever he pleased. And since the Old God had given his approval, all the rest of the woodland residents would respect his judgement. Many will-o'-the-wisps had even taken it upon themselves to guide Papyrus back to safe trails, whenever he’d gotten distracted by something or someone, and lost his way. I was truly delighted by how easily and quickly my boyfriend had managed to befriend my friends and neighbours. All the more reason to befriend his friends in turn! And as a human this time.

I’d finally managed to get all of the major chores done, and was discussing with my household brownie if there were any minor tasks that needed doing. The shy, little, brown elf was usually the one taking care of most of the housework, which I was always very grateful for, but this was too big and too important a job for him alone. Nevertheless, his help was invaluable to me, and he knew my cottage even better than I did, so I was seeking his opinion on what else I could do to make the place look more inviting. Suddenly, I heard a furious voice booming in the distance.

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT SANS, WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SAY?!?!?!”

I’d recognise that obnoxiously loud voice anywhere! Papyrus! I gasped to myself, as I reached over to help the brownie back onto his feet, after he’d startled so badly from the noise that he’d fallen over. With a quick promise from the tiny elf to keep an eye on my house while I was gone, I ran to the front door, grabbing my broomstick on my way out. Once outside, I hopped onto my broom, kicked off the ground and was up in the air in the blink of an eye, shooting off in the direction of my boyfriend’s irate shouting.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I fretted over what could have happened to Papyrus, my mind racing as it came up with increasingly horrifying possibilities. The forest, while generally peaceful, was nonetheless full of mysterious and sometimes malevolent entities, ever eager to play nasty tricks on unsuspecting travellers. I prayed that my boyfriend and his brother hadn’t run afoul of one of the more malicious creatures living in these dark woods...

The further I flew, the louder the yelling became, until I could hear both Papyrus and Sans’s voices clearly.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!!”

“but pap-”

“NO!!! DON’T HURT MY DATEMATE’S PLANT FRIEND!! YOU MIGHT MAKE HER HATE YOU!! AND THEN YOU TWO WILL NEVER BE FRIENDS!! WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE!! SANS!! WE MUST NOT FUCK UP THIS VERY IMPORTANT HANG-OUT, NO MATTER WHAT!!”

Papyrus sounded both panicked and determined, whereas Sans sounded more annoyed than anything, as he responded to his brother.

“then what exactly do you suggest we-”

I finally reached the two skeleton monsters, only to find them both dangling several feet in the air, ensnared in the vines of a gigantic plant, the main body of which was a massive, flower-like creature, whose metres-wide, fuchsia petals formed a humongous mouth, lined with several rows of razor-sharp fangs. Harsh, guttural growls reverberated through the air, seeming to be coming from the main flower. I noticed that a large, draconic skull was also caught in the vines, and instantly recognised it as a Gaster Blaster, although it was wider and thicker than the ones Papyrus would occasionally summon during his training.

Sans had cut himself off when I flew into view, and both brothers were openly staring at me, their eye sockets wide and pitch black, as I took in the scene before me with no small amount of alarm. Sans was the first to recover from his shock, as he waved at me casually, lazy grin fixed on his skull, with only the tightness of his expression betraying how uneasy he actually was.

“oh, hey. ‘sup, kid, howzit hanging ?”

I blinked at him, at a loss for words. Papyrus, however, was not, as he turned an angry glare on his brother.

“SANS!! NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR YOUR AWFUL PUNS!!”

He was struggling furiously within the vines holding him, almost upside down in the air, as more vines rose up to further constrict him. Sans tried very hard to appear unbothered by the situation, as he shrugged carelessly.

“you’re totally right, bro.” He then shot me a wink. “sorry pal, but we can’t chat right now, we’re a little tied up at the moment.”

“SAAAAANS!!!”

As Papyrus practically exploded at his brother’s joking, I hurriedly flew towards the two of them, gripping my broom tightly in my concern.

“Oh shit, are you guys all right?!”

In hindsight, that was probably a stupid question, but this was a ridiculous situation I was in. This was not at all how I envisioned today going, I silently despaired. Papyrus gave a nervous laugh, trying vainly to appear cool and collected, despite his current predicament.

“DON’T WORRY, MY BELOVED DATEMATE! WE’RE PERFECTLY ALL RIGHT! WE WERE JUST HANGING OUT WITH YOUR LOVELY FLOWER FRIEND AND DEFINITELY NOT ATTACKING IT!!”

Sans chuckled, looking more pleased at his brother’s pun than he did his own, but I ignored the both of them to make my way down to the main blossom. Landing on the forest floor, I swiftly got off of my broom, and used it to deliver a firm whack to the flower, scolding it with my best cross look.

“You let my friends down this instant, you ill-mannered lout!”

The plant snarled at me, the sound deep, harsh and menacing, but I just pointed the business end of my broom threateningly at it.

“Don’t you sass me, plant bitch! Unhand my boyfriend and his brother, right now , or I’m getting out the weed killer! And you better be gentle! Or else .”

The flower audibly grumbled at me, before reluctantly lowering the two skeleton monsters to the ground, and released them from its vines. The giant blossom, along with all of its leafy, tentacle-like vines, then retreated into the bushes, slinking away and disappearing in the undergrowth.

I heaved a deep sigh, sagging in relief, before running over to the brothers as they staggered to their feet, checking them both over carefully, and making sure that they were unharmed. Neither of them seemed the worse for wear after their ordeal, thankfully, just a little shaken and covered in leaves. The chunky Gaster Blaster shook itself vigorously as it hovered in the air, looking remarkably like a dog shaking water from its fur, before it vanished, returning to wherever Blasters go when they aren’t being summoned (I assumed, at least, since I’d never actually asked Papyrus the specifics of his skeletal weapons).

As I looked the brothers over, I couldn’t help but notice that Papyrus was wearing the “Cool Dude” shirt he often wore on our dates (he said it was part of his “secret style”, but I’d seen it so often I didn’t know what was so secret about it), as well as a pair of trousers I’d never seen before, with what looked like a Halloween themed design. I wondered if the pointy witch hats, black cats, bats, and pumpkins reminded him of me. A large part of me hoped so. Or maybe he thought I would appreciate them (I did, if that was the case, very much so).

Sans, on the other hand, was wearing his usual outfit, except with the addition of a bow tie, distinctly shaped like a bone. I could practically hear the “bone tie” pun from him, and resolved to not mention it in Papyrus’s presence. Best not to give the local forest spirits the wrong idea about these two.

Once Papyrus had regained his footing, brushing off all of the leaves clinging to his clothes, he reached out towards me with arms wide open and quite literally swept me off my feet, as he hugged me tightly to his chest, and spun the both of us around in a circle.

“WOWIE!! YOU WERE SO COOL! SAVING US FROM YOUR PLANT PAL WITHOUT ANYONE GETTING HURT! SO COOL! SO HEROIC! NYEH HEH HEH!!”

He set me back on the ground, but kept his arms loosely wrapped around me, which I was grateful for, since my impromptu mid-air twirl had left me a little dizzy. He was beaming down at me and I returned his bright smile, feeling my heart flutter in my chest at being so close to the one I loved. I felt a warmth close to my heart, which I recognised as my soul, as it too rejoiced at being so near to Papyrus and his own soul.

“I’m just glad you guys are all right,” I sighed softly, wrapping my own arms around Papyrus, returning his hug. My boyfriend squeezed me tighter in response, drawing me closer to him, and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on my lips. Just then, the sound of a camera shutter going off caused me to jolt apart from Papyrus and whip my head towards the noise. I saw Sans holding his phone up and pointing the lens towards us. He smiled apologetically at us, lowering his phone.

“heh heh, oops, sorry. shoulda silenced my phone,” he then gave us a cheeky wink. “you kids were just so cute, i couldn’t help snappin’ a quick pic. wanna hold tight to the good memories, after all.”

I could feel my cheeks heat up at his words, but I couldn’t argue with his reasoning. And neither could Papyrus, it seemed, as he swiftly made his way to his brother’s side and snatched the latter’s phone right out of his hands, to admire the photo Sans had taken of us. The taller skeleton’s face lit up, tiny specks of light glittering within the depths of his eye sockets, and he started tapping away on Sans’s phone.

“WOWIE! THAT’S SUCH A GREAT PHOTO! WE SURE ARE CUTE, NYEH HEH HEH!! I’M SENDING THIS TO MY PHONE RIGHT NOW! I WANT TO HOLD TIGHT TO THIS GOOD MEMORY AS WELL!!”

I tried to cover my blushing cheeks, but couldn’t contain my smile. Papyrus gushing over photos of the two of us always made me feel giddy, and my soul warmed at how obviously my boyfriend treasured our relationship, new as it still was. I reached up a hand to yank my tall witch’s hat off of my head, and used it to fan my face, hoping to cool down my blush. The tiny, fluffy owl chick which had been peacefully snoozing underneath my hat, stirred slightly at the disturbance, but Papyrus quickly ran a phalange gently over its downy head and along its soft, puffy body, soothing the baby bird back to sleep.

Papyrus had been utterly enthralled to learn that I often kept baby birds, entrusted to me by their parents, underneath my hat, and when this latest owl chick had hatched, he’d immediately started fussing over the little fella, and caring for him like a parent would, even going so far as to keep bird feed on hand at all times. He’d even named the owlet “Voltaire”, proudly boasting about how fitting a name it was. I certainly hoped so, since Voltaire was a very intelligent writer and philosopher. Sans, meanwhile, had greatly appreciated the double pun.

Ordinarily, once the chicks were old enough, they’d fly the nest, so to speak, but Papyrus had grown so attached to this baby owl, and it to him, that I was considering keeping the little guy as my second familiar. My mother had two familiars herself, her cat Artemis, and her owl Hermes, however I’d never felt like my magic was stable enough to support two familiar bonds. Besides, Midnight had always been more than enough for me, and I didn’t want to risk him not liking another companion.

But with my blossoming relationship with Papyrus, and my growing friendship with his friends and family, I felt more confident in myself than ever before. Papyrus had been steadfast in his support of me and my efforts to improve my magical abilities, and had even declared himself my biggest fan. With him by my side, cheering me on every step of the way, I felt like I could accomplish anything. Once Voltaire was old enough, I would perform the bonding ritual, and he and I would be together for the rest of our lives. Hopefully so would Papyrus , my heart wished.

After I’d returned my hat back to its place on my head, and Papyrus had handed Sans’s phone back to him, my boyfriend gave me a deep bow, grabbing his brother’s skull to shove it down as well. I blinked at them in confusion, as Papyrus offered me his apologies.

“MY DARLING DATEMATE, SANS AND I ARE SO SORRY FOR UPSETTING YOUR FLOWER FRIEND! AREN’T WE, SANS?”

Beside him, Sans mumbled a “yep, sure are” and Papyrus let him up, the both of them straightening up from their bow. I hastily shook my head, waving away their unnecessary apology.

“No, no, it’s fine, really! That flower has always been a bit of a grumpy git. Besides, it’s kinda my fault it’s like that anyway.” I sighed, recalling the incident which had led to the plant’s foul temperament and abnormally large size. “You see, it’s a very rare species of flower, whose seeds have many, fascinating uses in alchemy. So, I thought that if I poured some growth potion on it, it’d have bigger seeds, and therefore more material for me to work with. Clever, right?”

Papyrus nodded his skull in agreement, assuring me I was “VERY CLEVER!” and I smiled gratefully at him, before my face fell as I continued.

“Unfortunately, I failed to brew the potion correctly, and while the flower did indeed grow to a gigantic size, as intended, it somehow also gained some level of sentience as well. I still don’t know where I messed up in the brewing process to have caused such an effect...” I bit my lip, frowning thoughtfully to myself, before I shook my head, dismissing the question for another time. “But anyway, I thought I’d managed to tame the nasty beast, for the most part, and it hasn’t attacked anyone in a long while. I don’t know why it chose to attack you two now, but I’m really sorry about that.”

I wrung my hands anxiously, feeling guilty that my past actions had put my dear friends in danger, but Papyrus strode forward and took my hands into his own. He wasn’t wearing his gloves for once, and I enjoyed the feeling of cool, smooth bone against my skin, as he gave my hands a firm squeeze. He smiled down at me reassuringly.

“DON’T BE! IT WAS ALL SANS’S FAULT!” The monster in question huffed a laugh at how easily his brother had thrown him under the proverbial bus. Papyrus leaned his skull down to press his forehead to mine, as he gazed directly into my eyes. “MY FOOLISH BROTHER IGNORED MY INSTRUCTIONS TO NOT BOTHER THE FOREST’S RESIDENTS, AND PICKED ONE OF YOUR FRIEND’S SMALLER FLOWERS. SO YOU SEE, SANS IS ENTIRELY TO BLAME! MY LITTLE LADY HAS NOTHING TO BE SORRY FOR!”

My guilt wasn’t completely assuaged, but I did feel a lot better at his words. I was just glad that he wasn’t upset with me for creating such a menace and allowing it to run loose in the forest. Still, I couldn’t really fault the flower for getting mad at the brothers, if one of its blooms was harvested without its consent. I twisted my head towards Sans, and he hunched his shoulders a little, looking sheepish as he held up the flower which had instigated this whole mess.

“eh heh heh... sorry about that, pal. i didn’t know the rest of the plant would take offence to my takin’ just one, tiny bud,” he glanced down at it, eyelights fuzzing slightly around the edges. “i thought frisk would like it. she loves pretty flowers.”

I thought back to Frisk’s stunning, flower-filled garden, with its myriad of blossoms covering the majority of the area, a veritable kaleidoscope of vibrant colours everywhere you looked. She did indeed love pretty flowers. And the one Sans was holding would fit right in with the rest in Frisk’s garden, with its bright, pink petals. I nodded my head, conceding Sans’s point.

“True, she’ll probably like it,” Sans’s smile widened at my agreement. “Just let her know that while it is edible, it has a rather bitter flavour. Nothing overpowering, but still something to be aware of.”

Sans looked at me a little oddly, for some reason, before shrugging and giving me a wink.

“sure, i’ll tell her that. heh, thanks for the advice, kid.”

I beamed at him, glad to be of help. “No problem!”

Papyrus then clapped his hands, as if he’d just thought of something.

“SPEAKING OF PRESENTS!” He reached into his inventory and took out a bone, with a big, red bow wrapped around it. He held the bone out to me with a huge grin. “THIS IS A GIFT SANS BROUGHT FOR YOU, ON HIS OWN!”

Sans looked to be holding back a snigger, which I found puzzling, but I chose not to question his strange behaviour, as I happily accepted the kind gift.

“Thanks, Sans! How thoughtful of you! I love bones.”

Papyrus’s in particular, but I kept that to myself; Sans didn’t need to know that. The shorter skeleton monster seemed to be trying to hold back another laugh, as he struggled to get out a “no problem at all , buddy”. Huh. He really was an odd fellow, but I was glad to have such interesting friends. I made a mental note to find a present of my own to give to Sans, one that would match the level of care that must have gone into this one.

Clutching my lovely gift firmly in one hand, I bent down to retrieve my fallen broomstick with the other, and suggested that the three of us make our way to my cottage, before we attracted any more unwanted attention. As it was, a group of tree nymphs were already giggling to each other, and would most certainly be gossiping about this encounter for the next few days. I could also spot several curious fairies spying on us from behind tree leaves and bushes, and who knew what else was watching us, hiding from view. I sighed in exasperation. Didn’t these creatures have anything better to do?

Papyrus readily agreed with my suggestion, even volunteering to carry my broom for me, so that he could free up one of my hands to hold it in his. I eagerly accepted, of course, and the three of us marched off in the direction of my home, myself and my boyfriend walking hand in hand the entire way.

Despite the little hiccup with the giant, angry flower, the rest of the day passed by smoothly, and I felt that by the end of it, Sans and I had grown even closer as friends, which delighted me to no end. My friendship power would soon be unmatched! And Papyrus was even more thrilled by this than I was, if his not-so-quiet comments to himself and to Sans were anything to go by. The big guy wasn’t very subtle about his desire for his loved ones to get along well, but that just proved that he had a big heart (metaphorically speaking)!

As an added bonus, I’d learnt that the hobgoblin did, in fact, enjoy knock knock jokes, and a great deal too. Papyrus, however, did not . All in all, today had been a fun and interesting day indeed, and I looked forward to my next hang-out with the skeleton brothers (even if I did prefer my private dates with Papyrus just a bit more).

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This was fun to write. I normally avoid swearing in my fics, just because it feels a little too crass (even though I cuss a bunch in real life, amongst my close friends and family), but just for this special occasion, I'm letting Papyrus swear. It feels a little weird, honestly 'w'

Anyway, to my regular readers, I've got something planned for this coming Sunday, because it's Father's Day where I am. I wrote something for Mother's Day, so I couldn't miss out on Father's Day ^^ It won't be similar to my other fic, though, but I hope people like it all the same.

(Psst! To those who are confused about the double pun in "Voltaire"... "vol" is French for "flight", which along with "air" seemed fitting for a bird. I thought it was fairly obvious, but I'm half French and a friend pointed out that it really wasn't, so here's the explanation for those who want it.)

#JMB writes #papyrus x reader #papyrus #reader is a witch #sans #papyrus my beloved #the perils of going to visit your gf when she's a witch living in an enchanted forest #letpapyrussayfuck #bringbackthecooldude #swearing

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mywavesyourshore · 1 year

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House in the Cerulean Sea

Personally, I'm not fond of fantasy novels, keeping tabs on the intricate web of magical creatures and complex universes can get challenging (I had to look up fan-art for this book more than once, thankfully the art has been amazing). Yet The House in the Cerulean Sea is not your typical fictional conquest of mythical beasts, or a dark twisted journey to a bewitching forest, rather a wonderful and lighthearted story on prejudices, and a reminder to us all, that there's more to life on earth than the naked eye.

"The House in the Cerulean Sea" follows Linus Baker, a quiet and reserved caseworker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). Linus' life takes an unexpected turn when he is tasked with investigating a group of orphans with magical powers, residing at the mysterious Marsyas Island. Along the way, he learns about the true meaning of family, friendship, and finding happiness in unexpected places.

One of the things that set this book apart is its ability to seamlessly blend the fantastical with the mundane, creating a world that feels both familiar and magical at the same time.

The characters are the true stars of the show, each one unique and lovable in their own way. From the gentle and kind Arthur Parnassus, the caretaker of the orphanage, to the mischievous and adorable children who call it home. The most enjoyable parts of the book is the children bantering and rambunctious daily activities.

While the story may seem light-hearted at first glance, it also has a powerful message about the importance of embracing diversity and fighting against discrimination. The story's overall set up and the juxtaposition of the character's lives creates wonderful friction for such conversation. Arthur and his children on a whimsical island, Linus in a grim corporate desk-job, between the ever-raining city and the sun-filled island . Arthur and Linus both have their reasons to stay within their respective world, is something I relate to. As a (practicing) adult, I know what regulations are made for, but color it with obsession and rules become limitation, cover our eyes from the wonderful thing humans can make. That's why most of us will slip right into misconceptions and stereotypes in order to avoid the discomfort of confronting our own ignorance. We blind ourselves, just because we can't handle how much of our kind we haven't understand. The House in the Cerulean Sea raises a tough but important question about our tendency to categorize people (and worse, segregated them) just to make it easier to understand the world.

What made this whole adventure less fulfilling, is the heavy handed approach and repetitious preaching. The moral lessons that TJ Klune tried to get through aren ill-intention by any means, but being too one-the-nose can feel forceful (especially when I already got the point made halfway through the book). With a bit more restraint and smarter exposition, this book could have been an absolute modern day classic.

Delightfully goofy at times, charming and kindhearted at others, The House in the Cerulean Sea is a beautiful little gem, a whimsical adventure with family at its heart. TJ Klune managed to tell an enchanting tale of love and acceptance touching on important issues, all the while bringing joy and laughter. I'm glad, for once, fantasy novels can just be about confronting our fears and not slaying the head off a dragon.

Final Rating: B+

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(Spoilers ahead)

What I like The chemistry between Arthur and Linus (goals tbh), their arguments give off old-married couple vibes.

My favorite characters Chauncey, an amorphous blob who aspires to be a bellhop. Chauncey's simple dream remind an overachiever like me that sometimes its best to not overthink your goals in life.

What put me off towards the end the writing was a little bit over-sentimental, and felt like the narration was rushing to get to a conclusion.

It would be better if the book had discussed more on both of Arthur and Linus's past and backstories, I'm curious to know more on why they have come to nourish a love for protecting children. Also, while the children are fun, the book didn't spend time on the world-building. A sequel could benefit this, should we get to know more about the magical creatures and the world they inhabit

Would I read it again? Yes, people described it as a warm hug. And as every hugs in the world go, you always need it most during

This is perfect for times when you need something warmth and uplifting, not recommended for people who don't believe in magic (seriously what's wrong with you)

#book

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mitsuyaya · 2 years

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[ te quiero, te adoro ] shinichiro sano

☆༉ summary: Shinichiro knows he loves you the moment he laid his eyes on you but the thing is you only adore him.

☆༉ contains: 400+ words. angst, one-sided/unrequited love (?), gender neutral reader

☆༉ end note: I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO THIS SONG SINCE YESTERDAY <3 Do try it out, you won't regret it.

tokyo revengers masterlist

Love is too perplexing.

Complicated, confusing, conflicting in a way that it can mean anything and everything. Love is always the root of misconception, the root of misunderstanding. Maybe that's why Shinichiro always found himself broken because of the word love.

Some said he's a real loser, getting rejected 20 times, being a crybaby, a weakling–it's in his title, it's already written on his forehead in bold letters. The cruel outcome of falling in love, of loving someone, the never ending result of giving his heart to another.

“I just want to be with you but it seems you don't want to.”

While some might say it's difficult to love, it's difficult to give love – to him it's a breeze, something that came out naturally. Loving someone came as easy as if it was his second nature, perhaps that's the reason why he fell in love with you a little too easily.

Your disposition in love and life, your strength, the way you smiled at him like he's the only man in the world, the way you welcomed him into your life. It had him drowning with thoughts of you in his future, swarming with the fantasies of you in his arms, by his side, in his life. It's a breathtaking sculpture crafted by him and you're his muse. His prime reason for loving.

“I never said anything like that Chiro” the words came out lackluster, no emotions, no feelings, it's unbearable.

The pain residing from those words alone is too much, too severe. He knew, he knew that you'd say that, that it would sting. And it hurts more than he thought it would, even if he expected that you'd say those words exactly.

‘You didn't but I felt it’ he wanted to say those words, to tell you how much it hurts, to make you feel guilty – but he can't, he won't.

“What's up with you?” many, there's too many things going inside his head; the reality that you don't love him, the truth that your feelings weren't the same as his, the damned reason why you kept saying those words he hated–there's too many words he wanted to say, and yet you have no idea.

“Haha, forget that I was supposed to use a pickup line but I forgot how it goes” he smiled at you, hiding the hurt in his eyes, masking this dreadful feeling.

“I thought something was up. You're so cheesy as always Chiro” then you're back again, from that same person he fell in love with.

Smile so captivating, laugh so endearing, there's no way he could not fall for you – and that really hurts, it's unfair.

There was never a time when he wasn't there for you, never a place that he's not present. Never.

Shinichiro was always there, always cared for you, loved you in a way that he didn't ask for anything other than staying by your side.

Through thick and thin, rain or shine; with you he felt liberated, the ecstasy of finally breathing fresh air – he felt that with you, when you're with him.

Experiencing something as enchanting as love, to be cared for, to be held, to be kissed, to be adored–but that's the problem.

“Can you tell me that word again” he knows what you'd say next, he braced himself for that. Because no matter how many times he'd ask for it, your answer will never change, it'll always remain the same.

“I adore you” what you said was nothing as close to what his feelings were. Those words aren't equal or greater than what his immeasurable affection for you is worth.

It pains him that he knew it all along, how he continued loving you despite knowing that it's one-sided. And all that you really want from him isn't love—only adoration.

And that adoration will never suffice the ache he had in his heart whenever he hears them. “I adore you too”

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 3 years

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you+me+the Devil, m | myg, jjk | summon

pairing(s): yoongi x reader x jungkook

summary: The Devil and his right-hand demon are forcibly yanked from Hell to encounter a power they've never seen before, a power that everyone thought was only a rumor. In chains and unable to break free, they are asked to give up part of their souls. And they do. For science. But, mostly, to fuck.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language - if you're religious, maybe skip this one; world building; short graphic descriptions of sexual acts; supernatural and horror (and it gets way creepier during the smut, you have been warned); non-idol!AU - Hell!AU; Devil!Yoongi x chaos!reader x Devil's right-hand demon!Jungkook and switches between their POVs; they don't have your best interests at heart and neither do you.

you and me and the Devil makes 3 prologue | the summoning | the collection | 666

there’s not a word for what i wanna do to you

One second, the Devil, also known as Min Yoongi, was frowning as he gazed up at his right-hand demon Jeon Jungkook, pondering the whereabouts of the missing soul-shards. The next second, the volcanic ground below him exploded, multiple giant red-black rings adorned with symbols and images creating a circle, expanding a larger and larger surface area, crackles of red lighting and tendrils of black smoke shooting everywhere. It consumed everything, bleeding into every nook and cranny of the throne room, saturating the air with summoning intent. It was happening far too quickly for the Devil to stop, the ground splitting and black chains shooting out, surrounded by a deadly ice-silver signature of the kind of magic you don’t bring home to your mother.

“Fuck–!”

That was Jungkook.

“Ah.”

That was the Devil.

The black chains snapped around their bodies and bound them in an instant. Jungkook snarled and fought with all of his power, black wings flaring out that were instantly crushed and shredded by the enchantment, his curved black horns protruding from his head and being forced back by the power. In contrast, the Devil merely sat there. Yoongi knew he couldn’t stop it, not this kind of magic, if it could even be called that, so he didn’t try. He let the chains wrap around him and shackle him. Instead, he furrowed his brow and tried to trace the source, tried to find the purpose. In order to defeat an enemy, you must be informed. Yoongi lived by this philosophy, which was why he was the Devil.

He could not trace it.

That was very disheartening.

But he didn’t need to worry earlier, because the red-black summoning circle was closing in, and he would find out very, very soon who it was. He had nothing to worry about.

Yoongi was the Devil, after all.

You inspected your nails.

Matte black, pointed. You had just done them. You liked to look nice for your guests.

“Hm, the Devil works hard, but I work harder,” you chuckled.

This was not what the Devil expected.

Yoongi expected a dark cave, a crowd of hooded figures, lots of candles. Maybe a Bible or a Koran. Devil worshippers, Satanists, cultists, or whatever they liked to call themselves. He fully expected to fight, to kill, to maim, and to fucking enjoy it, because he was the Devil and he served no one.

That was the whole fucking point of leaving Heaven in the first place.

He did not expect this.

You.

“Oh? A new development.”

Yoongi had seen many things in his time. He thought he could no longer be surprised.

He was wrong.

You stood over the two figures chained to the ground, peering curiously at them. A plain black dress with a flared skirt and a lace high collar. Long-sleeved with small ruffled cuffs at the end. No socks or shoes, just long, beautifully sinful legs and pretty feet. Pointed, matte black fingernails at the ends of lovely hands. A single nail was on one of your full dark lips, small amused smile dancing on that pouty mouth.

Your nail pressed into your flesh.

Yoongi wanted to shove his dick into that mocking smirk.

Sharp, distinctive eyes. Unforgettable. Yoongi would not forget the eyes of the fool who summoned him anyway, but your eyes… They were different. They held no malice. No innocence either. No, your eyes were the greatest mystery of all.

They were an enigma, revealing nothing to the one who could tell everything.

Yoongi did not like this. He did not like how him, an all-powerful being, one who could poison the minds of all other beings, was being confronted with a human who seemed very not human.

You were holding something on the crook of your arm. He narrowed his eyes. A black plush goat-man with horns and an upside-down red pentagram stitched on his head. It had little leather hooves for feet and hands. Black leathery wings as well. Another common misconception of the Devil. As if he wanted to be an ugly goat for all eternity. Hmph. But there was something about the way you held it that made Yoongi think it wasn’t an homage to him.

No, you held it close to your breast, next to your heart, squeezing the plush goat-man’s little arm lovingly.

It made him ache with longing.

They were in a bedroom, on the floor next to the bed. Black sheets, fluffy blankets with white stars all over them. Black walls with posters all over them, cute animated characters, haunting imagery, various musical artists, sinful and innocent, a vast plethora that told him nothing of true intent. Modern, sleek furniture. A high-end desktop with multiple monitors. A nice flat-screen television. Many soft plushies of adorable and strange characters, stacked on shelves and in corners, both popular and niche.

Who was this person?

With every passing second, Yoongi was liking this situation less and less.

Jungkook was beside him, disheveled and disoriented, chained down with black. The demon sat up, growling in his chest, trying to exert his power.

“Who do you think–”

“Ah, little Satan, they shouldn’t talk until I allow them, isn’t that right?”

The Devil was not a fool. You were not talking to him. You were talking to the little goat-man in your arms. Yoongi heard a choking sound and he turned his head to see a very large black ball gag ramming itself in between Jungkook’s teeth, snapping closed with a black chain strap behind his pretty head. Jungkook looked livid, trying to bite through it, but Yoongi doubted he could break it.

You smiled at him.

Yes, indeed, Yoongi was liking this situation less and less.

In some ways.

Seeing Jungkook in a ball gag was a pleasant image.

“I didn’t expect it to turn out this way. I was aiming for him first,” you said to Yoongi, lowering the little goat-man and holding him by a hoof. Yoongi wasn’t sure if he wanted to rip apart the plush or be it. He decided that wasn’t important right now.

“Ah, well, this might be better,” you mused nonchalantly. Jungkook was still fighting his restraints, but neither you nor Yoongi acknowledged it. You crouched down, a delicate flash of inner thigh and black velvet panty in his view. Yoongi narrowed his eyes. You cocked a brow, smirk widening. “Two birds with one stone, no?”

You set the little goat-man in front of him.

Sat down, spreading your legs to squeeze the little goat-man with your inner thighs.

There was no question now.

Yoongi wanted to both be the plush goat-man and rip him to shreds.

“I’ll let you speak to me, Devil. You seem polite.” Conversational, calm. Not condescending, which somehow made it worse. At least if you spoke to him with hostility, he would know how to turn it against you.

“You have magic that doesn’t belong to you, human,” he said softly, a raspy renounce in his voice. He festered it with sweetness and warning at the same time, accenting it with a discerning stare.

You grinned.

Even he, the Devil, was unsettled.

“Nothing belongs to anybody. You only borrow it for a short while and then the powers far beyond even you take it back.”

Yoongi felt his heart drop and race at the same time. As he suspected. This was not the work of his father or some a wayward demon. Magic, power, illusionism, these were all words to describe things that could not be described. Entropy holds no bounds and there is no meaning behind it. It exists only to cause anarchy. For some reason, perhaps simply chaos alone, you, a human, was in possession of something even he could not control or understand.

Shit.

He stared into your eyes and they reflected his expression back to him. He tried to search for it, the desires within the heart, the small tendrils of pain that asked to be soothed, the soul begging to be freed. An ordinary demon could be fended off by a strong-willed human for a while, but Min Yoongi was no ordinary demon.

He was the Devil, even if he was bound by your chains.

You tilted your head at him, hair curling around your cheeks and lashes.

Yoongi could take even the weakest flame of desire and stroke it into a blazing fire. Even the holiest of saints could not fight him. Everyone wanted something, even if it was, disgustingly, in the name of his father. And humans, well, they were the masters of wanting things they couldn't have. Easily manipulated, even by each other. The Devil hardly needed to do anything at all. It was only a matter of whether or not Yoongi cared to do it and, most of the time, he didn't give a single shit.

You tilted your head the other way, smiling.

Yoongi did not find a maze or a barrier preventing him from the soul. He found the soul within seconds. It was there, all right.

The Devil just didn't know what the fuck he was looking at.

Why was your soul just you sitting there in the abyss, looking up at him with the same smile you were giving him right now?

And why did he feel nothing emitting from it?

He pulled back, looking into your eyes again. He did not like this.

You leaned forward and touched his horns.

His eyes widened as your fingertips brushed against the large curved black-red horns against the sides of his head. He hasn't even realized they had protruded. How? His horns were a sign of his power, a symbol he used for fear, for appearance, and for the moments of when he was exercising a great deal of his influence. Your fingertips brushed against the second set, the ones that bloomed upwards into wicked black-red spikes. Both sets? His soul-search had him reflexively procure both?

Shit.

He started into your eyes, seeing himself reflected back. Min Yoongi was the Devil. Emotion was no stranger to him. He harnessed it all, consumed himself in the passions and wonders of emotion. There were ones he felt less, simply because of who he was. For instance, there was not much that made him afraid.

You smiled.

Fear. He could feel it rise within him.

Yoongi grinned back.

Was this what he thought it was? He had heard of such things, rumors and whispers, even amongst the angels themselves. The hidden truth that Heaven and Hell belonged in a specific dimension or realm, Order. That there was another realm, the mirror, the reflection trapped, the unknown.

Disorder.

His kind, the high-above, and those between angels and insects, the humans, none of these belonged in the realm of Disorder. There were rumors that Order was merely a concoction of Disorder and that their realm could collapse any moment, erasing all of existence without a trace. Entropy was waiting for them all.

Yoongi understood now.

This was chaos.

The Devil was a master of desire. And a master of deliberately doing exactly what he shouldn't. He should not be tempted by a glimpse of chaos. His father would warn him to stay away from it.

His father could fuck right off.

Yoongi leaned forward, still bound, his horns disappearing. The chains clanged around him, his power rattling underneath. He wasn't doing it to fight them. He wanted to feel it. To understand what could not be understood, to touch the untouchable, because it was there, there right in front of him and he wanted it, he wanted it, and the Devil feeds off desire, even his own.

He wanted those lips.

You backed up.

The denial only made his desire stronger.

You left the plush goat-man sitting there right in front of him.

Jungkook was pissed.

Absolutely furious, jaw and head aching from this ridiculously large ball gag, fuming that he had no idea what was going on and that a single human was doing this bullshit. There was no way you were working alone. There had to be other beings behind this. He couldn't figure it out right now, but he would and he would tear them apart, right after he fucked your pathetic human body and tore you apart.

You must be a fool, thinking you could shackle him, Jeon Jungkook, the right hand of the Devil himself, the epitome of pure sin and free will.

He continued fighting the magic, trying to exert his strength, rattling the black chains, ice-silver lashes beating him back down. He tried to release his wings, but they were ensnared, pain shooting up his back. Jungkook cared not for pain. He had felt pain for millions of years. A few seconds was nothing. He tried to release his horns, but he could not, as if the very air neutralized him.

He was enraged.

Maybe would simply kill you so he could spend an eternity torturing you for your insolence.

Then the Devil's horns appeared.

How did he–?

Then you touched the Devil.

Jungkook wanted to scream.

He did, deep in his chest, muffled rage, jealousy, hate, all at once, and both of you ignored him, your fingers grazing Yoongi's horns, fucking smiling, looking unflinchingly into the Devil's eyes, and Jungkook wanted to erase you from existence, destroy every single shred of your soul for not groveling at the feet of Min Yoongi.

The horns disappeared and your hands hovered around Yoongi's head, fingers splayed out around the black hair like a shining halo.

Ironic.

The Devil leaned forward.

Don't you fucking kiss her, hyung!

But you moved away, backing up, gaze lingering on Yoongi before closing your eyes and reopening them slowly, a gradual shift to Jungkook's face.

He snarled at you through the gag.

He had you now. Eye contact and Jungkook could exert at least part of his power, the soul-search to find your deepest desires, your hidden gems, the calamity within that would call to him. He would find it and manipulate it, bend you to his will, turn you into his puppet. Play with you until you begged to die, only to find yourself in his arms once more, his plaything for all eternity.

All he had to do was find it.

You slid to your hands and knees, crawling to him. He felt it inside his chest, his own desire, watching the curve of your back to ass, his cock twitching at the sight, his mind conjuring images of your pretty body on a leash. Jungkook didn't have preferences when it came to bodies. A body was a body. In his hands, all bodies became prettier. You already had the base and he already had the wrath to want it. You stopped in front of him, the black skirt of your dress flaring out. He could see parts of your bare body.

Legs, knuckles, knees.

A small, amused smile on your lips.

Eyes that Jungkook searched valiantly, looking for malice, for innocence, for desire, for the darkest shadows and the lightest light.

Why couldn't he see anything?

This must be part of your magic. No matter. Jungkook had other ways. He was creative and cunning. You would break under his hand. He wouldn't stop until it was done. He was a demon that saw things through, even to his detriment.

His jaw was suddenly released from its prison, ball gag disappearing, fading into ice-silver smoke. He coughed, snapping his teeth, glaring at you.

"You dumb bitch," he hissed, violent resonance in his voice, oppressive and intense. "Do you think you humans are above us with your tricks and schemes? Kneel before those who invented such things."

You tilted your head.

Yoongi chuckled beside him.

Jungkook's brows furrowed. What–?

Your body trickled down like liquid, laying against the dark wood floor, looking up at him. Jungkook froze, maddening desire rising, infuriated at your face looking up at him, plush dark lips parted, hands on your chest, fingers spread out and molded to your flesh under the plain black dress. Sinking in, making him clench his jaw.

Your smile like a Cheshire Cat, eyes reflecting his rage.

Jungkook wanted to straddle your face and shove his cock into that smirking mouth, bulge your throat and cheeks with his girth.

"Is he always like this?" you asked, still not looking away.

"He pretends to be nice when he wants something out of you," the Devil answered calmly.

"Isn't that you?"

You still didn't look away from Jungkook. Why couldn't he find what he needed from your eyes?

"I'm always nice."

"That means you always want something out of someone."

Yoongi laughed, raspy and deep, the sound echoing in the bedroom, filling it up with his sound. Why couldn't Jungkook find it? His rage began to become infested with something else. Your eyes reflected only him.

Like a mirror.

No matter. The demons had other ways.

"Come here," Jungkook purred.

"I wouldn't do that."

That wasn't you. That was the Devil.

Your body lifted as if it was on a string from the center of your chest, fingers and black fingernails trailing against the dark hardwood, head tipped back, the line of your neck hidden by the high collar of lace, shielded from his hungry gaze. Legs curling up, skirt pooling around your thighs, his rage molding with carnal need, festering with something else.

Fear.

You rose to your knees, in prayer position in front of him, almost as if you were about to reach out and touch faith. Jungkook furrowed his brow, watching your presence near, wanting it, ready to coax or rip your desires from your lips themselves. It didn't matter if he was bound, it didn't matter if his black suit was torn up and ugly, it didn't matter if he was bleeding from his efforts to escape this magic.

You were still a human.

He was a demon and he would taint you.

Closer, your lids lowering, entranced by his spell. Jungkook smirked. Too easy. Humans were so, so easy. He craned his neck, lips parting, the palpable lust of his breath exhaling. So close to those pretty, dark, fuckable lips.

"You're really falling for it, hm?"

Jungkook paused. His eyes shifted to Yoongi. The Devil had turned his body to watch, clad in a tailored black suit. In contrast, Yoongi's was unmaimed, as he hadn't fought his restraints. The Devil had black hair like him, parted slightly, with shadowy dark brown, cat-like eyes that glinted with something sinister. Pale skin, almost luminescent. Exposed neck, elegantly laid black silk tie, unlike Jungkook, who preferred not to wear one. Lips that demanded you to plead for your life.

A body that made Jungkook want to sin for him.

That was the power of the Devil.

His eyes shifted from Yoongi to you, who had stilled in front of him. Hands beneath you and knuckles pressed to the floor like an obedient pet. What was Yoongi talking about? He had you right where he wanted you. And yet, he hesitated.

Then you spoke.

Delicate and calm, with no resonance. Human.

"I thought demons had free will?" you whispered. "That not even the Devil could control a demon."

Or was it?

Jungkook watched your lips form the words.

"If he is powerful enough, that is."

Yoongi didn't bother warning Jungkook anymore.

The Chaos knew what it was doing.

Clever girl.

Jungkook growled, leaning back a little, letting the passion of emotion course through him, wrath, lust, pride. Fear. All of it. Drawing from it, his power pulsing, singing through his muscles.

"Come here, human."

You had to crawl into his lap, his thighs against your thighs, hardness against softness, bringing your lips to his, sudden and sweet with your legs, knuckles, knees. Jungkook smirked, white teeth and canines flashing, urging you to him.

"What a good little girl,” he breathed softly. “I can be anything you desire. All you need to do is tell me."

Your eyes locked with his.

"A kiss, please."

He groaned at the small plea, finally getting it out of you, finally, and he would make you regret doing this, sow every seed of desire within you and reap it all, turn you into his pet on a leash. All he had to do was kiss you.

Jungkook kissed you.

He pressed his lips to yours, ravenous to consume what you had, eager to claim his offering.

You smiled against his lips, a small, amused smile.

It was instant, his hunger to your plushness, the rush euphoric and wild, immediate lust and power dominating him and now he could taste your tongue and fling open the doors, clawing for the soul within, the moment so close he could taste it, taste your moan sliding into his throat, his favorite treat, intoxicating in the way you sucked in his breath to fill your longs.

Jungkook arrived at the last gate, tearing through the door. Looked down into the abyss, triumphant.

You looked back up at him from below.

A small, amused smile.

A nothingness like he had never felt before.

Jungkook's eyes snapped open and widened, staring into the reflective glass of yours, his chest constricted. He had never felt this. Your lips still on his, tongue flicking, taking his breath, and then he felt a strange kind of compression, like everything was being pressurized, tighter, tighter, suffocating, and he gasped in your mouth, recoiling.

The kiss broke, your eyes still on his, lips shiny with his saliva. Your hand was outstretched, hovering in the air, fingers coated with black tendrils mixed with ice-silver, right above his chest.

Your eyes, void of anything but himself.

“What…” Jungkook breathed, hard cock straining against his slacks. “Are you?”

He didn’t understand. You were only a human. Only a human who had done a very stupid thing, summoning the Devil and his right-hand demon to your bedroom. Just a stupid, foolish human. You tilted your head. Lowered your hand and placed both hands on Jungkook’s thighs. He tensed. You pressed your fingers into his slacks, kneading the firm flesh underneath.

Where was your fear? Your malice? Your innocence?

Where was your desire?

He could only feel his own, rising, rearing its beautiful head, teeth bared and ready to strike as your fingers drummed against the fabric of his pants. You had tried to take something from him in midst of the kiss.

Part of his soul.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?” he hissed, forceful and direct.

You stopped moving your fingers. He wanted to scream in dismay.

“Only a small thing.” Your lips curved into a gentle smile. “A token to remember our fateful meeting.”

Now, only now, did Jungkook not like this.

You removed one hand from his leg and Jungkook clenched his jaw, watching it rise, nearing his heaving chest, the black chains spreading apart, links snapping with ice-silver sparks, but he was still bound, still chained, and he did now know why and not knowing infuriated him. You stopped, right above his heart, the heart he forgot was there sometimes.

The true irony of this world was that angels gave up their hearts to serve the one above and demons kept them to serve themselves.

Jungkook felt it again, the compression of his insides, making his breath hitch and his teeth grind, the sensation unbearable. Your expression remained the same, the small, airless smile. Eyes reflecting his terror.

“I could take it just like this.”

Not a threat, only a statement. Only a testament to the power within you, a power that Jungkook was beginning to think wasn’t something he knew or understood. The Devil could take souls. He could reap them, he could tear them, he could wring them dry. But not like this.

“I will give you a choice,” you murmured, hand retreating, releasing him from the uncomfortable pressure. “Because everyone deserves a choice, don’t they?”

The chains were lessening, slowly slipping off Jungkook’s body.

“I’ll let you give it to me willingly.”

Your hand on his pants caressed the fabric.

“If you have the power to take it,” Jungkook snarled. “Why not take it?”

Your other hand found his other thigh, squeezing lightly, sparks of heat flying through his veins. The chains slid off him, clashing into the hardwood floor and turning to ice-silver liquid that faded to nothing.

“I do not want to take.”

You stopped your touches and Jungkook wanted to scream.

“It will feel better for you if you give.”

He raised on eyebrow. “Considerate of you.”

You smiled wider. He stared into your eyes and only saw himself.

“What do you think, Jeon Jungkook, the Devil’s right-hand man?”

He felt the tendons on his neck tense, expression twisting into anger. You shouldn’t know his name. You were a human. You would only know if he told you directly. Someone else was behind this. Someone who wanted to kill him and the Devil, thereby putting Hell itself in imbalance.

“How do you know my name?” he seethed.

“You told me.”

What?

“When you looked into her eyes, you told her your name,” confirmed a deep, cavernous voice.

Jungkook started, whipping his head to the Devil beside him. No longer chained, simply sitting lazily on the ground, one knee raised to rest an elbow on it. Yoongi raised an eyebrow.

“Getting soft, Jungkookie?” the Devil taunted.

How…? Was he so absorbed in his own lust and deceiving you that he did not realize? He looked back at you. Your eyes lowered to his slacks and then back up to his eyes.

“Pants can always come off.”

Jungkook raised a hand, running it through his black hair, jaw set. “You are too greedy, human. Do you even know what you’re doing?” he sneered.

Your hands jerked down a few centimeters closer to his crotch, making Jungkook hiss. Your tongue slid out, feathering against the plush dark mauve of your lips. His cock throbbed with need, demanding to abuse the mouth presented. You leaned forward, putting more of your weight on him, welcome weight that Jungkook wanted all over him. He was a demon, after all. He was no stranger to carnal desire.

“I do,” you murmured softly. “You and me and the Devil makes three.”

Jungkook sharpened his gaze. “You couldn’t handle that, human.”

You said nothing.

You simply removed your heat and turned to the Devil, where Yoongi held the little goat-man plush by a single hoof, dangling it next to his lap, making your crawl into it to reach the doll. It was almost an innocent gesture, the way you took it and tucked it into your lap before looking up at Yoongi’s face, lips parted slightly, nearly curious, childlike awe decorating your features.

Jungkook growled like a hurt animal.

Your eyes shifted to him, looking at him under lowered lashes. Dismissive, vacant gaze.

“Yes or no, Jeon Jungkook?”

“Yes.”

The thin black string between you and him darkened, searing with ice-silver, a contract made. He didn’t even know the terms. He didn’t care. No human could outsmart him. And you, you must have been human once.

The problem was, Jungkook didn’t know if you were human anymore.

Yoongi watched your eyes return to him. The little black goat-man plush was tucked between your legs, pressed against your core. Slowly but surely, he was understanding. The original vessel was human, now tainted by someone, something, or simply bad luck. It made you something else entirely. You were a creature from the realm of Order polluted by the realm of Disorder. How long could this last? Would you die eventually from it? When you died, what would be left? Was the soul still there? Would he be able to collect it? Contain it? Study it?

Yoongi didn’t know the answers to these questions.

He wanted to know.

“Your turn,” you whispered to his chin, warm breath against his skin. “What is your answer, my Devil?”

Yoongi chuckled. “A shard of soul is all you ask for?” he purred. “What for?”

You tilted your head. “I want to complete my collection.”

The Devil doubted that. He doubted you wanted anything. Something was driving the entropy in a direction, a purpose given to the original human you long ago, and now you did it because it was the only thing left in the shell, a memory of a purpose, the human determination so strong that it could not be killed or erased, even though this body was now only a container for the power within.

The Devil had spent a lot of his time lately doing nothing. Nothing fun, nothing exciting, nothing worthy of his attention. Yoongi already knew everything there was to know about humans. He cared not for those above. But this.

This was new.

This was different.

This was something he wasn’t supposed to know.

He raised his hand, fingers tracing your jaw, staring into the eyes of Chaos. The Entropy. The Vessel.

You.

“I’ll be part of your collection, little one,” Yoongi purred.

And you will be mine, he vowed as the black string between you and the Devil glowed, ice-silver magic contaminating it with the power of Disorder.

part ii the collection. if you get in bed, someone will fall in love

masterpost

#yoongi x reader #jungkook x reader #yoonkook x reader #yoonkook smut #bts smut #yoongi x you #min yoongi x you #min yoongi x reader #jungkook x you #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x you

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malreigns · 3 years

Text

Korekiyo, Gundham, and Nagito with Ultimate Witch! S/O

Korekiyo

He definitely finds it interesting.

Through his anthropology studies, he knows a lot about different crafts

Offers to help with spells

Asks if you can sense the energies of different artifacts

Loves to sit in on rituals and even participate in them

Gundham

Is excited to know you also work in the “dark arts”

Though, I feel you’d have to explain to him the misconceptions of witchcraft being dark and disturbing

Would lend you his books and pick random things up for you

Will then proceed to hide in his scarf when you get excited

Asks you to enchant his necklaces and make protection spells for him

Nagito

is absolutely in love with your ultimate

wonders if a luck spell will cancel out his ultimate talent

hell i wanna know too

brings you small little things that reminds him of you and your talent

self love spells and sigils are thrown at him constantly

Can definitely see him trying to give himself up as a sacrifice or offering for a deity lmao

#danganronpa #korekiyo x reader #korekiyo #danganronpa headcanons #korekiyo shinguji #danganronpa gundham #gundham tanaka #gundham x reader #danganronpa 2 #danganronpa v3 #nagito x reader #nagito headcanons #gundham headcanons #nagito komaeda

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gureishi · 3 years

Note

Hey!! I love your writing so much i was just wondering iffff you could possibly do something with Zen (or even all of the RFA) with a chubby f!s/o, can be sfw or nsfw and can include s/o being insecure or confident, would just really love some representation in this fandom and you write them so well so thought id ask, thank you if you do but if you dont no worries! 💖

Zen is attracted to you immediately.

It's not just that he's lonely (although he is) and it's not just that you're sweet to him (although you are). There's something special about you: it's in the way you type and the energy you put into the world; it's in the way you seem to understand him and the adorable way you flirt.

And it's physical, too. When he actually sees you for the first time, he forgets—for a moment—all of the charm and charisma he's carefully curated. Being lovable is part of his job, and he's good at it—but there's never been anyone he's wanted to love him like this before.

So it all goes away when he looks at you: he forgets how to be alluring and cool and confident, because you are stunning and he is thoroughly incapacitated by you. He wants to trace the curves of your body with his hands and kiss every inch of your skin.

If you're confident in your appearance, Zen will be charmed and delighted. He loves that he can tell you that you're sexy and cute and gorgeous and you'll smile warmly because you already know. He's intoxicated by your self-assurance. When you walk down the street hand-in-hand, he assumes everyone is staring—because the two of you together are almost irresistible.

But if you're not confident, Zen will understand. He's struggled all his life with his appearance: he's battled unrealistic expectations and misconceptions about his worth and talent and intelligence. He wants to be beautiful; he's afraid that he won't be pretty enough and simultaneously terrified that he'll never be taken seriously because he's pretty. He knows that it's complicated.

Ah, but you are radiant. Perhaps you'll tell him what it is you're not confident about: fat rolls or stretch marks or the shape of your thighs. Zen will shake his head, shocked that you think that: because he finds your softness enchanting—because your belly is beautiful and your arms are sexy and your legs are absolutely alluring.

Zen wants to wear matching outfits. He wants to take a million photos together. He wants to watch you as you sit in your underwear and put on lotion—and it's not meant to be sexy (it's just lotion!) but he can't tear his eyes away. Your body is perfect: it's beautiful and it's bewitching—and it's his.

#mystic messenger #zen #headcanons #asks #anon

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lixiefe · 4 years

Text

Ivory Gates

l.mh

⎆ Words: 15k+

⎆ Summery: Lee Minho, the feared and monstrous warlock in the outskirts of sequestered magic, proficient in thaumaturgy and eminent for one and only deed; kidnapping the princess at least once a month. It seemed like the grotesque magician had an unhealthy obsession over the princess, smitten or not, who knew? But it was established that said warlock did bear strong passion for the beautiful princess.

But they all had it wrong, because Lee Minho wasn’t a big fan of the betrothed princess, neither did he forcefully null her into slumber and bound ropes around her wrists to abduct her every month. Instead, the only thing he wanted was to achieve another glimpse of the princess’ knight, clad in thick armor with fierceness in your eyes and a prominent ambition to execute the evil warlock at all costs. And that’s what enchanted him the most.

⎆ Genre: strangers-to-lovers, fantasy, magical universe, angst, fluff (a lot of drama basically), self-insert.

⎆ Warning: violence, grotesque themes (a little bit), minho is vicious but soft.

⎆ Credits: the below aesthetics are taken from @/academia--nut. And a few quote-like lines are inspired by pinterest searches (unknown source), so if you fine any similarities with any quotes you’ve seen before, that’s probably it. (i don’t like doing this but it just fitted so much, i couldn’t resist the urge)

Also, great thanks to @pinkchcn for being an excellent beta reader for this work (crap) i’ve pulled out. A few of her hilarity would be written at the end, to support this rollercoaster of a fic. anyway, thank you again bub!

Prologue: The boy

Once upon a time, there lived a quiet boy. His magical powers surpassed many and his passionate soul entrapped everyone’s favor. He was praised, favored and loved for the flame his palm erupted. Villagers passed by him with fluttering smiles, ear to ear praises passed above their bucket of fruits and glances thrown in pride. Until one day, the sky fell upon his shoulder under crevassing dawn as smoke emerged from the roof of his house, blazing fire swathing the wood and pillars and there resonated a single cry amidst the painful silence of flame.

The little boy couldn’t do anything to save his home, nor his parents. And the only resonation of the trauma was the despair turned into monstrous rage in his chest, one that overpowered every other emotion he harbored. After then, gazes turned hateful, words of scorn floating around the air with every step he took, every tear he shed. Because in everyone’s eyes, the fire was an involuntary result of mis-controlled power under his veins. And thus the boy was the cause of his own demise in the eyes of society.

And there was nothing he could do to salvage their misconception.

But one day, hope came in the shape of a man, pale white in complexion and sporting a look of utter pity. He came to the boy, patting his back as he spoke, “I can help you.”

“I don’t need your disgraceful pity,” said the boy.

“I do not pity you child,” the man replied as he pointed at the front to the flying specks of dirt polluting the pathway. “You see, you have such immense power. It would be such a waste if it was to be used for nothing. The only compulsory is to realize the magic that courses within you, channel it into a tamed flow of fire.” His finger followed as a man sprinkled water over the polluting dust, the air getting cleaner by the second. Tamed and resurrected of it’s daily purity. “Just like this.”

The boy followed his gaze as the man now looked into his eyes, a precise promise of surety evident in the firm gaze he maintained. “I know who initiated that fire.” The little boy spurted up at this, eyes wide in curiosity and clouded with the vengeance his mind chanted. “You do!?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I – I need to kill them. Tell me where,” his eagerness baffled the man, but what disclosured him more was the raw hatred subjected in his eyes, the strong will of revenge under the moist of his irises.

“What you should ask me, is how. How would you even encounter them, much less defeat? They are much stronger than you.” The man stated, reclining his hands to himself.

The boy sneered, fury blazing in the depths of his breaths, “There’s no scenario of defeat here, sire. They deserve death. Burned from within and screaming with the pain I inflict upon them, right until they fall breathless.”

The man was utterly bewildered at his words. How such a young child could bear such strong darkness and could spew such words of cruelty was out of his mind. But nonetheless, he’s even more impressed and even more determined to have this boy under his custody. “Boy, you are agile and emergent. Allow me to show you true power, and help you to salvage your parents.”

And that’s how Lee Minho, a crucial fire bender acclaimed magic with the provision of his patron and developed into a powerful warlock. A thaumaturge too spectacular to defeat, but too cruel under the spell of darkness in his soul.

Therefore, just as his patron promised, on said day and said time, teenager Minho vanquished the defective cult of flame tribe with fire under their skin. He wore a sadistic smile, had his veins iridescent with the flame erupting from his fingertips and shot fire of revenge into the luxury of those killers. Mentioned area was then stripped of life as his rage subjected the settlement into black mist of after-remains and squalls of their cries that resonated through thick silence.

Thus, the little boy who cried under boulders covered in moss, now grew to be the most dangerous and feared entity of evil.

What people thought to be vicious, they wanted to probe and kill.

But anyone who went near the sanctity of his home returned with empty eyes and a body that didn't breathe; or with faint life speckling in the back of their eyes and wounds covering their skin; all from the snap of mere fingertips and every sip of wine that Minho took. Until, there was no more intrusion among kilometres in his life.

Years had been fine, but he was getting tired of such a lifestyle.

Lee Minho was bored.

Days passed by in tedious ways, with the same chores and same words following suit of everyday sunrise and sunset. There was nothing interesting in his days that he could fanny about, much less be engaged with.

Until he's wandering along the outside garden area he's not supposed to step foot into. It was just a simple, thoughtless planning initiated from spectacular boredom; however, the walk hadn’t been as tedious Minho surmised it to be. Instead, he caught his eyes fixated on a soldier dragging their sword along the ground with harsh, continuous friction. The noise it made was unpleasant, but accompanied with the somber whistles emitting from your pouted lips, things weren’t irrational anymore.

Hidden behind the fur of his cape, Minho’s lips followed the shape of yours, curling into a worm shape as he tried his best to push air through his lips. But no sound emitted, only an annoying, raspy resonation of forced breath hitting the air. His mimicking halted as soon as you sat down on the ground, looking up at the sky with a type of expression Minho can’t look through. Your sword by the side, your fingers played with the leather fabric on your pushed up knees. He watched as you diverted your eyes downwards and leaned your face on your knees.

Minho’s brows furrowed, what were you doing? And then he saw your pull yourself tighter, shoulders reverberating up and down as faint hiccups surrounded you. He was even more discombobulated at that, brows sketched together and trying his best to articulate your emotions. But then, the faint sounds gradually turned into painful cries and you were shaking on your spot.

You were crying. You were in pain.

“They’ll kill me,” he heard you say among choked whimpers. “And I will die being the princess’ knight.”

And then after a while, he saw you pull yourself together, callously wiping the tears caressing your face. Taking a few deep breaths, you smiled to particularly no one. Minho’s eyes followed as your hand picked up the thin sword and swung it back into your sheath. And then, you hurtled to a run. Minho’s hands instinctively spread forward as to follow your back, but you were gone. Armor’s tail flying behind and the band of your hair shredding loose as it spiraled behind, gently careening along the wind.

After you left, Minho’s mind wandered to thoughtlessness, the only thinking expanse focused on you, your unclear eyes and your running silhouette. Princess' knight? He thought. Would you come to save the princess if she were to be in danger? Would you come to rescue her if she were to be abducted?

Maybe he'd be able to see your features a little more clearly, would be able to observe your eyes and the way your lips moved. It seemed like a luxury he wanted to obtain, wanted to treasure. After all, the beating of his heart was something that made his resolute stance unsure and made him repeatedly question why the blood rushed to his heart faster than usual.

Maybe you'd casted some magic over him to make him feel like this. But then again, how could you? You radiated no power, there was simply no smidgens of magic around you. You were just a human in normalcy, proximate with your moral qualities and strength, but no super-naturalism.

What happened to him?

And then one night, Lee Minho abducted the over qualified, praised princess of Galvarsi.

“Who are you? Where am I? Am I getting killed? I am a Princess! You cannot possibly threaten my kingdom like this!”

The brunette woman continues with her resistance and squabbles, timely thrashing against the thick rope that forced her wrists together. She continues screeching into the silence, constantly yelling and gritting her teeth as if fierceness could pave to her escape.

“Shut up.” Minho speaks, short and orotund. The princess arrives to a halt, lips turned downwards in a depreciative scowl as she maintains premonitive silence. A second or two for the peace of the warlock's ears.

“How dare you speak to me like that!? Do you even know who I am!?”

Minho resists the urge to seal her lips shut for a solid minute and spare himself a little quietness. Albeit exasperation fills him to the brim where he desires to smash the wardrobe against the floor, but he hadn't no ill intentions. So he initiates another abbreviate, but louder, “Shut up, princess.”

But with visible annoyance.

The princess sneers, “Haa! Show some politeness. How impudent! Have you no manners!?”

Minho's eyes are wide in bafflement, astonished how someone had decided to point a finger on his rather rude demeanor; and utterly confused how the tiny woman felt no fear to impolitely scold their possibly dangerous abductor. After all, no one dared point impudence in Minho's words, nor raise their voice of admonishment at someone like him. A disastrous warlock at that.

However, he maintains brutally forced calmness, “I beg Your Highness very much politely to shut the hell up “

The princess seems to be much more enraged as she shouts a series of unladylike profanities to her disrespect and raises a storm over the rudeness in Minho's tone. Her mere voice jounces off the walls and straight into the warlock’s ears, all too painfully. And Minho sighs an extremely irritated huff, swishing his finger and casting a seal over the pink tinted lips of the princess as he solemnly walks away.

“You'll be free when your knight comes to save you.”

“She’ll be free after I save her, your highness.”

Those were your last words when you abruptly stomped away from the grand hall, mounting onto your horse as you galloped away to your doom.

The warlock’s castle, in it’s dementing and horrific glamor, was the euphemism of something you’d strongly want to avoid. But this was your job, this was your punishment. So you gulped down the chilling fear and walked closer to it. It’s entrance wasn’t grand, at all. Instead, the thin frames of the huge door were entangled with pirouetting ivory branches, dark and tiny flowers doing injustice to ‘adoring’ it with their poisonous appearance. It looked every bit rusty and old, and more so of whimsical antiquity. But you disregard it anyways.

Wandering through the dark hallways of the castle, you come to a spacious hall, a familiar figure sitting on a chair in the middle, “Princess!” you yell.

She instantly looks over at you, but there’s no excitement, no relief for being finally saved after how many possible torture (so you thought). Instead, she yells over in mild desperation, “Yes! Untie me, please.”

You do as she says, hastily unbounding the knot tethering her wrists together. You keep great watch as you do so and prepare for any possible attacks from indiscreet angles so that you don’t actually end up dying how they had tasked you to. You look into the eyes of the princess. She wasn’t a slight bit bothered, nor struck with a traumatic concussion you’d expected her to. There was only nonchalance in her eyes, as if liberty wasn’t something she wished very dear. And you wondered what had happened here that she was so indifferent about her captor.

She suddenly finds interest in your eyes, peering with an intensity that had you doubting your observation traits, because you couldn’t tell what on earth she was about to say. “Prince….Felix. Was he worried? Did he say anything about me?” She asks.

Prince Felix, the other piece of the madly in love soulmates the entire city envied. Lee Felix was the third and underrated prince of your lovely neighboring kingdom, Rawajk. Lee Felix was a subdued prince who preferred to hide himself under his room’s roof, and came out only for his meal or daily practices; in a word, he was underqualified. But then, in a twisted hassle of degrading your king by offering him such a downcast prince, that too, born third in row with a concubine instead of the queens, it somehow became an astronomical union. And the castle halls quite greatly supported them both. By the time their engagement was to be announced, Felix was frankly more expedient than the second prince, who was rumored to be the best offspring. In all, Felix was the princess’ beloved betrothed she couldn’t spend a moment without.

“Yes, he’s been greatly concerned. He would surely have my head if I delayed a minute more,” you answer as you toss the worn ropes away onto the floor. The princess silently squeals. You clasp her hand into yours, standing her up as you speculate for any unnecessary, inscrutable sound or view that could threaten your safety.

“There would be no one. The purpose of my captor has been generously achieved. Return the same path you came from.” The princess states. What on earth..? You almost blurt out of curiosity, because what even was their motive? And how is it so easily achieved? You wonder. But that’s none of your business. It was a royal affair, something you’d rather not entangle yourself with.

“I see.”

Saving a princess has never been so easy.

Eyes that sparkle under the faintest of light, not with positivity but with utter trenchancy towards life, a type of sarcasm that vanquishes all hopes and leaves one with nothing but a blank canvas. Nonetheless, Minho can’t be any less charmed as he watches you through the oval mirror, a small smile adorning his face like never before.

The mirror zooms into your face as you free the princess, and Minho watches. He watches as your ponytail gracefully falls in front of your shoulder, watches as your hands tremble in the slightest way, but you do your best to conceal it under swift movements. There is terror in your eyes, one that he doesn’t like at all.

He efforts into hearing the wave of your thoughts, but his expectations are squished into nothing. There were bloodsheds, numbers of screams and tears of lament, but there was also insurmountable disappointment, self-loath for being fatally unserviceable and a plethora of fear, but for what he didn’t know. The smile of his face transforms into brows knitted with displeasure, why did you sound so dejected in your head? Why were you learning to accept death as an outcome of something he couldn’t reach? You were terrified, scared and haunted out of your dreams, for what he badly wanted to figure out.

But he satisfies himself with the subtle view of your features as of now. He was undeniably right to presume that you’d be breathtakingly beautiful, because even the mirror’s hue turned pink as it showed a close view of you. Perhaps, the mirror was a practical spectra of his feelings, but he hadn’t known what pink meant yet.

Maybe, just maybe, you were an enchantress, because he was so strangely and so impeccably captivated.

Minho abducts the princess again soon after, being a silent ghost as a captor for the second time.

And the third time, sun bats over thick clouds and the princess is found absent in her chamber among the chilling rain that bestows over earth’s surface.

“Aha, hello batface. Long time no see. I missed your buns tho,” the princess jokes, prodding around the hall’s floor as she skips about. Minho huffs an exasperated sigh for the umpteenth time, but cannot help feeling a little amused at the woman’s childlike antics.

Chan widens his eyes from the corner of the room, baffled at the princess’ blatant witticism. But Minho doesn’t notice that, instead he knits his brows at Chan, asking for a silent reply on why he seems rather unusually surprised. However, the man only eyes Minho’s bottom, inclining the boy to stumble back a few due to his ludicrous gaze.

The princess seems to catch onto that, immediately snickering as she says, “No not those buns, the food. The bread buns, batface’s guardian.”

Chan’s face scrunches up even more at that as he mumbles a series of incoherent complaints on her ridiculous nickname. However, Minho voices it out, “Who are you calling batface?” He speaks, impassive and bushed like the miniscule strength of his finger.

“You of course. Don’t you have a mirror? Confirm it,” she deadpans, slouching on the chair in the middle of the hall as she props one leg above the other with a gaudy comfort Minho was sure he didn’t provide.

The warlock respires a deep breath, “I’d rather not.”

The princess then takes her eyes off of him, now walking around the edges of the hall and peering over to the rooms situated within. Chan shoots the warlock a wave when he walks away, leaving the two together in unappreciated silence. The princess, as she looks around, pirouettes over to face Minho.

She offers him a mischievous smile and Minho wishes for all his willpower to hold on for a few more days for your sake. For you, and for his unfigured feelings, he will do it.

“You do me a favor, batface. Prince Felix is so caring with me everytime I go back, aaahh. I feel like you’re aiding my marriage.”

Again.

“Of course I am not-”

The princess jumps on her heels, hands adjoined and mouth running on a dangerous pace as she continues, “The prince is amazing! Did you know he’s won so many battling contests? And he’s so very handsome too. He might not be the best but he’s all I want.”

Her cow eyes are a wonder to Minho, and the way she speaks about her fiancé is an idiosyncrasy for him. Despite his blatant unwillingness, he listens, hears all the indiscriminate praises spoken about the particular lad and all his normalcy turned into brilliance. That’s a perspective he can’t really grasp. Why was the princess so undeniably smitten by a fellow prince?

A tap on his shoulder brings him back to reality and he pivots behind, noticing the princess eyeing him observantly. She smiles and Minho expects a little peace, or anything that doesn’t trigger his nerves.

“You’re quite the eye candy too, except that ugly cape and your horrible fashion.”

But alas. The princess doesn’t seem to be capable of offering peace.

“I don’t need you commenting on my appearance.”

The irritation Minho expresses is unfiltered, but the godforsaken princess can’t be less bothered. She continues to smile with full gums and exasperates him further.

“Oho, but I will. Expect more of me, will you? I actually love how your hair looks, and you’ve got such delicate features too.”

“Shut up, princess.”

“Alright, you’re boring.”

ii.

You’ve never been much vengeful, nor have you had uncontrollable complexity of rage. Because you’ve been raised under every circumstance, every convolution and taught to endure any kind of inferiority complications, and the torture that came with it. But you’ve never experienced such unfairness, nor such injustice in any part of your life.

But you’ve held the frustration in and forced back the tears when the officials spoke about conspiring a clean death of yours, masked by faux stories they’d brew by convenient situations. But it was hard. Very much when you’re not allowed to sneak a glance of the people you loved, not allowed to even know whether they’re alive or not. It becomes much more than the torment subjected upon you every day, with every minute that passes and every second of further conspiracy.

For them you’d do. You’d try your best to stay alive for them, with the hope that you’d get to see your mother smiling at you, your family rejoicing for you. But they were hopes, hopes left unclarified.

So the only thing you could do is, live and fight your way through the conspiracy, by hook or nook. Maybe a miracle, or by a sudden wonder, you’d be able to dodge the clutches of death if you work hard enough; even though being a knight was the most unsuitable occupation for you. By far, you’ve managed. Even when they sent you to a deadly warlock's den, into the mouth of inevitable death, you have survived; much courtesy to the humble villain who did close to nothing sort of harmful.

At this point, you guessed that maybe the governors are the one purposefully getting the princess kidnapped. Just to get you annihilated.

But why put an important life at bait?

You sigh audibly, you’d never know their pesky brains and the absurd treachery they engaged in.

By this time around you’ve memorized the way to the hall and out pretty meticulously. But something is rather eerie this time. The silence is eccentric and the air permeates tension in the most sensible way. The hair on the back of your neck perks up as you walk through the dark pathway, hands rubbing against each other.

All you had to do was get the princess and leave from here, that’s what you’ve been doing and that’s what is supposed to happen.

Unless it doesn’t.

With great force, you feel a hand clasp around yours as you’re yanked somewhere through the wall. Albeit their force was apposite enough to effortlessly drag your weight with them, their hold wasn’t really choked or rigid; it was gentle, light and too subtle for someone to be causing you danger.

Perhaps it weren't danger at all, but you wouldn’t know.

Your black is slammed against the wall and hands pinned beside your head by a man you didn’t know. You dread looking up than the black cape flowing behind his knees. However, your apprehension rises by the minute as you feel his warm breath on your cheeks. He’s close, very painfully close. You’re every much scared the way an ordinary civilian would, but the man doesn’t exude menace how you’d supposed.

Despite the dread crawling at your stomach, you look up. Through your lashes, you see a pair of dark brown delicate eyes peering down at you in an emotion far different from threat. The glimmer of his eyes is the same as his subtle hold on your hands, careful not to hurt you. And when you look up fully, you’re awestruck.

Luminance dancing in the swirl of his chocolate orbs shielded by archly curved and silken lashes, you cannot help but be captivated by how he looks down at you. His eyes are somberly orphic, mysterious and entrancing; yet beyond ordinary understanding. You cannot help but notice a pervasive delicacy in the furrow of his brows, something unusual of a deadly warlock to ensemble.

For a man so adapt to killing, his eyes were remarkably soft.

Suspiciously beautiful pair of lips adhering to hesitation before he speaks fully, “Who are you?” he whispers.

Who were you?

What answer did he desire? You were an unwilling knight on the path to death anytime soon, but you were sure that wasn’t an answer he wanted to hear. So you keep quiet, only returning the intensity of his gaze.

He hesitates again as his lips stumble against each other. You’re astonished even more at how you’re focused on each insignificant cognition of his face, however, you really can’t help giving his eyes a second scrutiny.

For a man so adapt to killing, his eyes held so much innocence, conspicuously active and omnipresent.

“Why are you haunting me like this? Have you known me before?”

His whispers are almost inaudible, but that’s the privilege your close proximity offers when you barely make out his words to be cohesive.

The questions in your mind are uncountable, and your mouth is speechless as you tilt your head in confusion. His face nears you a little more, and his grasp tightens around your wrists bearably. He is so close to you that his dark brown fringes barely graze your forehead. You accumulate his expression to be torn, as confused as you and desperately looking for answers you had no idea of.

But his solution is you, the only foreboding to diffuse the complicacy of his mind he finds is through you. However, you’re in as much of the obscurity he’s suffering. “I do not know what you mean,” you attempt to answer.

Despite his harmless visuals, you’re still scared for your life and dreading that your last breath could be determined quite rashly, concluding that you could be killed in instant if your answer does not please him. But the warlock’s hold loosens as the words leave your mouth, so does the expression of his face. He seems dangerously inexpressive by the time your wrists are barely dangling off of his fingers. But the purity of his, is one thing that doesn’t falter even when they are empty and extracted of any potency he detained before.

An emptiness fueled by seclusion.

“Leave anything of yours here and take the princess.”

A different voice commands from an angle you cannot figure out. It’s certainly not his, because his lips stay in unyielding motion. His sub audible whispers gave little measure to his actual voice, and you wished with a minor candor that you’d hear how he sounded like. However, he doesn’t seem keen on speaking and you’re not inclined to do anything either.

So you do. You leave your handkerchief on the table with no questions asked.

But not before taking a good look of the warlock who now stares downwards, sketching the shape of his face and silken bouffant hair drooping down to his eyes.

Though unwilling, your eyes still fall upon his fingers that enveloped yours moments ago; traces of blue and impending flame pirouetting around them in oblique indecent shapes. You knew by then, the flame warlocks fire can never lie or pretend.

Because a warlock’s elemental secretion illustrates the stability and subjugations in their blood flow and nerves. Dismantled, obtuse portrayal means unstable emotions.

The warlock showed less than what he felt.

As you left, Minho brought his mirror in front of him. Just like the last times, he watched you search for the princess and drag her away. But this time, your eyes grew frantic with a sudden speed in your actions. This time, your steps quickened and so did the palpitations of your heart. This time, your head nestled in the clouds and so did your thoughts wander off to a certain encounter faced minutes ago. And just like this, this time too, Lee Minho lost sight of you in the woods.

The dawn breaks through the cracks, lighting up the dirt path ahead of you, decorated with outgrown roots, wildflowers and fallen leaves that crunch beneath your running stallion. You gallop through the forest with the princess behind you, holding tight onto your waist as you swing the reins with a turbulent breath. Getting back to the palace as fast as possible was the utmost priority, as well as keeping the royal blood safe and sound. But your guts were telling you otherwise. Your stomach churned the more you heeded to the ominous gargle occurring within. You gulped a tensed one, hands and feet paranoid as you compellingly will yourself to swish the thoughts away.

The light provided by the dangling lantern in the princess’ hands is inadequate. But you make the best of your senses as you saunter through the lengthened grass. Even through mild panic brewing inside you, the sense of kinship this forest had with flora, of a primeval soul that expanses into everything that lives gives you little soothe.

Hordes of trees pass you in a swish with a tempestuous wind forcing you aback along with your incredulous speed. Perhaps, such a hurry was unnecessary, but the intimidation that canopies your heart is far greater than a speed you can control.

The mass of trees seem just fine and everything sounds out of danger too, but a smell of tepidness hovers in the air. Until, you begin to hear faintest steps of a running parade. Soldiers. That’s the first thing that occurs to your brain as apprehension settles in the middle of your stomach. The princess notices that a few minutes later as she lifts up her head from your back and asks light and low, “What happened?”

You gulp, “Soldiers, Your Highness.”

The princess returns to the comfort of resting on your back, sighing a breath of relief as she replies, “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Your majesty the king has never sent aid for the three times I’ve rescued you.”

“What do you mean?”

The princess is only alerted when you clench your jaw, pure dread overtaking your features, “They’re here for me.”

You can hear her awe in bewilderment, now attentive with the comfort seeped out of her. “For you. To-to annihilate you?”

“Yes, your highness.”

“B-but why so suddenly, why would you even need to be executed? It threatens my safety too!” she asks, much- concerned.

You smile through the trepidation that covers you in a choked cloak, trying to gather as much assurance as you can and say, “They’d escort you back to the castle. I was appointed as your guard for the sole reason of getting killed by another well-trained knight. In a scheme of self-defense of course.” You surprise yourself by how simply you explain to her, no choked cries and no impending sobs threatening to leave your throat. Instead, you smile. “It seems I escaped death thrice, since the warlock didn’t kill me according to their change of plans.”

“No no, y/n, I say go back. Turn back right now!” the princess yells in desperation, hands taut as you feel them pull you back a little.

Even though turning back couldn’t be an option, because that appoints you as an ally with the forest’s warlock; and that is treason against the kingdom, punishable only by death sentence. However, there was only end for you no matter which way you turned to and whichever path of escape you adhered to.

There’s very less time for you to decide whether to return to the warlock’s den or not. Because as time passes by, the royal soldiers get impossibly closer and you near your doom. The princess is abundant to make you liberal and she constantly rushes you.

“But your highness, you need to be escorted to the castle. My life is inconsequential,” you reason with her as you refuse to heed to her orders. You had long accepted the fate of your inevitable death, and the choice of a short, neat death is better than prolonged days of torture to follow your execution. So you try to say more, “There’s no guarantee that the vicious man won’t kill me either.”

“There is no possible way in the universe that he can kill you. You of all people. Your life matters to me more than something as petty as simply returning to the hellhole,” she shouts under the air that slightly blurs her voice. She snags at your arm from behind, twisting the horse’s neck behind as you both stumble on the grass surface.

You attempt to balance the both of you among the spasmodic jerks when the horse takes turn without notice. “But princess-”

“This is the best choice, believe me.”

For once, maybe believing a kind royal won’t cost you bloodshed under a graying sky filled with radiant explosives. Even though the promise of trust was futile, you decided to obey by her words. Maybe once, for once.

And upon the forest floor so woven with ancient tree roots came a light filtered by the bouquet of foliage beside. But it’s not the belonging light of the sun breaking in the dawn; it’s the light of malignance, of death and endangerment and of what’s to come. The light accompanies virile hawks, shaking you to the core.

And suddenly, you’re rounded by several hard armored wicked bandits. The royals probably deemed it unnecessary to have the soldiers’ even wear an emblem. Or maybe it was their primal goal to sublimate this incident into a mid-forest bandit raid; to avoid hassle. So, here came your demise in the shape of dappled knights, menace protuberant from their mere movements.

One of them harshly yanks the princess off the horse, bounding her hands behind her back as he fluently cages her. “Now.” he orders.

This is it.

You embrace the future which is inescapable, inhaling a few deep breaths before the air stops running through your blood. You’re scared, terrified and still not as ready as you supposed you’d be. Because who can even be ready for death? There were so many wishes, so many hopes and so much you had yet to accomplish. You’d lived an entirely vain life until now, cowered under heavy scrutiny and submitted yourself into the conspiracy leading to this.

The princess’ screams are flagrant yet concealed in your ear as the men rise their arrows at you, all at once. You simply sit on your horse, unmoving yet scared; and with a formidable hope for help, anything to save you from vanishing off of the earth. But then the men pull against their arrows, narrowing their aim and pointing solely at you. Your terror is inexplicable, throat dry as consternation swallows you into a whole tight grip. Eyes shut close, you prepare for the arrows to pierce into you, tear you apart.

But after a few moments, your dread is masked under vicarious and malicious growls of blooming flame. And your eyes spat open, widened and flabbergasted. There is a ghastly orange grin, wavering and outrageous as it tears through the verdant woodland. Suddenly there’s unfettered flames devouring hungrily at the coppice, swishing and flicking in a dance without rhythm. They reach out to the sky like pallid, gnarled hands, as if desperate to latch onto the greenery and sear the earth away.

You can’t see anything in the blazing fire and by some miraculous reality, the fire does not graze you one bit. Instead it paves way for you when you stagger forward. The smoke engulfs you into a dizzy stature, eyes burning with the gas spreading in like wildfire. Violent screams resound and the royal soldiers are thrashing among the fire that targets itself towards them and them only. The cruelty here is mutual, yet you feel nauseous in the pained snivels of those men, brutally tortured to death.

And among the haze, you see the princess harmlessly approaching you; when suddenly, you’re encased into a hug. Never in your life would you have expected the princess, one of high social status and respect, to weep for you. But you acquiesce to the reunion, draping your arms around her and patting her back.

The princess tears away from you and there is a different smile on her face, one of care and relief. Perhaps foreign to you, but you can’t control how it touches your heart.

She cares for you.

Before you knew it, fire tainted the earth with grey, stripping the surrounding trees of the virescent beauty, leaving their gaunt, skeletal remains rooted to the barren soil as well as those of the men. The entire area had turned into specks of charcoal, grayed and ashened to where all there was, was stillness of burned woods and bones, like a great famished beast devouring everything in its path and belching out black. Except the land you stood on. It was still as fresh as before, the grass intact and only batted under your footsteps.

Terrifying.

It would’ve been abundantly terrifying for you if not for the cruelty you’ve witnessed before and the fact that you were, as strange as it was, untouched and safe. Never is the woodland silent, though it is quieter than any city; there’s always whistles and calls of rendezvous, always a forest sound.

But right now? There’s no sound except for your breath mingling with the remnant oxygen. There’s nothing, not a single speck of auditory evidence.

“Lee Minho…” you hear the princess whisper under stunned breath, clutching onto you even more as to balance herself. Your mind instantly rewinds back to when you’d met with black cloaked man in that vacant castle. You remember it clearly, bluish flame caressing his forearms like a splintered glove. Was it him?

“Who is he?” you ask, voice shaken.

The princess does not say but points ahead of you, eyes locked onto the front.

There he was. The same dangerous man with soft eyes and fire sheathed around his arms like faint fireworks dancing in the air. His blackness matched that of the earthly area, leaden and darkness shrouded with the most destructive veil. But oh well, not when he looks up to meet your eyes. Not when his eyes are glistening with emotions you dare not apprehend. Not when his reddish lips part ever so gently as breath relieves from him.

“I guess we have no choice.”

What choice would you even take?

iii.

What choice would she even take?

The princess walks beside you in slow, matched steps. You expected disheartment, or post-traumatic fear, or anything to prove that she’d experienced something so deadly for the first time in her life. But as you look at her, her face appears to be nonchalant, no sign of pessimistic emotions engulfing her into a silent state. And after a few, much not to your surprise, the princess whistles tunelessly with her puckered lips as she walks at front.

You’re not one to judge, because even after ferocity and thrilling carnage had been your side-path for the majority of your life, you were still undoubtedly scared. Scared of that breath loss, of that smoke reducing you to the face of the earth, of that fire that imperially spared only you and massacred your threats. But why? Perhaps it had been the birdcage the steering flame fabricated around you, trapped you in an inescapable cubicle, or maybe it was something else. But you knew for sure that it wasn’t the terror of those men, it wasn’t the brutality that eradicated them into nothing but scarred bones.

Indulged into your thoughts, you don’t notice when the princess runs up to the black clad man at front, a few hands away. You walk behind with your head in a segregating quagmire and feet moving continuously in a doubtfully symmetrical way, maybe a little unstable; and quite a little flimsy.

You feel fatigue settle in your aching limbs, desperate for some respite. Your brain screams at you as your knees buckle up with every step you take. You’re irrevocably famished, and very visibly parched to the core. You think it’s the fire; the fire that had perspiration trawling over your forehead like tears of rain-struck trees. Maybe it is the fire, when all you feel are insufficient solidity and suffocating intake of breaths.

You couldn’t walk anymore. You knew you wouldn’t be standing anymore when your legs gave out, nausea creeping up your abdomen as your head spun with thousand needles piercing at your head. Then with one step backward you crumpled like a puppet suddenly released of their strings.

Though your body falls with a soft thud, the princess instantly turns around as she runs toward you. You wanted to speak out, say that you’re just fine, but words from your throat seemed incredibly hard to emanate. Gulps felt like trodden sand down your throat and esophagus unadapt to vocalization.

You hadn’t fainted, but you’re not deliberately awake either.

“Batface! Help!”

“What is it- Oh!”

It was like the most elegant, rich definition of voices, smothered with silken adverbs and ecclesiastical tones; as ironic as it could be. And then he speaks multiple words sketched altogether in measured cadences, “Do you hear me?” but all you can focus in your hazy state is the conciliatory timbre of his voice, something so assuaging that it soothes the uproar within your head.

You see him crouch down next to you, hands hovering above your cheeks as he speaks again, “Can you hear me?” it’s quietly pacifying when you focus on the ambiance of his voice, light and soft like a bellowing feather aerial above mountain breeze. It feels too serene, yet throbbing around your head like placate waves crashing into the shore.

You can only properly understand and place his words into comprehensible criteria when he speaks a little louder this time, cold fingers pressing against your cheeks, “Are you awake?”

Even as your head feels like haggard stones of excessive weight you try your best to move just enough to indicate that you were perhaps, mildly conscious. You feel two arms snake around your knees and back and you’re instantly hauled up into a shrimp in their arms. It’s much more comfortable than the uneven soil you’d laid on, and much more warm too.

You let your head lull to a side and rest against the crook of their neck, conspicuously contented and nestled into a muddled haze. And after that, you were out cold into deep slumber.

The princess watches Minho settle you into his arms as he begins walking. Though prepared, the princess is moved when he asks suddenly, “Do you think this happened because I..?”

“She….is not supposed to be wavered by that,” she replies, head shaking in denial. Then there’s a silence, not stifling and not uneasy either, just the three of you approaching the dark boulders surrounding the warlock’s castle.

The princess is highly intrigued by the face the cold-toned warlock sports; apologetic and strangely concerned. The considerations of his mind come off to the mien of his face in a very aphoristic way, expressing so much in just a furrow of brows and terse lips. And the princess knows very clearly that he’s adept on thinking that you’d fainted because of him, because of the terrible fire he caused with bare fingertips.

But you’re not one to be shaken by the fire. You’d faced many atrocious calamities of fate, much of it plain unspeakable. And so the princess rushes behind Minho, clearing her throat to gain attention. She then curves her lips into a reassuring smile, saying, “Maybe it's just the smoke.”

There’s a small hint of gratefulness in his eyes, one that could have initiated a reciprocal smile in any person’s face. But he only nods, considerate eyes casting on you who he carries.

“Maybe it is.”

Minho and the princess reach the castle as the sun glaciates through the splints of dawn. The warlock immediately stabilizes you in his arms as Chan’s eyes meet Minho’s in a known glance understood only by the duo. The princess excuses herself at the first step taken inside and trudges off to the room provided long ago.

The patron basks in the unusual expression his apprentice couriers, worried himself when he sees you cold unconscious in his arms. “What happened?” He asks.

“I….the fire.”

That’s all it took for Chan to escort both of you in a vacant room. At Chan's signal, the latter carefully lays you down on the adjacent bed, hand holding gently behind your neck. Even with eyes closed, it’s like nothing changed. His mind still performed somersaults at the sight of you, tranquility evident in the minutest features of your face. On your lids showed a rare peace, one that is unachievable in the scarcest way, on your cheeks flared dancing pink, one that comes with leisure conciliation and on your lips graced the faintest color with the promise of sweetness to come.

You were the opposite of him.

Minho’s eyes snap wide into reality when Chan pushes him back to rest a hand on your forehead. He closes his eyes in concentration, meditating into your mind. It’s all the same procedure he has done many times, the same curative he confers with his power. But Chan crinkles his brows in a way suspicious to Minho, as if- something was wrong inside your mind. Immediately, the warlock queries, “Is she okay?”

Chan opens his eyes, looking at the younger with assuration. He smiles scantly, “She most definitely is, she was just overwhelmed by the smoke. It must’ve been suffocating for her.”

It’s as if something doesn’t sit well with Minho. Chan’s assuration almost seems untrue and the smile he offers seems fabricated. It inclines Minho to think that perhaps it had been him behind your collapsing, it had been the dreadful fire, the excruciating rage implicated into the malignancy of its uproar. Perhaps you were scared, fainted out of repulsion. And you’d come to abhor him for that too, because that was the primary reaction of the people who witnessed his fiery curse.

“I see,” he replies, blank and in distrust.

Chan smacks his lips together, knowing exactly what was swirling among the darkness in his head. He sighs, “No you didn’t harm her. There’s no scratches on her body. Furthermore, look at the princess! Why is she skipping about?”

Minho nods, not believing him entirely but not distrusting him at the same time. “Look, it’s not your fault. Trust me.” Chan says one last time, much-serious. Minho knows his patron has no reason to lie to him, but cannot swat the nagging gaunt away from his guts. However, he nods again, a little more convincingly.

He then looks over at you, feeling conflicted like a ball of yarn; the stray strands of it being coherent and usable, the rest? Tangled into a mess of bird’s nest, endless and unyielding.

The castle’s master was heartless. There was no care in his heart, nor any positive emotions. But oh! He is bound in a spell by an enchantress. A spell that returns life to him, slowly, time by time.

And he feels very thoroughly when his heart resonates a profound beat.

Has it always beaten that way?

The first sight you see the next morning are two ridiculously exploratory eyes peering down into your own like repulsed cow eyes at the sight of red. The princess gasps in shock as you suddenly sit up on the bed, startling you both with how patently alert you seemed. “Where are we?” you ask, meticulously active with nascent panic.

The princess replies wide eyed at your impetuous apprehension, “We? We’re at the warlock’s house. Don’t worry he’s not one to fear.”

The warlock’s house? His mention itself smothers a blanket of relief upon you. You relax noticeably, back slouching as you huff a breath. The warlock didn’t seem like one to fear, instead he reeked of anything but harm. But you do not know the wonders of his mind, do not know if he has anything incongruous perked up in the clamp leather of his cape. However, the assistance and comfort he’s offered trounced most of the redundant doubts you had.

Chuckling softly under the slumber's trance, you say, “You’re fearless, your highness.”

The princess leans back, belched chuckles escaping into the playful air. You’ve never really heard the princess smile audibly, much less laugh off into the situation; unless it is with her majestic betrothed from the neighboring kingdom. Even so, they’ve always been discreet and secluded into where they were not hearable.

To see the princess smiling so nonchalantly with you, it made you feel something foreign, a form of happiness that you’ve succeeded to- even though unintentional- make someone laugh, someone who appeared to ignore the blemishes on your reputation and advance a hand of amiability.

Someone with the potential of becoming a friend of yours. It’s a nice feeling; quite triumphant when she erupts laughter like blooming sunflowers in the summer.

Soon enough, her laughs reduce to a simple smile as she states, “Since you’re awake, I will return to my chamber. Get well soon, yeah?”

You nod, reciprocating with a similar smile of assurance, “Yes, your highness.”

But then she frowns, coming up to you with a gentle flick on your forehead. You’re caught in the headlights, dumbfounded with the surprise of such a sudden attack. Your back leans backward and hand instinctively caresses onto the stinging burnish in the middle of your forehead.

“Oh please, don’t be so formal around me. I don’t think any of us have status while we’re here,” says the princess, lips puckered into a complaining pout. You quench the urge of smiling out at her adorably childish antics- quite reminiscent and invigorating, and very casual- like how you’d improvise fake madness in front of bosom friends.

But your royal practices nip at your gut and you hesitate, shaking your head with the improvisation of implicative denial. She frowns even more, now seeming downright comical, “I’m not so happy with this either.”

Right then and there, you were stripped off of all your choices; the only option left being compliant and abiding by her wishes. Even though it's unnatural for a guard to befriend a royal, you cannot help but feel a simple, supportive bond forming with the reduction of formal addresses. It's just a simple, gratuitous and illimitable companionship formed under unbound saint’s equanimity; without a dire need of social raise nor wanted by the advantages to come.

“As you wish, Mina.”

The powerful, haunting warlock of the dark forest; a precarious, feared figure by the people of social locality. But you, you saw more to him than just the danger, even though it was a major part of it. It seemed like an animate lie to assume him to be an aphrodisiac with a thrill of slaughter, or the definition of grovel madness driven into strong inclination for assassinating. But you didn’t really see the ill intention they’d subjected him to have, or the murderous impetuous and classic ‘merciless’ conduct.

It’s as if he wouldn’t hurt a fly if not necessary.

He’s as beautiful as a samurai sword and just as deadly, but his blade only biased for the wrong.

Suddenly, two fingers snap in front of your eyes, abruptly breaking you away from the daze you were intentionally trapped in. Looking up, you see him, his intrinsic morose leather cape hanging behind and his face clad in sarcastic worry. However, he doesn’t speak; only keeping a bowl of emerald sour looking tunic beside your bed as he sits down on the wooden table chair.

Oh, he was who you were thinking about!

Knowingly and quite voluntarily had you been indulged into appeasing your curiosities about him, that now, you feel the same mystery and the same urge of overthinking. Your cheeks color in a faint blush when you realize you’d put too much exertion on notions about him. Nonetheless, you pretend composure and say “You’re the warlock who kidnaps the princess.”

As soon as those words leave your mouth, you slam a manic hand over your mental forehead, irrationally cussing yourself for starting out so lame. The porcelain skinned man on the other hand, takes in your rhetorical statement and simply nods without much reaction.

So much for trying to start a conversation.

You heave a breath, looking straight into the beauty of those unhesitant eyes; unnerving and somehow gratifying, like the most expensively intricate graphite stones. His irises hem his eyes like darkened copper wires bent in flowers and spirals. It’s enchanting, way too nulling. You feel your lips drying before you mumble a ‘what to say’ low under your breath.

You needed to ask questions that had answers he could know.

You prepare yourself for the bracing to come, unsure yet fixated. “It is strange how you never showed yourself, much less hurt us. Why?” there’s no clean brows or ice clear orbs when you ask him that, such is his reaction. His crystal eyes are a tad bit stunned, unexpectant and reluctant in his answers, “What is it that you wanted?” you ask once more.

“It might not have been in the right way, but I have what I wanted with me. Close enough,” he says, lips stretching scantily when they meet each other.

The answers are a vague reflection under the shield of his lashes, it’s not clear, nor is it a cluster foggy residue. It seems he’s reluctant into providing a clear-cut answer, and instead settled for an answer to suffice the moment.

But you push further, “I am confused. What was it?”

The tiny smile he formulates turns into a left-sided smirk. He appears to ignore your query and instead maneuvers to gather the bowl of tunic in his palms. Just when you’re about to give up on the silence, he says in a low adverb, “Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

“I see.”

With careful movements, he hands you the melanin bowl, “It’s medicine for any discomfort in your body. Headaches and soreness.” You nod and receive the disgustingly sour looking liquid.

It seems essential to drink it by the way he observes you and even though you’ve never properly taken care of your health, the peering man looked more than eager into confirming that you drank the unappealing greens. It’s mere appearance screams distaste and a month of repugnant burps after every meal.

Squeamishly, you take a sip and immediately grimace, face turned ugly from the incredulous taste staining your taste buds into hells. Monstrous, making anyone drink such disgrace of a medicine is monstrosity. You’re appalled far into depths you cannot decipher. But you gulp the dread down your throat and force the rest into your mouth, quite critically.

The way you curl your lips almost make the other smile, if not for your eyes that return to him soon after. Minho straightens himself instantly, indulging in a pretense that he hadn’t just been amused by the mawkish repulsion you displayed.

You, on the other hand, catch him rather diligently and instantly notice how his lips twitch to remain still. That brings upon a smile on your face.

“What are you called by?” you ask, smiling.

His name you ask? He, himself, wasn’t as sure on what to respond with, because his name has ever only been called by his guiding patron; to the point where he deemed it to be confidential for others. But looking at your unscathed brightness, and your unwavering curiosity to know him; it seems maybe it’s not so bad to introduce himself once.

“Umm, if you can’t say your name it’s fine too-”

“I am…. My name is Lee Minho.”

It sounds undeniably foreign to him when he spells it, never-present and extraneous. But it’s taken as a name, an introduction he’s bound to make.

“Lee…Minho?” Minho watches in undivided attention as your face scrunches up, looking convoluted. You were probably digesting the sound of it in your mind but he instantly assumes that you disliked how his name had sounded. It doesn’t offend him, instead, he stumbles to fix that and undo the overture.

“But you can call me whatever you want, even though you don’t have a reason to,” He injects hastily, hesitation in his voice as the density fades away at the end. When you don’t respond soon after, he adds again, “Just not batface.”

You suppress the unavoidable itch to burst into a laughter and let a modest grin grace your lips. “You have a very beautiful name. Lee Minho…..it sounds like you, doesn’t it, Minho-ssi?”

The way his name reels off your tongue in a simplistic, becoming way suddenly has him on the edge. Minho feels stilled, petrified in his own spot when a strange gurgle bubbles up in his stomach. It does not help how a certain pace takes over the beating of his heart, walloping in a strenuous run and never returning back. He feels as if he’s lost any verbal independence and rational discerning, so he blurts out the first thing that occurs to his mind scurrying miles per hour, “Your medicine.”

“Crap.”

So, she likes my name.

iv.

“It’s nice that your voice is the first thing I hear today.”

Minho smiles, partially sure that your half opened eyes cannot see the minimal happiness grown on his face. He takes pleasure in watching you shamble on your bed for a light morning stretch to grow out of the soreness of slumber. However, your eyes remain closed and a satisfied lopsided grin adorning the apple of your cheeks.

“It’s very endearing when you’re half asleep,” he replies after you.

And then you wake, the smile on your face more apparent and livelier. Minho feels his heart skip a quiescent beat when your eyes crinkle with morning light. A deep curve on your lips makes the world stop around you, a smile that enunciates a million butterflies in a split second. The precious dimple that crinkles and makes him question the functionality of his heart and brain. It was established in the corner of Minho’s consciousness that you had the greatest smile, a smile that made him feel happy about being alive, made him feel just a bit more human.

Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks, it had already been a month since you’ve been living in the tranquil home. Minho didn’t have the slightest inkling on what happened to his cold and calloused heart. You felt like family the instant he met you, looked into your sympathetic eyes and spoke words of scarcity. Was it passion or joy; how could he convey this unusual feeling?

Your company was soft colors of nature, pastel and greens; sometimes yellows and sometimes a vibrant apricot; or the delicate browns and the sky that deepened to show him the stars. It felt like an earthiness that lasts a lifetime, sempiternal and extremely, seductively beguiling. And sometimes the soft colors smeared upon the brief conversations, lousy acts and breakfast under the sky that matched allies with you.

It seemed the sky turned a little brighter, the trees swayed with more vigor and the wind offered you gentle caresses. You were starting to believe in him, believe in his wind and his fire. Believe in the darkness of blameless intentions. And when you dragged him into your daily dosage of amusement, splayed water in Chan’s alcohol beverage and basked in the laughter that erupted you from his dubious face oh so effortlessly; then you noticed how breathtaking he actually was.

There was innocence in his sonority, and a lost childhood in his expressions.

He wore the smell of blood and death like a perfume. There was fire in his eyes; and ice in his veins. But you grew fond of him anyway, for he is a star, burning with the light of a thousand suns.

Minho’s patron, suspicious yet gratified, watched you turn the same pessimistic leather-caped warlock into a ball of mush. It was rather surprising for him too, to watch the man walking by your skipping form, wearing an admiring smile. He wondered if it was the same fiery soul who said he was the definition of hatred and abhorrence, who believed he was an uproarious definition of vengeance, of absurdity and unlikeliness.

It couldn’t be the same warlock who had empty eyes and passive speech. This one however, had twinkling eyes and a resonation of hope and solidarity.

It wasn’t the warlock anymore.

It was him, it was Lee Minho.

Minho’s enchanted and ancient mirror had that patina of age over the bronze frame, likewise the surface of the glass was splotched black in places. He observed and stared at himself, or at least the distorted image of himself on the obscure edges. The mirror showed him the boy the world saw, all they saw, somehow it didn't seem right. Inside he was fireworks and rage, love and frustrations, ambition and fear. All they saw was rippled danger and the ferocious brown eyes you dread looking into. He ran a finger over the frame, feeling its cool ridges and grooves and the layer of dust that clung to it in the past few weeks.

“Show me,” he commanded.

The mirror instantly lights up with a pinkish luminance as your walking reflection projects in the middle, pushing through the poisonous spikey branches in the eastern forest. It has been a malignant area, filled with traps and a haywire of noxious plants to fruits. It’s also the only pathway for the eastern barbarians to reach him and advantageously, the toxicity of it protects the warlock from them. Minho has always been told that it’s to be avoided at all costs by humans and feeble beings; since all they’d be forwarding for is demise in the deadly nature.

But you didn’t know that.

The mirror is harshly thrown on the floor as the frantic warlock sprints through his castle doors, a pirouetting fire already jeopardizing at his fingertips.

[ you ]

You’ve visited the forest multiple times already to know the trajectories of the near-woods. You’ve never crossed the safe region though, and never went past the invisible boundaries Chan settled. So nobody could foresee that one day, un-notified of your departure, you would sprint off to the greasy slopes in search of food.

In your defense, you didn’t want to seem like a lousy scrounger, or laze around the house as your daily chore. It was nagging at your principles; screaming at you to quit being a trifling. So helping out with garnering food was your chosen option.

But it didn’t seem to go the way you’d presumed.

The forest was evil and thickened with devilish roots sprouting into epitomes of utter endangerment. You realized that far after you’ve entered into the unusually long and prickly leaves swathing the sun to where even a speck of light cannot pierce through. It’s mildly terrifying, as it is dangerous.

Attending to your nerves, you notice a bit late when a hefty lithe limb approaches your neck at a ridiculous speed. You shriek in terror, eyes shut tight and unbraced for any harm that’s to come.

I should’ve stayed away, you think.

But the branch doesn’t even graze you as you’re shoved behind by a familiar grip and dragged into an immediate careen. The cape flying alongside you makes you affirmative of the hand’s identity. “Just run,” he says, hands never losing the grip on your wrist.

The tree’s limb is still chasing after you like a monster, feral and aggressive. Your heart beats out of sync along your breath when it expands into a different form and reaches impossibly close, almost in touch with your quiver. Minho yanks on your arm stronger and pulls your face into his shoulder. All you feel afterwards is a nostalgic heat enveloping your back- transparent and invisible but not hotter than the hand that pulls you closer; and that is however, something you cannot ignore even with all willpower.

It’s not something that burns, simply a perennial warmth that you don’t mind. And when Minho breaks out of the unintentional embrace and drags you away again, you look behind. The frontier of the region is burned into ashes and charred remnants of trees; It’s blackened and seared with dark smoke vanishing at the sky’s reef along with the limp thickness of the branch on the ground- nothing you didn’t expect from someone who bent fire at his will.

The one you now harbored unidentified emotions for, was deadlier than the terrestrial forest of death- lethal than any monster you’ve seen and any power that reduces earth to bones. However, he was kind as he was strong and he was the one you cared for so deeply.

That evening, beside a brook rimmed with the ornaments of petals and verdures, fiery ebony hands held yours with a smile. He said nothing, did nothing but provide you a strange confidence you never knew you had. So you told him in a low tone that you grew feelings for him; unmatched, unfamiliar and beautiful emotions. You told him in vague words the impersonation of a confession and looked at the vermillion sky. You told him, “I want a forever with you, in any way. With love or without, I’d simply stay beside you.”

Then his lips, in soft motions, replied, ‘not me.’ He said, “You cannot love me, for I am dust and danger and nothing more.”

To which you simply reply with, “The earth is dust and danger and nothing more,” then you look through the confusion etched onto his face and say, “And so you are my world.”

Maybe you were hallucinating in broad daylight, like a madwoman caught in inexplicable passion. In a trance like the fog of stark winter; in an other-worldly imagination cloaked with ocean waves. Because there’s no way that the next second transpires with supple lips on yours with the same craving as you and a hundred, thousand words conveyed with a mere movement. You hear nothing, sense nothing, and think only of the moment that stretches to time unknown.

You never knew the stars had a flavor until you kissed him. It turns out they taste like ambition and ancient fire, desperation and self-destruction, determination and darkness within- and the mind numbing fear of being left alone again. You're caught and magnetized into it, thrifted of your senses and surpassed the general capacity of feelings. Turns out you've never felt anything this captivating, anything this camouflaging- this deadly. It’s honey on your tongue and poison on your teeth, chastised on your heart and sinful on your mind- it's convoluting and clear like water.

And when he pulls you in deeper, holds you tighter- you forget to breathe.

“Good morning,” the princess says, somber and atypically soundless. You don’t see the usual gleam nor the characteristic smile on her face in the bleach of the morning. It seems strangely unusual that the princess, in the days wake, sounded demented.

Your head pivots towards her as fast as she enters the room with the gloom condensing her voice. “Good morning to you too,” you reply, mildly suspicious and also aware of the sudden change of ambiance she brought forth.

The Princess doesn’t speak, however, simply looking up at you with a pair of pessimistic eyes. It seems as though she is contemplating whether or not to disclose her thoughts to you, or tell you any of the unpleasantness her mind is negating through. “Is there something on your mind, Mina?” You inquire, mindful of the symptomatic signs she's enunciating.

“I feel a sort of premonition, it's something bad, something really negative and hopeless. It feels of danger- something that we cannot predict and something we are certain to lose.”

Her statement is confusing but it is nonetheless not an impossible probability. You know better than not assenting to her skeptical words in all importance. It is known in the Royal sources that the Princess was cryptically peculiar, born with a gift that hadn't been recognized or even occurred before in any historical records. And that is something that made her a peculiarity, an aberrant mutant among the Royals who discoursed of arrogance and narcissism.

Maybe it was something that made her different from all the palatial typicality. It was that and also her unmatched kindness, her welcoming demeanor- and her non-fabricated love for the prince.

“I will….do something about it. We can get through it right?” You motivate, trying to pry some hope in her.

But her response is rather enigmatic, and leaves so many questions lingering in your head for the next moments that unravel.

“It is unsure whether you are to survive it or not. Even a burning fire doesn’t seem to be an option here.”

Not even him?

But that cannot happen, right? Minho is powerful to an unimaginable extent, he could deflect even a royal battalion, so what’s to fear even if an unnecessary attack takes place?

All of a sudden, the princess shrieks in fear when a loud, booming explosion sounds in your ears- evoking terror into the both of you. You immediately dash out of the room, running down the halls with a frantic heart. Did it start already? You didn’t know any of what was happening, but you prayed that nothing happened to Minho- he couldn’t have been hurt. Chan wasn’t there as well, which meant reduced protection for the sanctity of the warlocks residence.

You desperately wanted to know what was occurring outside, what the source was of those blasting sounds battering against the ground; but it didn’t seem like any soon that you’d get to. You rush towards the nearest window and splay the blinds open. The sight is unlikely for you because- no, it wasn’t the royal army. Their uniforms weren’t a brash silver and red, their huge supplementary flag wasn’t one of an elephant. It was the colors of golden and blue splashed together in the battlefield below; the flag a fierce lion in the middle of gold-blue lines.

It was the neighboring kingdom, it was prince Lee Felix.

You couldn’t let Minho fight him, you couldn’t. it would hurt the princess too much, it would force her to hate him till her departure. That couldn’t happen.

But your doubts are already cleared when Minho shoots a powerful surge of bright yellow fire towards the army, Lee Felix just at front. You’re caught in fear for Minho’s life; he might be frighteningly powerful but prince Felix was an extraordinary sorcery practitioner. He had a nullifying ability- a power to ricochet any magical attacks with just a force of his palm. Which is why magic never worked against him, it was always martial arts and fist fighting to even scratch the skin of his body.

Minho’s fire would only come back to himself when it’s Lee Felix at front.

Just as you thought, prince Felix immediately summons a parapet of force, the incoming fire reverberating against the defensive veil. The fire, expectedly, bounces back towards the opposite side, extremely irritant- thrusting forward in arbitrary motions, swirling around the warlock as it closes in inch by inch. You see tension in his face for the first time, for a minute moment. But Minho puts forth both of his palms with eyes shut tight in similar concentration; you wonder what he was doing, if it was another offense that Felix would overthrow. However, the fire around him whirls back into his palm like an untamed tornado, getting sucked into the spaces of barely eight inches.

For all you knew, Lee Felix would prepare to get closer to fight hand on hand, make it physical. Because the opponent side wouldn’t be able to keep up with him anyways, for their power was one that he’d control. You had to prevent that, and had to avert Minho from encountering the prince at all costs.

The prince would show no mercy.

Your speed increases when you dash down the rest of the staircases and towards the lowest floor, mind screaming at you to run faster. Your feet stumble against the tabulate floors as you almost reach the outrange door. You sprint past it, and into the vast field out of the ivory gates.

Felix signals with an arm up in the air, circling his hands forward. He’s commanding the soldiers to charge arrows aimed for the warlock. You keep running and running, but never seem to reach them any closer. And then the arrows come forth like uncontrolled, furious ocean waves- drawing a half circle into the air as they pierce through. Minho swishes one finger in front of himself, engendering a protective barrier of fire right before the arrows make it into the one meter precinct he’s imagined in himself. He doesn’t bat an eyelash at how fast and constant the arrows are- they burn right into the fire and scramble to ashes on the ground. it’s useless to do so, but somehow prince Felix doesn’t stop.

What was he planning?

Through the corner of your eyes, you see the soldiers on the end row rounding up arrows with the tips made of white, solid metal- tungsten. The lustrous metal tarnishes in air, forming a protective oxide coating and had the highest melting point of all metals- where it cannot be melted by the heat of Minho’s fire. Unbeknownst of their strategic planning, Minho is subjecting the same amount of fire, not increasing and not decreasing.

He can be killed this way.

“Minho!” You yell just as the first batch of tungsten arrows shoot up in the air, advancing towards him mixed among the other mundane ones.

You watch the arrows collide with his barrier once more, wooden ones burning into the fire and the unique ones? Their steel almost melts inside Minho’s shield, but the tungsten arrowhead doesn't. They shoot onward like white bullets soaring through the air. You see panic in Minho’s eyes when he looks straight at you- afraid and yet courageous- not the fear of death you saw, it was the panic of seeing you here.

The bullet-like solids push through near Minho, almost all of them missing him by mere millimeters. You feel nearly relieved when the bullets- like a meteor shower- miss his body in a whole. But it is too soon of a happiness, and too soon to feel relieved.

Shock masks your face when you see his right shoulder fling behind to an absolute fall, the grass staining red so shamelessly. You hear him groan in the slightest, his fearless face coated with pain as he clutches onto his shoulder. The blood cannot be seen on his black clothes, but the way they stain his fingers and slide down drop by drop tells you that he’s bleeding obtrusively.

He was in pain.

The shield of fire around him vanishes in the instant he falls down and you rush towards him frantically. Tears sting at your eyes when you see him curling up on the floor, not even trying to disguise the pain behind a faux mask. “Please stop!” you scream at the prince who seemed to be preparing for another discharge.

The prince holds up a hand, immediately stopping the impending attack. You can sense that he is utterly confused why you’d be so desperate to save a traitor in such worry. But you don’t heed to him and instead reach for Minho with the little strength you had in you.

Your knees buckle up on the ground as you plop down beside the black-caped warrior, instantly gathering his head onto your lap. Your hands hover above his right shoulder, shaking, desperate. The tears don’t heed your permission anymore as they flow down your cheeks flawlessly, falling onto his neck.

“C-chan..” he whispers, voice hoarse. Yes, Chan, but where could you find him? Where was he?

“We..We need to get you back to the castle. Right now.” You say, getting ready to stand up. However, his blood stained hands hold yours in a gentle grip. He looks deep into your eyes, irises smiling in a joy you can’t figure out as he says, “Let's just..stay like this a little more. I’m so comfortable.”

You don’t know what he saw in this moment, or what he cherished so much in the pain spreading through his body. But you were convinced by just those few words. So you allowed him to look into your eyes as the teas fell, in a reasonless pleasure that only he discovered.

And Minho, was enamored by your grief. You were in pain with him, just like him, and accompanying him. You were sharing his wounds and motivating him to pull through with every fiber in your being. How is that? Why is it that you were so affected by a pain he cannot be less bothered with?

Minho’s eyes close slower than the prodding of laze on the ground, hands loosening around yours similar to the beats on the ground when the princess runs through towards her fiancé. His limbs goes limp when she begins speaking to him and the soldiers move aback, head falls back when the prince expresses shock at her explanations.

And his ears lost sound right when he heard vague and unclear, “The arrows were poisoned.”

v. End

“Can he…can he survive?”

“The poison has been removed, we just need to wait for him to wake up,” Chan replies to you. His irises seem unsure and his brows are furrowed; but you gather all of you to believe him. You needed to believe him.

However, the one question slips out of your without warning, “What are the chances of.. you know,”

Chan heaves a sigh, standing up as he gives your shoulder a reassured squeeze, “None, he will survive. I’m sure of it.”

He walks away after that, leaving you in the deafening silence. You can hear the fain crickets outside, the sound of wind and the howling of mammals. What catches your ears the most is his unstable breathing- labored, hushed intake of breath. It seems as if breathing is painful for him, like he’s staggering through every step to keep himself alive. His life force, his will-power, it all makes you wish harder that he survives, that he opens those placated eyelids and wakes up to you.

You rest your hands on his shoulder, softly rubbing your thumb against his shoulder blades and humming to a quiet, peaceful tune. You hope that he hears you, hears your heart and your desperations.

Please don’t leave me.

“Please don’t go anywhere I can’t follow.”

That night, you fall asleep beside his limp form; holding onto his hand as if it were your life force, your dependence.

The moon has never been happier for Minho.

The princess, upon meeting her prince charming, explains everything to him with you by the side. It’s almost like an untold duty of yours when you engage in incessant nodding, affirming everything the princess said.

However, even though foreseen, it shakes you when the prince states, “I will take you away from here, princess. And you too. Don’t worry, I am willing to help”; and that too, in a firm verdict that you can't refuse.

Unmatched footsteps impede your discussion, grabbing your attention at the instant. You notice Minho limping back here, his expression sketchy and very much obvious.

He heard you.

And misunderstood.

Then he says, “Would you care to come?” and you both return to his chambers, leaving the royal couple behind.

It is silent for a while, a miasmic silence, with the both of your thoughts galloping through. You doubt his thoughts though- he could be wondering about the earlier conversation, wondering if they’d leave together, wondering if you would leave. You open your mouth to clear your intentions, however, he breaks the silence and speaks first.

“If- If you want to leave with them,”

I was right.

“You don’t-”

Despite you trying to interject, he puts up a palm, halting you. His lips curve up in the slightest with deliberate gloom smothering it’s corners like snow in winter. However, he doesn’t look at you- eye downcast as he continues, “No, I truly understand. Nobody would really….prefer living with a…monster.”

A monster.

An abhorrence, a mutant, a calamity, a danger, a misfit- no, that wasn’t who he was at all. Even if he thought so, at every moment, in the morning and at noon, at night when the sun falls down- he might think the sun falls down to negativity, a pitch of darkness with no hope- but that isn’t true. Even if he thinks in every despondent way, he’s wrong.

And it hurts you.

You take a few firm steps, eyes obstinate with rage mixed in determination. You stand right in front of him, forcing him to look into your eyes when you say, “You are not a monster, Minho.”

A hopeless chuckle escapes him like tenebrous smoke, forlorn and like an act. “What else am I huh? A killer, a psychotic, a destroyer, a weapon. There’s nothing positive about me,” he says.

Your eyes soften, so does your heart; and you sit down beside him. You speak out the first words that come into your head without reluctance, “Everything about you is lovely.”

Minho appears to be frozen, stunned when you utter those words spoken with admirable formality- and with a cadency of unequaled honesty. He is even more stunned when he feels a gentle peck on his lips, succinct yet abysmal in ways he’d never have surmised. Your lips brush his, softly, delicately, like butterfly wings and the smoothest flower petals; just long enough that he could inhale your breath, feel your warmth and the taste of the small intimacy that lingered far after you’d reclined.

Your breaths could still be felt above his upper lips, elaborated and hushed intakes. He keeps his eyes downwards and onto your lips together in a sweet smile. What did he really do to deserve this? Kill, torture or avenge? He thinks this is utterly undeserving, but then again, how hurt would you be if he couldn’t love you back without a completely self-made guilt.

“I’m terrified,” you whisper, the smile now untraceable.

Minho flinches, the glint of his eyes dampening the more he thinks about the concise moment of bliss you offered just moments ago. You were terrified, of him, of his dangers;

“Then why did you kiss me?” What was the purpose of it? A goodbye gift? A final parting?

He sees that little smile again, and your lips part; a dreamy hue on you that makes him nostalgic. You cup his face into your hands, making him look up, “I think I feel too much for you, that I’m terrified of losing you.”

This time, your lips merge together under the moonlight; nearly chaste but demonically passionate. They chase after each other like moths drawn to a flame, like bees in search of their ecclesiastical honey, like a man starved in hunger. It was nothing short, nothing abbreviate- a long, proprietary collusion of time against your amorous bliss.

“Does this feel like a nice time for your senseless kissing?!”

Maybe not so long or blissful, but yes, it was worth the minute.

“I’m coming!” You say, hastily getting off the bed as you run off without looking back- shy and embarrassed with your cheeks heated up.

The princess looks back to a bewildered Minho, taking amusement in his widened eyes and tinted cheeks. “So would you follow your senorita, Mr. Pessimistic?”

The others sit in a conference in the ground floor hall, where the abducted princess was kept for most times. The place is rather sentimental, for it held so many memories- of the times Minho kept his mouth sealed shut as the princess’ lips kept running, of the times she was presented supper bread buns with Chan’s special decorating and of the times you kept coming with the same expression and took her away.

Now that wouldn’t be happening anymore.

“Would you like to come, Mr. Chan?” Prince Felix asks, the princess by his side in full cooperation. She jumps up before the latter can utter a sensible word, turning towards her fiancé as she says enthusiastically, “You won’t believe how much of a good chef he is! The royal food cannot even rest side to side by the bread bun he makes, they’re outrageously delicious!”

The prince laughs at her vigorous demonstration cocking an eyebrow towards Chan in a wordless question. Would you like to come?

Now would he come? He’s lived his life recruiting powers and imbuing then with his knowledge till they are turned into full-fledged warriors. He’s always been a vagabond, travelling from place to place and seeing the true world as it is. His longest stay had been with the vengeful child, who had no parents. So he took it as an unclaimed duty to take care of the child and to teach him his best, helping him achieve his revenge.

Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to do, but he doesn’t regret giving him a home, being his home- and turning him into his home.

After all, staying at one place for the rest of his life wasn’t something Chan would do; it wasn’t his cup of pastry. Chan wears an apologetic smile. “As much as I am flattered by your praise princess, I think I’m good,” he replies.

“But-” the princess interjects, a very evident pout scrunching into her face.

Prince Felix pats her side with a gentle touch, stopping her from continuing. He then looks up at her, giving her an assuring smile, ‘it’s his will’ he whispers softly. The princess’ forehead clears in understanding, but the little conflict is there, the little hesitation of letting Chan go out of her reach is still there.

“That’s that then. We’re taking your apprentice Chan.”

Minho, Chan thinks. It’s been so long of a journey with the little boy who grew up right before his eyes, from the peach-like short child to an attractive, grown man. It isn’t his forte to feel like a parent, but the ache in his chest is something he can’t really ignore. He feels proud, so proud that his trained warlock has come so far, has obtained a lover and is so evidently happy. There’s still a wee snitch though, a tiny sadness, reminisce or reluctance that he’s not going to live with him anymore, not going to see him nor take care of him.

Maybe he’s played his part and now it’s his turn to go back to his previous lifestyle. Travel around the world and discover new evolutions of beer and sweets.

But he doesn’t want to lose contact with Minho, not in his dreams, not when he’s alive.

“Tell him to write me letters,” he says, a bundle of emotions gathering at his face. His nose and ears turn visibly red, yet there is a smile of happiness on his face.

I’m going to miss that idiot so bad.

“Or at least inform me if he births another scoundrel.”

The prince explodes into laughter at that, walking up to Chan as he extends a hand of amity. “I’ll make sure of that,” he says, much-overjoyed. Chan’s eyes fill with satisfaction as he returns a firm shake to the hand of the latter.

“But promise me you’ll visit from time to time. He’s going to miss you, you know,” the princess states.

Minho is….going to miss him? He doesn’t know if he’s raised the kid good enough for the warlock to miss him, but one thing is for sure, he cannot bear to be apart from his long-life partner for too long. So yes, maybe a visit or two, maybe staying there for a few days too; he can do that.

“I’ll be glad to, Your Highness.”

At the end, Lee Felix appoints Minho as an unofficial advisor under provision and also a powerful war ally. He also offers him a rank similar to a commander, providing him the suited lifestyle and necessities. You were appointed as the lady-in-waiting and also a future governor for the Queen-to-be princess’ children. You are also released from remunerative enslavement and escorted into the kingdom of Rewakj, where it ruled democracy and sovereignty. Your family; your mother, father and a little brother, are liberated from servile enslavement too, and brought into Felix’s kingdom. Your father made an average living, and they were all, finally happy.

You had no strings attached to the kingdom that wanted to kill you, and were freed from every possible complicacy. And the princess too, was married to the humble prince in the following month. Their wedding counted your first appearance as a lady-in-waiting, and made you renowned to the royals of the kingdom.

Happy ending wasn’t that.

It wasn’t Minho and you living with your damn cat in the ‘nothing could get better’ scenario. Except that it could however. Chan visited occasionally, showing up unannounced and demanding Minho to write to him more often.

There were still complexities in life, hardships and quarrels, but you could get through them. Life wasn’t picture perfect, paginated smooth, you never expected it to be, but it was with a certain someone, someone who appreciated you and supported you.

And that was what you called a happy beginning.

~ end ~

Comedy from kai, a threaD:

a foreword: Mal, thank you for trusting me to beta this beauty i will now proceed to hate you for a while for putting Minho through that pain. I lof u, have a great daaaaaay <3 (ilyt mwah! thank you thank you thank youu for beta-ing this *whispers* c r a p)

kai to minho: no u little fuck i ain't letting u bleed out on me do u know i do that for a whole week every month bitch that's exhausting we're getting u ice cream u deserve it boo

kai to yalls: tag yourself i'm minho and mc is my cat trying to use me as a personal heating pad

kai to this fic: nvm I’m actually here

kai: a few screamings in her mother tongue BUT I FORGOT TO COPY THOSE. anyway she was...done.

YES WE ARE FINALLY DONE WITH THIS FIC, now, whohooooo.

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dessarious · 4 years

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Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt92

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When Chloe pulled back Marinette kept a hold of her shoulders to force eye contact. She knew Chloe still got embarrassed showing any type of affection so if she let go Chloe would likely retreat back into herself. As it was she just looked confused.

“I’m sorry.” She watched as Chloe blinked at her, obviously not sure how to react to that.

“Sorry about what?” Where did she even start?

“I’m sorry I scared you last night.” Chloe opened her mouth to respond but Marinette just kept going. If she didn’t get this out now she wasn’t sure she’d be able to. “Sorry that I’m so used to pushing myself past my limits that I don’t even stop to think if I need to anymore. I’m sorry you feel like you need to keep up a front around me because you’re afraid I won’t be able to handle hearing your problems. And I’m so sorry you didn’t feel like this was something you could talk to me about.” She motioned to the papers still spread out on the table. “It’s obviously something that you’re passionate about and have put a lot of work into. I can’t believe I got so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t even notice you were working on something. You deserve better.” It hurt that Chloe was so afraid of adding stress to her that she didn’t even want to share the good things.

“I didn’t want to bother you with it, at least not until I had a better idea of if it will work or not.” The mumbled response just made Marinette feel more guilty.

“Chloe.” She waited for her girlfriend to make eye contact. “You are not a bother. Your ideas and thoughts are not a bother. We’re partners. Even if you don’t want my input on something, you can still talk to me about it so I can at least offer you support. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.” Chloe just stared at her for a minute before Marinette saw tears in her eyes. The next thing she knew she was in another crushing hug.

“Thank you.” She sounded so grateful and Marinette was mental cursing at herself. She forgot to take into account how different their home lives were far too often. Marinette had parents who loved her. More than that they were present in her life. If she was excited about something she knew she could go to them and they would at least be interested in how she felt about it. Chloe had never had anything close to that. Her father gave her money and shooed her away. Her mother couldn’t be bothered to remember she had a child most of the time. Chloe had been alone for most of her life other than Sabrina.

“You don’t have to thank me. Given all the times I’ve bored you to tears with my nonsense, not to mention everything you do for me, I’m the one who should be grateful.” And she was. She honestly didn’t know what she would have done without her.

“You’re never boring and after everything I’ve done I still can’t believe you’re even willing to talk to me.” That was the problem. She felt like she deserved to be alone and ignored by everyone around her. Marinette was fairly certain Chloe expected her to just up and leave one day, or maybe even start being abusive towards her because that was really all she knew to expect.

“You made mistakes, yes. But you learned and grew from them. Judging someone on their past actions but completely ignoring their current ones is insane. We’ve both done things we regret, but letting those things define you just keeps you trapped in the past. I’d much rather concentrate on our future.” Marinette caught Selina give Chloe an ‘I told you so look’ that she was going to have to ask about later. “But to do that we’ve both got to get better at talking to each other. I need you to remind me every once in a while that I don’t have to do everything by myself anymore, and I’m going to get it through your head that just because your parents don’t think anything is more important than themselves doesn’t mean no one will ever put you first.”

“You two are so cute. I imagine this is how talks with Bruce would go if the man understood the concept of communication. Or admitting he’s wrong about something.” Chloe let out an amused snort before pulling back to look at the woman.

“So you’re saying Damian comes by it honestly then?” Marinette shot her a glare but the girl just stuck her tongue out at her.

“Between having a mother with no emotions, and a father with no idea how to show them you could certainly say so. He seems to have gotten much better at it since moving here though. We actually talked for once instead of just poking at each other.”

“Mari has that effect on people.” Marinette just rolled her eyes at the praise.

“I’m pretty sure I’m not the one calming him down.” Selina’s eyes lit up and Marinette regretted being so flippant.

“Ah yes, the mystery boyfriend that the boys think doesn’t exist. I’m looking forward to meeting him as well.” Marinette shared a look with Chloe.

“That will be on their terms if it happens at all. Given some of the things they’ve said and done, Damian’s not thrilled about having told them that much. And he doesn’t want to subject his significant other to their interrogations until they’ve had a chance to calm down either.” Selina rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated breath.

“I don’t blame him. Bruce was an only child and really has no concept of how siblings should interact versus how his kids actually do. Some of the things that come out of their mouths are ridiculous, especially Jason and Steph. Bruce always seems surprised when their teasing results in Damian pulling out weapons. It’s sad really.”

“So you’ll leave him alone to tell everyone in his own time?” Selina looked surprised by the question but Marinette had to make sure.

“Of course. When I figure out who it is I’ll keep it to myself. I promise I won’t even tell Bruce.” Chloe was eyeing the woman with a calculating expression.

“What makes you think you’ll figure it out before he tells you?” Selina chuckled.

“Because unlike the Bats I pay attention to the things that are right under my nose. Not to mention they all seem to be expecting some drastic transformation whenever he’s around this person and won’t be looking for subtle hints. I do know that Alfred and Cass have figured out who it is already and aren’t sharing, so I’m confident I’ll be able to figure it out, and keep the boys from looking too closely at the wrong things, just in case.”

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#maribat #bffmaridami #Selina Kyle #marinette dupain cheng #chloe bourgeois

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lov3nerdstuff · 3 years

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Voluptas Noctis Aeternae {Part 7.3}

*Severus Snape x OC*

Summary: It is the year 1983 when the ordinary life of Robin Mitchell takes a drastic turn: she is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Despite the struggles of being a muggle-born in Slytherin, she soon discovers her passion for Potions, and even manages the impossible: gaining the favor of Severus Snape. Throughout the years, Robin finds that the not quite so ordinary Potions Professor goes from being a brooding stranger to being more than she had ever deemed possible. An ally, a mentor, a friend... and eventually, the person she loves the most. Through adventure, prophecies and the little struggles of daily life in a castle full of mysteries, Robin chooses a path for herself, an unlikely friendship blossoms into something more, and two people abandoned by the world can finally find a home.

General warnings: professor x student, blood, violence, trauma, neglectful families, bullying, cursing

Words: 5k

Read Part 1.1 here! All Parts can be found on the Masterlist!

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Lunch break came and went, and so did the second half of the conference. Robin and Snape continued doing what they had been doing for the most part of the day, quietly criticising the many misconceptions, mistakes and missing pieces of the other people's lectures, but they wouldn't be as tactless as to publicly bring it up in the discussions. All corrections and truths, as well as all snarky comments and crude jokes were kept exclusively between the two of them. The handbook, or rather the immense knowledge that was compiled in it by now, wasn't supposed to become known, especially not around here in these circles, and thus Robin had to refrain from correcting mistakes for the most part anyway. Only when she was asked for her opinion specifically – which actually had become an almost usual occurrence at this point – did she speak up at all. But of course the conference wouldn't have been the same without Kenneth Crowe, nor without his not so subtle attempts to mess with Robin once again.

"May I remark, Miss Mitchell, you haven't commented on my presentation yet, and given your inclination to comment on absolutely everything, that does surprise me now. So please enlighten us, what brilliant conclusion did you come to this time?" He asked her during the discussion to his lecture, his tone so pointedly hostile and sarcastic that a few people frowned at him in confusion. They must've been living under a rock for the last two years if they had missed this growing one-sided rivalry.

"Never give a green cat a flamethrower." Robin replied in perfect neutrality an instant later, looking him dead in the eye from all the way across the room. Admittedly, she had come prepared for such a situation this time around, and that left her feeling a lot more in control of the situation than she had in the previous years. Next to her, Snape raised an eyebrow and tried very hard not to look too amused by what he certainly guessed was coming.

Crowe however openly scoffed at Robin, rolling his eyes in a condescending manner, before crossing his arms over his chest. "Matters certainly get more ridiculous every single year; I won't even honor that statement by questioning it."

"That would be the point." Robin gave him a polite little smile, and multiple people in the room quietly snorted against better judgement. "I'm glad you agree with me on the issue. Some matters simply aren't worth to be commented on."

A few jaws dropped, Crowe's being one of them, but he stayed pointedly quiet in return and instead seemed to ignore Robin entirely from there on. Just what she had wanted. That settled the issue, and the afternoon continued on quietly until the last lecture was over, upon which the crowd assembled in the front for the usual picture to be taken. Unlike last year, Robin didn't have to convince Snape to partake, and they found their place easily just like everyone else did. After that however, Robin was asked to stand for a second photograph all by herself, which obviously was a usual procedure for the people who gave the lectures. She wasn't particularly fond of the idea, but it would've taken more time to argue herself out of it than to get it over with, and thus she simply shook her hair out of the bun it had been in and stood still.

"Smile for me, would you?" The photographer asked, and Robin tried to somewhat smile without looking stupid. But obviously he wouldn't have her not-smile. "No no no, smile with your entire face, like you actually mean it!"

"The others didn't have to smile either." She scoffed, thinking of how all the men before her had been done with the picture within seconds, and without a comment. "So why do I have to? Just because I'm female doesn't make me a dress up doll."

"I'm sure your smile is lovely, sweetheart." He reasoned and gave her a look that annoyed Robin within a second. "They say a woman's smile is the most enchanting thing about her, you know…"

"That is the best you can do? Not very creative, is it?" Snape remarked from just a little off to the side, raising an eyebrow at the photographer, absolutely unimpressed. "I would rather say it's the mind that enchants, but what would you know about that, right?"

Robin couldn't help laughing at the comment, at the sheer sass in it, and even just at the expression on Snape's face. Before she knew, her photo was taken and the grumbling photographer packed up without another word to either of them. Well, at least she was smiling like he'd wanted her to, even if she had looked behind the camera rather than into it.

What followed was the usual: endless smalltalk and conversations, being handed over from one person to the next, and having to tell people as politely as possible that her life wasn't a topic she would give them information on. But unlike last year, Snape stayed by Robin's side the entire time and thereby made the whole procedure a lot more bearable. He obviously didn't have the same reputation here as he did back at Hogwarts, but even without knowing exactly who he was, his height, scowls and generally dark appearance sufficed to keep people at a distance from both of them. For the most part at least.

"So you are the famous Miss Mitchell…" A man perhaps a little older than Snape approached them in a slow saunter in the very moment Robin's previous conversation came to an end. She had noticed how he'd kept throwing glances at her throughout the evening, but only now he actually approached her, in obvious disdain that Snape still refused to leave her side. Perhaps that's why his eyes and focus stayed exclusively on Robin. "A true honour to meet you at last."

"I'm Robin Mitchell, yes." She replied, after not finding a name tag on him anywhere. "But I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

"Jacob Crowe." He smiled way too brightly, bowing in an exaggerated manner. "You already know my brother Kenneth, unfortunately. But let me assure you that not everyone in our family is quite as ignorant as him."

"Nice to meet you, then." Robin made herself return a polite smile even though his forcefully charming demeanor made her rather want to scowl. At least Snape's hand was still securely resting on her back, had been from the start of these torturous conversations, and she found herself leaning into him the slightest bit more on instinct now. He surely wouldn't mind… just for the duration of this uncomfortable situation.

"I must say, your presentation was quite enchanting." Crowe gave her another look that was probably supposed to be dashing, but only did the very opposite. "A fascinating story of research and intellect, told by the most fascinating woman I have ever seen. Logically, I was clinging onto your every word."

"Yes, that much was obvious." Snape taunted with the inevitable scowl, glowering at Crowe before Robin had to come up with a reply on her own. It was the first and only time he had gotten himself involved in any of Robin's conversations this evening, and good gods he couldn't have picked a better time.

Crowe glared right back at him, making a face that was in no way inferior in its hostility to that of his brother. "And you are…?"

"Tired of hearing you speak when you clearly have nothing to say." Snape replied in a cutting voice that was filled with boredom and disdain alike, and yet he tugged Robin even closer to his side ever so gently. Always the contradiction.

Crowe glared at him for another moment, then turned back to Robin with a still somewhat irritated expression that he however tried to cover up with another smile. "You are a remarkable woman, Robin… It would be a true joy to get to know you, to hear more about your research and life. But then again, you seem to be spoken for already."

"As a matter of fact, I generally only speak for myself." Robin replied calmly, but yet in a tone that made abundantly clear what she thought of his advances. "And I am here to speak about research, not about my personal life."

"There's no harm in combining work and pleasure, my dear." He gave her another almost suggestive grin, obviously misunderstanding her previous statement. "I know for a fact that you are quite exceptional in one, and I would love to find out about the other."

"Good evening, Mister Crowe." She got out more or less politely, then turned on her heels and pulled Snape towards the doors with her. He seemed no less eager to finally leave this place, which made it more of a common hasting than either leading the other really. However before they could get far, another group of three men stepped into their way. They at least acknowledged Snape with a nod before focusing entirely on Robin.

"Miss Mitchell, I was wondering if you could tell us a bit more about the Siazella you found on accident. I have never heard of it before, which should be surprising enough at my age! How on earth did you know what you were dealing with?" The oldest in the group got right to the point, smiling in a curious and friendly manner at least, and Robin still had to suppress a sigh. She just wanted to leave… but that would have to wait. If Dumbledore had already set her up for the lecture, he surely would expect her to answer the professional questions as well. At least these men actually seemed sincerely interested in her research.

For another twenty minutes Robin elaborated on the Siazella and her knowledge of it, careful to leave out her handbook nonetheless, and once she also had answered any follow-up questions, the three men finally wished them a good night and let them be at last. Two heartbeats passed, and then Snape and Robin practically ran out the doors to avoid getting held up another time. Only once they had rushed all the way through the hallways and down the first flight of stairs, they finally slowed down a little, which left Robin both breathless and amused. Somehow, fleeing from the crime scene together had a charme in itself.

"I'm glad it's finally over…" She sighed as they walked down the elaborate staircase that –as everything in the wizarding world, it seemed– was merely lit by an astonishing number of candles. "The day was more annoying than I remembered it to be, and a whole lot more exhausting. I'm glad it's just you and me now."

"I wonder why I ever attended this pathetic event in the first place." Snape grumbled to himself in return, his scowl coloured by the barest hint of a pout. "A room full of idiots who speak nonsense and pride themselves in entirely irrelevant matters. I could have the very same in the Slytherin common room."

Robin let out a snort, which however was followed by an almost affectionate smile. "You attended because of me, I would say."

"So did everyone else, obviously." He drawled, rolling his eyes in complete disdain once more, much like the expression he had given the younger Crowe.

"Are you jealous?" She couldn't help asking in a teasing tone, quirking an eyebrow at him in amusement. Yeah, maybe teasing him when he was annoyed wasn't the best idea.

"Whyever would I be?" He scoffed immediately, a little too immediately, and definitely much too defensively.

"Because unlike back at Hogwarts, I am the one with a reputation here." She grinned in return, choosing to let go of what she had originally been insinuating in favour of a more universal interpretation, then couldn't help laughing at her own thought. "Usually you're Batman and I'm Robin. But here I'm Batman and you're Robin… which you're probably not used to being. But I can assure you that I definitely couldn't have done any of this without you, so perhaps it's not the best analogy."

He rolled his eyes again, but couldn't help the small smirk tugging on his lips. "Poor analogy indeed, especially for you. As far as I remember, you are the heroic type who saved a girl from almost certain death, twice in a row."

"And you are far braver than you give yourself credit for! I mean, you're spending a great deal of time with me, that's gotta take some bravery to go through with willingly." Robin smirked up at him, raising her eyebrows in humour as they made their way through the almost empty entrance hall in complete ignorance of everyone who was still present.

"If I was any kind of brave, I would have cursed all those men up there the second they dared to gawk at you in such a lewdly manner." He said once they were finally out in the dark street again, and his words sent an immediate shiver through Robin. But she also reminded herself that he probably, no, definitely didn't mean it in the way her mind so desperately wanted to believe.

"That wouldn't have been brave but just rash." She replied with a small smile, calm and reassuring, even though her heart was racing. "Take Crowe, for example. He was only sweet-talking me to get information on my personal life. And as much as I wanted to hex him myself, it just would've looked like I have something to hide."

"How can you be so rational about people mistreating you like that?"

"Practice." Robin shrugged with an actually humoured smile. "And I had you with me the entire time; what bad could possibly have happened to me?"

"I feel honoured by that assessment, but still, you take their crude behavior far too lightly."

"I'd rather say you take it too seriously. You said yourself that it's just a room full of idiots and creeps, so why should we waste a thought on them?" She gave him a pointed look to accompany the statement. "It's over now either way, and the only idiot you have to deal with is me."

"Yes, but that is an entirely different matter. You are my idiot."

"I am?" The grin was on her face before she could help it, and his words burned themselves into her memory to haunt her in her mind for all time to come.

"Obviously." He quirked an eyebrow at her in a way that made her grin even more, and only then he allowed himself the tiniest smirk in return. A moment passed in silence before he spoke on. "It is fairly late already, and knowing you, you will most certainly want to look into another theory tomorrow morning."

"We don't have to! I mean, if you'd prefer to… to take a break, we can continue any other time really. If you've got something else to do, I absolutely understand that. I mean it's been two weeks, and I haven't even once asked if I was keeping you from anything, and really it's been quite rude of me to just blindly assume that you would want to waste your entire holidays on me, but since we never really discussed it, you know, I just-..."

"Breathe." He cut in with a still subtly amused expression. "Tomorrow is fine."

"Good…" Robin said and let out a long breath at the same time indeed. Really, if she was exceptionally good at anything, it would have to be rambling. Or overthinking. "Tomorrow morning it is then."

"The cliff?"

"Always lovely meeting there. Eight as always?"

"Very well."

"So… time to say goodnight, I guess."

"Indeed."

And yet, they both remained standing a step apart on the dark sidewalk, looking at each other expectantly while neither wanted to be the first to go. After half a minute, Robin started smiling, then grinning, and finally straight out laughed at the situation and at how silly they both were being. This wasn't the first time this had happened, but it never ceased to amuse her, nor amaze her that he seemed to be as reluctant to part ways as her.

"Coffee?" She finally asked with a soft smile.

"Yes."

… … …

Finding a place to have decent coffee after eleven at night was surprisingly easy in London, but for the sake of being a little more subtle than going to the Leaky Cauldron or any other establishment where either of them surely would be recognized, they settled for a random muggle pub that wasn't too crowded nor too loud, and where hopefully nobody would ask questions about Snape's choice of clothing. He'd been very much right in that regard, muggles didn't take too kindly to people in robes, but since Robin looked mostly normal, they merely received a few odd glances. Admittedly, they could simply have gone back to making instant coffee somewhere far away from people, but real coffee was a tempting change for once. Thus they found themselves sitting at a small table in a corner, and Robin couldn't help enjoying the anonymity of a crowded place as well as the bliss of doing something so very ordinary with Snape for once. If one looked at it that way, they had never actually spent time in public together, so this was a welcome new experience that came with very welcome tingles no less. Before long their orders arrived, and the overly cheerful blonde waitress reminded Robin of something she had almost forgotten about after everything that had happened that day.

"Oh fuck…" She groaned under her breath, sighing at the realization that her evening had just gotten a whole lot longer than anticipated.

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing really." She sighed again as she returned Snape's inquiring gaze and rested her chin in her hands, elbows propped up on the table. "I just remembered that I still have something to do when I return… home tonight."

"Doesn't look like it will be a pleasant task. Chores?"

"If that's what you wanna call Cas, then sure." Robin laughed, especially when he rolled his eyes in return. "I'm supposed to help her with something, and I don't know if I can. At least not in the way she would like me to."

"You have always been exceptional at keeping me in suspense." He sighed, then took a sip of his coffee and motioned for Robin to go on already. After briefly considering it, she did.

"I said something on the train ride home, about how a well written letter can be a great way to connect with someone if you can't see them for a while. And well… she wants to write to Simon without being cheesy or boring."

"And she wants you to write it for her?" Snape quirked an eyebrow at Robin in doubt. "That would defy the entire purpose of such a letter, wouldn't you say?"

"Obviously it would, and that's why I don't know how to help her! She didn't specifically ask me to write it for her, just to help her in any way I can. Give her some inspiration, or pointers maybe… You got any idea?"

"I'm afraid I have no experience with this kind of matter. Most letters I have written throughout my life were related to my work in both content and form. Don't you have received or written something of a similar kind before?"

"Obviously not! I've only ever written to you, to be honest." Robin shrugged, stirring her coffee with a spell before remembering where she was and quickly taking the teaspoon instead. "But I'm supposed to be the knowledgeable one and help Cas out. It's my job to know better than her."

"That is what I thought about you for a certain amount of time." He mused with a not-smirk. "But I gave up at some point in your third year."

Robin chuckled, sipping her coffee as well, before setting it down with a sigh and a new determination. Without another word, she summoned a piece of paper, a pen, and Cas' book out of her backpack, then placed it on the table in front of her with a thud. "You're helping me with this. If I don't know what I'm doing and you don't either, we better be clueless together."

"I had feared you would suggest that." He sighed dramatically, giving her a teasingly annoyed glance nonetheless. "But I would be a poor excuse of a friend if I let you down in times of despair."

Smiling, Robin pushed the dreaded book closer to him and kept the paper to herself. "Here, look through that for anything useful. Cas loves this book, it's full of sappy teen romance."

"And you would know that because…?"

"She sneakily made me promise to read it, so I did. I had to."

"Of course she did…"

"Now you just sound like Dumbledore."

"Insult me and I'm gone." He drawled in bad neutrality while flipping through the pages, and Robin had to snort. Neither of them seemed to be on good terms with the headmaster today, not after he had put Robin through giving a lecture without even a notice.

"The book really is quite terrible. I got it over with in the first week of the holidays, but I barely made it out alive." She remarked as she brainstormed what she knew about letters, love, Cas and Simon, but her thoughts kept coming back to the book as her only point of reference.

"What is it even about? I cannot tell from the glimpses of bad dialogue thrown at me here."

"Oh, you know… stupid stuff." Robin replied evasively, but even to herself that answer was a poor excuse, if anything. She hadn't written it after all, nor even read it voluntarily. But secretly enjoyed it a little more than she would ever admit. "This eighteen year old girl who falls madly in love with some guy who's new at her school. Ridiculous, really… They don't even know each other all that well, but still hit it off after just a few weeks of unreasonable conflict. It's the least romantic thing ever, they don't even seem to care about each other as much as they care about themselves. They go through all those firsts together, which admittedly is quite adorable, but then they ruin it all again by being so flat and shallow and vain that you just wanna smack them in the head the entire time. If anything, that book is a test of patience."

"Certainly sounds like it, yes… The writing is poor, the plot too as it seems, and the dialogue is an abomination in itself."

"Yeah, you could say that." Robin snorted with a smile.

"Perhaps we should treat it as a negative example for the task at hand then." He suggested. "Tell me, what exactly is bad about the way this is written?"

"Well, the entire thing is just so exaggerated and blown out of proportion... It feels unnatural for people who have known each other such a short time to be quite so over the top with their emotions and declarations." Robin started, and at the same time Snape plucked the pen out of her hand and pulled the papers on the table closer to himself.

"Do go on." He said as Robin stopped speaking to frown at his doings, and then gave her a look that left no room for argument beyond his words.

"Uh, alright… as I said, it's exaggerated, and just too much. Then the author also relies way too much on the use of straight out saying 'I love you', as well as just kissing and making out, to indicate the sentiments between the characters. The emotions should rather be obvious between the lines; if you have to directly say them to be understood, you're doing it wrong. Not that saying it would be bad, I don't mean it like that, it's just… it shouldn't be said just because it needs to be. At least not when they're already in a relationship. Their love should be the driving force of everything that is said, not the direct message itself, and-..." Robin cut herself off before she could start rambling again, and focused on moving on instead. "Then, as I said earlier, they seem to not even know each other. You could switch out any of the names on the pages, and it wouldn't make a difference. They should be playing on what they know and adore about each other, even if it's not much yet. Just… lending a book to someone who loves books will be a much more meaningful gesture than getting them a bouquet of roses, for example. People really shouldn't be afraid to go for the unusual kind of gestures and gifts."

"That makes for a decent list of don'ts already, which is a point to start. So tell me, what would you like to read instead of the negatives you pointed out? You already mentioned a few ideas for improvement, but perhaps you can think of more. Start from the negatives you created, and envision their counterpart."

Robin gave him a partially annoyed, partially desperate look, but he merely quirked an eyebrow and waited for her to continue. Insufferable idiot… but his idea to make her talk on the basis of the stupid book was helping more than anything she had come up with herself. Sighing, Robin gave in. What would a teenager want to hear from their love interest? What would Cas enjoy reading if she already enjoyed the stupid book so much? Damnit… this was difficult. "I don't know… I'm not good at these things, I can't imagine what a teenager would want to read."

"If Cassandra would have wanted to write by the standards of a teenager, she would have asked one of her mutuals. But she asked you, so you might as well advise her from your own perspective."

"Fine…" Robin sighed, and hid the heat on her face behind her coffee cup. What had she enjoyed hearing from Snape, in letters or in conversation? Or rather what would she enjoy? Damnit, she should have allowed herself to dream about this more often. "I think it is of major importance how much you let someone see of yourself. Allowing them to know you better than anyone else, giving them the chance to understand you in a different way by showing them more than just the big picture. Learning about the small and random moments in someone's life just has an entirely different level of intimacy to it than learning about the big things. I mean sure, it's the big events that shape a life, but it's the small things that shape the person and give them their colour. If I had to choose, I would always choose the colour, because it is what makes a person truly who they are, and not just the sum of bad or good things that have happened to them. The sky doesn't need a shape to be beautiful either, but it's the colour that makes one fall in love with it."

For the moment that followed, they both stayed quiet. Robin sipped the remainder of her coffee, and Snape finished writing whatever he was noting down of her words and thoughts. Perhaps she shouldn't have let herself get so deep… perhaps she shouldn't have asked him for help in the first place. But then she would be sitting in her tent by herself tonight, listening to the same old records she had put on every night since taking the player, and drown in sorrows over how little she really knew about love, and about people. No, this was much better indeed. Before long, Snape pushed the piece of paper across the table towards Robin again, and she smiled when she saw the perfectly organized list of things to avoid, and things to do instead. Copying it would probably be the best idea, to send it to Cas in her own handwriting. But Robin was keeping the original for sure.

"I think that should be a decent reference for anyone to write by." He said calmly, and finished the rest of his coffee while leaning back in his chair. "Cassandra would have to make a real effort to mess it up now."

"You should never underestimate Cas' ability to mess things up… Especially the easy ones." Robin grinned at him for a moment, until she managed to tone it down to a sincere smile. "Thank you for your help with this. I think we did pretty well for two people who didn't know any better."

"You shouldn't thank me. It was you who said every single thing that is on this list; I merely wrote it down in an appropriate format."

"And you made me say them in the first place!" Robin objected, almost finding herself as amused as nervous by the fact that the statement was only too true. He was the only reason she knew what truly loving someone felt like, even if it left her no wiser about being loved in return. But she knew that he appreciated her quite a lot, at least. Who else could say that about themselves, huh? In a way, that was a status as exclusive as it could get.

"Perhaps we simply make a good team no matter how impossible the endeavour." He suggested calmly, and gave her a not-smirk that had her melting within seconds.

"We most certainly do."

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