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#current status: still alive

matchalattegreen · 26 days

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Here's something I hope will encourage you!

https://www.tumblr.com/neil-gaiman/749183651989815296/traumasurvivors-traumasurvivors

<33

whoa- that hit deep. I needed to hear that

@alabamasweettea thank you for this ily/p ❤️

#kal answers #current status: still alive

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simplymessingaboutinboats · 2 years

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here’s a bicorne for you. have a good day!🌊⚓️

#still alive #current status: art block☠️💀😩😓😞

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rejectclone · 2 years

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how long has the boss been just like... a head? AlsO wait how did that even happen LAL

I wouldn’t fault you for not knowing since I’ve been neglecting to write about him more often and haven’t been writing much about his backstory anyways😭

Long story story short: B055 was supposed to become the next main NYPD police station’s chief, essentially continuing his family’s legacy of taking over that role. Truthfully he did NOT want to be next in line for this role, but sadly he was forced into going down that career path. Right before he was going to be formally sworn in though, his father (who was the current chief at the time) told him to sign some rather unusual documents in regards to becoming chief.

B055 looked through them and it seemed all normal, minus one document that asked if it was okay to turn over his body upon death to be used in future health related projects to ‘better our city’. He signed it, thinking he would just be used for organ donation as he was content with that. He was oblivious to the fact that he essentially just signed his life away, as he was ‘mysteriously’ assassinated later at the ceremony where he was sworn in. He has that gunshot wound in his forehead for a reason.

Lo and behold just a few hours later, his corpse was immediately taken away (by the same evil government-backed pharmaceutical/biomechanical testing company that ironically made [R] and a whole bunch of clones a few decades later), tested on, and became the living computer database/undead cyborg head thingy he is!

He’s become content with this unfortunate fate of being reduced to being a database for the police force and being the CCTV system for the building, as he’s been stuck in that ‘job’ for about 80~ years. He’s been acting as a unknown figurehead for the station, as after his ‘sudden death’ at the ceremony, the government has covered up his existence and has been installing fake anonymous chiefs every few years at the station (of course the public LOATHES this mysterious anonymity of the police chief’s identity being hidden, but over the last few decades people have become slightly accustomed to it, mainly due to how jarringly horrifying his murder was since it was literally aired on TV)

#fun fact: his family never knew what happened to his body. he essentially was the end to their family legacy…..#he still has some alive relatives (mostly via cousins) but of course they have zero clue of his current undead status and have moved on #B055 M4N #my ocs #vinyl scratching

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gemstarstarlight · 1 year

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Sometimes I think it’d be nice to have a partner, so I’m not living alone. But that’s less because I want a romantic interest and more because I left the stove top on all night last night.

#it’s a miracle I’m still alive honestly #that was after last night where I boiled away an entire pot of water #I should not be left unsupervised #aroace #adhd #asexual #aromantic #current status #not dead. somehow.

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thatspacepirate · 2 months

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Help an Ultrakill dev recover from acute parietal haematoma

"Hello, my name is Lois and I have created this GoFundMe to assist in my twin brother's recovery from an acute parietal haematoma. This massive brain bleed has resulted in paralysis of the right side of the body, extreme weakness in the rest of his body, and the inability to speak. Current cognitive status is still been evaluated. There is a long road to recovery ahead, including physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology."

The quake mapper and 3d modeler Samuel2213 recently suffered a Parietal Haematoma. It happened a few days ago and he's stable, but he has a long road to recovery, and is lucky to be alive. He's a lead 3d modeler for Ultrakill and Wrath Aeon of Ruin, he did the models for gabriel, v1, and many of the other enemies. if you love those games please help out. Here's some of his work you might know.

Please reblog to help.

#ultrakill #quake #retro fps #crowdfunding #mutual aid #3d modeling

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ckret2 · 16 days

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Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed.

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched.

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #sev'ral timez #(a tag i have never used before and will probably never use again.)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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myfictionaldreams · 7 months

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Day 30: Freeuse - Winter Soldier

Summary: He was your patient. You were in charge of making sure all of his needs were met, no matter what they were.

Warnings/Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, non-consensual elements, dubious content, freeuse, discussion of injuries, violence, masturbation, fingering, voyeurism, exhibitionism, stalking (kinda), possessive

masterlist 📚

kinktober masterlist😈

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He was your priority. Hydra had recruited you with the hopes of creating an experiment to see if anyone could be trained to look after the assassin frozen in a Cyrogentic state. You were trained and kept underground to be the lead carer and doctor for the Winter Soldier. He was yours to look after, physically and mentally. After each mission you sent him on, he’d return and give you the reports. Most importantly, you were always the first face he’d see before and after being on the ice.

The Soldier would answer to you and Alexander Pierce, but even that was touchy sometimes as he would look to you before answering Pierces’ questions as if he was asking for permission to talk.

What’s more, is that you knew who he was outside of his assassin's status. James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, born in 1917, was the best friend to the one and only Captain America, Steve Rogers, who was currently alive, having been found in the ice and unbeknown to him, his best friend was also alive with similar super solider serum pumping through his veins. Steve was Bucky’s potential saviour; one day, you hoped to be there when this could become a reality; however, currently, you were watched so closely by everyone in Hydra that you’d not even been able to contemplate a plan as to how to break him out. Until then, he was your priority, keeping him out of harm's way as much as possible.

Alexander Pierce had given you strict instructions to adhere to every single need that may affect or alter the soldier's performance as the ghostly assassin. At first, you just assumed it was to feed him, wash, cut his hair, make sure he was healthy and metal arm was working to its best ability. But the basic human need for the Winter Soldier ran deeper than that, causing your role as his doctor and carer to be blurred and something more developed.

The longer he was out of the ice, the more you would notice his increasing frustrations that couldn’t be erased with a simple afternoon in the gym or sparring with other guards. There were even days when no one could calm him down, his aggression so high that he had to be sedated if you were not available to talk to him.

For example, there was once a day when you were actually off of the unit, in your new flat, having just been granted the allowance to live there when Rumlow came knocking on your door. He only gave you the courtesy of putting on your shoes before gripping your upper arm and dragging you to the office.

When you arrived, the rooms were in disarray. Equipment smashed, blood and unconscious bodies trying to be aided too. It was a mess, and you were more nearly barging down the door to get to him, shouting for the guards to stand down and leave him to you. Yes, he was a highly trained assassin, but with the trust he held in you, there was no way he would intentionally harm you.

The underground room had no windows, which you were thankful for as they would have been destroyed in his rampage. You were only dressed in your joggers and a vest top, trainers already marked with red streaks from the puddles you’d walked through. It felt like your heart would escape your mouth with how erratic it was pounding in your chest as you tried to take in his appearance.

The shirt he had previously been wearing was now ripped to shreds on the floor. The tactical trousers had tears throughout but still seemed to be held together enough that he was indecent, and combat boots that gleamed with smudges where he’d been kicking objects and people. Each of his knuckles were busted in their own way. The flesh hand was cut, and the metal fist was red with other people's blood.

You’d not seen him become this erratic since he’d been out of his cryogenic state for too long, and his memories began to return to him as he questioned his entire existence. Whereas for this example, he’d only been defrosted for several days and shouldn’t have had any cognitive issues.

Stepping closer with your hands raised to show you meant no threat, you asked in a clear, concise voice, “Soldier? Where is the threat?”

His height seemed to tower over yours, more so than usual, as he turned his deathly glare towards you. The hulking muscles of his shoulders heaved with each breath he took as if he was out of breath, which was a rare occasion as he could run for miles and continue to breathe steadily, unaffected by the strenuous exercise. Your question was supposed to help identify what his issue was, hoping he’d find you being there to create a safe space for him, but the angry charge of his massive body had you flinching back in shock.

The warm hand of his wrapped around your throat, using the momentum of his steps to push you back up against the wall. Your hands remained up, even though you were itching to tear at his wrist to relieve some pressure. He wasn’t squeezing hard enough that you were struggling to breathe, but it was still uncomfortable and unnerving.

Your mind was working on overdrive, trying to think of a way to ease the stress he was going through. Your eyes searched over his body, starting with his head and face, but there were only minor scratches and grazes from the fights. Lower your eyes explore his arms and chest until they halted, seeing something that had never been through your consideration.

His tactical pants were tented, showing the outline of his hard-on, raging just as violently as the blue of his eyes. Was this the issue of his anger? The soldier shifted his stance, hand twitching towards his crotch like he was going to move himself to be more comfortable, but stopped as he watched you closely.

Alexander Pierce had once told you that whatever the Soldier wanted or needed, you were to give it to him to ensure that he was performing to his best abilities. You cursed to yourself quietly, unsure if this was even plausible or right to do. Of course, it wasn’t right to do. He was a prisoner in his own body, but you were his doctor, and you had a job to do.

“It’s okay. I know what will help you. I’ll show you how to get rid of the pain; I won’t touch you, I promise”.

From there, you were able to explain anatomy, the ache throbbing through his abdomen and how he could relieve himself. He did. Right there in front of you, his pants by his knees and cock in hand until he came on your shoes.

You didn’t so much as blink or flinch at the action. He didn’t understand that it wasn't appropriate to cum on someone's shoes or to masturbate in a somewhat public scenario. It calmed him down enough that you could push him back onto a chair and fix the injuries that were already mostly healed.

These situations only continued to escalate, which occurred more often than not. However, the Winter Soldier only touched himself when you were around, and you were unsure if it was because you made him feel safe or for other reasons that Rumlow liked to hiss in your ear, saying that the deadly assassin had a crush on his favourite doctor.

You blew it off as gossip and nasty rumours, unprofessional at most.

This only lasted for a few months before you noticed the changes in the Soldier, and it all came to a head one night as he turned up at your apartment after a mission. You hadn’t even told him your address, and he wasn’t due back from the mission for another 24 hours, but there he was, at the end of the bed, having snuck through the window as you were halfway through having some intimate time yourself.

Your fingers were between your legs, eyes closed, and your head tipped back, not covering your moans as you didn’t think you’d need to as you were living by yourself. The assassin watched, confusion causing his brows to furrow, head tilted to the side as his fists clenched.

The look on your face was one he’d never seen before, and he noticed the anatomy was different to his. Of course, he was aware that not everyone had the same genitals as his, but it hadn’t crossed his mind that it could be touched like this.

The only time you were aware of his presence was when the bed dipped, your eyes snapping open and legs closing as you released an almighty scream that caused the Soldier to flinch.

“Mine”, he muttered under his breath, grabbing your ankle and dragging you closer.

“What? Soldier, what are you doing here? When did you- please stop” he paused his attempts to drag you closer as he was half crawling over your body. You were trying to remain calm, but he was acting so possessive, and why was he even here? How did he get in?

“Mine”, he repeated above you again, eyes trained between your legs.

You were at a loss for words, feeling both confused and safe simultaneously, even with someone as dangerous as this. The night was one that definitely crossed the line for professionalism.

The Winter Soldier was so interested in your masturbation and different genitals that he practically begged you to continue, shouting mine and gazing at your intimate area until you continued.

You came, and then the Soldier unbuckled his belt and ejaculated over your stomach, and this was the turning point of the relationship. Your job now seemed to be a half doctor, half a sexual release. Masturbation escalated into hands in underwear until there was no point holding back the restraint, and the two of you were fucking.

It was challenging to wrap your head around, especially when the two of you were in the work environment, but if it was what he wanted and needed that you were more than happy to be face pushed into the wall, trousers and underwear by your ankles and cock shoving so far into your cunt that you saw stars.

The most significant issue was that, even though none of the workers commented on it, they all knew the sex was occurring. Mainly because the Winter Soldier didn’t seem to understand that this was supposed to be something that was for ‘behind closed doors’ and out of view of the guards and other doctors. To him, if he was to push you over the table and whisper “mine”, then this was enough warning that he wanted to fuck, even if you were unfathomably embarrassed that your coworkers had to watch you coming undone to the man they were all looking after.

The worst time had to have been when Alexander Pierce came strolling into the ‘jail’ they kept the Soldier in during his downtime. Multiple guards were surrounding him, and three doctors in lab coats were working tirelessly around the room. You’d been in there for hours. Warm, tired and ready to eat whatever take-out you could encounter on the drive home later that night.

With Pierces’ presence, however, your posture straightened, and you tried to remain as professional as possible. This was a feat easier said than done as The Soldier eyed you from across the room, staring with his unblinking glare. Eventually, he pushed past Pierce, the guards all raising their guns expecting a fight, but there was none to have as the metal fingers of his specially made hand eased into the front of your work trousers, plain underwear and pushed into your cunt.

“What are you doing?! Now is not the time and place- Ah fuck!”. There was nothing other than a hand over your mouth that could have stopped the moan pitching from your lips as his thumb circled your clit. You’d not been at all aroused, but he had learned enough about your body to know the exact way to stimulate your bundle of nerves and curl his fingers inside of you to stroke that beautiful spot that had you whimpering without any restraint.

As he pleasured you in front of all your colleagues, there was nothing you could do but painfully grip on to his metal forearm. He didn’t even smile or mutter a single word as he made you orgasm with a knee-buckling euphoria. It seemed he was just in the mood to hear your whines as he turned around and sat back in front of Pierce, who was looking between the two of you.

“It seems things have changed through here. I’m glad you have been able to … satisfy the Asset by any means necessary”.

You tried not to visibly cringe with the way he had worded it as you tried to straighten your clothes and continue with the work you had been completing before. Nothing further was thankfully said as he was given his next mission, and you were left to continue working for a further three hours with underwear that was utterly soaked due to his wandering fingers.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky smut #winter soldier smut #winter soldier #winter soldier x reader #bucky barnes one shot #bucky x reader #marvel smut #marvel fic #winter soldier one shot #bucky barnes x reader #mine*#kinktober 2023 #kinktober

2K notes · View notes

hurthermore · 2 months

Note

hrr okay so request! may you please write some vox x reader smut? maybe its readers first time and she's hella nervous and mr egotistical has no idea how to comfort her abt it since he's usually oh so rough but he tries being softer just for her?? i love vox so much im insane but TYYYY!!!!

»»------► 𝙰 𝙵𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝙵𝚘𝚛 𝙵𝚊𝚖𝚎 (18+)

Pairing: 𝚅𝚘𝚡 𝚡 𝙵!𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

Word Count: 𝟷.𝟿𝚔

Warnings: 𝙵/𝙼 𝚜𝚖𝚞𝚝, 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢, 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚋𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚅𝚘𝚡 𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚅𝚘𝚡 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛

A/N: 𝙸'𝚖 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚐𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊 𝚕𝚒𝚎… 𝙸 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙸 𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚊 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚖 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚗𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚋 𝚊𝚜𝚏 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚍 𝙻𝙼𝙰𝙾 𝚒'𝚖 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚜𝚑𝚎'𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚜𝚔𝚎𝚍; 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚜𝚞𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜

𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚍 𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚊𝚙𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚜𝚎

The last thing you were expecting after dying was being dragged down into the pits of a reddish hell. You were practically America’s sweetheart for crying out loud, you were the star of the late 1950s; always nice to your fans, and not to mention that you had raised and donated millions to charities across the world with your wealth.

Why the fuck were you in hell?

Storming down the street, you pushed over some slimy looking man as he walked a bit too close to you. “Move it, jackass.”

You really had no clue why you were brought here.

But you weren’t about to let that ruin what you had. Sure, you were dead; but you were still living. You would just build yourself up again.

And you did.

It took barely a month before you became the talk of hell, but it wasn't good enough for you. You craved for more power, craved to see yourself plastered over every building, poster and billboard.

So when an upcoming overload that had control over the majority of the media output in hell who called himself Vox came seeking you out; he offered you a deal that you couldn’t refuse.

He would give you the fame you desired until the end of time, and in return, he wanted your absolute loyalty; your body, your love, and your life.

You signed instantly.

After your contract was set in stone, you found that Vox had enacted his side of the deal pretty much overnight. You remember the day vividly; your face on the cover of everything, letting all the vermin sinners bask in your lovely existence, and to know of your arrival in hell. From then on, you were back to your high celebrity status that you had attained whilst you were alive.

At first, all Vox made you do was go on dates with him; which was an assortment of him taking you to restaurants, clubs, or his penthouse, which was something you found yourself enjoying more than you thought you would. But as time passed, he began growing more confident in asking for you to hug him, to kiss him.

One night, he had asked you to come to his penthouse, and as you sat in his lap, laughing whilst he took a shot from in between the junction of your breasts, he confessed that he had a thing for you whilst he was alive.

“Oh, so you no longer have feelings for me, Vox?” You whispered into his screen as he leaned back into the loveseat.

The light that emitted off his face only flooded itself with a hint of luscious pink as he huffed out, closing his eyes before opening his mouth. “You know I still have a thing for you. It’s why you’re currently sat in my lap.”

Giggling, you pushed yourself against him, walking the tips of your nails against his screen. “I know, but I want to hear you say it; properly.”

As he looked at you with his glowing eyes, he placed a hand around the fat of your hip. “I’ll tell you, on one condition.”

“Do tell?” You asked whilst leaning your cheek against him, stroking shapes into his chest.

You could feel his chest rumble before he spoke. “You let me fuck you.”

Instantly you stilled upwards, sitting back to look at him. He didn’t like how your body had left his; didn’t like how you looked almost disgusted as the words left his mouth.

“Look, Vox,” You began, your hands gesturing as you spoke. “I like you, don’t get me wrong, but I promised myself never to fuck someone who I worked with or for.” You confessed; but with the alcohol in your body, you said more than you had meant to. “I’m still a virgin for fuck sakes, I can’t-”

Freezing up, you realised what you had said. The alcohol in your body seemed to sober up as the shock of realisation settled in.

Why did you have to admit that to the man who practically owned you?

Vox could only look at you in disbelief. He had read and heard so many scandals about you fucking your way into stardom when you were both alive; but despite that, he knew you were telling the truth. Placing a hand on your thigh, his sharp tips caressed you. “You don’t work with or for me though, sweetheart.” His teeth showed with his growing smirk. “I own you.”

As you looked down at him, you couldn’t deny the connection you had built with him. You did like him; moreso, you liked what he could offer you, you liked the power he held, and despite his nonhuman face, you did find yourself finding him quite the looker.

Despite all the suitors you had attained in your living life, you had never found someone attractive enough to stand by your side. Leave it to you to find the fucker with a television for a head be the first guy you actually liked.

Ridiculous.

You were already dead, you may as well find out what the fuss about sex was.

You would give him your virginity.

“Fine. But you better fuck me how I tell you to fuck me.” You spat at him before you smashed your face into his, kissing his strange face that could weirdly produce a 3D touchable projection of a tongue that was so wet. Grabbing the sides of his screen, Vox could only groan as he found the entire interaction the hottest thing he had ever witnessed.

He couldn’t believe he was about to fuck the woman who he had wanked off to throughout his years alive.

Despite his usual roughness during sex; craving control over his sexual partners, he would, for you only, allow you to dictate his pace.

You pulled away from the heated kiss before standing up; Vox reaching for you as you stood, but halting once you began to slip the dress off of your body. As it dropped to your ankles, you stepped out of it confidently, basking in your own ego as Vox seemed absolutely starstruck as he gazed over every crevice of your body.

Looking up at you, his dead heart pumped all the blood from his body into his cock as he watched you place your hands on your knees, squeezing your breasts together as you leaned toward him. “You wanna fuck me, Vox?” For the first time in his life, Vox’s eyes blew out as he found himself lost for words.

How the fuck had you managed to make him so nervous? You were the virgin; not him.

As he nodded slowly, allowing red pixelated drool to seep from the rim of his screened lips, you placed a hand on his shoulder, leaning over him to make sure all he could see was you. “Then you better put me somewhere more appropriate; this is no place for a lady to lose her virginity after all, is it?” You whispered in his face.

With a newfound confidence, Vox stood up before pushing you back slightly, grabbing the thick of your thighs before you could actually fall; forcing you to jump up and wrap your legs around the small of his waist. As he carried you towards the bed across the room, he shoved his tongue down your throat, drinking up the wetness of your mouth as your sharp teeth prodded his tongue throughout the kiss.

You had expected Vox to be a tad rougher considering who he was, you knew he enjoyed being rough, so when he gently laid you down on the bed, you were surprised. Leaning over your figure, he began to undress himself, grinning cockily when he slapped the tip of his sex against your thigh. “This appropriate enough for you, sweetheart?” He mumbled as his fingers grazed over the slit of your heated core.

Hissing in pleasure, you glared at him. “You better be gentle, or I'll crack that stupidly handsome face of yours.” You cried out as he plunged a finger inside of you.

You were not expecting it to feel so good already.

His smile only covered almost the entirety of his screen as the red drool only became more prominent; you thought he was handsome?. “Sweetheart, you can threaten me all you want but we both know you’re at my mercy.” He added another finger into your wet sex, making you moan ever so slightly. “But because it’s you, I’ll do whatever you fucking want.”

You could only sigh as his fingers pulled away, only to be replaced by his cock as the tip teased your entrance. You closed your eyes as a slight stinging sensation began to flourish where he was slightly prodding into you.

Gripping onto his arms to ground yourself, he kissed you with a softness you weren’t used to from him; he was always rough whenever he had kissed you before; this contrast was very welcome.

It made you feel powerful as he executed your demand of gentleness.

Whining into the kiss, he slowly forced his way into you, scorching your core with a pain you weren’t expecting. “You need me to stop?” He whispered as he felt your face contort into discomfort. Looking into his glowing eyes, you felt your heart race as you felt his cock halfway inside of you. Shaking your head, you asked him to continue before you let him devour your mouth with his tongue once more.

As he slowly forced the rest of his cock inside of you, you felt drops of sweat begin to form on your forehead from the pain. But as he pulled back, fucking into you at a slow pace, the pain began subsiding for pleasure, and you naturally became more receptive to Vox’s kisses and thrusts; meeting him halfway as you began to lift your hips up to meet his.

You could only start babbling his name along with loud moans as the pain fully disappeared; only pleasure deriving from his cock pulsing and pushing inside your cunt. Gripping his screen, you gritted your teeth in strange pleasure as one of his corded wires began sending electrical shocks into your clit.

“You’re so beautiful, but you know that don’t you?” Vox moaned as his thrusts began to become more rough as he started to feel his balls tighten, indicating his orgasm was soon approaching. As you nodded your head, he watched your body move up and down on the bed as he fucked you. He was going to cum into your cunt. He could feel it edging slowly; so he made the electrical shocks more intense on your clit to force you into your own orgasm.

Screams of pleasure were all he could hear from your lips as he could feel the electrical pulse from his wires press into your clit. Gripping your hips, he rammed himself into you at a pace you weren’t expecting, your eyes rolled up as your thighs began to shake uncontrollably; your mouth stuck in a gasp as you felt yourself cum on Vox’s throbbing cock.

Letting out his own groan, Vox finally allowed the tightening of his balls to release as his orgasm shot into the walls of your slick heat, sinking his claws into your hips as his screen glitched through the ordeal.

As he came down from the high, he looked down into your after glowed face, basking in how you looked even more beautiful than you ever had before.

He couldn’t deny that he felt something a bit more than just a crush in that moment.

“I have more than just a thing for you.” Was all he whispered.

»»------► 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

#vox x reader #vox x you #hazbin hotel vox #vox smut #vox x reader smut #hazbin hotel x reader #reader insert #x reader

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iicheeze · 1 year

Text

Genshin SAGAU except Reader is a lore fanatic

cw: lore dump, archon quest spoilers, side quest spoilers, etc

“ guys did u know that the Sea Ganoderma is actually souls of children who died young trapped and is forced to spend generations absorbing elements from the sand and sea as the form of punishment?? ” “ what the fuck your grace. ” Tighnari muttered.

“yelan, i know where u got ur jacket. ” “ o- oh, really, Your Grace? ” Yelan stuttered, sweat dropping. “ Yeah, i know u stole it from a Fatui Harbinger that was supposed to be a gift for the Tsaritsa and made some 'adjustments' to make it fit your style. ” you stated with a smirk, while yelan tries to hold in her cries because you rlly are a Divine Being, knowing everything about Teyvat.

Archon quest spoilers down ahead

“ Guys, I have a theory that the upside down Statue of the Seven and city the Traveler and Paimon saw are actually the correct way and that proves it because when I took a walk at Spiral Abyss when I went down I expected it to be pitch black but instead I'm met with the galaxy sky and a moon and possibly, Khaenri 'ah and Enkanomiya are the ones that are actually in the surface, while Teyvat is underground and yknow what? Scaramouche is RIGHT. The stars are fake the sky is fake everything is fake as we know of HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ” your maniacal laughter echoed through the Akademiya as many Researchers are baffled by this amount of information

“ Alhaitham, do you have a second? ” “ Of course, Your grace. What is it? ” “ Are you the Scarlet King ” “ ........ excuse me ”

“ WELL i noticed that the color of your eyes matches the Scarlet King's eyes, and your boots matches the color of the buildings of the Scarlet King's Civilization. A blue gem appeared when the Scarlet King sacrificed himself and it kinda looked like the gems at your back. And when you do your burst it looks REALLY similar to the Primal Constructs’ attacks, and the Primal Constructs are what's left of the Scarlet King's civilization. And at your chest it looks like it has the wings of an eagle, and your name literally means young eagle. What does this have to do with the Scarlet King? Well, at the Dunes I've ventured, I've seen murals and a figure with a bird head and it could possibly be the Scarlet King but it strangely reminded me of you!!! Plus, you know how to use the devices made by the Scarlet King, whereas the books and researchers at the Akademiya shows no information on how to properly use them. Pretty suspicious...... ”

and then theres alhaitham sweating his balls off on how the hell did you get that information.

“ guys, did you know that when Enkanomiya was plunged deep into the ocean, they created a fake sun called Helios to survive, right??? But actually, the nobles wanted more power. They wanted a puppet or ruler that they could easily control or manipulate. And WHO WOULD MAKE A GOOD CANDIDATE??? THAT'S RIGHT! A CHILD. AND THUS, BEGIN THE REIGN OF THE SUNCHILDREN. They were young and ignorant, obviously easy to be deceived and lied to. They were manipulated to commit heinous deeds. The first Sunchild was deceived to imprisoning his role model for life, aka isolated from everyone. The sunchildren were DESPISED by their own people, EVEN THE CARETAKERS ARENT ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO THEM. Knowing that the Sunchildren could realize that they were being manipulated, the nobles then introduced Rite of Solar Return. Now what the hell is a Rite of Solar Return??? Basically, when a Sunchild hits a certain age, they will be taken into the inner sanctum of Helios. The artificial Sun's high temperature could AND WOULD incinerate them alive!!!!! AND SOMEHOW, SOME HAVE SIMILARITIES WITH OUR CURRENT ARCHONS!!! Orupeusu had a talent for the lyre, aka the Anemo Archon. Risutaiosu made lifelike sculptures, like the Electro Archon. And Isumenasu would roam his country, AND EVEN HAD A SPEAR LIKE THE GEO ARCHON AT HIS GRAVE!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA I AM A GENIUS ”

the fact that people would still listen to your rants about Teyvat but still be concerned about your mental health is hilarious

if you werent the Divine Being of All, they would've locked you up where no one can find you, you know

Dottore would like you tho

so that's good

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danveration · 4 months

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I have a Alastor × fem!reader request. Imma be real with you, I own an Alastor stuffie and for the longest time I wondered, 'What if it morphed into the actual Alastor while I cuddled it?". I know, odd but I think it could possibly be a cute idea? (in the verse Hazbin is still a show, this fic takes place irl)

OH MT GOSH I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCHHH!!! i’ve got to get me an Alastor stuffie too.. If only this would happen irl 💔❤️❤️ i hope this is what you wanted/had in mind :’)

Parings: Alastor x fem!reader

Summary: You have a Alastor stuffie and you cuddle it. And it…. turns into the real Alastor?!?!

You have a favourite character from the show Hazbin Hotel, by favourite, you mean FAVOURITE. His name is Alastor, the radio demon. You’ve had a stuffie of him for the longest time, it’s always brought you comfort and it felt good to have a sort of physical version of him. Plus, it’s so cute:)

You’re currently sitting in bed, when you grab your Alastor stuffed animal and hug it. Shockingly, you feel it sort of vibrating. You look down at it and see that there’s shadowy smoke coming from it. You gasp and let go of it.

You’re wondering what on earth is going on, when something that you would’ve NEVER thought to happen, it morphed into THE Alastor from the show.

You think you’re dreaming so you do what everyone does, pinch yourself.

“Shit.” You mumble. Definitely not sleeping, that hurt like a bitch.

You look to your side and you see him laying there, looking confused, but smiling.

He looks around and his eyes land on you.

You’re sitting there in shock, unable to say anything.

Alastor hasn’t ever had this happen to him before, where he unwillingly got teleported. He usually just teleports using his shadow magic. He’s very puzzled on what happened.

As he looks to see you, you’re most obviously alive, and human. He doesn’t know anyone in hell that looks like you, and he knows almost everyone. Is he.. back on earth?

You two are just staring at each other in equal confusion.

He looks over you and sees a “Hazbin Hotel” poster on the wall and raises his brow in confusion even more.

“Who might you be?” He asks.

Your brain is short-circuiting but you manage to stumble out you name. “I-I’m Y/n.”

“I see.. now do you have any idea what I’m doing here?” He asks you.

“No, I don’t.” You shake your head. “I was just cuddling my stuffie of y-“ You stop yourself and refrain from telling him exactly who the stuffie was resembling.

“..Of something. And you just.. appeared!” You say.

“Hm. Now that’s quite the mystery then, isn’t it?” He says. “Well, it’s lovely to meet you then, Y/n. Though the circumstances are quite outlandish. The name is-“

“Alastor.” You whisper out, still in a state of:“wowmyfavoritecharacterfromatvshowjustappearedinmybed.”

Alastor tilts his head and says with confusion in his voice, “Precisely..”

He moves to get up off your bed and stand up, looking around your room. He notices a picture of him on your dresser and he looks back at you with a raised brow.

“Um.. I can explain-“ You start. “You’re not.. real. Well, you’re real because you’re here right now but- You.. You’re not real in this world. Um.. You-“ You ramble on and he stops you.

“I understand.” He says with a smile.

“You.. understand?”

“Ah, yes! I am the radio demon after all. I must be aware that other universes exist. It seems something happened and I was quite literally spawned here.” He explains. “Usually I’ve only heard this happening if it was a vessel of the person, like.. let’s say.. a statue. But it seems there’s no statue of myself in this room?” He laughs.

This makes some sense now. The stuffie must apply to these rules.

“Oh um. I think I know what happened..” You say.

He stares at you, eyes narrowing. “Well?”

“So um.. I have a stuffied animal of you.” You say in a low tone, your cheeks reddening.

“What was that, dear?” He asks.

“I have a stuffie of you..” You say.

“A..” He starts. “A stuffie? Of me? Now why would you have that?” He laughs.

“I.. for comfort?” You answer, hoping he isn’t too weirded out.

“Comfort? Well that’s a delightful!” He says in amused tone.

“Yeah um.. you’re basically a fictional character in this world.” You say.

“A fictional character?” He asks.

“Mhm.” You answer.

“I see..” He looks as if he’s trying to piece together everything. “Well, my dear! I’m not quite sure on what exactly is going on. But I assume it’s only momentary. Maybe a glitch in the system or something.” He laughs.

“Y-you..” It’s finally setting in that Alastor is in your room.

“I?” He asks with a smile.

“I LOVE YOU.” You blurt out suddenly without thinking.

Alastor jumps a bit at that and steps backwards, his eyes wide.

“S-sorry. I just.. I cant believe you’re here.” You say. “How did this even… THE Alastor is in my room.. He.. Oh my god..” You mumble on to yourself.

Alastor is a clever man, he knows that you must be a “fan” of his. He notices that he obviously doesn’t exist in your world. Though he finds your reaction quite adorable. Especially that you have a stuffie of him? You’re idolizing him? Out of all people? He’s charmed.

“Dear.. You alright there?” He asks you.

You look back up at him and smile.

“Very very alright, yes.” You answer.

———————————————————————

Suddenly, you bolt awake. It was just a dream..?

You sigh and shift on your side, still holding your Alastor stuffie. If only dreams were real.

As you fall asleep, you don’t notice but the stuffie begins to vibrate…

#anon <3 #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fan fiction #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel alastor x reader #alastor hazbin hotel x reader #alastor altruist #alastor the radio demon #the radio demon #hazbin hotel x reader #alastor x reader hazbin hotel #alastor x you #alastor x reader hazbin #hazbin hotel imagine #my works #the radio demon x reader #requests

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midnightwriter21 · 11 months

Text

demon slayer hcs: giyuu meeting soulmate!reader

characters: giyuu x fem!kamado!reader, tanjiro x sister!reader, nezuko x sister!reader, sanemi (mentioned), shinobu (mentioned), urokodaki (mentioned)

warnings: blood, family death, fighting, reader is the oldest Kamado sibling

AN: soulmate au where the first words your soulmate says to you is tattooed somewhere on your body!! this is the longest soulmate hcs i’ve written lol

GIYUU

you decide to spend the night over at a friends house late one night

you begin the walk home the next day at around noon

and when you return home you find your entire family slaughtered, laying in pools of their own blood

and your little brother Tanjiro and little sister Nezuko are missing

in tears, wondering what the hell happened and where your siblings are, you fail to notice the men and women approaching your home

when they get to you they explain who they are

they are the kakushi for the demon slayer corps

they check you for injuries and explain what had happened

a demon attacked your family

and your missing brother and sister are most likely dead

in a fit of rage the need for vengeance fills you

and you ask how you can become a slayer

the kakushi bring you to the butterfly mansion where you meet the head of the demon slayer corps

and filled with sympathy for you but sensing your potential, he assigns a hashira to be your mentor

and not just any hashira

The Wind Hashira

Sanemi Shinazugawa

the hot headed hashira with the deepest hatred for demons, the harshest training, and an undeniable disliking towards the water hashira, whom you haven’t met

with just a month of training, you’re headed to the Final Selection

unsurprisingly, due to your training with sanemi, you pass with flying colors

over the course of the next year, you practically fly up the ranks

being sent on several missions, training with sanemi, and of course, still grieving the loss of your siblings, Tanjiro and Nezuko

you become friends with most of the hashira due to your status of being the wind hashira’s tsuguko

but still not meeting the infamous water hashira that your teacher seems to hate

it isn’t until you receive a letter from the previous water hashira, Sakonji Urokodaki

that everything changes

he has heard of your fast progress and skill

and when hearing your last name, he realized that his newest student is your family

your little brother is alive

he passed the final selection

and he’s currently on a mission

a mission that several slayers have died on

a mission that required two hashira due to the amount of casualties

after reading the letter you practically fly out of the wind hashira’s estate

abandoning your daily training

barely hearing Sanemi’s outraged and confused yelling at your departure

running as fast as possible toward the forest that Tanjiro is supposed to be stationed in

you arrive

quickly taking off the head of a demon with the flick of your wrist as you pass by

faintly seeing the outline of a man with a mismatched haori in the corner of your eye

but continuing forward

toward your brother

faster

faster..

even faster…

you arrive

arrive just in time to block the killing blow heading towards your brother..

standing in front of Tanjiro in a defensive position with your back to him

your eyes lock onto the demon that was attacking your brother

Lower Rank 5

one of the twelve kizuki

you are so focused that you can barely hear Tanjiro whisper your name in shock

surely he thought you were dead

turning your head to softly smile at him over your shoulder you say,

“it’s alright, tanji. i’m here now.”

then, you feel a drop land on your face

a drop of blood

you look up to find your baby sister

covered in blood and tangled in the demons webs

a demon herself

in shock you stammer her name

this distraction gives lower rank 5 the opportunity to attack

he launches an attack toward you

you don’t have the time to block it

but you don’t have to

the man you caught a glimpse of earlier with the checkered haori leaps in front of you, blocking the strike

with him taking on the demon, you take the chance to leap into the air and cut the webs holding your sister

catching her as she falls, you can’t tear your eyes from her demonic form

Urokodaki did NOT mention this in his letter to you…

looking up at the sound of a head hitting the floor you realize that the man had delivered the killing blow to the attacking demon

as he turns to walk towards you and your sister, sword at the ready, nezuko stands in front of you defensively

“NO! DONT! SHE’S MY BABY SISTER” you plead, practically in tears

his eyes widen in shock

shock from the revealed information perhaps?

possibly from pity…?

or… is that… realization?

and then, in a split second he moves behind you

and the loud ‘clang’ of two swords colliding reach your ears

he had blocked the sword of another hashira

Shinobu, the insect hashira had attempted to take the life of your little sister

realizing that he was defending you, you took the chance

grabbing your brother and sister by the hand you run

and you keep running until you hear a crow telling you to report to the butterfly mansion with your brother and sister in tow

as you begin the journey to the butterfly mansion, tanjiro informs you of the events he experienced over the last year

in turn, you tell him of your experiences

arriving at the mansion, you are greeted with the sight of the hashira

normally, you would greet the people you call friends but today they are against you

when choosing between your family or your friends

you would choose your family, everytime

glancing between the highly ranked slayers, you see the quiet man in the mismatched haori

and since the only hashira that you haven’t met is the water hashira

you can safely assume that it’s him

when the meeting starts the master announces that both Urokodaki and Giyuu Tomioka have both put their lives on the line to vouch for Nezuko

Giyuu…

that’s his name.

the appreciation and admiration that surges through you at hearing the way he is supporting your sister is unreal

but your admiration is stopped in its tracks by the arrival of your mentor

you physically wince at Sanemi’s hard gaze, drawing an almost unnoticeable puzzled look from Giyuu

after the meeting ends and after a rather loud scolding from Sanemi

you turn to Giyuu and express how thankful you are for his help, and for his support for your sister

and he speaks to you for the first time,

“what kind of person would I be if i didn’t help my soulmate when she needed it.”

at his words, your heart stops

time freezes

your own wide eyes staring up into his calm ocean blue eyes in shock

you are physically frozen in shock

feeling the eyes of the other hashira staring at him he grabs you by the shoulder and leads you away from the prying gaze of the slayers

and then steps away, turning his back to you and pulling his hair over his shoulder exposing the back of his neck to you

exposing his soulmate tattoo to you

“NO! DONT! SHE’S MY BABY SISTER”

printed in your very own handwriting on his pale skin

you somewhat recover from your shock, softly tapping his shoulder to have him face you

and then copying his actions, you turn your back to him exposing the words printed onto your own neck

“what kind of person would I be if i didn’t help my soulmate when she needed it.”

sanemi was NOT happy to hear that his tsuguko is giyuu’s soulmate

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melodic-haze · 22 days

Note

how do you feel about sub arlecchino in boss form?

☆ — DEMO TRACK: sub!boss form!Arlecchino x dom!Reader

☆ — TYPE: NSFW

☆ — CONTENT WARNINGS: Implied that reader has a cock/strap though it can be taken as fingering or oral, whatever's your preference 🤷‍♀️, does this count as monsterfucking, magic bondage??

☆ — NOTES: Arlecchino might be the only spider I will never be afraid of please take her away from me

HOW DO I FEEL??? YOU SHOULD BE ASKIGN HER❗️❗️❗️❗️ Joking I'm unfit as hell so realistically I would probably die but ohhhh I am SO sure I'm gonna at least try

Idk if you guys understand (you probably do if you've seen my other Arle posts) but the thought of absolutely bringing such a powerful being to my knees SOOOO easily even though she could like kill me or reverse our positions in less than a second is so????? Top it off w the fact that she does it willingly ohhhhhhmygod hold me back or else I'll go insane

But like it's funny when!! The Traveller couldn't do ANYTHING to her and yet the moment you say jump she basically flies

Being allowed to be the closest to Arlecchino's very heart and soul meant knowing every single facet of her being and cherishing her: from her harsh duties as a Fatui Harbinger to her past and the two girls that died with it, only for just one of them—her—to come out of it reborn and alive.

Or at least, almost every single facet of her being.

"I am unsure about this, my love."

"Why's that?"

"You do realise that you are asking me to.. not hold my power back, yes?"

You nodded, "That's what I said."

You had known of her alternate form for a while now. Her unleashing even just a fraction of her true potential, manifesting into the form of a tall sillhouette akin to a spider bathed in crimson and the dangerously oppressive air of nothing but fear. She's used it to show those that oppose her just how unequal the scales are in their battles against her, she is as lethal as she is beautiful...

And you, on the other hand, are curious.

So you brought it up in the midst of your little.. téte-a-téte. A suggestion, of course, nothing demanding because you wouldn't want to pressure your dearly beloved into doing what she didn't want to do—such power did come with a great curse.

Arlecchino was vehemently against it at first, of course. And for good measure too; you KNEW it wouldn't just be a slight increase of strength. But the case you made.. admittedly had a curious appeal. And the power you had over her, the control she had submitted to you? She was willing to do whatever you asked (usually within reason). So she suggested to shelf the experimental matter for now and let her think on it, which you do.

And now, after a few days of consideration on her part, your current situation is the result of such a suggestion.

Your lover looks at you with furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes, not due to disappointment at your lack of concern for yourself (though actually there may be a little bit of that too) or cold anger at your insistent provocation to get your desired result (she could never be mad at her dearest). Rather, it is due to her flabberghasted state of confusion, "I have said this before but I could hurt you despite it being unnecessary. Why do you risk your life to sate such curiosities?"

"Because I trust you, Peruere."

She stills—you had dropped her title and opted to use her true name instead, a privilege only reserved for a very select few, with one of them dead. When she doesn't speak in turn, you walk up to her and hold both of her hands, dark and cursed yet so very beautiful to your eyes, just like her.

"Just like you trust yourself to me, I trust myself to you." You lifted one of her hands to tenderly kiss her knuckles, "I want to see every single side of you, including the ones you try to keep from me. I didn't run away when you revealed your status as a Harbinger, did I?"

"No."

"Exactly. Plus," you gave her a lighthearted grin, "I haven't necessarily scolded that side of you for hurting your children, have I?"

Her expression relaxes at your remark, though she does look confused—akin to a lost puppy when she tilts her head the slightest bit, "You have done so already, have you not? And it was but a light scuffle, I have taught them well enough that they aren't as injured as they would have been otherwise.. even if their attacks were pitiful."

"Arlecchino!" You chuckled out her title despite the loud bemusement of your voice, "Come on."

Her face never really shows all that much emotion, but you do see the slightly humorous glimmer in her crossed-out eyes, "I speak of the truth. They should have given a better performance."

You rolled your eyes, "That aside," and you give her a soft, reassuring look, "do you feel a little better now?"

She takes another pause.. and then nods. "Yes," she agrees, "I do. But I urge you to tell me if something feels wrong, alright?"

"Of course." You lean in to press another kiss, on her lips this time, before drawing back as fast as you came, "I wouldn't want to worry you further."

And so now you are faced to faced with this monstrous being. But that's what you've been wanting the entire time, isn't it? Lol sorry I'll get out of the weird monologue speak IT ABSOLUTELY IS THE MOMENT YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FORRR

You start off slow, obviously—caressing every inch of her. This is new, and you wouldn't want to worry your lover, do you? It's best not to rush into it even though ik you guys just wanna get into it idk 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Your hands graze her skin, your fingers trace new lines and markings.....and if you're a fashion nerd you probably inspect her clothing's transformation too, though you don't really have to be a fashion geek in order to take it off

THOUGH.......actually? Tell her to strip for you, to give you a show. Tell her you want to see her full body bare. I meant what I said when I told you she would willingly follow your every command, as if she were more devoted to you than the Tsaritsa herself, and that includes this

Just lean back and watch her as she slowly strips herself down, every inch of her body visible for you to see. You see her eyes glow crimson too, a physical manifestation of her pyro domain responding to her desire for you

Methinks that in this form specifically, she while she's a lot more strong and a lot more durable, she's also a lot more sensitive bc she'd be much more connected and hyper-aware of everything that's happening. This is my own take on how it feels to be in the form she's in btw idk how it'd work but anyway this means!! A lot of good things for you :3

If you try to put her fingers in your mouth you'll notice that she's warm. And I mean like REALLY fucking warm—her body doesn't stay at that temperature too. As you lick and suck on her digits, you'll notice that her skin, her fingers, get warmer and warmer the longer she watches you and feels you

Not just her fingers too 🥰🥰 if your touch goes down and you feel her cunt, it's HOT to the touch, though not scorching that'd be wild as hell. The shock would probably take you off guard though, and she'll probably be worried at first but like reassure her that you haven't been hurt or anything and that you're perfectly okay!!

Acc reassure her a LOT. Sure, yeah, she's the one that holds the power and she DOES have impeccable control over it, but she doesn't want to risk like yk. Accidentally killing you somehow and essentially throwing away someone so undoubtedly special to her just bc you wanted to monsterfuck out of curiosity 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ like that's such a way to go

Weak domtop reassuring op subbot during sex is like a silly trope I love it can you lot tell I think you can tell

Anyway it's not like she'll leave you to do all the work either; she can't leave you all unsatisfied like that, she wants you happy too :( so her free hand goes all the way down and she returns the favour. She does it amazingly too, like she's very careful with it but the heat on her hands basically does most of the heavy lifting as well anyway, and by now she probably knows of all the different ways to get you moaning out with her 🫶

Going down on her, fucking her is all well and good......but YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MAKE IT BETTER???? Yk the. When the Traveller couldn't move bc of her pyro web things. That. Except on her. Do you guys like see my vision I hope you do

Having her restrict herself as you go in and out of her in any way you like ougjfhgh.......I think it's the fact that she could just easily dispel it and even reverse it on you bc IT'S HER FUCKING ABILITY and yet she doesn't bc she wants to be all good for you. So she struggles in HER OWN WEB as you're essentially free to do whatever you want with her

Her like. Those extra appendages she has in her boss form too. Some of them are twitching and flailing about as you fuck her silly, others are simultaneously trying to hold you closer to her body, returning the favour even further by touching you everywhere she can AND trying not to hurt you by squeezing you too hard or accidentally burning you or anything

Just the whole struggle to not hurt you but her senses are getting muddled with pleasure I keep going back to this but it's just SOOOO ugh. Yo ugysdont understanddd I'm like probably malnourished so to dom someone who can snap me in half is mmmmmmmmMAN 🤤🤤🤤eys please

God she definitely has more stamina and libido than she already did before too??? Bc of like the heat and the strength increase. So holy fuck you're going to be going at it for AGESSSS.......Not like constantly though, she WILL make you take breaks and that will acc be the ONLY time she uses her web ability thing on you bc she is still concerned for your wellbeing no matter what 🥰🥰🥰

When you're acc all done though, which is. Not for a LONG time, you both kinda sit there, spent (more you than her probably) and her detransformed. Prepare yourself for GODLY aftercare by Father herself 🙏🙏 she like treats you to even more pampering than usual, not letting you lift a FINGER to do anything and her treating you personally if you got any burns at the end of your session

"I care not if you like my fire's sting, my dearest," she gently yet firmly tugged on your arm, "I will not stand for it if such an injury that I accidentally inflicted gets worse."

"Aww..." You sighed goodnaturedly, "I guess at least it makes for a good scar."

"Y/N."

"Whaaaat? I'm right!"

She shook her head, though the corners of her eyes crinkled, "Come here and let me treat you."

As risky as that was on you, not only has your curiosity has been more than sated, but Arlecchino finds herself.. wanting to repeat the experience. Shedding that extra layer of herself in such a moment felt.. much more intimate than usual. It was addicting

That won't be for a good while though—she'd agree to doing it once every few months :3

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meiieiri · 6 months

Text

water’s edge | 02

₊˚.༄ pairing: crown prince!gojo satoru x f!reader | setting: modern royal au | official playlist

₊˚.༄ summary: in a world where titles define their fates, gojo satoru, the crown prince of japan, and his wife-to-be, face a tempestuous court of deception and schadenfreude. as they waltz on the edge of ruin, can their love endure the treacherous waters that threaten to pull them apart, or will the whims of the enigmatic chrysanthemum throne prove strong enough to drown them both?

₊˚.༄ author’s note: did i really just punch out a 12.9k chapter? 😅 thank you again to the loml @angstbot2000 for beta-reading! sorry for the wait everyone and thank uou for the sweet messages! again, reblogs are highly appreciated.

₊˚.༄ masterlist

Flashback: Shinjuku Opera City (a week after the jubilee gala)

Click. Beep. beep. beep Your wristwatch mimicked a ticking time bomb right now. You breathe once to make sure you were still, for all intents and purposes, alive. The smell of the Sauvignon blanc laid in front of you was so heavenly, its grape-like aroma tempting you to take a sip but you couldn’t, afraid that your body will just reject it in its current state of shock. You must have had a few too many earlier, your commoner palette not exactly used to the refreshing and crisp taste of white wine directly sourced from the rolling hills of Pouilly-Fume, and you must be hallucinating all this in your drunken stupor. Yes, all this was a hallucination, some sick naive dream you conjured after sharing a passing glance with the prince of the nation. It had to be, otherwise, why does it feel that your body has shut down? You were unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to think.

And you were adamantly sure that you had also been rendered unable to breathe.

“…Huh?” That probably sounded stupid to your unlikely companions, well, normally it isn’t that stupid if you haven’t said that every five minutes or so during this fateful encounter. “This is a mistake. You really want me to-?”

“-Yes,” he said immediately, his mother nodding alongside him. His finger glided across the rim of his scotch glass. He took it neat, of course, the Crown Prince is a man of good taste. “I can ask my people to help you move your belongings to a more dignified residence tomorrow morning.”

The empress frowned at Satoru’s backhanded comment about your way of life. “Satoru, you’re scaring her,” she whispered worriedly to her son.

“If she’s smart, sure,” Satoru hisseed under his breath. If he was going to propose to you and consequently marry you under his parents’ orders, he was going to do it his way. “Look, Ms…?” he trails off, your name escaping him.

“(Y/N),” you provided. “My name is (Y/N).”

He makes a soft ‘tch’ sound which goes unnoticed since you were too preoccupied in shaking away the haze of thoughts in your mind dimming your ability to think. He continues, “As I was saying. Ms. (Y/N),” he puts emphasis on your name, etching the loathsome sound of it into his mind. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

What did he mean by that? “Excuse me?”

“I know I said that I was just a fan when I sent you those flowers after your performance tonight but, I guess you could say I’ve become an admirer of yours.”

This was all scripted, and Satoru, despite having had a memory good enough to memorize has a good his entire family tree including the collateral branches before he even graduated from primary school, found the words getting stuck in his throat and he trailed off, his mind was filled to the brim with nothing but the face of the woman he is unwillingly betraying in the name of protecting his status.

But wasn’t this what she wanted when she threw herself at the emperor’s feet that night? She was selflessly allowing him to go through with this despite knowing that every false tender word that he says to you would be a dagger to her heart, that every moment spent with you instead of her would make her cry a river of tears.

It feels as if this entire thing was a circus he had been forced into because his crown was hanging dangerously off the edge of the tightrope above him. Forced to perform, forced to act, forced to smile so that he wouldn’t feel the sting of the whip his father, the ringleader, had in his hand. Wasn’t that something Satoru has always done? How was this any different from all the elaborate ruses he’s been ordered to perform? Gojo involuntarily looks behind his seat, craning his head back, hoping to see the familiar figure of the love of his life standing exactly a meter away from him, just as she’s always faithfully done, but that was all wishful thinking; Himiko had been removed from the duty of accompanying him tonight.

“I don’t think I’m just a fan,” he continues, turning his attention back to you, the words confessing his so-called love being uttered stoically. You stop him right there, the amount of bewilderment in your heart at a fatal maximum. His hand finds his pocket, searching for the godforsaken ring he is about to present to you. “And I—“

“—You’re just curious, Your Royal Highness,” you dismissed his so-called feelings with a shake of your head. “You’ve never been with someone outside your circle, and you’re curious about what it would be like to be involved with a commoner like me.”

When the words leave your lips, a stretch of panic washes over your face. Did you just disrespect the prince and the empress by doubting the sincerity of his words? Or did they disrespect you by treating you like a moron? Were you just supposed to believe that Prince Satoru had feelings for you? Your mind was spinning, and you were feeling a migraine aura beginning to form at your peripheral vision. You had to get out of there. Quickly moving the chair back so that you could stand up, you bow contritely to excuse yourself from the room. “Ms. (Y/N), please wait!” the empress sighs exasperatedly when you leave the private dining room of the high-class restaurant, your heels clicking against the marble floor as you hurriedly see yourself out.

Perhaps, they were being too hasty for you to say “yes”, too secretive about their true intentions. If they were to even have a chance of convincing you to marry Satoru, they have to let you in on the truth. Luckily, despite her age, the empress catches up to you just as you are about to hail a cab which was proving to be difficult since it was now past eleven o’clock and even the busy skyscraper district of Shinjuku was starting to look deserted.

“Ms. (Y/N),” she breathes, stopping just a few feet from you. “Please hear me out. I’m sorry, this was a mistake…”

“It's fine, Your Royal Highness, I know the Crown Prince doesn’t like me the way he says he does. I may not be as highly educated as you but I’m not an idiot.”

The empress looks on sadly. “Well,” she sighs, standing next to you. “I knew you would figure it out sooner or later. Still, I’m really sorry for what happened back there.”

You don’t respond for a long while, contemplating what to say; the air between you is one of awkwardness and something’s gotta give, otherwise, you and the empress would be standing in the middle of the empty street like total fools. You are the first to break, “Your Highness. Why me? And what’s this really about?”

Why on earth were you chosen over so many other women in Tokyo’s most affluent families to become Prince Satoru’s wife? You expected that this so-called dinner would be nothing more than a courtesy call to thank the prince and the empress for visiting the last night of your show. One could only imagine the emotional whiplash you felt when the prince suddenly offered for you to become his wife which was totally unexpected considering you have never spoken a word to one another before. Just what kind of a messed up Shakespearean romantic tragedy did you wind up in? This entire thing felt like a work by some deranged author who’s had one too many to drink while writing this poisoned manuscript of a love story.

“It’s exactly as the prince said,” she says succinctly. “The prince isn’t getting any younger and he’s in need of a wife. That’s what I would have told you if you were one of those shallow high society women I’ve had the displeasure of meeting.” The empress bitterly thinks about one specific girl that is so loathsome and vile that she has forcibly brought Satoru on the brink of total destruction. Last week’s fiasco with the emperor was a warning shot, and knowing her husband, there won’t be a second time.

You frown, not liking it when people are purposefully brought down to compliment another. “I’m sure that’s not true,” you mumbled, not really knowing what to say.

“But it is,” the empress insists. “People who are born with everything have this tendency to think they are above everyone else. Maybe that was what caused the prince to become this way, because his own mother was born from nothing,” she chuckled.

Knowing that the prince was the only son she will ever be blessed with, having had him at the age of forty-one, she overindulged Satoru by giving him everything, and bending to his every will. So, Satoru grew up confident that he’d only have to point at a storefront window and his mother would get it for him, otherwise he’d throw a tantrum. Maybe that’s what’s going on — all the scandals, all the controversies — was this another one of Satoru’s tantrums because they refused to allow him to have a relationship with, much less marry, his chief-of-staff?

“Nothing? I thought Your Highness, well before you married His Majesty, was an heiress to a car company. I don’t think you should lump yourself in with us.” Those who were truly born from nothing, you thought to yourself.

The empress puts a hand over her mouth as her shoulders begin to shake as she giggles. “Is that so?” she laughs, reaching into her coat pocket, in search of something. Finally, she feels the familiar feel of the trinket she keeps with her day and night.

You expected her to pull out something more valuable than a five yen coin, and it looked like it’s an old one, judging by its rough and rust-stained edges. “See this?” She carefully places the coin in her hand as if it were a precious item. “This was the first ever money I ever had to my name at only eighteen years old. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it even now,” she smiles wistfully as memories of her youth, albeit a simpler time away from the intrigue of the imperial court. She gently places the memento in your hand.

It was so light, it barely weighed a few grams yet it held so much of the empress’s heart in it, like a personal diary that has kept her company throughout the years, or perhaps it was a compass that led her to the path that resonated with her true self- the girl of only eighteen that had the look of a dreamer in her eyes, or maybe it was an anchor that served to keep her feet firmly planted on the humble ground in spite of her exalted status as the emperor’s consort.

You studied the coin. “Only five yen?” Even you, a musician whose finances are scattered to the wind, could make more than five yen in less than an hour. You were confused. Was this another one of their tricks to get you to say yes? No, it couldn’t be, seeing as how the empress seemed so genuine now, almost like the conversation you were having was like a mother and daughter having a heartfelt chat.

The empress nods. “I was a store clerk at a music shop when I was young. It was the only way I could save up and go to college. Of course, this was all before my father invented that powerhouse of an automobile when he was tinkering around with a few of the customer’s cars in the mechanic shop he ran.”

Listening intently to the empress’s story, a sense of solidarity seemed to grow between you and her. “And this was your first salary? Hard to believe music shops pay so little back then.”

“No, no. That was a tip I received from a customer when I returned her wallet. She left it in the shop and I ran after her. Of course if I were a thief, I would have taken off with it, but it was completely empty.” That caused you to laugh. Who knew that the empress who always carried herself with poise and dignity had such a deadpan sense of humor? “So, she gave me the only coin in the wallet to thank me. A five yen coin. Since then, I’ve kept this with me at all times. Call it an old lady’s sentimental ramblings, but this is what keeps me from letting all this get to my head.”

You nod in understanding. But what did this beautiful story have to do with marrying Satoru? The empress senses the question before you could even form words to ask it.

“What I’m saying is that Satoru was my outlet,” she sulked. “My second chance. So I gave him everything his little heart could ever want. And as a mother I know it was wrong of me to raise him to think he’s above everything and everyone.” She didn’t actively do that, though. Satoru just developed that toxic kind of thinking somewhere down the line. “I’m sure you’ve heard the nasty things they say about my son.”

The atmosphere suddenly turns sullen. You remembered how you watched in horror when Prince Satoru appeared on your TV screen the morning after the jubilee gala. You normally saw the prince attending royal functions such as groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, and while you are aware, just like everyone else in the country, that Satoru had his own share of misfits, you dismissed it as the actions of a rebellious young adult. You never thought for one second that you would see the prince battering a man until he was closer to death than a rat caught in a mousetrap outside of a shady gambling den in an unsavory district in Tokyo.

“I’m pretty sure the press is stretching the truth at times.” That was the right thing to say, you didn’t want to badmouth her son in front of her.

She scoffs humorlessly. “I’m not asking you to defend him. What I’m asking of you is to help him.” She takes your hand in hers. “Ms. (Y/N), this marriage may start out as a publicity stunt, but you could turn into something better than that.”

Maybe you’d fall in love with the prince, and maybe he could open his heart to love another again, someone who was healthier for him than Himiko. While the disbelief in your face was clear, the empress’s words give you a sense of hope but again, being excused from this narrative was what you wanted more than anything. “I think you overestimate my power, Your Highness. What you are asking of me will only end badly, I’m sure of it. It’ll be a disaster for everyone.”

Looks like there was no convincing you. A lot seems to be going on inside the empress’s head and you sympathized with her anxiety, but this was something you couldn’t do. You have been what people call a “pushover” your entire life, but the subject of your marriage is critically non-negotiable.

“I understand,” the empress is now resigned to her son’s fate. It seems, after all that song and dance in front of the emperor, it was all futile in the end. At this rate, this time tomorrow, the son of the empress’s unwilling mistress would probably be declared heir apparent and she would be powerless to stop it.

“I’m sorry, it’s just my mother taught me that marriage is sacred and that I should never mess around with it. You could have asked me for anything, Your Highness, and I would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat.”

“Your mother seems like a very wise woman,” the empress smiles softly. “And she’s very lucky to have you as her daughter.”

You stiffened at that. “I…I wouldn’t know if she feels that way, really.”

A wave of confusion crashes over the empress. What did you mean? “Sorry?” she clarifies. You hesitate to let her in on your own pain and you feel a slight prick of guilt poking your heart. She had been so vulnerable tonight, so open with you about her grief while you guarded yours in a titanium safe. She decides not to push the subject further and instead places a hand over yours comfortingly before turning to leave.

A thought occurs in your head and everything seems to slow down. The cars passing by the main avenue of Nishi-Shinjuku seemed to be running at 10 mph instead of the road’s minimum 20 mph. The billboards towering over you have momentarily lagged like some fatal error occurred in the LCD screen.

…This was wrong, you shouldn’t even be thinking of this.

...What would make you any different from a bloodsucking gold-digger?

…Don’t run after her.

She wouldn’t want you to do this. It would kill her if you did this. But haven’t you killed her many times before? What would make this time any different? Absolutely nothing. Your mind is made up.

…

“Your Highness, please wait.”

6:12 AM.

You didn’t know that the smell of flowers could be so vile and revolting.

Sat in the middle of a room with about a hundred bouquets of flowers from a multitude of well-wishers, at six in the morning on the day of your wedding, you gaze up at the huge mural of your new residence in the imperial palace. The pupils of your eyes followed each image on the vast painted ceiling which, compared to your tiny Tokyo apartment, felt like the entire sky altogether. Your eyes follow the image painted by Kanō Eitoku depicting life in the old seat of the imperial system, Kyoto, each blink of your eyes, you hone in on a new aspect of the mural: the mountain of Ryūgatake, the old imperial palace which you were told still existed today, the grasslands surrounding the ancient capital, and the people of Kyoto as they go about their daily lives.

If only those people could speak and were not just plastered images on a lifeless cement canvas to keep you company, maybe you won’t feel as lonely having had to wait for your wedding day to roll by without your husband-to-be by your side.

Sighing, you fall against the carpeted floor, your hands clutching a greeting card from one of your friends who gushed about how you had suddenly become a princess-to-be overnight and how you must be so happy to be engaged to such a handsome man that is prince Satoru Gojo. You hold back your tears, your fingernails digging into the vellum card.

You’ve given up calling the Imperial Household Agency to connect the line to Satoru, they come up with a different ruse each time. “Please, I need to speak to the Crown Prince,” you would sniffle into the line’s speaker desperately.

“His Royal Highness is busy right now in his office.”

“My apologies, Ms. (Y/N), but Prince Satoru is unavailable right now due to [insert name of engagement which is perfectly-timed with the wedding consultations he’s supposed to attend with you here].”

“Prince Satoru is currently away to inaugurate the new building for [insert any imperial charity foundation here].”

But you know all those so-called reasons for his absence were lies, excuses to keep their future consort from overthinking where her distant fiancé could be. Come to think of it, you haven’t seen Himiko around either, that alone should be enough to answer the lingering questions in your head about Satoru’s whereabouts. It wasn’t as if you could suddenly act like some jealous spouse when 1.) You aren’t married yet. 2.) You are the trespasser in their relationship. 3.) You are simply a bandage solution to clean up the prince’s image, someone who had unknowingly been at the right place at the right time. You are well aware of where you stand in the grand scheme of things; that kiss as you drove out of the palace compound that day should have been a good enough reminder that you will never truly be your future husband’s better half.

That title, the one you unwittingly stole from a woman you’ve never even met before, is something you can never truly call your own. You were no different than the typical other woman who would wear the legal wife’s wedding dress like some thief.

Yet how is it that you know all of these things like scripture but you still spent the entire night crying over a man who finds it physically impossible to be in the same room as you? Why did it hurt so much when you saw your fiancé shield his girlfriend from the autumn chill the same way you hoped he would shield you from the many challenging questions during that press conference? Why does it feel like a dagger had been plunged into your chest when you saw Himiko kiss Satoru so tenderly, and your husband-to-be returning the gesture with equal fervor?

You lay on your side, the velvet texture of the carpet somehow providing you some semblance of comfort. What would your retainers say when they come into this room and see the crumpled form of their future empress on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest as she tries to make sense of everything that has happened these past few days? You imagined that they’d probably think you were crazy, and Satoru would probably jeer at the thought of having a simpleton as a wife.

You were only a girl of twenty-three summers, you should be enjoying your twenties by doing the things that you love with the people you love. These sunny days of youth pass by in the blink of an eye, but in your case, you have been totally robbed of it, now being primed to become not just a princess but a wife too. While the former is certainly an intimidating role, the latter is just downright petrifying for someone as young as yourself.

Not a single soul save for the empress went to check up on you last night, the only people you were expecting to keep you company today are the hairdressers and makeup artists to prepare you for the wedding. Of course, the austere members of the Imperial Household Agency are also set to make an appearance in your chambers today probably to make you sit through another briefing session on court etiquette. You glance out the window, it was barely light out due to the winter equinox when nights are longer than daytime, and somehow that made you even more sad than you already were laying down on the floor of your room, desolately alone.

A knock at the door awakens you from your trance and you sit up, arranging your hair neatly and pulling on your shoes. Sighing, you make your way towards the door and see someone who you do not quite expect. He momentarily shifts his attenton to the battalion of attendants behind him, nodding to them. “Leave us alone.”

“Your Majesty, good morning,” your breath hitches in your throat as you hastily bow your head before the emperor who seemed to be more anxious about this day more than you, seeing as he is already dressed in his three piece suit and slacks ensemble with the Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum hanging between his lapels.

The emperor was an enigmatic figure who mostly kept to himself, his chamberlain and main staff often joking amongst themselves how the emperor was really a recluse who had only been born to become the sovereign ruler of a nation by an unfortunate stroke of fate. Your future father-in-law hums in acknowledgement and you are left to wonder if this is where Satoru gets his aloof nature from. “Good morning, (Y/N). May I come in?” he asks as if this entire compound wasn’t his.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

He eyes the many bouquets in the room, sighing heavily as he does, the guilt of putting you in this impossible position weighing on him. He admits that he jumped the gun when the empress offered to have Satoru marry someone who could brighten up his public image from the many blemishes it incurred during the night of the jubilee when he and Himiko were seen together, causing trouble in the casinos of the infamous Kabukichō red light district.. To have you bear the weight of becoming a lamb to the slaughter with this marriage was just downright cruel, knowing that his son will certainly make it his life’s purpose to destroy you, but what choice did he have?

It is the crown that makes the choice for him, he’s been told by his own father.

“Listen, do you have the slightest idea of what you’re about to go through?” the man whom you would call your father-in-law in just a few hours asks flatly.

Of course you do, Satoru has already given you a taste of what your marriage is going to be like. You solemnly nod “I think so,” murmuring softly, crestfallenness is evident in your voice. “Satoru has made it clear.”

The emperor purses his lips as he fumbles with a tulip that had been nestled in one of the bouquets in your chambers, “Well, it’s good that you know. I know my son and I am not here to tell you that everything you’ve seen these past couple of days will get better,” he eyes the telephone, one you haven’t even placed the phone back onto the handset in hopes that Satoru would call you. “In fact, it’s only going to get worse from here.”

You frown, crestfallen. “How so?” you asked, your hand gripping the fabric of your dress. “Are you saying that this is just the beginning?” Truthfully, you were fine with this being the beginning, only if you could have the reassurance that all this will come to an eventual end. But it seems now that this was going to be life as you know it, with a husband who gags at the sight of you and has the innate ability to treat you like you were his personal bedwarmer and doormat.

“Yes,” the emperor says gravely, a dark look crossing his features. “So if you’d like to back out now, now is your only chance. Satoru has made enough messes, a canceled wedding will barely do anything to his reputation at this point.”

He’s right; these past days have only proved that Satoru is probably granting you a way out, maybe that’s why he has done nothing else but to ignore you as a final act of mercy if you ever decide to bail. One tiny kiss on the cheek is nothing when he starts to go missing in the middle of the night to attend to his mistress’s beck and call, when he starts to bring home his mistress for dinner to actively spite you with their relationship, or when he, god forbid, starts fucking in her in your marital bed while you’re away on some royal function.

You could live a full life without him, having barely even known him save for his proclivity to emotionally torment you, but it feels wrong to just…up and leave after all that song and dance in the press opportunity.l Shaking your head, the emperor’s offer is refused insistently.

“I’m not going to give up on him, I won’t give up on our marriage before it even begins,” your eyes bore into the emperor’s own. You’ve promised yourself and the empress that you’ll see this through, if Satoru is going to make your life a living hell, then, you’ll just have to take all his blows like a champ.

“I don’t doubt your willpower, (Y/N). I’m just saying that this might be even more difficult for you than you think,” the emperor warns. “Satoru doesn’t just push back, he’ll run over people who get in his way.”

“Your Majesty, it’e alright. I’ll manage somehow.” you mumbled. “The empress and I made an agreement that if I marry Satoru, I…” you trail off, not really wanting to reveal more than you should, the emperor waits for you to continue, his eyebrows furrowed together.

What would you get if you married Satoru if not unnecessary suffering? And even then, that didn’t sound like a good deal, the emperor thinks to himself. You could have gone on happily with your life, blissfully unaware of the trials of being married to the white-haired prince, you probably would have continued climbing the career ladder before finding someone to settle down with, maybe you’ll have a few kids along the way, and Satoru would also be blissfully unaware of a certain (Y/N) (L/N) existing on this plane of reality with him.

Why were you so committed to marrying him?

“I’d be able to…” you stutter. There was no use hiding it now but maybe you could conceal the truth a little longer, if not for your sake, but for the empress — no, a grieving mother — who met you in a hotel café that night with the weight of the world on her shoulders and asked you to keep the details of this transactional union a secret. “I would…”

The emperor raises a hand to stop you, though he is mildly perturbed at your hesitance to open up to him, he decides that whatever you and his wife were keeping from him does not concern him or the throne and that it is simply a thing that should be left unsaid. He really didn’t want to pry into the details of the contract you agreed to, and since you seem to have already made up your mind, all he could do now is hope that you do not give up so easily on his son the same way he did, and that this choice to marry Satoru would not backfire on you or the imperial system in the long run.

“Stop. I understand,” the emperor nods, his shoulders seemingly slumping in defeat as he is unable to convince you to cut it and run from the horrible fate you were speeding towards at a hundred miles an hour. Maybe Satoru was right to make you out to be an idiot, the emperor frowns. “But…don’t say I didn’t warn you, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you all the best.”

And just like that, the wedding pushes through as scheduled, having declared before the father of the groom that you weren’t one to give up so easily, or…maybe it’s just your blind optimism talking.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” you settle into an ornate curtsy, your foot gracefully tucked behind the other, your hand postured in a cordial handshake with His Majesty. The emperor’s pupils dilate, his mouth runs dry and he feels like something in his body had momentarily stopped working or had broken entirely — he knows that trademark act of obeisance so well — you’ve perfectly captured the image of a younger version of his wife who had perfected royal protocol in just under a year when they got married. She must have sought to teach you everything she knew or rather she was forced to learn by herself when she was in your position in an act of true esprit de corps. And for a moment, he finds himself surrendering to your doe-eyed but unmistakably poised charm, and he starts to become more convinced that you were a worthy future daughter-in-law.

He shakes his head, swiftly snapping him out of his trance, now was not the time for these things. The emperor nods back to return the gesture before turning to leave, just as your attendants are about to arrive to get you ready for the ceremony. “We’ll see you in the cathedral, then, (Y/N).”

But as soon as he is halfway out the door, he turns back to look at you one last time as (Y/N) (L/N), for the next time he will see you, you will then be (Y/N) Gojo, his first daughter-in-law, the first royal bride in centuries who neither hails from a family of politicians nor influential persons alike, the icon of a new chapter for the imperial family.

He sighs, turning back around to face you, having almost forgotten the task he’d been entrusted with by his wife. “I almost forgot. Ijichi,” he calls to his faithful grand steward who is waiting outside your chambers to bring forth a rather special gift he and the empress intended to present to you after the ceremony but he figured now might be a good time. The tall, lanky and sickly-looking spectacled man known as Ijichi bows before you which leaves a strange feeling festering within you, he was carrying a navy blue felt case that seemed so valuable that he had been compelled to wear gloves to prevent his bare hands from touching the fine fabric.

The emperor motions to open the case and your face pales when you see what is inside. “This is intended to be worn by the Princess Royal on her wedding day but since I don’t have a daughter to give that title to, the title will now belong to you.”

The tiara in his hands is a hefty thing, molded entirely from the most of valuable of silvers, it resembled the Queen Mary Fringe Tiara that had been worn by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on her wedding day, with an abundance of baton diamonds dotting every conceivable nook and cranny. It takes some time for you to adjust when it is placed upon your head, it only weighed a modest 1.7 kilograms, it was much lighter than the many tiaras the family keeps hidden away in the imperial vaults but for someone like you, it is an awfully heavy thing not just in the literal sense but also in the figurative side of things.

As of this moment, you weren’t just an ordinarily forgettable face in a crowd anymore.

“Carry the weight.” The emperor’s voice is commandeering. He steps back, scanning how the tiara looks on you from afar and though it looked awkwardly placed on your head with how you are struggling to balance its weight, you still managed to carry it adequately. “Now…you’re one of us.”

8:55 AM.

“Need some help?”

Satoru looks up to inspect the reflection on the mirror and a sad smile crosses his face when he sees the familiar figure of Himiko leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest as she gazes at her beloved getting ready for his wedding day. “You don’t have to be here.” He begrudgingly fumbles with his collar, unable to meet her eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he professes, despite having immeasurably hurt you these past couple of days instead.

Himiko shakes her head. There was no use in grumbling about it now when just on the other side of the palace, Satoru’s unworthy bride-to-be was being pampered by her many ladies with manicures, foot massages, and practically anything to make you happy while she, the prince’s true love, was condemned to watch him be cruelly given away to someone else. There was a sense of finality with how hundreds of palace staff rushed through the hallways carrying all sorts of wedding paraphernalia to decorate the Chowaden reception hall and the courtyard to welcome the wedding guests.

Satoru frowns when her hands find his collar, she skillfully untangles the ribbon medal and readjusts the silver emerald-studded necklace that came with it.

Please…just one more minute…one more minute with you, Satoru closes his eyes as Himiko’s thumbs tentatively rub his chiseled cheek as if she were memorizing every bump and every curve of his skin before someone else tries to claim that they know every bit of Satoru inside and out. She knows it will never be true, no one can ever know Satoru the way she intimately knows him, not even if he was going to marry another woman. It may be possible for you steal everything from her — the emperor and empress’s favor, the public’s warm approval, the ring that had been fitted to accommodate the size of her finger before it was given to you — it may have been easy for you to pull the rug from underneath her, but it would be difficult — no, impossible — for you to ever claim ownership of Satoru.

He was hers and she was his, Satoru leans against Himiko’s touch, sighing woefully. “I’ll make her pay, I promise. I’ll break her, destroy her again. And again. And again until nothing’s left of her,” he recites the promise, punctuating the words with a kiss every time, as if they were having an illicit wedding of their own, and his words were a marriage vow — the only one that he will honor with every fiber of his being. Himiko bites her lower lip before she slowly nods, appeased.

“But Satoru, marrying her is the only way for you to be restored as heir apparent. Either way, we can’t win without doing this your father’s way.” Her hands leave his collar and she sadly gazes out the window, her narrow eyes glazing over the ancient ginkgo tree at the center of the palace’s vast atrium which was now shedding their green leaves to take on the tell-tale yellow hue as autumn draws near. She always loved the view of the palace courtyard from above, especially in this room where she and Satoru spent many nights proving their love for one another.

Gojo frowns at her melancholia, he comes up from behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I’ll think of something, I promise this won’t last longer than it needs to,” he kisses her cheek, nuzzling it with his nose tenderly.

“I don’t mind waiting, Satoru, I’d wait for you forever, and as much as we both hate her, we need (Y/N),” she spits out your name as if it were rat poison in her mouth. “So, let’s just play along. It’s not like we’re not used to meeting in deserted parking lots at midnight, right?” She offers him a half-smile, reminding Satoru that their entire affair has always been illicit in nature.

It’s not like she was accepted by his parents to be their son’s future consort. They’ve been through this before, hundreds of times rather, even before you came along. They’ve had to deal with so many forces ripping them apart over the past three years from the oh-so-omnipotent emperor who hardly wields any political power to his neurotic wife whom she has called, on several occasions, a bitch.

And yet, together they remained as it has always been, with Satoru cradling Himiko in his arms as he peppers kisses up her neck, sucking at the soft flesh, his hips flush against hers. He does this in front of the window for any unfortunate passerby to see. Hell, Satoru was hoping you’d walk by and see this heartbreaking display and maybe you’ll just run home in your wedding dress with your tail between your legs.

“We don’t have to get used to it, Himiko,” he mumbles into her neck, inhaling her sweet perfume, the one he liked the most. “One day, we won’t have to hide anymore,” he kisses her cheek tenderly, caressing the bone of her wrists which still bore faint marks from the handcuffs that had been wrongfully placed on her with his thumb. “And people can say whatever they want about us, and it wouldn’t matter because I will have been the emperor by then and you, my empress.” He presses their foreheads together, the tips of their noses barely touching in a moment of silence.

After a long while, Satoru lets go of Himiko, his eyes scanning hers as if he were searching for answers hidden deep within her soul. “What is it?”

“I just wish you hadn’t stepped in back there.” It was a thought that kept him awake these past agonizing nights. “Maybe if you just stayed out of my father’s office, this wouldn’t have happened. I was alright with you visiting me in my jail cell, you know.”

“As if I’d ever let that happen,” she sighs when he pulls away to fasten his cufflinks, suddenly feeling a bit disheartened at the loss of his touch. She kisses his cheek, looking at his reflection through the mirror, her eyes alight with adoration. “I promised I’d always be your ally, didn’t I?”

When she and Satoru first met three years ago in the selection for his chief-of-staff, Himiko Zenin, despite coming from the affluent Zenin clan, lagged behind compared to her contenders who aced the exams that tested their knowledge on the law, constitution, history of the imperial system, royal protocol, foreign languages and other aspects that may prove useful for the prince’s right hand. But there was one thing that she had that all the other applicants didn’t have, and she demonstrated that perfectly when Satoru unexpectedly dropped by during the final interviews to speak to each of the candidates himself.

Satoru stared at Himiko with a bored expression that day, his being devoid of any emotion. “Ms. Zenin, it seems you did poorly in all of the exams,” he glances at her file which should have been tossed in the bin by the time she placed last in the jurisprudence exam. “And you’re affiliated with one of the more morally ambiguous families in the country. Looks like today’s just not your day, huh?”

It was true. Having Himiko Zenin as his chief of staff was dangerous from the get-go. The Zenin clan’s head back then during the time of the selection was on trial for graft and corruption. But, there was something Himiko had that all the other applicants did not. At the time, he couldn’t quite put a finger on it but now, after years of selfless service to him, Satoru realizes that it was the ferocious loyalty that hid underneath her then perfectly ordinary shell which he personally refined into the gem of a woman she is now, and she never swore allegiance to the crown but rather to him, Satoru Gojo.

“But, I’ll indulge you,” he reclined against his chair that day, his arms crossed. “Why should I even consider you as my chief of staff? What can you offer me that the others before you cannot?”

Her answer to that question instantly won him over and in that instant, Himiko’s life had changed forever. “Whatever you ask of me, Your Royal Highness, I’d give my very life for you.”

Satoru turns away from the mirror, his lips instantly on hers. His hand dangerously hovered over the hem of her dress. “S-Satoru, what are you doing?” she moans into his mouth as Satoru moves both of them to the bed, he climbs atop of her as she lay on the mattress, her locks splayed over the silk sheets. She knows what he’s doing, this was almost like a film she has seen many times before; this was how tense conversations with Gojo go with him impatiently parting her legs, their hands desperately discarding their clothes until they are left utterly bare before one another.

He wanted to destroy you the same way you destroyed what he had with Himiko. This anger translated into his rough pace. He roughly jostles his hips against Himiko’s, her arms wrapping around him as he buries his cock inside her, his lips covering her milky flesh with dark-purplish bruises, marking her as his.

Call him a sadist but he hopes that Himiko would change into a dress that could flaunt her marked skin so that when you fearfully look around the cathedral, warily searching for her, your heart would break at the sight of the countless hickeys on her neck and collar. He wanted to see you cry the first of the many tears you will shed for the crime of marrying him.

“Satoru…!” she cries out as the luscious feeling of his girth pistoning in and out of her. He grunts as he feels him inch closer and closer to his high. “Mmph—‘Toru,” she whines when he reangles his hips, plunging deeper into her, his arms locking behind hers as he violently chases his release. He’s so close. “I love you, I love you…-a-ah!”

A symphony of pleasured groans falls from his lips, his very being uncoiling as he cums. His hips involuntarily keep thrusting as hot spurts of his cum drips down Himiko’s entrance, mixing with her own release. Himiko frowns as Satoru clicks his tongue at the soiled sheets beneath their connected forms. He groans as he pulls out, sinking into the warmth of her embrace, his still hardened cock poking her inner thigh. “Promise me you’ll only love me?” she whispers as her fingers absentmindedly play with his white hair.

“I promise,” Gojo murmurs into the crook of her neck as he lulled to sleep by her soft, even breaths. “I promise it’s only you…no one else.”

11:45 AM.

Only half an hour left. A crowd of, from what you have heard, 70,000 have gathered on the strip of the main road that the bridal car will pass en route to the cathedral.

“It’s true,” your maid of honor who people refer to as Ieiri says, showing you her phone which showed the many tweets from news agencies, famous personalities and normal people alike about how excited they were to witness your wedding day. There were countless social media posts consisting of yours and Satoru’s official engagement picture and many have taken to hosting their own live-streaming sessions of this monumental day.

“Everyone’s so excited. I wish my wedding would be this big,” one of your bridesmaids sighs dreamily. You manage a small chuckle at her, maybe if she knew of your plight right now, she would probably be eating those words alongside the many petit fours she’s been munching on this past hour. “Look at all those people,” she continues scrolling through her phone.

“It’s the first televised imperial wedding so obviously, it’s a big deal, Riko,” Utahime laughs. “Not to mention, it’s the first time a member of the imperial family would be married in a Western-themed ceremony.” For everyone to see.

One of your newly appointed helpers enters the room, and jogs over to you as quickly as she can in her heels, she has a small jewelry box delicately decorated in an ecru gift wrapper in her hand. “Ms. (Y/N), this is from the prince. His butler told me to give this to you.” You’ve been sad all day and your ladies-in-waiting heave a sigh of relief when they see a hint of a smile on your face, even if it did hold a bit of apprehension.

“Really? For me?” You stand up to accept the small token, careful not to ruffle your wedding dress too much as per the dressmaker’s instructions since the fabric used to construct the piece was susceptible to crumpling. Momentarily setting your phone down on the vanity table mid-text, you graciously accept the wedding gift. Maybe Satoru was starting to warm up to you and that he is now chipping away at the wall he built between the two of you. You hoped that by sending you this gift, this would be the start of something new and better with your husband.

But given how things are, that would be impossible. This was probably just a gift he sent to appease you after many days of effectively acting like you don’t exist.

You open the box and your ladies chatter around you excitedly. “It’s so pretty!” the youngest of your bridesmaids, the daughter of the Japanese ambassador to France apparently, marvels at the pair of earrings. Briefly smiling at her, you then turn your attention to the small letter that was neatly slotted between the groove of the box’s padded interior that held the earrings in place. His handwriting was so conscientiously beautiful that it almost looked like a computer-generated font, there wasn’t a hint of clumsiness in each stroke.

“To (Y/N),

I’m sorry about these past few days. This won’t make up for it, but, I’d like to join you in wishing for a successful marriage together.

– HRH Satoru Gojo”

Your heart slows at the cold closing. He had omitted the words “love” and “sincerely” before his name, but you expected that. If scraps of affection are all you could ever hope to get out of him, you have to learn to deal with it sooner or later; this was your life now, you will always be second to the love of his life. It must have taken everything out of him, and it must have caused an argument to erupt between him and Himiko, to send you this and you understand that he’s also having a difficult time with how things are now but it mattered so much to you to see him try. Regardless if this gift was given to you freely or not, you couldn’t refuse it, even if every voice in your head was screaming at you, reminding you of the horrific scene you saw that day when you caught your fiancé kissing another woman out in the open immediately after you announced your engagement.

“Would you like me to put it on you?” Riko asks. “I’m sure the prince will be happy to see you wear these.”

“You really think so?” you wince when your helper struggles to find your earlobe piercing. “I didn’t know he could be so sweet.” That’s obviously a lie; you know full well Satoru could be sweet, it just pained you to remember that he’s capable being sweet to another deliberately causing you immense grief. Your helper stiffens slightly. She has seen him become sweet before, albeit to another, but she didn’t have to divulge any details and accidentally ruin your wedding day.

She nods shyly, succeeding with the first diamond earring and then the other. She steps away from the mirror. You looked radiant. “Y-yes.”

Noticing her discomfort, you expertly steer the conversation elsewhere. “I see. Well I should probably return the favor.”

You’ve gotten Satoru a wristwatch you and the empress had personally had commissioned by a famed watchmaker that could rival the craftsmanship of a Rolex. It just arrived last night and well, given your current mental state then having taken the brunt of Satoru’s ire the past few days, you couldn’t bring yourself to wrap it. Momentarily deciding if you still had time to have one of your helpers buy some wrapping paper, you realized it would be cutting it too close so you hastily scribbled on a blank dedication card you randomly plucked from one of the bouquets you received. Luckily, some of them had extra cards.

“To Your Royal Highness,

Please don’t apologize, I’m sorry too for being pushy lately. Thank you for the gift, I’ll be sure to take good care of it. Happy wedding day, and I’m looking forward to better days together!

Wholeheartedly yours,

(Y/N) (L/N)”

Reading through it one last time, you affix your name at the end. “You guys are so sweet,” your youngest bridesmaid gushes as she presses a button on the room’s telephone to request for a butler. “I’m sure the prince will love it.”

“Whatever ‘sweet’ means.” You grimace, your unease getting the better of you. A few moments later, a butler peeks into the room. You bound over to him, placing the present in his hands. “Could you please give this to Prince Satoru?” you asked him and the butler looks slightly bewildered at your choice of words. If it was an order, you could have just said so. Perhaps you were still getting used to the idea of having people waiting to attend to your every beck and call.

“Right away, ma’am,” the butler replies obediently nonetheless. “Also I ran into His Majesty’s chamberlain just a while back and he asked me to remind you of the time. Everything’s ready,” he informs you just as he turns to leave in the direction of the palace’s east wing where Satoru's private chambers are. Upon hearing that, the bridal entourage starts to get ready to leave ahead of you, they’ll be going to the venue with a separate convoy from the bride’s since you’ll be driving through some of Tokyo’s major avenues en route to the cathedral.

You watch as they file out of the room in their cream dresses, each one of them, despite having known you for only a little less than half a day, pull you into a bone-crushing hug wishing you well. “Congratulations, (Y/N).”

“Thank you,” you kindly smiled at each one of them as they left.

When you are left alone to your devices, you take one last look at (though you could hardly recognize yourself) the mirror, swallowing harshly, your hand absentmindedly playing with the locket which you continued to wear, ignoring the gracious advice of the Imperial Household Agency’s grand steward to set it aside for today’s festivities as it was uncustomary for royal brides to wear articles of clothing and accessories that did not hold any relation to the imperial family.

Only thirty minutes to go ‘till everything changes. Wait no, that was grossly inaccurate. Everything changed the split second you laid your eyes on him. Since then, everything seems to be a jumbled haze like some sort of psychedelic trance that just won’t end. Reaching for your phone one last time, you hastily search for a particular contact number, your finger hovering over the call button. No, there’s no point, you sniffle softly. Calling her would only make things harder than it already is and backing out of this now is out of the question.

Another knock is heard on the door, but it isn’t as insistent as the first few ones as everyone was starting to get a bit frustrated at you. Did they think you were stalling for time? “Just a minute,” your voice wavers. You just received a new text message from the number you were planning to call.

“We’ll be moving her in a few hours. Will send you her new room number when we get there.”

Bringing the phone to your lips, your heart makes somersaults in your chest when you receive the news. The sacrifice you were still yet to make has already paid off and your ledger of personal favors crossed out with a red marker effectively completing your transaction with the empress. Without even giving you time to text a quick “thank you”, another urgent knock is heard on the door. “Ms. (Y/N), I’m very sorry to interrupt but, we should get going now.”

“I’ll be right there,” you said again, quickly typing another message on your phone: “I wish I was there with her. Please hold her hand for me.” The second it goes through, you quickly shuffled towards the door, your head bowed in apology. You hold your breath as you balance the tiara on your head hoping that it won’t fall as it hangs precariously off-center on the crown of your head, your eyes trained on the ground as the door slides open. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries, I’m pretty patient. Ijichi, on the other hand? Not so much.”

His voice is feather-soft and melodious like a harp string being plucked delicately so that it produces a clear and deep bell-like sound, the very language he chooses to speak with is devoid of neither a shrill nor sharp word unlike the fusillade of orders you’ve been mercilessly bombarded with this entire day. Walk like this, speak like that, don’t do this, and most certainly never do that, you must have gone through a decade’s worth of rules and regulations to follow during the ceremony and even after you’ve said your “I do”’s. Still, you found solace knowing that Satoru is slowly warming up to the idea of cooperating with you, and has even found it in his heart to give you an olive branch of sorts which was now hooped through your earlobes, sparkling under the light like a clear drop of water from the sky.

At first, you naively think it’s him. Did Satoru really come over to see you? While that seemed uncharacteristic of him, the very thought of him voluntarily visiting you planted a sense of relief in you regardless. Maybe he wanted to settle things before the ceremony, to be upfront with you about his intentions in this marriage, how the two of you will be towards one another going forward, and if your luck holds out, maybe he’d finally let you in on his acts of impropriety with Himiko.

But, you would recognize Satoru’s indifferent timbre anywhere, this voice was far too different and seemed much kinder and softer than your fiancé’s.

You slowly open the door to greet your guest, confirming your suspicions as you meet the gaze of a man you haven’t met before. He seems severely unfamiliar.

No, wait. That can’t be it, he may seem unfamiliar but he’s definitely recognizable. In fact, you’ve seen him a few times before, standing feebly next to your fiance during the emperor’s birthday broadcast. Then, it clicks. Wasn't this…?

“Crown Prince Suguru?” you blinked. He’s the only senior member of the imperial family that you’ve never been officially introduced to. Of course, you are on speaking terms with the emperor, the empress and of course, Satoru, but never the prince that idly lingered in their large shadows.

The raven-haired man chuckles deeply at your shocked expression. Clearly, you didn’t expect to meet him under these circumstances, and that caused you to accidentally refer to him as the Crown Prince when that title only belonged to Gojo. He looks at you endearingly, finding you intriguing.

So this was the woman his younger brother is to be married to. Suguru has heard a lot about Satoru’s docile bride-to-be, in fact, he received news of the engagement while he was in Rome, the last leg of his first solo tour in Europe. People were so quick to label it as a pivotal point in the history of the Japanese monarchy and that you are the symbol of change, specifically, they likened you to a camellia blooming in a sea of chrysanths, a breath of spring in the imperial family’s everwinter – alluring in every sense of the word. But, alluring isn’t exactly a word he’d use to describe you seeing as you’ve only just met but, right now, he found you to be so adorably cute that he might just start to believe the things they say about you on the news.

“It’s just Prince Suguru. Satoru’s the Crown Prince.” The gentle correction makes you so flustered that you feel blood rush up to your ears, a tell-tale sign of your abasement. “But you could just call me Suguru.”

“Oh, right, my mistake,” you rub your eyelid, growing embarrassed. “Prince Suguru,” you stressed his correct title, remedying your earlier mishap. Despite you being in heels, you can’t see past him, given that he towered over you so easily so you stand on your tallest tiptoes, trying to peek over his shoulder. “You haven’t happened to see Mr. Ijichi, have you? He was right outside the door a few minutes ago.”

Suguru buries his hands in his pockets. “He just left, you’re welcome,” he winks at you, having sent Ijichi on his way when he accidentally stumbled across him furiously tapping on your door as he was making his way to his car.

Ijichi was…difficult to get along with — he’s short-fused, demanding at some times, and he is what people could call a stickler for the rules — Suguru isn’t doesn’t really want to say nasty words about his father’s grand steward and he’d give credit where it’s due since Ijichi is not just efficient when it comes to running the imperial household but he is also fiercely dedicated to every member of the imperial family.

Still, he couldn’t count the many times Ijichi had to scold him for all the mischief he caused while he was growing up even if his life depended on it. The worst scolding he got from the older man was when Suguru went missing on his fifth birthday, having snuck out of the banquet hall with at least ten pieces of bread stuffed in his pockets with every intention to feed them to the many ducks in the imperial garden’s ponds.

“What?” your eyes nearly pop out of their sockets, you were going to get an earful later. “You mean he went ahead without me?”

“It’s alright. You’ll see him later, sure he’s probably going to talk your ear off but he means well, trust me,” Suguru flashes you a reassuring smile.

You look at him, your lip curled into an uneasy grin. “That doesn’t sound like fun,” you bemoaned, having had enough reprimands to last you until your next life. “So, with Mr. Ijichi gone, forgive my bluntness, but am I right to assume that Your Highness will be the one to bring me to the cathedral?”

Suguru accommodatingly holds out his arm for you to hold onto. “You assume correctly,” he says warmly. You expect him to hurriedly lead you down the steps leading to the palace’s main driveway, but he does something entirely different. “Are you ready to go or do you still need more time?”

That was the first time anyone in a kilometer-wide radius has asked you what you want to do instead of telling you what to do.

Suguru watches every small change in your expression. He figured that you must be pretty tired of people treating you like some robot, training you to blindly obey every order perfectly. The jet black-haired prince has only known you for two minutes and his heart is already disintegrating for your current predicament of feeling completely and entirely alone. If he could alleviate your troubles even with just a small act of kindness by engaging in polite conversation with you and actually listening to what you have to say instead of talking over you like most of your etiquette coaches have done all day, then, he’ll gladly tune in to listen to you even as you read through an entire book of sonnets if you ever felt up to it.

Being validated comes a long way, and if anyone understands your plight, it was him and even if he didn’t understand, he’ll do everything he can to try regardless.

“I-I’m ready,” you nodded hesitantly and Suguru doesn’t walk ahead right away and allows you to set the pace as you walk past the line of attendants that bowed to you and the prince as you made your way to the imperial family’s very own Toyota Century convertible which had been custom-made for you.

The open top roof gave onlookers access to see their future empress as the motorcade departs from the Kōkyo Imperial Palace and follows a 4.6-kilometer route that will travel to the St. Mary’s Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Tokyo. Neither you nor Satoru were practicing Catholics yet, the imperial family has decided that a Christian-themed wedding rather than the ancient Buddhist matrimonial ceremony that is usually done away from public view would make the imperial system appear more accessible to the people.

Suguru helps you into the car, gently arranging the train of your gown so that it doesn’t get all wrinkled. “Thank you, Your Highness” you whisper to Suguru who squeezes your free hand as if to say “you’re welcome”. The car’s engine hums to life the minute the two of you are settled in the backseat. “W-what am I supposed to do now?” you asked, readjusting your grip on your bridal bouquet.

The prince lets out a humored snort, having forgotten that this was your first official function. Showing you the correct way to wave and the right angle to face and bow to the crowd, he watches you closely, allowing you to struggle for a bit before stepping in to help with some encouraging words. “Just keep smiling and waving. It’s just like being onstage, you know.” At the center of the motorcade, six police cars patrol every side of the convertible forming a ring of protection just in case someone in the crowd with ill-intentions would try to harm either you or the monarch next to you.

Countless people erupt in happy cheers at the sight of you and Suguru, some are simply content with waving while others are holding up flowers and tossing them to the front of the crowd barriers in jubilation. “It feels a little more intense than just being onstage,” you mumbled, your eyes landing on a little girl sitting in her mother’s arms as she waves a little Japanese flag in her hand which looked like she made it in her arts and craft class. You awkwardly wave at her, chuckling when she happily waves back, delighted to see you directly looking at her.

“Well, you’re doing great.” He inches closer to you, wrapping a steadying arm around your waist while the other guides your hand, gently angling it in a more prominent position so that you look a little more assertive. “Like this,” Suguru helps you wave in a more continuous manner, teaching you to center the motion by keeping your elbow mostly stationary and allowing only your wrist to subtly move from side to side. “And keep doing what you’re doing. Make eye contact with them; make them understand that you see each and every one of them.”

Suguru watches you bow and wave to the spectators with a proud smile on his face; the motorcade has now reached the Shinjuku area and is nearing its destination of Bunkyo-ku where the cathedral is and even still, the crowd doesn’t appear to thin out. Suguru feels like he’s watching history unfold before his very eyes. He wonders if Satoru had purposefully chosen a commoner to conjure up a classic “love conquers all” romance of his own wedding day, if he did, then Suguru must congratulate him for a job well done. No one has ever come out to see a member of the imperial family in this sheer number, he daresay, not even the empress on her wedding day or His Majesty on his coronation day.

But with you, this day is nothing short of a revolution.

“Your Highness, you’re staring.” Suguru hums, confused, before realizing that he’s been looking at you funny. “You’re still staring,” you said succinctly.

“Oh, sorry.” Suguru says awkwardly and you couldn’t help but let out a slight snort. “What?” he cocks his head in your direction. You were laughing, though brief, the very sound of it brings a smile to his face. “It was about time though. We’ve been in this car for more than fifteen minutes now and that right there is the first genuine act of happiness I’ve seen you make,” he remarks. He was starting to think that you were incapable of smiling which he found a little unsettling since brides aren’t exactly despondent during their wedding day. Of course, what would he know? His little brother had gotten married ahead of him.

You crinkle your nose in mock displeasure. “That’s kinda mean and probably the last thing I’d say to someone I just met…with all due respect, Your Highness.”

Suguru grins at your tiny jab at his character, and to think that he nearly bought into the whole “as demure as a butterfly” thing they said about you in the papers. Make no mistake though, he sees how elegantly ladylike you are, but he also sees how you are so effortlessly spellbinding with your wit translated into a few short but sweet words. No wonder Satoru fell for you and even gave up his vice-like romance with his chief-of-staff to marry you, he thinks to himself. “Alright, alright, I’m sorry that was a bit uncalled for.”

“Oh— Your Highness, I was just joking.” You waved to the crowd of people on Suguru’s side of the car, grimacing when you see a few schoolboys, probably university students with how tall and mature they looked, pretend to blow you kisses. Indulging them, you subtly return the gesture flustered beyond all measure. Everything feels so public now, and you are left wondering about how you could survive the rest of your life like this.

“…I knew that.” Choosing momentary silence, Suguru finally decides to chip away at the facade you were putting up. He could see it in your eyes, you were a cross between scared and unhappy which is clearly normal for someone who is marrying into the oldest monarchy in the world. You weren’t at all what the members of the Imperial Household Agency said of you when you were out of earshot: a sorry excuse of a future empress who is privileged in every way but can’t find it within herself to stop her endless complaining. “Just trying to make you smile, that’s all.”

Shouldn’t your future husband be doing that? You sighed. Oh right, he was probably busy comforting Himiko. She probably needed him now more than ever after everything you’ve done to torment her. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Suguru,” he corrects kindly. “If you’re going to marry my little brother, you could, at least, drop the troublesome title when you’re talking to me.”

Little brother? How have you never heard of this before? You knew Satoru had a brother, but you never thought Suguru would be the older one out of the two of them. If that was the case, then, why didn’t he get the title of “Crown Prince”?

“Weird, huh?” He breaks you out of your trance, as if he heard the question swirling around in your head. “Why is Satoru the Crown Prince and not me?”

“Are you psychic or something?” you playfully teased, slowly growing more comfortable with the jet black-haired prince that sported an Apollo-like smile - warm, and inviting. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

Suguru shrugs. “Why? Whose mind do you want to read?”

Satoru’s, you smiled sadly. Maybe by unraveling the inner machinations of your soon-to-be husband’s mind, you could learn to meet him halfway by understanding him a little better; no person is born inherently cruel and while you had your doubts, you know, in your heart, that Satoru is no exception to that rule. “No one in particular.”

“Ah, well, I expected that.” He grinned at how guarded you are, reclining against the plush seat of the car to rest his stiffening back for a minute. The convoy is about ten minutes away from the cathedral now.

You offered him some consolation though, grateful for this light-hearted chat. “Let’s just trade answers next time.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Himiko thought this day would be horrible but it turns out it isn’t as bad as she pessimistically thought. If she only knew that this was how the love of her life’s wedding would go with him still inviting her to his bed before he gets hitched off, then, maybe she shouldn’t have been so awful towards you who never stood a chance against her. Competing with you would be like making a rival of a rat; it would be unnecessary trouble. Still, even if she had all but won against you (as if you were worthy enough to even become her opponent), that didn’t stop the Zenin clan’s little darling from causing a little trouble today.

Her eyes flutter open to reveal Gojo’s handsome slumbering face, utterly spent from their lovemaking session, their naked forms still entangled together under the cotton-percale sheets. She stretches her supple body luxuriously, and pulls away from Satoru’s embrace earning a small “mmph” of disapproval from her lover. Giggling, she plants a soft kiss on his chiseled cheek.

“Your Highness?” Someone says from behind the door. Taking one last look at Satoru’s sleeping form, she walks leisurely to answer it, clad only in the prince’s shirt which ran above her knee.

Leaning against the door, she answers for the prince, a detestable act similar to a cardinal sin. It was forbidden for a mere servant to speak for any member of the imperial family. In the past, in the Japanese empire’s golden age, a servant who took the words out of their master’s mouth would have their tongue swiftly sliced off. But Himiko is not a servant, nor is she subject to the rules as long as the prince was around. “His Highness is asleep.”

On his wedding day? The butler nods stiffly. “I see. Ms. Zenin, can I trouble you with this? The prince’s fiancé has sent him a wedding gift.”

Himiko doesn’t answer for a long while and a tense silence fills the room. “Fine, but have you done what I asked?” she relents opening the door, the butler’s face turns red at the sight of her lack of modesty. “Having you run my errands isn’t cheap, you know.”

The attendant bows his head, “Yes. She’s currently wearing it right now, last I saw.”

“Good. I’ll be taking this then.” She shakes the box to get a feel of what’s inside, not that it would be anything of high value though given its cheap sender.

Curiosity gets the better of her and she succinctly opens the gift, her eyebrow quirked. A watch. Very typical. She notes how it’s made out of silver and she scoffs harshly. Even if she didn’t chuck it into the trash, Satoru would have done it himself since he prefers gold pieces over silver and he most certainly wouldn’t want to touch anything that was from you given how he loathed the very idea of you.

The attendant gulps when he sees Himiko harshly discard your gift. “Ms. Zenin, don’t you think that giving her that would be taking it too far? You know how the Crown Prince feels about those earrings. If he ever were to find out that it had gone missing…”

She turns her head in the direction of the bed where Gojo was currently tossing and turning in his sleep. “Then, I’ll tell His Highness that his chief butler,” her eyes were aglow with cunning as the butler trembled slightly at her murderous gaze. “Is a thief who stole from the imperial vaults, and if you ever decide to rat me out, who do you think the prince will believe? A nameless no account like you or me?”

It slowly registers in the attendant’s mind that he had been utterly played when Himiko asked him to give those earrings to you via an under the table agreement, it’s not like Satoru prepared a wedding gift for you anyway thinking that showing up to the accursed wedding in itself is a generous gift already. “…You used me…!” he whispers angrily, not wanting to rouse the prince.

Himiko shrugs nonchalantly. “And you were stupid enough to be used for a few banknotes. Now get lost, I’ll just inform His Highness of your voluntary resignation tomorrow morning.”

She closes the door on the rattled servant and saunters back over to the bed, slipping back under the sheets. Satoru sleepily notices the bed dip with her weight, and unconsciously snuggles closer to her, his arms wrapped around her form. She lovingly strokes his disheveled hair alternating between twirling his locks in her index finger and massaging his scalp as if she hadn’t just ruined a man’s life two minutes ago. Her hands reach for the phone on the nightstand and she scrolls through her feed watching a video of the bridal car pulling up to the cathedral.

She boredly watches you step out of the car with your hand looped through Suguru’s arm shyly waving to the thousands happily anticipating this glorious day while your bridesmaids help you with your wedding gown’s train so it doesn’t snag across the concrete steps. It takes about five minutes for the cathedral’s towering doors to open and she smirks when she sees you slowly make your way inside, completely oblivious to the fact that your groom is not at the end of the aisle where you expected him to be and is instead still soundly asleep next to her.

The silence that follows is indicative of the horrific scene that greeted you and Himiko switches off her phone, settling back into the pillows contentedly. Serves you right, (Y/N), she smirks.

12:30 PM.

Funny how you think that you’re immune to awful things that happen to other people…before it happens to you. There’ve been hundreds of stories like this before, but you never thought that you’d find yourself in the long list of unfortunate jilted brides. Your hands tremble as you hold your bouquet of white calla lilies and baby’s breaths. Surely you must have gone blind or something or this was all some sick dream, you desperately search the cathedral room with abject horror in your eyes. It couldn’t be…you take an uneasy step toward the witness as your wedding guests whisper amongst themselves, their hearts filled to the brim with condolences for you.

Something in you jeeringly mocks you as if to chide you for living too long in the forest of your fantasy, dodging every pocket of reality’s sunlight as it shines through the many trees you’ve cultivated with your delusions that this…whatever the hell this is…could miraculously work out in the end. That you stood a chance against all the cards that were catastrophically stacked against you, and that he could give you even just a scintilla of respect if it was truly impossible for him to ever learn to love you.

“Suguru,” you instinctively clutch his hand as if by him squeezing your hand back, you could miraculously be put together again. You were so heartbroken that you didn't even realize that you just called him by his name, forgoing the mention of his venerable title. “…I-I…” you gulp as you feel the dreaded words lodge deep in your throat, clogging your airways with uncried sobs.

“Oh, (Y/N), I’m so sorry…”

“…Where’s Satoru?”

water’s edge taglist: @dummyf @kentokaze @esthelily @mandysfanfics @userbananababes @strawberryjimin13 @snowprincesa1 @naturallyspontaneous @kooromin @gojoist @dcvilxswish @13-09-01 @peachipeachy @iluv-ace @sawendel @helloitsshitzulover @jjuniescuderia @ackermendick @starrylibras @timetobegone @heelariously @idktbhloley @jeon-blue @8aif9sgbsnn @purpleguk @rednezvous @yeseurri @floralsightings @yoheyyosup @dontwannacry04 @dragonladyy

REBLOGS AND INTERACTIONS IS WHAT KEEPS AUTHORS GOING SO SHOW SOME LOVE ✨💕 mwah! see you all in episode 2.5!

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