#i think its. the image got too strong at some point and its sitting in the back of the queue with the other fic nobody will read

[scolek]

ok one more thing. the way in robin hood leo just lore drops that him and keito at some point in the past went full fucking vigilante to protect little john which resulted in the fact that the archery club building is not actually officially on school grounds and-- as far as i know please tell me if im wrong-- thats the only time theyve ever gone into that.

you cant tell me that. you cant leave that image in my head and not elaborate. leo!!! leo fucking tell me!!!!

#i think its. the image got too strong at some point and its sitting in the back of the queue with the other fic nobody will read #i havent written it. its not just something i wrote and was like. this is the best thing ever let it not see the light of day for engagemen #reasons #but i have a fuckton of good ideas and i like when i post a fic and then get showered in kudos #which wont happen if i present the concept little john: origins (working title) and go GUYS PLEASE TRUST ME

[trans-librarian]

Good Mornings and Model Kits

Tags: M/M, Fluff, Domestic, Established relationship, Team Fortress 2, Medic, Engineer, EngieMedic, Science Party, German Engineering

WC: 1.5k

CW: None this is the fluffiest most self indulgent garbage I have ever written. We die like mercs choking on the sugar of this fluff. You could consider a line or two hinting at suggestive buuuuut it's nothing explicit

Translations:

Mein Leibe - My love

mein bärchen - My teddy bear

A/N: Sooooooo I always promised myself that I wouldn't start writing fanfic because like idk I told myself that it would be cringey to write fanfic and that anything I wrote would suck but to be cringe is to be free and this image was too strong in my brain not to write and gods I gotta let myself be and create what I want instead of what I think is good enough.

I was super inspired by @creedei and his engiemedic art. I was low-key inspired by these posts: (I also love popitdontdropit on AO3 they're transmasc engie fanfic will make you ascend to a higher plane)

https://www.tumblr.com/creedei/727483531127914496/sketch-dump (third image)

https://www.tumblr.com/creedei/721589317420695552/cute-aggression

https://archiveofourown.org/users/popitdontdropit/

Also its not noted in the fic or relevant but my engie is transmasc I need everyone to know because its my favorite hc. I fell in love with creedei's engie. He's mad gender euphoria for me as a transmasc guy with the same body type (also because i simp hard for medic so seeing the character I project onto with the character I like is just *chefs kiss*). And pyro who is mentioned in passing uses they/she pronouns because I like when this shit is as queer as possible and I get to choose what happens in this story.

I'll probably also cross post this on AO3 at some point and link it here. Anyway, Enjoy!!! *runs and hides*

A quiet dawn begins to trickle light into the Red barracks. All is quiet on a seldom day off for the Red Team. Medic drinks in this treasured time. With a cup of tea in hand he turned towards the infirmary where the notes from his most recent experiment await review. He definitely needs to reevaluate the actual size of a gorilla liver before putting it into Demoman again. The muffled sounds of snores creates a lulling tune that echoes in the halls until...

tink tink tink clunk

tink tink tink clunk

"Hm?" Medic's ears perked up to the quiet sound

click click

tink tink tink

"Vhat is zhat?" Medic turns to follow the sound.

A tiny symphony of clicks and clacks emanates from deep in the halls past the common area and the majority of the bedrooms. Medic follows the sound through the hall.

tink tink tink clunk

tink tink tink tink clunk

tink tink clunk

Medic finds himself at the Engineer's workshop.

"He never usually vakes up zhis early on a day off at least not vithout vaking me for some.....private time" Medic smirks to himself thinking of Engie and his previous day off exploits in Engie's room, Medic's room, the infirmary operating table, the shower... Medic gets lost for a moment in a glow of those steamy memories and shakes his head bringing him back to reality. "Vonder vhat he's doing?" Medic thinks and slowly opens the door and sneaks into Dell's workshop.

Dell's back is facing the door as he sits at his desk. The small bulbed lamp on his work desk illuminates a halo of light around the man. The soft sweater he's wearing adds a comforting warmth to the glow. An etheral god tinkering with his realm. Like a moth to a flame, the medic slowly crossed the room beelining to the one place where he slots in perfectly. Once within reach, Medic wraps his arms around Engie leaning his head on Dell's shoulder placing a gentle kiss before resting his head.

"Good morning mein leibe" Ludwig cooed "What's got you up so earl-" tink "Ow! vhat vas zhat"

"Sorry darlin' sometimes the little bits go flyin' because of the nippers," Engie turned "Where did you get hit?"

"Why?"

"So I can kiss it better." Dell smiled.

Ludwig groaned at the horrible pickup line and smirked "I got hit right here" and points to his mouth.

"I'm very sorry" Dell chuckled. He grabbed the Medic's chin with his gunslinger with the lightest touch only he is capable of and gave him a gentle kiss. "What brings you by the workshop this early, dumplin'?"

"I was getting some tea and I heard the sound of..."

tink tink

"Ow!" another small piece of plastic hits Medic in the forehead. "...Zhat. I heard zhat and started following and it brought me here, mein bärchen. Vhat is zhis anyway?"

"Sorry again. The lil bits that come off the model kit pieces can go flying in unexpected places."

"Model kit? I didn't know you even were interested in these let alone where to find them."

"Pyro turned me on to these last time we went to town. They begged me to take her to this store with all these fancy plushies that are imported so they could get a new one for their collection. Real quality y'know. She ended takin' a while but ended up choosing this nice bear fox thing that I learned is called a tanuki and then there was this other one that was an armadillo and I was thinkin' about it but I realized I would never use-"

"Sveetie. You're rambling"

"Thank you" Engie laughs, "what would I do without you?" He places a hand on medics cheek and places a kiss on the other. "So Pyro showed me these model kits they have and they said I would love these and I grabbed a couple to keep 'em around. This is the first chance I've had to put one together."

"Interesting. Vhat's it going to be?" The Medic looks at the subject of their boyfriend's focus and sees....well a lot of pieces that will make something? Small red and black pieces of plastic twinkle under the work lamp. A large pile of injection mold sheets loom next to Engie's work area. Pieces are in various states of progress some starting to take shape like limbs.

"It's gonna be a robot. A lot of these kits are different robots couldn't tell you much because I can't read the Japanese on the box, but it'll look neat when it's done based of the pictures." Dell informed his boyfriend as Medic snuggles closer to listen to the Engineer tell him about his latest project. "This piece is gonna be one of the arms and it bends like this so you can pose it and change out the hands. And this is gonna be the leg."

"Can I stay and vatch vhile you vork?"

"Of course, moon pie!"

Ludwig pulls a stool over behind Dell so he can stay in his current position arms wrapped around the engineer sinking slightly into his plush yet muscular tummy and rest his head on his lover's strong shoulder.

The symphony of click and tinks resumed as Dell settled into a new rythmn of work. The sound of Engie and Medic quietly talking, giggling, or just enjoying the intoxicating calmness together.

Ludwig watches Dell's hands deftly click the plastic pieces together. He marvels at the precise and delicate movement of the gunslinger. The same robotic hand capable of crushing bone and tearing metal also able to pick up fragile things with ease truly is one of the greatest miracles the Medic has ever seen. He can't help and feel so much love when with Dell. He could just...

"Gah! Ludwig, did you just bite me?" Engineer cried out grabbing the side of his neck.

"I couldn't help it." Medic chuckled "You looked so perfect and it's so cozy. I had to bite."

"You're lucky I love you, moon pie"

"I know. Love you too leibe"

Dell refocuses as a faint set of teeth marks bloom on his skin.

tink tink tink clunk

tink tink clunk

tink tink tink clunk

click click click

click click

clunk

"Leibschen you put the thing on upside down."

"Are you sure? this looks right, dumplin'."

"Look at the picture the angular part of the kidney shaped piece should be pointing towards that half frisbee piece on the big piece"

Dell picks up the instructions and squints closely at them. Ludwig reaches his hand over and turns the upside down instructions right side up.

"Oooooooh. I see what you mean"

clunk click claclunk

"Thank you, sweetie"

tink tink clunk

tink tink tink clunk

click click

"Finally finished" Engie and Medic look at the little robot model in all its completed glory. The small figurine shined in the now brighter lit room each piece sanded perfect and each sticker placed precisely. The angular crimson robot sported a long bazooka in one hand and a clenched fist on the other arm. The sleek robot stands posed with one fist raised triumphantly.

"Let me try" Medic gently picks up the robot model and begins to fiddle with it. He pops out the gun hand and puts in a fist. He bends one leg while straightening the other completely. The arms are folded in front of it. After, carefully balancing the model on the table. Medic reveals the robot in a Katosky Kick. Dell and Ludwig chuckle looking at the cutely posed robot. They look at each other. Such a nice moment together. Engie leans forward and kisses Medic lovingly.

"Thank you for spendin' time with me, darlin'." Dell cooed warmly, "havin' company really made my mornin'." He gently places a hand on Medic's cheek and strokes it with his thumb.

Medic places a hand over Engie's. "Of course, my bärchen. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my morning."

Dell and Ludwig bask in each in this moment. Engie looks at his lover and sees the passionate and ambitious doctor he always fell for and keeps falling for every day. Medic sees the strong and beautiful inventor that fought to be here in more ways than one.

"Now vhat?"

"I don't know. Wanna go make a real robot?"

"I've got the perfect spider monkey brain I've been saving for a rainy day!" Medic squealed "You get the supplies. I'll get the brain and bring it back here" Medic planted a hard kiss on Engie's temple before running off.

#team fortress 2 #engiemedic #science party #german engineering #tf2 engineer #tf2 medic #tf2 #fanfic #I'm posting this on the way to work because im too scared to look after hitting post #gay

[forecast0ctopus]

hewwo anj!!!! I was reading your post on how you break down arthur's likeness and how you study/what you noticed for him body language wise, how his facial features are, etc. and if that's possible, would you ever do the same for merlin? Regardless, thank you for ur merlin art ily ❤️🫶

sorry i took forever to get to this fyscka!! i got real busy lmao. anyways thoughts abt it under the cut

once again going to try not to sound weirdly obsessive abt this stuff because it sounds more insane when i put all the details into words when they just like. exist as nebulous thoughts in my brain. idk anyways

more tracing because tracing is good for figuring things out.. also fun. when you trace things a bunch for practice you pick up on the repetition like. how someone's face looks with different movement and the overlap between them. like how similar a happy expression can be to an aggressive expression and how similar an aggressive expression can be to a terrified one. if that makes sense

it is interesting too with merlin because he varies a lot over the seasons? not just with being yknow. older. like hes thinner in s2-4 than s1+5, and we all know how much his haircut varies. i dunno i just think facially he varies a lot more than arthur

sorry again for crunchy images heres a few specifics i tend to notice

when hes fighting or putting in a lot of physical strength/effort his mouth pulls up high and his nose scrunches which causes a crease from the corners of his nose. same crease as you would see when he smiles, but since the nose is scrunched the part of the crease next to the nose is more prominent. usually when i see people scrunch their nose like that it wrinkles on top of the bridge but his seems to wrinkle more at the sides. also eyebrow furrow very important

hes got a very strong chin its rather large and squared off. his eyes and the folds beneath his eyes crinkle a lot when he smiles. the smile lines appear with a point to them. also hes got a very prominent adams apple

low eyebrows, widest at their arch which is more lateral. ill talk more abt his teeth in a minute but hes got the american girl doll teeth when his lips are parted lmao

his eyes are pretty deep set, so when you see him in profile theres a good bit of distance between the bridge of his nose and his eye. when his hair is longer the hair around his ears tends to curl towards his face. same w the hair on his neck. his nose has a pretty subtle bump to the bridge and then the tip turns up a bit, but overall Not an upturned nose

his ears stick out we know this..... you can see the contrast of the hollow of his cheeks vs his mouth muscle sometimes (usually more in s2+3). his nose is in a pretty neutral position here

as opposed to this one where his nose broadens a little with his smile. smile lines again pretty triangular.

faces are soft and when one feature moves usually the others slightly move/change with it. some other things are teeth which i meant to talk abt in the arthur post too, but yeah. merlin's got pretty prominent front teeth, and arthur's got his one crooked canine. hair also is (at least to me) pretty important... his hair is always cropped above the eyebrows and imo he's less recognizable as merlin if its not. its not especially fluffy or curly either. not to say he cant be drawn with different haircuts haha, sometimes it just makes him a little harder to recognize

again body shape + language is just as important is not more so, bc we're drawing a character not an actor!! theres a few things i think about w merlin

- hes pretty thin with the exception of s5, but always pretty lanky lookin - just generally pretty angular? idk - he is somewhat broad but the slouching and not being shredded (usually) tend to negate that a little - he crouches a lot or pulls his legs up when he sits (hes so real for that) - when hes not using his hands they tend to just be at his sides, when he's standing he'll put them behind his back sometimes, when talking he'll gesture with them usually around his head or hip/waist level - he slouches more than arthur, his shoulders are usually somewhat forward - when he's confused or teasing often he'll push his head forward - tilts his head a lot when hes teasing or happy or confused - draws his shoulders up to his ears when he's uncomfortable, confused, or frightened - whereas arthur moves very purposefully, merlin moves in a way that just looks like he has a lot less spatial awareness idk a better way to describe it lmao. like u know hes clumsy even when he's not actively being clumsy

honestly i dont tend to put too much detail in faces because i dont draw in a very realistic style so i tend to lean more into shapes and body language to make characters recognizable, but knowing how the face works still plays into it a lot?

anyways i hope this makes at least a little sense lmao

#ask #feuxx #if u saw the other post no u didnt #i couldnt edit things properly on my laptop it was getting weird #how i draw

[neon-green-reagent]

Buyer Beware: Cushing Curiosities

I don't normally do this. My aim is to keep things positive in this space, as much as possible. But I need to talk about the new Severin Films box set dedicated to Peter Cushing and basically beg anyone who loves Peter Cushing to not waste their money on this. When I saw they were, after multiple Christopher Lee sets, finally doing one for Cushing, I admit I got too excited and impulsively pre-ordered it. I have regretted it ever since. Okay, that's too strong. It was way too much money and time wasted on something that's about one-third good. One third is not enough, and even then I'm probably being too generous. 

The box art and presentation are beautiful. If that's all that matters to you, then you'll be delighted. The GIANT book that comes with it is also really awesome. It's informative and thorough with a lot of really cool images. I can't deny that they really went above and beyond, turning a booklet into an actual book that is well worth owning. These are a couple of the highest points you're going to experience with this set. Let's dig into the movies. 

Cone of Silence. Jesus, what a waste of fucking time. This thing was a slog. An absolute bore. If you care a whole lot about planes... Fuck, even then, you probably won't be able to sit through this, because it's so old-fashioned and drags its feet. Is this what thrillers used to be? I shudder to think. Cushing's role is small and that of a misguided villain character. He shows up to accuse a pilot of being bad at his job, gets put in his place at the end, and that's really it. I'll go ahead and make a blanket statement now that he's always good, always worth watching, but that doesn't make most of these movies worth sitting through. 

Suspect. Here's a movie that goes around and around, struggling to get to the point, trying to imitate Hitchcock but without any of the style that goes along with that. Just stationary middle shots of people talking. But don't you worry, it's not just boring! Multiple characters make cracks about how women shouldn't be working in science (Cushing's character included, which makes this an utter loser of a movie to watch for his role). The "villain" is a man with a disability who eventually kills himself, and that's treated like a GOOD OUTCOME. Some movies are old. This movie is old-minded, and it brought what was already not very engaging down to a pile of shit for me. And again, a theme you'll notice, Cushing is a side character who isn't given hardly anything to do and little screen time. Oh, and Donald Pleasence shows up and makes this face: O.O

The Man Who Finally Died. So this was at least engaging. Maybe by this point the bar was just VERY low for me, but I actually enjoyed this. It had lots of twists and turns. Despite being pre-giallo, it had a lot of those storytelling conventions, so I found myself, you know... actually watching the movie instead of struggling to stay awake. The rewatch value feels low, because once you've experienced those twists and turns, they won't shock you next time. But at least it wasn't a total wash. AND ONCE MORE CUSHING WAS BARELY IN IT, SO REGARDLESS OF THE QUALITY OF THE FILM IT WASN'T REALLY A CUSHING FILM, WAS IT? 

Sherlock Holmes. Ohhhhh God. This was not good. I managed one and a half episodes before shutting it off. I couldn't believe how shoddy everything about this was. It's a BBC Sherlock Holmes show! What happened!? I mean, I'm still not clear, but after some googling I did find out that Cushing was a fast replacement for another actor who was leaving in a huff. And the reason he left in a huff was because everything about the production truly sucked ass. It shows. And it didn't improve when Cushing came on. Everything was so clearly rushed. You can feel how everyone's just trying to remember their lines and where to stand, because they were given zero time to rehearse and prepare. I thought this would be a highlight of the set, but it's probably one of the worst aspects. At least Cushing is the main character? 

Bloodsuckers. This was great. I can finally say something was GREAT. What a relief. Cushing is still barely in it, but at least it was entertaining. It's your standard, early seventies, vampire romp. With some psychedelic weirdness thrown in toward the beginning and lots of overly sexual shenanigans. In particular, Johnny Sekka gives a great performance, and in a more modern movie, they would have made the character gay as he should have been. Also, Edward Woodward shows up for a single scene and steals the entire movie. Definitely worth watching, regardless of Cushing's ten minutes of screen time. Even though I thought the point was for it to be a CUSHING box set... 

Tender Dracula. Last but actually the best. This is an absolute ride of a movie. I loved it. My problem is this is such a crazy film, with tonal shifts galore and an unsensible plot, that I could actually see people hating it. It's a movie that is not for everyone, not by a long shot. It breaks the fourth wall, plays with stereotypes and tropes, throws out humor that sometimes lands and sometimes doesn't, and leaves your head spinning. Plenty of viewers might find the experience frustrating and not rewarding. I happened to love it and got a lot out of it, but it feels very poor for a movie like this to be probably the best thing about a shoddy box set. That's not exactly promising your customers the best they could get. BUT CUSHING IS THE STAR! Finally! One (arguably) good movie where he's the main attraction. Christ, that took long enough. 

So what do we have after all that? A set of movies that, for the most part, only tangentially involve Cushing, with his name slapped on the side of the box. Trotting out a beloved actor who isn't here to approve of what's being done for a quick buck feels pretty damn gross. Severin has made a multitude of mistakes over the years in how they've conducted their business, but this is by far the worst of them. Even with the compliments I've given this set, do not buy it. It isn't even close to being worth the price point. The fact that I spent as much as I did on this leaves me shamefaced. 

#peter cushing #cushing curiosities

[katsu-curry835]

I cannot stress this enough tiktok has a policy whereby it CENSORS CONVENTIONALLY UNATTRACTIVE PPL. They will demote your video if you have wrinkles, an obvious beer belly, are too fat or too thin or have dwarfism. Among other horrid policies of course. The below is a leaked document from the moderators detailing what should be demoted by the algorithm.

I’m aware that most social media apps harvest your data, are prone to pipelines and shadowbanning and don’t pay their creators enough but TikTok is genuinely the w o r s t in every category. You genuinely lose nothing by not using it. Below is another image of a glitch that showed activist hashtags such relating to BLM with 0 views (they got shadowbanned)

Another huge problem that exists on the app is the radicalisation pipelines are so strong because the three minute vid and 150 character comment format completely flattens nuance. All it takes is for someone to sound confident and talk fast enough with a vaguely coherent argument before you start thinking that overpopulation is a myth and engaging in needless drama (see: Drew Afualo and Bela Delgato, Danisha Carter and her critics etc.) This is poisoning how we interact with politics. YouTube is nowhere near perfect but it at the very least rewards longer form content this stuff like video essays is promoted on there. Tumblr has no character limit so you can read the entirety of this shitty essay without me needing to cut things for brevity. Typing a TikTok comment has driven me insane before because 150 characters is not even close to enough to have an informed discussion. Who is correct has now become who can slam dunk on someone else the best.

I do genuinely think that Drew Afualo is a net positive for the world and I’m glad she’s using the TikTok algorithm to spread good messages. But let’s be honest here, her videos aren’t well researched takes on misogyny. And I don’t think they’re trying to be either. Drew shouldn’t be expected to sit down and research a TikTok while she’s shitting on some asshole; that’s not her style. I think the problem is beyond her control. People are taking her quips and one-liners to formulate their opinions on the world around them. This is ok in this example given that Drew a positive influence. But this can and has been weaponised so easily to spread harmful rhetoric left and right and when you’re on political TikTok it’s impossible to tell which is which. Misinformation is also shockingly common and incentivised by the format.

Finally, your attention span is dying. Let’s look at YouTube. YouTube’s policies make it so that longer content is rewarded and, and this is a crucial point, you choose what you want to watch. On TikTok, because you are given content with the assumption you’ll enjoy it, you have to decide while watching if you want to scroll or not. Eventually your window of tolerance of videos before they get good shrinks and you’ll end up judging the quality of the content based on the first seven seconds. Comparatively, YouTube has you choose videos assuming you’ll like them and therefore you’ll spend more time with the art before you decide whether or not it’s for you. When your attention shrinks to seven seconds on TikTok, this bleeds into other aspects of your life and is incredibly unhealthy (speaking from experience). I had to watch two hour long video essays to compensate for how TikTok was just wrecking my focus.

Most people know TikTok sucks and use it anyway but then encourage others not to get it. Why don’t we delete it? Here’s an idea, if you have TikTok, get rid of it now. Destroy its ubiquity and only use Tumblr and YouTube /j No but seriously delete the app I’m so happy I did. My life has improved infinitely since.

#tiktok #personal essay #in this essay i will #social media #delete tiktok

[matchheadz]

HOS/ HOST OF SERAPHIM UPDATE!!

SURPRISE!! I'M NOT DEAD!! JUST WORKING!!

Thank you all so much for over 500 Kudos now. I never thought we'd get this far but, here we fuckin' are! My original intent was to double the word count on this chapter and then also upload some art for fun and as a thank you, but then real-life stuff happened and I figured I needed to get this chapter out at SOME point.

regardless! It is still about 1.5x as long as a regular chapter, and it should NOT take two months to upload another one. I've adjusted my work schedule and while I'm still working a shit ton, I at least have one day off a week now...

:') I'm a clown.

Anywho! This chapter is titled "Love" and you should not be fooled by that. It has some very heavy trigger warnings so please take a look at the chapter notes. Remember that Vergil is having an onslaught of memories just piling into his head, so he's very uncomfortable for the majority of this chapter.

Here's a spoiler-free snippet:

"Please don’t walk away, there’s more! Theres more!" A little Vergil, his lips stained blue with raspberry ice pop, would bleat as his partner-in-crime pushed the book away from him. “Vergil, this book is too sad for me.” Dante would sigh, leaning back against the clay roof and kicking his feet in frustration. “The main character threw away his family because he was too stupid to realize he wasn’t the only one hurt by a family tragedy. He was selfish and let that hurt become his whole personality until he became so power hungry and scared that he ruined the saving grace that offered itself up on a silver platter and got himself killed in the process.” And a little Vergil would frown at him and say, “What do you mean? The main character’s love interest was a girl. Someone he left not to abandon her, but to protect her from the danger that followed him. So he could grow strong and protect the both of them, so nothing in the world could ever hurt either of them ever again. I think that’s a noble cause, don’t you?” And The Raven would simply nod, his red ice-pop melting in the heat of the summer sun and sucking idly at the flavor between his fingers. “That’s what I said.” He would reply lazily. He would squint up at him, his dark pony-tailed hair spread around him like a smoke-stain. He would raise his hand above his head to block the sun, grimacing anyway to reply in a bored tone.  “And of course I think its noble, lucertolino, I think that was our problem.” And little Vergil would gape at the image of the boy who was once his brother and realize he never knew his twin at this age. And he would stare and stare and stare at his blue raspberry ice pop, willing that to make sense until the blue splashed over the page and ruined the rest of the story. He wouldn’t cry over it though, even if it was a really good book. He’d get mad and growl somewhere a little deeper than his chest and throw the book over the edge of the roof, even if it was a really good book. "Why’d you do that, idiota? You loved that book."  The Raven would sit up from his sunbathing spot and frown into the bright distance. "No I didn't. I hated it." Vergil would spit and lie, that stony expression would come over his face even as his weakest instrument broke in two. "We should write a new one. Just us. Just me and you, nobody else." Vergil would turn, the baby-blue of his coat flashing golden light onto his heart’s face. She would laugh at his anger, her brunette bun bouncing with the energy of it and her bright red dress bunched up between clay-stained hands as they walked. She’d stop him right underneath the statue of his father, her hands pressing into his chest and tongue between her teeth—seeing too much of him. "Art like that is made once and a lifetime, Angelo. A shame you did not cherish it while you had it." “I hate you.” Adult Vergil mumbled in reply. Between blinks, Eleonora came and went. And between inhales, his brother had returned. Dante laid underneath Vergil, his chest against his back, gripping tightly to his brother’s torso as if somehow, he would disappear on exhalation.

#dmc #dmc5 #dadgil #my writing #text #hos #vergil sparda #dante sparda #Host of Seraphim #dmc fanfiction #nerokiri

[onlyifyoubadd]

ive been thinking about Pan's relationship with Koon from what we've seen so far...and i wonder if we found our main antagonist in Koon.

for most of first watch of episode 1, i was feeling sorry her having to deal with such a diva all the way until the scene with Khun Charlem when she left Pan in the room with that CREEP knowing that he was getting waaay too touchy and that Pan was visibly uncomfortable, (if you know him, which she does) on top of the fact he was not keen on meeting him, and adamant they leave early in the first place. All that going on...and then she got a call and then left him??? this manager that has been at his side and controlling everything? what was so urgent when your main client is right here! it made the hairs on the back of my neck go up and i started to see Koon in a completely different light! and they actually gave us a bunch to go off of that she is going to be trouble!

Clue 1: Pan's chin touching secret code. I noticed that everytime Pan touches his chin there is a little chime so the audience is supposed to note that moment! (cool story telling from the editors i think!) We get a quick definition after the award show when Pan storms in bascially saying "what the point of a secret code if we dont use it!" because he wanted to leave but couldnt say so. at first i thought this was just a "get me out of here" code. BUT then we get to the mafia baby shooting and when Pan touches his chin, we hear the chime, and then Koon asks a question! after another rewatch im interpreting these moments as Koon asking the questions that Pan is thinking. So now we're seeing this as a code where she is supposed to speak for him! maybe so Pan can keep his image as not being a diva when he actually is one. or its her way as a manager to always have say in the things. we're not sure who came up with the code and who these characters are fully yet. one result of this is also that everyone thinks Koon is demanding, when really the one who has most of the questions is Pan. The only demand that solely came from Koon was the demand for the last take.

Clue 2: Pan says "Its up to P'Koon. If she's okay, then i'm okay." There is another chin touching moment at the mafia baby meeting. Pan touches his chin, we hear the chime, and then Koon asks on the amount of NC scenes. I wonder if this was actually his question, but regardless it seems like he nervously approves. But his way of doing that is what interest me, he says "its up to P'Koon." As far as people at the meeting is concerned she has final say in what Pan does. At least that is what comes off.

Sidenote: it was so interesting that across the table was Nott, without his manager, and Candy gives him things to relay to the boss. not the other way around. Nott seems to speak for himself.

Clue 3: She leaves him in the room with Khun Charlem KNOWING Pan is uncomfortable and DOES NOT WANT TO BE TOUCHED OR ANY WHERE NEAR THIS CREEP. Pan was visibly uncomfortable, especially when she was leaving him, and we know from one episode that Pan hates being touched by strangers. If we know, then she knows too, but she let this happen! Pan knows it too, which is why he shoved her hand away when she returned.

Something that's sitting with me is how she was visibly uncomfortable watching Pan and Nott make out. Again, at first i wondered if she was supposed to be seen as protective of his innocence or sexuality or something....but now im not so sure.

I have a strong feeling that Koon does not know about Pan and Nott's "workshops" and that Pan wants to keep it that way. Maybe because Koon is supposed to be seen as the "keeper" of Pan's sexuality. She says when, where, with whom, BUT she cant control a real romance with real feelings. annnddd everybody saw that Pan was enjoying that makeout with some real feelings lmaoo!

But anyway! my point (i think...) is that Pan and Koon's relationship is going to be a focus, and probably very toxic which is unfortunate for Pan!

sidenote: i really like it! i feel like some people arent picking up what they're putting down, but im excited to see where this goes! it is a drama after all!

#war of y #war of y: new ship #nottpan #billyseng #pan thanamyn #war of y the series #war of y koon #koon war of y

[jyou-no-sonoko19]

Hey. I love your art and the style, I admire them very much.

I'm still a newbie in art. when I saw your artwork first things got me was the strong lines and volume and made me to think how can I add more volume to mine to look less flat? all my works look very flat, and the lines lacks any energy, so any tip that can help me would be great!

Hi, thanks very much! It's such a treat when someone says they enjoy my style!

As to my lines, the main thing to note is that they're traditional, either graphite or ballpoint ink, which I then scan in to colour. And beyond that, my number one rule is to Stay Loose when you're first sketching. So don't sit with your nib locked in place, but rather draw with as much of your arm as you can (this is why it helps drawing on an A4 piece of paper on a desk, so I'm not confined by a screen). Let the lines overlap each other where they need to be darker, if you want to emphasise a certain region's contour, add some more lines!

Here's a lil zoom on my most recent portrait that shows off the method:

All the scritchy-scratchy lines provide a loose 'context' for the shapes, but then extra lines come in to reinforce the truly important contouring and convince the eye of the whole thing.

As to the "volume", I'm guessing you mean how I show depth by shading? Once again I always try to stay loosey-goosey, and really not focus too much on where strokes end up until the very end. To encourage this behaviour, I use a fairly large brush head (basic hard, round brush in PS) at varying opacity, and treat it like real paint, just approaching each thing I'm focussing on (like lips for example) with various angles of stroke until the core of it feels deep.

Make a colour palette as soon as you start the art! This will decide what overall tone your art has, as well as giving you easy access to colour picking as you paint, just like a physical artist's palette. I give it its own layer at the very top (so that it's not affected by any other layers). First, choose your middle colour, then darken one part of it like 50%, pale one part by the same, and if you want to, make even darker and paler portions. Then duplicate the palette and invert the colours. This will give you a set of secondary colours (either warmer or cooler) that will automatically fit in with your main colours -- Hacks!! You can use these colours to add depth and mood to your piece, by shading with them rather than the primary palette.

All that said, my shading process works like this:

(2.1 - I often add blush to a face at this point, as that ends up with a less even, more human feeling to the skin. )

1- base level: This is the colour of the area, the one you'd either pick with a colour picker, or what you'd try to eyeball as someone's middle-most skin-tone.

2- gradient: This layer is optional, but if I'm trying to get a realistic depth rather than more cartoony, I'll do this layer. It subtly follows the shape of the object, and probably won't be very visible until it's layered by the next shading level. Set this layer to multiply.

( 3.2 - make-up!! As a treat, it really gives me something fun to do early on.)

3- first shadows: Here is where I start defining the details, first with a brush that might seem way too big for the space -- but it's set to low opacity, so you don't have to worry! This is working from biggest brush to smallest, as you get closer and closer to the focal point of each stroke. This layer can be set to a basic multiply too, but if I'm going for something more dramatic, I'll use linear burn.

4- secondary shadow: This layer is where you gotta be a bit brave! When one is shading, it's easy to be too subtle, to make something look realistic. But then at the end, you find it's so subtle that it can look flat! Focus on the deepest folds in the image, including where areas are draped over (like the back of the neck, where hair is most solid).

5 - primary highlights: Here's where things feel properly Shaped for me! Where the skin is tightest across the flesh (so over bones or cartilage), we can throw some bouncy light to bring it to life! Don't worry about going overboard here, just use the Screen or Linear Light setting while painting, so you can see clearly what you're doing, then change it to a more fitting blend mode later if you need to.

One option is to choose a unifying colour, add it as its own layer, then toy with the layer setting (multiply/overlay/hard light etc) and its opacity, to get a feeling you like. Don't stop there tho! It might make things a bit flattened. So then you want to go into the Levels or contrast settings, and bring back some of those lighting curves!

6 - secondary highlights/ eyelights: This is for any surfaces that are especially shiny, or are getting secondary lighting from something around them. With this art that wasn't the case -- I had intended to do some sunlight hitting her from ahead, but then forgot lol

(And yes my eyelights were on all the screenshots already, sorry, I do them first so my art isn't staring all creepy at me)

7 - unifying and balancing (optional): Say you've done a great job with your palette and everything looks balanced, but you *still* feel like it could hang together better, or you just want to make sure. I generally make a ton of versions of my pieces, so I'll use a combination of methods as I play.

In the case of this piece, I added a peachy tone set to Overlay mode at 10% opacity, to soften everything (subtle, but it's there!).

As well as adding tint layers, you should also go into the Colour Balancer menu, to give yourself a more accurate sense of whether you're going overboard with your warm or cool tones in the high, low or mids. Often even if I think things are really well balanced, I can end up looking at that menu and realising that my shadows are WAY too red, and dialling it back can give a more natural tone. Staring at a piece for hours and hours can make it really hard to tell without this tool.

Using the colour balance menu, I came up with this very satisfying version:

I hope that was helpful, and that you'll link me to any thing you'd like me to check out in specific. (^_^)b

#art tutorial #art tips #art advice #art process #hybrid art #photoshop tips #nobodyorlando #asks #my art

[westopoliscity]

Hi. Woof. I got tagged in a thing by @gillbuoy! Which I shall now be doing (wowzers! Thank you for tagging me btw ^_^. Woof.)

hot shower or cold shower: Hot. Any day of the week if the water is not slowly cooking me into a fine aspen stew what the fuck is the point honestly

texting or calling: Texting. Always. I get soooo nervous in discord vcs because of my parents walking slash not liking my voice slash previously being teased by my parents for things ive said so. Text. Far better. Plus I can do :3 ^_^ :] and woof arf bark!!!

ear buds or headphones: headphones hurty :[

paperback or hard cover: Redwall paperback books ruined the paperback book experience for me... some prints of the books are so. Squished and hard to hold apart for reading and hard cover books in general feel. Nice and substantial and theyre great I love them so much

matte or gel: Stares blankly. I have no clue what this means or what context this applies to!

twelve hour or twenty four hour clock: i have to think with 24 hour clocks and im bad enough at 12 hour clock math

Sci-fi or horror: C neither

blue or green: hmm. Whatever could my answer here be. I wonder... no way its blue. Not in a million trillion years ^_^

sunsets or sunrises: Sunsets! Im a night person 100% and theres something so... beautifully magical about a nice sunset. A calming feeling. Like im sitting on the roof of my house staring out across a backyard forest, drinking away at cans of soda and joking away with friends. Fireflies are lighting up the air and the night creatures are plentiful. That kinda mental image.

tulips or orchids: orchids are. Special to me in a way, I suppose. Where I live, Irises are very plentiful and ive found them. Absolutely beautiful ever since I was a child first exploring the area around my old shed in my old backyard discovering the mysterious, tall flowers blooming behind it. My father mistakenly called them orchids, and I know now, obviously, that they're irises- but despite that thinking about orchids brings back such a strong mental image of those magical purple flowers with the white and black striping, and that neighborhood I grew so attatched too and loved for years. I miss that area a whole lot.

candle light or moon light: moonlight. Always. Its so. Pretty and. Truly magical and while candle light is great, well. Nothing beats the moon herself, to me at least

pen or pencil: I have... terribly sloppy handwriting. I frequently make mistakes in how I write things. Pens are my natural enemies and as much as I love using them ill stick to mechanical pencils always

pandas or koalas: pandas: one of my first comfort stuffed animals ever after. A big life change made me lose all of the ones I once loved so much. I found him at a garage sale and I kind of fell in love with him immediately. Instead of black, his markings are a soft blue color and hes the perfect size for hugging and he was the perfect comfort after so long spent with my bed feeling so. Painfully empty. He helped me through some really, really rough times too. Hes worn already, despite having him for only 2 or 3 years or so now, but given the fact that some of that wear is tear stains bravely taken, I think he deserves to show some wear methinks.

gold or silver: I like grey man. What else am I to say

sneakers or boots: sneakers are the devils creation and I will wear winter goddamned boots year round if im allowed theyre comfy. And they look nice.

denim or leather jacket: I have no personal experience but uh. From an aesthetic point of view. Leather just looks really fucking cool. Thats all I can say really

pink or purple: I won't go deep into this because ive done enough personal rambling for a tumblr tag game post but. Purple irises, as I've mentioned, and memories of some people I once held so very close. That's all I'll say

chocolate or sour candy: i will devour an entire bag of sour candy given the opportunity just you watch me

drive in movie theater or the cinema: C neither again. Im not particularly a. Movie watcher really and. Bad associations with the cinema and drive in movie theater. Also uncomfortable associations for different reasons

deoderant or perfume: perfume makes me feel dsyphoric (a lot of things painted as traditionally. Girly. Do really, its a hard thing to shake for me. I still find it hard to accept. The color pink, fully)

pastel blue or earth tones: sorry blue! You actually suck here. Earth tones are very calm and comforting, they bring to mind an autumn forest or a cozy library space. I prefer daker and greyish blue shades, generally

lemonade or fruit juice: let me get my grubby little paws near lemonade your never seeing that batch ever again

past or future: In. A generalized broad way, the past, I suppose? But really. Neither. Its hard to keep myself rooted to a broad version of the past, and the future... no.

And now comes the time to pass this off to a couple other people so, I summon forth: @nintendont2502! @thebaby-is-you! And! @murrittimeswithscar! Participation optional and anyone unmentioned is free to hop in but I had to tag someone So! Yep!

#lot of personal rambling for a tag game post huh

[spoekelse]

I joked earlier that Tumblr wasn't founded as some kind of communist alternative to Twitter, and we shouldn't expect it to behave that way, but looking into it, it seems that it was founded to be much closer to that than I'd expected. I'm going to drop a few excerpts from a 2011 interview with Tumblr founder David Karp by TechCrunch that illuminate what I mean.

Tumblr CEO David Karp recently sat down with Chris Dixon for a Founder Stories interview in which explains how he started Tumblr four years ago as a reaction to other blogging tools out there. “All blogs took the same form,” he notes. “I wanted something much more free-form, much less verbose.” People wanted to express themselves and blog, but he felt that the standard blogging platforms available at the time—Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad—were too complicated. “These tools I just don’t think worked for most people. It’s a commitment, you need to sit down for an hour and hammer out a post.”

He is quick to add that “WordPress is the best tool in the world for that” kind of publishing. But for someone like him who “doesn’t enjoy writing,” it was the wrong tool. So he created Tumblr instead, which is designed to help people get their thoughts and images up as quickly as possible, and to lower the barrier to publishing even more.

But don’t Twitter and Facebook lower those barriers even further? They do, but they lack a strong expressive identity, argues Karp. “They are not tools built for creative expression,” he says, adding: “Nobody is proud of their identity on Facebook.” Okay, he’s got a point there. Tumblr, in contrast, is built to be a place you can be proud to call your online home. It’s very design-oriented and you can customize your Tumblr to reflect your personality, but not in a cheesy MySpace way. For Twitter and Facebook, “expression isn’t necessarily something they care about.”

It’s a common criticism of popular Web services that don’t yet make a lot of money: Where’s the business model? That criticism has certainly been lobbed at Tumblr, the short-burst publishing platform all the kids are flocking to these days. Tumblr generates billions of pageviews across its networks and is growing at more than 250 million pageviews per week. “Making money off of Tumblr would be incredibly easy,” CEO David Karp tells Chris Dixon in the Founder Stories video above. A cheap AdSense ad on every member’s dashboard would make Tumblr “wildly profitable.”

So why doesn’t he do that? As he goes onto explain, he’d rather find ways to make money that also “enhance the experience for our users.” Tumblr does charge for things like being featured in its directory or $9 themes users can buy to spruce up their Tumblog. Karp notes that some theme designers are making tens of thousands of dollars month. Still, these seem more like ancillary revenue streams than what will end up being Tumbr’s main revenue source down the line. Fortunately for Karp, he has patient investors and just raised $30 million to keep scaling the service and figure out a more natural business model.

You can watch the full interview here. At about 4 minutes in, he starts talking about Tumblr in relation to Twitter. They talk about how things seem to be designed with the users and community in mind. At around 15 minutes in, they talk about how there's a tension between Karp's vision of Tumblr as a place for self-expression and advertisers and investors.

Here's another article that talks about the monetisation issue.

"I thought I could totally beat the system and have this cool product that I would never need to raise money for, I would never need to sell out, because [Tumblr] would bring all the attention to this [consultancy] business where people would ask us to build them a website," he says. And it worked – for a few months. Karp kept up his consultancy gig until Tumblr began doubling its number of users every few weeks. "Our clients eventually got more and more pissed off because I wasn't returning their calls and at that point I was just totally fucking it up. Clearly they could see Tumblr was my one and only and they were getting shafted."

It was time for Karp and Tumblr to grow up. Investors were circling, but Karp's youthful defiance prevented the internet firm being shipped across to the startup factory of Silicon Valley. Karp did sell 25% of his one-year-old company as part of a $4.5m funding round from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital in late 2008. But he repeatedly turned down offers to move the company to the "hyper-competitive" West Coast, where he says entrepreneurs spend their time worrying whether Apple, Google or Facebook are going to steal their most talented engineers. New York is a more supportive city for startups, Karp argues, even if it does not have the obvious allure of Silicon Valley.

In conversation, Karp could evangelise on the force of creativity for hours. At times he will suddenly pause, before retracing his steps and continuing with animated zeal. Karp says he loves Twitter, is lukewarm on Google+ ("I don't see any tools for creativity in there") and is not the biggest fan of Facebook "as a product". And YouTube? "The only real tools for expression these days are YouTube, which turns my stomach," he says. "They take your creative works – your film that you poured hours and hours of energy into – and they put ads on top of it. They make it as gross an experience to watch your film as possible. I'm sure it will contribute to Google's bottom line; I'm not sure it will inspire any creators."

No doubt Google would disagree, arguing that a significant chunk of the 60 hours of video uploaded to the site each minute – an increase of 30% in the last three months – contains or inspires some form of originality.

But Karp is unconvinced. YouTube, he says, "was the opportunity to tell every aspiring filmmaker that if they worked really hard and really went for quality they could create great stuff. The stuff YouTube is incentivising is: build a huge subscriber base, put out a lot of videos, do the math and get as big a cheque as possible."

Google recently did the math and found that YouTube pulls in about 4bn views a day – and has now boosted promotion of its "Partner" programme in a bid to increase the quality of videos. "YouTube offers the opportunity but they sacrifice the tools in such a major way now," Karp continues. "YouTube is one of the most amazing creative tools in the world and I think it's gotten a lot worse for creators." No doubt the point is that Tumblr can close the gap.

Like many of the hottest internet firms, Tumblr has no proven business model. The company's "lack of revenue" prevented some major Silicon Valley venture capital firms from participating in its latest $85m funding round in September last year, according to the Wall Street Journal. John Maloney, the president of Tumblr, who is the business foil to Karp's user-led brain, indicated in a recent interview that the company needs to attract "hundreds of millions" more subscribers on its route to profitability.

For his part, Karp describes technology journalism's obsession with funding as "turpitudal" and insists his company is not in a financial arms race with Facebook, Twitter or other internet sites.

Nor is Tumblr about to be acquired by a multinational media firm, he says. In 2008, when Karp became $750,000 richer by virtue of selling a 25% stake in the firm, the fresh-faced founder laid his intentions bare. "We would really rather not be gobbled up by a big media company," he spat, in an interview with the New York Observer.

Unlike most other hot internet companies, Tumblr has not been plagued by buyout rumours – but that does not mean there have been no offers. Four years on, is Karp still adamant? "We were constantly tested along the way," he admits. "Particularly in the first three years, there were a lot of [mergers and acquisitions] people who would pull you aside and you'd think 'Well, shit, I could be a pretty rich 23-year-old with very little effort'". But he held firm. "We stuck it out. I won't say I really knew why."

All these articles are old, they're relics of the past. But it's an interesting angle.

It's interesting. Karp seems to be a genuinely decent person- he works at Planned Parenthood now, and when he was still CEO of Tumblr, he tried to use it to promote Planned Parenthood.

I'd like to see Tumblr go back to its roots. I'd like to see it stop trying to be Tiktok or Instagram. I'd like it to be fully functional, with all the gimmicky quirks staff keeps introducing but none of the weird algorithms and promotion of Tumblr Live. I'd like it to invite NSFW back onto the platform in a way safe for artists.

#tumblr #whispers of spoekelse #long post

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook: No Fun (1) 🔞

You're nothing special.

Tags/Warnings: Hybrid AU, Bunny hybrid!Jungkook, Idol!Jungkook, Idol!Bangtan, Bunny hybrid!Reader, Angst, strangers to ???

Wordcount: 2k (short)

Additional Chapter Warnings: jungkook's hella two-faced, smut, protected (condom), Dom!Jungkook, slight fluff?, hybrid behavior (scenting, marking, grooming/bonding), reader is a little oblivious in this, manhandling, pls kids use lube thanks

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When he steps into the hotel room rented, you're standing up from your spot on the couch- and his attention is definitely caught at the sight of you.

You pleasantly fit his personal ideal physically, from first glance. He smiles to himself as he closes the door, walking towards you before he bows politely while you do the same. "Uhm.. sit down, I- I feel like talking first is important." He explains, and you do so, sitting down at the edge of the small sofa, whereas he sits in the opposite corner of it to make you comfortable. "...one might think I wouldn't be so awkward every time." He chuckles a bit, picking on his face a bit, and you shake your head.

"Its fine." You say, and his eyes practically zoom in on not just your lips, but the sound of your voice.

It's a jackpot this time, he thinks, as he thinks about you sitting here. You smell nice- soft, not too overbearing, very gentle and not artificial, so it must be your natural scent mixed with whatever detergent you use for your laundry. Your skin looks soft to the touch, delicate, warm, and your voice has a pleasant tune to it, natural and unforced as you speak.

He can't wait to have you pinned underneath him.

With a pretty face, he might even make an exception to his usual routine and favors, and fuck you missionary just to look at you. "So uhm.. how does this work.?" You ask, hands fiddling with your skirt a little, fabric cheap but well-sewn together. He likes that you wear stockings, pale pink one's that accentuate your legs. The top you wear seems a lot more expensive; soft, but a little worn down. You probably have worn this for years by now- and he would like to maybe even steal it as a souvenir.

He could just pretend it got mixed up in the hotel laundry. He'll buy you something new instead.

"Usually we talk first you know. Like.. what you like, what you don't like, stuff like that." He says. "What's your name?" He asks, making sure to have his body leaning into your direction to seem interested and invested in your answer. It's always the same the first time, after all; and he can't risk his reputation like this either. He needs to uphold his image of the pure romantic lover that everybody has of him-

Anything else doesn't sell well, after all.

"Y/N." You introduce yourself, finally looking at him. Your gaze quickly evades however, unable to hold the strong one he sends you, dark doe eyes fixed on you. He carefully reaches out to move your fave back towards him.

"Hey no-" he softly says. "-just pretend I'm no one special." He says. This route is the safest he knows, and he really doesn't want to scare you off. "Do you need a moment? We can eat something first if you'd like to." He offers, and you nod, needing to calm down first. He nods as well, smiling boyishly before he stands up to pick up the hotel phone to order room service. "What would you like? You can just point, no worries." He whispers as he holds the phone speaker shut. "And don't worry about the price either." He grins.

You swallow at the numbers on the side, but comply to his wish, pointing at some things you'd like.

You're neither trying to be cheap, nor do you order typical diet-food. His fondness of you grows with every moment, it seems, as his bunny tail wiggles while he orders. You're a bit jealous at that; you yourself still struggle to order a mere pizza over the phone, eternally grateful for online ordering these days so you don't have to talk to anyone directly. Phone calls creep you out.

But then again, he's an idol; and known to be fearless, despite his hybrid species.

Physically, he fits the perfect buck however, in your hybrid perspective of things at least. Well taken care of body, not too tall, strong thighs, shiny fur on both his tail and ears. His eyes are round and expressive, he's known to be determined and competitive, not shying away from any challenge or be scared easily. You're not the standard- but he doesn't seem to mind at all.

But then again; maybe he was already in a different state of mind. Maybe he didn't care at all.

But the way he makes sure you eat and become more relaxed around him makes you doubt that. He's nice, not overly sweet to you, playfully arguing on some things you talk about as you feel yourself become more comfortable. He notices too- food at this point not as delicious as he knows you probably taste. Your scent changes- becoming more and more enticing, less possible to ignore to him, but he manages to finish his food at least, letting himself sit for a minute.

"My best friend- she's a lynx-hybrid." You giggle. He likes that sound; it's unforced, cute, but in a natural way. "People made fun of us in school a lot. Called me red riding hood and her the wolf." You tell him, and he chuckles.

He doesn't have stories like that- after all, his school days were cut short by a lot, and when he did went, people wanted to befriend him only for their own gain.

"But she's really sweet. She means well." He doesn't like the way you talk about that friend. While his rational mind is sure she really is just a friend, his inner heat makes him feel competitive against her- as if he needs to prove himself to be better. In what exactly, he's not sure. But then again, he's sure there's no competition in any way, no matter which one.

You both casually move to the bed, at first merely laying next to each other, before you end up closer, and you're finally close enough for jungkook to get an actual taste of your scent properly. It makes him run his nose over the crook of your neck, leaving his own a little, before he tests the waters, kissing slightly. You giggle, and his ears flick into your direction.

He's got you.

And it doesn't take much other than him positioning himself above you, lips catching yours in kisses that turn more and more feverish with every second passing for you to fall into full heat. At this point, he's comfortable, knowing that he's got what he wanted, excitement drumming through him as his inked hand helps in undressing you.

He hopes he remembers that top when you're both done.

Right now he's not sure how long it'll take him- but he can feel it with the way he's aching almost painfully that this time, it'll be a long one. He tries hard not to rip any of your clothing, usually a lot more careless, but you seem rather delicate, so he doesn't want to jinx it with you. He's heard of hybrids snapping out of their heat-mindset before- and he really doesn't want that with you.

He's too close to loose you now.

"I need to be inside you." He huffs out, hands running over your body as if they can't decide where to place themselves. Your breasts are so soft to his touch, he can't help but let his inked hand knead one a little, thumb flicking over your nipple just to get a reaction out of you. You're squirming at this point, kicking out impatiently like the bunny you are, and he chuckles at the sight, before he finally rids himself of his underwear.

His hand knows the drawer where the condoms are placed in, fingers quick to unwrap it before he lines himself up. But he quickly realizes that that's not going to work the way he anticipated, fingers toying with you for a moment to see if it's a good idea to just go in like that.

It's not.

"You're so tight, fuck.." he mumbles to himself, as you look at him a bit worried. "..don't worry, I'll be gentle." Thats a lie. He'll keep himself in check until he knows you can take it, would be a better word for it. He squirts some lube onto his length, running his hand over it before he uses the remnants on his fingers to run over your entrance. You jump a bit from the cold feeling of it. "Its always cold for some reason, that stuff, isn't it?" He jokes, smiling, before he leans down to kiss you. "Dont worry though-" he says, before he slowly pushes himself in. "-I'm warm."

If only you knew.

But for now, as he lazily moves, your scent and sounds all intoxicating to him, you can believe whatever you want. You're his in this moment, no one else's, and he's going to make sure to make love to you in ways no one else will be able to. Your lynx-friend can fuck you six ways till Sunday with a strap on for all he cares; he knows you'll still crave him after this.

It's the effect he has on people.

The bed squeaks in protest as he picks up his pace, hands gripping your thighs rather tightly to keep you close to him, while you whimper in pleasure, back arched and head thrown back into the pillows. You're so pretty, better than any picture of the new female hybrids that debuted recently. Simply because he knows you're real, all your little bumps and curves, all the bits and pieces that are shamed in the industry belong to you and make you so enticing to him.

Your thighs lay softly over his own, flesh easy to grip and hold, features just like nature had intended for them to look like. There's nothing artificial about the way you kive, feel, whine underneath him, breasts moving with every snap of his hips into you. He's practically growling under his breath as you begin to clench around his length, his own high approaching rapidly.

He wonders how you cum.

So he leans over you, hand holding your hips while the other one reaches between you two, toying with your pearl, making you moan out so deliciously his ears can't help but stay focused on the sound to catch it all. You push your head back, back lifting off the mattress below as your toes curl, legs shaking in pleasure. It's a sight he wants to burn into hid mind, he wants to record it and use it to get off in the future because fuck.

You're so beautiful like this, and he can't help himself as he pulls out, practically ripping the condom off of his length to finish himself off into your stomach and up to your chest, seed escaping him in ropes that stain your skin in his scent.

You don't seem to mind, and he didn't expect you to, either.

Instead, you willingly let him run his fingers through the mess, mind hazy from your afterglow as you accept his actions as care and affection.

He himself feels high for a second as the smell of sex fills the room, fills his mind as he leans down to lick a stripe up between your breasts, before he sloppily kisses your jaw, your neck, your cheek- before laying down, uncaring of the messy state you're in. No, right now he wants to cuddle with you, the hotel staff will take care of the stained sheets.

And he'll take care of you.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #bts smut #jungkook smut #hybrid!jungkook #hybrid imagine #hybrid smut #hybrid au #hybrid reader #no fun au

[frieschan]

adult trio w/ half non-human s/o!

character/s featured: h. morow, c. lucilfer, i. zoldyck x f! reader (in order)

unrequested | headcanons//fluff-smut(ish)

TW: MINORS DNI!!!

AN: made this cause i was bored :D (i was in class bro 💀)

NOT BETA-READ 🐖|| NONE OF THE IMAGES BELONG TO ME

Hisoka Morow w/ a bunny girl (*￣3￣)╭

infinite teasing

he didn't have shame when he grabbed one of your ears

he always calls you "bunny girl" and even bought you the playboy fit

ngl you being in a bunny outfit while him in his usual is GOALS

showing you off like crazy

like we get it your girlfriend is a bunny 😶😶

with you being part rabbit, you had naturally strong legs yeah he made you suffocate him with your thighs

whenever he saw you fight with your legs, he started acting up n shiii

was trying his best not to move around too much while watching but DAMN

the way you just nonchalantly jumped up high and slammed the enemy into the ground with your toned legs?? watch out mirko (jk ily mommy)

was all too much for the clown

right after the battle had ended

hisoka was ALL OVER YOU.

ok but imagine hisoka pulling on your ears while youre SUCKIN HIM AWF

he kinda loves the fact that you look so innocent with the bunny ears but youre literally his cock sleeve that he loves

he got you multiple styles of a playboy bunny outfit

got him having a thing for thighs

lowkey wants you to step on him and ride him with your thick thighs

dom bunny reader? maybe.

"my little bunny, you were teasing me with that strength you showed in that battle, weren't you?" Hisoka smirked while placing you on the counter top and licking his lips, staring into your orbs.

Raising an eyebrow at the man in front of you, you crossed your arms and legs and stared intently into those golds of his. "what are you accusing me of?"

"those lips of yours are lying, bunny." he pointed out while putting his thumb on your chin, forcing you to stare at his golden irises. "Maybe I need to teach you how to not spit out lies to someone like me."

Chrollo Lucilfer w/ a female succubus (^^ゞ

no one can tell me otherwise that he wouldn't be interested in satanism or sum

He heard about succubuses but never really learned about them till he met you

suddenly his books are about succubuses

legit thought they didn't exist tho </3

but now he has you so uhm

he loves touching your horns! especially when you're sucking him off

he thinks your abilities as a succubus are really interesting!

he won't treat you any differently if he had a human s/o though

he likes it whenever you fly beside him, makes it easier for him to check on you when the both of you are out

so yk how he sits on that one rock at the top

yeah he has you on one of his legs and you two look like the best evil power couple

istg it looks like youre the succubus that made him a priest gone wrong 😭😭

but like he loves it

its like you tempted him into sinning and he doesnt regret it

k time for nsfw fo0r the thirsty hoes LMAO IM JKING

MIRROR SEX.

he wants to see your face contort into a lewd look while he ruins you and your horns top it off

whenever he bends you over, he makes sure to pull on your wings while ramming into you

so romantic

he feels like hes sinning when he goes down on you and he lives for it

if he feels like being slow and sensual, he'll rub your wings very slowly and gently

either way, youre gonna end up as a panting mess <3 no escaping it

The only thing that was audible in the bedroom was the skin slapping and your little mewls. You were panting and overstimulated from Chrollo's cock ramming into you for hours.

Your legs were shaking and dripping with your juices—your arms gripping the sheets below you as some sort of reliever from all the pleasure. It felt like you were going to go crazy from the overstimulation and overwhelming pleasure.

Just as your arms were about to give out, you could feel Chrollo tugging on your wings, earning a loud whine from you.

The moment that he heard your reaction, the intended time would be extended a bit.

Illumi Zoldyck w/ a neko girl (ง •_•)ง

with Silva's eyes I really think that the Zoldyck family members are into cats 🙂

so when Illumi met you he was originally just going to not care.. 💔

till he saw your neko features

listen

he kinda acted up : )

but then he thought you were weak so ig no chance

but tHEEEN HE SAW YOUR FIGHT

(im so sorry for the buts)

k so hes hooked

when u guys started dating you liked to lay on his lap while he scratched the back of your ears

he kinda does treat you like a house cat

HE ACCIDENTALY BABIES YOU.

and also his family loves your cat features and you in general

killua alluka and kalluto cling to you whenever they can

milluki almost got sentenced to death by illumi when he tried to get you to cosplay one of his fav chars tho </3

illumi kinda got a bit possessive after that

aka giving you a collar with his name on it

he kinda gets off to you being so vulnerable towards him when hes on top

your tail curlin n shiiii

yeah you got rammed

You felt so naked and vulnerable to the man in front of you. Your collar signifying that you were his property and only his. He was your master and your beloved.

He slowly got on top of you, curling your tail around his leg. You were excited but nervous with what he had in store—your thoughts being cut off by him smashing his lips into yours, forcing his tongue into your mouth.

You couldn't help but mewl at how rough he was being. You couldn't help but fantasize on what was going to happen.

copyright © 2021 | frieschan

reblog or like if you enjoyed!

#chrollo lucilfer x reader #hisoka morow x reader #illumi zoldyck x reader #hxh x reader #x reader #hxh scenario #anime x reader #chrollo lucilfer scenario #chrollo lucilfer fluff #hisoka morow scenario #hisoka morow fluff #illumi zoldyck scenario #illumi zoldyck fluff #hisoka x reader #illumi x reader #chrollo x reader #x you #chrollo x you #hisoka x you #illumi x you #chrollo x y/n #hisoka x y/n #illumi x y/n #chrollo lucilfer x you #chrollo lucilfer x y/n #hisoka morow x you #hisoka morow x y/n #illumi zoldyck x you #illumi zoldyck x y/n #illumi zoldyck headcanons

[kashimos-hajime]

the colour yellow | jjk

summary: “You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right.”

WARNINGS: ANGST!! hanahaki disease but not an au, HOSPITALS, DEATH, DESCRIPTIONS OF DISEASE, UNHEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS, pining, unrequited love, complicated feelings, its just sad. there are some light-hearted moments, and happier/softer aspects in the ending but it is generally sad in the ‘what could have been’ department pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader, past geto suguru x fem!reader, mentions of satosugu word count: 29.9k lmao

a/n: i just needed to get the hanahaki out of my system. it did not work. i took liberties w the timeline because idc about actual jjk canon in this fic thanks. 

playlist for this fic

crossposted on ao3 x

Your Innate Technique always gave you a green thumb. Meaning, similarly enough to Yaga, you could plant cursed energy into objects.

Where it deviated, Satoru knows, is the type of object. Plants—trees, leaves, flowers. 

Ironic, he thinks numbly as he walks through the hospital. Shoko had told him that at this point it was palliative care until you died—nothing else would work. Cursed energy only fed your sickness, and even her technique could not heal the damage fast enough. Stupid. Idiotic. Cruel.

Cruel. That was the word.

He hadn’t seen it himself but from how his old friend had described it, it could only be cruel. 

His footsteps tap along the linoleum floors, urgent, but not too fast. A part of him dreads what he will see—his mind swirls with the possibilities, and of guilt.

Why didn’t he just come sooner? Why did he think it was okay to wait, to dismiss Itadori when he said you’d been checked in for your coughing fits?

“She’s strong. She’ll be fine,” he had said. Itadori’s small frown. “A little feather in her throat isn’t going to knock her down.”

Why? Why? Why? Why did he say that?

Because it had to be serious to put you in the hospital. For fuck’s sake, you were still that teenage girl who stood outside his dorm window in the middle of a thunderstorm to bring Fushiguro a birthday present before you left for a curse expedition a thousand years ago, and the woman who welcomed him into your home unprompted on December 24th, your cheeks dry, lips pressed in a brave smile.

You had held him tight enough he could not see the blood, scrubbed him in a bathtub, ran your fingers through his hair until the sweat and grime was gone. You took care of him because he knows the belief that no one should be left behind to suffer alone has been engrained in you since the day he’s met you.

He should’ve known. A girl abandoned for being cursed had turned into woman with a saviour complex who’d barely even think about telling him you were dying. 

Dying, of all things, from a disease no one knows how to cure. And you’re a sorcerer.

He could’ve laughed. The irony is enough to make him smile.

Your room’s in a tiny corner of the hospital, down the hall from a nurse’s station, and as he walks through, he can see the grey sunlight streaming through the window, glaring against his glasses. He lifts them to rub the heel of his hand into his eye.

He doesn’t want you to worry when you see him, and mostly, he needs to stall. His heart is in knots in his chest, and he spots a chair beside the door with your name in the plastic slate, so he sits down. His knees feel gummy and he leans forward, the visitor’s pass clipped to the front of his shirt hanging. 

Satoru tugs the glasses off his face, fits his palm over his brow and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s chilling in this dead end, and he swallows tightly. Everything tastes so dry as he looks up and shoves his hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing it all over his hands just so he has something to do.

After a few minutes, he gets up and sets a hand on the knob. 

It can’t be as bad as he’s imagining. At most, you’re a bit sick, but you’ll still be spritely, warm in the lips and with arms outstretched and, “Satoru, finally!”

He opens the door. 

You’re sitting hunched over in bed. Silhouette outlined by the white-grey sunlight from outside your hospital room, you’re trembling as you hold onto a receptacle. An IV is hooked to your arm, a hospital gown is barely hiding anything, and it feels immoral to even look so Satoru doesn’t. Instead, he pauses by the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment as your gaze flashes to him. 

He feels it, to be honest. The heat of your stare until it is wrenched away by a violent cough you instinctually muffle by your palm, blood splattering over your hand, soft, velveteen purple petals falling from your lips and into the receptacle in your lap. 

You’re supposed to have a green thumb.

Vines bend to your will if you command it, you can summon forth thorns to impale your opponents, send thick creeping ivy to barricade a doorway. It doesn’t matter if there is no greenery in your immediate area. At the sweep of your hand, the ground could rumble with the sound of trees twisting their gnarled roots into feet to march at your command.

Just as long as they’re within range and you’ve touched them in the past few hours, they’re yours.

So, why can’t you stop this?

Plants are supposed to listen to you, right? As he stares at your shaking body on the bed, curved over the plastic tub, thick globs of bloodied spit drip from your lips and soaked purple blossom petals entwine with your life essence. His heart plummets to his chest. You retch, spit, choke, and every sound stabs him in the chest as he takes a weak step forward, hand stretched out limply.

Your name flutters, barely leaves his lips before you’re looking at him again, a bit of a mortifying image but nonetheless.

Even so, you smile, despite the blood painting your face, the exhaustion morphing your body. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and your hands shake around the receptacle. You look battered, bruised along the arms where the needles keeping you filled with antibiotics, medicine you need, had punctured you.

And still, you’re beaming at him. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Hi, Satoru.”

His hand falls. Eyes wide, he cannot take another step. You wipe at your lips, tossing the tissue into the trash before pushing the plastic receptacle onto the table and swinging your legs off the bed.

“Don’t—“ he croaks but you don’t listen, sliding your feet into slippers and grabbing your IV stand to take a step towards him. Your knees nearly give in but you stick out a hand before he can rush to catch you. Then, you’re pushing yourself up and walking over to him. It’s more of a shuffle, but Gojo finds he can’t care as you land on his chest, hands pressing into his back.

You’re a bit cold in his arms, and he wraps himself around you, trying to rub the heat back into your skin as you shudder, but your heart is still racing as it always does around him, and you…

You’re the type of person who can shift how the air feels and looks to his Six Eyes with your smile or your tears or your frown, and in that moment, the air bleeds yellow with your joy. It’s so bright in his soul that it makes his heart skip as you shift on your feet against him, hands sliding down so your arms can circle his waist and haul him closer. 

“Gojo Satoru turning off his infinity for little ole me,” you murmur, voice raspy, as he closes his eyes, cradling your head. Without another word, he sinks into you. “Talk about the world ending.”

Why didn’t you just call him? Why did you let him stay away for so long? He doesn’t want to ask why it’s happening, or how. He already knows you’ll just lie. But he wants to know if you think so lowly of him that you thought you didn’t matter to him.

After Suguru…

How could you think that? He’s screaming inside his mind as he touches your back, feels the faint protruding ridges along your skin when he pushes down. It makes your spine a bit more pronounced along the knobs, your shoulder blades a bit bumpy, but otherwise, it’s almost normal. One wouldn’t even be able to tell without touching you and actively searching for it. How could you think I don’t care?

This isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, that much he knows. It seems much more seductive, sneaking yet unhurried in its nature. This is agony in effigy. There’s something rotten inside you, but he can’t tell what it is. The energy is everywhere.

You pull back to look up at him with a soft smile, then tap his nose and tell him to join you before turning around and climbing back into bed with energy that betrays your earlier fits. You grab your robe that you’ve left on your bed before getting up again and walking around, shrugging the fabric back onto your shoulders.

He sits down in a visitor’s chair that is still cold.

“It comes and goes,” you explain first with your new, croaky voice, stretching your arms above your head and rubbing your neck. It doesn’t look painful, but you clear your throat a lot to see if it helps. So far, nothing. “So, it’s just like a really bad coughing fit, to be honest.”

“How long has it been going on?” Your hip cracks and you let out a relieved sigh. Satoru arches an eyebrow as you animatedly stretch your face. “What are you doing, silly?”

“It got worse a few weeks ago, enough that Nanami insisted I check myself in around two weeks ago?” you say, after counting on your fingers. Satoru’s heart plummets. “But it’s levelled out since I’ve been moved here and off-campus. And I’m stretching. When I get back out there, I have to remember how to emote.” You flash him a bedazzling grin and a bit of the weight lifts off his shoulders as you swallow down another cough. This time, it’s successful and you only let out a short, raspy breath before shaking it out.

You aren’t even doing that bad. 

The blood, the flowers, that must’ve been just a bad bout, but otherwise, you seem quite normal.

That’s what he tells himself, and he believes it.

With relief, he stretches out his legs, leaning his head back on his hands. Your room’s pretty nice—much nicer than an average hospital room. Plants on the windowsills, some get-well-soon cards and a desk in the corner filled books that you look like you haven’t even begun to read, some paintings hanging off the walls. 

You wave a hand to grab his attention again.

“Don’t look,” you chastise, tying the robe around your waist. “Some of these are works in progress.”

“So Itadori and Shoko were just exaggerating,” he assumes. You look up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “If you’re attempting to paint, I know all that’s happened is that you’ve lost your mind.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, they made it out as if you were dying. If it’s just a lung issue, they could probably just fix it and we can get back to exorcising curses and making fun of Fushiguro’s teen angst,” he says, crossing his legs at the ankles. You step over them to go to the window and examine your plants, and he eyes you in his peripheral, watching you inspect one of the leaves before looking next at some blooming flowers. You don’t answer, and the grey light makes you look melancholy until you shrug.

“The doctors say I need to rest, save my strength and all that,” you finally say vaguely. “And don’t make fun of Fushiguro.”

“I’d never do that.”

You tilt your head and arch an eyebrow skeptically before flicking his forehead with a sharp donk. “I’m not above slapping the shit out of you.” He opens his mouth to argue and you hold up a finger, shutting him up. “And you can’t hit back as revenge. Ill hospital patient rights.”

“You can’t take the moral stand. Vengeance has no gender bias,” he exclaims, sitting up but you merely smirk, leaning over and shoving your face into his space before turning your head to present your cheek. His eyes widen as you poke your own face tauntingly.

“Do it, then.”

Gawking for a moment, Satoru stares but you only wink and he pushes you away lightly. You stumble a bit and he jumps to his feet to catch you but you manage to right yourself up, shooting him a foul glare. He glares back in response.

“Well, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually slap you,” he says, indignant.

“So you pushed me instead? Gojo, in your words, you are the strongest. You never know how to control the strength you push out.”

“Yes, I do!”

“One time, you patted Megumi on the back and you sent him into the pavement.”

“He was nine.”

“It still happened!” you cry, although an impish smile is already curling at your lips and it isn’t long before it spreads to Satoru, warm bright yellow and enough that it absolves any of the remaining pain in his body as you straighten up, holding onto your IV stand for support. The metal rattles a bit as the wheels roll. Your feet brush the ground. You lift your head up wretchedly.

It’s almost like that weakness sobers you.

The expression that overtakes you frightens Satoru to fucking death. 

His face feels like it numbs, staring at the darkness that seeps the light away. You stare at the metal pole your fingers are wrapped so tightly around, and then you look at the bag hanging there, clear and round and soft to your touch as you straighten up.

“Satoru,” you say softly.

“Yeah?” His voice is so quiet he’s not sure he even speaks. He can’t remember the last time you had looked so dispassionate at anything in his life. Even death had left its mark—black frowns, long streaks underneath your eyes.

Your apathy is dark purple, an endless void colour. 

“When I die, make sure Shoko’s the one who cuts me open to find out what’s wrong with me.”

Something prickles at his fingertips. He touches your shoulder and half-thinks his fingers will go right through you.

“You’re not going to die,” he insists firmly. “It’s just a bad cough.” You look up at him and blink. Then you touch your lips and shudder down another cough.

“We all die.”

“It’s not your time, yet.” His fingers dig into your shoulder. You don’t even wince even though you’re clenching his jaw but he can’t find it in himself to loosen his hold. It feels like the Jaws of Death. A crocodile’s bite.

So much for not being able to control his own power.

“It’s just a bad cough.” He ignores everything Shoko had said. Sometimes she’s wrong—sometimes, it’s not even that bad. He’d just seen it, hadn’t he? You were stretching, jumping onto your bed, acting like nothing was wrong.

Palliative care? As if you needed it—

You blink, then, and look at him. Stare at him as if you’d never said those words, and he had never reached out. 

You jerk your shoulder out of his grip. It stings more than it should.

“Right. But I’m just saying. You know how you always say I’ve got a few screws loose. It just makes sense someone will wanna crack me open to see what was going on up there and I want it to be her.” 

You smile, and the yellow cancels out the purple. 

Colour theory. 

But Satoru doesn’t smile back.

“What about the flowers?” he asks after a while. You’ve climbed back onto bed and he’s sat back down. You’re blowing into a spirometer, and every time, without fail, the ball shoots up to the top, clattering against the plastic. He watches, hoping that the next time, it’ll do the same thing again.

You stop and look at him. “What about them?”

“Is it some optical illusion? Why are they in your throat?”

“That’s a harder nut to crack,” you muse. “I don’t really know. It’s like when you’ve got food in your esophagus and you’re trying to cough it up so it doesn’t feel stuck anymore except it keeps building up. That only started a few days ago, though, so maybe, someone drugged me or something.” He doesn’t laugh and you frown. “Not funny?”

He shakes his head. “It’s freaky.”

.

He sits on the bench on campus. 

He’s cancelled classes because he didn’t come up with a standard lesson plan and his students are glad to have a Monday afternoon off, even if they’d never say it to his face. In truth, he’d spent the whole weekend at the hospital until he reeked of antiseptic and pollen. 

You coughed up five petals, and without fail, a nurse would come in hourly intervals to collect them. Shoko came once, to check up on you and to collect the samples. If she was surprised Satoru was sitting in the corner on his phone, she didn’t voice it.

“She’s not even doing that bad,” he says to the air, more accusatory than anything. The woman standing by him doesn’t answer and sits down beside him uninvited. Turning to look at her, his eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “You said she needed palliative care until she died. The doctor said she could leave tonight.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” she informs, not looking at him. Shoko looks a bit out of place in the warm colours of the garden. Half a corpse herself. Waif-like. “The doctor’s letting her relax in the comfort of her own home before she dies. That’s all.”

“She’s not going to die.”

She snorts. “Denial isn’t a good colour on you.” The words could’ve been delivered colder. Satoru is grateful that they weren’t. 

Shoko rests her hands on her knees, tilts her head up, and sighs. Her long hair is like warm chocolate in the sunlight, spilling down her arched back from the knot she tied. “If you have any idea on how to fix this, I’m listening with both ears.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “Coughing and flowers? I’ve never heard of a sickness like that before.”

“Nanami pointed out that it could be a curse someone placed on her. I don’t know why, but it’d be an explanation.” Satoru spreads his legs, plants an elbow on his knee and leans forward to look at the ants travelling along the cobblestone before his shoe. “It manifested on some negative emotion lingering inside her and it’s growing every day, but she won’t budge.” Shoko sighs. Her purple eye bags look worse in the sunlight, but he would never tell her that. “Maybe you’d have a better chance digging into her. With Geto gone, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”

“What about you? What happened to girls and their little secrets?” he jokes, trying to ignore the ache that begins to bloom in his chest. Shoko eyes him wryly.

“I have suspicions, but there are some things girls don’t ask other girls,” she retorts. “It’s never been my business anyway. My job is to treat her, and I’ve given her options. It’s up to her to take them. Grief is a birthing ground for curses, and if she’s letting them feed on her freely, you know what fate is waiting for her.”

With that, she gets up and leaves as quickly as she arrived. Satoru swallows the smell of flowers and feels sick.

.

Monday night, Satoru pulls up his laptop and looks through, searching up words he can string together in a coherent sense to get the answers he wants. As rare as it probably is, some research wouldn’t hurt, would it? Some curses had a trademark affliction—maybe this one does, too.

So he searches up flower coughing to see if there has ever been a record of strange deaths that have made the news. If not, he’ll go to the jujutsu databases, but for now, maybe some publicity could put some answers to this question.

He is surprised when one of the first results is flower coughing disease. 

When he hits enter, the white screen blasts into blue irises with numerous results all repeating the same two words.

HANAHAKI DISEASE

And Satoru reads, and reads, and reads. He reads two weeks to three months, he reads unrequited love, and removal, and disappearance of romantic feelings and capacity for romantic love.

He reads fictional disease and wonders how much of it really is fictional. 

His phone pings with a text, and he grabs at it, tilts it just enough to get a glimpse of the screen. It’s from you, and he hasn’t read a text from you in so long he almost doesn’t recognize who it’s from except he does because… who else could it be?

[Greenbean] 11:02 PM

hey!!! guess whos finally fucking free oh my god

ugh out of the hospital and forgot how actual air smelled like lol bitch im so hungry i could eat a zoo

Letting his phone clatter, he sighs and rubs his face roughy, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before snapping his laptop shut and getting up. His phone buzzes again and he reaches for it blindly, the screen lighting up as he goes to bed.

[Greenbean] 11:03 PM

we should get smth to eat!! i wanna go to that new ramen place in ikebukoro

[Satoru] 11:03 PM

fine but you good???? who picked you up from the hospital? still insulted you didnt let me tbh

also what did the doctor say???

[Greenbean] 11:04 PM

bc ur a menace who doesnt know how to drive 

he said itd get worse before itd get better so still gotta go for checkups but yeah dont worry and nanami came bc he didnt trust me not to try and walk home lol but he did buy me dinner

wasnt enough though!!!

…

[Greenbean] 11:06 PM

ok but fr does he think im insane

clearly id flash some skin and hitch a ride duh

…

[Greenbean] 11:10 PM

youre just gonna leave me on read? yikes

[Satoru] 11:12 PM

i was getting ready to sleep silly

and yeah ill come pick you up on saturday for lunch?

[Greenbean] 11:15 PM

sorry making instant noodles rn but yeah that sounds fine

wait youre sleeping so early lmfao

[Satoru] 11:16 PM

im old :/

  [Greenbean] 11:18 PM

u sure are

(image sent)

look!!! my babies are still alive!!! idk how but miracles do exist im tellin ya

[Satoru] 11:24 PM

inumaki, maki, and fushiguro broke into ur home to water them but dont tell them i told u

[Greenbean] 11:24 PM

wtf

[Satoru] 11:25 PM

yeah idk when but i think u teaching inumaki how to pick locks has opened up too many possibilities but also its really funny thanks

now go to sleep u need to rest

[Greenbean] 11:28 PM

whos gonna make me lol youre not my dad

[Satoru] 11:29 PM

lol 

remember how i can teleport 

lol so cool

[Greenbean] 11:30 PM

dude

wtf

fine 

goodnight hoe </3

[Satoru] 11:31 PM

goodnight knock off poison ivy <3

.

“You’ve looked better,” Shoko says. Satoru raises his head wearily as he pushes off the wall. Shoko’s holding a cup of coffee, her lab coat fresh on her shoulders and eye bags looking more printed on rather than natural swelling. Satoru can’t help but feel the same exhaustion. “Definitely looked worse. What do you want? It’s early.”

“Have you ever heard of Hanahaki disease?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he pulls up the page on his phone and hands it to her. She takes it from him and her eyes scan the screen as he continues, “It’s this fictional disease, something that stems from unrequited love, and I think it could be related to whatever she’s experiencing.”

“I thought you were set on willing her to survive,” she replies dryly, shooting him a quick look and adjusting the coffee in her hand. “But this is definitely one of your stranger theories.”

Satoru ignores that last part. “It’d make sense. With her Cursed Technique, maybe it manifested in a way that links to it.”

She pushes into the office, setting the coffee on her desk and sitting down. Satoru sits down on the exam table closest and leans forward eagerly as she continues to read the page, scrolling down occasionally before scrolling back up and sighing. “This is a stretch. The timeline doesn’t match up to what this is saying.”

“This is a curse. It doesn’t have to follow fiction.” His body feels sore, janky even, everywhere. He barely got a wink of sleep last night and he knows he’s paying for it, now. “Hell knows life rarely does, anyway. But the symptoms matches too well, doesn’t it? The flowers—you’ve done scans, haven’t you?”

She deliberates his words carefully as she looks to the file cabinet and pulls out a binder. Satoru catches a flash of your name on the spine before she moves her coffee and his phone out of the way to flip it open.

“The scans we’ve taken have only just begun to show small growths in her trachea,” she allows, “and we don’t fully understand how cursed energy affects our bodies, so I suppose it could be something like Hanahaki, if the negative energy stemming from December 24th was what brought this on or if these symptoms started when we were still students, but she’s been experiencing shortness of breath a few months before Christmas.” Satoru’s lungs squeeze the last of the air out of them at that, and a cold sweat drops down his spine as she hands his phone back to him. “It only started getting worse Suguru’s death, which meant there had to have been a trigger before that.”

In the back of his head, he hears your voice, light and yellow, saying a few weeks. It got worse a few weeks ago. 

“Worse?”

“The first petal fell some time after Christmas. It’s been a slow, but steady progression since then. Sometimes, it’s two or three. When it’s not a good day, there can be as many as seven to ten.” Shoko switches on the lamp on the corner of her desk and adjusting the direction of the white light before flipping the page. “But if we can find the original trigger and alleviate that pressure it’s putting on her, we could buy her more time.”

“So it’s been nearly six months since the first petal,” he says. Shoko nods. Satoru is grateful for the blindfold—she can’t see how blank everything looks on his face. “It said sometimes, the disease can last for eighteen months.”

“As you said, this isn’t a fairytale.” She half-spins on her chair to face him and leans back into it, crossing one leg over the other and jiggling her knee. “I saw that one of the solutions is excise the growths at the cost of the attachment. That was one of the options I gave her when the growths first appeared. She said she wanted more time before she could decide.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because she’s smart, and likes to push her damned limits. And if this is truly the basis of the curse”—she gestures to Satoru’s phone. Her expression flickers—“those flowers are feeding off cursed energy. Cutting them out would remove those negative emotions, but at a cost of something else. Maybe whatever feelings she has regarding the trigger.”

Satoru looks down at his phone. It feels heavier than a thousand cinderblocks in his clammy hands. His fingers are numb as his screen dims and finally locks itself. Pressing the button, it illuminates again to reveal a picture of a cactus you gave him for his birthday years ago, blooming with delicate purple petals. 

His heart rends. That cactus is long dead now.

“But, Suguru’s dead.” 

“That’s why I asked you to ask her,” Shoko mutters. 

Turning to her binder again, she picks up a pen and clicks it, lowering it to the paper before pausing, and Satoru looks up as she stares at whatever words are printed into the page distantly. A strange affliction is on her face, almost tormented, and Satoru is not-so-kindly reminded that before Suguru and Satoru, Shoko was your best friend first. 

“Tell her how idiotic she’s being,” she enforces quietly. “The longer it lives, the more permanent damage is inflicted. With the unpredictable nature of curses, that won’t take long and by then, it’ll be too late to consider removing it.”

.

Saturday comes too fast, yet not fast enough. By the end of the week, Satoru is all but finished with teaching, and is waiting outside your apartment, leaning against the car as he scrolls through his phone. He’s done a bit more research on this Hanahaki disease, but even the word makes him shiver with the implications. 

“Satoru!” Turning, he catches you loping easily towards him. You’re dressed in billowy, wide-legged dark mint green pants and a pretty white top that makes you look more nymph than human, with a canvas tote bag hanging off your shoulder. You flash him a smile as you fiddle with the fabric tie at the waistband of your pants nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I brought Ijichi along for the ride since someone claims I can’t drive.”

“You don’t have your license, sir,” Ijichi says wearily as you bend over to wave through the window. "It would be illegal for you to be on the road in any capacity—oh, hello, ma’am. It’s nice to see you doing so well.”

“Thanks, Ijichi. I think I’m doing better after getting out of there,” you say as Satoru opens the car door for you and he smirks, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses. You straighten up, looking at him before poking his chest and it’s almost just like the good ole days as you break out into a grin that crinkles your entire face. “What’s with you being a gentleman? It better not be because I was in the hospital.”

“Of course not,” he admonishes. “I wouldn’t dare dream of being polite to you of all people.” Still, he sidesteps and sweeps his arm, gesturing for you to climb in first which you do, exhaling a bit shakily as you settle in and slide over. By the time he’s settled in beside you, you have a fist over your lips and you’re clearing your throat testily.

A worm of unease wriggles into his stomach as he clips in his seatbelt, pulling the lapels of his unbuttoned green shirt free from the strap. Legs spreading, he lets his hands fold in his lap as Ijichi begins to drive them to their destination. You’ve lowered your hand by now, looking out the window, and it’s not bright enough that Satoru can read your expression on the glass.

It’s clear you don’t want to talk about it, but still, that nagging feeling bites at him as he rolls the divider up between the backseat and the front—a mock of privacy.

“The place we’re going to gives me the same vibe as that family-owned restaurant we went to when we were students. The one in Kagurazaka,” you say after a while, turning back to look at him. You’re wearing a bracelet that jangles when you move your hand to adjust the seatbelt across your chest. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Have you been?”

“One time, before I checked in,” you tell him, smiling still. “It was really good. The perfect last meal.” Satoru does well enough to hide his frown at your choice of words as you meet his eyes. “You know, you can ask. I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t have anything to ask,” he lies. “I’m just glad you’re out of the hospital.”

“Me, too. I’ve missed so much and it drove me insane. Yaga-sensei insists that I don’t work until I’m sure I’m feeling better,” you add. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much that can be done to make me feel better.”

“I see. So you’re still coughing up flowers?”

“Petals,” you correct, “and a bit. Don’t worry. It’ll get better soon.” You wave a hand and turn to look out the window and Satoru’s appetite all but vanishes. He doesn’t know why you’re so intent on lying to him about the severity of your condition, but as your knee jiggles relentlessly the whole car ride with unbridled excitement, he wonders if you’re even aware of how sick you could be. 

His Six Eyes scan your body for signs of a curse. Normally, those plagued have their little burdens hanging off their shoulders, prying their head open, biting into an arm or leg, but he finds yours lives inside your chest, just barely hidden by the yellow light brimming from your body as you reach forward to lower the divider and talk to Ijichi.

They reach Ikebukuro before they’re dropped off after Satoru insists on walking the rest of the way.

“Give us some privacy, Ijichi! We both know you’ll just eavesdrop for the juicy details,” he exclaims loudly, leading to the man to blush furiously, stuttering that he’d do no such thing, and earning Satoru a smack on the back of his head, knocking his sunglasses askew.

“Thanks for the ride, Ijichi,” you say warmly as if you hadn’t slapped a concussion into Satoru. The Assistant Director dips his head. “See you later!” With that, he drives off and the two sorcerers are left in the busy street. Satoru looks around curiously, but you tug him along up the main road of the district and immediately turn right into one of the smaller streets. A few cyclists race past, as well as cars, but the traffic seems relatively slow despite it being the weekend. There are people walking along the white lines separating the lanes, chatting merrily as you lead him to the restaurant.

“I forgot how actual sunlight felt,” you sigh, stretching your arms high above your head as if to touch the wind breezing through. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes. Satoru waits for you to begin to cough, and you hold it in, throat tensing a bit. 

He looks away, and pretends he doesn’t hear your sharp exhale, the soft cough you try to muffle with your hand. Instead, he looks at their surroundings, traces the green roads, watches a man park his bicycle and take the plastic bags out of the basket before rushing into a store. The air smells faintly of smoke, and Satoru waves in front of his face to see if it’ll help dispel the scent, but it’s so engrained with the hint of meat, honey, sweets, and flowers, that he can’t.

“I saw Suguru here once,” you tell him suddenly. He blinks, head snapping to you, and you’re already regarding him with a faint smile, eyes a bit dimmer. The warm yellow energy has faded to a burnt orange as you look ahead. “A year or two after he left. It’s why I moved closer a few years ago. I guess I had this weird hope that I’d see him again, but I never really did.” A faint grin graces your lips again, as if you’re not even aware you’re smiling. Fondness overtakes you. “I think about him a lot these days.”

“Me, too.”

“Of course,” you chuckle a bit, rubbing at the back of your neck. “I’m being insensitive.” 

“No, you’re not. He meant a lot to you, too. I don’t own him, or his memory.”

“I know, but he was still your best friend.” Unbidden, a voice in Satoru’s voice finishes it for you. My one and only. 

“Did you guys talk about anything?”

“Not really anything important,” you say, shrugging, but by the way your eyes shift in the light, glimmer differently, he knows you’re lying. He knows it’s none of his business, but a part of him hungers for new parts of Suguru and it’s powerful enough to take control of his tongue.

“Nothing’s not important. He was a wanted criminal.”

“I think we both know somehow that part never mattered to us.” You look at him, and run a thumb under the strap of your bag. “To any of us. But…” You tilt your head to him and your smile grows tender. “…since you asked, we talked about us. He told me about what he wanted, the kind of world he was determined to create. He paid for my dinner, kissed me goodnight like it was normal, and then he was gone. Never saw him again until last December.”

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does. 

He remembers that day ten years ago in Shinjuku. The coldness in which Suguru had looked at him. He can’t imagine that same poison directed at you. He couldn’t even imagine Suguru looking at him like that in the first place until he did.

“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”

“I used to have nightmares about it,” you continue distantly. “Because I could’ve left with him, but I didn’t. And I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t do that either.”

“If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that, too.”

Satoru’s chest tightens. His heart feels rotten to the core. “I didn’t, either, until I did.” You smile a bit more, at the irony. “Would you? Have gone with him, that is.”

“I didn’t, so what’s the point in debating it?” you ask before shrugging thoughtlessly and answering anyway. “I think tackling curses at the source is important. I just didn’t like the way he was doing it. If I thought I could somehow change his mind, just a bit, on his methods, maybe, but by then, he was too far gone.” 

Your eyes, chips of glinting sunstone, mellow as a cyclist trills at them with a bell to get out of the way. You step out of the way, away from Satoru for a moment, before returning to him, and when the back of his hand brushes yours, he’s startled at how cold your skin is. 

Satoru is quiet as he absorbs all of this. He doesn’t really know what to say, and you don’t prod him for a reaction as they turn the corner again. 

“It’s just over there,” you say, pointing to a small restaurant, people milling by the door. There’s a sign hanging over the door, off-white with black kanji painted on and your arm falls. “There’s a line. Huh.”

“We can wait,” Satoru says when they stop at the edge of the crowd. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I’ll go put our names in then come back.” You disappear into the crowd for a moment before resurfacing and joining his side again, something in your hand. “It should be, like, fifteen minutes. I said the bar was okay.”

“That’s fine.” Shoving his sunglasses up into his hair, he cracks his knuckles and migrates to the wall. You follow, and he slouches against the concrete pillar. You adjust the tote bag against your body and lean against the other side just around the corner. Their elbows brush, and you tilt your head to look at him, smiling. Your face has caught the sun perfectly, and Satoru can’t help but smile back.

He wonders how to bring up this Hanahaki disease theory. You look so perfect, so happy in this moment where their eyes meet, that he can’t bring it up. Maybe it’s selfish, but it feels like it’s been so long since the two of them even managed to see each other for more than an hour. With how overworked jujutsu sorcerers are, it’s hard to recall the last time they both had downtime at the same time that wasn’t spent catching up on sleep.

You look away, shoulders shaking, as if that’s enough to hide your coughing, and he thinks, Later. There’ll be time for that later.

“Here’s the menu,” you tell him once you’ve calmed down, extending your hand. He takes the paper, unfolding it as you cross your arms and tilt your head back on the concrete. Reading down the list, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his vision, and your fingers play at your lips as you swallow. Reaching into your bag, you twist the cap of a water bottle and chug half of it down.

“Do you have any medicine? For your coughing?” he asks casually. You hit your chest with a firm fist, clearing your throat and looking at him in surprise. The water bottle returns to your bag.

“Oh, uh, no. It doesn’t work. Just gotta keep hydrated and avoid any possible triggers,” you inform. You turn up the street as you speak, crossing your legs at the ankles and sinking against the concrete. 

“And what are those triggers?”

“And you say Ijichi is the one digging for gossip,” you snort with short, choked huff. Satoru rolls his eyes, but keeps looking at the menu. “Don’t worry about it. I’m avoiding them.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“If I wanted your dry wit, I would’ve gone to the original.”

“I don’t copy off Shoko. I take bits of everyone’s personality and twist it to make it my own.”

You shake your head. “Whatever you say.”

Your name is called a few minutes later and the pair push off the concrete pillar, heading through the crowd and into the small restaurant. It’s not too dimly lit, a bunch of natural light from the street streaming in through the open windows, and the air is rich with the smells of the kitchen as they sit down at the bar.

It’s not long before they’ve ordered, and Satoru has gone through his first bowl and is well into pouring his second into what remains of his broth before he remembers to even check up on how you’re doing. You’d been right—he loves this place. The atmosphere isn’t overly loud, but the mumbling of nearby patrons is enough to make him feel like he isn’t quite alone. It’s sheltered away from the world, and although he’s used to girls staring, no one has gone up to him which is giving him time to his own thoughts and food. Everyone here seems to mind their business—everyone likes to stay in their own bubble. 

Here, he isn’t the strongest, or quite so special. It honestly feels kind of nice.

You’re sipping on your broth, tilting the spoon towards your mouth and your lips are pulled into the warmest smile he’s seen since they were kids. The light’s hitting you just perfect again, more cool than warm, but it’s got you on the cheekbone, illuminated your lips. Satoru wonders if you know how to manipulate light, or if that’s just your natural blessing as you tilt your head towards him, eyes squinting from your own joy.

For a moment, another image flashes in his head. Him along the end of their group of four—you and Shoko, Suguru and Satoru. It’s almost poetry how much of a glimpse he can see in your smile. You would always be laughing, and Suguru’s cheeks would always be red, and Shoko would charm the guy over the counter to hand over a bottle of shochu. Satoru would tease his stupid best friend, and pay for their meal because “I’m friends with a bunch of goddamn freeloaders.”

But that moment ends as quickly as it came, and it’s so fucking heartbreaking that Satoru never thought their last meal together would be their last meal together. He would’ve cherished it more—done anything to make them stay in that ramen shop in Kagurazaka.

“Do you like it here?” you ask. 

He blinks. You’re studying him behind that smile of yours. Watching. Always watching. “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he replies. When he realizes that didn’t answer the question, he adds, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

You grin, delighted. “If I knew how stupid you’d look sucking up these noodles, I would’ve brought my camera like when we were students. I still have it, you know.”

“Next time, then.”

“Yeah, next time.”

Satoru pays. He insists despite your protests, and snatches the bill from you anyway, swiping his card as quickly as he can. 

After, they walk slowly around the district, looking at the other restaurants and stores for desserts or souvenirs to bring back, and it makes him so nostalgic, his heart wilts a bit in his chest. 

He is saying something about buying some soymilk for Megumi when you stop suddenly, deviating to the side of the road to cough. It grows so intense so quickly that your eyes widen as if you’re surprised, too, and you place a palm flat against your chest as he comes to your side. You wave him back, and he frowns, running a hand down your back as you finally manage to dislodge the petals in your throat and spit them into your palm.

Satoru sighs, staring at the cursed things. The energy emitted from the petals are raw, potent, and his nose wrinkles at the stench that comes from powerful curses as he softly asks, “Do you know what Hanahaki is?”

“Flower vomiting?” you whisper through your raw vocal cords. You shake your head, slamming your sternum with a tight fist and flinging the drenched petals to the ground with a wet slap. “Itadori… said something about it, once. Never really paid attention, I—”

Satoru squeezes the back of your neck gently. “Whatever this curse is, it could be something like that.“

“You don’t want to open that can of worms, Gojo, of what is causing this.” Straightening up, your eyes widen and your cheeks puff up as you choke down another bout. Wobbly, you spit out, “It’s under control. I swear.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers brush your chin to turn your face towards him so he can look at it more clearly, and the instant their eyes meet, you lurch over, slapping his hand away and succumbing to the wracking. Hands shooting out to grab your elbows, Satoru barely eases you to the ground as your legs give in.

You collapse to your knees, hard. A hand is slapped over your mouth but your whole body shakes with the seizing of your lungs. Eyes widening, your cheeks puff up as Satoru grabs your shoulders, falling to his knees beside you.

“Hey! Hey, breathe!” His fingers dig into your shoulders and your nostrils flare, trying to follow his instructions. Bloodshot eyes and blueing lips, your inhales are shaking and incomplete, gasps for air that do not take in any oxygen before you’re kneeling over, hand falling from your lips. Blood splattered over your palm, you let out a low noise of pain. Satoru’s hand glides down your spine, rubbing in soothing circles as red spit falls to the pavement in thick globs. 

People all around stop to stare, eyes masked with concern, but he can’t care less at that moment despite the burning scrutiny. He shoves a hand into his pocket, speed-dialling one of the top numbers of his list.

“Ijichi, I need you to take us to the hospital, now!” Letting his phone drop with a clatter, he scoops you close but you slam your bloody hand against his chest, pushing him away. You throw yourself away, hands twisted tight in the fabric of your white shirt and Satoru looks down at the red handprint on his tee before blinking. “What are you doing? We need to get—“

“I’m—I’m fine!” Your voice, broken, is drenched with ice as you continue to wheeze, grasping at your chest as if you could reach and tear out the growths with your own hand. “Gojo, I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not!” Grabbing his phone, he hears a loud car horn, and looks up to see Ijichi leaning out of the driver’s seat, waving his arm frantically. Without another thought, he scoops you up and runs out into the street, ignoring the tires screeching, the cars horns blaring at him and the angry shouts as he jumps into the car and slam the door shut. 

Ijichi sets off at a drive, no directions needed. Satoru is sure he’s breaking as many laws as he can as he pushes you back against the seat to buckle you in. Blood dribbles down your lips in bubbles as a thick, gurgling sound begins to grow in your throat and he wipes at your chin with his sleeve, clicking the buckle into place just as you pitch forward. He jerks back just in time as you retch, and, slowly, torturously, you gag out three petals, one after another. Your fingers claw at your own throat, panicking and desperate as you struggle to breathe.

The petals fall in wet pools between your feet, landing on the carpet, and he spares them not even a glance before forcing your head between your knees. You’re still hyperventilating and as Satoru sweeps a hand down your back and up to your neck, his fingers come into contact with something sticky. 

Sweat. It drenches through your shirt so suddenly that Satoru reels at the wet marks spreading through your shirt, making the fabric translucent. Your heart is racing, tripping over itself. When you finally stop coughing, you breathe in harsh pants as he keeps your head between your knees.

Your fingers lace at the back of your head and he grabs them firmly, reassuring that he’s still beside you. 

.

“She’s stable,” Shoko announces to the waiting Satoru and six students. The latter came when their teacher had told them of what happened, and Itadori still clings to Fushiguro’s arm by an iron hand, fingers clawlike into his friend’s bicep. Kugisaki chews on her thumbnail, a bit paler than usual and there are crescent indents along her forearm where she had dug her nails in. Maki’s hand rests on her shoulder. Inumaki’s on the phone with Panda, and he turns the screen around so he can see the Strongest Sorcerer who does not feel quite so strong.

Satoru’s assurances that you would be fine had done nothing but send them into a quiet that scared even him. 

“Is she okay? When can she get out?” the kids demand suddenly.

“We’re waiting for the updates on her scans from the doctors, but she’ll need to stay here under observation.”

Satoru runs a hand through his hair, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Guess that means she gets a few more days off while the rest of us are working our asses off,” he teases. Maki shoots him a glare and his eyes close in a way he hopes arranges his expression in one of joy as he shrugs helplessly. “Well, that means I have another girl I have to spoil.”

“Aren’t you too busy with the four already blowing up your phone?” Kugisaki mutters sourly. Satoru pretends not to hear. His phone has been silent without your texts, and it’s cold and heavy in his pocket.

“Can we see her?” Fushiguro asks. Shoko nods, but holds up a hand and the kids skid to a stop.

“She’s resting. I’m unsure if you know, but certain topics of conversation or trains of thought can lead to more attacks, so stick to talking about your curriculum. Topics you think are safe.” The woman shifts on her feet, a wisp of brown hair swaying in front of her eye. “It’s unavoidable, but use your judgement.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The students walk off down to the dead-end hallway, and Satoru turns to Shoko who has her arms crossed over her chest. She steps up, scanning him like he’s got contraband, and he raises his eyebrows innocently.

“What?”

“It’s getting worse. I hope you managed to get answers,” she says. At once, Satoru’s facade drops, and a sober sensation overtakes his face.

“No, I didn’t. She’s heard of the disease, at least. We talked about Suguru, but it wasn’t like it was under lock and key.” The brunette shakes her head at his words, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. Doing so, he leans back into the uncomfortable chair as she crosses a leg over the other. “She said she thinks about him a lot.”

“She still loves him,” Shoko says bluntly. “She gets that far-off look when she talks about him. You two should trade secrets some time.” A shake of her head, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I healed what damage I could, but I can tell those growths inside are expanding. The attack only seems to have agitated and prompted them to take root.”

“How…” It’s hard to formulate the question. Luckily, Shoko knows him well enough.

“Without seeing the scans, I won’t know. Based on her last ones, I thought at least four months. Now?” Her lips press into a thin line. “She’ll be lucky if she gets two.” Shoko’s eyes flicker down Satoru’s front, and her lips press into a wry line. “And change you shirt. You look like a murder suspect.”

Glancing down, he looks at your dried bloody hand print, stark against white, and he gets up abruptly. Shoko doesn’t stop him.

He walks down to the dead-end hall. He can hear Itadori through your open door cracking jokes, Kugisaki relaying every detail of her shopping trips, and you’re wheezing your laughter despite Maki scolding you to save your strength. Satoru stops just outside your door, out of sight, and rests his head against the frame, content to just listen.

“Tuna mayo.”

“Is that right?” you ask Inumaki. “Lay it on me.” 

You sound exhausted, beaten to the bone, but still, when Fushiguro says something too quiet for him to make out, you still have the strength to tease him for worrying.

.

The night is warm, and he sets the last plant back into its place on your window sill before cracking the window a bit at your request. He’s busied himself making this place as homely as possible as quickly as possible, and in the process, had walked in on you staring at your own scans on the lightscreen mounted on your wall.

“Thanks, Satoru,” you say over your shoulder. He joins you by your side to stare at the scans. Granted, Satoru didn’t cheat his way through medschool like others have, so he doesn’t understand much, but he can tell what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. The floral-like growths situated right where the main bronchi meet the trachea, for one.

The roots spreading across your chest like cracks in concrete, for another.

“The doctors want to monitor this,” you explain, pointing at the roots, “to see whether or not it’ll grow around my lungs or continue outward, around the ribs and spine. If it’s the former, I’ll slowly suffocate and die. If it’s the latter, I’ll slowly suffocate, become paralyzed, and die.” You smile grimly. “Not quite a win-win.”

“Exactly the opposite.” He inspects the growths and through the blue-white-black imaging, he spots the tiny stems emerging from the main growth, sprouting into your lungs. He guesses, with time, those will grow into flowers of equal size before sprouting more shoots.

He wonders…

As if sensing his hesitance, you scratch your collarbone and look at the scans with a new glint.

“The doctors say if I avoid another attack like today, I’ll probably have two months, three if I’m blessed, but because of how big the growths have gotten already and its volatile nature, it’ll be impossible, so we’re looking at a month. Maybe a month-and-a-half?” You smile at him, throat bobbing. “Guess it’s good to have a number,” you add shakily, a short puff coming at the end of each breath as you struggle to fight the cough. “Being a sorcerer, too much uncertainty, I think.”

“You should tell Nanami that. Maybe this time, it’ll convince him to stay away,” he retorts, turning away from the scans. They’re burning his eyes and he doesn’t want to look at the real thing for much longer. You turn with him, walking back towards bed and climbing in. “Are you sure you don’t want the operation? Shoko could do it so fast you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“No, not yet. There are some complications that’ll definitely occur and I don’t want that to happen.”

“But it would save your life,” he argues. “What risks are frightening enough that you’d even consider not having it?” Your gaze flickers as you take another wheezing breath. The strength seems sapped from your limbs—you’re a scarecrow hanging off its pole as you swallow tightly. Satoru leans against your window sill and crosses his arms over his chest so you can’t see the frustrated fists he wants to make. “If this is about Suguru…”

Resolutely: “It isn’t.”

“You’re going to die if you keep going down this road. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.” In the back of his mind, klaxons begin to scream.

“Satoru, some things are just beyond logical reason.” He jerks his gaze away, pushing his glasses up his nose pointedly. You sigh. “I know it’s hard, but this is my choice. I just want you to be here so you know it’s okay.” 

Your hand stretches out. Blue eyes flash to your outstretched fingers and he takes it before he can stop himself. Your fingers curl over his palm, tugging him closer and he lets you, sneakers dragging over the tile until he’s sliding into the chair by your bed. It squeaks against the tile.

“Please don’t be angry with me.” That’s all. That’s all I ask.

A hard, heavy sigh, this time from his end. He tightens his hold on you as you sit there, smiling hopefully. His heart thunders in his chest. “I’m not angry.”

You perk up a bit, and his index finger unfurls to rub your wrist. It feels colder than normal. “Promise?”

He wishes he could lie half as well as you. Either way, he tries his hardest: “Promise.”

By the time it’s quarter past nine, you’re already getting ready to sleep. You have enough pillows to surround your entire body, and he fluffs them up, helps you arrange them until you’re sighing against the white sheets, burrowing in with a sedated smile on your face.

Satoru sits down again on his visitor’s chair and you watch him lazily through the dim orange light stemming from behind your bed.

“You don’t have to stay here and watch me, creep,” you mumble, turning your face away to stare at the ceiling. You cough dryly, but it subsides moments later. Your voice is nothing but a croak as you let out a tired groan, and Satoru smiles to himself, cheek to his fist. 

“I feel robbed of our afternoon together. Making up for it now.”

You look at him again incredulously. “We’re not even doing anything.”

“I don’t know when you were told that every second of us being together had to be us doing something,” he huffs. “I like being in here. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s too much. You’re annoying me.” Even so, your voice turns fond as you roll onto your side, away from him to settle in to sleep and Satoru’s warm gaze lands on your shoulder gently rising and falling as you slowly drift off. 

He already knows you’re gone by the time he’s standing up and gathering his jacket. Walking around the bed, he glances at the bathroom to check the light’s off and catches a glimpse of his shirt. A coil wraps around his gut at the muddy red handprint pressed into the fabric and he turns away to look at you instead.

Your face is in perfect peace, half-buried into a pillow you’re hugging into your chest, and he only soaks in those features. His hand twitches, and his infinity wavers as he raises his hand as if to touch you. Your eyelids flutter and he freezes, fearing he might’ve woken you up, but you only mumble incoherently and turn into your pillow.

Satoru watches on silently just as a breeze sweeps into the room and he looks up where the window he had cracked open. The breeze takes hold of the plants, uplifts them until they sway like a tender dance. 

His chest begins to hurt. The smell of the antiseptic is starting to sting, so he moves his hand to the light switch instead. Flicking it off, he turns to leave.

.

Every time Satoru walks down to the end of the hallway, a different memory will play in his head until he’s playing a movie over and over every single day. Of the first time he met you, although that one is blurry. Your sixteenth birthday when the four of them had piled into your dorm room to drink themselves stupid.

One-and-a-half weeks go by before he realizes that he only replays the moments where you feature. Like his brain is preparing him, reminding him. For what, he doesn’t know. 

He can’t come every day—considering the low number of sorcerers has been taken down by one more, it means besides teaching, he still has to work for the Higher Ups as well as his own personal agenda—but when he does make it, he always makes sure that he soaks in every second. Even the horrible parts. Maybe, especially the horrible parts.

You have scans taken every other day to monitor your progress, so when he arrives at an empty room, he isn’t surprised. It’s when there’s movement in the bathroom that sends his nerves prickling until he catches a slab of golden hair and reading glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Nanami,” he greets.

“Good afternoon.” His jacket’s off and his sleeves are rolled up. With a quick sweep of the room, Satoru notes that the windows are cracked open and the aforementioned jacket is folded over a chair sat in a square of sunlight.

“Do we need to be so formal?” he complains, bypassing the bathroom and searching for another chair. The one Nanami’s taken by the plants is still warm and Satoru isn’t keen on the idea of sweating so soon. During his search, he stops by the windowsill and his eyebrows rise curiously at the new plants and trash bin pressed up right underneath. “What’s happening here?”

“We were planting new seeds when she had to be taken for her scans. She insisted I finish potting the plants.” Noting the empty terracotta, Satoru bends over and prods at the moist dirt. “I have to go soon, though. I had hoped it wouldn’t take as long as it did and she would be back by now.”

“They started taking MRI scans when the branches continued to grow outward rather than inward,” Satoru informs. “It takes around forty-five minutes, on top of the CT scans they’re taking, too. That’s if she doesn’t start coughing in the middle of it.” 

“I’m guessing she does.” Nanami adjusts the glasses on his nose, wiping at his hands free of the last of whatever dirt might’ve been clinging to his hands.

“Yup.”

“I see.” Satoru looks at the plants again. The blond man across the room throws the towel into the dirty clothes basket.“Has she… spoken to you of what to do with her effects?”

Gaze hardening, he doesn’t move at the question. Of course, he’s thought about it, but those bouts of weakness have never been longer than a few minutes. There’s no use in wasting time on a reality that won’t come until it does.

Hopefully, it never does.

“I’m so sick of everyone talking like she’s signed a death sentence,” Satoru murmurs, turning around to look at the blond man at the door to the washroom. “She still has time. Not a lot. It’s not convenient, but it should be enough.”

“She’s already considered the benefits of taking the surgery, and yet she actively decides to postpone it. You know she’s stalling,” comes the steady reply.

“And what about you?” Satoru asks. His words are biting, icy, but Nanami seems unfazed as he begins to loop the tie around his neck. “Would you do it?” Blue eyes meet a stoic face, and the coldness seeps into Satoru’s body. Nanami sighs.

A part of Satoru wonders why he even bothered asking. He already knows the answer—

“No.” Eyebrows shoot up. His mouth drops open and a strangled noise escapes his throat. Nanami merely continues on, quiet as death. “Perhaps it’s because I’m willing to accept my death, but, to be honest, I don’t know how to let any part of Haibara go. I’ve accepted it, but he’s still in my heart and my head.” Lips parting, Satoru takes a step forward as Nanami slants his body away, continuing to fold the fabric into a tie. He looks statuesque, unmovable, and something tightens in Satoru’s throat at the stone-like mask taking over his face. “I’m unwilling to do anything to taint that memory.”

Wordlessly, the blond walks over to Satoru to take his jacket from the chair, rolling down his sleeves and slapping his watch back onto his wrist. Standing less than two feet apart, the two men finally meet eyes.

“Gojo,” Nanami murmurs. “I can’t say I understand your burden, but I am by your side. I do not always agree with your choices, but I still respect them. As your kouhai and as your colleague.” His lips pull in a facsimile of a wry smile and there’s an understanding Satoru doesn’t understand haunting his handsome face. “However, she is your friend before mine. I think your opinion matters much more than mine. Don’t abuse that power.”

Satoru’s eyes nearly reflect in the lenses of Nanami’s glasses. He wishes his friend would take the damn pair off. 

In truth, the reason he’s so irritated is because he knows. If he insists enough, begs enough, there will always be a chance that he can convince you. That you will give in, not because you are selfless, but maybe because you’re too selfish to let him stay mad at you.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and sometimes, the force wins.

But he’d promised, hadn’t he? To not be angry with the choices you’ve made?

“Jeez, it’s somber in here. Who died?” you tease as Shoko pushes the wheelchair in after you. Both men look away from each other. You’re still walking steadily, but an IV is hooked into your chest now, and it’s so obvious you’ve lost unhealthy weight that looking at you is hard sometimes. Satoru does, anyway. 

Noting Nanami, you straighten up. Surprised, but pleased: “You’re still here.”

“I was just leaving,” he says. You frown, but don’t protest. A jujutsu sorcerer’s work is never finished until one stops breathing. “I finished planting the seeds you asked me to, and watered them.”

“Thank you.” He dips his head to you, then to Shoko, before departing, and you watch him go for a moment before your eyes land on Satoru and you smile. The air around you shifts immediately to a vibrant yellow. 

“You’re early, Satoru.” You head towards the bed as Shoko parks the wheelchair by the door. “It took way longer than I thought.”

“That’s because you threw up pistils today,” Shoko replies dryly. Satoru straightens up and looks at Shoko more carefully. Placid lookimg—usual for his mortician friend in the jujutsu world—but there’s a blanching in her knuckles that isn’t usual. “The CT wasn’t good. You know that.”

“Well, it’s still more time than I could’ve asked for, you know.” Shoko shakes her head, and meets his eyes before leaving the room, presumably to talk to your doctors. “Party pooper.”

“First day knowing Shoko?”

You laugh sarcastically, adjusting the hospital gown on your body before climbing into bed slowly, as if your joints ache. Satoru’s feet shift on the tile when he realizes his body moves to help and he freezes. You’re breathing audibly by the time you settle in and you meet his eyes, wondering if he’s noticed.

Of course he has, he wants to tell you. He notices everything about you.

Then, you sigh, and the yellow energy around you flickers into something darker, something grey, something that reminds him of summer thunderstorms.

“The roots have reached the edge of my rib cage and are encroaching on my stomach now,” you inform bluntly. “I probably won’t be able to keep food down in the next couple of days so they’re going to up the ante on this thing.” You gesture to the catheter by your clavicle. “So that’s not really fun. And, they want to start taking scans every single day because the growth is increasing exponentially. The doctors think something triggered the flowers to begin blooming in earnest. Like spring has come to my body, and I’m having the worst fucking time of my life.”

Despite your admission, your smile only falters in that it no longer reaches your eyes. Satoru shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do.

The word Hanahaki still burns, whispers coyly in his ear. It teases the tip of his tongue as he watches you look to your windowsill where your new plants are and get up, walking over to inspect your friend’s work.

He wonders if he can bring it up again. If he can insist that there’s a way to save you—

But Nanami’s words linger, too, and he bites his tongue until he tastes iron. 

“Oh, look.” He blinks at your voice, turning to look. Your fingers sink into one of the pots and before he can ask, blue energy flares up around your hand and into the soil and a shoot breaks through the dirt, unfurling as it grows higher and higher into the air.

“What is it?” Petals are beginning to form, the shade of a warm, gentle red that fades in shade as it reaches the stem. Satoru comes up next to you as the first flower blooms and his eyebrows rise. “Tulips. Huh.”

“I used to love them,” you tell him, picking it off and extending it to him. Eyebrows furrowing in surprise, he takes it as you sink your fingers deeper into the soil, sending more cursed energy into the seeds. More stems to replace the one you had picked continue to grow and you pull your hand out, wiping at your fingers with a towel.

Satoru tilts the flower towards his nose, taking a whiff.

“Used to?” he repeats, and you nod.

“Trees and flowers have their own language.” Your eyes do not meet his as you watch the plant continue to grow. Your muscles go slack, and your fingers touch the petals, mind not quite aware of how you’re moving. “Red tulips mean eternal love, and fame.”

Blinking, he looks down at his own bloom. 

Suguru. He hears you say his name, even in the silence, and remembers years ago, walking through Tokyo. A neighbourhood he doesn’t remember, his best friend looking at the florist’s shop and immediately perking up to head inside and buy a bouquet after something had caught his eye.

“For a girl,” he had admitted sheepishly. 

“Only one?” Satoru asked, horrified. “You can’t settle down! We’re meant for so many more women than just one!”

A sharp nudge to the ribs. Raucous laughter. “Shut up!”

Quietly, Satoru’s fingers tighten around the stalk as you tilt your head to the sun, inspecting something he won’t understand. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and although you say you aren’t the smartest, he’s seen you grow the college’s gardens in a way that has amplified the beauty already lingering on the grounds. You had dismissed it as a little side project, but seeing you water your plants dutifully, spread feed and root out weeds, makes him wonder if you know how to put half-efforts into anything.

When you garden, you never take the easy route. You labour for the satisfaction, and pour sweat and tears into the soil.

When you love, you love with all of yourself and more. 

It’s what makes whatever he wants impossible.

Because he is the same, and they will never change.

When Satoru goes home, he places the tulip in a vase and the cursed energy prickles at his fingertips.

.

You get worse and worse with every visit. 

Each day brings him another raw wound, salt on blood. You slowly grow more and more ragged, even though you stay in the hospital, confined to your room. 

There are days Satoru walks into your room to you hunched over the toilet, spitting blood and flowers into the bowl and vomiting all you ate the night or day or hour before and he already knows what he has to do. A cold, damp rag to your forehead, a crouching stance beside you as your grip on the toilet seat becomes rigid like steel.

Other days, you’re still asleep because the night before, you’d been hacking up half a lung and half a bouquet. Sometimes, you’re curled around a plastic receptacle already full of your half-attempts to dislodge the pressure building in your chest. 

Or, you’re crying into your hands, breath coming in rapid bursts as you try to force your head between your knees to stop the world from spinning and Satoru holds you when you beg him to, and stands in the corner of the room when you push him away.

Afterwards, you always grab onto his sleeves, his arms, and sink against him, shivering. For hours after, he’ll curl around you on your hospital bed, no matter how much his body cramps, until you insist you’re fine.

“It’s a little like touching death,” you told him once, voice raw and fatigued. “When it’s a pretty bad day, and I think I’m going to die alone, it happens, so all I have to do is not think about it.”

There’s a flawed logic there, but Satoru was too busy pressing his nose into your hair and feeling the warmth of your body to reply any more than, “I’ll be there. I promise.”

Two weeks pass (fourteen sets of scans, a different pair hanging from the lightscreen every day tell him that) and Satoru watches as the branches spread through your body, past the reaches of your ribs, and the flowers have spread to your lungs so quickly he’s sure the time for you to decide is running out. 

You’re near-passed out against him on the bathroom floor one evening, and although it’s not closet-sized, it doens’t make the arrangement any less awkward. He’s up against the bathtub, legs sprawled all around you as he holds you in his arms. On the edge of the tub, there is a bar of bodysoap and a bottle of lotion he recognizes as the same one Shoko used to buy when they still had time. Your sink counter is filled with your toothbrush and cup, handsoap and a microfibre towel hanging off the edge smeared with lipstick, foundation, and black streaks of who knows what.

Shoko must have spent the night while he was out hunting a curse in Sendai. Good. He doesn’t like the nights when you’re alone and he can’t be there.

His fingers brush over your shoulder blade, and he travels over something rigid cloaked by your skin. Your eyes are closed, and you’re nearly asleep as you curl deeper against him. Looking down at you, he presses curious fingers into your shoulder blade only for you to let out a soft groan.

“Did that hurt?”

“No. It just feels like you pressed down on a big sore muscle,” you mumble slowly. He trails his fingers over, feels the bumps of the roots curling around your bones before following it towards your spine. It disappears the closer it reaches the trail of knobs that go down your back, and he moves back to your shoulder again. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”

“Does anything?”

“Mostly my stomach,” you tell him. “I’m so hungry all the time, but I can’t eat.” He glances at the IV stand, the only other witness to the events in this bathroom. It leads down through your gown and past your clavicle. Monitored every day in case the growths dislodge it, it’s one of the only things keeping you alive. “And my throat. It feels like I’ve scratched it out until it’s bleeding.”

He tilts his head. His lips barely brush your sweaty scalp despite how cold you feel in his arms “No surgery?”

You shake your head, what remains of your strength slowly coming back. “They say the flowers and roots have taken up sixty-five percent of my chest cavity. It’s not only inhibiting my lungs, but my heart and stomach, too, so it’d be kind of hard to get rid of it all. Not impossible, but it’s really risky. That, on top of the already-present consequences—”

“So let’s say we start with the lungs,” he cuts off, trying to not sound too desperate but these past few weeks have worn him down to the bone. Although he thinks he’s managed to hide it from his students, Shoko has offered multiple times to prescribe him sleeping pills just so he can shut his mind down.

He said no every time.

Your legs draw up and he squeezes your shoulder carefully, looking down. “Are you ready to get up?”

You nod. “I think so.” He wipes at your lips with the rag he left on the counter and you roll your eyes as he makes sure no blood is left on your face before throwing it back up and carefully adjusting you against him.

“Do you want my help?”

“My answer does not matter to you,” you shoot back teasingly and he lets you pull away from him before reaching up with one hand to push yourself up. Your arm wobbles, your feet kicking back underneath you and slowly finding theirselves on the floor. Satoru withdraws, ducking underneath and back up so he can stand, hands floating around your body as you draw the IV stand towards yourself and grab on. When he’s sure your knees might give in, he grabs your elbow, but you shake your head. “I think I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathe, raising your head to look at him. Your lips curl in a soft smile, and you clasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t even do anything this time,” he says.

“Not everyone stays for the pathetic girl on the floor of the bathroom floor,” you quip. Turning around, you begin to head back to bed and he trails behind you carefully.

“If the girl’s you, then I think exceptions can be made.”

“Hospital bonus.”

“It adds that you’re in the hospital, too,” he agrees. “My morals are just.”

“Isn’t that a relief?” 

It is. It is a relief that you still have the strength to joke with him. 

You climb back into bed. Satoru returns to the bathroom to make sure the bathroom is flushed and it’s clean before returning and perching on the edge of your bed. Pulling out his phone, he shuffles his shoes off and tucks his legs to his chest, leaning against the foot of your bed and scrolling through his messages.

Not much to miss, to be honest. 

“There’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of the 28th,” you say suddenly. Satoru looks up. You’re leaning back on the mountain of pillows, exhaling and inhaling measuredly in a way he now knows is your way of fighting off another bout. Squinting against the orange glow of the sunset, there’s a longing in your gaze. “I want to see it. Outside and everything.”

“You’re not supposed to leave the hospital.”

You don’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re abiding by rules, now?”

“If it keeps you around, yes, we are.”

“When did my best friend turn into such a party pooper?” Looking at him, an impish glint lives in your eyes. He balks.

“Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not fun.”

“Then… take me to see the eclipse.”

“No. There’s nothing to even see.”

“I want to see the moon disappear, Gojo,” you declare. “And if you won’t take me, I will definitely sneak out.” 

It paints a pretty pathetic picture, and he can’t help but arch his eyebrows at your determination. The air purifier drones on. The nurse turned it on after dinner, he guesses, and he has the strange urge to kick it as you fix him with a fierce stare. 

“You probably won’t be able to walk by then,” he says.

“That won’t stop me.” He knows it won’t. The corner of his lips pulls into a slight smile as you continue, “I just want to go outside one last time. Is that really too much to ask?” Your words are tinged with a fine dusting of humour, and he shakes his head.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Big word for you, Satoru.”

“I still mean it.”

“And I learned that from you.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he caves. Your face lights up, and he sets down his phone, legs unfolding to brush the floor as he leans over to flick your forehead. Your eyes squeeze shut at the contact and you slap his arm away sluggishly before he soothes the smarting spot over with a smear of his thumb. “I’ll come by, and we’ll sneak out.”

You beam and he slips his feet back into his shoes and pockets his phone so he can focus his attention on you. 

When visiting hours end, the nurses offer to set up the cot for him like they always do. You pretend not to look at him out of the corner of his eye, awaiting his answer behind your laptop screen, and he spares you a quick glance before saying yes.

“She likes you,” you tell him after one particular nurse with dyed purple hair who always wears a fishtail bids them goodnight. Satoru fluffs up his pillow ceremoniously, having shed his jacket and taken off his jeans to hide underneath the blankets. The fabric is cold against his bare chest, and he pulls his glasses off, sets them on the stand right behind him.

The black frame holding up his mattress rattles a bit as he punches his pillow one last time and lies down. He turns on his side and looks at you. You’re turned on your side, too, and your brow is furrowed as you fight the sleepiness.

“Is that so?” he asks carefully. “What do you think about it?”

“I think if you wanted someone with a hectic schedule, you could pick someone else,” you say vaguely.

He raises an eyebrow. “Does she have a bad attitude or something?”

“I dunno.” There’s a subtle fire igniting in your words. You look a bit more awake, and your eyes are shifting the air into a smouldering red. He squints up. Your face is shadowed, but you’re still silhouetted by the orange light behind your bed as your shoulders rise and fall greatly in staggering, weighty breaths. “She wouldn’t understand. I guess.”

He hums. “So I should find someone who understands me but can’t be there for me? Sounds like the set up to every tragic love story ever.”

You laugh, and it’s the saddest sound in the world.

.

Friday, July 27th arrives in clouds.

Satoru scouted a spot before where they can watch the eclipse. He settles on one of the highest buildings on campus with a balcony where they can sit against the railing and watch the moon disappear. You can’t eat, but he still buys your favourite food from all over Japan, travelling to different prefectures in hopes that they still have your favourite dessert or drink that you mentioned once—he even gets you a new polaroid camera. He doesn’t know exactly how well the eclipse will show up on it, but, memories, right?

Maki makes a dry remark about how much he’s running around lately, probably to make amends to a girl he’s scorned. Satoru deflects and says he’s actually trying to impress one this time.

It’s been a five days since his promise to bring you. You lost your ability to walk steadily two days ago and to speak effortlessly only yesterday. The roots have extended through your body, pushing the muscle of your back and shoulders, and it’s made even moving painful, so he intends to carry you everywhere he can, holding your IV bags if he needs to. 

The doctors say eighty-five percent of your chest is now occupied with foreign growth. Satoru wishes they’d just tell it how it is—you’ll probably be dead by next week.

He arrives at the hospital and walks the path he’s walked so often over the past few weeks that he is sure he could do it with his eyes closed. The nurse’s station, and there’ll be the purple-haired one and the one with a double helix piercing on call at this time. Then, twenty-five steps to the end of the hall where the window often lets a lot of natural light in. Today, it’s grey and not much, but it’s enough to cast his shadow long and blurry.

He stops in front of your door to sanitize his hands when he hears voices within and hesitates.

Your door is closed, which means you don’t want people to interrupt, and he moves away from the rectangular window, back pressing against the tiny slab of wall between the frame and the corner of the hallway. Glasses slipping down his nose, he tries not to listen but he can’t help of himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” you say weakly. You sound awful. Satoru wonders if he’s missed one of your panic attacks and curses himself. “If I don’t sound sure, it’s because I’m dying… and sounding like a fragile piece of shit… comes with the territory.” Your words are coarse, and a harsh anger grates his ears as you cough violently, a terrible retching sound ending with a splat following right after. 

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Nanami replies calmly. “But this could be done in so many other ways.”

“Look, Nanami. I’m not… brave enough to say any of it. Now, sit down. Your standing… it’s making me nervous… Thank you.” Satoru’s legs feel numb as he sinks down to the floor, tilting his head just enough to listen clearer through the sliver underneath the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he runs a hand through shaggy white hair. It feels dry and lifeless. 

He can’t remember the last time he took a shower that was longer than ten minutes and more than ice-cold bordering on just beginning to warm.

“Take care of him for me,” you croak and his fingers tighten against his scalp. Nanami doesn’t answer, and you let out a sound that can only be described as pure agony as another bout grasps you tightly. You’re wheezing by the end of it, gasping painfully for air, and the monitors start beeping rapidly, a dinging that echoes in his head as Nanami’s low voice soothes you, tells you gently to calm down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Breathe with me,” Nanami orders, and everything falls silent. Satoru stares at his lap. His head is beginning to pulse with the monitors when the beeping finally starts to fade. “Good. No sense to waste your strength.” 

Wobbly, spitting: “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A pause. “It’s not your fault.”

You laugh, as if Nanami’s cracked a funny joke, and it’s gut-wrenching. “Remember how… we can curse each other? Ourselves? True curses.”

Faintly amused, immeasurably strained: “I thought it was still a hypothesis regarding those who don’t have the correct bloodline and the ability to curse through their own will.”

“No…Not a hypothesis. Real, Nanami. Real. No one knows how cursed energy affects us. Not really. Since, in my opinion, it’s entirely based on how we process things… it’s so difficult to say but when you know someone…” You break off to clear your throat. “The curse of adulthood… some of us got that too early… but we can survive that and even if it’s not a curse by… definition, we still feel it, right?” 

Satoru clasps his hands together just so he doesn’t rip the door open at the hinges.

“Right.”

“And… knowledge… can be a curse. Even if we can’t see it.” A ragged breath. Then, another laugh too loud for the grey light outside, too bright, a spark before it fizzles into, again, pained choking. “Nanami, remember last year… the job out in Yama… Yamaguchi?”

“Yes.”

“And we came back… Okkotsu was beginning his first year at the college… what I—what I told you?”

“…Yes.” A beat passes. A chair shifts on the linoleum floor and Nanami clears his throat. “I see.”

“I don’t want him to be so alone. I know I was never the strongest or the smartest or the most talented but I liked to think he let me in because I was there. Not because I understood. Maybe… Maybe because I didn’t. Nanami, please… he always try to stay so far away from the people he thinks he can’t love. Tell him… tell him—“

You break off and Nanami assures you with a steadfastness Satoru has counted on so many times before: “I will.” 

“…thank you.”

Eyes shutting tight, Satoru rests his brow against the heel of his hand. His head is aching, and a hard fist grabs his chest, squeezes his heart until it feels like it’ll burst. So this is how you’re really feeling. When you’re not smiling, this is what you are. Angry at the world, and heartbroken.

So terribly heartbroken.

And you couldn’t trust him with it? Because you thought he couldn’t handle it? 

He can take it. It’ll be okay because he’s the strongest. He has to be. 

I’m the strongest. I should be okay. I’m the strongest.

I’m the Strongest.

The headache gets worse so he gets up from that corner in the dead-end hallway, all the while three words replay in his head like a goddamn gramophone.

Nanami doesn’t come out of the room for a while. When he does, Satoru walks down the hall with takeout and a smile plastered on his face as if he had heard nothing at all.

.

At just past one-thirty AM, Satoru sits up from his cot and rubs at his eyes. After dinner, the both of them had forced themselves to go to sleep in order to have enough energy for their little late night excursion. He glances at you, a slumbering shape on the bed, and gets up, slowly sliding on the lights. They burn a dim orange, glowing on your face, and your eyebrows furrow as he touches your cheek.

“What?” you mumble, vexed, and he smiles.

“Are you ready?” he asks. A backpack is situated at the end of his bedframe and he reaches for it, unzipping it carefully as you crack your eyes open. “We’re going to go see the eclipse, remember?” Pulling out clothes he robbed from your room in the staff facility from when you used to work full time, he grabs your shoulder and shakes you gently. The gnarled roots under your skin feel strange against his fingers as you groan weakly. “Do you want five more minutes, Sleeping Beauty?”

You don’t answer, burying your face into your pillow and he shakes his head to himself. It’s going to be all right, he thinks. I planned for this setback.

Slipping into a dark long-sleeve, he parts the black-out curtains to let light come in. He checks his reflection in the bathroom mirror before running a hand through his hair and washing his hands with a cold stream of water. By the time he leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting up already, heel of your hand rubbing against your brow as you groan. In your other hand in your lap, there’s a splash of blood and a lone petal, and he rushes to your side instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear—“

“It came out easy,” you assure as he grabs a tissue to pick it off your hand and throw it into the receptacle at the table just beyond the foot of your bed. Wiping at your mouth roughly, he hears your complaints and your hand shoves against his shoulder to tell him to quit it. “Ah, I can do it myself!”

“Shh! Do you want every nurse storming in here while we conduct our super secret getaway?” he whispers, and your eyes fix on his. Dark circles mark your face like bruises, but that light is still the same—glimmering, bright, like twin suns and just as warm. Making sure your hands are clean, he wipes the invisible streaks of blood just to be sure before grabbing your clothes and setting them at the end of the bed.

You glance around the place sluggishly, at the paintings you never got to finish, and the books you haven’t finished reading, before settling on him. “What are we going to do about the… about the machines? And my IV…” 

“Oh, trust me. I may have bribed a nurse or two,” he confesses and you send him a scandalized look. He shrugs. “What? You told me a woman liked me and I couldn’t help but turn on my natural charm.”

“You’re awful,” you say without meaning it and he smiles as he moves your bed into a sitting position. You cough lightly, but sit up straighter as he carefully unhooks the huge bag and pump from your stand and gently slides it into the pocket in the backpack, resisting the urge to squish the pouch a bit. Strapping the pump in, he makes sure it’s secure as you peer around him to catch what he’s doing. “Is this… safe for me, you—you know, medically-speaking?”

“Nope.” He adjusts the tubing to avoid any kinks. “But, Purple gave me this backpack and she will come as soon as we come back to make sure you aren’t dying. And, if anything goes wrong, I promised her I’d come back as soon as possible.”

“Promised her?” you echo “I see. So that’s what Purple… was doing before my afternoon nap. I thought you guys traded suspicious looks.”

“Yeah. I’m pulling big strings. Now, c’mon, silly. Let’s get you dressed.”

You roll your eyes with a whistling breath. “Watch the tube… and c’mere, then, Gojo.”

He grabs the jacket first and does exactly as you order. Wrapping it around you, he helps you thread your arms through before zipping you up carefully as your shoulders begin to shake. Bending over, you reach blindly for the receptacle at the end of the bed and he hands it over to you.

A wad of saliva mixed with blood slips between your lips and you let out a low noise before forcing yourself to cough harshly again and again. Satoru watches. No matter how many times he sees you rip your throat up just to breathe with a bit less pressure in your chest, it doesn’t get any easier.

You manage to get up a whole magenta blossom. It blooms from your mouth like something out of a horror movie and lands in the receptacle before he’s wiping your mouth.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

They continue on.

Coat, next, zipped up, and a scarf, then he’s scooping up your legs to help you twist on the mattress until your feet are dangling off the edge. He weaves your legs through the sweat pants, careful not to let his gaze avert from his task even as the hospital gown trails up your legs. You shiver at the exposed skin and gooseflesh pimples your thighs as you lift up your hips to help with the effort. He pulls the hospital gown free from the waistband and lets it fall over the hem so you’re completely covered before falling back.

In a crouch, he pats your knees and makes the mistake of looking up only to find your eyes already on him, searching, nearly mystified. Satoru’s throat tightens. The faint light streaming from the window catches half of your face, as if half-divine. There’s a curiosity there, lingering, and the way you look at him makes him freeze in his spot.

Is this how Suguru saw you a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago? Is this what he felt? 

Did he see the way your pupils dilate, the flare of your nostrils as you exhaled so quietly that it felt like a feather against his lips despite the distance between them? Did he see galaxies in your irises, home in the softness of your stare? Is that why he kissed you the last time he saw you? To memorialize their love for himself, to remember what it looked like when you loved him?  

Did he feel like he could fight dragons, crush demons, rip their world apart at the seams and rebuild it again with bloodied nails if it meant you would never cry again? Is that part of why he did it? So you would never be lonely again? 

Because if so, Satoru understands. 

Because if so, Satoru would do the same.

Because he always saw you as just pretty, because you had always been just his friend, and then his best friend’s girlfriend, and then his best friend, so there were always lines drawn in salt, scuffed and distorted over the years, but…

But in the light, tired and lost in his gaze, you’re nearly ethereal. The only reason he knows you’re not a goddess is because he’s still touching your knees, and your breath quivers, as if you’re just as disconnected from the world as he is in this moment.

Lips pressing together, he looks away, and the moment’s gone. 

He glances at the clock. 

How long has it been since he moved? It feels like hours.

Twenty-seven seconds.

Twenty-seven seconds of temptation, and then Satoru turned away. 

He slants to grab a pair of thick woolly socks to give himself something to do. You’re still watching him, head tilted down just so, and he carefully takes hold of your ankle.

He focuses on the little things: the iciness of your skin, the way you pick at the fabric of your sweatpants absently as you watch him work, the way you shiver a bit when he touches you.

He rubs heat back into the arch of your foot as you reach into your jacket slowly to carefully remove the nodes monitoring your vitals. You seem stiff to the bone, and your fingers are rigid with anticipated pain as you peel off the stickers. In the back of his mind, he remembers the days that feel like yesterday when you weren’t hooked up to so many machines to assure both you and him that you’re still alive.

Removing the cap for the oximeter from your finger, you shake yourself out a bit, clearing your throat. He slides one sock on, and then the other.

“How’re you feeling?” he finally utters.

It takes you a moment to answer. “Bottom half feels tingly. Usual these days. My body feels like a big giant bruise,” you inform quietly. Your voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Very warm and toasty, though… Thank you.”

“Just gotta get the shoes on and then we’ll teleport there.”

“Okay.” He helps you slip your feet in, something straight out of Cinderella, and then he stands up to take your hands. Your fingers slip into his palms, and he holds you so tightly as you slide off the bed. The instant your feet hit the floor, your grip intensifies and your head snaps down to the floor. You find your footing after a moment, and he lets go to crack open your window. Moving your plants aside, he climbs out to glance around. 

The air is crisp and cold, but not too bad for him. Even so, he’ll probably slip on a hoodie before they leave and he ducks back in to your room to do so, tugging it down his waist before grabbing the backpack.

“Arms through,” he instructs, slipping the backpack onto your shoulders. Guiding you closer, he helps you shuffle as close as possible towards him before turning around and bending over. “Alright, climb on. We’re going.” 

Your arms touch his shoulders, his hands shoot out behind him, and you fall.

Fingers hooking on your thighs, he boosts you up and your arms wrap around him, your own fingers wrapped so tightly around his collar that it nearly chokes him. Haphazardly stepping through the windows, his fingers sink into the fabric of your sweats. Your breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel your heart pulsing against his back as he turns to look at you. 

He smiles. “How’s it feel?”

“I’m still not sure if you’re going to let me die.” You press your face closer to his head and your arms tighten. “But the wind feels so good. So, so good.”

“That’d be too undignified,” he teases, and then he jumps. Time seems to slow as it always does when he’s about to teleport. He imagines the staff facility on the campus, quiet as a cemetery at this time of night, and his heart lurches forward. For a moment, his senses leave him all at once. He can’t taste or feel or see anything for a fraction of a second, then it comes to him in blinding speed. His hearing, as always, is first, then his eyes, smell and then touch and smell.

His foot lands on stone, as if he’s just finished a small skip, and he grins as he sweeps the courtyard. No one, as planned. The building’s to his immediate right, and he climbs the steps, using your knee to nudge the door open.

“That was fun,” you comment. “Convenient, too. Blink of an eye, and you’re somewhere else.”

“You can’t even begin to imagine how many lines I’ve skipped because of it,” he comments. The lights are all off, and he heads for the kitchen immediately to grab all the food he’s bought. Setting you down on the kitchen counter, he takes out another canvas bag and stuffs all of the food in.

Daifuku with of all kinds of fillings in the fridge, fresh dorayaki, canned coffee and aloe drinks, sweet soymilk and other wagashi they used to feast on when they were younger. Mostly because Satoru would buy enough to feed a kingdom so he always had something on hand for his overactive brain. You watch him with wide eyes as he moves around with such purpose one could think he was preparing to fight an army, but as soon as he finishes, he flashes you a smile.

“I think you’re going to like where we’re going a lot, silly.”

“Didn’t have to buy stuff,” you mutter, fingers playing with the tube leading into your backpack for a moment.

“You haven’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe we could at least try. Maybe not now, but at the end of the night, before we go back. Just in case.”

“I can’t eat, though.”

“Don’t know until I stuff it down your throat,” he replies cheerily, and you smile at him so brightly it’s almost like you aren’t sick. Then, that smile turns into a cough, a fist in front of your lips, and your expression is frozen into one of exasperation before it flickers into strained. He sets down his bag, already knowing what comes next.

You make a hacking sound, deep in your throat, and he shifts you closer to the sink so you can lean over and throw up. Gagging, it comes in red and clear torrents, the cursed energy spilling out of your body nearly making it incinerating to even touch you as you clutch the edge of the sink basin. 

You fall to your elbows, and Satoru eases you off the counter so he can hold you up instead of the cramping body contortion you sink into. Cupping the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his thumb sweeps soothingly over your root-invested spine, tossing the ends of the scarf over your shoulder and out of the way.

Settling a hand on your hip, he presses you against the countertop so you don’t fall, and hopes your legs can hold you up long enough for him to reach for the hand towel. You spit just as he manages to grab it, snapping back into position and peering over your shoulder to inspect how much you’ve coughed up. You shudder and a tortured moan wrenches out of your throat as you sink, forehead against the cool metal.

You’re scorching to touch, but he tightens his hold on you anyway, setting the towel aside for just a moment. Carefully, he pulls you back up and you let out an drained whine, but he shushes you quietly, turning you around and guiding your head over his shoulder so you don’t stare at the rot any longer.

Satoru knows you would, even if you pretend like you aren’t plagued with morbid, self-destructive curiosity.

Looking into the sink, he counts a few petals and three whole flowers, and you’re quivering against him as he wraps his arm around you. 

“Alright, lean back for me,” he whispers into your ear, and you obey. His arm around you crooks so he supports your head, the other grabbing the towel again. Exhaustion seems to have sluiced through you, and your eyes are nearly unfocused as he dabs at your mouth carefully. His blue eyes focus on the gentle curve of your lips, and your cheeks puff up before you swallow tightly and let out a shaking breath.

“You’re really close,” you mumble in that exhale. He tilts your chin to the light to make sure he hasn’t missed a spot, and your eyelids flutter as the corners of his lips quirk up. His Six Eyes pick up a muted yellow emanating from you, and it’s so warm against his skin that he can’t help but relish in the feeling. “You smell nice.”

“Good. I took a shower before I came today. Well, yesterday,” he amends softly. “Alright, let’s go before you hack up your other lung.”

“Funny.” Nonetheless, he scoops you back up onto his back and he rinses down the sink as you rest your head against his. He feels you breathing steadily, much easier now than before. Red swirls down the drains, and he watches the magenta petals slowly reveal their true colours. There’s a flash of white in the center of each one, and he wonders silently what flower it is and what it means.

Maybe he’ll find out some day.

When the kitchen’s back to the state they entered, he grabs the bag of food and holds onto your legs tightly as your arms around his neck shift and pull him closer. 

This time, when he teleports, it’s not as jarring. Walking around the balcony, he makes sure no one’s in the area before checking that the door to the roof is locked and heading back out into the night air, towards where they can see the moon clearest.

“Hey, open your eyes,” he whispers over his ear, and your head shifts.

“Hm? Oh!” He feels you wriggle, but he doesn’t let you go as he walks closer to the spot he’s set up. Near the railing, a blanket surrounded by pillows is laid out surrounded by a few space heaters. The moon is hanging perfectly in front of them, and the light illuminates the forests in silver as a gentle wind whistles through. Tranquil, the only sound is his footsteps on wood as you manage to pull your legs free with a harsh twist of your torso. Your hand slaps against the railing and he whirls around to hold you up but you grit your teeth. “I can do it.”

Breathing in deeply, you pull yourself past him using mostly your arms. Your feet drag as if they’re not really attached to a living body but you still move steady onward, and he walks ahead to turn on the heaters and set the food down as far away as he can so it doesn’t spoil too quickly.

“Satoru,” you breathe as if for the first time,” it’s so fucking beautiful up here.” Looking up, his heartstrings twinge. Your face is bathed almost entirely in silver, and it drapes down your body like silk, illuminating the cord of your throat he can see above the scarf, the strength of your hands. A smile brighter than even the most blinding sun rays comes across your face and he finds that the moon pales in comparison as your knees begin to give.

Reaching forward, he helps you sink down slowly, and then sit down, legs hanging off the edge and then you’re leaning to rest your elbows on the middle bar of the wooden railing. You can’t stop staring at the moon, and Satoru can’t stop staring at you as he opens the box of daifuku and pops one into his mouth. 

“The eclipse should be starting in a few minutes,” he says, checking his watch. 2:10. Four minutes to go. You finally tear your eyes away from the moon to look at him.

“I forgot…” you muse. “I forgot how bright… the moon was.”  

He settles in beside you and offers a canned coffee, but you shake your head. He cracks it open for himself. 

“We’re about to watch the moon change,” he notes. “But I read that it’ll last six hours.”

“Really?” Excited, you look up at the moon again. The lunar rays outline your already-pronounced eye bags but it also makes you look more beatific. “That’s just proof… our time here on Earth is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It really makes you—makes you think how much we really matter. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to things like a… fucking lunar eclipse.”

The moon’s opinion doesn’t matter more than mine, he thinks. “Well, while we’re waiting for your next epiphany to hit you,” he says instead, “you never answered my question.”

You smile, intrigued. “What’s that?”

“What if we removed the flowers bit by bit, rather than all at once?” he asks. Your gaze snaps to him, but he only regards you honestly. “That gives you a fighting chance.” Your eyes widen imperceptibly, and he grabs another mochi ball and takes a bite.

“The roots and flowers are too entangled in my chest to be removed safely. It’s either they remove my lungs completely, or not at all, and finding a… match for one lung is hard enough, much less two perfect lungs…” You trail off and shrug. “Well, that’d take forever… and I wouldn’t get much… longer, anyway. I’m a sorcerer. I always knew… I was going to die, so why not die on my own t-terms?”

He frowns. “Why not try?”

“Give me your phone.”

He does so, and watches you type in a query you must’ve typed before with how quick your lethargic fingers fly over the screen before you’re shoving it back towards him and leaning forward on the railing, chin to your forearms. You don’t even look at him, as if you don’t want to watch him crumble.

He reads: The first year after the transplant is the most critical period wrought with surgical complications, chances of rejection, and infection… Although there are some reports of some people living for 20 years post-transplant, many people do not make it past 10 years and only half make it past 5…

His stomach curdles. “Five years is better than nothing.”

“Five years worrying when my lungs are going to… kick it,” you correct. “Besides, my ribs are mangled by the roots. And my heart. My stomach. My spine. I’m undernourished, exhausted, and everything in here”—you gesture slowly around your abdomen—“is doing overtime. My body’s too weak to handle any kind of surgery that wouldn’t heal me… immediately.” 

Your eyes find his, and it’s as if lightning strikes through him like a spear—piercing cold and electrifying. You’re beginning to blue in the lips like you’re freezing to death, but he’s sweating under the blast of the heaters. 

Pulling off his hoodie, he drapes it around your shoulders. You don’t react anymore than: “Sucks, but that’s how it is.”

A few more minutes pass by in silence. Their knees knock into one another, and Satoru can’t stop looking at you as you breathe in the home you left months ago, head lifted to the inky universe.

“You know I can tell when you’re—when you’re angry with me,” you utter, not looking at him. “No matter how much you smile at me, you’re still too passive aggressive to cover it up.”

The words spill out of his mouth as you lower your gaze to him. “I’m sorry.” No sense in lying. 

“That’s okay.” You smile for a moment, like he hasn’t said something worth ruining a night over, but when you look up at the stars, it fades. Wistful, you cock your head at the moon that hasn’t gone away just yet and lower your chin to your arms again. “It’s not really something that was… fair of me to ask anyway.” 

.

Just as the moon turns yellow, he remembers something. Bending back to root through your backpack, he excuses himself. You frown. “What are you—“

“I got a camera for this occasion,” he announces, withdrawing the camera and a plastic bag, leaning back to snap a quick picture of you. You squint at the flash, mouth opened in an incredulous smile and face half-turned away, before the photo rolls out. “Like the one you used to carry around.”

“Some memories to hold on to, huh.” You reach for the camera and your fingers wrap around it, aiming it right at him. A flash and two peace signs later, another image joins the one of you Satoru slides into the plastic zip bag. “Hold on. I want to take another one.”

“We should do one of both of us.”

“Ugh, fine… I don’t look good at all, though.“

“Too late.” He snatches the camera from you and sticks out his hand, dragging an arm around your shoulders and you lean into him, temple against his cheek as he snaps another photo, and then another of him making a stupid face. Another of you mid-laugh. You’re wheezing for air as he keeps grabbing the polaroids as fast as he can with the arm that’s around your shoulder, leading to a bunch of jostling that has you in stitches at his frantic panic whenever the new photo chugs out of the slit.

When he’s had his fill of making you laugh, Satoru leaves you alone to look at the moon. He can’t stop grinning stupidly with every photo and while you watch the moon slowly descent into the earth’s shadow, he shuffles through the photos he just took of them together, trying to brand them to memory.

The way he looks at you in these photos makes him believe in something. In something that could’ve been there if they had more time, and he could convince you to open your heart up to a new possibility.

.

Another hour passes. The moon hangs a strange transition between black and blood red and a paler peach orange. A glimmering yellow dot sparkles below it, and he wonders if that’s Mars.

The forests seem almost hauntingly quiet, and no one has spoken in the darkness. You regard the moon, so enraptured, and more photos have joined the zip bag, but they’re mostly of you. He’s managed to sneak them in by turning off the flash and upping the brightness settings so it’d still be visible, and he hopes you never realize that he’s got them. 

Satoru has never been interested in astronomy, but the stars in your eyes are changing his mind.

He’s dug his hand into the bag of dorayaki already. He remembers it’s supposed to be for you, too, but his hands are too empty without the camera, his brain going a mile a minute and the air absolutely quiet with nothing. 

Twenty minutes ago, you asked him to help you take off your coat so you can pull on his hoodie, and haven’t moved since zipping yourself back up. The air smells only of canned coffee and the stinging wind carrying the scent of cedar. Feet swinging, he drapes his arms over the railing and looks up at the red moon.

It is pretty. Magnificent, and ominous, almost. The night is so much darker without the moon. Sheesh, colder, too. I wonder if you’re feeling okay. Maybe I should check, but you don’t seem to be shaking. Worst comes to worst, I could up the level on the space heaters…

“I don’t think I ever got to hear his last words,” you muse quietly, voice cracking, rousing him from his monologue. His head swings to you. Your eyes are barely open as you rest your cheek against your forearm, and you don’t look at Satoru despite your head turned towards him. Instead, he can watch the pieces of you fall apart without your scrutiny. “I used to think… that I didn’t care.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” he asks slowly as you continue to stare blankly over his ear. Your chest stutters in its inhale and the exhale is just as shaky as you smile a bit to yourself. He takes that as answer, and as he speaks, he sees Suguru’s smile—bright against the darkness of the alleyway, and a reminder of a simpler time. Satoru’s heart quickens from the memory “‘At least curse me a little at the very end.’”

You’re quiet for a moment, as if soaking that in. Then, you draw yourself up and sigh. “That sounds like him.”

You say it fighting off a laugh, even though it wracks your body with such intense pain you can barely breathe. You begin to wheeze not even a second in, and still, your face is cracked into an agonizing smile as you blink, tears slipping down your cheeks. Your eyes squeeze shut and your body goes stiff as you cough, hands flying over your lips. Your shoulders shake so uncontrollably it’s like an earthquake in your body, but Satoru cannot find it in him to calm you down as you hunch over yourself.

It comes in its own course, until you’re nothing but a gasping body, crying into bloodied palms cupping purple flowers, and the low sobs that spill and stutter out of your throat makes Satoru wish he never told you.

“‘At least curse me a little at the very end,’” you repeat to yourself, voice raw and iron-like, and your eyes finally rise to meet his. Nothing but hollow purple pierces through him once more. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds like him.” 

An apology bubbles at his lips, but you continue before he can even begin. Your hands fall to to your laps, and you look at the decaying flowers, thumbs stroking the petals. “I could never make him truly happy… could I? Just like he said… nothing would’ve been good enough for him while we lived in this kind of world. No matter how many times I sat by him while he swallowed… swallowed those curses, held his hand, held him, I would have never been… enough to make him laugh from his heart.” Your tears cast dark shadows. “I held him, Satoru, with all my might… and I still felt him slip away between my fingers.”

That’s how Satoru learns you were there that day, December 24th, not a snowflake in sight. Just a few metres away, you stood for only a moment before you walked away from the man you loved so he could die without any regret, at the cost of your own guilt eating you alive.

No one speaks after that. Satoru cleans your hands slowly, carefully, giving attention to each finger, before swiping your lips, and then he wipes your tears away but you’re not crying anymore.

You just look up at the moon emptily and he scoots closer in hopes to keep your returning trembling at bay.

“Ten years is a very… long time to love someone.” You break the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Fifteen, thirty minutes? He looks at you, and your lips press into a thin smile. He lifts his arm so you can scoot up close next to him. Your eyes never leave his face, regarding him with new clarity. “I just… realized.”

“Ten years is a very long time for anything,” he replies quietly, their faces very close. Their noses brush, and a warmth spreads through his cheeks as he presses the tip of your nose against his. You don’t pull away. Instead, you almost lean closer. Your nose is cold against his hot face, and he rubs it slowly with his own, trying to send heat back into your skin.

“A very long time to… wait.” Your eyes flutter shut, and your breath is warm over his lips as you slowly tilt your head so their foreheads meet. His hand squeezes your waist. You smell like the hospital, but there’s still the fragrance of the fresh-cut grass and herbs clinging to your skin as he moves his head just to the side so his nose presses into your frozen cheek. Your arm moves as if dragging through honey until it’s wrapped around his neck, palm flat against his shoulder, just as their brows press against one another. 

Something ignites inside his chest, incinerating the rot that seems to grow inside his own chest—it’s his dread, he realizes a moment later. An ugly knot of dread for what’s to come, the guilt, the cold grief that’s just out of reach. 

It’ll unfurl soon, he knows, but for now, he welcomes the relief you bring him.

In this moment, you are his, and he is yours, and that is all that matters.

His eyes close. His cheeks are burning hotter than the heaters surrounding them, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips as your fingers curl against the back of his neck.

“When will people… stop waiting?” you ask him, hushed like a secret.

Eyes opening, he answers you in the same soft voice, “Probably when they die.”

Your eyes crack open once more and he catches a sliver between your heavy lids. You’re so close he sees every detail of your irises, the pores of your eye bags, the way memories flicker through your pupils like fish in a river.

Your exhausted smile grows more genuine—something inside you seems to rear its bright little head, but it’s sad, and he realizes, then, what you must’ve been thinking. Words fumble at his mouth, but he doesn’t let anything slip as you lift your face away to rest your head against his shoulder.

.

You’re dozing against him. Satoru is staring up at the moon in your stead. It’s nearly fully that famous shade of dark blood red, but not quite. He can’t hear anything except the buzz of the space heaters and your breathing. His arm is still wrapped tight around you, holding you flush against him. He’s wished he’d done it so many times before that now, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

You’re dying. Even as you rest against him, he feels it. The weakness in your body, the way you’ve turned ghost-like. The strength of your Cursed Energy has become more prominent now that you don’t have the energy to channel it properly, and it’s centred so strongly in your chest that he can feel it poking curiously at him, leaving little marks, a souvenir for when you’re gone.

His fingers dig into your side. You let out a noise, head shifting, and he rips his gaze away away from the sky as your hand falls away from where it had rested around his neck into his lap.

“Satoru?” you whisper brokenly, and he nods, smiling. He pulls you closer, but their bodies are so pressed against each other that it only serves to make you huff a bit.

“Hey. You’re still with us, don’t worry,”

“Not worried,” you mumble, lifting your head with difficulty. “Just glad you’re here.” You tilt your face to the moon. “It’s still… red, huh…” You shake, your hand at the hem of his shirt twisting tightly. He reaches to squeeze your arm and hopes it’ll be enough now. “Pretty.” Throat dry, he does not answer. His white hair falls into his eyes as you look up at him, and he decays at the vulnerability in your gaze. “Aren’t you glad… that we saw the eclipse?”

Jaw clenching, he nods and tries his best to smile. Your hand lets go of his shirt and you shuffle up close enough that your other arm sneaks around his waist. Touching his chin with trembling fingers, your eyes glitter in the darkness of his shadow.

“I’m going to miss this. The moon, stars, how… fucking short… ’n’ beautiful life is,” you finally whisper, throat tight. “Makes shit worth living for. Maybe… won’t miss it… the most… but, top three.”

“Top three?” he echoes. “Top three sounds pretty good to me.”

“And, y’know what, Satoru?” you continue in the same low, husky tone, as if you’re about to change his world one more time.

He drops to the lowest, quietest voice he can manage and moves his head closer. Their noses nearly bump into each other again, and you smile as he quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You’re… going to miss me… more.” 

Your hand on his waist travels up his shoulder and he feels the last of your strength in your muscles as you pull him towards you. Letting you, his arms wrap around your waist as your other arm shoots around his neck, clinging on so hard that he’s sure his spine might break. 

Flattening his palms against your uneven back, he closes his eyes and slides a hand to cradle your head close.

“And promise… me something,” you breathe into his ear. Your lips brush the shell of his ear, and a shiver shoots down his spine.

“Anything.”

“When I kick it,” you whisper, “take my body, and bury me… yourself.”

Throat swelling shut, Satoru’s glad you can’t see the way the blood drains from his face as he nods and holds you tighter. “I will.”

.

“One more photo for the road?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest, and he looks as you reach to sweep his lips with cold, trembling fingers. He smiles, his hand on your thigh squeezing meaningfully even though you can barely feel it now. Your arms are bundled between your chest and his, and he hauls your legs on his thighs more securely up his lap, arm tightening around your torso.

“Satoru,” you murmur, tilting your head to him. His eyes never move from yours as he picks up the camera, and your hand falls from his lips. “I’m glad… that it was you.”

He snaps the shot and the only sound that fills the silence is the camera chugging out the polaroid. Your eyes are dark, murky and unfocused, and he feels your stammering inhale in his very lungs as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I’m happy it was you, too,” he whispers. You search his gaze for only a moment, and then turn your head to the moon once more. 

Lowering the camera to the floor, he sneaks his other arm around you and rests his chin atop of your head, eyes sliding shut.

.

Nanami, Yaga, and Ijichi approach, dress shoes tapping against linoleum floors. Satoru and Shoko say nothing to them as they join in watching through the glass doors.

Satoru doesn’t like the room they’ve moved you to. It’s too full of machines, too open to passersby who could just look in if the curtains aren’t drawn, and even then…

It smells too clinical here. Too full of artificial light. The ICU is a mechanical sort of silence than the quiet peace of the dead-end hallway. There is no warmth, no books, no paintings. Your plants have been removed, and Nanami has taken all of them into his apartment except the red tulips which rest on the dinner table in Satoru’s kitchen.

You stopped being able to breathe on your own only a day after the eclipse. That was two days ago, and the ventilator is doing nothing more than prolonging your agony. Soon, the growths will block your lungs entirely, suffocating you from the inside out. 

The doctors have stopped taking scans.

“It’s only a matter of time, now,” Shoko had said. “Her directive says we let her go as soon as she can’t come back.” Quieter: “Her pulse ox has been dropping. It won’t be long.”

Ijichi’s face is stony. Satoru doesn’t know why he focuses on him out of everyone. Leaning against the nurse’s station, he stares blankly at the Assistant Director’s. Maybe because he thought he’d be a wreck. Out of all of them, Ijichi’s the most emotional, but his lips are set firm from where he stands between Nanami and their principal.

Maybe Satoru’s just looking for permission to fall apart, but that’d be stupid. 

I’m the strongest. I’ll be fine.

“I’m going to go in,” he announces. No one protests. Nanami sits down and crosses one leg over the other, fingers steepled and eyes indecipherable. Shoko sits beside him. There’s the faint scent of smoke clinging to her lab coat. 

Ijichi dips his head, but doesn’t sit and Yaga excuses himself to talk to the nurse about your condition.

Satoru sanitizes his hands, approaches the door, and pulls it open before stepping in and sliding it shut behind him. 

Click. Hiss. 

The sound of the ventilator is the only thing that occupies the room. That and the monitors. It’s very dark, despite it being the middle of the day. Mostly because you can’t open your eyes wide enough to withstand the sun anymore, so Satoru had asked the nurses to bring the same blackout curtains from your room here. The lights are dimmed until it’s only an orange glow right behind your bed. 

Click. Hiss.

Sitting down, he doesn’t take hold of your hand just in case you’re sleeping. The intubation tube rests on a pile of towels on your chest, and it takes a long time before your eyes open and your head tilts just enough to look. Your hand twists on top of the covers until your palm is tilted open.

He slips fingers in, takes hold. The feel of your skin making everything worse. You’re colder than you should be—it’s sweltering in this room, enough that Satoru is already beginning to sweat even through his short-sleeve—and your fingers just barely twitch against the back of his hand, tracing strange shapes.

You blink, tapping his knuckle, and he frowns.

“What’s up?” Withdrawing, he feels your nail scrape against his flesh and he looks down. Curiously, he takes your hand and places it on top of his so your fingers can touch the lines of his palm. “Are you spelling something out?” he asks, amused, glancing up again.

Another blink, slower this time.

He leans forward on his elbow to touch your cheek before resting his cheek against his fist.

“Alright, give it your best shot.” 

Your eyelids flutter, lips trembling in a weak smile. Your index finger begins to trace shapes, kanji, into his palm. Your chest rises and fall slowly, pumped full of air by a machine hooked to your lungs, forcing breath into you as your writing grows sloppy by the passing second but you still persist.

ANGRY?

“Angry?” he repeats, and you blink slowly again, fingers insistent on grabbing his palm. Folding his fingers over yours, he arches his eyebrows. “If I was angry at a terminally ill patient, that’d make me the asshole here.” Your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows rearranging in what he recognizes as your laugh in silence. More seriously, his hold on you tightens and he lifts his head to brush his fingers over your brow. You tilt your head more to him, gaze murky warm. “How’re you feeling?”

It takes a while, but he feels your hand shuffle back to trace your answer on his hand.

BETTER

“Better. Yeah?”

Another lethargic blink. Yes.

“It’s because of me, right? I knew it. I knew it. We should tell Shoko—I’m the newest medical innovation in town,” he proclaims, and his smile begs to slip off his face but he only forces it back on, shoves it into place. Your eyebrows move again, like you’re struggling to hold back your laugh. Your eyes slip shut and do not open again. 

Your face goes lax a moment later, and your fingers loosen a bit, but he doesn’t let go. He just wants to touch your face and trace the lines into his memory. 

Satoru stretches his thumb along the swell of your bottom lip while carefully avoiding the tube. He runs his knuckles down your cheek. His fingers brush your pulse point along your neck, and he feels the slow, weak beat.

Click. Hiss.

He thinks you’re asleep for a while, until your finger drags over the flesh of his palm and he looks down, hand lifting from your face. 

“Hey, I’m still here,” he whispers, and your face turns towards him slightly, the tube in your mouth shuffling. He reaches forward, cupping your face and holding you still. “Hey. Don’t move. Your lungs are weaker than the rest of you and I’m not about to watch you die.” Something grabs onto the front of his shirt near his stomach and he looks down to see your fingers hooking on the cotton of his tee, twisting it weakly. “Oh, sorry.”

He draws back and slips his palm back into yours. Your index finger taps against the heel of his hand before your nail drags deliberately. One stroke. Then another, and another. Gojo wishes your eyes were open, because then he would be able to determine what the rest of the sentence could spell out before you’re done, but he’s patient. 

HERE

“Here?” You tap on his hand. Yes. “What’s here?”

YOU AND ME

“You and me,” he repeats thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. At least… now you can see Suguru again, right?” Your hand goes still and he looks at your face, reaching to touch your cheek again. You’re placid—doll-like, eyes shut, living dead. “I’m a bit jealous of that, but you should rest easy. It’s been a hard few months, hasn’t it?”

Another weak twitch of your finger on his hand.

“No matter what happens, don’t think I’m angry at you, or the choices you’ve made,” he continues. “As long as you let me stay here, I won’t waste a single second of it, okay?” Tap. He squeezes your hand so tightly your eyebrows twitch, even as you slip away from him. “For all your saying that you’re weaker than me, I never thought that. Not really.” Satoru raises your hand to his lips and he closes his eyes. “Being the strongest is pretty lonely. Used to be so fucking cocky about it, huh. Thought no one could touch me or the people I cared about because everyone would be too scared.”

Your fingers curl against his palm and he lowers his head to press your knuckles against his brow.

“I was wrong. I’d give anything to have you both back, but I can’t, and I hate it. You’re supposed to be with me at the top. I don’t want to be alone again.” His eyes are burning from the strain of keeping them open, but he refuses to miss a second of you being alive when the time is trickling like sand in an hourglass. He feels it like a heavy stare on his back, wondering if this next breath will be the last one before your brain finally decides to shut down. Your organs have been shutting down for nearly weeks now. He knows it’s out of pure selfishness that they’re dragging precious moments into agonizing hours. 

He knows you’re exhausted. 

Resting his chin on your fingers, he swallows. “I don’t know how to let you go. I wished I’d come sooner. I was careless. I know that. We could’ve had more time…”

Your fingers squeeze his as tight as you can before letting go. Somehow, he hears your voice in his ear. Something about being grateful for the time they did have.

“You were right, silly.” He chuckles to himself, bitter, anguished, and lowers your hand back to the bed, not letting go yet. “Ten years is a long time to wait. I let you down, but I’ll make sure you go easy. I promise.”

Satoru lays his head down on his forearm and he swears he catches your lips pull into the faintest smile. He stays there for hours, watching your face, stretching up to touch your unmoving face. The only sound is his steady breaths, the beep of your monitors and the click-hiss of your ventilator. 

It’s 1:04 PM when he falls asleep to the sleepy circles you trace into his wrist

It’s 6:22 PM when only one of them wakes up.

.

At 11:00 AM the next morning, during one of the hourly tests, they declare you brain-dead. With the announcement of your directive being honoured by your chosen proxy, Satoru himself, classes are cancelled and they are scheduled to take you off life support at six.

Ijichi brings them lunch and dinner. Satoru doesn’t eat. Only sits by your side, leaned back into the chair and looking at you while he still can until the clock ticks and ticks and ticks towards doomsday. The kids come to say final goodbyes while he watches on. Inumaki, as always, brings Panda through his phone, and Satoru wishes there could’ve been some way to sneak Panda into a high-class hospital just so their last moments together aren’t cheapened by a screen.

Shoko enters five minutes before it’s time, hand finding his shoulder and he looks up just long enough to catch her blank stare resting on your face.

She doesn’t say anything, only moves to the other side of the bed and sits down in the other chair.

The doctor pumps you full of sedation drugs, so you won’t feel any of the pain, unhooks the machines, and extubates you, explaining all the while what he’s doing just to fill the silence. As he pulls the tube from your throat, something in Satoru turns icy when a purple petal is plastered to the side of the plastic, but the doctor does not acknowledge it any more than murmuring that he will give them privacy.

Your rattling breaths echo in his ears as he watches the numbers slowly drop, but even your inhales fade to nothing more than soft, slight wheezes. The tape has left a strange mark around your mouth, and you’re unmoving otherwise. Shoko gently reaches and touches the eye bags that are, for once, worse than hers before shaking her head and pulling back. Everyone else waits outside.

Hours pass by in torturous years. 

Satoru wears the same stony expression the whole while, finally surrendering into his desire to hold your hand. 

His heart hardens. He goes completely still. Shoko talks but he can’t really hear anything except the slow beeps of your monitor once you pass certain thresholds. 

There are nurses waiting outside. They’ve grown used to the company, he thinks. He thinks one or two are crying. Soon enough, they’ll come in to turn off the machines tracking your vitals so the sounds don’t drive them crazy, banging in home that you’re dead, dead, dead.

After a while, Satoru realizes you aren’t quite breathing, although your chest moves. Sometimes, there’s a gasping sound, like someone surprised the breath out of you and you’re inhaling sharply to replace it, and he imagines your fingers twitching against his hand one last time.

It’s very slow. Much slower than he imagined it to be. Maybe you’re still fighting. Maybe you don’t want to go.

Satoru can’t imagine why. Where you’re going, there’s no pain, or exhaustion, or blood. Where you’re going, Suguru waits.

He leans against his hand, elbow on the slight incline of your bed. Letting go of your hand, he touches your face, feels the soft puff of your breath, the curve of your jaw. You’ve lost so much weight from the sickness you barely look like yourself, but you’re still you. The cursed energy is still yours. His Six Eyes sees it. His soul feels it.

It tangles with his own where he touches you, and a wave of exhaustion washes over him. 

He wants to sleep, let time pass, and wake up to you dead.

It seems a much better alternative to watching you slip away, but he’s always been selfish when it came to personal affairs.

.

You die two hours later.

Shoko closes her eyes and leans back into her chair as the nurse comes in to turn off the droning monitor. Her face is dry and she takes long, measured breaths as if trying to temper something swirling inside her. Satoru’s hard heart cracks as he squeezes your hand to see if you’ll wake up. It doesn’t quite sink in, even though he can hear someone crying outside, and when your limp hand doesn’t react at all, he shakes his head and gets up, pulling his sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and sliding them back onto his face.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rakes his face over your body, your face.

He’s seen a dozen dead bodies before, maybe more. You look just like he did on December 24th. At peace, younger. Like you’re glad the suffering is over, and Satoru turns his face away sharply and leaves the room. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s not sure if his voice is still here. 

Everything feels dry and dull and grey.

“Sensei,” Itadori whispers wetly, reaching out a hand, making him stop. The students are all sitting in a small area, but they stand upon seeing him leave the room, and he gives them a plastic smile that makes all of them flinch. Maki is scowling furiously at the ground as Inumaki takes hold of her bicep but she flings the hand off and stalks away, hiding her red face.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells them as Kugisaki runs after Maki. He watches the two go before turning his attention back on the students. “The important thing is that she didn’t suffer. Arrangements will be made, but there won’t be any rush, alright?” The words feel lacking, but he still manages to smile. “It’s been a long day. Go home. Rest, shower, eat. Let’s remember that she doesn’t want us to be here, slumping around looking like idiots. She wants you to all to take care of yourselves.” He arches his eyebrows insistently at his students, but they don’t seem to hear him.

They’re only looking through the glass doors at your coolling corpse, at Shoko who stands, and speaks to the doctor when he comes back in.

Fushiguro is the only one really looking at him, and the teenager has a silent question in his stare. 

Satoru shakes his head, and Megumi nods.

“Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week,” Yaga adds. “Ijichi will drive you all back to the college in thirty minutes. Make sure you tell the girls.” He directs this to Inumaki, who nods.

“Salmon.”

Later, Megumi finds him smoking a cigarette leaning against Shoko’s car. Satoru’s never liked the taste of the stuff so he doesn’t really know why he’s smoking other than the fact he doesn’t know what to do. 

Up is down, left is right, and you’re dead. 

Nothing seems right, but Megumi gives him a good excuse to stop. Flinging the cig to the ground, he stomps out the ember and re-arranges his expression into that shielded smile of his, but it feels a bit weaker. Sharp, janky, wrong.

“Why haven’t you gone home yet? Ijichi should’ve taken you all back by now,” Satoru says wearily as Fushiguro stops before him, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I stayed behind to look for you,” informs Megumi. He looks a bit fractured, but the boy’s never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Satoru makes a mental note to dig into his psyche at a later date, and stretches an arm out to wrangle the boy into a hug against his side.

For all of his complaints and mumbles and scowls, Megumi’s body still relaxes a bit against his, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, when he tells him, “You should go home and get some sleep, too. These past few months haven’t been easy on you, either,” Satoru feels a part of his old self raise its bloody head. 

Glancing down at a head of spiky hair, he knocks his knuckles into his student’s skull. “Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

Megumi crosses his arms, glares over Satoru’s elbow, but even his voice is quieter. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Satoru smiles again. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’re not worried about me, are you, Fushiguro?”

Megumi ducks his head and doesn’t answer any more than, “Someone has to pick up the slack, now.”

.

“Thanks, Ijichi,” Satoru says with a huff, digging the shovel into the ground and stepping on the metal edge. “Not every day you help me carry a dead body and dig a grave, huh.”

“No, sir,” Ijichi replies. He sounds a bit hoarse and tired as he wipes at his brow.

It’s been two days since you’ve died. The college grounds feels a lot less lively. He took a walk in the gardens yesterday, and saw Yaga planting new flowers. He had strode past and ignored the tears on his sensei’s face, and absently wonders now why he hasn’t cried yet as he grabs the shovel and yanks it out of the dirt, tossing it to Ijichi.

It feels kind of stupid, but despite how eviscerated everything inside him feels, he just can’t.

Either way, he’ll deal with it when it becomes a problem.

Satoru wipes at his brow, too, with a heavy sigh, and heads to where a cloth-covered shape is resting on the ground. Your corpse is light in his arms as he bridal carries you to the hole he’s just dug into the grass. It looks suspicious as hell, but it’d probably be even worse if he’d been walking around with a dead body over his shoulder, stitched back together after an autopsy by your best friend. 

Good thing they’re only in the forests outside the college campus. There won’t be any civilians for miles.

“You can go,” he says over his shoulder, setting you down by the hole they’ve dug. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself and Ijichi’s footsteps hesitate before beginning and fading away moments later. Falling to his knees, Satoru begins to carefully unfold the cloth just enough that he can see your face and chest. 

He squints behind his blindfold at the ripples of energy still seeping from the stitches along your chest. Sinking his hands into the lush, cold grass, he twists the blades with rigid fingers at the stench of rot coming from the curse before he draws back.

Hands on his lap, he stares at your face. You look frozen in time, eyes closed, skin clean, and there’s that unnatural stillness about you that only comes with the dead. It’s strange. He probably couldn’t have imagined someone so vivacious could be so motionless if he hadn’t seen it first with Suguru.

He had asked not to hear the results of your autopsy. Not now, maybe not ever. It’d be fresh lemon juice in a weeping wound. All he knows is that the curse clings to your corpse, and Shoko could only remove the growths that were no longer being fed for examination.

“Weird that this is where we’ve found ourselves,” he begins humourlessly. “With how we were living, Suguru always said I’d die first. Doing something stupid, being too cocky.” He slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws something he’d snipped this morning from the last plant you had grown with your Technique. A red tulip with a short stem that’s a bit crushed, and beginning to decay, but… everything can’t be perfect.

“I never thought I’d outlive you.”

Reaching forward, he places the tulip gently on your chest, takes your cold arms that are just beginning to loosen up again from rigor mortis, and folds your hands over the stem.

“Eternal love, and fame,” he repeats to himself. The energy nearly swallows up the tulip, but as it radiates from your chest, flickers in the slight breeze, Satoru sees flashes of red and green, much brighter than everything else around him, and knows that it won’t be consumed. Sitting down, he hugs his legs to his chest and stares at your dead body blankly, chin on his knees.

He had had a plan. He was going to just… put the flower there, exorcise the curse inside you, and bury you so you could finally rest. He wouldn’t hesitate because this is something you entrusted him to do.

But this is the first time in months he hasn’t had a cloud hanging over his head, and his body feels so much ligher without the burden of your disease hanging off his shoulders, that he can’t help but relish in it. Speak to you without worrying about saying the wrong thing, of people overhearing. He’s finally… free. 

It feels fucking awful.

“You were right, by the way.” His voice is dull, resonating deep in his chest. There is no August sun breaking through the trees above, only from behind him, and the golden beams touch your chin, down your throat and chest. It sets the red of the tulip on fire. “I miss you. And I wish I could’ve said so many things, but we ran out of time.” A faint smile. “No matter what you think, Suguru loved you. It’s why he came to see you one last time. I knew him better than I knew myself, and I know he was happiest knowing you were at his side.” Closing his eyes, the ache in his heart swells as he utters out, “So was I.”

Burying his his face in his forearms, a cup inside him seems to tip over and everything feels too hot for him to breathe in. Ripping his blindfold off and tossing it away from him blindly, his eyes snap open wide as he tries to breathe. His ribs constrict his lungs, and he presses his eyes into his arms, hands shaking as he sinks his nails into his biceps. 

Harsh pants puff against his face as he tries to reign in his shuddering, but he can’t. The knot in his heart twists until he thinks he might die, and distantly, he hears soft footsteps so faint he’s not sure if he imagines it. Gritting his teeth, he stifles the bruising feeling welling up in his throat.

Gentle hands brush down his shoulders soothingly, sending a wave of nausea through his body, and he jerks away.

“Damn it, Ijichi, leave me alone!” Wrenching his head up, his eyes widen at the figure crouched in front of him.

Arms falling lax to the grass and his knees widening, his jaw drops as a thumb teases his parted lips. You step between his legs and crouch down, limber and strong. You look healthy again, bright eyes and full cheeks, young like spring, and when you smile, it fills him utterly with light. In your hands is his blindfold, and you ruffle his hair, tilting your head curiously.

“I’m not Ijichi, but… do you really want me to go so soon?” you ask as he rakes his gaze up and down your body. There is still a purple shell encasing your legs, but as you shift your weight on your feet, it falls like fragile eggshells to the ground and sinks into the dirt, disappearing for good. Peering around you, his eyes widen when he sees shards of a purple shell in shatters all over your corpse.

He’d only seen this once before, eight months ago, with a certain student of his and the cursed spirit of the girl he loved and who loved him.

Face burning, his gaze snaps back to you as you poke his cheek and continue to grin. Leaning back on his hands, he tries to stop the intense shattering of his walls by clenching his jaw, but the shudders overtake his body, his chest, his throat until he’s letting out an ugly sound and blinking hard as if that’ll hide it away from you. Something devastatingly warm immediately shoots down his cheeks. Covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, he turns his face away but your warm hands cradle him carefully, thumbs brushing underneath his eyes.

“Yuuta, you’re right. Rika isn’t cursing you.”

“No,” he whispers, arm falling. His fingers sink into his shoulder as if that would be enough to wake him from this nightmare. “No. I can’t—Did I—Did I kill you?” You squint studiously, not letting go of his face as he lifts the hand from his shoulder and reaches to touch you. It shakes, and he snaps it into a fist to stop it, looking at his fingers that have done so much harm—shed so much blood. “Did I do this to you?”

“You cursed Rika.”

You chuckle fondly, like he’s said something silly, and set a hand on his fist, pushing it down firmly. “You can’t control how other people react to your words, Satoru.” Your voice changes, and your eyebrows draw together in something bittersweet. “And you can’t change something you didn’t know. The chances of you cursing me and me cursing myself are irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything about where we are, now.”

Satoru watches you, lips parted, as you tie the blindfold around his neck. You feel so real, so close, and as you slide your hands down his shoulders, to his chest, he jerks his head down to stare at your shoes in the grass. 

So he did. 

“I see,” he murmurs.

That’s it, then.

“Satoru, please look at me,” you whisper, fingers stretching to his chin. With the gentlest of pressures, you prompt him up and he finds your face, your smile, where all colours begin and end. For a moment, the world seems to inhale all of its life back into its core—the leaves whistle, the sun is warm and golden, and he lifts his hand to touch you again, but you pull back before he can. 

“I can only thank you for being my friend. For staying with me until the very end.” You laugh quietly to yourself and lift your hand from his face. “I would make a joke about a curse, but I know it still hurts, so I’ll save it for when I see you on the other side, okay? When it heals a bit more.”

“It’s never going to hurt less,” he croaks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know how much you mean to me.”

Your smile softens. Satoru tries to eternalize that expression forever. “I’m honoured, but, I hope it does heal. I don’t want you to learn how to carry so much pain around. I don’t want you to be numb.” You touch his cheek again, as if you’re trying to soak in as much of him as you can, too. 

“Do you have any last words?” he manages to ask raspily, and you chuckle, tilting your head and running your hand through his hair again. His eyes flutter shut at the scratch, the sensation of your nails against his scalp, and then there’s your hand at his jaw, holding him all together. He wants to hold you so badly he thinks his muscles might cramp into stone at the desire.

“What does it matter?” you ask curiously. “You already know how I feel. That will never change. And if you ever want to know what I think, or what I’d do, you can just ask Shoko and think about it yourself. You know me well enough to not need me nagging about it.”

“But, it won’t be enough.”

“It never will be,” you agree. “But isn’t it wonderful that we even got to know each other at all?” You lean forward, and his eyes flutter shut as you hold him to your chest. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, but your warmth is almost the same. The echo of your voice rumbles in his head as you speak, and maybe that is enough. “If you want my last words, you already have them.”

You draw him back, and give him one last smile. The air shifts golden yellow to his Six Eyes, for the last time. 

“Until we meet again, my Satoru.” 

You fade without giving him a chance to answer, taking all the colour with you. 

Staring at the empty air where you had been just a moment before with wide, burning blues, he whispers your name brokenly before burying his hands in the dirt, squeezing his eyes shut, and letting boiling tears scald his face red.

.

“If you want my last words, you already have them.”

Spinning the key ring on his finger, Satoru looks dully at the door knob he had just unlocked. There’s no one in the hall, and he debates whether or not he should turn around, but Shoko had insisted. There’d been something left for him in your old apartment, and according to her, it would be spoiled soon if he didn’t go.

“Oh, what the hell,” he mutters, catching the key in his palm and shoving it into his long coat. Tugging it tighter around himself, he twists the knob and pushes it open. He can’t remember the last time he was in here. Maybe five or six months ago, when they both had a day off that didn’t need to be spent at the college.

There aren’t any plants anymore. He supposes Nanami, Ijichi, maybe even Yaga have taken them. He swears he’s seen a few in the gardens lately, but who is he to say? Toeing off his shoes, he makes his way down the hall. 

 Everything is just as you left it, with clean counters and empty tables. The curtains are spread, letting in so much September sunlight. It hits random display pedestals of different sizes, all the surfaces big enough to fit a pot on. Your watering can sits by the sink. There are photos hanging on the walls, propped up on the desk, on your shelves, polaroids taped to the walls. 

Reminders that someone did live here. That there is a whole life unknown to strangers but evidence enough that whoever used to be here, they had people who would miss them.

Walking up to the counter, he drags his fingers along the surface, feeling the dust collect up to a square of pale light. A clean circle is all that’s left as a clue that there used to be something there, and his heart twists.

Who knew he could miss fucking plants of all things?

Sweeping his gaze around, he brushes off the dust on his jacket and hooks a thumb on his blindfold, sweeping the area with an eccentric eye. The TV is off, your bookshelves are in their usual untidy state, but even the reaching vines of the bean plant is gone from the highest shelf.

 “They really scooped this place dry,” he muses dryly to no one. He can still hear the music you’d play for late nights, the smell of dumpling soup. He walks down the hall and still remembers how many steps it takes to reach the bathroom that guests would use. 

He had hunched over that bath on December 25th, and let water soak through his hair as strong fingers worked the sweat from his scalp and skin.

Four more steps to the guest best room on the right, and another three to the end of the hall where a door leads to your room. It’s already open, and he steps in easily, tugging his blindfold all the way down off his face. Hair falling over his eyes, he sweeps it aside and surveys the room. The walls are still that pretty shade of cream, and your bed is made carefully, dark olive blankets resting atop your white sheets. He smiles to himself, despite the twang in his chest.

Walking deeper, he approaches the cabinet by your bathroom, and picks up the photo you have by your jewelry stand.

A smile curls his mouth. He remembers this one. First year, their first September. All four of them had gone together to Sapporo for the autumn festival. 

He sets the photo back down and looks into the bathroom. Your toiletries are all lined up, waiting for their next use, and he swallows as he raises his gaze up to the mirror. His blue eyes look a big too big on his face from the past month alone, and there are red-purple half moons printed onto his face that have only just started to fade. He swears it only looks worse because of how much pale light is streaming in from the windows, and he tugs at his collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

Turning around, he looks at the offenders for making him look so awful, and finds a medium-sized pot sitting on the window seat. It’s the only thing sitting on the flat, wooden surface, in partial shade and almost unfurling before his very eyes.

Satoru frowns, walking around your bed to inspect the plant. 

The flowers are a warm magenta colour, and his eyes widen at the flash of white he can see leading to the center of each bloom. Brushing a thumb over the petals, his jaw sets as he tilts his head to get a better look at the plant. So this is what was growing inside of you. Huh.

There’s another slip of white near the dirt, and his eyebrows furrow, fingers seeking the thing. It crinkles when he touches it, and his frown deepens as he manages to grasp it, pulling it free underneath the leaves and stems of the plants. Sitting down beside the pot, he dusts off the dirt clinging to the paper, and reads his name along the front in your print before flipping the envelope around. There’s something sticking out of it, a sloping shape that’s hard but not too big.

Curiosity peaked, he tears the envelope open carefully and peers inside. A binder clip is inside, holding something together, and he flips it upside down, letting everything fall. The letter slides out first, followed by whatever the binder clip is holding together and he squeezes his thighs together so it doesn’t fall to the floor.

Setting the letter aside, he picks the bundle up. 

Polaroids.

They’re polaroids of different sizes that have him smiling despite the heavy sorrow twisting his entire chest.

Various pictures of Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you together, and he finds most of them are of him and you. Pictures of him hiding behind plants of various sizes, a picture of him drinking soju, because Suguru liked it the most and insisted he try, while leaning against Shoko who was knocking back a shot of tequila. There is a shot of Suguru, wet with mud and smiling like sunshine, while a drenched Satoru was in the background, flipping the camera off in the middle of a storm. 

More and more pictures, enough to spill out of his lap, and he picks up each one, desperate to remember when or where you took them.

And, sometimes, he can’t. Sometimes, they are just moments that he’s lost because he never thought they’d be important, and now moments he’d give anything to remember.

There are pictures of a fern he had named their first year, little annotations on the bottom of some others. Dates, but with no context otherwise. Names scribbled in black ink. 

You’re in a lot of them, your smile timeless, your joy infectious even through film.

Arms slung around Suguru, face smushed against his, artfully blurry perhaps on accident, and annotated with scrawl that read: I call this masterpiece “Dumb Sweethearts” by Gojo Satoru :)

A picture of him and Shoko and Suguru, of them in one of Tokyo’s night markets, you behind the camera, the lights flashing and warm and pink, making them all look like they’ve transported to some other kind of cyberpunk world. 

You and Shoko lounging in the gardens, having a tiny picnic at your insistence, and in Suguru’s handwriting in black: JUST GIRLS BEING PALS

Satoru stares at Suguru’s writing the longest, not even at his words, just the strokes of his pen. This is a new part of him Satoru thought had been destroyed, and he starves for it. It’s like his one and only lives and breathes in the ink, in those snapshots of him caught in eternal youth. When they’d been happy and unaware and not innocent, but cocky enough to think they could rule the world. 

It’s hungry, the way he goes through each photo, searching for another glimpse of you, of him, of them together, until Satoru is all out of moments to feed on, and still, he feels empty, flicking through the last few photos.

You in a pool, arms wrapped around Shoko and beaming like the sun.

A shot of Satoru and Suguru climbing trees shot from below, your eyes and skeptically raised eyebrows in frame, captioned big dumb monkeys

And the last one…

He holds it to the sunlight and his gaze softens.

A selfie of you kissing Suguru on the cheek. It’s mostly dark, but they were definitely in the bathroom, and the flash made Suguru’s outstretched arm look pale as a ghost, but even so, there’s no mistaking the happiness captured there. He was sticking out his tongue, winking, and red as a beet so he was either drunk or you had said something or both. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, nose squished against his cheek, eyes squeezed tight as he took the shot.

Turning it over, Satoru’s heart plummets into his chest. In Suguru’s clean, blocky writing:

THE GIRL IM GOING TO MARRY ONE DAY <3

And crossed out is your reply followed by a little note:

dummy doesnt have the nerve to propose SHHH!!!! ONE DAY C:

One day.

It sounds so much emptier now.

He lowers the photo back to his lap, and glances around him, at all these scattered moments captured forever. Gathering them up again, he relives them all over again, looking at each photo for longer to see if he’s missed anything, but mostly his stare lingers on your face, and on Suguru’s, and his own, too, because he can’t remember what it felt like back then, but he is sure it feels so much better than now.

The polaroids come together a neat stack and he is careful not to scratch any of them when he clips them together. The top photo is of you with your arms wrangled around Suguru and Satoru, your face split in a maniacal laugh, their mouths open in shock, eyes bulging in how you must’ve scared them witless. 

Shoko’s messy writing at the bottom, for it must’ve been her who had taken the photo: BREAKING NEWS: Japan’s Strongest Conquered by a Woman.

A smile cracks his weary face and he runs a thumb over their faces before sliding the photos back into the envelope for safe-keeping. 

Then, he grabs the letter. His name is written again on the first flap, and he reads it three times over before unfolding the paper, not quite ready but also not sure if he ever will be.

Immediately, a faint, herbal-like scent slashed with antiseptic flows from the page and his stomach curdles as your script pours down the page. 

Swallowing, Satoru shifts and leans against the wall, hiking a foot up onto the seat and holding your inked characters to the light. There’s a date inscribed at the top.

Thursday. 

The first Thursday after you had been released from the hospital. Your last Thursday before you were back in for good.

“Shit.”

He folds the letter again and tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

Does he want to read this? Does he really want to fucking read this? 

Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat and lowers his gaze to stare determinedly ahead of him. The purple flowers greet him warmly and he shakes the shiver out of his body before tightening his grip on your letter and unfolding it again, forcing his eyes on the page.

My Satoru,

I sent all the pictures I had of Shoko to her, and she has some of Suguru, too. Now that I’m gone, there’s no use if I keep them. Maybe you two could share some time, laugh it up over these old memories. I know she says she can’t stand you, but to be honest, who else is there that will remember us now? Who else is there to remember Suguru for more than his bloody hands and me as more than that girl too sick to do anything but die? 

Some legacy we said we’d leave, huh.

I don’t think I told you this, but with this disease catching up to me, it’s hard not to form hypotheses on why it’s happening or how. I have quite a few theories, and, unfortunately, none of them are pleasant or unriddled with angst. By now, you’ve probably figured out it’s a curse, and if you’re smart enough to ignore how much I’ll probably deny it, that it’s some love bullshit. If you didn’t know, now you do.

I know it’s weird. Suguru is dead. It shouldn’t be happening, right?

That’s what I thought, too

You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t want to curse you by dying, but I can’t help but wonder if we can control who we curse. If I hadn’t heard you say that, would I still be here? Healthy? Okay? 

I don’t know. I can’t predict alternate timelines, because I got to live one life, and that’s more than most people get. But, because I know you, you want me to entertain you. I’m sighing as I write this.

Look, I know the pain would still be there. I know I still wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for what I did, even if it was what had to be done. I know I would still miss him. I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.

If you didn’t curse me, I cursed myself. It drives me crazy that this is how the die was cast, even now, even after months where I could’ve accepted this, but at least this physical manifestation almost makes me… calm. Like seeing what this life has done to me makes me brave enough to fight it. If anything at all, the curse brought me a greater understanding of how powerful our world is in comparison to people who… are normal. The people we have to protect.

I’m sorry. Reading this back, it sounds like I’m the one cursing you now; telling you all this knowledge that can only bring you more anguish. I promise, this isn’t what it is. I just want you to understand. You couldn’t have saved me, Satoru. I couldn’t have given you the absolution you wanted, and if that’s how it is, then I just hope that one day you can look back on this and it won’t hurt anymore.

It’s always been so complicated between us, after what happened to Suguru, and after what he did, even ten years ago. What we couldn’t stop and what we had to do that day. There was always a line that I thought I couldn’t cross, or a line you didn’t want to cross, and it was shaped a lot like him. I don’t know if it was just in my head, but there was something holding us back, and I was fine dancing around it because I saw how you felt about him and I understood. Your eyes always changed when you looked at him. When you spoke of him. Even after.

Always after.

Don’t think I’m angry. I’m not blind. I know how much you two meant to each other, and I could never be angry that Suguru is so cherished. Missed. It makes everything so much harder, so much more painful.

Look, in the end, I loved him, and you did, too. And if we both still do, that’s okay. He deserved love. 

I guess it just feels like a stab in the back that it wasn’t enough. 

But life isn’t a fairytale. None of it really matters. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second, and I hope you wouldn’t either. 

Maybe life isn’t supposed to be lived happily, but lived contently. And I did. I am satisfied with what I’ve done, even if I wanted to do so much more. 

I’m so grateful to have known you, to have had you by my side. I hope you can say the same. 

Don’t regret my death. Remember how much fun we had when we were stupid kids, and smile. Because I don’t want you to think your best years are behind you. I want you to be happy, even if I can’t be there to see it. I want you to be excited for your future, even if I can’t be in it.

I’ll always be watching over you, so smile for me every once in a while. Even if it seems like you’ll never feel anything again. One day, I promise you will, and it won’t feel so bad.

Yours forever and ever and ever,

(Name)

.

Throat crushed, he reads one line over and over the most. He’s memorized your letter heart, but he still carries it around with him, anyway.

“I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.”

Sometimes, he just wants to imagine your hand whispering over the page, the pen tapping against your chin, your face as you wrote, the sigh that you said you heaved. Because he’ll never hear you laugh again, see your smile. Your voice will never tease his ear, your fingers will never touch his face. There is no more laugh-wrinkles set in a face always perfectly hit by sunlight, and this is all he has left. His memory, and what you’ve left behind.

It makes him laugh how almost lovestruck stupid he’s being, but… he doubts anyone blames him. As long as he’s still doing his job, as long as he’s still the Strongest, what does it matter if he carries a dead woman’s letter in his pocket everywhere?

“Warm weather, even in the evenings. That’s a bit unusual,” Nanami observes, startling Satoru and he looks up at the blond who stops by him in the gardens. The man is wearing his grey suit, as always, and his watch glimmers in the fading gold light. “How are you?”

Satoru’s fingers tighten around the letter in his hands. As usual, the urge to crumple it up, throw it into the garbage to never see it again, has reared its head after his latest re-read, but he’ll stave it off. He always manages to.

“Fine,” he replies, glancing at the startling blood red and burnt orange leaves casually. Colours seem a bit brighter, and Satoru still squints a bit against them, despite the soft light of the sunset. He doesn’t know when his Six Eyes got so sensitive to that kind of stuff, but it almost feels good to be distracted by something so trivial as sensitive eyesight. “It is a bit warm for October.” 

Nanami hums. “How are your plants doing?”

“Mine are doing good,” he says, smiling. “The tulips have gone dormant, so nothing to worry about there. The one with purple flowers, though. It’s a tough one. It took me a while to figure out what it liked, but it didn’t go dormant or anything as long as I gave it enough water and paid attention to it.”

“That’s good.” Nanami adjusts his green lenses and sighs like he’s bracing himself for something difficult. “Gojo,” he begins, but Satoru merely folds your letter up and slides it into his breast pocket, holding up a hand.

“Whatever you’re going to say, Nanami, I don’t need to hear it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks skeptically, gaze following as Satoru stands, patting his jacket. Adjusting the lapel, he turns to his friend and when he grins, it feels like it reaches his eyes behind his sunglasses for the first time in two months.

“I’ve done this before, Nanami. I’ll be fine.” He waves it away. Nanami frowns. “I’m gonna get some dinner, though. Care to join? There’s a real good ramen place in Ikebukuro that you have to try.” The blond man observes him for a moment, before shaking his head, saying he had dinner already. “Suit yourself. Next time, I’m treating you, though.” 

Lips puckered in a whistle, Satoru turns around and begins to walk away. 

A breeze sweeps through the gardens, rustling the leaves in a discordant harmony, and sneaking into his jacket, sending a slight shiver up his spine as Nanami’s voice follows after him.

“The flower she left you is the sakurasou.” Satoru stops, hands in his pockets, but he doesn’t turn around as Nanami continues, “I wasn’t certain if if you knew.”

“Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the info.” Lifting a hand, he barely looks over his shoulder before saluting with two fingers and smiling cheekily. It’s not as forced as it used to be. In fact, it comes quite easy as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He knows what he has to find out now. “See ya later, Nanami.”

“Good evening,” he replies, and in a blink of an eye, Satoru is gone.

On the windowsill of his empty apartment, the sakurasou soaks in the last remnants of the day before wilting against two photos.

One of four students, arms entangled, and faces framed in eternal youth.

And another immortalizing what could’ve been longer than a few shaky months if someone had been just a bit braver.

a/n: satoru’s google search result: the meaning of sakurasou - desire and long-lasting love. 

and yes, there was an actual lunar eclipse on july 27th, 2018 (28th in japan time). it was very pretty. i researched a bit about both the lunar eclipse and the medical stuff, but excuse any inaccuracies! tis but a work of fiction <3 also, fun fact: the polaroid camera is supposed to be the instax mini 90 but ive never used it so excuse those inaccuracies as well SKNDALSDKN

ngl i did wanna write an alternative ending, but i can’t see this ending any other way. this is it. this is the canon, and we got a bit of happy feelies at the end as a treat. thank you for reading!

#fic: the colour yellow #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru #gojou satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojou x reader #gojou x you #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk writing #jujutsu kaisen writing #jujutsu kaisen gojo #my writing

[books-and-catears]

Hi! I was wondering if you could write some headcanons on how the brothers would react to the alternate timeline MC (the one killed by belphie, rip) haunting the house of lamentation? I just think some angst would be neato. Keep up the good work! I love your writing <3

Oh how much I love this concept. With all the ghost MCs I've been writing this fits in perfectly. How I love writing angst hehehe thank you for this wonderful ask

Thank you so much for your kindness. I hope I can do this justice :')

It has been months since you've been gone. Your body buried in the human world, and yet your soul still felt like it was lingering.

They could see you - a glimpse here, a whisper there and your presence everywhere. Almost as if you just walked past them into your room, and lay curled up in bed with Satan's new books or Levi's new manga. Only you weren't.

The bumps in your bed were just pillows and blankets. The extra chair stood out like a sore thumb. They would so often call you and then feel stupid for expecting a response. Except you had started answering back now.

Lucifer could often hear paper rustling in his sleep. And when he woke up he found the paper work was done more than he remembered doing.

He found his favourite tea brewing whenever he was too tired. And it tasted exactly how you used to make it.

At first he thought it was some sort of sickening joke from his brothers so he threatened to punish them if they didn't come clean. But it was none of them.

Then...MC? Did you come back somehow?

He went into a secret frenzy, looking for you everywhere. Sometimes when the house was empty, he screamed out your name, he could hear your voice softly calling back from your room.

Soon those soft vague sounds became his only comfort - he became super strict about silence in the house. He refused to have any other tea than the one he found magically brewing. He'd always kiss the cups before drinking from them, and his eyes would sting with unshed tears.

___________________________________________

Mammon might be scared of ghosts. But not you. Never you. Especially when he could feel your weight in his arms whenever he missed you too much.

Maybe the sensation was more vivid, since he was the last one to hold you alive. He could also see you. A faint shadow that walked beside and waved to him whenever he was in your room.

And though the shadow had no face, he could tell it was smiling. He felt calm around it. Like you never left. He denied your death the most and now there was reason to.

He barely left the house and most of the time he just stayed in your room. That's where he had most memories with you. Sometimes he found coins and Grimm strewn around your bed, as if you'd left it there for him. He took them and stored them away, never to spend them.

He was overjoyed when he saw your shadow in his room. He started talking to it like it was you, pressing his lips against the walls where you appeared and watching your shadow reaching up to touch his shadow, holding it tight. In those moments he swore he could feel your arms around him again. And on those nights, his pillows would be drenched with his agony.

___________________________________________

Leviathan first noticed it when he saw that Player 2 was always logged in, in all of his games. Even the ones that came months after you were longer there.

And while player two didn't actively play, he found boost items in his game inventory that he didn't achieve himself. You used to hunt down boost items to help with his battles and he protected you during the fights.

He starts getting even more into gaming, to the point where he forgets to go out for meals. Mammon and Satan have to drag him out to eat. He often just sits there talking to himself as if you're still there.

Then one day, in the group texts of the game, he sees you text. Player 2: 'Go get him Levi! I got your back; we have a lot of ammo!" He forgot the game altogether desperately typing back a message.

You don't text as often as he would like, but he's always waiting for whatever you say. It's easily the best part of his day. If he fell asleep in front of the screen, he would wake up covered with a blanket and good morning message on screen. His brothers claim to never have gone inside so he knows it's you. He cries into the blanket you covered him with cause he misses you.

___________________________________________

Satan came to feel your presence in the strangest way. There was a particular cat that you were attached to. That cat started finding ways to sneak inside the house, in the library or Satan's room, holding small books in its mouth.

When Satan opened them up, he found petals of your favourite flowers tucked away in some particular pages. It resembled the way you marked your favorite chapters using colored bits of paper or bookmarks.

He figured out a way to talk to you. He made something that resembled an Ouija board and left a little cat shaped button on it. He tried it out in your room, and it worked. You were talking back. Not whole sentences but broken phrases and words. So he used yes and no questions from then onwards.

He often found new books in his room, a hint that you wanted him to read them. While reading, he could swear he felt your head rest on his shoulder as if trying to read with him. He also left books in your room to read. Though he missed your touch and your voice, the fact that you still talk to him gave him so much joy. He often kisses the books he gives you, hoping they reach your fingers and litters the pages with tear stains in hopes you'd see them and come back.

___________________________________________

Asmodeus screamed the first time he saw you behind him in the mirror. You were transculent, barely visible. But it was you and your distinct smile and wave of the hand, leaning against his bathroom wall, long streaks of dried blood near your neck. He could even smell you - your scent like flowers, firewood and old books.

He tries to talk to you, even tries to hold you but you're just an image. A reflection that reflects nothing but empty space. You don't seem to talk but you nod or shake your head in reply. He presses himself into the mirror as if trying to hug you tight.

But lately he hears whispers, very faint and barely there but he hears them. Always calling him somewhere where there is a mirror. Cause that's the only place he can see you. If you thought he was obsessed with mirrors then, you should see him now.

He almost covered his whole room up with mirrors so he could see you from all angles, making you feel as alive as he possibly could. He screams your name into his pillows. Maybe you would respond if he was louder?

___________________________________________

Beelzebub often passed by you room, all covered now, just like Lilith's. The door was always kept open but he didn't dare enter. But one day, a strong gust of wind blew it wide open as if urging him to enter. So he did.

On the bed he found some fresh treats placed right in the middle of your bed. It was the treats he loved to eat together with you. How did they even get here?

He sat on the bed and absent mindedly started eating. When he ate, he could hear your laughter and you talking - a surge of memories flooding his senses. And when he was done, he could swear he felt your fingers wiping his mouth.

Eversince then he refused to eat anywhere except your room and his brothers had to drag him to the table during breakfast and dinner. But whenever a new bakery or restaurant opened, he would bring all the food back only to eat it in your room. And he would smile, listening to saying how delicious the food is. He would often clutch at his chest and cry, missing the way you used to hold him whenever he was sad. Won't you come hold him now, MC?

___________________________________________

Belphegor couldn't feel a thing. The only way he knew you were still here was when he brothers acted strangely. He'd ask them of course, but they'd never reply to him. He was the reason MC was gone. Why would MC show themself to him?

So he observed his brothers, always cautious for every little thing that was out of place. He'd caught all his brothers crying at some point or the other. Especially in your room. So he'd curl up in your room to spend the night in there hoping to feel you like his brothers. Only he never did, and Mammon and Satan would scream and drag him out the next morning.

None of the brothers would let him inside of their own rooms either. They couldn't save you when it mattered. So now it was their way of protecting whatever essence was left of you.

Feeling dejected and guilty he went and locked himself inside his old attic. He rested his against the bars that locked him in. Isn't this where he first met you, MC? Sigh. You'd been nothing but kind to him so why did he-

"Belphie.." Then he heard it. For the first time in forever, he heard your voice again. Soft and kind - just like before. He looked up and through the bars, he saw the most familiar sight. You smiling at him through the bars, your fingers wrapped around yours. And just like that he broke down. He started howling in pain, as he tried to reach you, but his fingers slipped right through you. "I'm sorry I'm sorry come back please come back!" He cried as you disappeared into thin air again.

My Masterlist .

#obey me angst #obey me headcannons #obey me angst headcanon #obey me lucifer #obey me satan #obey me levi #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me asmo #obey me mammon #obey me fluff #obey me imagine #obey me game

[kingsuckjin]

Golden- JJK

💛 Pairing: (almost entirely)Jungkook x reader, (basically none)Seokjin x reader

💛 Rating: 18+

💛 Genre: friends to lovers but like fluffy but also like very sad.

💛 Summary: After see your boyfriend Jin cheating on you at a bar and realizing your shared friends have been working together to hide it from you, you storm off into the parking lot to cry. Jungkook sees you out there and tells you the truth about everything, or what he wants you to believe is the truth.

💛 Words: almost 16k

💛 Warnings: CHEATING!!! “only one-bed” cliché but I love it, drinking, oral sex(m&f), protected sex and unprotected sex, dirty talk, overestimation, vaginal fingering, love kink?, too much smut, uhhh Jungkook is a bit of a stalker.

💛 Note: listen, I just wanted an excuse to write a gratuitous amount of Jungkook fluff and smut and I also love hurting. I thought I should throw in, these two characters are not actually in love, there are reasons it moves so fast, but it's not love.

❤ also a very big thank you to @btsaudge​ who beta read this whole thing for me, she’s not only a god tier beta reader but a god tier writer too ❤

“Where are you?” Jin was supposed to be home an hour ago. He had been doing this off and on for the past few months. You’d be lying if you hadn't wondered if things were beginning to fall apart later. You knew Jin would never do anything he wasn’t supposed to, especially not with the other guys there. You knew he was probably just having fun and part of you felt awful for wanting to keep tabs on him, you didn’t want to ruin his time by pestering him the whole time.

You paced as you waited for a reply but none came.

“Is Jin okay?” You sent to Namjoon now and he replied pretty quickly.

“Yeah, I’ve got an eye on him. We’re just over here at Gold’s bar telling old stories.” 

“Thank you.” You replied. You knew Jin could be a handful after having too many drinks but entrusted them with him.

You tried to sit back down and open your laptop up only to just blankly gaze at the screen. You were bored. Writer's block had hit you hard and you just didn’t feel like writing right now. You missed Jin tonight. You thought about the trip you had saved up for with the money from your last book. Sleepless hours were poured into making that book special all because you and Jin had shared a dream of vacationing in Hawaii together. All of your money went to it, every cent besides the shared rent, you wanted to surprise him and you just couldn’t find the right time to do it. He was a lawyer, not the best yet, so he had many sleepless hours too. You both deserved this trip.

You wondered for a moment if you dressed up and showed up if it would make him happy, especially if you finally told him about the trip tonight. You figured if you waited until he got home he would just pass right out and you wouldn’t get the chance. Again, you didn’t want to bother him with his friends, but then again he had spent many nights with them drinking and you were sure there were more to come, one night of you showing up couldn’t hurt.

You closed your laptop and went to your closet to find the black dress he loved so much on you, you only got it out for special occasions, and one of these days you planned on wearing it when he proposed. You knew him proposing was coming, he had been talking about it here and there lately “After we’re married…” or “when I make you my wife…” this was how life was supposed to go and you thought you couldn’t have picked a more relaxed person to share life with and you did your best to match his laid back attitude.

You got an Uber to Gold’s bar, it wasn’t a long ride, just long enough to make you further worry about ruining his time tonight. 

The first person you saw was Taehyung sitting at the bar with a pretty lady, obviously flirting like the ladies man he was. 

You tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned he seemed surprised to see you for a moment.

“Where’s Jin?” You asked over the music that was playing slightly too loud and it just wasn’t your taste in music anyway.

“I saw him over there.” He pointed to a corner of the building, and you saw him alright. You saw past the people and even passed the girl pressed into him, both leaned on the wall. 

“What are you doing here?” Came another voice.

You looked away from the scene and at Yoongi. Your eyes felt wide and your mouth fluttered open and closed. You didn’t know what to say or to think, or what was happening. Were you tired? Were you seeing things? Had your sweet and kind boyfriend just been making out with another woman with all of his and your friends here to witness it? You were confused? Did they all know something you didn’t?

You turned back around, afraid you would see the scene again, but you didn’t. There was no one against the wall. The place was dim, maybe you had just thought it was Jin.

“Want a drink?” Yoongi offered.

All you could do was just nod. 

Your eyes kept scanning the faces of people to find Jin, you were so lost and set on finding him that you were surprised to see the shot in front of your face Yoongi had gotten for you. You took it, you had no idea what it was even as it burned your throat.

“Looking for Jin huh?” Yoongi asked and sat down at one of the stools at the bar before patting the seat next to him.

“Well he’ll find us, I think he’s around here with Namjoon somewhere, might’ve gone to throw up.” 

“Yeah.” You replied but still felt nervous. Another shot was brought to both you and Yoongi.

“Was-was he pretty drunk when you saw him last?” You asked.

“He always gets pretty plastered, you know that.” 

“Sweetie!!!!” It was his voice.

You turned in the stool to see a smiling Jin coming in your direction, arms stretched wide. “What are you doing here?” He seemed happy and pretty drunk and he leaned over, wrapped his arms around you, and placed his cheek on your head. 

You felt relieved he wasn’t upset you were there.

“I’ve missed you all night.” He kissed the top of your head.

“God, you’re loud when you’re drunk,” Yoongi muttered to him.

When he released your smile that had grown from his embrace and hug faltered.

There was red lipstick on his neck.

“Jin what happened?” You asked, your hands had become sweaty as the scene you had witnessed earlier flashed through your mind.

“What do you mean?” He still wore a big smile.

“Jin, you have lipstick-“ you couldn’t finish your sentence. You turned to Yoongi just to make sure you weren’t going crazy and he had turned back away to face the bar.

You could feel your pulse thud hard as your brain further tried to rationalize it but to no avail. He must’ve caught on because he wiped at the place on his neck where your gaze was fixed. Your eyes flickered back to his nervous-looking brown eyes that were always so full of joy and laughter, the ones that always felt like home to you. Everything about this situation felt so wrong like a nightmare, you felt sick. This couldn’t be your Jin, it wasn’t your Jin, it was some strange cold stranger pretending to be him, but the more you looked at him the more you realized you were wrong. You felt tears well in your eyes and knew your strong front was beginning to dissolve and break apart like paper in water. 

That was it.

You took off for the door, you looked back and saw Jin trying to stumble after you, but Taehyung had stopped him.

You were left in tears in the parking lot, you felt your phone go off in your hand but your brain was in too much of an anger and hurt haze to care. You were looking for a place to break down, anywhere, but you sure as hell weren’t planning on going back in there. Your whole relationship with Jin was flashing through your mind and it felt like your heart had been burned, burned with the image of him and someone else the way her lipstick has been burned onto his neck.

You began to sob as you walked around parked cars. You were caring less and less who saw you break down. You felt so alone and exposed especially when a man sitting on the hood of his car began to stare.

“Y/n?” The voice questioned. Through your tear-blurred vision, you could see the screen of his phone light up his shocked-looking face.

Jungkook.

“How’d you get here so fast? I just-“ he stood from his seat on his car hood.

“Seokjin cheated on me.” You sobbed in the ugliest crying voice you had ever heard come from yourself.

Your fists grabbed the material of his jacket and you hurried your face in its collar.

His hands went to the middle of your back and hugged you silently for a moment. It just felt so good to have someone comfort you when everyone else seemed not to care or ignore you altogether. Even if it was awkward Jungkook.

You recalled the time where he once showed up at your University and just wanted to hang out for seemingly no reason. The whole two hours he was with you, he stayed silent. You thought he had wanted to visit you because you were friends but it left you wondering if he was ju9st trying to kill time or something. You also remember Jin not being too happy about it when you told him, maybe Jin wasn't too understanding back then.

“He was kissing someone else and I-I-“ you trailed off into a series of gaspy hiccups.

“I know.” He sighed.

“What?” You took a step back but still didn’t release him.

“Your phone. Check your phone.” He instructed.

You unlocked it to see a lengthy text from him. It was hard to read it and stay focused, you were shivering out of school or the chill in the air from this dress. You skimmed it but you shook worse the more you stood there. Attached were two pictures of Jin and the woman kissing in the same way and position that you had seen them.

You looked up at Jungkook with tears streaming down your cheeks, your lip quivered, your body shivered and he looked down at you with sorrow knitted into his furrowed brows.

“I’m sorry. They had always told me not to say anything, that it wasn’t my business, that I’d make you both unhappy if I-“ 

Your teeth were still chattering as you looked up at him.

He took his coat off silently before draping it around your shoulders. You fed your arms through the armholes that were way too big on you.

“Come on, let’s get you… let’s get you warm.” He went around to the passenger’s side and opened his car door. You didn’t resist, at least you could break down somewhere private.

You held your head in your hands as you sobbed over the sound of the engine and heat warming the car. He sat there quietly, not saying anything at all, but you didn’t blame him for it, he had always been awkward with people, especially you, but at least he seemed to care more than anyone else tonight.

You cried until only your hiccups remained. Your head rested against the headrest as you looked out the windshield at the night sky, it was starless.

“You- you uh wouldn’t want to go home would you.” It was a statement, he knew you wouldn’t. “Is there- somewhere I can take you? You could come with me… if you want.” 

“I don’t know, I don’t know if I want to be anywhere, but I can’t go home.” You stated knowing you weren’t making complete sense.

“We don’t have to go to my house just yet, we can do anything you want… but I do understand if you want to be somewhere where you can just be sad.”

“I don’t want to be sad.” You sniffled once more and wiped at your face “I don’t want to be anywhere sad. I wanted to have fun…”

“I know somewhere we can have fun.” 

Before you could answer he was pulling out of the parking lot.

It was quiet for a while as you just looked out the window.

“I know what it’s like you know.”

You turned to look at his face as he drove, lights every so often passing over his face.

“You’ve been cheated on too.” It wasn’t a question so much as a sad statement that came from your mouth. 

“That’s what made me want you to know so badly. It tore my heart out and sometimes I wish …I never would’ve found out, it hurt. I know it hurts.”

“I’m so sorry Jungkook.” You whispered. Sometimes he was weird, but you knew he had always had a good heart. 

“Sometimes things like that just happen, it doesn’t make it hurt less, but it does help to know you’re not alone… that and getting shit-faced.” He joked making you let out an amused puff of breath as you felt yourself smile just a little.

“Are we going somewhere with alcohol?” You asked.

“Of course. It’s on the house tonight.”

“You’re a good one Jungkook.” You replied.

You looked up at the big neon bowling ball and pins at the top of the building as you sat in the parked car.

“Bowling?” You asked and looked down at your dress. He was such a weird person.

“Just trust me.” 

So you did trust him, after all, it was better than being at home alone or worse, at home with Jin.

When you walked into the bowling alley it was dark, but there were laser lights and strobes and glowing lights and music played loudly but not as near as deafening as it did at the bar. It seemed like you were the only two here, besides one older guy playing alone at the very end lane.

You took a seat at a table at the opposite end and simply just waited, but the more you were alone with your thoughts the more what happened played through your mind. 

How long had Jin been cheating on you? Had he knowingly been cheating on you while talking about you being his wife someday?

You felt tears sting your eyes again, it was harder to hold them back this time.

Jungkook came back with an entire pitcher of beer and a plastic cup he sat on the table before he looked at you.

You tried to shield your crying eyes. You felt stupid crying at a bowling alley you weren’t even bowling at.

You heard the sounds of him pouring beer into the cup and you heard the cup scoot across the table.

You put your hand down, picked up the cup, and downed it.

“I know it’s hard not to think about, and I know it hurts. You shouldn’t be so embarrassed about crying.” Somehow he was able to read you “we’re pretty much the only ones here.” 

“I know, it just feels so strange crying in such an open place. I’m glad I’m here though.” 

He looked to be thinking about your words for a moment before ducking down in the seat and disappearing under the table.

“Come here,” he asked from under the table as you poured more beer in the plastic cup.

You followed him down under the table miraculously without spilling your drink.

He gave you the biggest, sweetest toothy smile and you couldn’t help but return it. You felt like a child playing hide and seek. 

He began to sing along to September by Earth Wind and Fire that played throughout the bowling alley, even physically reenacting the words just to make you laugh. Behind him, past the table were the prettiest lights. You felt so comfortable, warm, and safe in his yellow jacket.

“Are you okay?” He asked with slight concern.

“Yeah.” You snapped out of it and took another drink of your drink before offering him some.

“No, I have to drive. I got it for you, it’s all yours.” He declined.

“Thank you, for all of this.” You told him “it has made me feel better, I owe you so much.” 

“Don’t mention it.” He shrugged and you couldn’t help but notice just how sturdy his shoulders looked, and his thick tattooed upper arms.

His eyes were just as big and sparkling as when you had met him in high school. You tried to think back on the exact point you met him but you couldn’t remember.

“Jungkook, when did we meet, do you remember?” You asked him curiously.

“Mhm. I remember.” He gave you a nod. “We were all at Seokjin’s and we were setting up monopoly but had to wait because he was waiting on someone else. When you walked in the door I…”

“You just stared at me the whole time, I felt so unwelcome.” You laughed as you remembered.

You looked over at him to see him looking down and playing with one of the chunky rings on his fingers with a shy smile, his shaggy dark waves threatening to obstruct your view of his sheepishness. He was no longer that quiet and shy bowl-cut boy, well, in a sense was, but not to you anymore. He had tattoos all over him and long hair, his ears had a few rings in each. You wondered how someone so sweet could look like that. He was a paradox all on his own and you simply just never understood it, maybe that’s why you had felt like he was a little weird.

“The funny thing was, I had never seen you at school before that, but I saw you everywhere after.”

“I remember the same thing happening.” You replied as your mind went to seeing him in the halls and recalling the little waves he would give you. It made you smile recalling him then and looking at him now.

“You’ve always been so good, Kook.”

His reply was a shy scoffing noise before thanking you.

You noticed the cup you held was empty and looked down at it.

“Want me to get you more up top?” He pointed up and you nodded. He took your cup and told you to stay put as if you might be planning on crawling away. You felt safe here under this table with him, it was like your feelings couldn’t find you as long as you hid under here with him.

He bumped his head on the way back down making you burst out into laughter.

“You think that’s funny you sadist?” He joked as he smiled big and you continued to laugh at him “is that what it takes to make you laugh?” He teased as he handed you your refilled drink. “You know what would be hilarious? Me walking out here and getting hit by a car. You would be in tears with laughter.”

You still laughed but shook your head.

“You know what I think?” He lifted a brow at you “I think you’re drunk.” He accused you.

“No, definitely not. No way.” You denied but both of you knew it was a joke. Everything seemed to lag just a bit and you felt so silly. Your confidence was through the roof and every time you looked at him your heart raced. 

“I think you’re drunk.” You accused him back.

“Me? How? I haven’t drank anything all night.” His warm smile never ended and you swore he couldn’t take his eyes off of you.

“I think you’re so drunk that you think I’m drunk.” 

“No no.” You continued with your play fight. “If I was drunk could I do this?” You simply just took another drink of beer.

“Yes?” He chuckled. His laugh alone was enough to make your stomach feel like it was jumping into your throat.

You don’t know what got into you, you don’t know why you did it, but you reached forward and placed your hand on his knee.

There was silence for a moment as he looked down at it. He picked it up and he didn’t quite hold it but took it in a weird handshake way and let your conjoined hands be somewhere in the space between you.

He looked at you and smiled.

“I’m cutting you off. No more drinks for you.” You couldn’t tell if he was joking, or he was hinting for you to stop, your drunk brain had no idea. Instead of trying to figure out if he was rejecting you, you turned his hand over in yours and looked at his hand tattoos and rings, running your hand over each one. You had once heard his tattoos were for his family, but you didn’t know. You let go of his hand and held his arm as you examined those too, some had words you’re drunk brain couldn’t comprehend the meaning of.

“What’s after this?” He asked as he let you look over his skin.

You thought about it.

“I don’t want to go home.” You knew that much. “And I have no friends except…” actually you didn’t have friends anymore.

“My house it is then.” 

“I don’t have to if- I wouldn’t want to…”

“It’s alright, I don’t mind. I just want to know you’re safe and not in pain… unless you’d feel too uncomfortable.”

“I trust you.” You locked eyes with him. It was the truth, Jungkook had never hurt anyone ever that you can recall. He hadn’t even been mad at any of the others, even when he should’ve been sometimes. If you were bothering him he never would’ve said it, and knowing that made you feel worse, it made you feel like you were.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been to my house, but I have to warn you, it isn’t the best, I’m just a currently jobless IT guy. Kinda lost my job last week.”

“I’m so sorry Kook. I don’t mind, at least it’s not with Jin.” You finished off what was in your cup, he hadn’t been too serious about cutting you off the drinks.

“I’ll be back.” He let you know before crawling out from under the table.

You went to get out from under the table and the moment you stood all the drinks hit you, you held onto the table for stability as you sat back down at your seat. The pitcher of beer was gone so you had either finished it or he had taken it. Your brain was no longer thinking about Jin thankfully, but unfortunately, it was stuck on Jungkook and the way he looked at you and how his hand had felt in yours. Your breath felt shaky about going home with him, not because you were unsure, but because to you that had to mean something. You tried to separate yourself from your drunk mind and realized you didn’t want to push his boundaries when he was being so kind. You were drunk and he wasn’t and you knew he had morals that you just didn’t right now. You shouldn’t hit on him again, but then again he let you hold his hand, didn’t he? Did he? Would you even call that hand-holding? He hadn’t pulled away but that didn’t mean he wasn’t trying to be nice and that didn’t mean he was uncomfortable. You felt bad about doing it, but the drunk and hurt part of you wanted something, some kind of closeness with anyone so the hurt could be replaced just for now. It was all wrong of you.

Your brain spun as you looked off into nothing at all of the dancing colorful lights of the bowling alley. Maybe Jungkook wanted to take advantage of you, maybe he saw this as an opportunity, and as wrong as that sounded you would’ve been okay with that. Your mind stuck to that idea like a fly stuck in honey.

“Ready?” He asked as he held out his hand for you to help you out of the seat.

You stumbled a bit as you took your first few steps but he grabbed you around the waist.

“Careful.” He said so gently and so patiently but it did nothing to ease your turbulent thoughts and feelings. As he held your body like this, it made you want to hold him back, but you fought the urge. He was just helping you get to the car so you didn’t fall flat on your ass.

He buckled you in murmuring a quiet apology for seemingly no reason.

His car smelled of him. It was funny how you never noticed before he had his own scent, it was a bit like cinnamon or some kind of spice and fresh laundry. It hung all around you, on his coat, the fabric of his car, and even on your hands from touching his. 

You looked at him as he drove, the whole time, and if he noticed he hadn’t said a word about it. You felt fully wrapped in him and yet you ached for more, more than just this casual friendliness.

“Do you promise to tell me if I bother you… in any way at all.” Your mouth blurted out.

“I promise.” You watched him smile at your odd request. “You never have bothered me yet.”

The reassurance was what you needed for your mind to feel content for now.

The silence was comforting after all the music and crying and drinking and all the things you had seen tonight. You almost fell asleep, almost.

The keys jingling and a car door closing woke you up. You looked around to see apartment buildings just as Jungkook opened your side car door. You unbuckled yourself.

“Do you need me to carry-“ 

You got to your feet on your own but grabbed for his arm.

“Wait.” He announced before getting to his knees in the parking lot.

He took your leg in his hand and took off one of your heels before taking the other off. He then put an arm under your leg and one on your back before you were horizontal in his arms.

“There are steps up here. I didn’t want you falling in those shoes.” He commented as he carried you and your shoes. You wrapped your arms around his neck so he might have an easier time.

“Would you laugh if I fell down the stairs?” 

“Only for a second.” He teased

“You sadist.” You snorted.

The way his body and muscles felt against you as he packed you up the stairs to his apartment door made you more lightheaded than all the alcohol you had tonight.

He put you down to unlock his door but his hands went back into you to help you walk through it.

He flipped on the lights to reveal his apartment.

His living room area consisted of a mattress on the floor with dark blue sheets and a blanket, it faced a big TV on a stand with game systems and even a computer tower.

The headboard of his bed was the bar that separated the tiny kitchen from the living area.

To the far side were two doors, you assumed one was a bathroom and another door that looked like it slid open could be a closet.

“Quaint, right?” He asked.

“It’s very you.” You said as you breathed the scent of him hanging all around you.

“I was thinking you could have the bed and I could sleep on the floor.” He commented.

“Haven’t you been sleeping on the floor anyway?” You joked. “It’s a big bed, but it also could be a couch. So I could have the couch and you could have the bed. I don’t see any other way around this.”

“You’re okay with us both sharing…?” He asked as if you hadn’t already been thinking about it before you found out the only place to sit or lay in here was his bed.

“Do you mind?” You asked.

“Uh uh.” He shook his head and took off across the room. You wobbled on over to his bed and had a seat. You watched as he slid the closet door open.

He threw a pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt behind him onto the bed before pulling out more clothes he kept in his arms.

“The bathroom is-“ 

You cut him off by pointing to the only other room in the apartment. You picked up the clothes and he asked if you needed help getting in there but you shook your head.

You had to hold onto the sink as you dressed in the foreign fabric of his clothing, but even though it felt odd, you still felt comfortable. You did your best to drunkenly wash your face before coming back out. The room was dim, and the Netflix home page was the only light. He was in the tiny open kitchen half of the room in grey sweatpants and a black shirt setting a glass of water onto the island.

“Drink.” He pointed and you did as he asked but could only stomach half the glass. You were sure to thank him for his kind gift of water before you went over to his bed on the floor and got in.

“Here.” He placed a remote on your torso before crawling into the bed himself.

But you didn’t want to watch anything at all. Being next to him was enough entertainment for you.

You looked over at him, hands comfortably resting behind his head, waiting for you to pick something. 

You passed the remote back to him by placing it on his stomach and found his open side too inviting for you not to want with all of your heart.

You rolled onto your side and scooted closer and closer until you put your head on the place between his armpit and shoulder. He didn’t stop you from laying on his chest. He turned the tv off making the room go dark before he let his arm fall around you and cradle you.

You laid in silence a moment.

“Tomorrow is going to be better.” He whispered but you were already drifting from the closeness and peace you felt for now. You took a deep breath in and held his scent in your nose for a moment so it would permanently brand into your brain.

“You smell so good.” You muttered already half asleep.

You heard yet another amused scoff come from him and felt the little laugh on his chest under your head.

“Go to bed.” He joked.

And you did, as you listened to his rhythmic heartbeat, beat after steady beat, unfailing and never letting you down. There was always another right after the last.

The quiet click of a door woke you. You could see sunlight flooding through your closed eyelids, you could feel the warmth in the bed and on your skin. As you laid there you could hear other little sounds, straining to be quiet but failing.

Your eyes opened and you were disoriented for a moment.

You sat up but realized the noises were coming from behind.

“Jungkook?” You sleepily let out as you winced at the bright light coming through the sheer curtains from behind the tv.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.” You heard his apologetic voice. 

“No, it was just time to get up.” You grunted as you gave a stretch hard enough your bones cracked.

“Want some cereal?” 

You both casually sat in the bed eating. He had given you a massive bowl of cereal you felt obligated to finish. He was fully dressed while you sat there still in his pajamas.

“You want to stay again today?” He asked bluntly as his eyes focused on whatever anime he had turned on.

“I couldn’t Jungkook, you’ve been so kind and I just-“

“I don’t mind.” He shrugged and crunched up another bite.

“Why?” You decided to ask but he shrugged again.

“Having someone here is kind of fun. It’s like a sleepover I guess.” 

He was so childish in the oddest ways, it was kind of charming. You began to remember all of your thoughts from last night and thanked yourself for not trying too hard to make him uncomfortable. He pushed back his hair with his hands before taking another bite of the colorful cereal. He had the heart and empathy of an angel, even with the tattoos on his hands that he ate his kids’ cereal with.

“Then what are we doing today Kook?” You asked.

“You need clothes. Also, do you know how to skateboard?”

You felt those two things in the same breath were a bit odd but that was just him.

Before long, you found yourself in a cheap store grabbing whatever would fit you and you could wear in public and not feel too bad about it.

“Why’d you ask if I could skateboard?” You asked as he pulled out of the store parking lot. You had already gotten dressed in the bathroom and were ready for whatever weird thing he wanted to do.

“Do you?” 

“No.” You shook your head.

“Wanna learn?”

“Sure.” 

“I’m going to teach you how Yoongi taught me when I was sixteen.”

“How did he teach you?” 

“He taught me not to be scared.” Was his only reply, and you accepted it. You liked the element of surprise he added to everyday life, you liked how he didn’t take a lot too seriously. You admired that. Your life with Jin had always been work amongst jokes now and then but it hadn’t felt fun, even when you were both young. You felt like you could probably learn a lot from Jungkook.

“Let’s get some food first. It’s almost dinner time, are you hungry? You kept a while and all you’ve eaten today was cereal.” 

You paid for lunch. You got some fries you picked at between watching the wind blow through his hair as you ate outside at a little burger place. He stuffed his mouth full with every bite. A mess of tomatoes and condiments would drop from the burger and onto the wrapper in his lap.

“What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” You asked him.

“Hmmm.” He thought with a mouthful. “Maybe live in a better house.” 

“That’s it?” You couldn’t help but laugh at the simplicity of what he desired.

“Yeah.” He smiled and wiped his mouth. “You?” 

“I wanted to live or at least visit somewhere warm. I was supposed to go on a trip to Hawaii with Jin, it was a surprise… I wanted to live there one day but he has to work here.” you felt yourself falling back into the heartbreak.

“You don’t need him to go to Hawaii. You could move there now if you wanted and no one could hold you back.” 

“Yeah.” You agreed but it sounded sad.

“You afraid of being alone?” He asked a question that hit you too hard. 

All of your adult life and even your teenage years all you knew was Seokjin, you had always had someone there, your parents or Jin, you had never really had to be alone or think of a future with only yourself until now.

“No.” You lied. There was a strange quiet.

“I’m sorry if that-“

“You should come with me to Hawaii.” You blurted out fully interrupting him.

“Do you want that?” He questioned as if you hadn’t thought it through, and you hadn’t but that didn’t mean you didn’t mean it.

“Yes. Do you?” You were so afraid of him saying no and you didn’t quite know why.

“It’s not like I don’t have anything I can just put on hold for… however long. It’ll be fun. I’d like that.” 

The conversation felt like something more to you somehow, like some secret agreement was just made.

“We should do this before it gets dark.” He commented “ready?” 

Your fries were cold and you had been just waiting on him to finish eating.

You took at the top of the street on a hill with him after walking a block from where he had parked and dragged a skateboard out of the backseat.

“This is where Yoongi taught me to skateboard, he pushed me down here.” He pointed to the steep road that luckily wasn’t too busy.

“And you’re going to push me down it? I’d kill you.” You crossed your arms disapprovingly.

“No, see, you’re going to push yourself down it. If you sit on the skateboard it will be easier and you probably won’t fall, it will be fun.”

“Your idea of fun gets crazier and crazier.” You pointed out.

“Sit, I’ll stay behind you.” 

“No, because it’s going to pick up speed faster than you can run as I’m going down the hill.” Your brain had already torn the scenario apart and your chances of getting hurt were probably around one hundred percent. Even though you knew that you sat down on the skateboard.

“Okay, now just look down, get a feel for it, take it in.” He instructed as you looked down at the steeply sloping road below.

“Jungkook this is dangerous.” You commented.

He stood behind you and wrapped his arms around you in kind of a hug.

“You’re okay, nothing bad is going to happen to you, alright? I’m right here.” He whispered and you nodded. “Close your eyes, keep them closed.” 

You did as he asked you could feel him wheeling you closer and closer. Put your feet down to stop you from going just yet. I’m going to let go, you’re going to count to ten and without opening your eyes, you’re going to push yourself. Stay as still as you can even if you’re scared. Only open them when I have you.”

Your breath shook, but you gave him confirmation.

“Count.” He said as he released you.

You slowly counted, the nerves in your stomach growing the higher each number got. You gripped the bottom of the board with both hands and when you got to ten you used your legs to push off before tucking them back onto the board.

You let out a scream as you felt the speed at which you were falling, you could feel tears in your squeezed closed eyes.

He caught you by the arm. It was all over before it had even started.

You were breathing heavily and clung to his jacket.

“You’re safe, you’re okay.” He assured you and helped you to your feet.

You were at the bottom of the hill and your heart was racing with your eyes still watering. 

“Are you crying?” He grinned.

“JUNGKOOK I COULD’VE DIED!” You slapped at his arm but he dodged it only making him laugh more at your annoyance.

“Look! You did that by yourself!” He commented with proudness.

“I could’ve died.” You repeated.

“But you didn’t.” He still wore a grin.

The sunset filtering through his dark hair, his laughter, and him trying to escape you chasing him by walking backward felt oddly beautiful. His skin looked a shade of golden like this.

You pulled on his jacket to pull him in, you thought about kissing him, everything in you told you to preserve this moment. Would he let you? Would he let you at least hold his hand again?  but instead, you wrapped your arms around him.

“Today is better, thank you.” You squeezed him. Your arms stayed around him for as long as his stay on your back. It was a while that you both just stood there hugging in the street like dumbasses.

“What do you want to do now?” He asked as he released you “you’ve put up with me all day so it’s your turn to pick.”

“Honestly,” you both began the trek back to his car. “I just want another drink.”

“Understandable. Let’s stay home and drink tonight, it will be easier.” He suggested.

“I would rather.” You agreed you interlocked your arm in his as you walked, and again he let you. You wondered for a moment why he was letting you be this close to him and touch him so much, but he never initiated it. You decided thinking about any of that was not for the best and you let it go.

You stopped at a liquor store and got more vodka and snacks than either of you would ever need for one night.

Before you started drinking you both took a turn having a shower and he started some laundry. Everything was so casual with the both of you, eating chips on the bed while he beat your ass at a fighting game three times in a row, he did let you win three times after that to make up for it. The loser had to take a shot and now you each had three.

“Last one. You’re going to win and I’m going to switch games.” You announced as you picked your character. 

“You don’t know if I’m going to win.” You could hear the smile in his voice. You knew it was either he won or he let you win, and he let you win yet again.

“Don’t be such a hero.” You laughed as he had to gulp down the fourth drink of vodka. His nose wrinkled at the taste.

“Let’s just play something both of us have an equal shot at winning. Since you’re good at video games it can’t be that.” You decided. You thought about what you could do that didn’t require much skill if any. You scooted closer to him on the mattress on the floor so you could face him, knee to knee.

“Got it. Hold up five fingers.” You told him and did the same.

“I know this game.” He said holding up five tattooed fingers.

“Good, loser takes three shots.” You made up the rules and he nodded in agreement. You scooted in closer and he faced you. You were going into dangerous territory with this and you knew it, but let it go under the guise of: this is just for fun.

“Put a finger down if you’ve ever gotten black out drunk.” You said and he put a finger down and you didn’t.

“Put a finger down if you’ve thrown up in public.” He said and neither of you put a finger down.

“Put a finger down if you’ve ever… eaten something off of someone’s body.” You watched as his finger stayed up but you put yours down.

“Are you trying to lose?” He laughed

“We’re even.” You pointed out.

“Not for long. Put a finger down if you’ve ever had public sex.”

You put a finger down.

“Put a finger down if… you’ve ever… let someone win in a game.” You laughed as you brought up earlier and he put a finger down.

“Put a finger down if… you’re y/n.” He grinned.

“You know what? Just give me the damn three shots, I forfeit.” You sighed knowing that it was time to play dirty in every sense of the word.

“I’ll take three with you.” He decided. Of course he would, he was the kindest man ever. You could’ve already guessed he would say that before he even did.

You took them together and only let yourself grimace after the last one.

“Again, I’ll start this time.” He announced, screwing the cap on the vodka. You could hear him slur his speech just a little.

You both held up five fingers once again.

“Put down a finger if you’ve ever had a pregnancy scare.”

Neither of you put down a finger, but the questions were beginning to get a bit more heavy. He seemed to have the same idea as you.

“You’ve ever had someone cum inside of you or came inside of someone without a condom.” You were stepping up your questions now but neither of you were putting fingers down.

“If anyone has ever gone down on you for more than thirty minutes.” He asked but again you both still had five fingers. “Wow, that really sucks for us.” He muttered.

“If you’ve ever had a thing for someone in your friends circle.” You announced. Slowly but surely you both put down a finger. Your drunk beau was ignoring the little voice in your head screaming at you to stop. Jungkook was your friend, a friend who might even have the same feelings as you did right now.

“If you’ve ever thought about kissing someone in your friend circle.” He asked and put a finger down and so did you. You felt like you were both edging towards the inevitable and dangerous with questions like this, but you couldn’t shut your mouth.

“If you’ve ever thought about fucking them.” Your own question made you swallow as you both put a third finger.

“If you’ve ever thought about what it would be like to be in a relationship with them.” He asked quietly. Your fourth fingers went down together.

There was only one left and it was your turn. You both knew now you were talking about each other, but it was hard to believe. You were scared it wasn’t you, maybe he was into guys too. You just had to ask, you had to.

Your eyes locked. You felt nervous. He looked nervous as he bit at his lip between those two front teeth you were becoming so fond of seeing when he smiled.

“Put a finger down if…” it was hard to speak, you had to swallow down the knot of nerves in your throat and take a deep breath before continuing “if the person we’re talking about is each other.”

His pointer finger curled down and so did yours.

 “For how long?” You asked.

“From the start.” He admitted. “But you’ve never felt that way.”

“I do now.” You leaned in. At least now you were sure how he felt, or at least you thought.

He stopped you by placing a hand on your arm.

“I don’t want it to be like this.” His voice was so quiet it was barely above a whisper.

You sat back and waited for him to explain.

“I don’t want it to be… I don’t want to be a rebound. I think friendship comes before feelings anyway and that’s why I did this. I don’t want to kiss you while we’re drunk, I don’t want you to regret anything.” 

“Oh.” You let out. 

“I can’t do this when you’re drunk and sad and trying to fill a void, that wouldn’t be okay of me to do. I want… I want more than that and you just got out of a relationship… or maybe you didn’t yet… but I can wait until it’s all over, I feel like that’s the right thing to do here.”

You sat there a moment as his drunk words registered in your brain. For just a second you wished you weren’t drunk so you could try to tell him how you were feeling but decided to give it your best shot anyway.

“I like you. I’m sorry I was so blinded by Jin all these years that I couldn’t see you liked me because if I hadn’t been maybe we both could’ve been better off. Maybe I could’ve had more days like this with you, hundreds more where we just do crazy things, where we could just sleep on a mattress on the floor and still feel happy and content with life. Jungkook if I would’ve known you felt this way and I would’ve known how life could be, at any point, then I’d probably be the one cheating. I want you. I want you and it’s not just because I’m afraid to be alone, you make me do things I never would’ve done. And your heart, your heart is made of pure gold. I want us both to just forget everything before now, everything we’ve been through, not because it hurts but because it just feels like it should’ve been us all along. And if you only knew how many times I’ve had to stop myself from kissing or touching you today when I was perfectly sober and perfectly happy…”

“I want that. I’ve wanted that.” He seemed like he was talking to himself more than you.

He was now the one leaning forward and your face got stuck in his pull.

Your lips met very gently and your eyes drifted closed so you could lose yourself in it.

His tongue wasn’t at all rough or demanding with yours, but it was needy.

You climbed into his lap and not a minute passed between that time and the time he was helping you fall backward, settling himself between your legs so effortlessly.

Your hands ran under his shirt slowly, creeping up until his shirt bunched prompting him to sit up and take it off.

You could feel him hard between your legs but there was so much fabric separating the both of you that it became frustrating to buck into him.

“I can’t fuck you.” He decided to your dismay. “But I just want to feel you.” 

You let him slide your shirt off so your bare chests were pressed together as mouths continued to move together in new ways every second, patternless unlike his heartbeat but exciting like the things he made you do.

He yanked the blankets up around you both and let himself grind into you slowly as you whimpered for more.

Your mouth went to his neck, sucking at his skin passionately and listening to the beautiful moans he made for you. You could’ve done this to him all night, just taste his skin and let his spit intermix with yours, but he decided to bite off even more.

His head sunk and he took a nipple in his mouth. The feeling went right to your throbbing and needy clit.

“Oh god fuck me.” You breathed “please just let me closer. I need more.” 

He pinched at your nipple softly between his teeth and you gripped his shoulder.

“I’m so wet, I don’t think one ever wanted anything mo-“

His mouth left your breast and yanked his pajama pants off of you and took off the ones he was wearing as you finished kicking off yours.

You were both down to your underwear now though you wished it was less.

While you weren’t going to force him to do anything he didn’t want to, it sure seemed like he wanted to do this.

You felt him reach into his underwear and adjust himself before rutting into you again with a groan.

Your hands freely moved across his skin, feeling goosebumps that had risen under your touch.

You knew that you were so wet at this point that it had to leak through the fabric of both yours and his underwear, you knew he felt it.

“Is there anything I’m allowed to do? Kook, you’re killing me.” You whined.

“I don’t have condoms.” He commented.

“I get a birth control shot but I understand if you don’t want to…” you trailed off.

“I don’t know what I want to do… I- but I think I have an idea. Let’s take the last of it off.” 

He seemed nervous as you both kicked off your remaining two pieces, and then you were bare for each other.

“You’re not a virgin right?” You asked from the way he was acting so nervously. 

“Oh. No, no. I- Uh I just feel like it’s wrong still... like I’m not supposed to. This can’t be happening.” He reached down between the both of you again.

“Nothing has to happen-“ 

“I’m so hard.” It was a whisper of a breathless whine that interrupted you. His knuckles brushed your folds and you realized he had his cock in his hand, pumping it slowly.

“Why the fuck are you so unbelievably hot?” Tumbled from your mind and fell from your mouth.

“You need to be seeing things from my view right now.” He looked over what parts of your body he could “dear god.” 

He finally released his cock and let it fall between your folds. He gave a thrust and felt the weight of his cock slide against your clit because of the wetness.

You didn’t expect him to shove his fingers into you, but that alone was enough to nearly make you cum from all the teasing he had put you through.

He pulled them out and held his sticky thoroughly coated fingers in the air.

“Oh my god.” He whispered quickly and shakily. 

You had never, ever been this wet in your life. You could hear the sound as he spread your juices and his pre-cum over his cock and brought it back to place it between your folds.

He came back down and every time he thrust how his slick cock rubbed your clit over and over.

Moans and whines escaped both of you but it just wasn’t enough for you to imagine him plowing into you, you needed to feel it.

“Oh god, I bet you would feel so fucking good inside of me. I’d cum for you so fast.”

You had earned a soft groan from him, he was losing it.

“I want to fuck you so badly. I want to cum all inside of you. Neither of us had ever done that before, can I?”

You felt him shift the head of his dick to your entrance.

“I will beg you, please do it.” you closed your eyes in a prayer that he actually would.

“Fuck.” he let out as he slipped into you, you took every last inch of him. 

He was already sweating and grunting before he had started thrusting, but after he started jackhammering into you, there was a new look and feel about him. His damp strands hung loosely, his nose crinkled as he hit his lip with the force he was putting into each thrust.

“I’m going to cum.” you announced not even a minute in.

He grabbed one of your legs, threw it over his shoulder, and was pushing hard. Your body bounced at the force, your head bumped the kitchen Island that was his headboard until he dragged your body animalistically lower on the bed.

“I wanna- I wanna hear you.” he panted. 

“Don’t stop- that- keep doing that,” you instructed. He was short on breath and a sweaty mess.

“Go on, I've got you. I've got you,” he assured you, keeping the pace of his hips the same.

Your orgasm crashed into you all at once like a semi-truck through a small building.

You felt like you had just gone down that hill again. Your heart was racing and you knew he was too.

You pulled him into your lips messily as your brain melted into a blissful spice and laundry scented puddle.

He mounded loudly against your lips as his body moved against yours.

“Coming.” He whispered his next few breaths were sharp, pumping into you a few more solid times, you could feel his cum spill into you as his sweaty forehead pressed into yours.

When his hips stilled, there was only the sound of rough breaths, he kept his eyes closed for a moment and swallowed hard.

“How-how was that?” He propped himself above you on shaky arms. In the dark you could see the beads of sweat that pulled on his face and neck, his chest rose and fell and still made no move to pull out of you.

“I-“ you tried to find even a single word for the experience you had just had. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

He let out a strong huff of a laugh and grinned down at you with the biggest and sweetest eyes that looked to search your face.

“That was something.” He agreed but looked like he had something on his mind. 

He gave you a soft kiss on your lips before he finally pulled out and laid beside you, only to have the embarrassing feeling of his cum leaking from you and down your butt crack.

You jumped up, only making matters worse, cupping your crotch as you took off to the bathroom faster than he could ask any sort of questions.

As you cleaned yourself up you couldn’t believe everything that had happened between you two. you didn’t for a second regret it, the opposite.

As you walked out of the bathroom he was standing on the floor by the bed with only his pajama pants on, holding a bag of chips. He turned to you and laughed.

“We just had sex with the Mortal Kombat music.”

You stood there naked and you couldn’t help but laugh back.

That tender time you had just had together had just been spent jarring fight music and you didn’t even realize. That’s what he did to you. When you were with him the entire world and all of your problems fell away.

You put back on your pajamas, still laughing to yourself as you heard the music still play.

“Now every time I hear it I’ll think of you.” 

“Please don’t associate us having sex with that” you laid back down and he got into the bed with you. 

He fed you a chip and you thought that was pretty cute so you took him by the shirt and pulled him into your lips.

He pulled away for a moment.

“Round two, fight!” 

You laughed so hard at the stupid Mortal Kombat joke that you snorted and he found that pretty amusing. A tickle fight broke out and of course, he got you pinned and of course, you couldn’t help but kiss him again.

A knock at the door interrupted you both making him stiffen and both of your heads turn in the direction of the door.

“What do I do?” You mouthed to him he climbed off of you and sat up.

“Who is it?” He called out.

“Jimin.” The answer came from the other side of the door.

You grimaced at each other and decided to jump up and go hide in his closet. You tucked yourself in between his few shirts and hanging pants and closed the door.

You could hear Jungkook walk to the door and open it. There were now two sets of footprints inside the apartment.

“You weren’t answering any texts and I got worried about you.” You heard Jimin's voice clearly.

“Been busy.” You think Jungkook muttered.

“Looks like it,” Jimin replied with obvious sarcasm. You wondered if it was all the snacks and alcohol on the floor, the video games left on, or the marks that decorated Jungkook’s neck that made him say that.

“You hear about what happened with Jin and y/n the other night at the bar?” Jimin asked and waited a moment “I guess he cheated on her, you were right this whole time about it.”

“It sucks she had to go through all of that. How’s she holding up?” Jungkook was playing dumb.

“I don't know, I haven't talked to her. It's Jin’s business, not mine.” 

That hurt you. You had always thought of you and Jimin as pretty close friends.

“Plus I heard she disappeared anyway. Jin is speculating she took off to Hawaii on her own. Namjoon told me he told the police everything this morning wanting to file a missing person report. He thought it was suspicious she just left all of her stuff, but the police said she hadn’t been gone long enough and they had an argument and probably just wanted to be away from him.”

“Do you think she’s okay?” Jungkook seemed genuinely concerned even though you were right in his closet.

“I don’t know. Yoongi was a little worried she got kidnapped at the bar after she stormed out. I don’t think anyone is looking for her though, I think she just wanted to get away. Also, you kind of disappeared that night at the bar too, didn’t you?” 

Oh shit. Was Jimin putting it all together? 

“I took someone to my place and she stayed a few nights. I don’t think I was there when all of this went down.” Jungkook’s alibi seemed solid, you hadn’t even seen him in the bar when you had gotten there.

“Well, I just wanted to stop by and check in on you.” 

“Thank you.” Jungkook’s reply sounded sincere.

“You should probably clean up a little, maybe get a real bed, it just looks kind of… sad.”

Jimin didn’t sound concerned, he sounded almost mean about it to you.

“Noted. Will do. Thanks for stopping by man.” Jungkook continued to be kind to him until he left.

You stepped out of the closet dumbfounded as Jungkook said nothing about the way Jimin had treated him or nearly accused him. He just got back into bed seemingly unphased. You followed after and just laid there for a moment thinking about times when they had all been mean to him at least once.

“Please don’t let them do that to you.” You asked.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah. That’s just what it’s like being the youngest. I’m used to them looking down on me.” 

“it doesn’t have to be that way.” 

“Why not?” He seemed genuinely interested in what you were saying because he rolled onto his side to face you.

You rolled onto yours to face him in the dark. Hair was in his face but he was looking at you with those big brown eyes.

“It can be you and me against the world if you wanted. If one of our skateboards went flying down a hill, we would be there to catch the other before they got hurt. Do you want to do that with me?” You couldn’t believe you had the guts to ask that but what you couldn’t believe even more was his reply.

“I want to do that with you. Let’s do that. I haven’t let you fall and get hurt yet, have I?” He grinned.

Little did he know that you already had fallen.

You brought your hand up to his face before scooting closer and placing your forehead against his

“Promise me you won’t let me fall.” You whispered.

“I promise.” His answer was instantaneous.

“Then I won’t let you either. Well just protect each other.” 

“Deal.” He replied before connecting your lips. 

As you kissed him you wondered if he felt the same about you as you did him already. He had to know that you were so scared, so terrified of being hurt again and that’s why you wanted to make this deal.

His hand slid down your body and back up causing your shirt to bunch. His warm hand made its way back down your skin again and just as it snaked into the band of his pajama pants you were wearing, a loud hum startled you both.

You were confused for a moment as the room grew slightly brighter.

Your phone was ringing on the wood floor.

You sat up, squinting your eyes as you picked up the phone and looked at the screen that was far too bright.

“Jin.” Your voice wasn’t at all cheerful.

“Are you going to answ-“ Jungkook’s sentence was cut off by the sound of you turning off your phone and putting it back down. 

“I can’t, I just… I don’t want to talk to him right now, I don’t want to feel that right now again… if ever. I saw what I saw and there’s no way he can convince me that I didn't see it or that you didn't too, we have photos. I'm not sure that I really ever want to talk to him again. I feel so… differently about him now and I don’t think there's any repairing that.”

He sat up, picked up his phone from his side, and turned it off too before you both laid back down.

“Good night kook.” You announced with Jin’s call not leaving you feeling right but not wanting to think about it right now.

“Night.” He replied as he pulled you against his body.

Although you tried to refuse your brain the opportunity of letting the thought of Jin right now entirely wreck your time with Jungkook, it was hard. You thought of all the restless nights when you stayed up working as an excuse to wait for Jin to get home from going out or working late. There were rarely nights like this where you could curl up against him, looking back on it there were no nights that you felt as cared about as you did now. A thought stuck to you, one you decided to think more on the next day. Did this all happen for a reason? For both of you? Would all of the suffering you’ve both been through in your relationships be worth it now?.

You felt something soft and warm on your head. A kiss.

“Morning.” you felt a delicate breath of his whisper on your face.

“Morning.” You muttered. Your eyes stayed closed as you reached out for him and pulled him into you. He let out a quiet laugh as he let you drag him onto you as if he were your teddy bear.

“I’ve been awake a while, I went to the store in my pajamas and I thought you’d be awake by the time I got back.”

“But I wasn’t so you woke me up instead?” 

You felt his hands run up your sides and lift your shirt until the hem and bunched fabric sat under your breasts.

“I missed you.” 

“You missed me?” you couldn't help but smile before it was quickly wiped away by him crawling back a little and kissing the skin above your belly button.

“Mmm.” he hummed an answer before kissing just a bit lower.

“Remember the thing that we both never had?” you looked down to see his big brown eyes look up at you through a mess of dark hair.

It took you a moment with your still sleep fogged brain to realize what he was talking about.

“Hey Siri, set a timer for thirty minutes,”

The robotic voice replied it’s confirmation on his phone, but he was already yanking down your pants and you were lifting your butt so he could get them off.

He gently pushed your legs apart and laid on his stomach between them, starting to run very agonizingly slow kisses up your thigh. With every small warm kiss that felt just too close or every warm breath you felt of his, a tingle of anticipation went through your body. 

“I just keep thinking,” he placed another kiss on your thigh so close you felt his cheek brush against where you needed his mouth the most before he teasingly moved into the other leg “about how I have you right here” another slow kiss “after wanting you for so, so long.” 

His words hit you hard and you knew they were making you wetter. You had never been dirty talked so sweetly before, hell, it wasn’t even dirty yet here you were soaking wet and more than ready for whatever he wanted to do to you just minutes after waking up.

“God only knows” his lips touched your slit now and it was almost too much to bear “how many times I've imagined this.” his tongue dipped into your folds and licked from bottom to top, you moaned a little too loudly and jerked slightly as his wet muscle touched your clit.

You were so ready but his lips went back to your thigh. You said nothing as he repeated this pattern once and then twice, you began to more than look forward to when his tongue would meet your clit again, after the third time you swore you could cum on the next one, he was driving you insane with his teasing pattern, you felt like he was never going to let you have what you wanted.

“Jungkook please!” you nearly yelled as he once again went back to your thigh to start over. He froze, looked up at you through all of that hair with raised eyebrows, and gave you a smile of amusement.

“If you don't stop and just get on with it already then you'll see what I do to you.” you threatened.

“Maybe I'd like to find out.” he retorted.

“Get on with it!” you wailed loudly as you gave him a half pleading glare.

“Make. Me.” he looked you dead in the eyes as he spoke. It was enough to send a feeling that felt like electricity trickling through you. You started to get up to take control but he pulled your hips flat back to the bed with a delighted smile.

“Seriously?” you laughed.

“What are you gonna do?” 

You were growing more sexually frustrated with him by the second.

“Just wait.” you threatened again.

He bent his head down and kissed the folds over your clit. You took the opportunity to place your hand on his head and not let him up.

You felt him give a little laugh before he finally went to work licking and sucking at your bundle of nerves as your fingers twisted in his hair. A few moments later you felt his fingers slip into your wet cunt and press upwards, giving you everything you wanted all at once.

It hit you all at once, your orgasm shot through you. You muttered his name as you gripped his hair tighter and felt him moan into you making the pleasure feel that much better. Even though you had already cum, it was clear he wasn’t about to stop, his fingers and mouth were working you so passionately and quickly. You were so sensitive your legs twitched every time his mouth did something too rough with you, but it just felt so good. 

You looked down at him between your legs as you felt yourself building up again and watched his eyes shut and his head moving between your legs. You don’t know how or why you found it as hot as you did, but it was enough to make you cum again just as the timer on his phone went off.

“Fuck fuck fuck” you breathed as a blissful feeling washed over you like an oven wave

He looked up at you and as soon as he was sure you were done, he stopped. He went to wipe his mouth on the back of his arm when you demanded he take his pants off.

He looked at you with raised eyebrows and a little surprise.

“Tell it to set a timer for thirty minutes.” 

“I-oh-okay. You don’t need to do that if you-“

“Do it.” You demanded once more as you took off your shirt.

“Hey Siri, set a timer for thirty minutes.” He said as he shed himself of his pajamas and sat up.

A thought had crossed your mind to tease him as he had you, but you couldn’t do that. You loved the look of it thick and veiny, the head of it already leaking from everything he had just done to you. You wanted the feeling of it filling your mouth and throat, you wanted to please him.

You watched as his already hard cock stood tall waiting for you to touch it, and you wasted no time doing so. You leaned down only playing with the head in your mouth with your tongue at first, getting a feel for the satisfaction of him inside of your mouth. He gasped when you took him all abruptly into the back of your throat. You decided immediately that you wanted to hear more of that sound so you let your head bob before your hand joined in at his shaft to help. You didn’t start slow whatsoever. You were set on making him cum faster and harder than he ever had before, throwing out the idea of time altogether. 

He sat back on his hands to hold himself up but those began to shake too the faster you went. Spit ran down onto his balls and you thought about playing with them but you felt like that might tip him over the edge. 

He was full of open-mouth moans, ones you wouldn’t mind hearing the rest of your life to the body and cock and personality of a man you wouldn’t mind having the rest of your life.

Just as you thought about it you shut the thought down and concentrated on making him feel better.

“God, you’re so beautiful.” You made out from his moans.

You kept going and felt his hips thrust up into your face in tandem with your movements. He was close, unbelievably, but for some reason, he was hanging on. Only a moment later you found out why.

“Fuck me. I bought condoms this morning, fuck me. Please I’m begging you.”

You pulled your mouth off of his cock with a lewd noise and looked at him but he was already standing up, dick as hard as a statue to crinkle a plastic bag on the island beside you both. 

“I’m deathly scared of having children when living in a place so small and with no job…”

“Thank you.” You didn't know what else to say as you watched him rip off a packet, come back to his knees, and roll the condom onto himself. 

“But then again if I did… wouldn’t that just fuck with Jin knowing I got you pregnant?” He lifted a brow.

Something about that turned you into a complete animal. You kept onto his lap and clung to him. Your lips smashed into his as you reached between the both of you and guided his dick into your hole. 

He felt just as good and filling inside of your pussy as he did your mouth. No one has ever filled you up this well, no one had ever wanted you so much.

He thrust upwards with you on his lap. You were practically a rag doll under the grip he had on your hips.

You began to rock your hips to the steady and slow way his hands commanded them.

“Ahh god.” He moaned as he let his head fall onto your shoulder and you wrapped your arms wrap around his shoulders so that your bodies pressed together.

“I love you.” He placed a kiss on your shoulder blade and whispered into your sweat sticky skin.

Your heart stopped but your hips didn’t.

He said it. It had taken him only three days. You recalled it had taken Seokjin six months and fifteen days exactly to say what Jungkook had in only three. The both of you had figured it out in only three days.

“I love you too.” You raced to say. 

His lips caught yours as he pressed you down onto his cock hard and rolled his hips under you with a grunt.

“These have been the best days of my life with you and I want to keep it that way. I want them all to be the best.” He was out of breath, his eyes were closed and his forehead rested against yours.

“Please.” You begged for the same. “Let’s move away and just be together.”

He let out a small laugh before he smiled.

“Is this gross? This is so weird, it’s only been three days.”

“I’ve never been happier.” You stated a fact. You had thought about it and thought about it non-stop. It wasn’t just attraction, lust, or infatuation you felt for him, this ran deep, deep into his personality, deep into the way he thought and did things. Far deeper than his cock that was buried inside of you right now.

“I bet I could make you happier.” He tried to hide a prideful smile.

“Oh yeah? How so?” You couldn’t help but smile back.

“I could make you cum again.”

Before you could answer he was giving you a quick kiss before practically tossing you off of him with a grin.

He grabbed your hips and flipped you over so that you were on all fours. The tingle that you got down your spine from this gesture was unbelievable.

“Hurry up and fuck me.” You demanded but he shushed you as you felt him press into your cunt.

He had only been not inside of you for a moment but your body had missed the feeling.

You gasped as you felt his grips tighten on your hips and pull your body backward onto him. He went full speed, full force slamming into you. His balls slapped against you. You were already so sensitive, so sore and tired, but you continued to want more.

“Has Jin ever fucked you like this?” 

You had never heard his voice so rough, so teasing, so devilish. You were about to lose it.

“No.” You whined.

“Who does this pussy belong to? Who’s the only person to ever cum inside of you?”

Your arms were shaking, struggling to hold yourself up. Your mouth was slightly open and your brain was so lost that you struggled for even the most simple reply.

“You.” Managed to move from your brain to your lips.

You felt his hand reach around to your clit and begin to rub fast and hard circles. It didn’t take long after that for your brain to shut down, to make way for the orgasm that blew through you like a car explosion. Your arms gave out and your face ended up on the mattress while your ass stayed in the air for him. You felt like you had melted as his dirty talk became mutters and moans. You felt his cock get harder inside of you and spill warm liquid into the condom. 

“I’ve-“ he panted from behind you with his hips now still “I’ve never had sex that good- besides- besides yesterday.”

You’d agree, but you were still a puddle with your cheek pressed into the sheets until you let yourself plop on your side after he pulled out. You felt so high. You laid there for a moment as he took off to the bathroom. He was in there a while, so you decided to get dressed in your clean clothes that he had washed last night that resided in his closet.

You were in disbelief, your hands were shaking as you pulled on the clothes.

Did he mean it?

It had only been three days since he held you in that parking lot as you cried. You remembered the hurt you felt when Jin had seen Jin cheat on you. It was the kind of hurt that left a scar on your soul. You were afraid.

Jungkook was so beautiful and so kind and you had fallen hard, too hard. You didn’t even know anything about his family or where he grew up or if he had ever had any pets or his favorite color.

Your mind was spinning, you were freaking out.

You slipped your shoes by the door on and began unlocking it.

“What are you doing?” 

His voice stopped you for a moment.

You thought about lying. You couldn’t lie, but you sure as hell couldn’t face him.

“I-I think I should go.” You stammered.

“Can we talk? Was it something I said?” 

You could hear his footsteps slowly come closer as if he was trying to approach a scared baby deer to keep it from darting away, and that’s exactly what you felt you were.

“What was it I said? The Jin stuff or the I love you?” 

You could tell his brain was doing whatever it could to piece together why you were leaving.

Just hearing him say the words again shredded you apart.

You felt your eyes welling up.

“Hey, hey look at me, please.” His voice was gentle and now coming from behind you. You couldn’t ignore him, not when he sounded so sweet. You faced him and his eyes scanned over the tears slipping down your cheeks.

“If you didn’t mean it that’s okay, you don’t have to right now. I won’t say it again if-“

“I did mean it.” Your lip quivered “I’m just so scared.”

You watched as his eyebrows furrowed at your words while waiting for you to explain.

“I was just hurt and…”

“If you don’t want to do this-I-I knew going into this that you were hurt, and trying to heal and a relationship might be too much for you while… it was selfish of me to-”

you cut him off by shaking your head.

“no.” you sniffled “I want you, I'm just afraid of being hurt. If I was hurt this badly by Jin, I can't even imagine how badly you could hurt me.” 

His big eyes stared with crinkled brows at you for a moment until he wrapped his arms around you.

“I swear I will never ever hurt you. I will never do what he did to you. Never.” 

Your teary cheek pressed into his neck as you breathed in his calming scent. “I'm so scared of being hurt too, I know how you're feeling. I thought you would end up going back to him and I would lose you. So many things that could make you not want me and so many ways this could go wrong keep running through my head. Please remember what you said, we're here now for each other, it's us against the world. Please please please don't leave me.”

You felt his cheek rest on the top of your head.

“I won't. I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, I'm so sorry.” you sniffled with guilt and let your arms snake around his torso.

His form was becoming so familiar to you now, his scent already smelled of home, perhaps it did from the moment you had first let him hold you. Perhaps you were all his from that very moment in the parking lot, perhaps you both belonged to each other all along and just didn't know.

“I love you,” you spoke the words first this time, you felt no fear about it.

“I love you too, so much.” his hands slowly rubbed your back as you felt him kiss the top of your head.

You closed your eyes and took it all in, just you and him. You wished at that moment that you could go back and do it over. You would've picked him over anything else, and you knew you'd be so happy if you would've.

“Thank you for not letting me go.” you pulled back and looked into his eyes. “I could've really messed up just now.” 

He gave you a heartfelt smile.

“I hope you would've come back, I’d miss you a lot until you did. We're supposed to be together, you know.” he raised an eyebrow at you.

“Oh yeah?” you couldn't help the smile that spread on your face.

“Mhmm. I have proof.” he lifted a hand and held it up fingers spread. “Give me your hand”

You thread your fingers through his and he let your held hands fall at your sides.

“Now close your eyes.”

You did just as he instructed and felt his forehead rest against his.

You had just had sex but any time you were this close to him made your heart pound so hard. It was as if he had unintentionally trained your body to do this for him.

“Do you feel it?” he whispered “Do you feel that feeling in the pit of your stomach telling you that you'll never love this hard again?”

You had. You had and that's what has scared you so much.

“I do,” you whispered back.

“And can you see it? I can. I can see us moving together to the place you've always dreamed of. You'll get mad at me for being so messy but I’ll just admire you even if you're yelling at me.” 

You felt another small smile on your face as you imagined his words.

“I'll still love you even if I'm upset at you for being messy.” you let out a small breath of laughter.

“I know you will. We'll love each other no matter what because we'll be good to each other, we'll always be there to catch each other. You have absolutely nothing to worry about. Please believe me. I'm yours.”

You felt him kiss your cheek softly and you have him a nod.

Your soul felt so at ease. He had calmed your pain once again.

“If you're losing your mind in here we could just go for a walk you know.” he chuckled.

“Let's do that.” you agreed to it, knowing that he was about to take you out on another adventure.

You laid in his lap and looked up at his jawline. He was playing a video game, but it was fine with you as long as you got this view. He would occasionally run his fingers through your hair or readjust the flower in it that he had picked and stuck in it during your walk earlier.

Sunset was pouring through the sheer curtains making his skin look so golden. You loved the way he looked at this hour, his appearance matched his heart. You felt so warm and loved even when he wasn’t directly giving you his attention. Jungkook’s cup was always overflowing for you when you were used to only a cup half full. You, yourself, had always offered a full cup, but you never got the love you had given back.

“Do you think we’ve earned each other?” you asked as you looked up feeling the urge to kiss every piece of his jaw.

He paused his game and looked down at you.

“I do. I think we're very deserving of one another… Well, I have thought you were always too good for me, but we're both deserving of the love for each other.”

“You thought I was too good for you?” you broke out into laughter. 

“Don't laugh, I still think that.” he was serious.

“Nooooo no no no.” you shook your head. “Why would you think that?”

He shrugged.

“Well don't think that.” you sat up.

“Sometimes it's hard not to, look at me, I'm jobless right now and you're self-made. I live in a gutter with a mattress on the floor and you-”

You shut him up by pressing your lips to his and bringing your hand up to his cheek.

“I don't care about any of that,” you told him.

“I'm going to make sure we live a good life.” 

“I'm pretty happy with you fucking me on this mattress on the floor and we can live the rest of our lives this way, I don't care.” you had to drive the point home for him. Having a good life for you wasn't about what he had to offer, but the beautiful way he lived it, you didn't want that to change.

He crashed his lips into yours now and sent you backward. Your tongues met and lashed together and suddenly your hands were all over each other.

“I love you,” he mumbled into your lips as you tried to peel his shirt off.

“I love you too,” you replied as his hands pushed up your t-shirt and bra.

His lips went right for your nipples and the feel of his tongue and teeth mixing on the nerves made you arch your back into his mouth. You were once again getting high on him.

“I want you to fuck me and cum inside of me.” your mouth spouted off.

He moaned against your breast and you swear you felt his body shiver.

His mouth popped off of your nipple leaving it cold and wet.

“Fucking marry me,” he demanded before his mouth went to the other one.

At that moment you would. You wanted that, it sounded beautiful to you.

“Please. Let's do it. You want kids?” 

“Mhmm,” he replied as his teeth tugged at your perfect bud. 

“Fuck let's have kids.” 

He sat up between your legs and began undoing his belt.

You knew there was no way right now, you were on birth control but something about saying it all and imagining the perfect life was really doing it for you right now.

He tugged his pants off only leaving him I'm his underwear before undoing yours and pulling everything down just enough to get his hand in.

His fingers ran over your already slick folds.

“I'm going to do this to you every damn day of my life.”

A knocking made you both freeze.

“Don’t answer it,” you whispered, pulling him into you so you can connect lips again. 

For a moment you both did ignore the knocking until it turned to banging.

“Open the fucking door Jungkook!”

It was Jin. You had never heard him so angry.

“Shit fuck no.” you whispered as you both jumped up and pulled at your clothes so they seemed normal “he knows. How does he fucking know?” you whisper yelled in panic.

“He might not. It's okay, it's going to be okay.” 

“Maybe you should call the police.” you tried to get Jungkook to hear you over the pounding at the door.

“I'll step outside and talk to him. It will be okay.” even looking as scared as he did he was still trying to make you feel okay.

You slipped back into the closet but this time you left the door slightly open and peered through the crack.

You watched as Jungkook answered the door, went to step outside but Jin pushed him back.

“Where the fuck is she?” it hadn't taken long for Jin’s eyes to examine the room.

“Who?” Jungkook was once again playing stupid.

“What the fuck is all of this?” Jin nearly yelled, pointing to the condom wrapper still on the floor and the places on Jungkook’s neck. “I know for a fact your girlfriend flew home just last week.” 

“I don't have a girlfriend anymore, Jin.” you could hear the agitation in Jungkook’s words through his clenched jaw.

“Then explain.”

“I don’t have to.” 

“No? Well, I talked to her and she said she hasn’t heard from you in three days, just like the rest of us have both with y/n and you.”

Your heart felt like it had dropped into your stomach as you now stood there frozen.

“I saw you taking photos, you didn't even try to help get the girl off of me, you just took photos. I know you sent them to her. I know what you've been telling all of the others. I know this was a setup. I know you've always been jealous of me.”

“Jin, do you know how insane you sound right now? You need to-”

“YOU KNOW I’D NEVER CHEAT ON HER, I NEVER HAVE!” Jin yelled, “So why were you taking photos?”

“Jin, I saw you kissing the other girl.” Jungkook’s voice stayed calm.

“I didn't want it, she had me pinned, Namjoon had to come to help me. Everyone has told me you've been telling them this isn't the first time I’ve supposedly done this either, explain that!”

“Look Jin, you're the cheater here! Don't come to my house and start accusing me of shit!” Jungkook finally snapped.

“YOU’RE AN INSANE MONSTER, JUNGKOOK! WHERE IS SHE?” Jin screamed as loudly as he could.

“I DON'T KNOW.” 

You noted how easily lying came to Jungkook.

“You know! You know because you set this up, you're a fucking stalker and I've always done my best to protect her from you. You gonna tell her how I caught you following her to her classes in college when you didn't even go there? Or how Hobi found a picture you somehow had of her in your room at your parent’s house? Where is she so I can tell her, I will tell her everything.” Jin was seething in anger with his fists tightly gripped into fists at his side.

You still didn't step out of the closet.

“Fine! Fucking fine! You want me to tell you that I fucked her? I fucked her multiple times! I came inside of her, she told me she loved me. Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

“You're sick.” Jin growled. 

“At least I'm not a cheater.” Jungkook struck right back with his words.

“You ARE! And you're a fucking obsessed freak. I swear if you ever talk to me or any of our friends again I'll kill you!” tears ran down his cheeks.

“You're the one that's fucking insane, Jin.”

Upon hearing Jungkook’s words, Jin dove at him but only managed to push him back a little.

Seokjin was sobbing, he gave up and took off out the door.

As Jungkook closed and locked the front door things were silent.

You still stood in the closet and now felt warm liquid blurring your vision and spilling from your eyes. Your body was shaking.

He opened the closet, taking you by the arm and gently pulling you out.

You covered your mouth to try to keep the break down in.

“I can explain.” 

He didn't deny it, not any of it.

“What's true? You said you wouldn't hurt me so just tell me.” you forced even your shaking voice out.

“Listen, I've never- I haven't felt the way I feel about you with anyone before, and I…”

“Oh my God.” you said as your knees now shook “It’s all true, isn't it? Oh my fucking God.” 

“I-” he went to speak but your body had gone into fight or flight and you walked past him. Your body was trying to protect you by gathering your things, but it felt too late for it to kick in.

“I love you, I always have. I can text her right now and dump her.” he was following you around.

His voice felt so distorted as you felt so out of your own body.

“You haven't yet?!” you snapped at him. “At the very least you could have already done that. If you actually did love me you wouldn't have done all of this! What the fuck is up with the talking anyway?!”

“Please don't leave me, please, I'm begging you. I meant everything I said.” he began to cry now too.

“I didn't!” you were hurting and you wanted him to hurt worse. “I was only fucking you to make myself feel better about Jin! You set this up! You ruined my relationship and hurt me! You're a fucking freak! I never want to see you again!” 

You marched to the door, very aware he had crumpled onto the floor in hard sobs behind you.

You walked, you simply just walked in the chilly night, still crying, your things under your arm. The worst part is that you did love him, you had meant everything you said to him too, but he had planned all of this. You no longer thought of him as golden, but fools gold.

You had no idea how long you had been walking, but you decided to sit down on the side of a curb.

Your hands shakily turned on your phone and texts and missed calls flooded through but you ignored them.

The first thing you did was block everyone's number. You were done, it was over, you never wanted to do any of this ever again.

The next thing you did was book a one-way plane ticket to Hawaii. 

You deserved to be happy, even if, for the first time, it was only you. Your cup had always been full of loving others, but never did you think until now that that cup could be full for only you. You wouldn't ever let anyone take from your cup ever again. What filled your cup was genuine, it was gold while all the rest held only water. 

“Tomorrow is going to be better.” you told yourself.

You weren't happy now, but you knew you would be. You could take yourself on adventures every day, you could put flowers in your own hair, and if you fell down a hill at full speed, you could catch yourself. You promised that you'd never let yourself fall ever again.

#jungkook #jeon jungkook #jeon jungkook smut #jeon jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #Jungkook oneshot #jungkook fluff #yandere jungkook #BTS jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fic #jungkook friends to lovers #jungkook angst #jeon jungkook angst #jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader smut #jeon jungkook x reader #bangtanarmynet #armywriterssupport

[ootahime]

analyzing every gojohime moment in the manga 😈

this series will probably have more than one part because tumblr only lets me upload ten images per post </3

warning: there are disgustingly long paragraphs in here and delusions

chapter 32

utahime’s first introduction!  akutami lets us know right off the bat that she thinks gojo is an idiot (so true).

chapter 32

i love the contrast between miwa and utahime’s reaction to gojo’s appearance.  

chapter 33

NAH BC TELL ME WHY HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO NOT GET HER ONE LMAOOOO!!  when he traveled overseas to meet with yuta, he picked up the tribal protection charms and thought to himself, “let’s get enough for the kyoto students as a gift since i am such a great and caring teacher, after all.  mmm, i should skip utahime to make her mad~”  this guy puts way too much effort into getting on her nerves.  his mind = utahime brainrot

chapter 33

she’s laughing at him here because he’s getting disciplined for being a lil shit.  i wonder...what would he say if he saw her laughing at him like that?  

chapter 33

this interaction between them is a little strange don’t you think?   i feel like over the years he’s learned how to pick up her mood based on the way she’s acting towards him.  you’re probably thinking, “well any person can figure out how a person’s feeling based on the way they’re talking or acting.”  yes, that’s absolutely true, but it’s kind of different with this.  she’s acting normal.  utahime has a rather indifferent expression on her face and what she says is spoken in a calm tone, but gojo still asks her if she’s mad at him.  it’s likely that he knows her well enough to be able to notice these subtle things.  even if she wasn’t actually mad at him, he was being considerate for a split second, then he went and said, “of course.  i didn’t do anything wrong and all.”  what a guy LOLOL.  to me, this implies that maybe he made her genuinely angry in the past to the point where he realized that he went too far, and thus decided to be more careful of her feelings.  she has definitely gotten annoyed at him so many times after that so whenever she seems angry, he probably asks himself if he took it too far.  i’m curious to see if he can pick up if she’s upset with something that’s not involving him.  would he console her?  how does gojo satoru console someone?  

despite him always annoying her, she’s still courteous and brings him a cup of tea during their talk.  she didn’t have to go out of her way to get tea for him but she did.  that’s the kind of person utahime is.  a kind and caring woman who would never put her students in danger.  in the anime they were sitting far away and not facing each other like they’re doing in the manga.  she also has her own tea cup.  i think that little panel of her placing the cup down on the table and him picking it up to take a sip is a nice little detail.  it just proves that her hating him most of the time isn’t actually pure hatred but annoyance because of his shenanigans and teasing.

chapter 33

i touched upon this a little bit in my previous post, but i wish to go more in depth about this panel.  first of all, he ends the sentence with her name twice.  two times too many, mr. gojo.  i like how they can be serious with each other too LOL.  i wish we got to see them talk about the traitors because they did figure it out together after all.  does it always end in bickering?  can they interact with each other like adults all the way through?  somehow, i feel like that’s not possible when it comes to these two.  furthermore, notice how gojo confides in utahime about his suspicions.  from what we know, she is the first person he brought it up to.  i mean, i guess he has to start investigating the schools and would need extra assistance to save time, but he could have done it himself if he really wanted to.  by deciding to ask for her help we know that he thinks she’s trustworthy, smart, and strong enough to face whatever considerable risks this task may entail.  

i didn’t point this out in my other posts but see how he makes a hand sign in the last panel when she throws the cup at him?  gojo is manually activating his infinity.  why though?  about a year after the whole star plasma vessel incident happened, gojo develops the ability to keep his infinity up at all times by using the reversed curse technique to consistently heal himself to prevent exhaustion.  this means that it really makes no difference whether he leaves it on or off.  there are a few times where we can witness someone actually touching gojo.  for example, yuuji giving him a hug.  did he turn his infinity off, or was it able to deduce that yuuji was not a threat?  the erasers and pencils shoko and geto threw at him during his demonstration of his new ability aren’t dangerous normally, but is it the speed that makes them dangerous?  even if it did hit him, it wouldn’t hurt.  how does the infinity know when to allow an incoming object to touch gojo?  i believe it is up to gojo himself to let things touch him; his infinity restricts anything and anyone.  some people say it could just be the fact that water is not dangerous to him, so therefore, he has to manually put his infinity up.  i thought this was a reasonable explanation as to why he put up the hand sign when the tea was thrown at him, but then i realized that it couldn’t be.  remember the second opening?  it’s raining and everyone is carrying an umbrella, then it pans to gojo with a bouquet in his hand and rain drops slipping off his infinity.  if he DID manually put his infinity up to prevent getting soaked then that implies that he chose to turn his infinity off.  you can argue and say that jujutsu high is a safe place with students so there’s no need to have his infinity there, but do you remember when he stepped on the ants in front of gakuganji and yaga?  the ants were perfectly fine after which insinuates that his infinity prevented his shoes from crushing the ants.  he most likely had his infinity on during the baseball game even though he was in a safe environment.  how does this long tangent relate back to utahime?  well, it simply indicates that gojo trusts utahime so much to the point where he can be vulnerable around her.  turning off his infinity symbolizes completely letting down his guard  in a way.  

how about what happens next?  utahime throws the tea at him, he turns on his infinity to deflect it, and he responds with, “scary!  hysteric women aren’t popular, you know!”  why would he even say that LMAO??  utahime doesn’t even try to deny what he said either.  she just hits him with the good old, “i am your senpai!”  could it be that he’s trying to poke fun of her relationship status?  maybe, maybe not.  doesn’t he like people a lil crazy?  he did say that all jujutsu sorcerers have to be a little crazy because they’re willing to put themselves in danger constantly.  

chapter 0 p.1

i wonder who he’s thinking of when he said that.  could it be utahime?  it seems like he’s reminiscing or thinking about someone.  he wears an amused expression on his face as he laughs - almost like he’s seen his fair share of how scary women can get :>>

chapter 34

the pattern behind gojo and utahime is called yagasuri “fletching,” a traditional japanese design.  this design is inspired by arrow fletching.  it's a lucky charm for weddings and other celebrations since it's based on the Japanese belief that an arrow shot once never comes back.  brides were given kimonos with this pattern for good luck during the edo era (1603–1868) to ensure they would not have to return to their original family home.  this pattern can have numerous meanings such as steadfastness or determination to achieve a goal, or a wish for the happiness of the bride.  there is a belief that a bow and arrow represent the fight against evil.  honestly, this meaning fits the narrative of the story.  utahime and gojo are unearthing the traitors that are feeding intel to the curse users and cursed spirits.  they are in the middle while the kyoto students surround them, which could mean that it’s their job as adults to protect these children from the grasps of evil slowly making itself more prominent.  do you also notice that the arrows are pointed toward utahime from gojo?  from all the images i’ve seen, the arrows are usually pointed downward.  what could this mean?  is gojo trying to protect her (in the future (?)) or does he have a big fat crush smh...

i think it’s a good time to mention utahime’s clothing.  she’s wearing miko attire.  miko are shrine maidens who were once thought to be shamans (you connecting the dots?).  in their service to shrines, miko used to perform spirit possession and takusen (in which the possessed person acts as a "medium" (yorimashi) to communicate the divine will or message of that kami (god) or spirit; also included in the category of takusen is "dream revelation" (mukoku), in which a kami appears in a dream to communicate its will).  this was back in the old days, of course.  to become a miko back then (shaman), one needed to have potential.  neurosis, hallucinations, odd behavior, and hysteria (HYSTERIA HELLO???) are some of the signs that a person is being called to shamanism.  when a miko is communicating with a kami (god) or spirit by acting as a medium, she is in a trance-like state, and so she must learn techniques to control herself when this happens.  chanting and dancing were used to accomplish this, so the girl was taught melodies and intonations that were used in songs, prayers, and magical formulas.  all of this could give us insight about utahime’s technique and explains why she’s good at singing :)  maybe she can’t control herself when she uses her technique which is why she isn’t shown using it because it should be used for dire situations.  i imagine being possessed by a spirit or god must consume a lot of cursed energy.  it makes sense that utahime and gakuganji wear traditional clothing.  they’re the staff of jujutsu high’s kyoto branch.  in chapter 0, kyoto is known as the sacred land of jujutsu.  it’s more traditional compared to tokyo.  if you want to learn more about miko, you should check out the wikipedia page!  

chapter 34

i swear he tries to annoy her every chance he gets.  i bet he sets a goal for himself to see how many times utahime lectures him about respecting his seniors every time he’s within the same vicinity as her.  at least he called her utahime-sensei!!!

chapter 40

this isn’t even a gojohime moment tbh...i just wanted to share a pic of them sitting next to each other HEHE.  why are they sitting next to each other anyway?  it’s not like they have assigned seating.

----

that was so long and i apologize for the gargantuan paragraphs you guys had to read through.  i’m writing this at 4 in the morning and i’m feeling borderline delirious so i apologize if there are any errors.  i’ll edit this when i have time <3

the next part should come shortly.

#gojohime #gouta #gojo x utahime