#somehow i did not have a single late assignment

[liekadae]

something is so seriously wrong with me because I just finished my semester and immidiately thought "damn, i havent really done anything for the past year, have I?"

As if I didnt just do two whole ass exhibitions and a runway and a cosplay and learned a whole new medium and a 3D modeling program and ran this stupid account like sorry tf is wrong with me????

[cythena]

REVENGE

ꨄ︎ synopsis . now you're cursed it seemed. maybe it was karma for your relentless attempts to fluster giyuu. they worked out in the end but now he's set on messing with you too.

warnings . oral f receiving, breeding, awkward moments for reader, cowgirl, fingering, messy kissing, really chill tbh

word count . 3k words

notes . part two to this post! since i got a request for it i was a little bit stuck on what to do soooo i reversed the roles now giyuu gets to have fun.

he's doing it on purpose. that evil evil man. there was no way he was that aloof. he's completely aware of what he's doing and he's enjoying it. he loves getting back at you for everything you've done to him.

everything he's done was a calculated move in order to provoke you. whether it was innocently masked questions or touches, they were all done with the intent to fluster you. your words would jumble together and cheeks grow hot. all while he kept that stupid stoic expression like he wasn't messing with you.

you're so upset but can't help but enjoy this game he's started. you even started distancing yourself from him a little. whenever meeting with him, you try to avoid giving him any opportunities. yet somehow he always manages.

he still makes your head dizzy. even from your distance you admire him, his strong jaw, smooth skin, sharp nose. he's so handsome you wish this game would end soon. then you could finally get your hands on him again — or at least even the score.

it's not fair fun anymore. giyuu let your hook up get to his head. you were always hyper aware of how he reacted to you. he avoided you but his eyes lingered. with a gaze so intense and heavy, it was impossible for you not to notice. you relished in his attention and used it as fuel to your advantage.

on mission assignments together, it was nearly impossible to avoid each other. giyuu had suffered previously whenever ubuyashiki made the ignorant and cruel decision to partner you two together. it was undeniable how well you worked together combat wise, but other than that it was insufferable.

the bright side of it was how fast missions were completed. the most time was spent walking together and back, then separating to return home.

"y/n," his voice calls for you from the trees in front. his back is turned to you while he sheaths his sword. when he turns to you, you're flicking blood off the metal of yours with a twirl of your hand.

"yes, tomioka?" your melodic voice rings in his ears. he mentally scowls at the use of his last name once again.

you take few steps to move closer to him, keeping your distance still. he closed a decent amount of the distance to stand in front of you. he bends his neck slightly to meet your eyes.

"we'll stay at an inn for the night."

you're not given time to respond before he's walking to way back to the village. you follow him with a short distance between you until you reach the inn.

the inn is a decent sized place, refurbished and well kept. it's clean and a little busy. a few customers are returning to their rooms with buzzed looks on their faces.

giyuu speaks to the receptionist. he's an older man, sweet faced and kind looking. a woman standing next to him looks to be his tired wife. her eyes are shut and she's wobbles a little.

"good evening. you travelers are out quite late," he smiles and leads you to a room. you trail behind giyuu.

his wife holds freshly steamed yukatas which she hands off to you while a drowsy smile. "have a lovely night you two."

the man shuts the door behind you. from the outside you hear the woman speak again.

"what a sweet couple. the man reminds me of you when you were younger."

your ears perk up now. you glance around the room realizing the circumstances. you were give a single room because they assumed you were together. not that you had a problem with it but still. did you two really look like a couple?

giyuu was already settled near a small table. he begins ridding his haori and sword, placing them on the ground neatly. you remove your outer layers too, opting to be mature about the situation if he is as well.

you face the other direction until he calls your name.

"i need your help, my wound requires bandaging."

"oh, i'll be there in a moment," you reply. you turn your back to him once more to finish taking off your sword.

he takes a seat on the table. his legs spread open, his wrist rests on his thigh and his hand hangs. the other arm props the rest of his body up from behind his back. his collar is loosened and stretched from his neck, revealing his adam's apple.

you swallow thickly at the sight. it's almost...arousing.

you brush it off and focus. "where's your injury?"

giyuu's hand reaches from his thigh and tugs from the opening in his collar. somehow he yanks the buttons open in a single motion. he pulls one side of his shirt away from the center and lets it slide off his arm.

a red wound stretches across the side of his lower torso, next to the eye catching muscles of his abdomen. it makes your mouth water on sight — even though it's nothing you haven't seen before.

your face burns and your eyes go wide. it's inexorable. you notice how giyuu's eyes squint as he watches your face reveal your feelings.

"is there a problem?" he asks, keeping eye contact. "are you able to help?"

that little bastard- you think to yourself.

"yes. just give me the bandages?" you mutter. you try to speed up the process as much a possible.

you kneel down between his legs to reach easier. you're eye to abs with him now. pushing the thought out of your head, you wrap the bandages around him.

giyuu smiles while you're focused on his wound. the sight of your head between his thighs is something he's shamelessly fantasized about. suddenly your head shoots up and you catch the coy smile playing at his lips.

you loose your balance and fall backwards onto your ass. he doesn't react, instead slipping the rest of his shirt off. you take this opportunity to hurry back to your side of the room, far away from him and his stupidly defined abs.

you needed a nice break. finding time in your schedules to meet with mitsuri and shinobu was difficult. a free slot in your schedules aligned on the day of a festival in your town. so the three of you planned a date for that evening.

you all dressed in beautiful clothing, a refreshing change from your corps uniform. you wander the stalls together through the bustling crowds. red and orange lights glow and illuminate your faces. mitsuri stops to sample multiple snacks while shinobu admires handmade crafts.

a cat figure catches your eye and you step to the side for a little.

"i'll catch up with you in a moment," you assure them before heading towards the booth.

it's a cute little wooden cat. you pick it up and examine the delicate woodwork.

"i'd like this. how much?"

"eight yen but for a pretty la-"

an arm suddenly extended over your shoulder and offered what looked to be ten to fifteen yen. the owner happily traded the cat for the generous sum. he gave you the cat wrapped in a pretty box.

you turned to thank the kind person. giyuu stood behind you, shadowing you. he also dorned a deep blue yukata.

"tomioka, i didn't expect you to be the festival type," you said. you both stepped away from the stall and continue walking.

"i'm not." he turned his head and gestured to the three familiar boys and young girl. "tanjiro asked me to come."

"and you were just so willing?"

"it's near your house, i hoped to see you."

his words sent heat to your face once again. such romantic words said so stoically. he was doing this on purpose.

"came all the way here in hopes of seeing me?" you tease.

"if you weren't here," he steps closer to you, "i would've went to your house."

"and if i weren't there?"

"i would've waited." where did he learn this from? he's so forward with his words. he returns to his original position and looks off the the side. his gaze lies on nothing i particular as he speaks again, "but kocho mentioned your plans before."

your path takes you towards a quieter part of the festival. it's just as bright but with more seating and open space available. the loud atmosphere is replaced by a relaxed one. the crickets chirping becomes more apparent now.

you're admiring a particularly beautiful latern when your foot catches an uneven stone in the pavement. you lose your balance and in a flurry of movement, fall forward. giyuu reacts swiftly.

his arms reach out and wrap around your waist and pull you close to his chest. your arms smoosh against his body as your heart races.

"i remember you telling me...not to fall for you," you must be crazy because you hear a chuckle in that statement.

giyuu's soft gaze lingers on you, a faint smile tugging at his lips. you push your palms flat against his chest to get off. before beginning to move, your own lips curled into a playful grin.

"it seems it's too late for me," you whisper.

"y/n!" a high pitched voice gasps.

your head whips to see mitsuri and shinobu joining you and giyuu.

shinobu's eyes close as she brings her fingers to stifle her laugh. "my my, i wouldn't have expected tomioka-san to be so close to anyone, let alone, y/n."

"if you and tomioka-san had a date please don't let us interrupt!" mitsuri's face flushed in excitement at the sight of you and giyuu holding each other.

you quickly push yourself off of him and walk over to them.

"no! we don't have a date, it's not what it looks like." your voice is a giveaway to your humiliation. you hide your expression from all three of them to mask your embarrassment.

a few days after the festival, you don't get any interaction with giyuu. no missions or training sessions bring you together. the distance makes you a bit relentless.

you settle down in your yard, admiring the afternoon. a kakushi calls your attention.

"y/n-sama, i have a letter from tomioka-sama," they say with a bow.

curious and pleased to see some interest from giyuu. you walk over over to the kakushi. they hand you a neatly folded up paper. it's the usual template for any giyuu letter. you'd be concerned if it were longer.

"i need to see you. come to my house as soon as you can - giyuu tomioka."

how dry-

you thank the kakushi and walk back into your house. with no pressing matters at the moment, you decide to visit him immediately. the letter seemed somewhat important.

the journey to his house is quick and you find yourself at his door in no time. you knock firmly. there's a brief pause before the door slides open.

giyuu reveals himself shirtless, his toned muscles and faint scars from battles past on full display. the lighting from the oil lamp highlights the contours of his well-defined chest. he uses his elbow against the frame to hold his head up.

"giyuu what the fuck—" it slips out of you.

his fingers spread through strands of his hair as he gazes down at you. "you're here."

"it seemed urgent," you swallow, trying to keep your composure. he moves aside to let you in. "obviously not that urgent. why are you dressed like this?" you pinch the bridge of your nose.

"is there a problem?" he asks with innocent in his voice.

"when you have guests over—"

"but it's nothing you haven't seen before."

confidence instills itself in you. "so you're dressed like that because i'm here?"

"isn't it more comfortable this way?"

you roll your eyes, trying to hide the heat rising in your cheeks. “perhaps. comfortable or not, it’s still a bit unexpected.”

he chuckles softly, his gaze never leaving yours. “well, if you’re uncomfortable, i can change.”

the playful glint in his eyes tells you he’s enjoying this moment far more than he’s letting on. you take a deep breath, trying to regain your composure.

“no, don’t bother. let's just get to why I’m here.”

as you turn, giyuu steps closer, his presence warm and unmistakable. “if you insist,” he says, his voice low and soft.

he closes the distance between you. your back is pressed against a wall. his lips capture yours in a sudden, fervent kiss. the softness and warmth of his touch make your heart race, and you melt into the kiss, losing yourself in the moment. his hands grasp your face delicately, like glass. you layer your hands on top of his.

he's gentle at first. his lips brush against yours with tender and soft motions. the intensity rises as the pressure of his kiss and fingertips increases. the fervor behind them is fueled by passion, desperation, and yearning. your mouth feels like a fire that only he can cool.

you part with a deep inhale, your chest rises and falls while a string connects your lips.

"that's what i'm here for?"

"not all."

he yanks your shirt off and tosses it. his hands reach to undo your belt while keeping your lips interlocked. you skirt falls onto his floor. he's practically salivating at the sight of your body.

he knew he missed it but not this much.

he pulls back to gawk at your bare body, free from anything barriers. he brings his hands to settle in on your hips.

"nuh uh." you shake your head and gesture to his pants.

he reluctantly pulls away from you to shed his pants. he wastes no time before attacking your lips once again. he trails kisses and bites down your neck until he reaches your nipple. he takes one into his mouth while he tweaks the other with his index and thumb. he uses his other hand to slide across your clit, gathering your slick and then sliding between your folds. his tongue swirls the bud and teeth nibble lightly to tease. you hold onto the base of of his head.

"tomioka," you sigh. you're immediately cut off when he bites harder than usual.

"stop that."

you smile to yourself, pleased with riling him up. you lean back against the wall and sigh. you relax into his touch and in what feels like seconds, you feel yourself tighten around his fingers.

"giyuu! h-hah."

he slows fingers, almost halting your peak completely. your eyes shoot open to see him lowering himself to his knees. you could cum just from seeing his eyes looking up at you. he lets his tongue out before his face disappears between your thighs.

your body doubles over. he matches his fingers to the pace of his unrelenting tongue. he greedily slurps up the heavenly taste of your cunt. you feel the smile pressed against your folds.

high squeals are pulled from your throat. he takes your thigh and rests it on his shoulder. both your hands tangle in his hair and push his deeper.

"oh, i'm cu-mming," you whine.

he spreads your cunt to blow cold air that makes you shiver. his nose pressed against your clit now while his tongue dips into your pussy. a swipe of his tongue is enough to tip you over.

your thighs press against his head while he continues to swallow every bit of you he can get. you're forced to push him away from you. his lips and chin are drenched and all he can do it lick around his lips and fingers.

he looks up you with hazy eyes and uneven breathing.

"ride me?"

you nod, still dizzy. giyuu lies back and rests on his elbows. you straddle him and hover over his cock. your palm wraps around the base to guide him into your hole. he steadies himself by grabbing your hips with a hand.

you slowly rock back and forth, gradually moving to a steady bounce. giyuu lets out soft sighs of relief. his adam's apple bobs with each swallow. he helps you bounce with his hand on you.

"mhm- shit," he groans.

you speed up your pace and steal more sounds from him and force them from yourself.

"hah- fuck fuck, feels good." his breathing grows heavier.

you're practically slamming yourself down on his cock. he reaches that spot that has you squealing every time. you squeeze down on him and your eyes roll back in pure ecstasy.

giyuu pushes your back down so you're flat on your stomach against him. he bends his knees for leverage and thrusts into you.

your head falls into his neck while you relinquish control. his thrusts are dangerously good. your legs are going weak.

"jus' like that...please, i'm gonna-"

he pulls you away and captures your lips in a deep kiss. he holds the back of your neck.

your pussy contracts around his cock. shivers rack through your whole body and you can't stop. "giyuu!" you sob.

your back arches further into him.

"so pretty." his gasp catches you off guard. you're locked into eye contact with him. he whimpers underneath his breath. "can i- cum?"

you're shocked he's asking for permission. a part of you wants to deny and tease but he's been so good to you.

you start to meet his thrusts which pulls a loud gasp from him. you stroke his cheek with your thumb, teasing just a bit.

"you can cum."

timed perfectly, giyuu spurts his load deep inside of you instantly. he refuses to look anywhere else besides your eyes. he's still rocking your hips onto him when he's done.

slowly, he comes down from his high. you settle down against his chest with his cock still inside you.

"hmm, don't wanna get up," you mumble.

giyuu wraps his arms around you. "don't."

[iamthescalesofjustice]

me, circa the tail end of senior year: if the school calls my deadname at graduation i will face god and walk backwards into hell. 

everyone a week later: omg did you hear? he deliberately flunked out to get out of attending the graduation ceremony. no seriously he actually did. absolute madlad

[alcoholfreenayeon]

Hi! Could I request a Wendy(Red Velvet) imagine where you two get into a heated argument and you end up taking off your wedding ring and throwing it at her before leaving the apartment you two share and after her initial shock she tries to go out and look for you…can you make it a happy ending please?🙏 thank you

Better Judgement

CW: Wendy x Reader, Angst, fluff

A/N: I’m so sorry! I know this is SO late😭

You were on your desk, annoyed because you had just gotten some more work assigned. Like you already weren’t doing enough. It’s not your fault that half of your coworkers are useless and can’t complete their tasks on time but somehow it’s your responsibility. You sigh and begin, already knowing it’ll keep you busy the rest of the evening and night which means you can’t spend time with your fiancée properly today as well. An hour later, you go to the kitchen to have a snack when you spot Wendy, sitting on the sofa looking upset, fidgeting with her hoodie restlessly.

“Everything ok baby?”, you ask taking a sip of your soda.

“You tell me…”, She said with a pout.

“Just work, they dumped some more on me…”, you rant.

“Why don’t you tell them it’s too much. You are only one person after all”, she suggests, feeling a bit more annoyed.

“It’s not that simple as that”, you point out.

“Of course it isn’t. Every single thing is complicated and unavoidable except me. I’m simple and can be put off for everything else.”, Wendy snaps, folding her arms and glaring at you.

You sigh, “No, it’s not like that. And you know that. It’s work”, you throw your arms up in frustration. “I can’t put it off like that but we can go on a date another day. It’s different. Why are you mad at for that. It’s not like I asked for it.”

“Because you rarely are here anymore. Always doing this or that and never taking a break. You are lost in your own world. You are here but you might as well not be with the way you have been the past month”, Wendy grumbled.

You clench your jaw, “I can’t help it if that’s the work I’ve to do. Not like you are always present either. Going off on your little trips and vacations. Concerts…Comebacks. Not every job is like being an idol. Some of us don’t work in a protected bubble.”

Wendy gets a pained look, “That’s not the case. You know I don’t think that. I’m only complaining because I generally don’t get this much free time and you are so busy in it.”

“How’s that my fault. Not like I was parading my boss to give me more work because I know you are free and have nothing to do.”, you snap at her.

“Stop being like this!”, Wendy says quietly, her voice quivering a little, “Fine then. If it’s that much effort for you to make a little bit of time with me then I won’t ask you anymore. Do what you like.”

“If I was able to do that do you think I’d be sitting here?”, you grumble.

“I don’t care anymore”, Wendy says with a shaky voice, “you just don’t care. I’m trying my best but…”, she looks at you, tears in her eyes.

You sigh, hating to see her this way, your heart aching. You want to hug and comfort her, tell her you are sorry but your pride isn’t allowing it. You felt like you were not in the wrong so then why did you have to be the one to make amends especially when you didn’t start this, “Yeah right, I don’t care…”, you say coldly, hating yourself the moment the the words leave your mouth.

She takes a shaky breath, trying her best to not cry, your words like daggers to her.

You turn back to your work, trying to leave this behind for now so you can cool off a bit before you decide what to do next to solve this argument.

“Atleast you are honest now”, she bitterly said as a single tear rolled down her cheeks.

You freeze and then slowly turn to her, clenching your jaw and gritting your teeth, your slowly take off your engagement ring and slam it at the table, “There. That’s what you want right? For me to go. I’ll do what you want then.”, you turn back and leave, walking angrily towards the door and leaving, slamming it shut.

Wendy stays still in shock, unable to register your words and actions at first and slowly breaking down as she realizes.

You storm out, walking aimlessly trying to calm yourself a little but you weren’t successful. It wasn’t fair at not. If you had your way you’d spend every waking moment with her. But unfortunately no one has that luxury and we all have to make do with what we have, trying our best. And evidently sometimes that isn’t enough.

You keep walking, sulking about till you reach a convenience store and walk in to get a snack. You buy your favorite chocolate and a soda before heading towards a nearby park. You find an empty bench and sit on it. You feel your phone buzz but you ignore it. You just wanted to be left alone right now. So you just sat and stared into the little pond, watching the birds while fighting with your thoughts and feelings. You didn’t realize how much time had passed until you noticed it was dark now. You sigh, noticing you haven’t had your chocolate yet so you take it out, tearing off the wrapper slowly. You are about to take the first bite when you suddenly think how Wendy always magically appears whenever you have chocolate. You almost smile and turn your head, expecting her to be there and just as quickly that burst of familiarity turns to dreaded pain. You take a small bite and fidget with your fingers, feeling even guiltier when you remember you had taken off your ring.

The chocolate doesn’t taste as sweet anymore and you just feel pained. You took out your phone to see a few missed calls and texts from her. Yet now your pride out of nowhere stops you from calling or texting her back even though it’s hurting not to. Frustrated by this confusion, you get up and take another quick walk, going up to a little hill nearby, it was a pretty spot but it gets pretty crowded in the day so you weren’t going there as much anymore.

As you look at the night sky, you decide you will go back home, apologize and try to make amends. Yes you weren’t completely at fault but if you had to be honest with yourself, then you were ready to take the blame for anything if it meant you and Wendy would stay together. You hated seeing her cry and instead of comforting her and explaining to her better, you snapped.

Lost in your thoughts, you feel a gentle tap on your back and turn to see an anxious looking Wendy standing nervously.

“H-hi.”, she said quietly, “I finally found you here the second time looking”.

You stay still for a moment, just looking at her and feeling guilty, the way she seemed excited yet hesitant to see you right now, the way she’s breathing harder than usual from walking uphill…god you just wanted to squeeze her so tight.

“Wendy, I’m sorry”, you suddenly apologize, hugging her tight.

She gasped softly from your embrace but then hugged you back tighter, “No I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have been so cranky and demanding. I’ve seen how hard you work everyday and I just felt annoyed at your boss for taking you away from me so much. But I ended up snapping at you. I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me anymore.”

“I’m not. I can’t stay mad at you. I love you too much….I’m sorry took off the ring and I’m so sorry I made you cry.”, you say quietly, holding on to her like your life depended on it.

She looks at you, smiling a little, “thank you sweetheart, my heart feels lighter now. Let’s go home, I feel like it’ll get cold really soon…”

You smile and kiss her quickly, “Yes let us, I still have so much work left”, you tease with a poke.

Wendy sighs with a smile, “I swear, I’m gonna hit you with a pan.”

You chuckle, “You didn’t let me finish, I meant to say I have work left for tomorrow. Tonight is just for us to cuddle and watch a movie.”

“I’d like that so much…”, Wendy says happily, linking her arm with yours as you both walk back home, all of your troubles gone and just eagerness awaiting as you can’t wait to spend some real time with her.

[as-is-above-so-below]

Cardigan - John Price x F!Teacher!Reader

Part 1: It Starts In A Bar

summary: your friends take you out to a local pub when you would much rather be grading assignments. a/n: hello! big surprise, me writing for john price! I don't know how long this will be, but I definitely have a general idea of where I want this to go. I hope y'all like it!

thank you @lethalchiralium for dragging me into the clubhouse kicking and screaming LMAO << Previous | Next >>

Why did they pick this place again?

Ah, right. “It’s a hometown pub, a staple to the community,” they said. That was clear from the couple dozen men and women, ranging from middle-aged to elderly, scattered about, and a few younger folks peppered into the crowd. It wasn’t run down by any means, just…a dive. You mindlessly picked at the peanuts and pretzels in little bowls, elbows perched on the edge of the sticky table, for hours. You chatted and occasionally laughed at the stories they shared about their homeroom students and the shenanigans the other grades got up to. You’d been teaching year thirteen for a while, students taking their A-levels in history. 

It was supposed to be a quiet evening, spent with a stack of papers to grade, surrounded by glowing candles scattered around your apartment accompanied by soft white string lights stretched across the ceiling. Instead, your friends somehow managed to drag you out of your cozy home to a dark dive in town. You loved them dearly (really, you did), but you had a routine. Your ideal Friday night wasn’t in a damp bar.

Your kids could be challenging at times in their late teens. They occasionally cause trouble, known for getting into fights, interrupting class, or bringing drama into the classroom. Nevertheless, you’d never had a set of students that was more than you could handle. They turned their work in on time and were always nosy about your personal life, which – much to their chagrin – was uneventful. Your love life was stale, to put it nicely. And your friends tried everything in their power to set you up on dates, every single one striking out miserably. It didn’t feel natural to meet some guy at a restaurant for a blind date.

One of them talked about themselves the entire time, barely letting you get a word in. The next ordered about three more drinks than you and a meal that cost twice as much as yours but demanded you split the cost of the date. You were all for splitting the bill but on the first date? Not a good impression.

The rest were uninteresting and immemorable.

“Seriously? You haven’t been on a date since – Oh, what was his name again?”

“Zachary,” you pointed out, taking a long sip of your drink. “You should know; you set up the date.”

“I know, I know. I didn’t realize he was such a bore one-on-one.”

“Thanks for that, by the way. Loved talking to myself for two hours.”

You all laughed at the memory, starting to finish drinks and gather belongings. “Let’s get to the next spot to find you a man!”

Bar hopping was the absolute last thing you wanted to do, but you knew better than to resist. It would all be over much faster if you just went along. Your companions were much quicker on their exit, considering the nearly-full drink that you felt like you just bought, and they were already moving on to the next dig. You threw the rest of your drink back, flinching as the big gulp of alcohol burned down your throat, and hurried to catch up with them. You took one of their outstretched hands, giggling as they just about pulled you into the circle exiting the pub–

“Excuse me, miss!” a deep voice called out. You’re not sure why, but you turned, feeling like the man was calling out to you. Your assumption turned out to be correct, and a tall, dark-haired man with a beard and a soft smile approached you. “Sorry, you left this.”

He held your cardigan to you. You must have abandoned it in your haste.

“Oh! Thank you so much. That’s kind of you,” you said, taking the garment back and draping it over your forearm. “I’d forget my head if it weren’t attached,” you added, tapping your temple with a soft chuckle.

“Quite alright.” Behind you, an elbow nudged your spine; you barely caught yourself from making a face and snapping at whichever acquaintance decided to egg you on. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but it seems you’re heading out.”

He certainly was handsome. His beard was well-groomed, just like his hair. It looked like he went to a barber fairly recently. He even dressed well, in a cream, ribbed polo tucked loosely into his jeans. Dark chest hair peeked out where the top two buttons were undone. It was an enticing offer…

“Um, yeah, but….” You looked over your shoulder and met expectant glances. Some looked like they were about to bust apart at the seams with glee, which made you roll your eyes. Clearly, you wouldn’t be missed. “I could hang for a little while longer.”

The man's smile grew, and his stance shifted to open a path toward the bar. “Are you sure? Y’don’t have to,” he amended, his hands in his pockets. His energy was warm and soft but still masculine. He held a confidence that not many people carried, at least not the men you’d been on dates with recently. And the Liverpool accent? Maybe things were starting to look up.

“No, no, I honestly need another drink.” You flashed your teeth back to him, folding your arms over your chest with your sweater in hand.

“In that case, after you.”

Before taking his arm, you realized you’d yet to even ask for his name. “Thank you…?”

“John.” John’s right hand hovered before you and he flashed his bright teeth. His hands were clean, nails neatly trimmed. Although, one nail bed was bruised.

Man, he’s pretty for a grown man.

“Y/N,” you replied with an easy grin. He kept a steady hold on your gaze, carefully examining the bright twinkle they held. You didn’t know it, but John had just returned from a long mission. One that had left him yearning for a shower, a haircut, and somebody to come home to. He’d never had anything to look forward to and stay alive for; no affection or comfort after a rough assignment, no one to care for and spoil.

And he wanted that.

“A surname to that, John?” you asked, sliding your hand through the loop he created with his elbow. Holy shit, he was strong. Your hand rested on the soft but well-built muscle of his bicep. You figured he must have a labor-intensive job, or he goes to the gym frequently. John didn’t seem like the type to spend hours at the gym in his spare time, so you went with the first option. You’d keep that in mind when making small talk later.

“John Price.”

“Very regal name.”

John scoffed but laughed nonetheless. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that.”

John couldn’t take his eyes off of you. You were unbelievably bubbly, especially for interacting with a stranger who only gave back your forgotten cardigan. He’d been watching you from his spot at the bar, laughing with your friends but zoning out every once in a while. He was no stranger to giving himself a mental break, particularly in a hectic environment like a packed bar on a cool, Friday evening.

“I’ll call you when I need a ride!”

You and John watched the giggly group exit the pub, happily waving as they piled into a cab. You waved back with your free hand, your other palm still pressed against his warm skin. They didn’t embarrass you too badly, thank god. You met John’s eyes, a dark color twinkling with mischief.

“Your friends seem chipper.”

“I’m so sorry. They’re just happy to see me talking to a man.” 

“Oh? Is that right?” he chuckled, nodding to your previously held table. John broke away briefly to retrieve his unfinished drink and denim jacket from the bar.

You followed his lead back to the booth, attempting to keep control of the flush you felt beginning to heat your cheeks. “They’ve set me up on many an unfortunate date. Not saying I don’t get along fine on my own, but–”

“It’s rough out there?” he finished, sliding into the cushioned seat across from you. When you nodded in return, John smirked. “Believe me. I get it. My career makes it difficult to find time for much of anything.”

“Yeah, well, I have sixteen kids.”

The man sputtered, choking on what looked to be an old-fashioned. Possibly a bad joke, but it was such a great opportunity; you were feeling frisky, and you couldn’t help the giggles that erupted following his reaction. “I teach history for year thirteen.”

“Oh, thank Christ.” John wiped the cocktail off his lip with the back of his hand, shaking his head at your laughter. “You had me going there. Five minutes into our date, and I’ve made a mess of myself.”

You quirked a brow. “So this is a date?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, I would consider it light conversation. Getting to know each other.”

“That’s a date.”

“Mmm, I’d say it’s more casual than that.”

“I’m not looking for casual, love.”

You paused, examining his calm demeanor. He didn’t seem cocky, but honest, a welcome change to the pattern you’d observed over the last few months. None of your dates had been so bold as to know what they want and make their intentions clear. Especially not so quickly. It was refreshing.

“Me neither.”

“Good.”

You both sat in peace, pausing your conversation for the waitress. You ordered another drink, as promised, and folded your hands on the tabletop, fingers laced. “So, what do you do, John?” you asked, tapping your thumbs together.

“I’m in the military.”

You paused, expectantly waiting for him to continue, only to be met with silence.

“Care to elaborate?”

He tutted once with his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth. “I would love to, but I can’t.”

Interesting. Normally, resistance like that would be a red flag. On the other hand, his job could be “classified” or whatever is said in the movies. No alarms went off in your mind; your intuition told you that John was trustworthy, so you let it go. The pretty brunette dropped your new drink off and another for John.

“I can tell you that I’m a Captain.”

“So you have pretend kids too?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he hummed, swirling the whiskey in his glass. A slight tinge of the citrus notes from the expressed orange peel wafted across the table. John’s laugh was distinctive, chesty and rumbly, inviting. “Of course. Mine are bigger, though, I’m sure.”

“Oh? They’re not scrawny little soldiers?”

“No. One’s almost two meters tall.”

“Jesus. How many?”

“Five. Gaz, Ghost, Soap, Alex, and Farah.”

“Well, I for one can’t wait to meet them.”

“Likewise.”

You fussed with your hair for about the thousandth time in your bathroom mirror and huffed when it wouldn’t settle right. John was to meet you in about fifteen minutes. Knowing him, that meant he would be buzzing up to your apartment any second. You’d been on a few dates and knew his date habits pretty well. If you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late. You had been out to dinner, grabbed coffee once or twice; you even grabbed an ice cream. So, it was a surprise when John suggested a trip to the museum. It didn’t seem like his thing, but you weren’t about to turn down a trip to the history exhibit.

As you expected, a familiar BZZT BZZT reverberated through your flat, signaling his arrival. The first time he picked you up, you let him into the building without using the intercom. You tried explaining that the speaker broke and your landlord had yet to fix it (shocker), but John wouldn’t hear it. You could have been letting in a random creep pressing buttons until some tenant unlocked the door. He insisted on creating a little system, so you would know it was him downstairs and not a kidnapper. From then on, he always rang the bell twice.

You gave up on your hair, switched the light off, and paged him in. Your unit was on the first floor (which wasn’t ideal), so it only took John a few seconds to reach your door. When you heard a knock at your door, you peered through the peephole (as promised) before unlocking the deadbolt, revealing a very well-dressed captain. John’s hair was a bit shaggy, but it suited him well. Your heart fluttered helplessly at the bright smile that appeared when he laid eyes on you, his gaze obviously taking in the sight before him.

It was a weeknight, and you didn’t have time to change between school and your usual errands. You threw a plaid skirt, thigh-high socks, and loose sweater together; just a sliver of skin showed between the top of your socks and hem of your skirt. You felt underdressed compared to John, but there wasn’t much you could do about it. 

“Hi,” he said, leaning to kiss your cheek. “You look lovely.”

“Same to you. You always clean up well.”

“If you saw the state I’m usually in at work – you’d understand why.”

John kept a watchful eye to make sure you turned both locks for your door before guiding you outside to a waiting taxi with a hand on the small of your back. He held the door to your building and the car open for you. The drive was short, but the weather was starting to catch a bit of a chill, and you didn’t want to walk too far.

Ever the gentleman, the captain followed closely behind you up the steps to the gallery. Even if he weren’t perceptive, with years of experience reading people, he could tell you were excited to be there; however, he wasn’t so experienced in the ‘romance’ department. John honestly couldn’t even remember the last time he visited any museum, let alone a dedicated history exhibition. But when he suggested it and assured you that he would have a good time, he was only being partially truthful. Secretly, the man just wanted an excuse to listen to you talk. What better place to bring you than an exhibit where he knew you would talk his ear off for hours?

You slowly worked your way through each exhibit, explaining some pieces you recognized and their significance to the period; at displays you weren’t familiar with, you both quietly hovered closer to the title cards, reading through the description. While that kind of date wasn’t John’s usual cup of tea, he was glad he planned it; it helped him figure out how to slow the fuck down and try to be normal outside of a military setting or a pub.

His breath nearly stuttered every time you laid a gentle hand on his arm and drew his attention to the next section, beaming as you animately but quietly pointed out the tiny details in a Renaissance painting hung on the wall. The man couldn’t help but stare at how your lips curved at every syllable, wide eyes glued on the intricate scene portrayed. John hadn’t spoken much so far aside from the occasional affirmation that he was listening; he was very much in his head, unsure if you were excited to be there with him or just excited to be there. But, standing in front of the big painting, you went quiet. You met his gaze, and his lips pulled into a lopsided grin, which you returned before you both shifted back to the artwork. It was peaceful, absorbing the atmosphere and just existing together. Suddenly, John was jolted out of his reverie by the feeling of something brushing the side of his palm. 

You were itching to hold his hand all night but were too nervous to take that leap. What if he rejected you? That wasn’t likely after so many dates, but still. Your nerves got the better of you for the better half of the self-guided tour. Regardless, you had managed to work up the courage, cautiously grazing your pinky against his wrist and hand before wrapping it around his. You didn’t look away from the illustration, but he did, moving to you, then down to your hands.

He simply stared for a moment, surprised but positively giddy at the same time. Surely enough, John took your hand in his, interlocking your fingers and leaning just a bit closer to you. He could stand there forever, basking in your warmth and energy, the sound of your voice sinking into his every thought–

“Oh no,” you said, breaking the silence. You looked up at him worried, wrinkles forming between your brows. “I-I’m sorry. I was teaching again.”

He immediately gave you a reassuring squeeze, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “Don’t be. I like hearing you talk.” Jesus, did he have a way with words. He liked hearing you talk? With that accent, he could spew nonsense, and it would still draw you in. But hearing John Price give you compliments and praise? Flattery? You were a goner. “Tell me more about the next one?”

As if he could get any more fucking perfect.

“Okay.”

Copyright © 2023 as-is-above-so-below. All rights reserved.

[iam-stargirl]

Success story

I will be writing what happened before and the problems I faced in the 3d up until it happened just in case it might help someone. If you don’t want to read it then you can go down to where I write the success story, it will be in bold and pink! :)

I’m currently studying four courses and lately… I have not done one single thing that I should when it comes to my studies. I’ve been procrastinating like crazy, which then makes me feel anxious and stressed and because of that I procrastinate more and the cycle continues. I had missed the deadline by almost a month… If you don’t send in your assignments in time and it’s been a month after the deadline, you will no longer be able to continue with the courses. Then you have to apply yet again to start from the beginning again! 

I thought to myself that I need to fix this since it’s important, and by not doing it is making me feel worse. I then asked my teacher when I could book my oral exam and they told me that I had to apply to extend the course. I absolutely did not want that as it would interfere with a lot of stuff and make things worse for me in many ways. Did I still apply for it? Yes… They reached out pretty quickly and they told me it wouldn’t be possible. I shouldn’t have been surprised as I wasn’t exactly persisting in the favourable or living in the end at all, I was just thinking of the worst case scenarios.

Then I decided to send an email asking if they could give me more time (a week or so) to finish the assignments. After that I just decided that it was done, that it already happened. It was like a flip inside of me, from anxious to calm, just by deciding. It just happened.

Whenever i thought about this i would affirm. And yes sometimes when it would pop up I would start to worry and doubt if it even would be possible. I thought they would tell me that since the courses couldn’t be extended, they wouldn’t be able to give me more time for the assignments. But I would redirect and affirm that it was done. 

Many hours later I decide to go on my computer to see if any of my teachers said anything else/more but then I saw that all the red marks for being late with the assignments were gone and I got a little more time. I was like ??? So I checked my email to see their answer and I hadn’t received anything from them, I was so confused. I made sure to check everywhere just in case but I still found nothing. They hadn’t answered yet which they always do after they extend the deadlines. Then I realized that I had somehow manifested getting more time by myself ???

I still don’t know how it happened because “it shouldn’t have been able to happen” or whatever. But then I realized how stubborn I was and kept deciding that it was done. Even though I want and need more time I’m still gonna count this as a success story and I will keep persisting until I get exactly what I want.

Sorry if this is a mess and hard to read!!! I didn’t sleep much last night so my head is like ??? And I’m still a little shocked at how I did it and how it even happened since the ones I emailed are the only ones “capable” of doing it, not even my teachers can for some reason. I already believed in the law but I realized that I didn’t believe or have faith in myself when it comes to “bigger” things. But also.. I shouldn’t be shocked because imagination is truly the real reality and if you persist you will get what you want !!! and it's only "big" and “harder” to manifest because you assume it is 💅🏻 

So learn from me, I sure as hell will! Believe in yourself, you're literally the one in control. Everyone and everything is you pushed out. You can do this !! 🩷

Stargirl

[cheesus-doodles]

Going Home: Chapter 3

Yandere Platonic Toman + Time Leaper Darling

Masterlist

‎

Going Home: Chapter 1 | 2

Thank you all for your patience! Sorry I've been a bit quieter than usual, been working on this chapter as and when I have the time, super excited and relief to finally get this out there! Enjoy! :) p.s. it’s pretty late, editing tomorrow, thanks for understanding!

Catching Kazutora’s fist with a quick flash of his own arm, the already bulging vein on Draken’s forehead that had been throbbing for the better half of a day looked like it was on the verge of finally popping. “Hey, hey! Knock it off already!” It was a line he had repeated countless numbers of times today alone, yet the words didn’t seem to sink into the other with black-and-yellow hair, those unblinking eyes fixated on a head of lilac hair on the other end of the picnic bench, though Kazutora reluctantly retreated back to his assigned corner under the tired glare, away from a weary Mtisuya.

“And don’t you even think about it,” Draken snapped without even turning, and Mikey reluctantly sank back down into his seat, tightly clenched fists disappearing under the sun-bleached wood of a school bench. Despite the gloomy mood that hung heavy over the Toman boys back home and unknowingly separated from you by twelve long years, the weather seemed to disagree with their somber thoughts; the sun was bright yet the air was cool, a breeze rustling the leaves of overhead trees with the occasional joyful ray of light breaking through a generous canopy and onto miserable faces. A beautiful day by all accords for an absolutely horrible, worst-case situation.

Letting out a wretched sigh, the usually stoic Vice President dragged one hand down his face, the other clutching a comparatively small phone. He understood, he really did - after all he was as much trapped in the same unenviable situation as the rest of his fellow founders. Exhausted, anxious, an insatiable boiling rage in his gut, and the need to beat anyone and anything that stood in his path.

You were gone. Vanished without a trace in the middle of the day from outside your school in the single half-hour they weren’t by your side. There was little doubt that like him, the rest were still beating themselves up a day later over wasting precious time, having decided to wait for you outside the gates by their bikes instead of rushing straight in to look for you. After all, it was uncommon for you to run even a minute late from your classes; you never liked to keep your boys waiting for longer than necessary. And with Mitsuya having been the last to have seen you before your disappearance, walking you back and dropping you off at your classroom right after lunch, it was obvious that everyone’s initial suspicion would have been pinned directly on his other Twin Dragon no matter how ridiculous that idea sounded to Draken.

Because where else could you possibly have gone?

There surely was no stone in Shibuya that the panicked Toman founders had left unturned in their day and night comb of the city, yet they failed to find even a whiff of your presence. No school bag, no shoes, things that you usually had on your person had vanished along with you - it was as if you had simply vanished from the face of the earth, yet your house was undisturbed without a single item missing or out of place, nor did any of very vigilant your neighbors see you enter or leave. A kidnapping? A rival gang that had perhaps seen you with them one too many times, and decided to whisk you away as a hostage? Maybe a random street grab-and-run? Unlikely, given none of your schoolmates reported seeing any suspicious vehicles around the time of your disappearance (under the threat of a very painful death that is) and Toman had yet to receive any demands - Draken scratched that off his mental list.

Or worse, did you somehow find out about what your precious friends had been up to behind your back and decided to run away? It was a constant unspoken fear among the Toman founders, that you would decide one day to leave and never come back should you ever find out what they had been doing behind your back. But it was just another struck from the list; no chance that they wouldn't have known the moment you found out, given you always wore your heart on your sleeve.

So what did that leave? The blond-haired boy, a steadfast and strong presence that the Tokyo Manji Gang rallied around, barely knew where to go from here. Yet no matter how much his mind and heart yearned to get out and help with the search, his body was still weak and recovering from his near-death incident just a week prior: handling Kazutora and Mikey already took whatever strength he had left. Even if it was Draken who did manage to find you, he would imagine you wouldn’t be too happy to see him already out and about - all he had left was his brain.

The warm sunlight that bathed their skin felt more like a scornful, satirical imitation of your hug, the crowds thronging Tokyo City uncaring of their plight.

How did everything go wrong so quickly? It was supposed to be all uphill from here - Takemitchy had saved his life and been rewarded with Mikey’s first ever Toman uniform, and you, despite trying to save him yourself had thankfully walked away with a small but heartbreaking wound and scar on your hand; a clear reminder of their failure to protect you from their dark world.

Dropping back into his seat at the table, Draken set his uninspiringly quiet phone down with a thud. “Any new ideas?”

‎

And apparently that was the wrong question to ask, and the taut tension finally exploded, the wooden bench groaning and shuddering under Kazutora’s open palms as the duo-colored haired delinquent slammed both hands down, jumping to his feet. The words that spilled off his lips, combined with that unblinking stare, were toxic enough to kill. “I know it’s fucking you, isn’t it Mitsuya. You’re hiding her!”

A straight, unflinching accusation, one that said boy, no matter how level-headed, wasn’t going to take lying down. “Huh?! Are you dumb?” A vein on Mitsuya’s forehead began to bulge as he tried and failed to swallow the boiling anger. “I walked her all the way back to class! Why would I be here if I knew where she was?!”

“You said she needed more space, let her attend class in peace,” Kazutora spat back, though the tinge of desperation that underlied his tone and those dreadfully dark eyebags was abundantly clear. “We wouldn’t be in this position if we didn’t.”

If they didn’t let you run off and do whatever you wanted, unspoken words that all of them, both present around the bench and away searching, knew and carried in their heavy hearts. No one could shake the guilt.

And then a different voice speaking up had Draken’s gut sinking further. “How do we know its not you, Kazutora?” Questioned Mikey, unblinking eyes staring down said boy, who spun round to face the Toman President.

“Me?!”

The gang was falling apart without you, and the Toman Vice President could only wonder how long more they could last. He hoped you were at least safe and dry wherever you were.

‎

‎

Separated from the woes of your delinquent friends by simple time, you were far from free from your own problems.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not any more. I’m fine, Mikey, really. See?” you sighed out, running your bandaged hand through his crown of white hair, the other resting on the handle of an oil strainer, the gentle sound of food sizzling the only sound to be heard amidst this otherwise lifeless stainless steel environment that formed the ginormous kitchen you found yourself in. Your friend seemed less than inclined to believe you though, arms wrapped firmly around your waist as he leaned into your chest, careful to avoid brushing against your neck.

“But it did just now,” he mumbled back into your clothes, and you couldn't deny that - you could still feel those hands clamping around your throat, quavering dilated eyes squeezing down with the intent to kill.

It had been a good hour since the doctor had left after being immediately summoned from the infirmary to Mikey’s room to carefully and professionally assess your injuries under the watchful eyes of the white-haired man. An ointment for the ugly blue and purple bruising that littered your neck and a tight bandage wrap for your wound that was torn in the scuffle, and you were given the green light to resume regular activities, whatever that meant in light of what had just happened. Knowing Mikey, you would be lucky to ever be left alone anytime in the next week, let alone ever again. You hadn’t forgotten the look of utter fear that had washed over your friend’s face, the way he raced through winding hallways with you bundled in his arms, as if you were already on death’s door and tempted to cross the threshold. Because how could you? There wasn’t a single instance you remember ever seeing such a raw emotion pass Mikey’s face in all your time spent with your Toman friends, and you weren’t keen on seeing it again.

Yet all you had taken away from the whole incident were more and more questions; questions whose answers you knew would maybe start to solve the mystery of where you were and what had happened, yet questions you had no doubt would, at best, break Mikey’s heart if you asked. What to do indeed? Mentally shaking yourself out from the neverending spiral of thoughts, you turned your thoughts back to the present. Though, your lips twitching upwards, the irony of the other’s insistence at your apparently debilitating injury at the moment wasn’t lost on you - he hadn’t so much as mentioned the possibility of your bandages getting dirty when you were battering the chicken parts just a few minutes ago. “So I suppose I should stop frying and get some rest then?”

A noise that sounded like a cross between a snort and a whimper, and those abyss eyes instantly whipped up to meet yours. You couldn’t help the giggle that slipped out at the absolutely pathetic pout he had on his face, his grip on your shirt tightening further. “I didn’t say that!” he protested. “Take that back!”

“Yes, yes,” You rolled your eyes, that familiar indulgent smile spreading across your face. Despite everything, he was still your Mikey. “I was kidding, Mikey.”

But your wince at the flare of pain as you turned to press a kiss to the top of Mikey’s forehead, as much as you tried to hide it, wasn’t missed, the man gently guiding your head to face forward once more, childish whine fading into a quiet concerned mutter. “Don’t turn if it hurts.”

The kitchen fell back into a comfortable silence, you humming that old croony love song under your breath as you reverted your attention to your cooking, nudging Mikey back slightly when his hand got a little too close for comfort as you shook the oil off the crisp chicken pieces, settling them down top of a tray you had found in one of countless drawers. Steel surfaces marred with scratches and dulled from wear and tear told their own stories of the days spent toiling away here by unknown souls. You weren’t sure when those clingy arms had released you long enough for the white-haired man to wander back with plates, but the clinging of porcelain together as you rescued the last lonely karaage from the boiling sea of oil told you everything you needed to - you were certain your friend would demand payment for his “help” in the form of attention and cuddles later on.

Though there was not much time to think about that now either, not when you barely had enough to pick up your precious tray before Mikey started to insistently tug at your sleeve, leading you a surprisingly short distance through two doorways which opened up into a relatively homely-looking dining room. Decked out in simple but nonetheless exquisite walnut-wood furniture and a rug that reminded you of your own room back home, it was a stark contrast to the grandeur of the upper floors the two of you had descended from, the plain walls home to a single mirror and the round dining table a vase of flowers. “Sit here,” he insisted, and you obliged, dropping into the cushioned seat, to which Mikey immediately attempted to climb into your lap.

“Mikey!” Letting out an oof as your entire vision was suddenly filled with nothing but the black shirt your friend seemed to always wear, you swore you heard the chair underneath you groan with the weight of two. “Too heavy!”

A rustle and several mild thuds later, the pressure on your thighs was somewhat alleviated, with the white-haired man finally settling down, opting to sit only on your lap while resting his legs across both yours and the neighboring chairs’ armrests. To any other pair of discerning eyes, it would look almost as if you were cradling him, like a mother would their child, and you certainly were to an extent - but to you, it was very much just business as usual.

Just Mikey being the needy friend you remember from yesterday morning albeit looking a bit different. Even down to him now prying your fingers open to force a spoon into your grip, you knew it was your dear friend behind this facade of white hair and gaunt hands.

‎

But, your mind whispered against your heart’s protest, was that all that was different? Was the man in your lap truly the Mikey you thought you knew?

Even as you absentmindedly spooned a chunk of fried chicken into the awaiting mouth of the former Toman President, your thoughts couldn’t help but wander back towards that incident just a few hours prior, and even with your valiant attempts to ward them off, barricade them away, your brain remained firmly stuck. You simply had to know what happened - your own memory drawing a blank from the time between Sanzu suddenly attacking you and finding yourself clutched in Mikey’s arms, corridors whirling past your shaky, blurred vision. It was just for your peace of mind, you tried to reassure yourself as you plucked up your courage; you swore you wouldn’t change anything about how you thought about your friend no matter what you learnt.

"Mikey, about Sanzu- '' You hesitated as that carefree smile was instantly wiped from his face as he turned to face you fully, any sense of playfulness the other had drained away in a heartbeat.

Despite his eyes being empty like they always were, they were a blank slate to anyone but you, the growing anger behind the facade of uncaringness was as clear as a lit neon sign in the midst of a winter night, a 180 from the carefree friend just a second earlier before you opened your mouth. The room temperature plummeted with those narrowing eyes, the quiet whirl of cold air from above only adding to the sudden chill of the room. “I told you to go straight to my room and not to talk to anybody. You disobeyed me.”

There was something about the way those words spilled out that frightened you - you had never been scared of any of your friends before, never Mikey - but there was no other way to explain how you felt in that moment, though you didn’t quite understand why. Maybe it was that icy look of lingering contempt for that poor pink-haired man, or maybe it was how menacing his aura had become, an almost overwhelming, radiating sensation of power.

But this time, against your mind screaming to roll over and give in, you pressed on. Mikey wasn’t going to hurt you. "What happened Mikey? I don’t remember much."

“He deserves it.” The hiss of words that came out were unlike anything you have heard spill from his lips, the way the usually hidden shadows crept up onto his face to accentuate that hard look only making the other seem more a stranger than anyone you knew. “How dare he lay his filthy hands on you.”

You’ve always known how overprotective your friends were, but this seemed extreme - had they always been this way? Or was this new, and you were actually in the future? Were your friends hiding something from you? Forcing yourself to squash down the questions that kept bubbling up, you instead focused your attention on the most recent events; if you asked all that ate away at your heart, you were sure you and Mikey would be all night, and you weren’t going to last that long in this cold that started to bite away at your bones. And the one question that you simply had to ask despite your sinking gut telling you that you probably wouldn’t like the answer: that echoing sound of gunfire that you could hear at the edge of consciousness after which Sanzu was wrenched off you, was that real or just your imagination? “Isn’t he your friend? D-did you shoot him?”

Unable to stop the shiver that seemed to shake your entire body before you got your answer, the empty spoon you had been holding fell back onto the porcelain with a clink as you instinctively rubbed both hands against your arms, and the white-haired man paused. The spell over the room broke, the tension lifting as quickly as it had weighed down on your shoulders. “I did what I needed to.” His answer came almost gently though with a sense of finality, one bony hand reaching out to ever so delicately grasp your hand even as he pressed his face into the crook of your neck, his other hand comfortingly rubbing circles into your back. “I’ll do anything to protect you.”

You believed him. Mikey did scare you for that few minutes, you wouldn’t lie to yourself, and you wouldn’t be getting any more answers, but you still believed him. That didn’t mean you agree with what he did of course, but you had promised yourself you wouldn’t treat such a dear friend any differently no matter what you learnt. Letting out a sigh, the warmth of the room slowly returned much like the rising of the sun after a frigid winter night, and you shuffled yourself slightly in an attempt to get comfortable while still balancing Mikey’s weight on your lap. Time for a change of topic, and you wondered out loud the first thought that came to mind. “Where’s Ken-chin and the others?” You hummed, reaching round the sulking man to spoon another lump of chicken and rice.

“Don’t wanna talk about that,” came his muttered answer, and your heart sank - there was just too much you didn’t know, and ignorance was proving not to be very blissful. Yet you didn’t push that either, not after such an intense day for both you and Mikey, though fortunately that seemed to bring other more acceptable ideas to his mind, and the man pulled away to look you up and down. “You need clothes.”

You blinked. “Clothes?” You still had clean clothes from your home.

“New clothes,” he declared, pulling the spoon to his face and chomping down, before continuing to speak with a mouth full of food. “We’ll have a party next week, I’ll introduce you to everyone, so let’s go shopping later.”

That same indulgent smile emerged once more, you letting out a laugh as you dabbed away from Mikey’s round cheeks the morsels of rice that made it out. “Alright Mikey. Chew and swallow first, okay?”

‎

Once the last morsels of food had disappeared into Mikey’s mouth and you had left the empty plate atop the dining table with much reluctance at his insistence, you were once more led down those same neverending corridors, delicate unbandaged hand held ever so gently in the other’s. On a good note you mused, glancing around your luxurious surroundings, you were at least beginning to recognise the few corridors you were walked down: the corridor that Mikey’s room was along, the large white-and-blue porcelain vase that denoted where you should turn for the bathroom, and the next corridor over the one that the two of you had walked towards the kitchens.

The hallways that stretched and winded away beyond your view, hiding in its unknown depths the allure of adventure and unmade friends, was tempting to say the least, but no matter your urge to wander and explore, you knew Mikey would never let you; and alas you were right, the man leading you straight back to the worn wooden door. With a promise of a short thirty minute wait for him to make a few calls and have everything set out before your little outing, there would usually be no reason for you to disagree. But this time there was somewhere you wanted to be, somewhere you needed to be to settle the guilt eating away at your heart with those precious few minutes of potential freedom.

“I feel bad, Mikey. I wanna apologize,” you protested right at the threshold of the room, with Mikey hovering right in front of you and taking quick glances up and down the corridor, anxious to get you inside. “Sanzu got hurt because of me.”

The other stayed resolute in his decision though, as you knew he would even in light of the very strong pout on your face. He never was really that weak to your puppy eyes like you were to theirs, you supposed, lightly touching the bag of extra karaage in your pocket you had snuck aside to give to Sanzu. “No. You stay here.”

“But Mikey-”

“He’s dangerous,” came the blunt answer, his grip around you tightening ever so slightly as he tugged insistingly at your sleeve, trying to guide you into the permanently darkened room. “And resting. No.”

You sighed, allowing yourself to be ushered into his room; there was no way you were going to win this fight. “Alright, alright.” Guess you'll just have to eat the karaage yourself.

“Thirty minutes, max.” Mikey swore, his hand on the doorknob with the door halfway closed. “I’ll be done in thirty. Just need to sort some things out.”

A click of the lock, and you found yourself once more alone, swallowed into the shadows. The minutes went by slowly, one second crawling by after another. After repeatedly sitting and standing up from the bed in an attempt to think of something to do, you were finally bored enough to explore the little area, though that didn't help alleviate your boredom much. Mikey’s room was sparse. There was no other way to put it nicely, you grimaced, pushing the near-empty drawer back into its slot, before closing the wardrobe door behind you with a soft thud where the wood met. Even with the little light that seeped in under the door, it was obvious that your friend had few belongings, and even fewer if you didn't count clothes.

It broke your heart. Plain walls with no windows, few things to call his own, and this miserable, constant darkness. Sure this wasn't the Mikey you knew, but it was still Mikey. What had he been going through?

Flopping back onto the bed, you let out a breath. You knew your 'return' had brought him a semblance of relief, but you couldn't stay here forever. You didn’t belong here - and you were sure your Toman friends were waiting for you back home. Was there anything more you could do to ease the pain he carried? Closing your eyes, the darkness behind your eyelids wasn't too different from the room's.

And without a sound or another word, you vanished.

‎ ‎

‎ ‎

Across the city and tucked away in a quieter neighborhood, the same sun that was all but hidden from you behind the labyrinth of walls that made up Bonten’s headquarters shone prominently through open windows, though the fresh minds that the new day brought after a good night’s sleep didn’t quite seem to help ease the conundrum that the two men pouring over a whiteboard were stuck in.

“But what makes you think the other time leaper is her?” The former delinquent mumbled, letting out a sigh as he straightened for a quick stretch, his joints rusty from the week-long lack of movement after his latest lap in the past. “It could be anyone - maybe even Kisaki.”

“Yes, I get that, but she’s the most reasonable explanation here,” Naoto retorted, turning away from the picture of your smiling face staring back at him from the whiteboard. “The bounty appeared the day you said she disappeared.”

“Are you sure? It could be that you just missed the bounty previously. You mentioned that your memories weren’t changed like the last time I timeleaped?”

It seemed almost impossible to comprehend, the detective understood: the mere idea that there were not one, but two time leapers who could both individually change the future, it was hard to swallow to say the least. But it was the reality that they had to contend with and work around, and the faster Takemichi could bring his mind around to that, the faster they could start solving this mystery and change his sister’s future. Fortunately for the already irate Naoto, the annoyance that was starting to show clearly enough on his face that the other was quick to back down from his claims, Takemichi throwing up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, so let’s go forward with the assumption that the other time leaper is her. Nothing’s changed since Draken’s - Ken Ryuguji’s - death was prevented, but do you think he is alive now?”

A lightbulb went off behind Naoto’s eyes, and he rocketed from his seat, the former delinquent almost toppling off his seat at the sudden movement. “Wait.”

“Wait?”

“Could her time leaping be overriding yours? There’s been no major change in my memories since you met her at that fight, not even after you stopped Ryuguji’s death. Only the bounty that appeared after her disappearance from the past.”

Naoto’s living room fell silent as both men contemplated the latest theory. It was plausible, more than plausible even, given how much the fate of Toman in the past was tied into you, and now, how the future failed to shift even with another life saved. More and more, it seemed you were somehow tied into this entire mess, but how was the real question?

Takemichi let out a groan, ruffling his hair. This was hard, too hard even. “I don’t suppose we know if she’s here right?”

“I ran her name through the system, still only school records from 12 years ago,” the detective grimaced. “But if her time leaping works anything like yours, then she should be present somewhere.”

“And nothing on Mikey or Bonten yet?”

“Still no sighting of the boss, so we can’t be sure.”

“How bout Draken? He could still be alive.”

Phone clicking open, Naoto allowed himself to drop back into his seat. At this point, they had nothing else to go on, so any starting point is better than none. “Let me see what we have on Draken first - if you can write down some of the other Tokyo Manji founders’ full names, I’ll try to pull their records too.”

‎

‎

12 years separate from Takemichi’s woes, the only thing on Sanzu’s mind was just how hot and humid the evening was, much like the previous evening, the heavy wind that plowed down the empty street only bringing more heat rather than the relief Sanzu craved. Running one hand through the sticky mop of drenched pink hair in an attempt to give relief to his sweat-covered forehead, this delinquent had zero doubts that the past two hours alone was already a lot more miserable than the entire yesterday combined, not even taking into consideration what had gone down before the sun sank beneath the horizon.

This part of town was predictably quiet at this time of the day - cars rested beside empty sidewalks, the chatter of voices and light thuds and clinks of people drifting down to where Sanzu walked the streets below, the sound of the occasional furious scribble of students rushing work lost in the background hum of the neighborhood, audible only to whatever gods they were muttering to. Stalking down the road that ran past your school gates, a single glance of the flawless nameplate, sparkling in the light of the sinking sun, was enough to push his bad mood over the edge.

“Fuck! Fucking bitch!” A black clad leg swung out, and its hapless victim, an innocent, empty garbage can that went rattling down the road, the clanking of metal against concrete cutting through the night. It was you, the boy fumed. This whole mess was entirely your fault. You had vanished into thin air, a fact that Sanzu would ordinarily celebrate given all the problems you brought for him if it didn’t only proceed to make his life harder. You were the one that forced him to waste his entire day on the hunt for you, all in a vain effort to ease Mikey’s suffering. And when Sanzu predictably turned up with nothing, neither were you there to see the pain you were putting Mikey through, let alone soothe his anger away. And after you stole his best friend away from him - well, former best friend. Small fact, didn’t matter. You were still undoubtedly the root cause of all this trouble - he’s no doubt heard about the growing divide between Kazutora and the rest of the founders - so why couldn’t his king, his whole world and purpose, just forget about you and move on?

A loud growl broke the Fifth Division Vice Captain’s spiralling thoughts, and one hand moved to clutch at his empty stomach. With the sun low on the horizon and the night looming in the distance, waiting impatiently for its turn to rule the sky, of course dinner was going to be completely burnt though, and Sanzu didn’t think he had enough money on him for some supper before bed. Definitely your fucking fault as well. Grumbling about stupid and unappreciative friends as he turned a corner, your quiet school block quickly disappearing behind the wall of yet another generic apartment complex, the delinquent paused for a quick break on his seemingly endless quest, letting out as a sigh as he leaned against a brick wall, pulling his mask down for a breather where no one would see him hidden away from the tired aura of nearby streetlamps.

Why did he bother? And truly, why did he? Looking up at the clouded sky, Sanzu could only wonder. It wasn’t the first time this particular train of thoughts had popped up - several times, in fact, over the course of the past two days. Right from the start when he got the call that you had gone missing from outside your school, and that all of Toman had been mobilized to search for you, he had always wondered why he should.

Weighing the pros and cons, sure it would bring Mikey peace and joy if you were returned safe and unharmed to his awaiting arms, and Sanzu was sure he would be at the receiving end of that gratitude and thanks from all of the Toman founders alike. Maybe he would even get the chance to know you better without the threat of being beaten to death, obtain the rare opportunity to witness and learn firsthand how you got his king wrapped around your glass fingers. But at the end of the day, it would only benefit both him and Mikey in the long run should you have vanished for good, Sanzu knew - the Toman boss would be free to walk his dark destined path with you no longer there to distract or weigh him down, and there would only be the loyal Sanzu by his side to aide him.

What to do indeed. Well he did suppose if anything untold happens, he could always just kill you. All for the sake of Mikey, of course, but that was if anything untold happened. Maybe you’ll just never show up.

‎

Resolved to give up the search and hit the sack if nothing turned up within the next five minutes, it was only then that the slightest flash of gold and purple caught the corner of Sanzu’s eye, and the pink-haired boy had to take a second glance.

No fucking way. This had to be the tenth time he himself had scoured these few roads, let alone taking into account the countless times the Toman founders had searched the vicinity of your school from roof to ground. How was it possible this had been missed? Seemingly carelessly tossed at the foot of one of many brick walls that made up Tokyo City was your iconic purple charm, gifted to you by Mikey and the rest of the Toman founders. There was no one in the entirety of the gang who would fail to recognize the onomori that usually hangs by your school skirt’s belt hoop or from the zipper of your bag, a clear indication of the eyes that watched over you and whose shadows you were living under. So what was it doing here, lying forgotten in the dirt? And how has no one found it till him?

The few rays of evening light that still danced across the apartments above mocked his turbulent thoughts: would he land himself in even more trouble if he picked it up or not? Alas all Sanzu had was questions, with answers nowhere to be found. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Finally settling on picking it up first and praying for forgiveness later - it would be more criminal to let something that met so much to his king lie any longer in the dirt, Sanzu decided - he reached for the charm.

As his fingertips brushed the sacred purple cloth, a sudden gall picked up, rushing down the street with enough force to slam windows and rattle doors, even almost managing to bowl over the bent-over delinquent had he not quickly righted himself.

And as quickly as the wind had started, it was gone like the last evening light upon sundown, the world falling back into a stillness that felt out-of-place. Unusually still, right till a single breath had him shooting back up at full alert, onomori now clutched in hand - he swore he had been completely alone.

You blinked back at him, frozen as if a doe caught in headlights, crunchy, transparent bag of karaage in hand rustling away with the wind.

His jaw dropped as your gazes met, his made-up mind sent reeling again.

What the actual fuck? Was - was that really you? Or just your ghost sent to haunt him from the great beyond?

One heartbeat, two heartbeats; no one spoke, and the two of you simply stared down each other, Sanzu puzzling out if this was real life or just a dream and you doing…something. You were real alright, the boy determined, a very real physical body that cast a shadow, who had two feet firmly on the ground. But where did you come from? How did you suddenly appear out of nowhere? Were you hiding from Mikey or were you on the run? Yet for reasons beyond him, you seemed more perplexed at seemingly seeing him in one piece than he was at meeting you after you appeared from nowhere. “Sanzu-san? Is that - you’re okay?”

Was- was he okay? What?

“What do you mean?” The words seemed to blurt out before the usually unflappable Toman Fifth Division Vice Captain could bring his brain around. What happened? Why would he not be okay? As if his answering set off an epiphany, a lightbulb went off behind your eyes, those doe eyes sparkling to life as you alternated looking back down at your quickly cooling karaage and Sanzu - you must have the answers that he wanted, at least some of them.

You chose to bite your tongue and keep your secrets. “Here, take this.” Instead, with a single step forward, you closed the gap between the two of you, quickly thrusting the plastic into his free hand, a small, almost sad smile breaking out onto your face. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

The small motion, though careful, was enough to knock the onomori from his other hand, the delinquent’s eyes following its path through the air as it descended once more towards the ground, but you didn’t seem to notice as you backed off and away. And when he looked back up, you had vanished once more without another word, evaporating into the chilly wind that took your place as mysteriously as you had appeared. The sun had finally given up its place as ruler of the sky, the darkness of the night enveloping the sky as it sank below the horizon, the last rays of daylight swallowed by the stars.

If he wasn’t still clutching on to the bag of karaage, he would have written the entire incident off as a hallucination and been on his way. But now, Sanzu mused as he once more bent down to carefully pick up the charm with a handkerchief, tucking it away into his pocket, now he would have to consider what to do next. No doubt that this charm was somehow linked to your disappearance and subsequent reappearance, and the boy noted to be extra careful with accidentally coming into contact with it again - the last thing he wanted was to accidentally trigger you appearing again. So should he turn over your charm to Mikey and tell his king everything? Or should he just keep this to himself, keep his head down and go along pretending?

Absentmindedly, the delinquent picked out a piece of chicken and popped it into his mouth. Bad move, because he had no words to describe how fucking delicious it was, the karaage though lukewarm still exploding into a homely, lovely flavour that warmed his belly - was this what the Toman founders had to enjoy every day? No wonder Mikey’s pissed that you’re gone.

Maybe it would be better to have you back.

‎

‎

Rather unluckily for Sanzu’s sudden change of heart, where you had vanished to wasn't anywhere that the delinquent could follow across 12 years of time. Arriving just five minutes before the white door was pulled back open, you were rather surprised to find that the sun had already set when you finally had the chance to step out from behind those intimidating glass doors of the equally intimidating building you called home for the past few days. Having had no window to look out from or clock to tell the time ever since you had met this version of Mikey, you had long lost track of the passage of time - how many days had it been since you’ve had the opportunity to take a breath of fresh air?

Maybe you should have asked the Fifth Division Vice Captain when you had the chance, but then again, you didn’t want to get him into any more trouble for speaking with you.

An arm snaked around yours to clasp your freezing hand in his, shaking you from your thoughts. “You okay?” Mikey mumbled, pulling you closer to him, forehead pinched as he scanned your face.

“I’m fine Mikey,” You hummed, glancing around as discreetly as you can under the other’s watchful eye. “Just thinking.”

The white-haired man said nothing, instead leaning his head against you. Needless to say, seeing how Mikey had reacted around you over the course of the past few fours, you had decided to keep your little excursion a secret from your friend. There was no longer any doubt in your mind that you had, against all logic and reason, time traveled - this must be somewhere in the future, though you weren’t sure how many years had passed.

But in that case, why did Mikey mention finding you? Was there no future you?

All you had were more and more questions.

The foyer of the skyscraper Mikey called home was completely empty save for the two of you, the high wall that ran around the entire compound blocking any sight of the outside world - an unusual choice given what you knew of Mikey, but things had probably changed. A car rumbled across the gravel from an entrance unseen, pulling to a stop in front of the otherwise empty foyer. Even as you were bundled into the car, the one thing that struck you was just how quiet the world around you always seemed. You couldn’t see the driver either, with the partition between the front and back of the spacious car up. Except for the two “friends” of Mikey you had met plus Sanzu (you weren’t sure if he and Mikey were still friends), the building seemed lifeless. Unoccupied. It wasn’t possible of course: there was no way such an enormous place could be kept as spotless or such a feast could be whipped up without an equally enormous staff. Maybe they were just ninjas, really good at hiding.

Lit signs and digital screens flashed by, and your mind was drawn away, and you clambered up to look out of the tinted windows in fascination, though Mikey’s arm tight around your waist remained. The city had changed in the unknown time that had passed, and you couldn’t say you recognised the Tokyo that was whizzing past you - there was an almost dreamlike feel and ambience to it, the area had changed too much - yet it was still undoubtedly the same Tokyo you had grown up in.

Barely noticing that the car slowly rolling to a crawl, the tug at your sleeve came as a surprise to you as it pulled up next to a sidewalk in a neighborhood you noted as a more prestigious part of the city - you don’t think you had ever dared venture here by yourself. “We’re here.”

“Here?”

But you were no longer as alone as you thought you were, the car door swinging open to reveal a mass of bodies forming a semicircle around the entrance. The silver of light that slipped through broad shoulders was just barely enough for you to get a peep of the surroundings before the group started moving as clockwork. Huddled as close to Mikey as physically possible, you tried your best to keep your gaze down and focused on your friend, away from the intimidating gazes of the heavily armed bodyguards that surrounded the two of you. A stark reminder that no matter how Mikey behaved and acted around you, the Mikey that strolled down the street, shoulders relaxed with one arm around you, the same one that had shot Sanzu without a second thought, was but a complete stranger to you.

The single row of double-storied shops with flawless floor-to-ceiling windows all bore names you could barely read, let alone pronounce, the interiors lit and gleaming against the setting sun in the distance. Handbags, sunglasses, clothes of every color and variety displayed proudly to the world, a siren’s call to those who sought the status they brought and a mockery to those who barely got by.

“Mikey.” A new voice cut across the rumble of the city, and your ears perked up. This wasn’t someone you met before. Gaze swinging up as the herd of bodyguards parted to reveal a man in a red and gold outfit, his white side-swept hair tossing lightly in the wind as his single gold-linked glimmered in the dim overhead light of the streetlamp.

"Koko." Mikey acknowledged, and you noted that his grip on you slightly tightened. The other had an air of confidence he carried that you supposed your protective friend didn’t quite like. But even if the newly named Koko noticed, he didn't mention it, cat-like gaze kept firmly trained on Mikey with nay a single glance in your direction.

“Store’s cleared and secured, had a chat with them earlier.”

No more words were exchanged, or rather no more needed to, with Koko sauntering off while Mikey moved forward with you, and you caught a quick side glimpse of the man. You don’t remember him from Toman either, much like the case with Ran. The two of you stopped in front of one of many storefronts, a few paces away from where Koko had just been, the polished wooden front door already neatly propped open. “Come on, I wanna start with the party dresses,” Mikey mumbled into your ear, close enough that his hot breath tickled your skin, though he quickly pulled back to stare at the ring of suited men that still surrounded you.

That seemed to be a cue, and no one followed you as you were tugged into the shop. Yet right on the threshold of the shop, you thought you heard what sounded like the click of a shutter from behind and you hesitated- it was hard to mistake the sound for anything else even from a distance, given the void of people along the rest of the stretch of road - but when you turned to look, there was no one and nothing to be seen.

“What’s wrong?”

You turned back. “Nothing.”

‎

A crystal chandelier. There was an entire chandelier in the shop, hanging from ludicrously high ceilings framed by two floors of intricate railings as you gawked at the sparkling teardrops that refracted rainbow rays of light. Well to be fair, you didn’t know what to expect - it was the first time you had ever stepped into a shop so fancy, but this was a next level of fancy. Marble tiles expertly shone lined the floor of the shop, with tasteful picks of carpet that broke the montony; vases of fresh flowers resting atop simple side tables that helped accentuate their beauty, with smaller chandeliers that hung through the rest of the shops.

But Mikey was hardly impressed with the selection, the white-haired man too busy tearing through the racks of clothes with a silent, polite attendant by his side, occasionally pulling out various articles that seemed to be made of ghostly goasmer, the fabric puffing up at the lightest breathe, looking over the piece with a critical eye and than back at you. When he amassed a satisfactory number, the attendant was quick to hurry the dresses into a private changing room that you swore was as big as your own room back home, before vanishing from sight, leaving just the two of you.

“There’s no price tag-” you swallowed anxiously, taking another glance round the store, your delicate hand gripping the parting curtain. How much did any of this cost? Should you even be holding this?

Your friend didn’t seem to have the same concerns, his facade shattering as he reverted back into the clingy, needy, baby boy you knew as Mikey as he flung himself on you. “I like this one,” he whined, pulling those puppy eyes on you as his fingers pulled at one of several dresses hanging from velvet hangers, revealing white fabric. “Try this first.”

“I-“ You hesitated, but as Mikey’s lips started to pull downwards, you found yourself caving once more to his request. “Okay, okay.”

A bright beam replaced the white-haired man's frown in an instant. “And show me when you’ve put it on.” He insisted, pushing you lightly into the dressing room.

‎‎

‎‎

Waking into absolute darkness was not anything out of the ordinary for Sanzu, not after twelve years as Mikey’s loyal right arm and not much lesser as Bonten’s executor; didn’t matter if it was dark because he had blacked out in a questionable location where no light reached after too hard a binge on his favorite cocktail mix of drugs, or simply a lack of sight from not being able to physically open his eyes, he had done it all before. Countless times in fact. At least he wasn’t dead yet. But this time, the Bonten second-in-command noted as he tried and failed to lift an arm, this time was different. For one, everything hurts like an absolute bitch: his right leg was throbbing. The tell-tale sharp pain that shot up muscle and resonated in his thigh like a heavy gong was replicated in his chest, an incessant agony that stopped him falling back into the comfortable nothingness he awoke from - this was no doubt from gun wounds. He had been shot it seemed, though when and how would remain a mystery for now.

And for two, this awful stench: the putrid smell of heavily bleached floors that overwhelmed his nose, the odor permeating his throat with every breath he was forced to take. He had long forgotten when he had last been able to smell anything so strongly, and of all the things he could be taking a whiff of, that he rather be taking a whiff of: coffee, tea, or what of sweet, sweet orange candy? But noooo, it had to be this wretched stinkfest. There was no smell that Sanzu hated more than the overwhelming scent of supposed cleanliness and hygiene, yet here he was for no lack of trying. His arms and legs as if weighed down with lead. Where exactly was this? And what was he doing here?

Nothing made sense to his abnormally clear yet throbbing head.

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat spat out.” Make that three things that were different.

“Fuck you Haitani, I feel like I was hit by a bus,” Sanzu groaned out hoarsely, throwing a limp hand over his face in a vain attempt to block out the burning overhead lights which end with him slapping himself. He ignored the burst of muffled giggles from the side. “Need some fucking painkillers.”

“Doc says none for you,” another voice drawled out, right on the tail of his older brother as usual. Ah, so both Ran and Rindo were here. Fucking Haitani bastards. “Something about mixing drugs and dying.”

Eyes popping open at the denial of much-needed medication, it was in that moment that the pink-haired man finally recognised the god-forsaken Bonten infirmary that he had awoken in, the sole room he absolutely despised yet the only medical facility he hadn’t been kicked from and banned for life. Another shot of pain rocketed up his leg, a mocking reminder of his lack of drugs, to which Sanzu could only bite down the pain, closing his eyes once more in the hopes that the darkness would help soothe some away (it didn’t). Fuck him indeed. What happened?

He seemed to have said that last part out loud, seeing that Ran answered; the last he checked, neither Ran nor Rindo could mindread just yet, though knowing those bastards, it might be a matter of time. "We heard you fucked up."

Rindo continued. “Attacked Mikey’s little friend, nearly killed her. The boss didn’t seem too pleased to find you with your hands around her neck.”

“So he shot you,” finished Ran, somehow sounding even more smug than usual, an incredible feat in itself.

Words that individually made sense now strung into a sentence didn’t seem to add up at all; what were they talking about? What friend? Why would his king shoot him? “Are yall fucking with me?”

“Why would we? Kakucho told us everything.”

The mention of Bonten’s third-in-command was enough to open the floodgates of memories that had been suppressed by a combination of the trauma of getting shot and his wild day-long drug binge, those green eyes flying back open as your curious face hovering over him instantly flashed across the front of his mind. Scrambling to force his tortured body up into a sitting position, the movement almost sent the pink-haired man over the side of the infirmary bed, his gaze spinning and his head light. “It’s her?” His words came out as more of a croak, blown gaze sweeping the room to land on the silent black-haired man who he finally noticed, sitting in the corner busy flipping through a book - had he been present at the scene? Not that Sanzu remembered. "Did you see her?" He demanded.

The uncomfortably clean room fell silent, as if Kakucho was contemplating what to reply. The pistol very visibly resting in the other’s lap didn't phase Sanzu in the slightest; he knew why it was there, deducing that it was most likely a direct order from the boss to keep Sanzu from leaving, but he was still the second-in-command. Mikey's right hand. Any command he gave that didn't override his king's was to be obeyed. The pause before the other's response was short, and the reply was as simple and straightforward as Kakucho himself was. "It's her."

Ran nodded along. "Kind of a runt, highschool kid. Never expected her to be so small." Seems like the purple-haired man had his own little run-in.

"Watch your tongue," Sanzu snapped back automatically, though his mind was in a mess elsewhere. He had expected it, but Kakucho's answer still somehow threw him into a binder, the pink-haired man slumping back down to the bed. You. You were back like a ghost to haunt him. To haunt Mikey. To ruin their lives once more, like you did all those years ago. Why couldn't he get rid of you, put you to rest like an exorcist spirit? What did you want? But despite his initial surge of anxiety and anger at the mere idea of having to deal with you and all the problems you brought, he couldn’t quite grasp what exactly had pushed him over the edge.

You were no longer just the big, bad enemy that Sanzu had to get rid of to keep Mikey on his destined path. You were that feeling of a warm hug, of home. If he strained his fraying memory to the edge, the pink-haired man was sure he could still bring up a memory of a kindness that no one had shown him before you - a bag of hot, crispy karaage. A homely taste that warmed his belly on a bad day like nothing he had never experienced previously. His head felt…messed with? “Am I crazy?” He muttered to himself, before raising his voice enough for the others to hear. “I feel like my memories…changed?”

Apparently this was enough to pique Kakucho’s interest, as per the creak of his chair as he leaned forward. “In what sense?”

“Like - I changed the way I felt about her. New memories that I don’t remember having-” Sanzu shook himself out of the daze. No. He couldn't let himself get distracted - bribed - so easily. You were still the enemy, the largest obstacle he needed to clear from his king's life, crispy, home fried karaage or no. “Just me?”

Ran hummed, while Rindo scoffed and spoke up. “Just you,” he confirmed. “Probably the drugs.”

Sanzu tsked. It wasn’t the drugs, but he wasn’t going to get anything more than that from those bastard brothers. “Where’s Mikey?”

“Should be back in his room asleep.” The younger Haitani popped out the lollipop he had been sucking on, waving it casually in the air as he spoke, though the clear taunting smirk plastered across Rindo’s face said everything Sanzu needed to know. Back in his room?

“Wouldn’t you like to know~” Ran sang.

‎

‎

Returning from the dangerous, dirty outdoors (or so your needy friend said) with an entire fresh new wardrobe was a good enough excuse for Mikey to insist on you taking another shower, and you saw no reason to disagree. The sun had already fully given way to the night sky when you finally left the shop and its exceedingly helpful attendants, though there were no stars to be seen from behind the heavily tinted window on your ride back to the gated compound. You were, funnily enough, thankful to be finally away from so many pairs of curious eyes no matter how discreet they were and despite how lonely you had been before; being at the center of any kind of attention was draining, but Mikey didn’t seem the slightest bit affected. But of course he wouldn’t. He led a biker gang.

Mikey didn’t let you see your new belongings being rung up, let alone the final total cost of the haul, though that didn’t stop you from having an inkling at the minimum number of zeroes that must have been attached to the end of the tab, an amount you had no hope of repaying ever. You did notice the other white-haired man - Koko, you recalled - had re-entered the store just ast you slid into the car; perhaps he was the one handling the payment? And if he was, well, you could only hope that he wouldn’t be too angry at the damage, even if Mikey had assured you that it was alright. The shopping from the trip had been neatly packed away, filling up some of the many empty wardrobes that lined the walls of the bedroom, save for the single mind-bogglingly expensive white party dress and accompanying shoes that Mikey had talked you into, which hung prominently from the back of his bedroom door.

You had to admit that the dress was perfect in every sense, almost like it was tailored for you: it hugged your body in just the right places, the fabric just heavy enough to not lift with a strong gust yet light enough that your fingers could drag through without resistance. Mikey was right, and you did like it a lot, even if you did initially think that it looked rather much like a wedding dress as opposed to one for a part; and you had to admit that you started looking forward to that party next week much more, should you still be here.

But now, even with Mikey fast asleep cuddled up in your arms just like the previous nights, you couldn’t quite fall asleep just yet, your mind preoccupied with the small, dimly lit screen of your phone. You had found it when your white-haired friend was out for his own shower, tucked away in one hidden corner of the room amidst the rest of the belongings you had arrived with in the future: school bag, umbrella, shoes and all. To your surprise, the network symbol held strong when you flipped it open for the first time in days, and you had no issues connecting back onto the same carrier you had used despite it having been an unknown number of years. Had Mikey also been maintaining this all this time?

Yet it was Baji’s number that stared back at you from the phone, his contact still seemingly active. Your finger hovered over the send button, a sudden sense of doubt settling on the base of your gut. What if- what if you were wrong? What if the number had already been transferred and you were just bothering them? Or worse, what if it was your number was the one that had been transferred and was instead the number of some criminal? And you got Baji in trouble?

The simple words dancing in the backlight of your screen now looked a lot more menacing than before. Maybe you shouldn’t, that nagging voice in the back of your head whispered, and your thumb shifted to hover on the tantalizing ‘delete’ button.

But then again, you reasoned, pushing that voice away as best you could, you would never find out if you didn’t send it. Perhaps you should include the name of your intended addressee, so all it would take would be a glance for the number’s new owner to know if it was a mistaken message - yes, you should do that indeed. What was the worst that could happen anyway, you consoled yourself, nimble fingers flying over the keypad; at most you will get a ‘wrong number’ or no response at all.

You squinted, looking over the screen again. Hi! Is this Baji Keisuke? This is - And there the cursor hovered as you reconsidered your decision. Mikey shifted in your arms with a whine, threatening to wake up and stir up a fuss if you didn’t choose soon. Finally mustering up the courage to add your name to the end, you hit send before you could regret your decision, shutting your phone with a distinctive click.

Quickly shelving the small phone back onto the empty side table, you made yourself comfortable, shifting slightly to bundle Mikey better in your arms and make sure that you didn’t wake with a dead arm once more; the night was already late, and you weren’t going to get an answer within the next few hours. No matter if Baji was still a delinquent, even he would be fast asleep by now.

‎

‎

Three long, miserable days and two nights it had been since any of them had last seen hide or hair of you, and the cold war twelve years in the past raged on at full steam, threatening to escalate into a full civil war with every passing hour. The divide between Mikey and Kazutora was only spreading to the rest of the gang, complete with rumors whirling about Kazutora looking to split and start a rival gang. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility the other four Toman founders had to admit, despite them failing to take a side yet - you really were the glue that held Toman together, and as much as Draken and Baji tried to reason with the two stubborn boys, there would come a time that they would have to turn against Kazutora, as much as that would break them, if you didn’t return soon.

The world for once seemed to sympathize with the poor mortals that inhabited the earth below it, overcast skies rumbling and mourning your absence. Everything just seemed that much desolate without you. But it was under an uneasy truce that the feuding boys met along the small side street near your school from which you vanished; Kauztora and Mikey all but staring the other down with unblinking empty eyes that held promises of pain and death, though their attention was quickly drawn away with the appearance of a masked, calculative Sanzu. Even before Mikey could demand what his former childhood bestfriend wanted, why Kazutora could question why he had summon them here at this godforsaken hour, the rustle of a plastic bag being pulled from the front pocket of his black Toman uniform pants. The sight of the onomori from the creation of the Tokyo Manji gang, the charm they had gifted to you to bless them with your constant presence, your bloodied charm; swinging innocently inside the plastic bag. “I found this just along the sidewalk here,” Sanzu explained to the jaw-dropped yet deadly silent founders, those pairs of predatory eyes all bearing down on him. “Yesterday night.”

If he hadn’t added those last two words, the Fifth Division Vice Captain was sure his head would already made an acquaintance with the ground. Or maybe he would have been dead. Maybe both even, given those glares sent forth by the two warring parties that stabbed at him.

One heartbeat, then two, and when Sanzu blinked - the bag was gone from his hand, wrestled away by Mikey, though the blond-haired boy wasn’t alone.

“You again,” hissed Kazutora, his fingers equally dug into the bag in an attempt to take your charm for himself. “You’re still trying to keep her for yourself.”

“And I could say the same for you,” Mikey retorted, eyes narrowing dangerously as his grip tightened. This was all they had of you, and this traitor wanted to keep it for himself? Unacceptable.

It was the plastic that gave way first under the might of both delinquents, tearing along the stressed middle, the onomori starting its journey towards the ground. All Mitsuya had the time to shout was “charm!”, and both pair of fingers moved to catch, brushing the purple cloth in an instant.

A sudden strong gust of wind almost rocketed all seven boys off their feet, rushing down the small side street as if a divine hurricane sent forth by an angered god. And only Sanzu instantly understood when from thin air you appeared, standing and blinking groggily at the herd of your stunned friends, wearing a set of evidently expensive silk pajamas that no one recognised. But you seemed a lot less surprised than them, stretching your arms above your head and letting slip a yawn before you began to speak. "Guys, I think I might have gone to the future," you mumbled.

‎

‎

As the sun rose on the quiet Bonten headquarters, long after Ran, Rindo and Kakucho have left Sanzu to his thoughts alone in the infirmary, it was the anguished scream echoing down the corridors that wretched Bonten’s second-in-command from his uneasy rest. But he wasn’t alone, by the sounds of pounding footsteps that rushed down the corridor in the direction of Executive’s Row. In all the years they, the Bonten executives, had faithfully followed Mikey, the man had never once shown weakness, blank empty eyes always silently observing horrendous crimes committed in his name; yet there was no doubt. The furious, grieving, desperate cry, there was no mistaking who it came from, or what had happened. You had once more vanished from Mikey’s arms.

‎

Across a now bustling town, black-haired man stumbled out of bed despite the sun having long hung in the sky, smashing snooze on his way; those sleepy yellow eyes all but missing the new message that flashed across the lock screen of his new smartphone. And a few blocks away, Takemichi and Naoto stood determined outside a motorcycle shop, the shutters raised yet the interior still darkened.

“This is Draken’s shop?” Takemichi questioned once more, and Naoto confirmed. He had checked and double checked, and all the records pointed here. Given Ken Ryuguji was the only Toman founder outside of Sano Manjiro that Takemichi knew the full name off, and that he was alive in this time line, perhaps the former Toman Vice Captain would be able to shed some light on the twelve years that had passed - surely having been so close to you in the past, he would have kept his ear to the ground for any news on you or Mikey.

Takemichi took a deep breath, hand reaching for the door bell. “Then let’s do this.”

[natsuslover]

jjk characters in an american high school ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

notes— american high school stereotyping is fun to do. i did one of them for blue lock and it was enjoyable to write so i’m doing one for jjk as a coping mechanism :)

ft. yuji itadori, megumi fushiguro, nobara kugisaki, maki zenin, yuta okkotsu, toge inumaki

content: headcanons yay!

yuji itadori

definitely that one kid that speaks exclusively in brainrot humor

he’s barely passing all his classes (Cs get degrees mindset)

has a backpack for formalities sake bc the only thing that’s in there is his lunch and maybe a few paper handouts

skips class ALL THE TIME only to hang out with megumi or nobara in their class instead lmao

i feel like he would either be on the baseball or soccer team and he would be extremely good at them too

dodgeball goat, definitely gets internally pissed off if he loses a game

his teachers have a love/hate relationship with him (they hate him bc he doesn’t gaf about their class but they love him bc its yuji cmon)

the coaches tho they LOVE him

not in any ap classes so he makes fun of all his friends as they’re struggling during exam season

that one kid that somehow knows everyone and daps up his friends in the halls during passing period

just at school for the vibes basically

megumi fushiguro

ap god, bros literally in every ap class he could possibly be in

his studying routine is so fine-tuned he can study as minimally as possible and still max all his classes

100% attendance, u can never catch this dude lacking even if he’s sick or smth

he definitely has extra pencils in his bag for borrowing purposes bc he knows yuji never has any

he’s not super organized like color coded folders or anything, but he knows where everything is in his backpack and is always prepared in case the teacher asks for a paper from 2 months ago

he’s studious but like minimally if that makes sense

like he’s def top 6% but gets just as annoyed as the next person when some idiot tells the teacher they haven’t checked the homework yet

his favorite subject would be history idk why and he participates in the history fair fs

usually sits in the back of class and hates group projects

has his black sony wh 1000xm4 headphones on at all times

nobara kugisaki

her school fits go HARD every single day bc she literally thinks of the halls as her runway

has a bunch of cute stationary bc she likes how they look (not that she ever uses them bc what is note taking?)

she’s always on her phone during class, and if she’s not she’s yapping to her friends

“NOBARA STFU” is said by her teachers at least 5 times per class

whenever yuji comes to her class (everyday lol) she tells him all the new tea and gives him updates on the old

skips class sometimes to take mirror selfies in the bathroom

refuses to eat the school lunch bc that shit is disgusting

is fueled purely by celsius/redbull during exam season

is in a few ap classes and doesn’t really study but still manages to do fine on everything

gets to first period late almost everyday bc she takes too long getting ready in the morning

has beef with her english teacher and argues for higher essay grades like it’s her goddamn life’s mission

maki zenin

she’s the girl who defends everyone against bullies even if she doesn’t know them

like if there’s a fight in the hallway u just know she either started it or she’s ending it

teachers love her tho bc she’s incredibly smart and always does well on exams and assignments and everything in general

even tho she’s pretty studious she’s definitely gotten detention a few times for getting into fights

she’s a small top big pants girl for life and sometimes gets dress coded but doesn’t care enough to change

i feel like she also skips class sometimes just to sit in the library and listen to music when she doesn’t feel like doing shit

she’s the designated driver when her, nobara, and the rest of the gang go off campus during lunch

she’s an ap calc bc prodigy fs (got a 5 on the exam and it was light work)

president of like unicef and nhs and all those other clubs that don’t actually do anything but look super good on college apps

has answers to the tests and quizzes but never uses them

definitely on the track team or smth and the coach loves her bc she’s super athletic

yuta okkotsu

a teacher’s pet but not one of the annoying ones bc he doesn’t TRY to be a teacher’s pet ykwim

a lot of girls have crushes on him bc he’s cute and has a cute personality and somewhat mysterious-ish

he hangs out in the library with maki during his free/release periods bc he knows she often skips in there

has one wired earbud in his ear at all times and prob listens to dayglow or smth

bro is an ap lit WARRIOR like he’s so good at writing essays and genuinely enjoys reading the books too

his favorite required read was frankenstein bc the monster reminded him of rika

he’s not a big fan of group work but he enjoys doing partner work bc he finds it easier to talk to and get along with oner person at a time

overall he’s pretty organized when it comes to school work but his note-taking/speed handwriting is just scribbles

he doesn’t think he has a lot of friends but irl all the kids in his classes love him

uses 0.3 lead mechanical pencils instead of the usual 0.5 idk why it just seems fitting

the type of person who would snack on goldfish in the middle of class

toge inumaki

he wore a mask for a year after everyone stopped wearing them until he realized he looked stupid and stopped

doesn’t take any ap classes besides ap bio and he only takes that bc biology is his favorite subject

idk why but he gives president of the environmental club vibes

sits in the back and plays games on his phone all the time during class

but the teachers don’t care enough to say anything bc he always does fine on tests and stuff

doesn’t talk much during class discussions but when he does it’s always meaningful

his biggest nightmare is a socratic seminar bro hates those things more than anything

also has his airpods in 24/7 bc he doesn’t like listening to ppl talk and if someone asks if he heard he can use “music” as an excuse

thinks the school lunch is fine especially on fish sticks day but goes with maki bc she takes them all out anyway

has calc with yuta and both of them struggle together and end up asking maki for help

an AVID tiktok user like ong he’s always mindlessly scrolling through the app

part 2 coming with gojo, geto, shoko, utahime, nanami, and toji soon bc these are so fun to write omg! also u guys should request stuff bc im running low on ideas 💀

[the-teapot-hatter]

I was the one who send the isekai protagonist request, what I meant was that the protagonist does everything to attract the boys’ attention like wearing nice clothes that suit their tastes, partaking in their favourite activities and giving them presents, all just to get them to notice her. But mc here, doesn’t do any of that stuff, they’re only interested in dumpster diving yet somehow has caught the boys’ eyes compared to the overlooked protagonist who actually makes an effort to be seen.

Sorry it took me a little bit to get back to this, I was a little busy. And thank you for the clarification.

This isn't particularly staring any of the boys, but rather a long list of them (their short interactions) and the protagonist's failed attempts at wooing them. After such, she investigates the Reader.

If this isn't want you wanted, or I messed up something while writing, please feel free to tell me and I'll try writing it again to see if I get it correct the next time around.

Really, Aerilyn had tried everything that she could think of. But absolutely nothing was working, which didn't make any sense. She had read all of the novels, had gotten the spin-off games, had spent a ridiculous amount of money to read ahead in the webnovel adaptation, she bought all the merch, had visited every con, had watched and was present for every single interview there had been with the author.

Out of everyone, Aerilyn could say that she was the one that understood the characters the best. She was the one that knew all there was to know about this world and it's characters. So, logically, she was the one that was best suited to wooing the harem of men that the Saintess had won throughout her travels in the original, right?

All Aerilyn had to do was woo them before the original heroine showed up, and the Saintess hadn't appeared yet, and Aerilyn did the same things she did when wooing the boys (or at least most of the same things), and yet they still weren't interested. Not one. Not one single one of them was interested in Aerilyn. And she had tried everything.

…First, was her attempts with the Phantom Thief…

She had intentionally moved the guards stations so he would have an easier time getting in and out. And once she noticed the guard walking about, placed in front of her new family's treasury, she couldn't help the wide grin on her face. Because she new that wasn't a guard. It was the one and only Phantom Thief Ace Trappola, the second son of Count Trappola.

A mischievous boy that never failed to make her heart flutter any time she read of him through the pages of a book, saw him through a screen, or heard iconic voice lines being spoken from.

Cooling herself, she walked over towards the faked guardsmen, fighting off the grin that wanted to spread across her face once more. She knew exactly what to do to catch his attention!

"You there! What's your name?" Aerilyn called, watching as the fake guardsmen turned to look at her. The pounding of her heart taking on an excited erratic pace.

"My name is Sept, Lady Cyprus." The fake guardsmen answered, and Aerilyn had to fight off the squeal that made its way up her throat. While Ace did well to disguise his voice, he would never be able to hide himself from a rabid fan like Aerilyn.

"Oh? I don't recall having any guardsmen being named that. Let alone assigned this section of the manner." Aerilyn didn't actually pay attention to the guardsmen's names, but she would let Ace think that she does in order to further impress him. "You're that Phantom Thief that's been stealing from nobles lately, aren't you?" Aerilyn accused.

What she didn't realize at the time, and would never realize, was that Ace was not impressed. In fact, he was more that a little annoyed with the ladies, and some men, that have been coming up to him lately and accusing him of being a Phantom Thief. He didn't mind a good chase every now and again, but this was ridiculous. Then there was the fact that he could be dangerous, for he has a very real sword on him, and the lady before him had decided to confront him without any guardsmen for protection. So, in other words, she was an idiot.

And, as if to further worsen his opinion of her, Aerilyn dug into one of the pockets of her overly huge dress and threw a pouch of coins at him. A particularly smug look on her face. "You shouldn't steal from others, but I need this less than you do. Consider me letting you go a mercy." And then she spun around and walked away. Leaving Ace feeling thoroughly insulted. He didn't steal because he needed money. He did it because of the thrill. Though, lately, it hasn't been nearly as fun due to the increasingly odd behaviors of others.

Days later, Aerilyn was left confused when the Phantom Thief never paid her a visit. He didn't even come up to her and interact with his real identity, leaving her to wonder what she could have possibly done wrong. After all, its what had happened in the novel, right?

…Then, there was her efforts with the Navy's rising star…

Aerilyn didn't actually like working out or doing anything that got her sweaty. But she also knew how beastmen like Jack worked. Or rather how wolves worked. All she had to do was perk his interest, get him interested in her, and she could drop the excessive exercise. 

Until that happened, she would come out of her way every week and train with the patrolling guardsmen, and request training from the Navy to teach her proper self-defense. It wasn't the proper means, but she was a noble lady and could do whatever she wanted. As far as she was concerned, a full group of disgruntled people was more than fine if it would gain Jack's attention.

Only, the beastmen never came up to her. Never interacted with her. Never even offered to help her. She was left confused and frustrated as to why her efforts weren't working. Unknowing to the fact that Jack himself had just wanted the woman to leave. She was throwing everything off and putting a heavy strain on everyone else because of her whims. On top of it all, Jack could tell that she wasn’t even putting that much effort into it, instead ogling at him or one of the many other people.

It left him increasing uncomfortable, something he was growing used to feeling since she was far from the only noble to have pulled a stunt like this recently. He had heard that the Crown Prince was in the action of drafting and setting up a law to prevent this from happening again in the future, but all he could do until that time came was wait. 

To Aerilyn's surprise, two weeks later, she was bared entry. A couple of guardsmen reciting Prince Malleus's new decree, something that Aerilyn had never heard of before. Unsatisfyingly, she ended up having to give up on wooing the wolf beastmen for now. Jack couldn't have been more relieved when his workplace finally went back to normal.

…Her attempts with establishing trade with the up and rising Viscount was a total failure as well…

For weeks, Aerilyn had sent letter after letter to Azul about a business venture she knew he would enjoy and profit from. Not only would she make money from the deal, she could establish contact with Azul as well. She knew the prospect would be successful, since Azul would do so himself in the future and gain a massive profit from it.

She wasn't stealing the idea from him if he hadn't yet thought of it. Not to mention, she would make sure he would still profit from it in the end, so she didn't see the big deal. However, he never answered any of her letters. Not a single one, and Aerilyn couldn't figure out why.

And long soon after, Azul started up the business she had been alluding to in her letters to him, even though she hadn't even given him the full details! She didn't understand why he wasn't answering and she didn't understand why the original seemed to be speeding up. Azul didn't come up with this idea until the saintess made an off handed remark about to Turtolois plant in the east. And the saintess hadn't appeared yet, so she didn't understand what was going on.

Unbeknownst to her, Azul had received letters from not just her, but a whole slew of people. While some were evasive in their letters, he knew enough to piece the information together. While Azul didn't understand why so many letters were addressed to him, why so many people knew about the money making venture and were doing nothing, and why so many people who hadn't had recent contact with each other all seemed to be doing the same things.

While Azul would get as much money from it as he can, he wasn't going to involve himself in something as crazy as this.

…She'd even tried helping the pitiful servant Jamil, but he didn't seem to appreciate her kindness…

She had gone to the Duke Asim's social party, unfortunately, too many people were crowded around Kalim for her to get close to him, so she tried the next best thing. She had requested Jamil's assistance, and as kind as the Duke heir was he granted it, which led her to taking the servant out with her onto the terrace.

"What was it you needed help with, my lady?" Jamil had inquired. Aerilyn's grin was wide, basking in the sound of his hypnotic voice for a moment before she responded to him.

"It was a little hectic in there, I wanted to give you a moment to rest." Was Aerilyn's cheerful response, knowing the servant beside her would appreciate the gesture. Only, he didn't appreciate it, and he was in fact annoyed by it. Multiple people kept pulling this same stunt, which was pulling him away from his work. Which meant he had to do everything later and because he had to do everything later, he had to retire even later.

By this point, Jamil was sure this was some cruel joke on him. That the nobles thought it funny to push him around just because he was a servant to the Asim's. Something he refused to put up with any longer.

At the next party, when Aerilyn made the same request of Kalim, he rejected her. Not only that, but she wasn't invited to the next few parties that the heir threw. In the end leaving Aerilyn confused. How could something like this happen? Was someone messing with her? Were they trying to take her happy ending?

…And on and on it went. She tried everything. And she does mean everything. She imported a rare mining material to Idia because she knew he would use it for his experiments in bringing back his kid brother, Ortho. She had expected him to come ask where she found it, he hadn't…

…She had attempted to empathize with Epel. Give him a moment away from people gushing over his appearance. She had advocated for Vil to play a role in the Opera house for once. She'd brought Riddle a strawberry tart and followed every rule down to the letter in hopes of his approval. She'd talked with Malleus with nonchalance and let him know she wasn't scared of him. She intentionally created "interesting" situations for the Leech twins to get involved in. She let Cater know that she wanted to see the real him instead of the facade he put up…

The point being, she did everything imaginable. And nothing worked! But she did just as the novel's descripted! As the webnovel showed! As the spin-off game suggested! Everything! And yet none of them took any interest in her. So, she launched a secret investigation to see what they were interested in, in hopes of coming up with a new plan.

And she found out that they were interacting with some trash diving peasant that wasn't even worth the dirt beneath their shoes! The character wasn't even mentioned in the original! Not one line dedicated to her! Not one image showed her! She didn't even have the appearance of the faceless NPCs! That's how unimportant she was, and yet all the boys took interest in this nameless nobody.

And then Aerilyn considered the fact that maybe she wasn't the only one that transmigrated. Obviously, this NPC wasn't just a nobody and had to be from the real world like her. They must have done something! And Aerilyn was going to find out what, if it was the last thing she did.

Unbeknownst to Aerilyn, quite a few nobles were already aware that she investigated their lovely trash diving maiden that they were still attempting to convince to live with them. Aerilyn was one of the ones put on top of a blacklist of radicalists that had been popping up more and more lately. Suffice to say, if she pulled anything, she'd be taken care of.

[mialikeshockey]

New kid - Case McCarthy

I tiredly open my locker, getting my biology book out. I would do anything to be able to crawl back in bed and sleep for the rest of the day. I could already tell that it was gonna be a long day just by seeing how slow my morning has went. Only one class down and i already feel like I could crawl up and die from the lack of sleep.

I make my way to biology and sit down in my seat next to my friend Emma. “You look exhausted, did Trevor keep you up last night again?” Emma questions me while I rub my eyes. “Yeah, him and Jack have been up playing video games really late for the past three days. I have barely been able to sleep. It sucks so bad, having his room so close to mine.” I complain.

Emma laughs and rubs my back, our teacher walks in and gets a phone call from the office. She looks around the room and her eyes land on me. I was kinda confused because it’s only our second class of the day. What could I have possibly done wrong. Then I start thinking of what Trevor could have done. Last time he got in trouble for skipping class, he got me caught up in it, claiming it wad a family emergency.

My bio teacher waves me up to her while she starts walking to the door. I follow, looking confused at Emma.

“Go to the office, and ask for guidance.” My bio teacher sighs and closes the door. I walk to the office and text Trevor. Wondering what he did this time, he shockingly sent a snap of him and Jack in math class.

I get into the office, and I see a boy sitting in one of the first chairs. “Hi, I was told to come to guidance.” The office lady starts randomly aggressively typing and I look down, trying not to laugh. “What’s your name sweetie?”She asks, her glasses about to fall off of her face.

“Charlotte, Charlotte Zegras.” The lady goes back to typing and I can’t help but giggle a bit. she gets out of her chair and walks up to the boy.

“He’s a new student, you guys basically have almost the same classes, so we were hoping you had time to show him around?” The boy smiles, i nod my head. I walk out of the office and he follows.

“Hi, im Case.” He says smiling, i tell him my name and he hands me his paper with his classes on it. “Wow you basically have my schedule.” He puts his head down.

“Nervous?” I ask him, “Maybe just a little.”

“Don’t be, it’s okay. We have most of our classes together and I can get you caught up on notes and stuff if you’d like.” Case smiles. “Thank you….whats your name?”

“Charlotte, Charlotte Zegras.” I put my hand out for him to shake. “Zegras, as in Trevor’s sibling?” He asks. I sigh and let out a little laugh. “That would be me.” I look down at the tiles on the floor. “I playing hockey with him. I’m Case McCarthy.”

“Well, I wouldn’t trust Trevor to help you get caught up on classes. He barely does the work himself. I got you, you can come over and I can get you caught up and then you can hang out with Trevor and his friends. They normally come over almost every day after school because of hockey.”

“That would be great actually, thank you.” Case smiles, holding the paper in his hand a bit tighter.

-

This is so bad but I wanted to post something because this has been in my drafts for a bit. My biology teacher is actually trying to kill me. I have 100% on every single assignment and somehow I have a D in her class, like bro are you trying to get me in trouble 😭

I hope you all are doing well!! Dms are open if you need to talk 🫶🏽

Credit to gif maker

[haganezukawaifu]

Rosa Dolce Chapter 3

~ Previous ~ Masterlist ~ Next ~

The dream starts the same. It put me here in the same hallway. But somehow, it was different. The picture wasn't the same as before. They were filled with classics. Among them were Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Vincent van Gosh, and the door was very different. And I felt it pulling me in, telling me to open it. But every time I do, I wake up and never know why. Who's calling me? Why can't I open that door? Why can't I see them? Why. Am. I. So. Afraid?

"Christine."

"Hmm." I snap out of my thoughts. I saw Bella concerned about me. "Are you okay? You just drifted into a daze while I was talking to you," Bella asked, concerned. I nodded my head. "Yeah. I have just been having weird dreams lately, and I can't get them out of my head, and I don't know what they mean." "Like what?" she asked curiously. I froze. I didn't know what to say. I mean, what do you expect me to say?

'Oh well, throughout the night, I dreamed of a 15th-century palace. I have been walking down the same halls, looking at the same pictures, and standing in front of doors I'm afraid to open. I can't seem to understand why I'm here or what's there. Oh, and some voices call out to me every night in my dream.' 

She will probably think I'm crazy or freaked out. So... "It's nothing." I lied. She nodded her head. "But continue. You were talking about Edward." "Yeah. He's-," she continued. I can't believe that she has been here for a week and sitting with me at the same table. I can say Cordelia was ecstatic to see her. She couldn't ever let her go. If I remember correctly, she said, "Oh my gosh. It's little bells. All grown up. Look at you. Isn't she just precious, Christine?" Yeah, those were the words. Her first week was weird, especially in biology. Edward was acting odd, to say the least, and she wanted to know why. She thought she smelled terrible, but that wasn't it. Or maybe she did something wrong, but that wasn't the problem either. So why was he acting odd? He almost missed a week of school. Must have been sick if it was serious.

"It was just weird," Bella said as she tapped her tray. "Maybe he was unwell," I speculated. "I don't know," Bella muttered as she shook her head. Then the bell rang, but before I stood up from my seat, I leaned in and said, "Well, try asking him when you see him. I'll see you later." I stood up and walked to my next class, Spanish. Soon, the day carried on as it should as school ended. Now it was time to go to the garden and work. I had to work on a few batch orders while Cordelia attended a conference call. The order consisted of nothing but simple table décor for newly constructed homes as well as centerpieces and wedding bouquets for winter. Why must people get married in January? After finishing orders and handling customers, it was time to close the shop for the day. Cordelia offered to cook chicken pesto pasta, which was my favorite. After dinner, I took my shower and dressed in an oversized band t-shirt belonging to Anthony that he left behind and sweatpants. I figured I would check over my assignment before bed. As soon as I did that, I slipped under my comforter and fell asleep, expecting the same dream. But as I slept, I noticed something different about this dream.

The darkness enveloped me. The air was cold. It doesn't seem like there is a single speck of snow emanating from the sky. The ground was slick with ice. This is not the same dream. This is a novelty. I could hear a sound. The sound of a car, but where was it coming from? Despite turning in every direction, I could not locate the sound. Until I froze, the sound came from behind. I turned around and stood there. The engine was loud and came closer and closer. I couldn't see the car until I saw the headlights. It was a gray van, and from the look of it, it wasn't stopping. It was heading straight toward me at high speed and coming out of control. I couldn't move as I stood there in shock. I raised my arm to defend myself, but

"AAHH."

I jumped up in fear as I panted. Just when I expected to feel the impact, I awakened from my sleep. I check the clock on my dresser by my bed. 2 am. I sigh as I flop back on my bed. It was a nightmare. I haven't had those since I was 9 years old, but the question I ask myself is: why did that happen? Why did I dream of a crash? Am I in danger of getting hurt—or someone else? After that nightmare, I was unable to sleep, so I got dressed for school instead. Today's weather was different. The temperature had dropped, and the ground was slick. Talk about coincidence. Time passed, and the day proceeded as it normally did. I had trouble focusing on class due to the nightmare. Even during my conversation with Bella, I barely focused. I never expected a nightmare to make me lose focus like this before. 

"You look tired," Bella mentioned. Resting my head on my knuckles, I said, "I didn't have a good sleep last night. " How come?" she asked.

'Don't tell her about the car crash.'

"I um.. forgot to start my project. It's due Friday, and I'm worried about it." I lied, and she nodded her head. "Oh. I'm sure it will be okay. You'll finish it," she said. "Yeah, me too." Soon, the bell rang. "I have to get to class. I'll see you after school in the parking lot," I said as I gathered my belongings. "Hey. I was thinking, Do you want to hang out today? I'm heading to the bookstore after school," Bella replied. I stood there and thought about it. I didn't have to work today at Aphrodite, so technically, I am free. I nodded my head in response.

"Sure, I'll come with."

I began to walk down the hall to Spanish class. Maybe I overreacted to this nightmare; maybe it's just nothing but my imagination. As soon as Spanish ended, gym class began. We had to play volleyball. Hate volleyball with a passion. If I hit the ball, I always end up hitting someone in the back of the head. I would stand there and apologize in response. I got changed out of my gym uniform and left the gym. I saw Bella waiting for me as we walked towards the parking lot, talking about the bookstore in Port Angeles.

"You mind if we use your car? I don't think my truck would make it," Bella suggested. "Sure. That would be fine with me. I'll meet you at your place." "Sounds like a plan," she replies. I nodded my head. I told her I had to return home and change before heading over, which she responded to with a nod. We parted ways as I headed to my car, which was 3 cars away from her truck. Grabbing my key to press the unlock button, I heard an odd sound. A familiar sound.

SCREECH

I turn toward the sound, and my eyes widen in shock. There it was. A dark blue van skidded out of control on the ice road in the parking lot. You could hear the brakes squealing loudly. But the thing I noticed about the van was its direction toward Bella. What do I do? Am I just willing to stand here and do nothing while my friend gets hurt? I dropped my bag and keys instantly and ran straight toward her. Please. Not my friend. Anyone but her. However, as I heard the shattered crunch of the van hitting the truck, I thought I was too late. I continued my pace as I went around her truck.

'God, please be okay. Please be alright.'

As I reached the passenger side, I worried about her being squished between the van and the truck. I was also worried about her bleeding out an arm or leg or being unconscious. She was lying on the pavement as she slowly sat up, but Edward was sitting there.... by Bella. His hands were on each side of the truck and the van. How did he get there so fast? He was four cars away, and yet he was there to prevent it as the accident occurred. A hundred, maybe a thousand questions were running through my head, but all I could think about was Bella as I kneeled beside her.

"Bella. Bella. Are you okay? Are you hurt?" I asked, worried. "I'm fine," she said, nodding her head as she tried to sit up. I noticed that Edward held her against him by her side. Edward warned Bella, "I think you hit your head pretty hard. Be careful." I examined her as she questioned him, and she didn't look injured, but as I touched her head, she hissed in pain. She has a bump on her head. There was something that caught my attention from the corner of my eye...

The dent on her truck. Strange; that wasn't there before.

but the van was in worse condition. Finally, Bella could sit up as Edward let go of her waist. I could hear the siren in the distance. It took six EMTs and two teachers to move the van far away from us to get the stretcher in. Of course, Chief Swan arrived before they could get her away safely, but she reassured him that she was fine. Edward insists that he didn't need a stretcher and that Bella needed one because she might have a concussion. As soon as she was loaded into the ambulance and Edward rode in the front, I saw them drive off. I sped off to my car, got in, started up, and followed them. All I could think about was how Edward got there so fast. I just couldn't shake the feeling that there was really something off about him.

I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about him—something not quite human. As I weaved through traffic, my mind raced with questions. How did he manage to reach Bella so quickly? And why did he seem so protective of her? The pieces of the puzzle didn't quite fit together, and I was determined to find out the truth. As I followed the ambulance to the hospital, my curiosity only grew stronger. Little did I know, this was just the beginning of a series of events that would change everything I thought I knew.

[princessasmosprincess]

The Love I Meant To Say

Part 1 of The Great Celestial War Diptych

Summary: Simeon has always been good with words.

Genre: Angst

Warnings: Mild blood, Great Celestial War

***

Simeon has always been good with words.

They came so easy to him, in eloquent threads he was able to weave into beautiful tapestries.

He kept a little notebook in a satchel at his hip. Always at the ready whenever inspiration struck. A poem here, a fun story to tell the little ones there, the occasional proverb.

His words were a blessing. One he freely shared with those he loved.

When Asmodeus and Belphegor came to him, adorably begging him to write a play so they could try and coax Leviathan out of his post-battle depression, how could he refuse?

Simeon spent every moment between his assigned tasks writing. It was simple really, a little pageant for his brothers and sister to perform. Somehow Asmodeus had even roped Lucifer into taking a part. That excited Simeon more than anything. Lucifer rarely let his hair down.

The play was supposed to be performed today. Or it would have been, if not for…

“LILITH!”

The screams come from both sides. Lucifer’s in one ear, and Beelzebub’s and Belphegor’s in the other.

Simeon stands frozen at the side of the battlefield. Words could not help him now.

Lucifer is the first to go over the edge. It wouldn't be long before the others did too. There were so few of them, just their little family banding together to protect their younger sister and her pursuit of true love. Not that it mattered now, Lilith had already fallen.

A sword hangs limp in Simeon’s hand. He doesn't want to fight Father and he can’t abandon Lucifer.

So he stands, useless. Wishing his words could have been used to persuade Father. If only Lucifer hadn’t acted so quickly.

Another scream snaps him out of his reverie. He drops his sword and turns toward the sound.

Tears are streaming down Asmodeus’ beautiful face. His eyes are wide in terror as Raphael chases after him. It would have been a normal occurrence if not for the presence of Raphael's Celestial spear.

This is wrong. Simeon must do something.

“Raphael, stop!” He pleads, stepping in between the spear-wielding seraph and Asmodeus. Simeon takes the blow to his hip, the weapon slowed too late to avoid wounding him. But still, Simeon stands firm, shielding Asmodeus.

“Sime-” the young angel sobs.

“Just run,” Simeon hisses over his shoulder. Asmodeus doesn't waste another second to get away.

“Step aside, Simeon,” says Raphael, his ever stoic expression wavering only slightly as he sees Simeon’s blood begin to bloom through his white clothing. “They’re traitors.”

“They’re our brothers.”

“Not anymore.” Raphael growls. He shoves past Simeon to join the circle of angels who are pushing the so-called traitors to the edge of the Celestial Realm.

A spear wound to the hip is no small thing, even for an angel. Dizziness from the loss of blood overtakes him and he falls to the ground.

Simeon stares up at the sky, the perpetual sunlight providing no warmth. He gives a bitter, humorless laugh. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. He is totally alone now.

He presses a hand to the wound and his fingertips brush the little, torn satchel at his hip, and the small notebook inside it. His fingers close around the notebook, the familiar feeling of the paper so grounding in this time of crisis.

Words.

He needs them now more than anything.

Simeon flips to a blank, unbloody page, his pen hovering over the pure white paper.

But the words won’t come.

He wants to cry, wants to scream. A single tear trails down his face in his frustration.

He has to write something.

With some effort, Simeon rolls to his stomach. He manages to scribble three words on the page, tearing it from the notebook and rolling it up. Now he has to get it to the right person.

Simeon’s eyes light on a golden bow and a quiver of broken arrows a few feet in front of him, presumably left behind by Asmodeus in his hasty escape.

Simeon crawls on his elbows towards the bow, pain shooting through his body with every movement. But it would be more painful if his words were left unsaid.

He nocks an arrow, the little note attached to its feathers, and sends it over the edge.

I’m sorry, brother.

***

Cross-posted on AO3

[barlowstreet]

I am so fucking proud of you! May I ask how your group project ended up going?

Thank you!!!

Honestly yeah I have tea, let's spill.

Under a cut for long math drama because WOW that a whole thing

Alright, so for anyone who missed it, the group project assignment was fairly simple. It was literally just pick an article about mathematical modeling (he suggested using covid 19 as a topic), read it, present our findings to our class. Four people in my group, 10 minute long at most presentation, could have all probably be done in 30 minutes, right? We started this March 20th and it was due April 10th, today.

I picked the article, sent it to my group partners, they were like "yeah sure that works". I set up a word document through office 365 which we all have access to through our school that we could all just put our notes in and I put my part in March 20th. And then I took a whole bunch of cold medication because that was when I was sick.

Then no one did anything. I emailed them again reminding them, hey, we do gotta do this April 5th. The one girl did hers that day. The guy in my group did his April 7th. I also made a powerpoint at that point because I was like "I am not just talking to the camera here, I need a prop". (I get camera shy and do a lot better if I have props.)

The other girl in my group? The last email I got from her was never. She never replied to a single one of my emails. We talked in class once in a breakout room, where I said "I will email you all, I have no voice and am very sick and it's probably easier to just use email" and she was like, "Yeah, sounds good." So to be clear, she knew I was going to email her.

I get to class today and the guy in my group is not there. Okay, sure, fine, one of us can read his part. GirlA messages me in the zoom chat and is like "did GirlB ever send you anything?" and I have to be like, "No. I have a slide with just her name on it, do we want to just be petty and pause on it for a moment when we get there?" and she was like "Yeah tbh she didn't reply to any of our emails and do any work, what else do we do".

(Meanwhile we were talking about grades and GirlB asks the instructor why he never gave her a time slot to do one of our quizzes. It was a take home quiz. He said that SEVERAL times in class but I suspect she isn't actually there a decent amount, she just opens the zoom link and does other things. But our classes are recorded. Watch the recording at least?)

And then GirlB messages me. At 7:25pm. And says, "I sent you my notes."

My class, I will tell anyone who doesn't know, is 6:30pm to 9:30pm. We were in class. Other people were presenting, and I'm frantically adding things to the powerpoint presentation that I made. AND she somehow didn't actually change the online version of the powerpoint (because I enabled editing for that too) so she had to send it to me.

And she sent it as a PDF.

Anyways, me and GirlA sounded like we knew what we were talking about. I fake being good at speaking well and she made a good joke that made her seem a little more relaxed. I will say that the other girl did send me a couple of diagrams which made things look nice, but she really struggled with presenting it and sounded very awkward.

Oh and the guy showed up literally in the middle of our presentation, which, you know, I'll take since I didn't have to present his part.

We sorta could tell that GirlB handed in a bunch of assignments technically late and her grade was probably Not Good so honestly the fact that we all got 100% on the presentation probably did her a lot of good.

And I swear to god, most of it is because people are impressed by powerpoint. GirlA, when we were gossiping, she thanked me for doing "all that work" on the powerpoint when, like, it took me 10 minutes because I downloaded a vaguely math-y looking powerpoint theme XD So, life lesson, a good looking powerpoint presentation will take you a long way.

[neurosismancer]

So, let me put on my Internet Old Person hat and tell you kids about the the way we committed music piracy in the long long ago of 2001, and the fragility of those music collections in those days.

You might know Napster. You might know Limewire. But there was a music piracy tool in between those. A little remembered program called AudioGalaxy, and it worked a little like Napster and a little like BitTorrent. The exact details of how it worked are immaterial, but one thing it did was when you searched for an artist, the songs were sorted, in essence, by popularity (e.g. how many people had that specific song file shared.)

Now, I can’t understand why this was a thing, but there was a strange phenomenon in the early days of file sharing and music piracy where people would share songs with the wrong artist name or song title. Certain bands and artists got a lot of stuff attributed to them that they never recorded. “Weird” Al Yankovic may be the most infamous victim of this, with nearly every novelty song and song parody released attributed to him regardless of quality or subject matter.

The confluence of these two phenomena are how I discovered one of my favorite bands of all time.

So, in my late teens, I found a new favorite band. A quickly little one-hit wonder known as DEVO. Y’know, the band that dd “Whip It.” They had the funny red hats that looked like flowerpots. Those guys.

Anyway, I had become obsessed with this band to the point of autistic hyperfixation, and I wanted to hear everything they’d ever put out. At that point, they’d released nine studio albums, a couple live albums, and two collections of early demos, and I wanted them all. So I would find myself crawling in the bottom pages of the AudioGalaxy search results looking for those obscure tracks—b-sides, songs on soundtracks and compilations, the occasional bootleg, They’d pop up between songs that were obviously not by DEVO, and much like our poor friend Alfred Yankovic, any sort of vaguely quirky 80s song got assigned to DEVO.

That was how I found it. A song called, simply, “Detachable Penis.”

Now, I had never heard of such as song, but I knew on the face of it, it wasn’t a DEVO song.

But with a title like that, I knew I had to find out just what in the name of fuck a song called “Detachable Penis” sounded like.

It sounded, dear reader, like this:

(CWs: blurry images of a dildo, the word penis, spoken word poetry)

And I immediately went to Google, because this song somehow tickled an itch in my brain, and I had to go and find out the real band that recorded this song, because how the hell else was I going to get every song I could of theirs I could get my grubby little hands on. The band was called King Missile, and I was hooked.

I’d like to see any music discovery algorithm beat that.

I eventually acquired their entire major discography along with a few EPs and B-Sides. I eventually burned those to a CD, which I could listen to with my MP3 CD Player.

And I realize, upon writing that, for you youth “MP3 CD Player” is a noun phrase that needs explaining. See, while the iPod had been released at that point, and similar devices were also on the market, they were all prohibitively expensive. The economical way to listen to pirated music files was to burn them to CD, but some CD players had software that allows you to burn those song as as _data_. Suddenly, you could have a single CD with 700 megabytes of MP3 files—room for an artist’s entire discography, if not multiple artists.

Since I was download a whole lot of MP3s with my high speed DSL connection, I was taking up an awful lot of space on my hard drive that needed to be offloaded somehow. CD-Rs and an MP3 CD Player were the optimal solution. And it worked…

…until it didn’t.

In the summer of 2002, my parents took me on a vacation to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was in the latter city where someone got into our rental car and swiped my MP3 CD player and a binder of CDs—both pressed CDs I’d acquired and CD-Rs of illicitly acquired MP3s, along them a CD-R I’d burned containing the nearly complete King Missile discography.

Songs I had only on that one CD-R.

It took me a decade—ten fucking years—before I’d recovered all the music that was on that disc.

This is the sort of discovery and the sort of loss that kids will never experience again in this day of Spotify and the all-you-can-eat buffet of music on demand we have now.

[hellparkri]

The Morning After

No one could sleep that night... Everyone was still remembering that experience with the Ouija board that happened just a few hours ago: they all slept together that night, not out of fear, well... Clyde did, but the reason they slept together was to have a good time... And somehow that thought of what happened a few hours ago was still haunting them, they even took turns for two to fall asleep while two watched that nothing paranormal or out of the ordinary happened.

While none of them had a dream that they could consider "good", "none of them were even minimally close to it", the one who had it worst was Craig Tucker; All night, both on guard and "sleeping" she could not stop thinking about her beloved: Thomas... "Could I see him again? What if I could talk to him? Is he thinking about me?" were some of the doubts that Craig had in his mind. She spent all that night thinking about her late boyfriend, that maybe she can see him again, what had happened was completely real, the possibility that she could contact the soul of her beloved was quite plausible... Alone... I needed to find a way to get back in touch with him, maybe I could make a deal... "I'd do anything..." he constantly told himself that he shook his head to make his brain forget everything and just let him sleep in one go...

"Craig, I hate waking you up now, but you have to see this." Tolkien shook his friend slightly; as he did before.

.Uh? Do I have to stand guard already?-.

-Not yet. It's still about fifteen minutes away, but you have to see this." Tolkien pointed to his window: Strong red and blue lights could be made out in the distance, the sounds of those sirens echoing faintly throughout the village. They were all awake looking at those sirens in the distance. Everyone thinking exactly the same thing...

-Do you think it has to do with the Ouija board?-. Clyde asked as he wiped his tears.

-C-c-what would be the p-possibilities? S-I just don't-see it p-possible-.

Jimmy is right. Craig added. "Who knows, and all this doesn't even have anything to do with what happened this afternoon..." We should first investigate what has just happened, then see if we can provide even a single ounce of useful information."

The discussion about what they had to do continued for more than an hour. But in the end they simply decided to wait until they have more information about what happened; They took turns on their guard duty again and just let the night pass. Everyone was becoming more and more paranoid about what happened, but no one wanted to say it out loud.

Craig's dream didn't improve either: as soon as he closed his eyes he could see Thomas smiling at him, as if he were waiting for him from beyond...

It was the longest night they had in their lives, but finally, at 5:20 AM Craig and Jimmy woke up their two other friends. They discussed whether they should go to school in the conditions in which they were, but their argument had to be interrupted by a call from Jimmy's phone. It belonged to a friend of hers: Esther.

-Hello? Jimmy?-. Esther asked with some seriousness and sadness in her tone of voice. "T-I have to tell you~ K-Kevin was killed tonight~-. Esther's voice broke into tears, they began to be heard through Jimmy's cell phone, quickly the boy's expression turned into one of absolute horror; Everyone thought something like that would happen, but never that it would happen to a person they were relatively close with. Esther only had the strength to tell him that if they had any information about what happened to please contact the authorities, who had already begun the investigations, they had even assigned two policemen to visit the school where Kevin lived and would be all day gathering students who,  either they wanted to provide some information, or they simply wanted to know what the murderer's face looked like. Esther hung up and wished Jimmy and company a good day. They were all left with a lump in their throats that was difficult to describe; Craig was the first to decide to speak.

"Well, I'll take a shower and go tell the police what I know: Pretty much nothing." What's more, we didn't even think that maybe all this is a horrifying coincidence. Or suppose it wasn't and that the same "thing" that almost killed us attacked Kevin, and then? What do we tell them? Shall we tell you that a demon knocked over a bookshelf and closed a door out of nowhere when we were partying? For God's sake they'll think we were high! They wouldn't take us seriously for a million years." Craig said in an irritated and nervous tone; His whole body was too weak because of lack of sleep, his dark circles looking more like dark bruises than anything else. Without saying more, he left Tolkien's house.

Elsewhere in South Park; Far away in the woods, a young man with blond hair and blue and white clothes was rinsing his face in a large river located in a dense forest mass located on the outskirts of South Park.  His entire previously elegant suit had been completely stained with blood. And far from feeling panic or at least some concern about having been discovered, his greatest concern was now not being able to find his beloved without having to sneak away. That was the sole purpose of my being in the world of the living in the first place.

"Hell, Pip... What have you done?" I must start controlling myself-... The blond said to himself in a low voice as he brushed his teeth in the river. Pip couldn't stop thinking about his partner as he wiped wet leaves off his clothes. His beloved he thought about so much was named Damien Thorn; with hair as black as coal and as pale skin as a dead man's, dressed all in black with only a small orange Hawaiian jacket with little black decorations, Damien was the only person who showed Phillip real attention, Damien was the only person who took him in when no one else did.  Damien was not only a love interest, he was now her spouse... And he was also the king of hell, or well, on paper he was supposed to be, he spent more time by Pip's side, he even spent more time on earth doing God knows what there. Damien always disliked ruling, but he was the only person who was treating the souls of hell as human beings, under his rule, hell stopped being so cruel and ruthless, this angered quite a few, but it was what Damien wanted, and it was what would be done. That's why I didn't want to quit, it would just cause all that hard work to go to hell overnight.

But, even with all this utter chaos, Damien was always strangely gentle with Pip, in the eight years they'd been together, "two as friends, five as boyfriends, and one as husbands." Damien had never, ever said a single foul-sounding word to his boyfriend. After more than seven years together, they finally decided to marry and live together for all eternity. That day, the day of their wedding, was impregnated impregnated in Phillip's mind as if it were the ink on the page of a book, he remembered every second of that day, how could he not do it? He remembered everything from the clothes worn by all the guests, to the journey they both took through the world of the living. It was a wonderful day, it was almost a year of that... Time flies by... doesn't it?

Phillip looked at his wedding ring for a few seconds, his eyes were completely focused on that piece of metal with shiny red diamonds and purple pearls decorating the entire ring. In the center was located the largest diamond of them; It was adorned with two silhouettes of the two of them dancing in the sunset, Phillip was able to see that ring for hours, well, that was because he always did, every day of every week he took time to admire that testimony to the eternal love for his partner. It was beautiful, even when she saw it she blushed just like the first time Damien showed it to her.

Although not everything was perfect, lately Damien was starting to be absent more than necessary, their one-year wedding anniversary was approaching very quickly, and those beautiful first months in which they only talked until they fell asleep were over... They didn't talk so much anymore, Damien was less attentive; more forgetful, more rude, above all, **much** less detailed with the blonde. Pip found his beloved's behavior too strange, even when they barely knew each other he was so distant, he had tried to talk to him about it, but without success. Damien hadn't even tried to pretend he cared about ruling hell, he just went to earth, spent hours and hours there, and came back without much explanation. And Phillip? Well, now, there he was, thinking about all the catastrophe that was happening down there in hell, and pondering where his beloved was going for so long.

He finished washing his face and got up; His face showed that he now seemed to be much more tense, he was beginning to squeeze his hands against each other. Pip simply felt horrible when he didn't have Damien, he tried to distract himself, but he had simply gotten to the point that without Damien, he just didn't feel happy, his mind was filled with doubts and anguish in seconds if Damien wasn't there, he knew deep down that that was horrible and terribly wrong, but he didn't want to admit it...  He got rid of any thoughts of infidelity and simply watched the sun; He had only been out for a few hours. Phillip needed to meet the rest of his comrades, he had to explain to them the mistake he had made. They had agreed to mark a small cave to the north of the forest; They had already marked some subtle landmarks to help them get there: Scratches on trees, stones piled up around bushes, and branches pointing in the direction of the location of the new one. The sun at dawn rose to the east, so he simply went in the opposite direction from where he came out and followed the signs until he reached that dark cave, took a breath and said wearily to his three comrades while wiping the sweat from his forehead:

"I would like to apologize in advance for not being able to stand the hunger, I just came to tell you that now we have a huge little problem..."

[borntoocry]

DRUNKEN YOU ON A CURB

Summary: you’re drunk and sad after you failed one of your assignments. You end up calling Ellie and of course she picks you up.

NOT PROOF READ

"Dumb fucking professor," you whisper as you pour more tequila into your cup. You grab the cranberry juice sitting next to the glass bottle and pour only a shot inside. You don’t even stir it, so all you taste when you throw the mixture into your mouth is cranberry juice.

You hiss and lower your cup down, nursing it between your hands. You lean back against the corner of the counter and look around at the drunk people. It’s amazing how mostly everyone in this house is drunk, minus a few who are the designated drivers.

You sip on your awful mixed drink and sip it until it’s mostly tequila and you’re mostly drunk. You feel yourself tipping from side to side after ten minutes and realize you stopped tasting cranberry juice after two minutes of drinking.

You know you’ll feel slightly hung over despite taking the precautions to avoid a hangover. You’ve been drinking straight tequila and you probably have been all night. You simply weren’t paying attention because of the assignment that’s been clouding your mind.

That stupid English professor thought he was better than everyone else. He thought that because he has his Doctorate, he has the right to make you feel like more shit. Somehow, that thought makes sense in your drunken mind. He believes he’s almighty, so of course he’s going to make you feel more terrible than you would taking a regular professors class.

If your mind had a mouth, you would have already taped it shut. Because every single thing that you’re thinking sounds stupid and all you want is peace. But it can’t stop rushing in, and it may be due to the music and sound of people talking and yelling and singing. So to quiet your entire world down, you waddle into the front yard. It’s quite out here—people would much rather linger in the backyard to avoid neighbors from speculating there’s a house packed with drunk underage bodies. It doesn’t really stop anything, but they think it does.

You sit down on the curb and look out at the drunk people walking out of the house. Most of them walk out through the backyard but some also step through the front door. No one asks how you are, but you don’t mind. It’s not really who you’re hoping to hear from.

But now that you’re thinking of the person you want to hear from, your phone feels like it’s vibrating against your leg. You pull it out of your front pocket and turn it on; but no one has called you. It’s just your brain.

However, now that your phone is turned on and you miss her, you open your contacts and press on Ellie’s contact. Then call. Then you place your phone to your ear and let out a drunken sigh.

The phone rings four times before she picks up. "Hello?" she says, her voice raspy, like she’d been asleep.

"You answered," you reply. "But you sound sleepy. Are you asleep? What time is it?"

A chuckle makes its way into your ears and you turn all fuzzy. "It’s 1 in the morning. Yeah, I was asleep, but it’s alright…" A pause takes over the conversation until a couple seconds later where she asks, "Wait, are you drunk?"

You laugh and shake your head as if she can see you. "Yes, I am, but it’s because I was sad! My stupid professor didn’t accept a late assignment. I genuinely mistook the due date and so I went to his office to beg him to take it and he said, "Oh I can’t. That’s your fault, deal with it. And I was like, "It was a genuine mistake. I thought you said this assignment was due today, not two days ago." And he told me that my excuse is terrible and if I wanted an extension all I had to do was ask. And so I said, "I didn’t ask for an extension because I genuinely thought today was the due date." But he didn’t take it and I was literally crying in front of his face! I told him that I had always turned everything in on time, I did all the extra credit work, and I always went to class! But he told me, "Well if you’re such a great student, this won’t affect you as much." Can you believe that?! So here I am, drinking away my sorrows."

Ellie groans and you feel yourself deteriorating. "Can you just pick me up, please?" you whisper, because you sound needy and deep down, you are.

"Yeah, of course. Send me the address and I’ll be there in a bit."

You can hear the scuffling of her body putting on clothes and shoes and you almost forget to answer her. But when you do, you say, "Okay! Make it quick, I miss you a lot."

Ellie’s smile can be heard through the line and you can’t even notice because you’re too drunk to care. "I miss you too, babe."

Ellie comes by ten minutes later. You think she doesn’t live too far from the house, but when you enter her car she says, "GPS said twenty minutes but I got here in ten."

"Maybe you shouldn’t drive that fast," you drunkenly whisper.

Ellie looks over at you and you turn to look at her. You smile. A crooked one that makes her chuckle a little. She places her hand on your cheek and rubs her thumb over your lips.

"You could have asked me to come with you. You were drunk and alone, YN. I thought this was a rule we set up last year."

"Yeah well I didn’t know if you wanted to be there while I whined about this dumbass professor. Stupid dumb whore doesn’t deserve a happy life after today."

Ellie begins driving. She tunes into whatever whining you’re doing and even joins in. "Now I hope he gets a hand cramp and can’t grade papers for the rest of his life."

You chuckle and hide your smile behind your hand. "I hope he trips over the stairs of the building and—okay maybe that’s mean. I just hope something bad happens to where he can’t make people feel like shit. Imagine the people who’ve cried because of him!"

Ellie places her hand on your thigh and caresses it. You lean your body into hers and place your hand over here. "You’re too sweet for this world."

"Well not too long ago I was continuing the sentence I just told myself not to say. Maybe I’m not too sweet."

Ellie stops at a red light and leans over the center console. She kisses your drunken lips and then your hot cheeks. "You are sweet."

"You kissed me," you whisper.

Ellie nods. "Yeah, babe, I like you."

"But you’ve never kissed me before!"

"Yeah, but now I have. Was that okay?"

You nod ferociously. You grab the hand resting on the steering wheel and kiss it. You kiss the pads of her fingers, her knuckles, her palm.

God, you’re weird just as you are sweet, but Ellie has kissed you. “Thank you."

"For?"

"Kissing me. Oh! And picking me up. I owe you."

"You owe me nothing. I just want you to go home with me, sleep, and let me take care of you in the morning," she says as she looks over at you. You nod. "Good."

You smile and keep her hand in yours so you can toy with it for the rest of the ride.