#sports anime x reader

[dejwrites]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀─── ⠀ ⠀⠀ jersey chaser⠀ 〳 ⠀ o.aiku ‵

❪ ♡ ❫ ─── ( synopsis ) she's been a jersey chaser until she met him.

♡ ˙ ˖ ✧ — reader discretion is advised: female reader, female anatomy described, her/she pronouns, written with black reader in mind, jersey chaser!reader, slight bratty!reader, mentions of reader being an influencer, reader in her lori harvey phase iykyk, mentions of reader being a daughter of a famous soccer player, mentions of slutshaming, mentions of pubes, mentions of oliver being uncut, dom!oliver, oral (m.receiving), he humbles reader immediately, slight sports player crossover and up to reader's interpretation on who the volleyball player is lol, sleazeball oliver, dirty talk, degradation kink, degrading pet names (slut), slight praise kink, doggystyle position, possessive!oliver, adding breeding kink in here for @lawscorazon, does he make reader wear his jersey while they're doing the nasty....yes, could this be turned into a mini series..maybe, word count: 3.8k

YOU WERE ONE OF THE BIGGEST INFLUENCERS IN THE WORLD. With a growing following of over half a million and thousands of likes on every social media post you post. You were the daughter of a legendary soccer player (now coach). You've accomplished everything you wanted, thanks to your father's funds. You've got your makeup business that's been booming since you were a teenager. Now that you were young and living your life, you couldn't help but dip your toes in the dating pool of sports players. Collecting jersey numbers like they were the bright infinity stones Thanos collected in the Marvel movies.

You were young, so why settle down so soon. Why was it such an issue that you kept your options open? You couldn't help that you gravitated towards the sports players. From the basketball players in the NBA to one of MSBY Black Jackals players. You've sat courtside during so many games that you have lost count. However, now that you've taken a break from the dating pool and decided to be single for a couple of months—you are interested in getting a taste of your next prey.

And it just had to be him. Oliver Aiku.

You thought you could use the same charm as him during your father's charity ball that brought many soccer players (both old and new) together to auction off legendary and expensive things to help fund little league soccer teams worldwide. You bat your eyelashes at him flirtatiously. You tried to impress him by being the highest bidder on an item you could care less for. The usual charms that would have had any other person eating from the palm of your hand were a complete fail.

Or so you thought.

You remembered the goosebumps that decorated your skin as you stood outside the luxury hotel where the charity event was being held. Mumbling to yourself how you were ready to go home—mop about being curved to your best friend and then do some retail therapy. That was until you heard his voice behind you.

"Leaving your own father's event so soon?" His head tilts slightly while he's shoving his hands in the pockets of his nicely tailored suit.

Even you could tell he was a bit uncomfortable in the attire he had to wear tonight. You rubbed your arms, hoping it would help warm you up as you waited for your driver to pull around with the car.

"I've done my duties as his daughter. I showed up." Your shoulders shrug before you go back to doing what you were doing.

It wasn't anything you could say to him after you made a fool of yourself by attempting to flirt with him just to be met with a very cold, harsh steel door. You could feel his presence next to you as if he wasn't going to leave until you eventually got in the car.

"I've heard about you." Oliver's voice trails off, alluding to the things you already knew about yourself.

You already had to read about it in gossip magazines, so hearing it from a guy you had your eyes set on—wasn't new. Your eyes glance over at him, and you don't even notice how intensely he stares at you. You watched as he let his tongue glide across his lips—drinking in your looks for the evening. Instantly, the once coldness you felt due to the crisp nightly air went away from your body, radiating heat just by the way Oliver looked at you. The ball was no longer yours to guide like usual, he had the upper hand, and he knew it.

"Hm, nothing new. I'm a slut, and my father needs better control over me. I've heard about me too." You sighed while opening your clutch.

You were searching for nothing. Just to avoid having to meet those green and purple eyes of his. Those heterochromia eyes could put any woman in a trance. Similar to a snake charmer trying to guide a rattlesnake.

"Yeah, something along those lines and that you are a jersey chaser." His chuckle was low enough for you to hear him. "That's fuckin' hilarious."

"Hahaha, laugh it up." Sarcasm oozes from your tongue, and you realize that he is getting a rise out of his.

"So what do you do? Steal their jerseys after breaking their precious little heart so severely that they can't focus on their game?"

You finally turned to look at him. Swapping the weight of your body from one red bottom to the other. Your arms crossed over your chest before rolling your eyes, "If you didn't curve me, you would have found out, Mr. Aiku." You had seen your personal driver pull up in front of the hotel.

Your driver, whose known you since you were little, would rush to open your car door, but he immediately stopped his actions due to Oliver stopping you from opening the door yourself. The door to the black Benz truck slapped shut, and you couldn't help but eye Oliver questioningly. You hated the fact that the ball was no longer yours—he had full control, and you couldn't entirely read him to gain the ball back.

He inches closer, abruptly closing the gap between you two. He's holding a hotel room card between his index and middle finger—waving it in your face as if it's your father's credit card. "Then show me."

Your eyebrow raises at him, wondering when he changed his mind. However, you had no time to wonder when this was the perfect opportunity to regain control of the ball. Beat him at his own game. You told your driver that he could go home for the evening, considering that you planned to spend the whole night with Oliver. Your plush lip gloss-covered lips curve into a harmless smile before you turn towards the hotel entrance, dragging Oliver swiftly by the black tie he had around his neck.

You didn't care about the people in the lobby seeing you with him. That's the thing, you never cared about being caught out with another person because it wasn't their business. Your manicured finger jabbed at the elevator button, and as soon as the doors slid open, you waltzed inside with your head held up. As soon as the elevator closed with the two of you inside, it was as if a switch had gone off between you. You instantly let your lips crush upon each other, grasping each other bodies. Your leg hooked up his waist as your back was leaned against the elevator wall. Before you could mumble about people walking on the elevator as it was going up, your lips gasped apart, feeling his hands reach between your thighs.

Oliver nibbled on your lip, teasing, letting his tongue glide across it afterward before he pulled away as soon as the elevator opened on the floor you two were going to. You watched completely breathless as he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked off the elevator as if the two of you weren't so close to tearing each other clothes off right in the elevator. "Cocky bastard." You mumbled to yourself.

You followed behind eagerly, though just as he reached his hotel room. He unlocked the door, but before he opened it, he leaned against it and looked at you. "You know what you're getting yourself into, right?"

Your eyes roll at his words, "Of course, I'm not some timid little girl." You push your way into the hotel room.

You didn't waste time stripping from the elegant velvet gown you wore tonight. The hotel air sent a chill down your spine as you plopped down on the king-size bed. The warmth of the sheets hitting your bare skin caused you to close your eyes. You were completely basking in the scent of the hotel room. It smelled like Oliver if you focused hard enough. Just as you were about to complain about what was taking him so long, you could feel something getting thrown at you.

"Put this on." He mumbles as he walks around the hotel room, removing the attire he wore tonight.

You sat up, extending the clothing he had thrown at you. It was his jersey. "Why'd you want me to wear this?" You asked. You tugged the jersey over your head to put it on.

Oliver glances up from removing cufflinks that had his initials engraved in them. He looks you up and down from head to toe. From how your hair seemed to be in the perfect shape to how he could even get a peak of your ass with each movement you made with his jersey on. He understood why many sports players gravitated towards wanting to even get a date with you. You were stunning—absolutely breathtaking. However, Oliver wasn't like the others.

"You look good in it, don't you think? Better than wearing that volleyball play jersey." Oliver smirks as he closes the gap between you two.

Some buttons were undone on the crisp white button-down shirt he wore. His black slacks hung loosely around his waist, and his hair was now disheveled from his slender fingers combing through it.

You swallowed the lump that formed in your throat, noticing that he was moving closer toward you. The ball still wasn't in your grasp. As soon as you willingly slide his jersey on your body to be entrapped by the scent of him from the piece of clothing, you no longer have the upper hand.

"Don't you think you'll be even prettier with my cock in your mouth?"

Your brain never got so stuck on a question. Primarily when you were known to dodge red-carpet report gossip questions. Your fingers toyed with the ends of the jersey, not sure what to say.

"I think you would look prettier. Mouth full of cock, drool dripping down, staining my jersey..." Oliver's voice trails off like a broken poem spoken during open mic night.

Your panties grew damp with each syllable that rolled off his tongue to the point where you were mentally cursing yourself for folding so quickly.

So much for attempting to gain control?

Before Oliver could say anything else, you're dropping to your knees without another word. Your eyes met with his as you're thirstily tugging the black slacks down his ankles. Your hand teasingly brushed against his bulge through his boxers. "What you waiting for, for me to shove it in your mouth?" His tone comes off as significantly condensing—as if he is growing impatient.

"Didn't know you were in a rush." You commented as you leaned forward on your knees, fingers grasping at the band of his black-colored Calvin Klein's.

Your mouth watered at the sight of his cock. Oliver's lips parted to spit out a sarcastic comment, but before he could give you the pleasure of that—you're pushing yourself closer on your knees to take him in your mouth. Instantly your hand grasped at the shaft of his cock that couldn't fit into his mouth, slowly stroking it teasingly as you pucker your lips to kiss the tip of his cock. Your lips began to stain with the taste of his precum that leaked through the slit of his tip, and you seemed to moan at the feeling of your mouth being stuffed. Your eyes shifted close to relinquish the sense of pleasuring Oliver.

With your teasing kitten licks, Oliver took it upon himself to buck his hips to feel more of your mouth. With each thrust forward, the tip of his cock tapped at the back of your throat, causing you to gag. Your drool begins to pool out your mouth messily, and Oliver's eyes glistened in amusement at the sight. His fingers toy with your curls before he pulls you off his cock with a seductive pop.

Your tear-filled eyes stared up at Oliver, completely breathless as you were attempting to enjoy being able to breathe once again. Oliver's lips curve into a devious smirk as he leans down to grab hold of your face, his callous hands squishing your cheeks together for your lips to pucker. He's leaning in as if he wants to kiss you, but he pulls away.

"If you ball your left hand in a fist, maybe, just maybe, you'll handle my cock in your mouth better." He teased before he tried again.

His cock once again took comfort in your mouth, and you're taking note of his tip this time. Your fist balled up while you inched forward. Slowly his cock disappears in your mouth bit by bit.

Your drool stained the jersey on your body with each brash thrust forward. Your eyeliner smudged down your heated cheeks as you looked up at Oliver through your teary eyes. Even though his thick cock was taking your breath bit by bit—your eyes still twinkled in admiration for the soccer player, and your panties grew damper.

"Give me one good suck; remember what I told you. 'kay?" His fingers grasp at your coils as if he was your hair stylist—ushering you forward some more to deepthroat him.

In just a quick second, you're willing to shove Oliver's cock back in your mouth until the tip of your nose is met with the coarseness of his pubic hair. His hand instantly pressed on the back of your head, entrapping you from escaping of the fiery feeling of your throat being used recklessly. As he told you, you breathed through your nose while your hand grasped his toned thighs. Your manicured nails dug into his flesh, but you knew he could care less about some nail marks on him when his cock was in your pretty mouth. Your eyes closed just in time for a single tear to drag down your cheeks before he let your head snap back so you could catch your breath. Similar to drinking your first cup of alcohol, your throat burns. The string of saliva connected between your plush bottom lip and his cock was quite a sight if you two were filming a porno.

Your knees ached from the carpet below your body as you watched Oliver finally kick his feet from the slacks around his ankles. He palmed his cock effortlessly to coat the remainder of your saliva on him.

"Get on the bed on all fours." He urges with proficiency in his tone.

"You want to be a jersey chaser, but you must earn the jersey first, princess."

His words sent a shiver down your spine. You did what you were told too quickly; you wanted to question yourself if he had some spell cast on you. You not spitting out some snarky comment during comments weren't your thing. Perhaps his cock bruising the back of your throat put you in your place, but it was too soon to judge when his cock hadn't driven its way inside you.

With your butt up in the air, you quivered, feeling his callous fingertips trace alongside the curve of your spine. His thick cock resting in between your cheeks. Your hips bucked back just to feel some friction—your pussy twitching in anticipation of feeling Oliver's cock.

"Don't be so impatient. My dick isn't going anywhere." His fingertips teasingly trace his name on your spine.

You felt the pad of Oliver's thumb brushing against your pussy lips through your soaked panties. Your teeth nibbled on your lower lip before you spoke, "Could you stop the teasing?"

Oliver ignored your question as he tugged the lace fabric down your thighs. As if you're a fragile doll, he's helping you out of your panties. "Now I see why you're so impatient," Oliver mumbles as he grabs hold of his cock, guiding it towards you.

The relaxed sigh that came from Oliver when his cock felt how wet you were was like music to your ears. Your body felt so hot, feeling him shove his cock inside you little by little. Not because he wanted you to get used to his size but to push you further to the edge to beg for more.

"Please." You whimpered out as your fingers intertwined with the sheets.

"That's what I wanted to hear." He leans over, placing the sloppiest kisses down your spine.

You felt so strange because, during your other hookups, you never felt like this. Your body never felt like it was going through a continuous fever by just a subtle task like pasting kisses on your spine covered with his jersey. Your pussy never fluttered around a man's cock in anticipation. Simply curious about how exactly the Oliver Aiku strokes were.

They started off slowly; perhaps he was getting used to your drooling cunt gripping around him like a tight glove. Then the pace quickened, and the grip on your waist tightened. He now had a pace that was pleasurable for both of you. It left you creaming and fluttering around his cock, making you feel like you were on top of the world. It made Oliver feel so pussy drunk that he saw stars. The adrenaline going through his veins at the moment felt similar to when he was doing what he does best on the field. His multi-colored hair began sticking to his forehead due to the sweat droplets dribbling down his forehead. His hands grasped at his jersey that you wore so perfectly—using the jersey to yank back on his cock like a toy yo-yo.

The lewd sound of heated skin slapping against each other could be heard in the hotel room. You were sure Oliver didn't care for the guests residing in the neighboring hotel rooms. With each buck of his hip, it seems to have more aggression to it. Each thrust felt like he was attempting to express something.

Your whimpers and his hushed whines continued to intertwine with each other like a sultry tune. In such a pornographic position with your hip gripped so tightly that you were sure it was getting bruised—you adored hearing Oliver's moans. They were brash yet whiny. He was enjoying this just as much as you.

"Where does my pretty little slut want my cum, hm?" Oliver asked.

With each word that came out, he pushed his hips forward harshly to meet the plumpness of your handprint-stained ass cheeks. Your tears stained the sheets below your body as you let out muffled moans at Oliver's question—completely ignoring his question because you were so close to crumbling down yourself.

"Your back." His grip on your waist tightens as he bottoms down inside of you. Shoving his full weight upon you, completely entrapping you from running away from his harsh thrusts.

"Or maybe inside this pretty pussy of yours, hm? So many choices." He grunts out.

It became too inaudible for you to answer his question when the only feeling you could feel was the sensational feeling that sat at the pit of your stomach. Your thighs shook violently, feeling Oliver's pace only quicken. In a matter of seconds, you saw stars in your tear-filled eyes, and the only form of language you knew was Oliver's name while your cunt fluttered around his thick cock—just in time for him to finally decide where to cum at.

Despite the two of you hitting a high of pleasure—that didn't stop Oliver from filling you up with his cum. His hips sloppily push forward to ensure no droplets of his cum escape. Oliver released his grasp on your waist as he hesitantly pulled out, his cock coated with a ring of his cum.

When exhaustion finally hit you, your body felt like a fresh bowl of Jell-O. Your limbs felt like you did the same training your dad would put guys in his training camp through. Instantly, you're sitting up to grasp your gown on the ground—but Oliver stops you.

"I don't stay the night when this.." Your hand motions between the two of you. "Happens." You add.

"Now you do; you're too exhausted to even move."

"No, I'm not."

"Well, want to go another round?" Oliver grins down at you, and you glimpse up at him before letting your body drop back on the mattress below your body.

"You're insane, I'm going to sleep."

As you got comfortable on the king-size mattress, you heard Oliver chuckle and disappear into the bathroom. Before uttering any other snarky comment, you drifted off to sleep with Oliver on your mind.

The following morning, you woke up to the sun kissing your soft skin and the constant dinging of your cell phone. Your eyes fluttered open, and you stretched like an exhausted black cat before reaching for your phone on the nightstand. You pushed yourself up and grasped at the hotel sheets. The previous night was a vivid blur until you noticed the spot where Oliver was laying was empty. You woke up alone with the scent of Oliver engraving your skin and breakfast on the table in the corner. Your hand went to rub the sleep out of your eyes while scrolling through your countless social media notifications. You would have thought that you had flashed a stranger with the way your phone had been going off.

Your plan of silencing your phone and returning to continue your beauty rest was halted when you finally saw the post that had everyone in a frenzy. Oliver had tagged you in a picture wearing his jersey. You assumed he took the picture after you had dozed off after the amazing sex the two of you engaged in. The caption had your eye twitching in annoyance—but it reminded you that with Oliver, he'll always have the upper hand.

According to Oliver, you were no longer collecting jerseys.

— tags: @lawscorazon @eiflawriting @maydayaisha @sailewhoremoon @simpliheavenli @whore4mikey @gg-trini @saaturno @sirenh4ll @wh0reforlevi @m00nchildthings @foxthroats @cherrypussprincess @anahryal @orchid3a @hellshedevil @21-06-1996 @iluvgiveon99 @la-musaa @fairylibra @black-yn @smileyy-cakee @shamelesshoefairy @bubble4u @mimi321us @atesumu @kristvns @b-achiras @diorlov3er @dior-fawn @stunnababyyabyyy @sookisaurus @aizensballsweat @jellymantra33 @http-twyla @euixnaa @cactusmghao

[jjeulip]

kuroo. osamu. tendou. oikawa.

"stop looking at me like that" you muttered.

he softly chuckles at you as his face gets closer to you still staring at you like you're the most purest thing on this earth. "you're cute" he whispered a little. alright- kinda hot.

suna. nishinoya. semi.

"so why'd you suddenly stop texting me last night?"

he looks at you with a question mark look on his face. "what?,.... .-. oh., i fell asleep." and when he sees your reaction he couldn't help but laugh softly. He wraps his hands around your waist and give your neck several light kisses. "sorry ma'am, i will make it up to you now yea?"

atsumu. tsukishima. iwaizumi.

"___" he calls out your name from behind.

"wha-" bang! he suddenly pinned you down on the table. As your back hit the table, an 'ow' came out of your mouth, you looked at him who is on top of you right now. "what was that for?" there was a smile on his stupidly handsome face as he looks down. "just recreating one of my dream's scenes last night y'know?"

©jjeulip | all rights served.

this was short TT

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.9 words you've been wanting to hear

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader (f)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot, marijuana use, sexism, sexual harassment (verbal only)

ᰔ chapter. 9/x (probably 12)

ᰔ words. 15.6k (WHY DO THEY KEEP GETTING LONGER)

a/n. HELLO MY DEAR KICKOFF READERS IVE MISSED YOU ALL SO MUCH i am soooo sorry for the wait on this one. this chapter felt very vulnerable to write for some reason lmfao, but i really hope it was worth the wait :''') see you at the bottom!! if there are typos or some things don't make sense i'm so sorry i literally gave up on proofreading this i just ended up raw-doggin it and then posting it

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 :: ch6 :: ch7 :: ch8 :: ch9 :: ch10 (pending)

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1

♬.*ﾟplaylist

an additional author's note. hellooo ellie here. there are some additional warnings/tags for this chapter, i added them to the tags above, so if you know you have any sort of triggers, please refer to them before reading! but if you don't have any and don't want to be spoiled ab anything then you can keep reading lol. thank youu <33

--

The restaurant address that Kai sent you was just a ten minute taxi ride away, save for the five minutes you spent trying to evasively maneuver through the hotel lobby in order to avoid running into people you’re not too keen on seeing right now, a list that stacks up to just one person at this moment.

It’s a Korean barbecue place, it’s been ages since you’ve been to one, probably since they’re way too expensive for any sort of outing you could afford these days, but the crisp sizzling sounds of the grills and the savory air has your mouth watering in a way that makes you indifferent to the cost. Anything to get this churning feeling out of your stomach. 

It’s instantly brought to your attention that Hana’s tipsy off of Soju because she’s slid out of the booth the second you emerge to the tablestide, and she’s onto her feet to pull you into a hug. You hug her back.

“I’m ssssoooooooo glad you’re—hic—here,” she says, voice sounding loud near your ear, but her embrace is surprisingly calming to you.

Her face appears flushed when you pull away, and you give her a smile and a kind hold of her elbow. “I’m happy to be here, sorry for coming late, I just decided I wanted to have dinner with you all.”

Minato is pulling on Hana’s arm to get her to sit down, which she finally agrees to, and you glance to the left side of the table where Kai sat, meticulously turning over pieces of meat on the grill. His eyes are on you, and the seat next to him is empty.

“You look nice,” he says, eyes falling to your lap under the table once you’ve taken a seat next to him.

Your eyes fall to your lap as well. “Oh. Thanks. I wasn’t really trying to look any sort of way, though.” Just faded jeans with a few rips & holes you made yourself, way back in high school when that sort of thing was trendy.

“I know,” he says, smirk heard perfectly through his words, “I like that.”

You ignore him, a fleeting thought passing through your head of how annoyingly forward men are to women they’ve met within a day, just something you’ve noticed recently, and then you’re accepting the glass of Soju that Minato’s poured for you. Quick to tip it back, you feel a burn on your tongue that’s just enough to distract.

“Today’s game was pretty interesting,” Minato speaks up, picking up a few pieces off the grill with his chop sticks and placing them on Hana’s plate first before taking some for himself. You find the gesture sweet. “The first half was intense.”

Hana nods enthusiastically, elbows rested on the tabletop as she waves her hands around in the air. “Uh huh, uh huh, the boys kicked the ball like whoosh. Goes all over the place! Can’t get a—hic—can’t get a single shot. No, I mean me, I can’t get a camera shot. Not them, they can get the shots of goals. The goals of shots? Huh.”

“Alright, you’ve had enough,” Minato grumbles as he drags the glass of Soju that she was nursing away from her. 

Kai lets out a laugh beside you, his knee bumping against yours under the table. “I’ve watched so many of these soccer games for this job, and I’ve still got no damn clue what the rules are.”

You blink down at your empty plate for a second before grabbing the silver chopsticks laid neatly on your napkin, and taking some food from the center of the table. “Really? I’ve only been to a couple, and I feel like I get the gist of it.” Maybe it’s because you had a personal interest, though.

Kai lets out a low whistle next to you. “Okay, you’re a smartass then.”

You give him a sidewards glance. “Maybe you’re just dumb?” 

Your own words startle you a bit. Minato lets a laugh out, but under his breath, while Hana does absolutely nothing to conceal hers. Kai’s eyes just widen. You bite down on a carrot stick.

“Hey, hey, hey, y/n,” Hana chirps, tapping at your wrist, “do you know any of the soccer players? Utahime said you doooo.”

You swallow slowly to buy yourself time, but give a preliminary shake of your head before answering, “no, not really.” You catch a whiff of the cologne on your wrist when you lift your glass to your lips.

“Oh,” she sulks her shoulders and then sinks down into the booth again, her head falling onto Minato’s shoulder. The man stiffens a bit and then there’s a content smile playing at his lips. A hint of a smile develops on your face too at the sight when you put two and two together. What an adorable little crush. It makes you feel sick.

Kai pours you some more Soju the second you drink down the last of it in your glass, and you nod to him as a thanks. “Pretty sure most of my photos from the first half are fucked,” he says, dragging the opening of the bottle against the rim of your glass before pulling it away, “didn’t realize until way later that my aperture was way off.”

You bring the glass to your lips, inhaling before taking a sip. You’re about to speak up about that when Minato beats you to it.

“Are you serious?” he asks, disappointed, like they’re suddenly talking business now. “I better see some good shots. Your side was where most of the action took place. Like that through-pass, tight behind the defensive line, from Nanami Kento to Gojo Satoru before he sunk it a couple mins before the half ended.”

You choke a little on your Soju at the mention of Gojo’s name, and then all three of them are looking at you. You wave a hand in front of your face. “Sorry.” 

Kai grumbles something under his breath and then stuffs a piece of pork belly into his mouth. “Yeah, whatever, man. I’m pretty sure I got some good ones. Don’t worry.”

Dinner goes on like that, where you count the number of times Kai thinks that someone saying something funny across the table is an excuse to press his thigh against yours, but at least the cute way that Hana and Minato seem to inch closer to one another all night is enough to put you at some sort of bitter ease. But that unsettling feeling in your stomach from a couple of hours ago still lingers.

The four of you stand outside the restaurant, heels rocking back and forth in the cold as you all take up the last chance to debrief the day, and then Minato’s glancing at his watch.

“Alright, it’s probably time to head back. We can all share a ride to the hotel, it’s cheaper that way,” Minato says. Hana’s clinging to his sleeve.

“Oh, uh, I was going to stay here. There’s a cool camera shop around the corner. I was gonna check it out,” Kai says, pointing over his shoulder before glancing at you. “Wanna come? I saw they’ve got used film cameras.”

You twiddle with the hotel key card in your pocket. It’s cheap plastic, could break easily with just the right amount of pressure. Like your resolve right now. “Sure.”

He smiles at you.

“Alright, well I need to get this one back to her room,” Minato says with a sigh, pointing to Hana, “so I’ll see you all at the next game?”

You and Kai nod at him and then watch as he walks away with Hana on his arm towards the curb, pulling his phone out to call for a ride.

“Where’s this camera shop at?” you ask Kai once the silence between the two of you stretches out a little too long. 

“It really is just around the corner,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He starts walking down the row of miscellaneous shops and establishments under dim street lighting, and you follow after him before the two of you circle to the adjacent end. A tiny shop in the distance catches your eye. The LED sign above the storefront was blinking sporadically, and read 17th St Camera & Rentals, except half the letters were extinct of any light. Next to it was a 24/7 liquor store.

It’s only when you walk right up to it that you realize the sign dangling behind the glass door that says closed.

“Oh. Bummer,” Kai comments in a flat tone. “I swear it was open before I got to the restaurant.”

You sigh, pulling your phone out to glance at the time. “Yeah, at 8pm? It’s past 10 now.”

He looks at you and taps the camera case still hung at his neck. “That’s fine. I’ve still got a camera to show you, anyways.”

You blink your eyes at him, suddenly feeling a bit exhausted and then glance over your shoulder at the curb of the street to see if Minato & Hana were still there waiting for a ride. You don’t see them anymore. 

A distraction. Wasn’t that what you wanted?

“Yeah, show me.”

Kai seems to know the area better than you, since he walks down the haphazardly lain sheets of concrete across the ground with more confidence than a tourist would. The thought occurs to you that maybe the newsletter photographers have eaten here before during their time in Kyoto.

“What made you start working with the newsletter?” you ask, glancing at him as the two of you walk down further, into what seems like a neighborhood.

He shrugs. “First job I could find out of college. I had a lot of freelance experience, so I’m assuming that’s why they hired me.” He nudges your arm with his elbow. “What about you?”

“I’ve known Utahime for a while. She was impressed with my work.”

“Ahh, connections,” he muses, “smart. That’ll get you far as an artist.”

He suddenly stops walking and peers off to the right, into a darkness that you can’t really make anything out of until you’ve spent a few seconds staring too. He walks in that direction, the loud echoing stomps of his boots on concrete no longer audible once he crosses the threshold onto grass, and you follow behind to what seems like a deserted children’s park. You wish there were more trees in the city. There are a lot here in the countryside, and it makes you homesick for something you’re not even sure of.

A gust of wind brushes through, rattling the set of swings hung on rusty chains. The wood chips underneath your feet feel stale, with no snap to them at all as you follow Kai through the playhouses set up in connected fashion. There are two picnic benches, one looks like it’s been freshly painted with faux effort to improve its image in the line of sight of the street, while the other has red paint peeled back to reveal bronze underneath the moonlight, neglected and tucked behind a few trees. The latter is what he chooses.

He slides into the bench, and he shakes his head when he sees you try to take a seat on the other side before patting at the seat beside him. “It’d be easier for you to take a look at my side.”

He has a point, so you sit next to him instead. Although at this point in the night, you were feigning interest. He zips his camera bag open and you take a better look at the lens. There’s no way it was as cheap as he told you it was.

“There’s no way this was as cheap as you told me it was,” you say.

He laughs, pulling the camera out and handing it to you. “Yeah, maybe the guy cut me a deal since I’ve bought from him before.”

You’re smart enough to put the strap around your neck, even though you’re only holding it a few inches above the table, because a camera like this deserves the care and respect. The material is minimalist and sleek, and it’s heavy in your hands. You click the shutter button, screen coming to life with a few mechanic chirps. “Woah. Is it LCD or OLED?”

“LCD.”

“That’s nice,” you say, “paying for the OLED just seems silly to me.”

“I concur, Canon. Color accuracy is king.”

He shuffles to pull something out of his pocket while you continue to inspect the camera in your hands, and you see him fidget with said thing over the table in the corner of your eye. The flick of something and the light of something makes you turn your head to face him, and he’s pinching the end of a joint to his mouth, lighting the other end.

He gives you a glance when you stare for too long, inhaling from it before pulling it from his mouth. “What?” You can see the smoke leave his mouth in the chill of the air.

“Is that why you chose the secluded bench?”

“I did? Didn’t even notice.”

You blink at him, and he places his elbow on the table to lean closer to you. 

“Do you mind it?” he asks.

“No, not really.”

“Wanna smoke with me?” Two fingers pinching the origin of smoke tilt towards you. “This is my good weed, though, so, I charge by the drag.”

“That’s ridiculous, and no thanks. It doesn’t suit me.”

He lets out a laugh, releasing whatever tension he was building in your space, and the smell of weed is nauseating, but at least it's a new sensation to you.

“You’ve gotta be the only film major on the planet that doesn’t smoke weed. How do you manage?” he asks, the orange flicker of his joint being the only color you can distinctly see under the similarly flickering street lights. 

Your finger traces the rim of the camera lens and is careful to not smudge the glass. “I think I manage just fine.”

“Yeah. With delusion,” he says, coughing, scattering smoke into the air this time instead of a clean blow.

You turn a bit in your seat to face him more, placing the camera down. “You’re extremely blunt.”

His eyebrow raises in amusement and you close your eyes with annoyance at the pun. You brush it off.

“I mean, seriously, I get you’re probably just looking out for me, I guess. I appreciate that. But do you really think my dreams of becoming a filmmaker are that far-fetched?” you ask. There’s a crack to your voice at the end that you didn’t like.

He sighs, setting his wrist down on the table. There’s a long pause where he thinks about what to say. Probably the most you’ve seen him consider what words leave his mouth next. “I was in the same shoes as you, y/n. A couple years ago. I, too, had big dreams of making movies. I was going to apply to film grad school as well, although you’re shooting higher than I was at the time. There’s no way I would’ve gotten into UTokyo’s.” He tilts his head to the side a few times while looking straight off ahead. “I sent scripts in everywhere. To every fucking production company, creative agency, you name it. Never got a callback, not even once. While all my fellow grads were landing decent, respectable jobs.” He brings the joint to his mouth again, but he doesn’t inhale, just bitterly bites it. “I could’ve went on like that, but,” his brow furrows, “I’ve seen my peers torture themselves for years for those dreams of theirs. I swore I wouldn’t be one of them. Because they’re all delusional fucks.” He finally glances at you. “Are you one, too?”

Your shoulders drop a little and your lips purse. “I don’t know yet. It’s too early to say.” 

“It’s never too early to say, if the outcome is all the same,” he tells you. 

You consider his words for a moment. It’s the easy way out. You should consider yourself lucky. Everyone wants a reason, a sign, to turn away from the one thing they’re scared to think about. And here he was, giving that to you on a silver platter.

But if what you wanted was really all that fragile, then it means there’s nothing to show for any of it. For all the effort it took you to get here, and all the effort you’re still willing to give. 

“I’ll keep going until I fail,” you say, “or until I succeed.” It’s not really something you say for him, but for yourself.

He juts his bottom lip out and raises his eyebrows, slowly nodding his head, like he’s impressed by you. But his posture remains lax. “I mean, you’re working this job. You’ve got some sort of plan, at least. It’s not like I’m your parent to tell you what to do and what not to do.” He finally takes another drag, eyebrows pinching together at the same time his fingers pinch close to the burn of his joint to pull it away. “What’s that one saying? You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink.”

“Wow. You don’t sound a day older than sixty-five.”

He smirks at you. “You’ve got a lot of attitude, Canon. Where does it come from?”

You sink a little in your seat, turning away from him to look down at your hands that were still messing with the features of his camera. “My annoying feelings lately.”

“Feelings about what?”

You consider telling the truth. But you don’t. “My car is in repair and I’m not sure I can afford to pay for the bill, since things keep coming up with it.” It was the thing at the top of your mind at the moment though, for some reason, so partially truthful.

He laughs. “Yeah, cars have a way of doing that when you’re finally getting caught up on bills.”

“At what point does spontaneously picking up random, obscure jobs go from omg I’m so excited to have this opportunity to I just need the money?” you ask.

“You mean you’re not already at that point yet?” he says with a scoff. “Soon, then.”

You sigh.

“Y’know I used to work at this lousy cinema a few miles away from Central,” he tells you, hand tapping the table with a rhythm that makes no sense. “Busted my ass working minimum wage on night shifts because I thought I’d catch a big break in conversation with a director, as if Martin Fucking Scorcese would choose to host his opening night at a random Edwards in Tokyo.” His tapping on the table stops. “Tell me that isn’t pathetic as hell.”

“That’s pathetic as hell.”

“The things you’ll do for money,” he says with a sigh. He sounds detached, like it’s really just a message for you.

You lick your lips, skin feeling dry from the wind that occasionally brushes by, and when you glance at Kai again, there’s a grit to his jaw.

“Should’ve been born as one of those damn college athletes,” he grumbles, sucking in fast through the joint that was close to withering away. “Those fuckers don’t pay tuition.”

The harsh colors of the soccer team’s color-coded practice schedule on your phone are visible when you blink, as well as the exhaustion under Gojo’s eyes in the warm lighting of the hotel lobby earlier tonight. “They work hard.”

He looks at you. “I work hard, too.”

Your shoulders tense. “I’m sure.”

“You work hard as well.” Just to include you.

“Yeah.”

“I mean, you can’t tell me that it’s fair.”

Your mind wanders to some of the people you’ve met on that team, who have been nice to you. You think of Gojo, and the memory of him makes you wish you were with him right now. Despite everything.

“I guess it’s not fair,” is all you say, a tactic to diffuse the conversation, one that you’ve had to use twice with him today. The sound of the swing chains clinking together from the wind in the distance runs a chill down your spine.

You feel heavy in your chest, and you glance at the joint pinched in between Kai’s fingers. He’s not keeping an eye on it, so it’s easy to steal, and you bring it to your lips before sucking in. You instantly let out a few coughs. He’s looking at you with surprise. And you’re still in desperate need of that distraction you’ve been craving.

“How long does it take for it to kick in?” you ask, coughing again and pressing a hand to your chest.

“Super long when you can barely stomach a single drag.”

You try again. He watches you. You swear you feel a buzz this time, and you hand the joint back to him. You feel like you’re having an out-of-body experience.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Good,” you tell him, “really good.”

“That’s gotta be placebo, Canon.”

“No, really,” you sigh it. Even if it was, maybe your mind was just blessing you with a single moment of reprieve. “I feel…really good,” you say with your head in a haze. “Best I’ve…” you don’t know why you have to blink back tears, “best I’ve felt this whole week.”

Kai’s silent next to you. You look over at him, and he’s got a scrutinizing expression on his face. His eyes are glazed. “You seeing anyone right now, Canon?”

It’s the savory question you know has been on the tip of his tongue. Ignorantly asked, as if you would’ve been sitting here with him right now in the dead of night if the answer was yes. 

“No.”

He’s leaning towards you, and you’re dazed and also sleepy. His face is close now, there’s an urge to giggle, which means there’s no way this is all just placebo, and when his lips dip towards yours, you’re conscious enough to push him away by a weakly fisted hand pressed to his collarbone.

“Oh. I. Um,” you stutter.

“What?” he asks, eyebrow raised, still close to you.

“No. No thanks.” Because it felt wrong. 

He fully pulls away from you, and runs a hand through his hair, a deep sigh leaving him. “Alright.”

You’re breathing faster now, surroundings feeling vague, like you’re in sweltering heat but the air only bites cold.

You stand up suddenly. “I…I want to go back.”

“Go back where?”

“To the hotel. To my room.” You pause. “I mean, by myself. Not with you. We can share a ride, though.”

He stands up too, hands reaching for you, gripping the straps of his camera still hung around your neck and he pulls it off to place it back into the case. You feel like you’ve lost favor with him somehow. “Okay. Sure.” 

“But not with you.” You felt the need to clarify again.

“I get it, Canon. It’s fine.”

—

“Maybe you just need to fuck him aggressively without mercy.”

“I beg your finest pardon?”

You’re sitting in a booth inside this streetside KFC with Mina sitting across the table, waving a fry around in the air, and with Nobara next to you as she tries to open a packet of ketchup with her teeth. The hangout the three of you have been hyping up all week, just to be sat in the same place you always go to. You were about to take a bite out of your sandwich, but you set it back down on your tray.

Mina points the fry at you and shrugs. “I’m saying. Maybe you’re having such a hard time getting over Gojo because you got so close to fucking him in that bathroom, but you didn’t, and now you’re in, like, this constant state of edging.” She bites down on the fry. “The clit knows what the heart doesn’t.”

“Your theories never fail to amaze me,” you mumble, sinking further into the booth. 

“Perhaps it’ll take the edge off.” Mina sucks through the straw of her Diet coke. Nobara finally succeeds in opening her packet of ketchup.

“I doubt it. Besides, I technically already gave him an invitation to,” you say, fingers rubbing at your eye with a swipe as you wince from the memory, “and he rejected me, so, still swimming in the self hatred from that one.”

Mina hums. “There’s no way he’s not foaming at the mouth for it, y/n. Men never let a meal they were craving go unfinished,” she states, dramatically stabbing a chicken nugget with a fork.

“What kind of pigs do you guys associate yourselves with?” Nobara asks. She’s a lesbian, by the way.

“I raise another question. Why are we talking about this in a public restaurant?” you offer.

“Listen, babes,” Mina continues, like your words fall on deaf ears because she’s got some point to make, “it’ll either poof. Make your feelings go away like the drop of a hat because you find out he’s a bad lay. Or it’ll be so good that you realize you’re never getting over him and you’ll be thinking of his dick instead of your husband’s on your wedding night.”

“We’re. In. A. Public. Restaurant.”

Mina steals a biscuit from your tray. “If it ends up being the first outcome, then the whole thing was my idea. If it’s the second…then just know that Nobara has steered you wrong.”

“Why the hell do you have to drag me into this?” Nobara asks.

You’re about to take a bite from your sandwich again when you’re interrupted by the buzzing of your phone in your purse. You pull it out and glance at the caller ID, then let out a sigh.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” you mumble, slipping out of the booth and towards the restaurant’s exit, pushing the tense door open with a gust of fresh air brushed through you.

“Hello?” It’s the car repair man. “Really? I thought you said it was fixed.” Apparently something else came up. “Okay…how much longer will it be in repair?” Much longer than you had thought. “And how much will it cost?” Much more expensive than you had thought. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, really, I feel as though every time I’m on the line with you all, I have to wait longer to get my car back, and the bill just racks up higher.” They’re trying their best. “I know. Is it necessary to fix in order to drive, though?” State laws require it. “Okay…thanks for the update.” And then you hang up without another word, and with all the frustration in the world.

You head back inside and grumble about your car woes to Mina and Nobara, who try their best to respond with interest.

“Why can’t your insurance cover it?” Mina asks.

“Apparently they can’t claim it’s because of those rocks I drove over,” you sigh, “since it looks like it’s been a problem for longer than that.”

“Can you afford it?” Nobara asks.

“Not really,” you say. “I’ll just have to postpone having my car for a bit.”

You sigh with a glance out the window of this fine dining establishment, into the blue skies just beyond, head drowning out the voices of Mina and Nobara as they continue to grill you about all sorts of questions that you don’t have the energy to answer right now. You had another student loan payment to make once you got home today, and just the thought of it makes your heart drop a little. And you realize you just can’t afford to be picky about your financial situation anymore.

—

“Thanks for helping me out with this,” you say, footsteps over familiar grassy hills as you head towards the UTokyo’s practice field, your digital Canon EOS hanging from your neck. 

“Sure,” Kai says as he keeps pace next to you, “why the sudden mission, though?”

You’re gazing off straight ahead, a nervous pit in your stomach since it’s been a while since you’ve walked across this landscape towards the field. 

“I just feel like I need to diversify my income somehow,” you sigh, the buzzwords leaving a bitter taste in your mouth as you say them but it was the reality of your situation, “to make ends meet. When you mentioned freelance work during our conversation last week, it made me think it’s time for me to pick that up too.”

Kai hums. “Yeah, it’s a good plan. I’ll try to show you what I know.”

Once you’ve made it to the top of that hill, the one that oversees the field, your eyes instantly scan the field for familiar silhouettes, and your breath catches in your throat when you spot Gojo passively kicking a ball back and forth between one of his teammates for warm-ups.

It’s the second time you’ve seen him since that argument the two of you had in the hotel lobby, the first being at the post-game conference in which you did everything in your power to swiftly avoid him, and you plan on keeping that up. There’s also an urge to run away, but you’re starting to realize that’s not much of an option anymore.

“Honestly, you don’t really need to worry too much about shutter speed with freelance like you do for shooting sports,” Kai is mumbling next to you as he messes with the settings on his camera, the two of you making your way down the hill towards the field, and you’re not really listening because your eyes are on Gojo, who’s yelling something across the field to his teammates with a look of concentration on his face.

“Uh huh, I see,” you say. You see Kai glance at you in his periphery.

“You again!” you hear a familiar harsh voice call out, and you turn on your heel to face Coach Yaga who’s standing a few feet away in his custom UTokyo tracksuit with his arms crossed against his chest. “Why are you on my field?”

You hold your breath for a second. “Hi, Coach Yaga, so sorry, but I’m just here to take some more photos.”

He lets out one of his hmphs, unrelenting. “You’re a distraction. Get off my field.”

“D-Distraction?”

“Coach!” Suddenly, Geto’s in your line of sight as he emerges with a light jog up to your side. “You should really be nicer to our photographers, they give us a lot of publicity for our games. And publicity means funding.”

Coach Yaga narrows his eyes. “I need all my players focused right now. Even during practice.” He gives you a disapproving glance and you’re still confused, but also weirdly angered.

“Excuse me, Coach Yaga, but last time I checked, this field is technically open for all students. And I’m a student,” you say to him, crossing your arms across your chest now. “So, I can be here if I want.”

You have no idea if that’s true at all, but sometimes you’ve just gotta fake it ‘til you make it.

Coach Yaga grumbles something and then waves his hands in the air. “Fine! I’ve no bandwidth to argue about this anymore! Just don’t distract my players.”

You’re shocked that it worked, and Geto nudges you with an elbow to correct your expression so that Coach Yaga doesn’t catch on to the bullshit you just spewed. 

“Are you here to take some photos?” Geto asks, facing you. He’s got his hands on his hips, breathing slightly fast, some of his hair falling onto his forehead. 

“Yeah, I am, just for practice though. I’m here with—” you glance at Kai, who’s standing with his fists shoved into his pockets, “Kai. He’s also with the newsletter.”

There’s a moment where Geto studies the two of you for a second before speaking. “I know,” he says, extending his hand out for Kai to shake, which he does, “I think I’ve seen you around. Not sure if we’ve formally met, but it’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, likewise.” Kai’s hand is then shoved back into his pocket.

You feel awkward suddenly, and then quickly say something to Geto about how he should probably get back to practice, which he agrees to, and then you’re standing at the chalk sideline with Kai as he shows you the ins and outs about digital photography.

“Have you tried shooting in burst mode?” he asks, switching the feature on your camera and then handing it back to you. You sling the strap around your neck.

“Hm…” you start, pointing your camera across the expanse of the field to multiple areas. The trees off into the distance, the goal posts, Coach Yaga’s yapping Pomeranian. “Not really…” The grass beneath your feet, the sky above your head, and then blurrily focused before settling on Gojo who stood in the distance straight ahead.

You see through your viewfinder that he’s caught sight of you too, a look of surprise on his face seen only by the level of zoom, and you glance up from the screen to make eye contact with him in reality. He’s fully staring at you, and you can barely see the way his expression relaxes from that one of athletic concentration to something wistful and strange that you’ve had a hard time reading lately.

“Canon? Are you even listening?”

“Huh?” you snap out of it and look at Kai. “Sorry. Could you repeat that?” You quickly glance toward Gojo again, and his line of sight points towards Kai now.

“I was asking if you’ve tried panning before,” he says, reaching for your camera, pulling it towards him, but the strap around your neck means you’re pulled closer to him too. 

“Satoru!” Coach Yaga yells in the distance. “Eyes on the ball!” 

“Just got to set your camera to manual mode first,” Kai mutters, confusion in his voice. “Where the fuck is it?” He’s turning your camera in his hands, which only has you stumbling with another small step towards him, your chest pressed flush to his arm, and he looks down at you for a brief second with a smirk on his face.

You hear the sound of a ball being kicked on the field, followed by the shout of one of the players.

“Ah, here, found it,” Kai says, handing your camera back to you, and just as you’re about to say thanks and you hold your camera up, you’re hit straight in the face by a flying object and fall backwards onto the grass with a painful thud.

What the fuck?

Where are you?

Who are you?

Okay, that’s dramatic, it wasn’t that bad.

There’s shouting in the distance as you hold your head with a groan, eyes shut tight with images of your life flashing behind your eyelids, and when you open your eyes again from where you’re sat up on the grass, you’re surrounded by soccer players.

Gojo’s suddenly in your line of sight, knelt down beside you and he’s holding your shoulders, trying to get you to look at him but you’re still blinking away the stars you’re seeing. “Fuck, y/n, are you okay?” he asks, and you register the concern on his face.

“Dude,” one of his teammates kicks the heel of his cleat, “where the fuck were you looking? It was clear as day I was tryna pass to you.”

Gojo grumbles something to him, his brow furrowed, and he’s lowering his head to try to make eye-level contact with you but you’re still holding your head with a wince.

“Oh shit,” Kai comments, “she’s bleeding.”

You pull your hand from your face to glance down at the wetness that you feel, and bright red color stains the tips of your fingers.

The next thing you register is Gojo picking you up off the hard grassy ground into his arms, and starts carrying you away down the field.

“W-What the hell are you doing?” you ask, his pacing across the grass is fast and you have to wrap your arms around his neck to keep from getting dizzy.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he says, voice strained in his throat, and you’ve never seen him look so worried before. 

“The hospital?! Please don’t, I don’t have health insurance right now.” His face is so close and you’re distracted from the pain of your headache.

“You’re bleeding on the face, I’m taking you whether you like it or not,” he grumbles.

You dig your nails into his shoulder through the nylon of his shirt, and he hisses from the pain before stopping in his tracks. “I don’t need to go to the hospital, Satoru, I just need a fucking bandaid.”

“You could have a concussion.”

“A concussion?!” You kick your feet for him to let you down but his grip on you only tightens. “You’re being ridiculous. Let me go, or I’ll bite you.”

He scoffs at that and continues walking forward. “You’re gonna bite me? That’s the most threatening thing you could come up with?”

“I’m being so dead serious, Gojo Satoru. No hospital.”

He grumbles something under his breath at your use of his full government name, and then says “fine” but he’s still walking down the grass until his cleats begin to tap on concrete, and then on what sounds like tile as he carries you into a building a few yards from the field.

He seats you on a cold counter, your hand gripping the faucet of a sink, and you finally take a comprehensive look at your surroundings. light blue, faint scent of chlorine in the air

“Is this…a locker room? The men's locker room?”

He sighs, bending his knees a bit to look at your face closely. You flinch when his hand reaches out, and he pauses, but you relax slightly and then he rubs his thumb over your cheek. You feel the smear of a droplet of blood. “Yes. I need running water.” He turns the faucet of the sink on to run his thumb under.

“For what?” you ask. His thumb is running over your cheek again.

“To take care of this cut.” He disappears behind a tile wall for a moment. You can hear metal clanking, probably of a locker opening and closing, and he re-emerges with a first-aid kit.

You slide your butt across the counter to the edge, about to hop off and make a run for it when he grabs your hips and puts you back into place. “Don’t even think about it,” he grumbles. He leans forward, grips you strongly, and you see that he’s still breathing heavily from practice, strands of hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and you can practically taste the salt on his neck. 

You press your shin to the front of his thigh, desperate to put some space between the two of you. “I don’t wanna be in here. Men are scary.”

“Well I can’t take you into the women’s locker room,” he says, ripping the packet of an antiseptic wipe open with his teeth, “I’d get registered as a sex offender.”

You attempt at an escape again, and he’s quick to get his hands on you to stop it.

“Quit manhandling me, or I’ll scream,” you threaten through gritted teeth, because you’re still mad at him. For everything.

“Go ahead,” he says, using his knee to spread your legs apart, then finds a place to stand between your thighs to get closer to you. “I’ve got a lot of ways I could shut you up.”

You blink at him, breath catching in your throat, and the expression on his face tells you he’s not interested in dealing with your stubbornness anymore.

“Just hold still,” he grumbles, placing the packet down on your thigh and then stepping off to the side to wash his hands under the sink.

“What exactly happened?” you ask, watching him dry his hands off with a few paper towels. One moment, Kai was trying to explain good digital photography to you, and the next you were dizzy from being knocked back onto the ground.

“You got hit by a soccer ball.”

“I know, but how?” You remember your camera hit your face from the impact too, and now you’re worried about it.

“I…wasn’t paying attention when my teammate passed it,” he admits with a sigh, finding his place in front of you again, the knuckles of his clean hand brushing across your cheek, caressing. Your expression softens slightly. He uses a hand spread across the small of your back to push you forward to him, then he gently passes the wipe over your wound.

“Oh okay so, you failed to protect me from a flying soccer ball.” 

He pulls his hand from you to read the lettering on the back of the packet. “I’m patching you up now, aren’t I?” he says, annoyed. “…oh fuck, I was supposed to go in with water first.”

“So glad to be in such good hands right now.” 

He gives you a pointed look, but you ignore it and turn your torso to see your reflection in the mirror for the first time. You had a small wound on your cheek, right over the bone, with some bleeding and it’s wider than it is deep. But when you look at Gojo again, who’s putting some ointment onto a Q-tip now, the look of guilt and worry on his face makes you feel satisfied for some reason, and you wanted to make it worse.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, brow furrowed, applying the cold gel to your cheek.

“Mhm. A lot.” Not really, no.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” he sighs, head dipping towards you slightly to get a better look, “can you feel this?”

“Ahh, yeah. Ouch. So much.” Barely.

His other hand is placed flat on the counter next to where you’re sitting, and you allow it when his thumb starts to run soothing circles over your hip.

“Hmm…” you start, wide eyes looking up at him as he seems to lean closer and closer to you with every word that leaves your lips, “I really wonder if it’ll leave a scar.”

He looks tortured. His hand that was maneuvering the Q-tip in his hands drops to the counter now, and he brings his other one to your face, cupping your cheek. His eyes dart from the wound, thumb pressing at the plush of your cheek, and this time, it hurts a little so you wince. His expression is tense, some sort of inner turmoil you could read across his forehead, and then his jaw hardens.

“Who was that guy you were talking to earlier?”

You blink a few, then tilt your head slightly. You feel like you’re on a game show, where there’s four options and only one right answer. New boytoy, gay best friend, fuck buddy, or— “He’s my coworker.”

“That’s it?”

“Mhm.”

“Has he tried anything funny with you?” 

You almost roll your eyes. “No, dad, he hasn’t.”

“Woah. Say that again but make it daddy.”

“Hey just a quick question for you. Where do you get the audacity?”

His bent index finger finds a place under your chin, tilting your head up so you’re forced to look at him. “It’s your fault, really. I can’t help it sometimes,” he says, voice lower now. You’re squirming a little, wanting to push him away but his lips get close to your cheek, brushing near your wound, like he wants to make it all better somehow. “I really am sorry,” he whispers, near your ear. There’s a whimper you have to stifle in your throat. He pulls aways just enough to where he can look into your eyes. “A cut…” he starts, thumb now passing over your bottom lip, “on your pretty face.” He sighs. You shouldn’t, but when he prods, you tuck his thumb under your front teeth and your tongue presses slightly against the padded skin of it. He looks like he’s being driven to insanity, and his other hand has no shame at all in pulling you towards him, to seat you at the edge of the counter, and you miss the texture of his thumb on your tongue when he pulls it from your mouth. But it’s so he can dip his head down to kiss you instead.

Of course the sensation of his lips on yours only lasts for a second, because the universe really fucking hates (or loves?) you, so the loud clanking of a metal water bottle against tile interrupts with harsh reverberation throughout the locker room walls, and he pulls away from you when you jump at the sound.

You both turn your heads towards the origin, located at the curved end of the entryway hall, and one of Gojo’s teammates is standing there with his duffle bag slung around his neck and hanging heavily to his thigh, his water bottle clutched in his hand. He blinks at the two of you.

Oh. It’s the one you kissed at that party a few weeks ago.

“What—…Why is there a—” his teammate starts, panicked, turning his head to double check the sign on the locker room wall as if he’s hallucinating, and when his eyes land on you again, they widen with recognition. His gaze shifts, and his chin tips down at the sight of Gojo’s irritated side eye from where he was still all up in your personal space. “…you know what. Nevermind.”

His teammate’s eyes are on you again, and you give him a shy little wave, just a fluttering of your fingers in the air paired with a small smile, legs swinging back and forth under the counter. He lets out an amused scoff from the entryway, lifting his hand to return the gesture, some cheeky grin on his face as he then scratches the back of his head before turning on his heel to leave the locker room, out of sight. You let out a sigh, hand dropping to your lap, and you don’t need to look at Gojo to tell that he’s staring at you with disbelief.

“What the fuck was that—”

“You,” you interrupt him, finger jabbing at the center of his chest, “have seriously got a lot of fucking nerve,” you hop off the counter, “to not only allow a soccer ball to sock me in the face,” he’s taking a step back with every harsh jab of your finger, “but to also hold me hostage in a mens’ locker room,” his back is pressed up against cold tile wall now while he just looks down at you with wide eyes and something akin to fear, “and then, oh my god, the audacity to kiss me?”

“I—”

“I don’t wanna hear it!” you yell, which shuts him up. “You really are just a fucking player.”

He’s stiff, not wanting to catch a punishment from you right now.

“But it doesn’t matter,” you grumble, still drilling your finger into his ribcage with the intent to cause pain. You didn’t need to be this close, but his body is warm, probably due to the blood pumping from practice, and it feels nice to be pressed up against. “Because I don’t have feelings for you anymore, so just fucking get over yourself.” It was a lie if you’ve ever told one, but you wanted to believe it so much that it could come off as the truth.

His eyes narrow down at you, eyebrows flattening. “You don’t have feelings for me anymore?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

You roll your eyes. “Why? Because you want me to keep suffering?”

He grabs your hips, then makes a motion that is evident of his desire to pull you flush to him, but he stops himself. There’s a moment where he just takes a few deep breaths and looks at you with a hardened expression, then a split second where his eyes fall to that little cut on your cheek, and every single feature of his face softens, and then he lets you go.

You take a small step back, breathing heavily of your own, and you feel the ghost sensation of his fingertips wrapped around your hips. It makes you feel dizzy, and your thoughts are a mess. 

He sighs. “Sorry. For the soccer ball, and this locker room. But I’m not really sorry for kissing you, and if that makes me a jerk, then so be it.”

Your heart is beating fast. “You are a jerk, Satoru,” you say. He doesn’t like you, he doesn’t want you. A mantra played over and over in your head that you’ve started to hear it at night. “A real fucking jerk.” And you leave him standing there in a way that feels like the hundredth time.

—

2:34pm kaito (work): yo

2:34pm kaito (work): i had my guy look at your camera

2:35pm kaito (work): it’s pretty fucked up

2:37pm you: :( oh okay isee. does he have an estimate for the fix? the lens is okay though right?

2:39pm kaito (work): yeah lens is fine, you should really count your blessings on that. 

2:40pm kaito (work): but nah, fix would be around the same as the cost of it, so you’re better off getting a new one

2:42pm you: i don’t have thousands of yen laying around unfortunately. my car bill has sucked me dry

2:44pm kaito (work): well let me check with him. maybe he can hook you up with a good deal on a used one

2:45pm kaito (work): i got a 50% off on one of my canon cameras i bought from him a few years back. maybe he’s still got some like that

2:46pm you: yes could you check with him please? thanks so much, really

2:48pm kaito (work): sure. although i think the guy that kicked the ball to your face should be paying for your camera replacement

2:51pm you: they were just practicing. it’s their field

2:56pm kaito (work): alright. btw, you free tonight?

You blink at your phone screen from where you were sprawled across your bed. Before you have a chance to type out a response, your phone lights up with a phone call from kaito (work). You accept the call.

“Oh, hi,” you say.

“Hey, are you free tonight?”

“Oh uhh, I was just about to check my schedule.” You shake your head at your inability to come up with an excuse on the spot.

“Okay,” he says on the other line. You hear the sounds of cars honking in the distance. “Well let me know. I just left my camera guy’s shop, and he was telling me about how one of his friends does visuals for a short-film director, and that the director is looking for an assistant.” Kai grumbles something about someone he walked past being rude. “I think the director’s agency is Verve Films, so.”

You sit up in bed, eyes wide at the mention of the name. “Oh, oh wow. That’s insane.”

“Yup,” he says, “anyways, apparently the director is busy as fuck, so he left the hiring process up to my camera guy’s friend. I told him I knew someone that might be interested. Are you?”

You take a deep breath in and out. “Yeah, I am. Most of my experience on my resume lines up with short-film, so I’d be able to—”

“Alright great,” he interrupts, “so we can hold the interview tonight.”

“We?” you ask.

“Well yeah, me, my camera guy, the hiring guy. Maybe go for drinks or something.”

Your brow furrows. “That hardly sounds like an interview.”

Kai sighs. “Well, it’s not an interview for a desk job or something. It’s more of like—well, like building connections. I know you know all about that, since Utahime got you the newsletter job.”

Well, yes. She put a word in for you, which helped get the interview, but you still went against qualified applicants. “I guess.”

“It’ll be like that. Most opportunities you’ll get if you still want to pursue filmmaking are going to be like that,” he tells you, “if it feels informal, it means you’re doing it right. You might not think so now because you’re still in school, where they practically serve opportunities to students on platters, but it’s going to be different in the real world.”

You lay your head back onto the pillow, feeling like you’re receiving a lecture you didn’t ask for, and your first instinct is to pretend that you know better than he does. But when you think about all the stress recently, all of the not knowing, and the unsure, you question if you should start leaning into the advice of the people around you, and start to accept this career path for what it’s known to be. Unruly, unconventional, and a lot of times, unfair. 

“I see. Well, can I think about it? Tonight is too soon, I’d need time to research the director, put a portfolio together, and also do some interview prep,” you say, pulling your phone from your ear to glance at the time.

“Well, tonight’s the only night that works since their team’s shooting abroad for the weekend and they leave tomorrow morning,” he says.

You purse your lips together.

“But also,” Kai says, “it’s the nice thing to do, y’know, since my camera guy is taking the time to look at your camera for free, you could at least help his friend out. By the way, he just texted me, he does have some used Canons available at discount.”

You close your eyes for a second, just trying to process this conversation right now. Kai was speaking too fast, hardly enough time for you to even think.

“So do you want to do the interview tonight?”

“Yes, sure. Okay. Just— just send me the details. I’ll be there,” you say.

“Alright cool, will do.” 

You say bye, and then he hangs up.

A few hours pass by, where you spend some time putting together a flash drive of a couple of your best short films you’ve worked on in the past with other directors, as well as a portfolio of some recently developed film photography. The last thing to do was grab your emergency stash of print outs of your resume, and then you stuff it all into a folder before glancing at the mirror to take in your reflection. It felt extremely weird to show up to a job interview in something as casual as what you were wearing right now, but Kai insisted to not wear anything business. But at least you opted for jeans that don’t have any DIY holes in them.

Your face is glued to the navigation on your phone screen the second you get out of the taxi, and you walk down the bustling nightlife streets of Tokyo to get to this bar that Kai sent you the address of. But just as you’re about to turn the corner to your destination down the bar strip, you bump into someone’s chest due to lack of paying any proper attention.

“Ah— I’m so sorry,” you say, your grip on your phone tightening when you realize it was about to get knocked out of your hand, and then you look up to see a familiar face.

“Oh!” Geto exclaims from where he’s standing right in front of you, “You’re everywhere, y/n. What are you doing here?”

You open your mouth to speak, hesitate for a second, and then continue. “I’m here to…get drinks with some of my friends.”

He gives you a smile. “That’s nice. I am too.” He points over his shoulder to behind him. “Nanami got into his MBA program earlier this week, so, Satoru, Choso and I are buying him a few rounds. Or possibly a million. The plan is to incapacitate him as punishment for giving up on playing in the national league with us.”

You humor him with a laugh. “That’s sweet. Or not? Well anyway, tell him I said congrats.” Your heart starts to beat a little faster, because from the direction Geto came from, it meant Gojo was likely just around the corner somewhere. “Where are you heading to now?”

“We’re bar hopping, and I think I forgot my phone at the last one we went to over there,” he says, pointing across the street. “So I’m going to go look for it.” 

“Oh alright,” you say. “Good luck with that. I’m going to go find my, uh, my friends.”

Geto tilts his head at you and had a slightly more serious expression on his face, glancing at the folder in your hands. “Thanks. And stay safe.” 

You nod at him and then walk past him to round the corner onto the street that had groups of people loitering in front of restaurants, bars and all sorts of establishments as they wait in the cold to get inside or be seated. You recognize the name on one of the signs hanging as the one Kai sent you in his message, and when you’re a few feet away from it, you spot Kai. He’s wearing his typical street photographer wear, with a red flannel over a gray shirt and pants that are possibly a size too big for him, but that’s likely the style he was going for. He’s standing with two other people.

“Hey,” you greet Kai first, who has a pleasant look on his expression before he greets you back and gestures to the two people he was with.

“Yo, this is Junichi, my camera guy,” he says. “Don’t bother shaking his hand, he’s a germaphobe. Gotta keep ‘em clean for the electronics.”

“Oh,” you say. Junichi is a big man, broad shoulders and thick muscles. His neck is almost as thick as his bicep, and he has no hair on his head. His arms are crossed. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for taking a look at my camera.”

He nods at you in acknowledgment. “Sure thing. Pretty Boy here says you want to buy one of my used Canons. I don’t refurbish them, so you’d better know how.”

Kai sighs, nudging Junichi a little with a fist. “Relax, dude, we can talk about that later. Also, stop calling me that.”

Your eyes flicker to the right, where another man stood, who you assume was Junichi’s friend and this Verve Films director’s visual effects specialist. He’s similar in stature to Kai, with that casual artist look, and he has a scuffle of facial hair littering his jaw in less of an intentional fashion but rather a five-o-clock shadow fashion. You vaguely register the scent of weed, familiar to the one that lingers in the photo lab on campus after class hours. He reaches his hand out to you first.

“Hi, I’m Ren. I work in visual effects for director Akira Ko at Verve.”

Your eyes widen as you shake his hand.  “That’s amazing. I’ve studied a lot of his contemporary works, I’d love to learn more about his process.”

Ren lets a fast exhale out through his nose. “Yeah, you’ll learn a lot under him.” He pauses to shove his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Most of his assistants always do.”

“We’ve been waiting for too damn long,” Kai interjects before you could ask any questions about the assistant position, and he glances at his watch, “and there’s still a lot of people ahead of us.”

You glance around to the small groups of people gathered in front of this bar on a lively Friday night, eyes jumping from one area to the next, until a familiar silhouette catches your eye.

You see Gojo standing with Nanami and Choso a few strides away, near the lamppost. He’s mostly turned away from you, Nanami nudging his arm annoyed at something he said, and the sound of his laughter in the air makes your heart feel like it’s at stray. Like that was where you were supposed to be right now, not here.

You watch him from the distance as he sighs, shrugging his shoulders up and down slightly before crossing his arms when Choso gestures towards the entrance of the bar, and so he looks in that direction too. He’s frowning slightly and he brushes some of the hair fallen over his forehead away from his eyes, in that boyish way that makes your heart skip a beat, and you know he’s just doing it to see a little bit better, but it makes you want to cry. 

Geto walks up to them and rejoins their little circle, and holds his phone up in the air, and then there’s the melody of their voices bouncing off one another’s again. Geto rests his elbow up onto Gojo’s shoulder, leaning in a bit closer to tell him something, and when Gojo hears it, you see his entire body tense before his wide eyes are searching his surroundings, until those eyes land on you.

Your breath catches, and you hold his eye contact for only a moment before you look away, because it almost felt like too much to bear.

“What’s that folder in your hand?” Ren asks you, and you turn completely to face him so you can’t see Gojo in your periphery at all anymore.

“I just brought some of my work, for your—er, I guess Mr. Ko’s—reference if he’d like to see it after today’s…interview,” you say. “There’s a flashdrive, too.”

Ren has an amused look on his face and he shoves Kai’s shoulder with his palm. “Dude, you didn’t tell her?”

Kai shakes his head. “Tell her what?”

“Ohh, I see how it is,” Ren muses.

“What?” Kai asks, starting to sound annoyed.

Ren tips his chin up slightly to study Kai’s face, and then his look of amusement dissipates into one of understanding. “Nothing.”

“Tell me what?” you prod.

“Just that you didn’t really need to bring all of that with you,” he says. “Sorry for the trouble.”

You shake your head. “It’s fine, but if you could still give it to him—”

“I’m surprised Kai suggested someone when I asked if he knew anyone,” Junichi jumps in, “I’m used to him grumbling on and on about how shit the work is in filmmaking. Would’ve thought he’d convinced you to look the other way by now.”

You blink at the gruff man, then look at Kai, and he’s just staring down at the dirt of his shoes. “Well, we had a conversation about it. But I’m pretty set on what I want to do,” you say.

Kai lets out a scoff. “Yeah, I don’t really know how else to warn you about the shit show you’re in for, but if you want to be in debt to grad school for the next couple decades of your life, then it’s up to you.”

“Hey, jackass, try to be a bit nicer,” Ren speaks up. “She’s got some goals. Big fuckin’ deal.” He turns to you. “Although, he’s got a point sweetheart, school’s not going to get you anywhere in this industry.”

You frown. “A lot of directors I look up to went through graduate schooling. Most, I would say. I don’t understand where this rhetoric is coming from.”

“It’s coming from real people with real experience,” Ren says, and you dislike the way he takes a step closer to you to reiterate his point, “honestly, you should save yourself some time and give up on applying. It’s not worth it.”

“I’ve already put my application together,” you say, brow furrowing slightly, “I’ve asked professors for my references, spent the past four years working on my profile—” 

“But working under a director, I mean really getting to work under one, beats all of that. Which is why you’re here, right?” Ren asks, but it’s not curious, it’s testing.

You feel a sheen of sweat build at your forehead, even in this cold, and you clench your hand into a fist once, twice, thrice. You’re breathing fast, and the three sets of eyes that are staring so scrutinizingly into your soul right now have you faltering, like if they took another step forward, tried to intrude what you thought you knew one more time, you’d fall backwards over the cliff.

Suddenly, a hand wraps around your upper arm, and when you turn your head to the left, you see Gojo standing there.

“Hey,” he says to you, sparing one single sidewards glare towards Kai, who immediately averts the eye contact, before Gojo’s eyes are on you again, “can I talk to you for a second?”

You look at the three men in your circle, who suddenly adopt skittish body postures, and Gojo doesn’t really wait longer than a few seconds before he’s pulling you away from them over towards the edge of the curb towards the street.

“What?” you ask once he lets go of your arm.

“What are you doing here with those guys?” he asks.

“I’m—…why does it matter to you?” you ask.

“It matters to me because of the fucking absurd conversation I just overheard,” he says, “now answer me.”

His tone annoys you, and you cross your arms. “Are you eavesdropping?”

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” he says, taking a step forward to you, “who are those guys, and why are you here with them?”

You blink at him, furrowed brows relaxing slightly as you drop your crossed arms to your side, and you stare straight ahead at the blankness of the white t-shirt he’s wearing, as your mind runs blank to his question. Why were you here with them? Was it because you had no other plans? Was it because the opportunity sounded too good to be true, and you just had to see for yourself? Was it because you’ve been unable to sleep at night from all the stress, the financial worries, the rejection, and you just want to finally feel like you’ve done one good thing for yourself? To feel like you’re at least making one step in the right direction, no matter the cost?

“I’m here for a job interview,” you say to him. Your tone is flat, and you feel numb.

“A job interview?” he asks, with just about as much incredulity you would’ve expected to hear from him at that answer, “At a bar? How does that make any sense?”

“It…” you start, “sounded fine.”

“It sounds shady as fuck.”

“This doesn’t concern you, okay? I’m—…I’m just trying to make my goals work for me, Satoru, and I really don’t expect you to understand.”

“Why wouldn’t I understand?” he asks. There’s confusion in his voice, and maybe even a little bit of hurt.

“Because you can’t even understand how unfair and painful it is for me that you keep—” you have to purse your lips together briefly to fight back the knot in your throat, “…that you keep interfering with my life everywhere I go.”

His expression softens, and he silently stands in front of you for a moment. His eyes dart across your face, and then he reaches out to grab your hand. “Listen, if you still want to get drinks tonight, then just get drinks with us. But don’t hang out with those guys. They’re bad news, especially the dude with the flannel, and I don’t think you’re in a good place right now to see that.”

Your eyes see white fury at that, and you all but snap. Because the irony of this whole situation, is that you’re not in a good place right now because of him. Because of all the pain that he’s put you through, for promising to stay away but then always being near, for saying he doesn’t want you but then acting like he does. 

“You know what I think, Satoru?” you ask through gritted teeth, yanking your hand from his grasp.

He’s looking at you, studying. “What?”

You take a step forward, threateningly, and he takes a step back so that he steps off the curb and onto the road, and you’re at eye-level with him now. “I think that you’re jealous,” you say, eyes glaring daggers into his.

He blinks at you, almost dumbfounded for a moment before he says “what?”

“You’re just fucking jealous that I seem to be moving on after you rejected me, because for some weird reason, you think it’s okay to not want me, and yet not want me to be with anyone else,” you say, practically hissing the words. “You don’t like seeing me with any guys other than you? You don’t want to believe me when I say that I’m over you? You’re not sorry for kissing me? Even after knowing,” you take a pause to breathe, because you feel like you can’t, “even after knowing that I like you,” eyes blinking fast because you don’t want him to see you cry right now, “you know that I like you so fucking much, and that it’s hurtful, and that it’s wrong— and even after all of that, you act the same, and still won’t promise me any commitment of your own.”

He’s looking at you with an expression you can’t read, but you’ve lost all interest in trying to understand it anymore.

“You don’t want me hanging out with them?” you repeat after him, “I’m not listening to that. Because it’s possessive. And it’s wrong.”

At the mention of them, Gojo clenches his jaw. “That has nothing to do with you and me, right now. What they’re trying to convince you of doesn’t make any sense, and it won’t help you achieve your dreams either, y/n.”

“You don’t know anything about my dreams, Satoru,” you say, just to hurt him. But you think about the sincere expression on his face the first time you met him when you told him that you wanted his help with your assignment. You think about the playful nudge of his elbow that night he stayed with you on the curb, and told you that you just had to try to put yourself out there, because you couldn’t accomplish anything without facing your fears. You think about how he’s always the first to like every single one of the slideshows you post of your pictures on Instagram. You think about the adoration in his eyes, reflected off the moonlight through the hotel window, when you told him about a little cottage on the countryside, one you’ve always wanted, and those eyes told you that he was really rooting for you. “You don’t know. Because you—” there’s an echo of words in your head. Someone else’s words, not yours, “Because you’re a college athlete. And—” you let out an exhale, “and you don’t pay tuition.”

His brow furrows. There’s a beat of silence as his confusion settles in. “What?”

“You were born blessed with talent, and you’re popular, and people adore you, and you don’t have to worry about internships, or jumping from job to job just to make something of yourself,” you say, picturing your life in your head along with all the strife, “or about all of the sinking debt, and the worry, and the— and the car repair bills,” you say, almost with a scoff, eyes sheening with tears, like you’re losing your mind, “all of the fucking car repair bills.” Your chest is heaving as you shake your head. “Because you’re set for life as long as you kick a fucking ball.” 

His lips purse together, like he can tell there’s more on your tongue to say, more hurtful words, and he wants to hear you say them. And so you do.

“You’ve never had to suffer or worry about a single thing in your life. So don’t pretend like you understand what I’m trying to do here tonight,” you say, inflection signing off on the end, to tell him that you’re done. 

He stands in front of you, practically motionless except for the slow movement of his chest as he breathes. His expression, tense and hurt, softens slowly, and you see him digging his nails into the skin of his palms through fidgeting clenched fists at his sides. And then he relaxes them, too.

“Does that make you feel better?” he asks.

His question confuses you, and for some reason, regret washes over you. “What?”

“Does thinking of me that way—…does it make you feel better about all of this? Between us?”

You’re breathing fast, eyebrows pinching upwards to look at him, and the defeated expression on his face makes your heart ache. He’s waiting for an answer, and so you give him one. “Yes.”

He glances down at the ground for a moment, then at your collarbone, before meeting your gaze again. “I’m sorry. For everything. And I—” the words catch in his throat briefly, “I’ll try to leave you alone tonight.”

His use of the word try doesn’t escape you, but you give him a furtive nod, and he studies your face for a few moments before he steps back up onto the curb and walks past you. You watch him walk all the way, no longer with that confidence or conviction you’re so used to seeing in him, as he steps back into his circle, to Geto’s side. Geto gives a small glance over his shoulder to look at you with discerning eyes before looking at Gojo again, and then he’s turned away from you. 

Heavy feet drag you back to Kai, Ren, and Junichi, and you feel feverish. They mention something about the table being ready, and you nod. The bar is rustic, with more tables than barspace, and the four of you are seated and then presented with a small food menu. You’re seated next to Kai, Ren is right across from you, and Junichi is to his right. You watch a waitress usher Nanami, Choso, Geto and Gojo to one of the tables as well, two away from yours, and you forcefully blur your vision so you don’t have to catch sight of the expression on Gojo’s face.

“So,” Ren speaks up as his eyes peruse the food menu and Junichi waves the waitress over to order a round of sake, “tell me more about your experience, sweetheart.”

You blink at him, eyes feeling heavy, heart feeling heavy. “I’d prefer it if you called me by my name.”

Ren lets out a coo, and you briefly glance at Kai who’s shaking his head with a sigh. “My bad, y/n. Your experience?”

Your hands play with the folder sitting in your lap. “I started writing screenplays for small-scale directors when I was a freshman, and was greenlit on a couple into my sophomore year. One of the films I worked on, I had directing credits for, and it was nominated for best screenplay at Etoile Film Festival the year following.”

Ren swallows slightly, shifting in his chair and pushing his shoulders back, like he’s trying to establish himself now. Kai is clenching a fist on the surface of the table.

Ren clears his throat before speaking again. “Wow, okay, so you’ve actually got some serious shit going on.” His voice is a faux octave deeper. “What do you know about being a good assistant? Ever worked in customer service? Secretary?”

“Oh, I mean I have worked in customer service, but I wasn’t done sharing about my experience—” you try to say but Junichi cuts you off.

“First round’s on me,” he declares, “for bringing her out here.” He tips his chin to you and then sends Kai a glance.

A waitress brings by a bottle of sake, and Junichi begins pouring drinks into the glasses, then slides them across the table. Kai gives Ren a pointed look. 

“Don’t get too wasted,” Kai says to him as he brings his glass to his lips, “you start running that mouth of yours a little too much when you do.”

Ren grins at him and immediately knocks down the glass Junichi barely finished pouring from him in one go, and the gruff man beside him is grumbling. “Whatever you say.”

Something had been bothering you since you came here. “Wait,” you say, pointing between Kai and Ren, “do you two know each other already? Because,” you turn to look at Kai, “on the phone earlier, you sounded like you didn’t.”

Kai’s eyebrows raise in surprise, as though he’s discovered you have some skill for foresight. You glance at Ren, and he gives Kai a puzzled look.

“Uh, yeah. I’ve known Kai for years,” he says, “we go way back. We went to highschool together.”

Kai shifts a little in his chair. “Sorry. Probably forgot to mention it.”

You glance down at the glass of sake in front of you, and the way it twinkles under the lighting of the bar. You slowly bring it to your mouth, taking a small sip, and the way it coats your tongue is less than pleasing. 

“Can you tell me more about the assistant position?” you ask Ren, who’s emptied out the bottle of sake and waving someone over to order more. He already has a slightly flush to his face.

“Yeah, yeah, will do,” he says, “but first, let me tell you about what I do in visuals.”

Another round of sake is dropped by, and then another, followed by another, as Ren continues to ramble on and on about what he does for work, and how it’s entirely integral to the final piece of the film, although you’ve never really had a terrible level of appreciation for visual effects in short-film craft, since it’s hardly much work. But you wouldn’t say that, you just continue to nurse your one glass of sake as the three men surrounding you knock back more and more, and there’s slurs to their speeches now.

“Sooo, I’m so sorry, sweetheart—I mean y/n, for cuttin’ you off earlier,” he says, “but what was that experience you wanted to talk to me about?” Ren asks from across the table, and his eyes are all traveling over you.

“I…” you start, “well, I started to work with one of my professors last year, she’s a two-time Cannes Film Festival winner, and she let me under her wing for one of her projects last year.”

“Who is she? Oh wait, nevermind, probably wouldn’t have heard of her anyways,” Ren says, but when you fail to laugh, he waves his hand in the air. “Joking, joking. What’s her name?”

“Naoko. Naoko Ogigami.”

“Oh shit. I have heard of her,” Ren says, followed by a shallow hiccup. Junichi shrugs his shoulders, and when you look at Kai, he’s nodding slowly and toying with the rim of his glass with a finger.

“Yes. Well, anyways—” you start up again, before Kai sets his glass of sake down particularly loud.

“This is all bullshit. Really. I told you, filmmaking is a waste of time. Just focus on your photography, and your freelance or whatnot,” Kai says, grit to his jaw, face looking red with possibly something other than just a tipsiness. 

Ren lets out a laugh. “Fuckin’ Kai. What a pessimist. Don’t listen to him, sweetheart,” he says, slurred, and you furrow your brow at him with a glare, “sorry. Don’t listen to him. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot under Mr. Ko. He’s a suuuper nice guy.”

“What’s the compensation?” you ask. It’s a brazen question, one you’d never ask so soon in a formal interview process, but this table was hardly anything formal.

“Real good. Mmm I think like…5200 yen an hour, and then also, you get your foot in the door.”

“Oh,” you sit up a little in your chair. It was higher than most entry-level anything for undergraduates or even new grads. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he drawls when he sees you’re more interested. “Good stuff. Kai used to pick these kinds of jobs up, too, back in his college days. I remember. Although, he’s hardly Mr. Ko’s type, so I doubt he’d be any good for this one.”

Your head snaps to Ren again at his words, face tensing. 

“Tell her about what a job like this—hic—entails,” Ren says as he extends his glass out for Junichi to pour him another.

Kai glances at Ren once, and you watch him grind his teeth for a moment, and then there’s a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Oh. Y’know, clerical work. Stuff like printing scripts out,” Kai starts, Junichi filling up his glass and then he raises it into the air to watch the liquid swish around, “grabbing him coffee. Making sure his trailer is stocked.”

“Blowing him in said trailer,” Ren says. It’s something quiet, under his breath with a small laugh, where you could barely hear it across the table. But you heard it nonetheless. And your heart sinks to the core of the earth.

“Excuse me?” you say. The benefit of doubt sitting on your shoulder, watching in disbelief as well.

“He’s joking,” Kai says, quickly, “runnin’ his mouth.”

“Oh fuck off, Kai,” Ren says, throwing his hands up in the air, “don’t act like that’s not why you brought her here.”

Your head slowly turns to Kai, who can’t meet your gaze. Your eyes flicker to Junichi, who looks amused. 

Ren leans over the table, elbows resting on top, to look you straight in the eyes. He’s got a sleazy smile, and you can smell the alcohol on his breath, and he dips his tone down low enough to where you can hardly hear it over the sounds surrounding you in the bar. “That’s how you’ll make it in this industry, sweetheart. Whether you like it or not, you’ll be working under those directors until you make it.”

You stand up so fast that your chair falls behind you, hand raised in the air, and you swiftly slap the man across from you so hard across the cheek that it leaves his skin even more red than the flush from before, and your palm is stinging. 

There’s gasps all around the bar, hushed voices, eyes on you, but you don’t care. There’s not a single thing in the world you care more about right now than the anger swelled in your chest.

Ren holds his cheek, surprised, blinking like a pathetic animal. He almost looks like he’s about to cry, and you let out a scoff at the sight.

You turn to face Kai, whose eyes are wide and he’s staring up at you. Your fists are clenched at your side.

“Is this why you brought me here tonight?” you ask. Your voice is trembling, anxiety at the wake, the white anger spotting your vision. But there’s also pain. So much pain, and you’re just so fed up with all of it. “Because your belittling, condescending words weren’t enough to tear my hopes apart, so you had to humiliate me in front of your friends instead?”

Kai holds his hand up. “Woah, Canon, relax. He was just joking—…” Kai glances at Ren, who’s still holding his cheek and biting down on his lip, and then his gaze hardens. “Y’know what? It’s about fucking time you get this wake-up call, y/n. I’ve been trying to do the nice thing to steer you in the right direction, and the least you could—”

“Steer me in the right fucking direction?!” you’re yelling now, registering the way your voice echoes in the bar. “You know what I think this is all about, Kai?” You grit your teeth, “You’re a sick, stupid, sexist fuck who didn’t have the balls to go after what he wanted. So miserably pathetic that you’ve got no other fucking business than to pull people down to your level.”

Kai pinches his eyebrows together, hand on the table clenching into a fist. 

You lean down closer, an exasperated scoff leaving your lips. “Why don’t you go be his assistant instead? Since I’m sure you’re good at taking it up the ass.”

Kai’s eyes twitch, “you fucking—”

You grab his glass off the table and throw the alcohol into his face, eliciting another round of noises around the bar, and his mouth falls agape in shock before he gets up out of his chair, hand reaching out to grab for you. You close your eyes shut with a flinch to expect pain. Any sort of pain. But you don’t feel anything at all.

When you open your eyes, you see Gojo standing to your left, veins of his arm tense with the tight grip he has on Kai’s forearm, and you can see he’s practically shaking with rage. He steps in front of you, guarding, and you can’t see the expression on his face, but the fear in Kai’s eyes is enough to say it all.

“That’s enough,” he says, the clench of his jaw evident through the strain in his voice, “try to put your hands on her again, and I’ll split your fucking face in half.”

You can see Kai’s breathing pick up from where you’re peering over Gojo’s shoulder, and then Gojo shoves him backwards right as Choso kicks the fallen chair to his feet so he trips over it backwards then hits the ground with a loud and indignant thud.

Gojo’s hovering over Kai, his hands shoved in his pockets as he glares down at him, while Geto and Nanami put space between you and the other two men at your table. You feel a searing flush to your cheeks. You’re breathing fast, the peering eyes all around you are scrutinizing, looking at you with surprise, confusion, shock, and pity. Your mind is racing, and you wonder what your parents would think of all this. What your friends would think of all of this. What the people who support you would think of the fucked up situation you’ve found yourself in, and the humiliation courses so deep through your veins that you just want to run away and hide. The ground could swallow you whole right now, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

You take one step back, then another, before you turn on your heel to rush out the door into the night, and you barely register that it’s raining. You can feel your heart thumping fast in your chest and in your head, that familiar knot in your throat twisting tight as you walk fast down the street and ignore Gojo’s call of your name from behind you.

You don’t want to see anyone right now. You don’t want to be seen by anyone right now. Especially Gojo, of all people, because he was right about everything, and the fact that you had shut him down about it, and the way that you had shut him down about it makes your head numb and your breathing pick up fast.

“y/n,” you hear him call out from behind you, his pace is getting faster and so you’re resorting to longer strides as well, puddles of water splashing under your feet with every step, “just wait—”

“I’m seriously,” you start, and the tears begin to fall, “I’m seriously so, so, so, so, so fucking embarassed right now,” you gasp out the words with no air left in your lungs to breathe as you continue to run away from him, “so please, just leave me alone.”

You can picture it all in your head. Something like I told you so from his lips, because after what you’ve been put through tonight, you just want to assume the worst in people.

But just as you round the corner into an alley, feeling lost with the sight of a dead end, you feel a hand wrap around your arm and then you’re being pulled into an embrace.

Your eyes are blinking with tears streaming, your face buried in a chest that is warm, with a heart beating so fast that it’s keeping time with your own, and the fragrance that surrounds you is so painfully him that it makes you sob even more.

Strong arms wrap around you, pulling you closer, and Gojo rests his chin at the top of your head. “I’m sorry,” he says softly, and you can feel the rumble of his voice, “I just needed to stop you from running.”

Your arms are weakly raised, an outline over his torso but not yet grabbing on, until you hesitantly do. And when you hold onto him, it’s so tight and strong, and you realize that after everything between the two of you, it’s the first time you’ve been wrapped in his arms.

“I feel so stupid,” you start, already hating the words because you want to be stronger right now, but you can’t.

“You’re not stupid,” he quickly corrects you, “those guys are fucking insecure losers. You’re just trying your best. You always have, for as long as I’ve known you, and it’s something you should be proud of yourself for.”

You don’t know what to say to him, you just cling to the damp fabric of his shirt in the rain.  

“Things are going to work out for you, no matter what, because I know you’ve got what it takes and you’re willing to work hard for it,” he says, his chin nuzzling so you’re tucked into him even further, “and if things don’t work out, that’s okay, you’re strong and you’ll always get back up. And I want to be there to help you through everything.”

You pull your face from his chest to stare up at him, droplets of rain falling to your face and making you flinch occasionally. “I’m confused.”

His hand comes up to cup your face, swiping at a tear on your cheek, or maybe it was rain. “I thought that—” he starts, his thumb briefly running over the small cut still healing on your cheek, his brow furrowing, “I thought that I’d be okay with watching your life from afar, through cropped pictures on a screen,” he says, a chill running through you, “but I can’t. It’s killing me. And I’m really sorry that it took me this long to tell you this, but I like you so much and I really want to be with you.”

Your eyes widen at his words, and you don’t know how to feel. You push your face into his chest again. His thumb runs circles at your side through the dampness of your shirt.

“There are a lot of reasons I didn’t feel like I could date you, or show up for you,” he says, “but the pain of not getting to be with you, of not getting to hold you, and just share my life with you is way worse than whatever reasons I kept trying to convince myself of.”

You nod slowly, because there was a part of you deep inside that knew that all along. 

His grip on you relaxes slightly and you take that as a request from him for you to look up at him, so you do. “I know I’ve put you through a lot of pain, and I’m really not a perfect person, but if there’s room in your heart to forgive me, I promise you that I’ll do everything I can to make you feel happy and cared for.”

Your eyes study his face for sincerity. They’re words you’ve been wanting to hear, words you could’ve pictured in your head, but the adoration in his eyes makes you realize you never could’ve imagined the true sweetness of those words when they’re said from him.

You press your cheek to his chest again. You’re not crying anymore. “I’m sorry for what I said to you earlier. About kicking a soccer ball, and having it easy,” you bite down on your lip, because now there’s tears in your eyes again, “I didn’t mean it.” You sniffle a little, “I know you work hard. And it was a really mean thing to say.”

He sighs, holding you flush to himself. His cheek presses against the top of your head. “That’s okay, you don’t have to apologize for that.”

“But I do.”

There was no grudge at all. There was nothing withdrawn from you, nothing taken away as punishment. He just held onto you, exactly as you are, and you felt so safe in every second you spent in his arms.

You look up at him again. His hair is damp, strands clinging to his face in all the places they usually fall over, droplets of rain falling from his fringe onto your face and he does everything he can to wipe them away. “It’s too late,” you tell him, and he immediately knows what you’re referring to.

He just holds you closer. “I know.”

“I don’t have feelings for you anymore,” you say through a sniffle.

He knows you’re lying, and that you say it just out of spite, but he holds your head to his chest. “I know.”

“You’ll have to beg and grovel, and even then, I might not like you ever again,” you say, gripping so tightly onto his shirt for purchase, your voice sounding muffled as you breathe in the scent of him. “That’s your punishment.”

He presses a kiss to the top of your head. A firm press of his lips, lasting as he takes a few deep breaths. And then he kisses the same spot again, staying still in that position as he repeats himself.

“I know.”

--

a/n. phewww thank you for reading, i swear, this chapter felt like a goddamn war to write. my emotions were all over the damn place, i think cause i wrote from a place of bitter experience lol. i dedicate this chap to my lovely friend she’s a film major (she inspired me to create this story) and i srs wouldn’t be able to write kickoff without her 😭💕 dear M♥︎, i thought of you sm while writing this chapter, i can only hope i’ve captured even the slightest bit of the understanding i will always aim to have of you, and that you feel seen. i’m incredibly proud of you, always rooting for you, so often thinking of you, and terribly missing you so much rn (plsssssss visit meee😩💔 ) dedicated w sm love 💕 -bitchasshoe this chapter is also dedicated to anyone who’s going through a hard times n maybe just trying to figure themselves out :”) i am so proud of you, you should be so proud of yourself, there’s still so much to live and learn, and i hope the universe blesses you w everything you’ve ever wanted!! big thank u to my lovely m00t @quinnyundertow she pulled me out of my writers block for this chapter and also beta read a lot of it for me there’s only three chapters left for kickoff (i’m gonna cry just thinking ab it :”)) which doesnt sound like a lot but there’s still a lot i’ve got planned 😭 i’m just noticing that i very poorly planned the second half of this series. chapters 1-6 combined have less words than chapters 7-9 combined 😅✨ sooooo i may increase the chapters from 12 to 14 by splitting them up to make it easier on me, or just stick to the plan and come out with long chapters like the last two. idk. i’ll figure it out. thank u to everyone for reading i love you all dearly 😭💕 i’ll see you in the next one!!

➸ you're all caught up!

➸ wrote some kickoff headcanons here

--

taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @therealestpussyeater @lost-resonance @hojoslutoru @foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @bsdicinindirdim @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @btszn @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @drthymby @ninitoru @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @horisdope @sykostyles @aquaberrydolphin @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @purplehallow11 @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @bxddiebloss @chwesuh-imnida @mo0nforme @viware @still-fking-single @megumisthirdog @gintokhi @karvokr @cierocanteat @imjustaweirdnerd @ronniebird @bloopsstuff @mwtsxri @witchbybirth @tetsuski @fffinskye @gh0ulkz @beabadobeee @mandysfanfics @erencvlt @laviefantasie @sukunamylovexoxo @girlkissersco @itzjuliana @yell0wdreams @1dimas7 @strayedjeno @mo0nforme @yungbloode @sullybrothersmate @oaooaoaoaoa @swagangelllamawolf @banenemilk @inniesblog

(hope i didn't miss anyone thank u all sm!!)

[latte-moo]

Quicky

Pairing: Daiki Aomine

Genre: short smut

Word Count: 455 words

Content: overstimulation, dirty talk, missionary, lazy doggy style, bit of degradation? {Unedited} All characters are of age please don’t interact if uncomfortable!!!

—

"I said move your fucking hands" Aomine groaned, sweat beading down his face as he thrusted into you ruthlessly. "Fucckk~" you whined, letting out a guttural sigh as you pushed at his lower stomach in the hopes of getting some relief; which he obviously, wasn't fucking with. Flipping you over onto your stomach, Aomine grips his hands tightly onto the sides of your waist making it easier for him to fuck you deeper onto his cock.

"You wanted this, so be a good fucking bitch and take it." He grunts, his thrusts becoming more erratic as he starts to lose himself in the tightness of your folds. The sound of his hips hitting your ass with each thrust is enough to bring you closer to the edge; and with the new angels he's reaching at, he's able to hit that spot in ways that has you seeing stars. At this point, you become a whimpering mess, babbling on about how good he was making you feel and how you "couldn't take it anymore." Letting out a soft chuckle, Aomine admires your sexy ass fucked out expression as he continues on with his cruel thrusts. "Shii, you look so fucking sexy, taking this dick." Aomine commented, in a rather raspy tone, in which sent signals down to your already dripping slit.

"Oh, fuck I'm gonna cum." You whine, throwing your head back, just enough for him to snake his hand around his throat, allowing him to drill into you harder. With the way your slit gripped around his cock, making it harder for him to pile drive into you, there was no way he couldn't tell. "Damn, already?...I might have to push in a second round." Aomine hummed, turning his attention to the clock on his nightstand, before bringing it back onto you. Slapping at the fat of your ass, Aomine let out a low chuckle as you started to unravel before him. Pleasure-filled whines filled the air, your slit spasming around his cock as you left the sheets as well as his lower half, fairly drenched in your arousal.

Pulling out of you slowly, his cock, semi-hard, Aomine sighs and gets up out of bed. "You want some water?" He asked, looking down at you with the same tiresome expression, as if he didn't just get down rocking your shit. Though he really didn't wait for you to answer, he just pulled up his briefs and headed towards the kitchen. "Imma just grab you one...and a towel too." He says, his voice getting more faint as he gets further from the room in which you laid, exhausted, trying to catch your breath. "Aye...don't say I ain't ever done shit for your

ass."

—

[solannn]

Haikyuu x Cat!male!reader

description: which,a cat human,[M/N] tries to forget his human past as a cat but it’s isn’t it's not easy as he thought

remember : this story implied male reader and I’m really strict about a fem aligned about reading it you can read it just don’t fetishized it please there’s no nsfw bcs the character aren’t adults so minor are accepted.

KITTY; 01

═══ ⋆★⋆═══

You had 2 owners, one is named Kuroo and the other Kenma.

Kuroo is the one who adopted him alone on a desolate street

Kenma sometimes visited you because you lived with Kuroo. Now you've been living with him for about 2 years, you've gotten used to seeing him leave first thing in the morning to go to class.

You decide to go to his room and the first thing you notice is his volleyball, do you remember seeing her playing with Kenma, won't it do any harm if you try to copy their actions?

You transform into a human and take the ball in your hands, at first you didn't understand the basics so you forced yourself to watch tutorials on the computer.

It's 1:30 p.m. you went to eat for your lunch break, you picked up the ball and started playing again for hours but you forgot that your owner came back around 8 p.m. and you made a mess of the house

The door opened, Kuroo was the first to notice he had his mouth open when he noticed you he exclaimed

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU ??" He enters the house and looks around to find his cat.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY CAT? ARE YOU AN ANIMAL KIDNAPER?? A THIE-” he noticed that you had cat ears and a tail.

“…” He looked you straight in the eyes you didn’t know what to say the room became silent before Kenma arrived.

“I didn’t know you had a b-” Kenma started to say appearing from behind making Kuroo jolt. Kuroo cut him off “I DON’T HAVE A BOYFRIEND."

🧚‍♂️

“Are you trying to tell me you’re my cat, Kitty?” You were sitting on the couch talking everyone thought you were crazy in this room.

Oh yes, you forgot that they called you 'Kitty' because of Hello Kitty and the lack of originality.

You sigh trying to find your words “Touch my ear” The 2 boys raised their eyebrows Kuroo took your ear and pulled it very hard, he could tear it off you cried out in pain.

“I SAID TOUCH NOT PULL.” “YOU NEVER KNOW OK!!” he shouted back. Kenma was massaging his tampons because they were screaming so loudly.

“See I’m real!” You said letting a sigh escape your mouth you didn't know why but you couldn't transform yourself maybe from one to stress or something else probably.

You closed your eyes trying to concentrate, you took deep breaths and relaxed your shoulders. A few seconds passed and you became a cat again, you meowed. Kuroo & Kenma look at you in pure shock.

“Now I believe you it wasn’t so hard to do that” said the boy you gave him a glare,a death glare.

🐱

You turned back into a human to talk to them, you sighed “Calling me [M/N] is better than Kitty” you said, scratching the back of your head.

“Why was Kitty a good first name?” Complains Kuroo “It was shitty and no originality 😐” said Kenma “hey! I had no idea ok?☹️”.

“Actually, if you went to high school, that would be great, wouldn’t it?” “Yeah..” Kenma replied with his eyes on his console.

Kuroo smirked, imagining scenarios where you were in high school “ you should hide your tail and your ears” you nodded Kuroo already had an idea in mind.

"But how old are you? In your human form ig" Kenma asked curiosily if you didn’t mind "I’m 16 years I think I should be in second year" Kenma nodded

“Ah! I almost forgot, [M/N]” a warm smile appeared on his face before disappearing “you clean the house 😘". You sighed

═══ ⋆★⋆═══

[catasoph]

How to kill someone

Tendou Satori x f!reader

Summary: Satori was alone his whole life. Always the monster that nobody wanted around until he found someone that would stay with him till the end.

Words: 2.5k

Warnings: bullying, insults, implied suicidal thoughts, loneliness, angst, hurt/comfort

There was only a little boy sitting at a large table filled with plates and cups for no one to be used, with drinks and snacks that no one would touch. He had a little party hat on his red hair but no one who he would share all the happiness, that once radiated of him, with. His little hands were clenched tightly into his new shirt, his bottom lip wobbling and his eyes becoming glassy but no tear was shed. A woman with a large smile came into the room, holding a cake with chocolate gloss all over it. It wasn`t a masterpiece but it showed that she cared.

“Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Satori. Happy birthday to you!” Before her silvery voice could finish the song the boy in front of her started weeping. His face scrunched up until a stream of tears followed. His mother gently placed the cake on the fully decorated table, just to crouch down next to her boy and hold him tightly. “Ohh honey, I´m so sorry.” His tears were soaking into the fabric of her wonderful dress but she didn`t budge. She didn`t push him away or reprimand him for ruining it. Satori was just a child desperately wanting to feel loved and if his friends couldn`t do that, then his mother would need to step up. “Why didn`t they come?” His little hand still clinging to her form while his pleading eyes were looking right through her. How should she answer that? How should she explain to her son that his friends were playing with his feelings, trying to torture him? “I don`t know, darling.” She tried smiling, lifting the corners of her mouth but it couldn`t reach her eyes, because she knew. They both did.

Every year after that he tried again and again. But no one ever showed up to his birthday parties. After that, the first day of middle school was the chance he had been waiting for. He was bouncing with energy, ready to make everything right. When his mom pulled up to school to drop him off he saw all these unfamiliar children. The reason for all the nervous tugging and quickly looking around from others, was the reason Satori's heart was nearly pounding out of his chest, accompanied by a big smile. Nobody knew him here. Nobody to ignore him, pretend to be his friend but call him names behind his back. It was finally going to be better.

His mother tried to give him a reassuring smile, holding his hands for a second too long with clammy hands while saying goodbye. As soon as her boy turned around running over to the other kids going to his classroom, her smile fell and she started nibbling on her bottom lip. Nearly making it bleed again after doing it repeatedly for the last few days. He was gonna be alright. Satori bounded into his new classroom. Eyes sparkling with excitement. Finally, after everything he would find friends. He could join a sports club to find people that had the same interests as him. They could train together and go to tournaments. He would be just like everybody else.

One of his little hands was reaching for the doorknob of the classroom while his other one was holding the strap of his backpack. Squeezing it occasionally to contain his excitement. The door was pushed open and a few heads turned around with big eyes. Nervousness radiating off them to see who else would be in their class. Satori's smile stretched over his whole face, showing his teeth that were still a bit too big for his mouth. His eyes scrunched together a bit. His eyes scanned the crowd for a place to sit, waving shyly at his new classmates that were still watching him until his eyes landed on them. Two boys, who seemed ohh so innocent but were the demons his nightmares were made of. His supposedly friends, which ignored him, talked behind his back and called him bad names at the end of primary school. They were everything he had wanted to avoid for his new beginning. "Hey, look who else is here?" Akui pointed out. He was a plain-looking kid. Dark hair falling over his face and almost hiding his small brown eyes. He was gesturing towards Satori, making the other boy at the table next to him turn around. Yumekuis freezing cold eyes fell on him and a wicked smirk danced along his features that had to look so innocent to everyone else seeing their interaction.

"Hey freak, nice to have you back in our class." The glint in his eyes darkened while he waved toward Satori and made a gesture to the table in front of them. They wanted him to sit with them. It wasn`t a friendly request so they could all be together. It was meant to be Satori's slow execution. He wanted to torture everything that Satori stood for. But he sat. Even though everything in him screamed to stand up, to run, to fight, to cry, to do anything but sit. He sat. Moving mechanically and not moving a muscle after he had found his place. He was paralyzed. The cruel truth of destiny had shown him that he could not outrun his fate. All other children would have been ecstatic to see a familiar face in the same room as them but for Satori it was a nightmare come true. Satori had thought weeks before stepping foot into his new classroom that things would be finally better, but after a few months, he realized how horrible it was going and that nobody had his back except for himself. And even he wanted to give himself up so badly and put a knife in his heart to end it all. The pain and suffering. The feelings. From day one everyone was against him. He became the monster. The soul-sucking demon nobody was allowed to touch otherwise you got a disease.

It was the second period. Their teacher had written a math problem on the blackboard and tried to explain a new formula to solve it. But it was hard to listen when little paper pieces were stuck in his hair and occasionally wet pieces found their way to his forehead. Satori was never sure if someone used water from their bottle for it or just their own saliva. His table was filling up with garbage from every side. But their teacher stayed oblivious. Never calling the other students out and putting an end to the battle against the monster, as the other children often called it. As if he was a demon that would steal the happiness out of their lives and they had to fend him off.

It never ended there. Throwing garbage was just the beginning and as the months progressed his classmates grew braver. Putting his binders into the trash followed by his backpack. They stole his homework and pulled down his pants. It was exhausting. He was always waiting for the next attack. A new move they would pull on him to hurt him. It didn`t matter what he did to prevent it. They were always there. Watching him, waiting for the perfect opportunity to attack and humiliate him. All their eyes were always on him. He could even feel them at home in the own comforts of his room. Middle school was hell and Yumekui was the reason it got created. The redhead was at the top of the mountain called loneliness and was just a slight push away from rolling down the other side, plummeting into a deep, cold lake that would finally freeze him. An end that he could already see from the top. It didn`t take long as the last push came. He was a stone that got kicked down, so it could sink into the darkness.

It was a Thursday afternoon and the sun was shining mercilessly down onto the courtyard. From the window, he could see children playing basketball or hide and seek. They all had huge smiles plastered onto their faces and even the kid that fell a second ago, was already on his feet again when one of his friends stretched a hand out to him and helped him up. Satori also needed someone to help him up. He joined the volleyball team of his school to find a person that could understand him. Instead, he found his talent. A passion that had kept him alive for longer. One that gave him hope. They had training on Thursday afternoons but as he wanted to grab his bag full of sportswear, he grabbed into nothingness. His bag was not where he had left it. The emptiness of the coat rack was taunting him. He could already see the disappointed and pitying eyes of his mother when another binder got lost or his backpack broke again. But losing his sportswear was worse because he knew he would have never misplaced it. Volleyball was his dream. He would never be so careless as to jeopardize it. The snickers coming from the last remaining students in the classroom also confirmed it. He hadn`t misplaced or lost it. It got stolen, because everyone hated him and no one wanted to play with him. No one could endure the satisfaction in his eyes when he blocked another spike and finally had the upper hand. So when they had a chance to take away his safe space. His paradise. They stopped at nothing. No feelings or expenses were spared because for them he didn`t deserve it. Satori went with hanging shoulders out of the classroom, eyes fixated on the floor so nobody could see the tears dripping down his cheeks. He was just a boy scared his whole life would be similar. Full of people that didn`t know him but hated him for his looks. He was scared that the bullying would only get worse, with no one to rely on but himself. He walked slowly down the corridor. Thinking about just going home, skipping training when anyways nobody wanted him there. Or if he should go to the gym, make up an excuse about forgetting his sports clothes. Standing his ground and showing his classmates that they couldn`t take that from him. But would it be worth it? To arrive there and only see disgusted faces. Two girls were coming his way, whispering their words and snickering quietly. They had something to do with it. Satori could see it in their eyes. They knew and they didn`t look at him with pity, they thought he deserved it. Until screaming was heard from the end of the corridor.

A girl was standing with their back towards him, gripping a bag that looked incredibly familiar while Yumekui was holding onto the other end. "Stop it! These are not yours!" The girl pressed out. Her whole face was red for exertion but her hands were not budging when Yumekui tried to rip it out of them once more. Satori walked closer to the action to confirm what he already thought. A girl he didn`t know was fighting for his gym clothes. Yumekui's hardened eyes lifted and fell automatically onto Satori. Immediately he let go of the bag and put an annoyed look on his face. Letting the girl stumble back but smile in victory. "Tsk, whatever. Keep this dirty thing." The boy tried to sound nonchalant but failed with the look he threw one last time at the pair before turning around. After he was gone the girl sighed in relief. The last tension was leaving her body before Satori spoke up and she went rigid again.

"That`s my bag." He said timidly, pointing with his long fingers toward her hands. Immediately she jerked around, her eyes wide. "Sorry! I wanted to bring it back but I wasn`t sure who it belonged to and Yumekui didn`t want to give it to me." She rapidly explained, putting a small smile on Satori's face which seemed to relax her. "Where did you find it?" "It was in the bin at the entrance." She explained while handing it over to the boy who had lost his smile again. The truth dawned on him, that this would happen more often now and Yumekui would always find new places to hide it. "I like your smile more." She spoke up once again, a frown now also gracing her lips. Satori took cautiously a step back. His brain going a mile a minute trying to figure out where the trap is. Was that girl in it as well? Is she only pretending to play nice to play an even sicker joke? Was she faking liking him, be his friend only to abandon him? Point with a finger at him, laughing uncontrollably while asking who would want to be the friend of a monster. He imagined a thousand scenarios but her eyes looked at him with so much concern that he couldn`t find the will to just run. He couldn`t even form words but she seemed to understand his inner turmoil. "Are you good at volleyball?" A shy nod followed from Satori before his eyes found the floor again. "Do you want to play before the next lesson starts?" His head jerked up, surprise flashing through his eyes while she just smiled. Satori eyed her suspiciously but she was unfazed, just waiting for him to confirm or deny. So he nodded making her beam at him even brighter before she took his hand and bounded with him over to the yard. "I`m (Y/N) (L/N) by the way. Nice to meet you." After that, there was always someone to hold him. They would play volleyball together and (Y/N) would look at him as if he was a miracle. She would always come to his birthday parties or as they got older, plan them herself. Their last year at Shiratorizawa came around and it was clear they all would go their separate ways. Moving to different cities or even countries and chasing their own dreams. Satori's birthday rolled around again. He was no longer filled with dread when he thought about that day because he knew there was always at least one person to remember it. When he came to class that morning a muffin was standing on his table and behind it, Semi and Ushiwaka were standing with neutral expressions. "Hey, guys. Is that for me?" Satori beamed, eyeing the little treat excitedly. "Of course, it's for you. Happy Birthday." Semi rolled his eyes at him but had a small smile on his lips. "I also wish you a pleasant birthday, Tendou." The redhead laughed thanking his ever-stoic friend as he gave him a little bag with presents their whole team had contributed to. Just as he was about to look at it another voice filled the classroom. The door flung open and loud panting was heard, followed by singing as Satori turned around. "Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Satori. Happy Birthday to you!" Her face was bright red and her hair disheveled. It was the most beautiful sight he had seen all morning. "Thank you, Paradise." It wasn`t only gratefulness for her to remember his birthday but for her to stand by his side for all these years and save him from himself.

[jjeulip]

Haikyuu Boys as things my boyfriend does

|| Kuroo. Iwaizumi. Tsukishima.

He moves hair out of your face whenever you talk. He doesn't care if you have bangs or smth. He just love to see your full face ig(?) Even if you told him not to, he'll do it out of conciousness. and bonus part is that he will also tucks your hair behind your ear.

btw tsukishima would do it sometime because he just couldn't stand that one strand of hair.

(the reason why i don't have bangs anymore 😐 kinda cute tho)

|| Osamu. Sunarin.

will interrupt your talk with random 'i love you' and went slient for 30s, staring the shit out of you. somehow it is suppose to be his infamous "deep in love eyes" ... it's unstoppable at this point, tho it kinda gives you icks sometime, you appreciate it nevertheless.

|| Kenma. Kageyama. Sugawara.

Need to wear glassess because he is legally blind as FUCK but he just won't.

will keep denying that he can see clearly whereas everyone know he's blind as SHIT

|| Bokuto. Oikawa. Lev. Atsumu.

If he's going on trip, you'll need to pack his things up or at least have to help him packs his things. And if you ask him

"do you need anything else?"

he'll definitely hit you with the,

"you"

|| Nishinoya Ryuu.

Hates boiled eggs. or eggs in general

©jjeulip | all rights served.

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.8 a little cottage on the countryside

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader (f)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, mentions of weed, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot

ᰔ chapter. 8/x (probably 12)

ᰔ words. 13.5k (...i'm gonna go take a nap lol)

a/n. hello hellooo my dear kickoff readers, hope you're having a nice day so far! this is the longest chapter yet, so i hope you enjoy <3 it's also got one of my favorite tropes everrr hehehehe you could probs guess what it is halfway through. see you at the bottom and happy reading! sorry if there are typos i didn't proofread this one as much as the others haha

nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 :: ch6 :: ch7 :: ch8 :: ch9 :: ch10 (pending)

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1

♬.*ﾟplaylist

You don’t cry much these days, but when you do, it’s usually out of nowhere. 

Like now, as you stand in the school’s photo lab, developing the shots that you took for UTokyo’s game against Osaka last week, and you have to swipe at the tears on your cheek threatening to fall all over the captured images of grass, benches, nets, banners, stands, and him. 

One of the photographs catches your eye, and you pick it up from the table. It’s a candid moment you took of Gojo on the field right before you confessed to him. You had spotted him first while the team was doing their warm-up, and you thought he looked nice from the way he had that concentrated look on his face that you’ve learned to love. But right before you clicked the shutter, he had turned away, chasing after the ball, and so all you could capture was his back facing you as he looked off ahead into the distance. You wondered if that was how it’s always been this whole time–with you looking at him while he’s looking off at something else. It was a depressing thought, but your mind had a tendency for sadness since that day.

The sound of the photo lab door opening jolts you back to reality, and you quickly straighten your posture and wipe your cheek with your sleeve, trying to sniffle as discreetly as possible, then set the picture down. Your fellow film major greets you quietly, asking if you’re still using the developer liquid, to which you say no, then hand it over to them. You stuff your photographs into a folder and head out the door.

You make it across campus to the Film & Media Studies building, then up to the third floor where your professor's office is. His door was ajar, but you still knocked before entering.

He looks up from the photographs he was grading. “Oh, y/n, hello. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, yourself?” you ask, taking a seat on the chair that was fixed to face his desk. You pull your tote bag into your lap.

“Great, thanks. How can I help you?”

You slide the folder to him over the scraped, worn burgundy wood of his desk. “I still had to turn in my photos for the assignment due last week. I appreciate the extension.”

“Ah, right,” he says, taking the folder from you. “I’ll get around to grading them. I’m curious, what did you end up choosing for your subject matter?” He tucks the folder underneath the pile that was to his side.

“I took photos of the soccer team’s game against Osaka Uni on Thursday last week,” you tell him.

He frowns at you. “Film cameras don’t have that level of zoom, though. I do hope you followed the rubric guidelines for central object to frame ratio, otherwise I’ll have to take off points.” 

“Oh– I did. I took the photos from the sidelines,” you tell him, panicking already. 

His eyes widened. “From the sidelines? On the field?”

You nod at him, fidgeting with your bag in your lap.

“Wow, I can’t say I’ve ever had a student take photos like that before. That’s pretty challenging to pull off, though,” he says, sitting up straighter, “...you mind if I take a look at them right now?”

You shake your head. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

He pulls your folder out from the bottom of the pile, then gently slips the photos out of them, rearranging them all across his desk. He leans down closer to study some of them, tilting his head curiously at others, furrowing his brow in concentration to a select few. “These are incredible.”

You take in a deep breath. “Thank you, professor.”

He nods at you with acknowledgement, and you watch him as he studies the images quietly for another minute, then looks up at you. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asks when he notices you’re still seated.

“Ah…yes, there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?” He taps his pen on the desk.

“I was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation for the film graduate program.”

He nods, like he was expecting the question. “Yeah, of course. Just send me your resume and portfolio.” He taps eagerly on one of your images. “Please send me digitals for these, too.”

You let out a relieved exhale. “Yes, I will. Thank you so much, professor, I really appreciate it.”

You left the building feeling extremely relieved about your professor agreeing to write your recommendation, but also feeling sad because you couldn’t tell Gojo about it, since this was the full-circle moment for the little arrangement the two of you had. There’s a thought that considers texting him, and you take out your phone then go to his name, but your thumbs just can’t bring yourself to send him a message.

The days of the week go by in a blur, and between every single little moment in life, your mind always wanders to him. It’s hard to get over someone when you’re surrounded by them. Like late at night while you’re editing the digitals of the game last week to send to your professor, and you find yourself staring at the pictures you’ve taken of him. It’s hard to get over him when the school worships the soccer team and you’re forced to see promotional banners and posters all over campus with his stupidly beautiful face in them. You didn’t have the heart to block him on Instagram, because you remember that time he teased you about how you didn’t follow him back, and you wonder if it would make him sad if you blocked him, so you just resorted to deleting the app instead. And although you were the one that asked for space from him, you were growing increasingly annoyed at how good he seemed to be at keeping it. 

The library wasn’t even much of a safe space either, since you overheard a group of girls the other day at a table arguing about which of the players on the team is the hottest, and so you find yourself doing your homework on a lovely Wednesday morning at your apartment instead. 

You lean back in your chair and look up at the ceiling, and then jump when you hear your phone ring, quickly turning it over to read the caller ID. Nobara. You accept the call, placing her on speaker, then set your phone back down on your desk. 

“Hey, Nobie, what’s up?”

“Hey, nothing much. Just wanted to ask if you wanted to hang out,” she says.

“Oh, I would love to, but I’m working on homework right now. It’s due in a couple of hours,” you sigh.

“Boo, you whore. For what class?”

“My stats 130 elective,” you say. “I’m a film major, why do I need to know statistics?” You tap your pen to your chin. “Actually, it might be valid.”

“Is that the class with the creepy professor?” she asks. “The one that got caught with a PornHub tab open while he was presenting his lecture slides.”

“Yeah.”

“I took his class last semester! I still have all my homework for it,” she exclaims on the other end, “do you want me to send it over?”

“Yes, omg, I could kiss you right now,” you groan, resting your head on your arm sprawled across your desk in exhaustion.

“So definite no to hang out?” 

“Sorry, I’ll reach out later though,” you sigh, “also, my car is still in repair…apparently something came up with the engine. So we can’t go far unless we invite Mina.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to come if we invite her just to chauffeur,” she says sarcastically. “By the way, how’d the pictures come along? For the newsletter?”

You lift your head up off of the desk in a panic. Shit. You were so focused on turning in your digitals of the game to your professor that you totally forgot you were supposed to send them to Utahime as well. “Oh my god, I forgot. When do they finalize the release again?”

“Isn’t it today at noon? I sent over film club’s photos this morning,” she says. 

You glance at the time. 11:56am. 

“Nobara, I’ve gotta go. I need to call Utahime, sorry,” you say. She acknowledges you, telling you to hurry, and then you hang up.

You call Utahime and scribble down on a sticky note to paste on your wall as a reminder to buy her a loving gift basket one of these days because of course she extends the release deadline just for you. You finish touching up the digitals and then send them to her via email, and after you finish your statistics homework, she calls you again to meet up somewhere nearby.

“Thanks so much for coming here,” Utahime says as she sits across from you at one of the local cafes you frequent. “Also, this chai latte is so good, I’m honestly surprised.”

You nod at her. “This place has great drinks.” You slide a folder across the table to her and she sets her drink down to accept it.

“Sorry if it was a hassle, but I just had to ask for physicals of these photos,” she sighs as she pulls them out. “They’re amazing, seriously, I gasped when I saw them. I’m used to sifting through a lot of professional sports photos for the newsletter, for all of the teams on campus, but I’ve never seen photos as charming as these. It could be the film photography aspect, since most of the ones I see are digital, but I’m seriously shocked you could capture shots like this at a rowdy men’s soccer match.”

You’re shaking your head at her. “Please don’t compliment me so much, I’ll cry. And it’s no issue, I had a spare set of physicals from when I developed them. You can keep them.” 

She smiles at you. “Okay, well then, I think it goes without saying that I’ll definitely be including them for the sports recap this week. I’ll send you the money soon, too.”

You clap your hands together and interlock your fingers. “I’m. So. Grateful. For. You.” 

She laughs across from you and takes another sip of her latte before sitting back slightly, glancing at the photos spread across the table. “Hm…how busy are you for the rest of the semester?”

You tilt your head at her and bring your coffee to your lips, taking a sip before setting it back down. “Not terribly busy, I quit my job last month so I’m just taking my assignments as they come and go.”

Utahime nods at you, a thoughtful expression on her face, and she smooths down the fabric of her shirt. “Okay, well, I got an email from the school this morning that one of the newsletter photographers for the men’s soccer team is moving to a different city, so they’re looking to fill in the position as soon as possible and they asked if I knew anyone,” she mentions, resting her elbow on the table and then placing her hand on her cheek. “They usually only hire professionals, but if I put a word in for you, they’d probably offer it to you.”

Your eyes widen at her from across the table, heart beating a bit faster in your chest. 

“They pay really well for a part-time job. It’s essentially full-time pay for part-time hours,” she continues, “but it’s probably because you’ll have to travel with the team to their away games, including unofficial matches and conferences. If you’re not that busy for the next two months, then I think it’d be a good opportunity for you to build experience.” 

You purse your lips together, considering her words. Although it’s a bit different from your long-term career plans, it was still a great way to get experience before graduate school. And besides, you needed the money, considering you quit your job last month and your savings were starting to run thin–never mind the fact that your car repair bill went from a few thousand yen to somewhere in the tens-of-thousands. And you would prefer to still be able to afford rent. Oh, and eat. Possibly still pay for Netflix.

But then there was the fact that having that kind of job meant that you would be spending a lot of time with the soccer team, and therefore increases the chances of running into Gojo. And you’re supposed to be staying away from him to get over your feelings. 

“It sounds like an amazing opportunity, really,” you start, “...but I can’t.”

Utahime frowns at you and sits up straight. “Really? I thought you’d be excited. Why not?”

You sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“y/n…” Utahime starts, “I don’t really know what’s going on in your head right now, but isn’t this your dream? For your work to reach people? I know it’s only a stepping stone, believe me I know very well the path to becoming any sort of artist is an uphill battle of hell, but I’ve known you for a while now. And I know how much your dreams mean to you, and how hard you’re willing to work for them.”

Your heart swells in our chest at Utahime’s words. She was right, and you were starting to get really sick of letting your fears hold you back from what you really wanted in life. “...you’re right, I’m sorry. I’d love to be considered for the position, if you could recommend me.”

She smiles and nods at you. “Will do.”

–

The email for the job offer comes surprisingly fast, and you quickly read through it before accepting. It wasn’t a horrible time commitment, given you’d only have to take pictures during active play during matches, give or take a couple hours before, and the photographers rotate between who takes up each of the conferences so the work was split up. You were able to meet a few of the newsletter photographers & journalists during the game last week, so you already knew some of them. The offer letter came attached with a full calendar of the soccer team’s practice schedule, official match schedule, unofficial match schedule, conference schedule, and other publicity schedule, and you’re shocked at how busy all the players must be. The fact that they still have time to be students–and for most of them, active participants in fraternities–was honestly beyond you. 

It seemed like they only had four more official matches left, two being away matches, along with a couple of unofficial matches that they may or may not participate in depending on how the season goes for them. 

Their next game was on Friday against Kyoto university, and you were scheduled to shoot for their sports conference the day following as well. So you find yourself on a train embarked for the countryside, and you peer out of the window with a nervous feeling in your stomach. The sparkling skyscrapers and bustling crowds of Tokyo gradually started to give way into sights of expansive lush greenery, picturesque and charming towns, and winding rivers surrounded by trees. The closer you got to Kyoto, the sky became more gray until a steady drizzle began to fall against the train window. When you reached the final station, the rain had dissipated, and the taxi ride to the hotel was only about fifteen minutes. The journey felt exhausting, and you were so incredibly ready to pass out in a comfy bed. 

You stood underneath a small sidewalk roof near the vending machines lining the outside of the hotel, trying to keep your bag and suitcase with all your equipment in it dry from the remnant soft mist of rain still lingering in the air.  

“Hey, Utahime, sorry to bother you so late,” you say, holding your phone between your shoulder and ear, “but is it the Hilton on 3rd street? Or on Main? Because if it’s the one on Main, then I may have messed up-”

You stop speaking when you hear a masculine voice down the road towards the left, echoing off of the lined up small shops along the sidewalk, and your heart could have recognized the sound anywhere. You’re swift to turn and face that direction, almost dropping your phone in the process, and you see him– the object of all your suffering lately. 

Gojo stood there, wide-eyed and stopped completely in his tracks as the recognition of you under the dim street lighting flashes across his face. He’s in pajamas– a red long-sleeve cotton shirt that looks so stupidly soft and comfortable it almost makes you emotional, with some matching checkered red pants. It was the most casual clothing you’ve ever seen him in. His hair appears damp, slightly tousled, from what you could assume was an effort to dry it off fast. And he had crocs on. In sports mode. You make a mental note to ask him about his charms and if he’s willing to trade any of them with you. But maybe some other day. When it doesn’t hurt to think about him.

“y/n?” he calls your name out, astonished. He’s looking at you like he’s just seen a ghost but in the best way possible. 

You blink at him, heart skipping a beat just from the mere sight of him, and when you hear Utahime’s voice on the line you’re shaken out of your trance. “Oh, sorry, I’m still here. I…I think I just had my question answered. Thank you, have a good night.” You pull your phone down, gaze lingering on your screen for way too long because you can’t brave yourself to look over at the man to your left, and you end the call.

There’s the sound of remnant puddles of water splashing as he takes a few steps closer to you, and you can see his reflection in the water of the one in front of you. The expression on his face matches the one that was there when you last saw him outside of the UTokyo stadium at the west side exit. It’s an expression you could still see every time you close your eyes.

Finally turning to face him, you purse your lips together. “Hi.”

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks, voice laced with confusion and you see him take in your appearance with eager flicks of his gaze all around, like he couldn’t believe you were standing in front of him right now.

“Satoru!” another familiar voice calls out. “Did you get the orange-flavored ones too? Choso’s a fucking idiot and got the grape ones instead. I hate those. They taste like medicine. And ass. Not that I would know what–” You see Geto emerge from the darkness to Gojo’s side, and now he’s looking at you with a surprised look too. “Oh, it’s y/n. What are you doing here?”

“Hey, you two,” you chirp, trying to act as if an entire world of awkwardness wasn’t being exchanged between you and Gojo right now, for the sake of hoping that Geto wasn’t a very good judge of energy. “I’m here to take pictures of the soccer team.”

Your eyes flicker to Gojo, who is still looking at you like he’s never seen a person before. 

“Oh, is it for another one of your assignments?” Geto asks. 

“No, it’s not. It’s for the newsletter,” you explain to him, “I guess it’s my job now.”

There are a few more distant footsteps that follow behind the two of them, with the crinkling noises of plastic bags hitting against thighs echoing through the streets, and eventually they catch up. You see Nanami and the UTokyo team’s goalie, you believe his name is Choso, arrive at this little gathering that was taking place outside of the hotel.

“That’s awesome!” Geto exclaims. “I’m sure the newsletter will lead to a lot of exposure.”

“Who reads the newsletter?” Choso asks. 

Geto nudges him with his elbow. “Dude.”

“What?”

He then fills Choso in on the conversation, “Oh, my bad.”

“Don’t worry, y/n, I read the newsletter,” Geto says, “I read it like the morning paper.”

“It only comes out once a week, but nice try,” you respond, giving him a weary look.

Nanami crosses his arms. “I actually do happen to read it,” he says, “although I refrain from the soccer section. Feels rather egotistic to read it. I find the campus politics section to be enjoyable, though.”

The rest of you exchange annoyed glances at that.

“Satoru reads the soccer section,” Geto says, slinging an arm around him, “‘cause he’s full of himself.”

For a moment, Gojo remains silent, while his teammates, who had been observing him with amused expressions, gradually shift to awkward blinking, like they were expecting him to complain, or say something sarcastic, or joke around by now.

“I do read it,” he says, eyes locked on yours. “I saw the release from yesterday. Your pictures were stunning.”

You’re flustered from the way he’s looking at you. “Thanks.” 

Choso opens the plastic bag he was holding, peering down into it. “Shit. Ice cream’s melting, guys.”

“Yeah, we should probably head back to the rooms,” Geto looks at you, “do you want any snacks?”

“Oh, no. I’m good. I was just about to go check-in,” you say to them.

The boys politely say bye to you, and Gojo mentions something about staying back for a bit and hands Nanami the plastic bag he was carrying before they head back into the hotel. And then the two of you are alone under this roof, drops of water falling from it in between the two of you. He takes a step towards you, and you instantly stiffen. He seems to notice because he sighs and then walks past you to the vending machine that was next to you, pulling out some spare change from his pocket and inputting it into the machine.

“Do you want anything to drink?” The machine feeds him something, and he crouches down to pick it up before standing up again.

“No, I’m good, thanks,” you say, hand clutching the handle of your suitcase. 

He cracks the can of his soda open. “So, you’re going to be traveling with us for the newsletter now?” he asks, so concisely, like he felt that every word comes with a tax.

“Yeah.”

“We don’t have to act like we’re strangers.”

You turn to face him. “What should we act like then?”

There’s a hesitant look in his expression as he looks down at his feet and then back up at you. “Can’t we at least be friends?”

The question softens you at your core, the tone of his voice sounding genuine. Being friends with him sounds so nice, and you kind of wish that’s what you two always were. Just friends. Maybe it would have avoided all of this heartache. But deep inside you knew that just being friends with him wasn’t an option anymore, at least not for now. “No, sorry. That’s just a recipe for disaster. I have to go check-in now.”

You grab your tote bag from the bench, grip tight onto your suitcase handle and make your way splashing across the shallow puddles then through the hotel’s automatic doors into the warmth of the lobby. 

The lighting inside was warm and there were moderately high ceilings adorned with vintage-looking chandeliers. Around the perimeter, there were amenities including a cozy lounge with a fireplace, a small bar serving cocktails, as well as a business lounge with booths and multiple TVs mounted to the walls playing the local news. It made you feel like you were on vacation, and getting to a hotel at this hour while on vacation always meant that you were about ready to pass out on some freshly washed and tucked white linen sheets after taking a nice warm shower with a lavender-scented mini soap bar.

Making your way through the maze of plush seating areas, you get to the concierge desk to check-in. There was a professionally-dressed woman with a slicked-back bun standing there behind the counter, her eyes scanning the computer screen in front of her, and a big, burly man that stood behind her wearing all black that appeared to be security.

“Hello, I’m here to check-in,” you say, placing your forearm on the cold black counter.

The lady doesn’t look up from the computer screen. You clear your throat.

“Oh, hello. Name on the reservation?” she asks you.

You take a look down at your phone screen. The reservation was still under the name of the person that had recently quit the job. “Yui Ishikawa.”

The lady behind the counter hums to herself, obnoxiously tapping at the keyboard with only one of her index fingers. She was chewing gum. “Hm. Don’t see that name here.”

“What?” You squint at your phone and refresh the page, then turn it to face her. “But it’s on your official booking site. There was email confirmation too.”

She glances at your phone screen then taps at the keyboard again, still obnoxiously loud, but she uses her other index finger this time. “Yeah, still nothing.”

“This has to be some kind of mistake,” you say to her.

She looks up at you with an annoyed expression. “Do you want to take a look at the screen? See for yourself.” She turns the monitor to face you. 

You don’t even work here, but you could see clear as day on their interface software that there was a reservation for this Yui Ishikawa woman at this time tonight. You point at it. “It’s right there. The reservation is literally right there.”

She turns the screen back to herself and squints at it. “Oh. Well, unfortunately, we already gave that room to someone else. Since it wasn’t there on our system a half hour ago.”

“What? How is that fair?” You were starting to get seriously annoyed. That refreshing shower you were dreaming of was starting to sound more of a need than a want with every passing minute. “Can you give me another room?”

“No, sorry, we’re all booked for tonight,” she tells you, without offering any additional help.

You look at her baffled. The big burly man behind her has now taken an interest in the conversation as well. “Okay…can you tell me if there are any hotels nearby that I could stay at?”

“Look. This is the countryside, ma’am, there are only a handful of hotels in this area that aren’t tourist accommodations. It’s also the night before a men’s college soccer match, and there seems to be some business seminar taking place nearby too. You can call and check, but the closest hotel this large is about an hour away,” she tells you. 

“What? An hour away? I can’t afford a cab ride like that,” you tell her.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t really my problem,” she says.

You blink at her. “Are you being serious? This is ridiculous.”

“Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t comply with our booking rules,” she declares.

“Leave?! You’re the ones that messed up the booking!” You’re yelling now, a few heads turning from the bar at the back. Exhaustion was pulsing through your veins and your filter was slipping. “Do you have any idea how to do your damn job?”

The woman guffaws at you. “Alright, that’s it.” She snaps her fingers, and you watch as the big, burly man walks around the counter of the concierge desk to make his way to you.

You take a step back, watching in horror as he towers over you and grabs onto your arm. “Let’s leave without any issues, miss,” he says in a deep voice.

“What?! But– hey, that’s my suitcase! Don’t– wait–”

“Woah, woah, woah,” you hear a familiar voice call out from the left. “What’s going on here?”

The three of you turn your heads in the direction of the voice, and you see Gojo, still clad in those ridiculously soft-looking pajamas, doing a light jog up to the counter.

The woman at the reception desk straightens herself up immediately, and she pets down on her dress and fixes her hair at the mere sight of him. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “Nothing to see here, sir! Just a crazy woman that can’t comprehend hotel establishment rules.”

“That crazy woman just so happens to be my wife,” he says, pulling the big burly man’s hand off of your arm.

All three of you look at him dumbfounded. 

“Y-Your wife?” the woman asks, sounding equally surprised and disappointed. “But she’s complaining about the fact that she doesn’t have a room.”

“I know, she does that all the time,” he sighs, “she’s got–...early-onset…dementia. Sweetheart, what did I tell you about packing up all your things and leaving the room when I’m not watching you?”

You give him a what the fuck look. He scowls at you to just play along.

“So…she’s with you?” the woman asks.

Gojo nods. “She always forgets that we’ve already booked a room together. Just a silly little sickly lady. Isn’t that right, honey?” He’s holding your shoulders and making you face the concierge woman.

“Y-Yes…” you say awkwardly, trying to put on a smile.

“So, if you could forgive her behavior,” he says with a super pleading voice, pulling you into him so your back is flush against his front side. “I’ll keep her in check from now on.”

The woman lets out a scoff in disbelief. “Alright…just don’t let her out again.” You send her a nasty look. The big burly man lets out a hmph and steps away from you. 

“Sure thing. Let’s go, honey,” Gojo says, grabbing the handle of your suitcase in one hand and your upper arm in his other, dragging you with him across the lobby to the elevators. It isn’t until he’s pressed the up button and you finally gain your footing again after stumbling a few steps that you yank away from his grip.

“What are you doing?” you hiss at him, feeling embarrassed.

He looks down at you with a raise of his eyebrow. “Saving you from getting kicked out of the only decent hotel within a thirty-mile radius?”

“I didn’t need your help, I had the situation under control,” you mumble, smoothing out the layers of your clothing.

“Yes. That’s exactly what that looked like,” he muses as the elevator door opens and he steps inside, taking your suitcase with him as hostage. You panic at the sight and step inside with him, the door closing behind you. 

“Where are we going?” you ask.

“To my room,” he says, pressing a button on the control pad, “you couldn’t get one, right?”

Your eyes widen. “No…I couldn’t.” 

Gojo’s room is on the fourth floor, eleven units down to the right, and you follow him with dragging feet all the way down. Once he makes it in front of the door and takes the keycard out of his pocket, he pauses and looks over at you. “Waiting for you to thank me.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “For what?”

He’s waving the card in the air tauntingly. “You look exhausted as hell right now. I’m the one with the access to a nice hotel vanity and a soft, warm bed,” he practically purrs the words.

You’re instantly folding. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, honey,” he chimes, pressing the card to the reader.

“Stop calling me that,” you grumble as he opens the door for you.

You step into the room, rolling your suitcase inside with you, and take a look around. There was a single bed with the headboard up against the left-side wall, a nightstand on both sides and a desk where you noticed Gojo had his laptop open and a few books out. The bathroom was to the right, and there was a long table that had a coffee machine as well as the TV on top of it.

You place your suitcase against the wall then turn around, standing only a few feet from the entrance of the room, to find Gojo still standing outside in the hallway.

“Do you have to go somewhere?” you ask him. “Why are you just standing there?”

“Oh, I don’t need any of my other stuff,” he says to you, tapping at his pocket where you can see the imprint of his wallet, “room’s all yours.”

Your eyes widen at him. “Wait…are you going to sleep somewhere else?”

He tilts his head at you, as if that was obvious. “Yeah, I was going to go crash on the couch in Suguru’s room or something.”

“But–” you start, stopping yourself. 

He’s waiting for you to speak, but you can’t.

“Well…good night, then,” he says and he turns to the side, about to walk down the hall, when you reach out and grab the sleeve of his shirt, stopping him in his tracks.

This was a bad idea. You’re supposed to be putting distance between the two of you right now, so that you can get over him. This was a man that very clearly said he didn’t have feelings for you. But honestly, you missed him. You missed him so damn much this past week, and you can only be strong for so long. 

“You have an important match tomorrow,” you say quietly, “you should be getting a good night’s rest. We’ll share the bed.”

He turns to face you, looking down at where you were pinching the fabric of his shirt, which was just as soft as you had imagined, and he glances up to meet your gaze once again. “I’m…really confused right now.”

“What if you guys lose and are booted from the competition, and I have to spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that the reason the school lost a 12-year championship streak is all because I made you sleep on a couch?” you ask him.

He takes a step towards you. “You really want me to stay?” His voice was low.

“Yes,” you say. “We’re mature adults. Despite everything, we can just…share a bed for one night, right?”

He’s silent for a moment. “I think you trust me a little too much.”

Your face felt hot. “Are you telling me that I shouldn’t?”

“I’m telling you that you should really think this through,” he says.

“Just stay. Please.” The tone to your voice came off much more desperate than you would’ve liked.

He looks at you like the last thing in the world he could say right now was no. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Satoru.”

“Okay,” he says, walking past you into the room, like he wasn’t really in the mood to argue about it anymore.

You sigh, sulking your shoulders a little bit, and watch as he takes a seat at the desk and continues to click through things on his laptop, occasionally sipping on the cup of coffee he had made for himself, as if your presence here was no unnatural thing. 

This all felt so domestic for you. This feels like the most intimate the two of you have been with one another, despite the fact he’s literally made you cum with his tongue before. 

“Who drinks coffee at this hour?” you ask, crouching down to unzip your suitcase, opening it up to find your cosmetics bag and a fresh pair of clothes to change into.

“Caffeine doesn’t really affect me anymore.” His eyes were still stuck on his laptop screen.

“You sound dead inside,” you comment, standing back up straight. You step over your suitcase that was on the floor and head into the bathroom, about to close the door but you open it enough to peer over at him from inside. “I’m going to take a shower,” you announce.

You see him poke his tongue to his cheek, leg bouncing up and down underneath the desk, and he squints at his laptop screen like there’s something so damn important that he must concentrate on or else the entire universe would collapse inside of a black hole. “Cool. Have fun.”

“I will.” 

“I’m glad.”

“No peeping.”

“There’s a lock on the bathroom door. Feel free to use it.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” And then you’re shutting the door. 

It felt nice to freshen up, especially after that long journey, and then you’re doing your skincare in the mirror while you’re wrapped in a towel, trying to forget the fact that the man you quite seriously have immense feelings for is somewhere outside that door just a few feet away in this small hotel room. You spray a spritz of your perfume onto your skin, something there’s literally no point in doing before bedtime, but you still do it…for no particular reason at all, obviously. 

When you step back out into the room, Gojo’s eyes are instantly on you from where he stood near the closet. He takes in your appearance and lets out a laugh, looking at you with amusement.

“What?” you ask.

“You look so cute,” he says, “with your little sloth pajamas.”

You’re fully blushing as you make your way over to the armchair in the room to set your cosmetics bag down on it to sort through the mess you’ve just made of it. “Don’t call me cute,” you scold, searching for your lip balm. 

You could feel his frown from behind you. “You don’t like it?” 

“No. I love it.”

“I’m not following.”

You turn around to face him. “Satoru. You promised me you wouldn’t lead me on anymore. That includes teasing me or complimenting me.”

He looks at you incredulously. “What? I can’t even call you cute? This fucking sucks.”

“Your problem,” you say.

“So you’re cool with sharing a bed, but you’re not cool with me complimenting you,” he lays it out.

“We’re sharing this bed out of the kindness of my own heart,” you say to him, “because I care oh-so-very-much about your soccer career, and understand how important good sleep is for an athlete’s performance. I’m just that considerate of a person.” You point a strict finger at him. “But for your information, if you touch me while we’re in bed, I’ll kill you.”

“Hm. Not sure if I feel threatened or turned on right now,” he says.

You roll your eyes and finally zip up your cosmetics bag, set it on the table then make your way to the left side of the bed. When you glance at the nightstand, you notice Gojo has his wallet, his phone and his charger all situated there.

“Why’s your stuff here?” you ask him.

“Huh? Oh, I was going to sleep on that side,” he says to you.

“I usually sleep on the left side,” you tell him.

“But I usually sleep on the left side.”

You blink at him.

“I–…I’ll sleep on the right side,” he suggests, shoulders tense and on edge.

“Okay,” you shrug, and move his stuff.

Gojo spends some time freshening up in the bathroom too, and when he comes out he looks like he’s actually tired, and you feel like it’s the first time you’ve seen him look as worn out as he probably should be for someone as busy as him. You’re already settled under the sheets, the duvet pulled all the way up to your chin as you lay on your back. He comes up to the right side of the bed, checking his phone for a few minutes while standing and rubbing at the back of his neck, then plugs his phone into the charger. He grabs the sheets, about to pull them back, when he pauses and looks at you.

“Are you su-”

“If you ask me if I’m sure about this one more time, I will no longer feel sorry for you, and will make you go sleep on the love-stained couch,” you threaten him.

He grimaces at your choice of words and pulls the sheets back, slipping himself into bed. “Why do you have to put it like that? You’re gross. Also, I’m pretty sure this bed has seen less-than-holy things too.”

The only lighting in the room came from the warm, dim bulb of the night lamp at Gojo’s nightstand. An incredibly awkward silence settles between the two of you. Or maybe it’s just awkward for you, because he seems fine. He’s on his back too, looking up at the ceiling, practically motionless but there’s the faintest sound of his breathing every once in a while and it’s a sound you’ve never heard in such detail before.

He turns his head to you, but you don’t meet his gaze just yet. You shuffle a little bit, hip bumping against his side, elbow hitting his arm. He’s masculine next to you, shoulders hard, muscles heavy, but when you finally turn your head to glance at him and see the expression on his face, you realize that everything about him was rigid—except for the way he was looking at you.

“When did you sneak it in?” he asks.

“Sneak what in?” 

“The can of strawberry vanilla soda. Into my bag.”

You swear your heart stills a little in your chest. 

“Before,” is all you say to him.

He sighs. “y/n…”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad for me. I wanted you to have it, regardless of how I thought my confession would go,” you assure.

It’s hard to read his expression from the side while he’s looking up at the ceiling, but it’s softer than it was a second ago. The need to change the subject consumes you.

“Why do you have calluses on your fingertips?” you ask him. “You’re a soccer player, you don’t use your hands for anything.”

“I play the guitar,” he replies simply.

You perch yourself up on an elbow, looking down at him with interest. His eyes flicker to your face. “Really?”

“No. I was just kidding. Hate the way you got excited though. I might have to pick up a guitar now.”

“Can you just answer me?” you sigh, flopping down onto your back again.

He laughs a little, a sound you feel like you could get drunk on at this point. He lifts his head up off the pillow enough to tuck his right hand underneath it, then rests it back down. You wish there was a mirror on the ceiling so you could see the flex of his arm. “Coach has us do the rock climbing wall at the gym at least once a week for practice. He thinks it’s a good workout. Causes a hell of a lot of skin tear though.”

“That’s it? That’s the reason?”

“Mhm.”

You shake your head, “You should learn how to play the guitar, because that’s a lame reason to have calluses.”

He lifts his head up off the pillow again and brings the hand that was tucked under his nape to in front of his face and he just looks at it. You look at it too. “Why are you so obsessed with the state of my hands? 

“A girl can’t be curious?” you ask.

“They’re not that bad.” You wonder if you’ve made him self-conscious. 

You watch the way he flexes his fingers open and then closed. He turns it around, and you can see the veins trailing down from the valleys of his knuckles, disappearing into the fabric of his long sleeve. You remember that party, the two of you in that bathroom, when his hands were all over you, and it’s suddenly a little hard to breathe. He turns his hand again so the palm faces him, but now it’s also slightly turned towards you too.

“They’re bad here,” you say, pointing to his ring finger where you see slight peeling at the tip. The padded skin of your finger touches his skin. “A little bad here, too.” You point to his index finger, careless enough to allow all of your fingers to brush against his this time.

He watches you. “Your hands are really small,” he comments, like it was a marvel to him.

You look over at him briefly, and there’s not a single sign of tension in his face as he observes the image of your hand next to his hand in the air above him. He looked like he was at peace.

“Yours are just big,” you tell him. 

He knows he’s not supposed to, and you really shouldn’t have let him, but he interlocks his fingers with yours regardless, holding onto your hand. You feel the roughness of those calluses all across your soft skin. His thumb runs over the curve of your knuckle, almost in a soothing way, like he was trying to apologize to you for something. And this was the only way he knew how. 

Something sobers him up, because he suddenly pulls his fingers from yours and drops his hand to the duvet. Your hand lingers in the air for a few seconds before you do the same. And now you’re both awkwardly staring up at the ceiling again.

“Sorry,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“It’s okay,” you whisper too.

The silence settles for longer.

He sighs. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says out of nowhere.

“Huh?” you turned your body a little to face him, and he was looking up at the ceiling as if there was something across the texture that he was trying to decipher.

“I don’t want you thinking that the reason I can’t-,” he pauses, to think carefully about his words, “...that the reason I can’t return your feelings is because of you, or anything you’ve done. It’s been a while since I’ve liked anyone to be honest, and I’m just really not looking to date right now.”

You’re hurt by his words. Because even if he didn’t want to date anyone, you thought that he would’ve at least tried to for you. You thought that he had at least some feelings that the two of you could’ve worked off of. “Why don’t you want to date anyone?”

“Reasons.”

“Obviously. What reasons?” you prod. When he doesn’t respond, you sigh. “If it’s something traumatic, I get it. My hamster died in the fourth grade,” you say, “I’ve never known peace since.”

He turns onto his side to face you with a soft and amused smile on his face. “Sorry to hear that. What was your hamster’s name?”

You try not to feel hot from the burn of his gaze and you turn onto your back to look up at the ceiling again. “Mr. Guilmon,” you say.

“Like…guilmon from digimon?

“Mhm.”

“You like digimon?”

“Oh yeah, I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid. My mom wanted to name my hamster ‘Scout’ but I refused,” you tell him, blinking a few times as the memories from your childhood come back to you. A small smile makes its way onto your face.

“I love digimon,” he says, fast, like he couldn’t contain it. 

“Really?” you give him a sidewards glance, a little surprised.

He hesitates slightly before sighing, turning over in the opposite direction to reach for his wallet on his nightstand. You feel the fabric of the duvet stretch across you from the movement, and you remember just how intimate this all felt. He’s laying on his back again, holding his wallet up in the air with both hands as he flips it open, then slides his credit card up out of the slot, and shows it to you. Digimon themed. You have to purse your lips together to hold back your laughter.

He turns his head to look at you when you can’t help but let a little noise escape your mouth, and you can see through the laughter-induced sheen of tears in your eyes that he’s frowning.

“Hey–”

“I’m sorry–” you're fully laughing at this point, hand over your mouth to try to contain yourself, “it’s just– oh my god— you’re the last person I would’ve expected to have been such a nerd.” 

“I’m not a nerd–” he tries to argue but you snatch the card out of his hand to study it closer, and also to memorize the numbers on the back.

“Popular soccer boy Gojo Satoru,” you’re giggling, “has a custom Digimon credit card.”

When he tries to reach for it, you stretch your arm off to the left. His weight leans on you, chest pressing against the curve of your shoulder, arm extending across you as he tries to grab his card back. “Quit it,” he mutters. 

“No,” you say, holding it further to your left, weakly trying to push him away from you.

“Quit it,” he repeats, face scowling now with what looks like embarrassment, and he holds his upper body up by the elbow, leaning over you even more to reclaim it, “or else.”

“Or else, what?” you say through wheezes, and it seems like something in him snaps because suddenly he grabs your wrist, hard, pinning it down onto the mattress, holding it there next to your head, and his entire upper body is towering over you. Shocked, you’re breathing fast, your eyes darting across his face, and he’s looking at you with a furrowed brow and a tense jaw.

“Or else I won’t keep my promise,” he says through a harsh breath, his voice low and rough.

You’re stunned underneath him. “What promise?” you ask, breathlessly. 

He leans down closer, to the point where the fringe of his hair brushes against your forehead. “My promise to hold myself back from you.”

You swallow hard, chest heaving. You feel the heat of his hand on your wrist burning through to your veins. You try to squirm slightly in his grip, but he just presses your wrist down further into the mattress.

He glances at your lips, eyes dilated and stern, and leans down even closer to you. “Do you have any idea how bad I’ve been wanting to punish you for leaving me in that bathroom by myself?” he says in a voice so husky you feel the arousal build at your center the second your head registers it.

You can’t find your words. He keeps his eyes locked on yours, as if to make sure yours stay on his too, and you’re docile under him until he’s distracted you enough to pinch his credit card between two of his fingers and discretely pull it out from your grip. He then lets go of your wrist and disappears out of your line of sight when he flops back down onto the mattress next to you, tucking his card back into his wallet.

“But I won’t. Because I’m a nice person, and will respect your space. Or whatever.” 

You don’t know what to say, your hand finding a place over your heart as you try to take deep breaths to calm yourself down.

“We should probably go to sleep,” he sighs after a minute, tossing his wallet back onto the nightstand and reaching over to turn off the light.

It’s dark now in the room, the only light coming from through the layered fabrics of the curtains. It's a cold light, possibly from the moon and maybe some dim neighboring white street lights, but it’s enough to where you could still see the slight texture of the ceiling, and maybe his face.

You both spend a few minutes trying to get comfortable. You try not to bump your butt against him, or brush your chest against his arm, but it happens a couple times anyway, and you mentally curse yourself for it. The rise of the duvet fabric from his chest becomes shallow with his breathing, and you think he’s fallen asleep, but then the two of you turn over at the exact same time, facing each other, eyes flying open and gazes meeting. It startles the both of you, but neither of you look away or say a word. The two of you just sit in the moment for what feels like hours, and very could’ve easily been. 

You’re the first to break the silence. “You know, there was a time where I thought that you weren’t even real.” You’re speaking hushed, like you’re afraid someone will hear, even though there’s only two souls in this room right now.

“What?” he asks, a slight raise to his eyebrow. “...why.”

“I don’t know. You’re like this urban legend around campus. You probably don’t know it, since you’re in it, but the world you’re in is very different from the world the rest of us students are in.”

He’s silent for a moment, his face being briefly illuminated by the reflection of a car’s headlights on the windows of the surrounding building. “I think I know what you mean.”

You blink at him. “I thought you would have a few more follow-up questions to that, but I guess you’re surprisingly self-aware.”

He hums to himself. “I think I can just put it into perspective.”

“Perspective?” you ask. You’re hanging onto every single one of his words tonight. You don’t want a single one of them slipping through you, not understood.

“Yeah,” he says, “there are moments where I feel like I’m not in that world anymore. And it feels nice. To get out of it.”

You want to ask him when those moments are, but he’s quick to speak again.

“I guess that means I’m aware of the moments where I am in it, so I know that it exists, if that makes sense? I don’t know.” He looks down at your pajamas, at the dancing sloth at the front, and the crease to his brow relaxes slightly. 

“Mhm, makes sense.”

His eyes are back on you, studying. There’s a strange look on his face that you can’t really comprehend. “I want to know about your world,” he says.

You breathe in deep, and exhale shallow. “My world is simple. I want to be a filmmaker and then live in a little cottage.”

He smiles at you. “A little cottage?”

“Yeah,” you say, “maybe in the countryside. The Italian countryside. With my own garden in the backyard so I can use fresh zucchini in my salads.”

“Any animals? Pets?” he asks, like he’s envisioning it all in his head too. 

“Maybe some chickens,” you say, “I promised Mr. Guilmon I’d name another one of my pets after him someday. I have to keep my promise.”

He nods. “You do.”

There’s another silence, but it doesn’t feel awkward this time.

“Did you turn your photos in to your professor?” he asks.

“Yeah, I did,” you tell him. “Earlier this week.”

“Nice. What about your reference for grad school?”

“I asked him for it.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows raise. “How’d it go?”

“Mm…I was really nervous, but it went well. He said he’d do it.”

There’s such a tenderness to his expression that you feel so compelled to kiss him right now. “That’s awesome. I’m proud of you. That’s one step closer to your dream.”

You purse your lips together from his words, sitting with the warm feeling in your chest. You want to thank him again, but instead all you say is “we’re even now.”

He lets out a small chuckle. It comes from his throat. “You’ve said that so many times.”

“I know.” Because you can’t believe it’s all over. This little arrangement between the two of you. You don’t want it to be over. “I can’t remember when the first time I said it was.”

“That night,” he answers you fast and with certainty, like it was at the forefront of his mind, “when you drove over rocks. And we sat together on the curb. And I realized how badly you take care of your car. You don’t need thousands of chain restaurant napkins in your glovebox, by the way. No matter how much you might think you do.”

“Wow. I was almost romanced by you for a second, but you ruined it,” you mumble.

You’re instantly taken back to that night. You remember the gentle quality in his eyes as he stared up at the stars, and you can still see the reflection of that sky in his eyes right now with the way he’s looking at you. 

“I really liked you that night,” you whisper, “I wish you were like that all the time.”

“Am I not like that all the time?” he asks, voice soft to match yours.

“No,” you say, “sometimes you’re mean.”

His eyes on you are gentle, somewhat careful. “I’m sorry for being mean.” 

You wonder if you can change his mind. If you can will him to like you back, if you can will him into wanting a relationship with you. You want to be his exception, not his rule.

“It’s okay. I’m mean sometimes, too,” you say, “mean to myself for sharing a bed with a guy that doesn’t like me.” He’s looking at your lips as you speak. “I’m bad like that.”

“You’re not bad,” is all he says.

“I am,” you say, and you inch closer to him, until there’s hardly any space between the two of you. You look up at him, faces inches away. You feel so safe with him, and yet you also feel scared, because you like him so much that you would let him ruin you if he wanted to. You press a flat palm to his shirt, searching for his heart, and you find that it’s beating fast in his chest. “I’m a bad woman, Satoru.”

“y/n,” he says, like a warning.

“I mean it,” you whisper.

“You said you’d kill me if I touch you,” he reminds you, sounding a little breathless.

“I can’t kill you, you’re way stronger than me,” you whisper, “so touch me.” Your hand is gripping onto the fabric of his shirt now, tight, with desire. He’s looking at you with a whole lot of desire too, but there was something else there as well. “Please.”

He wraps his hand around your wrist–the heat of his touch that you so badly wanted, craved, finally on you–but it’s to pull you away from him. Your grasp on his shirt releases and he brings your hand to the front of your chest, laying it down gently before letting it go. Your wrist lays limp there, missing his touch. Limp in front of your beating heart.

“Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” he says softly. 

Your eyes widen when you look at him, and you couldn’t even hide the hurt that settled across your face if you tried. Gaze dropping to his chest, you see the way it was rising with every breath he took, and for the second time in this life, you’ve felt so utterly rejected by him. You give him a compliant nod, and scootch back away from him before turning away. He stays as he is, watching your back, and you can feel his gaze on the nape of your neck. 

Counting the minutes to fall asleep felt exhausting, but the last thing you remember before you closed your eyes was the feeling of a tear trickling down onto your pillow, wet and cold against your cheek.

–

You wake up the next morning to an empty bed, and an even emptier feeling heart. There’s also this weird feeling of disappointment within you, and you don’t really know why.

Grabbing your phone on the nightstand, you quickly search for the email with the men’s soccer team practice schedule, and you see that they had a sharp 8am practice this morning before the game in the afternoon. The time reads 6:37am, and you’re wondering where Gojo went so early in the morning before heading off to the practice field.

You went back to sleep for a couple hours, and then woke up again. By the time you took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to the hotel lobby to eat breakfast, it was already 10:00am and it was time to make it to the field so you could set up and calibrate your camera prior to taking photos for the match. Following Utahime’s gameday instructions, you took a cab to the location with all of your gear.

The Kyoto soccer stadium was less of a stadium and more of an extremely large and open expanse of grass that had enormous silver metal stands stretching across the perimeter. It was something you would expect of an area in the countryside, but security was still somehow tight across the fenced off area. 

It was still a couple hours before the game, so the field was bustling with pre-game set-ups and the stands were empty. There were a few sports canopies being put up, as well as a small truck with workers that were working to stock up the hydration stations. A few men in suits were seated at tables with notepads and clipboards, looking busy in conversation and on what sounded like business calls. As you walk down the sidelines, you notice a few other people checking the distances between the goals and the chalk markings across the field. The stands were extremely close to all of the action, and when you look to the right, you see a couple of familiar faces there.

“Ah, y/n! We’re over here.”

You approach the group of three people, all seated on the lowest metal bench of one of the spectator sections. There were a bunch of tripods, cameras, cases, and laptops sprawled across in front of them. You recognize Hana and Minato, but you don’t recognize the other man sitting with them. You had met Hana and Minato at the game against Osaka last week, they were both professional photographers for the newsletter.

Hana hops off the bench and comes up to you. “It’s seriously so cool you’re here with us and that Utahime got you this gig,” she says to you with a smile. “Make sure your schedule is free on nights after matches, all us photographers usually get dinner together afterwards. You’re the baby out of us, so we’ll pay for you.”

You return her smile with one of your own. “That’s sweet, and sure I’ll try to.” 

You glance at the man whose name you didn’t know, your gaze meeting his, and soon enough he’s jumping up onto his feet too and making his way over to you.

“Ah, this is Kaito. Kai for short,” Hana says, gesturing to the man, and then to you.

Kai extends his hand out for you to shake. He’s tall and a bit lean. His style is really boyish—totally nailing the street photographer outfit with the white shirt underneath a flannel one, and some Carhartt pants paired with some Vans. You reach out to shake his hand, and he holds onto it for a second longer than you would’ve expected.

“Hi,” you greet him and tell him your name.

“That’s a nice name,” he says with a smile.

Hana claps her hands together. “Okay! We all know each other now, that’s great. We should get started prepping before the players get here, I believe they’re scheduled to be here in an hour.” She walks over to the benches and picks up her digital camera. Minato grabs his as well as his tripod, then walks over to Hana’s side. “The way we usually do it is to split the field into corners, and each of us works that perimeter. The videographers are here too, so just make sure you don’t accidentally knock over or stand in front of one of their cameras.”

All three of you nod at her and you unzip your case to take your film camera out. Kai is next to you, looking at the device in your hands curiously.

“Kai, you can work with y/n for today since it’s her first day. Split up those two corners over there,” Hana says, pointing to the other end of the field. You and Kai look in that direction. “Minato and I will take the other short end.”

With a few more discussions and detailed instructions, the four of you disperse to your assigned locations. You’re a step ahead of Kai, although he should really be the one leading your stride since you’re the new one here, but he soon enough catches up to you.

“Is that a Canon AE-1?” he asks you, pointing to your camera.

You look at him a little surprised. “Yeah, it is. As vintage as they get.”

“Sweet, I used to shoot on film too. Second-hand?” 

“No, third. Still cost me an arm and a leg, though,” you sigh.

He laughs. “They’re not that expensive.”

“I’m a broke college student. I sometimes have to choose between paying rent and eating food,” you say to him.

He kicks at a random can on the grass, sending it flying forward, instead of picking it up. “Yeah, definitely don’t miss those days.”

“When did you graduate?” you ask.

“From UTokyo two years ago,” he says. 

You bend over to pick up the can he kicked and jog a little to the trashcan nearby, tossing it in, then jog back to him. “That’s nice. You’ve been doing this for two years?”

“Yup,” he says to you as the two of you reach the corner of the field outlined by freshly drawn chalk. He kneels down on the grass, sets his camera case down, and opens it up. Your jaw drops.

“Is that a—Leica camera?” you ask him, shocked.

He smirks up at you. “Sure is.”

“Oh, so you’re just rich, then,” you sit down on the grass to look at it with interest, marveling at its condition.

“Nope. I’ll bet I got it for cheaper than your Canon there,” he points to the camera hung at your neck.

You meet his gaze. “No way.”

“Way,” he says, pulling out the attachable lens before wiping at it with a microfiber cloth, “I know a guy. He sells used cameras. The only issue is you’ve gotta refurbish them yourself.” 

You sigh. “Wonderful. Because I would know how to do that.”

He lets out a half-laugh, and you glance up briefly to look at his expression. He was amused. “It’s pretty easy, just gotta do it once. And then you’ll have a used Leica that works brand-new, all for just under a hundred-thousand yen.”

You’re looking at him with surprise again. “That cheap?”

“Yup.”

“Wow…” Your finger plays with the lens cap on your camera.

“If you want, I can send you his info. But if you want to meet up with him, it’ll probably have to be facilitated through me,” Kai says, “He takes clients by recommendation. No use in selling a used camera to an idiot that doesn’t know how to refurbish it. He’s looking for niche photographers that have the interest.”

You press your lips together, considering it. “Sure.”

He hands his phone to you. “Alright, gimme your number.”

You hesitate for a second before typing your number into his contacts then hand it back and watch as he saves it in his phone. “Canon girl. Won’t forget ya.”

The two of you make work for a second, eyeing the field and mapping out angles of where to get the best shots during play. Kai gives you some pointers and you’re marveling at how good they are.

“Not really used to shooting on film anymore,” he mumbles, peering through the hole on your camera when you handed it over to him, “but usually a one over five-hundred shutter speed works well for sports. I’d switch between that and over two-fifty though, to avoid a blurry finish.”

“Thanks,” you say to him, wanting to write all this down to not forget it. “Wish I knew this last week.”

“Why shoot on film?” he asks out of nowhere, handing your camera back to you. “Why not digital?”

“Oh, it’s a personal interest,” you say to him, adjusting your shutter speed as he suggested, “I think there’s a charm to it. I want to be a movie maker, and shoot on film medium.”

He frowns at you. “How are you going to do that?”

You tilt your head at him, shuffling on the grass. “I’m going to apply to the film graduate program at UTokyo to start.”

He laughs at that from where he’s seated across from you. “Really? That’s a waste of your time.”

Your heart sinks a little in your chest from his tone. “Why would it be a waste of my time?”

He turns to face you more directly. “y/n, trust me, I know this career path. Been there, done that. Millions of film majors like yourself always have these big-ass dreams like ‘I want to become a director, I want to do screenplay’ etc., but only one or two of them actually succeed.” 

Your shoulders sulk. It’s not the first time you’ve heard those words from someone—your own parents practically recited them word-for-word before you headed off to college—but you had been doing really well all of senior year to ignore that nagging little voice in your head. It was honestly quite triggering to hear it all again right now. “Well, I think I can do it.”

He lets out a short scoff. “You sound real convincing there.” When he catches sight of your upset expression, he straightens his back a little. “My bad. Just trying to look out for you. I’m your senior in this industry. I know my way around these things. Trust me.”

You nod slowly. “I know. Thanks.” Part of you wonders if he’s just projecting.

“Well anyway,” he shrugs, “I think you should just focus on photography for now. It’s the safest career option for you to do.”

“I guess you’re right,” you say, wanting to diffuse the conversation.

The two of you disperse to your assigned corners once the stands start to fill with spectators. Shortly after, the players make their introductions onto the field, and you can see Gojo across the field. He’s too far to read his expression, but for some reason when you look at him, that disappointed feeling from this morning comes back to you. You try to push it down and just focus on your task at hand.

UTokyo does well during the match, and Gojo seems to be playing much better than the Osaka game last week, scoring two goals within the first half. There were a couple of times where there were throw-ins near your corner, and you made eye contact with him as he’s breathing heavily, wiping the sweat off his face with his jersey, and every time you look at him, that melancholic feeling washes over you again. UTokyo wins 3-2, the crowd evidently disappointed as they were rooting for their home team, and by the time the disgruntled fans started to clear the stands, the sun was setting over the horizon and the sky was a golden color.

The referees on the field begin to oversee the post-match proceedings with the players. Kai comes around to meet you at your corner, and Hana and Minato arrive there too.

“Hey team! How’d it go?” Hana asks, a little out of breath from her journey over here.

“Went fine,” Kai responds.

“It was a little tricky,” you comment, “but I think my photos came out well.”

Hana nods. “Alright, sounds good. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”

Kai and Minato nod, and then all three sets of eyes are on you. You hesitate for a moment, and look off past them to where you see the group of soccer players in conversations with the coaches and referees. You see Gojo standing there, his hands on his hips as he peered across the field, tilting his neck to the side repeatedly, and you realize he had been doing that all match long. That unsettling feeling within you starts to brew once again. “Uh, I’m really sorry, but I’m not feeling very well. I think I might just head back to the hotel.”

Hana and Minato nod at you with a concerned expression, while Kai just looks disappointed.

“Okay, well, I hope you feel better,” she says.

You end up taking an Uber back to the hotel in haste, not wanting to run into Gojo or any of the other soccer players after their match, and make it to the room, using the key card that Gojo gave you to get inside. You take a shower to freshen up, and by the time it’s 7pm, you’re starving. You put on a simple outfit and make it downstairs into the lobby of the hotel, about to go peruse the nearby dining options, but right when you step out of the elevator, you run into Gojo.

There’s a look of pleasant surprise on his face and you take in his appearance. He was still wearing his soccer jersey, covered in grass and dirt stains, and his face was slightly flushed from exertion. You figured he just came back from the field.

“Hey,” he says, “sorry, I was just about to head over there.” He jerks his head off towards the lobby, and you glance in that direction. There was a group of maybe thirty people gathered around the lounging areas and high-tables over at the business suite, and you recognize them as UTokyo’s soccer players, along with Coach Yaga and other team staff. The players were still all clad in their uniforms, carrying all their stuff, and there were plays of today’s game rerunning across the TV screens. You realize they’re probably prepping for interview questions for tomorrow’s conference.

“Oh, please, go ahead,” you say to him.

He tilts his head at you. “Are you doing alright?” 

You were aware that things might feel awkward after last night, and that your cheeks would probably feel hot like they do now the next time you had to talk to him. Your mind takes you back to the memories, when you think about how badly you wanted him to stay with you in the room because of that hollow feeling in your chest from missing him, despite how you knew it was bad for you. Because this man standing in front of you doesn’t like you in the way that you like him. 

And then it clicks. The reason for that feeling of disappointment you’ve had since the moment you woke up today.

When you glance up at Gojo this time, you see him differently than you had from a second ago. You finally notice the slight dark circles under his eyes, and figure out that the reason he’s been tilting his neck to the side all day was because he was trying to stretch out a kink. You vaguely recall that moment you woke up in the middle of the night, and your sleepy brain registered that there was no longer the dip of him in the mattress next to you.

“When did you leave the room?” you ask him. You know your voice is quiet when he has to lean down a bit to hear you.

He takes his time answering, indulging in a few breaths. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” you say, starting to sound hostile, “you left during the night, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“You left once I fell asleep,” you say, eyes widening with realization.

He sighs. “Yes.”

“Where did you go to sleep?” you ask, trying to keep your tone level.

“Suguru’s room had an extra couch. I pushed them together.”

You felt sick and sad, feeling something worse than rejection right now. There was a part of you that still thought that all of this from him was just a joke. A prank. That he was finally going to say just kidding, I like you too. The reason you’ve been so disappointed since the minute you woke up today was because there was a part of you that thought you were going to wake up this morning with his arms wrapped around you, back pressed tight to his chest while he whispers sweet nothings in your ear of how much he likes you, of how much he wants you, of how much he wants to be with you.

“Why? Even after I said I didn’t want you to have bad sleep?” Your voice was laced with hurt. You didn’t even know how to explain to him why it upset you, because deep down you’re scared it isn’t even valid.

“It’s fine,” he says, “I played fine today. And we won.”

“You could’ve stayed. Do you really hate me that much?” Your words are shooting to kill now. “So I’m good enough to finger in a bathroom at a frat party, but not good enough to sleep next to?”

He furrows his brow. “I don’t understand why we’re arguing about this,” he says, tone starting to match yours, “you’re the one that wanted space. I was just trying to respect that.”

“If you really wanted to respect my space, you wouldn’t have agreed to share the bed with me in the first place.”

“y/n,” he says, “that’s not fair.”

“You should’ve known better.” You’re breathing fast, tone searingly accusive. “You know that I’m trying to get over you, and that I’m vulnerable, and that I’m probably confused about a lot of things right now.”

“I ask if we could at least be friends, you say no because it’d be some recipe for disaster, then you practically beg me to stay with you and tell me to touch you while we’re laying down together. You don’t think that’s confusing for me too?” he counters.

Your cheeks flush with embarrassment at the memory of your desperate actions last night, and he instantly looks apologetic. You feel like you’re being unfair, but you feel like he’s being unfair too.

“I’m the one with feelings,” is all you say in your defense.

He swipes at his chin roughly with the back of his hand, smudging the dirt up to his cheek, and then closes his eyes for a second, like the weight of today has finally hit him all at once. He looks exhausted. “Right,” he says, softly, “I’m sorry.”

“Yo, Satoru!” one of his teammates yells from the center of the lobby. “Coach needs you, man.”

He rubs a hand down his tired face then throws a haphazard glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec,” he calls out and then looks back at you. You can’t make eye contact with him, and just stare at the print on his jersey instead. “I’ll sleep in Suguru’s again tonight. The room is yours.”

There’s a lump in your throat and you feel like you’re about to cry. “Okay.”

He reaches into his shorts pocket and gives you a room card. “Here’s the spare. I don’t need to come grab my stuff for the night, so don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

He sounds like he wants to say more, and you see him take a small step towards you, hand reaching out for you, but this time Coach Yaga’s stern voice is calling out to him too. He sighs. “Good night.”

“Mhm. Thanks.”

He hesitates before he turns on his heel and you watch his back, with that signature #10 stretched across the fabric of his uniforn, as he jogs through the hotel lobby to his teammates.

The walk back to the hotel room is depressing, and you find yourself dragging your feet all the way there. Once you make your way inside, you look around at the room and see some of Gojo’s belongings scattered around, but it didn’t seem like there were any of his essentials. You look down at the spare key card in your hand–a promise from him that he won’t try to upset you anymore tonight–and that lump in your throat from earlier comes back. 

You hated fighting with him. You hated being away from him. Those feelings that you thought would go away just as fast as they came still sat so stubbornly within your heart, and it was becoming impossible to bear. 

You wonder if meeting him was all just some horrible, twisted mistake. 

Before you have time to dwell on that sad sentiment, your phone screen lights up with a message.

|| 7:52pm unknown number: kinda sucks you’re not here with us. was looking forward to showing you more of my camera

|| 7:53pm unknown number: this is kai by the way

The features of your face feel heavy as you look down at your phone screen. You don’t even notice your eyes are teary until you realize the blur of your vision makes it hard to see the letters as you type out a response.

You just wanted a distraction from all this pain.

|| 7:54pm you: can you send me the address? i wanna be there

a/n. grrrr i love a one-bed trope so much grrrrrrrrr it's gonna do it for me every damn time lol. thanks a bunch for reading!! there's still so much that i've got planned for the series haha i think the second half is gonna be a lot crazier than the first. super excited to write it though. by the way! i'm starting a choso x reader zombie au series, if you'd like to read more about it and/or be added to the taglist, you can reply to this post here also if you want to be added to taglist in general, i'd recommend making sure your tags are on!! since i've noticed a lot of people have them off

➸ take me to chapter nine!

taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @therealestpussyeater @lost-resonance @hojoslutoru @foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @bsdicinindirdim @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @btszn @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @drthymby @ninitoru @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @horisdope @sykostyles @aquaberrydolphin @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @purplehallow11 @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @bxddiebloss @chwesuh-imnida @mo0nforme @viware @still-fking-single @megumisthirdog @gintokhi @karvokr @cierocanteat @imjustaweirdnerd (hope i didn't miss anyone thank u all sm!!)

[latte-moo]

Perfect Imitation

Pairing: Kise Ryota

Genre: Short Smut

Word Count: 791

Content: Fingering, dom Kise, sub reader, pet names(Pretty, Gorgeous,Beautiful), multiple orgasm, overstimulation, All characters are of age please don’t interact if uncomfortable!!!

Tumblr Exclusive?!

It’s common knowledge, for most of his opponents, that upon seeing anything just a few times, Kise can perfectly imitate their moves; using them at his disposer and even making them his own. Though at first, you only thought that this gift applied to plays in basketball, you realized pretty quickly that this skill carried on into aspects of his life: the most rewarding, being bedroom.

“Show me just one more time Pretty.” Kise asked, watching as your face contorted into expressions of dazed embarrassment. Though you were pretty sure that he had already gotten the hang of how you liked to be touched, you obliged to his embarrassing wishes anyways. Paying mind to his hungry gaze, as you stared up at him through hazy and fucked out eyes; making you want to mentally and physically curl into yourself.

Just the thought alone of you being splayed out for him,fingers thrusting deeply into your creamy folds, while he eagerly breaths in the scent of your desire, as you moan and whine out like a bitch in heat,was enough to bring about another toe curling orgasm: and so it did. Picking up the pace of your thrusts while biting back a loud moan, Kise eagerly licked his lips, watching in awe as your body slightly convulsed and bucked; an intoxicating view that only his eyes alone would see. “Could you get any Prettier?” he whispered, eyes glazed over, as he gently caressed your now sore thighs, before bending down to place a sloppy and strictly filled with want, kiss onto your lips. “W-was that good enough for you…do you g-get it now?” you asked, catching your breath as you laid out on his bed, overstimulated and slightly humiliated.

“If I’m being perfectly honest Gorgeous, I picked up on it the first time around, but watching you play with that sweet pussy of yours, was a sight that needed a few replays.” Kise said, lowly chuckling to himself as your face heated up in dark hues red. “You’re just too sexy for your own good.” He explained, kneading the inner part of your thighs. Luckily for him, Kise picked the best time to mess with you, cause if you had any ounce of energy left, you were sure to have slapped that devious ass grin off his handsome face. Though, overstimulating you wasn't just for a sadistic joke of his, he had certain ulterior motives for doing so. “Now stop with your pouting, and let me have a go with you Pretty.” Kise urged, bringing the playful vibe down a bit.

Immediately after getting your verbal consent, Kise paid a good bit of attention to your already puffy clit. Rubbing slow sensual circles on it, Kise smirked hearing your voice softly and needingly whined out to him. Nevertheless he wasn’t satisfied with just soft whines and moans, he needed for you to be begging to cum from his touch. Amping up the pleasure, Kise Inserted two fingers into your jelly like folds; though it was a tight fit, being that his fingers were much bigger than yours,the guttural moans that he received from his continuously slow thrusts and finger curls were like music to his ears. “Fuck, my pretty little slut sounds so fucking good right now, please moan for me some more Beautiful.” Kise groaned, watching as your eyes lulled to the back of your head.

Speeding up his pace, he then attacked your neck with soft kisses and dark hickies, claiming you as his, wantonly whining and moaning underneath him. “I’m gonna c-cum.” You managed to moan between catching your breath and overwhelming sensations of pleasure. “No, wait a bit longer.” Kise demanded, a primal urge coming over him as he watched your pussy grip onto his fingers, with zero intent to let them go; and on top of that, the pool of arousal that had started to stain his bed sheet was starting to cloud his better judgment. Finger fucking your puffy and abused pussy much rougher, Kise watched as you unintentionally came undone for him:squirting all over his lower half and bedsheet, legs shaking and you endlessly apologized, in between soft whines and hitched breathing.

Though he didn’t blame you for suddenly cumming without his permission, he found it rather amusing, seeing you apologizing and begging to not be punished; and of course cutting you some slack, Kise went off to the bathroom in search of a towel to clean you up. Now laying in a bed of your own arousal, embarrassment, as well as total bliss, you were fully aware that you could never replicate the feeling of pleasure that Kise offered you. “Damn, that had to be more than just a perfect imitation.”

[taeyamayang]

HOME / PREVIOUS CHAPTER

a stranger's comfort

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a/n: kenma's "furry guest" is his cat, graham btw lol see ref: his official twt acc header

NEXT CHAPTER >>>

masterlist | hq.list | coffee date with me?

[translytherins]

*[Y/n] and Oikawa getting surrounded by Oikawa's fangirls*

[Y/n]: Oikawa-senpai! We're surrounded! What do we do!?!

Oikawa: Quick! Take my hand!

[Y/n] *holds Oikawa's hand*: Now what?

Oikawa: Nothing! I just wanted to hold your hand! (UwU)

[yuuuuuuslazy]

♪｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+—⁠☆ᴄʜɪʟᴅʜᴏᴏᴅ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀꜱ itoshi Sae x FEM!reader (one shot)

Genre : fluff + slight angst

Warnings : swearing and ooc sae (kinda-

Enjoy~ feedbacks, likes and reblogs are appreciated<3

••••••••••••••♪•••••••••••••••••

You sat on your couch in your little apartment, staring intensely at the tv screen. The soccer teams were on a tie and this goal will determine the winner of the finals. Once the player spiked the ball into the opposite team's goal, you couldn't help but cheer in excitement while hugging your a pillow close to you. Were you a big fan of soccer? Honestly, no. Why are you watching it then? Because that's your lover right there playing on the field all the way in Spain. You've known him since you were children. Your childhood best friend and crush, the person who's cold but always looks out for you. The soccer prodigy who kept your identity as a secret everytime the press asked him about you not because he's ashamed to be seen with you. It's just that he prefers that nobody knows who his secret darling is, not liking people who pry in his business, the person you love and loves you so much, 𝘐𝘵𝘰𝘴𝘩𝘪 𝘚𝘢𝘦.

*𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤*------------------------

"Sae!!! Over here!!!!!" Five year old you yelled out loud while waving to your best friend who was in the distance. With his deadpan expression he walks up to you for your daily hangout session at the park opposite your houses. You lived right next to him but the park was more amusing with the slides and seesaws. He looks like he doesn't care but he does care, a lot actually. You were the only one who played and hanged around him without other intensions. He could see that other kids were with him just to say "I'm good friends with itoshi". But 𝘠𝘰𝘶. When he questioned you your answer took him by surprise. "Why would I need a reason to be friends with you, were neighbors after all..and you're fun to be with!" Other kids teased him about having a crush on you but he declined coldly. Honestly it hurt you a bit, knowing this boy that you have a 𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚢 crush on doesn't see you that way. Though, you just shrugged it off and see it as puppy love.

[ ᴅᴏᴇꜱ ʜᴇ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ɴᴏᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜ....]

He'd always remember your daily playdates ; he'd save an extra piece of your favourite food for you if the canteen was serving it that day ; he'd take your homework for you if you were sick ; he'd visit you in your home and listen to you when you were feeling down ; he even once bought you a plushie with his savings since he knew you liked it much.

ᴏʜ, ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ʜᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇs ʏᴏᴜ

yet he couldn't admin it afraid of

your rejection.

[ 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 - 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 ]

He finally decided to man up and tell you his feelings. THE itoshi sae, going to confess to a girl and give up his pride, who would have thought...

As he turned around the corner to look for you, he saw you Infront of your locker with a guy Infront of you and you, holding a bag of...something the guy gave you. He quickly left without listening to anything because he knows the chances of him getting his heart broken is very likely. Why would you like him? He doubted you do. He's so cold and doesn't know how to express his feelings. Little did he know you rejected the guy because the one you have feelings for is sae. While sae walked back to find you still holding the things that guy gave you, jealousy and sadness rushed up. He still held that "i-don't-care" expression not knowing that person INSISTED on you keeping those things even if you did reject him to reserve your heart for the slightest chance of sae liking you.

One day on your daily hangout sessions, sae broke the news to you that he's leaving for Spain to train for his soccer. In all honesty you were sad, really sad about how he's not here anymore and you'd be lonely. Over time he grew up to be insanely attractive with a special charm in his eyes to which your crush on him was even more crazy than it was. How you liked the way your eyes meet his emerald green ones across the room. To the fact that he might meet some pretty girl in Spain and forget about you- or worst never come back! And those thoughts, scared you to bits. Yes, after all these years your feelings for him never changed. He promised that he'd come back and stay in touch with you but you knew him and his buzy schedule all too well.

••••••••••••••••••••••°

You bid him goodbye at the airport and he surprisingly gave you a hug. He also gave you a small paper bag telling you to to open it when you get home. The second you got home you sprinted to your room to open the bag. Inside was your favourite candy, a jewelry box and a letter with his initials on it. The jewelry box had a beautiful neckless inside, coloured silver with sparkles in the shape of a heart and had your name carved at the back of it. You LOVED it. Opening the letter it said :

To : (y/n)

I've been wanting to give you this for the longest time and chickened out when I saw that guy confessing to you a few years ago. Although you were never with him I'm scared you don't feel the same as I do. You don't have to return my feelings, I just wanted to let you know that I love you, I always have. At least let's still be friends if you already like someone else, promise?

Itoshi.S

Yes, he wanted to confess to you with that neckless

Yes, he's always loved you

Yes, you love him too

Yes, your special someone has always been around

Holding his letter close to you, tears ran down your cheeks. You'd surely miss him now that he's gone but you've decided to text him later to tell him you like him too.

____________________________________

Sae on the plane was wondering if you've read the letter. Do you feel the same? Do you like him or hate him? Have you blocked him because you're disgusted? The feeling was making him uncomfortable. All he could think about was you, his childhood sweetheart and the girl who stole his heart.

°°fast-forward °°

He confessed to you again when he made his returns to Japan six months after. That chilly night at the usual park, you shared a sweet kiss with your crush of many years and now boyfriend. With your arms around his neck and his around your waist, your dream- no, your dreams have came true.

Being in a relationship with sae was difficult yet both of you believed. He does call you almost every night, he'd send you things and tell you about his day. Sometimes you can't help but wonder what it would like to have him around everyday when your eyes come across a sweet couple holding hands while walking. Though you love him and want to support his career. He knows how you feel so whenever he comes back he'd spend all his days with you. Work and meetings or conferences? Nah fuck that it's not as important as you. You wear the necklace he gave you everyday since you got it. He has a matching one with his name engraved on it and it's his luck charm.

Oh, how lucky is he to have you who fully trusts him and gives him so much support. He keeps you a secret because he doesn't want nasty comments targeted at you by his crazy fangirls or the press. You're his and only his. Deep down he knows you love him the most and he trusts you too, that's how you managed to date for five years now. You gave him a new definition of "home" House is just a building ; And home, home is where you are with him.

*ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ --------------*

You look up to your ringing phone. "It's sae" you though to yourself. It's a habit of his to call you after every game asking you if you were watching and hearing you praise him. He definitely loves you a lot. You and him chatted into the dead of night on the phone. The cold boy's heart that you managed to stole. He wouldn't want it any other way, though he would like to ask you to move in with him but maybe after your senior year finals?

Love : it hurts with the wrong people yet so warm and secure with the one who would always comfort you, the one who would always be there for you, the one who loves you the most.

____________________________________

Hope you enjoyed!

You're welcome my dear Sae simps this boy is damn fine 🤌

No matter how many girls sae has seen or met, there's only room for one in his heart and that's you<3

[youmarin]

Now Recruiting! ft. Inarizaki VB Boys - Part 8: Inarizaki v.s. Itachiyama

Summary: It’s time for the Summer Interhigh Tournament. Rivals face each other. And after, what will the next semester bring to the boys and Miss Manager?

Word count: 3,690 + Extra 12 (214)

previous, series masterlist

“Oi! I’m leaving, you know! Exhausting yourselves won’t help you out.”

“Just one more.” The setter said as he made his starting run. One. Two. Three. Four. Jump floater. Suna, who was on the other side of it, wasn't able to discern the real trajectory - or maybe he was already tired and began to half ass-, and took position too far up front. He received it. The only problem is he did so with his face. “Holy fuck!” Atsumu cursed and ran over to him.

“Suna!” You dropped the other volleyballs you had picked up on the cart - didn’t want to risk anyone tripping on one and getting injured. One’s never too safe- and ran over to check up on the dark haired boy lying on the ground.

“Are you okay?” You leaned over him from one side. He was blinking, probably trying to make out what had just happened to him. And there were three of you looking down on him. If he wasn’t worried by the simultaneous numbness and hurt he felt on his face he might’ve thought he was having a dream.

“He should be okay. If it were a spike serve he might’ve passed out.” Everyone finds reassurance differently, you guessed.

“I’m fine.” He tried to sit by grabbing the hand Osamu was offering. He missed it.

“Think you might’ve given him a concussion?” Osamu tried again and gently helped him sit. Suna’s head spun for a moment but it slowly came back to focus. “What day is it?”

“2nd of August.” Suna answered as you inspected the red spot on his forehead, brushing his hair away from his face.

“Who hit ya straight on your snout?” No answer. “Oi. Suna, I’m speaking to you.”

“What?” He briefly looked away from your concerned eyes and looked over to where Osamu was by one side before returning to look at you. “Oh. ‘Tsumu did.”

“Okay, y/n, Imma need you step out for a moment.”

“What?” You looked at him, confused.

“You’re clearly distracting him. I can’t consider the integrity of this test if I don’t know if he’s concussed or just crushing on you.”

“Well, okay.” You left, still worried yet a bit flustered. “I’ll bring the first aid kit.”

Kita gave the team a fearsome earful for not going home after the countless times he told them to, making them warm up properly before leaving -and 10 extra laps to make things interesting-. After making sure that Suna was okay -Suna’s punishment got a rain check, but for now he was staring at his fellow second years, Akagi and a couple of first years, thinking he was on the clear- , you took care of his nosebleed, sitting on the court’s left side bench. He felt so lame right now. “I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Of course it’s serious.” Suna answered, “Atsumu could’ve broken my nose or ruined my face.” You laughed.

“Well, he didn’t. But someone else might someday if you’re continuing this career path.”

“Not if I actually receive with my arms.”

You fell in a comfortable silence as you worked. You tilted his head and moved to wipe the blood off his lips and nose .

“How are you feeling?” You asked after a while. Suna straightened up and seeing as he wasn’t bleeding over his face and t-shirt anymore you considered it safe.

“I’m okay.” He nodded, trying to ignore how his surroundings blurred when he did. But when he stood up, you noticed the gone look that flashed in his eyes for a second.

“You’re still dizzy, aren’t you?” you quirked a brow, then chuckled softly, “Here.” proceeding to wrap one of his arms around your shoulders and put one of yours around his torso.

***

Everyone was busy. From afar, you could hear the faint melodies while the school band rehearsed. The cheering squad gathered their team and practiced their routines and mottos - the captain even asked if you were interested in joining them like last time-, and as every year it was expected that a great part of the student body would attend to support their team. It was a big moment for the whole community. Thankfully, the boys were used to all of it, and rather than feeling pressure over it, they couldn’t be more excited. They knew the extent of their capabilities and their responsibility. And as their team captain always said: There’s no point in being nervous if you know what you can do.

***

“Where’s y/n?”

“She has a talent of disappearing without anyone noticing.”

“It’s quite scary if you think about it.”

“She hasn't left. Her stuff’s on the bleachers.”

“I can’t wait to get over with this.”

“I know. I bet it’s been awfully hard for you to keep your mouth shut.”

“Guys,” They all turned when they heard you, “c’mon, we have to leave soon. Don’t even think of extra practice time today- Wait. What are you up to?” You eyed them warily. The boys were all huddled in a group, each set of eyes looking in your direction pairing with innocent smiles - which inspired the opposite of innocent intentions. No one could blame you for being suspicious -.

“We have a surprise for you.” Osamu said, stepping up. His twin grabbed what he was holding and didn’t give him a chance to protest before he was handing it over to you.

“A-A what? Why?” After all, you thought you were the one supposed to prepare them a gift given the occasion. You stared at the box with a little bow on top, then straight to the blonde’s smiling face and at the rest of the boys, at a loss for words.

“When someone offers you a present you don’t ask such questions. Just accept it.” Aran encouraged.

You reached for it, brushing hands with the setter as you grabbed it. “Thank you.”

“But since you asked,” Osamu started after glaring at his brother as you opened it and saw it, “We wanted you to know, if you still hadn’t figured it out, that you are as important to us as any of the members of the team.”

“We appreciate all the work you do, your kindness and you taking care of us.” Kita added.

In your hands, you held a familiar fabric of equally familiar colors. It was a shirt like the ones they used on their official matches: black, with the name of the team written in white bold letters on the front and your name on the back.

You felt warmth spreading all over your chest. They could be a handful sometimes, but this was your team and also your friends, and you were so proud of them.

You hugged the blonde boy in front of you , taking him by surprise yet he was quick to return it. When you pulled back, you beamed at him, and he was thankful the other guys joined for a hug and stole your attention from his burning face and pounding heart.

Morning came, and this morning was not one to wish to stay five more minutes in bed or to sit at the edge of it with your head lost in space. You were up in a beat, turning off your alarm before it could go off and dashing to the bathroom to get ready. Getting out, you got dressed up, your Inarizaki tee shirt under your jacket.

“Good morning.” your mom saluted, looking at you oddly for how animated you appeared this morning.

“Mornin’ mom.”

“Wait, you’re not having anything for breakfast?”

“Uh no,” you said, adjusting your bag on your shoulder before balancing on one leg while you put on one shoe, then doing so the other way, “I grabbed something for later though. Want to get to the club room before the boys to double check that everything's in order.”

“You have everything you need?” She asked and you ran over your mental note.

“Yeah, I think so.” You kissed her cheek goodbye when she came over to see you off, “I’m heading out. See ya later.”

“Good luck!”

All the boys were quiet during the ride over to the gymnasium where Interhigh Tournament would take place, and by all it means even Atsumu was sharing his earphones with his twin and was sitting quietly, bobbing his head softly to the beat of his music. He was lively, could even describe him as wild sometimes, but you could count on him to remain sober and serious on such big moments. Suna was nodding to whatever the captain was saying to him. It was a bit amusing and also endearing seeing him look a little nervous listening to Kita. Ginjima was speaking with his upperclassman Aran, while Omimi and Akagi chatted with the first years, which seemed to be the most nervous.

The gym was a large building, fit for the several matches that would be taking place simultaneously. You went with the coach and you were quick to find your section upon your arrival, leading the team inside. Bright lamps on the ceiling met your eyes as you looked up, taking in the scene, while the chilly air from the air conditioned space hit your face. Other teams were heading to their respective areas and some of the first contenders were already warming up on their side of the court.

Dropping their bags, the boys took off their school jackets and changed their tees to their uniform. Some put on their knee pads and arm sleeves before they all headed over to the court to start their warmup routine. Warmups and drills had also another purpose besides, well, getting ready for the game. It was also a time to show off; show your confidence, your skill to the opposite team, and what they were about to confront. If you knew how to do it, and the Inarizaki boys were infamous for that, you could lead them on with a bit of intimidation.

“C’mon show me your best one, ace.” Atsumu encouraged Aran, who gave his start before jumping in the air with excellent form and slamming the ball on the floor to the other side of the net with booming force. Smiling, the setter watched the ball bounce off, making eye contact with one of the players from the other team when he looked up, smile unwavering.

Other players achieved to make their rivals uneasy without meaning to. Kita was that type. As he carried out with his drills, purpose-set as usual, boys from the other team stared at the captain move seemingly effortlessly. Reputation also helped, as the known middle-blocker Suna Rintaro moved on the court with such familiarity as if he were back on the Inarizaki High gym.

Of course, they didn’t reveal everything then and there. It was only a taste before the real thing started. The boys were also good with the element of surprise.

The stands above began to fill up with students from the different schools of the prefecture and from outside, and volleyball fans overall. These sort of events always attracted people from all over, ages ranging from the youngest to the eldest.

You recognized your school, the band standing in their place and the cheering squad hanging the banner you had made on their spot. Soon enough, the ref blew his whistle calling for the coaches to hand him the information of their respective starting lineups and player positions. After, it was just a few more minutes before he called for the captains to decide which side served first.

*

When the boys’ first couple of matches were over and they’d won without major inconveniences, you rushed over to watch the other matches and keep track of the bracket.

“I think Inarizaki should be over too. You think they did alright?”

“Dunno. But if Miya plans to defeat us they better have.” The blonde may not be his favorite person, but the rivalry was there. And things wouldn’t be as interesting or fun without it.

At that moment as they turned to head over the court where your team’s match had taken place, Sakusa saw you coming.

“Y/n!” Motoya waved at you, “Good to see you.”

“Hi, guys.” you smiled, happy to find friends out of the multitude. They were carrying a towel around their shoulders and you took it as their most recent match had just finished as well. Sakusa’s otherwise neat kept locks were a bit messy, slightly damp by his sweat. His dark eyes emitted friendliness as he acknowledged you, even a small smile threatened to take over his features.

“Did you guys win?” He asked.

“Yeah.” You responded with a satisfied tone and knowing smile. “Did you?”

“You really had to ask?” Motoya said jokingly.

“So that means that if we both win our next matches,” you looked down at the papers on your clipboard.

“We’ll face each other.” Sakusa finished for you. “So you better make it.”

And both teams did make it and were bound to face each other.

The other matches had gone alright. The team never underestimated any of the others. Sure, someone could get a little over its head and there was a little taunting, but it was normal for players to mess with opponents psychologically.

But considering these two teams knew each other better, they felt as if there was this responsibility for each other to go all out for it to work and have a good match. Both teams didn’t seem as exhausted as they saluted each other in the middle of the court before their match started.

During the first minutes of the first set, the team made a few mistakes while the coach told them to get themselves together. He had to call for a time out before Itachiyama could further their lead. After that, things fell into a good rhythm for them and they took the first set.

The game went downhill for them from that point on. Itachiyama’s defense surpassed them, not letting a lot of the boy’s attacks land and prolonging the rallies. Even when both Suna and Aran were on the court they couldn’t earn enough points to steal another set. They knew how to find their weakest spots, and who to target. And things only got worse as the game continued and they grew more fatigued and frustrated.

Atsumu set the ball for Suna, but the latter wasn’t fast enough in his approach and had to hurriedly make the pass, without as much force as he would’ve liked.

“Feint!” Motoya called and another of the players called for the ball, easily receiving it. They spiked it over and Kita was there to readily pass it to Atsumu, who set it for Aran. The ace tried to hit over the blockers that were marking him, but the hit lost power as it hit one of the blockers' hands.

The road for Inarizaki ended with none other than Sakusa sending a spike over to their side.

*

The beginning of the second semester. Your second semester in your new school, and this time it wasn’t as daunting. Now, you had the boys from the volleyball team. You reached the school gates, and not long after crossing them, you found your fellow second years.

“Y/N!” Gin noticed you first.

“We gotta take a group photo.” Atsumu stated, leading Suna to ask a random student to take a picture of you. Awkwardly, the boy accepted Suna’s phone.

“Do we really have to?” First mistake.

“Are you saying you don’t want to take a photo with us? Do you even like us?”

“No! Of course not!- Wait. Hold up,” Nothing you were saying was coming up straight judging by his face. Even the other three seemed to deflate a little. “What I mean is that I do like you.” You said looking straight into the setter’s eyes. And why were his cheeks burning all of a sudden?

“Then why not take a picture?” Suna, who kept a digital record of everything he could, asked you. “It’ll be nice to look back at it.”

“I just don’t look very flattering in front of a camera.” you shrugged, trying to play down your insecurities. “Plus, we have taken plenty of photos together.” During games they always made you.

Of course, some of them had noticed you’ve been shy regarding the topic. But that wouldn’t be the end of it. “But we don’t have one of this moment.” Osamu said.

“If I may say, I think you’re very pretty, Y/n.” The boy, still holding Suna’s phone, nervously said. Suna quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh. Thank you.” Receiving compliments was nice. You wished you knew how to take them. It made you feel a little bad that you didn’t even know the boy’s name. But to be honest, you were bad with those too.

“Yes, she is. Glad your eyes are working dude. Now take the picture.” Atsumu shared his opinion but wasn’t thrilled to hear the boy shoot his shot right in front of his face. You ended up apologizing for him. Someone was a little on edge today.

They all looked at you, their expressions all saying, Please?

“Fine.”

Now, the other problem was picking where they would stand. Osamu ended up pushing his way between you and his twin, while Gin stood on your right. Since Suna was the tallest, he stood behind you. He whispered something in your ear, which made you smile and your face heat up.

After looking through the pictures, complaining about how he looked on some of them, the blonde finally broke down, “Did ya see that nonsense about a ceremony to recognize the team for our representation at Interhigh?”

You looked at the others searching for clues regarding the cause of Atsumu’s newest outburst, which was somehow related to the ceremony. Osamu’s expression denoted some sort of pain (now you had no doubt Atsumu was the cause of this pain), Gin hung his head, while Suna turned away, whistling. Thanks a lot, boys. Finally, your eyes settled back on the setter. “Uh… Yes, the coach sent me an e-mail about it. That’s great!-“ Osamu started gesturing and shaking his head. What? Did you say something wrong?

Okay, so the school wanted to recognize the volleyball team’s job in the tournament. Of course, there were some mixed feelings about it. The team had lost. But they’d reached semifinals and that landed them a spot at Spring High Nationals. They might’ve not won but still their hard work paid off. So that was good, right? That was what you thought before this conversation and the scene unfolding at the moment.

Second mistake.

“Oh yeah. Right. I mean, after all, the important thing is having fun. And second place is great.” Atsumu’s words were dripping with sarcasm. “We are the second best.” He gestured with his hands, making an arch. “It isn’t enough that we lost. No, they have to rub it in our faces calling us shitty names. Just outright call us a bunch of losers.” He muttered the last part. For a moment you had forgotten who you were talking to. Atsumu was one of the most competitive people you’ve ever met.

But still, he was dismissing a lot. “Okay, I get it. Second place might suck for you but you can’t just brush away all your and your teammates' sacrifice to get where you are.” There you were. They boys could always count on you to knock some sense into them. “But it’s good that you don’t settle. It makes you keep aiming high.” You smiled at him.

Atsumu stared at you for a moment. That funny feeling from the other day kept creeping and blooming all over his chest. And what was that fluttering on his stomach?

Osamu looked at him, waiting for his brother to speak again whether it be another complaint or another snarky comment. But when it took a few beats more than usual, it clicked to him.

“But…” Atsumu’s voice wavered a bit as he regained his composure and started walking behind you as you made your way to your classroom. The bell would ring soon. The rest followed you two. “It doesn’t mean I have to attend, right?”

“Uh, I think you should. You don’t want to be rude.”

“You’re saying that to one of the rudest, meanest people here.”

“I’m not mean!”

“Remember that girl that tried to give you homemade cookies she made herself and you said you weren’t interested in buying them?”

“It was a misunderstanding, Gin.”

“Sure it was.” Suna snorted, “And right after when she clarified, you didn’t accept them saying you had to take care of your weight.”

“We’re athletes. It’s very important to look after what we eat, and I didn’t know what she put on those.”

“You were stuffing your face right after eating pudding. And one of those was mine.”

“I told you I didn’t eat it!”

“Okay. That is pretty rude, Atsumu.”

“Whatever.” He frowned, “I’m not interested in any of those squealing girls. And this is besides the point.”

“Well,” you said, swerving back to the topic, “Think of it as a rehearsal. Years later, you become a pro player and something like this happens. You dislike it, but you go, show your face, be grateful,” You emphasize that point, “and then you leave. Even if you truly hate it. You can still complain all you want and we’ll hear you out.”

“ “We” sounds like a lot of people. I don’t know.” Ginjima scratched the back of his neck.

“Count me out.”

“I’ll hear you out.” you fixed.

“I guess I will too.” Osamu added. He didn’t think he'd have much choice. “And who knows, maybe one day you’ll learn about good sportsmanship.”

“Fake it ‘til you make it.”

“So you want me to be fake.” Atsumu stated.

“No.” you glared at Suna, hitting him in the arm - it felt more like a caress to him.-, making him chuckle. “Just,” you raised a finger, “Don’t be rude,” another, “be grateful,” the finale, “and go to your classroom you all.”

**

Extra 12: Shirt on or shirt off? [word count: 214]

“I’ll walk you to your dorm. I just need to arrange some things into the storage room first.” You said as you walked behind Suna towards their locker room and stood in the doorway while he grabbed his stuff, insisting on seeing him off safely.

“I feel better now. And it’ll be more late for you to get home. Who says I’ll let you go if you go with me?” Suna tried reassuring you and, why not, teasing you a little bit.

With lack of a response, he turned to look at you to find you blushing and mouth open to answer back, but settling on frowning.

Then your eyes traveled to his sweaty t-shirt, sticking to his chest and torso. A white tee, basically see-through at the moment, and the bloodstains on it. “Take your shirt off.”

Suna nearly knocks down the rest of his things. “What for?” Just how fast the tables turned. And the thing was you weren’t even trying to get him flustered.

“The blood. I might be able to get it off.” Then you turned around to give him privacy.

“Right.” He did as told. You reached your hand back for him to hand you the shirt, making him chuckle while doing so, and you were out of there.

A/N: Hello, dear readers! It’s been a while - a year 💀-. Happy 2024! I hope you’re all well and safe. I’m happy to see people are still enjoying and showing love to this series. And here we are with part 8! Funny, I started writing this part the day I posted part 7 and it took me this long to finish it. The extra was just added. I got a little confused with the tournaments’s stuff lol but I figured shit out (I think). Not that anything needs to be accurate but yk, helps the writing flow. Happy reading and see you next time, whenever that is! **slow updates**

[gaystay]

I Don't Believe You- Aomine

Genre: angst

Warnings: none

Your day had been going just fine until you decided to take a walk. It was a beautiful day, with snow lightly coating the ground as you strolled through the park. You watched several couples walk by, hand in hand. Everything was serene and peaceful, totally normal for a winter's day. Until one couple caught your eye. They weren't holding hands, but rather they chased each other around, laughing and throwing snowballs. The girl was tall and curvy, her skin flushed and rosy. The boy, however, was strongly built with a tanned face. What stuck out most about him was his hair, though, it was an odd shade of blue, almost navy. It looked awfully familiar, too familiar even. There was no doubt about it, that was your boyfriend playing in the snow with another girl. 

Your eyes began to well up as the pair came ever closer, but your boyfriend had yet to notice you. You sniffed, trying to keep the tears from running down your cheeks, but you couldn't stop your throat closing up. They ran past you, the girl's laugh ringing like bells in your ears, neither of them seeing you standing there. You were supposed to see your boyfriend that night at his house. It was your 6 month anniversary, and he was with somebody else. You couldn't stop the tears now, and as they began to overflow, you turned your back and ran home, praying nobody would look at you. 

-A few hours later-

You rang the doorbell. Your eyes were dry, if still red, and you held your head up high as you waited for your boyfriend to let you in. A moment later, you heard the sounds of bolts turning, and the door swung open. Warmth flooded out from the apartment, and you were greeted by your grinning boyfriend. His eyes scrunched up as his smile widened, and he leaned forward to envelope you in a bear hug. 

''Y/N! Happy Anniversary baby!'' He pulled away, too caught up to notice that you hadn't hugged him back. He stepped back, letting you see into his apartment. ''Come in, come in!'' You just stood there, looking at him. His smile slowly fell away. ''Babe? Is something wrong?''

''Is something wrong? I'll say there is, Daiki! I saw you with her! I saw you with that other girl today!''

''Other girl, what-''

''Oh don't you deny it Daiki! I just wanted to talk a walk in the park, but I guess you had the same idea, huh? You wanted to hang out with your side chick? Is it because she's bigger than I am? Because she's curvier? I know what you like in a woman, Daiki, am I just not good enough for you?'' Your words became slurred as the closing in your throat returned, tears threatening to spill again. ''Was I never good enough for you?'' Aomine took a step back, totally flabbergasted. 

''Baby no! I never cheated on you! She's not like that!''

''Oh she's not like that? Who is she, Daiki? You always tell me when you plan on hanging out with other girls, why didn't you tell me about her? What did you want to hide from me, huh?'' Tears were flowing freely now, your words mangled between gasps for air. Aomine had to lean against the doorframe for support, his own breaths coming too fast and his eyes starting to glisten.

''She's just a friend, baby!'' You scoffed at him, preventing him from continuing. 

''Just a friend? You tell me about all your friends, Daiki. Tell me the truth!'' 

''But- but it is! It is the truth, I swear!'' He was having a hard time getting the words out. A single tear traced down his cheek as he gazed at you pleadingly. ''Please, baby, you gotta trust me! She was just-'' 

''I'm sorry Daiki,'' You sobbed. ''But I don't believe you! I can't believe you anymore!'' You backed away slowly as his eyes widened. ''We need to break up Daiki, I just can't do this.''

''But-''

''Bye Daiki.'' You spun around and fled, ignoring his cries after you as you pounded down the stairs and out onto the street. You ran all the way home, your tears keeping you company, reminding you that you weren't good enough. That you never would've been able to keep a man like Aomine anyway. You were never good enough for him.

Aomine slowly closed the door. He rested his back against it, staring up at the ceiling. Tears began to flow harder as he gasped for air. He sank down to the floor, his body quickly become racked by sobs that shook him to the bone. He crumpled, burying his face in his hands as he tried to stop the tears that overwhelmed and blinded him. After several minutes of wretched sobbing, he worked his phone out of his pocket and dialed, hands shaking as he put it up to his ear. The ringing stopped almost instantly.

''Daiki! How did it go? Did she like the anniversary surprise we prepared for her?'' The tinkling, bell-like laugh rang sweetly in his ears. He hiccuped, trying to fight back the tears enough to speak. At last, Aomine choked out,

''She- she left me-''

part 2 anyone?