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jaedore · 3 years

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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 | 𝐭𝐰𝐨

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: jaehyun x reader

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: mythology!au, romance, loads of angst, smut (future chapters)

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: swearing, violence (choking) -if you are uncomfortable with these themes then i highly suggest you no longer interact!

𝐚/𝐧: IM TRYING AGAIN SO LETS SEE HOW IT GOES OR I MIGHT CRY. as always, italicized text are thoughts/emphases (you’ll know)

[ 7.5 k words ]

You huff, rolling your eyes as you walk out of the room. You hated everything about Jaehyun, his stupid ego, his stupid face, his stupid hair, everything. It was like he was made to hate everyone, including you.

“Hey!” you recognize Mark’s voice, making you snap your head up from the ground.

“Hey, Mark,” you thinned your lips.

“You okay?” he noticed you clutching your arm.

“I’m fine.”

“Wanna go practice then?” Mark raised a brow at you.

“Well since Jaehyun ruined my chance to, why not?” you painted a disguised look on your face by just the name of the so-called male.

Certainly surprised, Mark’s head slightly jolted back, “Jaehyun’s...practicing?” it was rare for the hot-headed male to practice in his free time, so when Mark heard it he didn’t know how to take it.

“Yeah,” you roll your eyes, “with Aera. Do what you want with that information. I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

Your footsteps were synchronous with Mark’s as he walked to the dagger room and you, to wait outside for him. Before you could open the door, you heard Mark scold Jaehyun and you couldn’t stop the smirk from growing on your lips.

You sat on one of the rocks that decorated the entrance as you waited for Mark, no one was here this early yet so everything was nice and peaceful. The birds chirped among the green trees spring provided, you were thankful that the training center was in the middle of the woods, it was far from the busy life on Mount Olympus. Far from the noise, the chaos, the rules, and the pressure of living a life as a child of a god/goddess.

It only took a few minutes before you heard the door swing open, you snap your head expecting to see Mark, but instead see Jaehyun storming out with his hands clenched in fists. You avoid eye-contact, your eyes growing big at the realization of what you may have just caused. You can hear Jaehyun mumble something from his lips, but you’re too timid to listen closely. Once you see his figure stomp off into the woods, you glance up to see Mark’s forehead creased and his arms crossed in front of him.

“Is he always so hateful towards you?” he chirps up, both of your eyes glued to the back of Jaehyun. You shrug as Mark passes you towards the clearing of the waterfall where you two usually practice.

“Seems like he’s always got something to hate,” you follow your friend into the woods, the narrow trail of dirt small enough for only the two of you.

“I wonder if Hades is like that too,” he whispers in thought.

No, he’s not, you thought to yourself. You remember last night’s event, the kind smile adorned his father’s face as his calm voice could lull you to sleep. At first glance, no one would think that he was the king of the underworld. Curiosity sits on your shoulders as you think how different the two are.

“What’d you even say to him?” you glance at the mud that splatters on your boot.

“I just told him that this is a room to train, not flirt.”

You sigh and shake your head, “Mark, that’s exactly what I said to Jaehyun too. Now he knows that I’m the one who told you.”

“Maybe that’s why he was so mad,” you could see him cock his head to the side.

You scoff at his oblivious remark, “Yeah, no shit, Mark.”

After a few more steps, the clearing to the azure waterfall and rocky boulders painted the scene in front of you and Mark bringing you both peace of mind. A feeling of relief washed over you, making you forget all the pressure and hate in the world.

Taking notice of the tenseness in your shoulder escaping with your breath, he whispers, “don’t worry, he’s probably just like that. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“I know,” you thinned your lips. Of course, you knew that Jaehyun had something against everyone, but why did it feel like it was just against you? And why did you care so much?

With sore muscles and bruised fists, you and Mark were side by side walking back to the training center where all the students began to pour in for their daily lessons. The chattering of students became louder as you two got closer.

You and Mark were in the middle of talking when a tall man ran next to you, the smell of him immediately giving away who he was.

“Hey, Y/N!”

You turn your head to see Lucas, son of Psyche, Goddess of Soul, and Compassion, with a beaming smile shining at you. You couldn’t help but greet him back with your biggest smile and a little laugh because of the trance he had on you. Lucas is always happy, he’s always kind and spreading his love around to others making sure they were happy. He was like the water on a hot day.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Mark whispered to you, giving you raised, yet suggestive brows. You scowl at him for him almost being obvious, but Lucas’s laughter pulled your attention.

“Where’d you two go?” he asked.

“We just went for a walk,” you replied, being completely aware of the white lie you just told. It just wouldn’t be fair for him and others to find out that you were getting private lessons with Mark.

“Cool, cool, you two are close?”

Your gaze from the ground pulls your eyes to Lucas’s, it’s filled with wonder, curiosity, and a bit of hope, “yeah, we’re just good friends.”

“Friends,” Lucas laughs, it rings in your ear, the lovely sound of him expressing amusement lifts the corner of your lips, “well, then...do you wanna grab lunch together today? I know a place where we can eat, too-” he leans closer to you, “-plus, it’s better than the cafeteria.”

You chuckle a bit, raising a brow because you were not expecting him to ask you out for lunch, “like a date?”

Lucas nodded, “Yeah, you can call it that.”

Immediate heat rose to your cheeks, making your heart thump a little faster and constricting your throat, “y-yeah, we can do that.”

“Great, I’ll see you later then,” Lucas lightly punches your arm and runs to catch up with another friend and as you watch him go, your eyes follow his path and cross Jaehyun.

Your jaw clenches at the male as he sends fire bullets to your chest, your entire body tenses up that you run to the opposite entrance to avoid him. You shut the doors behind you with a gulp, but the second you turn around, a dark aura settles in your bones.

Dressed in dark leather and a cold stare, Jaehyun stands before you, his presence bringing the entire world down with him. “Was my father at your house last night?”

You inhaled a drawn-out breath at his question, almost wanting to just ignore it and walk past him, but something in your mind stops you from doing so. “Yes.”

Jaehyun narrows his eyes at you, the eyes that are sharp as a knife and could cut you at a glance, “why?”

“I don’t know Jaehyun, he was there before I got home. All I knew was that he needed to talk to my mother,” you reply as you find the courage to move past him, but as you did, you could sense the suspicious demeanor sitting on his shoulders, “don’t worry, it had something to do with the affairs of Olympus.”

“You don’t know that,” you stop in your tracks and turn back around, viewing his back.

“Yes, I do, Jaehyun. They wouldn’t tell me anything, so I’m pretty sure something’s going on, not between them, but on Olympus,” you reassure him, hesitating to put your hand on his shoulder.

No one knows the relationship between him and his father, the only thing everyone knew was that it was a tense relationship. Cautiously, you set your hand on his shoulder to relieve him. His sturdy shoulders that felt like they were holding up the entire world, slightly slumped, relaxing in your touch. You thinned your lips, thankful that at least part of him trusted you, but it only resulted in him snapping around to clutch your arm, the same arm that he grasped yesterday that had turned to hues of blue and red. You gasp at the solid grip he had on you, the pain from your bruise coming back as he tightened it. Your eyes widened at his dark orbs, making you feel timid and weak in his stare.

Jaehyun pulled you close to his chest, his strong muscles against your forearm and the smell of ashes, musk, and spice wafting to your nose. With the tiny time, you had to glance at him, his sharp features allured you to stare, even more, he was so beautiful up close. His skin was pale as the winter snow, yet his lips were as red as the cherry blossoms in the spring, everything about him hypnotized you that you didn’t even notice him lowering his head to your gaze.

“Look at me,” Jaehyun’s voice is low, almost quiet but still powerful, “I told you to never touch me again,” his voice is poison to your ears that injects fear in your veins.

You winced as you felt him tighten his hold a little bit more, but you managed to push him away from you, his grip easily slipping off like butter.

“Then don’t touch me either,” your brows creased at him before you turned on your heel to walk back to where everyone else was.

You could feel his gaze burning through your back, but you couldn’t help but turn back and see him staring right back into your soul. So you quickly walked until you saw civilization again, the buzz of lower-class students and the sounds of lockers slamming.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Mark came up behind you, making you jump.

“I-I uh, nowhere, it doesn’t matter,” you huff.

Behind you, Jaehyun turned from the corner you came out of, which sent questions out of Mark’s mouth. Such as, why you came out of the same place Jaehyun did if you were walking to him, what he had to say, etc. but you only shooed him off, picking up your pace to walk to the hand-to-hand combat room.

As much as you tried avoiding Jaehyun, the thought of him was engraved on the inside of your head. It didn’t help that since you two were in the same rankings, you’d have to train with him. Rank A, only for the best. When you found out Jaehyun was in the same class rank as you, you couldn’t help but feel a bitter taste on the tip of your tongue. You knew he was going to be trouble from the beginning.

“Um..okay, you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine Mark,” you huff at his question and he gets the signal that you no longer wanted to talk about it. That’s how you always were, you always brushed your problems to the side, and Mark’s afraid that one day, they might pile up so high on your shoulders that you’d combust and destroy yourself.

Nonetheless, Mark hums, glancing at how you purse your lips forcefully, “if you say so. What did Lucas have to say to you?”

Like the only light bulb in the only room, your eyes immediately lit up to the male’s name, “he asked me if I wanted to grab lunch with him and eat somewhere else...with just the two of us,” you thin your lips and fiddle with your fingers, even the thought of Lucas made you happy. A sudden outburst of Mark’s laughter makes you snap your thoughts to reality so you slap his arm at his lack of seriousness, “what’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Mark clutches his stomach, his other hand shielding himself from you, “it’s just weird seeing you act this way because of some boy.”

“He’s not just some boy,” you narrow your eyes at Mark, “he’s Lucas,” you giggle, your eyes closing in innocence.

“I guess I shouldn’t say ‘weird’. It’s different, but it’s a good different, I guess,” he shrugs and walks towards the arena because it’s almost time for training.

“You guess?” you run after him.

“Yeah,” his voice raises in reassurance as he opens the door, the smell of iron protruding the air and the feeling of cement on the heels of your feet.

You slightly pout your lips and blink in your thoughts, are you really that intense that you never showed any sort of happy emotion? You never focused on anything else other than training and perfecting your skills, but now that you have, a new feeling settles on your heart.

“Don’t think about it so much,” Mark nudges you and walks ahead of you to talk to the other trainers.

You watch him jog up to the others, soaking in what he said, but it spills out of your head the second you feel a hard push on your shoulder from the person behind you. Turning your head, the person who shoved you was no one other than Jung Jaehyun, he doesn’t even look back at you as he passes you, but you give him a dirty look and inhale a sharp breath. The things he does to test your patience.

“Asshat.”

It’s only a few minutes until the other students in your ranking pour in, it’s a small group, but it’s a proud group because everyone had to train endlessly to get to the top rank. There are a few new faces, but most of the students are ones you’ve seen for a while, you nod to greet them as they all step in and stand behind you. As expected, it doesn't take too long when you begin hearing whispers from them.

“Jaehyun’s in the top group?”

“How did he make it?”

“Is he really that good?”

“Hades probably bought him his rank.”

“Or he’s just really good.”

“Yeah, he’s really attractive too.”

You roll your eyes, but immediately catch Jaehyun’s stare. You hold his gaze raising a brow and mouthing “what?” to him because it seems like at this point, he’s just looking at you to look at you. Jaehyun peels his eyes from you to look at the other students, greeting them also. The gesture is kind, his lips thinned, not lifted, but his demeanor changes and it disgusts you.

“I know! Do you think he’s talking to anyone?”

You exhale a scoff, your tongue poking out from the inside of your cheek as you turn your head, “we’re here to train. You’ve made it this far, so if your mind is still focused on catching someone’s attention, go to the Aquatic then,” your whisper is sharp, almost on the brink of cruelness.

You didn’t have time to train with others who didn’t take training seriously, if they didn’t and were focused on other things, you urged them to leave. In this case, you suggested they leave for the famous club on Mount Olympus, Aquatic, since their mind is focused on catching someone’s eye, specifically Jaehyun’s. He’s not even that great, he’s an ass.

“Alright everyone, we’re gonna start,” Mark claps his hand, gaining attention from everyone.

“Newbies, welcome, this is going to be your first day in hell,” one of the other trainers said, earning a slap in the arm from Mark.

“No, it’s not, but we will be training you to be the best. Your limits will be pushed and you might cry, but we’re only trying to make you the best of the best,” Mark explains, eyeing his peer.

“If your mind isn’t in this training room right now, then I suggest you leave or else this will be a very, very long 4 hours,” a smirk grows on the other trainer, you can’t help but mentally laugh because of how he’s trying to explain this process by scaring the newcomers. You can see the slight fear and nervousness in their eyes.

“So that being said,” Mark claps his hands again, “we’ll be testing where your skills are. You’ll be paired up with someone who’s already been training on this team for years and will be required to fight them in front of us. We just want to see where you are and if you have potential in this rank.”

“And if we don’t?” One of the girls behind you speaks up, everyone’s head turning towards you.

“Then you get demoted to the ranking before this one. As in, you go back into your old ranking group until we see that you’re ready to join,” you turn your head and reply to the girl, you raise your eyebrow at her for her lack of focus from before.

“Just as Y/N said,” Mark responds.

“Then why recruit us?” She asks.

“You’ve scored well in your old ranks, which has gained you access to this ranking group, but we have to see if you’re good enough or have the potential to train with us. We have to see if you blend in well,” a female trainer adds.

“To see if we’re good enough?” the newcomer doesn’t stop with her questions as she repeats the female trainer’s latest comment.

“Look,” you turn until you’re completely facing her, “if you want to be here so bad, then shut your mouth and stop wasting time. Focus on training and getting better instead of asking questions about your own abilities, which you should know about unless you’re actually not as good as you seem.” You tilt your head when the corner of your lip lifts into a smirk, you don’t mean to be intimidating, but she’s wasting everyone’s time.

The newbie flashes you a distasteful scoff but glances back up at the trainers who also seem to be on your side. If you heard correctly, you thought you heard Jaehyun chuckle, but you ignore it when you see the narrowness of his eyes.

“She’s right,” the female trainer defends you, clapping her hands to end the discussion and to start training, “okay, we’re gonna pair you guys up now.”

Name after name was called until it was just you and the new girl who couldn’t keep her trap shut. She had a mouth, but did she have the skills?

“Newbie, you’re with Y/N,” the second you heard your name, your lips pressed together, an impatient sigh escaping your nose.

“Come on, let’s go,” you don’t glance at her as you lead her to the area you’d usually warm up to train, “as you probably already know, I’m Y/N.”

“Maeve,” it’s a pretty name, you’ll give her that, but she says it quietly, timidly, contradicting the time she had just opened her mouth to the most respectable trainers.

Her heavy steps are heard as she follows you, both of your frustrated auras tainting the air surrounding you two. Once you get to your spot, you begin jogging wall to wall to get yourself warmed up while she begins stretching. You raised a brow at her, but didn’t think too much of it, you needed to get focused because no matter what skill level she was at, both of you had something to learn from this. You ran, jogged, did some push-ups and sit-ups before you heard the faint name of Jaehyun’s get called. You glanced up to see he was paired up with one of the male newcomers, who was almost as tall as Jaehyun, but not as lean as him. When they walked up, the newcomer walked as if he possessed a sense of confidence, like he knew he was going to beat Jaehyun. Nonsense, you mentally scoff to yourself as you eyed him.

When Mark blew the whistle, the newcomer proved you wrong, he was doing certainly well with his sharp tactics and blocking defenses. You had a feeling of what Jaehyun was doing, it’s something you do too, he was waiting for the newbie to use all of their energy before attacking them. A corner of your lips slowly lifts when you are deemed correct. As the newcomer begins to stumble, Jaehyun goes for the male, immediately punching his jaw, then his rib. The newcomer trips over his own feet and-

“You got a thing for him or something?” Maeve questioned you.

“Who- Jaehyun?” you scan her up and down, she holds a smirk on her lips as she’s in a runner’s lunge. She’s dressed in the regular uniform but dressed it in her style, which you hate to admit, looked good.

“Yeah, you know he and Aera have a thing, right?” she narrows her eyes at you, signifying that you didn’t want to get involved.

“Oh, and is that such a big deal?” you also go into the lunge until you’re at her eye-level, “Please-” you scoff, “-why would I even care to be interested in someone like him?”

She laughs at your remark, but lunges closer to your face attempting to intimidate you, “you think you’re so high up there, huh?”

Your eyes shoot daggers at her, “what are you even talking about?”

“You clearly think that since you’re the daughter of Athena, you think that you’re so good, so high up there, better than everyone else when we all know that you’re not. That this-” she points her finger up and down at your figure, “is just a show. You’re not as good as you think you are, as everyone sees you as.”

You stand up, eyeing her figure that stretches below you, “what are you trying to do? Provoke me?”

The newcomer with apparently a big ego now, stands up and gives you the same dirty expression you’re giving her, “What if I am?”

“Y/N, newbie, you’re up now!” Mark yells at you two.

You throw a smirk at her, “well consider myself provoked. Get ready for it,” you raise a brow and nudge your shoulder with her’s as you walk past her to the ring.

Passing by Mark, you flash him a prideful smile, but he clutches your arm before you could even pass him, “be gentle.”

You scoff, “don’t worry, she’ll get what she asked for.”

Mark only shakes his head as he leads the two of you to the ring. You and the newcomer both glare at each other, her with hate and you with amusement. It only takes three whistle blows until you two begin in your fighting stance. She’s quick and sharp in her movements as she attempts to throw a jab at you, but you’re faster at defending yourself. You have more force to your movements, so you punch her back, immediately coming in contact with her cheek. The newcomer spits out the blood that spills from the corner of her lip and while she’s distracted, you roundhouse kick the side of her face anticipating the sound of her body thumping the ground.

You stand and wait for her to get up and fight you, but she doesn’t. The next thing you knew, you felt contact with her feet against yours, she swung them under you, making you fall on your back, which results in you roughly falling on your back. Your breathing stutters as your chest heaves, but the next thing you knew, her hands made contact with your neck and she didn’t even show you mercy when she rapidly began to tighten her grasp on you. Your eyes widen as your passageway to air is blocked, you begin to thrash your limbs, hitting everything you could as stars begin to blanket your vision. Every second in your hold comes with a constricting pain, releasing almost every kind of worry in your head. You swore you almost saw her eyes turn black when she saw your struggle.

You can hear the shouts of trainers and chaos around you swirling through blurred vision. Everything was faint but you knew the person who managed to get the girl off of you. He lifted you onto your feet, with his arms wrapping around your limp body, knowing that you needed oxygen in your brain and blood back in your veins.

“It’s okay, I got you, I got you. You’re gonna be okay,” Jaehyun whispers in your ear, your head falling against his chest, your eyes slowly opening and closing each second as he strives to keep you standing. Each and every inhale you take is a sting to your throat, the constricting muscles feeling like they’re on fire.

“Let go of me,” you murmur through a hushed tone, weakly trying to push yourself away from him.

“Stop fighting me, let me help you,” he grunts as your body rejects any kind of his physical support.

“I don’t-” you cough, “-need...your help.”

“Shut up,” he mumbles into your ear, eyeing the trainers trying to get a hold of the newcomer who choked you.

You clutch onto Jaehyun’s arm as you glance back. Your vision is slowly returning but you can still see black in her eyes and the veins of her neck, every part of her is drowned in fury, chaos, and darkness, more intense than the male who holds you. She struggles in the trainers’ hold, the growls and screams of outrage screeching your ear.

With a wheeze, you shut your eyes at her piercing shriek, “just get me the hell out of here.”

Jaehyun does just that, he holds onto your shoulders but makes sure you’re still supported as he leads you to the infirmary. He can hear your stuttering breaths and tiny coughs. You bring your hand up to your neck, massaging the bruises and pain.

“I can walk myself,” you grumble under your breath, which is literally just your raspy voice now.

“Fine,” Jaehyun immediately lets go of you, giving you a slight push as he leaves you be, but it only leads you to fall on your knees and your palms stopping you from face planting.

You violently cough, your body still weak and slow in gaining air and strength. Glancing up at Jaehyun, he eyes you with a smug look, orbs filled with brutality. He knows that you clearly need help, your trembling breaths are begging for it but you don’t plead for his help. The last thing you want to do is ask for his help, along with being seen as weak and helpless, you didn’t want anyone’s pity.

You hear Jaehyun sighing at your crouched figure and your hand that clutches your chest, “that’s what I thought,” the taps of his feet become louder the closer he gets to you.

This time, he briskly lifts you into his arms with his hard chest against your arm. The steady bounce in his steps has your arm feeling the muscles of him, your hand fumbling with the fabric of your uniform on top of your chest. You try your best to hide the slight blush in your cheeks by looking somewhere else but your eyes land on his neck. Adorned with fine black ink into the image of a creature, it stares back at you as you admire the art that lays on his soft skin. If it wasn’t for the vile creature that stamped his neck, you would’ve perceived the artwork as fragile as an ancient vase of Olympus.

Jaehyun spares you a glance and sneers at you, “got enough air in your head, yet?”

You gulp and blink elsewhere, “yes.”

Jaehyun kicks open the door to the infirmary and lays you on the bed, “great. Now you owe me,” and proceeds to leave.

“Oh my gosh, what happened to you?” Kun’s eyes widen into space planets.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you hush him, your voice still strained.

Kun thins his lips and tends to your care. He’s gentle and careful in adding ointment on your neck, fully aware of how sensitive you are, “you probably won’t be able to speak loudly for the next couple of days, but give it time. Your throat needs to rest, so take it easy, alright?”

You nod, sucking your bottom lip as you raise your neck for more exposure, hoping that you were making his job easier. The taunting memories of what just happened come fully back in your mind, the image of the newcomer’s black eyes and veins flashes across your brain, making you gasp and jolt away from Kun’s hold.

“Did that hurt? I’m sorry!”

You softly shake your head, “no, no...sorry, I was just thinking.”

Kun peers up at you, “wanna talk about it?” You sit on the cot, contemplating your next question, but he can tell that it slightly troubles you like a phantom itch, “we don’t have to.”

“Do you know who Maeve is?” you whisper gently, but your hand grips your knee to distract yourself from the pain.

“Maeve?” his forehead creases in wonder, his mind trying to recollect any faint memory of the name, but he shakes his head, “no, I don’t think I’ve heard of her.”

You hum at his response, it was usual for you to not know everyone that attended the training center. Those who enrolled were children of the gods/goddesses, demigods, and even children of those who had the faintest amount of power that flowed through their veins. Even if you could, no one was allowed to ask or look up the background of another student, no matter how well known they already were, it was one of the morals held at the center.

“Why?”

“She’s the one who caused this. Just wanted to know what she holds,” you respond, referring to her power, knowing who her birth giver was would be super beneficial.

“Oh? And what would you do with that information?”

“Use it for it’s good.”

Seems like I’m getting eaten alive more and more as I get near Jaehyun. You rub your neck, the cloth softly sticking to the ointment that Kun had just put on. He let you lay down for the time being until you were stable enough to finally be on your own and since you couldn’t talk, you listened to Kun’s rambling on his studies of the human beings that live on Earth. You had to stop him mid-sentence because you had a lunch date.

“Y/N!” your eyes snap up at the call of your name from your favorite person. Lucas, like the fresh breath of air you needed, ran to you with his big smile, gums showing his enthusiasm, and both of your lunches in his hands.

“Lucas,” you smile, your voice cracking at the male, you quickly clear your throat in the gentlest way possible as he sets a bowl of soup in your hand.

“Hi,” he huffs, “I heard what happened, so I bought you soup instead of a sandwich,” Lucas lightly nudges your arm towards the door that leads outside, assuming that’s where he plans to take you.

You stay quiet and shy when you follow him, a little too nervous to converse. The gravel beneath your scuffing feet turns into grass and then into leaves, the crunch filling up the silence between you two.

“So who’s the culprit?”

“Maeve,” your jaw tenses up when her name slips bitterly from your lips.

Lucas inhales a sharp breath, his head tilting to the side to think, “Never heard of her.”

“You don’t want to,” you mumble under your breath.

When you can hear the familiar sound of a waterfall and the crisp smell it brings, you quietly laugh to yourself as your head shakes. Disappointment taints your laughter when you wonder how Lucas found out about this place.

“It’s so pretty, isn’t it?”

“Yeah...how did you find this place?” You ask, your hand brushing against the branch that always blocks your way as you come in.

“Just a little exploring in my free time,” Lucas follows closely behind you, “come, let’s sit here.”

He leads you to the perfectly sized rocks, little does he know that you and Mark usually sit on it after your private training. He offers to open your container of soup and you let him, being the gentleman he is. Something about Lucas makes you feel at ease like he’s the four-leaf clover that can overturn the back luck that’s been happening. His laughter that soundwaves to your ears widens the smile on your face, he makes you laugh like no one’s ever made you.

You two spend time sitting on the rocks, you slurping your soup and him chewing away his sandwich as you both peer at the waterfall. With the little time you two have, it doesn’t stop him from sprinkling his little jokes from time to time, growing a smile on your face in doing so. You can’t help but feel so blissful when you’re with him, everything about him is so happy and compassionate, it’s easier to say so since he’s the child of Psyche.

“You okay?” abruptly, Lucas asks you in the middle of clutching your stomach from laughing so much.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I don’t know, I’ve just never seen you laugh this much,” he shrugs, crumpling the plastic wrap of his finished sandwich.

“Maybe no one’s made me laugh this much before,” you manage to calm down, your voice returning to a quiet tone.

A pleasant smile expands Lucas’s lips, his eyes glimmer almost reflecting the waterfall and he leans in closer to you, “May I?”

You chuckle at his politeness, a part of you pleased that he had these kinds of manners, “of course.”

Gently, you felt his hands caress your jaw, and leans in closer to you, closing the gap between your lips. It’s slow, with a hint of playfulness, though he’s so careful with you that you can’t help but melt in his embrace. He makes up all of the bad luck that’s happened this week. The plumpness of Lucas’s lips left you craving for more and more, your hands resting on his chest as his hands wrapped around your waist.

“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to do that,” Lucas whispers as he pulls away from you.

“Should’ve done it sooner,” your eyes scanned his lips up to his eyes.

You’ve known Lucas for a couple of years, your mother and his are pretty good friends, so you’d see him around at some of the gatherings his mother would host. He was a little boy when you first met him, but you’d always see him playing in the mud with some of the other kids while you sat with your mother. The moment you knew that you had feelings for him was that time when you two were still young and other kids were making fun of you for not being like other girls, a lot of the kids were afraid of becoming your friend because you were good at defending at yourself, they’d think that you’d hit them, so they distanced themselves from you. Until, Lucas stood up for you and just said that you’re just like them, just good at fighting. You will never forget the smile he flashed you when he said those words, even if they don’t sound deep and serious, it meant everything to you as a child, and now.

Like a gentleman, Lucas let you finish your lunch slowly until you two trekked back to the training center. Since it was a Friday, training was a little more laid back in the second half of the day.

“Will you be going to the bonfire tonight?” he asks you, offering to grab your bowl.

“Yeah,” you turn your head to him as the leaves turn into gravel again, “you?”

“Of course, I’d never miss a good bonfire,” he gently nudges you, but before he can speak Marks walks up to the two of you.

“Mark.”

“I’ll see you later?” Lucas whispers, you nod to see him leave you and Mark alone.

“What’s up?”

“She’s calmed down if you wanna talk to her,” Mark lowers his gaze to your neck.

“I really don’t wanna talk to that bitch right now,” your eyes deadpan to elsewhere.

“Fine, then do you wanna see her?”

Your eyes switch back to Mark in curiosity, “does she still look the same?”

“A bit, she’s calmed down though.”

“Okay,” you inhale careful breath, “let’s go then.”

You follow Mark into the interrogation room where she sits alone, isolated in the cement walls. Mark opens the door to the other room, where you can see her but she can’t see you. In it, you find Jaehyun standing with his arms crossed as he observes her, his forehead creasing with wonder because he’s never seen anyone like this before.

“What is he doing here?” you whisper to Mark.

Apparently, you weren’t as quiet as you thought, “If there’s anyone that knows anything about hatred, it’s going to be me,” Jaehyun answers you, but doesn’t give you a glance.

You turn to Mark and all he does is just roll his eyes and nod, Jaehyun almost taking the words out of his mouth. You slowly walk up next to Jaehyun who stares at Maeve. Her eyes are still painted black, her veins tainted with black on her neck slowly disappearing, but still visible. Her hands are chained, attached to the metal table that’s drilled into the ground but there’s black smoke that surrounds her, almost as if she’s their master and whatever that smoke is, is her protection.

“So no one knows who her parents are?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Jaehyun responds.

“Do you think your dad would know?” you discreetly ask.

“Maybe, maybe not. I only know her name and I doubt that’d be helpful at all,” he shrugs.

“Y/N, when she came onto you, did she look like this too?”

Even the thought of it weakened your knees, but you shoved it deep into your mind with a stinging gulp, “yeah, everything except the smoke,” you can recall almost everything you saw, but another part of you doubts yourself, what if it’s just the lack of oxygen that made me see it falsely at the time?

“Do you think it’s because of something you said to her?” Mark inquired.

“I’m positive, if anything, she’s the one that provoked me,” you look at Maeve, the way both her eyes pools into blackness, it’s haunting and it does nothing but sends chills down your spine and grows goosebumps on your skin.

“I don’t believe you,” Jaehyun chirps and your head snaps to him, “I mean clearly, you did something to piss her off and literally choke you. Everyone knows you have a lurking temper.”

“I didn’t say anything to her Jaehyun,” you sneer.

“Okay, okay guys, let's not start something here,” Mark interrupts Jaehyun before he could even speak. His eyes are still fixed on Maeve, but his head is empty. He has no idea what he’s going to do with her.

You were just about to speak up again until you felt the familiar constricting feeling on your neck again, you clutch onto it but there’s nothing there other than your hands. You look at Maeve from the other side of the window and she’s looking directly at you with a smug look, she can see me, it seems like she holds some kind of power that can be telepathically sent through whatever surface she wants it to penetrate through. Panic settles in your eyes, widening them and you clutch onto anything that you can. Your hands land on Jaehyun’s arm and you grip onto it, catching both his and Mark’s attention. Like before, her grip doesn’t show you any kind of mercy and the pain from before slithers into your skin.

Before your knees go weak, you let out a loud cry, and tears spill from your eyes, but Jaehyun's quick in catching you. You felt as if everything went in slow motion, but nothing was visible to you, the only thing you could see was Jaehyun’s alarmed eyes, his dark orbs begging you to keep fighting. Funny, considering that it never seems like that whenever you encounter him.

“Kill her,” Jaehyun shutters.

“You know I can’t do that,” Mark panics.

“Mark, fucking kill Maeve before she kills Y/N!” Jaehyun shouts at the trainer, his veins swelling from his neck, which results in Mark running to the other room and completely knocking Maeve out of her state.

Mark doesn’t exactly kill because that would be illegal, but he does enough to knock her out and when he does, everything dissolves in the air, the black smoke evaporates and the translucent force falls into the cement, never to be seen. You gasp for air as your body shakes in hysteria, your hands clutching at the fabric that lays on your chest as the painful relief of air slowly comes back to you. You can’t help but become fearful of it coming again and you not making out of it alive.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Jaehyun tightens his hold on you, somehow the feeling of it brings you back to Olympus.

You stay in his arms, letting him rock you until you gain enough consciousness to push him away. You support yourself on your elbows before gathering the strength to run out of there, leaving Jaehyun foiled. Running through the walls, you don’t give care to those who look at you with bizarreness or concern, you have to go home, I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here. You repeat it to yourself over and over again until you’re actually out of the training center. Finding the nearest large rock, you plunk on it to attain the sufficient air to go on. After a couple of minutes of staring at the top of trees meeting the blue sky, you slowly stand up to walk towards town. You needed to go visit your mother, Athena.

Everything about the building she works in is luxurious, made in marble, lit with expensive diamond chandeliers, and the smell of champagne wafts to your nose. Each person you pass by gives you a respectable greeting, you do your best to return it in the friendliest way possible. Your mother is the Commander in Chief at Olympus Affairs, she’s in charge of anything that has to do with the welfare of Mount Olympus, given her title of being the goddess of warfare, wisdom, and other affairs.

“Y/N,” your mother shoots from her chair and runs to you, “what happened to your neck?” she glances at the fragility of your neck and winces in concern as she sees hues of reds and purples taint your once smooth skin.

“That’s why I'm here, mother-” you walk to her computer that sits on her desk, “-do you know anyone’s daughter with the name of Maeve?” you begin typing in her database, trying to look for any kind of evidence, proof that you weren’t going crazy.

“Not that I can remember, why? Is she the one who did this to you?”

“Yeah,” you type her name and thousands of results turn up, you’re just thankful that ‘Maeve’ isn’t a common name on Olympus or else you would’ve gotten more, “twice.”

“Oh dear,” your mother cups her mouth in shock, “I need to talk to the center.”

You stop your mother from pulling out your phone, “No, mother stop. Please.”

Your mother gasps in disbelief, “you could’ve died!”

Another gasp rips through the air and this time it’s yours, “Her mother is Eris, who can manipulate shadows,” you whisper the latter, connecting the dots that Maeve must’ve inherited some of her mother’s shadow manipulation abilities. When you don’t hear anything from your mother, you turn to see the colors in her face flush with pallor as she grabs the phone.

“Mother, what’s wrong?” you stand from bending over her desk with furrowed brows. And who is she calling?

“She’s back...this isn’t good...I thought so too...when are you available to talk?... Two days?!? Do you know how serious this is?!?!” you jump from the anger in your mother’s voice, “Fine. I’ll come by then-” your mother looks at you, “-and I’m bringing my daughter with me...Why?...Because she literally almost killed my only daughter you JACKASS!” With that she ends the call and slams her phone on her glass desk, you swore you could feel not only her glass desk crack but the windows behind you two that stretch from the ground to the ceiling.

“Who did you call?” you ask nervously, a bit of you already know the answer but you didn’t want to hear it.

With her hands propped on her hips, your mother replies, “Hades, we’re having dinner at their place in two days.”

#nct imagines #jaehyun imagines #jaehyun angst #jaehyun scenario #jaehyun x reader #jaehyun series #nct 127 imagines #nct au #jaehyun au #jung jaehyun #jaehyun fic #jung jaehyun fic

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dat-town · 3 years

Text

love burns and fades

Characters: Yanan & You

Setting : chinese myth au (my own variation of chang’e & hou yi’s story)

Summary: “Tell me the story.. About how the Sun loved the Moon so much...” ― Hanako Ishii

Words: 1.5k

welcome home @restlessmaknae ♡

With trembling fingers you fix the white petal flowers in your hair. They are rather silverish coloured like everything around you. You cast one last look at your reflection in the water as if it could change anything but it's a habit. Tired, scared or hopeful eyes look back at you, you aren’t sure, maybe all of the above. But they are pale, like you always are. Always but especially on this day.

The day you wait and dread all year long has come.

Watching the lanterns being lit from above, you feel tears gathering in the corner of your eyes. You force yourself to blink them away because Yanan hates to see you sad but you carry the sorrow with you in your heart, a forever burden, a mistake you will never be able to make right. Even if he says it’s all okay, even if he smiles at you warm like liquid sunshine. You could have had it all, a short life beside each other but now it's all gone.

It’s almost time. The Sun slowly settles on the horizon and you rise, nails digging in your palm, heart thumping loudly. Sometimes you fear you would forget this day. More and more hours blend together, decades pass like they are nothing and it’s always the same routine, every single day. Sometimes you fear you forget him too, that you forget the time how it was before you were punished, banished to this faraway place.

You were supposed to stay together, forever. Yanan and you. And now you had the world between you.

You can still remember the day you met.

It was spring, the heavy scent of cherry blossoms lingering in the air around you as you wandered off in the royal gardens. You saw him first, his silver locks fascinating you just as much as his precise aim and the elegant arch of the arrow piercing through the practice target. He stood tall and proud, a soldier in all his might yet when you accidentally made some noise, he looked so startled. Such an endearing sight.

“Oh, princess,” he turned to you, stumbling to bow deeply in front of you and your title has never sounded as sweetly of any tongue as his yet it pained your heart because no matter how much you tried to prove that it wasn’t his fault, he refused to listen.

It took so many more encounters for him to look into your eyes without you having to order him to. You found his shyness adorable and you liked his gentle heart, the way he spoke so softly and the way he claimed wars were like plagues. You kept leaving your maids behind to steal some time and meet him in the gardens among the flower garden you loved so much. There, in that lovely, naive bubble of yours everything seemed so sweet and so easy, you never wished to leave to quarters.

You remember all too clearly the day he told you he loved you.

Days had been scorching, the gods were getting angry at the Emperor and he sent his soldiers to death instead of redeeming himself. You didn’t want to let Yanan go, you clung onto his robe, sobbing, begging for him not to go even though you knew he had to, he got an order. But naively you thought that maybe if you told him not to then he wouldn’t have to.

“Princess...” A sigh escaped the boy's mouth and his always warm eyes settled on you and your grip on his clothes. He put a hand over yours gently, thumb stroking the skin like an elixir to the wound of your heart. “I have to go.”

He was breaking your heart and little did you know he was breaking his own as he was watching a tear roll down your cheek.

“If I can save the kingdom, if I can save you, I would do anything,” he told you all too calmly and softly uncurled your fingers from his clothing only to lift them to his mouth, brushing those chapped lips against your jasmine-scented skin. “Princess… I know I’m too low rank to even ask for something like this from you but if you allow me… Can I love and cherish you in my next life?”

It was a goodbye you didn’t want to hear as your heartbeat skipped and your breath hitched. It was a confession all the same but you knew he only told you because he thought he wouldn't get another chance.

“Come back. Come back to me and love me in this one,” you told him then, like an order. You made him promise before letting him go, crying in the gardens among roses and the Goddess of Heaven must have heard your prayers because instead of saddening news, hopeful ones knocked on your door too many days later.

You remember the day he came back too.

He was wearing his black soldier clothes as he walked into the palace, ragged and tired a bit, kneeling in front of the Emperor, the touch of a goddess glowing on him and you could barely sit still, listening to your father’s praises, telling Yanan that he could have anything he wanted: land, rank, wealth, anything would be a small price to pay for saving the kingdom.

It was when Yanan looked up, his brown eyes shining through the place as his gaze found yours, making your heart flutter in your chance even before he would have spoken up.

“If it’s not too arrogant of me to ask, your Majesty, I would like to ask for your youngest daughter’s hand in marriage,” he said and welcomed you in his warm embrace once your father formally agreed to his wish. In his arms, naively you thought that you had finally gotten your happy end then.

But with the light weight of the silver ring on your finger, you remember the day it all went downhill.

The Goddess of Heaven was also fond of Yanan. She liked his pure heart and she wished to reward him for his bravery and selflessness, so she offered him immortality in the form of an elixir. Yanan told you about it, showed you the folie.

“She told me that if we drink half of it each, then we get to spend our everlasting days together,” he whispered and reasoned that he didn’t want to spend an eternity without you even if it meant that he cannot become immortal. He just wished to be with you.

So the two of you agreed to drink half the elixir each during the next full moon and took turns protecting and hiding it from curious eyes because you knew it would have been a disaster if it had gotten into improper hands. The full elixir would have granted immortality and that was too dangerous for a mere human to possess. Dangerous and tainting.

No wonder someone indeed came to get it.

You were naive, you made a mistake. You couldn’t tell apart people’s greed from their care. You should have known better than to open the door to visitors, even if you knew them. You remember the blood, spilling on the floor. You remember the irony taste on your bitten lips. You remember Yanan’s tear-soaked face as he held you in his arms and you remember the sweet taste of the elixir on your tongue when he made you drink it, knowing that it could save you.

But becoming immortal has its price: every god and goddess belongs to the skies. You couldn’t have stayed on Earth anymore. So you stayed on the closest spot: its moon.

And while your immortality chained you to the Moon, your angered father banished Yanan to the Sun to never be able to be together with you. But once a year, when the lanterns got lit on the Earth, the Goddess of Heaven let you reunite for a day. For as long as it is.

“Don’t cry.”

You hear his gentle voice call for you before you see him. Turning to him, you smile right away, even the silver greyness of the Moon disappearing next to his warm shine.

“I have missed you,” you admit easily and nuzzle into his embrace, the one you missed for a whole year. You don’t want to miss any moment and Yanan makes up for it, his love radiating through as he caresses your back gently.

“I promised you,” he whispers, pulling away so he could look you in the eyes. “I would always come back to you.”

His oath lingers in the air, digging itself deep into your heart, echoing with each of its beat.

Yanan’s kiss tastes sweet like mooncakes.

Like home.

#pentagon scenarios #yanan scenarios #pentagon x reader #yanan x reader #mythology au #stories #i love myths but they have so many versions wow

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teacup-set · 3 years

Text

halcyon days

Summary: The sea rages as it yearns for its lover, but for one fortnight each year, it's perfectly still. [SasuSaku, Mythical!AU]

FFN, AO3

AN: I wrote this story a long while ago, but got around to editing it recently while shifting my work to AO3, so decided to give it one more chance on here.

I sit on the warm, white sand and watch my mother and father embrace moments before my father is to embark on a sea voyage. She softly kisses his cheek and he offers her a reassuring smile as he walks back to the dock, where countless men work on countless ships, inspecting every nook and crevice to ensure that the vessel is ready for the sea.

My mother joins the rest of the women as they all wave their hands in goodbyes and shout good wishes. It is only an empty ritual though, everyone knows that for fourteen days around the winter solstice the sea is absolutely calm and still. Only a gentle sea breeze races across the water’s surface, filling the sails of the ships and spraying droplets of water into the air where they catch the rays of the sun and explode into iridescent colors.

A legend dictates that any man who sets sail between the seven days before the winter solstice and the seven days after would find his way back to his lover's arms unharmed, which is why my people chose this day to embark on a voyage.

But it's not like they could have chosen any other day. For these fourteen days the sea is calm, but for the rest of the year, it rages. Mother says the sea is clawing at the land in longing, because something it loves lives here. Tide after tide attack the shore with such ferocity that it is impossible to dwell anywhere near the sea.

Which is why my tribe lives in the very heart of wave country, far away from the enraged sea, and only travel down here once a year. The beach is barren and soulless, save for one house over the low cliff.

My eyes trail away from the departing seamen and glance over to my left, where the old man who lives in the cliff-top abode is sitting on a boulder, something close to relief reflected on his face.

He's been living in that hut for more years than I've been born, but somehow the waves never seem to touch his little home.

I've seen him walking along the beach before, with an uchiwa fan sewn onto the back of his Yukata. I recognize it, it's the emblem of the Uchiha tribe, the fire wielders from the land of leaves, so why did this old man reside in wave country?

I see grandma Ino slowly walking towards me, and I make up my mind to ask her about the mysterious old man. She seems about as old as he does, perhaps she has some answers.

It takes another few moments for her old, frail knees to carry her to the spot where I am sitting, and as soon as she reaches she settles down at a spot behind me and weaves her fingers through my hair.

I inherited her long, pale blonde hair and she loved to weave it into elaborate braids, while I enjoy the welcome pressure of her fingertips on my scalp. She sets to work, parting and twisting my hair, and I finally ask her the question that had been ricocheting inside my head.

"Ino baa-chan," I say, "Who is that man sitting on the rocks over there? The one who lives by the sea?"

Even though I cannot see her face, I know she is smiling and I can hear it in her voice when she speaks.

"Mira, did you know, there was once a time that the sea was calm and quiet all year round?"

I'm a little annoyed, because she doesn't answer my question, but her words have piqued my curiosity. "Really, baa-chan? This fearsome sea?" I ask.

"Aa," she says, and I can tell she is still smiling "This very sea."

"What changed, then?"

As soon as I said those words, her hands became still, and I know she is going to tell me a story. I don’t not mind though, Ino baa-chan tells the best stories, so I remove my legs from underneath me, turn to face her, and sit down in a more comfortable, cross legged position.

She inhales deeply, and with a faraway look in her eyes, she begins...

A young woman sits on the rocks by the sea, looking out at the endless expanse of water before her. Her long coral hair cascades down her shoulders in soft waves as she rests her head in the palm of her hand and smiles softly.

The trance she is lost in is interrupted when she hears a distressed mewling in the distance. White dress flowing in the wind, she gets up and breaks into a run towards the sound, coming to halt when she sees a dolphin beached on the shore and a man hovering over it.

She opens her mouth to yell at him, and ask him to stop what he was doing, before promptly shutting it close when she realizes that he's trying to drag the fish back into the water, not to the land.

Quickly, she rushes over to him, and they both heave and grunt as they try to push the beast back into the sea. The man's eyes widen in surprise when the tide reaches in farther into the shore and takes the dolphin with it as it returns to the sea.

They watch as the dolphin wades through the shallow water until it finally reaches the deep, and then swims away in search of its pod.

"Thank you for helping her,” she says, smiling sweetly, “What's your name?", but it takes him a long minute to grasp what she has spoken because he is stunned by the changing colors of her eyes, every single one of them a different shade of green. When his senses return to him, he covers his surprise with a cough and then answers, "Aa. Something that belongs to the sea must return to the sea. I could not watch it suffer." he pauses, "My name is Sasuke."

Her smile widens a little and she moves closer to him. Standing on her toes, she presses her lips to his in a soft, chaste kiss and his eyes fall close at the delightful pressure. When he opens them again, she is gone, and there's only the taste of salt on his lips.

The man with the dark hair and darker eyes returns to the same spot the next day, a little while before the sun immerses itself into the sea, and waits in hopes of seeing the roseate woman from yesterday.

He waits and waits until the sea swallows the sun and the sky turns a rich black, punctuated with stars glowing dimmer than the green eyes of the mysterious woman. He has almost abandoned hope and is about to return to his lodgings, when the sea on the far end of the beach swirls into a tiny whirlpool and out emerges the woman from yesterday.

He watches in awe as the water parts and makes way for her to come to the shore, and before he can ever recall commanding them to move, his feet are shuffling to the woman who was born from the sea.

He approaches her, and if she has noticed his presence, she doesn't acknowledge it. Caught off guard by her dismissal, he ponders how to approach her.

"Hello..." he begins somewhat unsurely. She stills, hands that were untangling seaweed from her hair falling to her sides, as she stares at him dumbstruck.

"Y-you can see me?" she says, sounding surprised.

Frowning, he counters. "Should I not be able to?"

She laughs a little, and his heart flutters at the sound. "Most people can't. I am only seen by those looking for me." she says, looking into his eyes.

His frown only deepens, and she looks like she understands the questions swimming through his mind. Grabbing hold of his left hand, she brings it to her chest. His eyes widen when instead of a heartbeat, he can feel the vibrations of waves thundering within her rib cage.

"I am a sea goddess." she says with a smile.

The goddess and the man spend the rest of the night talking away as the goddess explains to him how her mother is the ruler of the oceans, and how her and each of her six sisters rule a portion of the seas. He wonders if he ought to be more surprised at this discovery of a whole new world, but something deep-seated within him believes every word she says without question.

They talk until the sky is streaked red and the goddess tells him she must return to the sea. Standing up, she turns to him and says "Goodbye, Sasuke-kun. I really did enjoy our time together, I hope we can do this again some day." Turning around, she begins walking back into the sea.

"Wait!" his voice calls her, laced with slight panic at the realization that despite talking all night he was still missing a crucial piece of information, "You never gave me your name" she stops in her stride and turns to look at him.

"For when we meet again." he adds.

Her eyes twinkle as she answers. "Sakura."

They begin to meet often after that night. They would lie on the soft sand and talk under the cover of the stars as the sea goddess played a beautiful symphony with the sound of the waves.

More often than not, it would be her who did all the talking. She would tell him about life underwater, the conflicts among the gods, stories from the wars she had witnessed in her centuries of existence. But every now and then, he'd share pieces of his life with her too and she would greedily absorb every piece of information he would impart.

He told her about his hometown in the land of leaves and how he was living with his brother's friend in wave country to help him build a bridge, he told her about his childhood, his family, he speaks with a passion about the fire she had been afraid of all her life, and about the flowers she was named after.

He was surprised to learn that despite being named Sakura, she had never actually seen cherry blossoms in bloom. "I can't stray too far from the sea." she told him, "but I hope to see them someday."

He nods.

A few weeks later, the bridge is built and his work in wave country is done. On his last night in wave country, as they sit on the beach, they don't speak a word. Somewhere in the middle of the night, he takes his hand in hers and they sit there watching the waves roll in.

When the sun begins to return to its place in the sky, she finally turns to him and speaks. "I'm afraid I might be in love with you."

For a very long time he is silent, and she feels her heart sink like a stone in the water. Just before he gets up to leave, he tightly squeezes her small hand.

"Do not be afraid, for I think I might be in love with you too."

That night is not the last they see of each other. At every chance he got, the fire heir would run to wave country to spend a few days wrapped in the arms of the sea goddess.

In the spring he brought her a book filled with the stories of the land, and a single cherry blossom flower pressed in between.

In his absence, the goddess shares her loneliness with the god of the wind, Naruto-kami. Legend says that the ruler of the skies was also once in love with a mortal, blind woman, and so could sympathize with her pain.

He could never marry her because of the wrath it would incur from heaven, so he loved her in secret. He fathered a child with the marble eyed woman, and the child was born with the same white eyes as his mother but with vision that surpassed any mortal. His unique vision was carried on by his progeny and gave rise to the famed Hyuga clan.

After the woman succumbed to mortality, the wind god never wed in all the centuries that followed.

The sea goddess and her lover steal many nights and days together, basking in each other's love, but a storm begins to brew in the sea.

The eldest sister of the goddess learns about her affair with the mortal and is enraged. Unable to stand the unnatural connection of a mortal and an immortal, she informs the heavens of her sister's misdeeds.

A summit of the gods is organized at once to address her crimes.

"What you are doing is unacceptable!" the overseer of the council tells her, "It simply cannot be!"

But the goddess stands defiant. "I love him" she says, "and that will not change."

"A mortal and an immortal are not destined to be together, such is the law." he insists and the goddess watches the wind god standing behind the council of gods wince as if in pain.

She can see the pain that reflects in his cerulean blue eyes and she knows it's not a pain she would be able to bear.

"Then, gods, I give up my immortality." she declares.

Gasps echo all across the room as the gods break into hushed whispers.

"Tsunade! Do you hear your daughter? Will you allow this?" the ruler of heaven barks at the queen of the sea.

The mighty sea goddess stares into her daughter's defiant eyes for a long time, her inner conflict betrayed on her pained face. Then, she sighs — "All I want is my daughter's happiness, and if she has found it in a mortal then so be it."

Sakura looks at her mother's eyes and hopes the unshed tears in her eyes will convey her apology as Tsunade leaves her throne and chants a spell. The next instant there is a blinding pain wracking every inch of the younger goddess's body as she feels her soul being incinerated and remodeled again. Through the pain she opens her eyes and glances at Naruto, his eyes a mix of pride and regret, and she knows she has made the right choice.

The pain is eventually too much to bear and she feels her consciousness slipping. When she awakens, she is at the beach where she met her lover.

She extends her hand to the sea, and it does not respond.

She spends the next week waiting for her lover to return. An old widow grants her shelter, and Sakura visits the beach every night anticipating Sasuke's return.

The night they are united, she quickly runs into his arms and buries her face in his sturdy chest.

"Sakura? What's wrong?" he asks, his voice laced with worry.

Breathless, she tells him about all the things that had conspired, down to the ultimatum that heaven presented her with. His eyes widen and he holds his breath as he waits to hear her choice. Wordlessly, she takes his palm and presses it to her chest, just like she did when they met for the second time.

He hears her heart thrumming beneath his touch.

He sends a messenger back to his hometown to convey he would be late in returning this time, and spends the next few weeks by his lover's side.

They stay at a local inn and every morning he would disappear, and return to her at night tired and weary. She questioned where he would go, but he only asked her to be patient. At the end of three weeks, he took her back to the beach and showed her a small wooden house near the edge of the cliff, overlooking the water.

"I built this. For us." he said.

With tears streaking her face she wraps her arms around him and mouths a question into his chest. "How can we stay here? Your life is in the land of leaves."

"My life," he holds her equally tightly, "is where you are. And your life is where the sea is."

She sobs in his embrace.

"I don't know how to repay you." she says, her voice hoarse.

"Marry me."

They decide on a spring wedding. Two weeks before their wedding, he tells her he must visit home one last time to inform his family and to take care of some business.

He returns to wave country two days before the wedding. It's a simple, short ceremony and that night when they retire to their house by the sea, he gives her a hollow quartz necklace with a liquid inside.

"It's the essence of cherry blossoms. You will always smell like them." he tells her.

Smiling a brilliant, blinding smile, she lets him clasp the necklace around her neck.

Peace reigns over the couple as they share three years of marital bliss, their love for each other only growing with each day that passed.

But things took a turn for the worse when Sasuke returned home one day clutching a piece of paper in his hand and something akin to desperation swimming in his eyes.

"What is it? What's wrong, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura is immediately filled with worry.

"It's a letter from home." He explains "My brother is missing. He went to the Ame islands, but he has not returned. I must go find him."

As soon as he finishes his revelation, Sakura shakes her head violently. "No, no, no, no." she insists. "You can't go to Ame. My sister rules those seas, Sasuke, she's violent and she hates me. You won't make it back alive."

But even as she says those words, she knows they will have no effect. Sasuke's love for his brother was as boundless as her sister's hate for her. He would stop at nothing to save him, she knows, so she asks for something different.

"Take me with you. Please. You cannot leave me here." she begs.

"No, Sakura. I won't put you in any needless danger. I will go alone." his answers decisively.

She cries and begs and pleads, but the fire wielder is resolute. For the first time in all the time she had known him, when he held her close to stop her tears, she found no comfort in his arms.

Sasuke's ship sets sail three days from that day, and until that time they spend every waking moment wrapped up in each other.

When the day finally arrives, she kisses him softly on his lips, wishes him well, and folds her hands to utter the same prayer to the sea that people used to recite to her years ago.

The sailing is smooth for most part of the journey, and he thinks perhaps he'll actually make it back to the arms of his beautiful wife, but things begin to turn sinister as the ship approaches the territory of the Sea Goddess's eldest daughter.

Large waves slam against the hull of the ship, and the waters around it begin to swirl, first lazily, then with rigor, trapping the vessel in a massive whirlpool. All men aboard the ship cling to its sides, holding on for dear life as it sways violently, mouthing prayers to the sea goddess. But there is only one name on Sasuke's lips.

"Sakura..."

A mammoth wave slams into the side of the ship, destroying its left completely, tossing the men overboard into the waiting waters. They collide with each other and the ship’s debris as the whirlpool twirls them around violently.

There's a loud roar of gushing blood in Sasuke's ears and a fire growing in his lungs as he tries to keep his head above the water. There's a sting of salt along his left thigh and he thinks there's a deep gash there left by one of the ship's sphincters, but the pain fades into insignificance as he imagines his wife standing on the shores, awaiting his return.

He fights with renewed vigor, but in his heart he knows this is the end. He nears the center of the whirlpool and immediately feels a strong tug trying to pull him under. Expending every last ounce of energy he fights the suction, but he's only one man against a mighty sea and the water overwhelms him, engulfing him completely.

Immediately, the waters on the surface lapse back into stillness. But the fire in his lungs has spread to every single cell in his body and Sasuke knows he will not see the shore again.

Sinking slowly, he closes his eyes and says a prayer to the queen of the sea.

"Let my body wash to the shore. Let my wife not wait an eternity in vain..."

In the heavens, Tsunade let a solitary tear glide down the curve of her cheek as she willed the currents to carry the body of the man who loved her daughter back to her footsteps.

Sakura is in restless slumber when her eyes shoot open. The moon is missing from the sky but the tide is high, and her heart is beating wildly in her chest like a panicked animal in a cage. Her breath comes out in rapid succession and she knows, she just knows something has gone terribly wrong.

In the middle of the night, she runs down the rocky path to the beach, unmindful of the cold wind flapping her hair and nightdress around. She runs and runs and runs without pausing to breathe and only slows down when she sees the outline of a body near the water.

"No. Oh gods, NO!" she says as she picks up pace again.

Her knees fold underneath her as she lowers herself near the limp body. Stretching her hand, she turns his face towards her, and all the tears that had been gathering in her eyes since she awakened trickled down like waterfalls as her eyes recognized the face she woke up next to for years.

Holding his face to her chest, a broken cry erupts from her throat.

The first rays of the sun found Sakura still on the beach, clutching the body of her beloved, chanting his name like a mantra.

Her voice begins to crack and her face becomes stiff from dried up tears. She looks to the skies and screams,

"Please, give Sasuke back to me. I beg thee!"

But Sakura too was once an immortal, and she knows that the price of life can only be paid in kind. Wiping the remains of the tears on her cheeks, she stands up.

“Return my husband’s, and I shall sacrifice myself to the sea I was born from.” she says, determination ringing in her voice.

She glances at the lifeless form of her lover at her feet and she wants to bend down and kiss him but she knows that the taste of his lips would shatter her resolve, so with one final look, she takes a step towards the sea.

Placing on foot after the other she lets the familiar waters pull her in, and when the water is almost to her neck, she turns to see her husband beginning to stir at the shore.

Smiling sadly, she sends an apology his way, and lowers her head into the sea.

Ino baa-chan becomes quiet for a long time and I ponder the story as we sit in shared silence.

She breaks my train of thought when she speaks again, "Since that day, the tides became fierce, pounding onto the shore as though the water goddess’s spirit was trying to return to her lover."

She paused before continuing.

"The heavens were awed to witness a love so pure that in his last moments, the man only thought of his wife, and his beautiful lover who adored him enough to make the ultimate sacrifice. To honor their love, the rest of the gods allowed Naruto-kami to turn the spirit of the sea goddess into a sea breeze so she could return to the land and reunite with her lover for one fortnight each year.

And that's why, young Mira, for the entire year the sea aches to be with her beloved, but during the fourteen days in which they are united, the sea is calm."

I look out to the sea which is completely still under the sun, feel the light ocean breeze running through my hair while her words sink in. I smile-

"That's a really good story, Ino baa-chan. One of your best."

She breaks into a wide smile when she hears my words.

"Oh no, my child. It's not a story, it's very much real." she says, eyes twinkling with mischief.

I look away from the sea and turn my attention back to her as I laugh. "What do you mean it's real, baa-chan? It's only a legend." I say, waving my hand in disbelief.

"It most certainly is not." she bends closer to me and speaks into my ear, "Tell me Mira, what do you smell in the air?"

I'm a little surprised by her question but I humor her anyway and breathe in deeply. "Cherry Blossoms." I say.

As soon as the words leave my mouth, my eyes widen. There are no cherry blossoms in wave country.

My head reels as I recall the details of the story baa-chan told me, and suddenly realization strikes. Getting up so fast that my head spins, I look at the old man who lives on the cliff sitting on the rocks near the sea. And sure enough, I saw it-

Hidden in broad daylight, visible only to those who were looking for her, a woman with long pink hair pressed snugly into his side, her contented smile mirroring the one he wore on his lips.

Fin.

#ss #ss fanfiction

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sunflower-swan · 4 years

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Wolfstar Chapter 12

A/N: Here’s what you need to know: I created this story for Writer’s Month 2020. Every day is a new prompt, and therefore a new chapter. This is an AU Wolfstar where Remus is a tattoo artist next door to Sirius who manages a flower shop. James and Lily are alive in this universe and own a coffee shop across the street. And to make parts of the story work with the prompts, Remus is about 10 years older than Sirius. It also takes place more or less in present time, minus Covid-19.

This is chapter 12 of a multi-chapter work. If you’d like to start from the beginning, here is chapter 1.

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. I just like to play with them.

Day 12 Prompt: Meet Cute

Rating: Teen and Up

Word Count: 1854

Tags: flashback

Chapter 12

Remus

David Bowie, “When I Met You”

You actually become the center of my world

The seams of my life

The streams of daydream

Like the wounds of a friend

Remus leaned back in his favorite chair. He wanted to read but found his eyes glazing over and rereading the same page at least three times. Giving it up, he closed the book and tossed it on the table next to his long forgotten cup of tea. He crossed his legs, setting his right ankle on his left knee, and steepled his fingers under his chin.

With helping Sirius go through everything the last couple months, Remus had been thinking more about the day he moved in here.

It was mid-morning. Remus stood in the living room of his new flat above what would be his new tattoo parlor. He placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of cleaning supplies used by the last owner. With a swish of his wand, his magically shrunk packing boxes grew with a POP. This was what he needed. New start, new place, new life. His old place was...too full of painful memories.

He levitated boxes into the rooms to which they belonged. First he set up his bedroom. If nothing else, he needed a place to sleep tonight. By the time he finished the bedroom, it was afternoon, and his stomach was reminding him that he had missed lunch. There was a cafe across the street he had noticed, maybe they had something decent.

The bitter scent of coffee and warm yeasty bread invaded his senses when he entered.

“Good afternoon! Welcome to Potter’s Wheel!” a red-headed woman greeted him when he entered.

Remus gave her a friendly head nod and glanced at the menu board over the order counter. It was designed to look like a chalk board with different chalk colors. The Potter's Wheel Cafe served a full offering of coffee and caffeine laced beverages, as well as soup, sandwich, and salad specials. They also had a quick take-away cooler with simple premade sandwiches, fruit, and vegetables. Today’s specials appeared to be a turkey club on a kaiser bun, broccoli cheese soup with croutons, and a beet salad with feta cheese.

“Erm…” Remus stepped up to the counter, uncertainty festering inside him.

“What would you like, dear?” the red-head asked with a wide smile.

Overly friendly waitresses were not one of Remus' favorite things. They made him nervous and uncomfortable.

“I’ll take a bowl of broccoli soup, a turkey club, and --” he still had a lot of unpacking to do “-- a large black House Blend coffee, please.”

The red-head nodded and wrote down his order. “No problem.” She handed him a table number and said, “Pick any table and set this on the edge. I’ll have it out to you in no time.”

Remus accepted the number with a whispered, “Thank you,” and turned to choose a table. A two-top in the corner, where he had a view of the front door and the counter, was the winner.

The cherry wood grain formica table top matched that of the front counter. He was thinking about his new tattoo parlor venture and absentmindedly tracing the curve of the faux grain with his fingertip when the red-head brought his coffee.

She sat the coffee down, pulling him out of his reveries. “I’ve never seen you in here before. Are you just passing through?”

Remus looked up into the brightest emerald eyes he had ever seen. “Um...no...sorry, I mean, I’m not just passing through. I moved in across the street.” He pointed out the window. “I’m a tattoo artist.”

“Well, that’s neat!” She smiled and held out her right hand. “My name’s Lily. My husband James and I own this Cafe.”

He shook her hand. “I’m Remus. Nice to meet you.”

“I’ll be back with your food soon,” she said with a wink, and walked back behind the counter.

Remus put his elbow on the table and rested his chin in his palm. He looked around the colorful interior of the Cafe. Three of the walls were a golden yellow hue, and the accent wall behind the front counter was burgundy red. Long, red pocket curtains hung over the windows. They were semi-transparent and allowed the sunlight to bask the Cafe in a warm glow. The other corner held a comfy sitting area with a dark brown leather sofa and two leather armchairs. Something about the place made him feel like he was home.

Lily returned at that moment with his food and a coffee pot to top off his coffee.

He offered her a smile with a soft, “Thanks, Lily.”

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

Remus tucked into the meal. It was delicious. More delicious than anything he had eaten in a long while. Impossibly delicious.

In what seemed like no time, Remus finished the soup and sandwich. He stacked the bowl on the plate and pushed them toward the center of the table. Letting out a content sigh, he leaned against the back of the chair.

Lily appeared and collected the empty plate and bowl. “Anything else?” she asked.

“No...thank you. I don’t think I could eat another bite. It was all delicious.”

“Are you sure? Not even any desert? I bake a mean chocolate cake,” she said with a smile.

Hmm… “Chocolate cake did you say?” He couldn’t say ‘no’ to that.

“Yep. Bake it every morning. I got one piece left with your name on it.”

“Alright. Yeah...I’d love a piece of chocolate cake.” Remus laughed.

Lily walked away and he tried to remember the last time he had actually laughed. It had been a while.

The sight of the cake Lily placed in front of him made his mouth water. Which was saying something because he was already so full from everything else he had eaten. It smelled rich and decadent, and tasted even better. With every bite he could feel his spirit begin to lift.

He finished the cake and the last of his coffee, then went to the counter to pay his bill. A gentleman with messy black hair stood at the register holding a young boy with equally messy black hair.

“Eight pound, fifty,” said the man.

Remus fished in his pockets for his Muggle money, and found a tenner. He handed it to the man and said, “Leave the rest for Lily, please.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks! Come again soon.”

He started back across the street to finish unpacking his flat and noticed the shop next door to his. Dog Among the Daisies, Flower Loft, Remus read the sign over the door. Might as well meet these neighbors, too, he thought as he stepped inside. And maybe I’ll pick up something small for the flat. Something that looks and smells nice.

The floral fragrance overpowered his senses upon entering the establishment, and he had to shake his head to clear it. A refrigerator stood to one side with an assortment of arrangements. His brown brogues tapped as he made his way across the hardwood floor toward the front counter.

There was a service bell on the counter so he dinged it a couple times.

“Just a mo’!” called a man’s voice from the back.

He clasped his hands behind his back and wandered around the small lobby, looking at the floral creations. He had his back to the counter when he heard the man again.

“Sorry about that. What can I do for ya’?”

Remus turned around and took in the sight of the man before him. He had shaggy black hair pulled back into a bun and a closely trimmed beard. His grey eyes pierced into Remus’ and stole his breath.

“I...uh…” Remus stammered. “Flowers…” He pointed like an idiot.

The man looked where Remus had pointed. “You want to buy some flowers? Well, you came to the right place.” He gave a lopsided grin that turned Remus’ will into a puddle.

Remus cleared his throat. Let’s try this again. “I...uh…” What the fuck is wrong with me?

The man moved from behind the counter. “These premade arrangements are popular with people passing by.” He gestured to the refrigerator case next to Remus. “Or you can place a special order to pick up later.” When Remus did not reply, he turned to face the case and continued, “See anything in here you like?”

A whiff of leather and coffee cut through the floral scent when the man moved near Remus. He had to close his eyes to control the involuntary shudder playing down his spine. When he opened his eyes again, the man was staring at him with those eyes the color of steel.

“I...uh…” Breaking the eye contact, he looked over the arrangements in the cooled case. “That one is nice.” He pointed at a medium sized arrangement with white and purple flowers in a clear vase.

“Interesting choice,” the man said as he slid open the case and pulled out the arrangement. “Gardenia and Calla lily. I made this one yesterday.” He turned his head to the side and considered the arrangement. “I wondered who would take it home. Did you know most florists believe different flowers have different meanings?” The man grinned at Remus before he turned to head back to the counter.

“No...what do these flowers mean?” Remus asked, almost afraid of the answer.

The man was behind the counter again, but the scent of leather and coffee still lingered in the air.

“Gardenia,” he pointed at the white flowers, “are symbolic of a secret love.”

Remus tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry.

“And calla lily,” he continued and pointed at the purple flowers, “are named after the Greek word for beautiful, so some people associate it with the Goddess Venus.” His charcoal eyes sparked.

“Interesting...well, they are certainly beautiful. You uh...you did a nice job.” Remus felt like he was crashing and burning in this interaction. All he wanted was a few flowers for his new flat. He didn’t expect...this.

“Thanks.” The man grinned and held out his right hand. “I’m Sirius, by the way.”

“I’m Remus.” Shaking the hand, he felt something warm shoot from his hand and up his arm. He tried to hide the gasp by clearing his throat. “Ahem, I’m opening a tattoo parlor next door.”

Sirius' face glowed in his broad smile. “Brilliant. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

Remus paid for the flowers and retreated back to his flat. He shut the door and released a long breath.

He wasn’t ready for what he thought this might mean. It was too soon.

Remus shook himself from his thoughts, and brought himself back to the present. He took a deep breath and stood. As he walked to the bathroom, he removed his shirt. Looking into the mirror, he traced a tattoo on his sternum that was indistinguishable unless you knew what to look for. Maybe it was time to stop running from...this. Before that can happen, Sirius needed to know the truth about him.

He closed his eyes and hung his head. The full moon was in a couple nights. He’d tell him then.

Next Chapter: Chapter 13

#writersmonth2020 #wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #remus x sirius #sirius x remus #mauraders #slow burn #alternate universe #harry potter #fanfiction #fanfic #james potter #lily potter

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ruiyuki-archives · 4 years

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Star Tear AU - Alt. Timeline: Todoroki ver. [Part 1]

This is an AU I wrote on the todomomo discord server eons ago. Anything posted to this blog will be transcripts of old original work and not really edited, save for formatting. I have no guarantees if I will ever finish these AUs either so these will only be kept as an archive.

Original transcript posted to tdmm discord: Aug 2020

Momo ver. Alternate timeline: Todo ver. Part 1 || Todo ver. Part 2 || Todo ver. Part 3

Star tears in which Todoroki falls for Momo first.

shortly after the exam with Aizawa he doesn’t know what he’s feeling but just admires her strength and quick thinking

and him hanging out with Deku and Iida at lunch means Todo hears all the nice and good things Momo does when she and Iida to discuss class prez stuff

which intensifies this ??admiration?? and respect more

and he just?? Holds onto those feelings unable to figure out what they are until idk maybe holidays where 1A and 1B throw that holiday hotpot party

and Momos really cute lookin’ in that Santa hat she made with the festive turtleneck

and so that feeling inside Todo grows into something more??? bc "oh shit she cute".... and Todo’s blushing while looking at her from afar. Probably.

so Todo talks to Fuyumi abt it and Fuyumi’s like: “I think you like her Shouto”

and he writes to his mom abt it and Rei's like: “she sounds like a lovely girl Shouto”

and he texts Natsuo abt it and Natsu's like: “aw little bro has a crush”

but all the while this is happening, Momo's gotten closer with Iida over class prez stuff and hero stuff and everyone in 1A (read: mina and hagakure) think iimomo might be a thing???

ofc Momo denies it and making excuses politely like "no no ofc not we're being responsible class prez and vice prez" but she’s kinda stuttery while doing so, so no one buys it

and no ones brave enough to ask Iida except Ochako but he gives some straight laced answer like "i admire her work ethic and respect her as a hero and vice prez" but he also has some tint of blush across his cheeks

so idk fast forward to graduation where Todo's been holding onto these feelings for Momo since first year and iimomo is still very very likely

so its all cherry blossom petals flying around and congratulatory celebrations

and when Todo sees Momo amongst the sakura trees smiling like he's never seen before (bc they're finally officially heroes!!) he thinks she’s beautiful

but just as he's about to approach her, Iida approaches her and Todo can see she's blushing and he knows its really not good to eavesdrop on one of his best friends and the girl he likes

But... he's curious.

or so he lies to himself.

Ofc what he hears isnt what he ever wants to,,,,

cuz Iida just confessed to her.

and she feels the same.

and a star tear slips from Todo's eye as he walks away.

he stops mid step as he touches his cheek bc he didnt even realize he was crying

but what are these tears??? What’s happening?? He's never had these before bc even though Todo is an emotional crier, he doesn’t cry that often.. only when he is completely overwhelmed with emotion

so he has this dumbfounded expression staring at his fingers as these star tears are twinkling out of his eyes catching sunlight and sakura petals

until he hears "Youre a fucking idiot" from a few steps away

Bakugou.

(Baku really likes eavesdropping ok its not the first time lol)

Baku: theyre called star tears.

Todo: You know what these are?

Baku: it happens when you like someone and that person doesnt like you back, idiot.

Todo: ... oh.

Baku: get that shit sorted or you'll go blind

(And for those who are curious, yes maaaayyybe Bakugou has a case of the stars in this timeline too, that’s how he knows. To whom? I'll let you decide bc honestly, I just want todobaku brotp bonding over unrequited love)

so now Todo thinks he might be fucked. One of his best friends confessed to the girl he likes too and she likes him back and now Todo has this disease that might make him go blind and might get in the way of heroing (which they've all secured post graduation positions by now) and what can he do about it?

nothing, says the doctor he sees. The disease is not curable and the only way to stop it is to have your feelings returned else you'll go colour blind and then completely blind, so he's told.

ya he's really fucked.

maybe its a good thing then, that he doesnt cry often. It makes it easier to ice over these feelings, freeze them in time with the memories of U.A.; of his last congratulations to her and her smile at the end of the ceremony an hour after he overheard that confession

maybe its another good thing that right after graduation, everyone went off to their own positions as side kicks with agencies across japan, focusing on heroing

but its 3 months after graduation that Iida tells Deku and Todoroki that he is seeing Momo when they meet up every Friday to catch up

its 6 months after graduation that its publicly announced in Hero Magazine that Ingenium and Creati are dating

its 9 months after graduation that he sees Iida and Momo attending the Hero Association's rising stars gala as a couple and are seated at the same table as them

(Bakugou is scowling at him across the table.)

Todo tries. He really does. To be happy for them.

but he's angry at himself that he can't be happy for them. That it saddens him to see Momo glowing under the ballroom lights but its not himself to make her shine like that, its Iida. That he sees she is the one to make Iida genuinely happy in the way his eyes light up when he smiles at her.

and all three times Todo goes home, lies down alone in his room, an arm slung across his forehead as the star tears leak from his eyes.

he starts to lose seeing colour at 12 months.

after 24 months he needs glasses for colour correction (and ironically gets a sponsorship with the brand. The fashion magazines print headlines for weeks "Hot-Cold Hero Shouto Fall Fashion! See page 7 spread for his newest spotted specks and turtle necks")

at 36 months Iida breaks the news. Iida's gonna propose to Yaoyorozu and wants him, Deku, and his brother to be his groomsmen

she said yes.

and a part of Todo washes away with the star tears flooding him room and twinkling against the tatami.

he tries to stay out of the wedding planning as much as possible. He'll go to the tuxedo fittings as requested and still keep up hearing the updates when seeing Iida and Deku for their weekly get together on Friday nights.

But for anything involving Momo's presence, there will always be a "sorry i have a mission that week", "sorry im visiting my mom", "sorry Endeavor needs to see me about the agency"

... all excuses Bakugou knows, but the others pay no mind. They are rising heroes near the top of the billboard by now

month 48. Wedding day.

she's stunning. Gorgeous. A near goddess walking down the aisle on her big day.

but she's not walking down for him. No its for iida.

there was the ceremony, the cheers, the congratulations, the reception. Fairy lights around the dance floor and along the walls, champagne glittering after the sound of a cork

Todoroki stands off to against the wall as the night dies down, a glass in hand, watching the newly weds grace the dance floor.

someone slides up beside him, he feels the presence. Bakugou.

"She's beautiful isnt she?"

"Yeah."

. . .

a star tear falls from Todoroki's eyes, twinkle hidden among the fairy lights and champagne glitter.

she's beautiful, but maybe its a good thing I can't see

somebody said: what if she knows everything that had happened and the reason why he couldn't continue his career is bc of her?

me: ok you’re asking for it

Momo, 3 months pregnant with iimomo baby, announces with Iida the news to their friends

the soon to be parents want to choose godparents for the baby so Iida gets to choose the baby’s godmother and Momo gets to choose the godfather

and ofc along with the announcement Momo asks Todoroki to be the kid’s godfather

he can’t say no to her.

the same week later Todo and Momo's agencies are requested to deal with this one villain case while Ingenium's agency deals with another in another town (later turns out the cases were connected)

small talk, civil, very professional between Momo and Todo when they’re in the debriefing

at this point Todo's pretty much completely blind and uses some special contact lenses from Hatsume to help "see"

but the contact lenses can only do so much as to detect light movement and shadows and it reallllllllly doesnt work well when he's using his fire

so Todo already had tossed around the idea of running away to the mountains like Roy did in the FMA 2003 ending, "mysteriously" retiring bc really his vision cannot keep up

until this last mission with Momo

and really its been nearly a decade now since they last worked together side by side (not since U.A. he thinks).. so just let the blind man be selfish one last time

and so smth smth missiom happens, Todo and Momo fighting side by side

but Momo senses there’s something off with Todo's movements? His reflexes are slower.. it doesnt seem like he's prediciting the opponents moves like he used to.. he's more so reacting and retaliating than attacking..

she chalks it up to that they havent fought side by side in a long time and his style must’ve changed and really, she doesnt know him anymore... not like she used to

smth smth 3 months pregnant Momo gets hurt, knocked unconscious for a bit

Todo saves her

and when she comes to, while Todo's holding her, star tears fall onto her cheek from Todo's eyes.

She's shocked. Reaches up to gently graze a finger tip at his left cheek.

"Todoroki-san, these are?"

and again its like Todo didnt realize he was crying. He jerks away from her hand and brushes her off with "its nothing”. Changes the subject with "are you ok?"

Momo: yes.. i think so

Todo: and the baby?

Momo, sitting up: we're ok I think

Todo, moving away: good

the mission concludes and they meet up with Ingenium’s group to wrap up the two ends. Todo slips away before Iida and Momo and approach him

theres no activity from Todoroki for the next month

neither Iida, Deku or anyone else in 1A know where he went except the Hero Association's vague comment on "Hot Cold Hero Shouto has taken a sudden indefinite hiatus"

(Only Todo’s family knows and Endeavor asked the Association to say "hiatus" instead of "retirement" bc Enji wants to believe in his son making a comeback. He didnt stop Shouto from taking off)

and ofc Momo upon hearing this is so confused??? Her last mission with him was the last time she saw him and he was crying. Why was he crying? Strange star tears twinkling and landing on her cheeks? What even is that phenomenon?

its too many questions and ofc Momo's gonna investigate. For the sake of her friend.

so she digs up all the texts she can find on star tears. Internet search all the possibilities. Consults the doctors at the hospital. Even asks Tenya if Todoroki has been acting strangely during their weekly catch ups.

but Tenya tells her Todoroki hasnt been the the meet ups since after their wedding

so she asks anyone in their pro hero circle of associates she can think of. Tsukiyomi, Burnin', heros from his agency, anyone she can think of that has worked with Todoroki before and could comment on his behaviour

no body knows. No body noticed anything different either. Sure there were some off days but the Hot Cold Hero Shouto was always on his game being one of the top 3 heroes on the billboard charts

she searches and searches, splitting time interviewing colleagues and researching the possible star tears phenomenon

until eventually her search takes her to...

Bakugou.

Of course.

Momo, pleading: please Bakugou, you know something about him dont you?

Bakugou, who at this point had been very careful trying not to get cornered knowing her investigation: save it pony tail, you’re about to have a baby. Go have people harass you about that brat in your oven instead of harassing other people

Momo, nearly begging: please. You and I both know he's strong and a good hero that would not suddenly retire. Whatever he is doing, he might need help.. please tell me Bakugou.

... theres something about pregnant women that you cant say no to.

Bakugou, relenting: tch. The half ass is somewhere in Yokohama

and thats all she needs nearly running waddling (as fast as a pregnant woman could) out the door

Bakugou, calling out after her, still reluctant: when find that half ass, i suggest you throw him a gift. Literally. Throw it at him. He deserves it.

she finds him along the port, watching the sunset in Yokohama (its really not that hard to find someone with heterochromia and two tone hair in a city, especially if youre a hero that knows what methods heroes will use to go incognito)

and for some inkling of a feeling, Momo takes Bakugou's advice. She has a carton of strawberry milk in hand.

Momo, a few feet away from him: Todoroki-san, it's been a while.

Todo, turning his head in her direction: Yaoyorozu...?

Momo, sadly smiling: the sunset is beautiful here isnt it?

Todo, brows furrowing: .. sure. Yaoyorozu what are you doing here--

Momo, interrupting him: --i brought some snacks. Strawberry milk, you liked this while we were in school right? Catch.

she tosses it at him.

he tries to reach out.

But he'es completely off. And misses

Momo, sad: Todoroki-san. You're blind, arent you?

Todo, guilty: ah.

Momo, tearing up: will you please tell me?

he still can say no to her and confesses his story

and when he's finished telling the tale of star tears, the stars above are twinkling too

she's crying and choking and sobbing through tears and its intensified by baby Iida with pregnancy hormones

But the last thing she manages to croak out at the very least is still wholly her

She apologizes

“Im so sorry Todoroki- san. I cant love you that way.”

“I know.”

END NOTES:

red is the last color Todoroki wanted to lose because it reminds him of Momo

during missions, as long as he could see her, “that’s ok” he thought. she is the only one he sees in color. that is okay with him

to him, Momo is his shining star. And there’s something tragically poetic of him losing his sight to the stars if its for his shining star Momo

He leaves the last stars in a tiny little jar like those paper stars as a gift for her with just the words on a note "goodbye Momo" the day after she finds him in Yokohama

Momo has the jar of stars forever on her bedside and looks at them with this melancholy expression. Baby Iida grows up and asks mom: "what is that jar of stars?"

Momo responds: "a gift from someone that was blinded by love"

Bakugou in this timeline had a case of star tears too but I'd like to think he got his feelings requited so he never went blind to contrast Todo

So thats why Baku is (begrudgingly) sympathetic to Todo cuz he thinks: “that could’ve been me”

The ending shot of a blind Todoroki in a dark room, all alone, eyes closed, thinking back to Momo's shining smile from UA surrounded by star light with a sad smile on his face and it fades to black

> archives masterpost

#todomomo #todoroki shouto #momo yaoyorozu #tdmm star tear au #ruiyukis unfinished aus #sorry not sorry #for spamming the tag #this ones my baby #angst angst baby #oops heres a bandaid for your heart #buckle up yall it just gets worse from here

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trouvelle · 5 years

Text

Time’s Up

A/N: Happy happy happy birthday, @mintchocolateleaves!! This one’s for you boo. I tried to cook it up as fast as I could, to get it posted before the day ends but alas... it’s past midnight and all the magic is gone. Nevertheless, enjoy this one! This isn’t for Emogust though, bc sadly it fits none of the prompts. An AU where Conan is back as Shinichi (Black Org is no more, and stuff and stuff).

The day is eventually going to come.

Shinichi knows. He knows that day will come, yet his mind forces itself to erase the thoughts of it. Instead, it’s filled with nothing but false, desperate hope with the image of a beaten, stitched up heart. Shinichi knows. He knows.

His finger plays with the brown hair that he loves touching so much. The smell is intoxicating. Alluring. It’s a smell that belongs to only one person. That one person that means the world to him. That one person that is strikingly similar to a goddess, as she is simply divine and beautifully crafted like an angel. He plants a kiss on her, inhaling the heavenly scent that flutters his heart.

The girl whose head is comfortably resting on his lap lets out a chuckle, voice deep with a texture that makes it one in a million. The girl whose eyes are filled with such powerful emotions that Shinichi couldn’t even describe. Love, he decides. Love, kindness, sincerity, grace, worry, passion, generosity.

Every day Ran makes Shinichi wonder. How someone could always keep a warm, serene smile on her face. Every day, she baffles him.

He wonders why she chooses to stay with him, after years of hiding the truth from her, making her worry, putting her through all the torment. If she’s willing to put his past behind them, then so can he. He can do the same for her and for himself.

They never talk about their lives before he returned as Kudo Shinichi. Only once did she ask for an explanation, and it’s immediately after he revealed himself. He told her everything; about how he’s Conan all along, how Haibara Ai (who’s now around their age) is also another victim of the Organization, how he couldn’t have done it without Hattori and Kaito KID’s help. She’s forgiven him, as always. She can never stay angry at him. She also never wanted to broach the topic ever again.

One time he catches her say, “Remember that haunted inn we went to with Hattori-kun and Kazuha-chan?” when the inn is featured on the television. However, she drops the conversation right after that, the silence reminding him that she was still unwilling to talk.

One thing remains the same, though.

“I’ll always protect you,” Shinichi whispers. Ran smiles. She knows.

It’s spring. It’s that time where love sprouts everywhere. It’s that time where flowers bloom beautifully, birds singing their songs and grass turns greener than before. It’s that time where the cherry blossoms bloom, drawing tons of couples towards them like a magnet, wanting them to enjoy the romantic vibe.

There’s this one place. There’s this spot with a lone, abandoned cherry blossom tree. It’s not so far in the small woods behind Teitan High.

Thus, during a break at school, they go to the cherry blossom tree whose grace is only for their eyes. Ran intertwines her fingers with Shinichi’s, showing her loveable smile, the smile that he loves so much.

“I love you,” Shinichi says. He blushes. “With all my heart.”

"I love you too," Ran mutters, looking up at him shyly. "With all my heart."

It’s that time again, when Ran feels that suffocating feeling in her chest. Her breath hitches, gasping for air while droplets of sweat trail down from her temple towards her chin. It’s those times when Shinichi loses his cool and panic, calling the hospital immediately after each time it happens, each time getting worse and worse.

It hurts him even more that whenever Ran faints, she has no knowledge of what happened before. Almost as if she suffers from a very minor amnesia, yet Shinichi never dares to tell her. He always puts on his practiced smile, saying, “You are just here for a check-up. They had to temporarily put you to sleep, that’s all.”

Ran, naively nods, easily accepting those words.

Shinichi has been visiting Osaka more and more often lately. He knows his bond with Hattori has undoubted deepen after everything that has happened. Seriously, he would’ve been a dead man had Hattori not been there to save him.

What he didn’t expect was that he’s going to rely so much on Kazuha as well.

He has been telling Kazuha about what’s been happening to Ran. At first it’s only to update her about Ran’s condition. Shinichi soon finds that he actually enjoys talking to her. To Hattori’s credit, his girl is very insightful and perceptive. Sometimes Shinichi calls her in the middle of the night just to ask her if she has anything to offer him. A handful of times, Hattori is the one to answer his calls.

“We’re NOT doing anything,” he always insists, “Kazuha just fell asleep while studying.”

Shinichi responds with a snort. “Keep that up and you’re gonna get a serious case of blue balls.”

They end up talking too, until Ran stirs in her sleep and Shinichi has to hang up in fear that he might wake her up.

There are times where Shinichi forgot how nigh Ran’s time is. The moment their lips are locked into a deep kiss, his mind turns blank, concentrating on the now, never thinking of the past or the future. He loves when the familiar, warm hands trace down his sides to his hip bones, tender fingers sliding south until it reaches the spot that makes his body ache for more. He moans out her name each time she sends Shinichi to ecstasy in such sweet, passionate love making. It’s the moment after, with Ran collapsing next to him on the soft mattress and instantly cuddling against the boy, arms protectively wrapped around his body while nuzzling his neck.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Ran whispers. “I can’t imagine life without you.”

Shinichi has tried to contact Kaito Kid—whose real identity he and Hattori found out to be Kuroba Kaito, just a kid around their age. But he insists that he’d come to Shinichi when his time is suitable, when he’s accomplished his own goal.

When they finally set up a meeting, Shinichi did ask him, straight to the point: “Have you used the Pandora Gem?”

Kaito’s eyes betray his confident body gestures. “Are you interested in using it?”

Shinichi offers no reply, his only response is his unfaltering stare at the magician. He runs a hand through his hair, a sigh escaping his lips. “I know you’ve found it, and I know you’ve used it.”

Shinichi walks on the sidewalk, two plastic bags filled with the needed groceries which bump against his legs with each step he takes. He fiddles with his keys as soon as he reaches their apartment. He opens their front door, stepping in with the bags in his hands, happily announcing he is back with a huge grin on his face.

The house is silent, however. Pressure is felt, and Shinichi feels slight numbness in his legs as he enters the living room, eyes widening at the sight of Ran on the ground. Crystal droplets fall immediately, the sound of items falling and rolling on the ground, voice cracks echoing in the room, the only thing coming out from his throat being none other than the name Ran.

It all happens so fast. Shinichi is promised at least a year more. One year. A year that they will fill with nothing but happiness, that only she can give effortlessly. The sounds of rushed doctors heading towards wherever ring in his ears. Shinichi can only blindly follow them, attempting to wake Ran up with trembling hands and bottom lip.

Ran, Ran, Ran, is all he says.

Ran, Ran, Ran, he keeps on calling, but her face remains the same: lifeless, pale, drained.

Shinichi has never felt so scared, so afraid. He swears he saw a quick, impossible glance of the colour black. The black that Shinichi has feared to acknowledge so many times in his dreams. The black that is the hollow colour of the long robe that belongs to Death, who is perhaps forcing an implausible grin on his literal skin and meatless face.

“No,” Shinichi whispers, furiously shaking his head as he is forced to stay behind when doctors go past certain doors. He falls to his knees, clutching his hair tightly

No.

Shinichi has always had his suspicion about Kazuha’s sensitivity towards the supernatural spectrum of the world. If her handcrafted omamori isn’t enough proof, there’s also the fact that she could actually see spirits. A gift from my grandmother, she explains.

Kazuha has also further said about how Death is real. Another reason why she hates being in a crime scene for too long, she confides in him. Death is always present, always ready to transport the souls of poor victims. Kazuha doesn’t like to look at Death. According to her, Death reeks of hollowness and hopelessness, among other things.

Shinichi never quite understands her stories and explanations. He believes in science. He doesn’t believe in such things. He believes in what he can see. He doesn’t believe in what the paranormal and supernatural.

This time, he’s sure Death is definitely calling. Death stands there with arms wide open, wanting to welcome Ran and wanting him to see her lifeless body. Shinichi knows Death is patiently waiting in the dark corners of the sickly colored hospital, it being nothing more than an empty white and some hues of probably blue or yellow. Shinichi doesn’t care.

It’s then when a doctor comes out of what Shinichi calls ‘Doors of Death’. The doctor shows him nothing more but a pity look, his mask hiding any signs of lip movement to warn Shinichi of the hurtful words that are about to come out.

Many doctors and nurses walk by them, and some patients in wheelchairs possibly exploring the area or finding their way out to the exit. All of them spare glances at the man who shouts at the doctor, on his knees once again and hands clutched together in a fist, begging.

Heiji and Kazuha rush to the hospital as fast as they possibly could. Shinichi staggers towards them, his head shaking continuously. “There’s no time.”

“Time’s up.”

Ran slowly opens her eyes, frowning at the blinding light of white after being out for what felt like an eternity, shielding them with her hand. She is all by herself. She is in a bed, a transparent tube connected and held secured by a thin, white bandage on her left forearm.

Her confused gaze travels from the dull wall in front of her to the window where she can see the outside world, the sky blue and a few clouds present.

Where am I? She wonders. The sound of a constant beeping echo in her ears, and a doctor soon appears in front of her.

“Congratulations, Ran,” he smiles at her. “You barely survived, but you managed.”

Ran frowns even more. “Barely? What do you mean? What happened?”

The doctor’s smile falters, just a little bit. His eyes are tired, dark circles clearly visible and wrinkles showing. “You had a fatal heart attack, Ran,” he starts. “You’ve always had a weak heart condition which seemed to be accelerating in intensity within the past year.”

“You were found unconscious at home. A young man immediately called, and just in time as well.”

“Shinichi?” Ran gasps. “You mean Shinichi?” She sits up, not caring if she is allowed to or not. “What… where is he?”

“Shinichi… he’s headed out somewhere.” Ran’s expression gradually softens at those words. The doctor then hands her tape. “Here,” he whispers. “He told me to give this to you.”

As soon as the small device left the man’s hands, he calmly makes his way out. Confused and curious, Ran rapidly untangles the earphones, pressing the Play button to play the message that is left in it by Shinichi’s voice. Ran smiles, only for it to completely disappear with each word she hears.

Time is passing by slowly, almost too slowly. Ran tightly squeezes the tape, holding it against her chest as she lies down, numbly shifting on her side, facing towards the window that holds her away from freedom. She slowly opens her mouth, lips trembling and eyes glazed with tears that allow themselves to roll down over the bridge of her nose and her cheek. She feels a painful lump in her throat. A lump that makes swallowing so, so hard. Her head starts to ache, eyebrows finally furrow together after processing what she just read, gritting her teeth and softly shaking her head in denial.

She finally lost it when she heard soft sobs coming from outside her room. She finally lets out a scream, clutching onto her hair and wetting her face with her tears, curling into a ball as agony took full control over her. With loud and hitched sobs, she whispers ‘no’ over and over again.

The doctor hears the cries coming out of the room. His back leaning against the space next to its respective door, hallways filled with nothing but an eerie silence and a vast emptiness. He quietly turns around, letting his forehead rest against the cold barrier and let his own tears spill. His own heart aches, wanting to rip it out, if only he could.

His nails scratches the walls, hands eventually curling up into a fist and screamed silently, gasping for air as he lets out choked sobs.

Ran,

I’m guessing you already know the truth by now.

I’ve kept you away from the truth, again. Once more, I’ve kept away a secret from you that you deserved to know, yet I always decided to keep my door shut. Not because I think you’re better off not knowing, but it’s ‘cause I never had the guts to. I can’t lose you. Not now, not ever.

Nothing can come close to describing the happiness I felt whenever you woke up. Who was there to blame for the condition of your heart? I thought I could be your donor, so long as you can continue to wake up. I wish we could have more time together.

I was told that you have a long way to go. At least a year, was what they said. They over-calculated. My biggest mistake was trusting their words.

Don’t look for me. This time—I promise you—I’m not on a long and deadly case. I’m not shrunken into a grade-schooler either! I’m just... just refer to me as your guardian from now on. Guardian angel, if you wanna push it that way, but Kazuha said guardian angels are not actually angels.

What you need to know is that I’ve beaten Death. You’ll live, and that’s all that matters to me. I’m always here for you and I’ll always protect you.

Ran, you know I love you. I always have, and I always will.

Shinichi told her that he has no choice. He has even looked for the Pandora Gem and actually knows where it is. The current owner of the gem is also willing to lend it to him.

It’s Kaito Kid, he confesses to Kazuha. And Kaito did warn him about the effects of using the gem.

Shinichi knows that Ran wouldn’t want it.

Kazuha has been thinking about this for a long time, hard. She knows if she was to do it, if she could even pull it through, if it would even succeed—Ran is never going to forgive her. But when she puts herself in Shinichi’s shoes, she knows she would do it for Heiji in a heartbeat. Part of her believes that if the situation was reversed, Ran would want to do the same for Shinichi.

But Shinichi has already had his mind made up. Kazuha looks at him, the boy who has been growing closer to her lately, who she talks to even more than Ran or Sonoko these days. Kazuha stares at him, and he stares back at her through his cloudy eyes.

In the end, he doesn’t even know if he was putting Ran’s happiness first or his own.

#I started writing this with the intention of doing fluff but haha idk what went wrong in my head #enjoy reading this #also i think y'all can guess who the doctor at the end is without me clarifying it #if this is too confusing then owo you can draw your own conclusion #DCMK #Detective Conan #Kudo Shinichi #Mouri Ran #Kuroba Kaito #Kaitou KID #Hattori Heiji #Toyama Kazuha #ShinRan #HeiKazu #ShinKazu #Shinichi x Ran #fic

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tainolibrary · 6 years

Text

Spiritual Elitism or Respecting Tradition

“I have come come across more online fodder and Fuckery than I care to admit to. I have seen huge groups of people from neo pagan white witches to hotepian American African descendants taking creative license and authority over well established living and breathing traditions that have survived and have been surviving and thriving with priesthoods. Take that last part in yall... LIVING AND THRIVING PRIESTHOODS!! We are not talking about the entire greek pantheon with old ruins of temples of glorious times past. We are talking about multiple lands in the diaspora by which Africans were brought and left in motion strong rooted legacy by which some of us were initiated into operating within and entrenching ourselves in the work to keep it going so that future generations can use it to benefit themselves and others. And here come along any ol body who has access to a mouse, a keyboard, monitor and such to come scooping on in and COLUMBUSING what was already there and established. These are some of the very “progressive” folks who can understand Christopher Columbus was not shit and gets the credit for “founding” America which was already inhabited. They will not nor can they even try to see that they are themselves inserting them into a space as guests and possible heirs and trying to upsurp what has already been rooted. Listen here.. You aint coming up in my house and uprooting anything, and if you are successful in your attempts you are catching these hands or this good ol juju. On my amazing friend and Sister friend, Okantomi’s @spiritualteabath page on IG, there was a post about upheld traditions and how to navigate to and through them. Out comes vegan Susan from accounting who does yoga all her life, eats granola and dried cranberries and owns several rescue animals decides to come in and give her testimony of how Orisa has been speaking to her all her life. Once told by several initated priests that there are certain ways one is called to the priesthood or lifestyle associated with orisa worship she decides to perform her well rehearsed routine... Sparkling mayo-tinged bleached tears and indignation. Miss Susan, aka @seekyoursoul333 on IG proceeds to post the following: “The only thing I take issue with is spiritual Elitism. Those that judge anothers path by their own ego. Their need to feel they are special or more entitled to a path than another. To me, if the spirit of any path calls you, you should listen. Develop your relationship and understand what is between you and the Orisha, God, Goddess ect, is between you and them. What relationship another of anyone’s business but them.” @SpiritualTeaBaths responds again, kind as ever: |” Yes, Orisha worship is now universal. The Orishas are worshipped by people of all races and national origins, but legitimacy depends upon adherence to established orthodoxy. Lukumí/Regla de Osha (AKA Santería) has a very rigorous orthodoxy. Heads are marked in very specific ways, by ritual specialists who are priests of divination. It is possible to have connections to many Orisha, but in that system only one owns your head; and it’s not something that you can just be told by a practitioner. What we view as capricious is the desire of outsiders to interact with these deities while disregarding the systems of worship the Orisha established for us thousands of years ago. I don’t suggest that you have no affinity with Oshún. However, if she had actually called you you’d be experiencing such terrible upheavals in your life that you would be forced to seek initiation. It’s a common thread across all traditions, people get initiated because they must. If you’re ever interested in reading about Orisha worship, I can recommend some great books. Ki Oshun agbe o. I understand your perspective, but it is antithetical to every tradition of Orisha worship. Orisha religions are systematic and hierarchical. Their “fundamento” (foundation) consists of “regla” (rules and order), “Awo” (secret, sacred knowledge), and “licencia” (ritual authority) among other things. These are intact systems of worship that are links in an unbroken chain that is thousands of years old. They are orthodox and structured. They are neither random, nor are they eclectic. Their structure and orthodoxy were established and maintained at great personal cost by “lagba-lagba” (revered elders), mandated and guided by the Orisa themselves. As a communal system, initiated have a responsibility to ensure the integrity of these traditions. So yea, it is absolutely the business of others. Just as my practice is the business of others. Orisha cannot be separated from its culture, orthodoxy, or priesthood. Orisha worship is hierarchical. It is your sense of privilege and entitlement that has created your misperception of elitism. If you ever become involved in any form of orthodox Orisha worship, your perspective will shift. P.S. I view exchanges of this nature as enlightening and beneficial. It helps me to understand your perspective, and it exposes you to the tenets and orthodoxy of Orisha religion. ” Others now hip to Susan’s trail of entitled tears and tantrums are getting riled up and calling her out.. and here she goes again:“And there comes the “entitlement” and “privilege” words. No, I’m sorry it is not your business. I think Im’ probably going to take an Orisha over you. If you want to talk about what matters, I’m going to follow what the Orisha has led me to and not you. I will never tell another what to do in their spirituality and you maybe should do the same. You are frankly making judgements about relationships you know nothing about. Religion is man made. I do not follow a religion. I go where I am led as everyone should. My path is mine alone. I am involved in Santeria. And yet Oshun has come to me, as a child. Showed me things I should not know was not exposed to. So yeah I’m going with Orisha here. You are free to practcie as you are led. We all are. That is not entitlement or privilege.” Now yall... I read her response and all of my hairs stood up and I felt the heat in my ears I get just before I am about to THUMP/FIGHT/THROW HANDS. I had to breathe through it. The nerve of this unititated ass woman talking to other priests about what she gonna do with their deities they serve and have been trained to serve and her relative free access to all that is based on a feeling of being “led.” Here is my thing, can you imagine walking into a sweat lodge or Pow Wow and through on cultural/spiritual regalia and just jump on in dancing the dances no one dances or danced, singing songs no one sings or ever sung and performed ceremonies/rituals no one ever uses in that group of people? Would you enter a Hindu temple and offer steak to the Gods there in offering because you felt compelled and led by spirit to do so? Would you enter a Catholic Churh throw Koolaid in their Holy Water and tell them the holy water shall now be red like the blood of Christ and its ok because spirit led you to do so? No you wouldnt and you would do so at the cost of possibly catching a Tanya Harding to Nancy Kerrigan to the knee cap bust, or some generational curse ensured to your descendants fro years to come. You do not get to enter spaces, that inhabited and established and simply request or demand changes. You have to be a part of said culture or group before you can even earn a right to say anything about anything and then even then you must earn your way to having a reputable name enough by your community to admonish such.. This is the nonsense I am seeing here that boggles my mind. You just gonna come in and make it what you think it needs to be and damn anyone else whose job it is to retain and ensure the survival of said traditions. You treating our tradition like you are the “Do Good” LA rich folk who want to stop the Yulin dog eating festival in a country you have nothing to do with. A people you havent yet got to know or emerse in their culture enough to see the hows and whys of anything they do. You just gonna throw your entitlement and privilege around to judge it from the outside looking in and then demand from the top of your lungs what you want to happen. GIRL BYE!!! SIR, FARETHEEWELL! Sayonora! Adios! Au Revoir! and Any other language you need to get the hint. This was my final word on that thread and I stand by it 150% in the spirit of, “WHAT YOU AINT FITTIN TUH DO IS!” “My biggest issue will be entitlement. If you are truly being "led" you will have been led to a community, an ile, and more than likely ocha if not the first preliminary steps leading into initiation. You don't just meditate and orisa come visit or just dream and these deities just come around. I'm convinced 99.9% of what's appearing to people are spirits who work with or in alignment with said deity or their energy. Or are appearing in a fashion in which is comfortable or significant for the person to accept and/or visualize. Some spirits may appear Oshun-esque but many spirits exist in the unseen realm or in the bodies of water. There are ways we as priest confirm if orisa is calling someone. There are ways as priests we call to orisa to incite, to calm... we even have ways to let them know what we doing..as far as lifting them up off the ground or taking off the lid to the sacred vessels that hold them.. yet these folks think they can just meditate and light a yellow candle and poof first image of femininity you see is an orisa simply because you called their Name and set an intention?! GTFOH! Don't google, YouTube, or Wikipedia orisa subjects and then form rituals around that or speak with authority online or otherwise. The truth of the matter is you are a child parroting grown folk business and ain't yet started sitting at the grown folk table. You still eating with the other children pontificating. I need folks to truly respect the legacy of ancestors and not cherry pick how they want to honor them. If it's ancestors you rever then rever the foundations of legacy they left by way of tradition. Follow the protocols that have been existent for over 500 years and don't feel entitled to practice or know what so many priests have busted their ass, bank, or otherwise to learn for the benefit of their community. Every practitioner of medicine must do apprenticeship, internship, tests and finally a review by their expert peers until they are deemed capable to practice.. Anyone else attempting to practice medicine without said license is considered illegal and liable to be jailed. Think about that because the same applies here.” - David Sosa Original source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/david-sosa/spiritual-elitism-or-respecting-tradition/10155887653642736

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dat-town · 6 years

Text

love black, lips red

Characters: Hades!Yoongi & Persephone!You

Setting: greek mythology au

Genre: angsty

Warnings: implied sexual content (+ one line about animal sacrifices)

Summary: “I wanted darkness… I wanted him.” sequel to bed warm, hearts cold

Words: 2k

I couldn’t resist because I live for the angst. Also I’m blown away by the love bwhc got. I hope the sequel doesn’t disappoint. Happy birthday to our lovely genius, Min Yoongi! ♥

To this very day, you still remember the pain when you were ripped out of Yoongi’s loving arms. You remember your father’s rage, you remember it all too well. You still ache, heart bleeding black love as you stare out of the marble window. The Sun, shining blindingly bright and delightful, hurts your half-lidded eyes so you look away because there are no blinds or curtains that can shield you now, no salvation from this torture, a prison you know too well. You miss the vast darkness of calamity dearly, the calmness and the silence. You miss the way the stone floor felt cold under your bare feet, the silk of the sheets and you miss, oh you long for the heart made of anger and solitude that only beats for you.

"Shush, my child, it's for your own good," Demeter tells you in a light voice, fake smile blemishing his motherly features. She comes every morning to see you in a suite of a diamond palace you can't escape. Brushing your hair, she tells you stories of misguided innocent souls. Then she braids your soft locks and tucks flowers behind your ear. She doesn't care that it hurts, that your heart is breaking into smaller and smaller pieces with every inhale you take outside of the kingdom of death.

It is supposed to hurt. They claim it happens like this, that it’s a sign that you are healing, transforming back into the obedient daughter you were meant to be in the first place. They keep telling you the distance is the cure to get rid of your false thoughts. They believe that the God of Underneath brainwashed and manipulated you but they are wrong, so wrong. They knew nothing about you. Yet they call you Kore fondly like you were a child and you loathe its implications, the pet name of a maiden. So every night, before sleep claims you and sprinkles bittersweet dreams over your eyelids, you close your eyes and remember.

You remember the softness of his touches on your delicate skin that treated you like glass and porcelain. The hands that gripped you firmly like you were his, the sharp white teeth that marked you, the kisses that left bloodstains behind and you never loved anything more than being under his control and knowing that you had the same disarming effect on him. The glint in his eyes was pride as you sat on your throne beside him. It was made of dried roses, tendrils curling around the metal and it smelled like nothing on Earth. Just like Yoongi who was made of blood and bones and something dark that you loved deeply, madly. No matter how many sunsets passed he was engraved in your skin and that immortal, still-beating heart you had.

No matter how much your parents tried, how much they threatened or begged, they couldn’t erase the other god’s touch off you. Never, you swore because it was the mercy in eternity: you had all the time in the world and for Yoongi you would have waited centuries.

“Please forgive her. She didn’t know what she was doing…” Demeter murmurs, shedding the blood of innocent animals on an altar built for the God of Thunder. You scoff.

She of the Grain, the loving, worrying mother you once knew is now your prison’s guard, always keeping an eye on you and praying for your impure soul. Like you were somebody who should be saved from doom.

However, you wanted nothing more than those black cells, the burn of iron on your touch and the screams echoing in your ears. The power you found and had there, in that damned place itself, might have intoxicated you but you wanted it back. You wanted the life you chose over the one that was assigned to you.

“I don’t need your prayers,” you snapped at your mother grabbing at your dark clothes you refused to change to the colour of rebirth. Yoongi had gotten these gilded robes only for you and called you Queen, called you love when the night black dress matching your souls fit perfectly on your curves. His touch burnt through the layers but you enjoyed its warmth, bathed in the flames itching closer as his cool lips touched your throat.

“Zeus won’t forgive this disobedience if you don’t beg for it,” your mother warns you harshly, teeth gritting and you launch yourself onto the small altar of the room shoving its decorations away.

“I don’t care,” you cried frustrated, fingers crashing a rose in your fist until nothing but damaged petals paint your skin red. Lighting strikes outside, flashing angry white over your skin, shaking the walls, signalling that Zeus was indeed listening. “What’s the worst he could do? Kill me? Death sounds a lot better than this prison. Or will he exile me? Then why did he bring me back in the first place? Don’t you see, ma? I don’t belong here.”

Ever since you were a little child, growing up among gods and goddesses of harvest and prosperity, you knew you were different. You were the error in the perfect system, the mistake of an unwavering structure, the flap of the butterfly’s wing that could cause a hurricane on the other hemisphere of Earth. Oh, Chaos, the father of everything, would have been so proud of you. You craved finality of things instead of this boring infinity. You fancied destroying more than creating and that, that made you feel sick. Because what was wrong with you?

“Nothing,” Yoongi would have whispered into the seam of your lips. Loving and kind, sweet like death is for the tortured souls. “There's nothing wrong with you.”

And beside him, you really didn’t have to pretend nothing at all. You could be yourself, you could be angry, you could be at your worst and Yoongi loved then too. He loved your flaws, your mundane needs and naive wishes.

But Goddess of Harvest is relentless. Despite your resistance, she still thinks you aren’t a lost cause but you are, at least for her and the purposes she wants, you are beyond help. It isn’t until the cherry trees bloom that she has to realize that every action had a consequence. Just because she is a goddess and Zeus is the head of gods, they are not allowed to do anything without atonement. Nobody can go against the sacred rules of the world. One cannot just claim something that belongs to the Underworld because the darkness will reclaim it back. And Yoongi wanted you back.

It starts with blackouts, disgust of food and then you can’t make the flowers bloom anymore. Greenery dies under your footsteps and Demeter, she is horrified. She keeps you hidden in your room fearing the havoc your downfall might bring but this act angers the people even more. The farmers think their corns lose their value because you aren’t there to relive them. They have no idea of your new powers of destruction, the way you suck life out of any living thing you touch. It should terrify you yet you only laugh because the humans whom your mother tried so hard to please now despise her and do not make more ritual offerings for her altar. She blames you and pleads to Zeus to do something, anything but they are both helpless. Ancient laws like this can't be played out.

It takes a while for them to understand that you aren’t from around here anymore, that they can’t keep you here, can't make you bring spring for them. Your heart and soul, they draw you back to the Underworld, to your king.

"The leaves are falling and the nature is dying," Demeter watches the colourful leaves swirling around in the wind and the grief in her voice is familiar. It's regret and surrender, the recognition that she lost.

"Don't worry, mother. I will come back when it's time. But I will come on my two feet and I will be welcomed like a queen and not a kidnapped daughter," you tell her standing up and this time, the doorknob doesn't resist. The door's wings part in front of you and you follow the darkest ray of sunshine to the edge of mortal world.

You greet the Styx like you greet a lover, lips touching the surface of the deadly water and murmuring confessions. However, before you could cross the river, hands from your dreams grab on your waist pulling you back. You fit perfectly onto the wide chest you lean against and gasp at the sensation of chapped lips pressed to the underside of your jaw. It takes your breath away, suffocating you in the best way possible.

“Little bird… you came back,” a raw sigh escapes Yoongi, its exhale fanning over your neck dressing you in goosebumps as you relish in the feeling of his arms caressing your middle keeping you close like he never wanted to let you go. Not ever again.

“I will always come back to you,” the promise slips your mouth like the light always finds its way in the darkest tunnels and the waves crash onto the rocky shore. It almost hurts how true these words are, how unalterable they are. It may have been the seeds of pomegranate, the taste of Underworld that overpowered the will of higher deities and brought you back. It might have been for the unwritten rules nobody could break yet you would have crawl your way back here anyway.

“Have you been searching for me?” you turn around in Yoongi's embrace to face him and the yearning so clear in his onyx eyes catches you off guard.

“I looked everywhere. I turned the world upside down. I wanted to break down the walls of Olympus to get to you but they didn’t let me. They kept you locked away from me,” he admits and your heart shares his misery.

“I'm here now,” you whisper like a secret and standing on your tiptoes you kiss the God of Dead on the mouth. It feels like the first gulp of water after thirst or the first inhale of fresh oxygen after drowning, it tastes sweet like spring and bitter like the blood that rushes in your veins. It’s everything you’ve missed and more so you let yourself get lost in him.

You may spend half the year up on the surface, watching as the first snowdrops peep out of the frozen ground and heat scorches through the fields on hot summer days. But you are back in the realm of darkness during wine harvest and when the temperature drops below zero. You take spring with you and give it to Yoongi as you make love. You breathe life in him and plant love into the scratches on his back that your nails leave. You bring new hopes and kiss him like it's a first, eager and hungry. With swollen and split lips you swear you can taste his devotion on your tongue.

“I missed you,” he groans into the juncture of your throat every single time and draws colourful flowers all over your body with his mouth, tongue lapping over the bruises and marks you wear proudly as accessories adorning the canvas of your figure. And you will remember it, his whispered words, how it felt murmured into your skin, the pleasure and pain, all of it when eventually you will have to leave again. So that you will never forget.

And after six lunar months spent missing him, when you come back and he traces a finger on your naked waist as you lie naked on his bed, your bed, in his arms, you finally, finally feel at home.

#bangtan bookclub #angstykpopnet #sfwbangtan #bts writing squad #btswriters #hades!yoongi #hades and persephone #mythology au #stories #okay so inspiration stroke me 2 days ago #i was like let's post this on yoongi's bday #i wanted it to be fluffy but well this au was like LOL nope you thought #so yeah #sorry? but i hope you like it #bts angst #yoongi angst #yoongi x reader #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios

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