#it mentions some of the other ghouls and in those brief moments you get really solid ideas of their character

[clip-the-simp]

Not Much Else [Pt.1]

Ao3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Fem!Reader

Word count: 2,956

Warnings: canon typical violence, swearing, mention of drugs and surgery, (I’m bad at warning tags so just let me know if I need/should to add some)

Tags: Mild Proofreading, reader had bat wings, Bounty Hunting, deviation from TV show, pre!show events(?), (Again I'm bad at tags so let me know)

Summary: You're a vault experiment that makes it to the surface. Quickly you learn the lay of the land and a few years later end up working the same bounty as The Ghoul. You convince him to let you take a long after having a feeling that you just had to follow him. Where will this story lead? Only time (and my motivation) will tell.

A/N: this is cringy as shit so please forgive me. I’m trying to get back into writing and my current hyperfixation is Fallout. I've been a fan for years but a new found love was sparked with the show's release.

Be forewarned that this is going to be incredibly inaccurate to cannon events and really unrealistic honestly. But listen. If Lucy can have her finger zapped back on and working properly anything can happen.

The scientists of your vault had placed nearly 200 hundred people into cryo pods before the bombs had fallen. A few had been scientists, but most were test subjects. Those chosen to be experimented on were chosen from a vast array of different medical histories, genetic makeups, ages, and ethnicities which always resulted in different mutations. Only about one third of the subjects had volunteered, while the majority had been simply manipulated, kidnapped, and or drugged before being shoved into a cryopod.

You had been one of the majority that had been kidnapped. Before the bombs, you had been a star in HollyWood and went on to be in several films which included a western or two. You were still fairly young however, so when the threat of bombs falling had started to rise you had been cornered. A white cloth with chloroform was shoved into your face once you had gotten back to your film trailer after wrapping up the final scene for a movie you were co-starring in. You had only woken up for a brief moment after being kidnapped, which was right before they had shoved you into a pod and began the process to preserve your body for the next century or so.

When the scientist decided it was time to start experimenting, some wouldn’t survive the first round of injections but that never did stop the test. Even after death the bodies would continue to be used to determine different severities of treatments on human tissue.

However, those that didn’t have the fortune of passing within the first few rounds of chems being forced into their veins, they had far worse ahead of them. Which just so happened to be the group of unfortunate folks you wound up being.

It had been about 175 years after the bombs dropped before they dethawed you from your cryosleep and started on their process of testing and modifying your body. They had hoped, just like with all of their other experiments they had running, that you would be one of their best.

After the first initial round of chems they had started to cut into you and spliced your DNA with multiple different creatures. First it started with the removal and rewiring of your eyes. They had been replaced with those of a feline which had taken you months to recover from, but that didn’t stop the minor test they continued to perform.

The rewiring in your brain caused excruciating headaches for the first few months but soon you were able to view things from a new lens. Being able to see more than most at night was a great perk to have when the vaults tended to stay poorly lit. However this also caused you to have some sensitivities to bright lights, so in response to that the scientist designed specialized goggles to combat it but made them so they wouldn’t impair your ability to see at night with them still being on.

The next body modification came when a scorchbeast, a large mutated bat creature, had been killed and dragged into the vault. After careful consideration and candidate evaluation you had been chosen to be subjugated to the experiment. No one knew if your body would reject the new muscle and bones that had to be implanted, but your genes had the most likely success rate when looking at the data provided.

After a full year of recovery you had full mobility of the limbs, and with it having been a young scorchbeast, the wings hadn’t been to terribly large in comparison to your body. You had been due for more body installments but before the scientist had the opportunity to stick another knife in you all hell had broken loose.

One of the more aggressive test subjects had escaped from their enclosure and started wreaking havoc upon the vault. They had managed to set other people free while in a blind rage when they had broken into the control room. In doing so not only where you set free but so where all the others, including those in cryosleep.

However you hadn’t stuck around for long once everyone, mutated or not, had started attacking one another in a panic. Having seen map layouts of the vault in the halls on the way to your surgeries, you had been one of the first to make it to the surface and begin your trick through the waste land.

After a week you had managed to find your way to a town which was both a blessing and a curse. Outside the walls of the town there had been a dead man who still had his clothes on. Having realized you were still in your medical gown, you had stripped him of the garments, minus the underwear, and cut a large hole in the back of the shirt to accommodate for your wings. With pants and a shirt on you were now a little more confident when entering the settlement.

Even after getting more than a hospital gown on, people still had given you strange looks as you walked the streets. They snarled and ogled at the wings sprouting from your back, and even after tucking them under your arms while pulling them close to your sides, it didn’t stop the stairs. Your goggles had remained pulled over your eyes during the majority of your time on the surface, but you could tell people could still see the slits that were your pupils.

You had quickly learned the ways of the waste land. Caps controlled everything, violence was always the answer, and it was kill or be killed. So when a man suddenly cornered you in the alley way of that first town you were in, you quickly became a killer. Whether it was the animal genetics fused with your own or your will to survive, you had proceeded to rip that man's neck out with your teeth when he had gotten close enough.

In doing so you had gained a handful of caps, a slightly rusted knife, and a pistol that had enough ammo to mow down a small horde of ghouls. The only item of clothing you peeled from his body was a weathered trench coat made of leather. That had managed to cover your wings if you kept them tucked close enough, although a bet awkwardly.

With the handful of caps you had gathered you had managed to get some accentals and learned about bounty hunting. If you were going to survive in the world you had to adapt, and so you did.

Two years had passed since you first began living on the surface when you had encountered The Ghoul, face to face, for the first time. Both of you had been working the same job when the target in question got smart and hired a few armed guards. The two of you were knocked unconscious and tied up in a rotting building while the target and his goons ran off. You had come to when the splitting pain from being knocked out finally became too much for your body to suppress.

As you peeled your eyes open, you started to realize someone was tied to your back as you and the other person sat on the sand covered floor of the decaying house. Shuffling a bet you tried to grab the knife at your side but soon heard a groan from the person you were tied to. You hadn’t bothered before to try and see who it was, hoping to have gotten untied from one another before they had the chance to wake up and possibly kill you.

“Fucking hell.” You heard the man mumble as he tried to get his bearings as you had. Your heart made its way to your throat as you realized who it was. Although you had never met the man you recognized his voice from the rare occasion you had been in the same town together at the same time.

Fuck fuck fuck! You thought as you continued, more hastily this time, to try and get the knife at your side. You had never paid The Ghoul much attention, however you know of his reputation and that he was a gifted gun slinger. However, while you hadn't paid him much attention, he had been studying you. He had started to recognize you any time you just happened to be in the same town. It wasn't anything more than the fact you were exceedingly odd and always looked out of place from those shuffling around you. Although he was a ghoul and the farthest thing from normal looking, your wings would always take any and all attention from those around you. No matter how well hidden you tried to keep them.

“Stop fidgeting damn it.” Your body immediately froze as he spoke directly to you. A few shuffles of his own and he quickly had his hands on his own knife which sliced through the rope with relative ease. You fell forward slightly as the tension from the rope was released and you quickly stood to dust yourself off.

Turning around you saw The Ghoul doing the same thing as he stood. His duster was ripped to shreds but still served its purpose of covering him from the sun. The cowboy hat he held in his hands was quickly placed back on his head before he turned to glare at you. His spurs jingled a little as he faced you.

Everything in your body screamed at you to run before he could pull out his weapon, but his gaze had you pinned to your spot in the room. You swallowed hard before trying to move and look more relaxed then you really were. Crossing your arms you moved your eyes to meet his which started an immediate feeling of regret.

There was something about his eyes that held a feeling of familiarity but it was buried under the many years of being forced to live amongst the harsh conditions of the wasteland. The Ghoul’s eyes remained on your face for the longest time before traveling to the tips of your wings that peeked out from under your coat. You quickly tried to tuck them closer to hide them but that just led to him looking back to your face.

“Now how the hell you get those on your back?” The Ghoul pointed to where the wings had been showing just moments before. His question had brought you out of your frozen state as you tried justifying to yourself answering him truthfully. You didn’t figure it would hurt to be truthful, especially since it was only the two of you at that moment. Not to mention the odd feeling that you could rely on him to keep any information you needed to get off your chest.

“Vault experiments.” You answered plainly as you moved the extra appendages from under your coat and spread them a little farther out from your body as you stretched them. As you did this something shifted in his expression, almost a kin to pity. He looked back into your eyes as if trying to recognize you as you had done the same to him moments before. You had forgotten the fact your eyes were no longer human so whatever search he was on would be nearly impossible if he intended to find answers within them. Not to mention the fact that your goggles were currently tented from the light coming in from the setting sun.

“That’s unfortunate. Seems like those wings would be in the way of everything.” He stated while picking up some of his belongings that hadn’t been taken. You crossed your arms and leaned on one leg. Sure, the wings were annoying at first, but they had become useful as time went on. You always managed to travel farther than anyone else in the wasteland could in two days on foot.

“They’re actually quite helpful.” You stated as you began to check yourself for any belongings that might be missing. “People don’t expect an aerial assault nowadays. So ambushing people is quite the luxury when being a bounty hunter.” The Ghoul gave a low hum as he slung his bag back over his shoulder. Surprisingly enough they hadn’t stolen anything, but you assumed it was because they were more focused on getting out of there before the two of you woke up.

“Well sweetheart I must be on my way. That bounty is still out there and I don't need someone else getting my caps.” As he said this The Ghoul slung his leg over the wall of the decrepit house and began his trek to the target. Something in the back of your mind pricked at your thoughts as he walked away. The feeling that you needed to follow him into the wasteland grew stronger the farther he walked.

What was it about this guy that had you wanted to do nothing more than follow him like a lost puppy? You hadn’t meant to be working the same bounty but somehow it felt like it was meant to be. Kicking yourself mentally, you sprinted after him. He had only managed to get a few yards away before you abruptly sprinted up behind him.

Out of instinct The Ghoul pulled his gun on you and had it aimed directly at your head. Your chest was rising and falling rapidly as you tried to catch your breath from the short unexpected run you just had. The adrenaline pumping through your veins prevented you from freezing or seeing the gun held to your face as much of a threat at that moment. All your mind was trained on was convincing The Ghoul to take you with him on this job.

“Take me with you.” Was all you could blurt out. Your voice had been shaky which you hoped wouldn’t be too noticeable but The Ghoul definitely caught it. He lowered his gun to keep it aimed at your chest instead.

“Now why should I do that?” He asked as he raised a nonexistent eyebrow. The sun was getting low which caused a shadow to shroud most of The Ghoul’s face. A knot began to form in your stomach. You hadn’t thought this through at all but had to come up with an excuse fast.

“I can be of help. Like I stated before, aerial assault isn’t something most folks are prepared to fight against.” That was practically the only key advantage you had on most other people. You had other talents, sure, but that was back up information in case the main appeal didn’t go through.

The Ghoul lifted his gun to tip his hat out of his face to get direct eye contact with you. His gaze fell and rose as he examined your form. It made you partly embarrassed as you pulled your wings in closer. He stood there and contemplated for a while until you broke the silence.

You grabbed the goggles from your face and sat them on top of your head. Your vision quickly adjusted to the new light exposed to your eyes. As The Ghoul looked back to your face you saw a bet of shock appear on his face before it was quickly masked again.

“Listen,” You started as your hands quickly began to fidget with one another. “I don't know why but I feel as if I’m supposed to go with you. If I had an explanation of why I would tell you but I don’t except for saying it’s a gut feeling.” The Ghoul’s expression stayed the same which quickly diminished your hope of joining him. Your eyes fell to the ground as you continued to speak.

“I don’t require caps or any sort of compensation for joining since I’m doing this out of complete and utter selflessness.” You were about to continue rambling before The Ghoul let out an exasperated sigh. Your attention brought back to his form. The Ghoul was pinching between his eyebrows as he holstered his gun. A few mumbles left his lips before his gaze finally settled back upon you.

“If you slow me down-” He started to say. You quickly cut him off as the realization that he was actually taking you along settled in.

“I won’t! I promise.” You said cheerfully as your wings slightly lifted from your sides. Your demeanor was probably a bit too cheerful though with how his expression changed.

“We’ll see if you keep that promise.” The Ghoul grumbled as he looked at the setting sun. It had nearly disappeared over the horizon which had put the world in a deep shade of purplish pink. It wouldn't be long before the sun was completely gone to leave the two of you in complete darkness.

However, that didn’t stop the two of you from traveling a bet that night. Your night vision was impeccable and The Ghoul had a lamp to guide his way. You stayed silent as did The Ghoul which hadn’t surprised you much. It had been about four hours of traveling before he finally spoke to inform you that it was time to siddle for the night.

[thatlesbiancrow]

I was digging in a box of my old monster high stuff to try and find clothes i can put my custom doll in until i get around to making her some myself, and i found this:

One of the little diaries that comes with the dolls!

I brought it upstairs with the clothes i snatched and decided to read it, mainly out of guilt for never doing so when i was little.

I didnt expect to cry. i want to go and find all the ones i had and read them now. it feels silly to cry at something like this but i did! it honestly really reassured me about life and stuff. too much has been going on right now and what it said was just really good for me i guess.

I'm so glad these were given to kids. i wonder how many other people they brought comfort to. i wish i read them when i was younger, but i'm glad i read it now.

[ash-rabbit]

Reading Recs for Each Entity

When Magnus ended, I thought back on different media that I've enjoyed, some of them fit very neatly into the dread powers, unsettlingly so in some cases, others not so much. If you enjoyed the show for it's horror, and want more of that, then I've got a list for you.

Assume everything here is rated M and has some gore, death, and general dark themes.

Beneath the cut, because there's 15 of these fears. Feel free to add on if you like. By the way, I'm citing writers, not directors when there's a movie.

Beholding

1984 - by George Orwell: Classic surveillance society. Very boring to start off with classical lit, but it was and still is a relevant commentary on society.

Psycho-Pass - by Gen Urobuchi: Has anyone read Hobbes' 'Leviathan'? It's like if that met psychological horror. This anime engages in what it means to live in a world where crimes can be stopped before their ever committed due to the Psycho-Pass system. This system allows authorities to monitor ones emotional state and likelihood of turning violent. I think there's a brief mention of sexual violence, but it's been a hot minute since I've watched.

Panopticon Theory - by Michel Foucault: Yes, political theory. I've read it multiple times (not by choice) and it offers some interesting insights into the world of the Magnus Archives. It's greatly influenced how I regard the dread powers, that being that Smirke's 14 is incredibly limiting.

Buried

Nutty Putty Caving Incident - A real life news story. The only time I can say I've felt properly horrified and deeply unsettled. If 'Lost John's Cave' was the statement that gave you nightmares, avoid this. It's true and it's tragic.

Corruption

Fate/Zero - by Gen Urobuchi: Another anime by the Urobutcher. If you thought Jane Prentiss was excellent this is the show for you. It's excellent for all sorts of reasons, and engages with other avenues of horror but when I heard the Prentiss statement, I was brought back here. Living hives, magical evil wasp larvae writhing beneath someone's skin, it happens. Your warning is that anything bad that can happen to a child, will happen to children here. I mean it.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - by Oscar Wilde: Moral decay, and it's just a damn good read. It's not conventional Corruption material, but the corruption of one's soul in the pursuit of beauty and pleasure is somewhat fitting I should think. I like it, so it's here. Also Jonah Magnus vibes.

Dark

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - by a bunch of people: it's a movie. Not an orthodox choice but I feel the dark deals better in ignorance then the literal. Err, no spoilers, but nothing particularly bad happens, it just sort of tugs.

The Flowers - Alice Walker: A short story about innocence and ignorance. Not particularly spooky, but it hits you at the end.

Allegory of the Cave - Plato: Just a good preliminary reading that provides an alternate lens. It's not spooky, I just like it.

Desolation

All is Quiet on the Western Front - by Erich Maria Remarque: The effects of war on the youth, child soldiers, and the death of innocence. It's bleak, and miserable, but it's honest and Remarque and his family were persecuted by Nazi-Germany because the book carried 'anti-german' (anti-war) sentiments. There's a movie as well.

Pan's Labyrinth - by Guillermo del Toro: Also anti-war, with bad things happening to good people and children. A bit heavy handed with it's symbolism, but hey it's a two hour movie. Also be prepared to read subtitles. It's very good, and if you haven't seen it, I don't want to say too much.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - by Ken Kesey: There's a more popular movie version as well. Corrupt systems, cutting people down until they fit into a socially appropriate mold. It's fairly dark, and has lobotomies since that was what, the 60s? I watched this in my catholic high schools film studies class, so I don't think there's anything overly egregious. But an interesting lens for the Desolation.

The Count of Monte Cristo - by Alexandre Dumas: For a fun revenge romp. The titular count gets his revenge after everything he's ever loved has been stolen from him and looks to do the same to his betrayers. Err sexual violence happens here as well. A bit of background that might inform the reader: Dumas' father was half black and affected by the 1802 discrimination laws, causing him- a high ranking military officer to be dismissed. The precursor to Monte Cristo, 'Georges' deals more heavily in themes of colonialism and racial discrimination.

End

Masque of the Red Death - by Edgar Allen Poe: You know why this is here. Warning for plague allegories and people not properly social distancing.

Nothing in the Dark - (Twilight Zone): No words needed, it's the Twilight Zone.

Death Parade - by Yuzuru Tachikawa: This is your fun suggestion. It's light for the most part, but there are scenes and moments that will absolutely hit you.

Extinction

Godzilla - A whole bunch of people: Atomic bomb fear during a time of censorship. Everything is an allegory.

Flesh

Tokyo Ghoul - by Sui Ishida: It's the most Magnus-y out of all my suggestions and I desperately want to see a crossover between them. The manga is better as the anime tends to brutalise plot points and water down the horror. Deals with becoming a cannibal, the nature of humanity, and other things. Warning for mentions of child abuse. Kaneki has a sort of - if Martin was the Archivist vibes. Not 1-1 of course, but if I had to make a comparison, that's the one.

Lamb to the Slaughter - by Roald Dahl: Arguably more slaughter, but hey I'm not giving you any warnings. I read this short story for ninth grade english, so I'm sure you can survive this one.

Hunt

Se7en - by Andrew Kevin Walker: A movie about a detective hunting serial killer. It's excellent, there's gruesome murder scenes. It's from the 90s go watch it.

Frankenstein - by Mary Shelley: From the perspective of Mr. Frankenstein it's the terror of being hunted, from the monster's perspective it's the horror of being alone. It's good, a pillar of sci-fi written by a teenager, don't snub this because it's classical lit.

The Bone Collector - by Jeremy Iacone: Another detective hunting a murderer. Also from the 90s and also excellent. Look, the 90s don't pull their punches, it's got blood and lots of it. A favourite film of mine.

Lonely

The Metamorphosis - by Franz Kafka: Turning into a big bug does not a corruption/flesh story make.

Passengers (2016)- by Jon Spaihts: I hate this movie, it's clearly a horror, but they try to pass it as a romance. Anyway, for psychological lonely horror and manipulation, this is a movie for you.

Slaughter

Go watch a classic slasher film. I don't care for senseless violence, so I don't like most of this sort of media.

Read up on a war or a riot. Learn how your nation's government discriminates and persecutes minorities historically and today.

Sweeney Todd - by Hugh Wheeler: The musical is the better known version. Some flesh horror here as well. It's not really senseless, as I think the Slaughter should be, but hey, we need substance here.

Spiral

The Giver - by Lois Lowry: A utopia that is not quite right. Read for school when I was nine, I'm sure you can all live without a warning list.

The Matrix - by the Wachowskis: Reality is an illusion, and the Universe is a hologram.

Truman Show - by Andrew Niccol: You know why this is here.

Stranger

Coraline - by Neil Gaiman: The scariest children's book. Other!Mother and all that jazz are so very Strange.

The Landlady - by Roald Dahl: Taxidermy.

Vast

Lovecraft: I'm sorry, I can only think of him. No one else is so ignorant as to be able to capture the horror of things beyond their ken.

Web

Medea - by Euripides: The God's suck, it's a Greek tragedy, bad things happen to everyone without discrimination. Children are harmed, Medea is dosed by Aphrodite, Jason is literally the worst.

Animal Farm - by George Orwell: It's anti-authoritarian and deals with the mutability of laws and how uneducated masses are sheep. . . literally. You will feel horrified, it's a short read.

There's also some children's story about a spider/snake(?) and gluttony that I've been looking for, for the past year. It's pretty similar to Mr. Spider, but the villain consumes so many victims that he becomes too large to leave his den and is blockaded in by those he terrorized, and it's heavily implied that he starves to death. For the life of me I can't remember a title, but then, it's been 15 or so years.

[secondhand-trash]

Come with the Wind

Kinktober 2020 — knife play

A/N: this is directly inspired by Sakusa’s merch design from the hyakki yakou (hundred ghouls marching at night????) line Jump released a while back where we get kamaitachi!sks and i just thought he was perfect for this prompt hhhhh

Pairing: kamaitcahi!Sakusa Kiyoomi x f!reader

Description: Sakusa Kiyoomi knocked you off your feet the moment he first entered your life as a strong whirlwind out of nowhere.

Warning: mention of causing wounds on people, non-threatening stalking behaviour (?), non-threatening breaking in behaviour (?), knife play but kinda tender, vaginal penetration, creampie

Word count: 3824

(more of the modern magic au here)

-

鎌鼬 (kamaitachi): a youkai in Japanese folklore that looks like a weasel with claws shaped like sickles (for the sake of visual aesthetics kamaitachi sakusa will have it on his tail instead). It is said that this youkai appear in the form of a whirlwind, knocking its victims to the ground before slitting long cuts on their skin. Despite the wounds, the person who got attacked would not feel any pain.

-

Sakusa Kiyoomi knocked you off your feet the moment he first entered your life as a strong whirlwind out of nowhere.

Quite literally, knocking you off balance and making you fall onto the ground on your knees.

He showed up in the form of a strong turbulent, tripping you when you were alone on the quiet streets of your neighbourhood. Sakusa eyed you up and down as you laid on the cement floor, too shocked by the man that appeared out of nowhere to even move. Your eyes widening when you saw the long tail swaying behind him and the sharp hook that was at the very end.

In a world where the inhuman and human lived as one society, the many youkais that had inhabited Japan way before your kind did were starting to blend into the modern city life as well. But there would always be some that could not, or refused to, give up on the way they had lived by far before they were anything but a story passed on from generation to generation.

Except, unlike the generations before, people of the current day now knew for a fact that these monsters lurking in the shadows were very much so real and waiting for a chance to strike when your guard was lowered.

The kamaitachi stared at his victim, finding somewhere to place the wound. The preferable tactic was to do it fast and precise, but Sakusa always had trouble with making a haste decision. Very inconveniently so, he had quite the distaste towards getting blood on himself and would rather pick a position on the delicate human body that would cause less bleeding. 

Blood was messy, and it was hard to wash off of the fleece on his tail once it got on there. He did not like the mess at all.

The purpose of youkais of his kind was not to cause bloodshed. Well, actually, he wasn’t all too sure what the purpose truly was, given that he really wouldn’t gain from any of this. He had simply been told that this was what his kind did, and he carefully followed this task bestowed on him by his origins for more years than any of the measly humans that had been tripped by his wind could count.

So that was what he had been doing ever since he had a memory of his existence, and he intended to finish his task this time around too. But when his eyes met yours, your lips slightly agape as you sat on the ground from the shock, he found that he couldn’t swing the hook of his tail down onto your skin.

His moment of hesitation was enough for you to come back to your senses, climbing up with scrambled steps as you dashed towards the direction of your house without the time to even look back.

Sakusa realised that he was staring at the floor when he snapped out of his trance, letting out a muffled groan as he looked towards the direction you had headed.

What was it? Why didn’t he do it?

Sakusa had never felt so tortured in his many years of life than he did after he let you escaped completely unharmed. He had failed his one job for the first time ever and he wasn’t the happiest about it. This wasn’t right. He couldn’t get you out of his head no matter how hard he tried and it was really, really irritating him. 

It must be that he couldn’t stand having an unfinished job, it must be it.

-

He spent the next few days in the air of the neighbourhood he saw you at, which wasn’t exactly his proudest moment. It was stupid for him to care so much about a random human that got away through luck, but he was determined that he would right his wrong. There were several times when he caught you alone, but he never managed to do it. He spent a lot of time observing you but always missing the prime timing. It could be that he was far too enticed by the book you were reading (which he tried very hard to see the title clearly because he was so far away from you), or he simply got lost in the way you laugh to yourself when you thought no one was watching (he was, in fact, watching), but he always remembered in absolute frustration that he was there for a proper reason when you had left. 

So he kept going back to you again and again, waiting for the chance to make his strike.

Not because he wanted to, absolutely not.

He swore he only found out about where you lived on accident. He wasn’t really intending to be so stalker-ish but one day when he didn’t see you around all day long when he was waiting for you to show up only to spot you pacing down the streets late at night, he thought that it was absolutely foolish for you to be alone at the hour and just had to make sure you got back to your place safely. Humans were very fragile creatures was what he had learned after years of observation, and if you happened to bump into any of the more vicious youkais or worse, vicious humans, then he wouldn’t get to finish his task with you gone.

(He grumbled, as if he wasn’t one of the said dangerous youkais lurking around.)

He had resisted the urge to look into your house. There were youkais that broke into people’s residents but that wasn’t the nature of his kind and he intended to stay in his own lane. But now that he knew where you lived, it was getting harder and harder for him to stay away.

Sakusa was circling the area midair one day when he saw that the door to your tiny balcony was wide open. He felt his eyelids jumped, did no one ever tell you that you should keep all doors and windows locked when you were out? He floated close with a disapproving tsk of his tongue, wanting to help you close it up when he got a brief glimpse of what was behind the window.

He swore to all the gods whose name he could not even remember because they were far too long to utter out that he had never seen a more horrendous sight.

He took a step back, absolutely disgusted. Had humans gotten to this point of their survival now? That they could live in a condition like this? “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself as he tentatively entered your home, careful not to step on anything that was on the ground.

The trash can at the corner was filled to the top and threatening to spill out. He felt a sharp ache banging in his head when he saw the empty boxes piled up at the side. There were bunches of tissue paper shoved onto the back of your table that had no empty space on it with so many things that were scattered on top. Now that he started paying attention, there were marks on your balcony window clearly left behind because you never bothered to wipe it clean after downpours of rain.

Ridiculous. His brows furrowed together in disapproval, picking up any trash on the ground with the hook of his tail as he inspected the place.

This would not do, he would not allow it.

Right, he clicked his tongue as he looked around, searching for anything that resembled a broom, where should he start?

You were sure you must have tired yourself too much that you were starting to see illusions when you came home that night to see the same kamaitachi who had shoved you to the ground and proceed to let you escape furiously wiping your window with a towel hooked onto his tail while grumbling about how stubborn the stains were. You did not dare to move when he must have heard you come in, slowly and stiffly turning around until you two were staring at each other. Neither of you said a word, and you blinked as you tried to make sense of the situation.

You didn’t know that kamaitachis also break into people’s houses just to help with the cleaning?

“Um,” you gulped, feeling small under his inky eyes even though he was the intruder here, “do you want something to drink?”

This was wrong. Kamaitachis were not supposed to mingle with the mankind. He should have escaped through the little gap on the window he had left for ventilation (your house was far too dusty for his comfort), or throw you off by causing a whirlwind inside your tiny city apartment which was guaranteed to make quite the destruction., or just do what he thought he was there to do all along and slit an open wound on any part of your skin.

Sakusa Kiyoomi had a moment of silence when he realised that he didn’t want to do any of those things.

He did, however, really wanted warm tea.

-

Sakusa Kiyoomi made several discoveries about humans after he met you:

1. under the right amount of pressure, they are able to keep up with a hygienic living environment, you were just too lazy for your own good

2. they make really decent tea (you made him this thing where you pour tea onto rice and umeboshi once and he was completely floored)

3. they invite people to move into their residence as a gesture of affection (you had brought it up after he waited outside your balcony for a good hour before you came home and let him in, claiming that he always around anyways

4. youkai-human romances are a thing now and people wouldn’t get burned alive for it (you laughed very hard when he brought up his concerns on why you didn’t have any issues letting your neighbours see you with him, he didn’t understand why)

Oh, and they were soft, very soft. Sakusa held you just a little closer to his chest as you two sat cross legged on the mattress, his arms wrapped around your waist as he leaned his jaw onto your shoulder while you mindlessly played with his tail.

So soft.

“Careful,” he warned when he saw you tracing your finger along the edge of his reaping hook, “you’re going to cut yourself if you slip.”

You chuckled, watching as he flicked his tail as far away from you as he could. “Shouldn’t you want that to happen?” you mused, twisting around so you could see his face. The two dots above his eyebrow shifted as he narrowed his eyes, his lips pursed into one thin line. You could see the very tip of his tiny white ears peeking out of his wavy black curls, twitching ever so slightly.

He sighed, clicking his tongue at your triumphant expression like you had gotten him good. Light reflected on the silver blade as he lifted it up to your eye level, twisting it slowly so that it glimmered. He always kept the blade clean and sharp even though he hadn’t used it since meeting you. You could see your own reflection on the polished surface and you stared into his inky eyes through it.

For a moment, you were mesmerised, and you could hear your own breaths as your gaze travelled to the very tip of the hook which could draw blood even from the slightest bit of force.

“Omi,” you licked your lips and gripped onto his forearm that was around your stomach, “is it true that I wouldn’t feel it even if you slice down?”

His eyes widened, “I’m not hurting you.”

“I know, but is it?”

Sakusa paused, he hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Gently and with caution, he turned his hook to its dull edge and trail it up to your leg. You stiffen at the feeling of the cold metal on your skin, goosebumps rose on your skin where the hook just grazed past. 

“Apparently,” he said, his voice coming out as a whisper as he took in your reaction. Any hint of fear and he would pull back, but you only seemed to lean back against his chest even more as he brushed the blade along your calf. You were so delicate, he could leave such nasty scars on your skin if he did so little as flick down and you knew it. But the heaving of your chest only got more obvious when the edge of his blade reached higher and higher up on your leg until it was pushing up the hem of your shorts.

He stopped when the curved hook was right at the root of your thigh, and pressed the flat edge down.

He nearly lost control of himself when he heard the faintest resemblance of a moan slipping from your mouth.

“Do you like this?”

Your face burned up at the question and the gravel in his tone. His arms slowly pulled away from your waist, warm palms running along the curve of his waist until they were resting right at the side of your hips. Your breath hitched when you felt his fingers digging down and gripping onto the hem, the fabric of your shorts now bunched up around the silver hook.

“Do you like this?” he asked again, the fleece of his tail brushing against your skin as he crooked the tip. You could see it poking under the fabric, pulling it taunt around the edge, and you felt your own voice betraying you at the thought of how easy it would be for him to just ripped it to pieces.

“Yes.”

A loud tear ripped through the room and sent numbing sparks all the way to your scalp as you held your breath in reflectively, the hook gliding across the flimsy fabric of your room wear and dangerously close to the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. 

You whimpered when he slipped his hand under the baggy t-shirt you were wearing, pushing it up until your bare chest was out on display.

“Bite.”

You parted your mouth and took the hem between your teeth, the heat spreading onto the tip of your ears at your lewd position. He brought the sickle up, his eyes bearing at your form when he slowly ran the dull edge down the valley of your breast and onto your stomach. You wanted to arch against him so badly but held yourself still, your shoulders shaking slightly as you did not dare to move.

“I remember how people used to scream when my blade touches their skin,” his lips ghosted on where your neck met your shoulder, warm breath fanning onto you and making every hair on your back stood up. He sniggered when he heard your breath getting heavier when he brought the blade to your front. The chilling metal barely touched your nipple before it pebbled up and stood almost painfully. “But getting aroused... that is a first.”

“O- omi...” you managed to utter his name through your teeth and he brushed against your nipple with a flick, the feeling of steel still lingering on the sensitive bud.

“Look at you getting all antsy,” he clicked his tongue and the sound sent shivers down your spine. He shifted underneath you, hoisting you higher up on his lap. Something hard poked at your ass as he held you still, his erection pressed firmly against you through the shorts that were struggling to hold together.

You let out a pitiful whine when he hooked one nimble finger under the crotch of your panties while the sickle scrapped down from your shoulder to your arm, an inaudible rumble slipping from the back of his throat when he felt the slick that had seeped into the cotton.

Humans, their bodies react in the most fascinating ways.

You froze when the hook brushed past your inner thigh and under the strip of fabric his fingers were holding onto.

“Scared?” he asked, the elastic choking snugly around your skin in tension as he held the hook still, “just one wrong move and I could hurt the most delicate part of your body.”

You pussy couldn’t help but clench around nothing when he cut the last bit of fabric covering you with a forceful pull, the clear essence that was already pooling up all the more obvious when dripped onto the metal.

“Tsk tsk...” 

You could not even press your thighs together to get the friction you so desperately wanted with his hand giving you a squeeze in warning, bringing the hook up to your face as he turned it under the light. 

“You are getting my sickle all dirty,” he said, referring to the shine on the usually spotless surface that was from your arousal. Sakusa’s fingers danced along your inner thigh before bringing them to your sopping folds, brushing past your slit and felt the wetness gushing out.

He brought the hook to his lips and poked his tongue out, the sound of his tongue against the metal where it had just touched your skin forming a blood curling image in your head even though you could only hear him. He twisted his tail, letting his tongue ran along the blade from the base to the tip.

You whimpered when you felt the coldness of his saliva on the blade right at the side of your neck.

“Up.”

You shakily lifted yourself off his lap, getting onto your knees as you waited with bated breath. The sound of zippers had your heart pounding in your chest all while the sharp blade of the reaping hook was starting to make your skin go numb.

He could slit your throat if he wanted to.

Your jaw was aching from how hard you bite down and it only got worse when you felt his tip prodding at your entrance. He signaled you to sink down with a tap of his finger at the side of your hips. You could not hold yourself back anymore as his girth slowly stretched you out, your shirt falling back down over your abdomen as a breathy moan rolled off your tongue. 

“Mph-” your toes curled when he was balls deep inside of you and he tilted your head back until the curve of your neck leaned right on his shoulder with the tip of his sickle, the metal growing warm under your chin as he held you there.

He groaned at the feeling of your tight walls around his cock, the sudden penetration without any foreplay had your cunt now leaking with wetness just to get used to him. 

He slowly started rocking against you before upping his pace. He throbbed inside of you, the heat of him burning into your lower stomach and spreading all over your body. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of your hips, guiding you to roll against him all the while never removing the blade from your neck. You let out a choked mewl when the tip of it trailed down your neck, poking against the fragile skin ever so slightly when he thrust up.

Sakusa had never felt any hint of emotions in his brain when he held his blade at any of his past victims, he did it because that was simply what his kind does and that was it. But when he saw the lighter streaks left on your skin where the tip of his sickle had pressed down on, your breaths rigid but with desire dripping from each heave of your chest, he felt all sorts of feelings screaming in his head until all he could do was lash them out through each merciless rut of his hips.

The sound of his balls slapping against your ass bounced off the walls as you panted, your hands threw back to circle around his neck the blade was pressed down flat on your neck. It almost felt like you were being choked as the metal grew warm on your skin, your eyes seeing white in the corners as your walls contracted around him and his name slurred off your tongue like a mantra.

A low moan rumbled from his chest at your walls clamping down on him and the vibration seeped through your back, making you whimper. You sucked in a hasty breath when the hook was removed from your throat, his tail stiffening up at the side as he felt his own climax getting close. He buried his face at the crook of your neck, muffling his moans as he held you tight against him.

He came with a shudder, his hands still clutching you tightly before his muscles relaxed and he slumped onto your body. Your lips parted to let out a soft sigh at the feeling of his release inside of you, the sticky substance slowly leaking out of your fluttering folds down onto the base of his cock with him still buried inside of you. 

His tail, the part that was just fur and not blade, rubbed soothingly against your waist as he gently lifted you off his lap. You whimpered at the feeling of his warmth leaving your body, the sudden emptiness making your still sensitive walls clenched and more of his cum trailed down. Turning you around so that you could lay on his chest, you listened to his heartbeats slowly easing down from the rapid beating as it rose and fell underneath your chin.

His tail was swung over your back, locking you in as his palm ran up and down on your back. You brushed at the white fleece with your finger, a light coo slipping past your lips at how soft it was. It was a wonder how just a few inches down and the fur would blend in with the unbending steel of his sickle.

“You know,” you said, still relishing in the feeling of his fur brushing past your finger tip, “sometimes I’m really glad that you tried to attack me that day.”

He huffed, “You mean you’re glad I didn’t actually do it?”

“Well,” you looked up, smiling a little as you stared into his inky eyes, “you would not be here if you didn’t stalk me weeks after that because you let me went away.”

“I did not stalk you.”

“Yes you did!” you laughed when he rolled his eyes. You paused, letting out a short hum before leaning your jaw on his chest again.

“I’m happy you did though.”

He looked down at your murmur, and closed his eyes as he took in your scent with his face buried into your hair.

Sakusa Kiyoomi came into your life as a strange, sudden whirlwind and in a stunning twist of events against his very nature, he stayed.

And he was very happy he did that too.

[mxtcha-tea]

Ruby Chocolate.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷Neither bitter, milky or sweet, but a tension of fresh berry fruitiness; 47.3% cocoa solids; doesn’t have a definite trait but rather seen as mysterious and unique.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷summary; looking for lost souls with the laziest person in campus is probably the dumbest idea your homeroom teacher can think of, or is it?

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷genre; one-sided enemies to lover, brief mentions of the afterlife and concept of souls and ghouls (non of it are true and is for plot purpose only), fluff and crack all mixed together at some point, slight angst but not too sed, dark academia au, reader being in denial that they love Suna, slight college au vibes but dark academia theme of course, [if there’s anything else I forgot to add, feel free to remind me :)]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷word count; 10k+ [of confusion]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷featuring; suna rintarou + gn!reader [they/them pronouns] [If they’re any parts that I miss, remind me mkay? :)]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷chef note; AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I don’t know if I like it, my brain kept saying pog at it i mean, sdksdhsk, just read it all by yourself :’) also I’m gonna let you all figure out the timestamps for each section break ;)

“I refuse,”

Those words left your mouth in an instant before the teacher could even finish her sentences. The person next to you took a glance at you before briefly shrugging. Your homeroom teacher looks between you and the male with a frown on her face,

“Don’t be like that [y/n], it’s only for a week. If you don’t have any reports about it, then we’ll get the higher grounds to deal with the case,”

“That’s, not the problem here, Miss Mochizuki. The ACTUAL problem that I have for this case though,”

You turned your head and glared slightly at the almost too familiar, fox-like eyes person with his hands messily tucked inside his jacket, “Is because he’s tagging along with me,”

Suna Rintarou.

One of the, no, the laziest person on the whole campus, might be even the entire land. There are a lot of reasons why you hated him. Suna’s always late to class and doesn’t even acknowledge the teacher nagging at him.

He always eats and sleeps in class whenever he can, not to mention that he’s absolutely irresponsible. You have a hard time trying to study, paying attention to what the teachers are saying with his figure draping over his desk from the corner of your eyes.

Or the loud and obnoxious sounds of him eating the chips he sneaked in. It’s driving you crazy every time, but that’s only the minor reasons.

The real reason you hold a grudge on this immature ‘Tibetan Sand Fox’ is because of that one freshman memory you had with him. Back when autumn already ended, you rolled onto the kingdom’s academies to pursue your career. But this man…

He really had to destroy your first impression in front of the whole academy. You’re on your way to go to your classroom to prepare for the ice breaking session, looking calm as ever.

Unlike this guy, he’s rushing to put his coat on and looks like he’s late for something. Suna at first glance, he looks like a pretty decent person and you’re going to admit that you did find him attractive at first.

The twinkling lights coming from his enchanting yellow irises and the mere look of his soft dark brown hair fits perfectly well with him. That’s what you thought before, until he bumped into you without looking and spilled the coffee in his hands to your shirt.

It stained the white material so badly and left a big spot right on your chest. Both of your eyes widened at that and caught each other’s eyes,

“Sorry,”

That was the last thing and only thing he said before walking away, leaving you to deal with the embarrassment alone. The surrounding students watched you with pity and whispered to each other rather than helping you clean up.

You can definitely feel your cheeks heating at the stares you’re getting, biting the insides of your mouth before quickly picking up the coffee lid that fell down from Suna’s cup and walking away to find the bathroom.

What’s even worse after that is you didn’t know where the bathroom is so you had to ask the students around, while still having the stain on your shirt.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for at least one of them to tell you the direction, giving you a nod of pity because of your condition now. You nodded at them back before speed walking towards the bathroom with your hand covering your face in humiliation.

At least you have spare clothes inside your bag and then after changing, you went on your way as if nothing ever happened before. But the memory still stuck inside your head like a magnet.

Now, you’re standing there with him besides you, because you got called by your homeroom teacher to ask you two for a favor.

From what she said, the lost souls from section 5 escaped and are now roaming the old academy’s library. And she had requested both you and Suna to find all 10 of them. Together.

Albeit knowing your situation with the male, she still pestered you to go with him as a ‘bonding’ moment to ease up the tension between you two. It annoys you, but Suna doesn’t seem to even care about it.

“I’d asked some other students from your class but they declined, and I can’t ask for your seniors because they’re preparing for an exam next month,”

You slightly massaged your temple in frustration, shutting your eyes while you’re at it. You can feel Suna’s stare creating a hole at the back of your head. You don’t really know what he’s thinking since you’re not a mind reader, but you can already tell that he’s looking at you as if you’re a fool in distress.

A groan escaped your lips before opening your eyes again and stare into Miss Mochizuki's eyes with a bored expression, “Fine,”

“I’ll do it,”

You can hear a slight cough coming from your left as you turn your head once again at the fox, “Correction, we’ll do it,”

His pupils shifted from you to your teacher while nodding a little. She clapped her hands in relief, the usual smile she has returning to her face, “Thank goodness, I hope you two stand by your statement and I better see your faces in the dining hall tomorrow,”

Before you can even respond, he cuts you off. Great, “No problem, and you can count on us of course,”

You scoffed, more like you’re the only one doing all the jobs. You nodded at your teacher for the last time before you turned on your heel and walked away.

The sounds of the footsteps behind you are getting louder and louder the more you try to speed walk back to your dorm. You stopped in your tracks and so did the footsteps of a certain person.

A glance was brought to Suna’s view before you fully turned your body to face him, slouching slightly with his terrible figure, “What do you want?”

“Aren’t we like, you know, supposed to find out how to catch these so called ‘souls’,”

“They already thought us how in the class session just a week ago,”

He tilted his head slightly, rubbing the back of his neck, “I didn’t hear what the teach says,”

Of course. You scowled at him before looking away, “Well, you can learn it again all by yourself before tomorrow comes-”

Before you can even walk away again, he got a hold of your wrist and spun you around to face him. His eyes stares into yours for a slight second before he opened his mouth,

“You know that I have trouble studying alone, so I need your help to teach me about these souls things or whatever,” “And why would I?”

You yanked your hand away from his grip, rubbing your wrist slightly. Suna sighed,

“Look, I may not know a lot about this, but catching one of ’em seemed like a tough job for only one person to handle, isn’t it?”

No responses from you, but you didn’t seem to deny it by the look on your face, so he continued, 

“If you can teach me how to catch these souls back to where they belong, it would’ve been easier and you don’t have to spend your precious time on me for too long,”

As much as you hate to admit it, he has a point. Suna always knew about your hatred towards him, whether it’s from your cold stares at him to you brushing him off every time he approaches you to ask a question.

It’s pretty obvious, since you always avoid him no matter what. He doesn’t take it to heart cause he had experienced it when he was a kid. But at some point, those indifferent you have towards him felt slightly painful.

As if he doesn’t really like it that you hate him, or the fact that he looks up to you. How can anyone not?

You’re enchantingly alluring not to mention one of the top students in his year. You never fail any tests and seem like a people magnet, always talking to everyone you come across to.

He felt small around you and to be paired in a case together? He thought you can just stomp on him like he’s nothing.

But, it’s a great opportunity too. Like what Miss Mochizuki said, it could be a bonding moment for the two of you. And for him to prove you that he’s not a bad person like what you see him to be.

Suna can feel his heart beating a million times an hour, locked in your unwavering stare before you shake your head, “After lunch break, we’re going to the library,”

He blinked in surprise and before he can react, you started walking away but stopped again, standing there for a second,

“Don’t be late,”

That’s the last thing you said before leaving him dumbfounded on his spot. He watches your figure fade away from his vision as he sighed. A small smile twitched upon his facial features,

“Can’t promise that,”

“This simpleton, I swear to god,”

You tapped your foot with impatience, looking at both your left and right trying to find the slouching figure of Suna Rintarou but he still hasn't come even after 13 minutes of you waiting inside the library.

The people inside quivers a bit at the dark aura radiating from you and literally anyone from a 5 miles distance can certainly feel it.

A chuckle can be heard besides you as you turn your head around to see none other than your friend from the same classroom,

“Still waiting huh?”

“That’s the problem here, Keiji!  He’s so irresponsible with whatever task was given. I told him to arrive after lunch break and yet, that fool still haven’t show his head anywhere,”

You ranted to him before going back to tapping your foot while having your arms crossed, huffing frustratedly. Akaashi Keiji, who is also one of the top students of the academy and your closest friend in the classroom,

“I think I saw him still being in the dining hall, talking with his friends from the other class,”

“HE IS?!”

Akaashi flinched at your sudden outburst, you realized what you had done and mumbled an apology before looking away. The male sighed, a small smile appearing on his face, “You shouldn’t go hard on him. I mean, this is the first time he had ever agreed to study,”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” you caught his eyes, showing a small glint of mischief, “What I’m saying is that Rintarou always decline my offer to have a study session with him,”

“Yeah, I know that it’s not surprising that he declined it since he’s not the type to study as you can tell. But what’s bizarre is that Rintarou asked you to tutor him without a second thought when the case was brought to you two, and without hesitating. Don’t you find that weird?”

You shrugged, “It’s good that he got that inside his head but to be honestly, it is kind of weird. Also, why did you even offer to tutor him in the first place, Keiji?”

The ravenette chuckled slightly, turning his head around to look back at you, “Well, did you actually know that-”

And before he can finish his sentences, the tall brunette that you had been waiting for arrived in front of you. Both you and Akaashi stopped your conversation to look at his panting form, probably from the running he did.

Suna quickly put his head up and looks between you and Akaashi before opening his mouth, “Hey,”

Without even hesitating you aggressively pull his collar shirt and drags him inside the library, nagging him for being late,

“You’re late, I told you not to but you didn’t listen to me and decided to hang out with your friends at the dining hall,”

“What, how did you know that I was there?”

“Don’t change the subject,”

“Geez fine, also i’m not really that late,”

“I’ve waited for 13 minutes,”

“Doesn’t seem too long for me,”

“Just go grab a book so that we can start already,”

“Yes, ma’am,”

Akaashi watches you walk away with the tall lad before snickering to himself, going back to finding another book to read.

You slam the book down as you can see the male’s figure flinched at your action from the corner of your eyes. You did nothing but give him a cold side eye, sighing and proceed to open the book.

Suna watches you flip through the pages, brushing your thumb on the title every second to check the words before finally finding the subject you’re looking for.

You slide the book to him to show the page you’re in, “Here it is. Go read it by yourself,”

The male looks at the book, then at you and then back to the book. He held onto the cover and scanned the words one by one. After reading for a minimum of 6 words, he puts the book down.

You confusedly look at him, “Why did you stop reading?”

“Too many words,” he can hear you sighing for the nth time before the pages of the book are squeezed up to his face, “There’s no way you can just catch the souls without reading what they are, just read it! It’s not that hard,”

“Pfft, yes it is. I don’t even like to read books in the first place,” both of you struggled with each other, him trying to push the book away from his face while you’re trying to smack on it.

He finally got a good hold on it and put it down back on the table, “I already told you that reading is no good for me, I literally can’t learn anything by just looking at words,”

You glared at him with a black aura coming from you. Suna shivers at that, sweat dropping before putting both of his hands up to show mercy. Your eyes then turn back to its original annoyed look as you rest your forehead on top of your palm.

His eyes stare at your figure, blinking a few times, “You know, you can just properly tutor me on how these souls work, explaining it or something,”

Suna flinched when you shot your head up and directly turn your pupils at him, “Yeah, sure, I don’t mind,”

But he did certainly saw you rolling your eyes, taking the book in front of him and scanned the sentences for only a few seconds before putting your eyes back at him,

“Do you have a notebook and a pen with you?”

“Am I seeing this right?”

Akaashi turned his head to his senior, resting his arm over the table he’s sitting at. Konoha stares at both of you and Suna’s figure talking about the subject in hand, and surprisingly enough, the brunette even has the energy to write what you’re explaining to him.

“Is the infamous Suna Rintarou is actually studying with the person who hated him the most?” “We live in a weird world, Konoha. Maybe this is god’s work to get them to be nice with each other,”

Konoha snickered before turning his head at a certain owl like person and after a few minutes, his face contorted into an annoyed look,

“Bokuto, how long are you going to pick a book??”

“Sorry! Wait, I think I found one!”

“Well, then hurry up,”

“No need to rush me out, I got this!”

A chorus of ‘shhh’ filled in the room as Bokuto sheepishly mumbled an apology before quickly grabbing the book. Akaashi sighed while Konoha shakes his head at his classmate’s antics.

Suna tapped his pen onto his notebook, filled with words that seemed like only he can understand and a few doodles, looking back at you explaining the concept of souls to him,

“Now you know what souls are?” The male nodded, briefly taking a glance at his notebook again,

“These souls are basically dead people from the past that didn’t make it through the barrier between this world and the afterlife. They’re harmless so it won’t be a problem for people to encounter them,”

You snap your fingers at his response, “Correct, and are souls and ghouls the same thing?” You asked again, “No, not at all,”

“A ghoul is more like an entity that robs graves and feeds on corpse, they’re pretty harmful so hafta avoid ‘em at all cost,”

A hum of affirmation and nod was sent his way as he sighs in relief, finally understanding the concept. And thought to himself, that you’re a pretty good tutor, not that he’ll admit it in front of your face though.

You read back the content inside the book while waiting for Suna to finish writing the remaining notes down. And to slightly collect your thoughts. Despite never hearing anything in class, he’s actually a quick learner and is a good listener when he tries to be.

Not to mention that he sometimes crack a joke or two to lighten up the mood, and unfortunate enough, he caught you snickering at one of his bad jokes,

“Are you actually laughing right now?”

“What are you talking about,”

“Oh playing dumb now huh? I didn’t know you’re that kind of type but you totally did laugh at my jokes,”

“No, I didn’t,”

“Pfft, yes you did, ma’am. There’s no need to deny it,”

You hit his head with his notebook with a small ‘oof’ in response, “Shut up and get back to work,”

And you’re actually...enjoying tutoring him right now- No, you’re only here to teach this idiot of a person about souls and how to catch it and that’s it. You have also tutored a few students before inside the library and at the same spot,

But why does it feel different with him?

“Now that we already covered that part, let’s get to the real point here; how to catch souls,”

You hold out your hand to him as Suna puts his notebook onto your palm, watching you take it and start sketching onto it. He leaned a bit from his spot to see you drawing out a picture of a gas lamp.

After finished sketching it, you show the book to him and started explaining again, “As you can tell, this gas lamp is the main tool of catching the souls,”

“Basically, when we light up the lamp, it’ll absorb any type of lights surrounding it which includes the souls. It’s confirmed souls are made out of lights so when exposed to any main source of lights, they’ll get trapped inside it, which is also the reason why…”

You waited a bit, averting your eyes at him. He does the same, but with confusion before it clicked right into him. His mouth turned into an ‘o’ shape, continuing your statement,

“-they roam at night, so that they won’t be exposed and absorbed by the sun,”

“Exactly,”

Suna nodded, feeling a little bit smart and it might be just him but he thought he saw your mouth twitched into a small smile just now. But it’s barely even visible so he won’t trust his brain this time, though he hoped that you’re happy that he’s finally understanding it,

“And that’s all,” “That’s all?” “Yep, tomorrow we meet up at the dining hall after dinner, then we can start preparing for the search,”

You close the book and put it back to it’s shelf, you hand him his pen back as he takes it from you. His cheeks tinged a bit at how briefly your fingers brushed his. He tried to not make it obvious but he can’t help but fluster at the mere touch,

“I hope you won’t be late this time…” He flinched at your tone to see you glaring at him, but it somewhat, a little bit toned down than what you usually do. Then again, he still nodded as your stare softened almost too quickly,

“Good, see you then,”

And then, something that he didn’t expect from you happened. You hold out your hand and wave at him before walking out of the library. He blinked, did you just wave him goodbye?

No, that seemed impossible coming from a person like you, the one that hated him the most. You didn’t care about him or even acknowledge him in the first place, you’re only doing this for the case. Or did you even hate him in the first  place?

Suna blushed bright red at that thought before hearing Akaashi said to him,

“Well, that doesn’t seem very [y/n] at all, don’t you think,” He turned around to see the ravenette smirking at him, taking a seat at where you previously sat at, “Do you know what that means Akaashi?”

“Hm, maybe they started getting comfortable with you, but you’ll never know right? Maybe you should watch them closely more often,”

The brunette looks down at his note, scanning your sketch of the gas lamp while brushing the thin lines with his fingers.

Do you even hate him?

You walked through the halls after exiting the library but then stopped next to the big glass window. You stood there, frozen as if you had turned into stone,

“[Y/N], WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS??”

You whispered yelled to yourself while lightly slapping your face to get your head back to reality. Sure, you do hate him right? You hate him so much because of the freshman memories and the way he’s just very ignorant in class.

And the way his lean body figure just draped over his desk, showing his toned muscles behind his tight white collar shirt. And the way he’ll just lean over you whenever he wanted to ask a question, his handsome face and beautiful eyes scanning your figure-

“NOOO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???”

Your hand tugged the hem of your shirt, biting your lips at the thought as your face heated up. You scoffed, shaking your head before speed walking away from the halls with a hesitant smile on your face, truly believing that you hate Suna Rintarou.

It’s true that you hate him, you even admitted it to yourself and everyone else. You really hate him for the things he’s irresponsible for and the things he’d done to you,

So, why is it so hard to hate him now?

“DUDE, YOU WHAT??”

“TSUMU, STOP BEING SO LOUD, I’M TRYNA TO MAKE SOME FOOD,”

“WHY’RE YA EVEN MAKIN’ FOOD INSIDE OUR DORM IN THE FIRST PLACE,”

A pillow smacked into Atsumu’s face as he glared at Ginjima who threw it at him, “You both are too loud, quiet down or else we’ll get nagged again!” “Sheesh,” the blonde scoffed before launching onto his bed and throwing the pillow back at Ginjima,

“So, back to Mr.hated-by-[y/n]-[l/n] situation-” “-that name’s suck-” “-shaddup, samu- anyways, do y'all start going good or something? Hm?” he rested his head onto his pillow, looking into his friend’s eyes,

“Nah, we’re still on the bad side I think,” “Pfft, you think? Suna, we heard the news, they’re literally into you now that you show yer ‘cool’ side to them,”

Suna cringed at that before rolling his eyes and reading back the book in his hands, “Also, when did ya even start reading books all of the sudden? I thought you hated eating words,”

“Eating what?” Osamu looks at his twin brother with a confused expression, the bowl of rice in his hand was half eaten along with the omelette in front of him,

“That’s literally what Suna said when he read books for the first time,”

Ginjima snickered at that memory and looks at Suna, “Pfft yeah, he even said that it doesn’t taste good,”

All of them, except Suna, laughed at that while the brunette just scoffed before the door of their room was opened, “Omi-omi! How's the bath? Hm?”

“Shut up, Miya,” Sakusa spite at him as he can see Osamu looking up from his bowl of rice with an offended look, “ The blonde Miya,” and with only that, he softened up and went back to chewing his food.

Komori followed him from behind before plopping down onto his bed, which is next to Sakusa’s. He then looks at Suna with a mischievous smile,

“Heard the news Rin, is it true though?” “It came from Akaashi, of course it’s true,” Atsumu answered for him, having his hands behind his head while staring at the top bunk, where Ginjima sleeps at,

“Well, technically and no, I wanna hear it from the man himself,”

“Am I seriously getting interrogated right now,”

“Apparently,” Ginjima shrugged, turning his body around to look at Suna. The latter sighs before quickly closing the book he’s reading, “I don’t want to answer more stupid questions so, good night!”

He turned off the only lamp switch, that is miraculously next to him as the room turned dark. The sounds of the groaning and slight screams of frustration can be heard inside as they complained,

“SUNA, TURN ON THE LIGHT BACK ON, I’M NOT FINISHED EATING YET!”

“THAT’S WHY I TOLD YOU TO EAT OUTSIDE, FOR GOD SAKES,”

“RIN, IT’S NOT NIGHT TIME YET, OPEN THE LAMP BACK ON,”

“SHUT UP, TSUMU. I EAT WHEN I WANT TO,”

“Rintarou, open the lamp,”

“WHY THE HELL DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS RIN??”

“YOU’LL GET YOUR STUPID RICE EVERYWHERE ON THE FLOOR,”

“THEN, HOW ABOUT YOU BE A USEFUL THING AND CLEAN IT UP,”

“WHAT?! NO, THAT GROSS,”

“IF NONE OF YOU SHUT UP, I’LL CALL MR.OYAMA TO YELL AT YOU ALL!”

The sound of their senior’s voice shuts them up in an instant as Suna quickly turn the lights back on and pretend to read the book he’s reading just now, though it’s upside down,

“This is why I propose that I’m the one who should sleep next to the lamp switch,”

“Oh, shut up you would literally do the same,”

“NO, I WON’T,”

“YES, YOU WOULD,”

“WHY’RE YOU TWO EVEN ARGUING ABOUT THIS, OH GOD-”

“WHAT DID I JUST SAID?!”

And then they’re back to silence. Sakusa sighed, opening his notebook to study back the last session.

You walked through the dark halls, lighted up with only candles as you turned to the right to head towards the dining hall. And much to your surprise, Suna’s already there.

Leaning against one of the pillars while lightly tapping his foot. Then he caught your figure and hold out his hand to greet your arrival, “Hey, you’re late,”

You scoffed at that, standing in front of him with your hands on your hips, “I just came right on time, so I wasn’t late. But you came earlier than last time, did your friend just ditch you?”

He hold up a hand to his chest, pretending to be offended by your words, “Ouch, at least compliment me for being earlier than you,” Which earns an unamused sigh from you as you look around the halls,

“Whatever, do you have all the preparations?” “Yep,”

The male patted the bag wrapped around his shoulder as he lifted up a gas lamp from his other hand, “Good. Now, should we get going?”

“Obviously, but do you actually know where the old library is?” “Of course,”

You motioned him to follow you as you walked towards the end of the dining hall room, a door was placed at the very corner as you searched through your coat’s pocket and pull out a key,

“How come I never saw this door before,” “I didn’t notice too at first, but I think the more you look around, the more you notice things,”

The lock let out a click as you removed the lock from the door before opening it as the fresh night air hit Suna’s face. He shivered slightly, shaking his head a bit and started following you out from the door.

And just like that, the view of the old academy’s library came to his view as he looked up at the tall building. The sound of the crows can also be heard, a murder of it can be seen resting on one of the tree’s branches.

It’s a full moon today so it gave both of you enough light to see around the dark and lonesome night.

It was mere silence between you two as you walked through the plain grass towards the library’s main gate, looking rusty as ever. You tried opening the metal gate but unable to by how rusty it became after years of abandonment, “Let me,”

Suna put a hand up to try to open it and you let him, retreating a bit. But you didn’t know that his method of opening is this.

Without a second thought, he kicked the metal door open as the ear screeching sound echoed through the skies, making the crows fly in fear, “You idiot,”

You smacked his shoulder as he groaned in pain at the surprisingly hard smack, rubbing his shoulder while he’s at it. You went inside the gate without sparing a glance at him and walked straight towards the library’s entrance.

Suna quickly follows from behind and stares at the big and gloomy door. You did the same, you knew that these souls were absolutely harmless and had no way of hurting both of you.

But you truly can’t deny the eerie feeling by just the look of the door, “What, you’re scared?”

You flinched at his statement, turning your head around to see a small smirk plastered on his smug little face. You scoffed at that and shook your head, “Good riddance,”

Why’re your heart beating faster right now? Is it because you’re actually that scared with what’s about to come? You had come this far from tutoring him to trying to find the right tools and yet, you find yourself in a slightly shivering form.

Or is it because you’re nervous that you would be truly alone with this brunette. You hated him, so why would you be nervous to be around him all alone. Hated…

How weird. You tried to calm down your beating heart and wonder if Suna’s actually feeling the same thing-

‘No, [y/n] focus, now’s not the time,’ you thought, shaking your head a bit.

Little did you know though, the person next to you is feeling the same emotions as yours. Finally, alone with only you and himself, he’s quite nervous isn’t he? Awfully obvious, he can already hear Atsumu mocking him for that,

Oh well, at least he had to be ready for what’s about to come.

“Hey, we’re going to turn on the lamp now, you’re ready?”

“Always has been,” Suna said almost too quickly while still staring at the library’s door.

You look at him with surprise at his quick response. Why’s he suddenly confident with all this? But you took it no mind as you just nodded and pulled out your lamp and a box of matches. You light one of it before gently burning the rope inside the lamp.

You did the same with Suna’s before taking a deep breath. You look at Suna for one last time as you get a nod of affirmation from him. He slowly opens up the door as it creates a terrible screek before hitting the wall.

And the last thing you hear from the male is a chuckle with a smirk on his face,

“This is gonna be interesting,”

It was silence. Only silence and the sounds of your footsteps roaming around the lonely and empty library. The insides of the building are horribly dark as you can see books scattering all over the place with the only lights coming from the lamp.

Torned up completely. Suna takes the lead, shining every corner of the room you’re in to try to find a familiar white light floating around, “Hey, you found anything?”

The male stopped on his tracks before turning around to look at you, shaking his head as in he hadn't found anything. You sighed, moving the lamp in your hand around a bit more before finding a stack of stairs heading to the second floor,

“Let’s check the next floor,”

Suna just nodded and headed towards it. He checked for any cracks or holes before confirming that it’s safe. He sent a nod at you as the two of you started going up stairs.

And at that moment, he remembered back what Akaashi said to him back at the library. Why do these unimportant flashbacks always happen during the baddest time? He sighs quietly to himself as he recalled what the ravenette had said;

“If you really want to impress them, show them that you’re responsible for any kind of situation, no matter what. I know that you’re a very lazy person but at least put some effort in making yourself look good to them,”

“Also, I think you should just tell them the truth when you get there, It’s better than keeping it a secret no matter how painful you felt admitting it,”

At that exact moment, he can instantly hear a crack spreading and in an instant turns his head towards you, catching a glimpse of your face contorted into fear. Without any hesitation, Suna quickly grabbed your wrist and pulled you towards him as the staircase collapsed underneath you two.

Both of you tried to catch your breath from the sudden event, sweating profusely but thankfully, you’re safe without a scratch. When you finally collected your minds, you realized the situation you’re in with him,

You’re awkwardly on top of him, with your legs in between his thighs and your head rested on his shoulder, his hand is on top of your head while the other is still gripping your wrist.

A blink before you quickly stand up from that position and look for your lamp. Thankfully, the glass didn’t shatter but Suna’s though…

“Sorry, uh, wait, where’s your lamp?”

He sat up, rubbing his head at the impact it had with the floor before looking at you and turning his head to his right, finding the lamp shattered as the pieces scattered all over the floor with the flame died out.

A sigh escaped his lips before standing up and dusted himself, “I guess we had to use yours now huh,”

“Unfortunately, c’mone, the more we find it, the less we had to spend our time here,”

Suna nodded at that, but tilted his head a bit when your figure’s still standing there in front of him, “Hey, you okay? Do you want to take a rest? We can like, I don’t know, maybe sit here for a bit then we can-”

“Suna,”

He froze when he heard his name rolled off from your tongue as he watched your back with his eyes widened. You never said his name before, it’s always ‘you’, ‘idiot’ or ‘Tibetan Sand Fox’, for some weird reasons. But now that he really heard his name,

His real name coming from you, he felt weird but it’s...nice,

“Thanks for just now. For me to say that I was surprised, was obvious but you do have fast reflexes so, yeah, thanks, I guess,”

You can feel his stare at the back of your head as you bite the inside of your cheeks and start walking away to the room in front of you.

He still stood there, completely dumbfounded with the change of behavior that you’re having right now. But it’s fine, he might get used to it, the more often he stay in this old library with you-

“SUNA! HURRY UP!” His mind got cut off before slapping his face slightly, “Coming!”

“Are we seriously going to be here all night…?”

Both of you sat on the wall near the now 3rd floor, you covered your face with your hand in frustration while the latter searched through his bag and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

He opens up the wrapper, cutting the bar into two but accidently making it uneven. He hummed, looking at both of the pieces before shrugging and handing you the bigger piece.

You look at the chocolate before hesitantly taking it from his hand. The chocolate looked slightly bizarre than the ones you had seen before, the color is not typically chocolate like all chocolates should be,

But rather in a pretty shade of pink, “Where did you get this?”

Suna looks at you while taking a bite of his chocolate, “Well, one of my friends is a good cook so we made this inside the dorm,” “Inside the dorm??”

He can see the confusion plastered on your face as he chuckled, “Yeah, he’s hungry all the time so we do this often inside our room. Got nagged a lot by seniors but all's well. Also, if you’re wondering, we’ve actually put some berries inside it, got a bit of a fruity taste,”

You look back at the chocolate with suspicion before going to take a bite. Your eyes widened as you bite the piece off and started munching on it,

“This...tastes pretty good,”

“I know right? He’s a bit of a weirdo tho but means well,”

You coughed at his statement and let out a laugh. Suna stopped mid biting the chocolate, watching you laugh your heart out as he could feel a slight pain to his chest.

The laugh soon died down as you turned your head at him with confusion, he quickly looked away with hot red cheeks, “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,”

You watch him biting off his chocolate rather aggressively with a frown on his face, and now red cheeks. Thankfully, the room is dark enough to cover the redness spreading across his face,

“Don’t lie to me, idiot. You thought my laugh was ugly didn’t you? So much for me to finally warming up to you,”

“I didn’t say that- wait, what,”

Why’s everything happening so fast for him to comprehend. You averted your eyes at him while eating your chocolate, you realized what you had said before blushing a bit, “Uh, I didn’t mean that, no, wait- the point is that,”

He watches you looking away from his view while crumpling the wrapper, “I, think I enjoyed spending my time with you, no matter how truly impossible it is to believe, I actually...”

Your beautiful eyes stare into his as a small smile plastered over your face, “..don’t hate you anymore, in fact, I, really wanted to be by your side all the time after that stupid, problematic study session that we have that I started realizing,”

He swallowed down the saliva collecting up on his throat as he can feel his heart is about to beat out of his chest, he’s afraid that you might hear it too,

“But I still won’t forgive you for that terrible freshman memory,” and just like that, your smile fades away as if it’s never there in the first place. Suna frowned at that as he recalled the old memory,

“Oh, you mean that time I spilled my coffee onto your shirt?”

“Obviously, and it annoys me anytime I think about it,”

Your tone was back to how it was, like how you used to talk to him before. You stand up from the floor and dust yourself, grabbing the lamp that was next to you. But this time, you’re giving him a hand as he, without a doubt grabs it and stand up as well,

“Well, I’m sorry about that but can you, actually hear my part of the story?” You tensed up at that,

“Your part?”

He merely nodded before opening his mouth,

“Sorry,”

Suna said with panic lacing his voice as he looked around for a brief second and walking away from the direction you came from. He jogged slightly, finally deciding to throw the coffee cup away and try to find-

He stopped in his tracks before finding a box of tissue near the canteen. He grabbed a few of them before jogging back to where he left you. But you’re nowhere to be seen, only a puddle of coffee left on the floor as the students tried to avoid stepping on it,

“Oh god,”

“YOU REALLY ARE AN IDIOT, AREN’T YOU??”

He flinched a bit when you smacked his shoulders a couple of times after he explained, “You could’ve just help me clean up and not walk away trying to find tissues,”

“I was late for my class and I was panicking okay?? I wasn’t thinking straight and again, I’m sorry!”

You huffed, smacking for the last time before speed walking away towards the 4th and last floor with Suna trying to catch up to you, “Honestly, on second thought, I think I can go back to hating you,”

“What do you mean by that?? You already told me that you didn’t hate me anymore,”

“I take it back, not only you’re irresponsible but you’re truly unable to make the right choices at a given time,”

“Oh c’mone, how many times you’re going to say that-”

His footsteps stopped as he stood there frozen in his tracks and eyes widened. You heard him get cut off by himself as you hesitantly turned your body around to face him, 

“Suna?”

He, can hear them. It’s been years now, but now that he heard them again, it felt awfully strange. His ears started ringing a terrible high pitched scream before it turned into silence again with your voice calling him out,

“Suna! What’re you still standing there? Hurry up, we need to finish this-”

The male grabbed your wrist that was holding the lamp, opening the glass’s cover and blow the flame out as only pitch black welcomed you two,

“SUNA! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?? NOW WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE 4TH FLOOR AND EXIT IS! WHY’RE YOU LIKE THIS-”

“Just shut up and follow me,”

You immediately stopped your yellings and shivered slightly at how close his voice is next to your ear. You wanted to deny that and just start nagging him again, but something in his voice says that...he knows what he’s about to do.

You nodded slightly and let him drag you around. His hold on your wrist is still there, squeezing it in reassurance before he slowly walked towards the right side.

Both of you walked for what felt like an hour with only silence surrounding you two as he came across another staircase. Suna released the grip on your wrist, wrapping his hands around your back to guide you up,

“We’re gonna go slowly, okay?”

You nodded, and with that, you two started going up the stairs one by one. He gave you a small push from the back as a sign you’re going up the stairs. And when you two finally came to the 4th floor, you could see a small light coming from the corner of your eyes.

And there you finally see it. All of the 10 souls roaming around the library. It’s sad and lonesome faces look around everywhere and their liquidity like body twitched every second,

“Stay right here,”

You shot your eyes at Suna before he let go off his grip from your back and walk towards the souls. What is he doing? Both of you have no light source right now so it’s impossible to catch them with mere hands-

“Hey,”

The brunette started, looking at the white entity as it’s body slowly turned around to face him. The two of them stare at each other for a bit before Suna started talking again,

“You are? Huh, don’t worry, you’re safe with us,”

He wrapped his arms around the soul and, it didn't go through. Your eyes widened at that, did he really just...touched one? But it’s impossible for a mere mortal to just touch a dead being just like that,

“Almost every single human can’t touch a soul because of its non-existent matter since they’re basically dead. But there are rumors going around that there’s at least 1 in each kingdom that can touch a soul, and while they’re at it, they can also-”

“Suna, you can talk to souls?”

He turned his head around to look at you, watching him petting the soul slowly before stopping. The soul that he hugged looks at him, as a statement on why he stopped before looking at you,

You flinched at the eye contact but softened when it tilted it’s head in confusion. Suna takes a deep breath before looking at you with an unwavering stare,

“Yes, I, in fact, can talk to souls, and even touch them. I’m that 1 person in this kingdom,”

He hated that he had to admit it to you. He wasn’t so fond of this so-called ‘skill’ that he had since birth. He can totally admit this to anyone but to you? He’s back to feeling small, feeling like he holds no purpose in this world at all once you figured it out.

The male closes his eyes and expect the worst as your response,

“Don’t play with us, you don’t belong here,”

“I bet his only friends are those ghosts things,”

“What, you’re gonna cry? What you’re gonna do now huh? Cry it out to your dead friends?”

“Oh my, your son can talk to...dead beings…”

“Yes, and I’m planning on leaving the kingdom and him behind, he’s so lazy too so I don’t think I need him anymore,”

“I hope you have fun talking to yourself,”

“When he reaches the age of 13, I’ll leave him behind with the house. It’s his now and his other...friends,”

“I hate you, we all hate you, don’t even think of coming here again,”

“Don’t you-”

His mind got cut off when he felt a painful punch to his guts as he let out a scream in pain and kneel down, clutching his stomach. The soul that was next to him flinched and it’s face contorted into fear.

He looks up at you, glaring at him with tears staining your eyes,

Wait.

Before he can process his thoughts, you embrace him into a hug as you hold him tightly as if he’ll go away. He just stayed there, letting you engulfing him into the hug as his hands released his stomach.

Twitching a bit as he hugs you back, slowly gripping on your coat hardly while fighting back the tears that’s about to spill out. Unfortunately, you let go of the hug but then make eye contact with him.

Your tears stained eyes stared into his glossy ones before you opened your mouth,

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I could’ve just forgive everything you had done all those times,”

His breath hitched at the close proximity between you two. But he felt like he’s at home, a better one, “I’m...afraid that you’ll try to avoid me when I admit that-”

“Stop it stupid, I won’t avoid you for that. I was actually looking for you,”

Looking, for him? Suna watches you wiping the tears that fell down and continued, “I heard about that one person in the kingdom from an old friend of mine, they said that this person live in the same town as me,”

“I was, really intrigued that there’s actually someone that can talk and touch souls, I tried doing it on my own but failed every time, that’s why I was trying to find someone like that, to say that I think they’re incredible for something a mere person can’t do. But then again, I thought that, maybe they’re having a hard time trying to fit in by their unique trait, being an...outcast,”

An outcast huh? He had heard that name for him a lot of times,

“I personally don’t think that THAT person was an outcast just because they’re different from the others. I think that they’re special, they deserved better, they deserve every love they can get and yet…”

You bite your lips, “They still treat them differently. It’s not fair and will never be. So I tried searching for that person all around the kingdom when I was still in the age of 12, but I couldn’t find them,”

“But I did now, but I didn’t think that it would be you…”

What’re you trying to show him right now? Pity? Amazement? He didn’t know, your eyes just showing too many emotions at a time yet, he can still understand it.

And he thought, how should he react? After what you said just now, maybe he know what,

“What I wanted to say is that…”

You scoffed, but not in a hateful way like you always done and with a smile,

“You’re amazing Rintarou, and will always be. You’re never an outcast, cause you’re just the same like all of us, only…more special,”

Suna can feel your hand caressing his cheeks as he unconsciously let out a tear slide down. Your tears started spilling again as you hiccuped, trying to steady your breathing and brain,

“And, I’m sorry...for everything I have done to you, I’m...hah...so stupid…”

You let out a shaky laugh as the brunette hesitantly put a hand on the back of your head, letting you rest on top of his chest while he lay down on the floor. The souls surrounded you two in curiosity but you both paid it no mind and just enjoying each other presence,

“You’re not stupid, you never are. What you did to me all those months, was not stupid, but resonable,”

He bite the inside of his cheeks and let out a weak smile,

“And I had forgiven you a long time ago,”

And now, the only thing filling in the library is silence and the sound of both of your breathing, peaceful and unbothered.

You walked out from the dressing room and buttoned up your white collar shirt, fixing the jetblack coat you're wearing before looking around,

“Hey, has anyone seen my tie?”

“Oh, here!”

You turned to your right and smiled at Akaashi, taking the tie from his hands. You loosened up the zip and put it around your collar before zipping it back up, nice and tight.

Flattening it a bit before looking at your appearance on the mirror, “You already look dazzling, [y/n]. No need to pose in front of the mirror,”

“Oh shut up will you,”

You playfully yelled at Mai, who’s wearing the same kind of outfit like yours but with a knee length skirt.

Today’s the day, the time for your graduation. After a max time of 6 years surviving the academy, you’ve finally made it to graduation. It all felt so fast now that you think about it,

All those memories from the first day to the last day of the exam and now, here you are. And you’re going to admit that, it’s really hard not to feel emotional, after all that time spent with your friends and...lover.

You shake your head at that title, blushing a bit as you can feel a slight tap to your shoulder. You turned around to see none other than Suna,

“[y/n], help me put on this tie,”

“Why can’t you just put it on yourself?”

“I can’t tie a tie,”

You snorted, “Did you seriously just say a pun?” he shrugged, “Maybe,”

A sigh escaped from your lips as you took the tie from his hands and started tying it around his collar. And from the corner of your eyes, you can literally see Akaashi smirking at you along with the other 2nd years, who’s now seniors of the academy,

“Woah, Rin, didn’t know you’re the advantage taker type,”

“Yeah, are ya up to something Suna~?”

Both Atsumu and Komori snickered as the latter sigh, rolling his eyes in annoyance but you can definitely see the slight pink on his cheeks.

You finished tying his tie and patted it lightly, “There,” “Thanks,” “Anytime,”

“Haha, aren’t you two gonna kiss or something?” Ginjima pried in at the two of you, before almost everyone inside the room laughed with Suna’s cheeks turning red as he walks away to cover his face away from the crowd,

“We’re graduating now, aren’t we?”

You then looked at Eri as you two sit on the chair next to each other, Mai joining in to your other side, “It certainly is, I honestly can’t believe that 6 years had passed since we first started arriving here,”

“True, and I did remember the time Eri first arrived during our 3rd year, she’s so cute and shy~”

Eri blushed and huffed at Mai, who giggled at the noirette cute pout. You laughed along with them, watching Tanaka and Noya pestering Suna to tell them what’s going on between you two.

Ginjima and Atsumu join in on them, talking almost too loudly and you can tell that the teachers that’s out from backstage can hear them too.

Komori just watches them while his cousin just rolls his eyes at their antics, Osamu’s struggling to put on his tie as Ennoshita helped him out with it.

Kyoutani is actually having a relaxed conversation with Aone, which seemed very odd but very interesting to look at. Kenma’s just cramped up at the corner of the room with Fukunaga sitting comfortably next to him.

Yamamoto’s now joining in the Suna banter and you swear that the room gets noisier and noisier, much to Sakusa and Kenma’s dismay. Taichi and Shirabu are going through the script since both of them are going to give a speech later for the whole class.

And the others seemed to fix their appearance and clothes. You sighed, a small smile creeping up on your face. This all feels so nostalgic and heartwarming and you can’t help but feel pained that all of you had to separate from each other.

And it honestly felt like you have done wrong to them now that you reminisce the memories all at once. In a second, you clapped your hands loudly as it takes the attention of the whole room, their eyes and attention are now at you.

You missed this. You've been assigned to be the class monitor in the 4th year of the academy and they’ll always put their attention on you when you do this. You cleared your throat before opening your mouth, smiling as wide as you can,

“Now, that I have your attentions, I think I should make the last class meeting,”

Class meeting. It’s when all of you discuss anything regarding the class situation whether it’s about the exam or the class condition or upcoming events.

And the event now is to say goodbye to each other,

“First off, I wanted to say that, I’m sorry,”

All of them flinched at your words with surprise lacing their facial features as you continued, “I may haven’t realized it yet during our academy years but I think I’ve done at least something bad to every one of you, no matter how small or big it is, I do think it’s my responsibility to apologize, and I hope you all can forgive me,”

Then, you shrugged, “Or not, I don’t mind being someone you hate, you know,”

Your eyes caughted Suna as he did nothing but stare at you with disbelief, as if you said something terribly strange, “What’re ya saying, you never did anything wrong to us, [y/n],”

Atsumu started, having a frown on his face as you chuckled at his expression, “Maybe, but I just think that, since this is the last time we’re gonna be with each other, I think it’s best for me to apologize, even if I did nothing wrong, so, again,”

You bowed in front of all of them before sitting straight on your seat with a smile,

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I had done,”

Suddenly, you feel a heavy weight crashed into you as you widen your eyes at the impact and see who it was,

Suna Rintarou.

“Stop apologizing, stupid,”

Ah, the old name that you addressed him in. It felt nostalgic for a moment, and a little ironic. Because you remember doing this to him back when you still hate him,

The man you once hated.

“WHY’RE YOU GUYS ARE BEING SO EMOTIONAL THIS EARLY?? I CAN’T-”

Yamamoto cut off his own sentences and ran towards yours and Suna’s direction and hugged you two. And then one by one, everyone else inside the room started hugging you and started forming a group of hugs.

It takes a while for Fukunaga, Taichi and Aone to pester Kenma, Shirabu and Kyoutani to hug you but they did. Cause they also think you did nothing wrong and doesn’t need to apologize,

Is now the man you cared for dearly.

“Has everyone finished changing into grad clothes?”

You heard your homeroom teacher say from the outside of the backstage as all of you let go of the hug before looking at you, every single one of them while having a small smile on their face.

A quiet sigh escaped your lips as you wipes out the tears that had fallen before mirroring their smiles back,

“Let’s go,”

“And I hope…”

Shirabu stopped in his reading, steading his breath a bit as his eyes started watering, much to his dismay and continued on quietly and shakily,

“...we all can meet again in the nearest future,”

Everyone clapped their hands loudly as Taichi hugged Shirabu while guiding him back to the bench. You can see everyone you had met before, from the teachers of the whole academy, a few retired teachers that make it to the ceremony, to the old 6th years who were once your seniors and all of your juniors from 5th year.

They’re all here, to celebrate all of your 6 years of being here together. You bite back the tears but it’s no use as it falls down on it’s own.

Bokuto and Konoha cheered from their seats while Washio just lightly clapped his hand along with Yukie and Kaori. Miss Mochizuki, who’s sitting next to you all too clapped her hands while fanning herself from the tears that escaped.

The principal, too, is clapping his hands and even shows a small smile on his face no matter how strict he is. It all felt so heartwarming but it doesn’t stop the pain in your heart that you’ll be separating after this and going back home…

‘Going back home…’ that mere thought echoed through Suna’s head as he can feel like he’s the only one there, in the darkness. His mouth is turned into a straight line as his thought was suddenly interrupted by Atsumu, who’s now sobbing while leaning against his shoulder,

“Sunaaaaa, I’ll miss you! Don’t forget me okay??”

“Geez, yeah I won’t,” he hiccuped, “forget you, idiot,”

“Yeah, do you even think he would do that?” Ginjima said on his right, wiping away his tears and putting on a small smile while biting his lips, “Of course you won’t right?”

The brunette laughed before hugging them, along with Osamu whose breath is ragged from the excessive crying he did,

“It’s hard to forget you all anyway, so I won’t, we’ll see each other again, and that’s a promise,”

He patted their backs as his eyes wandered around the crowd to his classmates, and friends from other classes and then,

Suna caught your eyes, staring at him back. Both of you give each other a smile and nodded,

That’s a promise.

The sound of the train engine can be heard miles away as Suna covered his ears at the loud sound, chewing his cake. They packed some of the food from the graduation party to be eaten inside the train since it’s going to be a long ride before they separate at the main town hall.

Smokes came up from the top as the conductor gave them a welcoming smile, hearing the news of the graduation while briefly congratulating all of them.

You nodded, thanking the conductor before he went back to his spot to let all of you come aboard. Kenma’s the first to go up the staircase as he picked a comfortable spot near the seat railing.

And then, one by one, the others started climbing up the staircase, some of them holding the railing for support until it’s your turn to climb up but stopped near the doorframe of the train.

You look down, making eye contact yet again with Suna before holding your hand out. He briefly snorted and gladly took in as he started going inside the train too. As Eri and Mai finally got into the train, they closed the door before tapping the walls of the it.

The conductor understands the signal and lets out the horn sound coming from the train before starting the journey back to the main town, away from the academy and near to home.

You’re seated comfortably next to the seat railing with Suna next to you. And apparently, only you two. You glared at Atsumu and Osamu when they smirked at you but then your attention at them got cut off,

“So you’re going back home now?”

Suna asked, biting the last bits of his cake before closing his food container and putting it inside his bag,

“Yeah, I had one of the seniors to build me a place to stay when I get back home thankfully,”

“Is that so,”

Then, it’s just silence between you too as you started opening your mouth again,

“Do you want to come with me?”

He froze at that and looks at you with a bewildered look while you just smile at him, “I mean, if you’re comfortable staying with me, it’s fine if you decline-”

“Yeah sure,”

You blinked at his quick response and just sighed, “That’s good,” You fidgeted with your fingers while still holding onto your graduation paper, softening the hard edges before a tap to shoulder breaks you out of your thoughts,

“Hey, [y/n],”

“Yes Suna?”

His breath hitched when he heard you calling his name again, it never gets old and it always make his heart beating a lot louder, “Come closer, there’s something I need to tell you,”

You stare at him for a bit with curiosity, leaning in to his face as the gap between you two is almost non-existent. You hummed, asking what he’s going to say.

And in between that moment, Suna holds up his graduation paper to cover both of your faces and close the gap between his lips and yours. You squealed slightly in the kiss, blushing heavily at the action and just like that, he pulled away with an affectionate smile and red cheeks on his facial features,

“I love you,”

[lambourngb]

If you are still doing this, to make it through (with hearts and wrists intact)

combining the wip ask with WIP Wednesday ! Alright, so there’s two remix challenges going on right now, but I didn’t sign up for either of them because I have enormous anxiety about deadlines and I’m also kind of a control freak about my work. I do love the concept, so I decided to remix my own work.

to make it through (with hearts and wrists intact) is a remix of Last Years Wishes. It is completely the fault of @haloud who mused aloud about what if Jesse got to use the shed on Michael. You guys remember what I did to the shed in LYW right? Yeah. Poor Michael. So while Alex is waiting at the Airstream, talking to agents Ross and Rollins, this is how Michael’s day is going....

[warnings: canon divergent within 1x13, mention of Michael’s feelings for Maria, but nothing happens past the discovery of Rosa’s body in the cave ]

“Old man, you are calling me on my day off,” Michael yelled into the receiver of his cell phone speaker over the rushing sound of air after picking up the call. 

The windows were down because his AC in his truck went on the frizz again sometime during when Max had stolen-borrowed it to drive Liz home from Texas, leaving him behind to share a long awkward ride with Maria in her classic Chevy. Awkward because he had been buzzing from the encounter in the desert. He hadn’t slept with anyone in weeks, not since Alex, and that had been a ridiculous attempt for him to pine in celibacy considering just how little the other man had missed him. Some things end in a whimper.

Texas had been about hope, about maybe finding someone who was connected to him on a species level. He hadn’t realized how deeply Max’s enthusiasm had sunk into him until the fraud had been revealed and disappointment had set in. Between Alex’s brusque brush off and realizing they really were alone on this planet, Michael hadn’t thought he could feel even lower with the weight of Isobel’s salvation fully on his shoulders (and Liz’s). Then shining like a bright star in the night sky, he had found Maria. 

She had effectively chased away the touch starved ghouls that had haunted his skin that night, he could still barely believe they had dropped right to the rocky ground and scratchy blanket to fuck. It was the type of raw passion he had with- no, in that particular moment he hadn’t thought about Alex but afterwards? He couldn’t avoid the connection the next morning, particularly when she had sworn him to secrecy, and then had reinforced it when she had fully kicked him out in the cold after he had returned her repaired necklace. 

It was unfortunate for her that he was already wired to enjoy a push-pull hot-cold dynamic.

Ten years of Alex Manes meant Michael had learned to read past a blustering denial to see the real truth. She really liked him, she just didn’t want to admit it, and good god, if that wasn’t a déjà vu moment for Michael, he didn’t know what was. Maybe it was stupid to believe it would work out any better with her than it had with Alex, but with Noah dead, his m- his reason for building his ship gone, what did it hurt to try again?

His healed hand curled around the grip on the steering wheel with a shiver of disorientation at the new flexibility, but he pushed it down to concentrate on that meager bubble of hope of what was ahead for him. Maria. Normalcy. When he had offered to leave her alone at the gala, she had refused to take him up on it. That's the problem, I never do. 

It had felt good to hear that, that he was wanted, even as he heard the conflict in her voice over what she desired versus what she thought she deserved to have. That was also painfully familiar to Michael as well.

Caulfield had seeped into his skin, three layers deep in the worst type of burn. That brief moment of his mother, wrapping around his mind with her love and sorrow and hope, and then she was gone. The screaming, that he had heard from outside the chain link fence, suddenly disappeared as the explosion moved outward in a shockwave. For a few minutes he had stood on solid ground in that prison, for the first time since a sweet boy had returned his kiss at seventeen under a galaxy of plastic foam planets, and then it was over. His mother was gone, and in her stead, he had Alex telling him that -

Michael forcefully pushed that thought away and returned his attention back to the cranky drawl of Walt Sanders, “I know kid, but I’m already out with the wrecker in the other ass-end direction, so I need you to go help this cry baby who can’t change a flat. Help me make some money, so I can afford to keep your ass employed.” 

“Fine, tell me the location, but this is holiday pay, not overtime.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sanders muttered, before rattling off the mile marker and the highway. “It’s a Lincoln sedan, black. Probably some old geezer out on a drive to church who ran into trouble.”

“You calling someone else a geezer is funny to me, I hope you know that,” Michael replied, hitting his turn signal to make a left to pick up the state road. It wasn’t as if he had a planned time to see Maria, the lunch hour and official opening of the bar was still an hour away. A little delay that made him some extra cash was doable. 

“Shut the hell up kid, and get going,” Sanders griped good-naturedly, before hanging up on Michael. 

The sun was bright overhead, the storm from the night before having washed the land and sky clean of clouds. Across the pavement ahead, the heat and the brightness, cast a mirage of dark shimmering water that creeped just out of reach as he drove toward his new destination. His mind ticked over the set of priorities ahead, to make a little money with a tire change, then to drop in on Maria to make his case, and finally, he knew he needed to swing by Isobel’s to check on her in the aftermath of Noah’s betrayal. Somewhere in all of that, he knew he would need to make it home to see Alex for that promised talk, but there was plenty of time for that because Alex rarely came by during the day to see him.

“I’m still fighting his battles, not mine.”

Michael flexed his hands on the steering wheel again and pushed down the heaviness in his heart that accompanied thinking about Alex. Ten long years of waiting and wanting him. If Michael cared to count up all of the trips to Roswell that Alex had made on leave, the two weeks together after the class reunion that frankly felt like a hallucination to Michael, all of those hours spent together would add up to a month. A month that stretched out over ten years, 520 weeks, or 3,650 days.

Counting the distance to the nearest star was in light years, but when it came to counting the distance between the stash of wedding rings he had purchased for Alex over the years and what he had been actually allowed to have with Alex, well, that was a calculation beyond the redshift spectrum. It would take energy to transverse that distance one more time, and Michael had nothing left inside to fuel that journey. He couldn’t afford to be lost in the black again, not with Isobel in free-fall from Noah’s years of manipulations, not with the prospect of telling Liz they had found Rosa’s body on the horizon. It was just too hard to believe that this time, with Alex calling him family, with Alex throwing back the closest declaration to love that he had ever made, actually meant he was ready to move toward Michael and work to cut the distance between them on his own.

It was better to head forward in a new direction, than to look back like Max had said. Besides, every other time he had failed to be enough of a reason to help Alex bridge his own chasm between what he wanted and what he had allowed himself to have. What could have changed? Caulfield had just cemented the complications for them both. 

A dark shadow in the distance, parked just off the road caught Michael’s attention. He glanced down at the odometer to mark the mileage and started to ease up on the gas. That must be the motorist Sanders had fielded a call from earlier, he realized. The ‘old geezer’ in the black Lincoln with a flat tire. He glanced in the rearview mirror to check for traffic but the road behind him was devoid of other vehicles. 

Michael hit the turn signal and hazard lights on his truck, turning briefly to the side to check that he had some spare water bottles for the customer and his toolbox within reach and then turned onto the shoulder of the highway. Mentally he was already five steps ahead of himself as he stepped out of the truck to approach the car, thinking about the size of socket to fit over the lug nuts for the Lincoln’s wheels, whether his torque wrench was even in his box, or if he would have to camouflage his telekinetic efforts to change out the tire, that it took a moment to realize the tires on the Lincoln were whole and unharmed on the driver’s side.

Puzzled, Michael slowed his approach, and started toward the passenger side of the car. The windows were rolled up and dark, the tint was straddling the threshold of legal for New Mexico. There was still no sign of defect in the tires, he noticed as he was halfway around the passenger fender. Faulty tire gauge, he mused before he noticed the engine was rumbling almost inaudibly. Fucking hybrid, which meant whatever issue it had been definitely beyond the parts available at Sanders.

It was a little odd that the driver hadn’t stepped out to greet Michael, but not terribly unusual when it came to elderly customers who seemed to have a healthy paranoia about everyone they encountered. Still, Michael pasted a smile on his face and tapped on the window. 

The automatic window slipped downward in an expensive whisper, but it wasn’t a helpless old man on his way to church at the wheel. 

Jesse Manes smiled at Michael flashing his teeth, “Surprise.” Before Michael could do more than step backward, Jesse lifted a large gun-shaped object and fired. Yellow particulate matter exploded into the air, enveloping Michael completely. Pulling his arm to his mouth to attempt to block the pollen, did little good as he felt the sedating effects almost immediately.

He coughed into the open air, scrambling back toward his truck on weak legs as he tried to clear his lungs of the fast-acting poison. Behind him, he heard the car door open, and the crunch of boots on the loose gravel from the road’s shoulder as Jesse approached him. Though his powers were gone and his strength was waning fast, Michael had never backed down from a fight in life.

Certainly, not a fight for his life.

Swinging with all of his might, he hurled his heavy toolbox at Jesse blindly. There was a thump and a curse, but the footsteps kept coming. Animal-like terror set in as Michael crawled now on his knees toward the cab of his truck. He had to move, he had to live, he wasn’t going to die here on the side of the damn road- Suddenly a black boot came down on his hand, pinning him place and lighting up a fierce agony of pain in its wake.

“I like the fight, Guerin, I do,” Jesse remarked with a quiet menace. “Shall I make this hand match your other-” 

It was on the tip of Michael’s tongue to point out the obvious, but then Jesse saw it for himself. His left hand, healed and pristine, clutching at the hot blacktop surface. 

“I see.” He barked out a laugh that chilled Michael. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t the only one in Roswell. I thought about killing you right here you know, but now, you might finally serve a purpose in your useless life. You thought you could use my son in your perverted schemes? Well now it’s your turn to be bait.” 

Michael’s vision was already fading into blindness with the pollen taking hold, but he managed to spit out between numb lips, “Go fuck yourself.”

“Not today. You’re the one who is fucked.” A hand grabbed a tight hold of Michael’s hair, wrenching him backward, and then it was merciful darkness. 

*** 

[jackyjango]

Of Fights and Phobias

Cherik Week- Day 5: Horror AU / Transformation (Morphing)

Okay, I agree openly that I cheated on this AU, because the more I tried to write something related to Horror, the more horrific everything got, so I ditched that effort and wrote this instead (I had a dragon!Erik idea for transformation, but that would have turned into a 5K word monstrosity)

P.S: Thank you @mnemo-ink @akasanata @ikeracity for your inputs on Horror AUs and prompts.

--------

Charles startles as the curtain billows into the room with a harsh swoosh.

It’s just the wind, he tells himself, trying not to imagine a skeletal hand slowly emerging from beneath the curtain’s hem.

It’s just the wind, he tells his racing heart.

As though it could protect him from everything that spells evil, Charles pulls the blanket further up his shoulders to form a cocoon around him and screws his eyes shut. He has spent the last hour being startled out of wits at the smallest of sounds- the creaking of the door, rustling of fabric and even the ticking of the clock, and he can’t spend the rest of the night jumping out of skin every time the clock ticks, half expecting a poltergeist to jump from underneath his bed like it had in that stupid film. The fact that his eidetic mind is replaying those scenes in his mind with crystal clear clarity isn’t helping either.

Stupid Raven and her stupid love for horror films. 

Charles could go to Raven and sleep with her until dawn breaks and run back to his rooms after, but that would only prompt her into teasing him more for fearing something that doesn’t even exist. It’s just silly movies, Charles. She’d say. Everyone knows that’s just a white cloth on a stick.

He knows that, it's just that his mind has more… creative ideas.

Charles is ten years old; old enough to not be affected by the juvenile and silly fear of ghosts. Besides, it's his job as an elder brother to reassure Raven and comfort her when she’s scared, not the other way around. For a brief moment, Charles considers going to his mother, but then he already knows the outcome of it before the thought completes in his head.

That leaves Charles with only one option. 

Throwing the quilt away, Charles hastily puts on his slippers and runs from his room as quietly as possible. He tiptoes down the grand stairs and around the sitting rooms towards the side doors, doing his best to ignore the long and eerie shadows the marble statues cast on the walls, the ghostly portraits of past Xaviers-- who look too close to coming to life, darting a hand out and pulling Charles into their world as he passes by-- and the creaking of the old hardwood beneath his feet. 

Thankfully, the servant’s quarters are just behind the kitchens, and that fact alone distracts Charles from the rattling of the empty pots and pans hung on the wall.

‘Erik,’ he whispers softly against the door, knowing fully well that Erik sleeps on a bedroll on the floor close to the door while his parents sleep on a low cot further towards the window.

The corridor behind Charles is dark and ominous-- just like the corridor in the basement that was plagued with demons in the film-- and standing at the end of it, Charles feels trapped, as though the hungry demons would come flying in from the depths if he as much as took a breath.

Gulping, Charles taps his knuckles on the wood, and hisses out urgently, ‘Erik!’

If Erik’s too deep in sleep and doesn’t wake up, then Charles would either have to go to his room or sleep in front of the door at the end of a dark corridor; both of which aren’t favourable.

Charles knocks a little more frantically this time, one ear plastered to the door, hoping desperately that Erik opens it. After a few brief moments of panic-stricken waiting, Charles hears rustling from within and the sound of footsteps. He quickly steps away from the threshold as the door opens on its hinges.

‘Charles,’ Erik asks after blinking at him sleepily for a few seconds, ‘What are you doing here?’

Suddenly, Charles feels all too stupid, and the silly fear that some ghost or ghoul could come and get him evaporates at the sight of Erik. ‘I was just..’ He bites his lip trying to come up with another excuse as to why he woke Erik up in the middle of the night- something like he couldn’t sleep and wanted to check if Erik wanted to play…  In the dead of the night. 

‘You watched those stupid horror films with Raven, didn’t you?’ Erik asks finally, unimpressed.

Charles nods his head vigorously, and his fringes fall back into his eyes with the action.

‘Come in before Mama or Vati wakes up then,’ Erik asks as he retreats from the door.

Charles follows him inside quickly and closes the door shut behind him.

The room the Lehnsherrs live in is small and bare, but it’s cozy nonetheless. Less so than his monstrosity of a room upstairs. Erik’s bedroll is threadbare and his bedsheet is not even half as thick as his’, but Charles feels a warmth settling in his mind as he places his head on Erik’s pillow and tucks himself under Erik’s blanket.

‘Sleep, Charles,’ Erik says from where they’re sleeping facing each other on the pillow, and places a warm hand on his shoulder, ‘nothing can get you now.’

‘Good night, Erik,’ Charles says and closes his eyes. He doesn’t feel scared here. Not of ghosts or ghouls or poltergeists or monsters. Not when Erik’s there right beside him to make sure he’s safe.

*

~Two decades later~

‘You can come and sleep inside today,’ Charles says from the doorway of their bedroom, already dressed in his striped pajamas. He’s still not looking at Erik and his tone is a little too still stiff for Erik’s liking, but at least he’s talking to Erik, and that’s as good as a starting point as any.

Their fight had gotten a little ugly this time-- and that’s nuts because Erik doesn’t even remember what they’d fought over a week ago. It had ended up uglier, with Erik opting to sleep on the sofa and both of them choosing to ignore the other’s presence for the rest of the week.

‘Are you sure?’ Erik asks from where he’s already settled in with a book on the sofa.

Charles nods curtly, his jaw and lips pinched in an unhappy line. This isn’t like Charles. He isn’t the one to back down from a fight this easily. He isn’t the one to apologise first. Contrary to popular belief, Charles is stubborn as a mule.

But then Erik remembers Raven mentioning a movie night with Charles that day and it all clicks into place. Erik almost bursts out laughing but bites back in time. ‘Okay,’ he says instead, picking up his pillow and bedsheet from the sofa as Charles disappears into their bedroom.

Charles is sleeping with his back to Erik when Erik settles into his side of the bed, blanket pulled tight around his shoulders like a cocoon around him. 

Erik smiles softly to himself. The thing is, Charles hates that he’s afraid of horror movies, and the human conception of evil in general. He’s a man of science; a man of reason, and it mortifies him beyond measure that something as baseless and inane as Hollywood’s half-baked horror flicks could scare him witless. Erik had tried explaining to him that there’s no rhythm or rhyme to phobia, that fear is what it is; that it just exists, but Charles was less inclined to look at it that way.  

And that’s exactly why Erik doesn’t bring it up, doesn’t ask Charles whether Raven forced him to watch a horror film that evening-- Erik’ll bet a 100 bucks that Annabelle would be on their Latest Watched list if he switches on the TV now-- and whether he called Erik in because he was too scared to sleep alone. Erik already knows that. 

So Erik darts his hand out across the feet or two that separates them and asks, ‘Do you want me to hold you?’

Charles doesn’t reply, but, after a few moments, scoots back on their bed until he settles comfortably against Erik’s front. 

Erik drapes an arm around Charles’ middle and pulls him further into the embrace, nestling his nose into Charles’ hair and breathing the familiar scent in. ‘I’m sorry, Charles,’ he says. What for, Erik doesn’t know, but if an apology will bring his Charles back to him, then he’ll apologise, a hundred times over. Charles relaxes at the words and sighs heavily. He hums noncommittally and presses back into Erik’s embrace and squeezes Erik’s hand on his stomach with his own.

‘Sleep, I’m right here,’ Erik murmurs into Charles’ hair, thanking all the dim-witted Hollywood horror flicks for bringing Charles back into his arms. And if he plans to bribe Raven into showing Charles a horror film or two during their future fights, well, can you really blame him?

-

[wwwafflewrites]

Never Fear (The Winchesters Are Here)

Six Feet Under

You woke up to a deep ache in your shoulders. It was sore all the way down your back. Probably bruised to hell.

You grunted, and your breath fanned back onto your face. You attempted to move, despite your smarting back, and your hands brushed against loose dirt and flaky wood. You tried to adjust your eyes, but there was nothing to see. Just… black. Wherever you were, it was a narrow space. A dirty narrow space.

Was it time to mention you were also slightly claustrophobic?

You were sweating. The air was stuffy. But there was something cold right next to you. Something cold and yielding. You reached for it, blindly patting with your hand flat out, until your fingers curled around something with contour.

You mapped out the dimensions of the object before recoiling in horror. That was no object—that… that was a body. 

Which, with your odds, meant you were in a coffin. An oddly large, though still cramped, coffin. Underground. With no way out but through the suffocating dirt.

Freaking ghouls.

Your first instinct was to scream. To pound up against the wood and holler until your throat was raw. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t, either; it was that you couldn’t. 

You couldn’t breathe.

There was something in your chest right now. There had to be. A void where your lungs had been, like a vacuum that swallowed up all the usable air. Your heart was in your throat.

Were you running out of oxygen? Was it already too late? Your shallow breaths were burning a hole in your chest. You couldn’t breathe.

You reached over to the corpse, this time with urgency. Cold but still flaccid. The body had been fresh for about an hour, then. Rigor mortis hadn’t even begun.

Does it matter? a part of your mind reasoned. It sounded a little like Dean. There’s a cold, dead body next to you, you’re on your last round of air, and you still can’t stop being a nerd?

"It matters," you muttered to yourself. "Matters ‘cause that means I’ve been stuck down here for about an hour. Takes about five hours total to run short on oxygen. Means at the very least, I’m not dying… yet."

As hard as a transition was going to be, you needed to breathe deep and slow. But there was still a tightness in your chest.

Relax your shoulders, you could almost hear Sam chiding.

"A little… difficult to do… suffocating in a pine box," you said, but you relaxed them anyway. You then took in your first, full breath since you woke up. That was progress.

You couldn’t count on the Winchesters finding you in time, or at all. You were going to have to take matters into your own hands and try to climb out of the grave. Dean had done it before, so you could too.

Dean’s also, like, 200 pounds of muscle, Sam cautioned.

If you were going to climb out of your grave, you needed a mask to protect your face from the dirt. Which meant you were going to need to work your shirt off of your head. You brushed your hand over your stomach. Well, you must have put up a fight. Your shirt was shredded, so… that was a no go.

The dead guy had a shirt, Dean said.

Fantastic.

You looked over to your left, to the corpse you couldn’t see. You reached over, awkwardly pulling the shirt up. Its cool skin grazed yours as you worked the fabric over its head. 

The neck didn't jerk about; it was rigid, but the arms weren't. Rigor mortis was kicking into gear. Which meant you had been down here for roughly two hours. Working as a hunter, you needed to have some level of knowledge on the dead.

Such a nerd, you could see Dean rolling his eyes.

You tied the bottom of the shirt which took a little while with your arms pinned down and the pitch darkness to guide you. Finally, though, you made a tight knot.

You pulled the shirt over your head like a bag and sat there for a moment. You wished the Winchesters could talk you through this.

That's when you broke at the pine box. The dirt was cold, dry, and thankfully loose. It fell in clumps around your shoulders, and you shoved it down at your feet.

Climbing your way past the dirt was no joke. It was grimy and freaking difficult. It was like those foam pits that gymnasts use that are nearly impossible to work your way out of, except in complete darkness with limited space. In other words, a freaking nightmare.

But you kept working. Kept pushing up while pushing the dirt down. Six feet, Sam reminded you. Just six feet. Once you’re standing, just work upward. Should be about as tall as I am, yeah?

You made a risky move upward, throwing your hand up as far as it could go, and touched air. A light breeze fell over your skin.

To say it was encouragement was an exaggeration. You worked twice as hard, shoving your way to the top. When your hand felt hard dirt, you crunched your abs and pulled until your chest hit the surface. You frantically dug your legs out before collapsing on the ground.

You went into a fit of hysterical laughter, a result of your adrenaline high and the last throes of your panic.You threw the filthy t-shirt off of your head, inhaling the air that you had once taken for granted.

In your brief delirium, you recalled Dean Winchester retelling his old raising-from-perdition story. He had hardly mentioned climbing out of his grave, as if it hadn't been important. His focus had mainly been on the mystery of the angels and how they turned out to be douches. He had made this part sound like a. Slice. Of. Pie.

And, well, you got a freaking reality check today. Because it was an entire body workout, and it was exactly as terrifying as it sounded—no, worse. Waking up in pitch darkness, in a small space, with a corpse, six feet under the ground? Hell naw. You were lucky you'd had enough trauma to know how to push back your panic. Because two years ago, you probably would have rotted down there, helpless.

It left you to wonder, though. Why the ghouls left you alive, and not the dead guy. All the other grave desecrations had been long dead—but you were the first to live.

First, you were going to have to get back to the motel. You already knew the boys were gonna freak.

///

When you opened up the hotel door, the Winchesters sprang out of their chairs, barking your name in surprise. "You're—you're…" Sam stammered as he took in your state. You couldn't blame him; the grave had covered you in dirt from neck to toe.

"Alive. I know," you said. "I'm also really dirty. You mind if I use your guys' shower?"

Sam blinked. "No, not at all, but uh, seriously—what happened?"

You let out a halfhearted, breathy laugh. "Nothing I couldn't handle." You tried to shrug past Dean, but he caught your arm.

"You were gone for three hours," he said.

"Look, we're just worried about you. Could you humor us?" Sam added. His eyes were pleading and damn hard to say no to.

You scowled. "You two gotta tell me what happened on your end first. Deal?"

"Deal," Dean said. "You know most of it. Several grave desecrations of old gravestones, but fresh bodies where bones should be. People in town go missing a few days before that. We split: you went to check on the newest body, while we checked the cemetery. We ganked the ghoul, figured you were coming back from the morgue, but you never showed. After about three hours of looking, we came back here to see if you had maybe come back at all. Actually, we were just about to leave again." Dean clapped his hands. "Did you ever find anything at the morgue?"

"Yeah, the guy had died from…" …asphyxiation. You trailed off. "Oh crap…"

"What? What is it?"

"Asphyxiation. The guy… he, uh, he had died from asphyxiation. Originally, I mean. The ghoul had been burying his food to eat later. Like… like a squirrel. Must have taken the guy out to snack on, but he was already dead." It was all coming together. "The ghoul was either stupid or confident because he got sloppy. Probably because he was too hungry to care. That's why… why I… why I..." Damn it, you let that slip. You peered around them, looking for escape. "Guys, hey, can I just shower? I really just wanna—"

This time, Sam caught your arm. He was gentle, but he had a firm grip. "That's why you what?"

You clammed up, peeling your eyes away from them. "Why I… uh…" you couldn't think of an excuse, and the silence was becoming too long to make a convincing one on the spot. You should have walked into this room with a workable lie in mind, but all you had wanted was to shower, scrub all the dirt off your skin, and to lather soap where you had touched that god-awful corpse. You just wanted to be clean and to sleep.

And you seriously were trying to tell them things. Lying sucked, but this? You weren’t sure if you could tell them this and come out of it in one piece.

Sam softly said your name again, trying to bring your eyes back to his. It was too easy. He knew your tells. Your eyes always gave you away if you lied.

We're never going to let this die, your inner Dean voice sang. And you internally swatted it away. 

I know, you thought sourly. Behind your eyes, a pressure built. Just let me go so I can cry alone. I can't cry in front of you. I can't. "He—it… might have…  buried me alive." It took everything you had in you for your voice to stay steady.

Both of them rocked back a little. Dean looked a little dazed, and Sam looked pale. Sam tilted his head, "Excuse me, buried—?"

"It explains the dirt," Dean sighed. "No offense, sweetheart, but you smell like a toilet."

Oh, shove it, Winchester.

"Yeah, I know. That's why I just want to shower—"

"Hold on," Sam said. He had his hands combing his hair. "Hold on, hold on, just— am I the only one bothered by this?! She— you could have died!"

"But I didn't," "But she didn't," you and Dean said in unison. He winked at you and you rolled your eyes back.

"Sam. I have been through a lot. You know it, I know it. I'm not that girl from two years ago. You said it yourself once before: I'm a Winchester now. And I'm not a Winchester without a few near death experiences."

Sam scowled. "You two are so frustrating. Fine, go. Go take your shower. This conversation isn't over, though."

Thank God. You could handle this later. The conversation alone had keyed you up. You were burning with tension, anxiety, and trauma. You waved a hand at him. "Fine. But can we do it in the morning? I am so frickin' exhausted." It wasn't a lie; you had bruises lining your entire back, and your face muscles hurt from all the fake expressions you were sending Sam.

They can't know that I'm weak. How hard could it be, anyway?

Dean did it once, like a freaking champ. Why couldn't you just suck it up and be a big girl?

He looked on at you with that sad, thoughtful look of his. Complete with the infamous Winchester puppy eyes. "Yeah, sure."

You were happy to get out of the conversation—and this hunt—relatively unscathed. Hopefully, you would never have to go through that crap ever again, or you really didn't think you'd be able to keep yourself together like you just had.

When you shut the bathroom door behind you, you let the silent tears run down your face. You bit your hand, heaving, wishing you had the freedom to scream. But you couldn't, so you didn't. All you did was turn on the shower right as you let out a quiet sob into a towel to muffle it out. 

Why did your life suck so bad?

///

#supernatural #supernatural series #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural gif#SPN#spn gifs#spnfandom#fanfiction#fanfic#Supernatural fanfic#dean winchester#dean#dean fanfiction#sam fanfiction#Sam Winchester#sam#reader#reader insert#x reader#dean x reader#sam x reader#sam x you#sam x y/n#sam x platonic reader#dean x platonic reader#fanfics#fanfictions#spn fanfics#spn fanfictions

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Sanders Sides (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Characters: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, mentioned logan patton virgil and thomas Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Background Logic | Logan Sanders and Morality | Patton Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Being Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Explicit Language, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Blood and Injury, Brief suicidal thoughts, Imprisonment, Temporary Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Inspired by Art, I Tried, i've had creativitwin brainrot for weeks, something had to be done, Time Skips, Haunting, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders is a Good Brother, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Has Issues, They need hugs, Minor Original Character(s), they're just unnamed antagonists Summary:

Remus wished there were more stimulating things down here. Or that he wasn’t down here in the first place. Or that he was dead.

so @fangirltothefullest is an absolute sweetheart and allowed me to mess with some story concepts from her #halloween au, so cheers. i hope you don’t regret it.

5k word story below the cut :)

A modern-day architect would rather have called the castle a mansion, as it may have remained for that long but certainly not in its prime. By then, it would be overgrown and unkempt, with the rock stained dark and wood rotting, and one of the wings would be half-collapsed. By then, it wouldn’t be considered a castle, much less be considered livable. By then, the lonely halls would be acquainted with grief and heartbreak and a sense of ambition strong enough to feel stifling. By then, the mansion’s story would be long irrelevant and forgotten, save for two important variables.

After all, for a castle, it didn’t have a dungeon.

The cellar, for as large as it was, had not initially been very entertaining. It certainly was at least a little interesting now that anything within Remus’ reach had been torn apart and strewn across the floor. The shackles around his ankles and wrists were thin and flimsy but damned hard to break. He hadn’t even got a crack through the links.

Remus hadn’t gotten any ideas until one asshole ventured down into the cellar, gave Remus a smug smirk from where he was tethered in the corner, and snagged a handful of bottles from the far wall.

After she’d left, sauntering up the stairs like they owed her a personal favour, Remus had stretched his leg as far out as he could and kicked the shelf hard enough that it tipped. The sound of crashing glass and the inevitable distress from future intruders, stumbling down for a bottle of shitty whisky or rum, was enough to satisfy Remus.

Only for a small while.

When they’d found out what he’d done, a few brave pricks had tried to make him pay for it, but he’d got one of them in the groin and the other in the eye. They’d quickly decided the gashes in his legs from the littered glass was enough of a lesson.

It wasn’t.

Taking away their small pleasures wasn’t enough. Making them mildly irked at their lack of celebration drinks only fuelled Remus further.

The next thing in his reach were the barrels. The food didn’t matter all that much; potatoes, apples, a few boxes of nuts. He tipped them over, kicked them open, tried to make the ground as gross as possible and the food as uneatable as he could, all the while trying not to wince at the waste.

The only things that seemed to love it were the rats. Remus wasn’t sure how they got in, because as far as he was concerned the only animals that got into the castle were the ones he had occasionally brought in (at the expense of a poor few maids and their sense of sanitation and Roman’s patience) but they ate at the mess he’d created on the floor. He wished he could have said it was one of the best days of his life when they found the fermented grapes. They also ate the spiders in the darker shadows of the room, which he appreciated. It was a bit of a pain when his body defied him long enough to shut down and linger on the edges of unconsciousness only to wake up and find vibrating spiders itching up his face.

Sometimes, Remus’ acts of vandalization were less petty acts of revenge and desperate attempts to escape his own head because everything hurt and he couldn’t stop thinking and every time he closed his eyes, he was crimson soaked and he hated it and it was too much he just wanted it all to STOP—

Those were the times when the old portraits and unfinished artworks were kicked to the ground, dragged around, torn and ripped and cracked and destroyed. The canvases soaked with the floor and strengthened the damp, musky smell which anyone else would have hated but Remus was used to because he always returned home from trekking through rivers or swamps and Roman would wrinkle his nose at him and shoo him away to get cleaned while Remus just laughed in his face—

The noise made as Remus curled in on himself and pressed his clammy forehead to the ground was nearly inhuman.

He didn’t feel much like a human now anyway. Perhaps more accurately a feral werewolf, or a mutant cannibal with a mouthful of fangs, or maybe even a malevolent spirit scratching and clawing at chains wrapped along his body, if spirits exist, which Remus was loath to admit he had yet to be proved so.

(He’d always said that if he ever found a ghoul, he’d drag it into Roman’s room and set it on him for the pure joy of proving his brother wrong and god fucking damnit could his mind stop thinking for TWO SECONDS?)

Remus wished there were more stimulating things down here. Or that he wasn’t down here in the first place. Or that he was dead.

No one came down here, not after he’d attacked the food and drink and then any face that wasn’t familiar. Which included all of them, now. They had all probably figured that he had enough in the cellar to sustain him for however long they were going to leave him down here. Or they were going to let him die of malnourishment. He didn’t have much of a preference.

(He did, but it wasn’t the “right” preference.)

Once, he wasn’t sure how long ago now — hours, days? — a timid, shy looking servant had plucked up enough courage to venture into the cellar with him. They’d offered some clean food and a cheap chalice of water. He’d been mildly surprised when they’d gone so far as to placing it easily within his reach and not expecting him to pop a shoulder from its socket trying to get it.

Remus remembered thinking, for a moment, that they probably shouldn’t have been down in the cellar, and that food and water was probably not supposed to be for him, and they were probably risking something by doing this, and that they certainly hadn’t been part of the initial takeover.

But then he’d taken one look at what he’d been brought; the cruel reminder that he was stuck in a basement, chained and alive and he would rather just—  just—

He didn’t remember knocking the tray aside or lunging for the servant despite the chains painfully biting and tearing his skin. He could vaguely picture their terrified expression as they whirled and scrambled back up the steps, and the way the light dimmed with the slamming of the door.

He never saw or heard from that servant again. He hoped it was merely because they were scared of him now, and not something more sinister.

Remus shifted, his legs scraping across the ground. He wished the sharp sting coming from where the embedded glass pieces were enough to distract him from the bone deep throb echoing through his whole body.

He twisted his hands, a habit that had gotten him wrists rubbed raw and nails chipped and bleeding. It made his shoulder ache, too. He’d dislocated it at some point. Before or after being thrown into the cellar, he wasn’t certain.

It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Remus found out he was already dying. Injuries he’d been dealt previously had yet to be treated, and he was willing to bet any chance of freedom that the open, festering wounds were now infected.

Breathing was painful, too. Whether that was the result of broken ribs or something else, Remus had yet to decide.

It didn’t really matter all that much to him, anyway.

Remus closed his eyes and wished for sunlight.

  The bush had clearly been munched. Remus leaned down to squint at it, eyeing the berries and the half-eaten leaves. The muddy banks of the creek proved Remus’ suspicions with a small, almost indistinct trail of hoofprints.

Remus grinned. He shook off the persistent black beetle, which had been trying to crawl onto his boot and turned.

“Alright Moonshine,” he announced. “We’re on the right track.”

The Appaloosa nickered in reply as he swung back onto her back.

“Yeah, I know I can’t call you that in public,” he said, “but there’s no one else around here, is there?”

Moonshine snorted in agreement. Remus nudged her sides and she started forward, delicately clopping over the riverbed. She was much more tranquil than Remus’ old horse, who had been an absolute delight to go on adventures with. Too bad Roman let the stupid advisors boss him into getting rid of her, since she was such a menace. Admittedly, she had been a menace, and admittedly, Remus had loved her very much.

Roman had given him Moonshine and told him to call her Moon in front of anyone else. Remus had decided it wasn’t an all-bad apology. This horse didn’t kick him when he approached her, which he supposed was a bonus.

Given Moonshine’s naturally mild attitude, he was understandably perturbed when she stopped in her tracks and began to back up. Remus frowned and scanned the surrounding trees.

“Nothing’s there, girl. Go on.”

Moonshine snorted anxiously. Her ears swivelled. Remus followed them, glancing back the way he’d come. They weren’t that far from home. What was going through her head?

The horse’s hooves skidded across the ground. Remus narrowed his eyes.

“You smell something?” he asked. Moonshine waved her head from side to side, her eyes rolling. Remus glanced up. Past the treetops, there was a trail of smoke curling up towards the clouds. He couldn’t see where it was coming from, but the unsettled feeling in his gut told him he was quite sure he already knew.

Despite her protests, Remus twisted Moonshine to face the direction of the castle and dug his heels into her sides.

 The slamming of the cellar door flung Remus’ eyes open, accompanied by the rapid thumping of his alarmed heart.

He scowled at the thudding of heavy boots on creaky stairs and wondered where Moonshine had gotten to. He hadn’t seen her since he’d reached the castle doors. He hoped she was still intact. Perhaps she had run away the moment he’d dismounted. Perhaps he was more of an unrealistic optimist than he knew himself to be.

Three pale faces bobbed down the stairwell and approached Remus. Remus greeted them with a snarl and feint, to which they all reacted wonderfully with varying degrees of fear. It satisfied Remus enough to remain passive while the guards gripped his arms and detached the chains from the wall. They dragged along the ground with a painful scrapping ring as they heaved Remus up the stairs.

He waited until they’d kicked the cellar door closed behind them to punch the first guard in the face.

He got a kick to his knee for it, and it collapsed under his weight, but they only had to put more effort into keeping him upright, so was it really much of a loss?

Remus didn’t know for certain where he was being taken — dragged, really — but he had a vague inkling that made something in his stomach uncurl ever so slightly.

Twenty minutes later, the first guard with a soured mood, the second with a bruised cheek and the asshole at the back with a broken nose, Remus considered it a win by the time he was flung to the ground at a pair of pretentiously shined stolen boots that glinted maliciously up at him.

“Providing my guards with a hard time, were you?”

Remus bared his teeth skywards. The asshat snorted, like he was amused at the display, and anger curled in Remus’ gut. He shot up, his chained hands reaching, grasping, clutching mere inches from that smug dickface’s gob.

“Go piss into a wolf den, asswipe,” Remus told him. He got another laugh in reply, so he jerked forward and smashed his head to the man’s jaw.

The dickweed staggered back with an agonised cry, and once more Remus felt something in him curling and clenching and biting because really, he couldn’t handle a little bit of a chipped tooth?

“Fucking pussy,” Remus scoffed under his breath.

The man, who was no more a leader than he was a sack of shit sitting in the middle of a grandly polished entrance room, waved to the balcony. “Get him out there.”

The balcony, Remus quickly found, was the centre of attention for a goddamn amphitheatre-esque performing stage.

“Putting me on my knees?” Remus asked as he was shoved to the ground a second time. Whale Penis sneered down at him, still rubbing his swollen jaw. “It’s not the most romantic setting I’ve ever seen. And you haven’t even taken me out to dinner yet.”

“One more word out of your mouth, and I’ll cut out your tongue before your head.”

“Sorry, you skunk-smelling scumbag-of-puke-smelling plaything for a dog,” Remus spat. “I’m into that.”

Cocksucker curled his lip distastefully. He waved his hand, and Remus was bent over a slab of wood that bit into his throat.

“Personally, I’m a bit of top, myself,” Remus said despite the glint of metal now shining ominously above his head. He had to shout over the noise of the people below. “But whatever. If you’re into doggy style—”

“Enough!” Son of a Screaming Banshee Bitch yelled. Silence fell. Remus squinted down at the crowd, but he couldn’t discern any familiar faces. Either they were hiding themselves from him, or… “I thought you would be far more amusing, yet unfortunately, you’ve proven me wrong. I have had enough of this,  and you.” He shoved a finger at Remus’ face. He’d bite it if he could. (Given his head was trapped between wood, waiting to be severed from his shoulders, he very clearly couldn’t. The urge was still there, though.)

Murderous Bastard turned to the man standing above Remus and said, “Execute him.”

The blade swung down. Remus grinned.

Finally.

 When Remus strutted out into the room, wearing before multiple servants, council members and advisors a frilly green dress blown out around his feet and shrinking down his chest so much it was a relief he did not possess the ideal female body, Roman’s headache returned tenfold.

It didn’t help matters that Remus was continuing a rant from the night prior — one that involved his very open, very shameless, very dangerous thoughts about some poor attractive sod he had seen the week he had ventured into town.

“Remus,” Roman said placatingly.

“You should’ve seen it; he was just looking for trouble dressing like that!”

“I can imagine,” Roman said, not unkindly. Normally, he would indulge Remus for longer, but he could tell that the others in the room were beginning to grow agitated and uncomfortable.

“And I don’t even know why I like him. He’s not even that interesting!”

“It’s all about looks,” Roman assured him blandly, moving his attention to the scrolls before him. One advisor leaned down to murmur their input to him.

“Ah, right!” Remus said, bonking himself on the forehead with the palm of his hand. “Dick size! How could I forget? I must be ill.”

“Remus,” Roman said with a sigh, and his brother finally, finally fell quiet. “I would like to hear more of this, truly, but… Perhaps at a different time?”

Remus wrinkled his nose.

“When I’m not in the middle of a meeting?”

Remus’ scowl deepened.

“That you should be a part of as well?”

Remus’ sour expression dropped. He glanced away, wearing the face of someone who knew they were caught red-handed doing something they should not have been doing. Roman raised his eyebrows.

Remus whirled. His dress swiveled around his ankles. “I’m going hunting.”

“Wearing that?” Roman asked after him. Remus flipped his brother off on his way out the door. Roman squelched his smile when he spotted the disdain on the advisors’ faces. He continued to discuss with the others in the room, quietly wondering how many more seconds in Remus’ presence they were from all having simultaneous strokes.

Luckily (or not) that didn’t happen when Remus poked his head back into the room, his dress swapped for his hunting attire and announced, “I’ll be back by sunset, probably.”

Roman hid his smile and told him, “Bring back dinner.” Remus grinned brightly and Roman was sure one of the counsellors almost squawked in outrage.

Roman was loath to admit it in front of anyone, but going about his day as he was required was a duty nothing short of exhaustingly mundane without Remus. His brother always provided some level of amusement, even if it became distracting at times. Roman supposed that burying oneself into one of the empty armour suits used purely for  décor  and prancing around to ambush unassuming servants was not an agreeable practice. Remus never enjoyed being cooped up in the castle, though. He got restless, and Roman knew he wasn’t simply “acting out” when crammed into small spaces, no matter how large the castle.

By the time Roman emerged and escaped to the balcony, his headache had spiked to a near-migraine. He tried not to slump but leaning against the railing felt pitifully relaxing after sitting rigidly straight for the entire day.

He was so busy massaging his temples that at first, he hadn’t registered the sudden disturbance down the corridor from him.

Don’t groan, Roman told himself as he stifled a heavy sigh and turned, venturing towards the noise. What was he going to have to deal with now? With any luck, Remus was back and causing mayhem. Roman could do with his brother’s carefree nature at the moment.

He didn’t expect the Great Hall’s polished floor to be splattered with blood and all exists guarded at weapon-point.

“I’ll ask once more,” a voice called. Roman traced it to one of the strangers, who was now looking down at a councillor. “The lord of the mansion is… where?”

The advisor’s gaze caught Roman’s, and he pointed without a moment’s hesitation. Disappointing, Roman supposed, but he didn’t have it in him to be surprised. The intruder turned, a wide smile plastered to his lips when he spotted Roman standing in the hallway entrance. The look in the stranger’s eyes was full of confidence, but one that Roman couldn’t see in a leader.

“It’s prince, actually,” Roman said, briskly walking to the centre of the room before one of the lingering members included in the odd style of takeover could take a swipe at him. “Given our parents were connected to the royal family.”

The man tilted his head. “Interesting. Do you always talk so highly of yourself?”

Roman tried not to scoff indignantly. “Do you always invade people’s homes to mock them?”

“It’s a profession.” The man stalked forward, strides long and slow and not unlike a hunting predator. Roman didn’t miss the sabre at his side.

Still, he only barely managed to repress the flinch when the blade was brought inches from his neck. “Are you aware of how many people your parents fucked over?”

Roman gave him a raised eyebrow. “Were you among them?” he asked, his voice pitched innocently.

The man’s expression darkened, but then dropped to be startled when he found his sabre being obstructed by the blade of a golden-handled rapier. Roman gave him a considering look and a smirk that bordered between sly and puzzled.

“This is not how I remember duels beginning,” Roman said. The man frowned, but the way he immediately tried to kick Roman’s knees told the prince pretty much all he needed to know.

“You’re not very experienced, are you?” Roman asked, easily sidestepping a slash for his shoulder. “Did you think you could just storm a random place with force and some scary blades?” He twisted away from a swipe at his ankles.

“I have help,” his opponent assured him. “If I wanted it, you’d be dead already.”

“You should meet my brother,” Roman said. Blood sprayed to the ground when his rapier left a line along the man’s cheek. “If you weren’t trying to invade our home right now, I believe you two would make a great pair for collective destruction and carnage.”

“I’m sure.”

Roman just barely managed to escape the severing of the tendons of his wrist with the next attack. He skipped a step backwards and used the change of weight and positions to darted around the challenger (a mild and rather polite label for the gang who had already taken several lives unauthorised and attacked without the laws of a proper duel in mind). The man’s legs buckled beneath him with one kick, and Roman leapt away before his own legs could be caught by the edge of a blade.

“What is this all about, then?” Roman asked, frowning at the man as he struggled up from the ground. His sword was lowered, if only in consideration for not attacking a felled objector, but his senses were still running on hyperdrive; the servant at the back of the room was still alive, just barely, despite the blood projecting from their throat. The two intruders near the hallway that lead to the armoury looked like they were discussing bets. To the left, a gang member was inspecting the rings on the hand of a dead councilman. “Surely you could have robbed this place by now.”

“I’m not going to monologue and give you a chance to hatch some grand escape plan,” Roman’s combatant snapped, rising to his full height. “I’m not that dull.”

“Oh, no,” Roman said, because that hadn’t actually crossed his mind, “I’m genuinely wondering what you’re thinking.” He was levelled with a doubtful look, so he continued; “This all seems either incredibly planned out or a spur-of-the-moment decision that carried you here with a number of men and weapons. So what do you want? Money? Is it a ransom? The actual lord and lady of the house died months ago. You can’t get revenge on them.”

“No,” the man agreed. “But I can with you.”

Blazing hot pain sliced along the back of Roman’s leg. It was so sudden and intense that he couldn’t bite back the scream that tore his throat. His knee buckled but he regained his balance by twisting away from his attacker from behind and waving his sword.

“I have help,” the man reminded him with a smug smile. Roman’s lip curled in distaste.

“No honour among thieves, I suppose,” Roman mused, grinding his teeth and forcing himself to stand straight. He wrinkled his nose after a moment. “What the hell are you burning?”

“The gardens.”

Roman rolled away from an attack from someone at his flank and whirled to glower at their leader. “Why?”

The brute dared to look Roman in the eye, shrug, and say, “Felt like it.”

Roman growled and left an open gash along his assailant’s dominant arm. The man shouted and teetered back. Roman swiped another wound down his calf. He dodged a hit from behind and ignored the shriek from the attacker behind him as they clutched at their eye.

Two other guards dropped the more their leader was pushed back to the point of the stairs at the back of the Great Hall, where he was tripped and pinned by a blade to his throat.

Roman glowered down at him. “I was already in a foul mood today,” he said informatively, “and I am less than impressed at your vandalization as well as the murder of the people who live here.” His eyes darkened dangerously. The tip of his rapier brushed the bob of the man’s throat. “Letting you go to live the rest of your life in a prison cell seems like a generous offer to me.”

The entrance doors burst open with a thundering crack and Roman jolted, his grip tightening on his hilt in fear of dropping it. He wasn’t expecting his brother to explode into the room in a furious whirlwind and start swinging his morning star.

“Remus!” Roman barked, almost involuntarily. What the hell was he doing here? “What are you doing?”

His brother glanced up, looked Roman in the eye, and smashed the head of one of his attackers beneath his boots. Roman grimaced. More blood spilled onto the floor.

The leader of the foolish escapade launched himself from the ground while Roman was distracted, and the two of them rolled down the steps. Roman flung his arm out to deflect a dagger stabbing for his face, but his sword flew from his grasp, spinning across the floor with a singing screech. He got another punch in on the leader before one of the moron’s backups dove to pin his arms down.

Remus shouted his name, and he twisted his head in time to watch his brother get kneed in the stomach and thrown to the ground.

He couldn't get up; the leader’s dagger was positioned to just barely be touching the edge of his eye in silent threat. He was going on about something to do with revenge and blah blah I’m a villain.  Roman pressed his knees to their chest, gifted him a winning smile, and kicked.

The moment that the man went flying Roman clambered away from the other guard, making for Remus at the same time as his brother smashed heads with his attacker, sending them slumping to the ground.

Relief made Roman’s muscles go weak for half a second, but it was all the leader needed to pounce on him a second time.

“Consider this a generous offer,” the man snarled and buried the dagger to Roman’s chest. Roman scrambled backwards, still looking around for his sword. If he could just—

He cursed as his arms dropped his weight.

“YOU SON OF A BLOOD-SUCKING PIG FUCKER,” Remus roared.

Roman kept his breathing even. He glared up at the criminal. “You’re a coward.”

“And you’re dead,” the man replied. Remus careened forward, missed the leader when he dodged, and paid him no more attention in favour of skidding over to his brother. Behind him, a guard raised a crossbow, but he was waved away. The leader watched the pair before him, something akin to sadistic interest lighting his eyes.

A few moments later, though, he’d wave a hand, and a group of his followers would pin the one with the angrily twitching moustache to the ground and drag him somewhere to be contained. There were more exciting things to deal with, and an emotionally repressed brother going through grieving was not one of them.

Remus was snarling like some wild thing, and when he stopped shaking his brother he whirled around, teeth bared and fists clenched and eyes unfocused.

He was knocked to the ground before he could attack. The leader got a fat blob of spit on his shoes and a disgustingly unfavourable insult hurled at his person shortly before a sword hilt connected with the back of his skull and he went as limp as his brother.

 Remus was having a Very Bad Day.

He wasn’t sure when he decided, exactly. It had probably been on its way for quite some time, but Remus was always bad at calculating emotional responses and realising when Bad Days were on their way, so perhaps this was not completely unexpected. It did not make anything any easier.

The smallest noises around the mansion had him jumping. Earlier, he’d snarled at the door that always creaked in the kitchen. He’d given Thomas a bad scare, too, when he’d looked at the werewolf and lunged for him with his own bared teeth.

Remus hadn’t realised it was so bad until Patton had walked into the room, screamed, and Remus had spun to see all the furniture levitating off the ground.

Growling, he shuddered from head to toe, trying to dispel the jittery energy tingling in his limbs. Which was stupid, he was being stupid. He wasn’t even physical anymore, he shouldn’t be feeling bugs crawling beneath his skin.

He regarded the jagged shards grouped on the ground and wondered if Logan was sick of him breaking his vases. Several vases, multiple lights, any painting he came across and a variety of decorative plates and bowls had already been destroyed in his trail.

He wanted to kick at one of the pieces, but only the wisp of his body misted around the ground uselessly. The chains strapped to his body scraped across the floor. Remus blinked down at them for a moment, and they began to morph into a pair of blood-splattered weapons and a soaked uniform.

Vehement fury boiled out of him in the form of a low snarl.

The furniture in the room lifted again, now shaking like Remus had dumped the bugs on them instead. Something behind him shattered with his clenched fists.

Movement caught his eye and he whirled, claws elongated and teeth sharpened.

Roman regarded him mildly, calmly taking in the destruction of the room. Remus shifted, still bristling, but now silent as he watched Roman move past him and try to push a flowerpot back onto the desk from where it was dangerously tilting forward. It didn’t move, even with his effort. Remus swallowed needlessly and joined him, successfully pushing the pot to a safer position.

“Sorry,” said Remus, sounding like dragging chalk and screeching metal.

Roman glanced at him. He didn’t ask what he was apologising for. He never did. Remus wondered if he feared the answer. “You’re a poltergeist. Isn’t this behaviour standard?”

Remus worked his jaw, but nothing came out. Roman’s gaze swept back over the room. “Logan will be grateful you spared his photo frames.”

Remus cracked a cheek-to-cheek smile full of teeth. “Only for when Patton’s not in the mood.” 

Roman visually sighed, though no sound accompanied the gesture. Remus tried scratching at his arms, but they only phased harmlessly through. He growled to himself. Roman squinted at him. “Your neck is bleeding again.”

Remus took the opportunity to tilt his head exaggeratedly and unnaturally to the side. Roman’s face twitched, a hint of a wince.

“Remus,” he admonished quietly.

Remus shrugged and shifted away. He frowned at the far wall. Roman did not reach for him. He never did. Remus never asked; he had a solid idea why. If he were in his brother’s position, he wouldn’t care much for being affectionate with him, either.

“Virgil and Thomas were making warm drinks when I last left them. Would you like to join them?”

“We can’t drink that shit,” Remus spat.

Roman didn’t react. “It’s not about the drinks.” Remus curled his lip. “I know you don’t like to interact with them, but perhaps it will be good for you.”

Remus gnashed his teeth. The chains curling heavier around his body. He glanced down the hallway. If he concentrated hard enough, he could imagine Thomas’ joyful laughter and Patton’s giggles. It made him angry, how they could be so carefree. How they got away with being monsters and could still smile.

“Come on.” Roman brushed past him, their shoulders just barely touching for a mere moment. “If you hate it still after a little while, I won’t bother you again.”

Remus huffed. He trailed after his brother, shoulders slumped. Roman glanced back at him and he scowled back, making his point evidently clear without whining further.

Then, Roman gifted him a small, genuine smile. Something in Remus’ chest leaped, but it couldn’t have been his heart because that thing didn’t work anymore.

He grinned back, but by the sad look in Roman’s eyes, he could tell his brother knew it wasn’t genuine.

“Only a little while,” Roman reminded him. Remus sighed, low and grating and painful. The blood around his throat lessened, only slightly.

“A little while,” he echoed, and followed his brother.

[iya5rt]

Kalopsia Project [Bakugo Katsuki x Reader – Tokyo Ghoul AU]

Summary:

New chapter every Wednesday!

When a not-so-perfect date almost costs you your life, you’re unexpectedly rescued by a certain ash blond ghoul, and thrown into a new life at a small cafe by the name of Yuuei, where you’re surrounded by those you’ve always thought to be your enemies. As you find out ghouls aren’t quite what they’re made out to be though, your life is further thrown into chaos by a mysterious project nobody seems to understand, yet has unwillingly been dragged into.

Never in your life would you have thought the person you would come to find most comfort in, would be the kind that hunted humans. Yet you’ve learned to love the irony of it all…

***

You don’t need any prior knowledge of Tokyo Ghoul to understand this story!

The cover art is made by me!

Enjoy!

Kalopsia Project Masterpost

***

Glossary:

Ghouls – a humanoid species only able to feed on the flesh of humans and other ghouls. If ghouls attempt to eat normal food, they will be struck by a powerful urge to vomit. They are, however, able to drink coffee, as well as regular drinking water.

CCG – Commission of Counter Ghoul, usually abbreviated as CCG, serves as a criminal investigative body in cases connected to ghouls. The ghouls commonly call the ghoul investigators Doves. Ghoul investigators carry out the actual investigations and capture suspects. They are often assigned to carry out investigations in one of Tokyo's wards.

Kagune – a ghoul's predatory organ, functioning as their weapon and claws. When released, a ghoul's physique is strengthened, they are more resilient, and their mobility heightens. Although a ghoul's healing ability is high, the healing of wounds tends to be delayed if the wounds are inflicted by a kagune.

(excerpts taken from the Tokyo Ghoul Wiki)

***

Chapter 1 – Best Date Ever

Just another faceless person among the crowd of hundreds upon thousands of others. That’s all she was. And all I ever thought she would be.

I first noticed her existence in our last year of high-school. We were set to graduate in just about a month. Oh, how ready I was to get out of this miserable place already.

Up until then, it had been a normal day like any other. Boring, dull. It was all getting repetitive and blurring together.

Then, a teacher called her over. It must have been something important. She ran to him and listened. I watched as her face paled, then her eyes widened. She looked terrified. Soon after, she was gone.

She didn’t appear on the next day. Or the day after. A week, and then a month had gone by – she was nowhere to be found. Even as the school year came to an end, there was no trace of her.

Not that I cared.

But they talked. Every break, for a few days after. You couldn’t not hear it, even if you wanted to.

“Hey, she still hasn’t come back yet...”

“Yeah, but can you blame her? Such a tragedy. No one deserves that.”

“Huh? You know what happened?”

“Don’t you? It’s been all over the news, not to mention all the rumors going around at school. Both her parents were ghoul investigators. That night, they were attacked and brutally murdered. They say their corpses were barely recognizable...”

“Huh? I thought ghouls ate people?”

“Usually they do. But they speculate they must have been attacked as revenge.”

“Gosh, this is horrible… Poor soul...”

Well, duh. I wouldn’t want to eat someone who hunts my own kind either. Those ghoul investigators were always a pain in the ass. Good riddance, if you were to ask me.

I myself didn’t usually go hunting people for fun. It was already hard enough just finding some to feed on. But I would be lying if I said I was against killing those goddamn doves.

Come graduation, and everything was swiftly forgotten. That girl finally faded from my mind. She shouldn’t have ever been there in the first place, but at least things were finally as they always should have been.

A few uneventful months later, it was time to go back to school. All those humans going about their merry way and buzzing around were damn annoying. But anything was better than being suspicious for not going to school at all.

Though university wasn’t exactly complete freedom, I liked to believe it would be better than high-school. The bar was set pretty low, after all.

And then, on the first day, I was surprised.

Not because I didn’t expect it. In fact, I couldn’t have ever expected it after I had, as I already mentioned, wiped any traces of her existence from my memory.

But even so, here she was.

Different place, different time, different people. And yet she had finally appeared, for the first time in months.

And what’s more – she was smiling. It wasn’t the kind of carefree smile she always wore from what I vaguely managed to recall of her. It was a heavy smile. It hid a lot. But did I care enough to find out what? Not really.

She seemed to fit in at once. All the other girls swarmed her, and thus began the usual scene of eager introductions, annoying giggles, stupid small talk. So mundane.

“Hey, hey – what do you all think about ghouls?”

Ah, how I loved that question. In fact, I loved it so much that if I were a binge-eater or even just some boring serial killer, those who asked it, would be first on my hit-list. Good thing I wasn’t one. Yet. I couldn’t help but wonder how those girls would react if they ever found out just how many ghouls hid right beneath their noses.

Usually I would try to tune those conversations out. And usually, I would fail miserably, listening in anyway.

One girl laughed and said she didn’t believe in them, claiming they were just some urban legends. Well, she’ll probably get eaten one day, though I didn’t have it in me to pity her. Just about everybody else said ghouls were some mindless murderers and monsters to be feared. And this right here was why I hated whiny teenage girls.

There was however, one reply that stood out.

“Hmm, I don’t know about that. Perhaps not all of them are that bad? Say for example, if you were to pick one person to represent all of humanity, you probably wouldn’t pick a serial killer now, would you? So what if it’s the same with ghouls? Those binge-eater ghouls we always hear about – what if they’re just the minority that makes themselves known? Perhaps there are many more that live quietly with us, in peace.”

And then they all laughed at her. I, on the other hand, was a little too fixated on the brief moment I could swear her eyes darted toward me. I must have been imagining it though. I was probably getting paranoid – this was the daughter of two ghoul investigators, you know? Of course I would be worried she would catch onto me sooner or later.

I still didn’t really care much about her. But I had to admit – my respect for her grew, if only barely. Few were anywhere near as open-minded as she was. Then again, that also made her a naive dumbass – too hopeful and trusting for her own good.

Shortly after, she kind of faded into the background once again. Sure, she wasn’t faceless to me anymore. But that was it.

It has been a few months since then. Yet again, those couple of months were as uneventful as they came. Nonetheless, she is still here. I am still here. And so is everybody else.

What a funny pair we were. A ghoul and the daughter of a pair of ghoul investigators, brutally murdered a year ago.

Now that I think about it, I don’t recall us having ever actually spoken. Nothing past a quick ‘Hey, you got a spare pencil?’ or ‘Did you catch what the teacher said just now?’ at least.

That’s why it was funny. How our fates were meant to intertwine.

It was, to put it simply, quite ironic.

But it’s an irony I’ve learned to love.

***

You couldn’t help but stare. You knew it was rude, you didn’t need anyone telling you so. But there was this feeling that, try as you might, you just couldn’t shake off.

After all, who the hell transferred universities like that!? What was this guy even thinking?

As the teacher blabbered on about yet another topic you’d have to prepare for all by yourself at home anyway, you couldn’t help but let your eyes wander to the blond who had taken a seat nearby.

His hair was soft, parted down the side and not too long – all in all, it was a hairstyle sported by quite the number of guys you knew. So perhaps it was its more uncommon color that threw you off – the blonds weren’t all that many around here, after all. You briefly thought about Bakugo, glancing to the side to find him mindlessly playing with a pencil, twirling it between his fingers. He was so focused too. You snickered to yourself.

Thoughts going back to the transfer student though, you also noted his light blue eyes, deep yet lost and distraught. Almost like he was there but simultaneously wasn’t. His face was soft and his mouth hadn’t formed anything less than a smile ever since he had first walked in. Though it seemed to be a smile that didn’t quite reach those distant eyes of his.

But you had to admit – he was very attractive.

Naturally, you weren’t the only one to make that observation. Once the class had ended, he was immediately surrounded by a handful of curious boys and a whole legion of desperate girls. Even still, he had been all too kind to them, never turning down a question and fitting in like he had been there from the start.

You listened in and got all the answers you were looking for.

“Why? Well, you see, it was my parents’ choice. We happen to live quite close to those recent ghoul attacks in the Second Ward. In fact, they happened right around the corner of the university I go to. When the old man learned of this, he demanded that I change schools.”

Ghouls.

Legend has it, if a conversation continued long enough, the topic was bound to come up eventually. You knew all too well.

Binge-eaters had always been the scariest to you. After all, if a ghoul could survive for an entire month by feeding on a single human, then why were there those who murdered just for fun?

You didn’t need such dark thoughts now though. So you shook your head and continued on with your day instead.

Soon enough that day had turned into two, then three, until finally an entire week had gone by. And with the passing of time, the shock that had accompanied the new student who had briefly shaken up your mundane existence faded too. To you, he was now just another classmate.

That’s why, when he approached you one day, you were left speechless.

“A… a date!?” you exclaimed, face flushing a dark red.

“Yes! You’re so kind and beautiful, [L/N]-san – I’d love to get a chance to go out with you!” he smiled,  complimenting you like few had before.

“Ah, I’m so sorry, this is just a little sudden, haha...” His expression fell, a look of sudden guilt replacing his cheerful grin.

“Oh no, did I put you on the spot just now? God, I am so sorry, please forgive me. Don’t worry – I wouldn’t mind if you reject. It’s just a simple proposal!” Monoma reassured. But you thought.  And thought. Never before had you been asked out on a date by someone as nice and attractive. Surely, it couldn’t hurt. If anything, you needed something so spice up your days.

“Oh, actually – it’s… it’s okay, Monoma-kun! I accept! Or, um, what I mean is, I wouldn’t mind going out on a date with you!” You smiled back, though your cheeks were growing warmer by the minute. Monoma all but jumped in excitement, grin returning.

“This is amazing! Thank you so much, [L/N]-san! Oh, oh – can I call you [L/N]-chan instead?”

“S-sure!” you managed to squeak out.

“Hmm, is today after classes okay? About 7PM? I know it gets dark early but I’ll be waiting for you at the station in the Second Ward and can even take you home if you need me to? So no reason to worry, yeah?”

“Yes, that sounds great!”

And that’s the story of how you somehow scored yourself a date with one of the most charismatic and well-liked people you had ever met. You would have been lying if you said you weren’t looking forward to it. Perhaps this was going to be your faithful encounter, the one to finally turn the gears of your life.

If only you knew what it was that awaited you that night.

The pair of crimson eyes trained on your unsuspecting frame certainly did.

***

After yet another quick glance at your watch, you moved to fix up your knee-length skirt one last time, as the oncoming train stopped before you. At exactly 18.32 you climbed onto it, your heartbeat easily going through the roof at just the thought of those next few hours. Though you weren’t sure what to expect yet, you couldn’t wait to meet up with Monoma.

Upon noticing how packed the train looked, you exhaled in relief that you had opted for a pair of flats instead of those new heels you’d been eyeing up. You weren’t sure if you would even find a place to sit, after all.

Your eyes scanned around, and to your surprise you noticed a single empty seat, the one beside it occupied by someone clad in mostly black, a hint of red peeking out from beneath his dark hoodie. It was his hair that stood out to you, however. After all, the spiky blond locks you had happened upon were quite familiar to you.

“Hey, Bakugo-kun. Fancy running into you here!” you smiled as you approached him, motioning to the empty seat beside him. He shuffled closer to the window to give you some more space. With a gracious nod, you sat down beside him, and proceeded to pull out your phone and give Bakugo his peace – he never looked to be in a talkative mood. You wondered if it was his naturally hostile expression that made others weary of taking the seat.

Yet your mind kept wandering in circles, all of which lead back to him.

“So… Where are you heading to…?” you asked, only now realizing this might have been the first time you had ever had a proper conversation with him, despite having known him for years. He glanced at you, then turned to look out the window once again.

“Second ward. Got some family shit to attend.” Your eyes widened, lips curling up into a smile.

“Ah, what a coincidence! That’s where I’m going too! Surely you wouldn’t mind the company until then?”

“Yeah, whatever. Though I have to wonder what a girl like you’s doing, going to a dangerous ward like that anyway,” he muttered, unbeknownst to you already knowing the answer. You pouted.

“Hey now, I’m not a child, you know? My parents taught me a thing or two about taking care of myself. Plus, I won’t be alone!” You could have very well imagined it, but you could swear his gaze, still aimed at the passing scenery in the window, had hardened into a glare.

“Yeah...”

***

That half an hour had flown by like barely half a minute, as you found yourself enjoying Bakugo’s company, despite having to lead the conversation yourself most of the time. He didn’t seem to mind too much though.

When your stop came around, you both made haste to the exit, quickly stepping aside to let the remaining passengers get off as well. Watching the train depart once more, you turned to Bakugo, hands intertwined behind your back, as you smiled at him.

“Thank you for letting me chat with you like this! I had a blast! See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Now go,” he grumbled, eyes focused somewhere behind you, lingering there even after you turned around to find your date waving to you from afar. You said one last goodbye to Bakugo and ran over to the other boy.

“Sorry for being late, Monoma-kun. Hope you didn’t have to wait long!” you greeted as you waved the blond hello. He laughed.

“Are you kidding me? It’s only been a minute or two, [L/N]-chan, no need to apologize.” You nervously laughed with him. “May I add, it was definitely worth it – you look even more gorgeous than usual, there was no need to outdo yourself like that!” You blushed. Ah, how you wished it was socially acceptable to just hide your face behind your hands right there and then.

“Aw, thank you! But you look great as well – I had to match!” You weren’t very good at this whole dating thing. Nor the conversation thing for that matter. But you’d be damned if you didn’t at least try.

“You’re flattering me. Shall we go, my lady?” And suddenly, the heat had risen to your cheeks.

“Only if you drop the ‘my lady’ part...” you muttered, mentally smacking yourself when your voice quivered.

“If you insist. But that’s no fun...” Monoma faked a pout, but smiled again and set off. You let him walk a little ways ahead of you, choosing to take in the unfamiliar area instead. You had the whole evening ahead of you to spend time together, after all.

“Oh, that reminds me – what was that guy doing here with you?” Monoma suddenly stopped, turning towards you with eyes that, at a first glance, appeared to be full of curiosity. Though the longer you looked at them, the more this sinking feeling in your stomach grew. The kind of feeling that was desperately trying to scream at you that there was something else they hid a little further past the curiosity.

“You mean Bakugo-kun? We just happened to run into each other on the train. He said he had some family business in the area or something,” you mumbled, noticing Monoma had slowed his pace down and was now walking beside you again. “Ah, I completely forgot!”

You jumped, scrambling to find your phone. Monoma watched you in bewilderment as you dug through the tissues, keys, even a few random pens you carried for reasons you may never know, hand finally reaching for the smartphone buried at the bottom of your small purse. With a satisfied smile, you quickly typed up a short message to Bakugo.

‘Forgot to wish you a good time with your family!^^’

And – send. There we go! Can’t believe it slipped my mind…

“...ding ground, that bastard,” was the first thing you heard from Monoma once you finally put your phone away. You cocked your head in confusion.

“What was that again?” you asked, a little blush spreading to your cheeks when you realized you hadn’t been paying attention to the boy who’d been so kind as to propose a date to you. Then again, the way he had spoken as if to himself, perhaps you weren’t meant to hear it.

“Huh? Ah – hanging around! You know, would you mind hanging around a little before we go somewhere for dinner?” he asked, that sweet smile of his you were quickly getting used to returning to his face. The change was perhaps a bit too sudden but you chose to brush it off.

“Sounds good to me. I’m not that hungry yet anyway.”

“Oh, good for you. I’m kinda starving though,” Monoma muttered. His words however, left you with an odd sense of dread. You didn’t quite know why. Perhaps you were just too paranoid for your own good. After all, a dark street late at night was sure to give a young girl some strange thoughts, no?

You chose to instead put your trust in Monoma. Everyone had their quirks. He had done nothing to make you suspicious of him, after all. You were just imagining things that weren’t there.

…

God, how you hoped you were just imagining them.

As the two of you shared a quiet and peaceful walk (as peaceful as your raging thoughts would let it to be anyway), you took to looking at the streets around you. Anything was better than contemplating whether the silence you were engulfed in was a comfortable one or not.

It was getting late and the second ward was, admittedly, a dangerous one. Not only was it overflowing with ghouls and investigators left and right, it was also home to the frequent attacks of a binge-eater in the recent weeks.

Which is why there was no way you were going there alone. Fortunately for you, all the victims seemed to have been by themselves when they had been attacked, not to mention the lack of witnesses. Whoever this ghoul was, they were into the easy targets. But with a partner beside you and a slew of people walking nearby, you felt at ease.

…

Huh? You could swear there really were people walking all around you just a few minutes ago… This was the main street – it should have been busy, even late at night.

It… it was the main street, right? Had you taken an odd turn without realizing it? Monoma seemed pretty confident as he lead the way though.

Something seemed odd.

You were on the verge of freaking out. One look around you only made things worse. This street, these buildings – why did they look so familiar?

But you had never been to the second ward before. Where had you seen them? In person? Unlikely. Perhaps on the TV then? Or online?

Could it have been the news?

You let out a quiet gasp.

…

‘Hanging around’

‘...ding ground, that bastard.’

…

‘...ding ground.’

…

Following the gasp, an icy shiver ran down your spine, as your heartbeat faltered for a second, only to then come back faster than ever. The sound echoed loudly in your ears.

Hanging around? No – that was most certainly not what he had said.

Feeding ground.

“Feeding ground...” you breathed out. Your walking came to a sharp halt, the realization seeming to root you in place.

And despite your voice hovering barely above a whisper, your words were heard. Loud and clear. Because Monoma stopped too, though he didn’t turn to face you quite yet.

“The streets are empty… It’s so quiet… Because this- because this is your feeding ground...” Every new word you let slip was just another mistake to push you to your early grave. Then again, if your assumption was correct, your ‘date’ had long dug that grave and was about to bury you in it himself.

Only then did Monoma turn to face you. You couldn’t see his eyes, which remained covered by his hair, but his shoulders clearly shook a few times. And then he laughed.

And laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

It was the kind of laugh you’d hear in a cheesy horror movie or a cheaply made scary game.

Never in your life had you imagined it could be for real.

“Ahahaha, I got myself a smart girl, didn’t I!?” he exclaimed, finally straightening up to face you. And this time, you could clearly make out his eyes, even in the darkening streets.

Tonight, they were nothing like the calm blue hues you had admired a mere week ago. They were now black, a pair of small red irises staring back at you. You were terrified.

A reddish blur whizzed past you, making you snap back to reality.

Figuring out his intentions had been the easy part. Now was the real beginning of a night you likely wouldn’t even survive.

So, you ran.

Putting one leg in front of the other, pushing your body ever forward – that was all that occupied your mind. You didn’t look back, in fear of what awaited you. Though you knew what it was very well – a ghoul’s kagune. Protruding from their back and acting like their strongest weapon against humans, the kagune was used to hunt their prey, murder it mercilessly, and tear it to pieces.

Now you most certainly didn’t want to look back.

If only things ever went your way.

A sharp pain stabbed right through your shoulder. So sharp in fact, you couldn’t hold the scream that tore its way out of your throat, echoing across the nearby dark alleyways, in sync with the sound of numerous droplets of blood splattering onto the ground.

It hurt.

Goddammit, it hurt so, so badly.

You wanted to cry, shout, scream more, yet your voice seemed to be lost already.

You were too afraid to look, but you were certain that it was his kagune that had pierced through your body like it was just some measly piece of paper. And suddenly that kagune yanked you backwards, as your back was roughly slammed against a wall and you slumped to the ground, quietly sobbing from the ever-increasing pain.

Your vision was becoming blurrier by the minute, yet you could still make out the person- no, the creature leisurely approaching you. His face was just a moving blob of color, until he crouched before you, eyeing you with a twisted smile. You could finally place why that same smile had previously seemed so odd to you, though you were too late. Beside his foot you noticed the purse you had been carrying, now discarded on the ground, all your belongings scattered about in an ugly mess.

Monoma had just opened his mouth to speak, but his attempt went ignored, as you reached for the small blue ballpoint pen just beside your outstretched hand, the clear barrel blurring in and out of sight.

He stood and watched you with a simple curiosity. The kind of curiosity a child felt as it laughed at the small insect it was holding captive, knowing it wouldn’t find an escape, but meet a painful end instead. Your futile attempts must have been so humorous to him, he felt the need to mock them out loud too.

“What do you think you’re doing, doll? You think a pen’s gonna help ya? Unless you want to stab yourself with it?” He let out a dark chuckle. “Sorry, but I don’t intend to give you the satisfaction.”

He made no attempt to stop you though. Had he not just put you on the verge of death, you might have even thanked him for his carelessness. Pen grasped in your trembling hand, your eyes, though with much difficulty, shifted to the kagune beside you. Only now did you notice how his seemed to look like two long tentacles, colored a dark shade of blood red.

“Oh? You plan to stab my kagune?” he laughed. “Go ahead, try it.”

But you knew better. Dead or not, your parents were ghoul investigators. And they had taught you well.

Kagune couldn’t be pierced just like that. Not with a knife, not even with a bullet, let alone a pen.

Stabbing it was out of the question.

Instead, you positioned the pen sideways, thrusting it as hard as your weakening body would allow. Monoma realized his mistake a second too late.

After all, even a ghoul was weak against a surface wound.

As the pain connected and lodged itself into the kagune at an unnatural and unpleasant angle, Monoma cried out in a mix of pain and fury. The part of it that had been holding you captive also disappeared, leaving a bunch of fresh blood to pour from the now widely-open wound on your shoulder.

Your sense were weakening and fast. But in this moment, all you had to do was survive.

You took to running yet again.

He did not chase after you this time, at least not at first.

You knew he was playing some kind of twisted game. He could easily catch you the moment he so wished. Instead, he wanted to give you a glimpse of hope, a taste of salvation, only to drag you back down and crush all of it to pieces with you.

Now the question was – who was to become the winner of this little game?

***

“I saw how you looked at her just now and I’m warning you – you had your chance, and you wasted it. She’s my prey now so you better stay out of the way, you got that?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you plan to do with her. At least I’m not that stupid – she’s the child of two CCG investigators. Ain’t exactly the best ‘prey’ you could wish for.”

“What are you talking about – she’s perfect. Aren’t I doing all my fellow ghouls a favor? She’d just become another dove the moment she steps foot into the real world anyway. I’ll just make sure to get rid of her before it comes to that.”

“Tch. I told you – I don’t care. You can do whatever the hell you want...”

***

Bakugo thought back to the exchange he’d had with the girl’s ‘date’ (though he knew better) just earlier that day, shortly after he’d invited her to go out with him.

He’d known the new guy was a ghoul the moment he’d walked in – that bastard had reeked of death and corpses, at least to his keen senses. He despised how he had clicked in with everybody else right off the bat too.

Frankly, he had no family business in the second ward. Or any business here for that matter. He’d been going to the fourth ward, where his home and a certain cafe he was stuck working at were.

Yet when [F/N] had sat next to him and cheerfully initiated a small conversation, as unexpected as it may have been, he’d suddenly blurted out the place which he had heard to be her meet-up spot with that wretched ghoul.

He had zero intention of stopping whatever was about to go down.

So then… why was he hesitating to leave!?

He had asked himself that many times already, but his eyes had remained glued to the single text message he had received.

‘Forgot to wish you a good time with your family!^^’

Not long after, the first scream had sounded. He had grit his teeth through it, finally finding the resolve to walk away. Far, far away.

Because a ghoul was not supposed to have compassion for some human, dammit.

Following the momentary sound of ragged breathing and a pair of frantic and uneven footsteps, a body collided with his back from just around the corner, sending him stumbling a few steps forward.

Though he easily kept his balance, something fell to the ground behind him. He turned to see the bleeding girl at his feet, only to stare at her collapsed frame in shock.

While he was at a loss for what to do, [F/N] let out a few painful coughs, clutching at the wound on her shoulder, and continuing to crawl ahead instead. It was a pitiful sight.

Just when he’d begun to wonder if she’d even noticed him at all, she raised her head and as her eyes that were overflowing with tears streaming down her scuffed cheeks met his, her face suddenly flooded with relief.

But that relief was then immediately washed away, replaced with a look of pure horror.

Huh? Why was she scared of him now?

Wait, scratch that. Why was she even still alive!?

“You...” her voice trembled. “I-I know...” She made a move to lift herself up, yet fell back to the ground, her ragged breaths more frequent now. Not knowing where to go, she slowly crawled back, as far away from him as she could, before she leaned her back against the wall, leaving a red stain right behind her shoulder. Her watery eyes looked wide from fear at the sight of the blond towering above her.

“You’re a ghoul too!! I know, I’ve known for- for a long time!” For someone losing blood as quickly as she was, she was shouting and crying out at him like it was no big deal. “How you always seem to drink coffee, how you never eat during the breaks, how you twitch whenever someone mentions ghouls – all of it!!” Her voice cracked. Then she went quiet and looked down, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“I thought… I thought you were good…! You- you’re part of his plan too, aren’t you!?” Her crying seemed to choke her words. She then remained silent again, curling onto herself.

Had she… given up already? Had she realized she stood no chance with two monsters on her trail?

Bakugo grit his teeth. She was right in front of him. She knew what he was.

And she was helpless, blaming him. So why not kill her right here and just put an end to all this – to both of their misery…?

Would that annoying voice at the back of his head finally shut up for good then!?

…

Before he could come to a conclusion (or rather, talk himself out of the conclusion he had already reached a while ago but sternly refused to accept), a new pair of footsteps, this time accompanied by infuriating laughter, approached. Soon, a fellow ghoul came into view, and his eyes, while scanning around for the girl he was pursuing, locked onto Bakugo instead.

Oh, how he hated this.

He hated himself for ever considering it.

And he hated himself for actually doing it.

Bakugo growled.

“Be fucking grateful, [F/N]. You’ll get to live another day.”

***

Your world was still a blurry mess, though it was much worse than it had been earlier. Your eyes refused to adjust to the black spots clouding your vision.

By this point, you were more than ready to meet your end. You just wanted the pain gone.

Was it going to be Monoma? Or perhaps Bakugo?

Whoever it was, you regretted to be done in by one of those monsters. You didn’t want to give them that pleasure.

Then again, you only had yourself to blame. The signs had been there all along. Even knowing what Bakugo was, you still let yourself believe he might be different. And even not knowing what Monoma was, you were too blind and trusting to foresee what was to come.

A pair of feet moved in front of you, blocking your view of Monoma. Or the blurry shape you assumed was him anyway. You noticed a kagune you hadn’t seen before, most likely Bakugo’s. In that moment, you closed your eyes.

Muffled words were exchanged, whether spoken to you or between the two, you didn’t know. In that moment, you were only praying your end would be swift.

…

And yet, the pain… it never came.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed, but you were still very much alive. At this rate, the blood loss might end up being the thing that does you in.

Despite not knowing what was happening, the sounds of clashing, fighting, movement were coming from seemingly every direction. Or were your senses too distracted to pinpoint them?

You shut your eyes tight. Perhaps it was better this way. You wouldn’t mind drifting off to sleep in peace.

But that peace was interrupted when a hand touched your uninjured shoulder. Though the touch was warm and light, you flinched.

“Hey, pipe down. You’re safe.” The low voice brought you so much comfort. But wasn’t this the same voice that had sent you in another wave of panic earlier? The rest of the noises had stopped, leaving only the unpleasant ringing in your ear. You decided to be hopeful and slowly forced one of your eyes open. Upon finding a pair of tired red eyes and a head of spiky ash blond hair hunched over you, your mind flooded with questions.

Why were you still alive? Why hadn’t he killed you? What was he doing?

Was he… helping you…?

You tried to speak, but your voice was nowhere to be found.

Bakugo sighed and grabbed the arm on your uninjured side, gently pulling you up, as your quivering body was left to lean against his sturdy frame. Only then did you notice the blood splatters and twitching chunks of what appeared to be Monoma’s kagune scattered about everywhere. Your attacker himself however, was nowhere in sight.

“He… ran away…?” you somehow croaked out, much to Bakugo’s surprise, though he quickly composed himself and nodded.

“Yeah. Bastard was quick. Couldn’t catch him,” he said, as he slipped off the sweater he’d been wearing on top of his black t-shirt, and tied it carefully around your wounded shoulder, earning a couple of groans from your barely conscious self. “Though I doubt he’d ever have the guts to come near you again. Or return here at all, for that matter.” You relaxed against him. Not that you really had much of a choice in that regard, as your body was quickly shutting off its functions one by one.

“I’m… such an idiot...”

“You may be an idiot. But you’re alive now, which is all that really matters.”

“Mhm. Thank you, Bakugo-kun...”

The words caught in his throat and he paused. You were light-headed and the pain must have been getting to you. No way you were going to say something as ridiculous otherwise.

“Hey, I’m gonna bring you somewhere where they’ll fix you up in no time,” he muttered, noticing your drooping eyelids.

“Hospital…?” He shook his head. Then again, you probably didn’t see that.

“Not quite. It’s a nice lil’ cafe called Yuuei. You might’ve heard of it.”

“Is that so...” Your words were dragged out and slurred together. The shock, the pain, the blood loss – it all was taking its effect at once.

“Right. So I’ll see you again when you wake up,” he said, lifting you up on his back.

“Alright...” You managed a weak smile. “That sounds good...”

Those were your last words before your eyes shut tight again, breath slowing down.

Right now, Bakugo only hoped he could get to Yuuei before your time was up. He wasn’t planning on letting you slip away this easily. Not yet.

It was kind of ironic. A ghoul and a human. The hunted and the daughter of the hunters.

The monster and the prey.

But it was an irony he didn’t yet know he would grow to love.

For your journey had only just begun.

***

[CLASSIFIED INFORMATION]

Protocol K78152112

Subject #6

Real Name: Hikiishi Kenji

Background: Family slaughtered by ghouls

Results: Body mutations; loss of cognitive functions; undeveloped k*****.

Subject did not react well to procedure; cause undetermined.

(scribbled in pen) Well maybe don’t mess up the doses next time, you good-for-nothing assistants!!

***

Author’s Note: I am incredibly excited to finally share this with y’all! To those of you who’ve been here since “Explosive Touch” - hi, and welcome back! And to those who are just joining me – I hope you’ll enjoy this story!! This all started off as a little scenario I daydreamed about a year ago, and lo and behold – it’s now a full-fledged multi-chapter story!

If you’ve read “Irony” already (the oneshot which was essentially my prototype for this first chapter), I’ve got you covered – Chapter 2 is already up so please check that out if you’re looking for some new content! I’ll try not to get too wordy this early on, but I’ve put a lot of thought and care into this story so I hope you’ll love it as much as I do!!

And psst, a quick heads-up – if anything seems either oddly specific or a bit too random, it might just be important to the plot in some way? Feel free to speculate – I’d love to see what you make of my little hints and foreshadowing! Onto the next chapter~

(Thank you for your patience and interest @chims-kookies​ @creativedogs​ - here it finally is!!)

[ears-awake-eyes-opened]

Valentines in Tibet: Celebrity is as celebrity does

(Newtina ❤️. Thanks @possibility-for-joy for the dialogue prompt, which inspired me to revisit Chamber of Secrets which was a muse for this one-shot. Writing this has been something different for me — fun and hopefully not too contrived. Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone.)

***

February 14, 1990; International Task Force Headquarters in Tibet; International Confederation of Wizards Summit regarding prevention of Muggle sightings of Yetis

***

“Orchideous,” with a whisper, Newt conjured a tiny flower in Tina’s palm.

“It’s beautiful.” She breathed in the flower’s fragrance and filled his hand with hers. For more than sixty years she’d been holding his hands. When their fingers entwined, it always felt like the first time.

“I appreciate you coming with me,” he continued to speak softly, “I recognize that the Tibetan Plateau is far removed from a typical February get-away.”

“When have we ever done anything typical? Besides, it would have been difficult to say no to a personal request from Albus.”

Years ago the professor invited the Scamanders to please use his given name. Tina took to it readily, but Newt still felt more comfortable with the age old formality of ‘Dumbledore.’

“Since the delegation is so small, he appointed someone to oversee the summit in his stead, but he wants us to keep an eye on Lockhart and make sure the Task Force receives accurate information.”

“Having read Lockhart’s books, I admit I’m curious to meet him,” Tina said, “Where is he anyway?”

“Perhaps waiting to make a grand entrance. Based on Skeeter’s reporting of him in the Daily Prophet, that seems his style.”

“You’re still reading that rubbish? I thought we were using Queenie’s subscription to line the Kneazles’ litter boxes.”

“You sound like me, Darling. I can’t seem to help myself. It’s like a train wreck — difficult to look at, yet more difficult to look away.”

Newt and Tina had already taken seats near the podium while most of the delegates and Task Force members milled about the room engaging in conversation. A fire burned in the hearth. The temperature outside was below freezing, and Newt’s bones ached a little. Some days he felt his age.

Tina caressed his palm as they waited. She felt so good, so good to him always.

The Acting Supreme Mugwump, Babajide Akingbade from Uganda, connected briefly with them on his way to the podium. “It’s wonderful to see you, Mr. Scamander, Mrs. Scamander. The Confederation is honored to have you travel so far to share your expertise.”

Newt reluctantly disengaged from the softness of his wife’s caress to shake Akingbade’s extended hand. “It’s good to see you too, sir. I’m happy to help.”

Akingbade greeted Tina with the same expression of gratitude.

“You received the agenda?” he asked them.

Just then, the door burst open, and Gilderoy Lockhart stepped inside with a flourish of his cloak. His personal photographer followed close on his heels.

“I apologize for my delay,” he announced to the room, flashing a broad vacant smile and extremely white teeth, “My publisher insisted I make a brief stop at the capital city to take photographs for inclusion in my upcoming autobiography... Magical Me.”

He paused for a moment to smooth his hair and adjust his lilac-colored ascot. Tina rolled her eyes. “Is this guy for real?” she whispered to Newt.

“I’m not sure yet.”

Akingbade greeted Lockhart and pointed him to his seat on the opposite side of the podium. Lockhart caught sight of Newt and Tina and approached, snapping his fingers, “Photographer! One with the Scamanders.”

Lockhart positioned himself behind Newt and Tina, and placed his hands on their shoulders. “Fellow heroes,” he spoke of Newt and Tina without actually saying hello. The camera flashed. “Fame is a fickle friend, ...unless you work at it, of course.”

He slapped them on the shoulders and winked at Tina. She feigned a cough to conceal emerging laughter. Newt watched with keen interest as Lockhart made his way to his seat.

“Everyone, please be seated,” Akingbade announced before diving into the Summit.

“Thank you all for being here. The Task Force has called our attention to Yeti activity which over the past year has become an increasing threat to Clause 73 of the Statute of Secrecy. In lieu of continuing to fine the region. the Confederation has responded by convening this meeting with two experts, Newt Scamander and Gilderoy Lockhart, who each have extensive experience observing and interacting with the Yeti. Our goal is to develop improved strategy for the Task Force to prevent the Yeti from revealing the Magical World. Our first speaker...”

Lockhart stepped up to the podium. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

The Acting Supreme Mugwump stepped aside.

“Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, honorary member of the Dark Force Defense League, inventor of Occamy egg yolk shampoo which guarantees locks of luminosity, and, thus far, three times winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award. But I don’t talk about that. ...I didn’t tame a wild Yeti by smiling at him, now did I.”

He removed his cloak and tossed it into the audience. The witch who caught it blushed noticeably.

“We’re just going to listen to this idiot?” Tina muttered under her breath with fists clenched, “He uses unhatched Occamies to make shampoo?!”

“It appears we don’t have a choice right now but to listen.” Newt covered her hand with his and stroked her knuckles with his thumb. “It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright.”

Occamies had been in some respects the beginning of everything for them. An Occamy hatchling had been the first magical beast that Tina had ever held and looked at with wonder. She was very protective of them.

Lockhart continued, “Can everybody see me? Can you all hear me?” He glanced around the audience to ensure nobody’s view of him was obstructed. Nodding heads assured him.

“The books I’ve written detail my encounters with dark creatures and provide instructions on how to safely repel them: Gilderoy Lockhart's Guide to Household Pests, Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghouls, Holidays with Hags, Travels with Trolls, Voyages with Vampires, Wanderings with Werewolves, Marauding with Monsters, and Year with the Yeti. The latter may be most relevant to our task at hand, but I’m sure you’ll find the others thoroughly enjoyable. They can all be purchased through Flourish and Blotts.”

A wizard on the Task Force raised his hand and asked, “In your year with the Yeti, how did you tame them? They’ve been pushing at our borders. They devour everything that strays into their path, including Muggles. The only thing that’s been working to repel them is fire.”

“Well it was simple really. I gave them head colds, and they returned to their ice caves. For full details, see my published work.”

Realizing this discussion was going nowhere, Akingbade stepped up to the podium. “Thank you, Mr. Lockhart.” Several witches and a couple of wizards initiated a round of applause. Lockhart took a bow before returning to his seat.

“Now, Mr. Scamander, can you please offer us further enlightenment?” Akingbade asked.

Newt stepped to the podium. His silver hair reflected the firelight. How attraction could grow finer with time, Tina didn’t understand, but it was the case with them nonetheless. She loved to watch him work, in all of his capacities.

He looked at her before beginning his speech. Her eyes were reassuring, eternally reflective of the fire within her spirit, ageless in a world growing old.

“Hello. As we talk about the requirements of the Statue of Secrecy, we must not forget the primary intention of Clause 73 which is expressed in its introductory language, ‘Each wizarding governing body will be responsible for the concealment, care, and control of all magical beasts, beings, and spirits dwelling within its territory’s borders...’ The word there that I haven’t heard mentioned yet today is CARE.

“We have a responsibility to care for these creatures and consider their needs along with our need for secrecy and Muggle safety. Without the protection of this Task Force, Muggles would hunt the Yeti. Some already claim to. The Yeti would soon face extinction.

“During my time studying the Yeti, I observed that individuals have seasonal migration patterns and often must travel long distances to hunt and forage or else suffer starvation. Many also travel far to seek out mates. This ensures a genetically healthy population. Please consider the Task Force may be too severely limiting their natural range, and the Yeti are merely pushing those borders in order to survive.

“Also, consider the possibility that Yeti unrest is mirroring recent civil unrest in the region. My wife is more versed in Muggle politics. Tina, can you explain.”

Tina looked to Akingbade who nodded. She said, “When monks in the Drepung and Sera monasteries started protesting for the independence of Tibet, the Chinese government halted reforms and started an anti-separatist campaign. Last June, thousands of students demonstrating in Beijing with a hunger strike, sit-in and occupation of Tiananmen Square were massacred by their government. Muggles of the region are wanting more freedom, fundamental liberties, and so may be the Yeti.”

Newt added, “Also, with the exploding human population in the region and worldwide, more communities are pushing up into the mountains which are the Yetis’ homeland.

“Safer measures can be taken besides flaming torches to force the Yeti into reserved areas too small for their hunting, foraging, and reproductive needs, then slaughtering those that continue to venture beyond the boundaries set by the Task Force. Broader boundaries, wider use of protective enchantments, a larger Task Force including intensive training in memory charms...

Lockhart jumped in, “I have exceptional talent with memory charms.”

Newt ignored him. “Our responsibility to ensure the Yeti’s concealment, protection, and vitality is not simply dictated by this Confederation and Clause 73 of the Statue of Secrecy. ...We know it in our hearts. There is a strange beauty and resonance with these creatures. Though savage and untamable, they are an integral part of the ecology of this region. They have a right to the fundamental nature of their existence. ...Each of you must know that. In your hearts, you must know.”

The room was silent. Hearts and minds were opening. Newt’s means of gentle education was one of his most unique gifts, honed throughout his lifetime.

“That’s all I had planned to say.”

Akingbade began, “Thank you, Mr. Scamander, Mrs. Scamander—“ when he was suddenly cut off by a cacophony of hooting and screeching on the roof. A wizard opened the door and at least a hundred owls swooped in, dropping pink and red envelopes in the vicinity of Lockhart.

“Ah,” he said, “This happens to me every Valentine’s Day. Celebrity is as celebrity does, you know.”

Tina’s earlier question rang through Newt’s mind along with the incessant hoots and screeches. We’re just going to listen to this idiot?

They looked at each other. Tina’s eyes were burning with annoyance, a look which Newt unfortunately knew quite well. They had listened long enough.

“Well, we must be going now. Tina and I have another engagement. You’re welcome to contact us with further questions ...that is, when the owls are available again.” The birds continued to swoop overhead.

He held Tina’s hand.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“After putting up with this, Love, the choice is all yours.”

“As I said before, when have we ever done anything typical? The day is still young. Let’s get out of here.”

She apparated them to their next adventure.

[alluremin]

Fair Game

pairing: park jimin | reader

genre: carnival au, crytid-ish hunter au| crack turned horror (?)

warnings: swearing, brief mentions of blood

premise:  “...I know our lives are technically in danger, but nothing ever happens in this town, so I’m pretty freaking pumped.”

word count: 4.4k

a/n: this is my story for @foreverpark​‘s halloween writing challenge! i had a lot of fun writing this!! (i know i said this was going to be posted yesterday, please forgive me. we all know that i’m wildly inconsistent. and yes i’m also aware that halloween has long since passed)(the dialogue prompt has been adjusted slightly to fit the situation)

The screams of children fill your head as you stare absentmindedly into space. The screeching of rubber bumpers colliding with one another do nothing to pull you out of your reverie. You feel like you’re living in a never ending loop of torturous proportion.

Sweat starts to trickle down the back of your neck as the sun continues to sink closer to the horizon. You can’t even be bothered to fix the umbrella or to adjust your bun turned bird’s nest higher on your head. It wasn’t until you feel a tap on your shoulder that you finally came back down to Earth. 

“You’re off the clock for the day!” Peyton’s chipper voice squeals in your ear. It’s not that you don’t like the girl, but she was always so happy to be at work and you had a hard time understanding that. After the day you’ve had, all you can do is offer a weak smile and a pat on her shoulder as you shuffle off toward the main office.

You had been working at this god forsaken carnival since you were sixteen. Sure, the extra income is nice, but now that you’re twenty one and on the verge of graduating from college; you dread going home every summer. Not to mention, there was always something foreboding about carnivals that made your skin crawl. You worked nights for one summer and have never done it since. The memories of that summer inexplicably make your skin crawl. There was just something about when the lights would go out on the rides that made you wish you could leave and never come.

The last thing you wanted to do, however, was risk missing out on an opportunity for work. You were already swimming in student loans, so it wasn’t ideal to turn down work when the opportunity presented itself. You constantly remind yourself that there were only a few more weeks left of summer, then you could finish your final year, graduate, and find a job that was actually fit for an adult. 

As you collect your stuff from the back office, you can feel your phone vibrating in your back pocket. The thought of having to speak to anybody right now made your brain turn to putty, so you ignore it. En route to your car, however, you can feel it go off at least 12 more times, only adding to your irritability. Ripping your phone out of your pocket, you glare at the screen. In this very moment, you decide that you’re going to strangle your friends. Your eyes roll almost voluntarily as you scroll through the messages.

You lock your phone and throw it into the passenger seat before dropping your head to your steering wheel. The problem with this whole situation is that Jungkook knew none of you would say no to him. The thought of having to go home, shower, then get back in your car to make the journey to Jungkook’s house was exhausting in and of itself, let alone having to actually do any of those things. 

Quickly into your freshman year of college, you managed to make an amazing group of friends. You became close with the boy across the hall and his suitemates. Jimin was extremely sweet, and more often than not, he left for his classes around the same time that you did. Not only that, but you often ate together and did laundry together. Before you left for Christmas break, he pulled you aside and asked you out in the cheesiest manner possible; under a mistletoe. You couldn’t possibly deny him when he looked that cute.

It wasn’t long before he would invite you across the hall to hang out with him, and his suitemates, Yoongi and Seokjin. They were both sophomores at the time, you and Jimin both freshmen. The four of you fell into the steady rhythm of having meals together, hanging out, and crying over finals (that last one was mostly just you). 

Last year, you all moved into the same townhouse together. It was great and your only complaint was the Jimin never slept in his own bedroom, but his body heat wrapped around you made him easy to forgive. One night, you all were hanging out in the rec center, playing your weekly game of ping-pong when a bright eyed kid walked in and sat in the corner by himself. 

At first, you all ignored him, thinking he was waiting for someone, but when some time passed and he was just playing with his fingernails, the four of you decided to ask him to play ping pong with you. You learned that his name was Jungkook, he hated his roommates, he was a freshman, and he was extremely good at ping pong. Needless to say, he quickly became a member of your makeshift family and you found a use for Jimin’s empty bedroom.

Strangely enough, his hometown was close to your own, so there was no break in any of your routines when summer hit. Jimin spent the majority of his summer with you at your childhood home and Yoongi and Seokjin traveled over every few weekends to hang out with the three of you.

When you push open your car door, you’re met with the view of your boyfriend coming out the front door to meet you. He could likely tell by your lack of responses to the group chat that you were having a long day, to say the least. Instead of attempting to make conversation, Jimin simply wraps his arms around your shoulders and holds you. You don’t fight him off.

“Jimin, I’m so sweaty,” you whine into his shoulder.

“Don’t care, I missed you.” He kisses the crown of your head before he releases you and looks you in the eyes. The small smile on his lips brings one to your own. 

“I need to shower before we go to Guk’s. I feel absolutely disgusting.”

“Okay, I’m going to help your mom put away groceries! She just got home a couple minutes ago.” Jimin kisses the tip of your nose before going into the kitchen. It’s no wonder she likes him more than you or your siblings.

After a shower and a short breakdown, you and Jimin are on your way to Jungkook’s house. You could only hope that his parents were expecting all of you there to, once again, scheme about some ridiculous plan Jungkook had to catch another cryptid he found on the internet. 

Since this summer started, there have been various occasions that Jungkook believed a ghoul, ghost, or mysterious creature had been located in the area and forced you and your friends to go out and look. Big surprise, you all have yet to anything. 

Upon entering his house, Jungkook greets you and Jimin at the door with a smile on his face, and Yoongi and Seokjin wave at you from the couch in the living room. 

“Where are you parents, Guk?” You ask.

“Date night. They’re really taking advantage of this empty-nester lifestyle,” he giggles to nobody in particular while leading you and Jimin into the living room.

You audibly gasp at the sight before you. Night-vision goggles, EMF detectors, a go-pro, and a large pile of black clothes sit in a pile on his living room floor.

“Don’t you have student loans to pay?” Jimin laughs as he crouches to the floor, staring at Jungkook in question.

“Yes, but if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right! I’m also using the excuse that I’m treating myself the only way I know how,” Jungkook picks up the go-pro that sat on the floor and grins at you. You can’t help but stare blankly at him.

“You broke Y/N with your crazy, Guk,” Yoongi says monotonously, not looking up from his phone. 

“Hey, I don’t think he’s crazy. I’m just blown away at your commitment, honestly.” You sidestep Jimin, who was sitting on the floor fishing through the sea of black clothes, and ruffle Guk’s hair. If you hadn’t known Jungkook, you truly would’ve believed exactly what Yoongi had just said. Among other things, this was just one of his hobbies and all of you accepted it. Honestly, cryptid hunting gave you all an excuse to hang out and play around in the woods or abandoned buildings and act like stupid teenagers again.

“Okay everybody gather around, it’s time to debrief!” Jungook announces to the room. 

“We’re all sitting right here!” Seokjin waves his arms overdramatically at Jungkook. 

“I just wanted your attention and now that I have it, let’s get started.”

Yoongi sits forward at this and tries to look interested, but you could tell that he was dreading going out tonight. You stand behind where he was sitting on the couch and squeeze his shoulders while Jungkook started his rant.

“Okay, so, today I was scrolling through one of my blogs… you know the one that I track all of the happenings in the cryptid hunting world. Next thing I know, I get a message from somebody with a link to a post somebody made about a Yowie that was spotted not far from where Y/N lives! So-”

“Hey Jungkook, I hate to interrupt your speech, but can you please tell me what the fuck a Yowie is?” you question him. You could feel Yoongi’s shoulders shake under your arms as he chuckles. 

“Okay so it’s basically bigfoot… but from the Outback... of Australia.” He looks at you in complete seriousness. It’s only a matter of seconds before the rest of you crack up at his confession.

Once you all manage to gain your composure, you notice Jungkook scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment, his cheeks turning a bright pink.

You leave Yoongi’s side and sit on the floor next to Jimin. “Not that I don’t believe in the vast ability of this ‘Yowie’ to travel, but it’s not like we’re in the middle of the Outback, Guk,” you reason with him. He drops unceremoniously to the floor next to you.

“Yeah, I was hoping that you guys wouldn’t think anything of it. You usually just tune me out when I go on my rants then follow me into the woods and throw sticks at each other and stuff.”

“Hey, maybe it’s out there! We don’t know, right?” You smirk at him and a smile returns to his face. “Who knows? Maybe Yowies can swim across the ocean, eh?”

Jimin joins in on your comforting Jungkook, wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you into his side. “Even if it’s not a Yowie, maybe they saw something else! If there’s anything out there, we can find it,” Jimin assures. 

You turn around to look at Yoongi and Seokjin. Seokjin is trying to figure out how night vision goggles work, looking around the room with them on, his mouth hanging wide open in confusion. Yoongi, on the other hand, was still staring at you incredulously. 

“Right, Yoongi? We’re still going out to find whatever it was?” You raise your eyebrow at him to say something. One thing you knew for a fact was that Yoongi had a soft spot for you and you knew that you could convince him to drop his doubts for the sake of Jungkook’s feelings. 

“Uh, yeah. I’m sure it’ll still be fun even if there’s no way in hell that-” Yoongi stops mid-sentence when he notices your glare. “-we’ll find it if it’s out there, kid.” You look away satisfied. 

“Alright, it’s settled then! Yowies here we come!” You shout excitedly in an attempt to bring up the energy in the room.

“Y/N, what’s gotten into you? By the end of our hunts your face is usually buried in Jimin’s back. Remember that one time you got so scared when Yoongi broke that stick that you-”

“Kim Seokjin, if you finish that sentence, you’re toast. I’m willing to brave the storm if it means we make a new scientific discovery!” You exclaim. Everybody gawks at your false sense of confidence, but if they have any comments, they keep them to themselves. 

“Okay so here’s the game plan…”

The five of you load up in Seokjin’s truck and head toward the place you dreaded most: the carnival. The clock read 1:00 am; Jungkook had insisted that you wait until after midnight because he was sure that every cryptid was probably nocturnal. You tried to explain to him that nocturnal just meant it would be dark outside, but he was set in his ides and you didn’t have the heart to argue with him. Instead, you all made use of the afternoon to watch movies and nap until you had to go out. 

As you’re driving down the barren road, you can’t help but lean onto Jimin and close your eyes again.

“Are you still tired, baby?” He whispers.

“Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I can tell, you move a lot in your sleep.” Jimin kisses the crown of your head and wraps his arms around you body to pull you impossibly closer.

“Hey, no sleeping, we’re on a mission!” Seokjin shouts from the front seat. You groan into Jimin’s neck when Seokjin’s early 2000s playlist blares through the speaker. You can feel Jungkook on your left side roll his body around to “Fergalicious”. You pick your head up and give up on getting any more sleep. 

Only 5 more minutes pass before you pull into the parking lot in front of the fairgrounds. In all honesty, there was something about the way the attractions look in the dark without their lights on that brings goosebumps to the surface of your skin. They look incriminating, hauntingly abandoned by the carnival goers for the day, completely alone for the night. 

Since the sun had gone down, the temperature had dropped drastically. You were in an oversized black hoodie Jungkook forced you to wear (for stealth) and your athletic shorts. Maybe you’re starting to let your nerves get the best of you, but the second you step out of the car, the wind begins to pick up, almost as if it’s greeting you, or warning you. 

You cling to Jimin’s arm, not only because you love his attention, but also due to your nerves. You try to convince yourself that this feeling was normal. Everytime you all went out at night, you do the same thing; you were excited to go out and have fun, but once you got to the location, or “hunting grounds” as Jungkook liked to say, you started to get scared. All of the terrifying, albeit fictitious, facts that Jungkook would tell you about the cryptid in question would creep back into your head. All you could hope was that you never would actually find any of the things he told you about.

You and your friends approach the locked gate at the entrance of the fairgrounds. They turn back to you as you fish a ring of keys out of your pocket. Perks of working at this carnival for the last 5 summers, you guess. 

The heavy padlock falls when you remove the key from it, causing a cloud of dust to puff up from the ground. You drop to pick up the lock when a loud groan echoes somewhere in the distance. It sounds like bending metal, almost. 

“You guys heard that, right?” Jungkook asks while pointing his flashlight down the path between the rides.

“C’mon, Guk don’t start. You know how unreliable these rides are, it’s probably just the Gravitron slowly falling apart.” Yoongi hits Jungkook’s shoulder as the two continue forward. Jimin grabs the underside of your arm to help you stand while Seokjin takes the lock from you hands and hangs it on the fence.

“You okay, babe?” Jimin asks.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. The sound just made me jump,” you say shakily. Jimin holds your hand and you trudges forward after your three friends. “Yoongi’s right, these rides are mediocre in structural integrity, at best.”

“I think it’s cute when you get scared on our hunts. You always hold my hand really tight, “ Jimin teases. You nudge his shoulder with your own.

Everybody stops near the Ferris Wheel and Jungkook splits up the equipment. You’re not sure why he hands you an EVP detector; the second the device so much as makes a peep, he knows you’re going to lose you mind. In all honesty, that probably the exact reason behind him giving the device to you. “I didn’t think that Yowie’s could manipulate electromagnetic fields, so why would we need this? They’re just animals, technically… I think.” Your question trails off with your train of thought. 

“Do you think I would risk not catching another entity because I was so focused on the Yowie? C’mon Y/N, I’m not an amateur!” Jungkook jokes but there’s a hint of seriousness in his statement. You throw you hands up in defeat and choose not to question him further. 

“So should we split up and cover the grounds?” Jimin asks. 

“I don’t mean to ruin the vibe we have going here,” Seokjin cuts in before Jungkook can begin to speak, “but this is vaguely reminiscent of Scooby and the gang. Tag yourself, I’m Velma!”

Jungkook turns from Jimin and glares at the older man. “Dude, seriously?”

“What?”

“Now is not the time… but Yoon is Scooby-Doo.” Jungkook smirks at Yoongi. 

“Why am I Scooby, I feel more like Shaggy. You’re Scooby!” Yoongi points to Jungkook.

“Does that make Y/N and I Fred and Daphne by default?” Jimin pipes in.

“So I’m a damsel in distress?”

“Y/N, you’re literally hanging off of my arm right now,” Jimin looks down at you in amusement.

“Okay everybody, reel it back in! I know that you two will at least humor me and try to find some evidence,” Jungkook motions to you and Jimin. “You two on the other hand, won’t. You’ll sneak back to the car when nobody’s watching. I’ll go with you guys.” Jungkook grabs Seokjin and Yoongi by the elbow and pulls them in the opposite direction that you Jimin start to head in. 

“So do you actually believe in all this stuff?” You look up at Jimin.

“I don’t think so. I mean, we’ve never found anything before. At school or here,” Jimin reasons.  

“I guess that makes sense. I like to think that I don’t either, but then I feel so uneasy whenever we go out. Like… there’s gotta be things we haven’t discovered yet, right?”

“Are you alright? You look really pale, sweetheart?” Jimin grabs you by the shoulders and slide his hands up to you cheeks. 

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve just never felt this anxious before.” You look him in the eyes when you feel another strong breeze whip across the right side of you body. Another deep groan echoes throughout the grounds and all of your hair stands on end. Jimin pulls you into his side and spins the two of you around with his flashlight in hand.

A beeping noise meets you ears, growing in volume. You recognize that it’s coming from your back pocket. With shaking hands, you reach behind you and pull the EVP detector out. The lights on top of the device started to flash, the meter in the center rising with the noise it was emitting. 

“Is it supposed to do that?” Jimin asks you while keeping his attention on your surroundings. 

“I don’t-”

You don’t finish your sentence. 

Suddenly, every light in the entire carnival come to life. Animatronic attractions and music from the booths blare to life. The music rises to a decibel that causes both you and Jimin to cover your ears. Once the ear splitting tunes lower back down to a bearable level, Jimin grabs your hand and you two run in the direction that you came from, hoping that you run into your friends on the way.

After you find yourself in front of the Ferris Wheel, you hear Jungkook screaming out for you and Jimin. Spotting him to your right, you run in his direction; toward the fun house.

Once you two arrive at the backdoor, Jungkook pulls you inside and you see Seokjin and Yoongi crouching in the corner trying to catch their breath.

“Alright, what the fuck is happening right now?” Jimin yells.

“There’s something here, I don’t know what it is! We heard a loud sound like the one we’d heard when we first got here, then everything turned on. It felt like we were being watched...are still being watched,” Jungkook trails off and leans against the wall. You can see the terror and confusion in everybody’s eyes and you’re sure your own match theirs. 

“Y/N, please tell me there’s an explanation. Somebody knows we broke in and are trying to scare us off?” Seokjin ran his fingers through his hair out of anxiousness.

“The only way to turn on all of the attractions at the same is a master key in the control building, otherwise they all have to be turned on individually, also with specific keys.”

“Who has keys?” He asks you.

“Three people. The city has one, the manager has one… and I have one.”

“Okay so maybe somebody from the city, or the manager?”

“I don’t know about the city, but we were only here for 15 minutes before this all happened and the likelihood of somebody making it from City Hall all the way out here in that time is impossible. The manager left town for the weekend on a camping trip with his family…” You trails off when the severity of the situation hit you, so you sink to the ground and hold your head in your hands.

“You’re not doing it Y/N, are you? You said it yourself, you have a key!” Jungkook points an accusing finger at you. 

“Jungkook, I’ve been terrified since the moment I got here, of course I didn’t! Do you honestly think I’d risk us getting arrested for a good joke?!” You throw your hands out in front of you as you yell.

“...I know our lives are technically in danger, but nothing ever happens in this town, so I’m pretty freaking pumped.”

All of you start to yell at Jungkook for his comment when you feel the ground beneath you become uneven. The funhouse is tipping.

“Everybody shut up!” Yoongi yells as he stands. Another bang and the flimsy building tips again. “Holy shit, everybody get out!”

You all file out the door you came through and run toward the gate. Only when you turn your head do you realize you’ve made a huge mistake. In front of the funhouse, a giant figure, almost appearing as if it’s made of mist, turns toward the sound of your running feet. Yoongi notices your petrified figure in front of his and he grabs you as he runs past, forcing you to break your gaze from the creature and run for your life. 

You’re unsure why you thought you would be capable of outrunning whatever that thing is, but as you reach for Jimin’s hand, you feel as if your body becomes frozen in place before everything goes dark.

The sun peaks over the horizon as your blurry vision returns to you. Jimin’s hand is still in yours. You manage to sit up with a groan and your ears ring as you take in the display around you. Your friends surround you on the ground and in a frenzy, you make your way around to each of them, checking for a pulse. The tears stream down your face in relief when you confirm that everybody’s alive. 

When you touch his wrist, Jimin stirs and meets your gaze, sitting up holding his temples. Your legs are covered in scratch marks from where you fell on the gravel path and Jungkook’s hoodie is ripped to the elbow. Your head landed in the grass, but everybody else wasn’t so lucky. Jimin had a gash on his forehead that would probably need stitches, Jungkook and Seokjin had scratches all over their cheeks, and Yoongi had fallen backward, so you couldn’t see what was going on with him. 

Wordlessly, you and Jimin crawl from person to person trying to stir them awake. Seokjin and Jungkook woke relatively easily, but Yoongi took some more coaxing.

“Is everybody okay?” You manage to croak out. Everybody around you groans and Jimin releases a noise resembling “yes”. 

“What the fuck happened?” Yoongi asks as you all begin to stand. Nobody answers his question. Nobody has an answer to his question. 

When you turn around, the area is in disarray. The carts from the Ferris Wheel are either dismantled or completely destroyed, laying on the ground around the giant ride. The funhouse is completely knocked over on top of the game booths that lay behind it. Toys and string lights are thrown everywhere. 

You pull your phone out of you back pocket, the time reading 6:39 am. The screen is completely cracked, but still appears functional, so you carefully unlock it. The only notification the comes across your phone is from the weather channel. ‘Flash Tornado Warning 1:32 am, take cover.’

You show the phone to everybody as you all stand there in disbelief. Everyone is silent, because whatever happened to you last night wasn’t because of a tornado. Tornadoes don’t chase you down. Tornadoes don’t make eye contact with you and change their course. You knew that and so did everybody else. 

Jimin took your shaking hand and Seokjin pulled everybody together, forcing the five of you to walk out toward the gates. Outside the fairground, everything look practically unscathed. Seokjin’s truck was just as you had left it. The flags that separated the parking rows were all still in place. Everything outside the carnival was completely untouched.

Maybe you all are the only ones who know what really happened last night; whatever it was that happened last night. You don't know what you saw or why it happened. Before you crawl into the backseat of the truck, you walk back toward the gate.

“Y/N, don’t go back over there,” Jimin reaches for your hand but you slip out of his grasp and continue forward. 

Without hesitation you reach into your pocket and hang your keys on the gate. You definitely weren’t going in for work later, nor would anybody else. In this moment, you knew that this would be your last time ever stepping foot on these fairgrounds. With what you and your friends experienced here tonight, you predict that the feeling is mutual.

[anothers-trash-my-treasure]

Bittersweet - Chapter Six.

Whoa hey look at that, it’s actually done. So Italics are flashbacks, okay cool, enjoy this one. Hopefully, it doesn’t take me a month to get the next chapter out lmfao.

Pairing: Merriell Shelton/Reader (femme)

Warnings: mention of sexy times and swearing but that’s about it, let me know if you think I should put something else here.

Word Count: 3850 (longest chapter so far ayy)

Tag List:  @r-ahh-mi @the-almond-dinger @ahkmenrami1205 @itsme690 @xoa-lex @kpopperotp12 @malek-lover @ramibaby @xmxisxforxmaybe​ @sherlollydramoine​

Let me know if you want to be added to my tag list.

Sleep did not come easy. In fact, it didn’t come at all. 

I had sunk down onto the couch once he left and sat there for what felt like hours. At some point, Chloe had come out and I couldn’t even begin to explain to her what had happened. I was still so confused. One minute we were watching a movie and the next, the door was slamming in his wake. 

Once I had finally crawled into bed, I had hoped sleep would come. Or at the very least he would text me and put me out of my misery. But neither of those things happened. I had laid there, staring up at the ceiling. I wanted to think about where it all went wrong, but my mind was blank. The amount of confusion and shame that I wrapped myself up with was clouding any sense of judgement I had. I don’t know what time it was when I finally cracked and finally texted him. 

I wanted to leave it at that. But of course, my brain began to overthink everything. He did say that he would meet up with me tomorrow, but that, after tonight, really didn’t mean anything. There’s no guarantee he’s even going to want to see me at all. It would be so easy for him to just not show up and we’d never see each other again. It’d be that simple. And as much as that would hurt, I don’t want him to feel like he has to do anything he doesn’t want to do. Despite everything, I don’t want to put him in an uncomfortable situation. 

Typical.

Against my better judgement, I picked my phone up again.

I had truly thought I was done, my phone was set aside on the bedside table and plugged in. I had settled in under the covers, hugging a pillow close to my body. My eyes shut but sleep still did not come. I tossed and turned and no matter how many sheep I counted, I did not fall under. I eventually gave up, shoving the blankets off my body and sitting up. The clock, reading a bleary 2:30 AM in bright red, stared back at me, mocking and taunting in a way I hadn’t experienced.

I find myself angry in my sleep-deprived state. Angry at myself for not bringing the subject up sooner. Angry at Merriell for running out on me. And before I can think better of it I’m grabbing my phone again and typing out a few more messages. 

I hate myself as soon as I’m finished, knowing full well I’m not helping my case. Shame and guilt and a range of emotions flood my body as I flop down onto the bed again. I dig the heel of my palms into my eyes hard, rubbing until I see stars. I desperately want to sleep, but my mind is racing and all I want to do is turn back time and change it all. 

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I wake up to my alarm, not even remembering falling asleep in the first place and feeling like I hadn’t at all. I shuffled around my room, slowly but surely gathering my things and tidying my room before hauling it all out to the living area. A brief half-smile at Chloe and I was moving on to the bathroom to freshen up. 

Running on auto-pilot, I take care of the mess that my sleepless night caused and quickly pack up the rest of my items. Every chance I get, I check my phone for any sign of him; anything that could tell me that he acknowledged my late-night anxieties. There’s a tight ball of stress sitting in my chest that only grows with every minute that passes. I can feel Chloe’s concerned gaze on me as I walk back to my room to finish packing and irritation bubbles up inside me.

I hate feeling pitied. And I just know that today is going to be filled with ‘you okay’s and ‘it’s gonna be alright’s. It’s not that I don’t appreciate her checking up on me. It’s that nothing is going to change the fact that I made a complete fool out of myself and I want nothing more than to just forget it ever happened. 

A soft knock sounds at my door just as I zip up my bag, Chloe telling me the Uber’s here and we gotta go. Before gathering my things I hesitantly pick up my phone, debating whether or not I should text Merriell. I should tell him we’re leaving for the airport, but at the same time I want not text him just to spite him; to show him that I’m not desperate or clingy or any of the things I was last night. 

I huff, deciding to compromise with myself. I send off a quick “heading out” and then I’m out the door, throwing my things in the trunk and watching New Orleans fade away from the back seat of strangers Honda Civic. 

It’s bittersweet. I’m excited to go back to school and head back home, get on with my life. But I genuinely enjoyed my time here, it felt like a second home. I can feel another battle with myself start to surface; was it New Orleans that felt like home, or was it Merriell?

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Merriell had just blinked at me when I proposed the idea of the day’s schedule, “Ya wanna just...” mouth worked silently for a moment, trying to grasp the seemingly pointlessness of the idea, “ride the streetcars all day?”

And I had nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah, I heard it’s a great way to see the city.” 

He stared at me, eyes flicking to Chloe to see if I was serious, “Or we could just take my car?”

I pushed him playfully, “I’m trying to save you gas money here. Come on it’ll be fun!” 

With that, I was dragging them out of the house to the streetcar stop just down the street and soon enough we were on our way to God knows where in New Orleans. 

I had settled down on one of the benches with Merriell, leaning back, embracing the weight of his arm draped over my shoulders. I took it all in, staring out the window to admire everything. The colourful buildings, the giant oak tree’s creating canopies over the streets and the music that seems to follow us down every street. I chatted excitedly about everything I see, asking Merriell any question that springs to my mind about the history, and he answers in the best way he can.

I turn to ask him yet another question, but my question gets swept away when I’m met with his piercing green eyes running over my face and a small smile tugging at his lips. 

“What?” I asked, my lips spreading to a shy smile.

And Merriell just shook his head, his smile growing that much fonder and I feel his fingers tracing small circles and swirls on my bare shoulder.

“You are too cute, boo.”

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The car drives us further and further out of the city towards the airport. With each passing building, tree or animal that passes, a new memory surfaces. My eyes drift over a cemetery as we pass it, large stone tombs repeating one after another, each of them different in their own ways. In a flash, it’s gone, becoming a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror, but the memory lingers.

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Merriell had grinned mischievously at me, eyes sparkling with devilry and I knew in an instant, I was in trouble. I only had to look at the concrete fencing and old, rusty sign that barely said the word ‘cemetery’ to know what his plans were.

“Merriell, no.” I had begged, pulling weakly on his hand in a futile attempt to change his course of action “Can’t we come back when it’s not getting dark out?” 

The sun was nearly set, casting out last rays of oranges, pinks, purples and reds across the sky as darkness slowly crept over the city. He laughed, pulling me across the threshold and into the cemetery, the atmosphere seemingly changing into that of a ghostly, nightmarish fog hanging over us.

“C’mon, ya can’t be in New Orleans n’ not fear for your life at least once.”

I glared at him, “Bold of you to assume I haven’t.” I grumbled, “I’ve been hanging out with you ever since I got here, plenty of fearing for my life happening.”

He pulled me into his body, arm sliding around my waist as he dragged me further into the eerie lot, past rows upon rows of tombs, “You best be nice to me, I could leave you right here ta’ fend off the ghosts n’ ghouls all by yourself.”

I whimpered at the mere thought of being alone in here and grasped at him a little tighter. He only laughed, one of his hands coming up to cover mine that grips his bicep. His head ducked down to place a soft kiss on my forehead.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll protect ya.”

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Despite the stress and dejection sitting heavy in my chest, my lips twitch upward in a smile as I recall that night. Merriell had dragged me through the rows of the cemetery, telling me a series of ghost stories he was told throughout his childhood. It was one of the only times he opened up to me about his childhood.

We pass a highway-side swamp, there’s something in the water. Chances are it’s just a log, but it’s enough to send my mind reeling to just a few days prior.

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“Seriously, Mer, you didn’t have to come. I know you get to see these things all the time.” I told him as we climbed onto the large boat.

“Are ya kidding?” He had asked, sitting next to me and placing his hand on my knee, thumb brushing against my skin softly, “An’ miss your first ever ‘gator sighting? No way.” he teased.

His smirk was infectious, browned skin glowing with a sheen layer of sweat as the sun beat down on us. I could only shake my head at him, sticking my tongue out at him defiantly. In return his hand had moved up my knee to my thigh, gripping my skin a little harder.

“Careful,” he had warned, leaning in to whisper hotly against my ear, “Keep sticking that thing out at me and I’m gonna get some ideas.”

I push his head away playfully with a small huff of laughter, “Perv.” 

His arm moved the curl around my waist as the tour began. He had laughed at my too loud gasp that escaped my lips when we saw our first alligator. I had smacked his arm excitedly and gestured for him to give me my camera. My excitement never dwindled with each passing swamp creature we saw and his amusement stayed strong. Even when we climbed off the boat and I was still chatting excitedly.

“...and did you see how big that last guy was?” I shook my head, looking back at him, “And you get to see these things all the time?”

He had nodded, a soft ‘sure do’ leaving his lips as he reached for my hand. I sighed happily as our fingers intertwined.

“I wish I could do this every day,” I said, exaggerating a dreamy tone to get a laugh out of him. But when I had looked over at him I was met not with laughter and amusement but instead with soft eyes and an almost sad smile.

“Yeah, me too.”  

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My eyebrows furrow at the end of that one. He had looked just a little sad. And maybe I was totally overthinking it but maybe he had really just planned this to be a fling the entire time. It wouldn’t be unreasonable. My mind is stuck on the idea. If he had planned it to end suddenly and abruptly, why would he be so upset about it?

I’m broken out of my thoughts when the driver pulls up to the airport. My phone vibrates in my lap and it takes everything in me to not pick it up right away and check-in. My heart pounds and hope swells in my chest, relieving the crushing weight that had resided there previously. It had to be him. Was this finally my answer? 

I took a breath and forced myself to slowly turn the phone over. 

And just as fast as my hope had climbed, it crashed. The text, from my mother, had read a simple ‘have a safe flight, text when you land’. I swore silently at myself for letting my hopes get so high. I find myself refreshing my texts just to see if I had missed something from him. But there was nothing. 

My body moves on its own, getting out of the car and grabbing our bags from the trunk before following Chloe through the airport. Despite myself, my eyes scan the crowds, hoping desperately to find that head of wispy curls I had grown to be so fond of even though a part of me knows he’s not here. He’s not coming. It’s too late. 

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“You will be the goddamn death of me.”

His words startled a laugh out of me and the smile on his face only widened as I shift my body closer to his. Our skin is sticky with sweat and the cold air bites our naked bodies but he pulls me closer nonetheless. 

“I’ll start planning your funeral.” I had joked, resting my chin on his sternum so I could look up at him. 

He smiled down at me and I took a minute to just look at him. I admired the way his eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile, the way they lit up with his laughter. I took in the way his hair sits as an unruly mess of curls on the top of my head. I brought my hand up to play with them, just because I could. 

“Why you always playin’ with my hair?” He asked, laughter seeping into his voice as he tried to jerk his head away from me.

I tugged his head back towards me with my palm, “I like your hair.” I said simply, “It’s fun to play with.”

He just shook his head but let me play with his hair nonetheless. Meanwhile, his fingers traced patterns on my bare shoulder. We basked in the silence, the only sound being our breathing. 

“Can I ask ya somethin’?” He asked suddenly, his head turning to see me better. When I nodded he continued, “What made you take a chance on me?” I had looked at him, confused, so he went on, “I mean, a few days ago, when I asked for your number so I could take you out. Why’d you say yes? I could’ve been some crazy Louisiana lunatic.”

I laughed softly and gazed up at him, no doubt with actual heart eyes, “I don’t know.” I admitted, “I almost said no, but I just...” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts, “Something about you said it’d be worth the risk.” 

“Worth the risk.” he repeated softly, looking away for a second, “Never got that one before.” 

I had looked at him, confused, “What do you mean?” 

He had shaken his head, smiling down at me. A curl had fallen loose at my insistent twisting and twirling, hanging down on his forehead.

 “nothin’.” He said and leant down to kiss me softly, “I’m glad ya took the risk.”

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We make our way through security. The line is painfully long, to pass the time and bring my phone out, planning on playing some games to pass the time and get my mind off the mess that my life had become. However, what I end up doing is re-reading conversations and looking through pictures and ultimately breaking my own heart again and again.

“Y/n,” Chloe sighs, and when I look up I’m met with the pity I hate so much, “Stop torturing yourself please.”

I pause, just staring at her for a second before I shrug and look back down at my phone, “It’s my coping mechanism, I never said it was healthy.”

I can feel her gaze on me as I continue sifting through the media of the past two weeks. Her hand grabs mine softly and she squeezes it, “Please don’t let this asshole take over your life like this,” she pleads, eyes soft and caring, “He was great, but honestly if he doesn’t want to work for it then that’s his loss and he should be the one staring longingly at a picture of you.”

“I know,” I sigh heavily, running a hand through my tangled hair, “I know it’s his loss I just-” I let out a grunt of frustration, “He was everything I was afraid to let myself want, y’know? And I finally let myself chase after that and it all turned around on me and-” I have to stop to swallow a lump in my throat.

“I just want to know what I did wrong.” I finally get out, it comes out as a sad croak.

I’m pulled into a hug, Chloe murmuring into my hair that I did nothing wrong and I want to believe her. But Merriell isn’t here and he isn’t texting me back and I’ve never felt crazier or more pathetic in my entire life. So clearly, I did something wrong.

She had to let me go when we get to the front of the line, but I quickly pull myself together, glancing at my phone one last time before I throw it in a security bin.

Once through security, we find our gate and sit down, our carry-on piled at our feet. Chloe goes to find us food, giving my hand one last squeeze before she’s off. I continue to stare at my phone, at the unanswered text messages. My eyes flicker back and forth continually between the time and the text thread, willing those three little dots to pop up before we get called for boarding.  

Chloe comes back with food that I barely touch. It’s good, but it’s early and my own thoughts are making me nauseous. I pick at it, still keeping an eye on my phone’s blank notification screen. There’s no way I could go back a see him now, even if he did show up, but I’m still hoping for a text, a phone call; any way to get some kind of explanation or an answer. 

I don’t get one. Before I know it we’re boarded the plane, seatbelts light on and all cellphones are to be turned off. I refresh my texts one last time before turning it off with a heavy sigh. 

I knew it was too good to be true.

✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨

The smell of eggs and bacon filled the air of Merriell’s apartment, the early morning sun crept through the cracks in the blinds and soft jazz played over a record player that sat in the corner of the living room. It was early, a little too early considering how late we had stayed up the night before. But Merriell had mumbled something about eggs the night before and it was the only thing on my mind. 

I stood in front of the stove, flipping our eggs when a pair of hands found their way around my waist and a pair of lips were soft on my shoulders.

“Mornin’” 

His voice was laced with sleep, accent coming out just a little thicker. His lips kissed a soft trail from my shoulder to my neck, his breathing hot on my skin.

“Good morning.” the sound of my smile crept into my voice as I begin plating our food.

“I’m surprised ya found my records.”

I turned around in his grasp, handing him a plate, “Well you didn’t hide them very well.” I teased, glancing over to the large stack of boxed records, “C’mon sit and eat your eggs.”

I pushed him gently towards the round kitchen table. Before I could get him to sit down, the track changed and Merriell was taking our plates, setting them down on the table. He tugged me into his arms and towards the center of the room.

“Dance with me.” A grin split across his face, eyes hooded as they looked down at me.

I huffed out a breath of laughter, “Merriell, the eggs-”

“Can wait.” He finished, his voice was soft and tender, “I wanna dance with ya. Ya look so good in my shirt, making me breakfast.”

One hand found my waist, moving to the small of my back while the other holds my arm out. I can feel the fabric of the shirt brush across the top of my thighs and I became very aware of my state of undress. I tried to remove my hand from his grasp to tug it down, feeling suddenly very self-conscious.

“Hey...” he had said softly, grabbing my hand again and brought it up to his mouth for a soft kiss. He looked beautiful in the soft morning light, sunlight playing off the colourful hues of his eyes and I found myself a little lost as we sway softly to the music, “You are beautiful.”

I had looked away, shaking my head softly and my hair falling in front of my face. A hand came up to brush the strands behind my ear and tilt my head up to meet his gaze. He had leant down, muttering a few last words before connecting our lips in a soft kiss.

“Absolutely beautiful.” 

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I fall asleep on the plane and I dream of him. Of humid New Orleans air, tanned skin and green eyes that sparkle with mischief. Part of me doesn’t feel like any of it was real. That I dreamed the entire trip and I was still at home in my bed. Another part of me still can’t believe he didn’t show up. The automated voice tells us that the active runway has been turned off, our phones can be used once more. 

I turn it on but don’t bother looking. I don’t care anymore. I’m miles and miles away from him and all I want to do is go home and lay in bed until school starts next week. Chloe and I take our separate cars and part ways, she promises to text me soon and we’ll have a night out with the rest of our college friends. I feel like I’m in a daze, not totally existing at the moment but functioning enough to get myself home safely.

It’s not until my suitcase is thrown haphazardly into the laundry room and that I’ve crawled into my bed that I actually check my phone. 

My heart drops as my eyes land on his name and I’ve never opened my phone fast enough. I wanted an explanation, something to put all the questions I’ve been asking myself to rest. But the only thing I get from his message is more confusion, more hurt and a fresh wave of angry tears.

~

(Chapter 7)

[sparda3g]

Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 166 Review

There is an old phrase that goes, “Careful what you wish for.” This chapter reassures that this series would never go with your way, no matter how nice and wishful thinking it is. On the positive light, this was a very thrilling action packed chapter that should leave fans celebrated, but the end justifies the mean. Well, not really, but it certainly caused the fans to lose their mind in sadness and anger.

Let me start off by saying that the chapter’s title is a huge giveaway to the reveal of that creature from the last chapter. Hell, I was like, “Okay, I already know who that monster is. Thanks, Ishida.” I was a bit anxious to see the reveal despite already knowing, because when it comes to this series, you can’t be so certain about everything. After this chapter, no doubt I won’t think of a happy place for a long, long time.

There is a brief scene with Kaneki and Ayato to let the audience know their next destination. They’re heading to A20, which is the vast underground beneath the 19th ward. Basically, it does scream for Kaneki to fight against Furuta and maybe Rize. Wouldn’t that be overpowering Kaneki, especially if Rize is to believe to be the same level as him? Either way, that’s their destination and it won’t be for another chapter or so to focus with them entirely. Right now, we got some intense Kaiju battle approaching.

I did tell myself to wait for the next chapter to get a better view of that monster and my wish was granted. The monster is the Owl, Kakuja form and all. You don’t even need Ui to say it to know what that is. The design is every shape and form that resembles Owl; only difference is the face and the size is larger than before. Therefore, we can safely say that it’s Eto behind that monstrosity and the theory can now close…

Right?

The action kicks off with the Owl strikes first in great devastation. It’s been a while watching the investigators getting dismembered like some finale of a series that decide to kill Earth completely. It’s rather bone-chilling and I love it. Watching a Kaiju-esque scene in motion against normal people with no tanks or any heavy artillery is brutal stuff. It is how the scene starts off with “you got to be shitting me…” vibe to a massacre that got me thrilled; all well presented with those use of distorted effect and onslaught display in each panel.

It does seem clear that Ishida is ready to kill off many characters before entering the next part of the series alas part 3. Granted I can’t confirm it with one scene but Misato appears to be killed off with the rest of others behind her. All the fire power didn’t work on it; only for it to fire back. If she did die, look at this way, she didn’t get dismembered to the point of unidentifiable. It is an indication that this is the part where Ishida roll call the characters and kill them off. Prepare yourself.

The preparations before engaging combat with Owl is very engaging; got me really hyped for this intense battle. It reflects the fact that Shinohara and Kuroiwa are no longer with them. Hirako can’t even assist Ui as he is handling this one strong V guy, so the pressure on Ui has gone up tremendously. From here on out, it’s time for Ui to take in charge of this beast. It was a nice added touch with him reciting the similar line about coward from his last encounter with Owl.

I really like the whole formation scene with Ui in charge and gather men as many as he can. It does highlight the number of characters in the field; tracking them for possible death or survivor when the smoke clears out. It’s riveting to see nearly everyone helping Ui out with the sensation that can be best described as calm before storm. It has that finale feeling towards it, especially since CCG’s number one target has been centering on Owl for a long time. It’s like finishing the fight scenario; it will finally end with this.

It’s great to see Shuu and other Ghouls to help Ui out with this as well. Not only Ui has evolved to a bona fide leader, but he has grown to appreciate the Ghoul’s aids for the Human. The days of when he was a hater are nearly if not entirely over. A touching yet possible eerie omen scene is before he roar cry, he remembers Hairu and Arima; lending him courage one more time. I am aware of this calling mean death flag and yes, it has been raised. Will he die? It depends if Ishida has more subplots in mind.

The chapter then shifts to Hirako versus a V guy. It’s possible that it’s the leader, Kaiko, though it’s not really confirmed at this time. For now I’ll call him “Kaiko” until further notice. The fight isn’t just with Hirako; Takeomi, Itou, and Yusa are joining in to assist him.  From there on, we get a round of great battle with solid teamwork and fearsome intensity.

Kaiko is proven to be a serious foe with his impressive evasive maneuvers while taking on four men at once. As swift the investigators are here, he is quick on his feet with those two swords; blocking and dodging moves swiftly. Itou tries to sneak attack, but Kaiko got some impressive sensor to detect ambush and cut him with ease. Takeomi comes in to attack when he was in recovery process, only to block it with his little sword or dagger; close call. I thought it was cool when he tosses that small sword in the air and try to strike him with his other sword and then the small one lands right on the shoulder. That was clever.

The main highlight of the battle is when Yusa and Hirako step in. It’s worth mentioning that Kaiko is pretty taunting with his words; rubbing in people’s faces with his smart ass remarks. Maybe because of recent anime, but I can’t help but image him with Frieza’s voice. It was getting close for someone to be killed off and Yusa is the last victim to struggle to survive. Interestingly enough, Kaiko was responsible for training Arima; so that led him to mock Yusa for being nowhere near his level. Thank God Yusa wasn’t having it and then stabs right on his foot.

The way how it sets up for the finishing blow is dramatic, though rightfully so. Kaiko was close to kill them off and Yusa is the future generation that lives with the name of Arima. Hirako passing him the weapon to finish the job was sweet. Yusa swings and off Kaiko’s face; like really split his head apart. It was brutal yet satisfying. The kid deserves the honor and a medal of greatness. Hm, I guess if I do call that V guy Kaiko, it would mean the V main leader has died.

Right?

The chapter returns back to the team that is fighting the Owl and it’s getting to the breaking point with Kagune dissolving and they have to attack before they all get wiped out. That is until Banjou comes with an assist to recover them. You got to love Shuu’s appreciation. This whole battleground is well coordinated with everyone helping out like one crazy main boss in a MMORPG; it’s riveting as hell. Once they are told to aim for the neck, that’s where Suzuya becomes the star. Thank you, Attack on Titan!

But seriously, how great it is to see everyone cooperating to take out the Owl. It was damn great for Ui to use his quinque and make an opening path for Suzuya to take it out for good. When you combine this scene and the one with the V, it makes a really inspiring and gratifying moment of triumphant. It’s a good feel moment that I would love it to be completely true. If anything, this chapter was outstanding with great character’s evolution, exciting scenarios with slick action, and plenty of satisfaction. Then, we got to the final scene.

The atmosphere of the fan base reminds me of my days in wrestling; actually, it can be said for anything. Have you ever encounter a moment that you was like, “Oh my God, this is nearly perfect! I love everything about it,” and when you reach to the end, the last moment is what overrides your thought and can’t compute anything else? Well, this chapter has done that. Not me personally; I thought it was mind crushing and frightening cliffhanger. Basically, we may have known who the monster is with the chapter’s title, but never thought this would be the case at all.

It’s Eto alright. Just headless, that’s all.

People wished for her, they shall be granted. But not like this. I have read people saying that it’s not her and it could be someone else, notably Hairu. Now let me play two sides of the coin. To begin with, let’s say it is Hairu’s body instead. This does make sense on the account of Ui getting the main focus. It would be a cruel fate for him to face his old friend like this. It would align with his development, so I can see where people think of this. It also makes sense since it’s only a body and the head’s placement is placed with a cross; clearly this is Donato’s work. The timing is on this fan’s side. That said I do think otherwise as well.

Eto has disappeared for a long time, so this revelation, while brutal, is shocking. It does make sense with her being placed here as well but under different circumstances. It was highlighted to be CCG’s sendoff to finally defeat Owl after so many tries; now Ui will grant that victory. Part 3 is inevitable at this point, so if Ui lives and win, there’s room for more developments and taking out Owl would be a start. Hairu could somehow come in play, but in part 3 maybe; unless Ishida just throw it out completely, but we’ll see. The point is CCG is yet again facing the recurring threat.

You probably wondering, “What about her head then?” Donato is using his cross to control it somehow, so say if Eto was alive and conscious, she won’t obey these Clowns, so why not decapitate her and replace with a remote control. The most possible giveaway is the title “E T.” While it is brilliant from Ishida, it freaking hurts like hell because not only it’s an indication of headless hence missing “o,” but it is a reference to Noro, who once called Noroi. Damn… The only question for both scenarios would be the missing head.

The other possibility is Donato created a clone of Eto. His capability is left in vague in a way, like how much can he copy a person in terms of ability and such. It must be intentional from Ishida to leave us hanging. Honestly, I would just wait longer and see how this unfolds. It will ease your mind. Eventually, we will learn the actual story behind this Owl.

The chapter as a whole was a lot of fun and excitement that clearly got overshadowed by the end; at least to the fans. The sensation of terror is well portrayed. The preparation of Ui and his men before the battle was exciting to read through their contribution and dedication. The action was engaging and thrilling with really cool moments. The artwork was very solid with its effect and action set pieces. The ending was something that threw me off entirely and it only got worse with Kaiko reattaching his face like nothing. All I know is we are about to see a lot of bodies hit the floor next.

[xkanekitoukax]

Erased (pt. 9 / series finale)

Erased [part NINE]

part ONE | part TWO | part THREE | part FOUR | part FIVE | part SIX | part SEVEN | part EIGHT | part NINE |

Warnings: Language, some nsfw and unhealthy situations throughout the series. Pt. 9 warning: Just a small nsfw Nishiki x Touka moment.

Author’s Note: This is it. The Erased finale. It’s longer that every previous part, 7000+ words (and it was meant to be 8000+, but last minute I made some cuts). There is an epilogue, which could possibly lead to a sequel series...it just depends on how well pt. 9 is received. Like I had mentioned before, in other posts regarding Erased, this story went a completely different direction than what I had originally planned out. I gotta admit, I’m sad this is ending. This is my first multi-chapter fic and so, I’m really attached to it, especially with what has happened with these characters. I’ve always meant for Erased to be fueled by drama and so, it does have that cheesy dramatic tone, but it’s been fun. I gotta thank all of you who have been with this series from the beginning and I know some of you have gotten attached to it as much as me. This series wouldn’t have happened without guys. So, thank you so much for all the love!

Please let me know your thoughts! Reblogs/comments/asks are very much appreciated, especially with this finale. I’m extremely nervous about this part, so feedback will calm my nerves lol. 

ENJOY~ <3

-

When Touka got to her room she tried reaching for the bed, but she collapsed to her knees next to it, feeling as though something was tightening around her neck and chest and causing her to gasp for air. But her heart…her heart hurt the most. Every beat felt like a knife twisting into her.

Ayato…Hina…

She fell forward, grasping at the sheets of the bed and pressed her mouth to the mattress to muffle her scream. She screamed as hard and as loudly as she could until there was a pang in her throat. There had been so much building up inside her…she had to let it out.

Touka couldn’t help replay everything that had led her to this point and how she never could have predicted that things would ever be this way. Ever since Kaneki walked into :re as someone else, as Haise Sasaki…a dove…with no memory of who he used to be, she wanted to believe maybe it was a good thing. He seemed happy, even if he was set out to bring down ghouls. It was something she was willing to look past and try to forgive him for. She had chosen to not push him to remember his past and maybe that was her biggest mistake.

What if she had done this…what if she had said that…what if…WHAT IF!

Kaneki had let this persona take over…it got to a point where he wasn’t just doing his job, he was enjoying it. He wanted to kill ghouls. He wanted to kill Nishiki. He almost killed her…

Why Kaneki? Why did it have to be you…

Why did the world have to be so cruel?

Her struggle to breathe had only gotten worse, the constriction in her chest causing her to gasp for air and then there was a pain growing in her belly. She instinctively wrapped her arms around her stomach.

I’m sorry…hang on…

“Oh, fuck, Touka,” Nishiki rushed to her, kneeling down in front of her and taking her face between his hands, forcing her to focus on him. “Look at me, Touka! Deep breath…come on, deep breath.” He took a deep breath with her and then exhaled. He placed her hands on his chest so she could feel his chest rise up and down to get her to follow his breathing, trying to calm her down. And after a couple of minutes it began to work.

Touka fell forward, crying into Nishiki’s shoulder as he held her and felt her fingers dig into his chest.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” He said, rubbing her back.

Touka thought about how Nishiki never lied to her. Ever.

He never sugarcoats anything…

She had to believe him, even now. More than ever.

“I have to do something to save them, Nishiki.” She let out against his shoulder. His embrace tightened.

“We are going to do something to save them. You’re not doing this alone.” Nishiki said, making it clear that he was a part of this. There was no way he was letting her do this alone.

Touka shut her eyes and held onto him tighter as Nishiki placed a hand on the back of her head, massaging her. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for what would happen next with the next thing he had to say.

“We’re going to need Kaneki’s help, Touka.” He said.

She pulled away from him, looking at him incredulously. “What?”

Nishiki sighed heavily. He expected her to react this way. “Listen to me…”

“No. No fucking way am I letting him help us. For all we know it’s a fucking trap!” Touka started to push herself away from Nishiki, feeling slighted that he would even dare try to take up Kaneki on his offer. Nishiki let go of her, not wanting to force her to hold on to him.

“You’re absolutely right, Touka. It could be a trap, but if Kaneki wants to make things right…if he really loves you…” He didn’t get the chance to finish.

“Make things right? Loves me? I don’t care, Nishiki. I can’t forgive him for what he did…for what he almost accomplished.” Her body recalled his tentacles stabbing her, making her shiver.

“I’m not asking you to forgive him, Touka.” Nishiki moved to sit down on the floor, leaning back up against the bed. He pushed his legs up slightly to rest his arms on his knees. He looked as though he was picking his next words carefully to make them matter, to make them get through to Touka. “What I’m saying here is whether we like it or not, he is the only one who can help us get to Ayato and Hinami without it being a complete suicide mission. I’m asking you to think about this, because it’s not just you I’m thinking about…” It wasn’t just Touka anymore. There was a baby to think of and he wanted to remind her of that before they made the wrong move. Touka had for a brief moment forgotten that she was pregnant. She really would have stormed the CCG without much of a plan and that would not only be stupid, but selfish. Right now, it was just Nishiki and herself against a horde of ghoul killers.

They needed a plan…and Kaneki’s was the one Nishiki believed in.

Trust him.

Touka joined Nishiki, sitting down next to him and sighed. “And what if it’s a trap?”

“It won’t be.” Nishiki pushed up his glasses as he looked up at Touka. He wanted to tell her that he had told Kaneki about the baby being his, but he knew no good would come from it if he mentioned it now. But Nishiki believed that by telling Kaneki it would make sure that he wouldn’t try hurting Touka again, that it would make Kaneki fight to do the right thing.

Nishiki placed an arm over Touka’s shoulders and felt her lean into him, perfectly molding together.

“What do we now?” She wrapped her arms around him, really cuddling into him until the side of her face was pressed up to the middle of his chest and she could hear his heartbeat. Nishiki kissed the top of her head.

“We wait until Kaneki gives us the go ahead.” He said against her hair. “It will also give us time to get a hold of Yomo, and…"

“Moi?” Nishiki and Touka turned to the bedroom door to find Tsukiyama. Yomo soon appeared next to him with his eyes falling on the couple who continued to hold each other, but looked bewildered.

“Tsukiyama?” Touka let out.

“You two should know I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Tsukiyama said with a grin.

They now had their team.

-

The next day Kaneki had made contact and set up a meeting with Nishiki at the now closed down shop. Kaneki seemed hesitant when Nishiki mentioned Yomo and Tsukiyama being involved, but he wasn’t entirely surprised either. Kaneki had told Nishiki they had better odds with them involved if anything went wrong, but it would still be an interesting meeting together.

But while the meeting was set, there would be one person opting out of it. Touka would not be part of the meeting, as much as she wanted to, but after seeing how she reacted being in Kaneki’s presence, and how it would affect her health, Nishiki and her decided it was best she sit this out and he would fill her in later, even though she was torn up about it.

When Kaneki walked into the shop, alone, he appeared in a little bit of better health from the previous day and more rested, though there was still an obvious sadness to him. He tightened his black coat around him and straightened himself up when everyone’s eyes fell on him.

“Yomo, Tsukiyama…” Kaneki acknowledged them with an uncomfortable nod. “Nishio.” Nishiki gave a small nod back.

“Ah, so, you remember me. Have you regained your memories?” Tsukiyama asked curiously with a small grin on his face.

Kaneki rubbed his chin. “Most of them.”

Tsukiyama pressed on. “We met not long ago, do you remember those meetings, Kaneki?”

“Yes…” Kaneki’s jaw clenched.

“You’ve met him as dove already?” Nishiki’s eyes darted back and forth at them as they had a stare down with Kaneki expressionless and Tsukiyama looking amused as ever.

“Oh yes, quite intimately, since nearly killed me by throwing me off a roof and was part of the massacre of most of my family.” That was news to Yomo and Nishiki. There was a very awkward silence between all of them, but tensions were high between Tsukiyama and Kaneki. This was not the time for revenge. For anyone.

“Oh, that’s great. Good to know he’s had murderous intentions towards us for a while.” Nishiki stepped up almost between them. “I know there’s a lot to settle, but there’s obviously a reason why we’re all here, trying to work together.”

“My apologies.” Tsukiyama gave a small bow and put his differences with Kaneki aside.

Kaneki’s eyes wandered for a moment, obviously noticing someone was missing from this meeting.

A hint of sadness crossed his face. “I take it Touka didn’t want to be here?”

“I’ll fill her in.” Nishiki said. Kaneki nodded at him and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat before taking a deep breath.

“Ayato and Hinami are being held in one of the lower levels of Cochlea. Third level, to be exact. I will be able to create a distraction so that all of you…”

“Why can’t you get them out yourself?” Tsukiyama cut him off, looking pensive and a little skeptical.

Kaneki looked down. “It’s complicated.”

“Try us.” Yomo pressed, narrowing his eyes. There was an uneasy feeling building up inside Nishiki about how Kaneki was reacting to all this. It was as though he was still not himself, not completely, as if there was still a hold over him. But before Kaneki could speak, Nishiki cut in.

“You want us to be the patsies? You want to make the CCG believe you had nothing to do with this so you can stay in the CCG, right?” Nishiki asked Kaneki.  

Kaneki nodded his head, still avoiding eye contact with anyone. “Yes.”

Yomo and Tsukiyama exchanged looks, but Nishiki kept his eyes on Kaneki.

“I get it now.” Nishiki sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking how it was definitely a good thing Touka wasn’t here. She would have flung herself at Kaneki at this point to murder him. “You never had any intention of leaving the CCG.” Nishiki had sensed Kaneki was up to something, but he never thought it would lead to him still being a part of the CCG. He expected the opposite.

“I hope to use this as a way to gain more control of the CCG, be the one who…”

“But you’re still going to hunt down ghouls, right?” Nishiki took Kaneki’s silence as his answer. “Figures.”

“I wish I could tell you my plan, but it’s better this way, Nishio.” Kaneki spoke.

“Save it, Kaneki.” Nishiki put a hand up to stop him. “Just get to the part where we save Ayato and Hinami so we can finish this meeting.”

Everyone lingered to solidify their plan and Kaneki reassuring everyone this would work and that Ayato and Hinami would be freed and everyone could move on with their lives. He made it sound so simple. Nothing about this was simple.

When it came time to leave, Nishiki followed Kaneki over towards the entrance of the shop.

Kaneki stopped at the door, taking a moment to gather his words. “How is she?” He asked Nishiki, not meeting his eyes. All he used to do was look people in the eye. This version of Kaneki had lost all confidence in trying to face people, but more like he was ashamed of himself, as if he wasn't worthy of being seen.

“Touka's fine.” Nishiki simply answered, crossing his arms.

“And…and the baby?” Kaneki got choked up mentioning the baby. He stared at down Nishiki’s feet as his brows came together in a pained expression.

“They’re both okay, Kaneki.” Nishiki leaned against the door frame, looking around the empty shop and remembering all the times Kaneki had come in here in the beginning, how hopeful Touka was each time he visited before everything went to shit. “Do you realize how fucking disappointing all of this is? Your plan…”

“I have to do this, Nishio.” Kaneki sighed heavily.

“This is going to break her heart even more, you know that, right?” Nishiki’s jaw clenched with each quickening heartbeat as anger began to boil up inside him again.

Kaneki only nodded as tears filled his eyes. “I know, but at least she has you to pick up the pieces.”

“You’re such a fucking idiot, Kaneki. I wanted you to see your damn kid, that’s why I told you in the first place! I wanted that truth to make you wake up and want to be there for her, for your kid.” Even though Nishiki was with Touka, and he had no plans on leaving her, he still wished Kaneki would be able to be part of his child’s life.

“It did wake me up, Nishio. It pushed me to make this decision because it’s the best thing I can do.” Kaneki looked up at him finally. “She deserves so much better than what I could ever give her and that’s with you. So, please, just keep her safe…keep her happy.” He didn’t wait for Nishiki to respond, he opened the door and disappeared into the cold night.

-

Touka had been chewing on her lower lip practically all night. She had chewed on it so much she caused her lip to get slightly swollen. It was out of nerves and anxiousness. She wondered how the meeting was going. If everyone was okay. If Kaneki mentioned her…

Her head turned sharply towards the front door of Nishiki’s flat when she heard the door unlock. Nishiki made his way inside his flat with his eyesight down at his feet and a paper bag in one of his hands.

“How did it go?” Touka asked Nishiki as he shut the door behind him. She was eager to know every detail about what went on in that meeting she wanted to be a part of, but just couldn’t bring herself to face Kaneki again.

Nishiki set the paper bag on the kitchen counter and slipped off his sweater, draping it over the headrest of the couch before leaning against it. He looked up at Touka, who stood a few feet away with her arms crossed and chewing on her bottom lip. His brows furrowed. He walked up to her and ran the pad of his thumb over her fat bottom lip.

“Nerves got the best of you?” He asked with a small smile.

“It’s fine,” She shoved his hand away from her. “What happened?” She wanted details. All of them.

Nishiki puffed out some air. “Plan is a go for tomorrow night.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Do you really think it’s going to work? His plan?” Touka swallowed hard. “Can you really trust him?”

Nishiki could see how hesitant she was being a part of this, and she had every reason to doubt Kaneki, but despite the plan not going the way Nishiki hoped, he still believed it would work.

“It’s going to work, Touka. I know it will.” The way Nishiki spoke was reassuring and it had calmed Touka down slightly. He began to speak specifics of the plan, minus the part where Kaneki was going to remain at the CCG. Nishiki had also made it clear to Touka that she was in charge, but should anything happen to him she better stick to Yomo and Tsukiyama.

“Wait, if anything does happen to you and I’m the one in charge, then it’s my call, right?” Touka frowned at him.

Nishiki nodded. “Yes, but…”

“But nothing, Nishiki.” She placed her hands over his chest and looked at him with a defiance in her eyes. “I wouldn’t leave you behind. No matter what.” She meant it. She hoped things would go smoothly, but they all knew they were going straight into enemy territory and anything could happen.

“You really are so fucking stubborn.” He shook his head at her, but he yielded to her. It was impossible to argue with her about this at this point and chose to change the subject. He nodded over towards the paper bag. “That’s for you.”

Touka gave him a big smile before walking over to the bag, grabbing it and opening it. She made a face of disgust, but her stomach rumbled appreciatively.

After the meeting, Nishiki had gone out to get Touka some human food since she hadn’t had some in a while and while it was disgusting to him and her, it was necessary for the baby. They both knew that once things settled down again, when they could have time to actually relax, the baby would be getting everything it needed and more from them.

Nishiki walked into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, opening it for Touka as she pulled out the burger from the bag and took a big bite. He watched as she winced, no doubt from the taste hitting her tongue and making her body instinctively fight it, but she took the bottle of water and took a sip, swallowing the chunk of burger. After that she didn’t struggle so much, having told herself she could do this for the sake of her baby. She was fighting for this baby.

Nishiki hid the smile forming on his face. Seeing her with such determination made him admire her that much more. He had always admired her decisiveness, her boldness, and her perseverance, but it was only until recently that he let himself accept that he had fallen for those qualities of her and so much more. He loved her…

Once Touka was done eating, they both headed to the bedroom to try to get some sleep, but honestly, neither one of them were in the mood to sleep. There was too much going through their minds keeping them awake, keeping them restless…

She watched as Nishiki began to slip off his shoes and she did the same, but there had been something nagging her, and something she hated herself for, for even caring…

“What did Kaneki do tonight?” She asked.

Nishiki’s brows came together. “What?”

“Kaneki. Did he seem like himself or…” She trailed off, thinking about Black Reaper.

“He seemed in a little bit in better shape than the last time, but he was his usual glum self.” He explained, even though he had sensed that Kaneki wasn’t all there. Did she really need to know that to torture herself more?

“Well, he’s only still alive because I didn’t go to that meeting, so…” Touka said cooly. For a moment the way she sounded, how calm and cold she seemed, it reminded Nishiki of the Touka she used to be years ago. She was just putting up a front and he couldn’t help the chuckle that came out of him.

“What’s so funny?” She raised a brow at him.

“You.” He said. “You still love him, Touka.” Nishiki was simply stating a fact that Touka didn’t want to admit to. She was trying her hardest to pretend Kaneki didn’t mean anything to her anymore, trying to erase him from her history, but it would only hurt her more if she kept fighting it. She had to accept Kaneki would always be a part of her.  

Touka opened her mouth to hit him with some sassy comeback, but nothing was coming out and it pissed her off. She plopped herself down on the edge of the bed with a slight hunch and her hands in her lap. Her eyes were staring down at her fumbling fingers as she straightened herself up and took a deep breath before exhaling sharply.

“You’re right, there will always be a part of me that loves him. I still love him because I’m too stupid to let go of who he used to be. I will always think that the Kaneki I knew, who I fell for, is still in there somewhere, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not with him. I don’t want to be with him. Not anymore.” Touka could feel her heart racing as she spoke, her hands moving to linger over the spot where Kaneki’s kagune pierced her thigh and stomach. She looked up at Nishiki, the one person who got her through this mess. Nishiki, the man who helped keep her together and that she ended up falling for. “I’m here with you. Just you. Even if one day I know you won’t be.” Touka knew Nishiki’s heart belonged to Kimi and…

Her own thoughts were disrupted by Nishiki, who had wasted no time in walking right up to her and gently pushed her down onto the mattress. He scooted her further up the bed so she could rest her head on a pillow and delicately encased his body over hers. The warmth of his body instantly calming her racing heart and the way he looked at her putting her doubts at ease.

Nishiki leaned down to kiss her softly, caressing the side of her face with his hand and letting his long fingers trace along her jawline.

He wasn’t holding himself back and he wanted her to see that…to feel it…

His hand traveled down from her face and rested between her breasts, right over her heart.

“I’m not going anywhere, Touka. I’m here now, I’m here for the long run.” He said, meaning every word. Touka lay there blinking, trying to let his words sink in.

“But…” Nishiki covered her mouth with his hand and shook his head at her.

“Just shut up and accept it, you stubborn brat.” He chuckled.

Touka reached up to remove his hand from her mouth and raised a brow at him. “Do that again and I’ll bite your fingers off.” She teased, pressing her lips into a hard line so she wouldn’t laugh.

“No, you won’t.” Nishiki grinned and kissed her again.

Had Kaneki fully come back into her life and had Kimi come back into his…there was no doubt things would be different, but they believed everything had happened the way they did for a reason. This was it and they accepted that.

They soon began peeling off their clothes, letting their garments cover the floor around the bed, and spent a good while meshing their bodies together, kissing until they were breathless.

Touka lay there with her eyes shut as she felt Nishiki’s lips kiss over one of her hip bones, slowly moving his way up along her stomach and the curve of her ribcage. His free hand resting over her outer thigh, stroking it. The feeling of his lips against her skin, the attention he was giving her, it was all making her feel so alive, so wanted…so loved…

The overwhelming sensations and emotions coursing through her was almost too much, she couldn’t help the tears that began to roll down the sides of her face.

Nishiki, who had been kissing and kneading one of her breasts looked up to see the tears and pulled away, worried he had done something wrong.

“Touka, are you okay?” He asked her and saw her nod.

“I’m just…happy.” She admitted. He smiled at her, reaching up with his free hand to stoke her cheek as he positioned himself over her and fit himself between her legs. He never expected to contribute to her happiness, but it felt good knowing he could give her that. And than he could admit she had done the same for him.

“I’m happy too.” He said, still caressing her cheek.

Touka wrapped her arms around Nishiki’s neck, shut her eyes and pulled him down for a kiss as he let a hand slip down between them to guide himself into her. She sighed against his lips as he stretched her and he let out a groan against the side of her mouth as he began to thrust in and out of her, feeling her legs wrap around his waist and hooked her ankles behind him as they pushed him to keep going.

Their love making was intense, but unhurried as their bodies moved against each other in complete unison along with their quickened breathing that carried a mixture of groans. Their kisses were soft and lazy, with their moans getting in the way. Each of them taking brief moments to let themselves slip into their hazes before bringing their eyes back on each other.

Both of them stared into each eyes through hooded eyelids as Touka noticed Nishiki’s eyes looking over every inch of her face.

“Beautiful…” Nishiki panted as he ran the pads of his fingers along Touka’s cheekbone, feeling the hotness of her flushed cheek. It was such an affectionate gesture that filled her cheeks with even more warmth.

They came together and so intensely they both trembled from their orgasms hitting them, proof of how strong their connection was as one. As her walls contracted she mewled out his name as he grunted hers, but then groaned along with each hot burst of essence his cock let go deep inside her.

Nishiki collapsed slightly over Touka, making sure not to completely crush her as she felt him start to shake. She smiled and wrapped her arms around him tighter, placing soft, breathless, kisses against the side of his head. He turned onto his back, bringing her over him and staying buried inside her as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her deeply.

She could still feel him semi-hard and she let her desire take over, letting her hips moved up and down him very slowly, working him until he was hard again.

Neither one of them wanted to say it, but it had been in the back of their minds, if anything went wrong…if one of them by chance didn’t make it…they wanted to make this moment count.

-

The next evening Yomo, Tsukiyama, Nishiki and Touka gathered in the shop, going over the plan again in detail and counting down to the hour they would head to the CCG headquarters. With their masks ready, they were all determined to make this a success, even as everyone had their doubts about Kaneki. This would work no matter what.

All of them had gathered at the specific spot where Kaneki told them to be at and that’s when a backdoor, minimally guarded and easy to take out the doves that were guarding that area. Once the door was opened they had 30 minutes to get in and get out. But going through three levels in that short of time, seemed like a challenge, but it could be done. It would be done.

The distraction was a level one security breach, the release of lower-rated ghouls that would keep the CCG busy for a while. Kaneki had somehow hacked security, manipulating it so that it seemed like a system failure as he controlled everything else from the control room. He was able to keep an eye on everyone through the security cameras, but he had paid close attention to Touka and Nishiki.

The group had managed to slip straight past level one and level two without much of a problem as the lingering doves were in such small groups. Tsukiyama seemed to be having too much fun and while no one was surprised by his actions, Touka reigned him back in.

By the time they reached the third level, Touka led her group down further, but they all couldn’t ignore how many cells they were passing and all the ghouls possibly in them. Anger flared in all four of them, knowing that many locked up in Cochlea didn’t deserve to be here.

The doors to Ayato and Hinami’s cells immediately opened, on cue as the group reached them. Hinami stepped out first from her cell and Ayato soon after.

“Ayato! Hinami!” Touka yelled as she ran towards him, pulling them both into a huge embrace. Hinami was quick to hug her back tightly, but Ayato barely put his arm around his sister. His attention went haywire, looking around everywhere as if he was anticipating an attack.

“Where is that half-ass bastard?!” Ayato demanded, pulling away from Touka, but hovered around her and Hinami as if he was protecting them.

“He’s controlling everything from up above.” Yomo told him. Ayato winced and then spotted a camera and immediately walked up to it.

“You’re fucking dead, Kaneki! You hear me?!” There was pure rage laced in his voice. Hinami stepped in front of him, placing her hands over his chest and trying to push him away from the camera. “I will find you and kill you! Mark my words, Kaneki!” Ayato’s black and red eyes flared with anger.

“Ayato, please stop, we have to go!” Hinami tried to his get attention and he finally looked down at her. It was as though she had an immediate effect on him, calming him just enough for him to nod in agreement.

“Come on! Our window is closing!” Yomo shouted.

Tsukiyama, Ayato, and Hinami began to run off as Yomo and Touka soon followed, but Touka looked back to find Nishiki standing in front of one of the prison cells, staring at a chart hanging off one of the doors.

“Nishiki!” Touka called out to him, but he looked as though he had seen a ghost. He was petrified. Touka stopped running towards the exit, causing Yomo to do the same. She ran back towards Nishiki as Yomo called out for her to stop, but she couldn’t leave without Nishiki. Once she reached him she could see all color drained from his face. She followed his line of sight and saw what had gotten his attention. The chart of a prisoner that was signed by a K. Nishino.

Kimi.

“Sh—She’s here…” Nishiki let out barely above a whisper. Kimi was here. "Working for the CCG. Why…why would she…” He sounded completely lost.

“THE GHOULS HAVE BEEN SPOTTED!” Touka heard a dove shout from down the hallway. She saw a group of doves armed with quinques and she reacted by flaring her ukaku, crystalizing it to shoot projectiles at them. She managed to hit a couple of them and mde the rest take cover, enough for her to grab Nishiki by the collar of his coat and make him look at her.

“Nishiki, we have to fucking go! NOW!” She yelled at him. His eyes fluttered and he came back to his senses and noticed the group of doves trying to come their way. He pushed Touka forward and started to run towards Yomo who was dealing with his own small group of doves that he easily took out.

But the group after them were gaining ground, until Touka watched a dark figure fall between them and saw a massive black and snake like rinkaku begin to take out the doves one by one. There were screams ringing out, bodies were flying, and blood was splattering over the walls. Yomo, Nishiki and Touka watched on in awe at the ghoul who had taken out a whole fleet of doves without hesitation. But it wasn’t a ghoul.

The dark figure stood over the bodies until it looked up at them.

“Kaneki.” Touka let out, staring at the glowing black and red eye that looked back at her. She could barely see his face, but it was him. There was an intensity in his eyes, but it had softened into a sad expression as he looked at Touka. For a moment she had forgotten how angry she was towards him…

“Touka?” Nishiki took her hand, making her to snap out of her trance. She turned to look at Nishiki and then looked down at his hand holding hers, seeing their fingers laced. She squeezed his hand and he immediately started to pull her away, trying to lead her out of Cochlea, but she turned back for a moment to see Kaneki one last time, seeing a flicker of disappointment flash over his face.

-

Everything after that moment had become a blur. It had become a fight for survival and now a fight to get as far away as possible from the chaos ensuing at the CCG. Even if Kaneki had managed to take some of the reins, they were still going to be hunted down.

Both Nishiki and Touka were rattled by the events that had unfolded. Nishiki, trying to understand why Kimi would be a part of the CCG and Touka, watching first hand how merciless Kaneki was…in protecting them…protecting her.

Ayato, still raging and clinging onto the idea of getting his revenge on Kaneki, put his vendetta on hold as he joined up with Tsukiyama, along with Hinami to head west to another home Tsukiyama had that would keep them safe for a while. Yomo went on to try and contact Uta and Itori, hoping to get help from them as Nishiki and Touka headed back to Nishiki’s flat to gather up some of their belongings. Touka had left behind something too precious to leave behind…

Neither Nishiki nor Touka had spoken since leaving Cochlea, but they were still processing what had happened. Once Touka gathered up what she needed, Nishiki carried her backpack and they were out the door, heading over towards Uta’s studio to meet up with Yomo. They kept to the shadows, wearing their hoodies and keeping themselves alert. It didn’t seem to be registering that they were on the run. Again.

“Hey, are you okay?” Nishiki asked her as they walked.

“Yeah, are you?” Touka answered, though there wasn’t much emotion in her reply.

“Yeah.” He sighed. She didn’t believe him and he didn’t believe her. They had to face what happened.

“Nishiki…?” Touka let out faintly.

“Yeah?”

Touka stopped walking and faced Nishiki making him stop in his tracks. “I saw how seeing her name affected you.”

Nishiki looked away from her, recalling the image in his head. Kimi’s name. Involved with the CCG. He had to have been imagining things. He wanted to believe it was just a cruel trick his mind was playing on him. His Kimi wouldn’t be in alliance with them…

“If you want answers,” Touka spoke, hoping to get his attention, but he continued to avoid her. “If you want to find a way back to her…I’m not stopping you, Nishiki.”

That is when Nishiki finally looked at Touka, seeing how calm she looked, how ready she was to give him up if that’s where his heart was pulling him towards. She was letting him know it was okay. If he still wanted Kimi…it was okay. He looked behind him for a moment, telling himself to decide what to do.

Choose.

Nishiki shut his eyes tightly, making his decision.

-

—Epilogue—

Three years later…

Touka had been brewing coffee for a table of three. It was another easy batch that took almost no time at all. The Manager’s Special was such a popular choice when she was working and she was more than happy to make the coffee, making sure to give special attention to every cup she brewed.

And right now, brewing coffee was better than walking around taking orders.

“Mama, look!” Ren, Touka’s three old son, beamed as he showed off some of his drawing and coloring skills with a drawing of a very colorful chameleon. He had been sitting up at the bar so Touka could keep an eye on him and he was always so good, so patient and always into his coloring and drawings or even flipping through one of his many picture books. He was the ultimate dream child to Touka who was thankful to be able to have him around in the shop.

Ren was the spitting image of Kaneki, from his jet black hair, the shape of his face, and while everyone said he had his mother’s eyes, he still very much had a lot of Kaneki. Every time Ren smiled…it was Kaneki’s smile…

Touka had done her best to move on from the events that unfolded three years ago. The rumors were that after the CCG realized Kaneki had taken part in aiding ghouls and helping free a couple of them, that he had been branded a traitor and sentenced to death. But there were other rumors than Kaneki lived, but simply disappeared. Whatever happened to him, his name had faded more and more each year. It was now as though he never existed. Erased, just as Touka once wished for…

He lived on though…

“That’s beautiful, Ren! Want me to hang it up here?” Touka ask, patting one of the cupboard doors. Ren nodded excitedly, proud to have his work on display. Touka smile as she took the colorful drawing, gathered a couple of pieces of tape and set it on the cupboard door. “There we go!”

“That’s definitely the best thing we have hanging around here.” Yomo said, also giving off a smile as he came up behind Touka.

“My boy is a little celebrity artist around here.” Touka let out. Ren put his hands up and was so full of glee it made both Touka and Yomo laugh a little.

“I’d pay good money for that.” Nishiki’s voice came from the entrance of the shop. He had been looking directly at the drawing with a huge smile on his face.

“Papa!” Ren jumped off his seat and ran into Nishiki’s awaiting arms. Nishiki picked him up and gently threw him over his shoulders, letting Ren’s legs dangle off his shoulders and letting him hold onto his head to keep himself balanced. Ren loved riding on Nishiki’s shoulders, telling Nishiki he felt like he was “a king!”

“You ready to visit the bookstore?” Nishiki asked Ren, sneaking a look up at him with a smile.

“Yes! Need more books!” Ren let out excitedly.

“Yeah, you always do, kid.” Nishiki chuckled as he looked over at Touka, who was just finishing up drying some cups. He flashed her his charming smile and she returned the smile with a bright one of her own.

In that moment, when Nishiki had to pick a new life or try to salvage the old one he once had, he had picked this life he was living right now. And he never regretted it. This is what he wanted.

Touka looked over at Yomo who gave her a little nod with a warm smile, giving her the go ahead to leave. She walked up to him and kissed his cheek, putting a small smile on Yomo’s face.

Touka took off her apron and walked around the counter to join Nishiki and Ren, rubbing her seven months pregnant belly as she did so. Nishiki walked up to her, splaying a hand over her stomach and leaning down to kiss her.

“How are you doing?” He asked pulling away.

“Great, but your daughter has been kicking me all day because you haven’t been around to calm her.” She told him. Nishiki’s smile grew wider as he rubbed her belly, letting his baby know he was there.

“A daddy’s girl already.” He said.

Nishiki laced his fingers with Touka’s, leading her and Ren out of the shop. Every Friday afternoon opened their weekend of family time where they went to the bookstore, took walks, checked out the market, and took Ren to the playground. Weekends were just for them, something both Nishiki and Touka cherished, even more so when they took videos and photos.

Once they were outside, Touka made sure Ren’s jacket was secure on him as he continued to sit on Nishiki’s shoulders. Nishiki had bent down a little so Touka could reach him.

“Mama, I’m okay.” Ren was already annoyed by his mother’s incessant need to make sure he was warm and safe.

“Now, you are, silly.” She said ruffling his hair as Nishiki stood back up.

Touka paused as she felt something all too familiar hit her, sending a shiver down her spine. Eyes. There were eyes on her, but she couldn’t pinpoint where the stare was coming from.

“Touka?”

“Yo.” Touka reacted to Nishiki’s voice.

“You okay?” He asked, tightening his grip around her hand.

“Yeah, sorry, I got distracted.” Touka smiled at him and Ren.

Nishiki began to lead her away again with Touka already getting over the feeling of being watched. She had felt it before, but it always ended up being her imagination or paranoia. She always cursed at herself for letting her imagination run wild like that. Ever since they had moved far away from the lives they once had, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. They had lived as normally as they could.

Everything had finally come together. There was nothing to worry about.

Everything was okay.

———

Juuzou casually made his way towards the Director’s office where Tooru Mutsuki was standing by and looking as though he was guarding the entrance.

“He’s busy, Suzuya.” Mutsuki stepped in front of Juuzou.

“Never too busy for me.” Juuzou waved him off with a smile as he walked past Mutsuki and into the Director’s office. There was a bowl of candy sitting on top of the Director's desk, something Juuzou helped himself to every time he walked in. Juuzou grabbed a piece of taffy-like candy and sat down on one of the chairs, propping his feet up on the Director’s desk.

“What’s your report, Suzuya?” The Director asked from his seat, which was still facing the windows.

“She seems to be doing well.” Juuzou spoke with his mouth full. “Uh, question though, why aren’t you checking up on her? Don’t you want to say hi?”

“Did she look happy?” The Director asked.

“Well, yeah.” Juuzou answered.

“And my son?” The Director turned his chair around.

[CCG Bureau Director Haise Sasaki aka Black Reaper aka Ken Kaneki, alive and well]

“He looked like a happy kid.” Juuzou added.

Kaneki smiled. “That’s why I’ve stayed away, Juuzou. To keep them happy.”

“But you still want to go ahead with the plan?” Juuzou asked.

“Yes.” Kaneki pushed up his glasses and placed his elbows on his desk, his fingertips pressed together. “And do me a favor, Juuzou, send in Nishino, I’d very much like to include her in this.” He added.

“Roger.” Juuzou hopped out of his chair and was soon out of his office.

“What was that all about?” Mutsuki slipped in as soon as Juuzou was gone.

“Get a hold of Urie, Yonebayashi, and Shirazu.” Kaneki sighed heavily, but gave a little grin. “We’re going undercover, Mutsuki.”

———

[wishes-upon-dreams]

Rainy Day Nostalgia

Pairing: Touken / Tousaki (in later chapters)

Word Count: ~2,250 words

Summary: AU. “It rains and it pours but that’s the least of young Touka’s worries” [Glimpses into some of Touka and Kaneki’s rainy day memories.]

Note: My first touken fic in a few years, and I’m every bit as nervous as I was when I posted back then! This one is a fluffy fic I actually originally began ~ 2 years ago for rainy days touken fluff week but didn’t actually manage to finish. Also, this will probably be a multiple chapter fic but I haven’t completely planned it out yet. I hope you enjoy! :)

Can also be read on AO3 and FFN

Excerpt:

How much time has passed since they’ve been chased out of the place they once called home?

A few days?

A couple of weeks?

A month or even longer?

She stares down at her dress, the one her father had worked so hard to patch up just days before he disappeared, dismayed to find it unrecognizable - all damp and tattered at the edges, not to mention covered with muddy splotches.

It rains and it pours but that’s the least of young Touka’s worries. 

It’s hard to be concerned about the state of the weather when one is living a life on the run. Other than being troubled by the chill, rainy evenings cease to matter. As do frigid snowy afternoons and sweltering sunny days.

It’s all meaningless when she and her brother are living aimlessly from one day to another, their only goal to survive.

How much time has passed since they’ve been chased out of the place they once called home?

A few days?

A couple of weeks?

A month or even longer?

She stares down at her dress, the one her father had worked so hard to patch up just days before he disappeared, dismayed to find it unrecognizable - all damp and tattered at the edges, not to mention covered with muddy splotches.

Normally she wouldn’t have cared, as an active child she had ripped and dirtied it multiple times, but now the very last thing she wanted to do was attract unwanted attention. She would have to clean it up before they left this temporary shelter.

A sneeze from the corner of the room interrupts the flow of her thoughts and she frowns as she makes her way towards her brother, the last precious family member she has remaining.

“Onee-chan, I’m tired and my legs hurt,” her younger sibling whines, head drooping low onto his chest as he slips in and out of sleep, and she tiptoes over to grab a table cloth (there are no blankets in the dingy abandoned residence they are currently lodging in) to keep him warm, sucking in a startled breath when he mumbles the words ”I want to go home.”

She tucks him in, burying her own turbulent feelings as she wraps her tiny arms around the sniffling boy and draws him into a tight hug. Then she waits until he falls asleep before she whispers, “Onee-chan does too”.

It’s not fair

The thought surfaces and lingers for a brief second or two before she wills it to disappear.

She would be as strong-minded as her mother whom she had loved so much.

She can’t falter.

She refuses to.

They only have each other now and she’ll do what she has to in order to protect him.

While he rests, she remains on the lookout, blowing on her hands and cupping her ears in an effort to retain some warmth. It’s at times like these that she used to nestle herself into her father’s side but now that he isn’t with them, she wishes there was proper heating to take away the chill.

Stuck with nothing to do but plan for the next few weeks, her thoughts soon turn to obtaining food. They had eaten just the other day but with the terrible weather outside - the raindrops trickling down the foggy window juxtaposed with the flashes of lightning and booming thunder are hard to miss - Touka has a hunch that there won’t be many people on the hunt for ghouls. As such, it doesn’t take her long to decide to search for some scraps of food. It’s a perfect opportunity and one that she doesn’t intend to pass up.

Besides, she surmises, even if I don’t find anything, at least I can say I tried.

With her mind made up, the minute Ayato awakens (in the early evening, and after the lightning has subsided), she dons an old raincoat (there’s a tiny tear on one arm but it’s not too noticeable) and pats him on the back.

“Ayato, stay here and I’ll be back in a bit. I’m going to quickly look for some food,” she explains without hesitation, opening up the door of their hideout and scanning the surroundings. She’ll have to be fast, even if there will be less people outdoors on such a stormy evening, she doesn’t really relish the idea of leaving him alone. “I don’t think anything will happen but ... it’s  always best to be prepared. If you hear any strange voices, you can peer through the curtains and if it’s an investigator then I want you to run as fast as you can to the meeting place we agreed upon. I’ll be sure to catch up.”

His grip on her arm tightens and she gently pushes him back down.

“Don’t worry about me.” She looks him square in the eyes, “We’ve been roaming a lot lately and although you tried to hide it from me, I noticed you’ve been coughing a lot and your feet are all scratched so I want you to rest up.”

“But what if-”

What if you don’t return?

She freezes, swallowing past the lump in her throat at his trembling tone and watery eyes, acknowledging his unspoken words.

“I’m not otou-san, Ayato.” She reassures him the best that she can.“I’ll be back for sure”

He reluctantly acquiesces, desperately blinking back tears, and she leaves after entrusting him with a fluffy toy bunny that she managed to salvage from their previous residence.

Onee-chan won’t take too long, and the bunny will protect you in my place, she silently promises, dashing through the back-alley, so please stay safe.

Several hours later (together with rotten luck hindering her attempts to procure food), she trudges back to their tiny hideout, checking their meeting spot on the way and quickly departing when she finds no sign of her little brother.

Along the path she passes by a playground.The lightning has vanished making her surroundings much harder to see but she jerks, her body tensing as it forms what she imagines to be a proper fighting stance when she hears a rustling noise.

Someone’s nearby, she thinks, darting behind a tree and willing her heart to stop racing.

There, through the whistling wind and smattering of rain, she counts to three and summons her courage before peeking around the trunk.

Illuminated by the street lamp headlights, her eyes land on a boy similar to her in age (and height), sitting under an umbrella on top of a dome painted like a whale, and she slumps back against the tree in relief, thankful that it’s not one of those scary people that have been hot on their trail.

Her fears abated, she tries to tip toe discretely away, but those plans are foiled when her foot descends a bit too heavily on a stray twig and there’s a sharp “crack” as it snaps cleanly in two. She raises her head, eyes wide and panicked, to find the boy staring in her direction.

What should I do? she wonders, fidgeting on the spot and cursing her own carelessness.

If only she had been more mindful or taken another path then she wouldn’t be in this situation. At the very least she is able to draw consolation from the fact that he too looks as startled as she feels.

He is the first to move, raising a hand to wave after a few instants of stationary silence, and that’s when she backs away, slipping and sliding on the wet leaves as she swivels, readying herself for a sprint.

“Please wait!” he cries out, and she chances a quick glance behind her just in time to see him tumble off the dome with an audible “oof”.

A moment passes, and then another and, while this is the perfect opportunity to make an escape (she doubts he’d be able to catch up to her with that clumsiness of his), her curiosity gets the better of her.

I shouldn't be doing this, she thinks as she approaches the fallen boy. It could be a trap.

Yet her feet continue to advance, plodding forward one step at a time.

Even though it had been a brief glimpse, his earlier posture had stuck with her. Maybe it’s the way he had looked so lonely curled up by himself, his faraway gaze locked on the sky above, something she had been guilty of doing a lot more recently, but her gut instinct tells her he doesn’t mean any harm.

A quick check and then I’ll leave.

She’s kneeling by his side before she realizes it.

"Are you okay?" she asks, scrutinizing the reddening scrapes forming on the center of his palm.

Everything about him touts that he's a human and based on what her father had told her, they don't heal as quickly as ghouls.

The boy nods, but she doesn’t believe him - not when he winces while trying to get up from the ground, his thumb and forefinger coming to brush the underside of his chin. Annoyed, and temporarily throwing caution to the wind (if she got out of this alive, she would have to keep this meeting with a human a secret from Ayato), she grabs his arm, leading him to the tiny space inside the dome sheltered from the rain.

"Thank you," he murmurs once they sit down, and she frowns. Wasn’t he in pain? " I’m sorry if I scared you. I just wanted to offer you this umbre-"

"Why?" she interrupts him, arms crossed and head tilted to the side.

Why was he helping someone he didn’t know? 

"I - I couldn’t help but notice that your jacket has a rip,“ he stammers out, his index finger awkwardly pointing at the material covering her right arm. “It might not be too noticeable but it wouldn’t be good if you caught a cold, would it?”

Was this what they called an idiot? Sure he was kind but he was definitely an idiot nonetheless. She was a stranger and, as of late, it was rare for others to offer her such generosity.

“You should worry about yourself more, instead of another kid like me,” she grumbles under her breath and when she doesn't make any move to take the umbrella from him, his smile falters. “You should get yourself treated or that cut on your hand will get infected.”

"It's alright, I live nearby and this jacket will be enough to protect me from the rain," he reassures her, and when she eyes him doubtfully after pointing out the heavy stream of rain droplets combining with the rapidly growing puddles, he adds, "I can run pretty fast too!"

Confident in her own racing abilities, Touka blinks as she tries, and fails, to hold back a laugh at his sudden proud enthusiastic declaration and upon hearing her giggles, he joins in with a laugh of his own too.

“Okay, fine, you win,” she manages to get out after calming down, traces of her prior amusement still detectable in her voice. It had been a while since she had genuinely laughed. This would probably be the only time they would meet in their entire lives but she would have to thank him for making her laugh and for the umbrella.

Struck with an idea of what to give him in return, Touka reaches into the pocket of her jacket, fumbling a bit in her search but grinning triumphantly when she finds what she’s looking for.

There you are!

She lifts her arm, a handkerchief in tow.

It’s only once she’s satisfied from the results of inspecting it to make sure it was in decent condition (unlike her clothing), and still clean from when she had washed it earlier that day, that she turns to him.

“It’s not much,” she mumbles, holding it out, “but give me your hand.”

He glances over startled but quickly follows her instructions when she tells him to “hurry up already!”

It’s her first time treating the wounds of someone outside her family but she works diligently, gripping his hand in her own. Unlike Ayato, he doesn’t complain about the pain but she tries to be as gentle as possible when she wipes at the scratches, careful in her attempts to remove the grains of sand from his open cuts.

“It’s only a temporary solution,” she warns him as she finishes, pressing the sheet against his palm and enclosing his fingers around it. “Keep this and clean it properly when you get home!”

“Thank you,” he whispers, looking touched at her actions, and she nods.

They rest for a while longer, until the unrelenting storm dwindles to a soft “pitter patter”. Then, with a wave and a farewell, she leaves with his umbrella and he, with her handkerchief.

The rain stops partway through her journey back and she finds herself unexpectedly smiling at the thought that the boy would have been saved from being drenched (waterproof jacket or not). She dashes the last stretch home, relieved when Ayato rushes to meet her the moment she calls out “I’m back”.

While she didn’t manage to get any food, it was, by no means, an uneventful outing.

Her thumb brushes over the words inked onto the handle.

Kaneki Ken

She doubted she was reading his name correctly, she could only vaguely remember what her father had once taught her after all, but she guessed it didn’t matter.

Both kind and funny, she was certain of one thing.

That boy sure was an odd one.

A short while later the ghoul investigators manage to suss out their whereabouts and they are forced to flee the ward.

Faced with a sudden unforgivable world filled with territory fights and struggles to survive, Touka soon wipes the memory of the boy and his small act of kindness from her mind.

Sometimes that first meeting is not always meant to be remembered.