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skkfujoshi · 3 months

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Take a look what you’ve done,now we got bad blood

Kōyo told him that she heard the vial shatter and Dazai mutter to himself.That should’ve been good enough for him.

But it wasn’t.Chuuya needed to see it.Needed to see Dazai be a wreck over him.

He’s earned that much,hasn’t he?Dazai got that much out of him,after all.

He told Kōyo,but she advised against it.Not that said advice was particularly heeded.It wasn’t gonna stop Chuuya from trying to see that sight.

Unfortunately…His list of ways to do so wasn’t very long and only got shorter by the minute…

So…Here he was.At a masquerade.With Kaiji.Neither of them had invites, of course.But…Being in the Port mafia had ways of making those sort of issues go away.

People rarely wanted to get on your bad side if you were in the mafia.Especially on the new boss’s bad side.

But Chuuya couldn’t take much joy in the leeway offered.

Sure,chatting with Kaiji was entertaining as always.But there was also the nagging sense in the back of his mind that he was doing something wrong.

People now knew Mori was dead and the many comparisons they were making in their minds were more transparent than water.

Biting down on his lower lip,Chuuya pulled the mask over his head,splashing his face .God,wearing one of these things is way sweatier than he remembered.

He wiped his forehead and came face to face with his own reflection.

Maybe he should’ve kept the mask on.

“Fuck…I look like shit…”he muttered,running his finger over an eyebag.

He hadn’t looked this bent out of shape since…

His hand hovered above the choker around his neck.

Since…

He set his jaw and tightly wrapped the scarf over the choker.He went here to get his mind off that asshole.No use wasting his energy doing the opposite.

He ran his finger over his eyebags again.Should’ve probably borrowed Koyo’s concealer or something.This was just tragic.

Sighing,he ran his hand through his hair.Some of the people here actually had the balls to state their comments out loud.

A gutsiness that Chuuya respected,but didn’t necessarily appreciate.

Comments such as:”He’s so small…”,”Wearing the scarf the same way Ougai did?Has he no shame?”,”Attending a party the day your only competition dies?A bit tacky,no?”

And while Chuuya would’ve liked to pretend it didn’t bother him enough to come up with an internal tell off for every single one…It absolutely did.

He groaned,leaning his elbows on the vanity top and burying his face in his hands.

He has thicker skin than this!It shouldn’t bug him this much!

He should go home.Today was not a day to be around people and he should’ve known that.He’ll make himself some tea,relax,take a shower and if he really wants to push himself maybe ask that stupid thing inside of him to practice using corruption.Ahrahabaki had been getting-

A burning,sharp pain erupted in his temple earning a groan out of him.

“Ok,bastard!I get it,you don’t like me complaining about you.Even mentally apparently-Aaah!”

If the previous pain felt like a needle through the eye,this was like a sledgehammer.Dense and duller,but ten times wider in reach.His entire head was pulsing with pain,spinning.

Then the pain sharpened again,Chuuya’s feet giving up underneath him,the gravity manipulator falling to the floor.

Spots danced at the edge of Chuuya’s vision as he clumsily wrapped his fingers around the edge of the vanity top,gripping it like a lifeline.

He gritted his teeth,attempting to find the strength in his arms to get up,only to find none.

What petty bullshit-

He heard the door click open and internally cringed.His reputation was already in the fucking tank,this was only gonna make it worse.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and instantly,the pain stopped.

Oh no.No,please no,not like this…

“You alright?”

Shit…Life really hates him,doesn’t it?

“You alright?”Dazai repeated,noticing how the man’s nails scraped at the surface the second he spoke.

The black haired stranger cleared his throat.

“Yes,yes,I’m fine…Just had a bit too much to drink,that’s it.Could you hand me my mask please?” “That seems entirely unnecessary.After all we’re just two strangers.Of what consequences could your identity-“ “Please.Otherwise I’ll have to insist and that’d be super rude so…”

That “Please.”sounded like it was this person’s most loathed word.Almost with the same loathing that-

Dazai grinned.Well…That would be just marvelous,wouldn’t it?

“Say…Have we met before?”he asked,pushing the mask towards the other man.

Lamb.Fitting if he turns out to be right about it all.

And they’d match too.How sweet.

Dazai’s companion shook his head,tying the mask back on,barely managing.

He adjusted it for a few moments,before trying to stand up and failing miserably .Dazai could barely suppress his laugh.

“Need some help?” “Seems so…”

Swiftly,as if he’d been helping strangers off of bathroom floors his whole life,Dazai wrapped his arm around the man’s waist,Dazai’s hand taking his.

“Nice gloves.”Dazai noted,pulling him up. “Thank you.”he gritted

They stood silent for a moment,the man straightening in Dazai’s arms,causing the brunette to get a smack of black hair in the face.

“Sorry,sorry…”he muttered as Dazai moved it out of the way.” “It’s fine Mr-“ “…Takeichi Rintarou.”he said finally turning to face Dazai

And just like that,there Chuuya Nakahara was,staring up at him with those eyes that Dazai knew all too well.

Except there was one thing throwing off the fantasy of the perfect reunion.And that was the color of Chuuya’s hair.There was just something…disquieting,in however small an amount,about Chuuya looking more like Mori’s spawn now then he ever had before.Especially for this occasion.

“Thank you for your assistance…”Chuuya said,wriggling out of Dazai’s grip

He laughed breathily,tucking the loose hair behind his ear.

“Sorry,I don’t think I caught your name either,monsieur.”

And there it was,Chuuya’s biggest slip up so far.Dazai held back a grin as his former partner’s eyes widened and his already nervous smile slipped just a notch.

They stared at one another for a moment,Dazai tilting his head and smiling as politely as he could.

“I have to ask,Rintarou…Was one of your parents French by any chance?” “Oh no.Just something I…took up.” “Ah.A man of many talents I see.How admirable.”

He took hold of Chuuya’s hand and pressed his lips to the tips of his fingers.

“Ōba Yōzō’s the name,by the way.”

Chuuya’s eyes narrowed,a saccharine sweet smile on his face.

He loved those gloves.He really did.

Too bad they’d have to go in the incinerator now that Dazai’s lie spouting lips touched them.

“A pleasure to meet you.” “Pleasure’s all mine.” “You’re lucky that I came across you when I did.There’s a lot of unsavory people attending here.” “Ironic from a man wearing a wolf mask.”

Fitting.Picture perfect really.

Everyone underestimated Dazai upon first glance.He was a scrawny,dirty brat back in the day,his height being the only thing saving him from giving off an impression of a wet cat saved from a gutter.

But that was the beauty of it.Dazai would sit in the back of the meetings,seemingly napping,not paying attention.

You wouldn’t suspect him until it was all too late and he was standing above you,eyes wide,manic and hungry…Rabid. Pleasant and inoffensive all the way up until he had his teeth buried in your throat.

Or heart in Chuuya’s case.

Dazai stuck his tongue out and put his arm around his waist as if he had known ‘Takeichi’ for his entire life.

Not that Chuuya was jealous or anything.How ridiculous would you have to be to jealous of yourself?

“Still,considering the condition I found you in,I think I have every right to be concerned.” “I wouldn’t be too worried.Most people wouldn’t dare do something like that to the new boss of the Port mafia.”

He tried to suppress the smile that came to him as Dazai’s arm seemed to tense at the words.

Regardless of whether Dazai saw through his ruse or not,giving him a fright was good either way.

“A man as sensitive as you?Doubt it.Besides why would you tell someone like me something like that?”

He looked up at his former partner with the sweetest expression he possibly could .

“I suppose you just seem…trustworthy.”

The flash of guilt in his gaze,however brief,somehow made this whole evening worth it.

Dazai snorted.

“Bold thing to say to a stranger.Say…How did you come into the position?Last time I checked that post was taken by Mori Ougai.” “Oh,it’s quite simple really.He killed himself.Defenestration,you know?”Chuuya said casually

Dazai didn’t care that Mori was dead.Someone was bound to snap the bastard’s neck eventually with him being…Well,the way he was.

And him and Chuuya never had the most stable of relationships.Fights weren’t uncommon between the two.One could easily make the argument they were routine.

But…Chuuya loved Mori.Chuuya loved Mori fiercely and stubbornly.One could even say aggressively.

Chuuya was loyal,just in general.That’s how he was.But with Mori…It was almost frightening.Frightening how many missions,however dangerous,Chuuya would jump at the chance to go to just to make his father’s life easier.

All the while he’d reprimand Dazai for taking on things he couldn’t handle.

And Mori would praise them both for risking their lives.Oh sure,he’d make a big deal out of how very worried he was about Chuuya,but that was about as convincing as an amateur highschool production on a shoestring budget.

And yet Chuuya ate it up like he was starving.

Dazai couldn’t wrap his head around it for the longest time.He was convinced that Mori must’ve been hitting Chuuya behind closed doors,threatening to throw him onto the street or something.

Surely only something like that could make Chuuya so…desperate.

And Dazai held that opinion for two years.

Until he saw the lab.Until he had to see Chuuya spasm from the remnants of electric shock,see the puncture wounds from the drug coated needles.

Nothing Mori could do could make Chuuya stop loving him because nothing could be as bad as that hell.

Mori’s ‘love’ was the first good thing he had.That’s why Chuuya needed it.It was the first real human thing he had.

It was vile.

So shouldn’t Dazai be happy?Shouldn’t he be glad that Chuuya finally severed that?Finally realized that he didn’t need Mori to know that he was human?

He should be.And yet…He just couldn’t find it in himself.

And while he would’ve liked to act like he didn’t know why that was,one look at Chuuya’s smug grin was enough to know why it upset him.

Because he could imagine Mori making the exact same expression with ease.

“You alright?”Chuuya asked .

Dazai blinked the thought away and forced a small smile onto his face.

“Yes,just…You said he died by defenestration,right?” “Yes.”

Dazai made himself snort.

“A death by gravity.Ironic,ain’t it?” “What do you mean?” “His son’s ability.Gravity manipulation,right?”

Chuuya crossed his arms and looked up at him.

“What a lucky guess,Yōzō.And to say it with such certainty too.How odd.” “Well…Let’s just say me and his partner were close.That’s all.”

So that’s how Dazai was gonna play it,huh?

“You knew the Demon prodigy?” “As a matter of fact,yes.” “Since you two were so tight I ought to tell you some news that he’s…No longer here to receive.” “Hmm?” “Nakahara…He killed himself as well.Poison,you see.”

Dazai hummed.

“So that’s how you’ve taken your current position?” “Yes.It happened today actually.”

He expected a reaction to the reminder.Sadness and devastation were the desired effect.

Anger was the sloppy seconds.

Happiness would hurt but at least it was a reaction.

Nobody would be able to tell the difference with how small Dazai kept his expressions.He wouldn’t let his current one change too much.A brief knitting of brows,a momentary pressing of the lips and that would be that.

Nobody except Chuuya could tell.So that’s how he was so certain Dazai had no reaction at all to being reminded.

That hurt more than the flirting,more than the fact Dazai was here in the first place.At least until now he could tell himself that Dazai was doing both of those to take his mind off things.Now he didn’t even have that much.

“Today you say?”

Chuuya nodded.

“And you were voted in without an autopsy.Seems a bit suspicious,doesn’t it?”

Chuuya laughed lightly.

“Are you accusing me of foul play?” “No,no,no…Nothing like that.It’s just that it seems oddly quick to assume suicide when you didn’t even check the body properly.For all you know,he could’ve been injected with something.” “We didn’t have to.He was found gripping the vial in his hand.It wasn’t just placed there.We had to wrestle it out of his cold,dead fist.” “…I see.Well…What do you think made him do it?” “What do you mean what?!Grief!” “For the father he killed?Unlikely.”

An urge nearly possessed Chuuya then.An urge to tell Dazai that he doesn’t have the right to talk about him with such certainty,like he knows everything!That he lost that privilege the night he left!That if he keeps running his traitorous mouth Chuuya will have him bound and gagged and executed!

But,of course…He was the boss now,he ought to have a bit more refinement.Besides…Perhaps what Dazai needed was some clarity.

The clarity that Chuuya’s “death” was all his fault.

They were walking silently in the gardens now.One of the perks of big houses at the edge of the city,Dazai supposed.

In some way,it almost gave Dazai a sense of nostalgia.Granted,that time it was daylight and Chuuya was arm in arm with him only as a means to drag Dazai forward.

This time it was night,him and Chuuya walking arm in arm simply because they felt like it.Well,because Chuuya felt like it,if he wanted to be honest.He himself was more than content with keeping his arm around Chuuya’s waist.

They’d been silent for a while now,actually,making their way through the left hallway ,one opposite to the party.

Chuuya had removed Dazai’s arm from his waist and took hold of it right around when they exited the building.

A change in position that Dazai hoped would carry a change of tact on Chuuya’s end.Maybe he’d finally drop the act and they could talk as themselves.

But that wasn’t what happened.Instead Chuuya just took his arm and they continued their walk in complete silence.

They were right about to pass a flowering peach tree when Chuuya spoke and tightened his hold on Dazai’s arm:”You said you were close with Dazai,yes?”

“Yeah.” “Then surely you were at his funeral,right?” “No,I was unfortunately out of Yokohama visiting my parents at the time.” “I see.Then I suppose you being confused makes sense.” “Confused?” “On who the subject of Chuuya’s grief was.” “…Dazai?After two years?” “Yes.You see Chuuya took it hard.Very hard.The night he returned from France,he waltzed in as happy as could be.The moment he stepped into Mori’s office though…The shouting could be heard trough the entire building.”

It made Dazai a bit ill,Chuuya’s tone as he spoke of it.Almost like he was recounting a dream before being fully awake.

“We heard a chair break and next thing you know he’s storming off,with murder in his eyes.It was like he was possessed.”

Dazai could’ve told him to stop.He knew what that led to.Chuuya looking up at him from the street,suit immaculate but every bit of skin covered in blood,already russet hair almost died dark red by it.

But he didn’t tell ‘Takeichi’ to stop.

So,he simply continued.

“An entire gang died that night,you know.By Chuuya’s hand.For Dazai’s sake.”

What!?

“How…How do you know he was the culprit” “Well,Yōzō,someone has to dispose of bodies in the mafia.It’s far too lowly a job for an executive though,so I took care of it.”

He didn’t want to know what Chuuya did.Yet still he asked.

“What did he do?”

He didn’t have to dig deep to remember exactly how he killed them.After all that night was never out of his mind.

“I could only assume,of course.But what I found was…Well,their leader was hanging off the ceiling,hands pinned to it by…broken chair legs I think.A small slit in his side.”

Chuuya had him saved for last.Drove those two wooden scraps in real deep with ‘Tainted Sorrow’ and then gave him a little cut in a not lethal area.

He kept giving him that little cut.

Over and over and over…

Every time it threatened to close he’d open it again.

“Everyone else was a tad harder to identify.” “W-What do you mean?” “Their heads were little more than red pulp.”

He turned to look at Dazai now.Osamu had always been quite pale.But now his ex partner looked downright sickly.

Perfect.

“So,it was a bit difficult,ya know?”

He took down every grunt the exact same way.Found a heavy object and pummeled them with gravity.Slammed them into the wall until he heard their spines crack.

“The only thing that distinguished them really is that only one of them didn’t have a broken spine.I took a look at Chuuya’s shoes from that day later when I got back.Had a lot of chunks on it.”

And the right hand…Well,that one was special.He didn’t even use ‘Tainted’ on him.

The boss might give the orders but at the end of the day,it’s the second in command that carries them out.

So Chuuya stomped on his head.Then he heard a crack.Then he continued as if he didn’t hear it at all.

“So,as I said,Chuuya took it badly.”

Dazai wasn’t against murder.Murder was like any other form of violence.A tool,a way of defense.

Granted,during his time in the mafia he used it as a bit more than that.Mostly as a way to get out his anger towards Mori without having to risk torture.Chuuya use to call it sadistic.

“Don’t shoot up dead bodies in vain.”he’d say

Chuuya was just as much of a killer as Dazai,but he went about it differently.Once the person was dead he was done.Quick and painless as possible was the name of the game.

Torture made Chuuya ill.

Dazai swallowed

Or use to,at least.

“I…I never knew Nakahara could be so…brutal.” “Yeah,most of us didn’t either.Grief sure is a powerful thing isn’t it?That’s not even mentioning what happened when he came back.”

Dazai’s stomach churned.There’s more?!

“He walked back in without a word,casually,as if nothing happened,but he looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.We could hear him slam his bedroom door all the way downstairs.Still wasn’t louder than the screaming though.” “The screaming!?” “Yes.Kōyo had to rush upstairs at one point.She was convinced he was peeling his skin off.That’s how pained it sounded.Like he was having his very soul ripped out of him.”

Dazai always thought Chuuya was more of a quiet griever.After all,that’s what all previous occurrences implied.

He’d cry and curse,yes,but he’d keep it down.If not,his anger was manifested into action rather than emotional outbursts.

But something occurred to Dazai then.All the times he’d seen Chuuya grieve,something was there to temper Chuuya,to enforce on him a grieving period,a distraction.

Rimbaud?Sure,Chuuya was responsible for that but he was acting in self defense and Mori had never praised him more than in the immediate aftermath of that.

The Flags?Verlaine,who had killed them,was the King of Assasins.If Chuuya wanted to survive he couldn’t just rush into revenge.

But Dazai’s death had no such stipulations.That gang was nothing but low level grunts,nobody could stop Chuuya from doing what he wanted.

And worst of all…He couldn’t just let it go.

Chuuya’s bed was their bed ,after all.

Chuuya told Dazai once that the cold on his side of the bed wouldn’t disappear even when Dazai left on missions.He thought Chuuya was joking…Until he found that the reverse was true too.

So Dazai’s coldness would just…sit there.Even though the bed was for only one person,it no longer was a one person bed.

Not to mention Dazai wasn’t as thorough as he could’ve been in his packing.There was probably a bunch of little things he missed.

Things that’d only serve to remind Chuuya of what he lost.What he’d never ever have back.

“That sounds awful.I-I’m so sorry.” “Don’t be.It’s not your fault after all.”

He locked eyes with Chuuya.Dazai was very familiar with the expression Chuuya was making at him currently.Not directly,as it had never been directed at him before.

But he’d seen it.

The same disgustingly sweet smile that made Chuuya’s lips just a tad too thin.

The tightness in his jaw that implied gritted teeth just beneath the skin.

The way his eyes were so narrowed he looked like he was squinting.

The look Chuuya gave Mori’s business partners who he couldn’t stand.

Chuuya could’ve stabbed him and it would’ve hurt less than that look did.

He knew Chuuya did it on purpose.But he couldn’t honestly bring himself to hate his former partner for it.

“That’s not even mentioning the two month binge drinking marathon.”he said,looking away from Dazai once he saw the pang of guilt in his face

Osamu didn’t respond to that.Chuuya was unsure what to make of that lack.

Maybe he had finally broken Dazai emotionally.In which case…Good.Good,that’s what he wanted.

Well,only one way to find out.

“Or the bathtub attempt for that matter.” “What kind of attempt?”

Chuuya couldn’t keep the spite out of his voice as he said:”What do you think?”

Dazai’s arm tensed in Chuuya’s hold.

“Surely…You can’t be-“. “Dead serious I’m afraid.”

He didn’t have quite as clear memories of that.All Chuuya knew was that the water was cold at that point and that he was cursing everyone.Cursing Ango for telling him to let Dazai go,cursing Mori for letting Dazai do the mission,but most of all cursing himself.

Cursing himself for not being there.For letting Dazai die alone and in pain.

And then he began to think of a way to make the guilt stop.And the next moment…He was looking up at Kōyo,things all too bleary,throat burning up.

“Mori wouldn’t dare leave him alone after that.There was always someone there to watch him.Wouldn’t even let him go on missions lest he does something stupid.”

Mori even bathed him himself a couple of times after that.Chuuya could still feel the burn of that scratchy sponge sometimes.

“So most he’d let him do is review footage.To look for treason and shit,you know?And in the end he did find it…He confronted Mori about bringing Mimic into the country.They had a huge fight about it during an executive meeting.”

If possible Dazai went even more rigid.

“Why would that cause an argument?” “Because he set up one of his employees.Oda Sakunoske.I’n sure you two have spoken.Once at least.With you and Dazai being so close.” “I heard that Oda died but I…I didn’t know it was a set up.”

Bullshit.

“It was the first time we’ve seen the boss hit him.A slap right across the face.”

His cheek burned a lot after that.Mori had never hit him before.He could be forceful and grip Chuuya just a bit too hard,but he’d never hit him before.

“Then Chuuya slammed the evidence on the table and walked out.And then two weeks later Mori was dead.And then two weeks after that Chuuya was dead.” “…He hit you…The bastard actually hit you…”Dazai murmured to himself “I think you might’ve made a mistake in the verbiage there.I think you mean-“. “I know what I said.”

Chuuya let go of Dazai’s arm and sighed.

“Then I suppose there’s no point in this anymore,is there?”

Before Dazai could make one of his trademark witty remarks,Chuuya kicked him in the shins and then to the ground .He shoved the tip of his shoe under the nose of Dazai’s mask and shoved it off the brunette’s face.

“You look good for a dead man,Dazai.”

He hated the dumb smirk the brunette gave him in response to that.

“Right back at you,chibiko.”

That got him kicked in the face.

“Still have a short fuse,don’t-“

Another kick for that.

“Okay,okay,that’s enough of your li-“ “Say little I fucking dare you!Do it and your teeth are going next!” “Alright,alright.Just a temper tantrum then.”

Despite his generous agreement to no longer tease Chuuya,the redhead kicked him again.

“What the fuck was that for!?” “For all the short jokes.You know…The ones you made in the four years we’ve known eachother?” “Fair enough.Still…Ow.”

Chuuya stepped on his chest and grounded his shoe into it,leaning forward until his hair fell around his face like some sort of curtain.

If it had been Chuuya’s regular hair color Dazai would’ve found it positively stunning.

But it was Mori’s hair color instead.

He reached out and tucked a bit of Chuuya’s hair behind his ear.

Chuuya’s jaw clenched,but he didn’t move as Dazai’s fingers trailed from the shell of his ear to his cheek,finishing up wrapped around the string of his mask.Dazai pulled it off slowly,the object thudding onto the floor.

His ex partner looked exhausted.Large,dark eye bags under his eyes,puffy eyelids…Dazai briefly wondered if those were also his fault somehow.

His eyes wandered to Chuuya’s throat,where Mori’s scarf had slightly slipped off.And there the choker still sat.

“Seems someone missed me.”Dazai said,amused

Surprisingly,Chuuya didn’t kick him for that,removing his foot from Dazai’s chest and turning on his heel.

Dazai stood up and followed after him as Chuuya sat down under the peach tree on their left.

“No shame in that though.I missed you too.”

Chuuya didn’t dignify that with a response,seemingly preferring to look at the sky instead of anywhere in Dazai’s direction.

Dazai usually enjoyed being right.This was a rare exception though.

He knew if they were to ever see one another again things,most likely,wouldn’t simply go back to normal between them.And yet…Some part of him had hoped to be proven wrong.

“How did you figure out I was alive?” “Hate to remind you,but I work in forensics.If you want to fool me you need to do a lot better than a ten minute time window and getting your stench all over everything.” “Dully noted.Next time I fake my death,I’ll make sure to leave behind a bloodied personal item and send a friend to gaslight my other friends and family into believing me dead.That has to work better,right?” “It wasn’t anything personal,Chuuya.”

Chuuya didn’t know what exactly set him off about that sentence.

Maybe it was the fact that there was no pause before Dazai said it,no hesitation.

Maybe it was the matter of fact tone of it.

Or maybe it was the fact Chuuya already knew that for the past two weeks.That was the problem.If Dazai had meant any harm to him,at least he would’ve been taken into consideration.

This way he was nothing more than an afterthought,an unfortunate puzzle piece that had to be shoehorned in.

Regardless of what the reason was,Chuuya punched the tree behind him,peach flowers falling down around him in a flurry.

“You blew up my car dipshit!”

Of course that wasn’t the problem,but it was easier to act angry about that,about the wine.He already let Dazai know too much,he wasn’t about to give him more.

“It was to damage Mori’s wallet more than anything.We both know that that car was the most expensive thing he’d be willing to fix .If I had known about the wine…Well I would’ve probably done something else.” “Yeah,but you didn’t do something else,so it doesn’t matter.”

He licked his upper lip and very slowly lowered his head to look at Dazai,who was still utterly neutral and uncaring about the whole situation.

The brunette shrugged.

“Guess you have a point there.What does matter though is how you found out about me being alive.Since I was way more meticulous.”

Chuuya considered telling Dazai there and then that he figured it out all on his own.That half of the mafia figured it out like three months in and just couldn’t give enough of a shit to track him down.

That ought to take the bastard down a few pegs.

But…He honestly didn’t have it in him right now to make a lie that big.

So instead he threw Dazai’s own words right back at him.

“Don’t worry darling,just some annoying dog that won’t get out of my head.”

That got him Dazai’s widened eyes and half parted lips.

“So you were-“ “Actually there?Yeah.Fun fact,Zai,that was the same night I killed my father.” “Huh.No wonder that you seemed to be sobbing over your shots.Or that you stabbed me in the ribs with your pointy elbow now that I think of it.”

Chuuya considered renouncing the accusation that he had pointy elbows but that would just be giving Dazai what he wanted.That would be them going back to how they use to be,that would be too much like Chuuya forgiving.

And he had absolutely no intention of doing that.

However,he recognized something important in that sentence.Dazai separated Chuuya’s anger and grief.

Let Dazai believe that,that all of Chuuya’s anger was for him and that all his tears were for Mori.That it was all just so cut and dry.That Chuuya’s grief over Dazai all turned to anger the moment he saw him.

That there was no grief in being left behind,no loss in knowing you weren’t chosen,no heartbreak in knowing that you trusted someone who doesn’t trust you.

“Do you regret it?” “Hmm?” “Killing Mori,I mean.” “Not anymore.” “I see…Still…Thank-“ “It wasn’t for you,Osamu.”

Chuuya was maybe a bit too proud of how confident that response was.But he could hardly help himself,not when Dazai seemed authentically convinced and taken aback by it.

“Why the long face,mackerel?”Chuuya said,after a couple silent moments

Dazai didn’t even realize he was making a sad expression.

“I…I just haven’t heard you say my first name in a while.It’s nice to hear.” “Don’t get use to it.”Chuuya said without a moment of hesitation

Dazai sighed and sat down next to him,turning his head to look at Chuuya.

He always thought his partner was pretty and now was no different,despite the signs of grief and exhaustion on his face.

Chuuya was always pretty,but there was something about the night that made him look downright gorgeous.

Maybe it was the way his hair looked somewhat softer and like copper in a colder light.Perhaps it was how the silver in his eyes came out under the light of the moon.

And while the reddish hair was gone,the couple peach blossoms that landed on top of his head almost made the black hair tolerable.

Almost.

“Don’t.”Chuuya said,curt,as Dazai tried to brush the flowers out

Dazai was surprised by the tone of it.Chuuya said it without a hint of hurt or even anger.Barely more than a simple command that one might make with a single flick of the wrist.

Taken aback,Dazai did what he was told and watched as his ex partner pulled out the flowers

“I didn’t want to hurt you,Chuu.” “Don’t.”Chuuya repeated,angrier now

Dazai sighed.

“We have to talk about it eventually.” “No,we don’t.We’ll never see one another after this so there’s no reason for us to discuss anything.”

The certainty in that statement stung a bit,but Dazai decided to ignore that for the time being .He ran his fingers through his hair.

“I need you to understand why I did it.” “I already do.You left because Mori set up the only man you ever loved.”Chuuya bit “Not why I left…Why I couldn’t talk to you.” “No,I know why you did that too.Didn’t want me to snitch to my father.” “You can’t possibly believe I think so low of you.”Dazai said with an eye roll

Chuuya snorted,a clear response.

“At this point I wouldn’t believe you if you told me that the sky was blue,Osamu.” “They can’t torture what you don’t know out of you.It’s simple logic.” “…Mori wouldn’t-“ “You’re not that stupid.” “Stupid?!” “Naive,my bad.You’re a terrible liar.The second Mori suspected you were hiding something he would’ve stopped at nothing to get it out of you.You know he never stops until he gets what he wants.”

In his time as a torture specialist Dazai learned one thing.Stubborn people tended to die more often than talk.

And Chuuya’s the most stubborn person he knows.He’d probably be kept just on the brink of death for hours.

“…That’s ridiculous.”Chuuya muttered “Lie to yourself all you want,but we both know I’m right.” “If you were so worried how come you didn’t consider corruption?”

Dazai’s gut sank,but he kept his face in the same expression.There was no way…

“Your father was a monster,not a fool.”

Chuuya didn’t even say anything as he pulled off one of his gloves.Once it ended up in the grass,Chuuya offered Dazai his hand,Dazai taking it by the tips of the fingers.

He wanted to vomit.

On Chuuya’s hand were scars that were identical to his corruption marks.And that only meant one thing.Chuuya’s been using it often.

The grooves were deep-set and dark,crawling over Chuuya’s palm.

Not only did he use it often.He used it a lot.

“Mori didn’t do that to you.There is absolutely no way Mori did that to you.” “Torture is on the table but Mori making me use the full extent of my ability is inconceivable?” “He wouldn’t do that.It’s idiotic to risk it…You…You did this yourself!”

That made no sense,no sense at all.But Mori would never risk it.Chuuya,though?Reckless,impetuous,Chuuya?

Not beyond the scope of possibility.

He grabbed Chuuya’s wrist and squeezed.

“Chuuya,what the fuck were you thinking?!”

Without even a blink,his partner turned towards him.Eyes frigid,an icy blue and jaw set,but not held tight.

“I simply did the same as you Dazai.What I had to.”

A weak breathy laugh broke out of Dazai at that,eyes wide open in a look of offended disbelief,laughing behind gritted teeth.

“What you had to?!You had to do this!?Are you fucking joking!?” “You didn’t exactly leave me any choice.”“Chuuya,that thing will kill you.”

He narrowed his eyes at Dazai and wriggled his wrists free.Shrugging his blazer off,Chuuya unbuttoned his shirt a bit,slipping the sleeve off of his shoulder.And right where his shoulder and shoulder blade connected was Ahrahabaki’s name thickly written in what appeared to be ink.

“The hell is that?” “A deal.I’m pretty sure he has something similar there too.” “You decided to make a deal with a god of destruction!?You’re insane!He…It…Ahrahabaki has been around for thousands of years!He’ll play you like a fiddle!” “Like you did?”

Dazai inhaled deeply and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Chuuya,Chuuya,Chuuya…I’m not telling you this to be a dickhead,to be condescending…I say this because I worry.Because you are a reckless idiot and you will do something idiotic and reckless.”

Chuuya tried to struggle out of his grip,but Dazai wouldn’t budge,nails more like talons at this point than anything even slightly human as they dug into Chuuya’s flesh.

So Chuuya made himself hold his head high,because he couldn’t find anything better to do.

“Like what?!” he spat

Dazai didn’t hesitate as he said the following words.And that lack of hesitation might’ve just broken Chuuya completely.

“Oh I don’t know,something like destroying Yokohama !”

Chuuya’s eyes widened in that moment and Dazai felt him tense.Chuuya leaned away from him,just slightly.It wasn’t even like he was struggling as Dazai knew he could put up a much better fight than that.

His expression was angry still but there was a lack of tightness in it now.Chuuya’s mouth didn’t quite hang open,but he still looked as if he was about to say something.

Chuuya’s brows furrowed even further.Then suddenly all the fire,all the fury had frozen over.

His eyebrows fell and his nose scrunched for a moment before he said:”You don’t actually think I’d do that,do you?”

The tone was frigid,almost completely flat.And that’s when Dazai realized something.He implied Chuuya would do that on purpose.

“That’s not how I meant it.I don’t mean on-“ “Does it really matter what you meant by it?”Chuuya’s said,voice trembling just slightly at the end

Dazai let go of Chuuya shoulders,a slimy and thick sense of shame settling in his guts.Chuuya,on the contrary,seemed to have gotten past that little shred of hurt from a moment ago rather quickly,putting his clothes on with the same timely efficiency of someone leaving a one night stand.

Then,without even dignifying Dazai with another glance,he stood up and picked up his mask.

A sense of deja vu washed over Dazai then,memories of the night he left poking their ugly little heads out of their holes as if to mock him.

Back then him and Chuuya were still best friends.

Back then he let Chuuya walk away.

Back then he didn’t have the guts to ask him to stay.

He wasn’t gonna make the same mistake twice.

“Chuuya,wait!”he exclaimed,getting up and chasing after him

Chuuya might be the boss of the mafia now,but that didn’t mean that they had to be apart.That didn’t mean Dazai couldn’t apologize.That he couldn’t remedy his mistake and bring Chuuya into the light now.

It’d be borderline impossible but fuck it,they’re Double Black,they could do it.If anyone could do it would be them.

How could he have been so stupid to forget that?

He grabbed Chuuya by the arm.

His ex partner turned towards him on his heel.And his expression was just…nothing.Not anger,not any particular sadness,not even that overly sweet,despising smile.

As if he couldn’t care less.

Dazai couldn’t stand the way it was so easy for Chuuya to get out of his grip.

The smile that Chuuya gave him was polite.The same kind you’d give acquaintances at a business meeting.A courtesy smile.

“Farewell,Dazai-san.”

Dazai was struck silent.Even when Chuuya was absolutely furious at him,he’d resort to nicknames,common insults…He even went for Dazai’s first name when he wanted to make it hurt just that much more.

After all,it hurts them the worst when it’s personal,right?Dazai certainly thought that was the best way to insult or hurt someone’s feeling.The only way.

But those words that rolled of off Chuuya’s tongue were just as hurtful,just as piercing from the distance they made between the two.

Then with a swish of raven hair and the lingering scent of carnations and wine,Chuuya turned on his heel and left.

And Dazai let him leave.Because he was dead to Chuuya and ghosts didn’t chase after the living.

Boss Chuuya AU Masterpost

Previous fic part <— Next fic part —>

First overall AU info post

#bsd #bsd chuuya #bsd dazai #skk #boss chuuya au #angst #please comment

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wickedwizdom · 1 year

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Lets talk Knights of the Zodiac:

This review will be mostly positive based on my own experience but I still will have my criticisms as I go along. To begin I want to be very transparent here and say after watching this movie: It is NOT--I repeat--NOT “Dragon Ball Evolution 2.0” like many people claim online. This movie's characters, script, dialogue, action, and story are leaps and bounds more faithful to the source material it is adapting and showing respect for it all the same. I'm positive those who keep claiming that it is have never watched the movie or are just speaking utter nonsense because let’s be real: Dragon Ball Evolution is beyond bad and KOTZ—objectively—is not.

This movie is perfectly fine; very fun I might add. It definitely stands up there with the likes of Alita: Battle Angel in terms of anime adaptations and as a movie it gets the job done.

Now for the fans going into this story expecting it to be verbatim like the original animanga, you are not going to find that here. This movie is very much an origin story for this particular universe of Saint Seiya with its own key lore and world building that takes influence from the Netflix reboot but actually executed those aspects better in comparison to how the CG show did it. I certainly appreciate this movie trying something new with its setting and story in comparison to LoS which told a very rushed rendition of the Silver Saints and Twelve Temples arc and I believe if this movie did the same thing, my expectations would be significantly lower and my criticisms far more harsher.

From an objective standpoint, this movie’s pacing definitely could use some improvement. I definitely appreciate what the writers and directors could give with the runtime they had but when it comes to character such as Nero and Seiya and Sienna’s time spent bonding, there’s definitely something to be left desired, Nero especially but we’ll get to him later. The script itself is okay, can be basic in some areas, cheesy in others but never anything that made me actually cringe. The movie’s music is otherwise really good. The orchestral Pegasus Fantasy rendition was definitely a highlight of the film for me and the music that plays through a lot of the action and somber scenes is really atmospheric.

To add, I know there were some fans that complained that not all the bronzes were here but I’m pretty sure that was for the movie’s benefit. Introducing so many characters all at once would mean that audiences would have no time to connect with them and the story would have been bloated and full of plot holes. I love how they kept the core cast as just Seiya, Nero, and Sienna for the time being to get us more familiar to their world before moving onto the others.

As for other things, the set pieces and CGI aren't terrible. It's definitely a step above most tokusatsu shows and movies but not on the level of something like Alita or some MCU movies. It's passable but definitely not a complete eye sore.

Some shots are a bit goofy but they don't linger too long and I think it adds to the charm of this being an otherwise fun action film based on an even more zany and violent anime. The fights are all well-choreographed and filmed. I saw some complaints about the lighting being dark but that's not the case here. Everything in the movie is well lit and it's obvious who's who.

I thought the armors looked pretty okay and knowing that Kurumada actually approved them looking more medieval and archaic rather than how they were in the original animanaga makes for a nice creative detail that gives this movie more uniqueness in the StS verse.

Slight spoilers here but it is confirmed and shown in the movie that the armors do in fact evolve like how they do in the original manga and anime so if this movie does get its potential sequels, I look forward to seeing how they translate that.

⚠️SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT⚠️

To move onto characters I enjoyed a majority of the main cast throughout the movie. Everyone not only understood the characters they were portraying but giving them their own charm and nuances to make them feel more like individuals.

To start with the main man Seiya, he's a lot more reserved here, because he is a lot older, but some of his attitude from the animanaga still remains like his brash attitude and his unwavering resolve to never give up. His character is quite complex with this movie going further in detail about the conflict he has with losing his sister, his obsession with finding her, and his hesitance to accept Sienna as a goddess until he witnesses it for himself. I appreciate them putting more and more time into emphasizing Seiya's relationship with his sister and Seiya at a crossroads between finding her and protecting Sienna all at once as opposed to how the anime/manga did it.

Seika is almost forgotten after the first few episodes/chapters of the original so it was nice to see that she had more of an impact on Seiya's character here.

Next, we have Sienna and I'm going to say that she is the best iteration of the Saori Kido character. While some of the pacing of her scenes were a little off at times, it didn't matter because I was engaged with what they did with her in this film. This story focuses on Sienna's humanity as opposed to the original where Saori has pretty much already accepted what she is and we never truly get to see a lot of her struggle with her heritage and most of that was relegated to the very beginning of the series. Here, Athena is the equivalent of a malevolent spirit that Sienna is constantly trying to drown out. From the way, she speaks about Athena to her parents and how that separated them feels real. She is a toung woman who’s not only caught in the middle of a broken family she cares for but is essentially a ticking time bomb. She accepts that she may not be herself one day but you can tell that deep down she doesn't want to believe that. She starts off as the typical haughty rich girl towards Seiya and while I do think that their relationship could have used a few more scenes of them getting used to each other, it still feels plausible that he cares for her I’m the end. I would be a bit of a brat too if I was going to become doomsday incarnate one day. Here she suffers loss but in turn finds a new purpose and reason to keep living. At a core it is her human side that matters most.

I also adore that Sienna starts off not in complete control of her cosmo. It gives more presence to the gods in this scenario and how dangerous their cosmo is to a regular human. It makes me really excited to see what gods late like in this universe but only time will tell.

Moving onto Alman and Guraad since they're basically two sides of the same coin. Making Alman a morally ambiguous man who is not all good fits very in line with the Mitsumasa in the original animanaga. The slow unraveling of the truth that he first and foremost only cares about his daughter is perfect and sets up the domino effect that will extend to all the children he used as a means to an end.

Guraad on the other hand is a MILLION times better than the Guraad in the Netflix reboot. Not only does she feel appropriate as an antagonist but she gives better layer to the conflict of fighting against the gods and at the same time having to come with the burden of killing her surrogate daughter to do so. Sienna and Guraad share a bond that feels genuine and when her maternal instincts shine it's wonderfully executed. It adds so much more emotionally weight knowing that a complete accident on Sienna’s end pushed away who she considered family and Guraad realizing that to makes her attempt to save Sienna feel earned.

Now we have Nero. I love Ikki in almost every universe and here it is no different. The mystery behind his character and past along with him as an antagonist is one of the best but weakest aspects of his character in this movie in my opinion. His true motives are unclear but from what a lot of people have speculated and based on Diego himself, his motivations largely have to do with Shun. Potentially Nero does not know where his brother is and I think that would make for a great parallel between Seiya and Nero if this series is to continue. He definitely has a vendetta against the gods and has the Sagittarius armor in his possession but at what ends? His character toward the end leaves more questions than answers and I wish we got a fair balance of flashbacks from his perspective to compare/contrast with Seiya’s. He is a threat through and through and the movie does well in establishing the bar that is set between him and Seiya. He's definitely a character I want to see expanded upon more in the future and what ulterior motives he has going on as it seems that Guraad was a stepping stone for things to come. I want more of him and I hope to god we do.

Marin is, dare I say, perfect. Everything from her nonchalant demeanor, to the way she trains Seiya, THE WAY SHE GOES TO SLEEP and her presence she's easily another favorite of mine in the movie next to Sienna. We get just enough of her to see what she's all about but like Nero, I hope we do see more of her. She serves the purpose she’s meant to in the story and I was quite confused about her “bound to this island by destiny” schtick (which was really an excuse to keep her out of the third arc) but overall she’s just awesome.

And last but not least Mylock. Easily he's better than Tatsumi by a country mile. The writers actually managed to make a dull asshole of a character into a fun and entertaining one. His action scenes were a highlight and were just classic king fu action that I just adore.

The story overall centers around the ideals surrounding family, humanity, and fighting through a destiny that’s not completely set in stone. It’s very anime but at the same time is personable and relatable in some way or another.

To conclude : Knights of the Zodiac is a fun film with great action, solid writing, a talented main cast of characters, and I was genuinely surprised at how much I ended up liking it. It shows respect or to the source material while doing its own thing and that’s honestly the best route it could have gone. It could have been way worse.

It’s a solid 7/10. Had some bumps in the road but it managed to make it to its destination safe and sound. Regardless of performance, I will definitely watch sequels.

#saint seiya #knights of the zodiac #kotz #sts #pegasus seiya #sienna kido #phoenix ikki #andromeda shun #kotz live action #kotz movie

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satoshi-mochida · 5 months

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Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble ‘Adventure’ trailer, assist features and worlds detailed

From Gematsu

SEGA has released a new trailer for Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble dubbed the “Adventure” trailer, as well as new information and screenshots on the game’s assist features and worlds.

Here is an overview of the game, via SEGA:

■ A Delightful New Adventure Awaits

While visiting a tropical island, AiAi and the gang meet a girl named Palette, an adventurer searching for the Legendary Banana. They agree to join her on her journey across wondrous worlds to collect special parts said to be the key to locating this prized relic. Along the way, they’ll meet new friends and encounter mysterious rivals. For those unfamiliar with Super Monkey Ball, or simply looking for ways to improve their technique, take advantage of the optional assist features available in Banana Rumble! These include:

The ability to Rewind to a previous point of a stage and attempt a tricky area once more.

A Ghost Guide option, which will add a transparent racer alongside the player, demonstrating the key methods needed to reach the goal.

A Route Guide that will point you in the direction if you’re not sure where to go.

The choice to restart at a Checkpoint within certain stages, and more!

■ Game World Introduction

Adventure Mode features 200 new stages that are set across different worlds, each with their own unique twists and turns that can be experienced either solo, or with others in 4-player co-op! All of this is accompanied by a thrilling story told through fully developed cutscenes. To give just a taste of what fans can expect, SEGA®️ is introducing a stage from each of the mode’s first five Worlds respectively.

World 1: Banana Farm

World 1 is naturally designed to progressively teach players all the tools and tricks to set them up for the rest of their adventure! A great example is the stage “Rail Slider,” where steps and ramps taller than the player’s ball are placed throughout the stage. Use the new technique, Spin Dash, to make it through the steps!

World 2: Rose Garden

In “Wonder Maze,” the stage is designed like a large garden maze. Players will need to look for the correct route to make it to the goal.

World 3: Floating City

The “Switch and Go” stage has switches that move the different scaffoldings. Here, players will need to use switches at the best timing to reach the goal.

World 4: Golden Temple

The “Rolling Balls” stage has giant balls that block the player’s way. Players must maneuver these giant objects to make their way to the end.

World 5: Stone Valley

The “Rocket Launcher” stage has a goal that is located high in the sky. Use the rocket to get launched up in the air and aim for the goal!

■ Key Features

Experience thrilling gameplay that is easy to pick up and play yet challenging and fulfilling to master.

Go bananas with your favorite bunch and drop into online multiplayer for up to 16 players or local multiplayer for up to four players!

Slip into a wonderfully crafted story either locally or online in the all-new Adventure Mode, where you will journey through 200 newly crafted stages either in four-player cooperative play or solo.

Show off your style by customizing your character with over 300 fashionable items to choose from.

Use the new Spin Dash technique to sprint past rivals or create new shortcuts to victory!

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is due out for Switch on June 25.

Watch the trailer below. View the screenshots at the gallery.

Adventure Trailer

English

youtube

Japanese

youtube

#Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble #Super Monkey Ball #Sega #Nintendo Switch #Gematsu #Youtube

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sexualsorbae · 11 months

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gonna start out with a low hanging fruit

Specially the costumes (and apparent lack of efforts to compensate for them) for this one fuckin' character in the spin off prequel "Blood Origin"

Full disclosure: I'm a dude who wears t shirts and jeans from thrift stores and most of my clothes is 5-10 years old. I am not an expert on fashion or textiles. I'm not an expert in anything.

But even my dumbass can look at these three images (which were all part of marketing material for the show - I didn't have to search long and hard for unflattering images ) and tell that this is a really poor costuming decision for this show... There's no way that transparent fabric is part of the intended appearance of the costumes : it's meant to hold the costumes on the actors' bodies and shape the silhouette (from a distance) so it has striking and edgy look. The transparent fabric allows you to work with the opaque fabrics in ways that wouldn't be possible if you were just working with opaque fabrics made of heavy organic material (cotton, linen, silk, wool...etc.).

We are supposed to be like oooh wow, that looks so foreign and elven! I am titillated by this clothing!! Elves are cool!

But yo... we are also supposed to believe these people are out there with medieval garb and swords and arrows and shit. It's not like they're sooo advanced that elven children are running around terrorizing temples by chucking bouncy balls at the walls of the long marble hallways.

If they have nailed both making and manufacturing fabrics with synthetic polymers, maybe they could make a nice light puffy jacket , a raincoat, some impact resistant battle armor or, idk, friggin Tupperware. Great for those long nights on the path.

Okay so. I think it's fair to say we aren't supposed to SEE those seams. That fabric isn't supposed to be visible to the viewer.

Now you might say the costume designer was banking on post production, styling, lighting etc. to conceal the "implausible" aspects of the design. But. This is one of the cores of what I think makes the Witcher in general such a disappointment. I think good costume design principles would suggest , perhaps the seams shouldn't be there at all.

We, the viewer, are supposed to be transported to this world. We are supposed to suspend our judgement and entertain the possibility that we could be watching characters in this "alternate universe". Seeing something that CAN'T exist (or shouldn't) and that is supposed to be concealed from the viewer, but is done so poorly immediately takes a viewer out of the experience.

People can watch a play like Avenue Q, where the puppeteers are on stage, and still be transfixed by the characters they're OBVIOUSLY controlling.

But when a puppeteer is hiding in a box and you sneak a peek of them, it becomes distracting.

And every little peek adds up.

#Netflix #Witcher #the witcher #Blood origin

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stardust-in-my-mind-blog · 2 months

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ridiculous tarot meditation today

some of the energies mentioned were of

the Morrigan and Babel

Jupiter and the All Seeing Eye

resonated with how the limiting mindsets of people around me

often gave my heavy self doubt more power

than the transient and kaleidoscopic paths of my dreaming

everything was once unreal but people like to use

the concept of subjective reality being the only constant

focus is hard today and my thoughts are so unorganized

the chaos is peaceful however not fear or disruptive

something about the heart space and sacral chakra

something else about heavy sperm flow

her words not even mine and when I wrote them down I also

wrote "what the absolute fuck" in my journaling

generational limitation and generational wealth building

books I'll read and conversations changing around me

came from absolutely nothing in this country

rural Iowa that is not heaven or my field of dreams

the only thing that brought me peace in a world

where I felt like some type of beautiful alien

was the beauty and art and stories of the past

all around the world I travelled in books

universes and galaxies and they all disproved everything

my ears were forced to hear about anything around me

resonate with everything feeling disarrayed now

and how time is a construct I can't quite grasp now

what time is it? what day is it? what the fuck does an hour mean?

something about orange transparent glasses which reminds me

of the orange wings of the cicada brood that spawned this year

they sang so loud they drowned out the birds

speaking of the birds they are crazy today

at least fifty in the jasper having some sort of meeting

usually they do this in the evening but it's been going on

all afternoon in the middle of the day

faith is strong my executive function is dysregulated

tower's burning and the Morrigan's special meteorite

library in the beast's castle and the rose that blooms forever

learning how sweet and graceful my chaos can be

my favorite story as a child was about a boy who went to see

the living Kuan-Yin and ask her three questions

Kuan-Yin is the white statue at my Blue Lotus Temple

and I smile at her whenever I go in to remind my spirit

how to sit still for a few minutes and empty thoughts

the story is about a boy who knew how to make

melancholy princess laugh and it reminds me that

for the last few years I forgot how to laugh

I'd just say things like "that's so funny"

now I keep laughing randomly remembering conversations

my son accused me yesterday of being possessed by a demon

for this obviously uncharacteristic habit

Kuan-Yin told the boy to tell the serpent with seven pearls

that if they gave away six pearls that they'd become

a magnificent dragon and he watched it happen

Kuan-Yin also has a soothing energy of humming

which is like starlight in the throat chakra

falling like soft cyan rain into the swirling sea reflecting

on its surface the energy of the starry night

my mind is a pinball machine again with a mercury ball

loud music and it's hard to tell where it is

most I see where it's been and can't even tell the score

so many bells and sirens and playful laughter

but I'm not afraid just kind of frustrated and bewildered

so that's a nice change to the energy I'm trying to unravel

I see you everywhere and sometimes in a form

that seemed solid enough to make me hyperventilate

which is impossible, right? but the physical symptoms

were very overwhelming and I am known to

totally gaslight myself into and out of things

now my brows are drawing together to make sense

of something that reminds me of something else

I do remember a time I had control of my mental faculties

and from the pattern of everything all this confusion

and distraction technique has a strategy

and hell if I can figure it out so I'll just keep

dancing around until an answer comes to me

I've never been so clueless or ever had this much fun

it's kind of weird to truly believe everything and nothing

somehow all at once but it's my current experience

and then I'll get hit with this wave of pure knowing

and see everything in a vision and forget to breathe

or I see a vision and breathe way too fucking much

I don't even have feet anymore I'm just being swept

and you taught me how not to be ashamed of my feelings

so I write them here and I feel a little cringed out

because I sound like a love drunk fool and not at all

in the form of composure I like to keep myself in

I can't stop smiling and I don't even know why!

now I'll feeling all this extra energy and it's not quite

overstimulating but it's overwhelming and my youngest

just rushed in to tell me his score on dance dance

so that's a perfect opportunity to put it somewhere

the world is fucking mad and I'm right there with it

you've completely disassembled my mind and I feel like

I switched from Artoo to Threepio and for some reason

Threepio always annoyed the shit out of me

but for once I'm not annoyed with myself

okay yeah this is way too many emotions

so much excitement and delight and I need to

go shake my ass because I feel like I'm going to combust

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canadabusiness · 3 months

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The Evolution of Ordering Hash Online

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The availability of detailed product information, lab results, and customer reviews empowers consumers to make better choices. They can compare different products, read about others’ experiences, and select the hash that best suits their preferences.

Conclusion

The evolution of ordering hash online has made it easier, safer, and more convenient for consumers to access high-quality cannabis products. Legalization, technological advancements, and the rise of online dispensaries have all contributed to this positive change. Today, ordering hash online offers a secure and diverse shopping experience for cannabis enthusiasts.

#online hash canada

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jcmarchi · 5 months

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Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble: Sega Unveils New 4-Player Co-Op Adventure Mode With Gameplay Trailer

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/super-monkey-ball-banana-rumble-sega-unveils-new-4-player-co-op-adventure-mode-with-gameplay-trailer/

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble: Sega Unveils New 4-Player Co-Op Adventure Mode With Gameplay Trailer

Sega has released a new gameplay trailer for the Adventure Mode in the upcoming Switch-exclusive Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. In it, we get gameplay of the up-to-four-player mode that features 200 stages set across various different worlds, and it looks like a blast.

Featuring both local and online four-player co-op, Adventure Mode will be available on day one when Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble launches on Switch on June 25. Optional assist features, like Rewind and Ghost Guide, allow players to customize how their monkey ball experience plays.

Check it out for yourself in the new Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble: Adventure gameplay trailer below:

[embedded content]

“While visiting a tropical island, AiAi and the gang meet a girl named Palette, an adventurer searching for the Legendary Banana,” a press release reads. “They agree to join her on her journey across wondrous worlds to collect special parts said to be the key to localizing this prized relic. Along the way, they’ll meet new friends and encounter mysterious rivals.”

Adventure Mode features 200 new stages set across different worlds, such as Banana Farm, Rose Garden, Floating City, Golden Temple, and Stone Valley. Each brings its own unique twist and challenge to the Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble experience.

In Adventure Mode, players can utilize the Rewind feature to rewind to a previous point of a stage and re-attempt a particularly challenging section. The Ghost Guide option adds a transparent monkey alongside the player that demonstrates how to proceed, while the Route Guide will point you in the right direction if you’re unsure of where to go. Plus, you can restart at any checkpoint within a stage at any time.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble hits Switch on June 25.

For more, watch the Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble reveal trailer.

Are you excited for Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble? Let us know in the comments below!

#challenge #direction #Features #how #how to #it #One #Searching #time

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tanetlee · 2 years

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Feast

(Sunday. Krakow. A grand and luxurious city. It fosters art and is art; the city creates the theater and is the theater [1].The palaces on Mount Krakow are opulent, with high ceilings and grand columns adorned with rich sculptures of lions, tigers, other animals, and the Gods [2]. Starting from there the city spreads out [3]. Both inside and outside the city, [...] stadia, gymnasiums, and racecourses near the Temple of Poseidon [4].

Smoke of Vesuvius hovers ominously over the Greek idyll as a metaphor for the explosive quality of life in the Metropolis [5].

Sepphoris, House of Dionysos, north view [6]. Another equally elegant garden house [4]. The atrium is a large space, several floors high [7]. The first ten floors house stores, theaters and clubs [8]. Terrace Room[s], whose dimensions have been made unknowable through arrangements of screens, walls, lights, mirrors, sounds, decoration [8] evoke a sense of mystery. Dazzling [9] mosaic floors in various rooms of the House of Dionysos [6] incorporate optical effects [8] in geometric patterns in colored tesserae [6].

In the main hall, the Gods all gathered around a marble table, eating, drinking, feasting. All drink wine from golden cups above a semi-transparent [9] golden floor [9] of jewels or sapphire paving through which they [9] watch the dramas of man on Earth [9]. Tables of raw fish create Martian landscapes, from pink to deep red [7]. The feast is sumptuous, plate full of rare foods (over 100), glass full of living fish (over 500) [7].The distant spasms of a piano play [10]. And then, a sudden intrusion of [...] barefoot singers roaring [7], performing a cappella — holy music [7]: Coucou Chloe - Nobody.

Eris, Aphrodite, Pan, Hades, Phobos, Dionysus, and Poseidon are all there.)

Eris: (raising her glass) Ye immortal Gods! I have had such fun causing chaos in the life of that pompous jackass, Jack.

(The Gods laugh and cheer)

Eris: He thought he could mess with us, but little did he know that we were the ones pulling the strings.

Aphrodite: (Smirking) Oh, I know. Remember when he asked me out on a date and I stood him up? He was left all alone in his desilusion. Phobos even filmed him. (Giggles) What a fool! He fell for my charm so easily, I didn't even have to try. Thinking of it, I'm quite offended that he thought he'd have a chance with me. Such an insolent prick.

Pan: (Chuckles) I gave him some 'special herbs' to smoke last night, he was tripping balls all night!

Hades: (Smirking) And then I scared him with some of my shadow tricks. He thought he was going insane.

(Pan high-fives Hades)

Pan: (Chuckling) Let's not forget the time we gave him 'food for the gods [11]', but really it was just a bunch of rotten fruit. (Laughs)

Hades: (Leans back in his chair) Yes, it was all quite amusing. We make him feel so important. He thinks he's the God of the Gods! (Laughs) But he will learn that the Gods are fickle [12], and he should not have dared to think he could control us. After all, he's just a mere mortal full of himself.

Phobos: (Aggressive) We have it there. All the possible motives. Envy. Greed for power. Greed for money. Questions of prestige [13]. Such a pathetic looser.

Poseidon: (Giggles) He thought he could buy our loyalty with his wealth, but he was sorely mistaken.

Dionysus: Oh, but it was worth it [14] for the laughs! We all love it when mortals like him are put in their place.

Aphrodite: (Jubilant) We're having the time of our lives!

(All agree and cheer)

Poseidon: But enough about him. Let's talk about our followers. (Quickly shoves caviar into his mouth) The Krakowens know who and what their Gods are [15]. We can practice unhindered all sorts of wiles and trickery, and daily [...] think out more such schemes, so that everything stinks of avarice, nay, is drowned and drenched in avarice as in a great new Deluge [16].

(The Gods all laugh)

Eris: (Grins mischievously) Those gullible fools who would sacrifice their entire lives for us. (Rolls her eyes) They are so easy to manipulate.

Phobos: Worst thing is they'd do anything for us. We're like their masters. True gods!

Aphrodite: (Seductively looking at her reflection in a crystal glass) And we use our beauty and charm to make them do our bidding. (Smirks)

Hades: (Grining) As long as we have power.

Poseidon: The good masters are the Gods [17]. Gods move among men, and men among Gods [18]. Only difference? One is superior to the other.

(All laugh)

Hades: Those dickheads know who and what we are, and they still worship us. (Pauses) It's quite unsettling, really.

Pan: (Noding in agreement) Such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I took anything from them as a model for myself [19].

Hades: Thank god we're not like them. We're above it all. We don't need their adoration to feel important.

Dionsysus: Who cares? As long as we have fun.

Phobos: And to think that we will sell them all the pleasures [20] they crave. The cash is flowing abundantly to Mount Krakow, akin to an endless river flowing into the ocean. Our wealth is limitless, my friends!

Poseidon: Greed, pride, wrath, insolence [21], that's all the Krakowens know to do.

(All laugh and continue devouring their feast.)

Eris: We all love it [7]. We love to mess with Jack Ma, and we love to mess with our followers.

Dionysus: (Raising his glass) Let's be Gods [22], my friends. Let's forget about reason [23] and embrace life to the fullest. To the endless parties, the exess, the never-ending casual Friday [24].

(All cheer)

(The Gods continue their revelry, as the city of Krakow lines-up in front of the temple, eager to meet their adored Gods.)

[1] Mumford, The Culture of Cities

[2] Semper, Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts or Practical Aesthetics

[3] Serres, Statues

[4] Gothein, A History of Garden Art

[5] Koolhaas, Delirious New York

[6] Marzano, The Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin

[7] Koolhaas, SMLXL

[8] Koolhaas, Delirious New York

[9] Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture

[10] Greenhalgh, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky

[11] Pliny, Natural History Volume 5

[12] Horace, Odes

[13] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology

[14] Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City

[15] Calasso, Ardor

[16] Luther, Works of Martin Luther Vol 4

[17] Foucault, The Courage of the Truth

[18] Girard, The Scapegoat

[19] Foucault, History of Madness

[20] de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

[21] Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier

[22] Rand, The Fountainhead

[23] Serres, History of Scientific Thought

[24] Koolhaas, Junkspace with Running Room

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metroidprimepics · 2 years

Text

Eventually I will run out of things to talk about. But until then, more trivia. Mostly creatures/bosses.

Prime

I don’t know when you would ever see this normally, but the elevators in West/East Towers (access to Control Tower, the outdoor arena area) have a rather elaborate full mechanism underneath.

Rain only appears in a cube around Samus. This is a metaphor for her life.

For some reason there is collision information at the bottom of Impact Crater - but only the version surrounding the Artifact Temple room specifically. It’s not terrifically accurate to the visual geometry - the ball is rolling quite a bit above the “ground” - but it’s still there... For some reason.............

I'm a little endeared with how Space Pirates look like a completely different species in each game with no explanation whatsoever. Anyway, the ones in Prime have these almost invisible lines of orange hairs on the limbs, which is very charmingly buggy.

Also, this one was kind enough to stand still for a height comparison. (Their AI doesn’t handle noclipping very well - often they just don’t attack when approached from the air.)

...

I spoke a bit ago about Metroid Prime’s additional eyes, which are not very easy to see in game.

They’re actually rolled back into her carapace in the intro cutscene before the fight, so it’s not surprising that you don’t really notice them.

After said intro cutscene, she is fully spawned in the room below and idle animating with no weapons systems active. Kind of a look, honestly.

Back to the eyes. Even if you saw the eyes, you would almost certainly not notice this behavior, but... They’re actually programmed to follow the player’s position exactly. The camera may be down here, but Samus is still in the room above and to the right, so that’s... where they’re looking..............

In later parts of the fight Metroid Prime uses this “tractor beam” attack, which actually emanates from the front two eyes. Somehow, I’m getting Gritty vibes.

...Impact Crater in general has always felt a little rushed to me, like it was thrown together last minute to just finish the damn game. (The boss rooms in particular are... hmm.) I still love it, though.

And there’s still all kinds of details, like these transparent areas with ... creatures? Swimming in them?? In concept art they’re mentioned as protozoans.

Let’s noclip in. They look like microbes or plankton. But big!

In a possible nod to these guys, the core access rooms in Corruption’s Leviathan Seeds have these floating clouds of similar creatures (labeled as “Phazon Cells” in game data). (Well, maybe less a nod and more a flex, really, especially when you consider that these games came out less than 5 years apart.)

Echoes

While I was cleaning up, I found the first of these screenshots I took:

Yeah.

Anyways,

Ingclaw butt.

Absurdly detailed Amorbis butthole. Why?

You ever remember you can bring up a nice, rotateable model in an short idle animation in the Logbook? Cause. You sure can do that in 2 and 3. OK.

Each of Dark Amorbis’ segments is separated by a bright red disc.

Part of the Spider Guardian’s model clips through its head on one side - you can see a little speck of bright red, plus some hairs. Or rather, the outer shell is accidentally concave...?

This only applies in this “swimming”/damage animation - it looks fine when rolling around. Probably just has a vertex off or something. You can’t see it in the fight. It’s fine.

Also, it’s perfectly possible to hit it with gun.

However, only the normal Power Beam shot actually deals damage - other weapons only stun it.

Additionally, while you technically can kill it this way, the normal death cutscene won’t play afterwards. That cutscene is what’s actually responsible for spawning the Spider Ball upgrade, so... No Spider Ball. Kind of defeats the purpose of defeating it, really. You still get a purple credit in Trilogy, at least.

Regular pillbugs have gorgeous spiral undersides.

Echoes’ troopers were less cooperative. They appear to be... big...?

That round thing in her chest (heart?) is visibly beating. Seems like a design flaw, but I guess that’s why this one isn’t a commando.

Speaking of which, these ones aren’t programmed to attack. They’re also quite a bit bigger.

I have invulnerability on when taking photos. Normally, enemy attacks just fizzle out when they land.

However, Quadraxis’ Annihilator shots bounce off of invulnerable entities. This trait is shared with Samus’ weaponry (you’ve probably seen this behavior with doors, or with largely-invulnerable enemies like Quadraxis itself). Maybe its attacks use the same code? Sadly, I can’t seem to get it to aim at the Annihilator door to the temple access.

Sort of an aside, but I feel like we’re missing out on beam deflection puzzles. Bouncing shots off things is fun [citation needed], and it was clearly already possible in the Prime engine... and in Super Metroid, too, weirdly enough. But I guess it’s just never occurred to anyone to use deflection for puzzles? Or maybe that kind of mechanic was deemed too spatially challenging for an all-ages series. It’s never too late though! (I think some SM hacks use it, at least...)

Corruption

Planets, while lovely-looking, aren’t actually spheres. They’re made up of lots of mostly-flat layers...

One time I fucked up the event flags in this game so hard that Unit 217 disappeared. Please use noclip responsibly.

This is where where the umbilical cord of a Leviathan core attaches to the seed. Looks like sliced roast beef.

On Bryyo, in the North and South Jungle Hall rooms (here and here), there is collision information and even some texturing on otherwise inaccessible areas.

Maybe these bits were meant to be accessible at some point...? You can easily jump up to the grates from the bulkhead, you just can’t get up to the bulkhead normally.

The wind turbines (there’s one in the background here) match the Space Pirate design from Echoes.

There’s some weirdass jittery floating things in the Bryyo jungle atmosphere, too. They don’t seem destructible or aggressive. I can’t find anything else about them, though.

Edit: According to @ bearborg, they’re labeled as spores ingame. Probably from the fungi!

Going to upgrade the weird butthole count in this trilogy to “two” with the Korakk Beast here. Sorry.

By the time you fight him, Rundas’ whole body is visibly laced with Phazon hyphae. But there’s even some clustered growths behind his "face”, underneath the PED. I think if you get close enough to him to see these, you probably have other things to worry about... Poor guy though.

The Berserker Lord’s beautiful face, with the distinct horizontal row of eyes confirming that is a heavily modified Urtraghian Space Pirate. Same goes for the Knight, it’s just easier to see with Phazon all over it. I just... really was not sure.

Another “you probably have bigger things to worry about” detail, this spike-filled area in 313′s brain. It’s almost like a sub-brain? Looks uncomfortable.

I tried to get a nice aesthetic shot of the opening cutscene for the Mogenar fight. At first glance, I thought this looked nice. However, upon closer inspection...

Is Samus... hovering?

Yep. The ground is well out of frame in the actual cutscene, so you’d never be able to tell.

I get why the cutscene artist did this - she wouldn’t be in the shot otherwise because the Mogenar is so far away, but actually moving her closer would force an awkward upward angle on the Mogenar. Because it’s, you know, huge. Still, I’m never going to be able to unsee this.

#misc_

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myherowritings · 4 years

Text

Maybe It’s Fate

— After discovering the mememate you fell in love with was your ex-boyfriend who broke your heart, you find yourself alone in a bar with a dead phone in a poor attempt to cope. The person who helps you at 3 a.m. is the last person you want to see.

pairing: shinsou hitoshi x f!reader word count: 10,531 genre: modern au, social media au

a/n: hihi welcome to part 25 of toya ! ;) the smau is rated 17+ so keep that in mind because it applies to this part too. it’s a bit thicc so i hope it’s able to keep your attention! skksffsd plspls chat with me and let me know what u think once u read! i’m looking forward to the convos ^-^ [edit: THIS IS NOT THE FINAL PART LOLOL]

Of all the dumb decisions you’ve made in your life, this by far had to be the dumbest of them all.

You were angry and hurt and wanted nothing more than to drown your feelings with overplayed EDM music and cheap booze that reminded you too much of the trash college parties you used to frequent. And while going out to get drunk was no where near your stupidest decision, going out alone with the full intention of returning home with someone else was.

“Is everything okay?” you heard an unfamiliar voice beside you call.

Wishing you had brought more than an empty can of pepper spray, you cautiously turned to face him. You wanted to call a cab or take the train home, but you knew walking alone in the streets in your current condition might just be more stupid than staying at the club. Besides, your phone died right after you sent Kaminari your location.

In other words-- You were truly fucked.

Not that you would let anyone know that, of course.

“Everything’s just fine,” you replied, trying to sound polite but disinterested. “Thanks.”

He kept his distance but sat down at the barstool next to you. “Are you sure? You’re a pretty lady alone at the bar and you’re staring at your drink like it just insulted your favorite grandmother.”

Immediately, the tears of stress and frustration flooded your eyes but you kept them from falling. Your bottom lip quivered and you blamed all the alcohol in your system for your seemingly uncontrollable emotions.

“Am I that transparent?” You sniffled, downing the rest of your drink as you turned towards him.

“Ah-- Wait!” he cried with wide eyes, waving his hands in front of him as you chugged what was in your glass. “Are you sure you should keep drinking? Where are your friends?”

You studied him curiously. He seemed nice and trustworthy, but you couldn’t help but be skeptical of his intentions.

“They’re...around,” you answered, unwilling to admit you were here alone to a random stranger. “And I’m okay! Just here hating men, but what’s new?”

He nodded solemnly. “Understandable. Men suck. Carry on.”

That earned a grin from you.

As the last gulp of vodka settled in your stomach and made its way to your head, you instinctively checked your phone in your pocket only to find it still dead.

Damn. And here you were hoping it would’ve miraculously charged through sheer willpower.

Drumming your fingertips against the empty glass, you let your gaze roam around the perimeter of the nightclub, blinking furiously in confusion when you thought you had spotted a head of all-too-familiar purple hair near the entrance.

“What the…” you trailed off. You could have sworn you just saw Shinsou, but the next second you opened your eyes, he was gone.

Great, you thought to yourself miserably. First he snuck his way into your heart and now you were imagining his presence too?

“You’re really had too much to drink, haven’t you, Y/N?” you chided yourself, head spinning as you instantly regretted the last few gulps.

The guy next to you glanced over in concern, drinking a glass of what you assumed to be respect women juice.

“Can I order you some water?” he fretted. “Or maybe a cab?”��

You shook your head to decline but stopped abruptly when your temples started to throb at the sudden motion.

“S’okay,” you slurred. “I just thought I saw--”

“Y/N!”

You froze in your seat.

That voice… It was faint and almost like it wasn’t real, but you knew that voice.

There was no way.

“Good grief, I’m losing it now, huh?” you asked your bar acquaintance with furrowed brows.

He shrugged, not knowing how to reply.

“Y/N, thank god,” the voice said frantically, sounding closer this time. “You’re safe!”

Ever so slowly, you turned around in your seat, eyes squeezed shut.

Even hearing his voice amidst the blaring of music was enough to make your heart twist in pain. It was the same deep timbre you remembered from high school and you haven’t heard it since then. You hated just how much you had missed the familiar sound. It was like a hug of comfort telling you everything was okay and a stab in the gut all at once.

“Y/N,” he said again, almost a whisper this time.

You finally found the courage to open your eyes, but refused to meet his gaze. Instead, you developed a deep interest in the laces of his shoes, reluctant to look up.

“Shinsou…” The name left a bitter taste on your tongue and you wished you had another drink to wash it down with. Your voice hardened. “What are you doing here?”

He winced at your harsh tone but stood unrelenting. “Your friends are worried sick about you. Kaminari was so concerned he even messaged me-- Something I imagine he never wanted to do.”

Your lower lip jutted out in guilt as your stare stayed set on the intricacies of the tiled flooring.

“Why have you not checked your phone?” asked Shinsou in exasperation. “Kaminari was trying to tell you I was going to pick you up.”

“I’m sorry,” you said softly. “My phone died after I sent Denki my location.”

“Died? Did you not charge it before you left? Y/N how could you be so irresponsible--!”

“Is everything okay here?” your unnamed acquaintance said from his seat on the bar. He glanced carefully between you and Hitoshi.

You nodded, sparing him a wry smile. “I’m fine. Thank you, though.”

Shinsou bit the inside of his cheek as he eyed the stranger who sat next to you. “Who’s this?”

“None of your damn business.”

Annoyed by Shinsou’s chiding, you bristled when he frowned at you. He had no right to sound concerned or jealous-- No right to pretend he cared!

Not when he did what he did.

“I know I was being stupid and I’ll call my friends when I get home,” you said, not bothering to hide your irritation. “But you can’t just come here and talk to me like everything is normal! Why are you even here?”

Pushing yourself out of your chair, you stood up and finally looked Hitoshi in the eye, glaring at him. You wobbled on your own two feet and felt the goosebumps on your bare thighs and arms, briefly wishing you had brought a coat with you.

Great, another thing Toshi can call you irresponsible for, you thought crossly, a mixture of hurt and anger in your face as you stared up at him.

“Why are you here?” you repeated as you paced away from the bar--turning back only to give your bar friend a wave goodbye that he returned with a confused look. You headed for the exist of the nightclub as briskly as your legs could carry you in your uncomfortable heels. “How did you know where to find me?”

Shinsou trailed not too far behind you and you begrudgingly admitted to yourself that you felt a warmth near your back from his presence. “Kaminari told me you were alone at a nightclub and this one happened to be only ten minutes from my house.”

You pouted. Small fucking world. Fate must’ve been getting a kick out of this.

“Your friends were worried-- So was I.” You rolled your eyes, but he continued. “And since I was the closest to this place I offered to pick you up.”

Reaching the side doors, you stopped by the stone wall of the building and squinted at him. “You offered and they just let you?”

That did not sound like the friends you knew. You were expecting a full Shinsou beat down from Bakugou alone.

Hitoshi scratched the back of his neck and, in your tipsy stupor, you felt comforted by the familiar habit of his. You swallowed, balling your hands into fists to snap your mind out of it.

It shouldn’t matter how many memories of the past were flooding you-- You were mad at him for lying and you had every right to be.

“Maybe offered is too loose of a word,” he admitted after a moment’s silence, having the decency to appear sheepish. “But we were worried and I knew I could get to you in half the time any of your friends could.”

Sure, it was a logical reason. But that didn’t mean you had to like it. “I would rather have waited double the time if that meant I didn’t have to see you again.”

You stared Hitoshi straight in the eyes as you said that as you tried to ignore the trembling of your lower lip. He flinched at the words, looking hurt. But another part of him looked like he accepted it.

“I know I’m the last person you want to see right now--”

“Mhmm,” you hummed just to be petty.

“--but we had no way of knowing if you were safe. Especially when you stopped replying to anyone! This was the quickest way.”

Folding your arms across your chest you stubbornly held his gaze. “Well, I’m safe. So you can leave now.”

Shinsou pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Please. I know you hate me and you have every right to--”

“I don’t hate you,” you muttered under your breath. As much as you wish you did, you don’t think you could ever really hate him.

He blinked slowly and you could have sworn you saw a shimmer of hope in his expression. You tore your gaze away, studying the small fissures and cracks on the otherwise smooth pavement.

“Oh,” he breathed almost imperceptibly. “Thank you.”

You pretended not to hear him.

“Regardless of whether you hate me or not, I know you don’t want to see me--and I apologize for showing up so suddenly--but will you please let me bring you home safely?” Hitoshi pleaded. “Or to your friend’s house if you don’t want to be alone.”

With your lips squeezed shut, you rubbed the goosebumps off your upper arm. It was cold and your head was spinning and you had no clue what to say to him.

Silently, Shinsou took off his outer coat and gently draped it over your shoulders, fastening the top button near the collar so it wouldn’t fall off your frame. You looked at him in surprise, unshed tears stinging the back of your eyes as you recalled all the times he’d given you his jacket while you were dating.

There were more times that you cared to admit where you conveniently “forgot” your jacket or wore too little layers on a cold day just so Hitoshi could give you his and you’d be enveloped in his scent.

And that’s exactly what was happening now. Shinsou’s coat surrounded your body like a warm hug and your nose was filled with a scent exactly like the one you remembered from when you were dating. He smelled like a sweet sandalwood with a mixture of fresh jasmine. He smelled like a field of flowers you’d find after a long trek through a woodsy forest. He smelled like home.

But he wasn’t.

In actuality, you haven’t been this close to Shinsou since your break up.

It had been years since you had seen him or talked to him or even been close enough to catch a trace of his scent. And now he was flooding every one of your senses with no care of the repercussions.

Your head was light.

You missed him. You cared for him. You never stopped loving him.

And now old wounds that never fully healed had been ripped open all at once.

“You were shivering,” Hitoshi stated quietly. “So I gave you my--”

He stopped short when he heard a sniffle coming from your direction, eyes growing wide as your buried your face in the palms of your shaking hands.

Through the cracks between your fingers, you saw Shinsou reach out to cup your face, stopping himself before he could touch you and withdrawing as if he had been burned. As stupid as it was, you wanted nothing more than to feel his touch against your skin and you found yourself involuntarily taking a half-step closer to him.

Your silent tears feel even faster.

“Are you crying?”

Despite the droplets of water blurring your eyes, you managed to glare up at him for his dumb question.

He grimaced. “Sorry. I’m...sorry.”

Although you were the one crying, you still noticed the pained look on Shinsou’s face. He seemed just as conflicted as you were, his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands so hard his knuckles appeared white.

When he opened his mouth to speak his voice sounded choked, but still gentle. “Are you okay, Y/N?”

“Just peachy,” you murmured, barely moving your lips. The two of you stood there in awkward silence, nothing but the sounds of your labored breaths filling the air until you blurted, “Actually, you know what--? No. I’m not!”

Shinsou opened his mouth to speak but no noise came out. That was just fine by you, though. You had plenty of things you wanted to say, regardless of his response.

“I’m angry at you! And confused. And sad. And hurt! I don’t know if I want to yell at you or ignore you or run right back into your arms--” Your voice cracked and you squeezed your eyes shut, trying to slow your sharp breathing.

You hugged yourself around your waist, painfully aware of how comforting his jacket felt around your body. A part of you wished you could just tear the coat off your shoulders, throw it onto a puddle on the floor, give Shinsou the middle finger, and turn away without looking back.

But you couldn’t.

Instead, you let your tears continue to fall as you glowered at Hitoshi’s shoes.

“I am so mad at you,” you managed, hands clutching the fabric at your sides. “You lied to me, Hitoshi. You lied to me and you didn’t trust me and you left!”

The hurt from your past which you never wanted to accept mixed with anger from the present, both fueling your surge in emotions.

“And now you’re here--in front of me--acting like everything is okay?!” you shouted in exasperation. Your face was burning despite the chilling breeze outside. “Do you even care about me? Have you ever even cared about me?”

He gritted his teeth, hurt that you would even ask that. “Of course. Of course I care about you, Y/N! Even through all these years I’ve never stopped caring about you.”

“Funny way of showing it.”

His laugh was humorless. “I’m a fuck up. I know.”

Your gaze softened just the slightest bit. “Hey-- I didn’t say that.”

Shinsou shrugged. “Regardless, I did fuck up with you. And I’m so sorry for that.”

“For which time?” By now, the tears flowing out of your eyes slowed, the remnants dried by the biting wind. You gave him a wry smile, unamused.

“Both times,” he answered without hesitation. “I hurt you when I broke up with you for no damn reason and I lied when I told you I didn’t love you. That was the biggest lie of my life-- I still loved you. So much. But I jumped to conclusions and didn’t give you the change to explain. I owe you so much more than an apology but it’s the least I can give you right now.”

You rolled your lower lip between your teeth, hating yourself for wanting to accept his apology and jump into his arms. He gave no excuses for what he did and his words were genuine. That much you knew for certain.

Slowly, he inched towards you.

“I really am sorry, Y/N.” He paused. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”

You stayed silent, holding your breath as the pad of his thumb brushed against your damp cheek. Shinsou wiped away your flood of tears with a touch so gentle, it felt like a feather on your face.

His thumb lingered on your cheekbone, his fingertips lightly grazing your jaw, and you found yourself ever so slightly leaning into his palm. The tension in your muscles loosened and if you closed your eyes, you could almost pretend you were back with the Shinsou you loved in high school-- As if he never left and nothing had ever changed.

Just for a moment, you tricked yourself into being truly happy. You tricked yourself into thinking that maybe you and Hitoshi could still be in love.

You wanted to capture this second and replay it on an infinite loop, but just like all moments, this too had to come to an end.

As you opened your eyes, Hitoshi reluctantly brought his hand back to his side.

“Sorry,” he said, voice hoarse. “You were crying and I just wanted to--” He shook his head, cutting himself off before his voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

It sounded like his apology was meant for more than just wiping some tears off your face.

You nodded almost imperceptibly, the anger in your gaze diffused by hurt and longing. “I know.”

As the minutes passed, neither one of you made a move to step away from the other-- Your bodies mere inches apart and so close, yet never quite touching.

Suddenly, Hitoshi cleared his throat.

“Er-- If you’ll let me, I think I should bring you home now,” he said, forcibly shaking himself out of his daze and pulling his phone out. “It’s almost four in the morning.”

Blinking, you rubbed your eyes. Not that he mentioned the time, you realized just how tired you were. You wanted to take a bubble bath, change into fluffy pajamas, and sleep until the following night.

“Do you have to go to your flower shop tomorrow?”

“Hmm?” You were startled. You had almost forgotten that the man in front of you was the same person you considered your “mememate.” As much as you hated to admit it, he probably knew more about you than some of your closest friends.

Biting your lip, you snapped yourself out of it.

“Oh-- Right. My flower shop.”

He nodded.

“No, I don’t have work tomorrow,” you answered finally. “I may not have made the smartest decisions tonight, but I’m not that irresponsible.”

A shadow of a smile graced his face. “Of course not.”

Fishing his keys from his pocket, Shinsou walked to the parking lot of the nightclub, looking over his shoulder to check if you were following.

When his gaze met yours you immediately stuck your tongue out at him haughtily so he knew you were only following him as a last resort and you needed to get home-- Not because you wanted to.

You caught a glimpse of his grin before he turned around, and you managed to stop yourself before one spread to your lips as well.

Stopping at a black car with tinted windows, Hitoshi unlocked it with his keys, opening the door of the passenger seat and waiting for you to safely enter.

“I can open a door myself,” you murmured, sliding into the seat securely before he gently shut it close.

“I know,” you heard his amused voice call through the window.

It felt like there was one, singular butterfly fluttering around in your stomach and causing mayhem, and you batted it away before Hitoshi could come in and see the grin on your face.

“Did I just see you just hit yourself in the gut?” he asked when he entered through the driver’s side.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Subtly, you rubbed your tummy in a soft, circular motion. You hadn’t meant to punch the butterfly that hard.

“Didn’t hit yourself, huh?”

You flushed. “Oh, hush.”

With a snort, Hitoshi turned the engine of his car on and you let your eyes explore the interior. It was sleek and clean, smelling like a mixture of sandalwood and new car.

Reaching behind the gear level, he pulled out a white cord and handed it to you. You stared at the object in his hands.

“For you,” he said, with a raised brow. “You should charge your phone and let your friends know you’re on your way home.”

Wordlessly, you accepted it from him. Careful not to let your fingers brush against his in fear of the spark it might cause.

“I messaged Kaminari earlier to let him know you were safe. But he probably wants to hear it from you.”

You nodded as you plugged your dead phone in. “Thanks.”

He hummed, putting the car on drive and backing out of the parking spot, stopping before he reached the main street.

“Do you know how to get home from here?” he asked. As you shook your head, Hitoshi handed you his fully charged phone that was opened on the navigation app. “You can search for your address.”

“Got it.” The air between you was almost suffocatingly awkward as you typed in where you lived, each click of the keyboard ringing into the stillness of the night. After finding turning the directions on, you handed the phone back to him. “Thanks.”

Shaking his head, he waved you off. “You don’t need to keep thanking me, Y/N. This is the least I could do.”

Averting your gaze, you twiddled your thumbs in your lap, unsure what to say. You had so much you wanted to tell him--so much you wanted to ask--but when it came to it, you froze.

Just then, your phone made a sound from its spot near the gear shift, buzzing and lighting up as it finally turned on. A plethora of notifications filled your screen and you found yourself feeling guilty for making your friends worry like that.

Five missed calls for Kaminari, three missed calls from Todoroki, and nine missed calls from Bakugou. You gulped. You were definitely going to get your ears talked off by those three once they got a hold of you.

But amidst the calls and texts of worry from your friends, you also noticed a handful of messages from Hitoshi. He sent you texts asking if you were okay and telling you not to worry because he was on his way to get you. There was a lump in your throat when he saw the messages were still from your mememate-- You never did get around to changing his contact name.

From the corner of your eye you saw Hitoshi glancing down at your phone screen, a look of regret apparent on his face. When he caught you staring, he directed his attention back on the road, clearing his throat as he followed the directions on the navigation system.

To think only a week ago, things were so different between the two of you.

You thought he was a random stranger you connected with through the power of memes, never having a clue that he was your ex this whole time. You found yourself opening up and sharing your private feelings with him despite the promise you made yourself to always guard your heart.

Even anonymously, Hitoshi climbed over your walls and found his way to the inner workings of your life. Even anonymously, he made everything feel like it was okay.

But a part of you was scared--so scared--that it was all in your head and he was only playing you this whole time. And at this point, you were just too afraid to ask.

“Are you crying again?”

“What?!” you yelped in alarm, wiping at your slightly damp face with the sleeves of his coat. “No, you asshole!” You glared at him, a few loose tears still gathered by the corners of your eyes. You refused to let them fall through the use of sheer willpower. “The air conditioning is just blasting into my eyes.”

“The air conditioner is off.”

You blinked. “Well that makes sense. It’s so hot in here I’m just sweating through my eyes.”

He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. “Right.”

The lighthearted mood didn’t last very long, however, when your phone buzzed once more and the notifications from earlier tonight appeared on your lockscreen.

“I really made everyone worry, huh?” You sighed, leaning back against the headrest and shutting your eyes, the effects of the alcohol long since worn off. “I can’t believe I did something like this.”

He signaled a left turn and waited until he was at the red light before continuing. “I’m sorry for causing this.”

You stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? Causing this?”

“Yeah. If I had just told you who I was the moment I found out, this wouldn’t have happened. You wouldn’t have been scared and alone at a random nightclub and your friends wouldn’t have been in near panic for hours. Hell-- If I hadn’t run away like that all those years ago none of this would have happened.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel so hard it left indents on the leather. “You wouldn’t have felt all the pain and heartbreak and--”

His voice grew hoarse as it broke off, as if something was tightening around his throat. Holding your breath, you gazed at him in concern.

You were angry at Hitoshi and thought he had a lot of explaining to do-- Sure. But...for him to blame himself for everything that happened? That was more weight than anyone should bear on their own.

Surprising both him and yourself, you firmly placed your hand on top of his as he gripped the steering wheel. His hands were cold and rough from the wind, and you were certain yours weren’t much better. But still, you held him. And still, it felt right.

“Not everything is your fault, Toshi,” you said quietly, his old nickname slipping out of your mouth before you could stop it, like it was natural for you to call him that.

His eyes widened and a flush filled your cheeks.

You coughed to relieve the tension in your neck. “I just mean… You don’t need to blame yourself for everything. You messed up and there’s no denying that, but this isn’t all your fault. I mean it.”

Your eyes met before he tore his gaze away to focus on driving. Quickly, you retracted your hand from on top of Shinsou’s, cradling it against your stomach as you felt the burn from his skin linger on yours.

“Thank you.” His voice was solemn and grateful, as if he needed to hear those words at least once in his life. “You’re too caring, you know? Your heart is too good.”

You let out a breath of laughter, brushing his compliment off. “Yours is too. It’s just been through some shit. And maybe didn’t make the best decisions.”

“It most definitely didn’t.”

Though neither of you were looking at each other, there was a shared sense of happiness between the two of you--regardless of how brief it may have been. There was a small smile playing on your face as you bit your lip to keep it from growing wider.

You hadn’t fully forgiven Hitoshi, he still had some explaining to do, but you felt a sense of calmness when you realized that maybe forgiveness would be possible.

Before you knew it, you heard the navigator say, “Your destination is on the right,” as Hitoshi pulled up at the curb in front of your building.

“We’re here,” he announced slowly, one hand on the gear level as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.

There was an awkward silence as you unplugged your phone from his car charger. It wasn’t that you wanted to spend more time with him exactly (that was definitely not the case), but rather you had more questions to ask. And what better time to figure out those questions than at four in the morning?

“You’ve been driving for a while…” you trailed off, hoping he caught the hint without too much embarrassment on your part. “Do you want to use the restroom before you drive back home?”

Hitoshi scratched the back of his neck. “No, I’m good. I wasn’t out for that long.”

“O-Oh,” you stuttered, a sudden feeling of nerves settling in your stomach. Not those damned butterflies again. “Well, how about… Maybe you want a glass of water or a cup of tea?”

He gave you a curious look but set his car to park and turned off the engine nonetheless. “Sure…? Some water would be nice.”

You let out a sigh of relief you didn’t know you were holding, pulling your keys out of your pocket and unbuckling your seatbelt. Before you could open the car door for yourself, Hitoshi was already on the passenger’s side ready to open it for you.

“I know how to open a door,” you muttered with a roll of your eye, but felt a faint flush litter your cheeks nonetheless. You hopped out of your seat, accepting the hand he offered to stead you. “But...thank you.”

“No worries.”

For someone you were still mad at, he was making it damn hard for you to stay petty.

Despite the light throbbing in your head, both from drinking too much alcohol and from staying up too late, you were able to lead him inside your living room with no complications--only struggling with unlocking the door just a little.

“Welcome to my house,” you said, flapping your arms around and fidgeting in place. You slid off your shoes and placed them at the doorway and Hitoshi followed suit. “You can, uh, sit on the couch while I get you water. Or you can follow me into the kitchen…?”

Your eyes scanned the floors and furniture of your apartment. You liked maintaining your living space clean and clutter-free, so it wasn’t too much of a mess. Still, you weren’t expecting any guests and it wasn’t as nice as it could have been…

You shook your head, giving your face a light slap when you thought no one was looking. You shouldn’t be bothered. It was just Hitoshi here. Someone you most definitely no longer cared about.

Or so you kept telling yourself.

He followed behind you, grabbing at his neck and glancing between your walls and you, unsure what to look at in this new environment. After all, it wasn’t everyday you picked up your ex that you haven’t seen for four years at a bar only to be invited into their house.

“I can go with you to the kitchen,” he answered with uncertainty.

“G-Great!”

You grimaced. When did you become Tony the Tiger all of a sudden?

As you grabbed two glasses from the cupboard, you filled them up with ice and water, setting one next to Shinsou on the countertop.

He accepted it. “Thank you.”

You nodded and there was an awkward silence, both of you taking long sips from your glass, not knowing where to go from here. You knew you wanted to talk to him, but what were you going to ask exactly? What was the right way to go about this situation?

Next to you, Hitoshi looked like he was having some inner struggles of his own. His fingers flexed and unflexed around the cool glass, both avoiding your gaze and looking at you at the same time.

Biting your lip, you turned to look at him. As uncomfortable as it was, there was no better time to ask than now.

“Can we talk--?”

“We should talk--”

You both started and stopped at the same time.

There was a beat of elongated silence before the two of you laughed. Shaking your head, you buried your face in your hands, peering at him between your fingers.

“This is silly,” you cried in embarrassment. “Why are we so awkward?”

Hitoshi shrugged as a flustered laugh escaped his own lips. “Because this is weird. This is a strange situation we’re in and no one would ever expect something like this to happen.”

“Exactly!”

“But,” he continued, almost hesitantly, “I’m kind of glad it did, though.”

Your own laughter quieted down as the mood became more serious. You drank another gulp of water to quench your suddenly parched throat.

“Can we talk in the living room?” you asked, heading towards the hallway when Hitoshi nodded. You figured if you were going to have an uncomfortable conversation, you may as well try to find some comfort in your warm and plush sofa.

You sat down at the edge near the armrest and he took a seat not too far from you. There was less than a cushion space separating the two of you and if you were to move a few inches, your thighs would be touching.

Tearing your gaze away from your legs, you looked up to face Hitoshi. “You don’t have to answer, but… There have been some questions on my mind lately.”

He nodded, as if expecting you to say that. “Ask away. It’s the least I could do.”

You curled your legs and hugged your knees to your chest, peering at him through your lashes.

“Okay,” you said somewhat unsurely. Confrontation was never easy. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew who I was? How long were you planning on keeping it from me?”

Hitoshi ran a hand through his hair, tufts of purple sticking out in random patterns. Somehow, it suited him.

“I found out a day or so before you confessed to liking...your mememate,” he admitted. He had told you this through text when you asked, but hearing it a second time didn’t make it hurt any less. “I was going to tell you that day, too. But then you told me you liked me and I didn’t know how to break it to you then.”

You looked away, embarrassed at the reminder of the night you poured your heart out to him. He knew you were his ex the whole time and still didn’t stop you? You scoffed, “Well, you could’ve stopped me before I humiliated myself like that.”

“Humiliate-- How?”

“What do you mean how?” You glared. “I totally embarrassed myself that night by saying how much I liked you--my ex!--only to have you basically reject me on the spot!”

“I didn’t reject you.”

“I told you that you were the first person I liked since...well you,” you said, rubbing your temples to ease your own confusion. “And you never said it back. Not that you needed to. It’s totally fine that you don’t. It’s just that… I don’t even know. I just wish I never said anything.”

He placed the glass he was holding onto a coaster on your coffee table, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Hitoshi. “But that’s not it at all. I wasn’t trying to reject you. I would’ve told you I liked you back-- I wanted to, I swear.”

Your head snapped to his. He wanted to tell you? As in he started liking you too? Even when he didn’t know who you were?

With a wistful smile, he continued, “But it wasn’t fair to you. Not when I knew who you were and you didn’t know who I was. You didn’t deserve that bullshit.”

You stretched your legs out so they were dangling off the couch, folding one carefully over the other as you crossed your arms. “Then you should’ve just told me the truth about who you were.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “And if I did, you never would’ve told me your feelings.”

“Exactly,” you huffed. “They’d be safe and locked away in my heart until they disappeared.”

He was silent as you turned his body towards yours, resting his arm on the back cushions of the sofa.

“Is that really what you want, though?” he asked. “You’re so kind and beautiful and you deserve to open your heart to someone and be happy with them.” A flush rose to your cheeks at his sudden words of kindness but you shook it away. “I never knew I hurt you so badly that you were scared to love again-- And I’ll hate myself everyday for that.”

“Hitoshi…” Your gaze softened. You wanted to reach out and smooth down his hair but you couldn’t.

He hurt you, yes. But to hate himself and never forgive himself for it? You thought that was far too extreme.

“When you broke up with me,” you started slowly, unsure how to go about this, “you said that our relationship was nothing more than some cheap dates and sex.” He winced, holding his stomach as if he felt nauseous. “If you’re so regretful now, why did you ever say something like that? Did I really mean nothing to you?”

“No-- Of course you meant something to me. Y/N, you were everything to me. And it’s ridiculous of me to say this now but I never wanted to hurt you like that,” Hitoshi said, his eyes squeezed shut. “But I did and I’m so sorry. I thought if I told you those mean things you would find it easier to just hate me and move on. Be with Kaminari or someone who could make you happy.”

You glared at him with both sadness and anger, nails digging into your palms. “I was happy. With you. Is that so hard to believe?”

“A little.”

Taken aback, you stared at him. You weren’t sure what response you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“But not because of anything you did,” he rushed before you could get the wrong idea. “I just thought you were a good person who truly deserved something better than what I could give. You should be with someone who wasn’t anxious and insecure and messed up.”

You were unsure if you wanted to smack Hitoshi or give him a hug, so you sat there stock-still.

“Even when I saw you with Kaminari, a part of me thought it would be better off that way,” he admitted, a scornful look on his face as he scoffed at himself. “But that wasn’t my call to make, was it? And how I went about it was wrong and dishonest. I’m really sorry.”

He tugged at a loose thread on the sofa while staring at you in earnest. There were so many things to say and not enough time in the night to say it.

“You’re right. It wasn’t your call,” you said, furrowing your brows. “I wish you would’ve told me you were feeling this way all those years ago. I loved you--regardless of what you may have thought. And what you said really hurt me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I fucked up and hurt you more deeply than I could’ve ever imagined. You felt like you couldn’t have feelings for anyone for all those years because of what I did, and if I could take it all back, I would.”

His hand trembled slightly as he reached out to cup your face, pulling away harshly before he could touch you.

“You deserve to find love, Y/N. Even if it’s not with me because I know I have no right to anyone’s heart after what I did--”

“Hey, don’t say that!” you interrupted, a wrinkle forming as you scrunched up your nose. You frowned at him. “You deserve to find love again, too. You may have messed up a few times, and I’m not going to pretend like I wasn’t hurt, but I still care about you. A lot. And just because you made some really bad decisions doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to ever be happy.”

He looked down at his lap, hands curled into fists by his side. You had the sinking suspicion he didn’t believe you.

Swallowing your pride, you inched closer to him, lightly lifting his chin so he stared at you face-to-face. The dark purple of his eyes stormed as a conflicted expression overcame him and you wanted to run a finger over his brow and brush the insecurities away.

Quietly, you whispered, “You’re so worthy of love, Hitoshi. And it makes me so sad that you still haven’t realized it.”

You felt a piece of your heart chip as he pulled away from you, gritting his teeth as he hung his head. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked, as if he was holding back tears.

“You’ve shown me too much kindness,” he said, words shakey. “Even after I assumed you cheated and broke up with you in the cruelest way possible--”

His voice cracked and he couldn’t speak. With his gaze avoiding yours he pushed himself off the couch.

“God, I’m sorry,” Hitoshi muttered, his face a look of self-disdain. “I shouldn’t even be here in your life right now. I should just--”

Your hand grabbed the one he used to shove himself off your sofa, holding his fingers tight in between yours. With your head bowed, you called, “Don’t leave again. Not yet.”

He froze in his spot, one leg immobile in front of the other in the direction of the door. Desperately, you tugged at his arm so he looked back at you. Your eyes pleaded with him. This wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be the end until you received your closure and Hitoshi received his.

“You know that night we played Truth or Drink?” you asked, breaking the silence.

He stared back at you curiously, slowly sitting down as you patted the seat next to you. Cautiously, he nodded in response.

That night was a pivotal time in bonding with your mememate and it was the closest you had felt with anyone besides your best friends.

Continuing, you said, “You told me about your dad cheating on your mom. And then seeing me and Denki the next day after I lied about who I was with.”

There was no accusatory tone in your voice, and you stated it as if you were recalling the facts. But still, Hitoshi winced.

“Yeah, shit.” He placed his palm over his forehead, rubbing at his temple as he grimaced. “I really just jumped to conclusions like that and it was unfair to you. I’m so sorry.”

You didn’t reply to his apology, but gave him a small smile. “That night, I told you I thought your response was understandable. It made sense that you were mistrustful at the time. Especially after just finding out about your parents-- People I know you looked up to. Even in regards to love.”

Hitoshi wore a guarded expression, but still listened keenly to what you had to say.

“Toshi… My opinion on that doesn’t change just because I now know it was me you were talking about.”

“Y/N--”

“Don’t get me wrong,” you clarified, not wanting to sound too lenient. “I’m still hurt that you couldn’t trust me. I wish you confronted me so we could’ve cleared up the misunderstanding. I wish you hadn’t stood me up on our anniversary date. But most importantly… I wish I could have been there for you when you found out about your parents.”

Hitoshi sat there in silence, mouth opening but unable to form the sentences he wanted.

You gave him a look of regret, one hand still not letting go of his even as he stayed seated beside you. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.”

“It’s not your fault. At all.”

As you shook your head, he faltered. “Still, you went to America, alone, and never told anyone what was wrong. You kept all these feelings to yourself this whole time and I hate that so much.”

“I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. I don’t deserve to--”

Your fingers twitched. How many times was he going to beat himself while he was already down?

“Stop saying that!” you snapped, unable to contain your emotions. “You are not a burden. And you deserve so much more than you think you do.”

His eyes widened at your outburst and his lips parted slightly.

“It’s good you know what you did was wrong-- You can’t pretend lying and making assumptions was okay because it’s not. But you know it’s not! And you acknowledge that and it seems like you regret it.” Your voice took on a desperate tone as you tried to get Hitoshi to see his mistakes as something separate from his worth as a whole. “You’ve made mistakes, but you can grow from them. Fucking up doesn’t mean you’re undeserving of love and happiness. You don’t have to take all the blame onto yourself.”

“How can I not take the blame?” he asked, his frustration at himself matching yours. “If I had been a better boyfriend, I would have trusted you more. If I had been a better person, I wouldn’t have lied to you. And maybe if I had been a better son, my parents--”

As if your body had a mind of its own, you threw your arms around him in a hug before he could finish his sentence. You heard a sharp inhale come from him as he sat, rigid.

“Don’t,” you whispered, breathing harshly as you held him tight. “Please, Toshi. Don’t say that. If no one ever told you this, please listen to me then. It’s not your fault. Your parents divorcing has nothing to do with your worth. Don’t blame yourself for the issues they had.”

His shoulders were still tense despite the shudder of tears you felt.

“You don’t need to blame yourself for everything. Hold yourself accountable, yes. Always strive to be a better person, yes. But don’t think it’s all your fault,” you pleaded. “You don’t have to handle everything on your own. You can lean on someone, Toshi.” You gently stroked the hair on the back of his head. “You can lean on me.”

At your words, you felt him visibly relax, his body free of the tension as you held him close.

Suddenly, his arms wrapped around you as he returned your embrace, his strong hands firmly gripping your waist as if he never wanted to let you go. You found yourself loosening up at his touch and you placed your head in his chest.

Peering up at him through your lashes, you said, “I don’t know if you need to hear this, but I need to say it.”

His thumb stroked the length of your spine as you continued.

“I forgive you, Hitoshi. For everything.” He stopped moving as he looked at you in surprise. You simply smiled at him. “Your apologies were genuine and so is your regret. I know you’re a good person and I forgive you, so please stop blaming yourself now.”

“Thank you, Y/N. So much.” He pulled away ever so slightly, feelings of guilt still flooding him. “But I feel like I still don’t deserve it though--”

A noise of protest bubbled up at your throat. “I swear to god, if I hear the d-word come out of your mouth again, I’ll make you shut up.” After a moment’s pause, you tried to hide your laughter. “Heh. D-word.”

“Oh my god,” he said, his amusement escaping him. With his arms still around your waist, he challenged, “How would you make me shut up?”

You wiggled your eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Hitoshi laughed a genuine laugh that you haven’t heard in years. The deep rumble had a smile of your own forming on your lips.

But the mood turned serious when you gazed into his eyes again.

“Really, though…” you said, squeezing the fabric at his sides. “I’m sorry you’ve been feeling this way for so long without telling anyone. I hope you know you can always talk to me.”

He tilted his head back, staring at your ceiling as you caught sight of his Adam’s apple. “Why are you being so nice to me after how much I hurt you?”

“Because I care about you,” you answered simply. “And I know you still care about me. You wouldn’t be this hung up over everything if you didn’t.”

There was a sort of smugness in you as you teased him and he let out a breath of laughter.

“Hah. I do. I care about you. And I’ve missed you so much.”

You didn’t think it was possible, but he hugged you even closer to him. Your arms released their embrace on Hitoshi as you brought them to your sides. He looked down at you with a strange expression.

“I’ve missed you, too,” you admitted, squeezing your eyes shut as if it pained you. “You’re the first and only person I’ve ever loved and I miss you more than you could ever know.”

Your head was bowed at his chest as you tried to steady your trembling hands by grasping the fabric at the front of his shirt.

“Why did you never call me? Why didn’t you tell me you were moving to another continent? Toshi, I loved you so much--” Your voice broke off as the tears you were holding in escaped you. “Why did you leave me?”

His fingers were laced in your hair, holding you tight. He wanted nothing more than to soothe your tears and hated himself for being the cause of them. “I’m an insecure idiot who fucked up the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Through the blur of tears, you saw the wistful look on his face. The best thing? you thought to yourself, touched.

“No amount of apologizing is going to fix anything,” he said, accepting it as a fact, “but I am so sorry. And I want you to know I’m grateful the person who AirDropped me that day was you.”

He lifted your chin and wiped your tears away with the pad of his thumb. Your knees were touching his thighs as you sat down with your legs folded under you, facing him. Letting go of the grip you had on his shirt, you unballed your fists and instead rested your palms on his chest.

You grinned at the audacity of it all. “I still can’t believe that happened. But I’m glad it did, too.”

“Must be a small world.”

“Or maybe it’s fate.” Your hand found his as you interlocked pinkies with him bashfully.

Hitoshi looked down at your interlaced fingers and a light dusting of pink colored his cheeks. A sense of enjoyment filled you as he continued to blush, a teasing grin playing on your face.

Before you lost any courage you had, you pressed your lips against the corner of his mouth-- Not quite a kiss but most definitely an invitation for one.

The red on his cheeks died down as his eyes darkened in color, removing his hand from your waist to cup your jaw. Hitoshi’s palm was warm and soft against you and you leaned into his caress.

“Do you feel like you got the closure you needed?” he asked, his voice a whisper as he leaned close to you.

“Yes.” You nodded, painfully aware of your close proximity. If you were to lift your head up any more, your lips would brush against his. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

His forehead was pressed against yours and your heart was being so hard, you were certain Hitoshi could hear it from his spot in front of you.

After a moment’s silence, you said, “Now what?”

He shrugged, eyes shut. “That’s up to you to decide. I’m happy with doing whatever will make you happiest. And if that means leaving you alone and letting you close this chapter, then I--”

You yelped, silencing him with a gentle shove on the chest.

“Are you crazy?” you asked incredulously. “You think I would ever let you go again?” There was frustration in your voice as you resisted the temptation to kiss the stupidity out of him. “I… I mean, unless that’s what you want?”

“Y/N…” Now he was the one with the tone of disbelief, like he couldn’t wrap his mind around what you had just said. “I’d want to stay with you. For as long as you’d let me.”

“O-Oh?” Your eyes widened in shock, but soon settled into an ecstatic smile. “Fate must have done us a favor with all this AirDrop stuff, huh? I fell for you all those years ago as Shinsou, and I fell for you again without even knowing who you were. There’s no way I’d throw that chance away.”

Tired of waiting for him to make the first move, you brought your hands to the back of his neck, and lifted your head up to meet his. You spotted an amused look on his face, but it didn’t last very long when your lips finally pressed against his with a contented sigh.

His movements were gentle and slow, like he was afraid if he kissed you any harder he would find this was only an illusion that would shatter. But it wasn’t. It was real and it was genuine and you wanted to prove it to him.

You broke away from his touch to pepper chaste kisses on his jawline, starting at the lobe of his ear and making your way down to the sensitive part of his throat you knew would drive him crazy, your hot breath blowing against his neck as a guttural sound escaped him.

“Eager, are we?” he asked hoarsely, his chin lifted.

You grinned mischievously against him.

“As much as I appreciate the gesture,” said Hitoshi, gently pushing you away with a roguish glint in his eyes, “you don’t always have to keep giving. You should be spoiled for a change.”

You squealed when his hands trailed down your sides to cup the undersides of your thighs, lifting you up as you sat down on his lap. His hands unclasped the button that fastened his coat on you and brushed the collar aside, exposing the supple skin on your upper chest.

“You should be spoiled,” he breathed in between each kiss he planted on your decolletage, “every day of your life.”

Your face burned at the implication of his words, the skin his mouth had touched feeling like they were searing hot. Though his jacket had fallen off your shoulders, you were still overwhelmed by his scent, the woodsy citrus filling your senses as you sighed his name and you still couldn’t get enough. He was more intoxicating than any vodka you had consumed earlier that night.

Growing impatient at his teasing, you squirmed on his lap, causing him to hiss in response.

You giggled at his expression and stuck your tongue out at him. “Just kiss me already.”

Tossing his inhibitions to the side, he obliged.

When your lips met again, this time it wasn’t uncertain and gentle. Each move Hitoshi made was firm and deliberate and if you weren’t already sitting down, your knees would have gone weak and given in.

His teeth grazed your lower lip and he kissed you harder, and your hands found themselves tangled underneath the hem of his shirt. The skin on your arms filled with goosebumps as he mimicked your motions, his fingers toying with the clasp of your bra as his name escaped your lips once more in a strangled moan.

Before it could go any further, however, Hitoshi removed his hands from the band of your undergarments and slowly pulled away from your kiss.

His face was flushed with beads of sweat falling down the side and his breathing was labored. You were certain you weren’t any better as you rested your forehead against his to steady yourself.

“Why’d you stop?” you asked with a strained voice, giving him your best pleading eyes.

“It’s late and you need some rest, baby.” He pressed a soft kiss to your nose with a smile. “I don’t want to stop--believe me,” he promised, his hands squeezing your thighs that still straddled his lap, “but I also don’t want you to rush into anything you might regret.”

You pouted, not wanting him to stop, but also feeling grateful he wanted to make sure you weren’t going to do anything you would regret the next day.

“Damn you for being such a gentleman,” you grumbled.

He ran the tip of his tongue against his lower lip. It was plump and red and it took all your willpower not to kiss it again.

“Only sometimes, princess,” he said when he noticed how your gaze zeroed in on his mouth. “But for now, you should get ready for bed. The sun is almost rising already.”

Hitoshi made a move to get up and you slowly unwrapped your legs from his hips, standing up shakily. He placed his hands on your hips to help you steady yourself, but that just made the weakness worse.

Still holding you, he stood up from the couch and looked down at you, resting his chin on the top of your head as you hugged him.

“You’re leaving?” you whimpered, a pout on your face.

“Sadly,” he sighed. “I have work tomorrow. Well, in a few hours I suppose. But if you need me to stay I--”

“Oh, my god!” you cried, jumping away from him. “You have work? And yet you still came for me and let me keep you this whole time?! Toshi!”

You folded your arms across your chest as you scolded him, but he just ruffled your hair playfully.

“It was the least I could do,” said Hitoshi. “And I’m used to running on little to no sleep. It’s fine, don’t worry about me.”

“It’s not fine! If you don’t get enough sleep this week I will smother you until you pass out.” You glared at him, holding his face between your hands and examining his tired eyes. Your gaze softened when you saw how sleepy he looked and thought about how well he hid it from everyone. You sighed. “And I think you’re a lot more selfless and caring than you give yourself credit for.”

You kissed the apples of his cheeks and smoothed his brows.

“Thank you for tonight,” you said. “You should get going.”

“No, you’re the one I should be thanking,” he replied, giving you one last embrace before getting ready to head towards the door.

Both of your legs felt like lead, neither of you wanting to leave the other after years of being apart. With a smile, he moved towards the door.

In silence, you examined him for the first time in four years. He was taller than before-- Bulkier, too. It looked like he worked out since he was in college, his plain shirt stretching against his pectoral muscles.

But still, he was the same Shinsou Hitoshi you had always loved.

You glanced at his bared arms and your eyes widened. “Oh, wait--! Your coat!”

It had fallen off your shoulders and onto the floor during the heat of the moment, and you picked it up and brought it to him. As you held it out, his hands wrapped your outstretched ones around the fabric of his sweater.

“No, it’s okay,” he said with a shake of his head and a small grin on his lips. “You should keep it. It suits you.”

You raised an eyebrow at him in warning, but hugged the coat to your body nonetheless. “I hope you know this means I’m never giving it back to you now.”

Hitoshi laughed. “I figured.”

He was about to grab the door knob when you blurted, “O-Or maybe I could give it back to you! If we were to, I don’t know, meet up for some food this week?”

Turning back in surprise, he was met with a look of utter embarrassment on your face. Your cheeks felt like they were on fire.

You bit your lip, unsure what had just come over you when you asked him on a date but also not regretting it for a moment.

“Only if you want,” you murmured, suddenly feeling more bashful.

Taking the hint, Hitoshi looked at you with a mix of wonder and amusement. “Sure. I’ll get some food with you just to have my coat back.”

You gasped, cheeks burning. “You know what? Never mind, I’m keeping this--!”

“I’m kidding,” he laughed, tone still teasing. “The jacket is just a bonus. What I’d really be there for is...the food.”

You buried your head in your hands and sighed. “I-- Why do I have to like you?”

He shrugged, feeling just as lost as you were. “Because feelings are strange.”

“They are,” you agreed. “But they’re worth it. And so are you.”

Hitoshi smiled as you gave him a gentle kiss goodnight.

“Have a safe drive home, Toshi.”

“Thank you. Go get some sleep now, kitten. We can talk when you wake up.”

You nodded feverishly, almost bouncing in anticipation at the thought of talking to him again. “I’m going to sleep right now so I wake up faster and get to talk to you sooner.”

A chuckle of surprise left his lips before he could stop himself. “You’re such a dork, you know? But I love that about you.”

Your face heated at the sound of the l-word as the two of you stared at each other, both in shock that the night happened and even happier that it did.

“I… I should go now,” he said in a daze. He didn’t want to leave and you didn’t want him to, but you knew he had work soon.

You nodded, waving at him as he left your house. “See you soon, Hitoshi.”

When the door closed shut behind him, you slumped a little. Tired and exhausted yet wishing you could see him soon. Though it might have been foolish, you couldn’t help but wish he was feeling the same.

Grabbing your phone on the coffee table, you unlocked it to check the time. You were about to shut it off and put it in your pocket when a notification bubble popped up on your screen.

“AirDrop: mememate would like to share a note,” it read, and a grin spread across your lips as you eagerly pressed accept.

The notepad application immediately opened up on your phone and you read the small message on the off-white display.

mememate: can’t wait for our date, y/n. p.s. i really really like you.

Letting out a surprised cry of joy, you held your phone to your chest, hugging it along with Hitoshi’s jacket he had left you.

From the other side of the door, Hitoshi had heard your scream and responded with a laugh of his own. A feeling of warmth in his heart as he placed his phone in his pocket and headed for his car. Thank goodness for AirDrop.

Your heart was pounding and your lips were still pulsing from the way he kissed you. Even as you got ready for bed and drifted off into a restful sleep, the silly smile never fell from your face.

You were grateful he came to get you at the nightclub, and you were grateful he was the recipient of your memes that day at the amusement park.

He made mistakes in the past and you were no saint either, but you had an opportunity to heal those wounds and be with Hitoshi again.

And you just couldn’t wait for your next date together.

a/n: AHHH THAT WAS A LOT,, pls let me know what you think! i know some readers never want to forgive shinsou at all and that’s okay, but i do think y/n forgives him and still really cares about him [and maybe l-words him? o.o] so i hope u support it 🥺 ilysm and thank you for reading! lmk ur thoughts !! xx

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windlion · 2 years

Text

Malevolent podcast, part 8! Eps 23-25

And now we're into the home stretch~~~

Don't ask questions you don't want answers to, Arthur. Delicious.

Oh, it correlated because Arthur just got monched on

"Why are we naked" NOT A GOOD QUESTION TO HAVE

Oh the floor is screaming that's casual

I mean, at least you're in nice digs?

Mmm. *side-eyes* You're wearing a bow-tie, I can't trust you

Why does he know your name?

Arthur all "do I look like I can buy the place"

Okay, good, Arthur also skeptical AF

"If we stay here we die" 8 ball says "Most likely yes"

I can absolutely see this as a video game sequence with the lightning and blackness

"What made you like him?" Yellow, you bein' transparent

Welcome to being the voice of reason, Yellow!

You think he's not going to notice the cold and the rain from the window opening? But better than being found!

"NOT HELPING"

Yellow "MAYBE IF YOU WERE AFRAID YOU WOULDN'T DO THIS BS"

Time for Yellow to be all ". . . I cannot believe you are doing this and not dying"

Y'all want to take a minute to get the star-footed bestiary deets?

Heart to hearts in a storage room~ aww, Yellow trying hard

"A levitating massive black stone" - thaaaat's the mountain guys

And a secret door!

Oh you guys gonna walk straight back into this guy

Who is Older Than He Looks, of course

Toot toot magic flute~ to control the invisible monster I'm guessing

And you have now activated the magic security alarm system

Ah we meet the owner of the femur?

Larson absolutely follows the Classic Villain playbook

WELP you took longer to get the point of the game, Arthur

"Wasn't" - I am going to guess that didn't hold super long

Cord is going to be a garrotte, I bet

OH but not the way I expected, yikes

Ohhhhh okay that's fucked

And then he was dinner. . . but not without some EYAGH

"Did I interrupt something?"

"I didn't peg you for a Catholic" *wheeze* that's a hilarious way of saying "I thought you were a cultist."

Yeah this guy is a creep

Arthur you are slow to get what I thought was your opening line

Okay that's . . . *grimace face*

Ohhh boy

And we hit Arthur's berserk button / breaking point, Arthur is going to fucking kill you

Ding ding ding, I am a winner

Yellow, you are being a dick and Arthur is breaking down apparently

And now we have an elegy for John

OH OH That is a Development!!

"Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?!"

And now back to your regularly scheduled shit show! Petition for Arthur to have an hour or two of breaking down crying before passing out in exhaustion.

"You have your hand back!" Arthur, alarmingly happy to lose autonomy for company

Please remember the magic flute if you still have it

"You look like shit" Thanks, buddy, glad to see you too

"It was you without the -you-"

Arthur all "I have a man to kill."

You found the cultist's temple!

Are you sure you didn't just hit another mirror

Time for panic attack!

And John gets to be the moral voice

*side-eyes* Wow that honey moon period was short

"I guess" . . . Mmm that was not super positive

Box puzzle!

How many people have the Larsons chucked down here?

. . . Or they live here now

"We never actually tried waiting"

Time to talk~~~

You are doing whatever the opposite of back-handed compliments are

Arthur, my dude you are not good at this, but that is probably because you need ALL THE THERAPY

And you are realizing it, that's something

Oh okay he is accruing scars

AND NOW YOU REMEMBER THE FLUTE

One of them, one of them~ Introduce yourself to your new neighbors

Dinner bell has been rung!

At least that's relatively quick???

Time to hide in the pantry~

Oh we're back to this again

I get the parallel they're making here but I'm also sort of like . . . how are we expected to believe they completely swapped morals?

*eyes Arthur* ALL the therapy

"I'm not angry I'm disappointed"

Arthur I would also like you get your shit together

Go back into the estate to find your bag and the flute?

You are definitely getting your cardio in today

That's not quiet, John

The lighter is definitely Arthur's own talisman - which does explain why Killing it With Fire worked so well. I do kinda wonder if the other magic objects are also coming from individual people

Time for your colonial bullshit to be questioned, Arthur

*pokes Arthur* You need to get your head around the fact you killed someone. Not accidental manslaughter this time, but very deliberately. It wasn't necessarily premeditated murder but you sure as fuck don't have a high ground. And you may very well have caused other people to die.

"Nothing that doesn't come with experience" Or PTSD

"I've only done this to survive" not ALL of it

And that's your problem, Arthur, you need to own that if you're going to kill people or cause them to die by your inaction you need a reason for it, and you need to decide if the reasons are good enough for your morals. And the demon in your head is your Jimminy Cricket right now

~~~Cuuuuuult~~~

Yellow King knows them, that's not great

"Things military" gives you deja vu, hmmm

Arthur, you are not doing a great job of being forthcoming

Yikes that is a way to go

Yeah, John is getting all the psychic damage

"We can go home!" - What do you think is still there four months later?

"I'm okay, are you okay?"

Open the goddamn door Arthur

"Yet" that's worrying

. . . Cain? You be playin?

OPEN THE DOOR, ARTHUR

It's a temple, you idiot

John you are NOT HELPING

. . . And his head exploded, didn't it.

I scream at the top of my lungs, "What's going on?"

"Blackstone" = the floating mountain that people were worshiping and/or the mountain you're literally in right now

. . . That was a switch, Arthur

Yiiiiiiikes, that's a note to end on.

So clearly we've got more story coming, and I am Invested to see where it goes.

I am still frustrated at the see-saw of characterizations, like it's getting fast-forwarded too much to really explain or feel why. Telling not showing, I guess? It does make me think as a writer what's working and what isn't. The creator's getting better at the medium as they go, so I think it's been a really good learning experience.

#Wind is a ridiculous creature #Malevolent podcast #screamalong #eps 23-25 #wouldn't mind doing this for other podcasts/shows #hmmmmm what next #I do have ALL THE DMBJ to watch still #where NPSS is also very instructive by what he does and doesn't do XD

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lazywonderlvnd · 4 years

Note

*hesitantly steps in the box* Umm.. soo.. I was listening to Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift again and that song (is awesome btw if you haven't listened to it already) just gives me such MAJOR drarry vibes .. like -

" And I screamed, 'for whatever it's worth I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?' He looks up grinning like a devil. "

Like if that's not drarry I'd chomp my pillows. So .. *twiddling thumbs* could you pls write something with that line as a prompt?? Pretty please 🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️ maybe use the song as inspiration.. idk? Whatever you like. ALSO, don't forget I STILL LOVE YOU that ain't changing yet and you haven't seen the last of me! Imma tail after you for eternity and you better take that as the threat it is! *throws love at you* BYE!! ❤️❤️ *vaults outside the box*

my sweetest most loved angel!! thank u so much for this prompt based on a BOP i was obsessed w when the album first came out. it got sm longer than it was meant to be, so it can be found on ao3 as well!! i hope u like it ilysm ❤️❤️❤️❤️

warnings for minor drug use (weed) and implied suicide of a minor character (lucius, extremely vague reference but pls be aware!)

rating: e word count: ~5k

When Pansy asked him how it started, Draco discovered that he didn’t know what to tell her.

Technically, though, it had started at Ernie Macmillan’s party in the beginning of summer, with the cloying scent of Freesias and Freedom Roses (“Imported from the States,” Ernie told Draco pompously, when he asked) and all those string-lights dangling from the cedar pergola, perennial balls of fire inside their clear bubbles like tiny trapped suns. Cheap beer in plastic cups, Marlboro cigarettes, and some stupid Muggle game ... darts.

Technically.

* * *

“Get off me, Potter,” Draco says in a failed whisper. He’s laughing and drunk and fuzzy warm under a sprawling summer’s night sky that looks like black paint. Potter tastes like Guinness every time he kisses him, and his hands are surprisingly soft. In direct opposition to his own command he pulls Potter in by the face and glues their mouths back together ravenously. The alcohol makes him sloppy (he likes it, though — the sloppiness of it) and Potter’s skin is warm where Draco slides his hand under an ugly Muggle band T-shirt to touch.

Around the corner, he can hear music coming from the patio where nearly every single one of their former classmates are gathered, drinking and laughing and getting along famously with a much-needed buffer of five years between them and their Hogwarts days.

Much-needed for himself and Potter as well. Apparently.

He sees him sometimes, at get-togethers like this or around the Ministry, once or twice at a dinner party thrown by a mutual friend. They’re always cordial. He hasn’t insulted Potter to his face in five years.

Except for tonight, when he couldn’t help himself loudly drawing attention to the similarities between Potter’s hair and one of the shrubs in the garden. But they’re kissing now round the side of the house and because of that he’s quite glad for his slip. And it’s their five-year reunion, so. What would it be without some bickering between the two of them?

Potter presses him into the bricks and snogs him breathless, only he keeps grinning and laughing and ruining everything just when Draco starts losing himself in it.

“Quit laughing,” he scolds him. “You’re the worst, Potter. No etiquette at all.”

“That’s rude,” Potter says. His breath wafts across Draco’s mouth. His eyes are excessively green behind their round frames, which have not changed since their school days. The scar is mostly hidden beneath his wild fringe, save for the very bottom where it slashes neatly through a dark eyebrow and touches his eyelid. “I can’t help it, I’m pissed good and proper.”

His hand moves to Draco’s hip and even through the thickness of the alcohol coating his brain like a muffler he feels that touch clear and ripe as daybreak.

“So that’s why you’ve decided to snog me rather than …” He waves a hand vaguely, in lieu of the proper witticism with which he might normally have trounced Potter. “You know. Beat me to a pulp.”

“I only did that one time,” Potter says, grinning. Grinning and moving his thumb in circles on Draco’s hip. “And it was because you were being a twat. And I didn’t beat you to a pulp. You’re so dramatic.”

“Semantics,” Draco says. “I had a bloody nose.”

“And you deserved it.”

“Now who’s being rude?”

Potter kisses him again.

Guinness and Freesias.

* * *

“Macmillan’s party,” he told Pansy. “He kissed me.”

“So that’s where you disappeared to.” She looked smug. Her inch-long nails were sharpened to a point and painted a glossy black, and she drummed them against her cheek, the way a cat flicks its tail. “I’m surprised you kept it from me this whole time.”

“Well,” said Draco, lowering his gaze to his glass of wine and watching it flirt dangerously with the lip as he swirled it. His cheeks felt warm, but he wasn’t embarrassed. “We snuck around.”

Right, maybe a little embarrassed. Mostly conflicted.

“Oh?” For a single syllable the laughter underneath was remarkably transparent.

He looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Yes,” he said a little defensively. “For obvious reasons. At first it was just sex. A lot of it, so he usually came here. Apparently Granger and the Weasel are notorious for popping round his place unexpectedly.”

* * *

He feels opened up all over again every time Potter fucks into him, unhurried and so careful. His hand is hot on Draco’s thigh, both of them sticky with sweat and come. This has to be their third round at least, and Draco’s sluggish brain insists it might actually be four.

An open window lets in the late afternoon air, humid and drowsy and perfumed heavily with flowers (a la Macmillan, Draco planted Freesias and Freedom Roses outside his bedroom window and helped them along to full bloom with some careful magic). Potter’s hair is damp with sweat — from exertion and the relentless heat of July — and Draco slides his fingers into it, tangles them and pulls the way he’s learned Potter likes. If he’s honest, he’s harboured a very secret and very desperate yearning to touch Potter’s hair since he was quite young. He doesn’t know why.

Well, maybe he knows why.

Potter makes a quiet, whimpered noise that curls Draco’s toes. He speeds up his hips, closing in on his orgasm and putting his face in Draco’s neck even though it’s too fucking hot for it.

“Fuck,” Draco whines. He tries to lift his leg higher, wrap it around Potter’s waist to get that perfect angle, but they’re too slick with sweat and he lets out a frustrated noise when it falls back to the bed. “Potter,” he says helplessly, arching into each thrust and shaking with the effort. This third (fourth?) orgasm is building too slowly, sitting there hard and stubborn and heavy in his gut and refusing to be coaxed to completion. He’s dripping with the effort, muscles quivering. “Please — I need —”

But he seems to have figured it out for himself. He scoots forward, lifting Draco’s arse higher off the bed and bending him nearly in half. The angle helps him go deeper and he’s suddenly nudging Draco’s oversensitive prostate every time he fucks back in.

“Right there,” Draco gasps, tensing as this new angle lights a fire under his elusive orgasm. His cock is leaking but he doesn’t have the strength or energy to get a hand around it. Potter’s grunting with the effort of fucking him, sweat dripping down his temples and making his neck and torso gleam. “Right there, god, right there, please, I’m so close —”

Potter braces himself and redoubles his efforts, and it’s like he’s reached inside Draco and sunk his claws into that building storm in his belly because suddenly it’s ripped right out of him in a colossal wave of euphoria that approaches too much, cock spurting untouched between them . Potter keeps moving inside him while he rides it out, and at some point he feels the warm, wet explosion of Potter emptying in him, mumbling incoherent things that include Draco’s name.

They come down together too. Draco is clutching Potter’s arms and trying to catch his breath and Potter is trembling and clutching him back like an anchor in a veritable ocean of sensation.

It’s like this every time.

When Potter drops down onto the bed beside him Draco rolls over and kisses him, long and deep and satisfying, and Potter reciprocates with the kind of intensity that is completely unique to him as a person.

“That one was particularly good,” says Potter, and Draco laughs.

When he feels like moving, he knows that Potter will get up and go to Draco’s kitchen and make tea for both of them, and he won’t need to ask what Draco likes, because he remembered after the first time. They’ll drink it naked in bed as the sun sets on another endless summer day and transforms before their eyes into a humid and pungent summer night, in the midst of which they will fuck at least three more times, and Potter will keep smelling like sweat and bergamot and boy, and Draco will keep feeling starved for him.

And they won’t talk about it.

* * *

“And?” Pansy said.

“And what?”

“You said ‘at first,’” she pointed out, and arched a groomed eyebrow. “When did it turn into more than just sex?”

Draco tamped down on a smile, because that would have been more emotion than he cared to show at the moment. To Pansy or to himself.

He swirled his wine again and took a long sip, stalling. He wanted — needed, really — to talk this out with her, but he was becoming aware of an uncomfortable heaviness in his chest which was suggesting to him that he didn’t want to share everything. Not because he was embarrassed, but, well … it was private. It was between him and Harry.

“There was this one night he came over later than he was supposed to because of work,” Draco said. The memory stirred some emotion. He hadn’t thought of it in a while. “He had this bloody huge takeout bag of Thai food.”

* * *

He sets it down on Draco’s desk, takes out a container, and after toeing off his shoes drops sideways onto Draco’s bed with it and uses chopsticks to shovel in a mouthful of noodles. Draco watches this in awe.

“Want some?” Harry asks once he’s swallowed (small blessings). There’s grease around his mouth. “There’s a million other things in the bag but you have to get it yourself. I’m dead tired.”

Draco thinks of asking what the hell is going on, because they’re supposed to be fucking by now, but something stops him. Harry really does look exhausted but quite content eating his Thai food on Draco’s bed, and he doesn’t have the heart to berate him for it or remind him that they’re fuck buddies, not friends, and that if he’d wanted to eat and lounge about perhaps he should’ve stayed at home.

And the food really does smell good.

He gets up and fishes another container out of the bag that turns out to be some sort of heavenly-smelling marinated beef, which he brings back to the bed. Harry’s rolled onto his back and has the container of noodles balanced on his stomach.

“They thought they found a Horcrux on a raid,” he says. His voice is perfectly casual, but Draco thinks he can see something troubled in his eyes. He has one foot crossed over the other and it’s bouncing anxiously; he doesn’t think Harry’s aware of doing it. “Wasn’t. Obviously.”

“But they needed your expert advice to be sure.”

“Yeah.” Harry looks at him, then his food. “Is that the beef?”

“Yes it is.”

“Good?”

“Haven’t tried it yet.”

He opens the container and chooses a piece, but instead of lifting it to his mouth he follows some crazy impulse and hovers it over Harry’s instead.

“Open, Scarhead,” he says. Harry blinks but does it, and Draco drops it in. He smiles, then chews.

“Brilliant.”

* * *

“We ate it instead of fucking. It was the first time I realised something had shifted.”

“And you let it shift?”

The question gave him pause. He didn’t answer right away, mulling it over. It made it sound as if he’d had a choice, and that wasn’t quite right.

“It already had,” he said finally. “It wasn’t a matter of letting it; by the time I noticed, it had already happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come over with the food.”

“But you did let it continue,” said Pansy. She wasn’t antagonising him, nor accusing him of anything. She looked amused, but not in a way that was at his expense. Pansy was both a twat and a fiercely good friend, the combination of which meant she would do nothing more or less than hold up a mirror and force you to look at yourself, gruesome as the experience inevitably wound up being. “Even after you realised he had feelings for you.”

Draco swallowed. He’d not heard it said aloud before now.

“Yes,” he said. “It felt good. Knowing he fancied me.”

* * *

Harry’s shameless in his staring.

He stands in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom and watches Draco like he’s been invited to do so. Draco pretends not to notice, stretched out in a tub full of bubbles facing the opposite way. There’s incense burning, and candles. Harry is completely silent, but Draco could feel those eyes on him from across a crowded hall.

They fucked a few hours ago and fell asleep afterwards. Draco pretended not to think about it, but had actually made the conscious decision to let Harry continue sleeping when he woke up and decided he wanted a bath.

When he can’t take it anymore he opens his eyes and tilts his head back and a little to the side, just enough that he gets Potter in his peripherals.

“Well?” he says.

“Well what?”

“Join me, won’t you?”

Harry snorts. Then there’s a quiver of magic in the air, and a small, utilitarian chair appears out of thin air beside the tub. Harry sits down in it. He’s holding the joint they’d only gotten halfway through earlier.

He’s in his jeans and nothing else, all limbs and sparse chest hair, and when he crosses a leg over the other one, elbow resting on his knee as he hits the joint, Draco feels a bone-deep attraction to him that’s beyond physical.

“May I?” Draco asks. Harry hands it over and Draco inhales deeply before returning it. The humidity of the room mixes with the smoke and the smell of marijuana, pungent and cloying like the flowers.

After a length of silence, Draco says, “Will you read me something?”

“Will I what?”

He takes his wand from the floor and Summons a book from the shelf in his room — one of his poetry collections comes sweeping in through the cracked door and into Harry’s lap. Harry sticks the joint between his lips and starts rifling through it with his glasses all fogged up.

When he starts reading Byron (“I had a dream, which was not all a dream”) Draco smiles and sinks deeper into the hot water and bubbles, letting Harry’s voice lull him into a pleasant stupor.

* * *

“So you led him on,” said Pansy. “Because you liked his attention.”

He stared at her, then let his gaze drop to his wine again. Had he?

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“Well,” she said, smiling wryly, “I’m only saying it as you’ve told it to me. Maybe if it sounds bad, it is bad. Some things are that simple, darling. Unless there’s more to it.”

“Like what?” he said, not looking at her. There was a touch of pouty defiance in his voice he knew Pansy would detect instantly. He heard her sigh.

“What exactly happened yesterday, Draco? You didn’t give me any context.”

“What context do you need?” he muttered. “He told me he loved me.”

* * *

They’ve finished an entire bottle of wine between them. He’s not drunk, but he’s pleasantly buzzed. Harry’s sprawled on his back, T-shirt rucked up just below his navel so Draco can see the dark trail of hair leading below his jeans. There’s something implicitly erotic about the movement of his chest when he breathes, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched the length of the bed and the other bent at the knee.

He opens his eyes suddenly and grins when he sees Draco looking at him.

“That wine just made me tired,” he says.

“So go to sleep,” says Draco. He takes a last swig, emptying it, and sets the bottle aside on his night table. He stretches his arms over his head and arches his back, yawning widely, thinking perhaps he’ll give into the tempting allure of sleep as well when Harry says, “I told Hermione about us.”

So he’s not sleeping, then. His stomach clenches hard and a completely irrational sense of panic rises in his throat.

“Us?” he says slowly, sitting up straighter. “What ‘us’?”

Harry looks at him upside-down, then rolls over and rises to his knees. He stares at Draco blankly.

“‘What us?’” he repeats.

“Yes,” says Draco. “What ‘us’?”

“Us,” Harry says. His voice is lower than usual. The word is starting to sound weird and lose meaning. “You and me, Draco.”

“‘You and me?’ Harry, there’s no you and me. We’re just fucking. What do you … what do you mean, you told Granger? Told her what?”

Harry looks … well, he looks fucking crushed. And angry. Draco forces himself not to look away.

“I told her I’d been seeing you,” he says quietly. There’s something … not threatening, but close to it, in his voice.

“Sure,” says Draco. “I see you three times a week, sometimes four. I s’pose if you feel the need to fill Granger in on everything you do with every second of your day —”

“Shut up, Draco,” Harry says. “You know what I meant.”

Draco glares at him. He gets off the bed, slightly lightheaded from the wine, horrified by the emotions welling up inside him right behind the panic, and he points at his bedroom door.

“Get out,” he says.

“Are you serious?”

“Go!” he says loudly, voice rising. “If you’re gonna start turning this into something it definitely is not then get out of my flat, Potter.” As usual the window is open, but it’s the third of September and getting chilly finally and Draco’s Freesias and Freedom Roses started wilting last week. There’s a chilly breeze coming into that room that is utterly barren of the sweet smells of summer he associates with Harry these days. “It’s time we ended this anyway,” he says. “Summer’s over.”

“So?” From his position kneeling on Draco’s bed Harry shouldn’t feel imposing at all, but he does. There’s no sparkle of humour in his eyes, none of the softness Draco’s gotten used to seeing there. He looks like someone who’s realised they’ve been betrayed.

Worse than that. Someone who’s been betrayed and realises they should have seen it coming.

“What the fuck does summer have to do with anything?”

“Ever heard of a summer fling, Potter? We’re not ‘seeing each other’.”

Harry finally gets off the bed. Draco’s stomach clenches again, more painfully this time. He doesn’t feel bad, he tells himself — this is Harry’s fault. His fault for making a big deal out of something easy and fun and, most of all, temporary. For ruining this with feelings.

“That’s not what this was,” Harry says. It’s not an argumentative tone; rather, he sounds disappointed. Devastated, and disappointed. And that look of betrayal, like he’s surprised but not … that surprised.

That hurts.

“This was as real as it gets, Draco,” he says matter-of-factly. “You and I don’t have the capability of doing anything as shallow as a fling.”

“Well, Potter,” says Draco, straining to maintain his level voice, “congratulations, because that is the most disgusting, romanticised, Gryffindorian piece of shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah?” He grabs up his wand from the bedside table and stuffs it into his jeans pocket. “Well here’s another: I love you. You complete fucking prick.”

Draco stares after him as he leaves the room, cowed for the moment. He hears Harry take the Floo powder off his mantle, hears the fire start, and then the sound of Potter disappearing.

And he feels hollow suddenly.

* * *

“And he said it completely out of the blue?”

Draco set his wine aside. He was suddenly feeling too sick to put anything else in his body.

“Sort of,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. “He was trying to make something out of nothing. He was just making a point, trying to guilt me, I don’t even think he meant it.”

Pansy said nothing for so long that Draco finally looked up. She had an eyebrow raised.

“Do you really believe that?” she said.

Draco didn’t answer right away. He glanced at the bottle of wine on the table and thought about the way it always tasted a little sweeter on Harry’s lips.

“I don’t know,” he said. “No. But it doesn’t change anything. It was a summer thing, not a … a relationship, for crying out loud. Like I’d date Potter.”

“Why not?”

Draco scoffed. “Why not? Pansy, please. He’s a …”

“A …?”

“He’s an idiot! He’s Potter! He’s …” He couldn’t think of the right word, something bad enough to express the audacity, the gall , for Potter to think even for a second that they could …

“Draco Malfoy,” said Pansy. She was smirking. “You love him too.”

Had he felt sick before? Now he was going to be sick.

“I never would’ve imagined it,” she went on, seeming to take pleasure from his outrage and humiliation. The bint. “Look at you, you’re blushing! Oh my god,” she laughed. And then she stopped laughing, and instead the weight of her own words appeared to descend on her. “Oh my god. You do, don’t you? You are arse over tits for Harry Potter —”

He was up and out of his chair before she’d finished the last word, absurdly, embarrassingly on the verge of tears all of a sudden.

“Draco —”

“I’m glad this can serve as your entertainment for the week, Pansy,” he said. A tear rolled down his cheek — could he be any more histrionic? — and he brushed it away furiously.

“Draco, no —”

“Call Blaise, tell him!” he shouted. “You two can have a good laugh over it —”

“Draco —”

“Poor Draco’s fucked himself over again, what a stupid wanker!”

Pansy got up. He slapped her hand away when she reached for him, but she only came at him again and grabbed it this time when he swatted at her, enfolding it in both of hers. He closed his eyes and hiccoughed and two more tears came.

“Darling, will you please listen to me?” she said softly. It sounded eerily like his mother, which only made him feel young and childish. He tugged his arm away and she let him go, but he didn’t move any farther away. “I am not laughing at you,” she told him. “Blaise might, but that’s because Blaise has a black hole for a heart, Draco, the only emotion he’s ever felt is disdain.” Against his will, Draco chuckled wetly. Pansy smiled and took his hand again, tentatively. He allowed it. “ I think it’s lovely that you have feelings for him. I don’t understand what’s got you so upset, I mean … I know it’s Potter, but we’re not teenagers anymore, right? Who cares?”

Draco exhaled a long sigh.

“He let my father go to Azkaban,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. He saw comprehension dawning. “How can I be with someone who could’ve saved my father’s life and chose not to, Pansy?”

“No one could have saved your father, Draco,” said Pansy gravely. His throat was tight, swollen. He hated that he was hanging on her words, looking for truth in them, wanting to hear something that would make this okay. “He would have done the same thing if they’d let him go back to the manor. It’s not your fault or your mum’s or Potter’s.”

“But —”

“But what?” she cut him off sharply. “Draco, please don’t let your father keep controlling your life from the grave! My god, you deserve happiness, don’t you see that? Even if it’s Potter! In fact, I … I think that could be really good.”

“What, being with Potter?”

“Yes, being with Potter,” she said. “Darling, I say this because I love you: you need to grow a pair of bollocks and start taking control of your own life. I’m not finished!” she added when he opened his mouth to retort. “I understand that it feels like a betrayal of your father, I do, and I’m not saying you can’t have your cherished memories of him, but Draco … you cannot live your life in his shadow, doing things because it’s what he’d want or wouldn’t want. I think that choosing to explore these feelings you have for Potter is the bravest and healthiest thing you could possibly do for yourself.”

He stared at her for a long moment, eyes wet though the tears had stopped falling.

“What if it doesn’t last?” he said finally. “What if next week he realises it was a huge mistake?”

“First of all, I doubt that,” said Pansy with a roll of her eyes that was clearly meant to be teasing. “You said you’ve been seeing him all summer, that’s plenty of time to have gotten sick of you. And, even if that did happen, I still think it would be entirely worth that week of being disgustingly in love.”

“Do you?” he drawled.

“Yes! I do!” She picked up his discarded wine glass from before and held it up. “Does the effect of alcohol last forever?”

“No …”

“Of course not! And we don’t expect it to. We expect to have fun while we’re drunk and it’ll last as long as it lasts.”

“Dating someone isn’t like being drunk, Pansy,” Draco said sourly.

“Oh, that’s not the point ,” she huffed. “We don’t do things because we know they’ll last forever, we do them because we want to. In the moment.”

“Sounds irresponsible.”

“Well, of course it is,” she scoffed. “Love is completely irresponsible, that’s the fun of it, Draco. Now take this,” she shoved the glass of wine into his hand, almost spilling it. “Drink up, and then get your arse over to his flat and fix this.”

* * *

Granger opened the door. Draco sighed.

“Hello, Granger,” he said lamely. Her raised eyebrows said she was surprised and thoroughly unimpressed by his appearance.

“Malfoy,” she said.

“Is Potter in?”

“I guess that depends.”

“On?”

She looked at him, dark brown eyes impenetrable. Then she closed the front door behind her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To talk to him,” he said tightly. As if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, now he had to pass a test to get past Granger the bridge troll. “I thought he told you —”

“He did,” she said flatly. “And about yesterday.”

“Well I’m here to apologise,” said Draco. Granger’s eyebrows lifted again. Still unimpressed. “And to tell him …” He sighed again and broke eye contact, willing himself not to give up, not to take this as a sign he should just go home and ream into Pansy for giving him such bad advice.

“Malfoy.” He looked up. Her voice was softer now, and her eyes seemed a little less hard. “What are you doing? You really hurt him, you know.”

“I know,” he said stiffly. “I said I’m here to apologise.”

“Well he doesn’t need an apology,” she said. “If you’re only going to let him down again —”

“I’m not.” He rubbed his forehead and looked at her again, exasperated, defeated. “I’ve … had some sense talked into me.”

She looked like it was the last thing she’d been expecting.

“Have you?”

“Yes,” he said. “So would you please get him for me before I lose my nerve?”

It was the right thing to say. Her expression melted into something much softer and he fancied he even saw the beginnings of a smile.

“Can I ask who affected this change of heart?”

“Pansy,” he said. And, when Granger seemed taken aback, “She’s very wise when she feels like it.”

“I see. Well …” She still looked a bit conflicted, eyeing him and then putting her hand on the doorknob. “All right. I’ll tell him you’re here, anyway, but he was really hurt, Malfoy. I don’t know if he’ll want to hear it.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said.

Granger eyed him another moment and then went back inside, shutting the door behind her. Draco only had to wait a minute before it was opening again, and this time Harry came out. The sight of him made Draco’s heart feel tender and sore.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Potter.”

He waited to see if Harry would say anything else but he didn’t. He only stared at Draco expectantly, arms folded, in all ways closed off.

“I came to apologise,” said Draco.

“Well you can keep it,” said Harry. “I don’t need an apology because you told me the truth.”

“It wasn’t the truth, Potter,” Draco said quietly. “Opposite, really.”

Harry was silent. Then, “You made me feel like shit, Draco.”

“I know. I’m sorry. You freaked me out, springing it on me like that.”

A beat, then two, and then suddenly Harry was dropping his arms and sighing and he looked at Draco with so much vulnerability he nearly had to turn away from it.

“I didn’t mean to tell you …” He licked his lips, scratched his arm. It reminded Draco that beneath everything, Harry was still the same awkward dorky leader-of-the-losers he’d always been, just with a bit more confidence now and the title of Official Saviour of the Wizarding World. “I wouldn’t have said that if … I was just angry.”

He didn’t need to ask what Harry was referring to.

“I know.”

“Not that I didn’t … I mean, I … I do —”

“Please don’t say it again,” Draco said. Harry laughed.

“Right. I just meant … I really do have feelings for you, Draco. Like … mad, crazy feelings, y’know? I don’t want it to be a fling.”

“It wasn’t a fling,” he said. He moved a little closer and Harry watched him carefully, eyes flickering once down to Draco’s mouth. “I didn’t even sleep with anyone else the whole time.”

“Well that’s good to know,” said Harry sardonically. But he was smiling, so Draco found himself smiling tentatively as well.

“I wanna be with you, Potter. Properly. I thought …” But he shakes his head, deciding that now isn’t the time to explain about his father. “I thought it was a stupid idea. Now I realise that it probably is, but that I don’t really care much. I’ve decided to ignore my better judgment this one time.”

“That’s quite Gryffindor of you,” Harry commented drily.

“Yes, well.”

“So I go against your better judgment, then?”

“Potter,” Draco sighed. “Please, I don’t mean it like —”

“I’m taking the piss, Draco,” Harry cut him off. He reached for Draco’s waist and pulled him close, and before Draco could get his breath back from a short, surprised intake of breath Harry’s mouth was on his, warm and familiar and soothing. He brought his hands to Harry’s face and kissed back without bothering to hide his overwhelming relief.

Harry chased his mouth when he pulled away and Draco breathed out a laugh, holding him at bay with a hand on his chest.

“We have plenty of time,” he said. “D’you wanna come over later tonight, after your friends leave?”

“What? No, come in.” He took Draco’s hand and gestured with his head towards the door. “Please. It’s just Ron and Hermione. They know everything.”

“Really?” Draco drawled. “And you think Weasley won’t try to kill me?”

“I promise not to let him,” Harry grinned. “Please, Draco. You said you wanted to do this properly, right?”

He thought of what Pansy said about being irresponsible, and decided it was worth a try at least.

“Okay,” he said. Harry beamed and tugged him inside.

Towards his ultimate downfall or towards the beginning of the rest of his life, he didn’t know. That, as Pansy would have said, was the fun of it.

#anna writes #answered #drarry fic #god i had sm fun writing this tysm for the prompt 😩

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tbhsoft · 4 years

Text

life bar

idol!haechan x idol!y/n

summary: after the legendary interview was released, you and haechan began dating and have been getting an overwhelming sense of support.

genre: fluff

length: 2.1k

a/n: ah! i didn’t think the first post would gain any traction but it did! thank you so much for returning for a part two :)

this is modeled after the korean variety show, life bar. it’s a great show where celebrities aren’t subject to formal interview settings. please check it out! (mark did appear on the show with xiumin and changmin)

i’m not entirely sure of the hosts’ (other than heechul & yura) popularity outside of korea so excuse me for just labelling them as hosts.

if you missed part one, click here!

originally dnghycks’ gif

[the atmosphere is lively and filled with joy] host: how long have you been dating again?

heechul: oh, haechan! you’re dating someone?

haechan: ah, hyung! let’s not act like no one knows.

[heechul, dejected, grumbles to himself]

johnny (laughing): haechan didn’t fall for your bait.

[haechan winks at heechul, making heechul go into mock rage]

host: so, it’s been about 4 years?

[haechan plays with the glass in his hands, smiling to himself]

haechan (shyly): ya, just about.

heechul: are you guys still in your honeymoon phase?

host: do you still get butterflies when you see them?

haechan (nodding): of course! it hasn’t been that long.

heechul: it’s difficult to have a successful relationship as an idol. how did you guys handle it after that interview went viral?

haechan: it was very different to what i expected, you know?

haechan: first of all, we were preparing for the award shows and i was super focused.

haechan: i think it was during our water break that notifications were blowing up all of our phones.

johnny: we were so confused and thought it was from our managers.

haechan: i didn’t react immediately but i could hear the other members reacting, saying things like “no way” or “holy crap”.

haechan: everyone turned and looked at me. i felt like an imposter.

haechan: i was like “what? do i have something on my face? did someone send a meme of me?”

haechan: that’s when mark hyung showed me the news articles.

haechan: i blanked out for the rest of the day if i’m honest, barely remember anything from that day.

haechan: the only thing i remember was the pit in my stomach growing every time i stopped practicing. so, i kept pushing myself so i didn’t have time to think.

johnny: haechan actually fainted that day. he worked himself so hard that we had to rush him to the hospital.

haechan: luckily, it was just exhaustion and i could still perform. but, when i woke up, they told me to rest as much as possible.

haechan: the managers made sure i didn’t leave the house and told me to rest up.

haechan: it forced me to process what the news articles were saying.

haechan: once i did, all i was worried about was how y/n might be handling it.

haechan: was jyp going to give them a hard time?

host: did you text them?

haechan: because we were both focused on the award shows, i thought it best to avoid contact with them until it was all over.

johnny: even when it was all over, he still couldn’t text them.

johnny: i remember haechan pacing our room, trying to decide whether or not to call them.

haechan: i wanted to offer comfort but i wasn’t sure if it would aggravate the situation.

haechan: i think it was a few days after the last award show that i had an official meeting with lee sooman and the press team.

haechan: my eyes were wide the entire meeting.

haechan: lee sooman started the meeting by saying “congratulations!” and i was confused.

haechan: he went on to explain that he liked y/n for me and would support this relationship publicly as long as it didn’t affect my work.

haechan: i couldn’t really articulate my feelings so i think i just nodded.

haechan: he continued asking me about y/n after it, asking if we had made it official yet.

haechan: when i said no, he said that he would issue a buffer statement so i had time to ask them out.

haechan: the meeting concluded and, on my way home, y/n texted me.

heechul: what did they say?

haechan: “can we talk?”

heechul (dramatically rubbing his arms): oh no! the chills!

[haechan chuckles and takes a sip of his beer]

haechan: i told them we should meet in person to talk about it as professionals and adults.

johnny: when he tells it like that, it makes him seem tough. he was tearing up while he was getting ready to go out.

[haechan throws dried squid at johnny]

johnny: yo, thank you! i was hungry!

haechan (rolling his eyes): i wasn’t tearing up—

johnny: you’re right! you were sobbing. my bad!

johnny: you were so scared that you were gonna lose y/n.

[haechan balls up his fist in playful anger]

haechan: if only…

haechan: anyways, i was scared that i was going to be entering the new year without my best friend.

haechan: i asked johnny to drive me to our meeting spot so our manager wouldn’t know.

haechan: once we got there, y/n was already waiting on the bench for me so i told johnny to just chill in the car.

johnny: this is when i snuck my phone in his parka so i could wiretap the conversation.

[haechan pinches his nose bridge]

haechan: ah, hyung! privacy! no wonder your guesses were so accurate.

haechan: anyways, we sat down and talked like we always do. then, we got together!

johnny: in the end, y/n asked him out because he kept stumbling over his words.

johnny: y/n was giggling the whole time. it was very wholesome.

[haechan facepalms while the hosts laugh]

heechul (facing the camera): y/n, please take care of haechan! i know he lacks courage sometimes but—

haechan: really, now? after 4 years?

[johnny laughs while patting haechan’s head]

host: do you hold any resentment towards your interviewers?

[haechan takes a swig of his beer]

haechan: i did at the beginning? i don’t think y/n or i were ready to confess our feelings to each other’s faces just yet.

haechan: but, it’s not entirely their fault either.

haechan: i think, because we kept it a secret for so long, we wanted to tell someone and it was the first time we were prompted to talk about it under the veil of false security.

johnny (understandingly): and it’s easier to tell strangers than your closest friends, right?

haechan: for sure. i think a small part of me did hope they would see the entire interview at some point and that’s why i was so transparent.

heechul: and, because of that, you’re in a beautiful relationship now!

haechan (grinning): thank goodness for that!

host: what did they say when you told them you were coming to our show?

[haechan throws his head back in laughter]

johnny (chuckling): they told him that his taste in alcohol sucks and that they felt sorry for the hosts.

heechul: but, all the drinks you recommended are so good!

haechan (wiping away tears): that’s because they’re their recommendations. i don’t really drink for taste, only the social aspect.

johnny: y/n doesn’t like alcohol. so, if they think something tastes good, then it tastes amazing.

heechul: let’s raise our glasses to our hero, y/n!

[everyone happily raises their glass and cheers to you]

host: did you take them on a date immediately after the statements were released?

haechan: well, i wanted to… but, busy schedules and the fact that we hung out so much beforehand made it near impossible to have a good first date.

johnny: he was looking up “good date ideas” online and kept complaining that he already did those.

haechan: it wasn’t intentional. i guess y/n and i just liked to do couple things unironically.

heechul: i can’t believe you guys never got caught.

haechan: i think it’s because we were dressed so plainly without any disguises.

haechan: only a few people ever recognized our bare faces.

haechan: so, i decided to take them to jeju to see my mom after she called me.

johnny (laughing): i remember that call! she was like “now, bring my future in-law or else i’ll beat you up!”

haechan: when we got there, my mom totally ignored me and went straight for them.

haechan: she told them “i knew donghyuck liked you! he’s such a loser for not asking you out sooner.”

[haechan massages his temple and sighs]

johnny: on the record, haechan’s mom definitely loves y/n more than him.

[haechan nods in agreement]

haechan: so, after my mom babied y/n enough, i took them where you could see the stars perfectly.

haechan: i was really nervous and i didn’t really know what to do until y/n grabbed my hand.

haechan: they looked at me and said “as long as you’re with me, every passing moment is perfect. so, stop trying so hard.”

heechul: woah, y/n is so cool.

haechan: they really are. so, we spent our first real date stargazing and just enjoyed each other’s company.

[the host introduces the next dish and haechan helps set the table] heechul: why don’t we call y/n?

haechan (hesitant): i don’t know if they’re awake. they’re always taking naps at this time.

heechul: i’ll call them.

[heechul rings you up]

you (groggily): hello?

heechul: y/n! it’s heechul with the life bar crew. if you could introduce yourself.

[shuffling is heard through the phone]

you (clearer): all in us! hello, i’m y/n from itzy!

heechul: we were just talking about your relationship and wanted to hear your perspective.

[heechul motions haechan to say something]

haechan (sweetly): hi, darling. i’m sorry we interrupted your nap.

you: no, it’s okay! my alarm was about to go off anyways.

haechan: i was telling them about what happened after the interview and our first date.

you: ah, those were interesting.

heechul: oh? interesting, how?

you (giggling): if you know haechan, you know he doesn’t really cry, much less sob. but, when he showed up to talk, his eyes were puffy from crying so much and he had tear streaks on his face.

haechan (pouting): let’s not expose too much, y/n!

you (teasingly): what are you gonna do? cry on me?

[haechan sits back in his chair, frowning]

you: anyways! i vividly remember feeling bolder after the interview, not that i wasn’t nervous about public opinion.

you: however, i was actually talking to jyp when everything blew up.

you: he reassured me that he didn’t mind and he would support any decision i made.

you: just like that, he removed a whole weight off of my shoulders.

you: so, i was able to perform with confidence and complete reassurance.

you: but, whenever i saw hyuck at the award shows, he looked like he was about to implode so i thought it was better to wait for him to text me.

you: i’m sure johnny told you how frustrated the whole group was. i was the exact same.

[haechan blushes and buries his face in his hands]

you: i just wanted to be able to call him mine but he wouldn’t text me.

[everyone laughs and quietly teases haechan]

you (laughing): honestly, i was really impatient but i didn’t want to push him. so, i waited for a whole week after the last award show.

you: but, he was avoiding me really well! i even had to text johnny to make sure he was still alive.

you: so, i decided to just reach out to him first.

you: during the meeting, i tried to act like normal and tease him about his puffy face but he was having none of it.

you: “y/n, this is serious. this is our careers we’re talking about.”

you: i was scared for a moment until he was stumbling his confession out.

you: “the interview! i meant it. everything. i do. i would really like it if— i mean if you feel the same way— of course you do! you said it in the video. you do feel the same way, right?”

haechan (whining): you’re making me sound lame!

you: no, you were cute! but, also, slightly lame.

[you cackle through the phone]

you: so, i just asked him.

heechul: how about the first date?

you: he was so worried about being romantic and having that perfect first date that he forgot that i’m just a simple person.

you: when we went to see the stars, he was so nervous and was getting frustrated with himself.

you: to me, the effort he went through in itself was romantic to me.

you: i didn’t need the most spectacular first date because him being by my side was more than perfect.

you: so, i just let him know my thoughts and, when he finally relaxed, it became the most memorable first date ever.

heechul: what happened after he relaxed?

haechan: i listed all the little things that made me fall in love with them time and time again.

[everyone awes]

you: he made me feel like the most beautiful being in the universe.

heechul: okay! before this turns to sappy, y/n! thank you so much for joining us today!

you (laughing): it was my pleasure! invite me next time so i can expose haechan!

haechan: ya!

heechul: will do, bye!

[heechul hangs up the call]

host: you can definitely feel the love between you two.

haechan (in mock anger): i’m going to jump them the next time i see them.

heechul (grinning): well, i wish you guys nothing but happiness. host (raising his glass): to haechan and y/n’s beautiful relationship! [glasses clink as a bright grin appears on haechan’s face]

a/n: if i’m completely honest, idk how relationships work so idk if the way i wrote about this situation was done in a healthy way :P

pls feel free to give me feedback because i’m always looking to improve!

thank you so much for reading once again!

also, idk really know how taglists work so... @wownajaemin, hello!

#haechan fluff #fullsunnet #thekpopnetwork #haechan imagines #haechan x reader #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct dream fluff #nct dream imagines #nct 127 #dreamies #nct

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