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archonsbane · 10 months

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BEAUTY IS TERROR

The gods crafted all mortals to have weaknesses, and foremost of many of Il Dottore’s is you. So when you ask him to be your companion to an annual winter ball, he is powerless to refuse.

pairing. prime!dottore x reader, implied segments x reader, implied harbingers x reader, implied dottore x pantalone

cw. gn!reader. reader is the tsarita’s child. reader referred to as they/them. dottore is a warning by himself. mentions & thoughts of violence + murder + human experimentation. drinking. biting. biting hard enough to draw blood. a bit suggestive but not nsfw.

wc. 15k

an. first ever fic! hope you enjoy :D the title is from ‘the secret history’ by donna tartt.

Dottore is no stranger to running away.

He remembers the first time. He had been a child then, wide-eyed and tongue-tied, so unknowing about the world. His parents were fighting — they always fought, about money and work and him — and his father, a big man with small-set eyes and a hard mouth made for scowling, had begun to go on one of his drunken rants, prompting his mother to scream louder. He was crouched behind the stairwell, watching their shadows flicker and dance with the candlelight on the yellowed walls of their home.

How hard he prayed that autumn day. His lip quivering, hands clasped together, every atom in his body searching for a hint of mercy from those who claimed to love him, both gods and parents. Stop, he would chant in his mind, stop, stop, stop. As brown and red leaves fell outside, as day turned to night, he prayed. He had never prayed so long or so hard until that day. The shouting never stopped and the gods remained silent.

Autumn reigned outside, and his faith died with the spring. It was a season of rot: the rot of the earth without, the rot of faith and soul within. He sucked in a harsh, shaky breath as the walls trembled from the screams. For a moment the house pulsed as though it had a heart. If it did, it had long been poisoned.

He slipped out when the house went quiet, his parents dragged to exhaustion by their fight. There was no real goal in his mind, only that he wanted to run far, far away. He ran as fast as his little legs could take him, the wind in his hair, the distant call of birds at his back. He ran and ran and ran, and sooner or later the sun found him alone in the woods and free.

Not for long. His parents found him three days later, surviving only on berries and the leavings of other beasts, grass-stained and muddied, yet cleaner than he had ever felt. He had shed his faith like a dirty coat, and his shoulders trembled with new-found purpose. That little rebellion earned him the worst beating he ever took in that house, but it no longer mattered.

The next two times were far less pleasant. Even after all these years, they still rankle him. It had been a dark, starless night when the villagers came to cast him out. For his ‘madness’ and ‘monstrosity’, or whatever the hell they were shouting at him. He was too busy trying to not die to listen to all that. Some carried pitchforks, other crudely-made cudgels, and bats, yet all carried torches. It was like all the stars had come down from the sky to enact upon him his inevitable destruction. Inevitable, but Dottore did not believe in such silly lies anymore. He would take his fate and crush it with his hands and build a new one from smoke and ash. That house was the chain that tethered him to that broken old village. He burned it down that night, his parents still inside, and the chain broke; it was more than liberty: it was rebirth. He likes to think he was born on that ashen grass surrounded by the house’s fire and brimstone remains, sweaty and stained with blood. The Tsaritsa claims all the Harbingers are her children, but he knows he is not a holy child, just a creature forged from Hell. But Heaven imparted on him a farewell curse: the jagged scars that run down the left side of his face to his neck, smoking with resentment and remembrance. He left before the villagers could find out he was, in fact, not dead.

Sumeru Akademiya, he thought, would be different. All the scholars were mad for knowledge, he had heard. So was he. He had expected to find a treasure trove of opportunity. He found old gray sages scared of their own shadows and peers who could not tell the difference between madness and truth. It was a shame, really. Nothing is as pitiful as something with wasted potential. But he had long learned if life did not go as planned, he would carve his way through, as a river changes the earth. And so once more he ran.

The next time, fate would not catch him running like prey pursued. The Fatui had given him the opportunity to create the enhanced humans he knows could surpass the Heavens above. The next time, the gods above would meet their equal: a mortal man who, too, has learned the divine act of creation.

“You’re thinking again.” Your voice pulls him from his thoughts and back into the planes of reality. “Am I really so boring of a companion that your mind has to wander off?”

He frowns, tapping at the armrest of his chair. Sometimes the memories come back to him unbidden, especially when he wants to think of anything but the present that sits in front of him. You sit across from him (it was his intention that he sit as far away from you as possible), legs informally crossed, your elbow resting on one knee and your chin cupped by your palm. You look nothing like the feared heir to Snezhnaya you normally are. Your grin is as pure and unfiltered as the spring sun, amplified by the fire roaring in the hearth, the look in your eyes warm and guileless. It’s a facade, unnoticed by the untrained eye. Your teeth are bared like a beast’s and your gaze is as sharp as a predator’s. When it pleases you to play the darling child of winter, you do. But he knows better. You like playing this little game with him — with all of the Harbingers, really, he’s seen how you’ve attached yourself to them, not only him, and it makes his chest tighten with some unnamed emotion — teasing him and complimenting him and following him around like some malignant ghost from the children’s tales. You’re a cruel little wolf like that. You play with your food before swallowing it whole.

“You, boring? No.” Never boring. As irritating as your frequent visits are, he will always be kept occupied by one of your antics. “Unexpected? Yes.” You barged into his wing of the palace unannounced in the night, having completely evaded all his guards and segments, and casually sat down on his couch with a tray of tea and biscuits that seems to be a pacifying gift.

You pout mockingly. “Still haven’t forgiven me?”

Irritation flickers against his skin. He readjusts his mask and scoffs. “It’s been five minutes, I require much more time than that.”

“How ‘bout your gift?” You clasp your hands together. “Please? It’s your favorite. I got it from Lonnie.” Your leg bounces, an anxious habit of yours. What could possibly make you nervous? Certainly not his presence, you had made that clear, with all your unabashed visits to his lab, his foreign workshops, and now his own rooms.

“I’d really rather have whiskey.”

You raise a brow. “I didn’t bring any, and there aren’t any glasses.”

“There’s a bottle in my drawer. Under the…” He trails off. He keeps indulgent snacks underneath a false bottom, just because, but you seem to already be aware of it. You slide out the wooden plank and hold up the bottle, the brown turned golden in the light of the fire. “... of course, you know.”

He reaches for the tea cup on the coffee table, hot in his palms, but that never bothers him anymore with all the modifications he’s made to his body and swallows it all in one large gulp. Black tea with a twist of lemon. Four sugar cubes. His favorite. Somehow that makes his mood even worse. You hand him the bottle as you sit back down (closer to him now, which he does not fail to notice). He pours into his teacup until it almost sloshes over the edge.

The moment of silence stretches for a moment too long. He really wishes you’d just get on with it and end his misery, he wants to sleep or work or do something that removes the stain of you from his mind. Your face flickers like a flashlight in his peripheral vision, ghostly in the smoke. Your eyes glow terribly bright, a godly trait from your mother. It’s as beautiful as it is eerie. He transfers all his weight to his left foot, then his right, then back again. You wait for him to finish drinking, your gaze never leaving him.

“Have you forgiven me now?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, his voice dangerously calm. He swirls the whiskey around in his cup. The grandfather clock in the room ticks and tocks and he wishes for time to go faster just so he’d be rid of you already. “Do I have to?” He’s always dealt insolence back tenfold, ask any of his segments, or the poor, cursed souls who lie in his personal mortuary, many of whom have committed lesser crimes than breaking and entering into his personal space. “You really think you’re that special?”

“Yes.”

He wants to strangle you and wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your stupid face. He wants to carve out those eyes so they’d never make him squirm under their gaze again. He wants to — he does not know what.

He scowls and runs a hand through messy curled hair. “Five minutes, before I have my segments drag you out.”

Amusement flickers across those too-bright eyes. You know that he knows he won’t. You let him pretend anyways.

“Wonderful!” You say happily, like a child just told they could play in the playground for a little while. “I need a favor.”

There’s an unexplainable drop that he suddenly feels in his chest. He had expected you to be here simply to annoy him or make fun of his sleep schedule (that does not exist) or something stupid like that. Why, he cannot say it out loud. His company has never been termed as pleasurable anyways, as much as you continually seek it out. This is expected, it should have been.

You place a cream-blue envelope with gold lining on the coffee table. He tears it apart, secretly smiling at the way your brows furrow in annoyance. The tattered paper has elegant calligraphy that marks it as from some noble-born priss, one of the many in Snezhnaya whose names he has never bothered to learn. They wrote that they were cordially inviting Their Imperial Highness to…

His eyes narrow. “The Sokolov Winter Ball.” He waves the paper in front of your face. “No. No. No. Absolutely not—”

“—yes, oh, come one now, it’ll be fun—”

“—you know how much I hate these things, and all those useless, simpering lords and ladies hate me—”

“—they’re not simpering. Some of them are nice, like Duke Romanov’s daughter, and anyways, you’ll be with me the entire time and they won’t dare to insult a Fatui Harbinger to their face.”

He slams the paper down on the table. The teacups rattle from the impact. He leans forward, chin raised in defiance. “No.”

You cross your arms and lean into the couch. “Too bad. I command you to go.”

"Can't you ask the others? Why torment me, specifically?" He gestures wildly with his hands to emphasize his irritation.

You place a hand on your heart, eyes blown wide for extra effect. "Torment? Dear Doctor, you sadden me so. Can't I spend time with my favorite Dottore?"

"Oh? And here I thought Gamma was your favorite."

"You're my favorite of all the non-Gammas. Anyways, I can’t really take an eleven-year-old to the ball."

"Just take Theta and be happy with that."

"But I want to take you."

There’s a desperate lilt in your voice that weakens his resolve. Could you really? This wasn’t just another one of your jokes, was it? He hates balls, hates the moronic socialites of Snezhnayan society, but absurdly, hope becomes a twittering hummingbird in his heart.

He grits his teeth. "I should file this as some sort of abuse of power."

He wants to deny you, he does. He knows he can’t. He feels the insidious truth squeeze at his black heart.

You reach out and pat his head condescendingly. "You do that, dear."

"Is there anything I can do to make you take someone else?" He waves his hand at nothing. "I'll give you my entire secret stash of chocolates." It's hidden beneath the false bottom of his desk. A very obvious hiding spot, but he doesn't think anyone should care much for a simple stash of chocolates. He prides himself on it, for all its insignificance. He's collected chocolate-covered hazelnuts from Mondstadt, boxes of assorted chocolates from Fontaine, white almonds encased in matcha-infused chocolates from Inazuma, and choco pies from Liyue.

"Er," There's a strange, sheepish smile on your face. "No."

“Will you leave even if I still say no?”

“No.” And then, in a hushed tone barely above a whisper, the final blow to his resolve: “Well, yes, if you really don’t want to go. But consider it, at least? I want to do this with you.” You don’t look at him as you say it, you don’t turn that captivating gaze of yours on his body to make him squirm. Your face is turned towards the fire, the glow of it making your cheeks red. He almost believes you. He wants to believe you.

You sigh at his silence. “You can get something out of this.”

He raises an inquisitive brow. “Like?”

“Archons, I don’t know. A favor for later. More funding. More… resources. Whatever. Anything I can wrestle out of the others.”

It’s a good deal, he muses. Your influence as heir apparent is not one to be undermined. Moreover, the other Harbingers are strangely fond of you. They would bend for you, and not just out of duty.

A pause, and then, with a world-weary sigh he puts his face in his hands. He does not want to see your ebullience, it would hurt his pride too much. “Alright.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to snatch them back and stuff them down his throat, but it's too late.

A joyful sound leaves you. He hears the rustling of cloth and excited steps on the wooden floors before he’s enveloped by the warmth of your body. Your hands wrap around his shoulders, and your head rests on top of his head.

He flinches slightly. You pull away but your hands remain on his shoulders. He hates, hates how his heart leaps to his throat, how every atom in his body starts to vibrate with life. He cannot, will not, let you have this power over him. He tugs on his heartstrings like a puppeteer and wills his heart to turn to stone.

“You’ll have a fun time, I promise.” You disentangle from him your hair falls over your eyes, and without thinking, he lifts a hand and brushes it away. You grab his hand and entwine your fingers together. “You won’t regret this.”

“I’m there to accompany you and leave as fast as possible,” Dottore replies wryly, but his heart lurches.

He cannot explain to himself why he allows the moment to go on longer than he should. You both stay locked in position, half-hugging with your hands intertwined. Your eyes are half-lidded, your eyelashes fluttering with a mix of embarrassment and playfulness. His gaze trails from your lashes to your lips, red as cherries. His throat feels suddenly parched and his cheeks flush with warmth. From the fire, he tells himself.

The grandfather clock chimes midnight.

You watch with amusement in your eyes as he jumps back, elbow hitting the armrest, swallowing the noise that threatens to escape his body. Suddenly all the irritation comes rushing back up to the surface of his skin. Many a man has fled from that look, from the green children Arlecchino supplies them with to veteran soldiers who have faced blood-soaked horrors on the battlefield.

You blink innocently.

He rubs at his temple, glaring at the fireplace in order to avoid looking at you. You quickly school your lips into a languid smile and start to ramble on about the details — white tie, no theme, dinner, and a ball, don't be late, and remember your manners — and his mind has started to drift to the experiments he needs to finish. There's a particularly annoying disease that's been sweeping through the masses, and the Tsaritsa charged him with taking care of it. He's already gotten a dozen test subjects but one particularly insolent one destroyed a week's worth of research while trying to escape. Then there's a whole batch of delusion prototypes in need of a field test, and it's almost time for his segment's monthly inspection.

"—and you need to learn how to dance."

His head snaps up. "You're kidding—"

"Nope," you say, cutting him off. Archons, one day, he swears to himself, he will make you shut up (How? A voice inside asks. He has no answer.) and his life will be all the better without your grating voice sniffing at his heels like a hungry dog. "You'll be taking classes with me starting next week. Mother says it's about time you learned, too. Everyone else knows."

He scowls at you. You've got him by the hook — no matter what, the Tsaritsa's will cannot be questioned. A thousand times he deflected, making up excuses or sending segments in his place. He does not think it ever fooled his Empress, but she never pressed on it. She would forgive them a thousand little times over, but when she was steadfast in her resolve, her will was as unconquerable as a glacier.

“Fine. Just get out already.”

Your little chuckle rings in his ears. “Mother might call in the army to search for me if I linger.”

Oh, thank Tsartisa. “Then go,” he says dryly. He really, really does not want to be accused of high treason today. Your mother was terrifyingly overprotective.

You roll your eyes. “That’s no way to see off a guest, but I’ll forgive you from the kindness of my heart.”

For his personal gratification, he launches a throw pillow in your direction. You catch it with one unamused brow raised. You throw it back and it hits him in the face.

You put on your boots and your cloak and slip out the door, gently closing it with a click. The fire is still roaring, but the room feels much colder now. There’s a strange, hollow place in the room he cannot help but feel that your shape should be filling. There’s a dull ache pounding in his chest.

He rubs his eyes and moves to his desk, his perpetual sweet tooth aching for that chewy heaven in his taste buds. He almost thinks he's opened the wrong drawer when he finds nothing there, but with a flash of anger, he realizes there's a note in your familiar handwriting.

Sorry. I'll pay you back. :)

You insolent little minx. You ate all of it.

He sighs and pulls back his leather chair. He falls into the soft fabric, all the tension in his body dissipating into the air. He’s too tired to be annoyed. All the energy he exerts in your presence could do that. He sinks deeper into the plush chair and stretches his legs underneath the desk. If there’s ever been a miracle in his life, it’s that his spine hasn’t broken yet from all of the bone-shattering positions he puts himself in.

He’ll have to adjust his non-existent schedule now. The Doctor operates on impulse and instinct, rotating between experiments and whatever’s captured his attention, sometimes not leaving the lab for days on end or going out and doing more… personal research. He’s begun digging deeper into Ruin Guards, and what he’s found has fascinated him. You would like it, he thinks. He’ll have to tell you all about it one of these days.

Archons. What have you done to him? Slipping through the iron walls of his heart and plunging yourself deep into the myocardium. You’ve infested his body like a disease, and now it seems all thoughts and actions have been dedicated to you. He hates it, he enjoys it, he cannot tear you out of him no matter how hard he tries, and he’s tried. Oh, so many times.

Now that you’ve left, he allows his lips to curl into a sneer. That moment — the entire night, really — was just a weakness he has not yet stamped out. He wishes he could tear his heart out and stomp on it until it stopped doing that infuriating flutter whenever you’re near. He sucks in a harsh breath and taps frantically on the armrest. He is so, so fucked.

Dottore is no stranger to running away, yet it seems you’re the one divinity he cannot escape from.

The morning before the first lesson finds him sleep-deprived, exhausted, and in an absolutely foul mood. The previous night (or, rather, three a.m. that morning), a Chaos Core went wild and exploded. It was the last in his stock. He sent Beta to hunt for more, but it would be a while until he returned with a sufficient amount and he had to put a hold on his studies ‘till then. One of his test subjects had also been spitting out defiance after defiance as of late, dragging his research longer than it should’ve gone on. He killed them, of course, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and be done with it, but it wasted so many days spent conducting test after test. The thought of it makes him furious all over again, but he cannot be in a mood today.

Dottore has never found out the secret of looking as though he’s just waltzed out a Fontainian perfume commercial like Pantalone, but today he looks worse than ever when inelegantly he rolls out of bed. His appearance has never bothered him before, not with his mask covering the worst of it, but his hair sticks out in so many directions it looks as though he’s just been hit by lightning, his skin is sickly pale, and his eyes are wide and bloodshot. He drags a hand down his face and moans in exasperation. He knows you won’t care, but court conduct requires just a little bit of dignity from him.

A much-needed shower and eye drops solve the worst of it (or so he hopes). He still looks like Death himself has come to haunt the palace’s hollow hallowed halls, but that was his common appearance anyways.

The Fatui and the servants who go in and out of the palace keep their eyes trained on the ground as he passes by, a manic grin that shows sharp ivory teeth on his face. It’s an effort to keep up the appearance running on three hours of sleep, but the memory of that night rattles around in his mind, and he will not be that weak again. Just for fun, he turns his gaze on one of the new-bloods. The way they flinch brings a sliver of confidence back to him.

A familiar figure makes him pause in his tracks. His grin is genuine now, and he feels this is a wonderful restart to a day that has, so far, been miserable.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the Regrator.”

He does not have to see the front of his head to know Pantalone rolls his eyes and stares pointedly off to the distance before turning around to face him. He looks as youthful as ever, still looking like an early thirty-something, as he has for the entire time Dottore’s known him. The smile on his face is polite and patronizing.

“Dottore,” Pantalone forces out. He folds his fingers together across his stomach. “How… lovely to see you.”

“Is it?” He gives the man a mocking smile and tilts his chin up with his hand. “Lovely, but so cold. Where are the happy smiles for me, my lord?”

Pantalone scoffs and crosses his arms, half-turning away. “A wretched creature like you doesn’t deserve one.” So he’s dropped all formalities, then. This would be interesting.

Dottore places his hand over his chest for dramatic effect, in a comically similar way that you had all those nights ago. “I thought we were getting along so well. You wound me, Lonnie.”

“Good. I hope it kills you.”

A faux gasp leaves his mouth. Pantalone’s eye twitches. He turns to leave, but Dottore wheels ahead of him and blocks his path, stretching his arms wide. As much as you annoy him, he can’t say he does not understand what you feel when you do. Pantalone, his favorite target, always elicits the best emotions that keep him entertained for weeks after. His rotten heart beats with energy.

“Pantalone, Pantalone, Pantalone,” he says, in a child’s sing-song voice, “Won’t you indulge me just this once? You’ve been so busy, you’ve barely had any time for me and our oh-so-enjoyable meetings this month.”

Pantalone looks close to pushing him out of a crystalline window. Dottore hopes he does not, the Tsaritsa does love her windows.

“It seems you’re the one who does not have time today, Dottore,” He says, “You’re expected for your dance lessons in about, oh, five minutes, aren’t you?”

Dottore hisses, his mood turning sour all of a sudden. “Who fed you that morsel of information?”

“People like to gossip,” Pantalone shrugs, amused and unkind, “but if you must know, it was Theta who told your maids who told the guards who told my maids who told my secretaries who told me.” Damn that Theta. Dottore makes a mental reminder to reboot that impertinent pillock’s system without you finding out. “You really must hurry,” he continues on, oblivious to how Dottore glares a burning hole through the pillar behind him, imagining the ‘scolding’ he’ll give his segment when he sees them, “You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting, do you? I feel enough pity as it is that you’re their chosen partner. I can’t imagine why they would choose you…”

“... over you, my dear Regrator?”

Pantalone simpers, but an emotion Dottore knows all too well flashes across his eyes. They’ve known each other for too long and too closely, no matter how much he tries to hide, Dottore can break down that steel skin of his and pry out the truth from his chest. “I am far more handsome, and sociable besides.”

“But they chose me.”

Pantalone levels his gaze to Dottore’s. The corners of his mouth are curled down, his eyebrows are furrowed, and his narrowed gaze is sharp as a knife. He says nothing.

“You’re jealous,” Dottore says, jumping well over the line that all of the Harbingers put between their facades and the truth. His grin is wolfish and triumphant. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

Pantalone glares at him and turns to leave. “I have better things to do than be jealous of you. Good day, Dottore.”

Dottore takes long strides to stand in front of him, blocking his path once more. Before Pantalone can open his mouth and spit out insults that could have him thrown into the far northern military camps if it were any other person, Dottore leans in and whispers into the shell of his ear, “I know,” he says, soft as a lover’s kiss, “things like being jealous of them, too.”

He whistles a happy tune through his teeth as he leaves, the Ninth Harbinger paralyzed behind him. He does not pay any mind to how his skin has been set aflame or how his heart beats wildly in his chest.

Yes, if he could only be that way with you, everything would be alright. He cannot understand why it’s so different from you. It’s the power, a voice whispers. It always circles back to that. Only three people stand above him now: that rat bastard Pierro, your mother, and you. You and your irritating smiles and your irritating laugh and your irritating jokes. You unnerve him with the way you hold his life so carelessly in your hands. A single touch, a mere look, and you could send him spiraling down to the depths if you so commanded. Everything he’s achieved in his life undone. In this pack of wolves the Tsaritsa calls her children, both by blood and bond, there’s a clear hierarchy in which you stand above all others.

He and Pantalone can devour each other whole, but when it comes to you, he’ll have to force the bitter taste of defeat down his throat. It’ll take everything in his power not to gag.

He’s ten minutes late when he finally arrives at the Queen’s Ballroom. The ballroom is beautiful, made of marble and gold furnishings. The floor is polished hardwood arranged in complicated swirling patterns that mimic the winter winds. The ceiling is painted with scenes of the nature of the north: galloping wild horses and sly foxes, wolves prowling through the green underbrush, golden ivy snaking at the edges as clouds raced on a blue sky. The crystal chandeliers are unlit and unneeded, the pale light of the morning provides enough to see clearly. This part of the palace is rarely ever open, the Tsaritsa is not one to throw balls and parties like so many of her aristocratic subjects do, so the doors stay locked. Of course, any exception can be made for winter’s favorite child.

He barely even notices the dance instructors wheedling about in the corner. He immediately finds you, leaning against a floor-to-ceiling window. One leg is crossed over the other. With the morning light coming in through, you’re bathed in the brightest living gold. For a moment old prayers come crowding to the forefront of his mind. For a moment all that time spent on his knees seems to be reasonable, if only it had all been dedicated to you. For a moment you’re baptized by the sun, for a moment you’re holy.

The cocky smile on his face, a remnant from that moment with Pantalone, crumbles. His breath hitches in his throat. Oh, shit.

You turn to him, mouth pressed in a thin line. Your pointed steps ring across the floor as you stalk toward him, and he cannot help but feel like a trapped critter. He wants to fight or flee or do something —

“I thought you wouldn’t show,” you murmur, reaching for his gloved wrist with the lightest of touches. He swallows at the sensation of touch. “I was starting to think you had flaked out on me,” you say teasingly.

“Oh, no, I was just… occupied with another business,” he mutters, looking back at the entrance. A smirk cannot be restrained. You raise an eyebrow and he shakes his head, still grinning. “It’s alright now.”

Your answering smile is like the sun breaking through the clouds. The two of you walk side-by-side toward the instructors on the other side of the room, close enough for your shoulders to brush against each other, a united front. He realizes, quite abruptly, that you were nervous too.

The dance he has to learn is the Varsovienne Waltz. Their instructors are a pair of siblings, boy and girl, who look very much alike with dark eyes and dark hair. They regard him with the fearful respect most everyone regarded him with, taking care not to seem too patronizing.

He first learns the fundamental dance positions. He thought he was mechanical, awkward, and unsure for the first time in years (Archons, how do you manage to coax these emotions out of him?). You said he was doing well, and the instructors affirmed so, but he cannot tell if that was genuine or from a place of fear.

And then comes the actual dancing.

They demonstrate it beforehand. Together, the pair of siblings glide across the floor with the gracefulness of swans fluttering about in the lakes. You had already learned this dance as a young child growing up in the icy walls of Zapolyarny, and so after the instructors had finished, you request to dance with one of them, if only to test your muscle memory. You take the role of follower, prompting Dottore, who guesses he would be assigned the role of leader, to imprint each step and twirl into his mind.

He hates the sick feeling of anxiousness brewing in the pit of his stomach as he watches you dance. But it does not go away as he watches you laugh and toss your head back, not a hair out of place. It’s not a surprise you’re so good at this, each move perfectly executed, your angles a wonder of geometry. This kind of life was your birthright. But not for him, not for the boy who had grown up in an indigent village on the borders of Sumeru. His history is not what bothers him, though, he had shed it from himself like a coat a very long time ago. What bothers him is you.

Vexation pools in his mind the longer he watches. He begins to impatiently tap his foot against the floor, his mouth twisting into a sneer. This was your life, not his. Dancing is not something the Second Seat of the Fatui Harbingers should be doing. Such a frivolous and foolish activity was not meant for a man of his nature. Heavens, what was he doing here? Hundreds of years ago you couldn’t have dragged him into the ballroom kicking and screaming if your life depended on it. Now he stands here, awake at six-in-the-fucking-morning operating on barely any sleep for you and your dance lessons that’ll be put into use for only one night. One night!

You could do this to him. You could force him to take dance lessons like some twelve-year-old lordling. You could tear down the meticulously made steel and calcium walls that surround his heart with a sharp smile and bury yourself within the bloody tissue. You could make a home there, familiar and warm, floating above a poisonous black rot. Only you could coax half-forgotten emotions out of him that he thought he had sealed away centuries ago. Meeting you, he thinks, has been the worst thing that’s ever happened to him thus far.

He wants to turn to leave but finds his feet rooted to the ground.

He barely notices you’re done before you saunter up to him, hands your hips, your mouth pressed into a thin, worried line.

“Are you alright? You look…” You cock your head to the side. “... not good.”

“I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he rasps, extending a gloved hand. “Can we get on with it now?”

You open your mouth, then close it, then open it again. A moment passes before you decide to stay silent and take his hand.

The girl instructor lifts the needle on the gramophone and the record begins to spin. The music is a sweet, simple melody. He has never heard it before, but memories of days spent exploring the surrounding forest of his village catapult to the forefront of his mind: dipping small toes into warm springs as he ate sticky sunsettias, the juice running down his fingers, the warm, incessantly lovely sun on windblown hair. He shakes his head like a wet dog shaking off water.

He does not realize just how much tension his body holds until you hum as he spins you around, your back to his chest, his left hand on your hip, and his right hand cupping yours. “You need to relax,” you say.

“I am relaxed,” he replies stiffly.

“No, you’re not.”

“Your Imperial Highness,” he mutters, a sardonic smile on his face, “I think I am much more qualified to say what my body feels more than you.”

You purse your lips but say no more. The look in your eye tells him you don’t believe him at all.

The next three hours are agonizingly slow-paced, yet somehow when he reaches the end of it, are a blur of colors and shapes and unintelligible music as though he had been shot past it all. He would not be surprised if the gods somehow made time move slower then faster then slower than normal just to play another cruel trick on him for their own amusement.

He isn’t terrible, and his rarely-used combat experience has finally found some employ, but he lacks your practiced poise or the easy grace of the instructors. He moves less like a human and more like some forest creature, his physicality more wild and jagged than it was elegant. The instructors tell him his lordship took to the dance more easily than most, and with a few more sessions could be flawless, but he does not pay any mind to them and instead places his gaze on you. Something unpleasant lurks behind your carefully-blank expression. His mind lurches with the sudden urge to find out what had gone wrong and go back in time and fix it. Trial and error is something he is intimate with, and his mistakes do not bother him, so long as he fixes them. He realizes, suddenly, that he wants to please you.

Pantalone does not need to push him out a window, he’ll very well throw himself from one after this.

“Walk with me,” you say, slipping an arm through his. Your expression is almost quiet. He has no choice but to let you lead him out the door and into the hallways. The guards at the door bow their heads and murmur the appropriate greetings. He does not miss how their eyes land on their interlocked arms for a second too long. People will talk.

You both stroll through the hall in strained silence. He flexes his fingers.

“Are you alright?”

His head snaps to the side, his ears unbelieving. He had been bracing himself for a reprimanding, for jeers, for mockery. Not this. “Pardon?”

Was that pity in your eyes? His jaw clenches. Anger, black and brutal, burns within. “Are you alright?”

He tries to disentangle himself from you, but an iron grip keeps him locked in place. He forgets how truly strong you are. “I’m fine.”

You sigh and look at the arched ceiling, as though exasperatedly asking it if it could hear his words. “Dottore, I’ve known you for a very long time. You overestimate your ability to lie to me.”

He grits his teeth, forcing the words out of his throat. “I am fine. I have weathered much worse than dance classes, Your Imperial Highness. If you found some fault in my conduct or wish to admonish me then please, don’t drag it out.”

“Admonish you?” Your eyes widen, startled. “What? No, I’m just—”

He barks out a laugh, self-deprecating and cruel. “What? Pitying me?”

“Worried about you.” You stop. You step forward and face him, eyes bright and shining, the corner of your lips curled into a frown. “Don’t be mean.”

Worried. You were worried about him. His anger ebbs away and morphs into soft bemusement. You don’t move from your position, instead, you cross your arms and tilt your chin up in defiance like an angry child. He almost believes you’re genuine, but he knows better than to argue with that stubborn jut of jaw.

He huffs, willing up his signature grin. It’ll be easier to make you happy if only to get this over with. “I’m sorry to hurt your feelings.” He flicks your forehead and thrusts his fists into his pocket and starts to stride forward. “I’m quite alright. If you’re wondering about my less-than-stellar performance, it’s the three hours of sleep I got.”

You roll your eyes and scurry after him. Before he can escape, you grab his hand and lead him toward a wing of the palace he has been in only a few times before. Your own.

“No, no, no, you’re not escaping me today.” A childish groan escapes him and makes you giggle. “You can sleep after this, but humor me for a bit and have breakfast with me.”

“You didn’t have breakfast?”

“Did you?” Fair point.

He wants to go back to his room and sleep until sunset, but he cannot help but feel a spark of interest. Most of the time you simply hang about his laboratory and annoyed him, but for you to actually invite him to something as simple as breakfast with seemingly no other motivation than to spend time with him was a break from your norm. A very unfamiliar break.

All his instincts call for him to flee.

“Alright,” he says, against the better judgment of his head, “just this once.”

The imperial family’s apartments are bigger than the Harbingers’, and much emptier. The hall is big and white and echoing, with wide hardwood flooring that was arranged in an intricate repeating diamond pattern. There are paintings of you and your mother, silver embellishments in the likeness of frost plastered on the walls, the furniture was elegant but plain, and the windows had no curtains. The only hint of your personality is the vases of your favorite flowers. Everything had an eerie, deserted look, haunted by the ghost of you. There were barely any people, only two stoic guards posted at the entrance and a maid that scurried past them. He never realized just how isolated you were from the rest of them; no wonder you sought the Harbingers out so often.

Breakfast appears with instantaneous magic: fried bacon, sunnyside-up eggs, blinis, and biscuits. His stomach rumbles at the sight. He hasn’t had anything to eat that was more than trail mix in close to thirty-six hours, not that it bothered him significantly, he was used to getting distracted by his studies and forgetting to nourish himself. Thankfully, he had improved his body long ago so that it could weather mortal flaws like hunger.

He wolfs down a slice of bacon while you slather a blini with butter and honey. He rarely eats with company if not forced to. Outside of that, he only ever eats with his segments on the off-chance they’re all free, which is simply a microscopic natural disaster filled with food fights and whining and endless bickering. But breakfast with you is a quiet affair. You eat with calm, methodological grace. He subconsciously looks at you, noting your dining habits, wondering if this was your favorite food. You catch him staring and send him a bemused smile. He looks away, suddenly interested in the tapestries that adorn the walls, feeling heat rush to his face. The windows are open and he can hear the world outside: birds twittering about, the recruits at their morning drills, servants rushing to do this and that. A stillness settles within his bones that he has not felt in a very, very long time. Part of him wants to rip it out, but another part shushes it. He is tired, sleep-deprived, and busy. He still has experiments to do, reports to check, papers to sign. But right now the sun is coming in, soft as a caress, and you are sitting across from him and smiling.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” you say suddenly, your words cutting through the silence like a sword. “but you seemed really out of it earlier.”

He raises one eyebrow and takes a pointed bite of his bacon. “Is this a therapy session or breakfast?”

You kick his leg beneath the table. “Archons, ‘ttore, I just want to be nice.”

Nice. Inwardly, he laughs. He absently pushes the runny eggs around on his plate. “Hm. There were just a few things on my mind, nothing to worry about.” A pause. “I’m very surprised you haven’t teased me yet for my horrible dancing skills.”

“Ah.” You prop your arm up on the table and rest your cheek on your fist. “Actually, I was expecting they’d be just as bad as your harmonica skills. But you’re actually okay. Not good, but you’re getting there.”

He splutters. His mouth opens and closes, much like a fish, before he erupts. “My harmonica skills are amazing! You’re just deaf or inane or have horrible, horrible taste.” He pokes his silver fork in your direction. “I’ll have you know I was the best harmonica player in Sumeru, thank you very much.”

You bite on your lower lip, vaguely amused. “Really now.”

He leaps to his feet and leans forward, hands on the table, a flurry of feathers and cotton cloth and fury. “Yes, really now! If you weren’t heir to the throne I’d have you chopped up into little pieces and sold to the butchers for that.”

“I think you’d miss the pleasure of my company too much to do that.”

He harrumphs and jerks his head away. “You presume too much.”

You laugh. It’s warm and comforting and familiar. He wants to never hear it again. “You’re so pretentious. Can’t you admit you’re just a little bit fond of me?”

“Fond? I—” The word coils around his throat. No, he wasn’t fond of you. He was simply slightly more tolerant of you than everyone else. “—no. No, I’m not.”

He isn’t, really, he isn’t. All these little moments were just lapses of mortal weakness he has yet to stamp out. Something else to add to his itinerary of things to modify. This acquaintanceship with you was getting too bold and too powerful and one of these days he’s sure it’s going to come crashing down on him.

“I think you are.” You dangle your fork between your fingers. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

He waits for you to continue. But you don’t. You sit there and stare at him, twirling your fork, those eyes bright and big and full of inexplicable warmth. One corner of your lips curls up into an absurdly endearing lopsided smile. He banishes the thought from his brain. The silence stretches, on and on and on, until it becomes a blanket that suffocates him.

He taps his fingers against the table. “You’re madder than I am.”

“You of all people should know the difference between madness and truth.”

“It’s not the truth.”

You peer up at him and cock your head to the side. “Is it?”

You stand and circle around the table, dragging one finger on the wood. He turns his head to the door and away from you. You hover next to him, just a breath away from his skin. He fights to shove back down the shaky breath that threatens to escape him. He does not know why he doesn’t just move away, putting those barriers back up that he allows you to shatter over and over again. The pieces are on the ground, ready to be gathered and assembled once more. He is a scholar, he knows how to eliminate weakness, how to tear down and rebuild over and over again until his product becomes perfect; he can build on the evident fragility of his resolve when it comes to you.

All it takes is discipline. He must throw you back as he throws back enemies on the battlefield. He must deny you any more ground.

One hand intertwines with his while the other holds the pulse of his wrist. His heart begins to beat itself to death in his chest. He relents and turns to look at you, your face carefully blank, but he has known you for too long. Something stirs within your eyes, something hungry and wolfish.

You bring his hand to your lips and gently turn it over to expose the scarred skin peeking out from in between his sleeve and his glove. His wrist is barely an inch away from your mouth. You lean forward and bite, hard. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to sting.

He jerks away, eyes widening with incredulity. “You—”

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. There is no hint of remorse or disbelief for what you just did in your eyes. You smile at him, affable and innocent as a puppy. But there was nothing puppy-like in your eyes. How could he have let himself forget? You wild little wolf. His wrist throbs, but to his surprise and disgust, the sensation was not at all unpleasant.

“I’m sorry,” you say, not sounding the least bit sorry, “I wanted to see what that would be like.”

“You wanted to see what it would be like to bite me?”

“To mark you.” You move forward as he moves back, a twisted iteration of the waltz you danced earlier. “I don’t understand why you don’t let me in. Did I do something wrong?” His Adam apple bobs up and down as his back hits the wall. “Tell me, please.”

He looks at you and runs his tongue over his teeth. Every coherent thought evaporates within the confines of his brain. He cannot let you know the truth. He cannot.

“Get away.” His voice is hoarse.

There’s the slightest hesitation in your muscles before you take a small step backward. In one swift motion, he lurches forward, grabbing ahold of your shoulder and your chin. He leans over you, red eyes blazing underneath the mask. Something cruel and sharp slithers in his veins and buries its fangs into his anatomy. He does not know who he is angrier at — you, or himself. You for being an inescapable prison where he was the prisoner. Himself for never trying to escape or not trying enough.

He grazes his thumb against the outline of your lips. “You insufferable little brat,” he spits, “the other Harbingers may allow you to do whatever you please with them, but that weakness is not inside me, and you cannot root it out. You—” He squeezes your skin. “—you cannot conquer me, no matter how much you try.”

Will you have him thrown out of the Fatui for this? Locked up in the deepest cell? Will you ask your mother to impale him on a glacier, forced to slowly wither away? He watches and waits for your response.

You smile and easily disentangle yourself from his grasp. You lean forward, one hand on his shoulder, your lips brushing against his ear.

“Liar.”

He does not think he’s upset you, but you’ve abstained from interacting with him outside of your dance lessons, which themselves have become awkward and brief. You regard him with the same absentminded politeness you would a waiter or a maid, your eyes glazed and the candor of your voice mild. Ever since that night, you’ve made no move to tease or touch. Even as you dance, your bodies locked in a tangle, every time skin brushes against skin your new-found coldness burns like ice.

He tries not to dwell too much on your last conversation, on the phantom throbbing of his wrist where your teeth had bit into his skin.

His life has become strangely empty now. There’s a hole in the shape of you begging to be filled, but no material could ever replace your flesh and bone. No one’s barging into his laboratory to annoy him or sneaking into his apartments at odd hours of the night. All for the better.

Except it isn’t, because now it’s the night (or rather, morning) before the ball and he can’t seem to sleep and the past few weeks have been absolutely insufferable. He’s irritable, much more than he normally is, prone to commonplace mistakes, and worst of all, unfocused. His segments have noticed, even the younger ones, who have been increasingly more competent than him. He knows that they know the reason why; he sees the various looks of disapproval, amusement, and disgust. Zeta even had the gall to make fun of him for it, to his immediate regret, as Dottore scolded him with such ferocity they all went quiet in a rare show of obedience. Perhaps he should scold them more often. The resounding silence, if it happened more often, would undoubtedly improve their research and his moods.

He stares down at the unfinished reports on the metal table, acutely aware of the laboratory clock ticking away the minutes. Another and another and another go past. He’s been staring dumbly at the thrice-damned half-empty papers for two hours now. He can feel Theta’s bemused eyes burning into the back of his eyes as he mops up the blood from their latest failed experiment. Suddenly the sloshing of the water is too much for him to bear.

“Go. Leave that for the maids,” Dottore barks. He hears swift footsteps before they pause right at the door that leads into the segments’ living quarters.

“You should sleep,” Theta says. Dottore turns in the swivel chair and shoots him a pointed look. “I’m not saying that out of, urgh, concern,” the segment hurries to correct, “only that, don’t you have something to prepare for tomorrow—” He shoots a glance at the clock. “—I mean, today?”

“None of your business.”

“We’re the same person if you hadn’t noticed, so yes it is my business.”

Dottore rubs his eyes and stays silent. There’s too little energy within him to bicker right now. Theta is still rooted in his spot, smirking silently. He crosses his arms.

“Maybe,” he continues, with a mischievous lilt in his voice, “if you’re feeling too tired to attend, I’ll be glad to—”

It’s almost comical how fast Theta goes flying into the metal cabinets. He lets out a groan of pain. Dottore does not even comprehend when he stood up and punched him. He only knows the way rage flared in his chest, that wild emotion that he could not name roaring in his ears. He had been the one asked to the ball. Him, over Theta. Theta was your favorite of all the adult segments, for who-knows-what reason, the segment that was him during his final year in the Akademiya. You always claimed it was because he was the most fun to be around (Only the Archons can understand your definition of fun) and so it was him you often asked after.

But this time it’s Dottore that you wanted, and he would not let anyone take away what was rightfully his. (Your voice seems to whisper in his ear, as though you were standing right beside him, “I want to do this with you.”)

The second he realizes his thoughts, he’s tempted to shoot himself with one of the expertly made and modified Fatui guns. It’s the tiredness, he reasons to himself. The lack of sleep was poisoning him with irrationality. The last time he slept was… well. Approximately four days ago.

He remembers the last thing he said to you, and thinks of your wolfish eyes and predatory grin. You cannot conquer me, and your sly answer, Liar. How is it, he thinks, that he has barely seen you in weeks yet your presence has enlarged and completely overtaken him? The scholar in him wants to pry around for answers, but another part, a mortal part he thought he had killed long ago already knows what the answer is.

He wonders if you still actually want him to be your partner. With the way you’ve been ignoring him these past few weeks, you might truly prefer taking one of his clones instead. The only adult segments in Snezhnaya right now are Theta and Zeta, the latter of which was on the other side of the country doing research on the mysterious disease. Theta was the only true threat to his position… unless, of course, you decide to ask one of the Harbingers or your subordinates instead.

To his surprise and mild disgust, uncharacteristic fear grips his heart. Shit. If you took someone else to the ball, he would lose the reward you had promised to grant. He needed it — Tsaritsa only knows how much people, especially certain bankers, love to get in the way of his research.

The thought of you swaying in another person’s arms tonight almost makes him punch Theta again.

Theta is rambling about something insignificant, still scrambled on the floor and clutching his bruised face, glaring daggers at his creator. Dottore would have paid more heed to a rat squeaking in the corner. Dottore jerks his head to the door. A dismissal.

An annoyed sound leaves Theta’s artificial throat. “Looks like I touched a nerve there, Prime. Scared I’m gonna steal them away?”

“No.”

He huffs. “Whatever. It’s just one date, I’m always gonna be the favorite.”

Dottore wonders if he can get away with Theta’s permanent deactivation without you finding out. Probably not. “It’s not a date.” Until now, he had never thought of it as such. But Theta speaking it into existence makes his heart thump. “It’s—it’s a business agreement,” he insists, privately cursing the stutter, “an acquisition of advantage.”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you’ve been applying that skin cream Pantyliner gave you every night? Even though you’ve never opened it until now?”

“A certain image is required of me, not that your rat ass would know.”

“Honestly, it’s hilarious watching you fall over yourself for them.”

Dottore hisses. “I’m not ‘falling over myself’ for them.”

Theta grins, all that sharp teeth flashing in the fluorescent lights. “Sure.”

“I’m not!” He sounds indignant, like a child protesting their involvement in mischief they were very much involved in.

Theta rolls his eyes as he stands and disappears into the other room, snickering. “Whatever helps ‘ya sleep at night, Prime,” he calls after.

Dottore sighs and massages the bridge of his nose. “I’m not,” he says softly, almost desperately, though, of course, no one hears it. Just the empty air, eating his words.

He sighs again and glances at the clock, still ticking away. It’s half past three in the morning. You had agreed to meet at six in the evening. You had told him on the day of the last lesson, very aggressively, that under no circumstances should he be late, which he was infamous for being. If he slept now, he could get some much-needed rest before the ball.

It’s a fitful sleep, though any sleep is better than none. He oscillates between the waking world and darkness, his body simultaneously feeling like it has been doused in fire and thrown into the icy-cold bays of Snezhnaya. Three-quarters after one o’clock he’s woken, gently and fearfully, by one of your subordinates. In a quivering voice, she tells him you had sent an entire team to “ensure full preparedness”, which he knows really was just to say, “don’t show up in a fucking lab coat”. He reluctantly lets them pull him around in a flurry of various outfits for him to try in a long, awkward, and agonizing two hours. He allows them to style his hair, clenching his teeth all the while, thinking about how furious you be if he harmed one of yours as his fingers twitch. In the end, the effort is barely seen — it’s really just a cleaner, shinier rendition of his usual hairstyle.

They don’t do makeup. They know better than to cross that line. No one, save for the Tsaritsa and the Harbingers, has ever seen what's underneath the mask.

The outfit they chose, in the end, was appropriately glamorous, though not as fancy as something Pantalone or Signora might wear. The royal blue fabric is soft against his skin, though his cravat seems tight around his neck. Strange, since he was the one to do it and did not deviate from how he usually did it. He tugs on the white fabric and realizes his hands are shaking. They haven’t in centuries, not since his expulsion from the Akademiya. White hot rage sears through his bones. You are the reason behind this resurfacing weakness. He has no doubt about it.

He almost wants to dive back into bed and flake out on you; it would be terribly amusing, but ultimately pointless. The consequences are not ones he wants to bear.

He does not want to see the looks his subordinates will undoubtedly give him once they catch him on his way to the foyer of the imperial family’s private apartments, where you had agreed to meet. It was a revolting thought: The Second Seat trudging through the halls like a tamed dog The thought of it makes him want to puke. He’s already heard the multiple rumors of your relationship, has heard the giggles, has seen the coy smiles. He wonders if the other Harbingers experience it as well.

Instead, he takes one of the palace’s secret passageways known only to the top three Harbingers, Pierro, you, and the Tsaritsa. The narrow stone hallway is dusty and dark, rarely used and reserved only for emergencies. He can see well enough with the enhanced vision he gave himself when he moved to an artificial body. He knows there are many more passages snaking through the walls that he does not know about, yet for all his explorations and the hours spent poring over the palace maps, he has never been able to find them. He supposes they’re for only you and your mother. Zapolyarny Palace was a strange place, filled with magic of a thousand years past. He’s heard rumors of ancient spells and complicated runes imbued in the walls of the palace, keeping out any who dare intrude.

The passageways are filled with twists and turns, with multiple ladders and stairs and secret doors he had long since memorized in his mind. He emerges from behind a tapestry and steps into the deserted hallway adjacent to the foyer.

Truth be told, he likes this part of the palace. He keeps his private estate and rooms in a similar sparse fashion, mostly because he just can’t be bothered to decorate. But he feels that the emptiness here is intentional. The beauty is quiet, serene even, as silent as the first brush of snow. Especially when the Empress is in one of her moods and true frost conquers the walls and floors and snow impossibly starts to fall indoors. When that happens, suddenly, the palace is transformed into a winter wonderland, conjured out of childlike whimsy.

You await him at the bottom of the staircase.

He pauses mid-step, the breath caught in his throat. He has never seen you so… dressed up, before. He knows you like going out on this excursion or that: to the opera with Pantalone or taking a pleasure barge with Columbina, and when out in the public’s eye a level of regalness was expected in your fashion. But alone with him, usually shut up in the labs or in his private estate, you wore simple clothes that allowed freedom of movement.

But tonight you were glittering, doused in jewels he knows could fund him for years. The moonlight slants in through the windows, making you shimmer. He has never seen you look more ethereal, as though you had just stepped out of one of the Snezhnayan fairytales you so loved. And although he never grew up in Snezhnaya, looking at you he feels as though he has read those fairytales, has spent nights under the covers living in every word in his head. He looks at you and sees magic.

He realizes, suddenly, that he wears the same colors as you: royal blue and white. And then, just after that punch to the head, he remembers: royal blue and white are the colors of the imperial family.

He swallows an emotion he does not want to touch with a hundred-foot pole.

“Hello,” you say softly, terrifying warmth blooming in your eyes, “you aren’t late.” There’s a tease in the words.

He harrumphs and looks away, trying to conceal the growing red in his cheeks. He thanks the Tsaritsa she does not keep her palace well-lit, even at night. “You ought to have better expectations of me. I know I’m not known for punctuality but I know when something is important.”

You smile. It is blank and careful. “Well then.” You extend your hand. “Let’s go.”

He takes your hand and lets you lead him to the awaiting carriage. Suddenly the room is too hot and stuffy and your body is too close yet too far. He wishes you’d press yourself closer but you haven’t in weeks, not since that fateful day. He almost misses it, before he catches the feeling and inwardly scolds himself.

Not for the first time, he wonders what game you’re playing at. You had declared, though indirectly, that you could conquer him, yet had made no move to do so. He squints at you from underneath the mask. Your face is set in a neutral, almost air-headed expression. It was the expression you used during boring meetings that you couldn’t care less about. Was he boring you? Exasperation and aggravation flood his mind. Him? Boring? He supposes he hasn’t been trying to poison you as of late. And anyway, it was you who came to him. He had never sought you out before if not for business reasons. Was he expected to make some kind of move?

The ride to the Sokolov estate is coated in a heavy, awkward silence. Or at least, he thinks so. You don’t seem to notice. Or care. Zapolyarny Palace is situated outside the capital city, so the carriage ride takes more or less an hour. The hour is the longest he has ever experienced, except perhaps the hours he spent dancing with you. You say nothing the entire time, simply stare languidly out the window, your chin cupped in your hand. Midwinter already rules over the land, not that it really mattered when it seems two-thirds of the year saw snow. From time to time you put your hand through the open window and catch a snowflake. There were fleeting moments your eyes would meet, there would be a pause, then a quick aversion and you would both retreat into the invisible walls you had built around yourselves.

He wonders if you expect him to apologize.

The silence is enough to suffocate.

Then, blessedly, the manor materializes in the distance. He almost breathes an audible sigh of relief. He has to restrain his body from jumping out of the carriage as soon as the door is opened. He exits the vehicle first and extends a helping hand to you as you shuffle out, like a proper gentleman. Not that he was one.

You smile at him. Still, blank.

The Sokolov Winter Ball is an event for aristocrats by aristocrats. There are barely any Fatuus in sight, exempting the noble children who had joined to cur favor and prestige, though such children were few and far between. Though the Tsaritsa rules over all, there is undoubtedly enmity between the nobility and the Fatui; the two factions are caught in an uncertain back-and-forth of power, constantly at each other’s throats and on the verge of bloodshed. In public, members of both groups were expected to be cordial and pretend there was equality among them. So Dottore did get a certain satisfaction in seeing the lords and ladies of Snezhnaya bow before him, even if it was really to you rather than him.

He almost falls asleep internally as you go through the motions of socializing, him following behind as he has nothing else to do: trivial small talk, false fawning and compliments, pretending to care about the latest gossips sweeping the city. You did seem to actually care about the latter, one of the many characteristics you shared with Pantalone. He, on the other hand, was utterly uncurious to the silly little lives of the people.

They mostly pretend he does not exist. Not rudely, but fearfully. They understand Dottore is not exactly in the best of moods and offer only commonplace courtesies.

He wonders how long you can go treating him like this, like some distant, half-hearted acquaintance and not… whatever he should be to you. He has never, ever been the slightest bit interested in socialization, but he wishes, just once, you would turn your head to him and chat. Even if the talk was the silliest of topics, even if he did not care a wit about them. He simply wants to hear warmth flood your voice once more, wanted to hear your ringing laughter.

He flinches slightly when he fully realizes the thought that had crossed his mind.

“You should smile more,” you say to him as you wheel around the ballroom, trying to avoid another mother who hoped to introduce her dashing children to you, undoubtedly in hopes it will blossom into marriage. The thought of you marrying one of these pathetic pups stirs fierce vindication in his chest. “You’re scaring them.”

“I am smiling,” he says, frowning.

The utterly annoyed look you give him makes him laugh, the sound deep and full of heart.

A little later, when the clock strikes nine, Duchess Sokolov practically materializes in front of the both of you with an element of surprise even Arlecchino would admire and only scheming, middle-aged women can conjure. Your startled half-smile makes her smile in turn, the look of it sly. After a session of unabashed bootlicking, where she complimented almost every piece of your body, from your feet to your eyelashes (the only other person he has ever heard say such things is him), she asked, with a grandiose show of humility, if Your Imperial Highness would do us the honor of opening the dancing with my son?

If anything, Dottore admires her gall.

His body moves before his mind can comprehend what he is doing. He places his hands on your shoulders, smiling widely, making sure his sharp teeth are visible to anyone who dares steal you away.

"The geir has already promised their first dance to me, Your Grace." The words come out wild and aggressive, like the barks of a wolf. "I'm afraid your son will have to wait his turn." If I let him have one.

The duchess pales slightly and steps half a foot back. "Forgive me Lord Harbinger, I wasn't aware."

You laugh and press your gloved hand to your mouth, a lovely gesture. "Oh, please excuse Lord Dottore. He's a very particular person. I'll be glad to dance with your son after."

The Duchess visibly brightens and blunders away after numerous thanks, eager to tear away from Dottore's burning glare. You slip your arm through his and weave through the sea of bodies to the center of the ballroom, the party guests skillfully parting to let you pass. He does not think he is imagining your smirk.

As you near the center, Dottore ignores the hot flash of anxiety in his stomach. It has been so long since he has felt that emotion or other adjacent ones that it takes a moment for him to recognize it. Memories of those torturous hours spent dancing, and dancing, and dancing again resurface in his memories. Though not as graceful a dancer as you, he had reached a level of acceptable elegance towards the end that received glowing praise from the instructors. You had smiled, shrugged, and said nothing. It had left a strange empty feeling lingering within him.

What reaction did he even want from you, anyway? He thinks the instructors weren’t lying; the fear in their eyes was minimal. He would most likely never dance again after tonight. So, it truly did not matter what you thought of his dancing. It did not matter. He had gotten over the anxiousness that came with socializing a very long time ago, and it is not the crowd that is making him nervous. So what is it that he fears?

He feels himself getting more and more agitated as you both pull yourselves into position: two hands outstretched and intertwined, his hand on the small of your back, yours resting on his shoulder. He feels the sharp, curious eyes on the both of you as the music starts.

“Relax,” you whisper.

“I am relaxed.”

“No, you’re not.” You squeeze his shoulder. “Your body is so stiff.”

“I’m doing fine,” he grits out.

“You’d do even better if you’d stop fidgeting and relax.”

How could he relax when you’re so close? He can hear your breaths and count the lashes of your eyes. Your eyes already shine naturally with unnatural brightness, but beneath the light of the chandeliers, they seemed to gleam like the faces of a diamond.

“Is something wrong? You’re staring quite intently.” Your voice evaporates his thoughts. He swallows nervously and looks away, his gaze darting around the room, hoping to see anything but you. “Dottore?” The tone of your voice has been nothing but level for weeks, so the sliver of genuine worry that escapes into the words makes his heart jump.

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

He moves as though he’s in a dream, lost and dazed. He cannot explain to himself why he leans in closer, or why he squeezes your hand cupped in his. He messes up — once then twice then thrice, missing a step or taking the wrong turn even though he memorized the entire routine in his head the night after your first lesson. It cannot be his memory, flawless as it is.

It’s his heart, his Archons-damned heart, thumping against his ribs. It’s your inquisitive eyes on him, your cold skin pressed against his. It’s the way there is something genuine and vulnerable living in the light of your eyes. It is the way there is a very dangerous mortal emotion flooding his veins. It is the way he cannot help but want to press closer, wants to take you into his arms and sweep you off your feet this night, and many more.

It is an utterly terrifying thought. This is what he is scared of, he realizes with a jolt that earns him a questioning look from you. This closeness, this… intimacy. Your hands on his skin, warm enough to make him believe you’re both human.

How long has it been, he wonders, since he has wanted to stop running away.

The music reaches a crescendo quietly, as though from far away. For all he can hear is thump, thump, thump, his mind all but submerged in the fervent tide of his own beating heart.

When the dance ends, he needs more than one hand to count the mistakes he’s made. You had gracefully saved him from each mistake, maneuvering your body in such a way that the flow of the dance was upheld. As he bows to you, the crowd bursts into rapturous applause.

Before he can even blink, numerous lords and ladies have already swarmed the both of you like angry bees, buzzing with life. Each vy for your next dance, the questions flying so fast you barely have time to plaster on a polite smile. You’re generally a sociable person, but your eyes widen as the crowd presses closer, each bothersome member trying to be louder than the next. Your gaze lands on him.

He wraps a protective arm around your waist, scowling at the crowd. Briefly, he remembers you had promised a dance to the son of Sokolov, and then decides he could give less of a fuck about that.

“Their Imperial Highness needs space,” he snaps. The response is instantaneous; he almost laughs at the way one girl jumps almost a foot back, banging into a boy behind her.

You grace him with a thankful smile. He thinks he would kill all of the people in this room to earn it again.

“I need air,” you declare, more to yourself and him than anyone else. Before someone can get in the way of your plans, you hook your arm through his and lead him out into the gardens.

The Sokolov estate is massive, though not as big as Zapolyarny. The hedged gardens sprawl north, east, and west, with the manor at their backs. Though there are lots of small flowers here and there, it is mostly made out of small trees and shrubbery, unlike your own gardens back at the palace, which were bursting with all kinds of plants. It was hard for most greenery to withstand the cold so far up north, but the Tsaritsa had scoured the land for every flower that could grow in Snezhnaya and created for you your very own Eden.

The glow from indoors lights up the pathways but slowly grows dimmer and dimmer as you both wander down the winding stones. He has no trouble seeing, a perk of inhabiting a modified body, and, it seems, so do you. A godly trait, perhaps. He would love to thoroughly study you one day, though your mother would probably not approve of it.

You walk in companionable silence, arms still linked together. He wants to say something. What, exactly, he does not know.

The manor has all but faded into the distance when you stop at a quaint marble pavilion, the night outside cool and still. There is a large pond next to the pavilion, bright and silver as a knife in the moonlight. Faintly he hears the chirping of crickets in the underbrush, the gurgling of water from a nearby miniature fountain, the honks of swans.

You cross your arms and lean against the railing, eyes glazed and unseeing, lost in thought. He hovers behind you, uncertain as a child with an angry parent. The breeze cards its fingers through your air and makes it flutter with the wind. The air is sweet, and even the annoying chirp of the crickets softens into a mellow sound. You remain silent, your gaze trained on the water.

In the steady stillness, all those emotions from the dance rush back into his heart. Rage — at himself, at you, at the world — burns through his chest. How could he have been so stupid? So weak? He thought if only he played the game right, if only he took the correct steps, he would escape unscathed. He had not realized he never stood a chance.

Gods and their goading, tricking everyone into believing fairness was not a shadow on the wall, fickle and false. He would have never won.

You cannot conquer me, he had declared to you, already conquered. The more he writhed from your grip, the deeper your claws sank in. And if he ever does escape, it will be with claw marks on his soul. In this game you both play, he has played and lost. Defeat is a bitter taste on his tongue. It happened again. The gods have bested him again.

And you. You did not even know it. You still gaze thoughtfully at the pond. He resents the way you still stand so serenely as his entire world comes crashing down around him.

He has always been a man of action. He never waits, never stays still. Yet here he is. Staying still.

When the silence swells into something unbearable, he says, "Am I really so boring of a companion your mind has to wander off?" He levels a cool gaze at you, hoping to mask the way his fingers flex at his side, the way his teeth grind against each other, and the way his heart thumps and thumps inside his chest.

You turn your head to look at him. Your answering smile is amused. "You could never be boring, Dottore. Not you."

"Is that why you've been ignoring me for weeks?" The hurt slips into the words before he can catch it. He winces inwardly at himself, embarrassed at the sordid display of emotions. There's a flicker of pleasure in your eyes as the words soak in.

You shrug like a child denying their wrongdoings. "I thought… I thought you’d be inclined to dissect me and damn the consequences if I approached you again outside our lessons, after our last encounter." His wrist throbs with the memory. Mischief slips into your voice. "Why? Did you miss me?"

Yes. "Hardly."

"Really."

He scowls. "I barely noticed your absence."

You rest your chin on your fist. “Mhm. Theta told me you were miserable without me.”

That stupid, loose-lipped segment was asking for deactivation. Dottore truly does not know where the young segment got his penchant for gossiping. It was something that he, Prime, never did. But it did stem from spite, which is where ninety percent of his decisions originate from. “Theta, as you know, is a serial liar.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him that the next time I see him. Anyways, I don’t think he’s lying. Pantalone told me you’re behind on submitting your financial reports,” you hurry to correct when he gives you a look, “more than usual, I mean. And I heard from a little dove you’ve gotten nothing done these past few weeks.” He makes a mental note to lock Columbina out of his lab. It’s a futile pursuit, he knows she’ll find a way in through Archons-knew-what means, but it doesn’t mean he can’t try.

He arches a brow, though you can’t see it through the mask. “How arrogant of you to assume you’re the cause behind my recent… difficulties.”

“I don’t think it’s arrogant to be correct. Or maybe it is. Would certainly explain the reason you have oceans of arrogance.”

“Haha. What evidence do you have, anyways?”

“Gut instinct.”

Despite himself, he laughs. The sound is scraping and throaty. “You would make an absolutely dreadful scholar. You need evidence, my liege, before you go around making such far-fetched claims.”

You say nothing. You slowly walk towards him, a wolf on the hunt, smiling all the while. He stays rooted to his spot, frozen. Watching. Waiting. There is a part of him, a concerningly large part of him, that longs to feel the warmth of your skin again. Another part wants to eviscerate that part. But he stands still, and he knows, oh he knows why.

Was it truly such a miserable fate to be conquered by you? To be desired by you? He wonders if deer run only because they want to be caught by the wolf.

You lift your palm to his neck. Your thumb pokes and prods underneath his jawbone. He leans into your touch, baring the hollow of his throat. You’re so close. You could do what you wanted, and a sick feeling tells him he would let you. You were poised to maim, to kill, to devour. But you don’t. You simply continue to press against his skin with the flat of your thumb.

He realizes too late what you’re looking for.

Your devilish grin is equal parts terrifying and utterly gorgeous. Mischief truly becomes you, he thinks dimly. “There,” you say softly. “Tell me, Doctor, why is your heart beating so fast? Hmm? And—” You remove your hand from his throat and his heart screams for you to place your hand on his body once more. You grip the edge of his mask, tilting it slightly up. Enough to imply your intentions. “—May I?”

He does not mean to nod, but his body moves of its own accord.

You let it fall to the ground. He has never considered himself to be the most handsome of men, even before the scars. And he has never cared much for his appearance. But suddenly he is aware of his rough skin, of the jagged lines that cut through the left side of his face. He wants to pick up the mask and hide once more. But the way your eyes sparkle as you take him in, all of him in, makes him feel crafted by the gods themselves. You gently brush your thumb against the bottom of his eye.

“Dilated pupils,” you whisper. “Whatever could be making you anxious, my lord?”

His eyes narrow and his scowl deepens, but he does not move. “Maybe I’m coming down with an affliction. Maybe I’m having a heart attack, or my drink was poisoned. Maybe your presence is so foul it is enough to kill me.”

You laugh softly. He wants to record it and play it over and over again until his heart beats to its rhythm. “We both know that’s not true.” You caress his scarred skin with your knuckles. “Do you think I can’t tell? This is my mother’s domain, after all.” You do not say that foul, four-letter word. But you let it hang between the two of you like the blade of a guillotine.

He's doomed himself, he knows. Human connection is not something the Second Seat should trifle with. Attachment is humanity's weakness, to be exploited and used for his own gain. The burn scars on his face remind him there is always, always something else the gods could take away. But though he has cheated death for these past four hundred years, he cannot cheat his own humanity. It is something he can never escape. It terrifies him. It beckons him closer. He thinks of your smile and your laugh.

Your smile transforms, though your lips do not move at all. It becomes brighter now, something true and warm. He wonders how long you've been waiting for this. The sight of your smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid eyes upon. A voice, unbidden, whispers in his ear: there are things worth burning for.

The breeze has stopped, he realizes. As though the very world is holding its breath.

Oh. Damn it all to the Abyss.

He closes the distance between the both of you and presses his lips onto yours.

You taste like wine and chocolates and all things addicting and sweet. Your lips are softer than he ever dared dream of. The shocked gasp that leaves your mouth makes him smile against your mouth. He jumps at the opportunity faster than you can react. He surges forward and grabs your waist, pressing your chest against his. His teeth graze your lips and he can see your eyes widen as he bites down, hard. Your resounding whimper makes his chest bloom with pleasure. He understands, truly, he does, why you play your game with him. With all of them. To have you weaken in his grasp, to finally, finally elicit the same vulnerability you seem to conjure so easily from him, is an experience he will never forget. There is nothing in all of the world that is as addicting as stripping monsters into mortals.

It seems like an eternity before you finally pull away, his hand still on your waist, a silver string of saliva connecting your lips still. Your eyes are blown wide and our fingertips brush against your lips, against his teeth marks. They come away red with blood.

“You—” The word catches in your throat, and you splutter out weak noises before you regain your voice. “—you fucking bastard!”

If I have to burn, you burn with me.

He shrugs, grinning. “See? It’s as you said. I’m never boring.”

His heart thumps with equal parts terror and euphoria at what he had just done. There is a part of him, smaller now, but still there, that still flinches in his head, utterly consumed by terror by what he has just done. To announce his heart’s desire so brazenly, so thoughtlessly. Yet it was a fair exchange. He had forced you to offer up your own heart as well. Catching you off guard was such a sweet sight, it excited him more than anything had in these past few years. If he had known the sensation of kissing you would be so sweet, he would have done it long ago.

“Fuck. Fuck. What the hell?” Though he does not believe in karma, your panicked state cannot be described as anything but. “I didn’t think you’d…” You shake your head, laughing weakly. “Fuck.”

You bury your face into his shoulder, still cursing softly. He debates pulling away, but instead, he wraps his arms around you. You seem so small, so fragile, like a baby bird that has fallen from its nest. He hums as he traces soothing circles on your back.

"Did you miss me too in the past few weeks?" He asks impulsively. It is out of a desire to satiate his curiosity more than anything.

You draw in a shaky breath. He feels you smile against his skin. "Of course I did." The reply vindicates him.

Beat.

“Is everything alright?” He asks, looking down at your head.

He nudges you. Had you fallen asleep somehow? It wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’d ever done.

He does not catch what you say, what with the softness of your voice coupled with it being muffled by his chest. But you stir in his arms, still unable to look at him.

“Is everything alright?” He repeats.

“No.” A pause. “I’m a bit afraid.”

“Of what?” He asks, puzzled.

“That if I look at you, my heart is going to burst from my chest.”

It starts as small chuckles, then wheezing, the bellied laughter as he doubles over. Now you were the one holding him in your arms. There’s nothing funny about what you’ve just said. It’s not even a joke. But wasn’t it, in some twisted way hilarious, after all this time, how the scales have balanced themselves?

You stare at him, incredulous, your previous anxious state shed like a snake skin. You disentangle yourself from him and slap his chest, hard, which only causes him to double down in his fit of laughter, clutching at his sore sides.

“What’s so funny?” You say shrilly. “Don’t laugh at me! Dottore!”

“I’m not sorry,” he says after recovering himself, wiping a tear from his eye, laughter still laced in the words.

“This isn’t funny!” You pout and stomp your feet on the ground indignantly, like a child. “You’re so mean to me.”

He smiles. “Always, my dear. What did you expect?”

You sigh. The sound is drawn out for dramatics. You cross your arms and turn your body away, chin up, a comical imitation of an irritated housewife. “I should’ve just taken Theta.”

Suddenly the smile dies on his lips and his body is flooded with an ugly, twisting rage. Stupid Theta. Always ruining everything. “You don’t mean that,” he says coolly. “I’m the one you wanted to take tonight.”

That evokes a sly smile from you. “Aww, are you jealous, my dear Doctor?”

Definitely. He scowls. “Of course not.”

“You seemed jealous back at the ball, too,” you tease.

He recoils as though the words materialized themselves into the physical plane and slapped him in the face. “Of those low lives? Never.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind going back to the dance I promised the son of Sokolov?” Urgh. He had hoped you’d forgotten about that. Anyways, it’d be a bit awkward to go back now. You’ve both been gone for so long you might as well ditch the party. And if you insisted on going back… well. He wouldn’t let that happen. You’d be forgiven, of course, and people fear him too much to make it an issue. He wonders what excuses you’ll have to draw up when you inevitably apologize to the Sokolov family for leaving so early.

“It’s not worth your energy.”

“But I only danced once tonight!”

“It was good enough.”

“You were not that good. I kept having to cover up your mistakes.” The words, though snarky, hold no actual venom. Though, it does prickle him. The overachieving scholar within yearns to be more than ‘not that good’. And anyway, who is Il Dottore, if not someone who goes above and beyond? Your smile urges him to take the bait.

He does.

“Then,” he says, soft as a lover’s kiss, extending a gloved hand, “would you allow me to make up for it?”

You place your hand in his.

Dancing has never seemed fun to Dottore. Little things (well, little socially acceptable things) have. It’s a waste of his time, in his opinion. The constant pursuit of knowledge has been his entire life. Even when he was mortal, he never understood what happiness such frivolous activities could elicit that books could not. Yet he does not recall a time he has ever felt such soft, weightless happiness as he does now. As he sways with you to invisible music in the sweet grass of the night. You mess up, and he does too. You trip on stray roots. He is unbalanced on the uneven ground. He blames it on your shared jumble of nerves. You giggle and smile and blame him. But you continue to dance, letting him spin you around as the moon bathes you in silver. Now all those years running from divinity seem so silly. How could he ever fathom running away from this?

It disgusts him somewhat that he’s fallen into… whatever he could call this… so easily. All that time spent battling you, battling himself, all evaporated in a single night. All that effort turned to cinders. He finds that he does not mind as much as he should. He does not think the game has ended, no. You’ll play it again and again and again, until time reaches its empty end. He does not know whether he wants to devour you or be devoured by you. He does not find the latter as unappealing as it once was. Who could have guessed that pain could be pleasure? He pitied — no, he still does pity — mortals for their sad, forever-yearning hearts that beat for contentment, for companionship. Yet he finds that same weakness in him. It is utterly terrifying.

But as you spin in the moonlight, your laughter ringing in his ears, and his heart thumps and thumps, he thinks it is utterly, utterly inescapable.

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peachywontyell · 5 months

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ive had this bouncing around in my head for a while, so here we are.

i am a sucker for pretty boys with kind brown eyes and jaime fits that description perfectly...so i decided to give him a lot of pining (that is definitely reciprocated), he has to be a big brave boy and confess 🫶🏾 also, this is placed before the events in the movie !

inspired by

hanging out with jaime has always been very warm, cozy, comfortable. ever since you were children when you'd spend weekends riding your bikes around the neighborhood, only to crash at one of your houses after having way too much food. it happened so frequently that it got to the point where it just was the new normal for both of your families (impromptu get togethers were very common).

the friendship you guys had only grown stronger with each year that passed and well- there were definitely feelings there that weren't strictly platonic now. you were trying your hardest to push them away though, and jaime was having the same issues...however neither of you dared to even threathen the sanctity of the bond shared by confessing. that is until one summer came along, you guys had gone to different universities, and even though you called and texted daily, summer was when you guys could actually hang out like the old days. and here you were, having gone to pick up jaime from the airport with the rest of the reyes. as he walked through the gate you let his family say their hellos first- it's safe to say he almost drowned in hugs and kisses, and when you finally got to say hello you didn't hold back with the bear hug either.

you missed him dearly, and the weird feeling of anxiety, excitement and happiness settled in your stomach as he squeezed you back and actually just fully picking you up. it made the feeling in your stomach even stronger.

"JAIME DIOS MÍO BÁJAME"

"Que no, don't wanna"

"okay so if that's how this is gonna go, cárgame bien, señor"

suddenly you guys were in your own world, talking and laughing and everyone could clearly see what was happening here. milagro was gonna have a field day with the teasing as soon as she had a chance. he ended up putting you down- but only after he carried you all the way to the car. it was embarrassing yes, but now as embarrassing as the older couple that chuckled as you walked past and talked to themselves in hushed voices about 'how sweet young love is' and how they wished they could go back in time and experience it all over again.

that got you both blushing...and made the drive back home for lunch a bit...strange. nothing really changed, you still sat together and chatted, but jaime couldn't stop thinking about what they had said. did you guys actually look like a couple? should he had said something to them? the fact that he didn't mind if they thought so made him feel warm and fuzzy.

two weeks pass, and while you've somehow managed to push away those fuzzy feelings, things have definitely flipped for jaime- and milagro did not help one bit. she woke up much earlier than he did, you did too, and it usually meant that as soon as he walked out into the kitchen he'd see you just having breakfast.

"buenas morning" you say, trying not to laugh cause his hair looked bonkers, but even if you found it hilarious, it was still endearing, and the fuzzy feelings you had to fight every single day before meeting him were back and they were looking for vengeance. and when he almost put his full body weight on top of you for a hug not caring that you were in the middle of eating? well, you felt like you were going to die. "mornin...." he didn't move off. "jaime." "Hmmm?" "get off of me and go shower, tenemos que encontrarnos con el grupo in like an hour". with one last, extremely dramatic sigh, he moves off and does as told. it's not like he didn't want to spend the day with you and some of your other friends, they were his friends too, but he would much rather stay in and chill.

not even two hours later and you guys are at the little picnic area everyone agreed to meet up at, playing silly games, chatting and just catching up! and jaime just wasn't feeling it, he couldn't really pinpoint the reason why until he sees how talkative and close you are with one of the guys there. okay. that's fine. it's just a hangout, nothing is happening, you definitely aren't flirting with him. thank god someone called the guy over cause he didn't know how much he could take.

"so how'd the flirting go?" he thought he sounded casual, calm, normal. he did not sound casual, calm or normal. he sounded upset and looked like a sad dog. "what flirting- what the hell happened to you? why do you look so sad? ¿qué pasó?" "hm? nothing." he shook his head, making you squint. okay, if he didn't want to tell you, then you'd just come up with absurd reasons as to why he would be upset. "¿tas celoso?" funny how you got it right first try. you don't know that, though. "what? no- ¿qué?" he prays to god the blush creeping up his neck isn't noticeable, prays it doesn't betray him. "Ayyyyy si es eso you don't have to be, tu sabes que you're irreplaceable" you laugh and god is definitely on his side cause you're called over a few second later by someone of the order people and he can feel his heart beating so fast he fears its gonna burst through his chest.

the hangout went by smoothly, he genuinely couldn't be happier, even if at first he didn't want to be there. he has to admit, he did miss his friends, so he's glad he could spend some time with them. now you guys are laying on his bed, chismeando and just debriefing when the topic of him being "jelous" came up again. maybe he could just do it. he knew it was risky, but....he was willing to take the chance. "....you know what? maybe i was. maybe i was very jelous, maybe i still kind-of am." he felt you sitting up and all he could do was pull a pillow over his face and keep this shit rolling "you've always made me feel so comfortable and...warm, and ive always loved you, but at some point i think it turned into love...? does that make sense- no- it's fine- okay- look i just- de verdad que me gustas mucho y pues no sé- i don't wanna fuck this up aunque creo que ya lo jodí-" he huffs and sits up to face you, looking embarrassed and flustered "you're so special to me and i really don't want to mess up the friendship we have, okay? but i'd just...i'd really like to be yours."

you aren't sure if you should just kiss him or shake him by the shoulders. so you settle for taking his hand in yours, feeling your face grow warmer- if that's even possible after that confession. "jaime, look at me." that boy is holding onto the pillow for dear life, using it to still obscure his face while he shakes his head. he's trembling. you use your other hand to grab his face and look at you "please, just kiss me" "really?" "si-" and he does, like he's been starving. he almost doesn't let you pull back even though you both need to breathe. "jaime mi amor, you will always be my favorite pretty boy and im so happy i can finally tell you."

#peachy thinks thoughts!#peachy talks into the void!#yeah im upset with this but i said id post it ://#still kinda cute though :') i fuck heavy with the yearning and cute crushes #and jaime is just fun to imagine in cute situations like that #jaime reyes #jaime reyes x reader #blue beetle (2023)#plus size reader #latina reader #again reitero ese tag y el de plus size #anyway #hope whoever reads this enjoys it #sorry its a lil slow and ends abruptly i would have kept it going but i wanted to keep it wholesome #ALSO #Spanglish #!!!!! YEAHHHHHH LETS GOOOO

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gatzbright · 2 months

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sweater weather

dnf fic, 1.6k, one shot, general, ao3 link [Established Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst With a Happy Ending, Fluff]

A cry escapes George’s lips. “Dream—” Dream brings George closer, holds his face in two large palms. “Tell me when you’re hurting, sweetheart,” he whispers thickly, “and I can try help.” George shakes his head. “No,” he says, weepy, “‘s’too much—” “Never,” Dream says. He holds George’s gaze. “You’re never too much—nothing you ever feel is ever too much.”

[Or, The tide brings in old feelings, and George feels the ache.]

#HI HI NEWFIC IMBACK I LIVEEEE LIKE MUSHU ITSBRUTNEY BITCH #words cannot explain hwo relieved i am to have finally written somthing cohesive after MONTHS of fucking writers blocklike oh man. itwas Ba #idk where this came frombut i puked it up into my doc this morning !!! posted a couple hours ago n finally doinb tumblr post after being #late to my destination n getting maccas n the road works fuckning me around for 15 mins !! WE WIN NETHERTHELESS !!!!!!#itsmmaking me cry everytime i say i puked up this fic imcsorry its funny ok #anyways HOPE WHOEVER READS ENJOYS N I HUG YOU<3333 i had a lot of fun writing this :) it was one of those times where the words just Flow #i can breathe easy now iam floating on Clouds i am CLOUDBUSTING !!!!!#ok bye mwah ik it is 3am est hashtag yolo #dnf #dreamnotfound #dnf fic #my writing

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leonscape · 2 months

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Lovers Swapped Personalities

Chemma or Emmalier?

Anyways, an alternate universe where Chevalier actually received loved from his mom and didn’t become the brutal beast.

Emma walked through the halls, minding her own business. She abruptly stopped when she saw tripwire in her path. With a sigh, she stepped over it and kept walking.

Pranks come with the territory of marrying into the royal family. Actually, even getting hired to work in the palace would subject you to Clavis’ pranks. Anyone in the palace was at the mercy of the third prince.

“You think you got away from that one huh?” Clavis asked Emma. She whipped around and frowned. “Well I apologize, but that isn’t the case.”

“What are you going on about?” Emma questioned.

“Well Chev and I teamed up on this one and we came up with quite the clever scheme,” Clavis said proudly.

Emma turned back around and continued walking. As she passed by a door, it opened and a bunch of rose petals exploded into her face from inside the room.

When the rose petals settled, Emma did not look amused. Chevalier popped out from behind the door. “I can’t believe you let him rope you into one of his pranks. Again,” Emma said.

“Chev is my big brother, of course he’d help me if I asked him,” Clavis said.

“Your shocked expression is adorable,” Chevalier told her. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, I had to see it again.”

“And we got to use the rose petals one last time before they get used to make rose water,” Clavis added, proud of himself. Emma shook her head at Clavis and walked away.

“All right, clean this up,” Chevalier ordered.

“Fine,” Clavis huffed and pouted.

When Chevalier caught up with Emma, he approached her with caution. “I’m sorry, please don’t be mad.”

“I do not understand why you entertain his foolish ideas,” Emma told him.

“He’s my little brother. No matter how foolish he seems, he’s my brother. I have to humor him,” Chevalier explained.

“I never had brothers or sisters, so I’m not familiar with this concept of foolishness.”

“He’s always been mischievous like this since we were little. My mother always encouraged me to entertain him.”

“I see…” Emma said.

“I apologize. I won’t involve you in his pranks from now on,” Chevalier told her.

“I’m not mad, just… annoyed, I think.” Emma told him. “Only a mere nuisance, that’s all.”

“It was supposed to make you smile.”

“I can’t see how exploding rose petals in my face was supposed to make me smile.”

“Okay, maybe it was actually to make me smile,” Chevalier laughed. “I love you.”

Emma’s lips cracked a smile in response and Chevalier’s smile widened.

#why is he becoming like leon #maybe i have a problem #i have leonitus or something #this warm chevalier thing is hard to do #because how would he really talk? or act?#anyways i tried and i hope whoever reads this enjoys it #ikemen prince #ikepri #ikemen series #ikemen prince chevalier #ikepri chevalier #ikemen prince fanfiction #ikepri fanfiction

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protags-fic-blog · 8 months

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August 26

—☽—

A/N: Ukyo's Good Ending retold. 2.5k words. I wrote this in about 3 days and it may be a little cringe but the point is to enjoy so enjoy >:)

—☽—

After another encounter with her scheming—no, just logical—boyfriend, he knew he couldn’t keep trying. The look in his eye told him this was enough, the look in her eye begged him to continue on, it was an everlasting conflict. Sometimes he just wished that he let her die. She was so peaceful then, not a single hint of discomfort on her face, but he was selfish, and wanted more.

The men always looked at him with a twinge of pity, as if they knew the lengths he was going for her, but they didn’t care. He was just a nobody, some guy who keeps to himself. In fact, he was a nobody, who was both eyeing their girlfriend with murder in his eye, and with adoration and love that only someone insane would do. A fitting adjective.

She looked at him with nothing. Her eyes were once windows in to her soul, and yet they were boarded up now. There was a hope that one day, she would remember everything, and come running in to his arms, and everything would go back to normal… but that was a stupid fantasy, wasn’t it? She was happy now, happy here, and nothing would change that. This version of her would live on.

The sun was just peeking above the buildings, casting the scarce clouds in a romantic pink and warming the earth for one of the last few nice days of what would be September. A few birds flew by overhead. There was a gentle breeze, blowing his hair enough to tickle his cheeks. He closed his eyes to enjoy the wafting scent of freshly baked goods and pollen from the blooming spider lilies. He allowed himself to smile for her, because he knew it would be the perfect day for her.

He threw himself from the roof.

There was a comforting peace that came with death. An acceptance of fate, even if only for a moment. For him, it meant the lesser of two evils. He’d die everyday for her. Of course… That wasn’t what always happened. But it was his breaks that made him want to push forward. For every time he hurt her, he would lay down his life for her tenfold.

“Ukyo.” Nhil’s voice echoed in his mind, a reminder that his mission had not yet been fulfilled. “I fear our tether is unwinding. This trip may be our last.”

He chose to remain silent. “If we do not carry on any more, let yourself return. Return to your world, follow your path of destiny, and let yourself love her one last time.”

He could let her die in his arms one last time, watch her take her final breath, and he could go with her. Let his body finally rest, and go wherever it is that spirits go. They could meet in the world beyond, forever in lover’s bliss. Would that be considered giving up? Giving in?

Maybe. But he was tired. Taking the coward’s way out wasn’t so bad. She was his other half, but they were doomed by fate.

“I’ve never seen anyone try so hard. I want you to be happy in your last life.”

Ukyo suppressed his tears. He couldn’t tell if his swelling of emotions stemmed from being relieved or sad. But neither changed that this would be over soon.

“Let’s go home.”

———

The name had a heart next to it. “Ukyo…” she said out loud. Pale green of his hair, the aquamarine of his eyes. His thin, tall body, and his lithe fingers. She wished she had the whole picture instead of these few fragments. She wanted to know him, who he was, what he meant to her.

For a long time, she always figured that if it’s easy to forget, it’s easy to leave out, but she had an inexplicable desire to know who he was. She scrolled through messages, taking in their story through the good morning texts, and the good night texts, and the midnight texts, sent wondering if it was too late to talk. If she wasn’t mistaken… there should’ve been a good morning text sent over an hour ago.

Orion peered over her shoulder. “Wow… this guy must really like you!” he exclaimed, almost excited to find someone who was definitively on your side. “These are old messages. Judging by them, he would normally send a message by now, but nothing. Maybe I should send one?” she asked, looking to the spirit for guidance.

He shrugged. “Aren’t you supposed to help me?” she asked, folding her arms. “I’m not a guardian angel, don’t get it twisted. Your love life is important, but regaining your memories comes first! Come here, I think I found your purse—it might have some information in it!” Orion said, ushering her over.

She unzipped her bag and pulled out her wallet, a strangely familiar process. Old habits die hard, right? Maybe this wouldn’t be complete amnesia then. If she could do mindless things, maybe she could find her way to work, or to school. A school ID. “Hey, I think that school is nearby! Maybe we should go visit?” Orion asked, looking to her for guidance.

She nodded before she dug through her purse again, finding a few more IDs, a couple membership cards, and a printed work schedule. “You’re free for a while too! Lucky lucky!” he grinned. She looked at him, and smiled back.

“Let’s go get my memories.”

———

She looked at him with her mouth hung open, as if she wanted to say something. There was a furrow in her brow, and she was searching for something. She didn’t remember. Every single time, she never remembered. Perhaps it was divine interference. Perhaps it was to carry out the universe’s plan. If she didn’t know him, she didn’t trust him, then she would die easier. But if she did know him, she did trust him, she would just die at his hands.

“Have you forgotten me?” he asked, hoping the answer was no, but praying the answer was yes.

She mumbled something, and glanced at the ground. “No, I remember. I just lost my train of thought, that’s all. What’s up?”

He shook his head. “Just out on a walk. Are you headed in to campus? You shouldn’t, it’s dangerous. Today and especially on the 25th.”

She nodded slowly, her eyes looking off to the side as if she didn’t want to meet him. She knew that he could tell she was suspicious of him. There was no way she remembered. “Hey, you didn’t send a message this morning. Is everything alright?”

Out of all the questions, that was one he didn’t expect. What was he supposed to tell her? That contact was too dangerous? Not to trust him? That it was just a different Ukyo? He could say they broke up, but that would be a lie that would send her in the complete wrong direction. He can’t tell her that only August is a threatening month, he can’t tell her anything! She was better in the dark, but in the dark, she was at risk. Nothing was perfect here, it was infuriating. But he had to say something. He took a breath in, then said, “I forgot to charge my phone.”

He was never a great liar, but this was embarrassing. “Well, um, I should go home. I’ll see you,” he stumbled, trying to save the conversation.

And he avoided her for 3 weeks. When he showed up to her work, he would be sure to only talk to her co-workers. When he saw her in public, he would dart away, hoping to lose her in the sea of people. When he received texts, he ignored them. Guilt grew in his stomach, rolling around, churning. He felt horribly sick. He couldn’t continue to deceive her. She deserved to know the truth, to understand what has happened, what continues to happen.

He decided it then, he was going to tell her. One of them would be dead by tomorrow anyway. He had to tell her, it was unfair to leave her in the dark.

With a deep breath, he picked up his phone and drafted the message. Once, twice, nope. This was definitely not something that was communicable over text. He had to see her.

Before he could think twice, he told her to meet him at 10. Her response came in seconds, not giving him the chance to rethink things. Where? He couldn’t just say ‘nevermind’, not now. This was a commitment that he made. Follow through.

‘The park.’

She sent a quick text back, and Ukyo felt his pit in his stomach grow deeper. He was putting her in danger. If she would just stay inside for the next four or so hours, she would survive. She would go on. But he was too selfish.

He didn’t want to go, but his legs wouldn’t stop. His body was set on going there—the universe found a way. He cringed in horror as he watched himself slip a knife in to the inside pocket of his jacket, screamed out as he stepped out the door, but it was like he was in a dream, watching himself do all of these horrible things, and not being able to stop himself, not being able to wake up.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, hoping to keep his hands away from the knife that he couldn’t seem to take out of his jacket. He searched once, and immediately found her in the dark. She stood under a streetlight, glancing around anxiously. Sometimes she would focus on something, then look away. She seemed to be questioning her decision to come… which she should.

“One of us dies tonight.”

———

She thought he was crazy at first, but when she glanced to Orion, he was slowly nodding his head. So she started listening, piecing the puzzle together, and creating the bigger picture. Then she remembered. She remembered everything.

A rush of nausea waved over her, and she fell forward, stumbling. “Are you okay?” Ukyo asked, holding her arms to balance her. She nodded, but it just made the headache worse. Everything came streaming back all at once.

Memories of cherished times, of despair, of painful love. Memories of meeting under the sakura tree, memories of holding his hand, memories of taking photos together, going to art fairs, visiting picturesque landscapes, everything she cared about now was Ukyo. Her whole world revolved around one person. Her heart belonged to him.

She looked up at him, finally seeing his true beauty. He gave her a soft smile, but it faltered. “Are you… Are you crying?” he asked, moving a hand to wipe her cheek.

Ukyo looked away, dropping his hand. “Don’t waste your tears on me. I don’t want your pity.”

He grabbed her neck with surprising force and she let out a strained choke. “If the world won’t kill you now, then someone has to!” he yelled, tightening his grip. In a last ditch effort, she moved her hand and struck him across the face.

He stumbled back, letting her go. “Ukyo!” she cried out, and he looked at her as if her words burned him. She took several steps back until the back of her legs were against the edges of the bushes. Something shined in the darkness, and with a creeping dread, she realized he had not come unprepared. She was too trusting, too naive. But… maybe it was her turn to die in his stead. If their fates were opposite, and he had traveled through so many worlds to let her live, it was about time for her to let him rest.

“Ukyo! It’s okay! Just do it!” she called, opening her arms wide. Anger flared in his eyes, and she knew that she couldn’t watch any longer. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the worst.

She could almost feel the cool blade against her skin. But nothing happened. She opened her eyes, wondering if this was all a dream, and saw him, standing inches away, the knife hovering just above her skin.

She looked him in the eye, and he closed them in shame. As a final act against the world, he willed his arms to shove the knife in to his chest, doubling over in pain.

In his silence, she screamed. She tried to catch him as he fell, but crumpled beneath his dead weight. Her bare knees sank in to the grass, and she pulled Ukyo’s body closer to her, resting his head on her thighs. When she pulled her hands away, they were wet with blood. Loose blades of grass and specs of dirt stuck to her hands. “Ukyo…” she whimpered, brushing his bangs away from his eyes.

He stared back at her with his aquamarine eyes, but they had lost their luster. He was fading away. “Ukyo!” she screamed in to the sky, but her voice was not heard.

A faint touch to her hand, and she looked back down at him. “It’s okay. It’s over for me anyway. For my last time, all I wanted was to see you survive. Live a happy life,” he told her, rubbing the back of her hand.

She stared back at him, watching as her world died in her arms. “I can’t live happy with you. Please, Ukyo, you have to, you have to!” she pleaded.

He didn’t respond. She didn’t want to know if it was because he was too weak, or because he was dead. She pulled his limp body closer to hers, cradling him. Blood still pouring from his wounds stained the area around them, but she couldn’t care less.

“Whatever god is out there, hear my plea. Let him live, please. Don’t take him. I don’t care what he’s done, I don’t care at all, just let him live!” she wailed.

The world was silent then. No tree frogs or crickets released a call, no wind rustled the leaves. No owl dared to ask who?, no person considered to look out their window and ask what?, nothing. The world was silent. She couldn’t even hear a heartbeat.

Any adrenaline leftover from the furor of the night was gone. Her body gave up on her, and she slowly let herself lay down on the dirt. “Ukyo…” she whispered, then cried.

The next morning, she was still clinging to him. The park was still silent, but the rising sun was a warning that people would be coming soon. She didn’t know what to do, so she did the only thing that felt natural at that point. She closed her eyes again and buried her face in the neck of her lover. ‘It’s over.’

Her eyes snapped open, and she untangled herself from Ukyo, looking around to see who could’ve spoken, but nothing had changed. The park was still empty. She glanced down at Ukyo’s body, wondering if she was hearing things, when she saw the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Her mouth hung open in disbelief, but she refused to get her hopes up yet. She was obviously in denial, she was seeing what she wanted to see, she knew it was just a trick of the mind. But as his eyelids fluttered, she knew this was real. He blinked once, then twice, then glanced at her and smiled.

“It’s over.”

#ukyo amnesia #amnesia memories #happy august 26 yall the heroine lives bitch #protag-writes #l8r sk8r #yes i left her unnamed what are you gonna do about it #anyway i hope whoever reads this enjoys it!!

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thatcrazycrowgirl · 1 year

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Hello, dear Crowie! 💕 I'm very curious; for the Fanfiction Work-In-Progress Guessing Game, please tell us if there's a **pastry** hidden in your WiP somewhere? ;) Thank you!!! 💕

Hi there, Susie dear! Thanks for dropping in! 😁 *offers a plate of said pastries*

To my surprise, I couldn’t find anything at first, but after another quick search, something came up! (Ok, there’s waaay more than one sentence here, but I like giving context - even when it’s just for a quick excerpt.) Anyway, hope you enjoy this bit from an extremely old Syndicate piece! 💕

"Uh…actually, if you recall, I believe the two of us had a rendezvous this morning?" He hopped up to sit on the counter, paying no mind to the fact that it was covered in baking flour, before continuing, "So, I was doing some thinking on the way over, and I thought perhaps for starters, you and I could take a little walk along the Thames…maybe stop for some Elevensies at that café you like so much? Pier's, was it?" He smiled at her. Her face saddening, Magnolia wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of flour in its wake. "Sorry, Jacob, I'm afraid we'll have to cancel our date," she reluctantly declined, turning to look at him. His smile dropped. "What? Why?" She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, towards the direction of the door that lead into the dining room of the lodging house her family owned. Even through the door, the muffled sounds of people talking up a storm could be heard. "It's this huge influx of people we have at the moment, both borders and folks just in off the street - and with my father and younger sister out running deliveries, my mother has no one else to help her but me," she explained, wiping her hands on her apron. "That's why I couldn't send word to you - I've just been too busy." Jacob's shoulders slumped in disappointment. He had been looking forward to their date all week. "Well, your father and sister should be back soon, right?" he said hopefully. "No guarantee of that. Ever since my father came up with the idea of selling our homemade pastries as a side business, orders have been pouring in from half of the district. You should've seen the load he and Millie were carrying out this morning!" she almost laughed. She then lightly slapped the side of Jacob's thigh. "Move, I need this space." Jacob obeyed, jumping down from the counter.

#this was started early last year and still hasn't been completed - and it wasn't even intended to be a long story lol #just a short one #anyway I hope whoever reads this enjoys it!#thanks again for the ask Susie!#ask replies #Jacob Frye x OC #AC OC: Magnolia #my ac writings

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putergenius · 1 year

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#looking at the tag n posts I have for C and like….im about to sob ahsbsjs #like damn he’s rlly been apart of my life for this long….phew #im screaming one of the first posts im like idk if I rlly like him or if it’s the tequila HELP😭#that’s the loml I fear….he’s got pages worth of posts on this n my sideblog like….down despicable. anyone would be!!#i don’t wanna get all sappy on a random saturday in may it’s just….ahh im feeling so much rn I have so much I wanna sayyy😭#anyway….hope whoever’s reading this is enjoying their weekend<3 #mine

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idkhyperfixations · 2 years

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Chapter 5 is up!! Here’s a little preview for those that want it:

Fic is Can’t Start a Fire Without a Spark on ao3

#anyway I gotta go get some cleaning done but I hope whoever is still reading my fic loses their shit this chapter #like I lost my shit writing it lmao okay enjoy<3 #dev does writing #steve x eddie #stranger things fanfiction

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luvwestwood · 14 days

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❝ SAVE A COW, MILK THE ...!? ❞ - Choso Kamo

— (18+) .. SEEMS LIKE THE LOCAL MILKMAN HAS A DIFFERENT TYPE OF MILK IN STORE FOR YOU.

ᯓ★ warnings. (18+), milkman! choso, msub to mdom, overstimulation, titty jobs, p in v, resolved sexual tension, oral (m rec), squirting, slow burn, praising, slight? creampie, suggestive language and actions

ᯓ★ notes. I made choso soo whiny in this I fear.. please beware, there is a LOT of irony in this LMAOO.. plus I need him real bad I think u can tell, anyways hope u all enjoy, this was my 1.4k gift <3

4,862 words (17m read)

please check out and support the actual artists piece on twt!/ig, - @/iamdebruh! + art (center of heading) is by @/yunonoai on twt.

Eggs, sugar, heavy cream, flour, vanilla extract and.. and..?

You analyse the countertop carefully, eyes flickering over each ingredient you had pulled out of the grocery bags less than a minute ago.

"Let's try this again.." Sticking a finger out, you point at the produce one by one, performing a routine of a silly head-count. "Okay- eggs, sugar, heavy cream, flour, vanilla extract and…" Your index finger lands on an empty space that was yet to be filled, and finally, it registers into that brain of yours.

"Oh, how could I possibly forget the milk?!" You cry out in pure distraught, scanning the other countertops in hopes of accidentally misplacing it somewhere instead. Pretty useless though, as no sudden miracle was to be found anywhere.

Groaning, you bury your face into the palm of your hands— mentally cursing at yourself for forgetting one of the vital ingredients for the cream pie, how could you?

Hissing as you pace around the kitchen, you open the fridge with brutal force, head close enough to imploding as you rummage inside for a drop of milk to be found.

"There's no way I'm making a second trip. Not with these gas prices." You whisper to yourself, drawing your head back from being stuck deep inside the fridge, using the curve of your ass shut the doors.

Nibbling on your fingernails, you take one more glance at the ingredients on the counter; contemplating whether you should head back, give up fully and try another day, or….

ding dong!

Hand on hip, your head darts to one side, towards the sound of the doorbell. Who could it be?

Dragging your feet to the front door, you reach over by your side to the console table; digging your hands into the glass bowl for your keys.

Another knock sounds from the door, a deep voice speaking from behind it. “..Delivery!”

As you fiddled with the lock, you glanced over to the clock on the wall; reading exactly half past four in the afternoon. You weren't expecting anyone, really. You usually kept to yourself on Fridays, just to relax from a week’s worth of busy work.

Taking a swift look into the peephole, you could only see the glass covered with white— it seems that whoever is outside is clearly blocking the view.

The door opens widely, revealing a familiar figure you tend to see a few times each week— the milkman. You take note of the few beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, unable to be hidden by his cap. Did he.. run here?

Dark brown hair, tickling the top of his shoulders; cap embellished with "Milkman" just before the brim. Covered in white, bar his black pants. You recall that he goes by the name Choso, a piece of valuable information you managed to pull out of him during an interaction only a few weeks ago.

You must admit, your milkman was quite decent looking for someone with a position like his, and the cute bow tie encircled around his neck depicted him to look sweet and dandy. Wait, there's no way I'm swooning over my local milkman right now.

"Oh, Choso- How could I forget?!" You chirp, seems as if he came at the most ideal time you could possibly think of. "What a coincidence, just in time for my cream pie!"

His biceps scream against the fabric of his short-sleeves, begging to be let out as he tightens his grip around the neck of the glass bottle. "I-in time for your what?" Ears painted with a tinge of red, he looks shocked, more on the flustered side.

Letting out an anxious giggle, you point back behind you with the use of your thumb. "Sorry- I meant I was just about to bake a cream pie right now, and I realised I forgot the milk." Looking over your shoulder, then back at him, he smiles back; clearly flustered over the misunderstanding.

"R-right, I apologise, it's been a really long day.." He hands over the bottle, slightly crouching down to pick up his carrier that rested at his feet. "You're actually my last delivery today, they let me off early cause of the work I've done this week."

Holding the door open with your foot, you carefully place the jug on the same console table behind you, smiling to yourself as he went on a tangent about all the things he had accomplished this week— as if he was expressing genuine content rather than boasting.

"Well someone has been a good boy this week, huh?" You innocently beam at him, Choso's knuckles growing white as he clenched the carriers handle. He seems appreciative of the comment, but looks as if he wasn't used to receiving any.

"..Yeah.." Diverting his gaze away from you, he decides to stare down at the top of his shoes, until something you say has his eyes darting back up at you in a split second. The air so thick with tension, the two of you suddenly stay silent.

Humming before you speak your words, you ponder and wonder if your offer was a bit out of line. "..Would you like to come in for a bit? I could really use some help in the kitchen," Not hearing an immediate response from him, you add on, "You could have some of my cream pie afterwards. It would be a workout going down all those steps again, I assume!"

Choso reaches a free hand behind his head, scratching at his nape in contemplation. He knew that you were referring to the endless flights of stairs that were nothing but a nuisance to him as he tried to get to your apartment.

The fact that you had been the only customer in this entire apartment block, didn't have any effect on him though— as it was you he was looking forward to see each time he's out on the job.

Each time he dropped the same jug of milk at yours, only meant that his low lying interest in you would continuously grow, to the point that he couldn't think of anything else, but you. The man was whipped.

He wanted to get to know you better, but couldn't muster up the courage. He felt as if there never an appropriate time to do so, and the fact he landed a job as milkman, the guy assumed that you thought of him very little.

“I.. don’t know if I should..” He mumbles, anxiety and hesitation written all over his face— so easily read.

You roll your eyes, now leaning a shoulder against the doorframe, Choso slightly taking a step back to refrain from crossing a certain line with you so up close. “Come on, it’s not like I’ll get back to your boss with this!”

Crashing at yours for a bit meant that he'd finally have the opportunity to spend some time with you. Little steps, am I right? He couldn't miss out on something like this. Only a fool would do so.

"..I-I'd love to help you with your cream pie." He blurts out, lips parted due to solely being mesmerised. The two of you gawk at each other for longer than intended, but it doesn’t allow things to turn awkward. Was it the choice of words? The tone? What was it, really?

You blankly stare at him for a second longer than he did, nodding in approval. You had very little hope in him actually saying yes. "..Alright, come in." Beckoning at Choso, you step aside, noticing how he hesitates for a moment, just before he enters at his own will.

You watch as he walks further into the apartment, stopping considerably at a point just to not go out of bounds.

Your own eyes trail down his back, surprisingly so broad, that was now facing you. Having to peel your gaze away, you safely lock the door, dropping the key back into the dish beside you.

Grabbing at the jug, you make your way past Choso; taking yet another glance behind your shoulder for reassurance, just to see him trailing behind you like an obedient puppy.

"Make yourself feel at home, don't be shy!" You remarked, stepping around the kitchen island as you gathered the ingredients back onto the counters; Choso stopping just by the stools in front of you. He seemed all quiet and timid, even doing a double take before he decides to place his carrier on a stool beside him.

He sets aside his cap, politely tucking it away into his carrier before calling for you from across the island. “So.. Is there anything I could help with..?” Extremely eager to assist you in your endeavours, he found it so absurd that he was literally with you, right now, in your own apartment.

“I’m okay for now, just relax for the time being.” Your tone reassuring, you continue your current task as soon as you flash him another smile.

Swiftly putting some ingredients into a bowl, you still occasionally glance up at Choso— the second time round, you didn't even notice that he was already situated beside you, his hands gripping at the edge of the counters as he watched your every move.

"..Hmm, you ever made a cream pie, Choso?" You blurt out, carefully sieving the flour into yet another bowl. You must admit, your words intentionally had a different meaning to them. It was funny, and you knew he would flip out; his burning gaze at the side of your head being unavoidable.

His cheeks flash hot, words stumbling after one another. "I uh, haven't, no.." His voice growing small, you were right in thinking that he thought of a different kind.

Choso mentally argued with himself for doing so, as now wouldn't be the best time to feel his cock strain against his pants. He had to immediately swat the thoughts away, as they were already tight enough. "..Have you?"

His sudden reply had your sieving come to a halt as you slowly looked up to him next and you; just to see that he was still doing the same. Staring into his eyes, you try to think of an answer, swallowing the lump in your throat in the midst of it all.

"..No, I haven't." Your words come out in a whisper, noticing how his eyes alternate between yours and your parted lips. "I've never made one.. It's my first time today." Blinking slowly, you grow timid, your eyes making its way back to the bowl.

Resting your two hands flat down on the counter, Choso's breath hitches— his finger reaching down towards your chin. Guiding you to properly look up, he slightly crouches down to close the space between you two, and in a split second, your lips latch onto each other.

Eyes squeezing shut, you melt into the kiss, wrapping both arms around his neck to bring him closer; Choso letting out a subtle grunt as he hesitates about where to place his hands.

"I.. wanna touch you,” Resting his forehead against yours, his voice trembles, finishing with a helpless crack. Choso was practically begging you, and something about that just had you over the edge. "You don't know how much I've been wanting this.. I need you.. please..”

And he wasn’t lying. He wondered how your soft skin felt to his touch. He always wondered whether he would ever be able to have the chance to make you feel good.

Breathing heavily against his lips, you just nod hysterically, and in less than a second he slithers both hands under your ass, hoisting you into his embrace as he gently places you on the counter beside.

Your lips crash onto each others once again, Choso feeling up and down your body, his demeanor showing how much he's been wanting this for ages. He couldn't even believe it himself. You? Allowing him to have you? Is he dreaming?

A mewl escapes your lips as he cups your face into his hands, his ticklish kisses eventually moving down to your neck, the way he touches you seem so tender, and genuine, Choso didn't want to rush anything. He wanted to savour you.

He anchors himself between your legs— chest heaving so intensely from pure excitement. Meanwhile, you strip your top off, Choso swallowing a lump as he processes the fact that you had nothing else underneath this whole time.

He wastes no time, eagerly latching his mouth onto a breast, groaning as he firmly shuts his eyes, tongue relentlessly swirling around your nipple. His free hand fondles with the other as you comb your fingers through his hair, caressing it gently to let him know he's doing a good job.

You let out a string of breathy moans, a pop sounding from his mouth as he lets go. Pausing for a moment, you try stabilise your breathing, confusion written on his face.

"The sofa," You pant, Choso doing more so the same; his brows furrowed in despair as he yearns for more of you. "Let's move to the sofa.."

And he nods, beckoning you to wrap your legs around his torso once again, your arms being used as support to cling to him. You rest your head against his chest for a split second, allowing you to hear the ecstatic pace at which his heart was going at.

His feet stops just before the sofa, giving you the opportunity to drop back down, in which you suddenly grab his hand and pull him along. Choso seems perplexed, until you gently push him down onto the sofa by the chest, and he could do nothing but stare at you in pure adoration.

"Just relax yourself, okay?" Your voice soft, you kneel after he nods obediently, more than happy to agree with whatever you say.

You don’t dare look away, fingers toying at his belt buckle; which soon enough you end up undoing. Choso was about to lose his mind, and it took a lot in him to not leak right here, right now.

Tugging on the waistline of his pants, the man shifts his hips around to allow for more leeway. His mouth remains open as quiet, irregular huffs slip out, so eager to experience the very next thing you'll be doing.

Stopping as soon as his pants met his ankles, you smile, noticing the wet spot that had formed on his boxers— your hand gently rubbing up and down his protruding bulge. A whimper chokes out of him as he shuffles around a bit more, causing him to bite down on his bottom lip to suppress any more moans. He was too afraid to admit that anything you do has him melting.

All he could do was look down at you between his legs in bliss. Choso just couldn't believe it, and this was definitely not how he expected to end his evening.

His boxers follow after his pants, feeling him shudder under your touch as he comes into contact with the cold air. You shift around upon seeing his throbbing, leaking tip; not letting anymore time pass as you wrap your mouth over it, your satisfied humming sending vibrations to and through him.

Looking up to observe a reaction, Choso only slaps a hand over his mouth, groaning into it as his face returns to the same, crimson red; his other hand shaking as he tries to rest it on the back of your head.

Your head bobs up and down, cheeks hollowing and a free hand kneading at his balls for extra stimulation— Choso endlessly whimpering into his palm as his head falls back into the cushions, eyes eventually closing as he floated around in a pool of pleasure.

Buckets of spit trickled down your chin as you continued sucking him off, Choso squirming in the seat from time to time, his legs unable to stay still. You decide to take another peek, looking at him one more time, and thought to yourself; he seemed cute with the bowtie still on, his actions causing a flutter in your abdomen.

"Mmh," Muffled, as he was too busy suppressing a loud moan, he gives up, hand leaving his mouth to grab onto the sofa behind him. His other free behind your head tightens its grip, Choso suddenly fucking his hips up from the sofa, his teeth gritting as helpless grunts try to slip out. "Cu.. I'm gonna.. Uh.."

Your two hands suddenly place flat onto his thighs as he fucks into your throat, Choso's array of whines intensifying as he feels his balls contracting constantly, his face so warm to the touch.

So helpless, his two hands sets its place into your scalp, Choso bottoming his cock into your throat as he lets out a lengthy moan as a familiar feeling he had never felt washes through his body.

Tears welling up in your eyes, you mentally note to yourself to continue breathing through your nose, Choso’s prolonged groan causing a pool between your legs. You feel a rope of warm fluid shoot down your pipes, your hands repeatedly slapping at his thighs for a sliver of air.

His head hauling back down, he didn’t look the same as he did a few minutes ago— Choso’s eyes low and dark as he pulls you off his cock, a questionable grunt coming from him as he takes note of your fucked up face.

He tried his best not to laugh as you shot him a deathly glare, and of course failed. His smile fades, turning into horror as he watches you slide his cock in the midst of your cleavage, lip quivering as you drop an orb of your own spit on his tip that was slightly peeking out.

Choso’s hands grip at a cushion nearby on the sofa as you began to clamp your breasts together around his cock, moving them both up and down— throaty whimpers instantly emitting from him as you reinforced the stimulation on his still sensitive girth.

“Nghh—,” He cries out, mouth left gaped as he felt yet another foreign knot forming in his stomach; somehow identical to what he felt before orgasm, but just stronger.

“It’s too.. too much,” His words come out in a whisper, Choso’s let’s stamping the sides of your arms as you were anchored between them— his whiny voice trembling as he felt yet another impending orgasm that was about to hit him even harder.

A devilish smile plasters onto your face as you occasionally stuck a tongue out to chafe over his throbbing tip, Choso only able to let out deep grunts this entire as he occasionally looked down at you in a state of euphoria.

“Agai-n, I’m.. cum..” Incapable of finishing a sentence, his tit engulfed cock twitches, much thicker ropes of white shooting up into the air, dropping back down into your chest as it splatters droplets everywhere.

Choso’s head feels heavy at this point, his eyes lazily scanning his surroundings as he spots you decorated with the white drops that somehow managed to make its way to your face too.

Getting back to his senses, he attempts to sit up, legs still weak but with enough strength, his first instinct was to tend to you; the same hands clawed in your scalp making its way back to your cheeks as he kissed you so lovingly, his teeth nipping at those lips that were wrapped around his cock a few minutes ago.

Him being the first to pull always, it seems Choso has a request of his own. “..Get on the sofa,” he instructs, no sign of a stutter left to be heard within his words.

Chewing on your bottom lip, you beam a sinister smile as your aching knees rise off the ground— followed by you throwing yourself onto the sofa beside him.

You watch as he slightly jerks his cock, his eyes watching you take your turn obey orders. Raising your hips slightly to make things easier, you stripped the last of your garments; kicking away your underwear to the other side of the room.

Choso mirrors your actions, kicking off his shoes and trousers as he follows with his knee settling between your legs. You look up and survey his every move as his fingers yank at his bow tie, loosening it overall— his hands still trembling as he attempts to undo all buttons of his shirt.

You giggle, reaching down playfully toying with yourself as you place a foot on his bicep, shamelessly exposing your pussy even more to him as he peered down at you in utter silence.

Finally stripping away his shirt, the bow tie keeps its place and hangs around his neck— your impatient self subtly grinding against his thigh— your slick evidently leaving a mark on his skin.

“Just fuck me, Choso..” You whisper, sticking a finger into your leaking hole that has been that way ever since you made out with each other. Your words examined his ability to maintain his composure, Choso felt that it was time you did the things he wanted you to do.

His breathing hitches, Choso sucking in a breath as he leans in closer, as he guides the tip of his cock to align with your hole. An unoccupied hand grabs your legs, hoisting both on each of his shoulders.

Folding you into a mean mating press, your arms encircle his back, your moans tickling the shell of his ears as he slid himself in— throaty grunts also sounding from him.

Choso begins to move his hips slowly, your mouth gasping at his girthy cock stretching you out completely— his face buried into the crook of your neck as his hot breath fanned against your skin.

“Faster.. faster Choso..” You plead, his hips immediately snapping into you at a faster pace, his lowly grunts returning to the familiar whimpers as your gummy walls wrapped around his entire length. Feeling him in your gut, you chant his name like a prayer, Choso doing his best to fuck you in all the right spots.

A loud moan slips past your lips, your manicured nails scratching at his chiselled back like a kitty and it’s scratch post. As he fucked you into the sofa, something similar to a growl was heard from him as you dragged your nails down his entire back; surely leaving an evident trace of you behind.

Seemingly not enough for him, he uses his knuckles by your sides to prop himself up- Choso grabbing your ankles into the grasp of one hand and pushing them down further and infront of him this time.

On the verge of losing his mind, Choso’s hips brutally fuck into you, his cock deeper than ever— a white, creamy ring forming at his shaft.

His heart races at the sight of his thick cock disappearing in and out of you down below, Choso almost hypnotised at the sights as if he were eyeing a pendulum. His hand lets go of your ankles, grabbing for the edge of the sofa above your head— cock drilling you mercilessly into the cushions.

You mewl and whine, utilising maximum strength to keep your eyes open and hold a good view of Choso, his free thumb reaching down to swipe a stripe on your cheek as he coos a few praises at you.

The position you were in as of now had been churning both of your minds, Choso admittedly finding it difficult to continue fucking into you as he was about to cum at any given moment.

“Fuck,” he sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, eyes looking into yours as he studied your facial expressions, “So pretty,” Your cheek eventually fits into his palm as he fluctuates the pace at which he was fucking into you— nothing but satisfaction and adoration to be seen in his eyes.

His hips rut into your hole slow and deep, your hands grabbing at his wrists as you felt him bullying your cervix— cock endlessly rubbing between your walls, tip seldomly hitting against your sweet spots.

The legs of the sofa creak against the floor boards, eventually beginning to scoot itself to another side of the room. You couldn’t care less about consequences you might face with the downstairs neighbours tomorrow.

Strands of his hair stick to his forehead and temples, your fingers hooking around the strap of his necktie to pull in him closer, your lips yearning to have his on yours.

Your walls uncontrollably clench around his length, Choso’s head falling back in bliss; his mouth emitting short, overwhelmed breaths for a few seconds.

Your tits press against his chiselled chest as he fucks you silly, almost as if it was payback for treating him like he was clueless. Did you really think he’d let you boss him around?

Choso’s leans down once again, mouth sucking and leaving marks all over your breasts as he feels himself coming to one of his many orgasms today— buckets of sweat glistening over his physique like a glossy finish.

You grab at his bicep, slapping it repeatedly to give him notice of your impending orgasm— Choso planting a wet kiss on your lips to quickly swallow the ‘O’ your mouth had formed.

He instantly slides his cock out of your hole, taking his length into his fist as he pumps himself slow. His fingers fan over your clit as he ushered you to orgasm and make a mess, so desperate to have you cum all over him. Alternating between sticking his middle and ring finger inside, Choso curls his digits up as he jerks his fingers inside of you.

Your head peers down to see his forearms flexing with his every move, your eyes rolling to the back of your head; squelching noises coming from your pussy.

“Don’t…don’t do that-“ Your brows furrow, lips returning to its O shape as you attempted to hold his wrist as he continued to curl his fingers into you. He knew what he was doing. Choso wanted to make you squirt.

His pleas fucking your mind to an extent, it felt like a mixture of bliss and torture— your eyes struggling at this point to remain open.

“..Come on,” He urges, so needy as he strokes his cock as in-front of you as he watches how you unravel underneath him; Choso slapping his heavy length on your inner thigh whenever he has the chance. “Come on pretty, let go—“

“O-oh, Choso—“ You squeal, fingers reaching and scraping at his pelvis as he got back at you for fucking him up to overstimulation. Your nipples sore and perky, he had to resist the urge to suck on them again.

He spits out his words closely together, pressing his forehead against yours for the second time as you peered your eyes up into his.

“Come on, come on- that’s it,” Choso cooing at you as you released your juices all over his fingers, a sob could be heard from you as a hot flush rushes through your body.

His hand absolutely soaked as he pulls out, Choso nonchalantly wraps his mouth around his fingers, sucking on your slick— his saliva mixing in with the shining fluid that covered his hands.

Pulling you closer to his pelvis by hooking his two hands around your thighs, Choso slips himself back into your hole— your inner thighs soaking with juices.

A mutter of curses under his breath, Choso absolutely loved your warm walls taking his cock whole, his girthy length moving with ease due to the present slick.

Choso was on the verge of losing his mind once again as he realised that he literally got you to squirt less than a few seconds ago, his cock desperately throbbing all over again.

His cock fucks in and out of you, this time cautiously slow as he made sure not to cum inside of you— your clenching walls making it a difficult task for him.

Too sensitive, Choso pulls his cock out with haste, slapping his tip against your clit as he released his own load just outside of your pussy. His entire face flooded with rouge, cock profusely leaking; his grunts in synchronisation with his throbbing balls.

With the use of his tip, Choso pushes the load back into your hole, his cock completely stilling inside for the time being.

Your mind in a daze, you let out a sigh, Choso’s hand caressing up and down the side of your legs as he remained anchored between them.

“We literally just fucked off with the baking. Went and did a whole other cream pie…” You scoff, hanging your head off the sofa, an upside down view of your kitchen filling your vision— everything still left exactly how it was on the countertop.

Silently laughing, Choso takes your leg into his grasp, his head turning to the side as he plant a kiss on your calves. Bringing a hand down to your hole, he stuffs a digit or two in, scooping a few beads of his cum allowing it to coat his fingertips before moving his hand closer to your lips.

“..Milk delivery,” Choso chimes, mimicking his first words from outside your door earlier.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⤳ © luvwestwood ‘24 . all works are owned by me, and originally come from my own head. please do not repost on a third party platform.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⤳ as always, thank you for the love on each and every one of my posts! it means the world to me. ily all soo soo much!

[luvwestwood masterlist]

#choso kamo smut #choso kamo x reader #choso smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #choso kamo #jujutsu kaisen choso #choso kamo x female reader #choso x reader

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mymarsmoonandstars · 1 year

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🙃

#so i completely posted something that was meant to stay in my drafts for a lot longer #i kept editing and rediting and hit post when i thought the button would say save draft #i'll take it as a sign that the story was ready to be posted #anyway to whoever reads it i hope you enjoy #no im not shy you are lol

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fawn-paws · 2 years

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I’m sick of people trying to speak about shit they know NOTHING about so I’m just gonna rant for a sec lmao

Celiac is not an allergy, it is not an intolerance, it is not pickiness, it is an AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE.

Gluten is not ALIVE so high heat cannot KILL it. Gluten cannot be WASHED OUT or removed from foods that contain it. Low gluten or gluten-friendly is not the same as gluten free. European wheat is no different than any other wheat.

Please fucking trust people who know more about their bodies and the foods they cannot eat, I PROMISE you that they have researched these things and know MUCH MORE about it than you do.

And just for fun I’m gonna do a quick dumbed-down explanation of what gluten and celiac disease are because people wanna act so fucking ignorant.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye malt, and other similar grains. You can literally just google what contains gluten. It cannot be removed or washed out or cooked out or brewed out of food.

People with celiac disease have an autoimmune response to gluten. If even a particle of gluten is consumed, the body releases antibodies that attack the lining of the small intestine. This does more than just make someone sick or tummy hurt. This destroys the lining that absorbs vitamins and nutrients into the body. Meaning the body is basically killing itself and making it so no matter how much food you eat or what vitamins you take your body will not absorb it all and it can lead to really horrendous side effects. And it can take a long time to regrow the lining and start absorbing nutrients better lol. And even longer to recover from all the shit that came along with it.

And when I say even a particle, I’m not exaggerating. We can’t even have food that has touched the same equipment that processes gluten, much like people with food allergies. Heat cannot kill it, only soap and water can wash it away. Some people have service dogs that alert them if there is gluten in a food or on equipment. I’ve seen a service dog alert to gluten being on a plate that had been washed in a dishwasher. So dishes and such need a very thorough cleaning. It’s no joke.

Many people with celiac can become disabled if they continue to eat gluten, like myself. I’m lucky I didn’t end up worse, like not being able to use my intestines and needing a colostomy bag, but it still went unchecked for years and I had no idea why my body was slowly deteriorating until I got diagnosed.

So please, stop trying to speak on a subject you clearly know nothing about. Trust people when they tell you about their medical conditions. We’re not stupid. We know what we’re talking about and your lack of basic understanding of food is showing. Please learn more about food next time you wanna say stupid shit. Look out for your loved ones with celiac and don’t shame them or make fun of them or call them dramatic or picky. Stick up for them instead. Thanks

#this is aimed at some dumbasses on Instagram but I hope whoever reads enjoys my bitter sounding pissbaby rant lmfao #there’s not many things I hate more than being made to feel like I’m stupid #actually there aren’t any things I hate more than that. I hate being patronized and infantilized too. and shamed and teased. like lol #fuck off I know what I’m talking about :3c #anyway anyone on tumblr reading this im not aiming it at u. I just haven’t had a good rant in a while lmao

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cullens-babe · 2 years

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The Rise of Bloom Lavellan

Chapter 9: Accepting Help

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Hope you enjoy!

Now, there are time skips here, so they are explained at the end, okay? With ages provided! And there is proofreading, but forgive me if some stuff is messed up or wrong.

Reblogs and likes are always appreciated!

"Hello," Bloom said quietly as she reached the girl. She was a littles behind her and spoke quietly to not scare her.

"I don't want to talk. I need a moment by myself," she said roughly.

"Not very friendly, I see," Jahel said.

"Is something wrong?" Bloom asked politely.

The girl idly kicked her feet in the water. "It doesn't matter. I shouldn't be talking to you any way," she said.

"Is she another one of the 'I hate mages' type?" Jahel wondered. He'd spied on a lot of conversations when Bloom couldn't, and he'd seen plenty of dislike in the Circle.

Bloom sat next to her and let her feet soak in the water. "Why?"

The girl looked up at her and scowled. "Because! It's inappropriate. How do you not know that?"

She tilted her head. "How is it inappropriate? We can just be friends," she stated.

"No, we can't."

Bloom furrowed her brows. "Yes, we can," she said stubbornly.

The girl rolled her eyes and looked back at the water.

"No come back?" Bloom asked. She sighed when the girl didn't respond, and she eventually got up. She knew the girl didn't want to continue, so she didn't force her. She got up quickly and went back to her original spot.

"Bloom! Where did you go?" Michaela asked.

She walked back to her spot and found her two friends holding fists full of flowers. She smiled at their eagerness and waved them off. "I was just talking to someone, but it's not too important." She sat down in front of them and grabbed her pile of flowers. "How about we get started?"

"Hello, Miss Nella!" Bloom said as she joined her teacher for her lesson. They came back from being outside, and she entered her regular room, but stopped when she saw Irving speaking with Nella.

They both stood at Nella's desk, looking over a small piece of paper. They both looked up in surprise at Bloom's call.

"Oh! Good afternoon, Bloom," Nella said with a smile.

"Good afternoon! And hello First Enchanter." She bowed her head with respect at Irving, in which he smiled in return.

"Good afternoon, Bloom."

"What are they planning?" Jahel wondered.

"What?"

"Why is First Enchanter Irving here? He doesn't pop up unless he has something important to say or is checking on us."

Bloom walked to be in front of their desk and she looked at the paper. "What is this?" She tilted her head as she tried to read upside down.

"It's good news, dear," Nella said with a bright face.

"See! Something is going on!" Jahel said.

Irving picked up the paper, removing it from her view, and patted her on the head. "I was asking Nella if I could take you under my wing."

Bloom stared for a moment as she took in his words. "What?"

"Irving will be teaching you from now on."

Her face brightened and she jumped up and down. "Really?!"

He laughed at her excitement and steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. "Yes. But you won't be alone, so don't be afraid."

"Is there another student?"

"Yes. But I won't tell you who."

"But why not tell me now?" She whined.

The adults laughed before Irving turned her around and began to lead her out the room. "What's the fun in knowing everything right away? Besides, you'll like the surprise."

"Oh, okay!" She said excitedly. She stopped for a second and turned around and waved at Nella. "I'll see you later, Miss Nella! Thank you!"

Nella waved back with a smile. "I'll see you later, Bloom. And thank you for being a good student."

She turned back around with her spirits high and followed Irving to the library.

"I know who it is!" Jahel said excitedly as they walked down the stairs.

"What? How do you know?" Bloom asked.

"I know you're a bit far, but I managed to look in the library and it's Melody!"

Her eyes widened slightly and her mood brightened. "This is great! I won't be alone," she said.

The two continued to walk and, true to his words, Melody sat at one of the tables in the library. She looked at the door and gasped in surprise once she saw Bloom. She stood up and almost ran over to Bloom, but stopped herself.

"Hello, First Enchanter Irving and Bloom."

"You can be excited, dear, but let's not waste time." He said sternly.

"I guess you better get used to seeing the not-so-friendly side of sir Irving," Jahel said.

"Don't be silly. He'll still be nice."

Bloom joined Melody and gave her a quick hug. They pulled away and stood next to each other and waited for Irving's request.

He walked to their table and picked up one of the heavy books and opened it to a page. "Now, where to begin."

Irving taught Bloom and Melody from that point on. Not surprisingly, they were great students. They listened to everything he said, they studied like they should have, and did their best with each lesson. He enjoyed almost everyone's presence, but it was clear he began to favor those two.

Bloom was eleven and Melody was fourteen at the time, and life was normal for a long while. He had one-on-one lessons a few times, and during one of them, Bloom's life changed again. She was fifteen and the Maker decided to make her meet two of our lovely heroes.

"You can pull up your own barrier, correct?" Irving asked her.

Bloom stood in one section of the library, the bookcases surrounded her, and Irving stood a few feet away from her.

She nodded. "Yes, I can pull it up for a few minutes."

He nodded in return. "Great. But can you hold that barrier?"

She smiled. "Absolutely."

"This is going to be exciting!" She thought.

"It is! I want to see what he'll do," Jahel admitted with excitement. He loved to see magic in use.

"Let's put that to a test!" Irving said as he threw one hand out, like tossing a ball. However, instead of a regular ball, a ball of ice rushed towards her.

Instantly, she summoned a barrier to surround her. The ball hit, but it instantly melted. She smiled excitedly. "I did it!"

Irving continued, letting multiple attacks loose. Through it all, her barrier held and she stood tall with pride. After multiple attacks, he stopped and motioned for her to let go.

A sigh left her as the barrier dissolved within a second. She managed her energy well, but she knew she still was uneven.

He walked over to her. "You did well, Bloom. Are you tired?"

She nodded with an apologetic smile. "I didn't need to make my barrier so tough, so I used too much energy. I'll do better to control it next time."

He patted her head gently. "You did fine, so don't worry."

The door creaked open and they both moved to see the door. One of the senior enchanters stood there with a sad look on her face. "We need to talk."

"I think that means we have to leave," Jahel said.

Irving looked back at Bloom. "We'll have to cut this lesson short. You may go to your quarters and wait for your next class."

"Yes, sir," she said politely. She gathered her books from the front table and quickly left.

"Hey, Bloom," Melody said.

Bloom was in the mage quarters, sitting on her bed as she studied. She looked up to see Melody looking down at her book.

"What are you reading?"

"I need to focus on my energy more."

Melody giggled and closed the book quickly. "Well, you'll have to work on that another day." She took the book from Bloom and held it out of her reach.

"Hey!" She whined as she tried to grab it. She stood up and tried to grab the book again, but Melody was taller and held it away from her.

"You can't study right now! We have something more important to do!"

Bloom sighed and stopped. "What is it?" She muttered with annoyance.

"There's two new girls here. They're twin sisters. I don't know exactly what happened, but they're going through something and I think you're the perfect person to help me."

Bloom crossed her arms and thought. "Where are they?"

"Library."

"Isn't Irving there? A senior enchanter needed to speak to him."

"No, he went away to do something."

"Something?" She squinted her eyes.

Melody shrugged her shoulders. "I really don't know!" she exclaimed.

"Well, what do you mean by 'going through something'?"

Melody's smile and playful demeanor dropped. She placed the book on the bed and grabbed Bloom's arms. "Remember when you got here? It's like that."

"Oh..." Jahel said. "I think we really should go," he told her.

"Yes, we really should."

"Well, when you put it like that, I can't deny."

Melody smiled and lead them both to the library. They entered and surprisingly found no one there.

"Wait, they were here just a minute ago," Melody said.

"They're in the next section. They're looking at books," Jahel told Bloom.

She walked to the next section and smiled when she saw two girls browsing through different bookcases.

"Hello," she said softly.

One of the girls looked towards Bloom and smiled. "H-Hello," she mumbled.

Bloom walked closer and held out her hand. "Hello, miss?"

The girl hesitated before taking her hand. "My name is Delilah. It's nice to meet you." The girl pointed to the other girl at a different bookcase. "That's my sister, Natalie."

She looked over at Natalie and gave a small wave. "Hello, Natalie. My name is Bloom. It's nice to meet both of you."

Natalie walked to stand beside her sister, and Bloom giggled softly. "You really are twins."

Natalie placed her hands on her hips and pouted. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"We didn't expect to get twins. We've almost never gotten siblings here," Melody explained. She leaned against the bookcase behind Bloom with her arms crossed. "Now that we know your names, can you tell us your age?"

"We're fifteen," Delilah said quietly.

"Wow! That's the same as me!" Bloom exclaimed with excitement.

Natalie perked up at that. "Really?"

"Yes!" Bloom's eyes moved to their ears. "And your elves. Just like us."

"I didn't expect a lot of elves to come here," Jahel said. "I mean, anyone can come, but this place is usually roamed by humans."

"I hope we can become friends," Delilah said.

Bloom looked at Melody behind her and smiled. "I think we'll become great friends."

It was such a short exchange. They just met her and they instantly felt comfortable around her. I believe that's the thing about her. You meet someone with a warm smile, a gentle voice, and every problem seems to float away. And even if they didn't, they had each other to help.

Over time they all become a family. Landon, Bloom, Michaela, Delilah, Natalie, and even the girl who didn't like her, who is named Sandra, become close enough to be siblings. Life was good for them, and even through the hard times, they stayed together.

And one day, it was Melody's turn for her Harrowing test. It was a great test for mages, and many feared it, but Melody was ready. However, the Harrowing wasn't the only scary thing she would face.

She and everyone she loved was soon faced with the end of the world.

OKAY! This one is SOOO long. Sorry! I just have so much to fill in! But anyways! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the next chapter will have another time skip!

But first explaining the time skip in this chapter. She starts out as eleven which is the same age when she was forced to leave her clan and join the circle, which is two years after her and Jahel were tied together (he died when she was nine). Melody starts out as fourteen like when she was first introduced. Landon, Michaela, and Sandra (the girl who Bloom talks to in the beginning of this chapter) are the same age as Bloom, so they are eleven when they are introduced in past chapters and now.

HOWEVER, once they meet Natalie and Delilah, four years have passed, so Bloom, Michaela, Landon, Delilah and Natalie, and Sandra are fifteen. Melody is eighteen once she meets Delilah and Natalie.

Just explaining the age because time is very important here and maybe as you can tell by the ending....the next chapter is the beginning of the Dragon Age story.

Beginning of Dragon Age: Origins, just not told from Melody's (my Hero of Fereldan) perspective. But I might make her story one day who knows-

BUT ANYWAYS YEAH! I hope you enjoyed this! And if I ever realize that my info is off, I will correct it in the next chapter, all right?

Reblogs and likes are always appreciated!

#dragon age #dragon age origins #dragon age 2 #dragon age inquisition #The Rise of Bloom Lavellan #my writing #I love Bloom. Is it clear from how much I squeeze into a chapter? I'm terrible at pacing okay-#But anyways I hope you enjoy and I'm ready for the next chapter >:). It's when all of the trauma breaks loose.#So get ready :)))). And thank you for whoever reads this! I really enjoy writing about my dear Bloom.#And her friends and her life and her love for the world and JAHEL TOO. LOVE HIM!#But yeah hope you enjoyed and I'll stop talking now <3

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oh-katsuki · 9 months

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the notebook theory (tsukishima kei x reader)

masterlist | ao3

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Summary: Kei has a cynical and jaded outlook on love. When his friend Tadashi figures out that Kei has feelings for you, Kei isn’t sure how to react. After all, love is not something he does but rather, something that happens to him.

"There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason."

Content Warnings: fem!reader (gender neutral pronouns), no real manga spoilers, slow burn, one-sided pining, angst, mentions of divorce and broken homes, toxic relationship (kei's parents), smut, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), pinching, mentions of mark making, overstimulation (m!receiving), multiple orgasms, hair-pulling

Word Count: 24.8k

A/N: i know i spent forever working on this but it's finally done and while i have a lot of thoughts about it, idk rly what to say. anyway, here's my first attempt at a tsukishima long fic. also i already know that im not beating the tsukkiyama allegations, okay? i tried and failed to beat them okay i just think there is no way to put them in a situation without it being a little homoerotic bc.. they r them okay? anyway, i hope u enjoy and would love to hear ur thoughts <3

The morning comes without warning. Kei thinks he’s read that somewhere, though he’s just sure just where he saw it. He also thinks that whoever said that is right. Morning is always a harsh assault and never as gentle as people describe it to be.

Kei’s room, the one he rents at university, faces toward the east. In the mornings, when the sun peeks over the horizon, it shines directly into his room and onto his bed before creeping across the light wood floors. His blinds, as useful as they are, always let some through the cracks and the light cuts the ground like butter to a knife. Kei doesn’t think it feels half as romantic as it sounds.

The light works better than his alarm. No matter how set he is on sleeping in, he never fails to wake up as soon as those slats of light make their way across his bedspread. It wakes him like fever and he’s never quite as comfortable as he felt falling asleep. This morning is no different.

He rises like he always has, running a hand over his blonde hair and dragging it down his face after sitting up. Then, he stands once in an attempt to gather his bearings before sitting right back down on the edge of the bed. He fights the lingering remnants of sleep, feeling the ray of sunlight beat down on his back. Then, he reaches towards his glasses on the nightstand and slides them up the bridge of his long nose before standing up again once and for all.

Yamaguchi lives in the other room. His best friend since high school, perhaps his only real friend. They’d miraculously attended the same college and decided to room together, though his other friends from his youth aren’t too far. The arrangement managed to make it all the way until their fourth and final year. Living with each other has become par for the course.

Tadashi wakes up later than Kei does on most days, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, he has an 8 am and is usually in the kitchen before Kei has even stood up for the first time. Today is a Wednesday, so Yamaguchi is asleep in his room. The morning light doesn’t wake him the same way it does Kei. His room faces west, so it isn’t until the mid-afternoon, when Tadashi is chased from his room by the afternoon rays and heat, that he notices the sun on its blinding conquest across the sky.

Kei’s room is clean and neat. There’s no clutter, no collection of items that don’t have a proper place. Everything is itemized and stored exactly where he intends for them to be. His floor is void of stray clothes, of socks he’d discarded the night before, his nightstand is bare and his desk is surprisingly empty save for one notebook sitting in its center. It’s a room that he could leave at any time, despite living here for nearly two years. If Kei chose to do so, he could pack his things and be gone in a day.

Yamaguchi’s room is different. It’s lived in and well worn. There’s clutter on the floor, socks and pants he’d taken and tossed away to be dealt with later. Certain things don’t have a place and end up living on semi-crowded surfaces filled with things he likes to put down as quickly as he’d picked them up. Kei envies that way of living. A non-temporary way. He envies the rug in Yamaguchi’s room and the way he fills the space with himself. Kei thinks that even after they’re long gone, future tenants would still be able to feel Tadashi’s presence.

To say that Kei is cynical would be accurate. He tends to lean more towards paranoia in his own strange way. He keeps things in order to quell the anxiety in it. Things stay where they are meant to be. As a result, he’s earned himself somewhat of an uptight attitude that makes Kei feel more awkward than relaxed even when he’s in his own spaces. Not that he minds it.

Tadashi’s dish from last night is sitting next to the sink. Kei moves around it as he fixes a tea, making an effort not to drag his feet across the floor because he hates the scuffing sound. Every now and then, the glass of his mug will clink against the cheap kitchen tile and Kei will cringe in some paranoid worry that it will wake his friend.

As he gathers his things to leave the quiet apartment, Kei wonders where his cynicism comes from. He’s sure he could pinpoint it if he tried. His parents divorce, his previous experiences with dating that have left him jaded, the holes that wore even in his most sturdy of sweaters. Inconsequential nothings that piled up until Kei had developed an undeniably cautious outlook on the world. To him, all of these things are the same. Like the morning, they’re intrusive and unsightly, but none is less important than the other.

Kei does have things he likes. Art, for one. He likes paintings, sculptures, little pieces of history, and all of the things people make with their hands that he could never do. Kei is hopeless at crafts. His fingers are lithe and long, but they’re clumsy and hard to control. Despite his need for order, Kei has trouble controlling his urges. The subtle twitches of his fingers always mess up whatever it is he’s trying to craft.

He likes writing best of all, specifically curatorial writing. It’s easy for him to pick which pieces belong together and how to organize them in a space, it suits his talent for compartmentalizing. Kei gets to tell a story that way, be it historical or artistic, sometimes both. The essays that his classmates find tedious, he finds relaxing despite the stress. For him, writing about art and history is a pleasure much like sipping tea that is the perfect temperature, unintrusive and natural.

By the time he arrives at the library, it’s nearly 9 am. He works better here, in the quiet section at a table hidden by three tall shelves of books. It’s almost never occupied and there are hardly ever people seated in the immediate area. Kei doesn’t go out of his way to avoid others, but he finds that if he doesn’t approach people, they often won’t approach him. He prefers things this way, it makes the good and bad people easier to weed out.

From this spot in the library, Kei can see where you usually set up shop for the day. You arrive after him by about 45 minutes and he convinces himself that it is always coincidental.

Strictly speaking, you’re Tadashi’s friend, not his. You’ve known each other for a little under a year and have been by the apartment a few times, but yours and his conversations are limited entirely to pleasantries. How are you? What are you working on? We’re graduating soon, huh? Casual conversation that Kei can weasel his way out of at any time. Like his room, it’s impermanent.

Kei has had the idea that nothing stays stuck in his head since middle school. The house he lived in when his parents were together, weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father, graduating seniors, the apartment he lives in now. To Kei, all of it is so temporary that he finds it difficult to get attached to it, not that he’s devoid of emotion. He quite loves the little things he has, but his grip on them is loose and half-hearted. Whatever leaves, Kei thinks is meant to leave, so he makes no effort to hold on.

It’s probably unfair to think of you that way, but Kei can’t really help it. He can’t change what he is. Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a reason to think so. He’s often approached by people for his looks, people who want to get close because they think he’s tall and handsome, people who collect others like trophies. He’s not heartless, so he’s been hurt more than a few times. Kei thinks he owes it to himself to be cautious, not that you’ve done anything to earn that type of subtle hostility.

“Thought you might be here,” someone’s hand lands on his shoulder.

“Shit,” he groans, “is it that late already?”

Kei glances down at the watch on his wrist, reading the time as just past 10:45 am. He’s been here for an hour and 45 minutes and hasn’t gotten anything done. Tadashi pulls the chair next to him out and sits down, resting his chin on his hand.

“Spacing out?”

“A little,” Kei responds, tapping his pen against the table and turning back toward his book.

“Got something due?”

“Yeah, on Friday,” he exhales. “Haven’t started it yet though. You?”

“Nah,” Tadashi smiles. “I’m just chasing you around.”

“You’re like a girl with a crush.”

Tadashi shrugs and lets out a good natured laugh. It’s a little too loud for this part of the library, but Kei lets it slide, smiling with his friend.

Tadashi is the opposite of him, he thinks. He smiles often and says exactly what’s on his mind when it crosses it, even if it's a little mean. Tadashi used to be a follower, but in his final year of high school and university years, grew into someone befitting of his somewhat sunny and sarcastic personality. Thoughts and words come easily to him and he has no trouble vocalizing his joy or his disappointment.

Yamaguchi has freckles covering the entirety of his body. Kei knows this because he’s seen far more of Tadashi than he thinks he should have. His skin is tawny and warm like him. Kei finds himself looking at the ones on his hands as Yamaguchi begins to write in his notebook. Kei can’t read his handwriting because it’s terrible and he doesn’t much feel like working on his own project, so he watches his friend’s hand mark the page. Then, his gaze slinks across the library to you.

You’ve got your head down and look like you’re falling asleep despite it only being 11 in the morning. Your hand moves lazily across your computer keypad. By the time Kei realizes that you’ve spotted him staring, it’s too late to look away. His gaze was too intentional, so he smiles at you instead, nodding his head a little.

You smile and wave, standing from where you sit and collecting your things. They fill up your arms because you don’t bother to put them in your bag, making your way clumsily across the room and setting your stuff down across from him.

“Hi, Tsukishima,” you smile. “Hi, Tadashi.”

You use his friend’s given name and Kei feels a pang of jealousy hit his chest.

“How long have you been here? I didn’t see you,” you ask, settling into the seat across from Kei.

“I just got here,” Tadashi smiles, looking up from his notes. “He’s been here for a while though.”

Tadashi motions towards him.

“Aw, why didn’t you say hi?”

“You seemed busy,” Kei lies.

You pout, filling your mouth with air. “Next time just come say hi, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” Kei nods.

Tadashi tosses him a sideways glance and Kei shrugs it off. He’s not interested in being teased this morning, though when is he ever.

Kei doesn’t like the way you make him feel. When you’re around, he becomes prickly. It sets Kei on edge in a way that he hates. His world, previously so rigid and organized, quickly begins to feel cluttered and structureless.

You make his heart pound. You make it hammer against his chest so hard that he can feel it in his ears and behind his eyes. It goes all the way down to his already-hard-to-control fingertips and the tops of his thighs. A previously pastel colored world goes vibrantly candy-colored like it’s been plunged in saturating liquid. He nevers knows how to hold himself, never knows how to act natural. What does it mean to act natural, anyway? How should he rest his hands on the desk? Would it be weird to lace them together? Does he look as stiff as he feels? It’s entirely possible that he is suffering a massive heart attack.

You whisper across the table to Tadashi, leaning forward and laughing at something he’s written in his notebook. You can read his handwriting, something Kei is equally jealous about as he is angry. Kei just watches your conversation, unable to really listen into it on account of the stroke that he thinks he’s having.

The three of you stay like this for a while, earning the occasional irritated whisper or dirty look from some of the more studious people in the library. Kei pretends to ignore them, remaining quiet throughout the duration of your study session with Tadashi. His quiet corner is invaded and painted bright pink with your presence and he doesn’t know whether to feel giddy or irrationally angry. Maybe it’s both.

“Crap, is that the time?” Tadashi exclaims, hunching over himself when someone nearby shushes him. “I’ve got class across campus in 10 minutes.”

He hurriedly collects his things. Tadashi does it so fast, in fact, that Kei hardly has time to beg him not to leave him alone with you. So he just watches as Tadashi throws his things clumsily into his bag and tosses it over his shoulder.

“Bye, ___,” he says in a rushed whisper. “I’ll see you at home, Kei!”

“Sure,” is all that Kei can muster. His voice cracks when he says it and he immediately avoids looking at you and stares at nothing in particular in his textbook.

It’s quiet for a while. Kei pretends to busy himself by glancing between his textbook and his computer and you sit with your head bowed as you take notes on a lecture you’re listening to through the single earbud in your right ear. Then, you tap the end of your pen lightly on Kei’s notebook to get his attention.

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Tadashi left, but the library now feels like an entirely different place. His heart pounds as he struggles to keep a straight face.

When he looks up, you’re looking at him with a tilted head. Your expression is soft and unintrusive, friendly but a bit guarded. You smile softly at him.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” You ask gently. It doesn’t sound accusatory, but rather a casual statement tinged with friendliness.

“Huh?” Blood rushes into his ears.

“I just kinda get the impression that you’re uncomfortable around me,” you say. “Am I wrong?”

“Uh, no- it’s not that I don’t like you.”

He’s quick to correct you and he feels heat rush to his cheeks.

“Then what?” you question lightly. There’s no ulterior motive behind your smile, Kei can tell, but your openness makes him uneasy.

“I dunno,” he calms himself a little. “I don’t really know how to act around you, I guess.”

You laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Is that all?”

“Well, yeah…” he feels awkward and his palms are sweaty. He drops them below the table to wipe them. “You’re Tadashi’s friend and I’m pretty different from him so I just…” He trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“I was worried you hated me,” you smile, chuckling to yourself.

“That’s definitely not it,” he loosens a little, smiling lightly despite the thudding of his heart. It slows down steadily.

“I’m your friend too, ya know?”

“That so?”

“Well, yeah,” you shrug and lean all the way back, crossing your arms. “I just kinda figured that we would be.”

“Friends?” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His word placement is awkward.

“Duh,” you laugh a little. “You know, you don’t have to speak formally with me.”

“That’s just the way I am,” he huffs at being read.

“Well, you can drop them with me. I don’t mind.”

“Tall order,” he snorts.

You tilt your head to the side. “Did you just make a joke?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“Funny,” you smile. “What are you studying?”

“It’s not really studying…” he says, glancing down at the near empty document. “I’m supposed to be writing an essay I have due on Friday. Not going well.”

He looks up at you through his lashes. You’re leaning forward across the table now, your chin angled upward as you try and peek at what’s on his screen. He turns it so that you can see better.

“Baroque art?” You read aloud. “Oh yeah, Tadashi mentioned that you’re an art history major. Do you draw too?”

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m hopeless at it, but I like art. It’s nice to look at.”

“Huh, you look like you’d be good at drawing,” you say.

“What’s that mean?”

“I dunno, like a manga author or something,” you shrug. “You’ve got nice hands too. Like an artist.”

“Manga?” He laughs a little, trying to play off the color he feels rushing to his face from the compliment.

“Yeah, you look like the manga type.”

“Is it the glasses?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” you laugh.

Kei looks down at his hands. They’re big, like the rest of him, and his knuckles are thin. He’s hyper-aware of them now that you’ve complimented them. He studies them briefly, following the barely visible veins up the back of them, following the line of his fingers to his nails. They’re trimmed and somewhat well kept, save for the spots that he tends to bite at when he lays in bed at night. His hands look nothing like Tadashi’s. Tadashi’s fingers are thick and his nails are short on account of him biting them. Kei wonders if you prefer them to his.

—

There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. It’s only a bit bigger than his fist—a little thing, really—and it’s completely blank. Kei’s never written anything down in it, nothing has ever really been worth sullying the thing. It’s got brown fabric binding and a semi-thick cover. It’s malleable, but not so flimsy that he’d need a desk to write in it.

Kei’s not too sure why he bought it in the first place. Maybe he liked the size of it, small enough to fit in his pocket, but not so small as to be ridiculous. It’s practical, much like he is. He’s considered turning it into a daily planner and putting to-do lists in it, but Kei isn’t much of a list guy, it’s Tadashi that likes making lists. Nothing has ever really felt like it suits the book. He’s considered journaling in it, but his life is one big routine and he doesn’t think there’s anything worth writing about.

No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason, not that he’s about to admit to anyone else that he likes you. Tadashi managed to weasel it out of him, though he didn’t really have to ask. In fact, it was less of an admittance to Kei than it was confirmation of his own feelings. If Tadashi can tell that he likes you, then he must.

People seem to know things about Kei before he even knows them himself. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s always confronted with his own feelings by other people, not that they’re really ever wrong, but it seems everyone catches onto what he’s feeling rather quickly. He’s not too sure why that is, maybe he’s just obvious and hasn’t realized it.

Come to think of it, when Tadashi had confronted Kei about his feelings for you, he’d been deeply annoying about it. Kei couldn’t even try to deny it because Tadashi had come out with his guns blazing, cornering him in the living room and throwing facts about you at him until his face was beet red with embarrassment. Then, with a serious frown on his face, he’d simply stated you like them and that was the end of it. Kei couldn’t even deny it. Even he knew that it read plainly in his expression.

To be frank, it sucks being told in plain speech how he feels about someone. Whenever that happens, it makes Kei feel like he’ll never be able to keep another secret in his life. Sometimes, he wishes that he was able to make the decision to tell someone else on his own, but even Kei knows that that is a little beyond him. Kei can think the feelings just fine, but when it comes to speaking them aloud, he seems to have a padlock around his throat.

Tadashi knows this about him and if it weren’t for him, Kei would have agonized far longer and far worse over certain situations of emotional turmoil. Most of the time, Tadashi gets it without needing to ask or say anything. It’s nice to have someone understand him in that way, even if it does mean he can’t keep a secret to save his life.

Feelings lately make Kei a little angry. He’s always known that he’s had somewhat of a sour personality. Kei doesn’t need to be told that he’s smug to know that he is. He’s snarky and usually touchy, picky about the people that he hangs out with. It’s not really a secret that Kei is a hard person to get along with, but lately, he feels like it’s been worse.

Maybe it’s because this is new territory to him. As conceited as it sounds, Kei has never liked someone first. It’s not because he doesn’t think anyone is worthy, but rather, because there are very few people he doesn’t find grating. Despite how he seems, Kei is incredibly sensitive about things, so naturally, it’s easier to get on his nerves.

He’s dated before, though not for long, and all of his relationships have started the same way. Kei is approached by them, usually on the premise of looks, and he accepts. He’s not sure why he does. Sometimes it’s because he thinks they’re pretty, other times it’s because the romantic in him hopes that it will actually work out. It never has.

Most of the time, Kei turns out to be different than they expected. He’s too touchy, too sarcastic, too awkward in his way of trying to love. To Kei, it has always felt like it’s ended just as he was beginning to develop real feelings.

If he’s being honest, it’s given him a twisted inferiority complex. He’s worried that somehow, on a fundamental level, he’s not enough. Sometimes, it even goes so far as for Kei to think that he’s just generally disappointing. He tries not to be. Kei wants to be relied on. He wants to be someone his friends can go to when they need something sturdy.

Despite his personality, Kei considers himself sturdy. Well, maybe stubborn is a better word. Kei considers himself stubborn enough to be made sturdy. He’s just a little awkward. That’s all. People seem to mistake that for being unreliable. It’s a peeve of Kei’s.

Tadashi isn’t like that. Tadashi is bright and warm, reliable in every sense of the word. Kei actually looks up to him a lot, not that he’d ever say anything like that to his face. Sure, Tadashi’s not perfect, but at least people rely on him. At least Kei relies on him.

Tadashi is more easy going than Kei is. He has an easier time going with the flow, which makes him more personable. Kei thinks that Tadashi is the closest thing that he’s had to a better half. In truth, without Tadashi around, Kei isn’t exactly sure what would have become of him.

It’s pointless thinking about these sorts of things though. Kei realized a long time ago that thinking about being better won’t automatically make him better. This is just the way he is and Kei’s learned to accept that, whatever it means. Still, none of this changes the fact that he likes you.

Kei could mull over thought after thought and he doesn’t think it would have any effect on the fact that he’s definitely developed a crush. He’s positive it will go away. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s real. Maybe Kei is just jealous of you the same way he’s jealous of Tadashi. You’re bright and warm like he is. You and Tadashi are cut from the same cloth, so maybe that’s why the two of you get along so well.

In all honesty, Kei wishes he could be a little more like Tadashi for that reason. Maybe if he were more like Tadashi, he’d have the courage to fully accept these new and uncertain feelings for what they are. But he doesn’t have that kind of courage, not right now at least. He doesn’t have the courage to solidify and lean into his feelings. Kei doesn’t want to risk what little comfort and security he has. If the relationship between you both is a blank page, Kei doesn’t have anything important to write. What if it ruins the paper? What if when he erases it, it changes the thing on a molecular level for the worse? The notebook theory.

—

Despite everything, Kei is rather self-aware. At least in his own head he is. Kei knows that when he pretends he doesn’t like you, he really ends up liking you more. He knows that he’s touchy, that he’s awkward, that he comes across more crass than he intends to. Kei is clumsy, not stupid. That doesn’t mean that he has to acknowledge it.

You’ve been coming around more often since the conversation Kei had with you in the library. Maybe you’re more comfortable now knowing that he doesn’t hate you, so you’re happier to join Tadashi in their shared apartment.

Kei feels bad about making you think that he hates you. Actually, he feels really bad about it. Like, astronomically bad about it. Embarrassingly enough, it actually keeps him up at night. So he goes out of his way to be a little nicer to you. The only other person he’s ever done that for is Tadashi.

He greets you properly when you pass, despite the flare up of a medical condition he’s yet to fully diagnose brought on by your presence. He asks you questions about your studies, partially because he is genuinely curious and partially because he doesn’t want you to hate him. He thinks he’d die if you hated him. Kei’s being brave in his own way. It’s little, but he’s doing it.

As a result, the two of you have grown a little closer. Kei has your phone number now, though he rarely has any reason to text you. Typing out a message to you makes him nervous. It makes him red in the face when you’re not even there. Somehow, having your phone number feels vulnerable to him, like he has access to you whenever he wants and you him. It means that if you wanted, you could make him nervous without even being nearby. That’s a lot for Kei to think about.

Kei sees you in the library sometimes too, but he never takes the initiative to speak to you. You always come up to him first, clumsily gathering your things the way you did the day you and him sorted out your friendship and plopping them down in front of him.

Sometimes, you both go several hours without saying anything to each other. Other times, you’ll chat away about something while leaning forward on the desk and Kei has to pretend that he’s not wildly nervous at your proximity. You’re so friendly. So genuinely warm that Kei can physically feel it when you talk. Despite his nerves, Kei would describe you as comfortable. You’re a comfortable person to him, as alarming as that is.

His crush is out of hand. It scares him, not that he’s actively thought about that. What started as him noticing you has quickly ballooned into him being painfully aware of you at all times. He kind of feels bad about it. You don’t seem to think that he’s anything more than a friend and it makes Kei feel bad that he thinks of you as anything but that. He doesn’t want you to be just a crush to him. Kei wants you to be like Tadashi, someone he can rely on and be comfortable with. He almost feels like he’s reversed what’s been done to him his whole life, like somehow he’s only become your friend because he wants something more.

Truth is though, he doesn’t want anything more. Kei wants to stay exactly where he is. He doesn’t want his crush to develop any further. He doesn’t want to confess, he wants to forget. Even now, sitting on a couch in the library, he wants to imagine he doesn’t feel anything at all for you.

“Hey, are you okay?” You tilt your head at him.

“Huh? Me?” He questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You seem a little distracted,” you smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer for like… 10 minutes with this blank look on your face.”

“You’ve been staring at me for 10 minutes?” He raises an eyebrow, trying to play off the embarrassment of being caught like that.

“Not staring at you,” you huff, “but I definitely noticed.”

“Ha, creep,” he tilts his head up a little, blowing air out of his nose.

“You’re twisted, you know?”

“Whatever,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks back at his computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head and smile before looking down at your work.

Tadashi has said the same exact thing to him before. In highschool, after Kei had made a joke about his teammate Hinata’s height, Tadashi had given him a look and snorted that he’s so twisted. He’s been hearing that sort of thing his entire life.

“Hey, are you cool if I skip out of here early?” You ask a few moments later.

“Oh, yeah sure. I don’t mind,” he nods, hiding his disappointment. “I didn’t realize that we had like… set times to be here.”

You laugh lightly. “Well, we don’t, but we tend to come and go at the same time, no? I kinda look forward to it.”

Kei envies your honesty. You’re so honest all of the time. You say what you feel when it pops into your head. He wishes he could be like that, maybe then he would be able to say that he does too. Instead, he just nods and swallows his heart back down. You smile at him again and then gather your things.

“You’ll be home on Friday night, right?”

“Uhm, yeah? Why?”

“Tadashi invited me and a few friends over, did he tell you?”

“I think he mentioned it.” Kei has actually been thinking about it for the last couple days.

“Good, I’ll see you, right?”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Great, talk to you later then!” You smile and with that, you walk away.

You sounded so certain in that statement. Talk to you later. You said it like it was inevitable. Thinking about that, Kei can’t help but watch you go. He even likes looking at the back of you, though he wishes he could see your face too. It feels worse to be walked away from than walked towards.

Kei can’t tell anymore if what he feels is romance or jealousy. It’s probably both. It’s probably some mix of the two that he can’t quite sort out. He wishes it weren’t that way. Kei gets the feeling that he might be ruined.

So he just watched you leave the library. Someone is waiting for you at the top of the stairwell. Kei can tell they’re a guy and despite the reluctance of his feelings, his stomach drops anyway when you nudge his shoulder with yours and loop your arm around his. That’s something you haven’t done to Kei before. Touch him. You touch this other person so easily. It makes Kei jealous.

It makes sense that you might be seeing someone, that there might be someone else. After all, you’re you. Desirable. You look up at the stranger, leaning on him, smiling and flashing your teeth. Yeah, it makes sense.

Turns out, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks you’re interested in someone else. He likes to think it will save him the time of wondering.

—

Kei has cleaned his room approximately four times today. Sure, it’s overboard, but every time he goes into it, he notices something else that needs to be spruced up. Like a pot with a leak, there is always something that he seemed to miss the last time he went through and cleaned up.

It’s not like you’ll be in his room tonight anyway, but you will be in his apartment and that’s close enough to his room that he, for whatever reason, needs to make it so spotless that it looks like a set. Kei knows though, that even when you’re here, he’ll be wondering if there’s something else that he missed beyond the closed door and he’ll think about it incessantly.

He’s been avoiding the thought of him liking you. Instead, Kei cleans and cleans and then cleans some more for good measure. It’s not like he has any sort of claim on you and he knows that it’s stupid to feel jealous over one interaction he witnessed by chance, but his mind is running away with him. Was that person your boyfriend? Has he been begrudgingly pining over a taken person all these months? Do you think that he’s creepy because of it?

He doesn’t get to be upset over the idea that you’re seeing someone else. Why wouldn’t you be? Kei’s done absolutely nothing to indicate his interest in you (or lack thereof), besides maybe telling you that he doesn’t hate you. He has no right to feel the way he does, but he spirals anyway. His insecurities, the ones that gnaw at him in the hours before he falls asleep, play in a constant loop in his head. His unreliability, his unpleasant personality, his cynicism, the baggage he carries with him like a badge. All of it piles up one by one.

Kei feels like a kid again, losing himself over such a simple interaction, over something so miniscule that it might not even be considered anything at all. There are a plethora of reasons for his feeling like this and Kei thinks he could draw one of his issues out of a hat and it would still somehow address the situation at hand, but all he really feels is hurt and he doesn’t want to explain it away. Kei finds that liking someone hurts. It hurts more than it feels good and the uncertainty chews at his patience and leaves it razor thin. It’s not your fault, nor is it the person Kei’s convinced himself you’re seeing, but he needs someone to blame and it can’t be himself.

The idea of you relying on someone else makes him nauseous. He’d never considered the thought before, that you find him as unreliable as others do. Kei wants to be relied on, most of all by you, and that fact makes him upset. He’s afraid of what you think of him and without the confidence to accept his feelings, it threatens to crush him.

Kei’s got this itch over it, so he tries to distract himself. Cleaning his space to prepare for you helps him delude himself that he doesn’t quite like you at all. It’s not your fault. He’s just confused, like his parents were when they married each other. It hurts. Like they were when they had him to try and fix their marriage, which had started to fall apart even when Akiteru was an only child. He’s confused. He’s jealous over your ability to live the way Kei has always wanted to. That’s all this is. Nothing more and nothing less. He feels like he’s being split in two, stretched thin between two modes of thinking.

Kei glances over his shoulder and into his room one last time. He’s forgotten to wipe the mirror. He goes back in and the cycle starts itself over.

—

He’s not proud of his behavior. Kei thinks only a seriously huge asshole would be proud of the kind of behavior he displayed tonight. He regrets it immensely, though some part of him is begrudgingly holding onto the idea that maybe he was right to be so short tempered. Of course, that’s a lunatic’s idea.

Tadashi is standing by the apartment door, mumbling something to you behind it. Over Tadashi’s shoulder, he sees you shake your head and in response, Tadashi gives a small bow before shutting the door to the shared apartment. Then, Tadashi turns and walks towards him.

Kei doesn’t want to look at him, but Tadashi, for some reason, commands his gaze.

“Is there a reason you were such a huge cunt tonight?” Tadashi sort of spits the words. They land at Kei’s feet and roll around before settling.

“What are you talking about? I was normal,” he answers, though the statement sounds like a lie the moment it leaves his lips.

“Bullshit,” Tadashi says. “You were being an asshole the second they walked through the door and you’ve been one to me all day.”

Kei scoffs, his cheeks burning, “I’ve just been tired, dude. Besides, what does it matter? You’re closer to all of them than I am.”

“What? You’re tired so you just get to be a huge asshole?”

“No,” Kei responds.

“So then what was that?”

Kei doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what prompted him to act so cold or make such snide comments. It’s true, he’d been in a bad mood all day and he knows that Tadashi has borne the brunt of his misplaced emotions, but even Kei is confused as to why he’d acted the way he did. Still though, there is a part of him that knows that it was connected to his spiraling and what he saw in the library. He’d sound insane if he said it out loud, like somehow his growth was stunted in the third grade, but Kei is sure it had something to do with liking you and the hurt that comes with it.

It’s not as if he’d been outwardly mean, but he had been cold. There are parts of himself that Kei doesn’t want you to see, sections of his personality that he ropes off from you because despite not liking you, he wants you to see the best in him. Tonight, he managed to somehow show off the worst.

It started with the noise when everyone had arrived. You, Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Kiyoko, and Yachi had all piled into the apartment in one large group. Kei’d been sitting on the couch and the sound of the door startled him right off the bat. He assumed that by the time they all had rounded the corner into the living room, his face was already sour, because everyone had greeted him cautiously.

It’s no surprise that everyone was so loud. Kei has known this particular group for many years and they, having all gone to school or work nearby, pile into his apartment often for events like these. You were really the only new factor in all of it and while Kei is known as a touchy person, he certainly was more touchy than usual tonight.

You’d been trying to talk to him all evening and Kei, in a desperate attempt to avoid whatever lingering feelings he had for you, had been shutting you down at every turn. Thinking back on it, he’s endlessly embarrassed. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been nothing but kind to him and there Kei was holding a grudge over you for something he had no right to be angry about whatsoever. He had been holding a grudge over something that he’d learned later that evening that wasn’t even true.

Kei thinks that what Tadashi is referring to, was deliberately picking a fight with Tanaka. Kei and Tanaka have never been particularly close. Even in high school, his boisterous and somewhat obnoxious personality has always rubbed Kei the wrong way. Despite that, Tanaka has somehow managed to maintain a connection to him through university and the two of them have established a tentative but honest friendship.

You had been sitting on the arm of the couch beside Tanaka, leaning over him to look at something he was showing you on his phone. Then, you laughed a little too hard and Kei felt that familiar sense of injustice rise to his throat, thick and heavy. It’s an ugly feeling, the kind that makes Kei feel sick when he’s in bed late at night. Bile rose in his throat in the form of harsh words. Jealousy in the form of the verbal venom Kei excels at.

For Kei, Tanaka was an easy target, someone he could poke at and get a satisfying rise out of. In the moment, the rise he’d gotten from Tanaka by making snide comments about the volume of his voice and his particular obsession with pretty girls had been exactly that, satisfying.

He’d picked a small fight. Nothing physical, but just enough to get him irritated. Kei’s not proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done it deliberately. After all, Tanaka has never been the type to be the bigger person and turn his nose up.

Sometimes, when Kei is experiencing emotions he’d rather not deal with, he decides to obsess over one single thing. Usually, it’s cleaning or schoolwork. Tonight, it happened to be the volume of Tanaka’s voice, which he knows was a shitty thing to do. Despite wanting to be reliable, Kei can’t help but feel that he was endlessly immature, lashing out at someone completely unrelated to the situation just because he could.

Tadashi pulls him from his thoughts.

“I thought you liked them, dude,” his voice is even, letting up on the anger.

“Who?” Kei plays dumb.

Tadashi responds with your name and Kei stiffens slightly. “I thought you guys had gotten closer. What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Kei says. It’s the truth. Absolutely nothing happened. Kei had spiraled all on his own.

“Why did you ignore them then?”

“I didn’t ignore them,” Kei says. Again, it’s not a lie. He may have shut conversations down and been a little cold, but Kei couldn’t ignore you if he tried, it’s sort of the whole problem he’s dealing with now.

“Maybe, but you were cold. Like… needlessly.”

“I was fucking normal, Tadashi. You should know me well enough by now to know that,” Kei spits.

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I know you and I know that shit wasn’t normal. You’re twisted, but you’re not an outright asshole, Kei. What’s going on?”

“I was normal, Tadashi. Just because I didn’t bounce around or get rowdy, doesn’t mean that something is wrong,” Kei answers.

“Yeah, but you were like… majorly fucking weird, Kei. You were being an asshole. Don’t you like them? Don’t you want to be nice to them?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t want to be nice to them?” Tadashi scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“No, not that. I don’t like them like that anymore,” Kei lies.

“Oh please, that’s such horseshit,” Tadashi laughs bitterly.

“Get off my ass, Tadashi. I don’t fucking feel that way about them anymore,” Kei insists.

“Did something happen?”

“No, literally nothing happened! Why does something have to happen? I just don’t like them,” Kei feels himself getting indignant. Tadashi doesn’t deserve this either, but he seems to be indiscriminate with his poor behavior tonight.

Tadashi looks at Kei for a moment, studying him and calculating all of the things only Tadashi could know about him. Kei tries to hide it.

“Jesus, Kei, you’ve got to stop doing this shit,” Tadashi touches his hand to his forehead.

“Doing what?”

“Getting all in your head about every single connection you’ve ever had with a person,” Tadashi raises his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve seen you do this a million times! You start to really feel something for a person and then you fucking back away like a dog with its tail between its legs!”

“I don’t do that!”

“Yes, you do! You sabotage yourself until the other person is forced to do something about it!” Tadashi exhales.

“I’ve never done that deliberately! What does someone else’s actions have to do with me?”

“It doesn’t have to do with you,” Tadashi says, “It has to do with your parents.”

The wind is knocked out of Kei, air sucked from his lungs. He furrows his eyebrows at Tadashi, his mouth slightly open.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tadashi pushes, angry and trying to make him listen. “Not every relationship is like your parents’, Kei.”

Tadashi knows he’s stepped over the line the moment he says it. If it hadn’t registered before, it registers clearly on his face now, regret settling over Tadashi’s usually bright features. Kei gapes at him for a moment, running through his thoughts and trying to pick out one that best verbalizes what it is he feels. Kei comes up empty.

“Shit-” Tadashi starts towards him. “Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m just pissed off I didn’t mean to-”

Kei pushes past him. “Tadashi, I know you mean well, but don’t try to tell me about my fucking parents.”

Tadashi doesn’t try to stop him when Kei flings the front door open and walks outside.

—

Kei remembers it like it was yesterday. He remembers all of it.

He can clearly recall the way shattered glass looked on the marble tiles of his childhood home. White porcelain, broken up into multitudes by his mother and father. They never laid hands on each other, but everything else in the house was fair game. Kei’s lost count of the amount of broken glass dishes and picture frames he’d swept from the floor.

Kei’s parents had always been on and off in their affection for each other. One minute, they were deeply in love and the next, they were at each other’s throats. Neither of them were bad people, but they made each other bad people. The two of them brought out the worst in each other, maybe on account of knowing the other so well.

Akiteru was an accident. His brother knows this because when his parents argued, they never let him forget it. In their spats, leverage was whatever they could get their hands on, and that just happened to be Akiteru and the unfortunate circumstances of an accidental pregnancy.

His parents got married at 19, thinking that they’d be able to handle a child, that their marriage was anything but rushed. They convinced themselves that it was love, when the reality was that Akiteru came because they were too young and stupid to prevent it. At least, that’s what Kei and Akiteru had settled on in the evenings after the yelling had died down and they were left to make sense of it in their shared bedroom.

They had Kei to fix the marriage. Kei knows this because, like Akiteru, his father’s marital “solution” in the form of a second child was constant leverage to his mother. Kei grew up asking Akiteru why his mother and father even had children in the first place.

Their relationship was rocky and unstable, predictable and toxic. They, like Kei, would do things to get rises out of each other. They’d make digs, do things to get under the other’s skin. They did it for attention, for affection, or out of loathing for the person they’d decided to make their life partner. When things settled, they got bored. His parents often mistakened calmness for complacency in their relationship. His parents loved each other, but they hated each other just as much, and it was he and Akiteru who paid the price.

They got divorced when he was fourteen and any chance of Kei having a normal family went to the courthouse with the divorce papers. Akiteru was 20 at the time and managed to avoid the brunt of the custody battle. Kei still gets unexplainably angry with Akiteru for leaving him alone, though he knows that it’s not his fault. The only way Kei could make sense of it was through blame and it was easier to blame Akiteru for lying about volleyball or leaving him alone than it was to blame himself. Both Kei’s father and mother tried for full custody, not because they loved him that much, but because they knew that it would destroy the other. In the end, Kei spent his weekdays with his mother because she lived closer to his school, and weekends with his father just because.

It happens all the time. People grow together, then grow apart, and grow to loathe each other. Kei watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to his friends, he watched it happen to himself with his own reflection. That’s just the way it goes.

The air outside of his apartment is cool and breezy. He can feel the wind through his sweater, cutting through the gaps in the stitching and into his skin. Kei feels like he can think a little better out here, sitting on the short concrete wall with his back to the apartment building. He stares at his feet, outstretched in front of him. He's still wearing his house slippers.

Kei did this once when he was younger. The fight that night had been particularly bad and his parents had resulted to throwing things across their bedroom. Kei could hear picture frames shatter through two walls and he wondered which memories they’d decided to trash. A particularly loud shout had sent Kei out of the front door and onto the curb in front of the house.

He remembers crying, staring at his house slippers on the pavement, afraid because he could hear the shouting even from the lawn. Akiteru had come out to get him, sitting down beside him on the curb and putting his arm around him.

“Are mom and dad gonna get divorced?” Kei had asked through sniffles.

“Divorced? No, no,” Akiteru answered. “It’s just a rough patch. It happens to all couples. Mommy and Daddy will be fine.”

“It’s normal?” Kei sniffled.

Akiteru paused for a moment. Looking back, Kei realizes that Akiteru was debating on whether or not to lie to protect him. Kei wishes he hadn’t.

“Yeah, it’s normal.”

Normal. Kei realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what a normal relationship looks like. He is his parents' son. What they had in them, he has in him. Kei knows that those habits, the digs, the sour statements, the passive aggressiveness, are all things he’s picked up from watching them. Some role models they were.

He needs to apologize to Tadashi. He may have overstepped, but Kei knows that he’d been an asshole tonight. He’ll need to apologize to Tanaka as well. And to you, which is perhaps the scariest part of this. He wants to apologize for his behavior, but apologizing means that he has to admit that he’d acted the way his parents did, out of jealousy and a pull for attention. Yup, he’s his parents’ son alright.

Kei tilts his head up toward the sky. Only half of it is visible, the other half blocked by the three story apartment complex directly behind him. It’s a clear night, but he can’t see any stars and the moon is nowhere to be found. Kei wonders when the morning will come. It’s a few hours off, but he thinks about how the sky will look when the sun begins to rise.

“Kei,” a familiar voice calls from in front of him.

You’re a few feet away, your hands clasped in front of you.

“Thought you went home,” he says.

“Yeah well, I had intended to,” you start, “but you seemed off and I felt weird going back without checking on you. Can I sit?”

Kei shrugs his shoulders, mortified and angry at being caught like this. He appreciates the thought, but you’re the last person he wants to see right now. It just means he needs to face his shortcomings sooner.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kei answers automatically.

“Just decided on some fresh air?” You smile a little and Kei blows air out of his nose.

“Yup, that’s exactly it.”

You sit next to him with your legs outstretched the same way his are, your hands are laced together in front of you, hanging down between your thighs. Kei doesn’t make an effort to say anything and neither do you. Instead, he just trains his head back up towards the sky and attempts to collect his thoughts, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Strangely, tonight he doesn’t feel nervous. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with being sorry to pay any mind to the heart palpitations he gets when you’re around. Maybe it’s because even though he showed you the worst of him tonight, you still came back. It’s a small hope, but it’s there.

“Hey,” your voice comes quietly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need- I mean- if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good ear.”

Kei nods a little.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about tonight.”

“I didn’t come here for an apology, you know?” You exhale a little.

“Yeah, but you deserve one,” he says. “I was pretty shitty to you.”

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, catching Kei off guard, “but it happens to all of us. Sometimes we feel things and just can’t keep them inside, you know?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down his shame.

There’s another long silence. You don’t move to touch him or talk to him, instead, you provide steady company. Kei, as strange as it is, is comforted by your presence.

“I fought with Tadashi,” Kei says after a few minutes.

“Today?”

“Yeah, tonight. After everyone left,” he says. “I deserved it though. I’ve been pretty shitty to him all day.”

You hum, leaning back on your hands.

“I did the same shit in high school too, you know?” Kei starts. “We’ve uhm- we’ve known each other for a while, the group that was over tonight. Around the end of middle school some shit happened and I uh- I took out a lot of what I was feeling on Tadashi and the others, but mostly Tadashi because he was the only one who knew.”

Kei isn’t sure why he’s telling you this. Maybe Tadashi was right. Maybe this is another attempt at self sabotage.

“You bullied him?” You ask, a little surprised.

Kei shakes his head. “No, but I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone could tell you that. I thought I was past it, though,” he admits, a little defeated.

“Did you ever apologize?”

Kei looks up at you in surprise. Your eyes are full of something, curiosity, maybe pity.

“For what you did in school?”

He nods. “Countless times, and not just to Tadashi either, to everyone.”

“You know, stuff like this happens,” you say. “When I was little, I used to hate sharing. Toys, food, friends. I’d hate it when my friends were friends with other people. It made me insecure and I’d get mad at them for it. I grew out of it, but sometimes I still get that way and I have to apologize later.”

Kei laughs. It’s strikingly similar to what’s happening now, not that you’d have any way of knowing.

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” he says.

“I’m serious,” you say. “I still get weird over it sometimes.”

Kei shakes his head a little, smiling.

“All that I’m saying is that sometimes we slip up, that’s all. It’s normal,” you continue. “Not that I’m condoning it. Just saying that it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you human.”

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“No problem,” you respond.

“So why’d you fight with him tonight?”

“He was angry with me because I was an asshole,” Kei shrugs.

“And you’re mad that he called you out?” You give a quiet and somewhat incredulous laugh.

Kei shakes his head. “No, I’m angry about what he said after.”

“What’d he say?”

Kei debates on telling you. He doesn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. After all, Tadashi meant no harm, even if his comment did exactly that.

“The argument kind of switched subjects,” Kei tiptoes around the fact that the subject was you. “He brought up a bad habit of mine and I got defensive.”

“Okay,” you say, waiting for him to say more.

“Remember when I said that something happened at the end of middle school and only Tadashi knew about it?” When you nod, Kei continues. “My parents got divorced. They were a bad match and it was messy. He brought it up.”

You nod again, your eyes wide.

“He didn’t mean any harm, I know that,” Kei inhales. “But uh- that stuff kind of sticks with you. Well, it’s stuck with me and I didn’t like having it used to explain my behaviors, even if he was right. I’m not deflecting or anything though. I know I was the problem tonight.”

“Sure,” you say. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

Kei shrugs. “It’s in the past. They’re both remarried now with new kids.”

The last sentence leaves Kei with a sour taste in his mouth. His parents are good people, but after his childhood, he doesn’t think they have any business having more children. Maybe they’re capable of being good for them, but Kei doesn’t like to imagine that. It makes him feel like their marriage wasn’t the problem, but he and Akiteru were.

“You say that like they got a new pet,” you smile a little. “Are you still in touch with them?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I visit whenever I go back home, though they’re really not too far from here.”

“That’s good of you.”

“Well, they are my parents,” Kei says plainly.

You’re the only other person he’s divulged this to by choice and your reactions, understanding and level-headed, make him feel better. It’s like getting a weight off of his chest. This is the worst of him. This little bit of information, his history of being unable to fully confront his feelings, of taking anger out on others when he was young, is where his problems originate.

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it,” you say. “My mom died when I was eleven. Texting and driving. I’m still angry at her for it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

You shrug and offer him a wry smile. “It’s in the past, but I’m still angry even though I shouldn’t be.”

“At her?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “She made a stupid mistake that we’re constantly warned about and left my dad and me behind. I was so angry with her, still am. I love her though, perceived faults and all.”

Kei thinks about whether or not he loves his parents. He thinks he does, even if he resents them. Kei can’t imagine what he’d do without them. Even though his childhood had few emotional comforts, he still can’t think about a world where he doesn’t visit home to have his mother’s cooking. That’s a world that you live in.

“That’s hard.” It’s all Kei can think to offer.

“It was,” you say. “Got easier though as soon as I started accepting things. Now I just miss her more than I hate her.”

Another bout of silence follows this. It must be close to two in the morning and he’s been outside so long that he can no longer feel the tip of his nose.

“Anyway, about tonight,” you say, “it’s not a crime to feel what you feel, but if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. It’s easier to accept feelings and get hurt than to ignore them, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking to face you. “Thank you.”

You’re so pretty. It’s striking. The curvature and angles of your face, the gentle look in your eyes, softened by the conversation. Kei finds himself thinking that despite not wanting to face you a few hours earlier, he’s grateful that you showed up. You’re good in ways that Kei can hardly fathom.

“You should go inside. Tadashi is probably wondering where you are,” you say, standing up. “Plus,” you pinch the tip of his nose between your middle and pointer knuckles, “your nose looks like a cherry tomato.”

“Rude,” he says, startled by the sudden touch.

“Payback,” you shrug your shoulders and Kei rolls his eyes.

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Kei offers, a bit nervous about you walking home on your own.

“I’d love to take you up on that, but you seem tired and I don’t live very far,” you respond. “I’ll call you when I get home though, okay? Since you’re so worried.”

Kei laughs a little and then nods, standing up. “Yeah, I am.”

His honesty surprises even him, but you just tilt your head and give him a small smile.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” you say. “Thanks for the apology”

“Anytime.”

“I hope not,” you laugh and Kei follows suit.

You begin to turn on your heel, giving a small wave.

Kei doesn’t know what overcomes him, but he calls out your name and reaches for your wrist. Before he has a moment to think about what he’s doing, he pulls you to his chest in a hug. You stiffen and then relax in his grip, wrapping your arms around him. Your body is warmer than his, sending heat through the gaps in his sweater.

“You can call even if it’s not to tell me you got home safe,” he says. “If you want to.”

You squeeze him around the middle. “Okay, I will.”

When Kei lets go, he finds that his face is burning. The cold has been replaced by a flush of blood, making his vision a little syrupy.

“Thanks for coming back,” he says. “Get home safe.”

“Of course,” you sound a little dazed, wearing an expression that Kei thinks might match his. “And I will.”

Then, you smile at him, flashing your teeth and giving him a wave. You hold up your phone and point to it.

“Expect a call!”

Kei nods and raises his arm to wave goodbye.

He stands and watches your figure as you walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. When you’re out of sight, he lingers by the door to his building, just in case you decide to come back. You don’t come back, but Kei lingers anyway, considering the conversation.

He goes inside, intent on apologizing to Tadashi. When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are still on in the living room and Tadashi gets up from the couch and walks quickly down the hall to him.

“Kei, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry,” Kei says. “I know. I’m sorry about tonight too. And for treating you like that today. And for high school.”

“High school?” Tadashi says, confused. “Why are you bringing up high school?”

“Just wanted to apologize again.”

Kei can feel his eyes drooping, exhaustion creeping into his body and replacing the elated feeling he had moments before.

“I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it. How you like someone is none of my business,” Tadashi says. “I was out of line.”

“So was I,” Kei admits through a tired sigh. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’ll apologize to the others in the morning.”

Tadashi narrows his eyes a little and nods. Kei, besieged by that sleepy late night feeling, moves towards his bedroom.

“Hey, Kei,” his voice comes out a little louder this time. “You’re being surprisingly easy-going. Are we good?”

Kei scoffs a little, rubbing his eyes. “I just had some time to think, that’s all. And yeah, we’re good.”

“Okay, are you good?”

“Yeah, I am,” Kei says.

Before he closes the door to his room, he furrows his eyebrows and makes a firm decision.

“By the way,” Tadashi turns to him, cocking his head to the side in response. “I lied. I do like them.”

“Could have guessed as much,” he responds, laughing a little. “See you in the morning.”

“Yup, see you in the morning.”

Kei shuts the door to his room. It clicks into place quietly. His room is spotless. It looks like a room that could be easily emptied at any time. He sighs, stepping into it and laying down on his bed. His phone is on the comforter next to him, lying face up.

When it lights up, it illuminates the ceiling above him and he answers the phone without needing to check who's calling.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I got home safe,” he hears your keys clink against something and then the sound of a door shutting. Then, he hears the sound of you laying down on your bed. He imagines you’re lying the same way he is.

“Good, I’m glad,” he says. “No trouble?”

“No trouble at all,” you say. He can hear your smile.

“Thanks again for coming back tonight,” he says, turning over onto his side and letting the phone rest on the bed in front of his face.

“Of course,” you say.

He doesn’t know what else to say. His nerves have caught up to him and your voice through the speaker sounds so close, like you’re whispering directly into his ear.

“Okay, well I’m going to go to bed,” Kei starts.

“Kei?” you say.

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna take you up on your offer. About calling you. Just wanted you to know.”

“Okay,” he swallows.

“I feel a lot closer to you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Goodnight, Kei,” you practically whisper.

“Goodnight,” he responds, lowering his voice the same way you did. You hang up the phone and the call ends.

He blinks at his phone for a moment before standing up and getting ready for bed. Kei goes through the motions while thinking about how the evening got here. He’d been certain before it began that he no longer liked you, that he was confused. Now, he’s certain of the opposite.

He decides that he’ll like you for real this time. Even if he’s afraid of hurting himself, of hurting you.

Kei lays down in his bed and faces the ceiling. He thinks about his parents, about your mother, about you. The cadence of your voice, the slight tremor in it. He thinks about your expressions, understanding and unintrusive. He thinks about your history, the anger you’d admitted to him and the grace you’d given him in his own circumstances.

He dreams of braids, like DNA. Coils of pink yarn woven together in an intricate pattern. A molecular change not visible to the naked eye. Morning comes like liquid gold, spilling across his bedspread in slats through the window.

—

Kei’s apologies go smoothly. Tadashi’s friends—his friends—are good people. They know him better than most and field his awkward, stumbling apology with steady hands.

He’d explained his sour mood in as little detail as possible, deliberately omitting his feelings for you while doing so, and he made a special effort to apologize to Tanaka. He’s easygoing and quick to forget, but Kei knows that even after accepting the apology, Tanaka will lord it over his head for a week or two. Tanaka thinks those kinds of things are funny and Kei won’t try to tell him otherwise.

You do take Kei up on his offer. You call him twice a week now. Sometimes it’s to tell him something relevant to him, other times, you just whisper into the phone that you just felt like talking. Either way, it’s not good for his heart. Kei thinks that at this rate, it might just give out.

There are a lot of things that Kei could say about liking you. It makes his days a little brighter. When he remembers that he has someone he cares about like that, he feels a surge of excitement for no particular reason. He finds that he looks forward to seeing you and goes out of his way to do so, more than he did before he was willing to admit it.

He’s noticed the way you eat, like every bite of food is even better than the last. He’s noticed that you wipe the condensation off of your cups before each sip. He’s noticed that when you’re studying, you’ll pull at the collar of your shirt absentmindedly and then become frustrated when it is stretched out of place. Kei likes all of these things about you.

Kei has also found that liking someone hurts. It hurts worse than he thought it would. Insecurity weaves its way into even the most minor of interactions. He’s self conscious almost all of the time, adjusting his hair, clothing, glasses right down to minor details. As of late, Kei appears more put together than he ever has, but the reality is that he’s probably the least put together he’s ever been.

When you’re around, Kei is awkward and clumsy. He drops things, trips over nothing, loses control over his lanky limbs and overshoots things. He feels like a teenager again, not that he’s that far off from one.

Still, one thing overshadows all of this. Kei is so comfortable around you, so peaceful despite the nerves and insecurity, that he’s able to forget about the worst of it. Forgetting about the worst of things is not something Kei is particularly good at. He’s cynical by nature. You help to ease the burden of it.

The coffee shop he’s visiting with you today is quiet. The room is decorated with dark oak wood and the tables are accented by the rings of the trees the wood was cut from. The early spring light filters in at angles through the windows letting out onto the street. It falls across your notebooks and the knuckles of your hand, wrapped evenly around a black pen.

You’d brought him here to study instead of going to the library and Kei can’t help but think that it feels like a date. His tea sits half-finished in a mug beside his laptop, beginning to cool to room temperature. Your coffee sits by your unoccupied hand and every now and then, you’ll reach to take a sip of the warm beverage without even glancing up.

Kei has spent so much time watching you today, that he’s hardly gotten any work done. His computer is open on a document with a paragraph of writing about nudity in the classical period, which he hasn’t touched in about 10 minutes. He’s been clicking blankly around the page, adding spaces and then deleting them and then glancing up over the edge of the screen to look at the way you purse your lips when you’re focused.

“You’d get a lot more done if you stopped staring,” you say, not looking up from your notebook.

Kei chokes on his exhale. “What?”

You laugh a little, looking up at him through your lashes. God, you’re pretty.

“The document?” You chuckle. “You’re not fooling anyone by clicking around randomly like that.”

“Oh,” Kei furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, just can’t seem to focus.”

“What’s the paper on?” You set down your pen and cross your arms on the table.

“It’s not really a paper,” he says. “It’s a visual analysis on the Aphrodite of Knidos.”

“Is that the one without the arms?”

“No, but they come from the same family of statues,” Kei smiles a little.

You hum a bit. “Do you like it?”

“Like, do I think the statue’s pretty?” Kei closes the screen of his laptop to see you better. “Yeah, I do. Learning about the history of it is a bit depressing though.”

“Why?”

“Well, Aphrodite was one of the most powerful Greek gods, right?” He says, and you nod your head and roll your eyes because you know that already. “But this statue group intrudes on a private moment of hers. She’s trying to cover up her body, probably just before or after a bath. It’s meant to be humiliating.”

You tilt your head. “Sounds more interesting than molecular structures at least.”

Kei laughs a little. “Yeah, I think it’s just a bit more interesting.”

“Why did you choose to study art history?” You question, leaning forward on your elbows.

Kei feels awkward at receiving the question. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, let alone his passions. They tend to get away from him.

“Probably because I’m no good at art,” he smiles a little.

“Such a shame, what with your artist’s hands and all,” you reach across the table and tap his knuckle.

Kei feels the color rise to his cheeks.

“You’re no good at art, so you study art history instead?” You press for more.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like things that people make with their hands. There’s a lot of human expression in ancient art, good and bad. Gives a bit more context into who we were before.”

You lean back in the chair, grinning at him. Kei bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to notice the slope of your neck.

“Why are you studying molecular bio?” He changes the subject.

You shrug your shoulders. “I want a good cushy job that makes me a lot of money.”

Kei watches the corners of your lips curl up.

“Plus,” you continue, “I wanted to show off a little bit.”

“So you put yourself through four years of torture?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Yup, I’m a huge masochist,” you grin.

“You STEM kids are unbearable, you know?” Kei snorts.

“But you like me anyway, yeah?”

Kei nods, heat creeping up his neck, and watches you return to your work.

It’s true, he does like you anyway. Kei likes you so much, in fact, that it frightens him. Well, the idea of liking someone has always frightened Kei, whether he’s noticed it or not. Commitment, or lack thereof, make Kei nervous in the same way heights do. He feels like he could lose his footing at any moment.

That’s probably why he doesn’t want to do anything in particular about his feelings. Kei is content with just feeling them. He’s content to just be able to like you in his own way, even if nothing ever comes of it. He probably shouldn’t do anything about them, considering the back and forth battle he’s waged in his mind over the last few months. He’s too indecisive to do anything but like you, and even that feels herculean to accept.

Not that liking you is a hard thing to do. You’re easy to like. It’s easy for him to picture touching you. It’s easy for Kei to imagine late night conversations and little intimacies shared over damp pillows. You’re easy to talk to, floating through conversations and navigating conflict with a sure step, something Kei can’t do. It’s not hard to find things to admire.

Kei imagines what it would be like to be with you. He imagines the feel of your hands in his, how you might look spread beneath him, the inside of your thighs pressing against his hips. He imagines how his glasses might fog up with your breath and slip down the bridge of his nose. What do you taste like? What do you feel like?

A little alarm bell sounds in his head. This is a dangerous line of thought, a greedy one. Kei doesn’t think he can handle greed, not when it comes to you. He got a taste of it that day when he saw you leave with someone else and again the following Friday. Kei doesn’t mix well with it, with wanting. Still, he wants.

—

It’s a breezy day. It cuts the growing humidity as the beginning of May creeps on. This is no doubt one of the best times of year, though Kei prefers the fall or winter. Still, even with the slightly sticky air, his walk to class is pleasant. He’d even venture to say that it’s good.

Light filters through the trees, blooming with their spring flowers, and in the distance he can see a familiar row of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. As he approaches them, he finds himself admiring their delicate petals, wondering just how brief their bloom will be before they come cascading down. One tree among the pink rows has yet to open its flowers. The buds sit on their branches, shades of green and gray. A late bloomer. This tree will no doubt flower once the other petals have fallen, and when it does, it’ll become the most eye-catching thing on the street.

Kei admires it for a moment, standing below the thing and looking up through its twisting branches. It’s so small, much smaller than the rest of its counterparts, and its branches don’t look too full of yet-to-bloom buds either.

There was a tree like this outside of Kei’s childhood home, the one his family lived in together when it was whole. It would always bloom a week after the others and every year he would worry that it never would. Of course, he kept this fear to himself, but he often watched it from his bedroom window when Akiteru was out. He’d press his face against the glass and pray for the flowers to come so that it didn’t get left behind. Sure enough though, it would bloom without fail and leave scattered pink petals across his yard and doorstep. Kei wonders if this tree in front of him will do the same.

“Thinking about changing your major to plant sciences, Kei?”

He jumps, started by your voice and your proximity.

“Jesus,” Kei turns, “you need a bell or something.”

“You’re the one standing in public staring at a tree with no flowers on it,” you laugh a little.

Kei shrugs his shoulders, not really willing to give an explanation for the train of thought he was just on.

“Where’re you headed?” he questions.

“Dropping off an assignment,” you smile lightly, “wanna come with me?”

“I can’t. I’ve got a class in 15.”

“Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes,” you shrug. “We’ll make it.”

“We?” Kei raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you come with me to drop off my paper and then I drop you off at class. It’s a win-win.”

“Sounds like I’m just doing a lot of extra walking,” Kei snorts.

“Yeah, but you get to do it with me so it’ll be more fun.”

Kei folds and goes with you to drop off your assignment. It’s an essay assigned by an old-fashioned professor who doesn’t like electronic submissions. You comment off-handedly on what a waste of paper it is and Kei nods, just happy to hear about it.

It’s strange. Kei is normally very tied to his routine. It keeps him sane, helps him to organize his thoughts and feelings into neat compartments. For Kei, an orderly life is an orderly mind. Somehow though, you ask him to deviate from that and he’s more than willing, eager even, to oblige you. Better yet, he does it without feeling off-kilter. Well, without feeling as off-kilter about his daily life. When it comes to you, Kei is about as stable as a pogo stick.

The walk to your professor's office is only a few minutes from his classroom, just a few buildings over, but by the time you both arrive there, Kei’s palms are sweating. He resorts to shoving them in his pockets and wiping them on the inside of his pants, mortified at the idea of accidentally touching you like this.

“Hey, about tonight,” you start after dropping the paper off with a quick bow.

You’re supposed to come over. It’s the first time you and Kei have agreed to hang out at one of your places alone and Kei has been compartmentalizing his nerves so harshly that he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Maybe that explains his easy-going mood.

“Yeah?”

“So, Tadashi may have mentioned it in front of the others,” you give him a sheepish grin, “and they may have asked to come and I definitely told them ‘the more the merrier’.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kei’s a little disappointed. “So they’re coming too?”

“Yeah, is that okay?” You furrow your eyebrows.

Kei can’t very well come out and say that it isn’t, because his reason for thinking that is entirely about monopolizing your time. Kei says he doesn’t want to do anything about these feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge just a little into the foreign feeling of accepting that he’s ‘in like’.

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

You raise an eyebrow at him and Kei misses the message entirely.

“I dunno, you’re not really a fan of bigger groups right?”

“Not really,” Kei shrugs, “but I’ve known them for a while so it doesn’t count.”

You nod your head and then smile. “Great! Now, where is your class?”

“Social Sciences,” Kei glances down at the brown watch on his wrist. “In about… four minutes.”

“Wanna run? Can’t be late, can you?”

Kei does not want to run. He runs anyway. You’re faster than he is and your step is louder. The soles of your shoes thump on the floor with every step you take and your whole body lurches forward with each bound. When you reach the end of the hallway his class is in, Kei is completely winded. Considering that he plays volleyball as a hobby, he should really be in better shape. He attributes his lack of breath to your presence. Maybe he’d been holding it while watching you run.

You glance into his full classroom, giving him a relieved look upon seeing that the professor has not begun her lecture yet. Then, you bounce twice on the tips of your toes and start jogging in the other direction.

“Have a good class!” You call.

“What’s the rush?” he questions.

“I’ve got class now too, dummy. Just wanted to hang out with you for a few more minutes.” Then, you turn and run off, your bag bouncing against the side of your leg as you round a corner and fly down a set of stairs.

That’s the thing about you that Kei can’t get enough of. When Kei takes a step back, when he resigns himself to being okay with just a chance meeting and a brief hello, you take a step forward. Whatever Kei lacks, you make up for tenfold. Your outstretched hand makes him greedier. It makes Kei want more than he’s ever wanted before. He goes to class starved for something that isn’t food, a feeling Kei hasn’t experienced often, let alone leaned into. He lets himself feel the hunger.

—

Day melts away to a cool evening, still slightly wet, but like the dampness before rain. The air loses its warm touch, creeping into something chillier. Kei opens his bedroom window to let the air in. He likes the smell of cool nights. He wants his room to smell like it when he sleeps tonight.

“Sorry that I spilled the beans about tonight,” Tadashi leans in the doorway of his room.

“It’s not like that,” Kei rolls his eyes, already irritated with the implication that whatever you and Kei had organized was anything more than two friends hanging out.

“Sure it isn’t,” he laughs.

“I’m serious dude,” Kei fights the urge to throw something soft at him.

“You wanted to hang out with them alone, right?” Tadashi tilts his head. His dark hair falls to the side and around his neck.

“I just said it wasn’t like that!”

Tadashi gives an even laugh. “You’re the one making it dirty, Tsukki, not me.”

Heat floods Kei’s face, painting it red.

“Caught ya,” Tadashi smiles.

“When the hell are you moving out?” Kei grumbles and Tadashi gives another good natured laugh.

“Not until you do. You’re stuck with me.”

“Not if I kill you,” Kei doesn’t smile when he says this.

Tadashi barks a laugh. “So what changed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean with you. You seem a little more upbeat lately,” Tadashi says. “Nothing like the sad sack from a few months ago.”

“I was kidding before but now I’m serious. I really will kill you.”

Tadashi shakes his head a little but doesn’t say anything, intruding on Kei’s space until he gives an answer.

“I just got tired of it, that’s all,” Kei says evenly, though it’s a little hard to admit.

“Tired of what?”

“Pretending,” he says plainly, glancing up at Tadashi in the doorway.

“Because of them?”

“No,” he starts. “Maybe. I don’t know. Can you leave now?”

Tadashi shakes his head. “Too curious to leave.”

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Kei grumbles. “I got tired of pretending I didn’t want them.”

“Not like you were very good at pretending,” Tadashi laughs and Kei tosses him a sharp look.

He raises his hands defensively, tucking his chin downwards and laughing lightly. “Okay, fine. I’m gone now.”

“They’ll be here in an hour or so, by the way,” Kei adds and Tadashi gives a little hum to confirm that he’s heard him as he leaves the room.

Kei glances around his room. The floor is bare, save for a small mat by the side of his bed to keep the shock of warm feet on a cold floor in the morning away. That notebook, dear to him as it is, still sits on the desk. It’s empty, but Kei likes the look of it.

The hour before you and his friends are meant to arrive goes by so slowly that Kei worries that he’s gotten the day wrong. He incessantly checks his watch. It’s a brown leather watch with a square face. Thin and somewhat old fashioned, Kei prefers it to pulling his phone out to check the time. His Dad has one like it, almost matching. It had been given to him as a gift at his high school graduation and Kei had accepted it begrudgingly. He’d not been on good terms with his parents then and having them both in the same space for his graduation day was more trouble than it was worth. Still, he wears the watch almost daily. Despite having the impression that his parents never really cared about him, it was a fine gift for him and the brown strap suits his light skin tone in the same way it suits his father’s.

He walks to the mirror in his room, hanging on the wall beside his nightstand, and peers into it. Kei’s curly hair is somewhat unruly. It’s hard to manage, especially in the warmer months when his waves turn into frizzy curls that he can’t seem to keep down. It’s gotten longer, coming down to just above the bottom of his ears at the back and curls upwards in licks of thick blond.

Kei fiddles with it for a moment, tucking it behind his ears and then deciding to pull it forward. He could put gel in it to help calm it down, but he hates the greasy look of it and he’s never been one to primp and preen. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, square frames in a tortoiseshell pattern. They look expensive, though they’re only a cheap pair that he’d found at the drug store and had the lenses replaced.

He looks normal. Kei looks like himself, if not a bit flushed in the face from his nerves. His reflection is one he is oddly unfamiliar with, despite it being his throughout his entire life. At some point during high school, he’d stopped recognizing the man in the mirror as Kei and started viewing him as a separate entity. Kei Two, a version of him that can make a home out of a space and find things to write in his notebook. Kei Two’s family is still whole and unbroken, and he likes to imagine that he’s a little more friendly than the real-world version. He looks away from the mirror, content today with being the original.

Kei is in the living room and around the corner when the front door latch clicks open and is followed by a symphony of raucous voices. He takes a sharp inhale, unsure of why this feels so different from the hundreds of other times you’ve all piled into his living room.

“Where’s Kei?” He hears you call, dragging out the syllable of his name in a soft hum.

That’s why. It’s because this time, you’ve come here to see him specifically. You’re not here to see Tadashi or by chance, you’re here because you’d made plans to see Kei. That’s what makes it different.

You round the corner and Kei is hit full force in the chest with his emotions and his nerves. It happens all at once, keeping the air from his lungs. You’re smiling, beaming even, and Kei thinks that maybe it’s because you can hear the hammer of his heart against his chest.

“Hi,” you breathe, plopping down next to him on the couch.

“Hey,” he chokes out.

Kei chides himself for his nerves. He’d been doing better about getting weird around you, but today he feels closer to blowing up than he ever has.

Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi, and Noya make their way into the kitchen, each one clapping Tadashi on the back as they do. They beeline for their fridge, opening the door and flooding the floor with artificial white light as they pull out enough beers and sodas to supply a small army. Kei wonders why he and Tadashi ever bought so many of them. Kei hardly drinks, but he supposes that Tadashi just likes to host.

“Tanaka and Kiyoko?” Tadashi questions as he makes his way into the living room with the group. His beer cracks open with a satisfying pop.

“Date night,” Noya says, sinking into one of the arm chairs situated around the coffee table. “So annoying.”

He groans about Kiyoko, someone he’s all but worshiped since high school.

“You’re just mad it isn’t you,” Kageyama quips, giving a somewhat mean grin.

“Not true,” Noya argues. “I am the happiest person in the world for them! But now they go on dates and I can’t come. It’s like I lost a bro.”

“You’re so overreacting,” Yachi adds, her lips forming around high pitched syllables. “They’re here most of the time.”

“Yeah, most but not all,” Noya pouts.

“Give the same energy to Daichi, Suga, and Asahi next time, kay?” Tadashi laughs.

Their friend group is a large one, consisting of most (if not all) of their highschool volleyball team. While Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi are the same age as Kei and Tadashi, Tanaka and Noya are a year older, and Kiyoko is two. Daichi, Asahi, and Suga all went to universities outside of Sendai, meaning they hardly ever see them. All in all, the rest of the group is pretty bummed about it. Kei just finds that he misses having Daichi around to reel everyone in. Now that he’s gone, that job has somehow gone to Tadashi, who is more of an enabler than anything else.

“They’re different and you know it,” Noya frowns, opening his open beer with a hiss through his teeth.

You lean to the side, bumping your shoulder against Kei’s.

“Who’re Daichi, Suga, and Asahi?” You ask softly.

“You’ve never met?” Kei furrows his eyebrows and you shrug.

“Maybe, but if I have it was only once or twice.”

“They’re friends from our volleyball team in highschool, but they’re two years older.”

“Okay, so one year older than me?”

Kei blinks a few times. “You’re a year older than me?”

“Yeah?” You laugh a little like it’s obvious.

“But aren’t you a fourth year?” He furrows his eyebrows.

“I took a year off before starting college,” you shrug your shoulders. “Thought that I had to get my sillies out.”

“Your sillies?” Kei laughs a little.

“Yeah,” you smile, “and I had to save up some money. It makes the world go ‘round, you know?”

“What are you guys whispering about?” Tadashi gives Kei a wry grin over the top of his beer can.

It’s only then that Kei realizes the way you both are leaning into each other. He’s tilting his head down to hear you better and you’re leaning forward. It gives off the impression of two people conspiring, of closeness that Kei hadn’t even realized had crept up on him.

“I was asking who Daichi, Suga, and Asahi are,” you shrug off the moment, leaning back in the chair.

This prompts a chorus of disbelief, everyone jumping in to describe them to you. Kei takes it as a moment to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. He can feel your thigh against his, just barely there and bleeding warmth through the fabric of his jeans.

They delve into stories about nationals, little details that Kei had forgotten a long time ago. Every now and then, someone will bring up Kei’s more-than-sour personality and he will feel the need to hide the embarrassment on his cheeks. Even though you know about it, it’s still mortifying for Kei to hear. He wants you to see the best in him, but any hopes he had of you forgetting are quickly washed away as someone brings up Kei’s relentless prodding of Kageyama’s easily pushed buttons.

You laugh along with them like you were there, amused to hear stories about your college friends in their high school years. Kei finds himself thinking that you fit very well into this scene.

Still though, despite the fun he’s having, Kei’s battery begins to run out quickly and after a long game of cards, he gets up to take a quick break in the kitchen. It’s not that he wants the night to end, but rather that he just needs a minute to himself and uses the idea of more snacks as an excuse for it.

He reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a half-finished bag of chips and setting them on the counter. They’re clipped with a bright red chip-clip from the grocery store and Kei thinks that because of that, they shouldn’t have gone stale yet. If it were the peak of summer, Kei might think twice, but this time of year, they should be fine.

Then, he bends down to get a large white mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. Their plates and bowls are kept in various different cabinets, though the only reason they stay somewhat organized is because of Kei.

“Done already?” You lean your hip against the counter.

“With what?” Kei struggles to keep his eyes from following the line of your body.

“Hanging out,” you smile lightly.

“Not really,” he says. “Just needed a minute and decided to get more snacks.”

“Wanna go sit outside for a bit then?”

Kei glances into the living room where the group chatters away. He’d hate to be stopped on the way.

“Relax,” you laugh. “They’re so caught up they won’t even notice that we’re gone.”

Kei furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, swallowing his heart down with the spit that has pooled in his mouth. He follows you out of the front door, shutting it with a quiet click and heading down the steps of the complex and to the concrete wall lining the shrubbery outside. It’s the same place you’d come back to talk to him at all those weeks ago, though he is in considerably better spirits than he was then.

It’s a cool night, the gentle heat of the day completely burned off to make way for a crisp breeze. He inhales, wishing that he had brought a drink to fiddle with and sip on to distract him from his nerves.

You sit beside him, leaning back on your palms with your legs outstretched in front of you. Your hand is only a few inches from his and Kei sucks in a breath when he accidentally touches it while he gets comfortable. You only offer him a little smile in response.

“Sorry again about bringing the troops here,” you speak first.

“That’s really okay,” he says. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually really like them.”

You snort. “I hope so.”

Kei inhales louder than he intends to and when you look at him like he’s going to say something, he just holds his breath and shakes his head. The air only leaves him when you finally look away.

“Kind of a bummer though,” you start, “I was kinda excited about just hanging out with you.”

Kei’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows to move the metaphorical blockage.

“We hang out all the time though,” he says like it’s enough. Of course it’s not enough.

“Guess so,” you smile a little, though Kei can hear the distinct turn of disappointment in your voice.

“You know,” he starts, already embarrassed at what he’s going to admit. “I wanted to be your friend for a while.”

“Oh yeah?” you smile, opening up again and turning towards him. “Why?”

Kei shrugs, resisting the urge to shut down completely. It’s embarrassing admitting to someone that you wanted to know them before you actually knew them.

“You kind of reminded me of Tadashi,” he says. “And you both got along so well.”

“Tadashi? I’m nothing like Tadashi,” you laugh, shaking your head.

“What? No, you two are so similar,” Kei insists, lacing his fingers together.

“What about us is so similar?”

“Well, you’re both sociable and warm and…” Kei trails off. He can’t really think of anything else. You look at him with an expectant look in your eyes.

“See?”

Kei realizes that the two of you are not similar at all. Your warmth is where the similarity stops. He’d been likening you to Tadashi this entire time, not because the two of you are similar, but because you make him feel similar to the way Tadashi does. Safe and comfortable, though with the added addition of deeply awkward. He realizes that without the safety net of you being like Tadashi, he’s never had any ability to deny his feelings and with that they rage full force around the corner and slam into his chest like a heavy blow.

“We’re nothing like each other,” you laugh and lean back against your palms. “Though, it would be cool to be like Tadashi.”

Kei experiences the sudden realization that he doesn’t want you to be like Tadashi. Kei wants you to be like him. He wants you to be greedy and want him the same way he wants you. He wants you to be able to keep up with his turns and his moods, something he didn’t realize he wanted in the first place. If you’re like Kei, then Kei doesn’t have to be afraid of showing you the worst. You’ll have already seen it. If you’re like Kei and he loves you, then what is stopping you from loving him?

“Even if you’re not like Tadashi, that’s fine.” His cheeks burn.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I like you all the same,” he admits quietly.

“The same? As Tadashi?” You purse your lips a little. “I thought I was a little different. Was I wrong?”

Kei wants to kiss you. Kei wants to kiss you so badly that his mouth has gone dry and his lips feel like they’ve separated from his body. Anything he’d thought about not wanting anything with you flies out of the window with your proximity. You’re so close to him. Close enough that if he leaned a little to the right, his shoulder would be against yours. You’re so close and you’re looking at him like you’re waiting for something, implying that somehow you’re different from Tadashi. Implying that you want him to like you differently than the way he likes his platonic friend.

“No, you’re different,” he says, taking the bait you’ve laid in front of him. His heart pounds and he can’t look at you. He thinks he’ll kiss you if he does.

“Am I?”

Kei can hear the smile in your voice. It makes what you’re saying sound honeyed and curved.

“Yeah, you are.”

“How so?”

Kei finally raises his head to look at you. You’re grinning, leaning towards him like you’re watching a show. He feels the way his nerves rise into his throat, pressing against the very back of his tongue. He doesn’t know how to answer or what to say. Well, he does know what to say, he just doesn’t think he can. Kei is good at thinking about emotions, but when it comes time to speak them outloud, it seems that he’s still got a padlock around his throat. So he does what any logical person would do.

Kei leans forward, pushing against his screaming nerves and trying to ignore the tremble in his hands, and kisses you. It’s awkward and his teeth click against yours before his lips fully settle against your mouth. He feels the breath you draw in, like surprise and relief mixed together, and he finds that he does the same.

He can see the way your eyes flutter closed through his barely open ones and he realizes that your lips are so warm. He screws his eyes shut when you dip your head forward to move your lips against his. Yours are so warm and soft, like satin. A kiss has never felt like this to Kei before and he finds that he wants to catalog every single one of your reactions. Maybe that’s what he could write in the notebook. Maybe he could write down every single thing that you do that leaves him winded and wanting more.

Neither of you reach for the other, but he can feel the knuckle of your pinky against his as you slowly kiss each other, tilting your heads side to side. There’s hunger within him, the need to take more than what he’s receiving and a greed he isn’t quite familiar with, but there’s also romance. It’s like a spell that’s yet to be broken, fed by the click of your mouths as they move together. Kei sighs, flooded with the relief of this kind of physical affection, of being honest with himself at how much he likes it. Kei loves the feel of your mouth. He loves the way your lips and tongue feel and he loves that they’re all that he can feel right now.

The kiss lasts longer than Kei thought it would and by the time he pulls away, you’re both steadily panting and attempting to keep your breathing even. He wants to do it again. He wants it so badly that it makes his chest swell. He wants to do that with you forever, but he swallows down the desire. It’s a temporary fix, but it’s enough for him to choke out what it is he wants to say next.

“I think I’m in really hot water,” he squeaks.

“What do you mean?” You breathe out, the playfulness from a few moments earlier long behind you.

“I think I want you way more than I thought I did,” he admits quietly, the first out loud admittance of his feelings to you.

You smile a little before speaking. “I think it’s only hot water if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.”

Your face is still so close to his. “Yeah?”

It comes out a bit desperate, like he needs reassurance. Kei does. He’s so afraid that he thinks he could die. Afraid of the spell breaking, afraid of losing whatever moment this is and being forced to return to his one-sided pining, afraid that you don’t feel the same way.

Your face moves closer to him, breath trembling lightly. “Yeah.”

You kiss him again, pressing your lips against his lightly before parting them. He’s so overwhelmed and so immediately lost in it. Kei feels the way your tongue teases the inside of his mouth and it makes him feel like a teenager again, swelling with desires and emotions that he can’t name. You move your hand over his, placing it lightly on top of his, and he reacts by lacing your fingers together and pushing forward more.

Kei wants to touch you so badly, to reach up and hold your face, to touch your waist and your legs and your chest. He wants to do it all, to feel you right here under the cover of night, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you and stews in the desire, letting it swell in his chest as he listens to the clicking of your mouths. You kiss him so slowly, moving your mouth at a languid pace. It drives him crazy. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this.

“We should go back inside, I think,” you break away, your bottom lip shiny with a sheen of spit. “The others might think something’s up and Tanaka isn’t exactly good with discretion.”

Kei automatically reaches up to swipe it with his thumb. He doesn’t know where this affection comes from, where the possessive action found its origins, but he finds that he likes the way it feels to be able to do it in the first place.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kei responds, though he would have been happy to continue sitting out here with you, kissing you silly.

You stand first, dusting off the back of your legs and waiting for Kei to follow suit. When he does, you reach quickly for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before walking in front of him.

Kei is not sure how he should act when he goes inside. He’s tense all over, desperate to pick up where the two of you left off, and unsure if his face betrays that thought.

“Where’d you guys go?” Tadashi asks as Kei closes the door behind him.

In the time you’d both been gone, the living room has been transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. Empty beer cans are strewn about the tables and the blankets and pillows from the couches are now haphazardly laying around beside the couch or over people’s bodies. Then again, maybe the room always looked like this and he was just too busy thinking about how close you were to him.

Kei doesn’t know what to say. Why had they gone outside in the first place? He’s not even sure that he remembers.

“I wanted a cigarette and I made Kei come with me,” you answer evenly. “Why? You jealous?”

“Of inhaling second-hand smoke? No, thanks.” Tadashi laughs, but he tosses Kei a sideways glance. Tadashi knows him well enough to know that Kei wouldn’t voluntarily stand outside with a smoker unless he was particularly fond of them.

“Aw, man, I thought you quit?” Hinata pipes up, tilting his head.

“I did, hot stuff,” you respond, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t worry. I won’t smoke anymore.”

Hinata huffs and Kei takes the opportunity to sit down next to you.

His thigh is pressed against yours, warmth seeping through his pants and into his skin. Kei feels like he could explode. You’re so close to him again, closer than before, and he can’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. He’s desperate for it, fidgety with his desire. He keeps thinking about the hot press of your mouth and the languid motion of your tongue. All he can imagine is the few points of contact between you both, mouth and hands, and how badly he wanted it to be more. He needs it.

You touch him a few times throughout the night and the tension is so palpable that Kei is convinced he can see it. It’s like there is a rope pulled taut between the two of you. If he doesn’t stick his ground, he’ll go flying towards you, grabbing and touching and taking in the way he’s desperate to now.

After an hour, his friends begin to grow restless. Their faces are flushed with alcohol and the things they’d been amusing themselves with are no longer enough stimulation.

“Hey, we’re going out to the bars. Who’s coming?” Hinata speaks up.

A chorus of agreement rings out, but the last thing Kei wants to do is go out.

“I think I’ll probably stay back and start cleaning,” he says somewhat disdainfully. “It’s a mess in here,” Kei tosses you a small glance. It’s unintentional but he’s glad for it because Kei is hoping that you’ll stay back with him, that you both can pick up where you left off.

“I’ll stay and help too. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow anyway,” you smile and Hinata pouts.

“You guys are so boring,” he protests. “Leave the mess for tomorrow and come out with us.”

“I’ll pass, pipsqueak,” Kei scoffs.

“Fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re full of regret tomorrow,” he points a finger at Kei and then moves it over to you. “And you’re too nice for your own good.”

“Do you hear that?” You say, beginning to usher the group to the door. “I think it’s the sound of the bar and all that alcohol calling to you guys.”

“You guys are so full of shit-” Kageyama starts, speaking up for the first time in a while, but Kei just waves him out.

“Yeah yeah, let the grown ups clean while you guys have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

The rope is so taut between you both that it’s unbearable and by the time the door closes, you are spinning around on your heel toward Kei.

“We’re not cleaning, right?”

Kei shakes his head and starts towards you. The tension breaks when his hands find your hips and he hungrily leans down to press his mouth against yours.

This kiss is different from the first, desperate and full of desire. It’s fast and your mouths move together quickly as he starts to walk you back towards his bedroom, his hands eagerly roaming up and down your hips. Vaguely, he acknowledges that his glasses have been moved out of place, but he pays it no mind as you turn the knob to his bedroom door with your back to it.

There’s an urgency to his movements. Kei feels it in his chest, this desperate desire to be closer, to consume everything that you’ve laid out in the palm of his hand. You stumble backwards into his room and Kei catches your shifted weight with a hand around your waist. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, feeling the warm skin on your jaw and neck. His fingers tremble where they touch you, half out of desperate need and half out of the nerves that threaten to spill from his mouth. His lips though, are occupied with yours, clicking together, all tongue and teeth.

Kei kisses sloppily down your jaw, his lips smearing across your cheek and dipping down below your ear. He sucks a trail there, unsure if he’s leaving marks, all the way down to your collarbone. Every part of you tastes better than he’d expected it to and with every push he delivers, you pull.

You make small sounds, little pants and groans that make Kei’s hair stand on end with wanting. Your voice, so familiar and fond to him, spills out in small, breath-like bursts that make Kei want to coax more out of you. Kei’s never been one to want this way, but right now, it’s all that he feels. So much tension and impulse that he feels like he can hardly control himself.

You reach blindly behind you for the bed and Kei guides you down, placing his hand on one side of you as you sit. Then, without disconnecting your lips, he guides you up toward the wall.

He feels the cool tips of your fingers at the hem of his shirt, pulling downward and then upward to get him to take it off. Kei obliges you, leaning back on his knees and pulling it off over the top of his head. You eye him for a moment, the two of you slowing down enough as the urgency settles into something heavy and lingering.

Kei leans forward again, one of his hands reaching for your hip. He slips his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt, sliding his long fingers up your stomach as he kisses you again. You’re so soft and he can feel the way your chest heaves against his palm. His touch is feather light and he slides it up evenly until it reaches just below your breast. When you nod, Kei moves it up over your bra and he feels you shudder. Kei does the same, overwhelmed by your pliability.

He can feel the goosebumps that have raised on your skin, little pinpricks of skin that indicate that some part of you feels good. When Kei squeezes your breast, you gasp into his moan and he groans his response, letting you bite at his bottom lip.

He feels you suck at his lips and swipe your tongue along the ridge of his mouth. When he opens it to let you in, he’s overtaken by the warmth of the soft muscle. He groans, tilting his head down to kiss you deeper, letting the taste of you spread over his mouth. It’s hot and your breath fans across his face.

Kei hands drift from your breasts along the sides of your body. He feels the heave of your breath there against your warm skin, his palms resting on your waist. You raise your knees, the sides of them pressing against Kei’s hips. He shifts downwards slowly, dragging his mouth along your skin, past the cloth of your shirt.

His hands make their way from your waist to your hips as he dips lower. Kei takes off his glasses, already fogged up and in the way. When he meets your eyes, you nod your permission and Kei slips between your legs, his flat palms moving to spread your thighs.

You’re so warm and soft, so pliable in a way that Kei can’t articulate. It makes his mouth water with his desperation and he’s grown hard against the bedspread beneath him.

“Touch me,” you breathe out.

Kei nods into your stomach, looping his fingers around our waistband, and pulls down your pants. Your panties come with it and it’s with a slight wave of regret that he realizes he won’t get to see the way you stick to them.

When he sees you, his heart leaps into his throat. His eagerness and his nerves catch up to him and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You shudder when the air hits your exposed cunt, an unintentional side effect of Kei’s nerves that has him grinding down against the bedspread.

He slides his palm to rest over your center. It’s warm and sticky, wet beyond what Kei had imagined and he gingerly presses a finger between your folds. You gasp, mouth falling open above him. Then, he slides his finger into you to the first knuckle, curling up. Kei goes deeper on the second pump, curling his whole finger inside of you and feeling the way you tighten around him.

You arch your back up off the bed and Kei groans and rolls his eyes, resting his head on the inside of your exposed thigh. He curls his fingers in you, watching the way they coat with your pleasure. His eyebrows are knit together, like he’s asking whether you like how he touches you or not, and you seem to pick up on his insecurity, nodding your head before letting it tip back against Kei’s pillows.

Kei thinks your expression is incredible. Your eyebrows pull up in the center, pretty face twisted and mouth slightly open in an expression of undeniable pleasure. Kei’s stomach winds at the look of it and he ruts his hips against the mattress to quell the growing ache of need. His fingers, which curl at a slow and even pace inside of you, are warm with your enjoyment. It leaks between his knuckles, sliding down the back of his hand like a slow moving syrup. He wonders whether you have more to give and how you taste, his gaze slinking from your face to the place just above where his fingers disappear.

He lowers his mouth to you without thinking, curious and needing the taste of it. Sure enough, you have more to give. Your voice comes quickly, a small gasp that is stifled by the back of your hand when he sucks sharply on your clit. Your hips push forward against his hands and then you arch up off the mattress with a small cry. Kei wonders if you’ve cum. He wonders if he’s sent you over the edge, but if he has, you’re taking all of it so well that he doesn’t dare stop.

The taste of you spreads on his tongue, tangy and warm. You invade his senses violently, like you are gripping his throat. Kei holds his mouth to you, pressing the length of his cock into the mattress and moving his hips like he plans to fuck it.

He moves his free hand down your thigh and onto the inside of your leg. Your skin is so soft. It’s so vulnerable, something easily pierced and bled. Kei’s pointer finger rubs gentle circles there, feeling the slight pull of the soft skin with his fingers, so thin that it almost feels like tissue paper. He’s sure that with a little pressure, you would bruise.

The thought surprises him. He works his tongue across your clit and his fingers against that gummy spot inside of you, but his mind drifts to the softness of your inner thigh, the way it would be so easy to leave a spot that might hurt later when you press on it, remind you of exactly where he was. Then, Kei pinches you on the inside of your thigh and when you cry out, tightening around his fingers with a tapered moan, he pinches you again, harder this time.

You whimper slightly, like you like it. No, you sound like you love it and Kei finds himself holding back a choked moan as he tries not to cum prematurely. He pinches along the inside of your legs and around the back. Not too much. Only when he feels like it. Only when he wants to hear what kind of sounds you’ll make.

“K-Kei wait, wait,” you pant, grabbing him by his tufts of blonde hair. It hurts. He doesn’t think you mean to hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. He likes it and he twitches in his pants.

“Huh?” He hums, detaching from your clit and slowing the movement of his fingers to a halt. Your legs shake around his handiwork. “You okay?”

“I’ll cum if you keep going like that,” you breathe, screwing your eyes shut like you’re still on the edge. “Drag it out for me, yeah?”

Kei furrows his eyebrows and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Cum if you want to.” He tilts his head down to reattach his lips.

“Not yet,” you tug at his hair. “I like chasing it.”

Kei stares at you, unblinking and awestruck. Your chest heaves and despite the pleasure on your face, you look uncomfortable as your orgasm slips away from you. Kei likes that look on your face and he finds himself growing greedy.

“Come here,” you coax him onto the mattress.

Kei watches as you slip your hands into the waistband of his jeans and pull them down, leaving him on his back with his tented boxers exposed. You crawl down his body and settle between his legs with your arms between his thighs. He shudders when you run your hands up them and he briefly sees his boxers jump.

You smile, pressing your mouth to him through his boxers. Kei can’t stifle the groan that escapes him and heat floods his face when you raise your eyebrows in response.

“You don’t have to,” he says through gritted teeth as you slip the waistband of his boxers down.

“But I want to,” you mumble, taking him in your hand and placing a kiss on the side of his dick.

Kei’s head falls back against the pillow and he swears under his breath when he feels the warmth of your mouth close around the tip of him. He jerks his head up to see, awestruck by the way your lips look around the head of his cock.

For some reason, Kei is already so sensitive. He feels everything, and when you swipe the tip of your tongue along his slit as you bob your head, he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. His fingers knot themselves in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling while you bob your head over him.

Your mouth is so warm and wet. It’s a little messy, dripping down the length of him and onto his balls. Kei feels the warmth, the heat of you. He can still taste you on his tongue. Kei can still feel the stickiness left behind from your arousal on his mouth. The combination of you between his legs and the taste of you on his tongue is overwhelming.

Kei can feel his orgasm growing in his lower stomach, turning over until he’s bringing his long fingers to your head in an effort to steady himself. There’s nothing he can do but give in, watching you through damp eyes as you watch his expression.

It’s embarrassing how quickly he cums. It doesn’t take long and he teeters on the edge for a few moments before fully cresting over. Kei can’t help the way he lifts his hips from the mattress, his voice caught in his throat as it hooks on a high pitched groan. His voice cracks and he feels the way his cum collects on your tongue and across the tip of his dick in your mouth.

“Fuck,” he mutters, red faced and panting, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to finish so quickly, you’re just-”

“It’s fine,” you come up, your eyes glassed over and lust-filled. “I like making you feel good.”

“Yeah but-”

“No buts,” you crawl over him and straddle his waist. Kei winces when your weight briefly nudges his cock. “There’s still fun to be had. Can I kiss you?”

He nods and you lean down to do as you’d asked. Your tongue moves slowly against his, less desperate this time, like you’re trying to work him down and back up again. You place your hands on his chest, settling your weight down so that your bare cunt is pressed against his sensitive cock. Kei thinks he might die.

He brings his hands to your waist, the fatigue creeping from his bones as he digs the pads of his fingers into your fleshy sides. You draw in a breath when he does and it makes Kein feel like he’s tipping sideways with arousal. Everything that you do, right down to the involuntary twitch of your hips or eyebrows, is sexy.

Kei turns you over, growing hard between your legs again, and gently pins you to the mattress. He kisses you for a moment longer, his lips working clumsily across yours before he pulls away to catch his breath and find his bearings.

You chase him with your mouth, tilting your head up to kiss him. Kei feels his chest swell with arousal and his cock strains almost painfully against his pants as he peers at you. You’re so pretty. Everything about you is so pretty. On his chest, he can feel your fingers, splayed over his pecks, across his collarbone, and grazing the side of his neck. He leans closer, loving the pressure of your body and the desperation that pours from your skin.

Kei kisses you again. He kisses you the way he wanted to outside, dipping his tongue into your mouth with a desperation that he can taste. You take control back, reaching between the two of you, and Kei shifts himself upward instinctually to give you access to him. He feels your fingers fumble for him and there’s a pause in which Kei doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this might be the part of him that you like. The awkward part, the one that doesn’t know what to do. Kei’s thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of your hand wrapping around him and tugging upward.

His head drops and a low groan escapes his lips before he can even think to stop it. Kei’d almost forgotten his sensitivity, how desperately he wants to be touched, how overwhelming it feels. He shivers, looking down at where your hand wraps around him and pumps. When he looks back up, he finds that you’re looking at his face, your eyes glassed over and observant as you commit all of his expressions to memory.

“What?” he says, letting out a shuddering breath and the slight overstimulation.

“Your face is red,” you reach up with your free hand to run your thumb along his cheek.

Kei huffs, dropping his head and you fiddle with something between the two of you.

“No,” you pick his chin up. “I like it. It’s cute.”

You tighten your grip around him and Kei feels his expression twist, a new rush of heat and desire flooding his belly as he realizes you’re sliding a condom onto him. Then, you guide the tip of him between your legs and he feels the wet press of your entrance against him.

“Christ,” he groans.

You smile slightly, shifting your hips a little and then placing your hands on his shoulders. Kei pushes forward slowly, his thighs twitching. It takes everything he has to keep from cumming again and every muscle in his body screams with a desire to let go.

Kei is so overwhelmed, partially because you feel so good, but also because there is some part of him that knows this feels different. Kei feels different about you, about being intimate with you, than he has with anyone else. There’s something alive in him, something with its own mind. Something greedy and vulnerable that stirs when your face is this close to him, when he’s buried all the way in you to the base of his cock. Emotional and sensitive, Kei feels it kick.

His first instinct is to run. Agreeing to let himself like you, to let himself do something about it, was not agreeing to letting something live inside of him. Kei’s first thought when he registers the difference is to cut it off and suffocate it so that it stops thumping against his chest. He’d grown so used to the hollow feeling that the feeling of living emotion makes him nervous, it puts him on edge. But when he pulls out a few inches and fucks back into you, the anxiety dispels into insurmountable pleasure. A pleasure Kei can’t describe, something fulfilling and whole.

He picks up his pace, letting himself do what he wants while you grip his shoulders with blunted nails. He likes the expression you wear. Truthfully, he likes all of your expressions, but this one is new. Pressure and pleasure, a newness to the feel of him inside of you that you can’t quite keep from your eyes or lips. He kisses you as if he could taste it, slipping his tongue between your lips.

“I really like you,” you mumble against his mouth, breath hot as it fans across his cheeks.

Kei’s heart hammers and his hips stutter a little.

“Me too,” he chokes, trying to think about volleyball to stave off a second orgasm. All that comes to mind though, is you.

“Are you close again?” you breathe, voice laden with pleasure.

“I have been since we started,” Kei admits.

“Cum then,” you say softly, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth back to yours. Kei likes the control you exhibit. He groans his approval.

“You first,” he mutters.

There’s this possessive part of Kei that wants to watch you fall apart on him. He wants to see it, to watch you feel good too and commit it to memory so that he can always keep it. He thinks it’s a pride thing, something attached to his desire to succeed, to his reliability. Maybe though, it’s just because he thinks it’ll look hot.

He reaches down and lifts one of your legs up by the back of your knee, pressing it down to give himself better access. You whine and Kei feels the way you clench down around him, your fingers knitting into the hair at the back of his neck. It hurts in a good way.

Kei slips his hand between you, rubbing circles on your clit to get you there faster. Frankly, he doesn’t know how much longer he can last like this, staring down at your face while it twists with pleasure. You’re so attractive to him. Everything about you is sexy. It makes Kei a little crazy.

He listens as your breathing quickens, as your voice wavers further. He feels the way your cunt begins to flutter faster, pulsing around him until you attempt to cry out and warn him. Then, you clamp down around him, arching your hips up off the mattress and pulling at his hair. Kei moves his head with you, relishing in the way you tug and scratch.

He builds up to his orgasm so fast that it hurts. There’s pressure and then the mounting feeling of nearing the top, and then the peak and crash. He cums so hard that it hurts, pushing his cock as far as it will go into you and feeling the warm spill of his cum in the condom. He moans a long, drawn out sound that you mimic, his fingers knitting into the pillow behind you and his head dropping so that his lips sit near your neck.

He lets out a shaky breath, letting himself sit inside of you for a moment. You turn his head towards yours and kiss him. It’s gentle. A smooth and languid kiss that neither of you moves to deepen. Your lips move against each other and Kei closes his eyes to savor the taste.

You tap his shoulder and Kei rolls over onto the bed beside you, snapping the condom off with a small wince and tying it up in a quick motion. He places it in the trash bin beside the bed. When he turns over, you’re already moving to slip under his arm, resting your head on his chest.

There’s a passing moment of silence, not unlike the ones you both have fallen into before and you sigh lightly against his exposed chest. Kei follows suit, watching the way you move with his breath.

His skin is sticky against yours and Kei can vaguely register the smell of sweat in the room. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since everyone left, nor does he know when they’ll be back, but he estimates that it won’t be more than an hour. Kei briefly wishes that he could pause time so that he can stay here with you, just like this.

“I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Kei admits quietly.

“What stuff?” You ask, tracing your finger along the ridges of his lean abdomen.

“Liking people,” he says. “Dating.”

You give a small laugh. “No offense, Kei, but I could tell that from the moment I met you.”

“Shit, seriously?”

“Duh,” you breathe out. “It’s a little charming to me, though. I like that part of you.”

So it’s true. You like the parts of Kei that he’s always worried were the worst of him.

“Huh,” he says. “Could you tell?”

“That you like me?” You ask, shifting your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was obvious after we established that you didn’t hate me. I always noticed you staring in the library.”

“Really? I thought I was being a little slick with that,” Kei feels heat and color flood his face.

You let out a good-natured laugh. “People can always tell when someone’s staring, Kei. It’s like a sixth sense.”

“Good to know. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.”

Another bout of silence follows.

“You can keep staring though,” you say, “if you want to. And calling.”

“Okay,” Kei responds, “I didn’t really plan on stopping.”

“Ha, freaky,” you laugh a little and Kei reaches up to flick the side of your head. “Wanna start going out?”

Kei thinks about this for a moment. He thinks about being able to hold your hand, brush hair out of your face, watch movies on the couch and fix your breakfast the next morning. Then he thinks about not being able to do those things.

“I think I’d be a little upset if we didn’t,” he admits.

“Good,” you say. “Me too.”

He’s fighting off sleep. His eyelids are heavy and he tries to blink away the shroud of rest that’s falling over him. Kei knows you’re fighting it too. Your breathing goes in and out of that familiar breathing that comes with sleep. Kei likes the way it sounds coming from you, restful and quiet.

“We should… really get up to clean just a little,” he mumbles.

“Five more minutes,” you say softly, your voice heavy and laden with drowsiness.

“Okay,” he says.

It’s just five more minutes. Kei fights sleep to hear you breathe like this a little longer.

—

There’s a period after which Kei doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like the awkward start to a new hobby or passion, Kei finds himself enthralled with his budding relationship while simultaneously stumbling continuously along the way. You’re gracious with him though, letting him make mistakes and fumble until he finds his footing.

It’s all very awkward for him, very new. He finds that it’s easier to just do the nice things he wants to do for you than to agonize over it and slowly, he begins to grow comfortable in the relationship that took you both so long to begin.

At first, only Tadashi knew about you both. Kei thought that there was no point in hiding it from him, since you were over at the apartment all the time. Of course, Tadashi somehow already knew. That’s how it usually goes anyway, and Kei is relieved to find that his internal change did not trigger some global shift that would turn his life upside down. Everything is normal, save for the fact that Kei now tries to love without hindrance.

Kei discovers that he’s possessive. That’s a new trait of his that he didn’t know belonged to him. Before you, before Kei had found something he so desperately wanted to keep, he’d been rather detached. Possessiveness was rare because Kei hardly ever got attached enough to want. Now though, he wants so badly that it hurts. You lean into it. Kei suspects that you like it when he wards off people who hit on you, when he pouts a little because he wants to be close to you, when he gets a little jealous. Kei doesn’t really mind it either. After all, despite his possessiveness, he never feels insecure. The both of you make sure of that.

This sunny period with you, the one Kei worried would only last a week, drifts easily from one month into two and before he knows it, it’s been five. Kei had worried about that fundamental change. The one imperceivable to the human eye. He’d worried that slowly, it would begin to spoil what is so good between the two of you.

“Kei,” you snap him out of it, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you okay?”

He sets down his cup of tea, barely touched. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?” You give him a wry smile. “This was your idea, after all.”

“Yeah, well it was a pretty shit idea actually,” he breathes, “My parents aren’t exactly easy.”

“You want to cancel?” You ask, your eyebrows pulling up in a clumsy attempt to hide your disappointment. Kei can see right through it.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you to meet them. I just don’t want you to meet them.”

The truth of it is that Kei would like to cancel. In an ideal world, one where the sun rises on the opposite side of his bedroom window, he’d forget the whole thing and take you out to get dinner and see a movie. Things would be simpler that way, less uncomfortable for the both of you. But as uncomfortable as it is, Kei wants you to be a part of their lives too. You’re too important to not introduce to his parents and Kei can’t see it any other way, though he’d like to.

You snort. “What does that even mean?”

Kei gives you a pointed and somewhat irritated look.

“Okay, sorry,” you raise your hands defensively and walk over to place them on his shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’m excited.”

Kei huffs out a laugh, unable to vocalize his nerves in their totality. “Excited to meet my dysfunctional, divorced parents that kind of hate each other?”

“Yup. I’m excited to meet the people who raised you.”

Kei smiles a little. “You should meet Akiteru, then,” It’s an exaggeration, but for some reason the prospect of seeing both of his parents together has him feeling a little more bitter than usual, even if it was his idea.

You give him a little grin through narrowed eyes. There’s an understanding that passes from you to him, like you’re acknowledging that you haven’t forgotten what he’d told you nearly six months ago. Kei feels the tension in his shoulders relax a little.

His parents are already at the restaurant when he arrives. It’s a swanky Italian place. The kind you go to on birthdays or for anniversaries, where the pasta dishes are things like lobster mushroom ravioli or truffle oil fettucini in tiny portions. Kei made sure to book somewhere that his parents would have trouble making a scene in, not that they ever had much of a mind for decorum when they were married. He’s surprised to find them chatting cordially when you both arrive.

“Kei,” his mother stands from the table and crosses to give him a hug. He pats her back gently.

“Hi Mom,” Kei responds and she gives him a small smile.

Kei’s dad adjusts the lapel of his suit, the same one he’s had for years, and reaches to give him a hug around one shoulder.

“Guys,” he inhales, “This is my partner, _____.”

You grin at Kei and then introduce yourself formally to his parents. Kei watches in awe as you blend right in, like you’ve known them for many years. He sits down while trying to keep the nerves from his face.

“We’re so happy to meet you,” his mother starts, “Kei’s never introduced us to any of his partners before.”

“I’m the first?” You smile a little, raising an eyebrow at Kei as if to tease him.

“There really haven’t been that many to begin with,” Kei grumbles as if that somehow makes it better.

You laugh again and the ball of conversation begins rolling. His mother tells you how pretty you are and his father nods a quieter approval. They talk about his university’s graduation ceremony, which they attended separately, as if they were together the entire time and then ask about your major, if you graduated with him, where you plan on going. You tell them what you want to do and that you want to go wherever Kei goes. He marvels at how smoothly the evening moves onward.

There are moments where the tension in his family becomes obvious. Little swells or comments that bring up a sour or shameful memory that cannot be ignored. Moments when the air thickens and it feels like the hammer is about to come down. It never does though. The tension, rather than snapping, simply fades away.

He’d expected everything to blow up for some reason. Kei had expected that, like his childhood, the restaurant dishes would end up smashed on the floor. The glassware always ended up broken in the house, why shouldn’t they be broken here to shatter the illusion of things being good? He braces himself for a ball that never drops.

It takes him until the ride home, after a successful dinner, to realize that the dishes haven’t been smashed in years. Not since he was fourteen and his parents fought for custody. Not since his mother got remarried to her now husband almost 6 years ago and his father met his new wife. Kei wonders why he still feels like he lives in that house. The one his parents were at their worst in. Why can’t he feel like he lives in the apartment he rents with Tadashi?

“I think that went well,” you say softly on the drive back.

Kei nods his agreement. “I think so too.”

You don’t bring up the fact that they didn’t fight, or that they spoke about their new kids with each other as if they were old friends. You don’t accuse Kei of being wrong, of being paranoid even though he most definitely was.

“I’m glad that I got to meet them,” you say. “You look so much like your mom.”

“Really?” Kei asks.

“Yeah, you’ve got her eyes and her nose,” you smile a little. “It makes you two look similar.”

“Huh,” he says. “I never really gave that much thought.”

Kei turns the idea that he has his mother’s face over in his head. He’d spent so much time dreading that he was like them on the inside, that he never paused to consider the outside. So much of his life has been spent worrying that he’s just like them. That he breaks the plates and lashes out and acts cruelly even when he’s trying to love. But he has his mother’s eyes and for some reason that unsettles him. It’s like evidence.

“You don’t really act like them though,” you say as if on cue. “You’re a little gentler.”

“Me? Gentle?” Kei scoffs.

“Yeah!” you say. “I mean, sure you’re prickly, but there’s a goodness to you that’s really obvious if you look.”

Goodness. What a strange word to use to describe someone. Kei thinks that if there’s any goodness in him, if there’s anything that hasn’t been tainted by his parents’ sour personalities, it’s from Akiteru. Kei likes to believe that whatever good he got was from him. No matter how strained his relationship with him might be now, Kei is certain of that.

“That’s a relief,” he admits in a flat tone.

After a long pause, he speaks again. “Thanks.”

“For what?” You laugh.

“Bearing with me… and with them,” he says. “Couldn’t have been easy.”

“It was easy,” you say. “Because I wanted to meet them. And I care about you.”

Kei feels color rise to his cheeks. He turns to look in the sideview mirrors as he pulls the car into a parking spot in his apartment complex’s garage.

“You say that stuff so easily,” he huffs.

“What? That I care about you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I do,” you laugh a little.

Kei’s face grows hotter and he distracts himself by putting the car into park and taking the key out of the ignition.

“Me too,” he says quietly, waiting for you to catch up so that he can take your hand in his. “Sorry that I don’t say it a lot.”

“Not to be rude,” you say, “but even if you never said it at all, it would be obvious. You’re kind of a sucker.”

Kei supposes that that’s true and he gives a small laugh before nudging your shoulder with his. The parking garage is humid and stuffy, but he holds your hand in it anyway.

—

You’re half asleep in bed beside him and your breathing comes in even sweeps the way it does just before you fall asleep. Kei listens to it for a moment, admiring the sound of it and the way your chest feels expanding against his.

He thinks about dinner, about how good it feels to have introduced you. How real it makes this relationship feel despite the uneasiness surrounding his familial situation. Kei thinks about his parents. He thinks about their inability to be good for each other. He thinks about the worst of them, something he’s familiar with, before thinking about the best of them. Kei imagines the way their faces looked at dinner, talking about the children they’re raising properly. They’re good people, they just made each other bad. Molecular shifts that changed them for the worst. The notebook theory in its most frightening form. But they were good too.

Kei thinks about loving you. His reluctance to do so originally isn’t quite beyond him yet. He’s unsure, in fact, if he’ll ever really get past the fear of the fall, the fear of becoming what his parents made each other. But he also thinks about his promise to love you for real. Love is not something that Kei does. He knows now that it's something that happens to him, like it happened to his parents. They loved each other once, even if it made them so blind that they couldn’t see just how bad it made them.

Kei still resents the fact that he was born to fix a marriage that never would have worked in the first place. He resents being a fix rather than a gift, but at the very least, his existence is proof that his parents cared enough about their family to try. Even if it was misguided, at least they tried even a little.

In the quiet after of an emotionally charged evening, loving you seems like an easier task for him now. It’s not hard to love you. What’s hard, Kei thinks, is not hurting you. He carries a lot of baggage that, for a long while, felt like too much. Kei thinks he can manage if it’s for you. He’ll bear the brunt of it. He’ll put in the work.

Yes, Kei is his parents’ son, but he’s also Tadashi’s friend, Akiteru’s brother, the person who loves you. He doesn’t live in the house with a bin full of shards and no glassware anymore.

“Are you awake?” He whispers across the pillow.

“Mhm,” you hum, pushing your cheek into his arm.

“Let’s move in together,” he says.

You tense against him and slowly attempt to blink away sleep. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he responds. “I want to live with you.”

“Okay then,” you smile a little. “Let’s do it.”

—

In the fall, when his lease with Tadashi ends and his friend gives him a tearful, yet somewhat silly goodbye, Kei moves into your new shared apartment. Two small rooms in a modest part of town, a shared kitchen and living room, one bathroom, a mismatch of furniture from both of your old places, and an empty fridge. The first night is spent eating take out on the floor with you in front of a TV with no proper stand. Kei has never been happier.

And in the morning, when the sun comes through the slats of his window, broken up into gentle dots by the orange-leaved trees outside, Kei rises slowly. He rises gently. Kei doesn’t want to wake you, not before he’s made breakfast. He pads out to the kitchen, where boxes are strewn about, half unpacked, and grabs the little brown notebook from the box it’s been temporarily living in. In it, he writes a grocery list full of the things you like. It’s a good enough reason, a good enough change.

The notebook theory.

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader smut #tsukishima kei x reader smut #hq x reader #tsukishima smut #tsukishima kei smut #tsukishima kei fic #[ 📕 – writing ]#she is finally finished i hope u enjoy and that u find it romantic and fulfilling #tw: overstimulation #i may add more warnings and such if i remember to #and pls lmk if i forgot any

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nicksolemnlyswears · 9 months

Note

DUDDDDE!!

I am in LOVE with your writing. I have been craving some good Han Lue works and you're filling the hole!

Everywhere is extremely lacking in quality Han Lue content bro 😭😭

But any whosies.

I was wondering if it were at all possible to request a Han work from you (from what I've seen you still have requests open so if you don't im sorry)

Specifically something about a reader who's fucking amazing at driving, and has been crushing on Han for a while, and the two decode to race (set in Tokyo) and whoever wins gets the loser to do what they want. Y'know classic setup.

You could choose where this leads to. Idc if we win or loose. All I want is a little bit of fluff sprinkled amongst some smut mayhaps. You could do this in headcannon format btw don't feel obligated to write the whole thing.

I'm just thirsting for any thing I can take 💀🙏🏼

Take your time! <3

pairing: han lue x racer!reader

words: 11.4k

warnings: some cursing and smut (pls wrap it before you tap it) don't judge my smut too much, it's been a while since i've written one

notes: hi anon! thank you for all your sweet, sweet words 🥺 i hope this is somewhere along the lines of what you were thinking of. as soon as i saw your request i was ✨inspired✨ it's been a long time since i've been so hooked by a oneshot. i have worked on it almost everyday since i received it so thank you! i changed the request just a little bit, i hope you don't mind.

trust me i know there is a ridiculous lack in han content! it's the reason i'm here writing over this man! there is not enough content for the speed i consume it, lol. i've read my own headcanons like 10 times already, excluding the times i was working on it.

anyways! might have gotten a little carried away but i enjoyed writing it so much! here you go! enjoy!

i really really hope you like it!!

Tokyo was the city where you learned how to street race. Weaving through the cars on the highway became second nature the harder you pressed the gas pedal. The neon lights turned into blurs as you sped down traffic, whether it was in search of a prize or a thrill.

You were meant to meet Han Lue. His presence became known as soon as he stepped foot in the parking complexes that serve as makeshift race tracks. He quickly became popular with the crowd, especially when he joined DK's crew.

His races were seen as exclusive, known to happen once in a blue moon. He was totally opposite to you. You took the opportunity to race any moment you could. It's what lead you to become a good racer. Practice makes perfect, after all.

'Good racer' is a bit of an understatement. You're one of the best right after DK. There's a debate about whether the second best is you or Han. Each person can take their pick. Many have suggested the idea for the both of you to race, but Han has shot down each and every one. He doesn't need to prove himself to anyone. Besides, he hasn't had anything to gain from racing you.

People like to call you 'Angel' because when you started participating in the races, you looked like an absolute angel, but soon after, they discovered you raced like the devil. You fool everyone around you, even with the way you drive. Whenever someone has to go against you, they think they have your strategy down, yet you switch it up every time.

The distinctive revving of your car alerts Han of your presence. He glances to his left, where you've parked right beside him. As you open the door and step out of your car, he opens a bag of chips, depositing one into his mouth.

You walk over to him, leaning against his car like he is. The bare skin of your back arching slightly as it touches the cool metal. "Have I missed anything?"

Han shakes his head cooly, watching his surroundings. He spares you a glance, taking in what you're wearing. A short, shimmery dress with an open back and high heels. Seems like you don't plan on racing tonight. You refuse to race in high heels. You've tried before and failed. You didn't lose, but you did break off both heels.

You feel his eyes trailing over your body, and you don't mind it. You like that you can catch his attention that way. Having a crush on a guy like Han takes work. He has every woman's attention in the racing underground. They often cling to his arms and bat their eyelashes his way, and he has gladly taken a few of them home.

"You done judging my outfit?" You say, looking at him.

"Not judging, admiring," he promptly replies with a small shrug.

That right there is what feeds into your silly little crush. Han isn't afraid of your comments or banter. If you look good, he'll say it. It's the way he says it that irks you, though. He is so nonchalant and aloof like he's commenting on the weather.

It doesn't help that he's never truly made a move on you. He considers you his friend and acts that way (most of the time, at least). You hate every moment because being his friend is the last thing you want.

"I take it you're not gonna race tonight?" He asks, already knowing the answer. He just needed an excuse to talk to you. Digging into his bag of chips, he grabbed another one to pop into his mouth.

"Not unless it's against you," you respond cheekily.

Han chuckles, "Not you too."

"Are you afraid of losing, Han?" You ask him, keeping your eyes on the race about to start. Why else would he avoid racing you?

Han props one arm on the roof of his car, facing you and saying, "If you're into racing, you can't be afraid to lose, Angel."

"Then why don't you spoil me a little and race me?" You hum, turning your head to face him. He's much closer than you anticipated, but you resist the urge to pull back despite the reddening of your cheeks. You want Han to know you like him even if you refuse to say it out loud.

"Maybe one day when I have something to race for," he responds simply, kissing your cheek and turning back to watch the race.

You release a shaky sigh and try to calm your pounding heart. Extending a hand, you dip your fingers into Han's nearly empty bag of chips and steal one for yourself. Han doesn't mind lowering the bag to make it easier for you. There's a smirk on his face as he fully well knows what he did. It's fun to make you flustered.

Han is out on the streets of Tokyo doing business or collecting his money from the greedy hands of wanna be gangsters. It's entertaining, to say the least, although sometimes it gets tedious. It's only fun when they get rowdy and want to intimidate him. They should know better than to judge Han by his calm exterior.

He's walking by the busy streets of Shibuya, the shopping district of Tokyo, minding his business. Han avoids the masses of people until he looks into a store and sees you. You're by the checkout desk, ringing out a client.

Han can't help it; he's drawn to you. Forgetting the wad money he has to collect, he enters the store. The bell on top of it chimes, prompting you to greet the customer in an abnormally cheery tone.

"Hello, welcome to-Han?" You stutter over the greeting, seeing his slightly mocking grin.

Han walks over to you and leans on the counter, there was barely anyone in the store now. Perfect timing. He assesses you and your overly pink clothes, bedazzled name tag, and glossy pink lips. It's unlike you to be so pink. He recalls you telling him you hate the wretched color.

"So this is where you work, Angel," he hums, toying with the trinkets on the checkout counter.

"Not everyone can survive with racing and sketchy side deals," You mutter. One hand on your tilted hip as you shoot him an annoyed look.

If racing made you enough money, you certainly would not be working in a store that makes you wear pink on every single shift. You could get more involved in the sketchy part of racing, but things are alright for now.

"True," Han stifles a laugh. He grabs a lollipop from the big jar filled with sweets for the paying customers and pops it into his mouth.

You extend a hand to throw away the colorful wrapping, and he places it gently on your hand, fingertips grazing your palm. You're not a teenager to be reacting over such minuscule actions, yet you do.

"What are you doing here, Han?" Han adores it when you say his name that way, pretending to be annoyed by his presence when in reality, you love having him around.

"Wanted to visit my favorite girl," he responds aloofly, carefully gauging your reaction. As he expected, your cheeks redden, and you try to hide it.

"Did you know lying makes your nose grow long," you scoff, rolling your eyes.

"Could be useful," Han says cheekily, causing your blush to deepen.

"If you're not going to buy anything, you can't be here," you shoot with a pout.

You weren't prepared to face Han this afternoon. You didn't get to repeat your affirmation as you do every night you encounter him. His constant playfulness throws you off, not giving you the opportunity to compose yourself.

"Oh no, consumerism got its claws on you," he jokes sarcastically. You glare at him and cross your arms over your chest, which only emphasizes the size of your chest. "Fine, help me find a new jacket?"

You round the counter and motion for Han to follow you toward the men's section. Your coworker will have no problem taking over the checkout counter.

You shoot Han question after question in search of the perfect jacket for him: colors, textures, durability, versatility, sizing, and so on. He responds just as quickly, propping an arm up and leaning against a rack of clothes as he watches you storm all over the store in search of the item that screams Han. He had no intentions of buying anything today but seeing how invested you got it leaves him no choice.

"I quite like this one," you beam, standing Han in front of a full-length mirror. You slide off the jacket he's wearing and replace it with the nice black leather jacket you found for him. Dusting him off, you look into the mirror seeing how perfectly it fits his broad shoulders.

"Why do I feel like you're giving me the most expensive one?" Han asks, looking at himself in the mirror.

He had to admit you picked well. He looks great in the black leather jacket. It didn't have too many buckles to make him uncomfortable, and it wasn't too warm either. The material felt nice and luxurious hence his comment.

"You asked for my help," you shrug, "It's not my fault I have expensive taste. Besides, you look hot in it." You wink at Han through the mirror.

Han tries to hide the smile forming on his lips. You were getting bolder and bolder. He knows about your crush on him; you're terrible at hiding it. Truthfully, he's felt the same from the moment he saw you race. You're oblivious, though, so he likes to tease you.

"I'll take it," Han sighs, refusing to look at the price tag. "Might even wear it on a date."

"Oh, you've got a date?" Your smile falters, quickly regretting picking such a nice outfit that makes him look so handsome. You'd definitely put out if a man wore that to a date and was as lovely as Han. All of your hard work just for another girl to enjoy it. If you catch one of Han's little friends wrapped around the jacket...you will burn it.

"Not yet," he says mysteriously, taking off the jacket and returning to the checkout counter. Han has to get going. He does have to collect his money. Especially now that you've convinced him to buy the expensive leather jacket. 'It's an investment,' he tells himself.

"She'll be one lucky girl," you huff, scanning the tag, carefully folding it, and placing it on a bag. "Don't worry, I'll apply the friends and family discount."

You watch Han go through the display window and hope he was just fucking with you on the whole date thing. You can live with your crush and have him as just a friend, but if he gets a girlfriend, you will not be able to manage it. You scold yourself silently for acting like a lovesick teenager. You're better than that. Right?

Taking the party to Han's club after a race is a must, especially after winning six thousand dollars. You won't have to worry about rent for at least six months, which is something to celebrate.

You park next to Han's car, and he waits for you to enter the plain-looking building. People greet him left and right as they go through the door that pours music and lights each time it's opened.

"You sure are popular," you tease him, leisurely walking towards him.

"Comes with the territory," Han responds without missing a beat. "Ready?" He asks, motioning for you to walk ahead of him.

"Always," you chirp. You purposefully accentuate the sway of your hips, giving Han something to look at.

Being a Friday night, the inside is filled to the brim, there isn't any space for more drunken people. Using your short height to your advantage, you easily find a way to the connecting hallway between this part of the club and the more exclusive one.

Han isn't as lucky constantly losing you from his sight. He's conscious that you are a grown woman capable of making your own decisions and caring for yourself, but he'd feel better being with you.

When he catches up to you at a point, he grabs your hips, pressing you against him, preventing you from getting lost again. You look back, startled, expecting to see a stranger rubbing against you. Noticing this, Han quickly calms you, "It's just me, Angel."

'It's just Han,' you repeat to yourself. You grab onto one of his hands, holding onto your hip, taking full advantage of the situation. Having Han wrapped around you feels like being on cloud nine. If this wasn't his club, you'd be going in circles, so he never pulls away.

With Han holding onto you, the way to the 'not-so-secret' hallway takes longer than usual. Not that you're complaining, though! Han's firm grip makes you fall harder for him. It fuels your imagination on how it would feel in other situations.

Han enjoys this position just as much as you do. He can pretend it's a safety thing as he steers you away from the sweaty bodies of drunks dancing, but it's for his selfish gain.

Having your body close to him reminds him of what he's missing and desperately desires. It started as a little innocent game for Han, knowing you had a crush on him, but then it turned into something more. He likes that you have feelings for him and wants it to stay that way. Han wants your attention on him all the time. His games are over; he wants you.

To your surprise, Han doesn't let go of your waist when you enter the hallway. Instead, he slings one arm around it as he walks beside you. "Maybe we should've taken the other entrance," he smirks.

"And miss the show?" You chuckle, finding a couple making out in the deserted hallway. Neither is willing to admit it's not about the show but about Han's proximity.

Unlike all the other times in the past you've partied with Han, he doesn't let go of you for more than two minutes. You dance all night together, just the two of you, no girls coming up to Han and no guys coming up to you. There simply wasn't a window of opportunity.

"You enjoying yourself?" He says in your ear over the loud music. Your back is against his front as your sway and roll your body to the beat. One of his hands is nursing a drink, and the other is right where it should be, on you.

"I won 6k and have a cute guy buying me drinks and dancing with me. What do you think?" You giggle, turning in his arms to face him instead. The drinks stop you from overthinking and let you wrap your arms around his neck. Faces close. You want to kiss him so bad you're not drunk enough, though, and it's not the way you'd like to do it, either.

"Just making sure," he smiles down at you, hand on your lower back.

The night is long, yet with Han, it goes by so fast. Sooner than you'd prefer, he walks you to your car, no longer holding onto your waist but your hand. There are only a few stragglers left behind who refuse to acknowledge the night is over. You and Han are two of them.

Reaching your white and red, modified skyline Han opens the door for you. With one arm propped against the open door and the other extended onto the roof, Han cages you against your car. Before you get in, you turn to face him, finding the bravery to do something you've been thinking about all night.

"Thanks for tonight, Han. I had fun," you say softly, suddenly feeling shy.

"Anytime, Angel," he responds smoothly, brushing his fingers on your naked shoulder. The jacket you wore earlier was discarded somewhere in the bar. An excuse for Han to see you outside the races.

"Well, goodnight." Gathering every particle of bravery, you stand on your toes and peck his lips softly.

It's only a tiny, innocent kiss, yet it makes Han close his eyes. It happens too quickly for his liking. You have been growing bolder, bold enough to kiss him. He needs to step up his game.

Taking advantage of his distracted state, you close your car door and rev the engine. On the drive to your apartment, you squeal in excitement. Fingers ghost over your lips, replaying the small kiss over and over again.

Another chance at a race becomes available only days after your win. Men love to challenge women, especially those who are winning, much like you are.

They hate seeing you be successful, but it doesn't bother you in the least. It's another opportunity to win cash or a car, which you can use for parts and sell what you don't need.

As you roll up to the starting line, Han approaches your window, leaning down to duck his head in.

"Come to give me a good luck kiss?" You speak playfully, lips turned up into a smile.

You two haven't talked about what happened at the club and have continued to act as you usually do. He's been more touchy with you, though, often trying to find a way to be close to you. Being the lovestruck fool you are, you've encouraged it, finding those ways to let him be close.

"We both know you don't need luck. You've got this in the bag, Angel." Han speaks encouragingly, "Tell you what, though. You win, and it's yours."

"Making me earn it, I see," you laugh, shaking your head. "Alright, you've got a deal. See you on the other side."

Han is confident you'll win. With a last reassuring tap on your door, he steps back, finding his place in the crowd.

Your opponent finally drives up to the starting line, sending you an unnecessary nasty look you laugh at. The flag girl stands between the two cars, her dress leaving nothing to the imagination. You respect it. They are a lot more confident than you are in that department.

You are off when the word 'go' falls from her lips. You knew this track by heart, having raced it so many times. You knew exactly when to hit the gas and when to press the brake to get the car to swerve. Han's full attention is on your race, and when your car disappears to another level, he takes the elevator up to the top floor, where the finish line is. Watching you race is interesting. You always come up with ways to confuse your opponents.

With a bag of chips, he anxiously waits for your victory. Regardless of your ability to race and win, your races make him nervous. He cares about you, and so many things can go wrong.

The noisy crowd gets louder as the sound of tires screeching gets closer. In seconds, your car swerves onto the top floor, again marking you as the victor. There's not a scratch or bump in your car. Your opponent arrives shortly after with dents and long scratches in his paint.

The crowd cheers loudly for you, coming up to you to congratulate you and tell you how cool you looked. Your opponent comes up to you and hands you his keys with a scowl. You shrug it off. A deal is a deal.

Winning leaves you on a high, a feeling of invincibility wrapping around you. You've learned to control it because that feeling caused a big loss years ago. You get distracted by the people around you and forget Han's promise. It's funny because it was the only thing running through your head while you raced.

"Good job out there," Han says, catching up to you later in the night once the hype died down.

"Why, thank you!" You chirp, closing the hood of your car and leaning back to sit on it.

"I believe I made a promise," Han mentions, stepping close to you until you're face to face, only a few inches between the two of you. "You did," you nod, biting your lip.

Han notices this, bringing a hand up to cup your face, his thumb tugging your lip loose from the tight hold of your teeth. The other wraps around your waist, pulling you close. You slide on the warm metal of your car, placing a hand on his chest to brace yourself as Han settles between your legs.

"I'm a man of my word," he whispers, finally leaning down to press his eager lips against yours. Han is greedy for many things, and your lips are one of them. Ever since that night at the club, he's wanted to smash his lips against yours, to feel you close, taste you.

Your eyes instantly flutter close, fisting Han's shirt in your hand as if afraid he'll pull away too quickly. The kiss starts slowly as you both test the waters, but it soon becomes not enough. Han tilts his head, deepening the kiss.

It's an electric shock that consumes him and doesn't let him go. This is the result of Han holding himself back, and you made it worse when you gave him a taste the other night.

Han slips a hand under your shirt, feeling the warmth of your skin. You gasp against his lips, arching your back as his cold fingers catch you by surprise. It serves as an opportunity for Han, his tongue pushing past your pouty lips, savoring the moment.

You gave into him, offering everything you have in exchange for this moment. His warmth wraps around you, burning you from the inside out. The need to breathe makes itself present too soon and becomes far more demanding than the need for each other's lips.

Han pulls away, your bottom lip between his teeth. You're breathless, as if you ran a marathon. You feel lightheaded, intoxicated by Han, who continues to peck your lips softly. He might be addicted already. The tips of his fingers draw soothing circles on your lower back, grounding you in the moment.

"So this is what winning feels like," you breathe out, smoothing Han's shirt with your palms. A futile way to hide their shakiness.

Han laughs, pressing his face against your neck and leaving a fleeting kiss behind. "Appears so, Angel."

A perk of being Han's friend is using his garage whenever you want. The days of paying for a spot to fix your car in a stranger's garage are far in the past. At the moment, you've spent the most part of the afternoon upgrading your car. The car you won on your last race sits beside yours with the hood popped open as you switched around pieces. He had quality parts, and his driving still sucked.

Twinkie, Earl, and the others are scattered around the large garage, working on different things and chattering. You had purposefully picked a spot away from them so you wouldn't get distracted. With work, your time is limited.

Han is on the second floor, leaning against the railing and pretending to watch the first floor and what they are doing. In reality, he is watching you closely.

You're bent over the hood of the car, working on unscrewing a tight bolt, cursing at the man who installed it initially. It's a sight straight out of his dreams. Your Nike sweatpants hung low on your hips, framing your ass perfectly. If he focused, he'd see the dimples on your lower back. His mind ran wild at the thought of pressing his thumbs against them while taking you from behind.

It's been a while since he's slept around. He cut himself off when he realized his feelings for you. What was the point of sleeping around if he wouldn't be satisfied? Those girls weren't you. They were temporary relief. Now, his pants tighten at anything you do. It's like he's seventeen again and unable to keep it in his pants.

He followed the curve of your ass to your arched back and the cropped shirt you wore. The matching crew neck sweater you arrived in is discarded in your car due to the heat. The revealing shirt rose with each of your movements, revealing the band of your baby blue bra. You tug on it for the millionth time today, annoyed.

The strands of hair you curled to frame your face stick uncomfortably to your sweaty forehead. You regret not putting them back into the two braids that fell over your shoulders.

Han needed to rip his eyes away from you before the others noticed. He's been staring for too long, fantasizing about everything he could do to you. To Han, you looked even more beautiful than you did that night with your sparkly dress and makeup. A woman who knows her way around a car is instantly a hundred times more attractive in his eyes.

As he accidentally visualizes you taking his cock from that same exact position, car included, you groan and straighten up. "I need help," you whine to no one in particular. The bolt is not budging, no matter how hard you try.

Han snaps out of his fantasy and springs into action, quickly appearing by your side. You've bent over again, wrench in hand, to give it one more try before giving up. He leans beside you, a hand on your lower back for faux support.

"What's the matter, Angel?" He says softly, one hand propping him up as he looks at the machinery under the hood. It's better if he helps you. He can't continue listening to your whines and groans.

"I need to unscrew those," you point at the bolts giving you a hard time.

Han asks for the wrench in your hands, and you place it in his hand, annoyed. You don't need the help of a man to do this, but it's Han, so you'll take it. You watch him as he places the wrench around the bolt, his arm tenses, emphasizing his muscles hidden by the short-sleeved button-up he wore over a white wife-beater tank.

His hair fell around his eyes as he successfully unscrewed the bolts. Feminism died as you lustfully took in Han, biting your lip. 'What a man,' you thought. You would've instantly refused the help if he had been any other guy.

"There you go," Han says, handing you the wrench. When he spares you a glance, he laughs softly. Good to know he has the same effect you have on him.

"Whatever would I do without you," you purr, shooting him a mischievous smile, "You deserve a reward." That's what it has come to, silly excuses to kiss Han because you're just friends. Nothing more.

Han looks at your lips briefly before snapping back to your eyes. You grin at him, leaning closer to kiss him for his 'hard work.' You know that he's been watching you all this time; you saw it from the reflective surface of the toolbox. Seeing his quickness to help you makes you believe he enjoyed the show.

Your lips brush teasingly against his, and just before Han can grab the back of your neck to stop the teasing, a loud bang tears through the room. Both you and Han pull away to see where the sound comes from, but Han bangs his head on the car's hood in the process.

"What the hell was that?" Han yells, rubbing the back of his head. He's annoyed that he's been interrupted.

"Sorry! The motor I was working on fell!" Earl exclaims from the other side of the garage, unaware of the daggers Han is throwing him.

"Best I get back to work," you quietly say with a chuckle, taking the piece you needed out of the car to bring it to yours.

"Yeah," Han says simply, reluctantly leaving to do his own thing.

Each and everyone that's in Han's garage returns to their business after the noisy interruption. Twinkie turns on a radio, blasting music to drown out the silence and clanking of tools. You work without interruption for the next three hours, giving your car all the love it deserves.

You clean your hands free of the motor oil and grease and search for Han. Your work for today was done. Now that you took anything valuable from the car you won, you had to sell it. You figured Han could do that for you.

"Hey, are you busy?" You ask him, seeing him working on a part by his desk.

"Nah, what's up, Angel?" He questions, dropping the screwdriver in his hand to focus all his attention on you.

Leaning on the desk casually, you begin speaking, "After I replace the bumper and give it a new paint job, can you sell that car for me?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," glancing at the car, Han agrees. It's a popular car in the racing world, and as soon as he gets the word out he's selling it, many offers will pop up.

"You're the best, Han!" You beam at him, pushing yourself off the desk to return downstairs.

"Angel, wait," he calls after you. Being your friend has been fun, yet he needs more. You shouldn't have to come up with excuses to kiss him; you should be able to do it freely whenever you want.

"Yes, Han," you ask softly, tilting your head in question.

Standing up from the rolling chair, he approaches you, "Do you want to go on a date?"

A grin sneaks past your lips before you even process what he said. Instantly, you nod your head, "I'd love to." You could combust at that moment. Finally, after months of pining, Han asked you out.

"Let's go," he smiles, grabbing your hand and guiding you to his car.

"Wait, now?" You furrow your eyebrows.

"Yes, unless you have something more important," he asks, teasing you.

"Nothing is more important, but I'm a mess," you shake your head hesitantly. You spent your afternoon working on cars, sweating, and getting covered in grease. You didn't think it would be in sweatpants when you pictured going on a date. Not to mention the state of your hair.

"No, you're not. If you must know, you've had me distracted all day," Han whispers the last part in your ear, trying to convince you even if it means giving himself away.

"Am I supposed to apologize?" You question, the corner of your lip curving into a sultry smile. You had been right all along.

"No, just agree to the date. Be spontaneous," Han bounces his eyebrows cutely.

"Let's do it," you sigh, hoping you won't regret it.

"Atta girl," Han smiles victoriously.

Han tries to remember the last time he had a proper date. Even with his ex, they just sort of happened. No date ever officially branded as such. It's why rather than asking you and waiting for the day to arrive, he decided to do it spontaneously. It leaves him no time to be nervous or to overthink things.

You slide your sweatshirt back on on the way out to shield yourself from the chilly Japanese night. Han opens the door to his car for you, shutting the door when you slip in. The drive is short as he takes you to a small family-owned sushi place he swears by.

"I'm surprised you eat more than chips and crackers," you joke with him as the food arrives, and he takes a bite.

"I definitely eat more than that," Han replies nonchalantly, referring to something else entirely. It's something you don't catch despite your dirty mind.

A discussion develops when you discover Han always orders the same thing in the restaurant. He's in Japan. He needs to throw himself into the culture and try new things.

Starting easy, you grab a piece of sushi from your plate, "You need to try this."

"I don't know," Han grimaces as he looks at the sushi held in your chopsticks.

"That's not an answer. Open your mouth," you groan, gently placing the sushi roll in his mouth.

You watch him chew slowly, getting a feel for the new food. "It's good," he agrees, liking whatever you had ordered. It was delicious, actually.

"Better than yours, right?" You ask him, knowingly, pointing your chopsticks at him.

"Yes," he rolls his eyes, refusing to give you the satisfaction.

"Told you," you sing, grabbing both plates and placing them in the middle of the table. Now you could each grab from both and share your meals.

The date goes smoothly. It's a wonder why the two of you hadn't gone to dinner before today. You already know Han is attentive and funny but his wisdom surprises you. He's already lived through so much, more than an average person. Despite being a couple years older than you, he retains his youth. That may be why he appeals to a younger crowd as well.

"What was your life like growing up?" You ask him, taking a drink from your Coke. Han ordered another plate of sushi to share, the one you chose earlier.

"My upbringing wasn't the best," he shrugs, remembering his life in California as a teen. "I was always in trouble."

"Why does something tell me that you were the one causing the trouble," you say, narrowing your eyes.

"I definitely was," he chuckles, "But in the end, it brought me here, and I'm happy."

Han believes in the timing of life. He's been after Tokyo for so long. Before stepping foot in Tokyo, he had to go through the Dominican Republic, Rio, Germany, Shanghai, London, and many more places. It was supposed to happen that way, or he wouldn't have met you.

"I knew it," you sigh dramatically, "I've always been into bad boys."

"What about you, Angel?" He returns the question, curious about your past.

"I grew up in a normal Japanese family. My dad's a mechanic, my mom a nurse, and my sister a pain in the ass. I went to school for engineering and graduated with top honors," you tell him, reminiscing on your not-as-impressive past.

"You say that as if it's easy to graduate with top honors," Han chides you, to which you roll your eyes. "Why work retail? Doesn't engineering make you a lot more money?"

"Don't laugh, okay?" You point at Han. When he agrees not to laugh, you continue, "I wanted to be a Formula 1 racer when I was younger. My dad signed me up to participate in smaller competitions, and I was pretty damn good. My mom was totally against it and forced my dad and me to quit.

Fast forward, I'm in college, and engineering seemed like the way to go. Learned about street racing and figured that could be a way back into my dream. It's a foolish thought. The professionals spend years in proper circuits practicing and competing. No one comes with a background of illegal racing."

Han wasn't expecting that answer. He assumed you hated engineering and did it to appease your parents. He wonders why you thought he would laugh. Your dream is nothing to laugh at. Having witnessed your racing, you undoubtedly had the innate talent. "So retail?" He prompts, realizing you didn't answer the first question.

Snapping your fingers, you say, "Right! I figured I'd always have my degree. I'd rather spend my time having fun now; when the time comes, I'll return to that. I do like it, but I'm not ready to commit to a life of 9 to 5's. I prefer spending my time in the wee hours of the night racing. Since I can't be a Formula 1 racer, I'll be a street racer. Much cooler, anyways."

"That takes guts," Han tells you, "I'm glad you're doing it."

You give him a little shrug and a smile because you were too. Despite your childish dream dying when your mom forced you to quit, you're still happy with your life. Especially if you end up with a guy like Han.

Han, being a gentleman, pays for dinner. Before returning to the car, you stop by a convenience store for dessert. Han follows you buying snacks for himself. In search of something sweet, you find a shelf filled with Pocky. You grab the chocolate-covered ones with a plan in mind.

You and Han sit at a table outside the convenience store. It was getting late, so only a few people were around. You open the packet of Pocky, taking out a chocolate-covered stick.

"Have you ever played the Pocky game?" You ask, taking a bite of the treat.

"No. What is it?" Han looks at you curiously.

"Essentially, you grab one end of the Pocky stick, and I grab the other. We have to eat it, but if one of us pulls away, they lose," you respond simply, hiding the game's purpose.

"That sounds awfully like Lady and the Tramp," Han mentions, catching onto your intentions.

Offering him a stick, you say, "Want to play?"

Han smiles at you and grabs the Pocky stick placing the biscuit end between his teeth. You hold the chocolate-covered end and tap his hand to start. You both take it slow, Han opting to stay still as you near his lips. You tilt your head when you're close to his lips, giving him the perfect opportunity to kiss you when only a small piece is left.

You smile into the chocolate-flavored kiss. If you wanted to kiss Han, you could've done it without so many sneaky plans or excuses, but it wouldn't be as fun.

"So, who won?" Han asks when you pull away.

"Does it matter?" You cheekily say, pulling him back in for another kiss.

There's no flaw in your reasoning. Han pulls you close, lifting your legs to lie in his lap. You spend more time than you care to admit making out outside the convenience store.

Han offers to drive you to your apartment since your car needs to be finished. Throughout the drive, his hand is laced with yours in your lap. Small talk flows between you as you continue to learn about each other.

Smoke coming from your apartment building cuts that conversation short. Firefighters stand outside the building, spraying water into the source of the fire. Han steps out of the car with you to ask anyone what is going on.

Noticing the building manager across the street, you approach him. He quickly blurts out all the information he knows. You're one of many of the tenants to approach him. "There's a fire on the sixth floor. We don't know the damage yet. I understand this is your residence, but you need somewhere else to say for the next few days while we asses the damage and inspect the building."

"What am I going to do?" You groan, covering your face with your hands. You worry about where you'll stay and your stuff in your apartment. You have important documents in there.

"You can stay with me," Han offers without a hint of hesitation.

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose." It's nice of Han to offer you a place to stay, but would it be too much at this stage of their situationship. Last thing you want is to push boundaries.

"You're not imposing. Let me help you," Han insists, grabbing your hand to rub soothing circles in it. It's a given he has feelings for you, but before that, you are his friend, and he's not going to leave you out on the streets or sleeping in your car.

Han offers you calming words on the way to his apartment. Your apartment is on the twelfth floor and the other side of the fire. Chances are that your stuff will probably be fine. Whether the building will close for renovations is another matter entirely.

His apartment is just another level to the building he owns. Its entrance is on a more private side. Inside, it's very clean and organized, a surprise since you expect most guys to be messy. Picture frames and knick knacks are scattered throughout the space, giving you more of a glimpse into Han's life.

It's quiet between the two of you but comfortable. Han is giving you time to process what you saw in your building. He offers you his shower if you'd like, and when you brought up you didn't have any clothes, he searched for a clean t-shirt and sweatpants you could borrow from him.

A shower is just what you need as you let the water cascade down your body. Fire aside, it has been a great day, even before Han asked you on a date. Hope fills your being at the prospect of soon beginning a relationship with Han. So far, everything points out it can happen. There haven't been any red flags or hesitation from him.

You change into the oversized t-shirt Han picked out for you and the spare pair of underwear you always carry in your bag. Smart girls know to carry a spare in case of emergencies. You debate about wearing the sweatpants he left for you but choose against it. The t-shirt covers enough.

You shyly make your way out of the bathroom in search of Han. You find him in the bedroom, grabbing an extra pillow and blanket. "The bed is yours," he mentions, eyes briefly trailing your naked legs.

"Where will you sleep?" You ask, furrowing your eyebrows. If anyone has to sleep on the couch, it should be you.

"I'll take the couch," he responds, as you expected.

"Han, stop being a gentleman and get in bed with me," you say, taking the pillow from his grasp and placing it back on the top of the bed.

He offers you an 'Are you sure?' look, and you nod confidently. He doesn't need to be told twice. Han steps out of the bedroom for a few minutes and grabs a shower. Taking that time, you get on the bed to get comfortable, it's soft, and you sink into it.

You're snoozing off when he returns to the room. Han carefully peels back the sheets and gets under them. Feeling the bed dip, you turn to the side to face him.

Your sleepy mood makes you cuddle up to him without much thought. The smell of his soap invades your senses. Han naturally accepts it, throwing an arm around your waist and hugging you closer, legs intertwined. He kisses the top of your head, finding comfort in the position.

Thankful doesn't begin to cover how you feel. There's this overwhelming sense of security that comes with Han. There is something about him that makes you trust him. Deep down, you know he wouldn't intentionally hurt you.

"How are you feeling?" Han checks up on you before you fall asleep.

"I'm okay. I hope none of my things got damaged," you mumble into his chest, pressing a kiss into it afterward. "Thank you for everything, Han. Your help with the car, the date, letting me invade your bed," you finish with a soft laugh.

"Anytime, Angel," he responds truthfully. If he can help you in any way, he will. Sleep consumes both quickly after, and it becomes the best night you've both had in a while.

The following day you're the first to wake. Han's arms are around your waist, and you feel his breath tickle the back of your neck. He's warm, and you just want to sink into it even more. Your need to pee pries you out of his embrace, though.

As carefully as possible, you slip out of his loose grasp and head to the bathroom. Han had picked out a toothbrush for you the night before, which you're thankful for. Shuffling out of the bathroom, you cook breakfast for Han as a 'thank you' for his hospitality.

You pick the ingredients you need from his fridge, careful not to make too much noise. Your progress is slower than you prefer as you get used to the kitchen layout and localize everything you might need.

Soon enough, you drop pancake batter into the pan, and while that cooks, you scramble eggs with veggies. Since it's his kitchen, you assume he'll like what you make. It's his ingredients, after all.

Just after finishing the last batch of pancakes, you hear the patter of Han's feet entering the kitchen. You turn to glance at him quickly and greet him, "Good morning! I made you breakfast, sit!"

"You didn't have to do that," Han says, coming up behind you. He traps you between his body and the stove as if having you close last night wasn't enough.

"Yes, I did! You let me stay here, borrow clothes, sleep in your bed," you flip the pancakes as you count all the nice things he's done in less than 24 hours.

Humming, unconvinced, Han kisses your cheek and thanks you. It sends a tingle between your legs as his voice is raspy and deep from sleep. Your cheeks flare up, betraying you as always.

Han follows your orders and sits by the kitchen table, waiting till you're done to begin eating. With that time in his hands, he observes you. You're wearing the t-shirt he loaned you, which swallowed your frame. Each time you flipped a pancake, it rose slightly to reveal the light green fabric of your panties. Han soaked the sight in and wondered if this was what waited for him in the near future.

His eyes continue trailing down to your thick thighs. He wouldn't mind being trapped between them. Lower and lower, his gaze went from your pretty legs to your varnished toes. Back up, it went as you turned off the stove and approached the table. You weren't wearing a bra under the t-shirt, as your nipples poked through the thin fabric.

Han's glad he didn't notice these things last night, or he wouldn't have been able to sleep a wink. Spreading his legs, he tried to hide the hard-on he was sporting. None the wiser, you sit on the empty chair near him and tell him to eat up.

Shooing the dirty thoughts from his mind, Han thanks you one more time and digs in. It's a lovely morning, with light chatter bouncing between you. Han praises your cooking every chance he gets and even finishes the pancakes you left over but not before drenching them in more syrup. When both of you are done, you clear the plates and place them in the sink to wash.

"Angel, come 'ere," Han calls from behind you.

Mindlessly you walk over to him, wondering what he wants. Han grabs your waist, pulling you to his lap. "Han, what are you doing? I have to do the dishes!" You squeal, holding onto him, afraid he'd let you fall.

"No, you don't," he speaks softly, one hand cupping your cheek.

"I don't?" you prompt, leaning into his touch.

"Let me properly thank you," he offers, lips chasing yours. Han can't contain himself any longer. You've done a number on him, strutting around his kitchen in your underwear. He wants you. He needs you.

You lean into the kiss as you always do, pouring everything you have into it. Tasting the coffee on his tongue, you bring your hand around the back of his neck, softly tugging the long strands of hair. Han groans into the kiss, having missed that sensation.

Repositioning yourself, you straddle Han in the rickety kitchen chair. You feel his hands all over your body, trailing down your back to grasp your ass in his palms. Every so often, you'd resurface to breathe but dip down again and again to continue kissing him.

Han feels himself harden as you rub your center against him deliciously. It's clear as day you want him just as much as he wants you.

"Want to spoil me and fuck me?" You breathe heavily, kissing Han's neck.

"So bold," Han chuckles, his hands wandering under the t-shirt to feel your warm skin, his nails faintly scratching your back, sending shivers down your spine. "Six months ago, you would've been too scared to ask me that."

Six months ago, you would've been too scared to kiss him on the cheek, but you've come a long way. As time passes, you realize your feelings are not one-sided because Han means every word he speaks to you despite his taunting nature. Each and every complement is honest.

"I got tired of waiting around for you," you bite back, nipping his neck and sucking a pretty bruise on it.

Han hisses at the momentary sting, "I thought I was just a friend?"

You laugh sarcastically, picking your head up to stare at him, "I don't let friends kiss me or grope my ass."

"What does that make me then?" Han raises an eyebrow, cheekily squeezing your ass as a smirk forms on his lips.

"Special," you shrug, lips pouty and swollen.

"Because?" He wants to hear you say that you feel something for him. It's a last hurrah on giving you a hard time for fun.

You realize it's time to be honest and come out with it. You stopped hiding your feelings a while ago. Hell, you even asked Han to fuck you. All that's left is to admit your feeling out loud. "Because I have feelings for you, Han Lue," you whisper, brushing the hair that threatens to fall over his eyes.

"That's all you had to say," Han murmurs, catching your lips in a passionate kiss.

The heat rises with each passing moment. Your feelings have now come to a boil and bubbled over. Han picks you up easily and sits you on the kitchen table. He leaves his touch on your naked back to trace the outside of your thighs. It's time to give you precisely what you asked for and what he has been fantasizing about for far too long.

Grabbing the elastic band of your panties, Han slides them down the curve of your ass and your thighs until they are off. He throws them somewhere in the room, the information unimportant for now.

"Han, please," you whine, spreading your legs wider and giving him access to your most private part. You beg between kisses to feel his touch where you need it most.

"So impatient, Angel." Han jabs lightly as his right-hand touches the inside of your thigh. The pads of his fingers brush over your thighs repeatedly, nearing the apex more and more with each stroke.

You gasp as he finally dips a finger into your folds, gathering the slick that formed to spread it around your bundle of nerves. You gasp, breaking the kiss and throwing your head back.

Han sucks on your neck and collarbones as you moan into the air. Slipping a finger into your tight walls, he groans, thinking about how they'll feel around his hard cock.

"Fuck, Han, feels so good," you sigh when Han adds another digit into your soaking core and presses on your clit with his thumb.

"I didn't realize I made you this wet," he says into your neck as you grind your hips into his hand. You must've been wanting this for as long as he has.

"Liar," you respond, staring at him with hooded eyes. The nights you've touched yourself while thinking about him are many. The real thing is a million times better.

Han watches you intently, catching every little reaction you have to his touch. The moans and whines echo through the room and are music to his ears. Without a doubt, there's a wet patch in his boxers as his tip leaks precum from the erotic sight in front of him.

Your walls clenching around him alert him you're close, and promptly after you make it known as you beg him not to stop, except he doesn't listen and stops just as you're about to cum.

"Why did you stop?" You complain, eyes wide in desperate need.

"Want you to cum on my tongue," he responds, stealing a quick kiss before he kneels on the floor. Wrapping his strong arms around your thighs, he scoots you closer to the edge.

His words shoot another current down your legs, no doubt making more of a mess. You wait with bated breath as Han kisses the inside of your thighs, making eye contact with you as he delves into your pussy.

He licks up from your hole up to your clit. You grasp his hair with one hand, pulling the t-shirt up with the other to better look at him going down on you. Your eyes roll involuntarily when Han wraps his lips around your clit, sucking and flicking it with his tongue. His long fingers find your opening once more, sliding in effortlessly.

You try to maintain eye contact with Han through it all. If his hair fell on his eyes, you'd quickly brush it back, not wanting to miss his lustful gaze. It spurred Han on to see you crumbling over him, biting your lip as you tried to hide the pretty cries that wanted to fall from your lips.

Han stops licking your clit and slows his thrusting fingers each time you near your orgasm. Time and time again, he repeats this when you're near the edge. Only when your arousal coats his hand he keeps his pace, and as you whine out, 'gonna cum, don't stop,' he slips his tongue into your pussy, tasting your cum directly from the source.

He makes a great example of what his nose can do as it brushes over your clit while he tongue fucks you. You trap Han between your legs as your pussy clenches, your orgasm coming in waves. As you relax back onto the kitchen table, Han continues to lick your puffy center, being careful with your sensitive nub.

When he stands, you fist his t-shirt, smashing your lips together, tasting your essence. "Let's take this to the bedroom," Han pants. You nod eagerly and squeal when he picks you up, your legs wrapped around his waist.

You leave a trail of kisses on his neck as he makes his way to the bedroom. Once there, you both fall on the bed, Han hovering over you. He tugs on your t-shirt, "As much as I love seeing you in my clothes, this has to come off."

Without the shirt, he can admire your naked body. A lone finger slides down from your neck to your sternum. It slides to your side near the curve of your left breast, where a small sakura flower is tattooed.

"This is my new favorite thing about you," Han softly says, noticing you staring at him.

The tattoo was an impulsive thing to do. You had wanted a tattoo for years but never knew what to get. After your last breakup two years ago, you got the little flower instead of getting bangs and dying your hair. It has no real meaning to you. It's just a cute flower.

"You're the first to see it since I got it done," you tell him, a laugh bubbling from your lips as his touch on your ribs tickles.

"And I hope it stays that way," he responds. It's an unspoken promise. He wants you all to himself for the foreseeable future.

His finger continues the trajectory down your tummy, lightly going over your belly button before it traces over your mound and dips to touch your clit.

You gasp at the surge of pleasure as your clit remains sensitive from his previous actions. "Gotta say it's not fair that I'm the only one naked," you moan when Han continues to circle your nub.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Han incites you to see what you'll do.

Any remaining shyness you had is long gone as lust replaces it. You kneel in front of Han, who leans back to watch you. Your chest is close to his face, so when you lean closer to grab the hem of his shirt, he sucks one of your nipples.

"Han," you whine, arching your back," "Stop distracting me."

Ignoring his mouth on you, you grab his shirt and pull it off. Successfully making him stop his attack on your breasts. You peck his lips and kiss down his jaw.

You take your time kissing his toned chest and stomach. You wish to memorize every part of him. "You're so handsome, Han," you purr, glancing up at him.

Those simple words that spilled from your mouth made his heart flutter. Han is used to being the one to dish out compliments and praise the women he's with. To have you say that is like a breath of fresh air, and he can't wait to have more.

"Fuck, Angel," he groans, grasping your chin. You kiss his palm with a smile that's equally angelic and devilish.

You want to peel two more layers off Han's body and decide to do it all at once. Grasping the band of his pants and boxers, you slowly pull them down, building anticipation.

His cock springs out of its confines, landing on Han's abdomen. You don't hide your curious gaze as you take in his cock. It's so big it makes you bite your lip in anticipation. The tip is a dark pink as it drips with precum.

After you remove his pants entirely, you grasp his cock, feeling the warmth and weight of it. Han breathes out through his nose, a futile attempt to keep his cool. A string of saliva drips from your lips, coating his hard length. Each stroke you made caused a bead of pre to spill from him.

You take it as an invitation to taste him, wrapping your lips around his head your tongue licks the beads of white.

Han does the impossible not to push your head down to take all of him. The thought is present, though. You've barely teased him compared to how he teased you, but Han can no longer resist.

"I need you," Han groans, calling out your name, not the nickname you've been donned for the past three years.

You don't take it for granted. Hearing your name sends you into overdrive. Han pulls you up to kiss you and lies you down on the top of the bed. He comfortably gets between your legs that hug his waist to bring him closer. His cock brushes your wet pussy, and you both hiss at the sensation. Your pussy clenches around nothing at the thought of having Han fill you entirely.

"You ready, Angel?" Han asks you. One arm holding him up and the other wrapped around your thigh, giving you a comforting squeeze. Time stops ticking at that moment. It's just you and Han wrapped in each other.

"I've been ready for the past month, Han. Fuck me, please," you plead quietly, your fingertips running up and down his back.

"Just because you said, please." Han lines his cock up to your entrance and pushes past your lips into your warm center. Relief floods through the both of you, but it soon dissipates, and it's replaced by waves of unfiltered lust.

Han starts fucking into you deep, at the perfect pace. Your eyes involuntarily close as you feel Han's cock stretching you open and filling you like never before. Han kisses your temple and releases sexy moans into your ear with words of encouragement.

'Such a tight pussy just for me.'

'Taking me so good, Angel.'

'Can't get enough of you.'

You echo his words, encouraging him to keep fucking you. Your nails dig into his back as you try to hold on to anything, and your heels dig into his lower back. The closeness between you is intoxicating, your scents mixing and becoming one, his hair ticking your face, his warm skin heating up yours.

Han slows the pace momentarily, leaning back on his knees to see your pretty cunt taking his cock. He wants to commit to memory how your pussy spreads to make way for his cock, a white ring on the base of his cock, and how your little clit is exposed and vulnerable to his touch.

The other girls he's slept with only got part of his attention and dedication. He didn't mean to make a huge impression. He only did his job, often choosing to lie back and let them do as they pleased with him.

With you, it's different. He wants to give you his all and leave a great impression. He'll do all the work; you can just take it if that's what you want. That's the difference between you and the other girls. He lived to spoil you.

Meanwhile, you fall apart under him, moaning incoherent phrases he can barely make out. He loves hearing them, though. You reach for Han's hand as he increases his pace and grips it tightly.

Han slips his cock out of you, wanting to make his fantasy a reality. You shudder at the empty feeling and whine, "No, don't stop."

"Come on, Angel. Get on your knees," Han coo's at you, kissing your pouty lips. "Promise you'll cum soon."

Han positions you on your knees, your back arched as your tits rub against the bed sheets. You huff through it all, desperate to have him pounding into you again. He smacks your ass when you wiggle it to get him to do what you want.

Han enters you in one smooth motion, this position amplifying your pleasure as he hits the spongy spot inside of you more directly.

"Han!" You cry out, fisting the sheets underneath you.

"I'm right here, Angel," Han breathes, snapping his hips rhythmically.

Just as he visualized, he grabs your hips in his large hands and digs his thumbs into the dimples on your back. With a tight hold, he thrusts into you unrelentingly, and you push back onto him just as eagerly. Your cries are muffled by the pillow you're hugging to your face.

Your pussy swallows him with each thrust, even as it clenches to prepare for orgasm. He can't hold back any longer as his balls clench with each faltering thrust, and your walls squeeze him tighter than ever.

" 'm cumming," you squeal, your legs tense up and shake. Your walls contract and release in a rhythmic motion that sends Han over the edge, your name on the tip of his tongue.

Han pulls out of you, helping you get back onto a comfortable position, and lies beside you, catching his breath. He turns to look at you, and you do the same. You can't hold his gaze long as you furiously blush.

Han laughs, grabbing your hand to lace your fingers together. "You can't get shy now!"

"I can't control it!" You exclaim, hiding your face with the same pillow as earlier.

The rest of the day is spent in bed. Han ignores his daily responsibilities and stays in, getting lost in your touch and making promises he hopes to keep.

One Year and a Half Later...

You drive up to the empty parking complex. It's similar to the one you spend your nights on. Driving up the floors, you find Han where he told you he'd be. He leans against the familiar orange car, a bag of chips in his hands. A nice lather jacket covers his arms, making you smile when you remember how he got it in the first place.

"Hey, you wanted to meet me here?" You question, getting out of your car.

Approaching him, you kiss his salty lips and wait for an explanation regarding the random meet-up spot. In the entire year and a half of you dating, he's never asked you such a weird request.

"You feeling up to race?" Han asks you, holding your hand in his.

It's been years since the two of you met, and for the same amount of time, people have been pining you two to race. He denied every request, including the ones you threw every once in a while.

"It's about time," you exclaim, excitement filling your body. "What's at stake?"

There is something up Han's sleeve. You know that much. There is something he wants from you if he suddenly wants to race you. He could just ask. You'll give him everything he desires. You play along, though.

"Winner gets the other's car," he offers, pushing himself off the car to wrap his arms around you to hug you, his thumb soothingly brushing over the spot where your tattoo is. He last saw you when you left for your new engineering job early in the morning.

"You're willing to sacrifice your car?" You chuckle, implying you are going to win.

"It's only fair," he shrugs, kissing your cheek.

With one last peck, he lets you go and gets in his car. You follow his lead, lining up your car to the imaginary starting line. Han sets up a timer, and once it went off, both cars lurched forward at high speeds.

You focus on the race, forgetting it's Han you're competing with. You've been dying to go against him for so long, desperate to find out who was the better racer between the two.

As expected, Han makes it hard for you. The race is neck and neck as you drift up the floors of the building. Whenever Han takes the lead, you find a way to get ahead. You see the end near, and Han threatens to surpass you, but with one last boost, you keep your position, winning the race.

You leap out of your car, feeling the high of the race. No one has kept you on your toes for so long. It's a satisfying win. Han walks out of his car more calmly, smiling, happy to see you celebrate. It didn't matter to him that you were better. You deserved it.

"I can't believe I won," you exclaim, jumping into his arms as he spins you around.

"I can, and I'm so proud," Han says, kissing all over your face.

The race's prize is forgotten as you celebrate, but Han reminds you by handing you his keys, "A deal is a deal." You take the keys from him as a mere formality. You're not taking Han's precious car. Racing him is enough for you.

The weight of the keys is strange to you. They tend to be much heavier. Opening your palm to inspect them, you see that his keychains and spare keys are missing. In their place is a diamond ring.

"Han, what-" you stutter, whipping up to look at him.

"My car is yours. I figured I could be yours too. Will you marry me?" Han takes the keys from you, getting down on one knee and removing the ring from the holder.

From all the possible scenarios you had in mind from this clandestine meeting, Han's proposal was not one of them. Nevertheless, you have your answer instantly.

"Yes," you nod, choking back a sob.

Han grabs your hand and slides the ring onto your fourth finger. It's a perfect fit, just like Han. You drop down in front of Han, ignoring the dirty floor, to kiss and hug him.

Han kisses away your tears, a smile permanently etched on his face. He never thought he'd see the day he would settle down, but this past year has been near perfection with you, and he doesn't see himself with anyone else.

"Did you let me win to set this up?" You ask him later that night. His arms are wrapped tightly around you as you lie on his chest.

"No," he answers simply, kissing your head.

"You let me win," you then say assertively.

"No, I did not, Angel," he answers again, hiding his smile in your hair.

"I don't believe you. We have to race again," you tell him, lifting your head to glance at him.

"I don't have a reason to. I've got everything I want right here. Take the win, Angel," Han tells you sweetly, his fingers playing with your ring.

"For now," you huff, settling back down and cuddling up to him.

Fin.

thank you for reading! i didn't mean for it to be this long although i'm sure you guys are not complaining!

this was so much fun to write. guys like i am in love with han lue, i've spent hours on tiktok watching han lue and sung kang edits. i need help! tell me i'm not the only one like this!

requests are still open ❤️

#request #han lue imagine #fanfiction #fast and furious fanfiction #fast and furious #han lue fanfiction #han seoul oh #han lue x reader #han lue request #han lue #han lue imagines #han x reader #han x you #han lue smut #smut

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