#it made my grades go down significantly

[moonysfavoritetoast]

“gym is the best subject in school”

i’m sorry what? it’s not even a subject. it’s just a pervy teacher who went to watch the girls on the run 5k in may even though he doesn’t have a daughter or neice or sibling or ANYTHING that would be in it because he has two adult sons and a twelve year old niece and girls on the run is third through fifth grade and he stares at girls running and makes girls feel like they shouldn’t eat because they’re fat (they’re not, i was in classes with some of the skinniest kids in my school)

why is gym your favorite subject the teacher makes you do jumping jacks sometimes for twenty minutes straight for warmups if health class is there bc if ONE PERSON stops you have to all start over again and go for a full minute why is gym your favorite subject

[luludeluluramblings]

Smalltown!Neglected! Meta!Reader x Yandere!Batfam

Part Seven

Part One ☁️ Part Two ☁️ Part Three ☁️ Part Four ☁️ Part Five ☁️ Part Six ☁️

A/N: I’m not sure if I’m satisfied with this. But, I doubt I’ll ever be satisfied with this. I want Reader to come off as more Bruce like with the emotional suppression and planning. And, this was my actual first and third attempt at dialogue. I’m gonna need some practice. But, I tried.

A/N: Up next we get some yandere!Bats vs. yandere!Smalltown action. (Holy frick is that gonna be hard to write.) I’m also going to start work on the Dick Obsession now. Gotta fight the temptation to write the Vigilante!Smalltown!Reader story while this is still in the works.

Warning: Yandere Themes.

As the coming months passed by, Reader could feel Gotham starting to wear on them. Or, they at the least Wayne manor starting to wear on them. They haven’t been given permission to leave the manor since the kidnapping. Not even to drive their truck for some unhealthy, but soul healing fast food. Of course, that doesn’t stop the other residents of the house from leaving whenever they wish. 

They see the Bat Burger wrappers in the trash the morning after another soundless night in the manor. God, how they’d love to try it one day. 

But, as time moves on something draws closer. An important date. Reader’s legal eighteenth birthday. They’re excited, by all means. But, there’s something significantly more important coming sooner. 

Reader’s Younger Brother’s Birthday was just a week before Reader’s. There had been many fond memories made while growing up with the week between the two different dates being filled with fun and excitement. (And love.) 

With such an important date coming up, and with Momma and Daddy no longer being here, Reader had plans to make it a fun week. 

They just have to convince Bruce to let them go back to Smalltown. Just for the week. They’re all too busy to spend time with Reader anyway, besides this is important to them. They’ve stayed in the manor like asked. They’re grades are good. They do their chores. They don’t ask for much. It should be perfectly reasonable to request to let them visit back home. 

But, just in case, Reader approaches Dick next time he's in the manor and is smothering them in affection before he goes to disappear into the library. 

“Can you help me convince Bruce to let me go, please, Dick?”

It’s a simple request. And, it makes Dick’s heart melt a bit. Reader’s the only one in the family to easily give into his affection and to have them finally ask him for help in such a sweet polite voice was heart melting.

Wholeheartedly, he agrees and he is rewarded. With Reader bouncing into his arms with an impressive amount of enthusiasm that he hasn’t had a chance to see previously. Probably due to always being so busy. Maybe he should make more time for Reader if they shower him with such genuine gratitude and affection like this. 

The thought lingers in his head as he makes his way towards the Batcave. A spring in his step despite the glares he receives as he makes his way down the stairs. 

The manor cameras had caught the entire thing, leaving the occupants in the cave to get a front row seat to Reader being sweet on Dick. 

He can’t stop the tiny smug smile from forming on his lips as Barbara gives him a disapproving ~~jealous~~ look. Or, the look of straight bitterness on Damian’s face. The mild satisfaction from Duke’s face being as blank as Cassandra’s. Stephanie’s forlorn expression. The way that Jason looks like he wants to shoot him with the gun he’s cleaning that makes him want to laugh with glee.. 

Tim doesn’t even look at him. Too annoyed with Dick as he sits at the Batcomputer furiously clicking and typing away on something. 

Bruce had been out at the moment for League Business. But, the entire family now has a competition forming. Whoever could convince Bruce for Reader would win. The prize being the winner possibly getting showered in Reader’s affection. And, the hope of visiting Reader’s hometown with them. The very idea of it makes some of them shudder with some particular emotions. 

The bombardment of pleading and puppy-dog eyes began almost as soon as Bruce stepped back into the cave. It was nearly comical how everyone petitioned Reader’s case. 

Hell, Bruce was nearly convinced they should all make the trip when Tim threw his bid in.

Pulling up all the research on Smalltown and how apparently harmless it was. He even managed to remotely bug Childhood Friend’s Brother’s phone just to double check. 

That’s when things spiral. 

Right at that very moment, a call comes through to the phone. It seems harmless at first. The guy talking to his boss. The two had immediately talked about Reader returning to town. As if the two knew without a doubt that they were coming back.

That sparked suspicions, but it's not what ignited the fire.

The fire came when the two started talking about Reader's time in Gotham. The whole kidnapping incident. Childhood Crush admitted that Reader tried to down play the incident to Nana. After which his boss ask a horrifying question.

"Do you and Grand Daddy need some help killing this guy? It might be a bit harder than the last one y'all killed."

The last one.

Immediately the phrase makes questions arise. But, once again things get worse.

"Nah, we'll let him live. He's from Gotham. He'll probably never come out this way. And, if he does them we'll drag him out where we drowned the last sorry son of a bitch. He was just in it for the money."

"That's right. The other guy just wanted to kill Reader to keep 'em for himself. Still..."

It was difficult to give the rest of the conversation their full attention after that.

It was like the blood had crystalized in their veins. Both cold fury and hot rage filling them till it seemed to shred their minds apart.

There was no way in heaven or hell or high water that they were possibly going to let Reader go back to that vile little town filled with monsters. As if Gotham wasn't filled with abominations of it's own designs.

Without a moment to delay Bruce Batman jumps into action, barking orders for Tim, Barbara, and Cassandra to start digging up everything imaginable on Smalltown. Every resident, every social media post or mention, every single person that has ever lived there, visited, and gone missing. "Find me the name of the bastard that nearly took my child to the grave. I want the memory of them wiped of the face of the earth as their bones rot in it."

The other's are ordered to cover his patrol and redouble their efforts to capture the remaining Gotham Rouges by any and all means necessary The Court of Owls is low priority until more is uncovered about Smalltown and what the hell happened.

Reader's usual pacing around the unoccupied halls of the manor conversing on the phone is interrupted by Bruce Batman stalking towards with a violence simmering under the surface of an obsidian mask. Easy to shatter and sharp to the touch. Before a words is even spoken the phone the lifeline is ripped from their hands and shattered under a pair of designer loafers.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

You could only stagger back as you watched his foot trample over the well used phone. You hadn't even chance to hang up the conversation you were having, when Bruce had come barreling down the extravagant hall way you roamed so often you 'd already practically memorized the brush strokes on each painting and the pattern of the wood grain on the walls. Not even the chance to put a hold on the plans you were making before it all came to an abrupt halt without your blessing.

For a moment your just baffled. Looking at the shattered phone screen with pieces of glass and plastic on the ground before looking up at the shattered facade your father Bruce wore.

His face was deathly still. Not even a twitch. It gave him an inhuman like visage that set off the same warning bells that Jason Red Hood had made you hear.

So that's where he got it from.

You can't help put think, trying to form the words to question his actions and confront him. It isn't long before he gives you the excuse explanation for his unwarranted action himself.

"You're not going." Is all he says. His voice was cold enough to burn.

It doesn't take a genius to know what he's talking about.

"If this is about me getting Dick to help convince you-"

"Dick agrees. Everyone agrees. You are not going." The interruption is rude, but the words sting. They thought that everyone else would be on board with it. Even the members of the family that didn't care for their presence should have been on board with it.

"I'm not asking for a vote. I was asking for your permission and yours alone." Another attempt.

"I am saying no. I am your father and you will listen to me about this." The totality found in his icy voice makes them finally feel that helpless. Like nothing they say will improve this situation. That continuing to smile will not solve a damn thing.

"What did I do?" The resentment that has locked up tightly inside beings to swirl. Ire churning into gales. The long withheld temper becoming a tempest. "What the hell did I do to make you treat me like this?"

"This has nothing to do with you. This is my decision on the matter. You need-" The sound of a notification going off interrupts his words, but they don't stop the ringing in you're ears. Even after Bruce abruptly dismisses himself, muttering about getting you a new phone, before moving towards the library. Again.

For once, you don't bother cleaning up the shattered pieces on the floor. Leaving them on the ornate carpet in the lavish and deserted hall. You have planning to do. Restraint is gone. Holding back is over. It's time to take things into your own hands. They want to ignore you, fine. You'll leave and you'll fucking live without them.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Consequently, incoming weather reports start showing some unusual patterns on the news that week. Meteorologist say there's a massive possibility of a potential hurricane brewing off the coast. Everyone is on edge. (Gotham is already a disaster as is. No one wants another one on top of it.)

Reader's not to worried. They grew up with Hurricane parties. Besides the manor has it's own power grid says Alfred. Gotham's power grid is a bit more vulnerable, but luckily the Hospitals and Arkham are on different power grids. Everything should be alright. (Everything should also go according to plan.)

The next time Dick comes by, Reader is a bit short with him. Giving him a disgruntled look that breaks his heart a little and makes it melt. Try as he might he gets nothing other than their annoyance. Even when he finally admits it was Tim's fault they had been denied the chance to go home. It does make them pout even more, how cute. Even when he gifts them a newer phone. Their not stupid, the damn thing is probably bugged to high heaven. And, it's missing all their old contacts since Bruce slammed the SD card under his big bat toe.

Their clearly in a foul mood and everyone is being subjugated to the silent treatment. As their birthday, and their younger brother's birthday, draws closer and closer, a dark cloud seems to hang over them and Gotham.

In a moment born from guilt and ignorance, Bruce buys them a car as an early birthday present. A grandiose little luxury model. With all the bells and whistles. It's even in their favorite color. Not that anyone in the family asked what it was. (Tim might have had something to do with it. After all he did get them banned from traveling. Not that he feels guilty. No way in hell was he letting you go. Especially without him or the others.)

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

"It seems kinda wasteful." You can't help saying it. To tired of putting on that pleasant people pleaser mask for once.

"I know it's a bit extravagant, but since everyone has their own car I thought you should have your own too." Bruce had such an eager smile on his face. Like the whole incident with the crushing your hopes and your phone never happened.

To bad you haven't forgotten nor forgiven.

"Still a waste. I'm not going to get to drive it anywhere." Vinegar coating your tongue as you look at the sleek design.

You can here everyone around you stop cooing and praising the gift. There's no need to further elaborate your point. He gets it. The family gets it. The very earth you stand on gets it. You're not leaving this house. There's no need for the tank of gas to be filled. Or the damn thing to be charged since its some fucking electric hybrid, and probably filled to the brim with all sorts of nasty little tracking bugs.

You could have left it at that. But why not sink that needle deeper into his chest. Not a knife. Never a knife. You want your words to sting and stick. No taking the cut and letting it heal overtime. Let it be tattooed on the skin.

"Besides I already have Daddy's old truck. I don't need this." Don't those words hit like a strike to the soul. Bruce grows visibly still at them. That practiced mask going up and hiding the tells from all of them. Except Cassandra. There's no hiding things from her. They're all laid bare in front of her and she can tell everyone has somethings to say. While you have something to scream.

"You could at the very least be grateful for Father's gift" He had been so well behaved to far. Keeping quite and watching with attentive green eyes. He could tell this wasn't going to go in the family's favor. He didn't necessarily blamed you for being disgruntled. But, would it kill you to give them a smile. They missed those. Hell, he missed those.

Something in you crackled, but you managed to hold you're tongue. The side-eye you gave him, however spoke enough volumes for you instead.

Astonishingly, it was Duke that set off the electric charge.

"I mean, it is a really nice car. You sure you don't want to take it for a spin?" You can here his attempt at trying to defuse the static in the are, but as fond of him as you are compared to the others, it just sets you off.

"Oh, and where to exactly?" You can't help but snort. "Down the driveway and back?"

"You're acting like a brat." Jason throwing in his two cents. Of course he would say that. And, he's rewarded with a voltaic look from you eyes and a snarl from your lips.

"I. Don't. Care." The words echo in the massive car garage. Bouncing of the walls and the other sleek fancy model cars in it. Your apathy and anger is reward with quiet.

It doesn't last long.

"Let's all just calm down." Dick steps between them, trying to play reconciler. All it serves to do is make you feel more isolated. The way he steps between you cuts you off from the rest of the group and makes it seem like he's singling you out.

"I am calm!" The words coming from your clenched jaw.

"They're the one acting like a spoiled little-"

"Jason, enough." Bruce finally steps in. That stoic look still on his face. Internally, he knows he miscalculated. He made a mistake, and it's humbling to know he can still make them at his age and with all his experience. Still, he wears the mask. He's too busy recalculating and coming up with another plan. Perhaps he was putting to much focus on the wrong thing. That didn't stop him from glaring at that classless truck in his garage.

"Of fucking course Daddy's princess gets away with acting like a brat." Jason doesn't stop though, looking directly at you. Always looking at you. Everyone is always looking at you. But never speaking these days.

"Fuck you." You whisper. Caution and hesitance thrown into the stirring winds.

"Uh-oh, looks like the princess finally snapped." That sickly green look appearing in his eyes. God, does he love this. He knew they had some fucking bite in them. Some spice. Something that made them even more delicious. That just enhanced their sweetness tenfold.

"Jason. Knock it off." Barbara murmurs after Cassandra places a hand on her shoulder. Signaling the direction this could easily head in.

"No, I don't think I will." He sneers, making an attempt to step around Dick and get in your face. It's Tim and Stephanie that try to stop him this time. Both muttering to him and trying to get him to calm down.

You can clearly see it. Their family dynamic. Clear as day. It's right in front of you for you to watch unfold while you stand on the outside looking in. Only getting stray remnants of it when they deem you worth it. You're always worth it though, silly little sugarplum. They’re just terrible at showing it, you poor poor thing. That'll change soon, don't worry. Actually, you should worry.

There's no need to stick around any longer. No fucking need at all. Your feet echoing as you leave the room filled with strangers family and cars. You're leaving. You're going home. And you're going home tonight.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

That night, the news is blaring over Gotham. A sudden hurricane off the coast is set to hit by nightfall. People are being asked to evacuate, already there is panic in the streets.

As much as they don't want to leave things unresolved, the family has no choice, but to respond. Making sure evacuations go smoothly. Keeping the mobs at bay in the stores. Checking that the Arkham inmates are both secure and safe.

It gets worse when the reports further come in. There was lightning spotted off the coast. A lightning storm predicted to hit before the hurricane. That would double the difficulties everyone in Gotham was dealing with.

Most everyone, but Reader.

With the family busy they had plenty of time to pack a few belongings and necessities for a long drive. Glowing eyes taking inventory as the electricity crackled under their skin and the distant skies. Brewing excitement in their chest as the skies filled with dark clouds. Some might think it ominous. But, for Reader it was freedom.

In Gotham that ominous feeling continued. It was as if Gotham itself knew what chaos was about to unfold. Chaos that it would have reveled in if not for the impending feeling of loss found not only in the empty streets, but in Wayne Manor.

As the wind started to wail, nightfall seemed to come earlier with how dark the clouds made the sky. Rain poured in sheets. Most of the Bats took cover, but when the lightning began to strike is when things really when to hell.

By luck or something else, the Gotham power grid was hit. Shutting down over half the city in the first moments of the storm. The downpour hadn't even soaked the concrete when it struck.

The darkness washed over the city and the family knew it was going to be a long long night.

Barbara, in Oracle mode in the Batcave, was focused on keeping everyone updated on new alerts and any looting. She didn't have a chance to glance at the manor cameras and see Reader walking through the halls with a bag on their shoulders before. Multiple strikes of lightning reverberated through the manor. They could be heard echoing all the way down in the cave.

And, they caused the power to go out.

It was only out for twenty minuets. Twenty long minuets of Barbara and Alfred trying to fix the power and get everyone back in contact with each other.

A lot can happen in twenty minutes. Like a garage door opening and closing manually. Like someone driving down the long driveway out of the security gate without being noticed. Like someone could escape without notice in those twenty minutes.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

@starsdotalk @sleepyghoster @maicenitas @box-of-kinderjoy @yandereheros @skwunkler @cl0esblogg @delias-stuff @rosecentury @lilyalone @addie-r-u-ok @space1crow @imaginarydreams @dhanyasri @rosalietodd013 @rissareader @rando2509 @h0rr0r-10ver-69 @interobanginyourmom @heyitsaloy @myanyan-me @animegoddess15 @resident-cryptid @schaarfyx

[fatkish]

Heyy, i wanted to request a Eresermic im which Aizawa has a biological daughter, but she is being bullied and they noticed when she was already thinking in ending it all.

I understand if this is too dark, i just lived something similar and my parents blamed me, so some confort would be apreciared hahaha

Thankss, i love your writing 🩷

(Oh my gosh, this hits so close to home because this happened to me. My parents grew up in the era where if boys were mean to you it was because they like you. So when I begged them to do something about my bullies, they did nothing. Needless to say, my childlike innocence was the only reason why I’m alive. Although I may be doing better than I was back then, nothing can erase the trauma from the unintentional neglect from my parents. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll be basing this somewhat off of my own experience and I’ll be putting it in the Pro Heroes x Inner Child Series)

Erasermic x Aizawa’s Bullied Daughter Reader

(TRIGGER WARNING: This story has mentions of bullying, harassment, allusions to suicide and suicidal thoughts, depression and other potentially triggering topics. Please be advised)

Since you basically have two dads, you refer to Hizashi as papa and Shouta as dad

Your quirk was called restraint. Basically if you called someone by their real, full name, you could temporarily restrain them as long as you focused on them

But just like your dad, you also had to be able to see your target

But unlike your classmates, you were a late bloomer. You developed your quirk at age 8, which led to you being bullied by your peers

You knew that your dad’s worked really hard and that their jobs were really stressful at times. So the last thing you wanted was to be another source of stress for them. Which is why you didn’t tell them about the bullying

You were 11 when you just couldn’t take it anymore. You tried to deal with the situation on your own, you tried to fight your bullies who even started making fun of your dad’s being a couple

You tried not to let anyone’s words affect you but after so many years, you started to believe them too. And you began to bully yourself

You would tell yourself that your dad’s already had enough stress on their plates and that you were just a burden on them. You had started to mentally and physically beat yourself up

The bullies had started to use their quirks on you, resulting in bruises which you would hide with makeup that your Aunt Nemuri had gotten you since you started to develop acne

Since your dads would get home late, you had plenty of time to get home and cover up any wounds

One day, you just had enough

You decided that you were better off dead. You decided that you would take your own life after you got home and would leave a note before leaving the house so your dads wouldn’t have to deal with the body

Unknown to you, Aizawa had gotten a call from one of your teachers who was concerned about you. She had seen you fighting and decided to give Aizawa a call since your grades and overall performance had declined significantly

Aizawa had informed Hizashi of the call and they decided to go home early and wait for you. They believed that you were going through puberty and the hormonal changes were effecting your performance and were the cause

Imagine their surprise when you get home, covered in bruises, a busted lip that was still bleeding and a completely dead look in your eyes

Seeing their precious baby in such a state they immediately started to worry and begged you to talk to them

They had prepared your favorite food for dinner and even got you your favorite dessert as a treat. Seeing how sweet they were, you broke down and confessed your pain and your plan

Hizashi was balling his eyes out and wrapped you in his arms while Aizawa had clenched fists with tears in his eyes.

Aizawa made the call to your school demanding a talk with the principal and the parents of your bullies. While Aizawa was setting that up, Hizashi had you sit on the couch while he tended to your wounds, disinfecting them, cleaning them and bandaging them

He told you that he loves you even though you’re not his biological kid, you’re HIS little listener, his favorite kid in the whole world. He then picked you up and smothered you in hugs and kisses

Aizawa came back into the room and brought the food

That night, you guys are on the couch as you snuggled together under a blanket and watch your favorite movie

The next day, Aizawa and Hizashi dropped you off at UA with Nemuri, while they had a talk with your teachers and bullies. They decided that homeschooling would be the best for you right now since they want to make sure you heal mentally, physically and emotionally from this before you go back

They had told Nedzu what happened and he agreed that for the meantime, until you were mentally stable again, the safest bet would be to have you do your homeschooling at UA where you’ll be surrounded by people who can help you and prevent you from doing anything detrimental to yourself

Needless to say, they love you and you are their whole world and you’re the reason why they fight to come home. You’re their motivation and the reason they fight to protect

(I hoped this helps you and that you guys enjoy this)

[headspace-hotel]

i promised myself "before I go back to school in the fall, something HAS to get better. SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER."

and i made the appointments, had the conversations, I spent hours wringing my brain out googling discussing with friends and family, thinking of SOMETHING, ANYTHING i could approach disability services about now that my previous suggestions had been shot down, and i went there with a list and i was like "hey is there ANY of this stuff you can do to help me" and basically? No

i asked "maybe i could have few extra excused absences so I can rest when i'm overloaded" but the lady was like Well we couldn't do that because you would miss the material in class

I asked "maybe i could have limited group projects so i don't have to be working on something with 4 other people every single day because social interaction is really tiring" she was like Well we can't do it if it would change the course substantially but we can ask that professors tell you if there's going to be lots of group projects so you can drop the class

I asked "maybe i can do in class writing assignments in a separate room so it will be less stressful" she was like well what if we couldn't guarantee that another room would be available where some one could monitor you

This is after the possibility of a partial course load was shot down (i could request it because of 'extenuating circumstances' but there's no guarantee it would be approved, and anyway i don't even know if it would fucking help) and several other things

Going back to school is just weighing on me crushing me. The past two semesters I have been so unrelentingly exhausted, miserable and alone. I hated my classes SO much and spent so much time crying.

All my classes are stupid busy work , just like worksheets that are like "do all these tiny little steps" that micromanage you painfully as if you can't be trusted to have your own independent thoughts" while the professor sits on their phone.

The grades are made up of a thousand tiny bullshit assignments that you have to remember at the right time, if you know the material and even care about learning it, it doesn't even matter.

I took a PLANT science class last semester that I honest to god hated so much it took all the strength in my body to even go to class. I LOATHED it and I got a C in it even though it was highschool level crap and the assignments were so restrictive that they basically punished you for being passionate about anything, I would try to be creative or dig more deeply on things and my classmates (it was always a mother fucking group project because the professor didn't want to fucking lecture, just give us something to kill time like we were fucking preschoolers) hated it because creativity or thinking outside the box would always make the assignment harder for everyone and I would fuck up the grade and it made me feel so ashamed

Same class where the professor said "you can tell this is a peer reviewed journal article because it's written in two columns along the page" like what. What. Huh. What.

There is so little flexibility too like the requirements are so specifically made to "mold" me a certain way. No one sees anything I have already learned or is interested in my potential and ability and passion and keen interest that i HAVE IN ABUNDANCE by the way, and the classes are so boring and passionless

I approached a lady in the arts department about an independent study involving natural plant fibers but she was like "no sorry i only work with seniors and you would have to take these 2 of my other classes"

There is so much more that's stupid and dysfunctional about this college that is too specific to discuss with privacy online, but let it suffice to say that it's a school that wants the reputation of being really challenging and rigorous soooooo bad but it actually just has 1000 inflexible requirements that eliminate everyone's free time and assigns metric tons of tedious busy work, because being "hard" means our academics are "rigorous" right? but the quality of the academics is not good, the classes are not engaging or encouraging you to think more deeply they are just painful.

And no one, fucking no one in these classes is engaging with the work with any energy or passion or enthusiasm, the professors can't get a discussion going, everyone is just staring like a bunch of zombies because their classes r like the equivalent of two full time jobs so of course no one can Engage Deeply with them they have no fucking energy

the food is like eating out of the garbage. they reheat the same pieces of pizza over and over until they're like dried out and leathery like something from a pharaohs tomb. they have bagels kept in a box and they're so stale you can't even bite into them. I got sour, rotten milk from the milk machine so many times my stomach eventually couldn't take drinking milk from there at all.

i hate, hate, hate, HATE that place so much i start crying every time I try to make plans for fall because there is so little fucking joy in my life when i'm there it's like being trapped underground.

[aroaceleovaldez]

The himbo, malewife, goofball -fication of percy jackson is such a crime by both the fans and riordan. It has made Mr not like percabeth as a couple because in all posts and in later books annabeth is such a girlboss, while Percy's dumb and can't fight his way out of a paperbag without her. All the posts are about how annabeth will be an architect and percy would love to be a trophy husband.

Even the humor in the books went from Percy's sharp wit and snark to 'my pancakes can't drown because I'm a son of poseidon.'

And now this recommendation letter bullshit.

Honestly now I'd wish percy just separated from annabeth (but they remain best friends.) He stays home with his family, becomes a camp counselor, helps young demigods, holds God's accountable and eventually becomes a social activist. (I also dislike him doing something marine biology related. It's clear he hates academics but he always wants to help people. Him helping demigods and mortals is such a wholesome profession for him.)

I fully agree with the first half of this, though I slightly disagree with part of the latter.

The later-series and fanon mischaracterization of Percy is at least a solid 50% ableism minimum, full stop. He's being warped into a very stereotyped ADHD character and the exact reason why he's being characterized as "dumb" is because of ableism. Percy is a very intelligent character! That's exactly why he's so in sync with Annabeth and they're such a strong duo! It's just generally Annabeth is more book/academically smart.

I disagree with where you say he hates academics - because that's one of the common misconceptions about his character. Percy doesn't hate learning or academic subjects! He's not even bad at them! We know explicitly that when he is in an accommodating environment he is interested in learning and gets significantly better grades! Percy only dislikes school because it is generally an environment that systematically he struggles with. It's literally just he has a learning disability (two, actually)! That's it! When his learning disability is accommodated for he does well! It's almost like that's what accommodations are all about! We know this from the first series! It's discussed pretty in-depth! Percy isn't a dumb character and he doesn't hate learning, he's just been let down by school systems so much that he's inherently distrustful of them. If they actually accommodate him though then he does just fine!

And that's exactly what CHB was all about and why New Rome University was supposed to be such a big thing for him! CHB is a learning environment geared for demigods. NRU is a demigod college. Both inherently imply an environment meant to cater to and accommodate students with ADHD and dyslexia! They are both systematically structured to be able to accommodate him! Heck, CHB and CJ even both address in the wider themes of the series a metaphor about how ADHD and dyslexia are commonly seen as childhood disabilities, and how it can be more difficult to find accommodations into adulthood because of that attitude but those disabilities don't just go away - that's why CHB is a summer camp but they talk about how demigods outside of CHB don't often fare well. The metaphor there is those who are not getting help or accommodations are struggling. Because that's how that works! This is a fully intentional metaphor from the first series! CHB is never framed as being perfect for demigods, because one of the entire central conflicts of the series is Percy and Luke going back and forth about this flawed system meant to help and support them but still letting people fall through the cracks. The "claim your kids by 13" thing is a metaphor about how acknowledging a child's disabilities (and possibly getting a diagnosis) earlier/as early as possible means they will have more time to learn and build up resources and support for themselves to be able to use later in life. One of CHB's major flaws is that it can accommodate demigods to a certain point, but it can only do so much before those demigods have to leave (the metaphor being accommodating school systems when those disabled students do not have any other forms of accommodations in their lives.)

And that's why Camp Jupiter was framed as being so revolutionary for Percy because it had an environment acknowledging that this is not just a childhood disability, adults with ADHD/dyslexia exist too and still need and deserve accommodations, AND is a place where those accommodations are available. That's why Camp Jupiter and NRU are treated as such special and important things to Percy, because it's essentially Percy being shown this type of thing can and does exist and it is available to him. It is an option he never thought was possible. Percy never thought he'd be able to go to college because he would not be able to go through school without accommodations, but NRU proves otherwise.

The part that's absolutely stupid is Rick then proceeded to retcon NRU so that apparently it's not a full college and Percy still has to take classes at normal mortal college which DEFEATS THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF NRU EXISTING. Rick has fully retconned that demigods struggle past the ages of 16-18 when they're on their own (see above elaborated metaphors) and in doing so we have fully killed all symbolism in literally all of that. It's so stupid. And by having the plot of the CoTG trilogy entirely be that Percy is not actually allowed access to NRU in the first place because he is a son of Poseidon and has to do extra to even be accepted is stupid!

All that to say, I agree the marine biology feels like a huge cop-out and a disservice to his character by reducing him to just a son of Poseidon. The literal only reason why it's the default option people take for him is because oh, fish thing, fish guy. But I feel like everyone ignores the really obvious answer for what Percy would want to do which is - writing. Both his parents are writers/authors and he clearly admires that about them. Percy likes telling stories! He canonically is already a published author in-universe! That's what the books ARE in-universe! The first series fully exists in their universe and Percy is the author! This is explicit canonical information! Percy canonically has help physically writing it down (accommodations) but he is still the credited author! Percy is a writer! Already! Canonically! Why are we making him a marine biologist he already has a profession that ties into his character significantly more. Like you said, Percy likes helping people. That's what the books in-universe are supposed to be for! It's point blank at the beginning of the series! Book one! The thing everybody quotes all the time! The books exist because it is Percy trying to give advice to other demigods who don't know what's going on yet! It's Percy's writing down his experiences to help new demigods understand and contextualize their experiences so they can understand themselves better and figure out what's going on - WHICH IN ITSELF IS ALSO A METAPHOR ABOUT ADHD/DYSLEXIA! Because the core of the series has and always will be built around ADHD/dyslexia! Percy as a protagonist EXPLICITLY was created so that ADHD/dyslexic kids could see themselves as a hero!

Sorry that all was a very tangential rant but my point being: Absolutely. Percy in newer stuff in the franchise and in fanon is horrifically mischaracterized in ways that are functionally either fully ableist (shoutout TSATS for just outright claiming Percy is intentionally lazy and skips school out of disinterest, which is like the number one ableist attitude towards kids with learning disabilities) or a complete erasure of Percy's disabilities. Also I think he should be a writing major not a marine biologist.

[owliellder]

Two's A Crowd

College Bully! Leon Kennedy x fem! Reader

MDNI 18+

(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5)

Description: College is proving to be a lot harder than you imagined. You cannot fail this math class. So when you've tried everything else, a well-known student is recommended to you by your professor for tutoring lessons, not really leaving you with much of a choice but to work with him.

Warnings: Not proofread, No Use of Y/N, Dub-Con, Unprotected Sex, Bullying, Yelling, Cursing

Tags: College AU, Bully! Leon, Shy! Reader, both are in their early 20's, Leon is Rude AF in the beginning, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Fingering, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Additional Tags to be Added

Author's Note: Forgiveness is requested but not expected. Downhill we go!!

Cross-posted onto AO3

Chapter 3:

Over time, you grew less and less worried with Leon’s nice behavior. Your math grade has gone up significantly, surpassing a low C which is a passing grade, but since the tutor sessions have become much more bearable, you haven’t felt the need to stop going. Besides, you have an A streak to fulfill.

Your friends stayed suspicious about the frat boy’s intentions, however. The way you’d become so unbothered with everything relating to him had them stressed, yet at the end of the day, “no asshole can hold up a facade like that for this long”, as per Sky’s words.

Easygoing is the best way to describe Leon at this point. A gentle soul, from what you can tell. He goes out of his way to hold the door for you, share his food with you whenever he brings it, and he even gets excited with you whenever you get an A on any of your assignments or tests. It makes you happy that you held out for him.

“And that makes sense to you?” Leon was standing next to you, leaned over with both his hands on the table. You were both in the study room, only this time you had finished everything math related. Thanksgiving break had come and gone so everything had shifted towards the finals before Winter break, meaning now you were using the space to go over the study guide for the final given by one of your other professors, though it would’ve been nice to have your math study guide to burn into your brain since it’s your biggest struggle.

“Yeah, this is easy for me,” you mutter, hand against your mouth as your eyes move back and forth across the packet of information in front of you. Having Leon leaning over you had been commonplace since mid-November. He turned out to be very nosey. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on your own classes?”

You didn’t need to look at him to know he was extremely confused by your study guide. “Uhh.. nah,” he stood upright and slowly made his way around the table, sitting down in front of you with a small groan as he relaxed into the seat. “I’ve made it through the past couple years here without ‘em. No need for ‘em now.” You nodded to the side at his, bringing the pen you were holding up to your mouth to nibble on the end of it. “Makes sense…”

It took awhile before you noticed his nervous fidgeting, looking up from your study guide to give him a worried look. “Are you bored? I can finish up in my dorm if you-”

“Do you want to get dinner with me tonight?” He cut you off, his eyes meeting yours before the room fell silent. The question was so sudden and you weren’t expecting anything like it, so it just had you confused. You must’ve looked it, too, since he moved his eyes away from yours while crossing his arms. “I mean-.. Y’know, figured I’d ask..”

Seeing him get nervous was always pretty cute to you, such a handsome guy getting worked up over you never failed to flatter you. “Oh, yeah! I’d like that, actually..” You giggled when Leon looked back at you, soon grabbing your few supplies to put back into your backpack. 

Relief spread across his face, moving to stand as you collected your items. “Good, okay, uh.. How’s Olive Garden sound?” To the average college student, Olive Garden was some high class fine dining. Anyone would be a fool to say no to an offer like that.

Just like your friend told you not to do, the absolute biggest no-no when it came to these types of college guys, you let Leon get even closer. It was just dinner in the beginning, but you started seeing him outside of study sessions afterwards with him going out of his way to seek you out and hang out with you and you the same. “Just going out to dinner” turned into dates real fast, faster than you even had time to process. 

You’ve almost completely forgotten about just how nasty he was towards you not three months prior with how he doted on you. Leading up to finals week, Leon made sure to bring you food after noticing your long study habits. He wouldn’t even give you a choice, just a simple “whaddya feeling tonight?” over text. He’d hang out in your dorm with you while you ate, much to your roommates dismay, and sometimes he’d just show up for no reason other than to see you. You’d blush and shy away from his flirting, he’d tease you, and you’d get mad at him for distracting you in a playful way. Even if you wanted to be actually mad at him, you couldn’t, not with that cheeky little grin he’d give you.

You never questioned his nosiness as he familiarized himself with your dorm, rummaging through your drawers as you whined at him from the bed to stay out of your stuff. Honestly, you’d probably look through his stuff too if you had the chance.

Having a boyfriend during your first year of college wasn’t exactly a goal, and you don’t know if this is even a relationship or not, but you weren’t complaining. It was so nice having someone care about you like this, especially when it’s someone who’s, to you, way out of your league in almost every sense. Though he wasn’t the most outgoing, he was very well known, and being seen with him meant the attention he received was spilling onto you. Hell, you didn’t even know he played football until he passed by you with his friends, all in their football get-ups. He never bragged about any practices or games to you, maybe you should’ve asked about the various bruises and scuffs he’d show up to the study sessions with. Oh well.

Every night during finals week, Leon would take you out for dinner under the guise of “destressing from the long day”, not that you minded, of course. You were growing increasingly anxious about your last final, the big one; math. The two of you were sitting in his black Jeep Wrangler as it idled out in the parking lot of McDonald’s, snacking on what was left of your meal in a comfortable silence. The combination of the heater blowing on you and the food in your stomach was settling you, if only a little.

Leon kept his eyes on you the entire time, hand rubbing soothingly up and down your thigh. His hand was so warm. “You’ll pass, I know you will.” His soft touch barely had you cracking a smile, looking through the windshield as large snowflakes quietly fell, lit up by the streetlights surrounding the parking lot and by the headlights on his car. The snow had accumulated an inch on the ground already, the sun having set nearly two hours prior. Winter and its short days, a blessing and a curse. “I don’t know..” You could feel his eyes on you, yet yours were stuck staring out at the falling snow. “My nerves always get me. I’m gonna make the stupidest mistakes and then once the final grades are in my parents’ll wanna see and then I’ll be surrounded be disappointment and shame and guilt.”

You closed your eyes and slumped your shoulders when you felt Leon squeeze your thigh, finally able to turn and look back at him. “You know that’s not how it’s gonna go.” He let out a breathy laugh when you raised an eyebrow. “Oh come on, you’ve got it down! Plus, you had an amazing tutor~..”

With a dramatic groan, you rolled your eyes as he wiggled his eyebrows at you, unable to hide your smile. “I guess, but you weren’t that amazing..”

Leon moved his free hand and brought it up to his chest, holding it there with a strong pout to feign hurt. “You wound me.. Was I nothing to you?” His smile quickly returned when you clicked your tongue at him, chuckling through his nose. “Seriously though, I’ve never met anyone as smart as you are. You learned how to do that kind of stuff incredibly fast, so I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that you won’t demolish that final.” His compliments always left you blushing and at a loss for words, playfulness giving way to a more heavy air. “Thank you, Leon. Really, thank you...” 

You were too wrapped up in watching the snow fall through the windshield to notice when his hand pulled away from your thigh, or just how guilty he looked as he silently watched you.

The math final was easier than you were expecting. You understood basically everything that had been put on it minus a couple things that you scolded yourself for not brushing up on last minute. Grades weren’t put in until a week or more after the finals were turned in, yet you were confident enough in how it went to feel good leaving that room afterwards. 

This first semester had really tested your limits, but you were lucky to have your friends, lucky to have Leon. It didn’t feel strange having him around anymore, it felt natural, real. There weren’t enough ways to thank him for all that he did between tutoring you and taking care of you overall. 

You yelped with laughter as Sky picked you up, their arms around your midriff, waving you side to side as they yelled how proud they were of you. Ella only stood by and laughed along, making sure to take a picture of the moment as keepsakes. “Guys, I don’t even know if I passed yet!” You pushed away from Sky and they placed you back down on the ground, smoothing out your shirt which had you swatting their hands away.

“But! You survived and that’s always cause for celebration.” Ella pocketed her phone and took a couple steps forward so you were all standing in a small circle now. “You really pulled through these last few months.”

Thanks to Leon. “I did, huh?” You looked down with a bashful smile, shrugging before pulling the strap on your backpack further up so it wouldn’t slip off your shoulder. “You know,” Sky started, resting their elbow on your other shoulder while pursing their lips as they slowly turned their head to look at you, “you’re not very good at hiding your love for Leon..” 

You weren’t trying to hide it, it's just that even the vaguest thought about the man had you flustered and stumbling over your words like a fool. All you could do now was glare at your friend, who just raised their hands up in defense. “Hey now, not poking fun, just making an observation.”

Ella placed her entire hand over Sky’s face and pushed them away from you, ignoring their muffled complaints as she looked at you. “We’ll always be suspicious because we’re your friends and we care about you, but as long as you’re careful, we’ll keep our distance.”

Sky pulled Ella’s hand off their face, making gross-out noises while wiping their face off. “Blegh, anyways, yeah. Keeping our distance, but still watching from afar.” They pointed their index and middle finger from their eyes to yours before smiling.

You hung around in their dorm as Ella finished packing up her suitcase. She’s had her plane ticket back home booked for a month, constantly expressing her need to leave as soon as finals were finished during that time. Sky was leaving the same day you were, which was in two days since you both drove or were driven here. Leon stayed at his frat house all school year, so you were thankful to have two people sticking around so you weren’t left all alone.

Unfortunately, this meant you had your own packing to do. Thankfully though, your roommate had already left, sparing you from their menial chit-chat. Packing was almost cathartic in a weird way, almost as if you saw going home as a reward for working yourself to the bone at this university. Quiet music was playing from your phone as you gathered the essentials, you’d be coming back in three weeks so there wasn’t any need to pack up everything.

A gentle knock knock knock at your dorm’s door startled you from your thoughts, causing you to blink a few times to make sure it wasn’t just coming from the song that was playing. Slowly, you made your way over to the door, and before you’d even opened it fully, Leon slipped his way through, side stepping into the room with a cheeky smile. 

You scoffed as you watched him weasel his way in, hand stuttering away from the door handle to allow the heavy door to shut. “You could’ve waited until I opened the door all the way.” 

“I knocked, though.” Mischief was evident in his tone as his eyes landed on the suitcase sitting on your bed. “Getting ready to leave?��

“Not for another couple days. Just.. wanna be ready.” You walked past him over to your suitcase, continuing to fold the last few pieces of clothing you wanted to bring back home. “Perfect, got some extra time to spend with you then.” Leon chuckled, now standing next to you to watch you get back into rhythm.

Having him admit that so casually had you nervous, cheeks heating up as you glanced over at him. “Wouldn’t you rather hang out with your friends?” The eyebrow raise he gave you made you stumble as you tried to elaborate. “N-not that I don’t want to hang out with you! I just feel like you’d have more fun celebrating the end of the semester outside of a stuffy dorm.” You tried to laugh away the embarrassment, moving your focus back to the suitcase as you zipped it up.

“I can celebrate with those slobs any time, but for right now, I would really like to be around you.” Leon carefully lifted your suitcase off the bed, placing it near the door for you. “You’re nice and quiet. They’re not.” You sighed after lifting yourself up onto your bed, sitting criss-cross right in the middle while meekly smiling to yourself, watching him walk back over to stand in front of you.

“By the way,” he said, turning his head to look out your window for a split second before looking back down at you, “I haven’t had the chance to tell you how proud I am of you for coming out of that math final. I know results take awhile, but you seem pretty pleased with yourself.” He crossed his arms and bent forward a bit with a teasing smirk as he not-so-subtly looked you up and down.

You covered your face with your hands and laughed into them, a poor attempt to hide your ever increasing blush. After letting your hands fall away, you bunched the end of your hoodie up in them, fiddling with the thick fabric as you replied. “Yeah, uh.. I think I did alright.” You were going to say more, but you stopped when Leon’s hand found its way under your chin, tilting your head back so you were looking at him. “C’mon, don’t downplay this, baby. You did amazing and you know it.”

Your mind went blank at the pet name and you were finding it hard to breathe with the way his hand felt under your chin. The air in your dorm was a tad tense before, yet now it just felt heavy. Stifling. All you could do was stare up at him with wide eyes, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly as you tried to think of something, anything to say.

“Did I catch you off guard?” He said with a breathy laugh, gently tilting your head side to side as he studied you. And you let him. Your mouth felt dry, face hot as he leaned in closer. “You’re so beautiful..” His voice dropped an octave and his eyes were lidded as they stared into yours. “So smart, so brave..” Soon his lips were brushing against yours, whispering out a final “So perfect..” before pulling you into a gentle kiss.

It didn’t take long for you to relax into the kiss, eyes fluttering shut as you tried to mimic Leon’s movements. His hands cautiously slid down to grasp at your waist while yours moved up to cup his face, pulling him closer. He slowly crawled onto the bed with you tugging him along, leaving you laying down as he hovered over the top of you, knees planted on either side of your legs while one of his arms moved up to support himself. 

He was doing his best to be careful with you, noting your nervous tremble as his right hand slid under your hoodie. “M’gonna take care of you, ‘kay?” He hummed against your sensitive skin, kissing along the underside of your jawline. You only nodded as his lips trailed down your neck, stopping when your hoodie got in his way of the rest of you. “Need you to say ‘okay’ f’me, baby.”

Nearly whining when he stopped, you nodded again a bit more vigorously this time, voice barely a whisper. “O-..Okay..” You propped yourself up slightly when Leon pulled his head away from your neck, his eyes meeting yours as both his hands were now playing with the end of your hoodie. “Y-Yeah, okay…” You repeated.

First it was your hoodie, then it was his jacket, and before you knew it, he had you in his arms, chest pressed against yours as he reached around to unclasp the hooks on your bra. You immediately brought your arms up to cover your breasts once Leon leaned back after pulling your bra off, self-consciousness suddenly settling in. “Hey hey, no need to hide from me..” He cooed, eyes raking down your body as he grabbed your hands to pull your arms away, thumbs rubbing circles onto the tops of your hands as he stared with a crooked smile. 

You took the opportunity to take in his form; muscular, a couple old scars and freckles standing out to you. He was gorgeous, through and through, no doubt about it. He took notice, craning his neck to look down at his exposed chest before looking back up at you. “Looks good, huh?” That got a small giggle out of you, at least.

He slowly guided you back down onto the bed, his hands firmly rubbing up and down your sides. “You look even better, though. Layin’ pretty beneath me~..” His right hand found its way to your panties, running his fingers along the band before trailing further down to press his middle finger against the gusset. You gasped at the feeling while he laughed quietly, leaning back a bit further to catch a glimpse of the wet spot he was feeling. “You’re soaked.. Lil’ bit of touching got you all worked up?”

Your hands flew up to hide your face again as he rubbed his finger up and down your clothed pussy, letting out small gasps and whimpers all the while. You shakily nodded, subconsciously spreading your legs further apart as he slotted himself between them. 

“Tell me something, babe.” Leon paused his movements to look up at you, huffing a chuckle through his nose when he noticed you’d covered your face. “You seem real nervous, so I’m jus’ wonderin’...” Dread settled in your stomach at his implication, you were hoping he wouldn’t ask this. “Yes..” You whispered, parting your fingers over your right eye so you could look at him. “Don’t make me say it, please…”

He hummed low in his chest, eyes darkening as they moved back down to your panties. “Juuust wonderin', is all..” His finger started to caress you over your panties again while adding a bit more pressure. “There’s no shame in being a virgin. Only means I gotta make this extra special for you~.” You moved your hands to shoot him a weak glare and he smiled in return. “Didn’t say I couldn’t say it.”

Once he felt your tremble start to dissipate, he brought his hands up and hooked his fingers on the band of your panties before slowly tugging them off, letting out a low groan as a string of slick stayed connected to the gusset from your leaking pussy. “Fuck, that’s hot..” He breathed in sharply through his teeth, taking your panties into one hand before grabbing his hoodie, stuffing them into the large pocket in the front.

Leon didn’t waste any time putting himself back between your legs, languidly dragging his middle finger up and down through your folds. He relished in your every noise, even as you tried to hold them in. “You ever finger yourself before?” He asked, voice gravelly as he repeatedly pulled his finger back to watch your slick cling to it by a string. 

“... no..” Your innocence had him groaning to himself again. He could ignore the guilt eating away at him long enough to handle you the way you needed to be handled. “Let’s give it a try then, yeah?” He hunched over some more so his face was hovering above yours, middle finger now gently circling your clenching hole.

“P-Please be careful..” You whimpered, slightly panicked at the feeling of his finger nudging your entrance, one of your hands grasping the bed sheets while the other held onto his bicep that was closest to you.  “I’ll be so careful, baby.. I promise I’ll be careful.”

And he was. What would’ve normally been a relatively quick process turned into ten minutes of Leon tenderly stretching you on his fingers. He studied your face the entire time, whispering sweet words into your ear, even letting out deep moans to encourage your own timid ones. You needed the time. There's no rush.

He moved down to pair his fingers with his mouth, tongue running through your wet folds as his fingers stroked your walls. The noises you let out when he sucked on your clit were intoxicating. You were intoxicating.

Once Leon pulled his mouth and fingers away from you, you knew what was coming. And when he paused for a moment after standing up, hands hooked in his boxers, eyebrows tightly furrowed together in thought, that only served to make you more nervous.

“..Leon?” You managed to say, propping yourself up on your elbows as you watched his shake himself out of his head. “Yeah, sorry, just… thinking about the best way to go about this. Don’t wanna scare you.”

“You-... I’m not gonna be scared..” You looked from his face down to his boxers, eyeballing where his fingers were still hooked in them. He just clicked his tongue, nodding his head to the side with a soft “if you say so”. 

As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you were scared. There wasn’t much frame of reference, but Leon was… sizeable, for lack of a better term. And it wasn’t just his size that was intimidating to you, it was the idea of sex itself. Sex has always been made out to be this big grandiose milestone by everyone around you, so now that you’re about to actually do it is giving you the same sinking feeling that public speaking does. 

“You’re scared.” Leon had pulled his boxers all the way down without you noticing, letting them lay abandoned on the floor as he took the small step back towards you. “No.” You were quick to object, eyes still glued to his dick. He chuckled and tilted your head back by your chin once more. “Yes, you are, and it’s okay. I’m not gonna kill you with it.”

“You might…” You muttered under your breath, eyes lowly making their way back down to his dick as he got back up onto the bed and in between your legs. “I promised you I’d be careful, right?” Leon grunted, his hand squeezing the base of his cock before giving it a few slow strokes. 

You swallowed dryly, pulling your eyes away and back up to meet his. “Yeah…” He nodded, giving you a wobbly smile as he teased his thumb across his tip. “Right. So don’t worry, I’ve gotcha..”

You only nodded, doing your best to keep your eyes up and focused on his face as he lubed himself with your juices. Your eyes widened once you felt him line himself up with your hole, body jerking a bit at the slight pressure.

“You gotta relax, sweetheart..” He used his freehand to stroke your thigh before pulling your right up over his shoulder, hand moving back down so his thumb could rub your clit. “Just breathe and focus on what my hand’s doin’, alright?”

The two of you were lucky that a lot the people in your dorm building left already, cause when his tip finally pushed past that ring of muscle, you let out an embarrassingly loud yelp. It hurt, but it was also such a new feeling that it simply startled you. “Okay, okay, that’s the hardest part. You did it.” You panted, hands tugging at the blankets beneath you as he stilled. “Okay…” You copied him, nodding your head once you felt you were ready for him to move.

The sting of the stretch was the hardest to get by, however it was easily masked by just how full you felt after Leon was fully sheathed inside you. So new, yet so good. 

You let out a shaky sigh, eyes closing as you rested back against the bed. Your heart was beating and your body felt hot. It was actually a nice feeling. “You- ugh.. You can move.. a little..” You breathed out, grunting softly when you felt him twitch.

“Mhm..” Leon agreed with only a hum, not trusting his mouth enough to speak. He pulled back an inch before thrusting just as slowly,  eyes darting around your face for any sign of discomfort. A minute or so of taking it slow led to deeper thrusts, following your command as you asked for “harder”, “deeper”, “faster”. All with that sweet voice that he couldn’t say no to.

You were eating away at him and you didn’t even know it; wrapped around him so perfectly, that delicious honey of yours dripping down his balls, moaning his name, looking at him with those glassy eyes, fuck. He fits you so well.

He kept his eyes closed, unable to look at you any longer. Ignoring the guilt was harder than he thought, even with him thrusting into you like he owned you. You weren’t his, he can't have you the way you want him to-

“Shit-!” He gasped, too lost in his own thoughts to notice you’d grown close until you abruptly clenched around him, sloppy cunt milking his cock. His thrusts stuttered to a stop as he buried himself deep into you, cumming with a whine of his own. Looking at the wall with bleary eyes, he furrowed his brow again, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he caught his breath.

Clarity crashed into him when you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him down into a weak hug. He needed to go, but how could he leave you like this? God, he was so fucked.

He should’ve just stayed an asshole, that would’ve kept you far away. And he should’ve never taken that stupid bet. All this for a pair of panties to wave around like a trophy.

tags:

@kayotee4 @k-fallingstar @bobastayhigh @mi-zer-y @chasingkennedy @l30nva @espressonerd @jjouki @5tarx @bunnybreadloaves @whoisgami @cyanscribe @c4b3r1a @darichvep @mmmangel @kingtacocat @klee-iii @baby--vera @dakiniii @kenma-izhu @aliidarling @leonsmamacita @deadghxsty @nekoheist @dumbassmortal @cassiecasluciluce @iovewilliams @maeplayscello @deddiemunsonsblog @paranoid-but-android @mariesmain @tteokhwaa @bonnibuckets @eilonwykennedy @1dk-anym0r3 @papatyacikcik

(few of your blogs won't work, but i really tried 😩)

[slutforsilverfoxes]

ok i dont know if you do requests or not but this is just something thats been ricocheting around in my head for days and i need to get it out before my brain completely rots. whether or not you want to write it is up to you i just really needed to share this with a hotch lover.

nonbau!reader knowing that the team have a really tough local case their all working overtime on and deciding to try to cheer them up and destress them a bit so she spend a few hours cooking this amazing delicious meal because she knows they'll probably just get takeout. so she swings by the bau around 6ish with the food and the whole team flock around her and around hugging her and thanking her and immediately digging in.

hotch notices from his office and comes down looking way grouchier than normal and hes like "excuse me we have a case to work on im not sure why youre all standing around when theres work to be done. and r why are you here distracting my team they need to focus" before going back into his office and the team is shook bc aaron has NEVER spoken to you like that before. and youre highkey offended like ?? i spent hours of my time doing a nice thing and im getting bitched at like im his subordinate??

but then you slam your purse down on jjs desk, take your earrings out and put your hair up in a ponytail and youre like "give me 15 minutes and ill have that attitude sorted put no problem." before marching away into hotchs office locking the door and drawing the shades and derek and emily are crying laughing cause they know exactly whats about to happen but reid is confused like ??? is she gonna fight with him? why did she put her hair up? whats so funny? and pen and jj have to explain that you went up there to give him a bj and hes just like?!?! AT WORK?!?? and rossi is just watching the shenanigans unfold like 🤭🤭

and you do eventually come back down from his office wiping your mouth on the back of your hand and your hair is significantly more ruffled than before and hotch looks subdued and even a little embarrassed and he just mutters a quiet apology to the team before grabbing a plate of the food you brought (which is actually his favorite meal of yours) before kissing you and thanking you for coming to see him.

My oh my, do I love the way your mind works 😈 Thank you for this request (& for your patience as I took 84 years to write it)! I hope you enjoy 🖤

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x wife!reader

(-indicates reader's texts)

__________

A rapid series of buzzes on the table beside you has you pulling your attention away from the sizable dent you’ve made in the stack of thesis papers to be graded for your class. You exchange your favorite pen for your phone, unlocking the screen to find several texts from your closest friend sent in quick succession:

5:49pm SOS

5:49pm (Save Our Stomachs)

5:50pm Pls we’ve been going in circles on this case and he’s in a Mood

You can’t help but smile at the he in question, your stoic, stalwart husband- and your friend’s unit chief. You fire back a response:

-5:50pm Em :( Is he holed up in his office?

5:50pm You know it

-5:51pm Classic 🙄 Lucky for youuuu I’m already making dinner for my favorite people!

The oven timer beeps as if to punctuate your statement, and you rise from your spot at the kitchen table while typing out another message.

-5:51pm Scratch that- it’s ready. Be there asap rocky

-5:51pm Be brave little soldier 🫡

5:53pm You’re my fucking hero

You gather enough plates and cutlery to dish up dinner to the team of agents, then pack them up alongside the foil-covered Pyrex container fresh out of the oven. Deciding against changing out of your yoga pants and your boyfriend’s old law school t-shirt, you pluck the pencil out of your bun that was holding your hair up and toss it onto the table, snag your keys, and make your way out to the car.

The drive into the city is a relatively short one, given that most of the traffic is heading in the opposite direction at this time on a Friday evening. You navigate your way into the parking garage, then head upstairs with your precious cargo.

“Evening, Mrs. Hotchner,” your favorite security guard greets you as you step out of the elevator, and you flash him a smile with a greeting in return. “Come grab a plate when you’re done your rounds,” you call over your shoulder, and his answering grin tells you he’ll be patrolling the floor a little faster than usual tonight.

Four heads pop up from their desks at the sound of the glass double doors opening, shoulders sagging with relief when they spot your bright smile and the telltale bag in your hand that means dinner is served. Derek’s quick to jump up and help you with the heavy container as Emily, Spencer, and JJ follow the two of you into the round table room, animatedly filling you in on their day. JJ’s fingers fly across her screen, and Penelope is rounding the doorway from the back hallway by the time you make it upstairs and start setting up, arms outstretched to pull you into a hug while declaring, “You’re my favorite Hotchner, did you know that?”

“We both know I come second to Jack,” you joke, and Emily lets out a happy groan as she digs into her meal, professing, “You’re at least tied now.”

A pair of solid hands lands on your shoulders from behind, and you feel the familiar scratchiness of Dave’s beard pressing kisses to your cheeks in greeting. “What would we do without you?”

With a laugh, you turn to offer him a helping and answer, “Simply perish.”

Your heart swells as the team settles down around the table enjoying the home cooked meal, but there’s one very obvious absence. A glance at your husband’s office reveals the door is still closed, the room dark save for a glow through the open blinds that you know is from his little desk lamp. Deciding to give him a few more minutes of solitude before barging in and demanding that he take a break to eat, you join your friends at the table to tell them about the senior prank your students recently pulled in an attempt to give their minds a reprieve from their current case.

“I bet you Morgan did stuff like that all the time,” JJ accuses amid catching her breath from laughing at the story about the two chickens released on the top floor, cleverly labeled one and three.

Derek smiles back, ready to take credit, but Emily cuts in with, “A psychological prank like that sounds more like something Spence would do.”

“C’mon now, pretty boy wouldn’t want to inconvenience his teacher,” Derek teases, eliciting a pout from the youngest of the team who counters with, “Hey, I won that prank war against-”

“What’s going on here?”

A hush falls over the room at the sound of Aaron’s voice, the question itself seemingly innocent but its intention clearly to reprimand. Five pairs of eyes drop downward, leaving only you and Dave making eye contact, the older man mouthing an empathetic, Busted, in your direction.

Unbothered, you swivel in your chair to meet your husband’s gaze with a cherubic smile, your voice positively dripping in honey. “Mom’s feeding the kids because Dad forgot that sustenance is important for your brain and body. Now c’mon, take a break and-”

“Does it seem like I have time for that right now?”

Your eyebrows shoot up at his tone, and you drop the teasing lilt to your voice. “Aar, I just wanted you guys to-”

“Go home, Y/N, please,” he requests quietly, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose with a soft exhale. “We can’t afford to be distracted right now. Everybody finish up and get back to work.” He turns on his heel and returns to his office without so much as a hello or goodbye or thank you, my love, for being so thoughtful and taking care of us directed your way.

Once his footfalls have receded, the entire group releases a collective breath as if they’ve just escaped being chewed out by the principal- at your expense. When you turn back around, you’re met with expressions of shock that reflect your own, like the kids literally just witnessed their dad being mean to their mom for the first time.

“You know how Aaron gets with a case,” Dave tries to soothe your ruffled feathers, and JJ jumps in with, “I’m sure he didn’t mean to come off like that, Y/N, he’s just-”

“Stressed?” you finish her thought for her. You rise abruptly from your chair, dropping your purse on the table with a resounding thud before digging through it to find a spare hair tie. “I know he is. And I also know my husband did not just say that to my face,” you grumble under your breath, combing your fingers through your hair to pull it into a quick ponytail while continuing your tirade. “After I spent hours making a meal between doing my own work? No sir, uh uh, SSA Hotchner. That man needs to relax.”

Spencer leans over to Derek while you carry on quietly cursing their boss for his attitude and asks, “Should we be concerned?”

Derek lets out a snicker before answering, “Maybe for Hotch’s di-”

“Dignity!” JJ cuts in with a sharp look at her colleague, trying and failing to suppress her own smile.

You pause in the doorway, squaring your shoulders before turning back to the team to say, “You guys eat. Enjoy. I’ll take care of your boss.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Emily snorts out, clearly amused. Laughter, applause, and a distinct wolf whistle courtesy of Derek follow you down the carpeted walkway to your husband’s office.

-----(Read Behind Closed Doors here!)-----

When you return to the round table room several not-so-subtle minutes later, you’re greeted by a bunch of giddy smiles, a knowing look from Rossi, and Spencer’s pink-tinged cheek since he’s refusing to make eye contact with you. “All better,” you announce proudly, dropping into a chair before tugging the hair tie from your now slightly tangled locks and combing your fingers through a few persistent knots. “Everybody good and full?”

“Some more than oth-”

You cut your sharp gaze over to Derek and he mimes zipping his mouth shut, a smirk still playing at his lips.

“What he means to say,” Pen huffs, slapping his shoulder, “is thank you so much for dinner, sweetie.”

“It was my pleasure,” you answer genuinely. “You know I love taking care of you guys.”

“And we’re very lucky you do,” your husband’s baritone voice rumbles from the doorway behind you. You turn to find a sufficiently chastened Aaron entering the room, and you offer him your cheek when he places his hands on your shoulders and bends to press a kiss to your smiling face. “I, uh, just wanted to apologize for my earlier-”

“Temper tantrum?” you offer, and Aaron squeezes your shoulders in warning before continuing, “Outburst. I let the stress of the case get the best of me and neglected my duties to prioritize the health of this team. Luckily, my darling wife is always there to make up for my shortcomings.”

You catch your best friend’s eye and shoot her an exaggerated wink at your husband’s word choice, forcing Emily to cover up a laugh with a cough. Aaron’s hand slides over to the nape of your neck, and you know you’re in for it once this case is over.

And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

__________

AH tags 🖤 @gothwifehotchner @iyv-ray24 @mrs-ssa-hotch @criminalskies @callm3c0nfus3d

[joenotexotic99]

Hi honey, I have to say I love your stuff. You write absolutely great. Could you do a headcannon on BoB and what type of love would you give them? I mean love at first sight, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, etc. I'd be happiest with Winters and Nixon and Speirs, but do what you will. Thank you.

A/n: here you go my love. When I finally re read the request I realized you might have wanted the pov's reversed but it was too late. Hopefully it's not too bad. I will happily switch it to reader pov if you wish.

Warnings:fluff

Masterlist

Richard winters

-friends to lovers. I don't think that this man thought of romance when he first met you. Attractive? Most definitely. However he had bigger things preoccupying his mind. Yet somehow at some point, you wiggled your way to being one of his best friends. Don't tell nix. Something about you practically scrambled his brain. He doesn't know when in the friendship he fell or if he fell in the very beginning. But when he realized just how much he loved you it was like he jumped off a cliff without a parachute. He knew right then and there you were it for him. He probably felt nervous telling you due to the fact that he never gave off the impression that he likes you. But let's just say the feelings were reciprocated.

"Dick, I have been flirting with you this whole time."

"Really??"

Lewis nixon

- love at first sight. This man took one look at you and said yes. He may not immediately start flirting with you out of respect, but he will damn well be tied to your finger. Will always open doors for you, and give you his coat when you're cold. So many acts of services. At one point you two were at a bar and some private made his way to your side to start a flirty conversation where he swears he got to hands'y. He knew that you were single but he was extremely jealous nonetheless. Eventually he had to leave to get some air. You followed shortly to catch up with him. You confronted him asking what has gotten into him as of late. He never wanted it to come out like this but it sort of just spilled out of him. He rambled on about his feelings before you cut him off with a kiss and a huge grin on your face.

"Shut up nix and take me on a date"

Ronald speirs

-Distance attraction, I don't know what to call it, this is the closest I can get. It just feels right. Basically, Speirs isn't quite love at first sight, he's the guy who needs to really get to know you to start building a relationship like that. However this man has a MASSIVE crush on you. But he's too prideful to say anything seeing how simping for someone isn't exactly in Ron's profile. He just admires you from a distance while simultaneously stuffing his emotions deep down. Much better in his book. Yet he still does his very best to be by your side at every moment possible even though he spends a lot of time trying not to think about how perfect you are. It's you who makes the first move. You obviously like him and you know he does too. It's obvious to everyone but no-one says a single word. And before you can finish telling him if he wants to go out some time, he's already agreeing.

"Yes"

"What?"

"You free Friday?"

Carwood lipton

-childhood friends to lovers. He was the boy next door. You two were friends from first grade through college. Sharing secrets, sleepovers, getting into mischief. Car started crushing on you when you two were teenagers. Said crush continued all the way until you two volunteer to join the paratroopers. War was hell but you seemed to make it just a little bit more manageable. His life in the war picked up significantly and he had a freight train worth of responsibility placed on his shoulders. Yet you never left his side. It wasn't until Austria that he confessed his feelings. He almost felt sick when he told you in fear of losing his best friend. It was short sweet at straight to the point. You were silent for what felt like an eternity. Lip almost took off in fear of rejection. He was stopped in his tracks by the sound of your laughter. He turned to hear you laughing with the biggest smile on your face.

"Clifford carwood Lipton, do you know how long I've been waiting for those words"

Joseph Leibgott

-Enemies to lovers. Your relationship started off Rocky. Your personality clashed and having a civilized conversation was seemingly impossible. Every time your paths crossed it was filled with banter, insults and tension. Sometimes it got to the point where someone needed to intervene. When you would walk into the same room that Joe would be in it's like the air seemed to thicken. The cold stares and passive aggressive comments. As the war progressed your comments never faulted but the tension you ask? It could be felt by an entire room. And all that hate seemed to not leave as bad as a taste in your mouth. Joe knew from the start that he hated and loved you. You know the type of enemies to lovers where it's like 'she's mine' and 'who did this to you?' It's giving that. He got so fed up with replacements trying to whisk you away so he simply grabbed you by the waist and kissed you.

"Don't lever leave with one of them alright sweetheart?"

"Wasn't planning on it"

[auxcordlawd]

Part 7: Wandering Thoughts of a Ravenclaw

Summary

Word Count:approx 1500

Minors DNI

Warnings: professor/student (all parties 18+) swearing, sexual content

A completely useless 7th year was standing in front of you, covered in soot from their unsuccessful Felix Felicis. Mentoring was harder than you’d expected. Just a few weeks ago this addition into your already full schedule would be nothing, but your mind was ever consumed by a certain man in black. (And not Johnny Cash). Thankfully the potions professor did not hold this students failure on you. In fact, you had aided several students into raising their grades significantly. You knew you were cut out for this position. The potions professor stated they would write you a letter of recommendation given that 75% of the students would pass their finals. You were excited yet terribly distracted. This great news was walloped by your growing desire.

In the great hall students were bustling all round, enjoying the hearty meals that were always present, yep you barely touched the food. Butterflies in your stomach made it a terribly difficult task. When you noticed others finishing up you ran to the nearest bathroom to ready yourself for your meeting. You yanked the cloak you had been holding hostage out of your bag and draped it over you. Staring in the mirror for a second you decided on pulling your panties off, shoving them in your bag, and after swipe of lip gloss and you were off.

You stood in front of Professor Snapes office, tightly gripping your messenger bag slung over your shoulder, a few books held tightly at your chest. You reached up to knock, but felt a hand on your shoulder, his other hand opening the door from around you. His hand alone gave you goosebumps, but the proximity of his chest against your back made your breath hitch. “Professor.” You said breathlessly turning around to him. “Are you going to enter my office or shall we stand here all night?” He said cocking his head at you. His eyes trailed down to your body when he realized you were in his cloak. He grasped at the collar, rubbing at admiringly. “This suits you miss (y/l/n). Shall we?” he said extending his hand to motion you inside.

You walked in and sat in front of his desk, removing his cloak, revealing your plaid skirt and white button up, no bra of course. “You really like to test me miss (y/l/n).” He said leaning on the front of his desk crossing his arms. You looked up at him with doe eyes. “Stand.” He ordered. You stood, slightly to his left, less than a foot away from him. He turned towards you and touched your cheek, turning your face up to his, he looked at you as if he were examining you. His hand trailed down your neck, to your collar bone. You didn’t dare to breath. He looked at you questioningly, as if confirming he can continue. You blinked at him, as if begging him to. He ever so gently trailed his hand around the side of your breast gripping your ribs right under your boob, pulling you in tighter. You let out a moan as his hand trailed down to your waist, grabbing you with both hands.

He quickly lifted you onto his desk, standing in between your legs. “So beautiful, so pure.” His hands were tracing on your thigh. “But it seems you’ve come a bit undone for me.” He said in his natural slow way. “Are you certain you want to travel down this road?” “Yes.” You said too quickly. “Hmm.” Snape continued his journey up your thigh, the sensation of his large hand on your bare thigh drove you crazy. You squeezed your thighs together needing friction, your wetness spreading on your legs, as you didn’t wear underwear tonight. He smirked as he watched you squirm under his touch as he leaned so close to your face your lips were barely touching. “If you go too far miss (y/l/n) you wont find your way back.” Severus said in a deep whisper on your lips. You desperately pushed your lips to his, one hand remaining on your thigh, the other gripping your waist. The kiss deepened as you moaned into his mouth, his hand so close to your bare cunt. You bucked your hips needing his touch, and he obliged. “My, my. All ready for me. Showing up in my office without panties.” He spoke through kisses.

His hands trailed to your middle dragging your wetness up your slit to your clit, pressing down enough to make you whimper and push into him. “So wet.. you desperate thing.” His movements continued, unrelenting, rubbing his fingers in a perfect patter on your mound. “Fuck. Severus. I-I’ve wanted this s-so long.” “Is that so?” He pushed two of his long, masculine fingers into your opening, keeping his thumb on your clit. You couldn't seem to answer, so with his free hand he grabbed your face and made you look up at him. “Answer me.” He said with his usual drawl. “Yes!” You screamed grinding into him further. “Severus, I-I’m.” “Use your words” “-so c-close.” “So soon Miss (y/l/n)?” He pulled his fingers away in a quick motion emitting a desperate cry. “I think not.”

He then lifted your skirt higher on your waist before dropping to his knees, pulling you to the edge of the desk, gracefully wrapping your legs around his shoulders. Without a second more he was kissing your inner thighs, getting closer to where you needed him most. You felt his tongue lick you from your opening slowly up to your clit. “Fuckkkk, Severus.” You moaned loudly reaching to grab his hair. “Not so loud Miss (y/l/n), I didn’t cast a silencing spell.” The thought of that turned you on even more, as depraved as it was.

He moaned into you, causing a reverberating pleasure. He lapped at your middle as your breathing sped up. He plunged a finger in your opening causing you to whine with pleasure. “So tight. So wet. All for me.” “Yes, yes.” “Is this cunt all mine Miss (y/l/n)?” You couldn't get a word out, just needy moans. “Use your words.” Severus demanded pulling his lips from you. “Yes, yes. You’re all I think about. My pussy is yours.” You said desperately. “Good girl.” He said sinking another finger, back to licking your clit. “Cum for me (y/n).” The use of your name pushed you into building waves. Your walls clenched around his fingers as he pumped faster, licking harder, while sucking your clit as well now. You felt the largest wave crash through you, orgasm hitting you harder than mere fantasies could ever bring. “Fuck Severus!” You screamed while grabbing his hair as he devoured you, only stopping when he felt your last shudder.

He stood up in front of you, “Open.” He said quietly. Your jaw dropped as if he had a remote control, and he pushed his fingers into your mouth. You began sucking them, cleaning yourself off of him. “See how delicious you taste.” Your tongue twirled around his fingers, you began making work of it. Sucking them up and down. He looked down at you amusedly, as he attempted to adjust his aching cock in his pants inconspicuously. “I can help with that, you know.” You spoke with his fingers in your mouth, as you moved your leg to rub into him. “Keep teasing and you’ll have no choice.” Removing his fingers from your mouth he stepped back, brushing his hair out of his face after you had mussed it.

“Tomorrow Miss (y/l/n) I will be occupied with meetings but Friday we must get some work done.” He said leaning back on his desk crossing his arms over his robe, smirking at you. He looked sexier than ever, especially knowing how hard he was. Desperate to taste him you hopped off his desk and started to drop to your knees. He caught you be your upper arm, “that can wait,” he paused and sighed “I’m not sure I could quit once I cross that line.” “But I don’t want you to-“ “You have grading to do for potions, if I’m not mistaken miss (y/l/n).” You huffed, trying to pout your way into his pants. Surprisingly he grabbed your face, rough but still tender, and passionately kissed you, leaving you panting. He wrapped you in his robe once more, and handed you your bag. “Friday (y/n).”

Speechless you turned and headed straight for your dorm. That had to be a dream. As you shut your door you did your best to finish the grading. You slid the papers out of your bag. Somehow you managed to get through them all, hoping against hope they were graded well enough. Your mind was expectedly elsewhere.

After brushing your teeth and showering you were ready for bed. You went to pack your bag for the next day. Thats when you noticed one thing was missing from the bag, your panties.

@yurfavmommy @simp-manhwa

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

wibta if i refused to help my classmates going forward?

i am in university for a science degree. i have been struggling for almost my entire degree due to undiagnosed ADHD and autism, as well as my habit from grade school of working myself too hard. i went into burnout from 2020-2022 and failed most courses i took. i had to cut down on my work significantly so i could stay in university and finish my degree. it's been 5 years and i'm just over halfway finished. the end's not in sight yet, but it's getting there.

this semester, i'm taking two courses that i've struggled in previously and am retaking actually. the term will most likely be over once this is posted. one i've finished twice but didn't have a high enough grade to move forward (chemistry) and the other i've dropped 2 times before to avoid failing (calculus). the subject areas might give more context, and my chemistry course isn't introductory. they're also notoriously very difficult, and most people end up retaking this chemistry course several times. they're both needed for my degree and a similar degree. someone in both classes (2 different people) made group chats specifically so we could help each other. at first it was a very good idea, and i myself benefitted from them, managing to get a really high mark on a math assignment because of the group chat and sharing our work/processes.

this term is the one term we have a mid-semester break, and while the details are irrelevant here, i went away during this break, and i came back in a fairly poor mental state. i didn't want to share my work anymore, and said i was uncomfortable doing so. this got me mocked (i believe, but no one's commented on it or said anything to me about it) in my math class group chat when i asked for the notes after having to leave class early due to the noise. i have misophonia, and i was incredibly close to shouting "shut the fuck up" one say when they honestly just wouldn't stop talking. it's been a problem this term in this class where several groups in the class have been chatting amongst themselves during lecture. my friend (i think we're friends?) emailed our professor (i think i was named in the email), and he addressed the class about it, but as a whole, has told me directly that there wasn't much else he could do about it since they might be talking to each other to understand better.

at this point, there's only about 3 weeks left of classes and then finals, so it's not worth dropping out, especially since i don't think i'm in danger of failing. but that was all kind of just background info. it's been a rough semester for me.

in my chemistry class, we have weekly lab reports. they aren't huge, 10+ page reports, and i can usually do them in about 2-3 hours of work total. i usually work on them in small pieces throughout the week, so i can focus on other assignments as well as lectures. they're due at the beginning of lab, and we have lab on friday afternoons. this wouldn't be an issue if not for thursdays.

at the beginning of the semester, i made myself kinda known as Someone Who Has Answers. i like to help people when they're struggling, and i know that these are difficult classes, and i have past experience taking them with these instructors specifically, so i helped in any which way i could. after our mid-semester break, i was in no mood to help anyone. but on thursday evenings and friday mornings, i would get text messages from a few people asking me about the lab report. but not just a few messages. i would get asked on EVERY BIT of the lab report. i try to be patient, as i understand hidden struggles. but i was at the end of my rope. i never snapped, and i always tried to help them, but sometimes i was very frustrated because on thursdays, i have 2 classes (doesn't sound like a lot, but at my school, my lectures are 2-3 hours long, so it's about 5 hours total of lectures) at two different campuses, so i leave at about 7:30am and get home at about 5:30-6:00pm. it's my night to clean the kitchen as well, so my patience is very thin at the end of the day. i never agreed to help them, and they are texting me. i don't know how to tell them "i'm in no mood to help" but it made me so upset to the point that i was saying that next semester, i wouldn't give my number to anyone. i'm not a tutor, and i'm struggling to stay afloat myself in these classes. i don't have all of the answers, and tbh i'm not even confident on most of my answers. i've tried to make this clear, but they still come to me for help. next semester, i'm retaking ANOTHER course that i failed (not failed, but didn't get a high enough mark to move forward) and i honestly feel like a dick for not helping when i could and should help.

this is probably a nonissue tbh. i'm on the verge of dropping out myself because i took on too much this semester and this just kinda feels like it's all more than i can handle.

What are these acronyms?

[fadingdaggerr]

Hey can I request a melissa schemmenti x femreader based on season two episode 1.where maybe the reader is rlly stressed out and maybe she can’t park bc Ava is using her parking spot to celebrate the eagles game and maybe mr Johnson comes into to tell the reader her is getting toed away so her,Melissa and the other teachers run outside and maybe the reader is getting angry and shouting at the man,melissa is begging her to calm down.and then she does what Janine did in the actual episode and she gets in the car and try’s to drive off and everyone is telling her to stop and Melissa try’s to get her out the car and out of rage she kicks the car and hurts her foot and then maybe the reader storms back into the school and melissa goes to find her when the school day is over and the reader has a panic attack and Melissa comforts her. Tysm ❤️

delphinium blooms

pairing: melissa schemmenti x gn!reader

summary: request above! i made little changes, mostly just so i wasn’t just rewriting janine’s scene but with r and mel but i hope you still like it :)

warnings: hurt/comfort, r has a morning of unfortunate events, r is kinda mean (to a man so it’s fine), stress/anxiety crying

note: i rewrote so much of this because i kept thinking of things and creating nonsense lmao but i had a lot of fun writing

development week has always been the calm before the storm. you had everything planned already: each month’s separate decor to keep a lively room, the giant drawing paper for the wall so students could doodle during free time (and you could proudly display their art), and even the seating chart was done. everything was perfect and in order, everything just needed to be set up.

but sometimes the storm comes before the calm, or the calm packs its things and jumps out of the moving car.

the coffee maker in your apartment died on you, only about half a cup of watery coffee in the bottom of the pot. you didn’t have the money, nor the time, to stop that the cafe one block over. rent’s more important, we can get coffee at work, you tell yourself. you soon found that it was nearly unbearable to eat breakfast without your coffee and splash of oat milk creamer. coffee and maybe breakfast at work, i guess.

at nine in the morning, there is a full-on barbecue in the parking lot of abbott elementary. janine’s parking spot was a grill station. your spot, which was two down from janine’s, was currently being used as a blow-up pool splash zone. you roll down your window when you see ava close by.

“ava! what the hell is this?” you yelled out your window.

“it’s a development day party!” the principal responded with a big, happy grin.

you sighed, “your party’s in my parking spot.”

“pay valet or park somewhere else, i have a party to host,” she waves you off as she turns to talk to whoever approached her. after a, give-or-take, nine hundred point turn, you parked your car on the street. you prayed to the meter-maid goddesses that you’d have time to move it before someone came and ticketed you.

you pulled box after box out of the backseat, stacking them in your arms, creating the leaning tower of heavy-as-shit. as you slowly walk towards the fourth grade classrooms, you top few boxes get lifted away, easing the load significantly. you look to see who it was, expecting gregory, but instead you’re met with jade green eyes and fiery hair.

“trynna show off carrying all these?” she says with a laugh.

you laugh with her, “oh, of course. how else am i going to impress the ladies?” melissa snorts a laugh at this, opening the door to your classroom and letting you in ahead of her.

“and who are these ladies?” she jests.

you look at her, taking in the smirk on her face before answering, “we both know it’s just the one.”

she helps you spread out the boxes and get everything open before asking, “ready to head to the opening meeting?”

“you mean the ava show?”

she laughs, “yeah, come on.”

—

you half-listen to ava’s little speech and flirts to gregory, your eyes trained on melissa’s rings instead of ava’s vacation photos. you only perked your head up when janine mentioned donuts at her little mixer.

“and why would i wanna go to that?” melissa answered janine, barbara nodding in agreement beside her.

“you said donuts?” you ask janine, she nods eagerly, “then count me in teagues, but if there’s no strawberry frosted i’m leaving.”

there was no strawberry frosted. you dropped into a seat next to melissa, who was happily eating a chocolate frosted donut. she sees your pout and offers you a bite, which you accept with a smile. she wiped a blue sprinkle that managed to land on your cheek, the action is enough to make you smile a bit, warmth spreading through your cheeks.

just when you think the worst part of the morning is over, the tried and true mr. johnson walks into the library.

“anyone drive a beat up sedan?” all the hands in the room rise up. “who drives a silver one?” less hands, but still a good amount. “one with a sticker that says ‘if you see this, thank a teacher’ on the bumper?”

janine pipes up, “oh that’s mine!”

“you’re getting boot on your car, young lady,” he answers, and janine immediately is running out with jacob, gregory, and barbara behind her.

“oh and anyone got a green sedan? little cat bobble head on the dash?” mr. johnson speaks up.

melissa turns to look at you before you say, “don’t tell me it’s being booted.”

“course not,” you sigh in minor relief, “you’re about to get towed.”

you’re immediately running out to your car, melissa hot on your trail. you get outside to see a boot placed on janine’s car and the tow guy is rigging your car to the truck.

“aye, back off the car! what are you doing?” you yell, getting close to the tow operator, eric.

“no parking zone, can you read? it’s for the buses. we’re pulling ya,” he says as he continues his work. you groan in anger, walking closer to the car where he had already hooked it up.

“what fucking buses? school hasn’t started yet,” you counter.

“it’s still a bus zone, and you’re still getting towed,” eric says.

before you start throwing hands with the guy, melissa steps in, “how much to not tow the car?”

he laughs, “you can get it back at the lot, should be two hundred. might be three for wasting my time. you’re not getting it back now, it’s parked illegally.”

you see red when he mentions raising the cost, you couldn’t even afford the original one, “wasting your time? your time?! i’m supposed to be in that building making lesson plans for children who will be here next week, and i’m wasting your time?”

“yeah, you are. now move your ass or i’ll move you,” the man answers angrily.

you bravely taunt him, “try then.”

“sweetheart…” melissa tries to reach for your arm, but you step just out of reach.

barbara and gregory say your name at the same time, both of their tones advising caution. melissa is stuck between wanting to help and letting you just handle it. she wearily watches as you squat down and start undoing clasps and hooks, taking the chains off the car. you’re movements are fast, getting two wheels free from the rigs.

“hey! you can’t be touching that!” eric yells once he hears the disconnect. he stomps over to you and grabs your arm, harshly yanking you away from the car with a tight grip. “stupid little shit,” he mutters.

“touch me again and i’ll break your fingers,” you threaten, and by the look on your face, melissa knows you’re serious. now is when she has to step in, she knows that much.

“twenty bucks says our scrappy-doo over here wins!” ava yells over, holding her phone up, ready to record if you followed through.

“not helping ava!” barbara and melissa shout at the same time.

melissa moves to gently wrap her arms around you from behind, pulling you away from your car and away from the tow guy. when you try to pull away, she tightens her hold, muttering to you to calm down and slow your breathing. you’re irritated, and melissa can feel you shaking against her. she knows you’re using your anger to coverup how much you want to cry.

once the car is all set, the man speaks to melissa only, “here’s the address of where to pick it up. and thanks for keeping your dog,” he pointedly looks at you, “on its leash.”

once he drives off with your car, melissa releases you slowly. your chest rises and drops with every unsteady breath, and you groan loudly. immediately, and without much thought, you repeatedly kick the stone wall around the entrance, even when pain strikes after the first one.

“sweetheart. baby, stop…” melissa grabs you again, “you’re going to hurt yourself.” barbara ushers away everyone else, giving the the redhead space to calm you.

it took a few moments for your breathing to slow, but when it stuttered, melissa turned you in her arms and hugged you tightly. your face instinctively tucked itself away in the junction of her neck and shoulder, your arms firm around her waist. you could feel her arm around your shoulders, the other rubbing soothing circles on your back and she swayed from side to side, in hopes the motion would help you focus your breathing.

“baby?” melissa asks with a hushed tone.

you pull away from her to sniffle but tuck back into her skin before answering, “i can’t afford a cup of coffee. i can’t afford a new coffee maker. i haven’t eaten since we had dinner last night. and this half-wit just stole my car and put it up for ransom, because there was a pool in my parking spot.”

the accumulation of everything from today being said aloud made fresh tears fall from your eyes. melissa held you tighter, whispering soothing words to you even if they fell on deaf ears. after you’ve calmed down again, she coaxes you back so you can see your face. her hands hold your face delicately, thumbs stroking away left behind tears.

“i will hand deliver you coffee every morning until you find a new coffee maker,” she says making you huff through your nose, “and i’ll buy you lunch, maybe make you dinner too, if you want,” she sees you perk up at the offer, “and i’ll stab a hole in the pool.” you laugh for real this time, making melissa smile. these days, she found that making you laugh was her favorite thing to do.

“what abo-” you start, but melissa cuts you off.

“oh, you’re not paying a dime,” you go to tell her not to pay it, but she’s ahead of you. “and neither am i, trust me. i could pull a uncle carlo and get them to give me three hundred bucks, for my time.”

you shake your head, “you bringing the bat or just that cute face?”

melissa cheeks grew rosy at your words, “you were crying five minutes ago and now you’re flirting?” you nod, biting your lip, but still waiting for an answer. she gives in, “the bat will be stay in the car unless they really deserve it. scout’s honor.”

you laugh and press a kiss to her cheek, mumbling against her skin, “thank you.”

she turns her face, pressing her forehead against yours with her eyes closed. she leans in and presses a sound, loving kiss to your lips, then your cheek, then the other, a final one placed on your forehead. she holds your face once more, “you needed me, and i was there. you don’t have to thank me, i love you. it’s what i’m supposed to do.”

you kiss her again, very quickly, then say, “i love you, too.”

—

after she bought you lunch, she didn’t drive you straight back to abbott. no, melissa was parked in front of market street towing company. she wordlessly got out of the car, but motioned for you to stay when you went to undo your seatbelt. you just watched her walk away nervously until she disappeared inside.

two songs and one radio ad later, you see your car pulling out of the fenced lot, melissa behind the wheel. you jumped out of the car as she got out of yours, grabbing her tightly.

“oh my god, thank you, thank you, thank you,” you say excitedly, only hearing her laugh a bit.

“no one was harmed, except maybe a couple egos,” she says before pulling back to drop your keys in your hands. “we still on for dinner?”

you grab her chin between your forefinger and thumb, bringing her lips to yours in a slow kiss. when you pull away, you revel in her stunned look, and it’s just too tempting to kiss her again, but she beats you to do. she breaks the kiss for air, and you speak quietly in the small space between you, “dessert, too.”

i hope u like this anon and i hope i did ur vision justice <3 feedback appreciated as always

[earthstellar]

talking about hearing disabled!Megatron again

listen I’ve had to wear my hearing aids for 12 hours straight today and my ears physically hurt because the plastic bendy part of the tubes is scratching up my ears pretty badly, so here we go: 

(this is mostly about IDW 1 Megatron, but feel free to apply it to any Megatron because all Megatrons are excellent) 

-the helmet dampens his hearing fairly significantly, as it doesn’t have any micro-openings over his audials for sound to permeate. this is intentional as part of the design, and is a safety feature for both him and any other similar mining/heavy manual labour bots who might have similar helm designs.

-that having been said, he does still have actual hearing loss from his younger days in the mine (loud machinery in sound reflective mines/caves + lack of maintenance owing to being lower class/caste and not having the resources = not great for hearing health), so while the helm design prevented it from being more severe (at first), it still didn’t provide enough protection to actually prevent a still-significant amount of hearing damage to occur 

-on top of this, during the war he was constantly getting direct impacts to his helm, standing near heavy explosions, and otherwise very often in situations where his hearing damage had plenty of opportunity to gradually worsen for one reason or another (endless environmental noise + blunt force impacts to the audials even through his helmet is no bueno) 

-at some point during the war he developed a low grade tinnitus in both audials, which he believes may have been caused by Starscream shooting him directly in the face with either his null ray or something else, which is a thing that happened too many times and with too many different weapons for him to be able to guess which specific occasion may have ultimately caused the tinnitus. it could also have just occurred naturally, he has no idea. but he thinks it’s probably Starscream’s fault, somehow, maybe. it’s not impossible, that’s for sure. 

-the tinnitus isn’t bad enough to bother him too much most of the time, but it does irritate him when he’s in quieter moments in his hab suite and trying to settle down to write or consider strategy etc. since that’s when it’s most noticeable to him and it’s distracting whenever he actually focuses on it. it does disrupt his recharge patterns on occasion, which agitates him. 

-he never really considered his gradual loss of hearing in his youth to be that negative or scary, because of course, in the mines it’s already hard to hear anyone or anything, and open internal comms were often impractical due to their mining equipment typically interfering with their comms signals. so the mining bots generally adapted fairly well to both the noise pollution in their work areas as well as their collective general hearing problems, because they already created work arounds between themselves. 

-Terminus was also hearing disabled; Megatron refuses to ever have his hearing fully repaired even if he could, for three primary reasons: 1) it reminds him of where he came from and the struggle which originally inspired him to start writing, 2) it reminds him of Terminus, and 3) he’s personally so used to it that he considers his hearing disability to be a part of himself and his life experiences to such a degree that to attempt repairs would be to remove an important aspect of who he is-- he associates it closely with his sense of identity. 

-they did use sign language in the mines whenever possible, but it was a form of Cybertronian Sign Language unique to low class/manual labour bots. most signs could be made with one servo, to allow them to continue operating certain machinery with their other servo while still talking to each other during work hours-- whenever they could sign to each other without their pit bosses noticing, anyway. 

(BSL, British Sign Language, is usually two-handed. I’m aware that ASL, American Sign Language, has a lot of one-handed signs. Just mentioning this for a real world comparison for how this kind of stuff varies massively on a regional level, for those who aren’t aware!) 

-their sign language was more of a sign supported form of Cybertronian, similar to SSE (Sign Supported English) in real life, as most of them started out with reasonably functional hearing but lost hearing ability gradually. so the grammar structure etc. is more similar to spoken Cybertronian than to most other forms of signed Cybertronian.

-he uses multiple methods to interpret spoken speech and other sounds which he either struggles to hear or can’t really hear at all. only the most observant bots will notice him doing any of this. Soundwave and Ravage are the only two non-medical bots who have ever realised that he does use lip reading in a limited capacity to help “fill in” words that he can’t make out. 

-he suspects that some of the Autobot spec ops bots may have figured out some of this during the war too, but he’s not 100% sure. Jazz probably noticed on at least a few occasions, but may not have realised the extent to which Megatron relies on these “work-arounds”, or necessarily why he was using them. 

-he is aware of the fact that one of the only reasons he could actually tolerate Starscream’s constant yelling at him is because it doesn’t sound as shrill to him as it does to everyone else. Starscream’s voice would just sort of clip in and out, as far as Megatron’s concerned.

-ultimately his hearing by Cybertronian measure is far below what is considered a more “standard” operational hearing range, even without his helmet, but he’s been so used to this for the vast majority of his life that he’s totally fine with it and doesn’t want to attempt any repairs. like I said above, he considers it part of his identity, and he wants to protect/preserve that. 

-at some point on the Lost Light, Ratchet/First Aid/Velocity probably figure out the extent of Megatron’s hearing disability, and initially offer repairs or audial devices to assist in hearing, but Megatron declines and they don’t push him on it out of respect for his wishes 

-as he gets more comfortable on the Lost Light over time, he relaxes a bit and doesn’t bother stressing himself out 100% of the time trying to strain to figure out audial input as much (unless it’s critical to do so, such as when he’s on the bridge in command capacity etc.) 

-this leads to more bots figuring out that his hearing isn’t all that great, but most of them assume it’s because Megs is getting older and they likely don’t realise his hearing has been fucked for essentially forever 

-this in turn leads to a lot of old mech jokes but Megs doesn’t care and Ratchet very much does because uh oh he actually is maybe a little bit losing some audial sensitivity himself due to age and his general condition declining a bit and yes Drift he will see First Aid about it in the morning, no shouting in my audials does not help it just makes you harder to understand, please don’t do this around Rodimus or he’ll start doing it and will never stop etc. 

IDK I just really love the idea of hearing disabled!Megatron because it makes so much sense 

even if you think about it in terms of like, G1 Megatron, I can easily see one of the reasons for him yelling in that super gravelly tone literally all the time is because he can’t 100% gauge the volume/pitch of his own voice and he’s just like, fuck it 

TFP Megatron absolutely took some brutal blows to the head in the gladiatorial ring at the very least and we know he also started out doing manual labour in the mines, so there’s a very similar background to IDW 1 Megatron and a lot of this could apply to this version too 

even with Cyberverse Megatron, the reason his voice is slightly lower in pitch may very well be because he can’t hear higher frequencies so he adjusts his own voice box settings accordingly 

I’m just thinking out loud with all this (and of course I am biased in favour of any hearing disabled characters because I myself have some hearing issues lmao) but I think hearing disabled Megatron in particular just works extremely well 

it’s a concept that could work for Ratchet too though, especially in TFP/IDW 1 where he could gradually be dealing with age related audial damage etc. 

but there’s no way Megs is hearing shit through that helmet either way lmao 

[loveysloveclub]

THE MAN! UMICH AU chapter i. new opportunities arise

in which, molly gets the opportunity of a lifetime.

molly maxwell had never been the type to have any sort of luck on her side.

she passed all her classes, and therefore graduated high school, because she worked hard. she made an all boys hockey team by training everyday and being good at what she does. and her female rugby team won their finals because again, she was good at the sports she played. everything she had in her life, she had because she worked for it.

so, when a video of molly smacking a grown male hockey player into the boards at one of her home games last year vent semi viral on some nhl fanpage, she was feeling pretty lucky. the hit had gotten her sent off for the rest of the game, but she didn't quite care. playing in a male dominated sport on a male dominated team had its ups and downs, and the downs were something molly had become accustomed to. she was treated differently as she was seen as an easy target, and the man in the video had made the mistake of thinking she wouldn't retaliate when he shoved her a little too hard or swiped her feet out from underneath her. molly had no issue breaking a few rules for a few men to get what they deserved.

her luck streak continued when she received an email by someone by the name of brandon naurato, who happened to be the head coach of the mens umich hockey team. molly, who was taking the bus home from practice at the time, almost fell out of her seat when she read the email, asking her to come play for his team.

all events lead up to this exact moment, with molly laying on the floor of her bedroom as clothes surrounded her. her three best friends rummaged through her closet, all discussing how jealous they were that she was going to go to frat parties and meet cute american guys.

mika holland was the newest addition to the group, molly having met her when she was dating one of her teammates. the relationship didn't last long, but molly got a new friend out of it. she was the shortest out of the four, but had the loudest personality. you could hear the girl making inappropriate jokes and laughing at her own jokes from a mile away.

summer smith and molly had once hated each other. constantly at each others necks throughout the first few years on high school. but when they were forced to pair up for an english project in the tenth grade, they quickly found out how similar they were and both abandoned any distasteful feelings the two shared. summer was down for anything, much like molly.

finally, scarlett hamilton, molly's best friend since the fifth grade. the two were always together, where one went the other followed. she would be molly's hardest goodbye, albeit her own mother. the two were never not stirring up some sort of plan to get the rest of the group into trouble. life would become significantly more boring once molly moved away, leaving both troublesome girls to their own devices.

"molly, do you think any of your teammates are gonna be hot?" summer asked as she continued to go through molly's entire closet, throwing things into either the 'yes' or the 'no' pile. "oh my god, you have to get with one. that is the story of the fucking century!" mika exclaimed, following her statement with a loud laugh.

"i'm not getting with one of my teammates, you freak." molly shot back, screwing her face up in distaste. "what a waste of an opportunity." mika retorted, flopping onto molly's bed.

scarlett hummed in agreement before flipping her phone screen around to show the rest of the girls whose instagram she was stalking. it was no surprise that she was stalking the univeristy of michigan's hockey team page. "this one's cute." scarlett zoomed in on one of the players. "i think that's my new captain." molly grimaced before returning to packing her belongings.

the four girls quickly fell into a vast conversation, topics ranging from who summer saw at her grocery store job to whatever scarlett's father had done to piss her off this morning, and finishing when mika got too in depth about her sex life.

and as summer finished packing molly's bag, signalling the end of their last hangout for a while, molly couldn't help but tear up about how much she was going to miss her friends. her only friends. the only people who weren't blood related to ever love her unconditionally.

moving across the world to play hockey was already proving to be the most difficult thing molly had ever done.

and she hadn't even met the team yet.

next chapter

[kkyaka]

Turn Of Events

Summary: After a fire strikes your apartment and Kobori saves you, you have nowhere to go. He offers that you can stay at his place, but there's two problems with that: you have a massive crush on him, and there's only one bed. Pairing: Kobori Koji x black!fem!reader Word Count: 34,428 Warnings: firefighter!koji, mentions of reader being the hospital, mentions of reader being burned (slightly), reader's apartment catches on fire, kobori and reader have massive crushes on each other, kise and moriyama are in this, kobori works with an asshole, there was only one bed!, reader is a teacher, mentions of drinking (everyone is of age), kobori ends up in the hospital at one point, reader and kobori get sick, lots of fluffy and awkward moments, confession of feelings, smut: unprotected sex, first time, multiple orgasms, oral (m), fingering, i think that's it, if there's anything else please lmk! A/N: PLEASE ignore how badly cropped the banner is, I'm being lazy lmfao. This was a fic that was a part of my scrapped follower event lol, and it's been unfinished for so long, but I've finally finished it. It's not edited, and I don't feel like editing it right now lmfao, so I apologize for all of the typos. Another fic that has made it to the top of my favorites list lmfao, I know it's another long one, but I seriously appreciated it if you read it and reblog. Also I haven't written with this trope before, and it was so much fun lmao.

You've never been more grateful for the weekend to be here, nearly dragging yourself into your apartment. This week was draining more than usual, and you want nothing more than to get into bed and begin your peaceful weekend. You set all of your stuff down once you get inside, immediately getting in the shower. You feel significantly better when you get out of the shower, using the rest of the evening to decompress.

You catch up on your favorite show as you grade papers before you make yourself some dinner. You don't even bother staying up later than you usually do, wanting to get into bed so you can get as much sleep as possible. You scroll through your phone for a bit, making sure your alarm isn't on before you settle into bed. It takes you a while to fall asleep, watching some videos on your phone until you finally feel tired enough to fall asleep.

You don't know how long you've been sleeping, but you wake up feeling horribly warm. You sit up, thinking that something's wrong with your thermostat, but you suddenly hear sirens, jumping out of your skin when the sound fills your ears. It sounds like they're right outside your window, and it doesn't take much else for you to figure out the situation you're in. You jump out of bed as the smell of smoke fills your nose, and the adrenaline starts to rush.

You run to the door, but you scream when you touch the door handle, searing pain running through your hand. That's when you realize that the fire is in the hallway, and fear starts to eat at you. You're on the fifth floor, and you don't even know if it's safe to jump. You don't know what to do, the only thing you feel like you can do is scream for help.

You go silent when you think you hear something, but you can't be too sure. You stop screaming, and your eyes widen as relief floods through your system at the sound of a voice coming from the other side of the door. "If you can hear me, step back!" the person yells, and you quickly do, getting away from the door as much as you can.

You curl into yourself, protecting your head and neck as the door is busted down, and you look up in time to see a firefighter walking up to you. He picks you up before you can even think, quickly ushering you out of your apartment and through the fire. You bury your face in his arms as you hold onto him tightly, coughing roughly as you try not to let the smoke get into your lungs.

The moment you know you're outside is when the stifling heat is quickly replaced with the cold air of winter. You look up, seeing that they're carrying you to the back of an empty ambulance. You look past them to see your building on fire, the embers lighting up the night sky as multiple trucks try to put the fire out. They sit you down in the back of the ambulance, and an EMT immediately gives you an oxygen mask.

You try to thank them, but your lungs burn so bad that the only thing you can manage to do is cough. They leave quickly, leaving you alone with the EMT as they check you for any burns. You're able to breathe a little better, and a firefighter walks up to you once the EMT makes sure you don't have any major injuries. He takes his helmet off when he stops in front of you, and your eyes widen when you see who it is.

"Kobori?" you rasp.

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, crouching down in front of you.

You nod. "Yeah, just smoke inhalation. Were you the one who saved me?"

"Yeah. I remember you complaining about living on the fifth floor," he answers, and you try your best not to laugh so that you don't irritate your lungs.

"Thank you so much," you say before you look at your building. You stay silent as you watch the last of the embers go out, biting your lip to keep yourself from crying. "What am I gonna do?" you whisper as you look down at your hands.

Before Kobori can respond, the EMT is walking back to you, saying that they want you to spend some time in the hospital just to make sure everything is okay. That's honestly the last thing you want to do right now, but you know that you don't have any other choice.

"Thank you again, Kobori. I owe you," you tell him.

"It was no problem," he responds warmly before you move to sit in the back of the truck. You watch him get smaller as they drive off, and your smile fades as he does so.

You hear a soft knock on the door that has your head slowly turning towards it, and you smile softly with a confused frown. "What are you doing here?" you ask as Kobori walks up to the bed.

"I just wanted to make sure you had somewhere to stay for the night." You sigh heavily as you look down at your lap, shaking your head before you shrug.

"I mean, not really. My parents live three hours away, and I don't know how long it's going to take me to find another apartment. And not working for who knows how long doesn't sound the best." You sigh again, rubbing your head as you try not to cry again.

"If you're comfortable with it," Kobori starts after he clears his throat, and you wipe the tears that managed to fall as you look up at him. "You can stay with me for the time being," he finishes, and you swear you see his ears turning red.

"Seriously?" you ask. "I can't ask you to do that, Kobori."

"I don't mind. And I don't feel good about you driving home at this time of night," he continues, and you look somewhere else in the room as you think about it. It would be better honestly, and the last thing you want to do right now is drive home.

"Okay. Thank you, Kobori. I owe you."

"Don't mention it. It's the least I could do." He smiles back at you when you do, and you rub over your face again as the fatigue really starts to get to you, the adrenaline you were feeling when you realized that your building was on fire long gone. "Did you call your parents?"

You nod with a huff. "Yeah, it took me everything to convince them not to come down here. I told them that I was just fine, but I kinda told them I already had a place to stay even though I didn't, so you really saved my ass." You both laugh softly in the quiet room before it slowly fades to silence. "I should be good to go in about an hour or so," you add.

"Sounds good," he responds before he sits down in the chair.

"You're staying?" you question as he gets comfortable.

"Yeah. My chief let me go early since I knew someone that was in the fire, so I've got nothing to do."

"Oh, okay. As long as I'm not bothering you," you say quietly.

"You could never bother me," he says even lower than you spoke, but you hear it anyway, and you look down at your lap as you bite your lip to fight your smile, your face growing warm.

You make small talk while you wait to be cleared, and it's seriously the highlight of your night. You and Kobori went to high school and college together, staying in contact after you graduated, but it kind of fizzled out once life started getting a little more demanding. You actually ran into him a couple of months ago at the store, and that's when you told him about your apartment, complaining about the elevator being broken at the time and all of the stairs you had to climb.

The fact that he remembered that makes you smile as you talk to him, surprised that he hadn't forgotten that. But it's not like you were any better. You played that conversation over and over in your head, but you never had the courage to reach out to him again. To most people, it was obvious you had a crush on him, but to him, it didn't seem like he knew, which did and did not work out in your favor.

Seeing him again only made you realize that your feelings for him never left even when you tried dating in the past. Kise always told you that you should say something, or that he would subtly tell Kobori how you were feeling, but you always told him not to. You hung out with him and Kise most of the time, and you didn't really want to deal with being rejected and potentially losing one of your best friends.

You thought about doing it once you graduated, but you both were going different ways, and you figured it would be for the best if you just kept quiet. But even years after that, you still regret not telling him how you felt; maybe you could've been with him now if you had.

You brush those thoughts away as the doctor comes back in to clear you, telling you some routine things about recovering at home. You sigh heavily again when you finally walk out of the hospital, grabbing onto your jacket tighter as the cold air hits your skin, and you realize that you still have his jacket on.

"Oh, you probably want this back," you tell him once you get in the car, in the process of taking it off when he stops you.

"You can keep it. You need it more than me right now anyway," he says softly, and you quickly pull it closer to your body. The both of you are mostly quiet on the ride back to his apartment, occasionally talking before the music quietly playing from the radio flows through the car again.

You yawn once he parks the car, blinking the tears from your eyes as you get out. You follow him to his apartment, closing the door softly behind you once you make your way inside as he turns on one of the lights. You look around as he slides his shoes off before he sighs.

"You can take the bed if you want."

"There's only one room?"

"Yeah, I didn't really think about that before I offered," he chuckles awkwardly. "But I don't mind sleeping on the couch."

"No, Kobori, I can't take your bed," you say. "I'm okay with sleeping on the couch. I mean, you're already letting me stay here, and that's more than enough."

"Seriously, I don't mind. You need the sleep, too."

"I'm not taking your bed," you declare before you sit down on the couch. "And this is really comfortable, so I'll sleep here." He places his hands on his hips before he sighs with a huff.

"Alright," he sighs, giving in. "Did you wanna hop in the shower?" he asks, and you quickly stand up.

"That sounds amazing right now." He leads you to the bathroom before showing you how to work the shower before he gets you the stuff that you need. You hear him come back into the bathroom as you're setting the water to the temperature you like, and you turn around to see him with some clothes in his hand.

"You can wear this, and um..." he starts, handing you the clothes when you stretch your hand out. "I don't really have any pants for you to wear, so...uh, yeah," he finishes with his face red before he walks out of the bathroom, quickly and quietly closing the door behind him.

You frown at his actions before you set the shirt on the counter, but something falls as you do so. You pick it up, seeing that it's a pair of his boxers, and the only thing you can do is laugh, feeling too tired to think about anything else.

You shower quickly, sleep screaming your name at this point, and once you're done, you make your way back to the living room, seeing blankets and a pillow already set up. You get comfortable on the couch as you hear Kobori walk into the room, and you curl into yourself as you look at him.

"Did you need anything else?" he asks, and you shake your head as you yawn again.

"You've honestly done more than enough. Thank you so much."

"Yeah, of course," he smiles. "Goodnight."

"Night," you smile before he turns off the light, giving you one last smile before he goes into his room. You lay down as you hear him close the door, and you know that high school you would be absolutely freaking out right now, but current you is too tired to care. You let your eyes fall closed as your breathing starts to even out, and you're sure it doesn't take you even ten minutes for you to fall asleep.

~

You stir awake with the sudden urge to pee, so you groggily make your way to the bathroom. You barely spare a glance in the mirror, wanting to go back to sleep as soon as possible. You yawn as you make your way back to the couch when Kobori comes into the apartment with a box in his hands.

You stop as you watch him turn around to close the door with his foot, and he stops when he sees you after he turns around. "Oh, you're awake," he says softly before you walks over to set the box down next to some other ones. You didn't even see them on your way to the bathroom, and you quietly follow him.

"What's all of this?"

"Your stuff," he sighs as he carefully puts the box on the floor.

"My stuff?" you question, your brain still waking up.

"Yeah," he starts as he stands before turning to look at you. "They cleared the building, so I went and got your things," he explains. "You got lucky. Most of it was fine." You walk closer to the boxes as you look at everything. "I figured you want to go, but you seemed really tired, so I just went myself. We can go back together if there's something that's missing."

"Well, since you brought some clothes, I'll get ready, and we can go," you respond, crouching down in front of the box with that word written on it. "Thank you, Kobori," you tell him, looking over your shoulder at him.

"Of course. Let me know when you're ready," he smiles before he walks off.

You look through the box, finding some sweatpants, and you debate in your head if you should take off his shirt. You really don't want to, but you don't want to think about this any longer, so you just grab the sweatpants before finding some socks, and heading to the bathroom to get ready.

Once you're in the car, you honestly don't know what to think as you drive back to your apartment. You know that your apartment was on fire last night, but it's like it hasn't actually hit you yet. You don't say anything as Kobori pulls into the parking lot, and now that the sun is out, you can see how much damage the fire actually did.

Turns out, someone on the lower floor left something plugged in before they left for work, but Kobori also told you that there wasn't that caused the fire to spread as fast as it did. He didn't go into the details because you didn't really want to know. You just wish it didn't happen in the first place.

Other firefighters are scattered around the building, and Kobori carefully leads you to your apartment. Compared to the lower floors, your floor doesn't look as bad, but you can still smell the smoke and see how much of the hallways have been burned. Kobori leads you to your room, and it finally hits you when your eyes land on the stuff of yours that didn't survive the fire.

You look around before you run your hand over your head. "Shit," you whisper, sniffing as you try and fail to fight your tears. "God, what am I gonna do?" you say, your voice shaky. A sob makes its way out of your chest, and you hold your hand over your face.

You don't even know when Kobori walked over to you, but you immediately sink into him when you feel him wrap his arms around you, pulling you into him. You don't know how long he holds you, but it seems like all of your feelings have finally bubbled over after brewing for so long. You didn't even know you were feeling like this until this point, and for a second, you wonder if you're dreaming.

You wonder if you're going to wake up in your apartment, completely intact, and you'll brush your teeth and wash your face before you decide what to eat for breakfast. You'll sit down at your kitchen table as you decide what to do for the day since it's the weekend and you're not working. You turn your head to the side to catch your breath, and it only makes you see that none of this is a dream; it's all real.

Your head is pounding by the time you've finally stopped crying, the only sound that fills the room is your sniffling, but you don't pull away from Kobori just yet. Being in his arms feels the best right now, and you don't want to leave. You're not ready to focus on your room again.

He continues to rub over your back, and you can feel his chest rise and fall every now and then, like he's trying to figure out what to say. You feel bad for putting him in this position, and you're about to apologize for doing so, but he speaks before you can.

"Do you feel better?" he asks softly, and it actually makes you laugh, moving your arms so that they're wrapped around him.

"I do, actually," you say against him as you sniffle. "Is...is it okay if we stay like this for a little longer?" you whisper after you're silent for a while, using the time to get some courage to utter the words.

You feel one of his hands rest on your head as he huffs. "Of course. Take all the time you need."

You don't feel like crying anymore, and you swear just by hugging him, you're already starting to feel way better than you've felt the last day. You don't know how much time has passed, but you take a deep breath before you start to pull away, and your body suddenly feels cold where it was pressed against him.

"Okay," you sigh before you look at the damage again. You close your eyes before you take another deep breath, opening them as you feel better prepared to get the rest of your stuff.

Most of your prized possessions were in your room, which thankfully, wasn't near the hallway. Kobori bought more boxes, so you pack up the stuff that he didn't grab, starting in your room since you're not ready to see what else has been ruined in the living room.

When you're done filling a box, he takes it to the car, and you try to offer to help him do so since there are so many stairs he has to go up and down, but he insists that you stay and pack everything up. Once your room is clear, save for the furniture that was already in here when you moved in, you move to the bathroom next. Some of your products aren't salvageable since the heat from the fire melted the plastics, so you put those into the trash bag that Kobori also brought.

The living room is the last place you get to, and anything that was on the wall of the hallway is destroyed. All of your posters are on the ground, some half burned, others completely unrecognizable. Most of your photos that held so many key memories are gone, and you see half of one on the floor, and you close your eyes as you put it into the trash, a couple of tears leaving your eyes as you do.

You feel lighter, for lack of a better word, once you're done, helping Kobori take the last of your stuff to the car. He packs up the car while you get into the passenger seat, and you can only stare at your apartment as you wonder what you're going to do now. There's no way you're going to be able to find a decent apartment on such short notice, and you really don't want to inconvenience Kobori even more than you already have.

You're jolted out of your thoughts when you hear the driver's side door open, Kobori sighing softly as he gets in. You don't say anything as he drives off, and you look at your apartment until you can't see it anymore. Even though you're looking out the window as he drives, you're not noticing anything as you pass building after building.

When the car stops, you realize that you're not in the parking lot of Kobori's apartment, but in the parking lot of the small cafe you used to go to all the time in college. "What are we doing here?" you ask as he takes off his seatbelt.

"You haven't eaten, right?" is all he says before he gets out of the car. You slowly follow behind him, stepping in tow with him as you walk up to the door. You softly thank him when he holds the door open for you, and when you step inside, the smells that fill your nose take you right back to when you were in college.

You actually haven't been here in a long time because it's not really in the direction of where you work. You rarely come here unless you're really craving something, and that always makes you feel some type of way especially since you were here so many times when you were in school.

You scan the menu even though you already know what you want, and you look around the place just to see if anything's changed. There hasn't been much, but you notice that the theme of the place has changed, and the chairs and booths don't look like the ones they had back then.

"Come on, let's go sit," Kobori tells you softly, a hand on your back to guide you to a table.

"Wait, what? But I didn't order anything," you tell him as he pulls out your chair for you. He has to gently push you to sit down since you're still stuck on what he said.

"I already ordered for the both of us," he says, sliding the receipt to you as he sits across from you. You pull it closer to you to see that he ordered what you were going to.

"You still remember?" you question softly, a smile pulling at the corner of your mouth.

"Of course," he responds quietly, his ears turning red as he has a hard time holding eye contact with you.

"I'll pay you back," you say as he sticks a straw in your drink before passing it your way.

"You don't have to do that. You've been through enough already." You take a sip of your drink with the intent of replying after you swallow, but when the taste of the liquid hits your tongue, your thoughts take another direction.

"You even got the drink I used to get?" you ask, drinking some more. "How do you even remember that?" you follow up as he drinks from his cup.

"I've always had a good memory," he answers, and you don't deny that at all. You remember all the times he remembered even the little things, and to this day, it still amazes you that he can remember all of that stuff.

His name is called for the food a couple of seconds later, and he gets up to get it while you check your phone. Luckily, it wasn't ruined during the fire, and you start to text back some people, responding to them after they heard what happened. You used Kobori's phone earlier before you got to your apartment to let your co-workers know that you might be out for a couple of days, and you called your parents to let them know that you were doing fine.

He comes back with the food, and you put it down, your mouth watering at the same time your stomach grumbles when you see the food. You must've been really tired because you slept until the afternoon, so it's been a while since you've eaten.

It doesn't take you long to finish your food, barely giving yourself time to reminisce the last time you've eaten this food, and you sigh heavily as you swallow the last bite. "I really needed that," you comment, your head feeling better after you've eaten. "I can't remember the last time I've eaten here."

"Really?" he questions, his eyebrows raising.

"Yeah. It's like out of my way from work, and the traffic is always bad when I try to come from home, so I just never got over here," you answer. "But, thank you for this. I feel like I've told you that so many times," you huff, resting your arms on the table as you look down at it for a second. "I seriously don't know how I can pay you back."

"When I say don't worry about it. I mean it," he states. "You would do the same for me."

And he's not wrong about that.

You've been staying with Kobori for a couple of weeks now, and you still haven't found a place to stay. It's not like you want to leave Kobori, but you feel like you've intruded more than enough. It would be different if you were dating, but even though he's one of your best friends, you don't want to encroach on his privacy.

Every place that you've found for a decent price is nowhere near where you work, and you would rather not deal with the traffic. Kobori's place is actually a little bit closer to your job than your place, so you're enjoying the fact that you can sleep in for a little bit longer.

You sigh as you close out another tab on your laptop after another failed attempt at looking for a place, laying back against the couch. Not only do you feel bad for being in Kobori's space, but all of your stuff is just sitting in his living room. You roll your head to the side as you look at all of the boxes, seeing how they make the space look so much smaller.

"You okay?" You turn your head when you hear him speak, looking at him just in time to see him stopping by the couch.

"Just struggling to find a new place," you answer. Even if you could move back into your apartment, it would take a long time for the building to be rebuilt, so you figured it would be better to try and find somewhere else to live.

"You're not tired of me already, are you?" he jokes as he sits down next to you.

"Of course not," you respond, smiling widely. "I just feel bad. Like I'm impeding on your space," you continue, waving to the boxes behind you.

"When I say that you're not, I mean it," he states. "And when I'm hanging out with friends, I don't even host, so I promise you're not impeding on anything." That doesn't make you feel completely better, but at least you're not doing as much damage as you thought. "But, besides that, you still can't find anything?"

You sigh as you shake your head. "No. Everything is either too far away from work or out of my price range. It's gonna be forever before I can find a new place."

"Well, good thing I won't be kicking you out any time soon," he says, and the both of you laugh softly even though your heart skips at his words.

"Thanks, Kobori. I seriously don't know what I would've done without you."

"Any time," he replies, and you let the silence fall between you two, but it's not uncomfortable.

You have to go to bed soon, a yawn coming out of your mouth signaling that you should be getting ready to turn in for the night. Kobori uses the bathroom first since he has to go to work, and once he's out, you go in, doing your night routine before you head out into the living room.

Kobori's at the door as he slides his shoes on, and you make your bed on the couch before lying down. "See you in the morning," he tells you softly, and you give him a warm smile as you pull the blanket up to your chin.

"See you," you whisper before he smiles at you, turning off the lights before heading out the door.

As you wait for the melatonin to kick in, your thoughts run as you think about how you really don't want to live anywhere else other than with Kobori. You hadn't even told Kise about where you're living, only telling him that you're staying with a friend until you can find a new place. You figured Kobori hadn't told him either, or else he would've been here the minute either of you uttered a word about it.

You feel like you're back in school, debating whether or not you should tell Kobori how you feel. But once again, you're faced with a dilemma. If you do say something, and he doesn't feel the same way, you'd either be stuck here or sleeping somewhere else if you can even find someone willing to let you stay with them for a long time.

Once you feel the melatonin start to work its magic, you roll over, closing your eyes as you try to let it do its job. You can't help it when you close your eyes though, thinking about what it would be like if you confessed your feelings to him, and it worked out for the better.

~

You're woken up by a soft shake on your shoulder, and you groan softly before you roll over. You peel your eyes open to see that the sun is starting to come in through the windows, and Kobori's standing above you. You can't help but smile, enjoying that he's the first thing you see when you wake up, but you quickly push it aside, focusing on trying to get your body to wake up.

"Morning," he says softly.

"Morning," you whisper, turning your head to the side to yawn. "What time is it? I can make breakfast," you offer as you sit up, and Kobori steps back to give you space.

"Like six forty-five," he answers. "You don't have to do that since you just woke up," he tries, but you're quick to shake your head as you place your feet on the floor.

"No. I'm not doing anything around here. So, I'm going to make you some food," you declare and he smiles when you laugh.

"If you say so," he says before you grab your clothes for the day and head to the bathroom after you pick out what to wear. You get yourself ready, the process allowing your body enough to wake up and tell you that you're hungry. You hear him get in the shower while you're cooking, and you look over your shoulder briefly when you hear the water stop running. You turn in time to see him walk into his room, and you quickly look back at the food on the stove as your face warms.

He wasn't paying any attention to you, but with only a towel covering his lower half, you don't know if you'll be able to focus for the rest of the day. Sure, you've seen him shirtless before when you've gone to the pool or the beach with other friends, but being in his place with an image of him in nothing but a towel only fuels your thoughts.

You physically shake your head as you try to think about anything else but him, turning your focus onto splitting the food on separate plates. He comes into the kitchen a little bit later, fully dressed, and you can barely look at him, only seeing that previous image in your eyes.

"Smells amazing," he comments as he sits down at the island. You smile as you slide a plate over to him before you pour the both of you something to drink before you sit next to him. "Thank you."

"Of course. I hope you like it," you say before you both start to eat. You make small talk after he compliments the food, and you talk even after you're done eating, only cutting the conversation short once you see what time it is. You wince a bit when you stand up, putting a hand on your back as you try to stretch, rubbing over your shoulders as you place your dishes in the sink.

"You okay?" you hear him question.

"Yeah, just the couch is kinda killing me, but it's no big deal," you answer honestly, feeling like you may not be able to lie to him. The couch wasn't uncomfortable, but sleeping on it for days on end really has your body protesting. You didn't want to tell him, and the look on his face when you turn around really makes you wish you would've at least tried to lie.

"You know," he starts. "You can sleep in my bed," he offers suddenly, and that makes you stop a bit, your eyes widening a little bit as he looks away. "We don't have the same schedules, so we won't be sleeping together," he explains, and you have to fight the urge to deflate. He's right. You'll never be in bed with him at the same time.

You're happy to hear that you can get off the couch, but you're also disappointed that he won't be with you. "Are you sure? I can handle the couch, I'll just have to do a little stretching in the morning."

He nods. "Of course. I don't want you to be in so much pain, and like I said, we're never sharing the bed at the same time, so it's a win-win." You think it's more of a win-lose, but you obviously don't tell him that.

"If you're sure that's okay, then thanks," you accept rather quickly, the thought of your body not aching every day you wake up winning over the fact that you'll be sleeping alone.

"I'm sure. It's all yours," he smiles.

"Okay, if you say so," you say softly before looking at the time on the oven. "I should probably go. And thank you again," you continue before you start to get your stuff together, moving toward the door to put your shoes on.

"And thank you for the food. It was really good."

"You're welcome," you smile as you finish putting on your shoes. "I'll see you later," you tell him before you open the door, closing it softly behind you.

You were honestly still feeling a little down about your apartment, but seeing how happy your students were to see you again made you so much happier. All of your co-workers and your boss were really understanding, letting you take as much time as you needed until you could go back to work.

You didn't want to stay away for too long, and thanks to Kobori, you were able to go back a lot sooner than you thought. Your kids all gasp when they see you once they walk into the classroom, hugging you as they tell you how much they missed you. You're thankful that you're back to work again since it gives you a chance to get your mind off of Kobori. He and your feelings have been plaguing your mind for the past couple of weeks, and you're glad you don't have a moment to think about either.

The day goes by surprisingly fast, and by the time you get into the car, you're already feeling the day catch up with you. You were on your feet for most of the day, your lower back aching with complaints, and you're glad that Kobori offered his bed. Now that you're working again, you don't know if you would've been able to handle the couch for much longer.

You try to stay as quiet as possible when you get home since you know that Kobori's still asleep, carefully closing the door before you take your shoes off. You sit on the couch as you turn the TV on, turning the volume down before you start working on some new lesson plans. One of your friends filled in for you, and you said that you would grade all of the stuff that she gave your students since she'd already done enough for you.

You put the answer key to the side as you begin to go through the papers, and you dive into work mode, trying to get as much done as possible so you can relax for the rest of the night. You hear a door open, quickly followed by footsteps, and you finish marking the last paper before you look over your shoulder.

"When did you get home?" Kobori asks you quietly before he yawns.

"A few hours ago," you answer, clicking your pen as you stack all of your papers before sliding them into your bag. "How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty good actually. We actually got a lot of calls last night, so I really needed the sleep."

"That's good," you respond. "I was thinking of some stuff for dinner, is there anything that you wanted?" you ask, standing up to stretch.

"You're making dinner?" he asks.

You shrug. "Sure. If that's okay. I'm done for the night, so I've got nothing else to do."

"Yeah, if you wanna go ahead. I don't care what you make," he says, yawning again before he heads to the bathroom.

You had multiple ideas on what to make for dinner, but you settled on one that you'd been craving for a while, so you get to cooking. You put in one of your earbuds so you can listen to music as you do so, singing quietly, dancing a little every now and then.

You're so into it that you don't even notice Kobori come back into the room, only seeing him out of the corner of your eye when you glance to the side. You jump as you scream, careful not to drop the pan in your hand. "Oh, my God!" you laugh as you sigh, dropping your head.

"I didn't wanna scare you by saying something, but it looks like I did anyway," he smiles, and you look at him as you shake your head.

"Don't worry about it," you breathe, still laughing a bit. "It's almost done."

"It smells really good," he comments as he sits down, and you make your plates before you turn the stove off, moving around to sit next to him as you slide him the plate. "Thanks for cooking," he tells you as you start to eat, your stomach screaming at you to eat something.

"Of course. I like doing it, so I hope you enjoy it."

Kobori asks about your day as you eat, and you're glad for it since you sometimes can eat too fast when you're hungry. You finish your food before he does despite doing most of the talking, and you get yourself a little more food. Kobori gets himself another serving as you finish up your food.

"This was probably the best thing I've ever tasted," he comments as he takes the last bite.

"You don't have to say all that," you chuckle softly, trying and failing to stop your face from becoming hot.

"No, seriously. I haven't had a cooked meal in a long time," he says. "When I come home from work, I usually just heat up something real quick, and I get something to eat on the way. So, this is an upgrade."

"Well, thank you. I'm glad you can eat some good food," you laugh as he stands to take your dishes to the sink. He starts to wash the dishes, which he insists that he should do since you cooked, and you move back to the couch, scrolling on your phone since nothing you watch is playing on TV right now.

Kobori joins you once he's finished with the dishes, and he changes the channel while you continue to scroll through your phone. You don't say anything, and you don't feel like you need to say anything, but you can't help but notice how close he's sitting to you. You didn't realize it since you were looking down, but he shifted a bit and his shoulder brushed against yours.

You internally shake your head at how you're reacting to a little touch, trying your best to not focus on it. The only thing you really want to do is just lay your head on his shoulder, but you don't want to make things weird. It seems like time slows down as you sit there drowning in your thoughts, and you're only jumped out of them when Kobori stands up all of a sudden.

You check the time to see that he's got to go to work soon, and you notice that he's already dressed. You stand up, walking to the kitchen as he puts his shoes on, and you walk up to him as he grabs his keys. "I made you lunch," you start, feeling ridiculously nervous as you hold it out to him. "I know you didn't ask, but I figured you do get a lunch break, right? You don't have to take it if you don't want to. I probably should've asked first."

You're rambling at this point and beyond embarrassed, two seconds from just walking away and crawling into a hole, but then he smiles as he takes it from you. "Thank you. I'll enjoy this." Your smile instantly comes back as you nod.

"No problem. See you tomorrow."

"See ya." You watch him leave, and as soon as you can't hear his footsteps, you sigh heavily before you scream softly. You put your palm to your forehead as you shake your head, moving into the bathroom to get ready for the night. When you're done, you realize that you didn't ask him what side of the bed he sleeps on, but you don't even know how you would've brought that up in conversation without sounding so awkward.

You can't tell since he's made the bed, but you just pick a side since you're tired, choosing the one further away from the door. You groan softly as you settle under the blanket, his bed being way more comfortable than the couch, and you're pretty sure it's better than yours. You set your alarm before you pull the blanket up to your chin, and you don't even have the time to overthink about anything else because you fall asleep in seconds.

Kobori groans softly as he sits down, hoping that he can get at least halfway through his lunch before the alarm rings again signaling another emergency. He can't help but smile as he thinks about how you gave him lunch before he left. Like he told you, he usually ends up getting something, or if he doesn't feel like going out, just getting something from the vending machine.

He had no doubt that it was going to be good, but just tasting it really hit the spot for him. "And you've got another lunch packed for. Where did you get that from?" he hears, Kobori glancing to the side to see Moriyama sitting next to him.

"Nowhere," he mumbles around a mouthful of food. So far, he's been able to go through his shifts without his friends finding out about this, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they found out.

"Looks really good," he comments. "You don't cook, Kobori, so who's giving it to you?" Kobori just chooses to ignore him, focusing on eating. More of his friends come and comment on the food, but he doesn't say anything, giving vague answers.

He knows that the moment he starts talking, he'll be found out immediately, and the last thing he needs is for Kise to find out, who thankfully, isn't working tonight. He tries to keep his composure as they ask if he's with someone now, but he remains expressionless, refusing to give any answers.

"What if it's the woman he saved from that fire?" one of them suddenly asks, and that makes him freeze just a bit, he tries to play it off, but they catch it instantly.

"So, she's the one who made this," Moriyama concludes.

"No, she didn't," Kobori tries to deny, but there's no use. They're already onto him.

"Dude, you ran into that burning building against orders, and you came out with someone that you clearly knew," one of his co-workers continues.

"That doesn't mean that she made it," he mumbles, finishing up the last bits of food before he puts the container back into the lunch box. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, the alarm goes off, signaling that they have to get to work. He's quick to move, putting his stuff away before getting his gear on.

Of course, he's not saved forever as his friends mess with him about it for the rest of his shift. Kobori knows Kise will definitely hear about this, and there's nothing he can do but prepare for it. He'll just deny, deny, deny until he can't anymore.

Work goes pretty slow since they don't get many calls, and that means he's stuck with Moriyama's prying. "So, you're still into her after all of these years," he says as they do some chores around the firehouse. Kobori stays silent, but he can feel his ears growing warm, which ultimately betrays him. "So, I'm assuming she's living with you now, and I gotta say, people usually date first before moving in with someone."

"It's not like that," he counters quickly before he sighs. "Her parents live three hours away, and there was no way I could leave her to figure stuff out. Who knows how long it would've taken her to find a place to stay," he argues. "And I would do the same for you guys, so there's no need to make this weird."

Moriyama stops what he's doing to place a hand on his shoulder, which gets Kobori to stop moving. "You're currently living with the girl that you've had feelings for since you met her. She made you lunch, dude. Are you really not gonna say anything?"

"She was just being nice," he denies.

Kobori always thought that he was being subtle with his feelings, but he definitely wasn't since all of his teammates caught on right away. They always tried to get him to say something, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Once you graduated, he thought he wouldn't have to fight this battle again, but you've crossed paths again, so he knows that they're never going to let him live this down.

"You are so hopeless," Moriyama sighs, but he drops the subject thankfully, and Kobori goes the rest of his shift without too much teasing from his friends.

~

You're lying on the couch watching TV after a long morning of grading papers, mostly paying attention to your phone as you try to figure out what to do to cure your boredom. Kobori's been back from work for a while, so you try to think of something you could do that hopefully won't cause too much noise.

You groan softly as you sit up, freezing when you hear a knock on the door. You frown as you slowly stand, not remembering Kobori telling you about anyone coming over. You tiptoe to the door, peeking through the peephole, and your heart drops when you see who's on the other side.

You try to slowly step back, hoping that you can just pretend that you didn't hear it. "I know you're in there," Kise singsongs, your name coming from his mouth making you sigh in annoyance. You stomp your foot softly as you grimace, deciding that you have no other option but to open the door. You know he's not going to leave; he'll probably stand out there until Kobori wakes up, and then he'll break him down until he eventually opens the door.

You have a blank look on your face as you open the door, rolling your eyes when you see him smiling back at you. "What are you doing here?" you question, not letting him in just yet.

"I could ask you the same thing, no?" he teases, letting himself in, and you close the door behind him.

"Keep it down, okay? Kobori's sleeping right now," you warn gently, sitting back down on the couch.

"Look at you, looking out for your boyfriend," he coos.

"Fuck you," you say lightly. He laughs softly as he sits down next to you.

"So, how long have you two been living together?" he muses, and you sigh as rest back against the couch before letting your head fall back, ignoring his playful jab.

"A couple of months now," you answer honestly. "Believe it or not, it's hard to find a place that fits everything that I need."

"I'm sorry about your place, and I'm glad you're okay," he tells you softly, and you give him a soft smile when you turn your head to look at him.

"Thanks, Kise."

"So, this is the part of the story where you finally stop pining over him and just confess?" Your smile drops quickly, deciding to turn your attention back to the ceiling.

"I was not pining, okay? And how am I supposed to even bring that up without it being awkward?" you ask. "If it goes horribly, there's no way I'm staying here. So, I would rather just not say anything than lose the place I'm living at."

"I've been telling you this for years," he sighs. "It's not gonna go bad."

"I'm not telling him, Kise," you conclude. "At least not while I'm living under the same roof as him." You know he's about to say something in response, but he stops when he hears a door open. You lift your head to look over the couch, seeing Kobori come into view as he yawns.

He stops quickly as his face drops when his eyes on Kise, and he doesn't even fight the urge to roll his eyes. "What are you doing in my home, Kise?" he questions, walking further into the living room so that he's standing in front of both of you.

"Well, your roommate invited me in," he jabs, and it's your turn to roll your eyes. "Why didn't you tell me you guys moved into together?"

"Why would we need to?" he questions, crossing his arms.

"Come on, we've been friends for years, guys!" Kise tries.

"And you're still just as annoying," you groan. Kise gives you a look before you turn to Kobori. "Any requests for dinner?"

"You know I'm gonna eat whatever you make," he smiles, and you can't help but return it, getting up to make your way into the kitchen, Kobori's eyes still on you as you walk into the kitchen. He turns his attention back to the intruder in his apartment, his smile dropping when he sees that he's looking at him with a smirk.

"I knew Moriyama wouldn't keep his mouth shut," Kobori whispers as he walks over to the couch, sighing as he sits down. "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd go through that same spiel."

"And I still think that you should. What's the worst that could happen?" Kise asks.

"I could lose a really good friend," he answers. "And I don't wanna make her feel weird if I tell her how I feel. She hasn't found a place yet, and I don't want to put her in that position."

"You guys are seriously so annoying," Kise whines, letting his head fall back onto the couch before he quickly lifts it back up again. "What would it take for me to convince you that it won't end badly?"

"A million dollars," Kobori drawls. "It's not happening, Kise." Kobori looks at the TV, trying his best to keep his attention on the screen even though he can see his friend's eyes boring into the side of his head in his peripheral.

"But, this could be your chance, no? Do you remember how upset you were when we graduated, and you realized that we probably wouldn't be seeing each other as much anymore?"

Kobori doesn't respond, sighing as he crosses his arms. How could he forget about that? Yeah, he was happy to finally be done with school, but when he said goodbye to you that day he graduated, the only thing he could think about as he watched you walk away was how his feelings for you never left, and that he missed his chance to tell you how he really felt.

He wasn't himself for a while after that, wanting to just text you and just tell you everything, but he thought that wasn't something that he should say over text. You continued to talk after you graduated, and Kobori never had the courage to say anything, always typing it out but deleting it right after. After a couple of years, the texts started to fizzle out between the two of you, life just getting the best of you both.

That was definitely not what he wanted, but then he ran into you at the store, and it's like his feelings for you hit him full force the moment he saw you in the aisle that day. He obviously didn't think that he would meet you again by saving you from your apartment, but Kise's words play over and over in his head. Is this really his chance? Kise's always told him that it wouldn't end badly like he thinks it will, but he still has that fear underlying in his thoughts.

Before he can think any more, the call of his name from the kitchen breaks him out of his thoughts. He's quick to get up, not wanting to be a part of this conversation anymore, and Kise follows shortly after once Kobori sits down at the island.

"Do you want any, Kise?" you ask.

"No, I already ate, but it smells amazing." You thank him as you make yourself a plate, and luckily for the both of you, Kise doesn't hint at your feelings as you all talk. Kise offers to take Kobori to work as he finishes up eating, which Kobori begrudgingly agrees to before he goes to get ready. Kise chuckles a bit as he watches you make lunch for Kobori, and you glance over your shoulder when you hear it.

"What?"

"You know our friends won't stop messing with Kobori about his packed lunches," he tells you. "They're trying to figure out who he's dating." That makes you freeze a bit, your movements faltering, but you can't play it off enough that it goes missing by Kise.

"I'm guessing a lot of you guys don't get lunches?" you try to joke, trying to shake off what he told you.

"A lot of us are painfully single," Kise laughs. "Kobori used to be one of those people."

"Stop saying that," you hiss, looking towards the hallway to make sure Kobori can't hear him. "We're just friends. I'm just being nice," you continue. "He's letting me stay here. He won't even let me help him with the rent," you say, shaking your head.

"Isn't he so sweet?"

You squint your eyes at him as Kobori comes back into the room, dressed for work. You hand him the lunchbox as Kise jokingly asks if you can make one for him before Kobori all but shoves him out of the door. "See you in the morning," Kobori tells you warmly, and you return the phrase, both of you smiling as he closes the door behind him.

It's already been half a year living with Kobori, and you honestly didn't know time could fly by so fast. You found a couple of places to live, and Kobori always went with you to the open houses, but by the time you wanted to put an offer on it, it was either already gone or the prices went up way past your budget.

There's a part of you that's relieved that you didn't get the place because every time you found a new place, there was a sinking feeling in your heart. You don't even want to think about living without Kobori, and there are periods of time when you don't even bother looking. You sometimes feel guilty, but Kobori always reassures you that you're not bothering him in any way, and you hope that he feels the same way you do.

After a while of getting tired of looking at the boxes of your stuff in the living room, you decided to put them into storage. You figured you could just throw your clothes in your suitcases and slide them under the bed so that it would be out of the way, but after you told Kobori that, the next day he took you to the furniture store. He was off that day, and he didn't tell you where you were going, and you were confused until he told you that you were there to get a new dresser.

"Why would I need to do that?" you'd asked him.

It took him a while to look at you when he responded. "So, that you're not living out of your suitcases. I don't mind getting another one for you." Your face grows warm at his words, busying yourself with looking around as your heart races. He actually bought more than just the dresser, buying some of the things that caught your eye as you were looking through the store.

You tried to convince him that he didn't have to get anything, but he insisted that it wouldn't matter because his apartment was pretty plain and empty anyway. You bought a couple of decorations along with a new dresser, and he built it when you got home while you decorated the apartment.

You smile at the memory as you close your laptop, deciding that you could put off looking for a new place later. The rest of your stuff that you didn't need ended up going to storage, and you're glad that you don't have to look at the boxes anymore. When Kobori comes home, you fall into that same routine that you've found yourself enjoying. Recently, work's been a bit more tiring for him, so he usually just skips the breakfast you make, heading straight for the shower so he can get into bed.

You carefully open the door open, and he turns his head, his eyes slowly opening and closing. "See you later, Kobori," you say quietly.

He smiles at you, sighing softly as his eyes close. "Have a good day." He hears the door close, and he rolls over onto his side. Honestly, Kobori's never been happier since you've been living with him. Kise and Moriyama don't waste any time making fun of him whenever he goes to work, but he can't really find it in himself to be annoyed with it anymore since they've been messing with him for so long.

Even some of his other friends comment on how he seems happier recently, and he can't deny that, but he still doesn't respond to their jokes, only brushing them off. Work has been rough for the past couple of weeks, and the only thing that keeps him from sleeping at the firehouse is being able to see you once he gets through the door.

Since you've started sharing a bed, your scent seems to be flooding his senses even when he's not around you. He takes a deep breath as he starts to let sleep take over, but that only allows him to smell your shampoo on the pillow. He can feel his face growing warm as he pushes his face further into the pillow, but it's not like you'll never know he's doing this. It's honestly what puts him to sleep every time he gets into bed.

Living with you has made him realize how much he's actually missed you, and seeing all of your things sprawled about the apartment makes him smile to himself as he falls asleep when he thinks about it. It just makes him wish you were actually dating, and he wishes he would tell you that you don't have to look for a new place and that you could stay with him. He knows how selfish that sounds, but you're finally back in his life, in person, not over the phone.

He doesn't want to let that go. He enjoys hearing you tell him about your day as you make dinner, or spend time at home when neither of you are working. The only thing he doesn't like is whenever he's off for the day, you end up sleeping on the couch. He wished he had the courage to tell you that you could sleep in the bed also, but he knows that he would never do it. And that always plays in the back of his mind as he falls asleep.

~

Kobori gets to work already feeling a bit drained. He got a good amount of sleep, but work has been pretty hectic for a while, and he hopes that it goes a bit smoother this time. He puts his stuff in his locker and his lunch in the fridge, and he sighs when he sees who's working tonight. One of his co-workers has been a pain in his ass lately, and he's one of the reasons why he's been dreading going to work.

He's a total asshole, and Kobori honestly doesn't know how anyone hasn't beaten his ass yet. They don't have that many emergencies to respond to, so work goes pretty slow. He's counting down the minutes until he can finally go home, already changing out of his gear. He's making sure that he hasn't left anything before he goes to the kitchen to grab the lunch box.

He left his lunch on the counter since the alarm rang before he could put it away, and he goes to put the container into the lunchbox when he sees something inside. He stops for a second as he picks up the sticky note, and he smiles when he sees that you wrote him a note. He stands there reading it, having a hard time wiping the smile off of his face.

"What has you smiling like that?" Kobori hears suddenly, and the smile immediately falls off of his face as that one difficult co-worker walks in. Kobori packs up his lunch as the man comes to stand beside him.

"See you later," he tells him shortly, getting ready to leave, but he keeps talking.

"It's your girl, right?" he says, and Kobori's steps falter before he stops. "Kise told us that you guys have been friends for years." Kobori sighs as he turns around to face him. "He showed us what she looks like," he continues. "You're pretty lucky, man," he smiles, and that only makes Kobori even more irritated.

Someone walks in behind him, and when he walks past, Kobori sees that it's one of his other co-workers packing up as well. Kobori just shakes his head before he starts to turn around. "Doesn't really explain why you've been in such a bad mood lately," he calls out after him.

"You should probably get going, hm?" Kobori responds.

"Guess your bitch didn't give you any pussy lately, huh?" Kobori doesn't remember how he got back into the kitchen or when his fist connected with his face. He feels the man punch him back, but that's the only hit he gets in before Kobori tackles him to the ground. He can hear other people shouting, but he's only focused on one thing.

It takes a few people to get him up and off the man, and he fights them for a little while, only feeling satisfied when he sees the damage he's done. He realizes that Kise is the one holding him, and he pulls him out of the kitchen, only letting him go when Kobori shakes him off.

He stays silent as he walks to the door, quickly making his way to his car. "Kobori, what the hell was that?" Kise yells, and Kobori only hears him when he gets to the car, noticing that if he's been saying something to him, he hasn't been listening.

"Nothing. He was just being an asshole," he spits, balling his hand into a fist and feeling the skin around his knuckles pull painfully when he does. "See you later." He doesn't let him say another word, getting in the car and driving off.

Kobori's tense the entire time he's driving home, replaying the man's words in his head over and over again, and he wishes that he wasn't stopped. He slams the door a little too hard, wincing when he does so, but he jumps when he hears you gasp.

"Oh, my God! You scared me," you breathe, your hand over your chest.

"S-Sorry," he whispers as he drops his keys and takes off his shoes.

"Are you okay?" you ask him, and he can hear you walking towards him. He stands up, and your mouth drops when you look at his face. "Oh, my God, what happened?" you ask, your hands coming up to cup his face. You rub over his cheekbone softly, and he feels himself relax at your touch.

"Just some asshole at work," he sighs as he shakes his head.

"The one you were telling me about?" you question, your hands never leaving his face, and he doesn't want them to. "Did he say something?" you ask after he nods.

"Not really," he answers. He sighs again, but you don't ask him any more questions, your hands leaving his face before you walk to the freezer. You pull out an ice pack, gently putting it on his face, and he grimaces as the cold stings his skin.

"Any more injuries?" you ask, looking over him, and you grab his hand when you see his knuckles. "You're bleeding. Hold this," you tell him, and he barely has enough time to grab the ice pack before he watches you disappear down the hallway. He sits down on the stool, resting his elbow on the island as the events from the last thirty minutes run through his head.

He laughs softly to himself as he shakes his head again, realizing he didn't know he was capable of snapping like that. He looks over when he hears your footsteps, and you sit next to him as you set the stuff you got from the bathroom on the island. You grab his hand, setting it on the counter to tell him to keep it there as you put a cotton ball on the top of the hydrogen peroxide before you turn it over quickly to soak the cotton ball.

"This is going to sting a bit," you warn before you gently dap the cotton ball over his knuckles, and he winces softly, but stays quietly nonetheless. He can't help but watch you fondly as you carefully clean up his hand, putting on some Neosporin once you're finished. "Okay, that's all I can really do," you say once you're finished. "What?" you question when you look at him to see him smiling at you.

"Thank you," he tells you softly.

"Of course, Kobori," you say as you stand. "I wasn't expecting you to come in all bruised up this morning," you tease softly, chuckling as you return everything to the bathroom. When you come back, he's still sitting on the stool, and you stop in front of him. "Since when do you get into fights?"

"I don't know what got into me," he laughs quietly. "I guess I was just tired or something," he lies, not wanting to tell you the real reason why he got into the fight. "Works been pretty tiring lately," he adds, glad that he took a shower at work this time.

"I'm sorry to hear that," you say. "But I can make your favorite. I know it probably won't make you feel better, but it might take your mind off your shift," you offer. Kobori doesn't respond, only looking at you for a second before he sets the ice pack down and gently pulls you into a hug.

You go without protest, his arms wrapping around you as his body fully sinks into you, his head resting on your chest. He feels one of your arms wrap around his shoulders as your other hand softly runs through his hair. He's too tired to think about what you might be thinking, the only thing he knows is that he feels so much better than before.

"You feel better now?" you ask softly, and he nods against you, smiling when he feels you laugh. You rub over his shoulders, and he shudders a bit before he relaxes again. "You're so tense," you whisper, and he responds with a hum in your chest.

He eventually pulls away, but he can't bring himself to let his arms fall from you. "You okay?" you ask, moving your hand so that it's resting on his face, and he closes his eyes for a split second at the motion as he nods.

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

You smile widely. "Don't apologize. I'm always here if you need a hug."

He finally lets you go, so you can make breakfast, and even though he had a rough day at work, he finds himself smiling for the rest of the day.

You suck on a cough drop as you cough again, clearing your throat as you shake your head. You've definitely come down with something, already calling out of work, and you groan as you try to get comfortable on the couch. You've already taken some medicine, but right now, more than anything, you just want to sleep. You didn't get much sleep last night since you were feeling so bad, and you look towards the door when you hear keys sliding into the lock.

"You don't look so good," he comments softly when he walks in.

"I feel like shit," you whine. "And I'm so tired." He starts to walk over to you, but you're quick to stop him. "No, I don't want to get you sick."

"I think it might be too late for that," he responds, and you sigh softly.

"Kobori, I am so sorry. But I told you that sleeping in your bed wouldn't help."

"Yeah, that's definitely my fault," he laughs. "But we'll bounce back in no time." Kobori gets into the shower, and you continue laying on the couch, rubbing over your forehead when the pain throbs a little too much. You luckily start to feel sleepy once the pain starts to subside, letting your eyes slip closed as sleep starts to take over.

You wake up in the middle of your body rolling over, and you try to go back to sleep, but the smell of food filling your nose immediately makes your stomach grumble. You roll over again so that you're not facing the couch as you peel your eyes open. It's dark now, the only thing lighting the room is the TV, but don't sit up, taking a deep breath as you start to wake up.

You squint as your eyes adjust to the new light, and you can see Kobori walking into the room with a tray in his hand. "You feel better enough to eat?" he asks softly, and you slowly sit up, not feeling great, but feeling better than before.

You let your feet rest on the floor, moving the blanket so that it's covering your lower half before gently taking the tray from Kobori when he moves it towards you. You set it on your lap to see that it's a bowl of soup, and you smile as you look at it, sniffling quietly before you say anything.

"Thank you."

"Of course," he responds fondly before walking back into the kitchen. A random sports game is on the TV, you so half-watch it while you eat. You feel a little bit better once you're halfway through the soup, but you know that you'll need to take some more medicine since you can already feel it wearing off.

You already want to lay back down again by the time you're finished eating, but you force yourself to get up so that you can put the dishes in the kitchen. You walk in to see Kobori washing some dishes, and he looks at you over his shoulder for a split second when he hears you walk in.

"You all done?" he asks, stepping to the side to let you put the bowl in the sink.

"Yeah, I definitely needed that," you smile, setting the tray on the counter before you turn to him. "Thank you, Kobori."

"You'd do the same for me," he returns, and you yawn softly before sniffling again even though it doesn't do much since your sinuses are clogged again.

"I also ran to the store and got some stuff that I didn't have here," he tells you, turning his attention to the plastic bag on the island. You watch him pull out some more cold medicine and some painkillers before he hands them to you. "I'm sure you need to take this again, and I got this just in case that headache is a bit stubborn."

You softly thank him as you take them from him, and you're about to grab some water when he starts talking again. "And you can take the bed until you're feeling better."

You stop in your tracks. "Kobori, I can't do that. I'll live if I sleep on the couch."

He shakes his head, stepping closer to you. "Seriously, take it. I'm not feeling nearly as bad as you, and I would feel horrible if I let you sleep on the couch." You know you can't argue with him, and you softly roll your eyes as you grab a bottle of water.

"Since you're not taking no for an answer, then I will," you relent, "but if you start feeling worse than me, then feel free to kick me out," you joke. Kobori laughs softly as you walk back to the couch to take the medicine.

It's only about a couple of days before the sickness really hits you, and you don't know how much more of this you can take. Despite taking the cold medicine, you think you're hitting the worst of it now, and it's just your luck that Kobori is starting to feel really bad as well. Once you started feeling better, you moved back to the couch since he wasn't doing so good, but it seems like the couch is only making both of your problems worse.

You groan loudly as you throw the blanket off of your body for what feels like the millionth time, your body temperature fluctuating with no set interval. You feel so bad that you can't even focus on anything but how you're feeling. You can't go to sleep, and the lack of sleep is only making things suck even more. You hear the door open, sitting up as you take a deep breath in that doesn't make it through your nose because of how stuffed up you are.

Kobori comes into view, dragging his feet, and you can barely make out the sweat dotting his forehead. "Yeah, this sucks," he huffs, which makes you laugh quietly as you stand.

"I know. It seems like the couch is making us feel even worse," you respond before you fall back against the couch. "I just wanna feel better!" you whine, letting your eyes close as your head throbs painfully.

You notice that Kobori seems unusually quiet, and you open your eyes to see him staring at you. "What's wrong?" you ask, sitting up again before mentally preparing yourself to stand up. When you walk over to him, he looks somewhere else in the room, and your mind is running with the different things he could say.

"We could share the bed," he says quietly, and you almost don't hear him, so it takes you a while to process what he said, but once you do, your face instantly grows warm.

"What?" you whisper, not really knowing how to respond, but still wondering if you heard him correctly.

"We obviously don't have to if you're not comfortable," he starts, and you notice that he's blushing, it spreading down to his neck. "But it doesn't look like we're going to get any better if we take turns sleeping on the couch, and I'm pretty sure the bed is big enough so we won't be touching each other, or...something," he trails off, and for a bit all you do is stare at him.

Are you really going to share a bed with him? Of course, it's something you've thought about, but that was in your dreams, in the fantasy in your head. You never once considered that there would be a real life chance that you would be sleeping in the same bed as your crush.

"You don't have to. It was just a suggestion," he rushes out, and you realize that you've been doing so much thinking in your head, that you haven't responded to him yet.

"No, no, um..." you start, having a hard time meeting his eyes. "You're probably right. I mean, the sooner we feel better, the sooner we'll get over this, so..."

All he does is nod, and the room falls silent again; you can't remember the last time you've had such an awkward interaction. He suddenly clears his throat, gesturing towards his room. "After you." You give him a small smile as you make your way to his room first, and the sound of his footsteps behind you only makes you more nervous.

Your heart feels like it's going to beat out of your chest when you step into the room, and you're confident that if you hold your hand in front of your face, it'll be shaking. You walk over to the other side of the bed that Kobori hasn't been in, not sparing him a glance as you pull the covers back and slide in.

You fight to sigh aloud as the cool sheets hit your skin, feeling so much better than the couch that seemed to be uncomfortably hot. You lay down, pulling the covers up over your legs as you hear Kobori slide in next to you. Both of you are horribly tense, but the bed is big enough that neither of you is touching each other.

You would be upset about that at any other time, but right now, you're grateful for it. It feels like you've skipped so many steps, and it takes everything in you to control yourself, telling yourself that it's not a big deal. But you honestly have no idea where two friends end up in a bed together under these circumstances, so it gets hard to even calm yourself down.

Kobori turns the TV on, and you're thankful that there's now some form of sound in the room because you were sure the silence was going to kill you. There really isn't any conversation going on between the two of you other than Kobori asking you if there's anything specific you want to watch.

You tell him you don't care since you're already feeling tired despite being a nervous wreck. Once your eyes start to feel heavy, you roll over onto your side, your back facing him because there's no way you can look at him at this moment.

You're a couple of seconds from falling asleep when you hear Kobori say something softly. "Sleep tight."

~

When you wake up, it's because of two things: you're hot as fuck and you have to pee. You groan as you get out of bed, your head pounding as you walk to the bathroom. You're half asleep as you pee, not even turning the light on. You don't feel too much better, thinking that you should take some more medicine as you wash your hands.

You notice the TV is still on when you walk back into the room, and Kobori is still sleeping on his side of the bed. Your next issue is how absolutely on fire you feel, and you're confident you're going to sweat through your shirt. You drag yourself over to your dresser, grabbing a tank top before you slide your shirt off and put it on. You throw your other shirt in the hamper before you get back in the bed, and you groan softly when you realize that you haven't taken any more medicine.

You hear Kobori sigh heavily, and you turn your head to see him looking right at you. "Sorry. Did I wake you up?" you whisper, and he slowly shakes his head.

"No, you're good," he responds, and if you weren't feeling so bad, you'd be melting at the sound of his voice. "You okay?"

"I'm so hot, and I forgot to get more medicine before I got back in the bed." You push the side of the pillow until they're covering your face. "I don't feel like getting up."

"I'll get it," he says, causing you to let the pillow fall so you can look at him.

"You don't have to," you whisper, about to tell him that you're just being dramatic, but he's already sitting up.

"It's no big deal. I'm gonna go to the bathroom anyway. I'll grab it on the way back." He groans as he gets out of bed, and you watch him leave, turning your attention to the TV. There's a random infomercial playing, so you assume it's really early in the morning.

You're glad that you're over the initial shock of sharing a bed with Kobori, but you're too worried about how shitty you feel to deal with your feelings about that. You roll over to lay on your stomach when you start to notice how warm you are again.

It seems like changing clothes didn't do anything to combat that, and your face grows even hotter at the thought of not wearing clothes while sleeping in the same bed as Kobori. You push your face into the pillow as you blow out a heavy breath, turning your head when you run out of air. You really want to just throw your shirt to the other side of the room, already feeling it sticking to your skin.

Kobori comes back after a little while with the medicine in his hand, but you notice that he's shirtless this time. You can't help but stare, and even with the light from the TV illuminating him in the dark room, you can see how much more defined his body is. He stops at the bed when he catches you staring, and when he clears his throat, you finally realize what you've been doing.

"Sorry, I'm just feeling really warm," he apologizes softly, quickly lifting up the hand that's holding his shirt. "I can put it back on if you're uncomfortable."

"No, no. It's okay," you say quickly. "It's not like I haven't seen you shirtless before," you awkwardly laugh. "I'm just wishing I could do the same thing."

He doesn't respond immediately after that, grateful that you can't see how red is face definitely is as he opens his mouth to speak. "You can do the same," he says. "Like you said. We've been to the beach multiple times, so it's like the same thing," he adds even though he knows for a fact that he could barely handle seeing you in a swimsuit.

He does have a point, and he sets the medicine down on the nightstand, sitting down on the bed after at the same time you sit up. "You can change. I'll keep facing this way," he offers, and you're silent as you watch him face forward.

You can't help but smile as you get out of bed, making your way over to your dresser. You look over your shoulder just to make sure he hasn't turned around, even though you know he wouldn't until you told him to before you quickly shed your shirt, finding a comfort bra in the top drawer. You slide it on, hesitating with your hands in the shorts of your waistband, but then a wave of heat runs through you, and you shed them without another thought.

You groan loudly in relief, letting your head fall back as the exposed parts of your skin feel a little bit cooler now that they aren't covered. You walk back over to the bed, seeing that Kobori's still not looking, and you sit down, giving him the okay to turn around.

You see that he's gotten rid of his shorts also, but luckily for you, they're boxers; you don't think you'd be able to handle anything else right now. He hands you the medicine as he turns around, sitting further on the bed, and you take it from him gently. You thank him before you unscrew the top, setting aside the measuring cup before you drink it straight from the bottle.

"What are you doing?!" he questions softly, as you grimace at the taste, reaching for the lukewarm water on your nightstand so that you can chase the medicine.

"I wanna go to sleep and stay asleep," you sigh heavily after you swallow. "I didn't drink much," you add as you hand it back to him. You lay back down, kicking the blanket away from you, and you turn your head to see that Kobori's doing the same thing.

He grimaces just like you did, drinking water after he swallows the medicine. "Oh, shit," he says suddenly, and you frown as you look at him, seeing that he's looking at the label. You sit up on your elbow so that you can lean over when he moves the medicine closer to you.

Your eyes widen. "This is sleep cold medicine," you say even though both of you are clearly aware of that.

"Yeah," he sighs, and there's silence for a couple of seconds before you both laugh. "I'll text Kise just in case."

You lay back down, already feeling the medicine starting to kick in, and you close your eyes as you roll onto your side. "Night, Kobori. I'm...pretty sure, we'll wake up," you whisper, making the both of you chuckle.

You let your eyes slip closed as they start to feel heavy, but Kobori fights sleep for just a little bit longer so he can look at you.

Kise doesn't think much of the text that Kobori sent him when he had woken up in the morning, but it's already around noon and he still hasn't heard from him. He got the text around three in the morning, and it's obviously not uncommon for someone to sleep long when they're sick, but Kobori did mention that you and him took more medicine than you should have.

He grabs Moriyama before swinging over by Kobori's apartment, telling him the details on the way there. It's close to the early evening when they finally get there, and they knock on the door along with calling both of you, and they can't say they're not concerned when they don't get an answer to either.

Kise uses the spare key Kobori gave him a while ago that he doesn't really use, and they let themselves in to a pretty quiet apartment. When they close the door, the only sound they can hear is the faint noise coming from the TV in Kobori's room. Kise notes in his head that you're nowhere to be seen, and it makes him feel better on one hand; maybe you could be in the bathroom. But on the other hand, he doesn't know where you could be or how you're doing.

They follow the sounds of the TV, and Moriyama softly knocks on the door before he carefully pushes it open. At first, when they see the two of you in the bed, they're relieved that you're alive, hearing the two of you snoring so loud it nearly drowns out the TV.

Since they know that you're doing just fine, Kise can't help but laugh as he looks at the both of you cuddled up next to each other. He would love to hear the conversation that led to this situation. "Do you think they'd kill me if I took a picture?" he asks.

"Of course, they would," Moriyama smiles. "You wouldn't be alive for another second." You're laying on Kobori's chest with his arm wrapped tightly around you, and both of the men find this absolutely hilarious, but they try to hold in their laughs. "He'd shit himself if he knew what was happening right now."

They finally laugh a little too loud, and it makes you stir just a bit, curling yourself further into Kobori before you start to wake up. You slowly open your eyes, taking a deep breath in as your eyes start to fully open. Your face drops when you see who's standing in front of you.

"What are you doing here?" you sigh, turning your head to the side to yawn.

"Making sure you hadn't overdosed on sleep medicine," Moriyama drawls.

"Well, I'm fine, obviously," you respond. You don't know if you're going to go back to sleep, but you lay your head back down anyway, closing your eyes as you stay in the same position.

Kise huffs as he shakes Kobori, who frowns in his sleep, and he continues to shake him until Kobori wakes up, pushing his hand away. "What do you want?" he groans, but he doesn't open his eyes, already knowing that his former teammates are in his place.

"You texted us asking the check in on you, and now you're complaining?" Kise says, and Kobori doesn't respond, getting comfortable again as he adjusts his arm around you.

"Well, we're fine. So, you can leave," he responds, and Kise and Moriyama exchange a glance before Kise smirks.

"Yeah, of course, you're fine," Kise starts. "The both of you cuddling each other is enough proof of that."

It seems like it takes a while for his words to process, but once they do, you and Kobori's eyes shoot open before you quickly separate from each other. You sit up quickly, looking anywhere else in the room, your face growing so hot as you hear Kobori clear his throat.

"Seriously, get out," Kobori demands, getting out of the bed to chase them out of the room. You try to compose yourself as you listen to Kobori kicking them out of the apartment, and you have every mind to scream into the pillow, but you refrain. At least you have some kind of control of yourself.

Instead, you fall back on the bed, putting your pillow over your face. When you hear footsteps, you quickly take the pillow off of your face, but you don't sit up. You don't look Kobori's way when he walks back into the room, wondering what in the world you could say.

"Uh, they're gone," he tells you quietly, and you look over at him, giving him a choppy nod. He rubs over the back of his neck awkwardly, glancing at the TV. "Um, sorry about that earlier," he says, and you frown for a second as you wonder what he's talking about, but you figure out shortly after, sitting up way quicker than you wanted to.

"No, it's okay!" you say, and even your laugh is as awkward as you feel. "I mean, I should apologize since I was laying on you, so..." you trail off, fumbling with the corner of the pillowcase. "So, how are you feeling?" you ask, hoping the question will make the air seem less uncomfortable.

"Way better than earlier," he huffs as he nods his head. "You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, so much better," you answer, nodding as well.

"Well, they brought food if you're feeling hungry," he offers, and you nod again, sliding out of bed. Kobori walks out of the room by the time you're out of bed, and now that you're not burning up anymore, you shiver a bit once you're away from the warm cover. Shivering only makes you realize that you're in nothing but your underwear, and you're quick to grab a pair of shorts and a shirt to cover yourself.

You make your way to the kitchen, seeing that Kobori's sitting at the island, already eating, and he slides some food your way when he sees you walk into view. You softly thank him as you sit down, putting food in your mouth before you even have your butt fully in the seat.

You fight to groan loudly when the food hits your tongue, realizing that you can't even remember the last time you've eaten. You feel even better now that you have food in your system, and you are so glad that you're finally over the hard part of this sickness.

You and Kobori still have some congestion, so you're taking medicine for that, but other than that, you feel like your old self again. After you've finished eating, you and Kobori spend the rest of the evening cleaning up the place now that you're both feeling better enough to do something other than lie down.

The air between you two doesn't seem awkward, but you can't help but think about how you woke up when Kise and Moriyama were here. You're cleaning up the kitchen and living room while Kobori's cleaning up the bedroom, so you slap your hand on your forehead.

How could you lay on him in your sleep? Weren't you burning up? The last time you thought your body would want is to be next to even more heat. You try your hardest not to think about how he felt against you, and when you keep failing, you admit to yourself that you really, really like him.

In the back of your head, you think that maybe living with him may not be such a good idea. If your feelings are getting to be too much, and you're doing things like that subconsciously in your sleep, how long will it be until you accidentally confess your feelings? You shake your head as you collect all of the trash, deciding that all of that thinking is only making your head hurt.

You and Kobori finish cleaning, cleaning yourselves up after, and for the rest of the night, you decide to push that inner turmoil away for now.

~

It's been a couple of weeks since you and Kobori were sick, and you're still thinking about sharing a bed with him. Of course, you still use the bed when Kobori's at work, but you sleep on the couch when both of you are off at the same time. He hasn't offered to let you sleep in his bed while he does, and you're glad mostly for your pride; you don't know if you can handle it.

You can't help but miss him beside you when you are in the bed, and for the first couple of nights, that kept you up for way longer than you wanted. You can still smell his cologne in the sheets when you lay down, and that was enough for you, seeming to help your restlessness.

You wake up in the morning groggy, rolling over to see that you woke up about thirty minutes before your alarm. You groan loudly, closing your eyes as you try to settle back into bed, hoping you can get those last minutes of sleep. You have the urge to whine when you can't go back sleep, knowing that you're fully awake now.

You drag yourself out of bed, resisting the urge to slide out and onto the floor. You get yourself ready, packing up everything that you need to bring with you to school. You make breakfast, saving some and putting it in the microwave for Kobori since he'll be coming home later this morning than usual.

You wanted to start your car before you left since the weather has been so warm lately, but to your dismay, your engine won't turn over. You cry out as you try and try again, but it won't budge. You let your head fall against the steering wheel, taking a deep breath so that you don't scream loudly.

You jump when you hear a knock at your window, gasping just a bit as you look to see Kobori standing outside your car. You sigh as you take the keys out of the ignition before you get out of the car. "Are you okay?" he asks as he steps to the side so you can close the door.

"My car won't start," you tell him, shaking your head. This really isn't what you needed this morning. "And I have to get to school early to help set up for today."

"I can drive you," he offers, but you're quick to shake your head.

"You don't have to do that. You just got off work," you respond. "I can see if my friend can take me."

"It's okay. I'm already out here," he tells you. "And my car's been running so the air won't be warm." That's basically enough to convince you, and you sigh as you let your head fall back, giving in.

"Thank you, Koji. I owe you one. Just let me get my stuff." You run back up into the apartment, and you realize that you're going to have to take more than one trip. You grab as much as you can, quickly making your way to his car. You put the stuff in the back seat before you tell him that you've got more stuff, and this time he follows you.

He grabs everything before you can even move, taking it to the car without another word. You shake your head fondly as you lock the door, meeting him at the car. "You seriously didn't have to do all of that," you say as you get into the car, fastening your seatbelt.

"Well, you seemed pretty frazzled, so I was just trying to lighten your load," he notes before he pulls out of the parking lot.

You relax against the seat, noticing that this is the first time since you've woken up that you haven't been tense. "I just didn't get a good night of sleep," you respond. "Dunno why," you add even though you very much know the reason why. He's driving you to work for Pete's sake.

The conversation between the two of you goes in and out the entire way to work, and you can't help but feel bad that you're intruding on Kobori's time. When he pulls into the parking lot, you try to grab as much stuff as you can, mentally preparing yourself to lug it through the school.

"I'll try to get this stuff out as fast as I can, and then I'll be out of your hair," you tell him as you start to grab the boxes, but you look up when you hear the car door closed. You see him walking over to your side, and he carefully pushes you over so he can grab what's left. "Kobori, seriously, you don't have to do this. I already feel bad that you drove me here."

"I don't mind, y/n. You need help. I'd be a bad person if I didn't help you," he says, closing the door with his foot before he starts toward the building. You bite your lip to try to hide your smile as you adjust the boxes in your arms before you follow him.

He lets you take the lead once you get inside the building, and he follows you to your classroom. You both set the boxes down on and around your desk, and you sigh heavily as you roll your shoulders, shaking your arms.

"What's all this for?" Kobori asks as he looks around, curiosity in his words.

"We're having a career fair today, and--shit," you mumble before you let your head fall back to look at the ceiling. "I forgot to ask my friend if she would come today," you whisper. "Every teacher brought someone to talk to the kids and I totally forgot."

You blame it on the bad night of sleep, but you can feel tears trying to make their way out. You're already frustrated from this morning, and this was the last thing you needed. You lift your head back up when you feel something touch your shoulders, and you meet Kobori's eyes.

"I can do it if you need me to."

"Kobori, you have done more than enough!" you say softly, scoffing as you smile. "You don't need to do anything else for me."

He chuckles softly. "You're right. I don't need to do anything, but I want to," he replies.

"But you've been working all night," you counter, and you try not to notice how much you miss his touch when he finally takes his hands off your shoulders.

He just shrugs at you. "Work was really slow, so I took a nap. I'm good."

It's not like you have another option, and you rub your hands over your face before you sigh. "We're not starting until after lunch, so you have time to take another nap if you need to," you say before you move to hug him before you can second guess yourself. "Thank you, Kobori. Anything you want, you name it," you continue, lifting your head up to look at him, but neither of you pull away from the hug.

"Helping you out is enough for me. I don't need anything."

"I'm gonna get you something," you declare with a soft pout. "I feel like I don't do anything in return for everything you do for me."

"Well, the kitchen has been used a lot more since you moved in," he responds, which makes you giggle. "You make me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And it's good every time, so that's good enough in my book."

You roll your eyes. "Of course, you would say something like that," you state. "Seriously, what do you want?" you ask softly, and you watch his face fall as you wait for his answer.

Is this the time to tell you how he really feels? That all he wants to finally be with you and take your relationship further? Even though he's standing so close to you, he finds that he feels confident to just straight up tell you, but that fear is still there, and it makes him hesitate.

You both jump away from each other when someone calls your name, and Kobori moves to the side so you can see who it is. "Himari! Did you need something?" you ask warmly, your face becoming hot as you think about the position you were just caught in.

"I was wondering if your friend was here," she answers, walking over to where you're standing. "You didn't tell us your boyfriend would be here to help you set up!"

Your mouth drops open as Kobori chokes, turning to the side to get himself together. "He's not--we're not--" You sigh as you compose yourself. "We're just friends. He's the one who took me in after that fire at my apartment."

"Oh! Sorry about that," she laughs, and you just give her a tight-lipped smile.

"And I forgot to ask my friend to come, but Kobori said he would step in." You can see that his ears are red as they shake hands, introducing themselves.

"What do you do?" Himari asks.

"I'm a firefighter." You give her a stern look when she gives you a playful glance, already experiencing so much embarrassment in such little time.

"The kids will love that for sure. Thanks for volunteering," she says. "If you need any help just let me know," she tells you before she makes her leave.

The air is a bit tense, so you quickly change the subject before the silence gets to be too much. "You can go home and get some rest. Thanks for helping me lug all of this stuff in here."

"Are you sure you don't need me to do anything?"

You shake your head. "Nope, I'm sure. Just please go home and sleep. I made you breakfast, but it's probably cold by now."

"I'll enjoy it regardless," he smiles. "See you later." You smile at him, watching him leave, and when you know he's out of earshot, you plop down in your desk chair before folding your top half forward, letting your head hit the desk.

~

You've finished putting the final touches on your classroom, happy that it turned out the way that you wanted. You check the time on your phone, seeing that it's almost time for the kids to come back from lunch. You turn around when you hear someone walk into the room, and you smile when you see Kobori walking in, but with some gear in his hands.

"What's this?" you ask, meeting him halfway.

"I stopped by work on the way here to get some stuff. And all this stuff is new, so you don't have to worry about anything," he tells you, and your heart warms as you look at the fire gear.

"You're really something else, Koji," you tell him, and then you hear the noises and footsteps of the kids in the distance. You write his name on the board as the kids pile in, telling him that there's no need for him to be nervous. You give him a rundown of what he's supposed to say as all of your kids find their seats, and you turn to them once it's time to start.

"Okay, kids!" you start, getting their attention, and they quiet down soon after. "As you all know, today is career day, and you'll all be going to different classrooms to learn about different jobs that people have." You grab Kobori's arm softly to bring him up to your side. "Today, my friend, Kobori, is here today to talk to you guys. Please make sure you're listening, and if you can, hold all of your questions until the end, alright?" When the kids nod, you give Kobori the floor, and you softly reassure him when you see that he's a bit nervous.

You move your chair so that you're sitting with the kids, and you give him a small thumbs-up before he starts talking. You smile softly once he starts, the kids already knowing what he does when he asks them, the firefighter jacket and hat a dead giveaway.

Kobori was nervous, but he honestly seems to be in his element as he talks, and you're so grateful that he offered to step in. Your attention starts to get diverted a bit when he starts to move his hands as he talks, and suddenly the only thing you're focused on is how good he looks in his uniform. You curl your lips into your mouth as you try to pay attention to what he's saying, but it's really hard for you.

He practically fills out the clothes he's wearing, and you don't know how you didn't notice before. He glances at you every now and then, so you try to keep an engaged look on your face even though your eyes drift across his body. You internally shake your head, telling yourself to get it together. He's helped you out immensely and now you're thinking about him like this?

You're about to zone out again, but Kobori stops talking, looking your way, and you quickly realize that he must be done. You swiftly stand, clearing your throat and the not-so-nice thoughts from your head before you speak.

"Everyone give him a round of applause," you say, walking toward the front of the classroom. "Does anyone have any questions?" you ask when you get to Kobori, and you laugh softly when you hear Kobori sigh under his breath at the amount of hands that go up.

The questions range from all kinds of things to what's the coolest thing he's done to how tall the ladder is. He passes the hat around so that all the kids can see it, and he lets others try on the jacket if they want to. It's almost time for the kids to switch rooms, so you let them talk amongst themselves for the last few minutes.

One of your students brings the hat back to Kobori, and he crouches down so that he can softly take it from her. "Did you save Ms. y/n from the fire?" she asks him quietly, and he laughs softly as he nods.

"Yes, I did. I had to break the door down because the handles get too hot," he says. She nods, and she's always been quiet, so you know she's going to get her questions out now.

"Do you ever get scared?"

"All the time," he answers quickly. "But it's okay to be scared. If you don't let it control you, it can help you in intense situations like that." She nods again, but doesn't say anything after that, and you watch Kobori look at her for a split second.

"Can we see the fire truck?"

"I'm not too sure. Do you wanna see it?"

"Yeah, but it's really loud. It hurts my ears," she tells him, and he sits down on the floor, stretching his leg out to reach into his pocket.

"Here," he says softly. "We wear headphones in the truck that make the sirens hurt less, but these earplugs do the same thing." She gently takes them from him. "If the truck comes, you can wear these, and your ears won't hurt, okay?"

She smiles as she nods, looking over them. "Thank you."

"Of course," he says, giving her a big smile.

You announce that your class has to switch rooms, and you make sure they're lined up before you allow them to leave. You didn't mention that Kobori would have to repeat his whole speech a lot of times, and you get him some water in between the short breaks that he has.

Every time a new group of kids comes in, you find yourself in those same cycle of thoughts, and they're only fueled when you see Kobori interacting with the kids. You have half a mind to just walk out; you don't know how much more of this you can take. It's balanced out a little though when you have the kids tell him thank you afterwards, and he smiles so bright it makes your heart skip a beat.

Once your kids get back into the room, there's only about an hour until they all go home, so you let them have free time until then. You're sitting at your desk, trying your hardest not to laugh a Kobori, who's sitting beside you, but in a chair for the kids.

"I can't thank you enough for doing this," you tell him as you continuously look at the kids, keeping an eye on them.

"It was really no problem. This was fun," he tells you, and your face seriously hurts from smiling.

"Mr. Kobori, you saved Ms. y/n from the fire, right?!" you both suddenly hear, turning your attention to the crowd as you try to figure out who asked.

"Yes, I did," he answers with a laugh, groaning quietly as he stands up. All of your kids run up to him, and that's when you notice that they all have cards in their hands, making you wonder when they made them.

"Thank you for saving her! She's the best teacher ever!" He laughs as he takes all of the cards, and you pout softly, hoping that you don't start crying.

"You guys are so sweet!" you say, looking with Kobori has he flips through them.

"You guys are very welcome. She definitely is the best teacher ever," he agrees, and you glance away shyly.

"Are you guys dating?" one of your students asks, and your eyes go wide as you look at her.

"What makes you say that?" you croak, the question so sudden it catches the both of you off-guard. "We're just friends," you laugh, hoping that Kobori can't see how awkward you feel.

"Mr. Kobori looks at you the same way my daddy looks at my mommy!" she continues, and you swallow thickly, barely sparing a glance.

"Yeah! Like you're in love!" The class erupts into laughter and chorus' of 'eww', and you don't know what else to do other than to let your head fall down.

"Okay, okay," you start, releasing a breathy laugh that does nothing to relax your body. "Everyone get packed up so everyone can go home," you softly order, and they quickly move over to their stuff as you sigh before turning to Kobori.

"So sorry about that. They can get a little out of hand," you wince.

"Don't worry about it," he chuckles, looking down at the cards in his hands. "This is definitely the highlight of my week," he continues, holding the cards up.

"I'm glad you had fun, Koji," you respond warmly.

You're looking at the kids again, and you jump out of your skin when you hear a loud noise. The kids immediately react, running over to the window, and both you and Kobori follow, seeing that there's a fire truck pulling into the parking lot. "Did you do this?"

"No," he scoffs, and the both of you roll your eyes when you see Kise step out of the truck first. All of the classrooms have another door that leads outside in case of emergencies, and Kobori exits out that way while you try to corral your kids.

"What are you guys doing here?" Kobori asks when he gets to the truck as he watches his co-workers get out.

"You never said anything about the truck," Kise starts. "And you can't have a firefighter at a career day without the truck!" Kobori shakes his head as Moriyama comes into view. "Now, where are the kiddos?"

"Inside," Kobori answers. "This was unexpected, so now everyone has to get them to calm down. I'll be right back."

You let Kobori back in, and he tells you what's going on. "Is it okay if they all go out there?" he asks.

"Yeah, I don't see why not. Do you mind staying with the kids while I go talk to the other teachers?" He shakes his head, and you quickly thank him before you make your leave, announcing to the kids that they have to listen to him while you're gone.

It takes a minute, but the kids are allowed to go into the parking lot to see the truck, so you spend the next ten minutes getting the kids in order so that they can go outside. You know it's taking everything in them not to run toward the truck, and the all bounce excitedly as they look at the truck.

Kise, of course, takes over with the talking, and you don't think you've stopped smiling since you've made it outside. The kids ask all kinds of questions, but they mostly want to see what the inside of the truck looks like. You and the other teachers split your kids up so that they can see different parts of the trucks, and they rotate through.

When your group gets to the truck, the kids all make their way inside, most of them wanting to hear all the noises the truck makes. Once the kids are done going through the truck, they're taken to their parents, and the last one left in your group is your student that Kobori talked to earlier.

He's sitting in the truck, softly gesturing for her to come forward, but she looks hesitant. He gets out of the truck, walking over to her and lowering himself to her level. "You don't have to get in the truck if you don't want to." She looks over it, and Kobori keeps his eyes on her. "You still have those earplugs I gave you?"

She nods, pulling them out of her pocket. "It's okay to be scared, remember?" he reminds her. "You still wanna go inside?" He takes the earplugs from her when she nods, and he carefully puts them in her ears, making sure they're in properly.

He gently picks her up before climbing into the truck, and she sits on the seat next to him. He puts the headphones on just in case she wants to turn on anything, but for the time being she just looks around. You're standing outside of the truck, watching with a big smile on your face, and Himari walks up to you.

"Are you sure he's not your boyfriend?" Your smile drops temporarily as you roll your eyes, but it's back the moment your eyes land on Kobori and your student. "You're living with a man like that, and you're not dating him?"

"It's complicated," you say quietly, and that's all you can really manage. "But he was really good with the kids today," you add.

"And how did you handle that?"

Your head immediately falls to her shoulder. "My ovaries are gonna explode," you mumble, which makes her laugh loudly. "The kids all gave him cards thanking him for saving me." You groan, letting your body slump before you lift your head up.

You see that she's sitting on Kobori's lap so that she can reach the handle for the horn, and he pulls it with her after he counts down. You and Himari cover your ears as the horn goes off, and you chuckle when you see Kobori and her laugh.

He carefully gets out of the truck with her, setting her down once he's out, taking the headphones off. A surprised look is on his face when she suddenly hugs him, and he crouches down so he can hug her back. "Thank you, Mr. Kobori."

"You're welcome, sweetheart."

Himari smirks at you before she walks away to take the girl to her parents, and Kobori walks over to you. "Thanks for doing that, Kobori," you tell him. "She's had a rough couple of weeks, so I know you really made her happy today."

"Ah, it was nothing. The kids were great," he responds. "Thanks for letting me do this."

"No, thank you for stepping in. You really saved my ass today," you scoff before both of you laugh. "I think this will make me the talk of the school for a while."

"I'm glad I could help," he chuckles.

Kobori talks to his friends for a bit before they leave, and he follows you back into your classroom to help you clean up. You don't have to carry as much stuff as you did this morning, and he offers to carry it for you, but you know that he's not going to take no for an answer.

You walk to the car, both of you feeling the day catching up to you, and you decide to just get food on the way home since you don't feel like cooking. You pay for it, feeling you need to do something to even slightly pay Kobori back for what he did today.

You both shower after you eat, sitting on the couch as you both unwind for the day. Kobori told you that his boss gave him the shift off, so he'll be home for the rest of the night. You're glad that you get to spend more time with him, but after the day you've had, you really don't want to sleep on the couch.

You don't voice that aloud, deciding that after what happened today, you don't think your feelings need anymore reason to grow. You yawn loudly, the sun going down hours ago, and you tell Kobori that you're going to turn in for the night.

You go to the bathroom to do your night routine, and when you come back, you see that Kobori's still sitting on the couch. He's got his head laying against the back with his eyes closed, but the open when he hears you walking closer to him. "Go get in the bed, Koji. You had a long day today."

"I'll take the couch, I don't mind."

"Kobori, really, you can take the bed. It's your place after all," you laugh. He doesn't respond, and he looks at the TV for a beat before his eyes focus on you again.

"We could both take the bed," he offers, and you raise your eyebrows. "I mean, it probably wouldn't do us good to sleep on the couch anyway."

You don't really have it in you to argue even though right now, it's the last thing you want, but you're tired. You softly agree, and when he turns off the TV, the silence really solidifies what's about to happen. You've already been through this, but that was when you were both sick and miserable, so you weren't really worried baout anything other than feeling better.

But now, you're both completely fine, and you're about to be in the same bed. You can feel your heart pounding as you walk to the room, your hearing so focused on his footsteps, it's nearly deafening. You make your way to your side of the bed, having a hard time making eye contact with him, and he waits until you're in the bed to turn the light off.

You rub your thumb over your hand as you listen to him slide in next to you, and it takes you a moment to realize that you're not breathing. You try to take a quiet breath, wondering if you'll even be able to go to sleep. "I know I've said this a million times today, but thank you so much for today," you say, turning your head to look at him, and you want to look away, seeing that he's way too close.

"Of course. Seeing you smiling today was worth it," he responds, and you chew on the inside of your lip, not being able to conceal your smile. "Kise was upset that he wasn't there though, but I think that was because the kids gave me the cards."

You both laugh softly. "Well, it was last minute," you whisper. "And I honestly wasn't expecting that either. I had no idea that they were planning that."

"Should I put them on the fridge?" he asks, and you bravely roll over, sliding your arm under your pillow to brace your head.

"I don't know if there will be enough room," you huff playfully. "We could try though. You could bring some to work!"

Kobori eventually rolls over too, and the both of you talk quietly until your eyes start to feel heavy. You fall asleep first, giving him a mumbled 'goodnight' as you finally drift off, and Kobori can't help but watch you. When he starts to feel his eyes getting heavy, he makes sure that the last thing he sees before he falls asleep is you.

Your car had to be taken to the shop to get it fixed, so Kobori has been driving you to and from work. You tried to at least pay him for gas, but he wouldn't let you, and no matter how hard you tried, he never backed down. He had to change his hours because of it, and he's practically on the same schedule as you, but it's just enough to where you're not sharing a bed every night.

But the times that you do, you both always skirt around the idea of sharing the bed again until you give in because of how tired you are. And every morning you wake up, the two of you are close to each other even though when you fell asleep the night before, you were on your respective sides of the bed. The first few times it happened, neither of you could look at each for a while, but now it's become routine.

It makes Kobori ridiculously happy to see you the moment he opens his eyes. There's been many times when he's woken up before your alarm with you in his arms, and he just takes the time before it goes off to admire you. He scolded himself at first for being weird, but slowly, he pushed those thoughts away. This might be the closest he can get to you without having to worry about what to say, and he'll take whatever he can get.

Since it's the weekend, neither of you are working, and you wanted to go out since you hadn't really been out anywhere recently. You told Kobori that you were planning on going out, and you were surprised when he said that he'd tag along. You just chalked it up to be because he didn't want you driving his car, so you didn't question it any further.

You both woke up late today, so you decided to stop for brunch at that restaurant that you used to go to in college. Being here again with Kobori makes you think about how long you've been living with him. Your apartment was rebuilt months ago, but you never told Kobori, and he never asked you about it. At the time, you felt like there was no reason because you only wanted to be near him. But now, you don't even know how you would bring that up in conversation, so you just leave it alone.

After you've finished eating, you wanted to get some more lotion and candles, so Kobori drives over to the store. Kobori's immediately overwhelmed by the smells the moment you step inside, and you grab a basket as you chuckle at his reaction. "You've never been in here before?" you question as you start to walk around, Kobori following behind you closely as he looks around.

"No, but my mom talks about this place all the time." You start with the lotion, smelling all the new scents that they have along with the body spray. Every time you smell one that you really like, you put it in the basket, and Kobori takes it from you so that you can have your hands free. He follows you around as you smell everything, and you get a point where you know that you have too much.

You have Kobori smell them, and whatever he doesn't really care for, you put back. You head over to the men's section, always wanting to see what new smells they have. Kobori smiles when you smell something that you don't like, shaking your head before putting it back.

"Oh, my God, that smells amazing," you breathe, holding it over to Kobori. He nods as he smells it, agreeing with you before you smell it again, sighing heavily. "Is there anything you wanna get?" you ask him as you put the lotion back. "It's buy three, get three free."

"I'll just get he one that you just had," he answers.

"But you didn't smell any of the other ones," you laugh as you grab the lotion.

"Well, you liked it, so that's enough for me. I don't know if my nose can handle anything else," he responds. You huff as you shake your head, telling him to get anything else that he wants, and you try to not focus on how he gets the same scent twice to balance out the sale.

You make your way over to the candles, and you want him to smell them since you usually light them around the apartment. "You think this would be good for the living room?" you question as you smell it before holding it to him. When you see his nose scrunch a certain way (that definitely doesn't make your heart flutter), you know that he doesn't really care for it, so you put it back.

"You guys are the cutest!" an older woman whispers, and Kobori's too invested in the candles to hear her, and you smile softly as you laugh, thanking her quietly. Your face warms as you turn your attention back to the display, seeing that Kobori's got a candle in his hand, waiting for you to smell it.

You pick out a few before you're finally done, making your way to register. You get all of the coupons that you need to make sure that you'll get the discounts you need, and you count everything to make sure you don't have too many items. The cashier scans everything, commenting on a couple of the scents you got, and they tell you the total while you're talking with them.

You got so caught up that you didn't even get your card out, and as you're trying to do so, Kobori hands over his. "You don't have to do that. I dragged you out here."

"I don't mind," he dismisses gently as he signs his signature on the screen.

"Kobori," you sigh, your voice borderline a whine, and he grabs the bags when the cashier hands them to him. "Okay, we go somewhere you want, and I pay for it," you declare when you get to the car.

"We don't have to do that," he laughs as you both get into the car.

"There has to be somewhere you want to go," you urge. "There isn't anything you're looking to get?"

"I mean, there's a couple of things," he mumbles as he pulls out of the parking lot.

"Then let's go! Go wherever you want, you're driving," you say, and he knows that you won't take no for an answer. He drives to a sporting goods store, mentioning something about wanting to get new shoes, and since you're already out, he'll just look in the store instead of online.

You follow him through the store as he looks for the shoes section, and he gets to the basketball section, looking at all of them as he tries to find a pair that he likes. "What do you need new basketball shoes for?" you question as he grabs a pair.

"We're hosting a charity basketball tournament," he answers as he sits down on one of the benches. "My last pair are definitely not in good shape, so I figured I should get new ones."

"When is all of this happening?"

"In a couple of weeks, so Kise, Moriyama, and I were gonna go to the gym and get some reps in. It's been forever since I've played," he laughs. You know that they continued to play pick-up after they graduated whenever their other teammates were in town, but they hadn't played for a while now.

He goes through a couple of pairs before he finds the ones that he likes, and he grabs the box with the correct size. "Is there anything else you wanna look at?" you ask as you start to walk away. "I don't mind if you want to."

You walk around with him as he looks through the clothes, not too sure if it's something he wants to get, but he just decides to look anyway. He only gets a couple of things, and once he's done, you make your way to the register. "You seriously don't have to do this," he tells you as you insert your card into the reader.

"Yes, I do," you laugh, removing your card after it tells you to. "You paid for my stuff, so now I'm paying for yours." You proudly hand him the bag as you walk out of the store, and he can only smile at you as you make your way through the doors.

There's a gaming store in the strip of buildings, so you offer to go there next. He tries to deny it, but you know he wants to go inside, so you grab his hand to drag him over there. "Come on, Kobori, there has to be something in here that you want," you press softly, not letting go of his hand even when you're already in the store.

Neither of you makes a move to let your hands go, and Kobori takes a deep breath before he laces your fingers together. You don't seem to notice since you're talking about the new games that are out, and if you do, you don't say anything. You follow closely behind as he looks through the store, and you try not to focus all of your attention on how his hand feels against yours.

He ends up picking out a couple of games, and you make sure he doesn't make a move to reach for his wallet so that you can pay. You walk out of the store, satisfied with yourself, and Kobori gives you a fond look as he mindlessly reaches for your hand. He's about to stop himself when his fingers brush against your hand, realizing what he's about to do, but you grab his hand before he can do so.

Kobori's smile widens as you walk to the car, listening to whatever you're saying, and he only lets go of your hand when you get to the car. Kobori doesn't let himself dwell on the fact that he's not holding your hand anymore, keeping his attention on the conversation. You decided that both of you had spent enough money today, so you offer to just cook at home.

"Thank you for buying this stuff, even though you really shouldn't have," he tells you as you walk to his door.

"You're welcome, and of course, I did."

You make something quick, both of you moving to the couch to eat, and in the back of his head, Kobori wishes that your car would take just a little bit longer at the shop. He knows how selfish that sounds, but he's spent way more time with you now than when you moved in. Not having your car just gave him the excuse to do something that he's wanted to do for a while, but he could never get himself to bring it up.

He doesn't know if he'll be able to ask you to hang out like this once your car is fixed, but he's pretty sure you like spending time with him as much as he likes spending time with you. Kise and Moriyama are still in the back of his head, telling him that your feelings are mutual, but you and he have been living together for so long now that it makes him even more anxious to confess.

He doesn't know what he'll do if he ruins what he has with you, and he knows that he'll find himself in the same position he was when you graduated college and he realized he wouldn't be seeing you as much. For now, he just declares that he'll keep his feelings pushed to the side so that he can stay happy right now. He just hopes it doesn't backfire on him any time soon.

~

The charity tournament that Kobori mentioned to you sneaks up on both of you quickly, and Kobori said that you didn't have to be there as early as he did, but you wanted to come with him anyway since he helped you set up and clean up for career day. You have to get there super early, and you momentarily regret saying that you would leave with him when you hear the ring of your alarm.

Kobori's firehouse is playing against other firehouses in the area, and the winner gets to donate the money raised to a charity of their choice. Money is raised in different ways, from confession sales to the raffles that they're hosting, so more than one charity can get donations. You find a seat on the bleachers as the first game starts since Kobori's team plays first.

Watching him play takes you back to when you would go to his games in college and high school. You always enjoyed watching him because he always looked like he was having the time of his life while playing...you also enjoyed watching him because of how good he looked. This time is obviously no different except for the fact that he somehow looks so much better now.

You know he's gotten bigger since you graduated, mostly because of how heavy the firefighter gear can be, but it seems like the jersey he's wearing is too small for him, and you're close to just buying him a whole new wardrobe that doesn't hug his body. Kobori did tell you that the jersey was a little tight, but you weren't expecting it to be like another skin.

Kasamatsu shows up when the game is halfway through, sitting next to you. You're grateful for the distraction as you catch up with him, half of your attention on the game while the other half is on him until it ends. You both meet up with your friends after the game is over as they celebrate their win. Kobori talks to Kasamatsu briefly before he turns his attention to you.

"Congrats on the win! I think you guys might be the best team here," you say, which makes him laugh softly, using his jersey to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and it takes everything in you to not look down.

"Thanks," he sighs. "I'm definitely not used to playing like this anymore, but the shoes feel great," he continues, and you smile up at him.

"Then you can thank me after you win this whole thing," you tease, making him roll his eyes.

Kobori's off for the next game, so he sits on the bleachers with you along with Kasamatsu, Kise, and Moriyama. Once the game is close to finishing, Kobori mentions that he's feeling a little hungry, so you lead him out of the gym into the lobby area where there are tables set up.

You lead him to the one that has a poster with his firehouse on it, and he notices that it's covered in food. "It's a snack table!" you inform him, holding your hands out toward it. "Some of the wives mentioned it to me this morning while you were warming up, so I wanted to contribute too, but if there's nothing here that you want, I can go get you something."

You're looking over the table, waiting for Kobori to say something, but when he doesn't, you look at him to see that he's staring right at you. "What?" you question quietly. "Do you want me to go get you something?"

He's smiling at you, and for a split second, he doesn't say anything until he shakes his head. "No, I'm okay with this. Thank you," he tells you softly.

"Of course! We all want you guys to play your best, so eat up!"

Once he gets what he wants, you walk back into the gym to see that the game is over, and Kobori eats his snacks while the team warms up. You find your spot on the bleachers with Kasamatsu again, cheering once they're about to start the game.

Kobori's team wins the rest of the games, only one of them being pretty close for comfort, and now they have to wait for the bracket play to start. While they're figuring out the brackets, they're given a lunch break, and you had gone out to get Kobori something more filling. He thanks you before he nearly swallows it whole, your eyes widening when you see that he's almost done even though you swore you took your eyes off of him for a few minutes.

You can see that he's getting a bit tired, his body slumping a bit, and you gently guide him to lie down as you chuckle at him. He stretches out on the bleachers, and when he goes to lie down, his head lands on your thigh. "Sorry," he mumbles, getting ready to move down a bit, but you stop him, telling him it's okay.

He's too tired to deny, and he carefully lays his head on your lap as he blinks slowly. He watches you talk to some of the women that you mentioned earlier when you were talking about the snack table, and he fights sleep for a little bit to watch you. He smiles as you engage in the conversation, and all he can think about is how happy he is right now.

When you mentioned the snack table, it seemed like his whole world stopped for a bit, and it made him realize how madly in love with you he is. All he could think about was what it would be like if you were actually together, actually married. You've been there for him for so long, and he never thought he could express how much that really meant to him. You were there to comfort him after every game he lost, and you were there to celebrate every game that he won.

You look down at him, and you smile when you see that he's still awake, but you can barely see his eyes. "Go to sleep, Koji," you order quietly, and his eyes finally slip closed when he feels your fingers gently run over his face. It doesn't take long for him to fall asleep, his body finally relaxing as he succumbs to it, and when he wakes up, it feels like all he had done was blink.

He definitely feels more energized after taking the nap, especially after seeing you when he finally opened his eyes. He sighs softly as he sits up, turning his head from side to side to get rid of the stiffness in his neck. He's going to have a long string of games coming up, so he's mentally preparing himself for that.

He takes one step down from where he was laying when you call his name. He turns around, and since you're standing up, he has to lift his head to look at you. "You're gonna do great! Good luck!" He smiles before he nods, and he makes his way onto the court, your words making him feel more confident.

~

Kobori is absolutely exhausted, but his team managed to win the whole tournament. He has just enough energy left to celebrate and take a couple of pictures, and once that's over, he's grabbing his stuff so that he can take his shoes off. He can hear your voice, and he looks up to see you running over to him. He holds his arms out because he already knows what's coming, and you jump into him to give him a hug.

"You did it! And you played so well!" He doesn't let you go, keeping you in his arms because it's the best feeling in the world right now, and also because he's about two seconds from falling over. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you, but you were the reason I was able to even make it this far," he responds, and you roll your eyes.

"You always say that. You were the one that did all of the playing."

"And I was able to do that because you were supporting me," he counters, and you can't help but laugh as you shake your head.

You let him go so that he can take his shoes off, and while he's doing that, you help with some of the clean up. He's dragging his feet as he walks out of the gym, briefly talking to his teammates as he looks for you. When he finally finds you, you're saying goodbye to your friends, walking away from them when you see Kobori.

He silently follows you out of the building, and he's so glad that you drove today because he doesn't think he'd be able to make it. You only make one stop on the way home, and that's to pick up some food for him to eat, and he's making a b-line for the shower the moment he gets inside.

He slowly fills his stomach when he gets out of the shower, feeling like he could fall asleep any minute now. After he finishes eating, you throw all of the trash away before you drag him into his room. You've barely pulled the sheets back before he's flopping onto the bed, the fatigue really seeming to hit him once he lies down.

You didn't even bother turning the light on since you knew he'd be out in a second, and you pull the covers over him. "Night, Kobori," you whisper, and he responds with a low hum. You turn around to make your leave, already showered and ready to go to sleep yourself, when you feel his hand softly grab your wrist.

"Where are you going?" he mumbles, and you take a step back as you look at him.

"I'm going to sleep," you huff softly, turning around to fully face him.

"Just sleep here. C'mon," he urges, gently pulling you toward the bed. You can't find it in you to fight him and you chuckle quietly as you climb into bed. You barely have the covers over your body before he's pulling you into him, wrapping his arm around your waist. You lay your head on his chest as you yawn, rubbing your hand over his chest. "Night," he murmurs.

"Goodnight, Kobori," you repeat with a smile around your lips, and his even breathing after he falls asleep is what eventually puts you to sleep shortly after.

You wake up to your phone ringing, groaning softly as you roll over to see who's calling you so late in the night. Or early in the morning when you see that's three in the morning, and you're so glad that you don't have to work. It's a number you don't recognize, so you silence your phone before rolling back over.

You're about to drift back off when your phone rings for a second time. You huff loudly as you roll back over, seeing it's the same number calling you, so you pick up, getting ready to give the person on the other line a piece of your mind. "Hello?" you sigh heavily, your voice thick with sleep.

"Am I speaking to y/n?"

"Yes, who is this?" you question as you frown, sitting up.

"I'm calling from the hospital. It's about Kobori, and he listed you as his emergency contact." Your body goes tense at her words, your eyes widening as you quickly throw the covers off of you.

"Oh, my God. Is he okay?" you ask as you frantically look for some clothes to put on, sleep no longer evident in your body.

"Yes. He's doing just fine. We just wanted to let you know." You sigh heavily as you take a moment to take a breath before you make your way to the front door.

"Okay, thank you so much. I'm on my way." You hang up the phone, put your shoes on, and grab your keys before you make your way to your car.

You're anxious the whole drive on the way to the hospital, your fingers gripping the steering wheel so tight, they start to ache a bit. You practically run into the building, finding your way to the front desk. "I'm here to see Kobori," you tell one of the people at the front desk, your chest heaving, and they lead you through the floor with nurses and doctors running around.

They lead you to the room, and you gasp when you see Kobori lying on the hospital bed, way more bruised and battered than when he left the apartment last night. He's sleeping when you walk in, and you quietly make your way into the room, feeling your heart break as you look at him.

"Oh, my God," you whisper softly, looking at the cuts and bruises all over his face and arms. The nurse tells you that the doctor will be back in to check on him within the next hour, and you nod, barely paying any attention to them as you give them a soft thank you.

You grab one of the chairs, pick it up, and carefully place it on the floor near the bed. You sigh as you sit down, and he stirs a bit, blinking before he opens his eyes. He looks around, and he gives you a small smile when he sees you sitting there. "What are you doing here?"

"They called me and told me you were here," you answer, as you lean forward. "What happened?"

He sighs as he shakes his head. "The building I was in suddenly had an explosion, and I was near it when it happened. None of us were expecting it."

"Are you okay?" you ask even though he looks far from it right now.

"I'm just fine. Besides a concussion, a knee sprain, and some nasty cuts and bruises."

Your eyes widen. "You sound far from fine!" you respond lowly before you sigh as you let your head fall.

"Sorry, they woke you up. I didn't know they were gonna call you."

You look up at him as you huff, smiling a bit. "I'm your emergency contact. Of course, they're gonna call me, you doofus," you say lightly, and he smiles widely. "When did you do that anyway?"

"A while ago," he answers. "I figured since we were living together, it would make the most sense, I guess." You don't want to admit how hearing him say that makes your heart race. Even though you're nowhere near dating, just him saying those words enough to make you wish even more that you were. "I'm sorry again that you were woken up."

"Kobori, don't apologize. It's okay. All that matters is that you're okay." You softly place your hand on his, and he quickly turns it over so that he can hold it. "I guess I should do the same," you say. "Right now my parents are listed, but it wouldn't hurt to add you too."

He nods, groaning when he shifts a bit. "Okay, maybe I'm not that fine," he sighs, and you shake your head as you laugh softly.

The doctor comes back a little while later, saying that Kobori's going to have to stay for a few more hours so they can monitor him, and he's given some more medicine before the doctor leaves. "You don't have to stay here. You're probably still tired."

You shake your head. "I don't wanna leave you alone. I'll be fine," you say right before you yawn. "That was really bad timing," you say quickly after, and he huffs a bit. "I probably wouldn't be able to go back to sleep knowing that you're here anyway."

He smiles as he adjusts his head on the pillow. "Alright," he sighs. "Hearing all of the beeping was kinda making my ears ring anyway." The both of you laugh softly, and your hand never lets go of his as you talk.

The doctor comes in a while later to check on him, saying that he should be released soon, and even though Kobori urges you to go, you stay. It's not like you have to go to work today anyway, so you have nothing else to do.

He sleeps for a little bit, and you do the same, but you're in and out of sleep since you can't position yourself comfortably in the chair. You decide to try and get some caffeine in your system, so you find vending machine to see if there's anything that could help. You end up settling for a couple of snacks since you hadn't eaten before walking back to Kobori's room.

"Are you feeling a little bit better?" you ask when you walk back in the room, seeing that he's awake. You sit down in the chair as he sighs.

"Kinda. The medicine is helping," he whispers, and you look over him again as you eat. You try not to let your thoughts derail too bad, refusing to think about what this situation would look like if it was worse. You just focus on the fact that he's okay, and that he didn't get hurt too severely.

"We'll be home before you know it," you tell him warmly, and he gives you a sleepy smile.

When you finish eating, you throw the trash away, and when you try to sit back down, Kobori softly grabs your wrist. "Lay with me," he mumbles when you give him a questioning look.

"Can I?" you ask, wondering if there's even enough room for you to do so.

"You need to sleep to. It'll be fine," he urges, and you don't really have it in you to fight him. You move over to the side of the bed away from his bad knee, sitting down carefully before you lay down. You sigh heavily as you lay on him, this being an immense improvement from the chair.

He wraps his arm around you, and you close your eyes as you feel him rub and down your side softly. Lying with him has become such as routine that you don't even blink at it anymore. It does still make your heart race just a bit because he's someone that you really like, but it doesn't make you nervous anymore.

You peel your eyes open again for a second, and you see that he has his arm resting on his stomach. Before you can even think about it, you reach out to run your fingers across the cuts and bruises that decorate the skin. "Does it hurt?" you ask quietly, and he lifts his hand so that he can lace his fingers with yours.

"Not really. The pain from my head and knee kinda block it out," he answers, your head moving with every word he says.

You bring his hand up so that you can kiss it gently. "I'm glad you're okay, Kobori. Well, kinda?" you add, and you smile when you hear him huff.

"Yeah, me too," he whispers. You both go quiet after a while, and you figure Kobori must've gone back to sleep when you hear him snoring softly. You close your eyes as you fully relax, falling asleep as well.

~

Kobori's released from the hospital a few hours later with some medicine and instructions on how to take care of his wounds. He was offered a wheelchair, but he refused, wanted to use the crutches instead. He tests them out before he leaves, making sure that he's not putting any pressure on his knee, and you walk with him out of the hospital.

He's got a brace on his knee to help, and you move the passenger seat back far enough to where he won't have to bend it. Once he's settled into the car, you put the crutches in the back seat before you get in and drive back home.

You offer to make him something to eat when you get inside, helping him sit down on the couch. You turn on the TV, handing the remote after before making your way to the kitchen. You make some food for yourself as well since you haven't add a proper meal, bringing it into the living room when you're done.

He's still pretty tired after eating, so you help him into bed, making sure he's comfortable before going back to clean the kitchen. You're pretty tired yourself, and you decide that you can put your work off for a little bit longer since it's spring break anyway. When you go back into the room after finishing in the kitchen, you see that Kobori's still awake.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," you scold softly, walking over to the bed.

"You need to sleep too," he responds, making you roll your eyes. You get in the bed on the other side, immediately gravitating to him, and you focus your attention on the TV.

The last thing you remember is looking at the TV, but the next thing you know, the sun is starting to go down. You knew you were tired, but not tired enough to sleep the day away. You stir a bit when you notice that Kobori's chest seems to be rising and falling faster than it should be. You frown as you try to sit up so that you can look at him, but that's when you feel how tight he's holding you.

You move your body so that you can crane your head up to look at him, and you realize that he's dreaming when you're finally able to look at him. It doesn't take you long to figure out that he's having a nightmare, and you try your best to wake him up in the position you're in.

You shake him gently, calling his name, and when it doesn't work, you shake him harder and say his name even louder. When he finally wakes up, he jumps slightly as he gasps, his arm tightening around you even more before he finally relaxes. You can finally move now that he's not holding you so tight, and you instantly sit up, resting your weight on your elbow as you move further up the bed.

"You're okay, Kobori," you console softly, and when you gently touch his face, and you can feel the thin layer of sweat on his skin. "Just breathe." You can feel how his heart is racing when you rub over his chest as he catches his breath, closing his eyes for a split second before he looks at you.

"You're okay?" he asks, and your eyebrows raise for a bit before you face softens.

"Yeah. I'm right here," you answer with a nod. "I'm okay." You rub your thumb over his cheek as his hand comes up to cup your face, his motion following yours. His body relaxes again once it seems like he has confirmation that you're fine, and he looks at the ceiling.

"Sorry."

"Koji, you don't have to apologize," you respond quickly. "All that matters is that you know it wasn't real."

"But it felt so real. I thought--I thought I lost you. I couldn't save you," he rushes out, and your heart hurts listening to him.

You guide him to look at you. "You'll never lose me, Koji. I'm not going anywhere, okay?" He looks over your face for a while before he nods, and you kiss him on the forehead. "How about you hop in the shower? That might help," you offer, and he nods but he doesn't move.

"Yeah," he says. I just want to stay like this for a bit."

"That's okay." You let your head rest next to his, rubbing over his chest until his heart rate starts to become even. When he starts to move, you take that as a sign that he's ready to get up, so you move so that he can.

You grab his crutches, helping him to the bathroom, and you grab a stool from the island to put in the tub so that he doesn't have to stand the whole time. You leave so that he can undress, and you hover in the hallway just to make sure that he doesn't fall or hurt himself. When it sounds like everything's okay, you start to think about dinner as you make your way into the kitchen, keeping your ear tuned in the direction of the bathroom.

You start cooking, hearing the shower turn off a while after, and you hear him walk into the bedroom. You finish prepping, and you slide the dish in the oven before you make your way over to the door. You knock softly, waiting until he gives you the okay to come in.

When you softly push the door open and walk inside, he's sitting on the bed in some shorts, and your steps falter when you see that he has bruises on his chest as well. You try not to look at them, but it's hard for you not to. "Do you feel better?"

"Yeah. My head's a little clearer," he answers.

"That's good. Dinner's in the oven, so it'll be ready in a few." He nods, but doesn't say anything, and you can tell that the dream is still bothering him. You offer to help with his bandages, and the two of you stay silent as you do. You help him prop the pillows up against the headboard so he can rest against them, and you gently rub the cream into his knee, careful to not cause him any pain.

You wash your hands before checking on the food, making sure it's cooked through before you take it out of the oven. You're closing the oven door when you hear something behind you, and you look over to see Kobori walking in. You plate food, setting it in front of him when he sits down at the island before you make yourself a plate.

"Thank you," he says suddenly before you can sit down.

"It's nothing," you laugh. "I do this all the time," you respond as you take a seat.

"No, I mean. Thank you for helping me out," he clarifies.

"Of course. You've helped me out in more ways than one, and I'm just trying to do the same for you."

There's so much more he wants to say, but he decides to just eat instead. He doesn't know if he'd be able to handle his injuries and the mental toll if you weren't here. Finding out that he wouldn't be able to move like he wants to for a while was enough of a damper on his mood, and he knows that seeing his injuries every day would just fuel the fire.

With you being here, it doesn't seem as bad as he thinks it is. Having someone else in the apartment allows him to take his mind off of it even if it's for a split second. He's looking at you while you're talking, but he's only half-listening because he's thinking about how much you're making his situation so much better. He's nodding every now and then to show you that he's hearing you, and he tries to tell himself to pay more attention, but he can't.

He almost lets his feelings slip out as he listens you, and he barely catches himself. You've stopped talking, but you notice that he's still smiling at you. "What?" you question playfully, returning the smile.

"Nothing," he answers lightly with a shake of his head. "I just really appreciate you being here right now."

"You already said that," you laugh.

"Yeah, but I feel like I can't show you how much it means to me," he starts. "Just--Just having you here is making all of this a lot easier."

You grab his hand. "You're welcome, Kobori. You'll bounce back in no time, I know it." And those words are what keeps him from giving up and letting everything consume him.

Recovery has been going really well for Kobori, and now that the pain is starting to subside a bit, he can go to physical therapy to get his strength back. He's practically itching to get moving again and go back to work even though it really wears him out sometimes. He's been trying to stay active by working out around the house without doing too much with his lower body, but that can only go so far.

Kobori knows that the only reason he's made it this far without going insane is you, and he doesn't even know how he can thank you for that. You've been keeping him from getting down on himself whenever the pain comes back for a little while when he wakes up, and he swears that your words alone make the pain subside. But he's starting to have a little problem.

For a while, he's been noticing how much comfortable you're getting around the house, and he's really happy about that. You've been living here for so long, and it makes him glad that you feel relaxed enough at his place; he wouldn't want it any other way.

He's blaming it on the weather, but you've started showing more skin than before, and he honestly doesn't know how much longer he can handle it. He mentally scolds himself because he knows you're not doing it on purpose, and he wishes he wouldn't let his thoughts run into the gutter, but he can't help it.

Since he hasn't been going to work, he's always up during the day, and he's usually sitting on the couch when you come home from work. He always asks how your day is, and whenever you mention that it was a little rough, he always offers to cook dinner instead. He honestly feels bad when you cook dinner after you come home from work, but you always tell him that you don't mind.

You usually don't eat for a couple of hours after you get off work anyway, so you have plenty of time to decompress before you start cooking. He's started moving to sit at the island when you tell him that dinner's almost done, and he doesn't think he'd be able to admit the reason why. Before, he's always waited until you told him it was ready, but he's found that he enjoys watching you while you cook.

It sounds weird, and you haven't called him out on it, but it makes him smile when he sees how at ease you are especially if you've had a rough day. That's the reason why he does it. He definitely doesn't stare at your ass whenever you're checking the food in the oven, and he definitely doesn't stare when you reach for something on the top shelf, and your shirt rides up, giving a better view of your backside. That's definitely not the reason.

When he catches himself doing that, he flushes as he focuses his eyes on something else, shaking his head as he scolds himself for being a pervert. He tells himself to stop, that he shouldn't do it anymore, but you never make it any easier for him.

When your alarm goes off in the morning, it usually wakes him up, so you try to best to turn it off as quickly as you can. Once you're awake enough, you get out of bed to go to the bathroom, and by the time you come back, Kobori's usually fallen back asleep.

Kobori's just barely asleep when he hears you enter the room again, but he barely stirs since you're careful to not make any noise. He's still sleeping on his back since he doesn't want to risk hurting his knee by trying to move, and he rolls his head to the side as he hears you opening drawers and he barely opens his eyes to see you looking through them.

You find the shirt you're looking for, and before he can close his eyes as he tells himself that this is totally a complete invasion of privacy, you slide your tank top off. Your back is facing him, but even through the slits of his eyelids, he knows that your top half is now exposed. He feels himself growing warm all over as you put your bra on before you slide your shirt on.

He lets his eyes fall closed right before you turn around, and he can hear you walk toward the closet. Even though the voice in his head tells him not to, he opens his eyes again to see you sliding some jeans on, and he doesn't know if he can look anywhere else. He tries his best to think of anything that would turn him off as he closes his eyes again, and he prays that you don't spare him another glance when you walk out of the room.

He sighs heavily before he opens his eyes because all he can see now is you. He can feel himself growing, and he bunches the blanket up to try and make it look less obvious how hard he's starting to get. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears you walk in, turning his head to look at you like he just caught got doing something he shouldn't be doing.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" you ask quietly, and he shakes his head, hoping that you can't see how red he is.

"No, you're all good." Thankfully he yawns, and he smiles when you tell him goodbye, telling you to have a good day in reply before he watches you walk back out again. He sighs again when he hears the front door close, and he knows that he'll have trouble going back to sleep.

It doesn't seem to get any better for him, and he feels like he might go crazy. One morning, he woke up just before your alarm, finding himself staring at your sleeping face before it goes off. He watches you frown in your sleep before you start to wake up, slowly sitting up to turn it off.

Instead of getting up though, you lay back down on him, tucking your face in his neck. He chuckles softly as he wraps his arm around you, but after a few minutes, you're still not moving. "Hey, you have to get up," he whispers softly, rubbing over your shoulder.

"Don't wanna," you mumble, your words muffled by his neck. You groan again as you slowly move, wanting nothing more than to go back to sleep. Kobori did find the situation amusing, but your chest mushed against his, he can feel how your boobs are pressed against him, and he no longer finds anything about this funny.

You finally sit up, huffing as you do so, and you rest your weight on your hand as you extend your arm, and Kobori wishes he could find a quick way out of this situation. Even though you've sat up, you don't move for a bit, your eyes still closed, and Kobori takes the opportunity to look at your chest. Your tits are right in his face, and he really hopes you don't catch him staring because it would be practically impossible for him not to.

His eyes snap to yours just in time once you move, and he subtly adjusts the blanket over his leg, hoping you can't see his hard-on. You eventually get out of bed, making your way to the bathroom, and he doesn't know how much longer he can take this. Of course, he's helped himself out before, but all the times he's done it, you've been on his mind every time. And then he can't even look at you after he does it, and now that he's home more, he definitely won't be able to even talk to you.

The final nail in the coffin makes him feel the worst because you're just helping him, and your intentions are completely genuine. You always offer to help rub the cream on his knee which is supposed to help with the pain, and even though he's feeling better, he knows that he should still apply it. It was a little much for him at first because there was still a decent amount of pain, so that was the only thing he was focusing on.

But now that the pain isn't plaguing his mind, he can only focus on how your hands feel. You've done this so many times that your attention is always on something else like the TV, always staying aware of how much pressure you're putting on his knee. He tries to focus on anything else, but it's hard not to since he doesn't really have anything else to do. He could distract himself with his phone, but the only that would do is put his eyes somewhere else.

You massage his knee for a bit, and he jumps against his will when he feels your hands slide up higher on his thigh. "Did I hurt you?" you question quickly, and he shakes his head, giving you a small smile.

"No, I just caught a chill," he lies, and you don't seem to see through it, going back to his leg. He tries to sigh quietly, and that's when he realizes how tense he is, but he doesn't think he can relax even if he wanted to. He knows you're doing it to help with the blood circulation, but it seems like it's only making the blood flow in the completely wrong way.

It usually doesn't take long for you to do this, but it honestly feels like time has slowed down terribly. One of his hands balls into a fist as he tries to think about how horribly embarrassing it would be if you caught him hard while all you're doing is helping it.

You're finally done, going to put the medicine in the bathroom, and his body finally relaxes, some of his muscles aching a bit from how tense he was. He's quick to throw the blanket over his legs before you come back, and all he can do is pray that he'll get himself together. He doesn't want to put you in such an awkward situation, and he scolds himself in his head.

~

Kobori's in his room while you're making dinner so he can take his medicine, and you're smiling softly when you think about how happy he seems now that he can move more than he could before. It was definitely hard to see him so down, and you tried everything you could to keep his mind off of it.

You're finishing up with lunch, and you jump when you hear Kobori swear loudly. The food is forgotten as you run into his room, seeing him still sitting on the bed with his head down. "Are you okay?" you ask softly as you quickly walk over to him, sitting down next to him.

"No," he answers, sighing heavily. You don't say anything for a while, and you see how his hands are balled into fists, so you grab one of his hands. He easily opens it, and you lace your fingers with his, his body relaxing slightly.

"I just feel so helpless," he starts, keeping his head down. "I can't move like I want to, and it feels like every time I'm getting better, the pain comes back."

You don't respond, looking for the right thing to say, and you lay your head on his shoulder. "Well, you help people, Kobori, so it's normal to feel like this," you say. "You save people every day. You saved me," you add, smiling a little when you feel him huff.

You lift your head, softly guiding him to look at you with your hand on his face. "But, to help people, you have to help yourself first. You can't do your best if you're not at your best." He's looking at you so intently, that you have half a mind to just run away, but you push through it. "I know it may seem like your recovery is taking forever, but you have to let yourself heal."

He smiles at you before he lets his head rest on yours. "You'll be okay, Koji. I'm not going anywhere," you whisper.

"Thank you," he says softly, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand.

"Of course." You sit there quietly, letting the silence take over for a bit. "You okay?"

He nods a little. "Yeah. But we can stay like this for a few?"

You chuckle a little before you nod. "Yeah. We can stay for as long as you like."

You finally feel his body fully relax, and you smile softly, glad that your words seemed to help. You don't how long you both sit there, but his stomach eventually grumbles which makes the both of you laugh quietly.

"Do you want me to bring your food in here?" you ask, keeping your head on his.

"Nah, I'll make it out there."

You finally pull away, realizing you're having a very hard time doing so, and you smile widely when his eyes finally open to meet yours.  You kiss his forehead softly, rubbing your thumb over his cheek. "You're gonna be okay, Koji," you echo, giving his hand a squeeze before you stand, holding his hand until you're out of reach.

You walk out of the room, hearing his footsteps a little bit later. He's silent for most of the time that you eat, only listening to you, occasionally responding with hums to let you know that he's listening. You don't really blame him since he doesn't have much to talk about anyway. Even though he hasn't been to work, you've been trying to get him out of the apartment more since he's able to move a bit more.

You thought that the fresh air would be a good distraction, and you know that him staying inside all the time wouldn't help. He'll sometimes mention something that his co-workers said, who have been checking in on him every now and then. You know it also helped when Kise and Moriyama would visit, and you want to try your best to not let the pain get him down.

After eating, you let him get in the shower first while you clean up the kitchen, and you do so after. Kobori's sitting on the bed, and he lifts his head up when he hears the door open a bit, but he doesn't hear your footsteps. You're peeking your head in so that he can't see your body, and an amused frown finds its way on his face.

"I wanna show you something, so you have to close your eyes," you tell him, and he smiles before he does so. He listens to you walk closer to him, and he feels the bed move as you carefully climb on it. He tenses a bit when he feels you against his back before he relaxes, and he can feel your head next to his. "Okay, open your eyes."

He peels his eyes open, and since your arms are out in front of him, they immediately fall on what's in your hands. "What's this?" he asks, taking the tiny stuffed bear from you.

"It's from my student that you were with on career day," you answer, letting your arms fall before you wrap them gently around him. "She was gonna get you some candy too, but she didn't know what you liked," you chuckle, which makes him smile as he rubs his finger over the face. "She said it's for whenever you get scared, and she wanted to thank you again for being with her that day."

He stays quiet, huffing softly as he smiles, and he feels your chin carefully rest on his shoulder. "Koji, you helped her out without having to go into a fire or any high-intense situation," you start, and he turns his head to look at you. "Being there with her was all she needed," you say. "You are far from helpless. You helped me when I needed it most, and you didn't have to do a lot of moving for that. This gift is one of the many reasons why you shouldn't feel like this.

"I get that you're frustrated about not being able to move like you want to, I'm not invalidating that at all," you continue. "But I don't want you to think that not being able to move is why you can't help people. You do that all on your own with your heart."

Kobori never looks away from you, holding onto every word you're saying, and he doesn't think he's ever been speechless. You kiss him on his temple, before wrapping your arms a little tighter around him. "You are a great person, Koji. And I don't want you to forget that."

He has so many things running through his head that he feels like he has to do something, and he definitely doesn't think twice before moving forward to kiss you. He knows he took you by surprise, and once he finally realizes what he's doing, he pulls away, his eyes wide mostly because he cannot believe he just did that.

"I-I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me." He starts to panic as his body goes warm with embarrassment, and if his knee was fully recovered, he would be out of this room in a second. He's rambling to try and figure out anything to say, and you smile before you place your hand on his face, which gets him to finally stop talking.

"Koji, it's okay," you say, and he swallows thickly, looking in between your eyes. You lean in again, kissing him softer than he did before, and it doesn't take him long to kiss you back.

He briefly wonders if he fell asleep because he thinks he's dreaming. He's dreamed about this moment for so long that he can't be too sure if it's real. He moves one of his hands to touch your face, and when you pull away for a second, he realizes that he hasn't been breathing.

He catches his breath right before you move back in, and he carefully sets the bear down before he turns his body a bit, the previous angle putting a strain on his neck. The positions you're both in aren't the most comfortable, so he turns even more, making sure he keeps his leg still before he gently puts his hands on your waist.

He pulls you softly closer to him, and you move with him until you're straddling his lap. The last thing he wants to do right now is stop kissing you, and he wraps his arms around your waist as yours wrap around his neck. He hesitates a bit when he feels your tongue gently brush over his lip, but he shortly lets you in after, all of the blood rushing to his lower half when he feels your tongue mold with his.

He shudders when he feels your hands run down his chest, and he lets his hands run under your tank top. Just feeling your bare skin after being millimeters from it has his head spinning, and he moans loudly in surprise when you start to roll your hips against him. You don't stop, and he has to pull away from you as his breathing starts to pick up, his face feeling ridiculously hot as he digs his fingers into your hips.

"F-Fuck," he stutters, his eyes falling closed, and he bucks his hips up into you as he feels his orgasm building. "God, I love you," he sighs, and it takes him way too long to realize what he said, but when his words hang in the air, he opens his eyes when it finally hits him. "I didn't mean--" He tries to explain himself, but he finds it virtually impossible, and he looks at you when you bring your hands to his face.

"I love you, too, Koji," you whisper, and his eyes roll into the back of his head as he cums, groaning as he rolls your hips against him to ride out the high. He falls back against the bed with a heavy sigh as he starts to come down, and he covers his eyes with his hands. "Shit," he breathes, having a hard time looking you in the eyes.

He twitches a bit when he feels you shift a bit, and he feels you lean down until your chest is flush with his. "You okay?" you ask him softly, and he nods, not moving his hands. You gently grab his hands, and he lets you move them away, and it takes him a while to open his eyes. He finally does, seeing that your face is right in front of his.

"Just kinda embarrassed," he admits, breaking the eye contact for a split second. You respond with a soft smile as you slightly tilt your head a bit to the side.

"About what? Finishing so fast?" you muse, and he flushes as he shrugs.

"I've never...I've never done anything like that before," he whispers.

"Seriously?" you ask, your eyebrows raised in what he thinks is surprise.

He nods. "Is that...weird?" He can't help but ask.

"Of course, not," you say with a shake of your head. "You're just a great guy, so I'm surprised no one's bagged you yet," you continue with a smile.

He can't help but copy it. "Dating was kind of hard because...they weren't you," he replies, his voice getting quieter as he finishes, his face growing warm again at his words. Your eyes soften at his words, and you kiss him again.

"I love you, Koji," you whisper, and he doesn't think he'll be able to stop smiling as his heart continues to race. He doesn't think he'll be able to express how good that makes him feel when he hears those words. Something he's always thought about hearing for years, and he hopes that he's not even close to dreaming.

He kisses you again, letting his hands drift under your shirt again, softly rubbing his hands over your back as he tries to lock in every feeling of you against him in his brain. It takes him some courage, but he finally manages to slide his hands to your ass, and the moment he does, you start to roll your hips against him again.

He gasps quietly into the kiss, feeling himself getting hard again before he hesitantly stops you, placing his hands on your hips. "Wait," he breathes, his chest heaving again. "W-What about you?"

"What about me?" you smile, huffing a little when you feel his fingers did into your hips a little more when you move them again.

"I want you to feel good, too," he admits quietly, and your smile widens a bit as you sit yourself up.

"Yeah?" you muse. "And how do you wanna do that?" He flushes down to his chest as he looks away from your gaze for a second before he looks at you again.

"Can I show you?" he mumbles because he knows there's no way he'd be able to voice it out loud. You grin at him as you move off of him onto the bed, carefully stripping your clothes off and letting them fall to the floor before you rest your weight on your hands.

"Go ahead," you press playfully, and Kobori can only stare at you, his eyes running over your body so many times that you lose count. "Koji," you say firmly when he hasn't said anything in a while, and his eyes snap to yours but he still doesn't move.

"S-Sorry, um," he stutters. He tries to speak again, but it's like he can't get the words out, and he goes quiet when you move towards him. "S-Should I--"

"Koji." You cut him off gently, sitting up before you slide closer to him. "You don't have to be so nervous. If you don't wanna do this, we don't have to," you reassure.

"No, no, I want to," he responds quickly. "I'm just nervous," he continues, and why wouldn't he be? The girl of his dream his sitting naked in front of him, and he can barely move an inch even though he's hard as a rock.

"Do you want to keep going?"

"Yeah," he whispers with a quick nod. "I'm sure." You nod, giving him a small smile before you lean in, kissing him softly. You rest your hands on his neck gently, and you can feel him relax a bit under them. You slowly start to move one hand, and he tenses a bit when you run your hand down his chest.

"Do you wanna take this off?" you whisper after you pull away slightly, gently gripping the hem of his shirt. He looks down at where you're holding his shirt before he looks at you, a small nod following after.

He moves before you say anything else, sliding his shirt off and setting the bunched up fabric to the side. You can't help but stare at him, finally allowing yourself to do so. You've seen him shirtless before, of course, but you never let yourself look at him because you thought you were being weird. But now that you know the feelings mutual, you look at him for as long as you can.

"Should I take these off too?" you hear, and you begrudgingly peel your eyes away from his ridiculously defined torso to look at his eyes. He's got his hands on his shorts, and you give him a small shrug.

"If you want to," you huff softly, giving him a reassuring smile. He nods again, pushing his thumbs past his waistband before he stops. There's really no reason for him to be embarrassed, especially since his hard-on is so obvious in his shorts, but taking them off seems to be another thing he has to try and get over.

But he would like to get the rest of his clothes off since his boxers are sticky from his first orgasm. "Do you want me to look away?" you ask quietly, jumping him out of his momentary time in his head.

"No, no, it's okay," he responds, and he internally takes a deep breath before he sheds the rest of his clothes. He's looking somewhere else in the room when they finally reach his feet, having a hard time making eye contact with you.

He finally looks at you, and he flushes even more when he sees that you're not looking at his face. He has half a mind to cover himself, but his dick twitches as you look at him. He's about to try to find anything to say, but you move before he can. You grab his hands, pulling them toward you, causing him to take a couple of half-steps towards you.

His fingers tense around yours when he sees how close your face is to his dick, and he swears the spit he swallows his audible in the room. "You're so big, Koji," you whisper, your eyes never meeting his.

"I-Is that--" He's cut off when you gently wrap your fingers around him, and his body jolts at the stimulation. "Is that a bad thing?" he rushes out, trying to concentrate on his breathing.

"No," you answer quietly as you smile up at him. He can't help but watch in awe as you take the tip into your mouth, and he releases a stuttering breath, feeling his toes curl. You swirl your tongue around it before you take him into your mouth, and he knows that if he doesn't stop (not that he wants to), he'll cum in a second.

"W-Wait," he tries, gently putting his hand on your head, but all you do is look up at him, continuing to bob your head up and down slowly. "But--you," he huffs out, his eyes slipping closed as he lets his head fall back.

"What about me?" you find yourself asking again as you stroke him, moving your attention to his sac, sucking on it gently knowing that he wasn't going to answer your question. He swears as you feel his dick kick against your hand, signaling that he's close, and you make no move to stop.

His grip on your hair tightens just a little bit as you put him back in your mouth, and his chest heaves as his body starts to tense little by little. You run your nails gently up his stomach, and he shivers right before he cums, a loud groan coming from deep in his chest before you feel him spill onto your tongue.

You take him even deeper to swallow it all, and his legs shake as he plants his hand on your head to keep himself from falling. You finally take him out of your mouth when there's nothing left for him to give you, wiping the corners of your mouth as you sit up straight.

When you look up at him, he's still got his head back, and he's breathing so hard, that his body slumps a bit every time he exhales. He finally looks at you, and his face is ridiculously red, to the point where you briefly worry if he's gonna pass out.

"How was that?" you ask playfully, and all Kobori can do it nod, giving you a loopy smile. You grab his hand again, moving further onto the bed, pulling him with you. He follows you with shaky legs before getting on the bed, making sure to keep the majority of his weight off of his knee.

He lays down, pulling you with him, and when you straddle him, he kisses you without giving you much time to think about what to do next. You notice that he seems to be a lot more relaxed, his hands running over every part of your body as he practically melts into the bed.

"You okay?" you whisper when you pull away, and he nods his head slowly, his eyes drooping closed before he quickly opens them again.

"I still wanna make you feel good," he mumbles before he gently moves you so that you're on your back on the bed, and he moves to lay on his side, hovering in your space. He moves his face into your neck and goosebumps rise on your skin when you feel his lips kissing over it.

"No one's stopping you," you say quietly, but you don't really think he hears you because you feel his hand drift down your torso at the same time he drifts his head down to your chest. You moan softly when he runs his lips over your nipple, making his dick twitch before he encases it with his mouth.

He rubs over your thigh as he keeps his attention on your chest for a bit before he carefully drifts his hand in between your legs, and he can feel himself start to get nervous. He's seen porn before and been forced to Moriyama and Kise talking about their sex stories while drunk, so he knows a little bit about what to do.

He takes his mouth from your chest so that he can look as he runs his fingers through your folds, suppressing a groan when he sees how wet you are already. He runs one finger up until he finds your clit, looking back at you when he rubs over it.

He keeps his eyes on you, taking in every sound you're making and every shift of your facial expressions. He starts to feel a little more confident the louder your moans get when he continues to rub his finger over your sensitive bud, and he decides to move down. It doesn't take long for him to find what he's looking for, his fingers becoming even wetter when he reaches your hole.

You spread your legs as he circles a finger at your entrance, and he slowly slides one in, keeping his eye on your face for any sign that he might be hurting you. You take his finger so much easier than he thought, and his body goes hot at how warm and tight you are. The more he explores your walls, the more he wants to speed up, and it seems you want him to do the same as well, gently pleading with him to add another finger.

He easily obliges, making sure to stretch your walls out by spreading his fingers. He pushes futher into you, and he looks at your face when you jump at a particular stroke of his fingers. He goes in even deeper, continuing the same motion as before, his palm rubbing against your clit, and he watches you with his mouth slightly open as you grind against his fingers.

He doesn't dare to stop what he's doing, only going faster so that he can see how many sounds and faces he can pull from you. You grab his wrist as your moans get louder, and he watches your back arch off the bed for a second as your legs start to move more than before.

He groans softly when you start and continue to moan his name, your eyes slipping closed. He notices that it's getting more difficult for him to push his fingers back into you, so he thrusts them into you with firmer strokes, which only makes the noises you're making louder.

"K-Koji," you cry, your face scrunching up in a way that he knows is going to plant itself in his dreams for the rest of his life. "I'm gonna--fuck!" you groan, your legs suddenly clamping around his arm as your nails dig into the sheets next to you.

Your pussy is practically trying to push him out now as he feels more slick coating his hand, but he doesn't stop, following you when you try to move away from him. He only stops when you tap at his arm quickly, and he withdraws his fingers as your body finally relaxes, your chest heaving. He can't help but watch the way your tits rise and fall.

"Jesus Christ, Kobori," you huff as you let your body go limp.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and you give him a loopy nod as you smile.

"Yeah, best orgasm I've ever had."

"You came?" he asks, his eyebrows raising as he face turns a deeper red.

"You couldn't tell?" He shakes his head before he glances down between your legs, seeing your cum coating the inside of your thighs and his fingers. He must've missed that because he was so focused on your face and the noises you were making.

He suddenly brings his fingers up to his face, watching them glisten when they catch the light just right. "You wanna taste it?" He can't look at you as he says the answer in his head, and he doesn't give himself any more time to second guess himself before he slides his fingers into his mouth.

He can feel himself practically drooling when your taste hits his tongue, and he decides that he would do just about anything to taste you again. He makes sure he gets every inch of his fingers until he can't taste you anymore.

"You're still hard," he barely hears, and he's sliding his fingers out of his mouth when you straddle him, hovering over him with your hands gently resting on his chest. "You wanna keep going?"

"I-I..." he starts, his eyes trained on your body as he gets lost in it again. "I don't have any condoms."

"Neither do I," you say, your eyes never leaving his face. "But it's okay," you add, gently grabbing him in your hand as you line yourself up.

"A-Are you sure?" he mumbles as his hands tighten on your hips.

"We don't have to unless you want to," you tell him. "But, I wouldn't imagine you'd wanna run to the store hard as a rock to go get some."

Yeah, that would be way less than ideal, and when he slightly tugs you closer to him, you take that as a sign to sink down on him. Your mouth falls slowly open at the stretch, and Kobori whimpers as he feels your warm walls surround him.

He tries to think about anything that won't make him bust as you continue to sit down, and he screws his eyes shut as he tries to focus. When he finally feels you fully around him, it takes him a while to open his eyes. His chest is heaving again, and he's flushed all the way down to his chest.

"You okay, Koji?" he hears you ask, and at first, all he can do is nod. He manages to open his eyes, meeting yours, but he can't help but let them run down your body, stopping where your bodies are meeting, and he has to close his eyes again.

"You just feel really good," he whispers, his fingers digging into your skin so hard, that he's worried he'll bruise you, but he's afraid that if he lets go, he'll cum in an instant. He jumps a bit when he feels your hands running over his chest, feeling your walls pulse around him, causing him to buck up into you against his will.

He hears you moan softly at the motion, and he tries to apologize, but the words get stuck in his throat. He feels you start to move, the motion more frequent and fluid, and the only thing that vibrates in his throat is a moan.

He's sweating so bad, that he can feel it dripping down his forehead and onto the pillow below his head, and he finally peels his eyes open, the pleasure mounting in his spine. He's not going to last long at all. "S-Shit, 'm gonna cum--f-fuck," he breathes, watching where he's disappearing into you.

He watches you smile as you make no move to stop, and he's frozen beneath you, unable to do anything but watch you as he falls over that crest. He hands dig almost painfully into your hips as he cums, holding you down so that you can take all of him as his dick twitches inside you with every spurt of cum that he shoots into you.

You try your best to roll your hips to help him ride out his high, planting your chest tight to his as you hover over his face. His eyes had closed as he came, his ragged breathing the loudest thing in the room as he waits for his heartbeat to leave his ears.

"You okay?" you ask him, and he nods quickly as you plant soft kisses over his face. He quickly turns his head so that he can meet your lips, sliding his tongue lazily into your mouth as his hands rub over your body.

He doesn't say anything, continuing to kiss you sloppily. The surprised mewl you release when he bucks up into you is muffled by his lips, and you think it was an accident until he does it again. "Koji, wait," you try, your hands running into his hair and gently pulling on the strands.

"Want you to cum too, sweetheart. P-Please," he whispers into your skin. He's got his arms wrapped around you, locking you against him as he thrusts into you so hard, you start to see starts. Your moans jump up in pitch when he finds your sweet spot, and he makes it his mission to hit it every time.

The more your walls pulls around him, the more crazy it feels like he's getting. He bites and sucks all over your skin, trying to find an outlet as he slides one of his hands between your sweaty bodies to find your clit. He groans when you pull harder on his hair, and he starts to feel your wals tightening around him like they did before, and there's nothing that can stop him now.

He can't do anything else other than moan, an occassional whimper coming from him as his eyes roll to the back of his head. "O-Oh, my God," you gasp, any words you're able to make being chopped up by his thrusts. You can't even speak, not able to warn him when you finally cum with your name on his lips, and he bites down on your shoulder with a groan as he feels your walls practically holding him hostage.

His hips stutter with his release, and he's holding onto you so tight, like you're going to fadee away any second now. Your toes curl with oversensitivity as he continues to move inside of you until he slows, his arms dropping from your body and onto the bed with a soft thud.

Both of you are silent as you catch your breath, and your body slowly starts to go limp, your pussy pulsing in all the right ways. "Holy shit, Koji," you huff, those words said after a few beats of silence.

"Are you okay?" he whispers, and you look at him, seeing his eyelids halfway open. "I wasn't too rough?"

"No," you say, managing to shake your head. "That was so good," you smile, and he mimics it, slightly lifting his head up, and you meet him halfway so you can kiss him. "I love you, Koji," you whisper.

He hums. "I love you too," he responds, snuggling into your neck. He continues to plant kisses all over your skin, his hands never leaving your body. You notice that his ministrations start to slow, but you don't move, knowing that he's probably on his way out. Hell, you are too.

"Love you, baby," he slurs quietly, and a wide smile appears on your face as you whisper it back.

[nekonanamii]

All for the best pt. 2 — Geto Suguru x Fem! Reader

I don’t condone irl cheating but for the purpose of the story let’s enjoy this p*rn without a plot (pov you’re the real estate agent in the previous fic)

Geto Suguru was in the market to buy a new apartment, having recently been promoted and being given a significantly higher pay grade— of course he wanted something more lavish. It just so happens that you were his real estate agent <3

He says he’s looking for a apartment for him and his girlfriend. But where is this girlfriend he speaks of? The man says she’s busy tending to her boss’ every whim. Says it’s more than just work at this point, he feels like he’s the other man in the relationship. You think to yourself, how on earth could his girlfriend ignore this beautiful man? She must be crazy.

This poor man, he at least needs a little bit of pampering, yeah? After all, he isn’t getting much attention from his dear girlfriend :(

You made sure to have many apartment options for your client. You also made sure to wear you sexiest and tightest skirts every time you’d show him a new place <3

And each time you felt his eyes take in your body a little bit longer than he previously did.

Every chance you’d get, you would brush your fingers on his hand. You’d even go so far as to caress his muscular arms as you show him the newest additions of the apartment you were having him view.

If it wasn’t painfully obvious by now, you noticed how the tent in his pants was growing harder and harder to hide. Your dear client would constantly excuse himself to the restroom every now and then <3 How cute you thought, you were made painfully aware that this sexy man had a large dick. Oh how you wish you could ease the burden on him and drain his balls for him <3

Your dearest client finally has an apartment he says he wants to put an offer on but says he needs a little bit more convincing, after all the rent was pretty steep but the cityscape view was to die for.

You take him to the bathroom to show him the latest shower feature it had, but whoops you accidentally turn it on a bit too much and now you’re wet. Your white button down top is essentially see-through as it’s drenched in water. Suguru swears his eyes nearly budged out of their sockets seeing how perfectly plump your tits were and not to mention how perky and painfully hard your nipples were.

“Oops my bad- I didn’t know it would turn on all the way~” lies. You knew what you were doing. After all, you purposely didn’t wear a bra today, The tent in his pants was impossible to ignore at this point and you could see the visible discomfort he had on his face from how hard his dick pressed into the fabric of his pants.

You lazily unbuttoned your shirt and shimmied your way out of your tiny little pencil skirt, and that was it for him. He needed you. You started with his belt then worked his zipper down bringing his pants and boxers down to his ankles. Suguru was at a loss for words. God you looked so sexy. He’d be lying if he said be hasn’t been fisting himself to the thought of you after each viewing you had with him.

You licked the head of his cock— god it was bigger than you imagined. Incredibly thick too. Slowly you bottomed out and sucked his dick at an increasing pace. Suguru swears he saw stars. He grabs a fist full of your hair guides his cock deeper into your throat.

“I hope I’m the only client you treat this way” he says panting,

You pull out for a second and tell him “of course, I’ve never had a client as sexy as you”

Suguru pulls you up and your back is on his chest. He reaches down your clothed pussy and pushes the tiny little cloth covering your slit to the side “You wanted this didn’t you huh?” Suguru works his fingers on your pussy while your hand grabs onto his aching hard member. You align it to your entrance while he kisses you from behind, your dear client is now fucking you from behind with such force you swear your knees are gonna buckle.

“Fuck you’re such a fucking minx you wanted this so bad didn’t you huh?” All you could do was say yes over and over and Suguru tells you he’s about to cum, you face him with his cock deep inside you.

“Please please please need your cum in me please oh fuck” is all you can say.

Suguru can’t fucking believe it. Before he could do anything he’s shooting ropes into you and you’re seeing stars. You’re both coming down from your high while kissing each other through it.

“So I guess I’ll be taking that as a sure offer?” you say

And just like that, your affair with Suguru begins. It’s not your fault his dear girlfriend doesn’t doesn’t keep him on a leash.

🫢

[dangerousstrawberryshark]

Redemption

Pairing(s): Reggie Mantle x male reader

Summary: You and Reggie don’t have a good background. The former always harasses and bullies you. When you were told you had to tutor the football player, you denied the offer, but after being threatened with failing grades, you complied. Reggie takes the opportunity to show you he has changed. 

Warnings: there are no major warnings, mention of homophobia, and flashbacks of bullying

(Hello, my little strawberries! I’m sorry for not posting any actual fics for a long time, but I’m gonna start working on them! Hopefully, by May, I’ll have completed over 30 requests! Anyways, enjoy!

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. 

“I was wondering if you would be a tutor to Mr. Mantle. His grades are slipping, which may cause him to be kicked off the football team.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’ll have to decline,” you replied.

There was no way that you'd tutor that son of the devil. 

He tormented you since elementary school. It got worse in middle school when news of you being gay got exposed. 

However, ever since you both made it into high school, the bullying sort of stopped. 

Of course, there were some incidents but nothing too severe. 

“I’m sorry to say this, but if you don’t comply, I’ll have to drop your grade to Mr. Mantle’s. You rank in the top 10% and that’ll drop you down significantly."

You were shocked and angry. Shocked because of what he said and angry by the way he threatened to fail you. 

Not wanting to fail, you had to comply. 

“Fine, I’ll tutor Reggie…” you said, eye twitching, and an angry sigh. 

“Great! I hope to see progress from Mr. Mantle. You may leave.” the teacher said, gesturing to the door. 

You nodded and left. 

After getting home, you ran to your room and began to throw things, ripping pages out of some book and destroying your bed. 

Letting out a sigh, you collapsed onto your bed. Staring at the ceiling, debating on what you should do. 

“Should I text him?” you thought, looking at your phone with the screen on Reggie’s Instagram account. 

“I should just go to him…” 

You didn’t live that far from him

It’ll only take fifteen minutes. After debating, you decided to just go to him. 

Putting presentable clothes on, you made your way to Reggie’s place. 

After the walk, you were at Reggie’s door. You were mentally battling whether you should retreat or ring the bell.

Ring the bell side won. The doorbell rang, and you could hear someone coming to open the door. 

Reggie was the one that answered. 

“M/n? What are you doing here?” Reggie asked.

You rolled your eyes at him. “I’m only here to inform you… I’m gonna be your new tutor. Before you ask, you have no say. You’ll get kicked off the team…” you explained to the jock at the door.

Reggie nodded in acknowledgment. After some time, you leave Reggie’s property. You, for some reason, feel Reggie’s gaze. 

Everyone thought that Reggie was straight. However, ever since the first year, he started to develop feelings. 

He didn’t know where these feelings came from, but he didn’t care. 

During these tutoring sessions, he could make amends with you. 

(Time skip to you tutoring Reggie. Like one week.)

While you were tutoring Reggie, he tried talking to you. Trying to get to know you.

You did tell him some things, but you kept your guard around him. 

He’ll probably use that information to spread rumors.

Reggie mentally frowned, but he was determined to convince you that he changed. 

Throughout the time you were tutoring Reggie, he began to get buddy-buddy with you. 

During tutoring sessions, he would compliment you on how you dressed, your looks, and your shoes. You didn’t take these compliments seriously. 

“You look really nice today, M/n! Liked the way you did your hair.” Reggie said, putting his stuff down and pulling out his books. 

“Thanks…?” you said, not taking what Reggie said seriously. 

Reggie sighs in defeat. Maybe he’ll try harder.

The next few days, Reggie began to meet you after school, giving you your favorite snacks and candies.

He even invited you to come to Pops with him. Bought you stuff that you liked and he even stopped the rest of his gang from harassing you.  

You began to take note of Reggie’s strange behavior. 

“I think he likes you, M/n.” one of your friends commented while licking the popsicle in their hand. 

“No, he doesn’t! He is just messing with me! Trying to get my guard down.” you replied. 

“First stage of denial. M/n, look at everything Reggie is doing. He is giving snacks, and candy took you out to pops, and even got his friends to stop harassing you. He likes you, you’re just in denial.” 

You began to think about what they said. 

Reggie's behavior and actions were clear, he liked- LOVE you.

However, you deny all of this. 

You think it’s one-sided. You weren’t going to fall for this. It was most likely another one of his sick games. 

To avoid this situation, you decided to distance yourself from him. You figured that Reggie no longer needs tutoring since his grade improved.

(Timeskip.)

During the week, you avoided Reggie like the plague. No longer going to his place for tutoring, avoiding places he knows you go and ghosting him on social media. 

Reggie immediately knew what was happening, he had to go in for it.

He wasn’t going to lose you. 

You could hear continuous banging on the door. Automatically knowing who it was. Getting the courage, you went and opened the door to be met with a frantic Reggie. 

“What do you want, Reggie?” you said, tapping your foot against the hardwood floor. 

“I just want to talk to you about something.” you raised your eyebrows. Reggie nervously smiled while scratching his head. You nodded your head, gesturing for him to continue. 

“I… I… I love you.” Reggie stuttered before confessing. “I know I’m in no position to say this after everything I did to you. All the harassment and physical bullying, but since freshman year, I began to develop feelings for you. It only accelerated more when you started tutoring me.”

To say you were lost for words was an understatement. Your mind was in panicking mode like in those cartoons that show what’s going on inside the character’s head. 

“So, would you like to go on a date with me?” Reggie said quietly, but you heard him crystal clear. 

“I won’t say yes… but I won’t say no either. Give me time to process,” you replied, Reggie sigh in relief. At least he wasn’t rejected. 

“Okay…” Reggie then walked away while you closed the door. 

After Reggie’s love confession, you didn't know how to respond. 

Yes, Reggie was horrible and mean to you, but he stopped doing that at the beginning of high school. Maybe he truly changed. 

You decided. 

Reggie was laying down on his bed when he suddenly received a text message. It was from m/n.

“I would like to go on a date with you.”

THE END

A/N: I’m trying to finish all my requests! So, please bare with me at the time of posting. Goodbye, my 🍓little strawberries🍓!