#its midnight...the no Purposeful Writing hours.......
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Tags: levi ackerman x reader, mutual pining [coworkers] to smut, only one bed, non-sexual spitting, alcohol mention, reader wears levi’s shirt, cunnilingus, penetration, modern AU, fem!reader
Word count: 10,000
A/N: thank you to @lostinwildflowers for betaing this! Birch is one my writing idols, so I am truly honored. I hope you enjoy <3
This can’t be happening.
Unknowingly, the two of you shared a silent sentiment. After a late taxi, long lines of airport security, and racing to the terminal only to be delayed for several hours, the cherry on the shit sundae - as he would put it - was the midnight arrival to a hotel with only one bed.
“You’re sure?”
The look on the nervous teenager’s face conveyed the answer before he even uttered the question. Still, Levi knew he had to ask, audibly enough for you to hear - just so you would know that he did. In the face of liability, you had to acknowledge that he had tried his best.
“I’m really sorry, sir.” Their eyes were darting in panic between you and Levi as if you were the antidote to this angry customer. But he wasn’t angry, at least, not at them. Wasn’t the brat’s fault that Erwin booked the wrong room. “I have that in the afternoon of September the 15th, E. Smith booked a single king bed for one adult guest.”
“Two adult guests.”
They shared a lengthy eye contact. From the background, you watched their miscommunication unfold and cringed with secondhand embarrassment. You nearly burst into nervous laughter when they shrugged, “I can provide you with extra complimentary toiletries.”
At his sides, Levi unclenched his fists in defeat, “...We’ll manage.”
The plastic key cards made a satisfying sound as the receptionist slid them across the marble countertop - equal and opposite to the dissatisfaction on Levi’s face. In one smooth motion, he handed you your copy while simultaneously whipping out his cell phone. Two clicks - speed dial and call. Two rings - Erwin answered.
You couldn’t hear the other end, but you had your guesses.
Hello?
“You fucked up.”
Sorry?
“As you should be.”
For what?
“Stuffing two adults in one bed, what made you think we’d appreciate that accommodation?”
Given the looks you’ve been giving each other at the office, I thought you might.
Levi violently snapped his phone closed in hopes you couldn’t hear that. Thrusting his phone in his pocket, he used his free hand to snatch luggage from yours. “Give me that.”
A kind gesture, but irritation in his voice made it confusing. You thought to grab it back and insist that you could handle it, but instead, held your tongue. Clearly, he was steaming. Any objection, even a well-intended one, you doubted it would better his mood. Walking towards the lift, you concluded that nothing you had to say would supply ice to his ire. Though, the walk, time, and your calming presence, seemed to be working, you thought as you watched him delicately pad the UP button.
In the intimacy of the elevator, Levi allowed himself one venting word, “Idiot.” He sighed, placed his thumb and pointer finger on each of his temples, and rubbed wrinkles into his skin. “As if we haven’t already been through enough.”
Today and long before, the two of you had been through plenty together. Tonight was the first time you would pin it on Erwin. All other times, it had been your own selves and each other to blame.
He loved the way you looked in those small pencil skirts and see-through tights, but he hated what it did to him. Meetings in which he could only stare, absorbing nothing. In the middle of a phone call, when you walked by, he would forget its purpose and stammer aimlessly. Nights kept awake, staring at his ceiling, a blank canvas for projecting his wandering thoughts: how you would look with the skirt yanked up and the tights pulled down, how you took your outfit off after work, and if you wanted his help with that.
Countless times, you had cursed the man you crushed on. The way he ran his fingers through his hair when overworked made you want to try it yourself, to take his stressors away - or better yet - serve as the relief to them. On hot days, he loosened his top button. On lucky days, the top two. On his way out the door, he would tug his tie out from under his collar, creating a loop wide enough for you to slip your hand through and use it to pull his lips to yours - or so you imagined. Each day, Levi had fed you tastes. Over time, your craving for him had grown unbearable.
Ultimately, this out-of-town assignment was a test, and a final exam at that. Years of studying one another were culminating in one night, on one bed. The chime of the elevator interrupted your thoughts as if it was a warning: ground yourself. The plain of Levi’s expression and calm in his pace on the way to room 845 echoed its sense: he was unriled, uninterested.
Your read was wrong. Levi was thankful that you trailed him: with his back to you, you could not see his rouge tint, the bite of his lip, or the twitch of his cheek. As he pressed his key to the reader, held the heavy hotel door, and slugged both of your belongings atop the desk and dresser, you admired the way he moved so suavely - when actually, he considered his motions stiff, careful, and calculated.
Neither of you bothered to turn on the light. Taxed bodies, tired eyes, and tempted temperaments shared a desire to finally climb in bed. No need to delay things any longer. Levi unzipped his suitcase, the sound garnered your attention. Immediately, you noticed now neatly he had packed, admired his organization and pristine folds, then planned that when it came your time to unpack, you would aim to shield your messy methods from the clean freak’s vision.
A gray cotton tee - matching his eyes, black sweatpants - same shade as his hair. A navy canvas travel bag topped the pile. Levi leaned effortlessly against the white bathroom door and stated, “I’ll change in here.”
You nodded vehemently, as if he had ordered you on an important mission, “I’ll be out here.”
Cute. And at that intrusive thought, he silently ducked away.
Unbuckling his belt, tugging his zipper, freeing his legs from his slacks, Levi tipped his head back against the wall and sighed. Every muscle in his body finally untensed, he was set free from one cage of many. His business-casual confines had been done away with. Now, he just had professionalism, work relationships, and his fucking hormones to maintain.
His boxer briefs were agitatingly taut, struggling to constrain years’ worth of tension in their cotton threads. Levi looked down to his lap and cursed himself. Hovering around thirty, yet all the composure of a fresh young bachelor. Gradually, Levi hooked his thumb beneath the elastic waistband and loosened just a little, allowing him room to breathe. Too much room maybe as the chill thermostat air contrasted harshly with his warmed passion and drew a loud hiss. Levi clenched his teeth hard in an attempt to bar his vocals, praying to whatever power that you wouldn’t knock on the door and call Levi, you alright? It was just the kind of person you were, and Levi had come to know you well.
That anxiety turned out to be false, for your ears were ringing: ignorant of his desires, overwhelmed by your own. Gingerly, you unzipped your luggage and fret at the sight: a little black nightgown with lace on the hems. Its sight hit you like a load of bricks, lightning to the thunderous memory of your midnight, sleep-deprived, frantic packing. That woman was giddy for the business trip with her office crush and, in that frenzy, picked her sexiest pajamas for the special occasion. Goddammit! If only you knew that he wouldn’t be seeing it from across the room as a tease, he would be sleeping next to it, maybe even feeling it if one of you crossed your half of the mattress. Cursing yourself, you dug frantically in search of something - anything - else to wear to bed, but were rudely met with only pantsuits and blouses. You bunched your nightgown in your trembling fists, but its thinness and shortness allowed it to fit wholly in your hands - foiling your coping strategy. All you could do was tip your head back and sigh to the ceiling, Fuck me.
That feeling echoed when you draped it over yourself and saw your reflection in the hotel window. Your hair was disheveled from the long day. Makeup smeared and ran down your face, eyeliner to eyeshadow. Wrinkles in your silk dress. Looks like you were already fucked.
On the other side of the door, Levi was thinking the same thing: he was absolutely fucked. His erection stood high after minutes of waiting. Cold water splashed on his face, but his fever seemed to evaporate it. Trying to think about humbling topics, but he couldn’t get you off his mind. To make his arousal vanish, there was one thing he could do, but there wasn’t enough time for that. Even if the shower were running, Levi doubted that the downpour of water would be able to suppress the noises of slapping skin or his embarrassingly heightened vocals. Fuck. Levi clutched the bathroom countertop and sighed at his reflection. His exhale fogged the mirror just before he hung his head down and conceded. God, help me.
His prayers ignored, you ended up knocking on the bathroom door eventually: “Levi?”
Every nerve in his body froze. He stammered more times than he would have liked before managing a stern “What?”
“Sorry! I just -” humiliated heat seemed to radiate off of you, “- take your time, I just -”
Half listening, half panicking, Levi seemed not to pay mind to your take your time - stepping into his joggers and throwing on his shirt as fast as he could.
“- can I brush my teeth?”
You were startled when his response was a quick and loud turn of the handle, wordlessly letting you in. Levi was surprised to see you the way you were: temptress dress with a toothbrush and toothpaste innocently perched in each hand. The eye contact lasted for three seconds, but you could have sworn that it was that many years long.
The twitch of your hands and your heart’s lofty goals placed a dollop of toothpaste twice as big as you normally would. Had to have perfect breath, just in case. Not even just in case, you were going to lay beside him - mere inches away - for the next several hours. In those seconds of pondering, gravity began to spill your toothpaste off the bristles and towards the pristine marble vanity. With haste, you jammed the toothbrush into your mouth, causing you to gag on your device.
Levi felt his erection press against his waistband and rolled his eyes at his own stupid urges. You assumed that eye roll was for you and offered an innocent grin. Not so innocent, however, was your curiosity. His t-shirt was tight, leaving little to the imagination. One arm’s reach from an array of muscles, you kept your eyes deliberately on the mirror ahead. However, your doppelganger had a mind of her own apparently, gaze falling from eye contact and onto his chest, waist, abdomen. Without even having to turn his head, Levi could see your staring, obviously more obvious than you thought it would be. With your attention on his lower half, Levi allowed himself a smirk.
Such a silly thing, but was this the first time you brushed your teeth next to someone? This handful of minutes was inexplicably romantic, oddly domestic. Pajamas, double sinks, and the end of a long day. You had been coworkers, acquaintances, and unknowingly requited lovers, but for this one moment, you were husband and wife.
White toothpaste lined the gap between his top and bottom lip, and for some reason, you felt your knees buckle. Levi ducked down to spit, a polite attempt to hide it. Your eyes rejected his offer, instead widening as your pupils honed in on the sight. Leaning forward ever so slightly, you savored yet loathed the way his rejection ran down the pipe. What a waste.
Levi sheathed his toothbrush back in its protective case, a neat freak through and through, and slid it back into his tote. Sifting through, he stumbled upon a mini bottle of mouthwash, making him freeze with indecision: added freshness at the cost of spitting in front of you again? He felt that once had already been rude enough. Levi shot you a side-eye and made an unexpected eye contact: he was trying to read you, you were already staring. Mutually miscommunicated guilt, both of you felt you had been caught and snapped back to aversion.
It came your turn to rinse your mouth, and he couldn’t help it. Levi could have blamed his peripheral vision, could have blamed the bright lights that lined the mirror, but hard-pressed, he could not come up with an excuse for why he watched you then. The streak of white that shot out of your mouth, its wake dribbling down your lips. Goddammit, you cursed your clumsiness and hastily wiped your mess with a washcloth. He knew it as well as you did: he should have been grossed out. Only Levi realized, though, how much he liked it, he was just too ashamed to admit it.
Though his arousal screamed, his lips stayed silent. There was a time and place.
Was there? You’ve worked together for how long? All those years, they never had a time or place?
A long inhale, a slow exhale, his fingers curled underneath the cold countertop, hoping its chill would thwart the flush of his chest. Fuck how badly he wanted to kiss you then, to thumb that white stain off your chin and into his mouth, to clutch the backs of your thighs and hoist you onto that vanity. Your waist in his hands, your sex in line with his -
“Levi?”
“Yeah?”
His rapid response, you mistook it as anger. While the voice on his shoulder was lust, yours was insecurity. Surely, you’re the last straw. Having to share a bed with a dork like you? He’s had a tough day. Don’t make him endure this.
“Do you want me to take the floor?”
A dumbbell dropped to the pit of his stomach. Of course not, but for you to bring it up, he must have been hasty to assume that you would share the bed. Levi grit his teeth, annoyed with his lofty goals. Two slow blinks, “I can.”
That was the last thing you wanted. “N-No… I don’t - I don’t mean…” Your lips parted in stammer. Eyes darted as if the tile walls would whisper you the answer. For a moment, you cursed the beautiful neutrality of his face: impossible not to love, but impossible to read. His stillness was contagious, though, and brought you to settle on an answer, “I’ll meet you under the sheets.”
Ears burned red as they checked: was that selective hearing or was that what you really said? Before his eyes could study you, you turned on your heel and closed the door shut.
Once again, on opposite sides of the door, your sentiment was shared: Phew.
He took a few minutes after that. When he finally walked out, he found that you had been lotioning your legs over that time. Dim glow of the bedside lamp reflected on your smooth skin. If not for the way he had come to know you, to respect and appreciate you, this sight could have been the cover of some sketchy magazine. Eagerness glazed your eyes. Your hands had been massaging your inner thighs, now a perfect shield for the gem between your legs. Levi gave the slightest shake of his head, not disapproval, but disbelief. How did you manage such effortless perfection?
Was that not everything about you, though? The most minute smile in meetings. Biting your lip when you were bored. A laugh so beautiful that it served as its own positive reinforcement, beckoning others to amuse you again. Were you the one?
Or was it the eyes of your beholder? Maybe you weren’t perfect, maybe that’s why you were in his eyes. Despite all the signs of your singlehood - never in a rush to get home, never a mention of a date - he never truly believed it. It was a war of his flawless intuition and steep infatuation. Either you were the one for him, or he had been wrong all these years.
Get in the bed, idiot.
His stride was steady, captivating, as he made his way to the side of the bed. In habit, Levi crossed his arms across his torso, prepared to lift up, but caught himself halfway. No, he would not be sleeping shirtless tonight. Neither would he sleep in his loose and breathable boxer shorts, but instead, stifling fleece. Already, for one reason or another, he was sweating. Upon approach, the layers upon layers of sheets, blanket, and comforter looked even more suffocating. He caught a glimpse of the thermostat, but then of you, and found your skin laden with goosebumps. Lips rolled beneath his teeth, bargaining, but he could not bring himself to turn the AC up while your body temperature was down. Just as strongly, he refused to do anything that might make you uncomfortable, like taking off his clothes, no matter how badly he wanted to. More words would have served you both well, tearing down the artificial barrier your doubts were constructing.
Can I take this off?
I would love nothing more.
But you were both stupid to imagine that dialogue.
Levi slowly reclined back, sighing as he sunk into the sheets. Already, his skin was burning. He combed his fingers back through his bangs and released a heavy sigh. A heavenly trial, you read it as a hellish endurance, and instinctually apologized, “...I’m sorry about this.”
You have nothing to be sorry for, Levi pondered the response, but deemed it too much. Instead, he feigned a disinterested mumble, “It’s Erwin’s fault.”
You, on the other hand, indulged your gut feeling, “He’s done worse.”
Levi huffed a single exhale, his version of a chuckle.
You turned on your side. He loved that you chose to face him rather than the wall. He hated that he even thought of that. You were so close, he could feel the mattress dip between you, could feel your breath cool against his skin. Eyes fluttering shut, your voice was either sultry or exhausted, a glass-half-full kind of thing. “Good night, Levi.”
Fuck, what a fight, battling the urge to kiss you then and there. Your eyes sparkling, noses nearly touching, he had sworn that this was how all the shitty romcoms went, but he failed to find anything lackluster about this scene. His lips yearned to close that distance, arms ached to perch themselves at your sides. Levi redirected that energy to his hands, fisting the comforter hard as he draped it gently over your shoulders, “Night, (Y/N).”
But how were you going to sleep like this? Although you were running off a 20-hour day, you felt that sleep would be a waste. Queueing for tickets to see your favorite artist, only to close the window the moment your turn came. Styling your hair just to go and get it cut straight after. Champagne dumped down the drain. Mentally, it was an unbearable thought. Physically, your body was even more resistant to the idea. Your middle was fucking throbbing. Nipples stood tall against their skimpy silk covering as if reaching for more contact, his contact. Legs squirmed against one another, trying to smother the burn between them, but you willed them frozen: don’t wake him up.
In your best state of mind, you would have recalled the symptoms of his insomnia: always a tall thermos of caffeine on his desk, perpetual circles under his eyes, especially the times you both worked late. On your way out, you would peek through the pane of glass on his door to wave good-bye. Now and then, he would be hunched over his desk, imprints of the keyboard on his cheek - a makeshift pillow for his crash naps. With a shred of thought, you would have realized he was likely already awake, but you were incapable of even that. It was midnight when you crawled into the king bed. Red digits at your side now read 1:40 AM, yet you knew that not one of those one-hundred minutes had been spent in sleep. Coffee in the morning, nerves on the plane, hormones now, you had left composure back at your apartment and you weren’t sure you’d get it back at any point of this business trip. I mean shit, you swore, this was only the first night.
Only the first night. One of many sure to come, right? How many nights had he gone to bed alone, kept awake with longing of having you by his side? How many mornings had he woken himself up with a sleepy mumble of your name, only to find one half of his bed empty? It couldn’t all be for nothing. Now that he was sharing the bed with you, it was all he ever wanted, yet you were still out of reach. Uncharacteristic, the most reliable man you knew was spiraling in thought.
But to you, it would make sense: the only one who could bring Levi Ackerman down was none other than himself. He saw it a different way: you were the only one who could dismantle him like this.
You could feel his heat emanating, could see his sweat reflecting. Before you could stop yourself, your affection had boiled over, “Levi…” your voice was hoarse, having gone hours without as much as a whisper, and unexpectedly loud. His silver gaze drifted to you, depleting the last of your reserves, you mused, “...you’re hot.”
A statement, not a question. In near pitch blackness, he allowed himself a rare smirk. Levi waited until it faded to turn towards you.
You pinched the hem of his shirt in your fingertips, nails accidentally scraped his abdomen on the way. “Want this off?” You tugged lightly, “I don’t mind.”
At the same time, you shivered, and Levi filled in the blanks to ground his wandering mind. “Cold?” His hands brushed yours on the way to the bottom of the garment. Levi bunched fists in his fabric and lifted it effortlessly up, over, off his head - as he wanted to do all those hours ago. Pent-up relief, he thrust his shirt to you and offered, “Could’ve just asked.”
You were right all along. All along, those loose button-up shirts had covered a chiseled body. He must have been curling with arms like that. A pull-up bar on the back of his bedroom door, how many repetitions did it take to get these muscles? Your eyes scanned every inch of him but could find not one flaw. Your lips were moving, but words failed to emerge. There were a million things you wanted to say to him, to tell him, but only one came through. You received his gift gingerly and muttered, “Thanks.”
This was a moment you had distantly fantasized over for years. Turns out, this was even better than you dreamed. His shirt carried a garden of mint, lavender, and tea leaves in its scent. In putting it on, you felt that you gained a glimpse into Eden. The fabric was satin soft and sheer thin. In watching you wear it, Levi felt in the presence of an angel. It highlighted the curves he loved and introduced him to ones he had never noticed before. Brows narrowed, pupils dilated in his gaze - concerned and deviant. The straight cut forced your waist and hips to confine. The small-pattern chest was clearly never meant to accommodate a body like yours. Threads were spread taut by your cleavage, nearly torn apart as they strained to cover you. In his eyes, he thought it fit you perfectly.
Arms finally through the sleeves. Beneath them, your hairs stood on end. Again, you shivered, but could not pinpoint why. It did not take the shiver, though, to convey your state. Your erect points stood above all. Levi looked to you with both pity and admiration, his voice their lovechild: “Look at you.”
You simmered, embarrassed yet teasing, “Looking isn't helping.” You crossed your arms before your chest and bundled yourself together, “If you really care -”
He did.
“- then do something about it.”
Unfolding the quilt from the foot of the bed, turning up the room’s temperature - those were the most straightforward solutions. But Levi was not thinking straight, and he had a feeling that was what you wanted. Slowly, Levi sifted his arm behind your shoulders, when you snuggled in, he sealed his wrap with a hand at your side.
“Better?”
“Yeah.”
His gaze descended to meet yours. Likewise, you raised your gaze to meet. Painfully aware that this was a first for the both of you - neither his passion nor your arousal would shut up about it. At the same time, watching you shiver reminded him of all the times he had silently substituted your needs. Behind on work, you never asked for assistance, but would hurriedly throw things his way if Levi offered his help. When your car wouldn’t start that one winter day, who knows how long you would’ve paced in the parking lot had he not pulled his sedan beside yours and given you a jump? A sharp pang seized his heart in realization: he thought you were close, and now you were physically there, yet you still were not comfortable enough to ask him for anything - even though you both wanted it.
“Y’know,” his thumb rubbed your shoulder, “you should learn to just ask for what you want.”
Indeed, 2 AM haze was shrouding his awareness, too - particularly his self-awareness. Was it not him who steeped your tea in the mornings and tidied your desk before he left each night? He could have - should have - just asked you out all those times. How much sooner would this night have come if he had? Levi swore to live without regrets, but that did not stop him from acknowledging the opportunities he had missed thus far. He tossed you the takeaway he wished he had learned long ago: “Makes things a lot easier.”
At first, you thought he was chastising you. The stern monotone of his voice could chill you to the bone at times, but when you took in his expression, you felt warm all over. His brows were not knit, but perched in a tender lift. His breaths were not terse, like when he got annoyed, but slow and calm. At the same time, though, you could feel his heart pounding hard, could hear it when you placed your ear over his chest. Clouded moonlight softened those hardlined features, and again, you wondered if this was your first night together or actually your honeymoon: wasn’t this kind of pillow talk reserved for spouses alone?
A deep swallow, and the last time you checked yourself. Could he have looked any more genuine? Any more readable? Transparent? You didn’t think so. For the man of few words, this was all but an admission of his feelings for you, and it was the best look you had ever seen on him. His advice, his command, invited you to try that outfit on.
“Practice with me?”
One slight nod, so slight - you knew no one would have noticed it but you. In that, you felt your confidence soar, pulling the words from your heart to the air between you both, “Hold me tighter?”
He did.
“Pull me closer?”
He did.
“And kiss me already.”
Levi could not describe it, the feeling that overcame him when he heard your demand. Proud of you. Relieved. At peace yet exhilarated. The serenity that all was right in the world, yet the anticipation of what he had wanted all along. The nature of the kiss aligned with the latter. For two agonizing seconds, he examined you. Assured by the sight of your smile, he longed to taste it for himself. Thumb pressed to the curve of your chin, index finger perched under it, slowly yet with unwavering passion - that was the way Levi brought your lips together.
Soft, as he expected. Expert, as you had. Initial contact was delicate, the warmup slow. Levi always went so hard at everything he did, held such a sharp tongue, which was why the way he brushed against you made your heart stop. You knew strength to be his greatest, most innate feature, and therefore you deciphered that this tenderness was a display of exertion. Levi showed no signs of struggle, though. Touch-starved for you, yet his lips chose to waltz rather than tango. His hand on your chin drifted to the back of your neck. Nape cupped in his palm, he used that leverage to drift you here and there, allowing him to taste all of you - encouraging you to do the same with him.
Levi tasted like peppermint, the brand so sharp that it made you sneeze now and then, he had learned after enough lunch breaks. You tasted like cinnamon, the stick that baristas stuck in his chai come the colder months. When your tongues met, they created a new taste. After minutes of exchange, they became addicted to it. Their craving demanded all efforts in that search: Levi’s grip pulled you closer, you threw an arm over his back. Breaths turned to gasps, a wordless understanding of all you would do for the other: grab his mail on the way in, walk you to your car at night, and kiss until you were out of breath.
The thought had never crossed your mind, but his actions disintegrated it - the possibility that this was some selfish, opportunistic spell. Levi was nearly shaking with anticipation, his erection pained with neglect, but that did not influence his pace. Each time you thought the makeout might end, he would catch his breath with “pretty girl…” before joining you once again. His kiss was lovely, as was the spark at your middle, but his ardor was gas to your flame, and before you knew it, you were ablaze. You found your body rise against his, pushing off the mattress, and rolling to grind against the friction of his rigid figure. Levi was everything you ever wanted, and maybe you were just that desperate or just that greedy - the fact that you needed more. He wouldn’t have you any other way.
You thought twice before breaking from the kiss, one last deep plunge of your tongue to his throat before pulling away, conscious to savor the taste. “Levi…” you sighed.
A string of saliva hung between you, the clean freak calmly closed his fist over it, and you felt yourself shudder again, “can we keep practicing?”
His lips were one degree north of flat, about as big of a smile as anyone would see on Ackerman. Tonight, just the two of you here, it felt inexplicably, particularly special. “Make love to me.”
An advanced learner, you always went the extra mile. Back then, Levi had no doubt, it was the reason you had been promoted so quickly. Now, it was that you had aced the first lesson and jumped to the next: no longer asking, demanding already. Sentimental was not a feeling he knew, but proof that you were this comfortable with him was indeed something.
His praise reflected that feeling back onto you, “That’s right, good girl.” The back of his hand brushed unruly strands from your face. A kiss on your forehead rewarded, “like that.”
Once more, he pressed his lips to yours, but it was not even a second that he stayed - just a starting point to the journey that was exploring your body. Lips slid to the corner of your mouth, down your jawline, neck, then chest. A trail of hickeys and teeth grazes was left - tomorrow’s meetings and your professionalism having vanished from his mind. His hands joined the excursion: one gentle yet relishing in its caress of your neck, the other crawled up your - his - shirt. The familiar texture of his old garment contrasted with the novel feel of your skin. Muscles twitched with satisfaction, disrupting the fluidity of his motions, but you found beauty in the unpredictability of his touch. Rose-colored lenses were blind to the signs of his weakness, instead chalking those movements up to Levi’s expertise. As you tipped your head back and sighed, Levi figured it was the first misunderstanding that had done you two any good tonight.
On his descent, he could not help but take a stop at your breasts. Turns out, it was never just his imagination, but given your curvature, of course your buttons would have been stretched to contain you. Those blouses had been his guilty favorite for that very reason, but his tight t-shirt was taking a close second. No, that slip you wore when you joined him in the bathroom, that must’ve been the best, right? Blood rushed, pupils dilated, his body anxious for a visual refresher.
You were going faster than he could have hoped. Already, he was proud of you for having graduated to demands. Now, you had learned to act on your own - either having read his mind or listening to your own desires. Levi could not decide which possibility he preferred, but when you lifted your top and perched it at your clavicle, he was ashamed to admit that his mind had discarded all other affairs.
Levi nestled his cheek in your cleavage, and though you were over a thousand miles away, he felt he was at home. Warm pillows cupped him, and both of you felt that the space was made for him to fill. Levi’s breath was hot on your skin, yet your nipples appeared as though you were in a winter wilderness. Of course, he took notice in all your details, and sighed in mutual enamor, “Fuck, baby…”
It was a tone you had never heard in his voice before. Desperation and desire in a man so ever assured and disinterested, you felt your panties drip from damped to soaked. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
You, too, was what you thought to say, but somehow, the word seemed inadequate. His body was artwork: a symmetric abdomen, muscular forearms, veins that stood against his skin, you longed to trace him as such. Bangs that fell perfectly imperfectly over his face, begging that you run your fingers through them: mess with them now, gel them straight in the morning. You could slice paper on that jawline, could get lost in his eyes. No matter how long you stared, and stared you had, Levi was like the sunset: even after a hard day, always breathtakingly gorgeous.
Especially with the perspective you had now. One hand cupped your waist, the other your breast, perching you into his mouth, eye contact deliberately maintained throughout his movements.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Levi’s tongue swirled your nipple before his lips audibly slurped. “To get what you want…”
Again, the fog of the nameless hours between night and day had blinded him to the relevance his words had to himself. How long had he wanted this? How good did it feel? He had no verbal answer for it, only the fervor of his actions: sprightly tongue and rocks of his hips. As you always had, you filled his gaps: while he could not fathom the words, yours overflowed.
“Oh, Levi… Fuck, Levi…!” your desperate cries of his name made him leak onto the hotel sheets, no longer pristine. Your harsh exhales ran currents through his hair, and suddenly, it seemed you two had traded temperatures. Now, he was the one shivering while you sweat through the shirt. For his fever, he craved one antidote. Crawling down your body, his approach to the medicine cabinet. He prepared to ask for his dosage.
“My turn.”
Huh?
You propped yourself up on your elbows and took a good look. A good look: Levi had wedged himself between your legs. Fingers caressed your thighs with a precise pressure, a touch that tickled in a way that made you want more, yet was strong enough that he could push your hips to the mattress and pry your legs apart. You had to bunch your fists and rub your eyes to check, maybe 3 AM was just fucking with you.
Levi read your search for reassurance and inserted conviction into his tone. His stare and voice unwavering, “Can I taste you?”
Yeah, 3 AM was definitely fucking with you, for this was too good to be true. His sharp chin dwindled above the soft of your sex. His gaze set on your soul. Both of you agreed: his hands had never felt so calloused until they met your smooth thighs. It was a dream you would have woken up thankful to have had bestowed on you, but the grip he had on you was so perpetually undeniable: this was real. Head spinning, mind raced to catch up, yet Levi’s wait was so astonishingly still. Levi knew he would make you feel good. Based on your state, it seemed he was already doing that. Now, you just had to say yes, but he would not push you towards any one answer, nor would he do anything more until you arrived at it. If you wanted it, you had to ask for it, sweetheart.
A flood of thoughts swirled in your mind, each one screaming over the other, you felt you were drowning. In your search for stability, you relied on your sense of sight: Levi Ackerman between your legs. What the fuck are you waiting for?
“Y’Yes, Levi.” You reached down and held his forehead. As you brushed his bangs from his face, he offered another half-smile, but it was brief, for he was past the point of eager. Still, the calm in his pace remained. Slowly, his hands snaked from the backs of your thighs to the sides of your hips. Thumbs hooked between the straps of your panties and your skin. His fingers clenched over them, bringing the garment past your knees, down your shins, and off your ankles. From chest to toes, you were now entirely exposed. At first, you wrangled with embarrassment, but his infatuation was your comfort. Hunger seized his vision, thirst drove his actions. You had nothing to be afraid of.
His earlier route, lips to neck, neck to chest, chest to torso, was now mirrored. Levi cupped your heels in his hand and lifted your feet, allowing him to plant kisses up and up your legs, drags of his tongue followed to connect the dots. Minutes gone by, and even after having pocketed your consent, he still had yet to put his mouth there. Spending time to appreciate your thighs, he wanted you to know how long he had been anticipating this, and now that he had finally landed his spot, he would be damn sure to save the best bite for last.
Left arm wrapped around your thigh, Levi nestled his head against it, allowing his perspective to stay sound on your sex. His right hand trailed from your knee to your middle, and at last, you knew he was getting started. At first, it was his fingertips, and at that mere first touch came your sudden awakening as to how dire your desire had grown. Your hands flew back and clutched your pillow, Levi admired the tendons that rose in your wrist, and your voice, “A’Ahh!!”
He shot one glance up to check on you, but the look on your face ensured you were more than okay. With that, he decided to repeat the pattern of his rubs. Index and middle finger paired as they rode the sliver between your lips, your arousal slickened his knuckles. Once wet enough, he would split his digits into a V, each one taking responsibility for one of your folds. When that friction ran dry, he would return to your core, a seemingly never-ending source of lubrication, to run the process back again. You should not have been surprised, for everything with him was purposed - in the office or in the bedroom. With your interior and exterior in a coat of your own clear, he would have the freedom to run his mouth, no need to lick his lips or garner more saliva. Years of anticipation, now that the moment had arrived, he was going to spend the extra seconds to make sure this went according to plan.
Your glisten was so thorough, looking at you, Levi swore he could see his own weak reflection, the blush on his cheeks, the sweat on his forehead. In that way, his plunge was accelerated: preferring to trade the sight of his unruly state for the taste of you. Lips circled to match your curves, and you quickly identified this as a familiar feeling in an unfamiliar place. Levi was kissing you with the same tenderness he had displayed in your makeout, only now, he was between your legs. His jaw stretched wide to ensure he could reach every inch, from the top of your cleft, along your crescent sides, and to the spot where they rejoined. With his mouth in control, he let his hands indulge in your body, adorned upon your delectable waist, light squeezes of your ass, and massaging the divots of your inner thighs. His lips practiced that motion with a goal of perfection. Meanwhile, his tongue distracted you from any signs of his learning. Slow, purposed drags from bottom to top made your love pool on the tip of his tongue - each accumulation swallowed with a satisfied groan. Levi’s oral was pristine, only an occasional slurp and smack, allowing both of your vocals to take the stage. Your sky-high gasps, his low and satiated moans. He lived for the moments you would syllabize his name “Le-vi…” His “there you go” always followed, implicitly begging for more.
His neck began to bob in support of his movements. With that came a whole new level of pressure and slate of angles. His sharp nose slanted against your curves, lovely opposite to your soft. Your scent and your taste moved mountains within him, and in that, he noticed: his emotional pull was just as strong as his physical. All his life, he had grown to love bitter tastes, perhaps because they had been force fed to him. You were the first cube of sugar to have landed in his drink. Now, he had honey straight from the source. Levi felt his erection press hard against the mattress, “Fuck…” he whined, “you taste so good.”
Breath caught in your throat, all you could manage was a light sigh. As your lips twitched, he generously helped, taking the words right out of your mouth. “You have no idea…no idea -” Levi moaned, “how fucking long I’ve been waiting for this.”
At those words alone, you felt you might climax right then. Had he been eavesdropping on your dreams? How did he know that you had been fantasizing over that exact sentence for an unspeakable amount of time? “Me - Me too, Levi…”
Your admission was even sweeter, lifting his feelings from indulgence to fulfillment. All the nights he had spent awake, wondering if you were thinking of him the way he was of you, your confession was confirmation that this had been requited all that time. Levi found it both gratifying and maddening: gratifying to have discovered that your feelings were mutual, maddening how many years had gone by until that discovery. Levi grew determined to make up for all that time, revenge reflected in the acceleration of his actions.
Levi shoved his arms beneath your thighs, lifting you into a shameless, unhideable angle. Good thing, he mused, no more hiding. Shoulders propped at your midthigh, keeping you perched apart. Fingers wrapped around your skin, he pulled you down the bed and crashed you onto his face. Your gasp was exhausted as you tried to keep up. Both of you knew, though: you were no match. As his tongue thrust to unfathomable depths, you likewise could not conjure any idea of how to withstand this. Nose rubbed against your swollen bud, brows narrowed in determination, he looked nearly angry. Working hard for your climax, harder than he had for anything else, even his own.
Shit…!
If this keeps up…
A telltale tide turned in your tummy, spasms sparkled along your legs. Fingernails pierced the pillowcase, fighting off your impending loss of control. You could not delay it, not unless he - You fisted your hand in his hair, and he thought this was it. Instead, you pushed him away. “L’Le-vi…” a series of rapid pants, “hah, hah, ho’ld… on!”
His tongue flattened still. Between the vertex of your legs, his steel attention rose to you. Not anxious, but concerned, You alright?
“I, I want -”
At those words, he once again simmered with pride, thankful you had taken his ask for what you want to heart. After a few more breaths, you managed the minimum composure to plead, “I wanna cum with you.”
Levi’s first thought was one of generosity, you know you can have - I can give you - more than one, right? But he knew you better, and he knew what you meant. You wanted your first to be with him, and though he was parched with thirst, desperate for the taste of your cum in his mouth, your wants were foremost his. With a deep, patient breath, he watched your twitches slow to still. When the threat of your orgasm vanished, he calmly laid one final kiss to your core, etching your taste into his memory. His silver stare swallowed you down, a mental polaroid of your pose. His palm massaged your sex in physical praise, promising that he would never make you wait again, and that he’d definitely make you cum next time.
He started to ascend back up your body, but you flung yourself forward and met him halfway. Brows arched in shock, his eyes widened briefly, you closed them with another kiss. Mint flavor of before had been washed away by the taste of you. Further evidence of his devotion, you desired to prove that you were just as committed to him. You hooked your elbow to his nape and threaded fingers through his undercut - your turn to pull him here and there, granting yourself the freedom to explore the parts of him that you had always wanted to. Most of all, the length growing harder and harder to ignore.
Still, you were conscious to withhold your rush. You endeavored to slow your pace so that you could match the one he had performed on you. How good it felt - he deserved to feel it, too. You ran your hands down his chest the way rain slid down a windshield. Levi felt his boxers turn wet when your palms pressed upon his pecs, the buds of your hands kneading his tender patches. His exhales turned crackly, his inhales uneven. Laying kisses on each of his abs, down and down his torso, your contact held the compliments you were too shy to say. He heard them and reciprocated them: arm wrapped around your waist, bruises where his fingertips pressed - he hoped they would stay till morning, and that when you saw them, you would remember the love he had shown you tonight
Finally, you dipped your fingertips below his waistband. Sweat glazed his hips, allowing you to slide your hands in, but at this point, there was not much room for you. His erection had taken all his threads had to offer. You spared him the begging, sliding his cotton down his outstretched legs and finally releasing him from their confinement. Soaked in his own anticipation, veins visible, his arc steep. The shade of his member matched the one of his cheeks: the pink of a vulnerable blush, the crimson of ardent lust. As he watched you watch him, another dribble of clear dripped down his length. Levi grit his teeth and cursed. From stifling heat to cool air, that drench turned from comforting to exhilarating. In the wake of his tried swears, you gently cupped your hand around his girth and cleaned him as best as you could, spreading the leakage of his tip down to his base - his shaft your path. Contrast to his stress, you soothed him as you always had, just a different context this time.
It was his turn to cling to the sheets. Hands clawed into the comforter, you watched without shame, enchanted by the way his forearms flexed. Heels ground to the mattress, toes curled in sheets. Each motion was accompanied by either a sharp inhale or short exhale. Was it sadistic or considerate of you to keep pumping him despite that?
Levi loathed the way he stuttered through your name, on the other hand, you adored it. Levi cupped the back of your head in his hand and tugged your ear to his lips. His breath was hot on your cusp, yet somehow, it sent chills through you. Your sex had landed atop his lap, his cock nestled between your folds, still wet from his prior excursion. Pleasure had him growling, the look in his eyes both commanding and desperate, “Let me take you.”
Obliging and insisting: as one, you leaned back and he pressed forward. Your head landed atop the plump pillow, his hand beside it. Before you could blink, he had plummeted onto your lips again. This kiss was so opposite of all prior: his tongue demanding entrance, grazes of his teeth, and bites of your lip, loud and messy. You had cut Levi Ackerman to his last thread of composure, that was where you had always wanted him.
And this was how he had always wanted you: your most unabashed, honest, purest and filthiest self. He always found it so painfully obvious, how much you strained to stay prim and proper, polite and professional at work. It was why he lived for the times you slipped up: an eye roll in meetings, the long sigh after a conference call. Levi knew that the real you was there, and now you were here: in this shared bed with his shadow cast over your skin.
There was just one thing, though, that differed from his expectations. Desire was painted on each of your features, but they were glossed in nerves. Twitches in your lip, rattle in your lungs, eyes glistening, he feared they were tears. You cinched your hand around his wrist, and he recognized that smile. It was the kind you donned when you spilled your coffee or showed up late. Adorable, but unassured, and that would not do in this context.
“You’re nervous.” Levi did not ask you, for he knew his intuition was accurate. “Wanna stop?”
You shook your head and insisted vehemently, “No.” With a tilt of your chin and arch of your back, your lips brushed his with each word you spoke. Seeped down his throat, understanding swallowed: “I want to start.”
Levi returned your characteristic smile with one of his own. Tipping your foreheads together, “You’ll let me know if you change your mind.”
An order or a question? Either way, your heart scoffed at the idea. You know how long I’ve been waiting for this? There was no chance in hell you would change your mind.
“Or if it gets too much.”
That, there was a chance of. It had taken him mere minutes between your legs to bring you to the point of screaming and to the brink of climax, but that was what you wanted. His consideration fed you calm, you fed him reassurance. The flicker in your gaze settled, meeting his of solid steel. You tucked his bangs behind his ear and affirmed, “I’m ready, Levi.”
Fronts pressed, heartbeats matching, there was only one connection left to make. By the grips of his hands on the backs of your shoulders, Levi pulled himself those last crucial inches, and closed that final gap. His tip slick with precum, your slit dripping with anticipation, yet accommodating him was no easy fit. He had spent all that time down there with the goal of making it easy on you, but watching your face scrunch and hearing your voice whine was not half bad, either.
In fact, he had not even made it halfway in yet, and you were already writhing. Levi bit the inside of his cheek and knit his brows, careful not to push you too hard, conscious for signs of your apprehension. You sensed his wavering and clawed his back, pulling yourself further down his length.
Looking up, his expression was strained. Reaching new depths, pushing past your initial walls, his voice poured exertion. Still, he did not stop pushing. Toes arched into the mattress, calves flexed with each labored drive. Each fuck brought the two of you closer. For him, one more inch of his length. For you, one more stretch of pleasure. For the couple, a proximity you had always wanted. Each of you felt a tremendous responsibility to be the one to close that distance.
Repetition after repetition, his muted grunts melted to audible groans. The air between you was no longer saturated by your gasps alone, but his as well. His strain was the only thing that could ground you from nirvana and back down to earth. Despite his squint, he caught that transition: from the throes of sensation to the snap back to reality, all because you were concerned for his well-being. More than any sense of pleasure, your affection was what made his heart pound in his chest. Doe eyes gazed upon him, You okay?
After a series of hahs and ahs, Levi managed just a couple words, “It feels - It feels…”
Good? Bad? Your heart tensed in anticipation. Pleading and ordering, “Tell me, Levi.”
Knuckles tight, fingers trembling, “...good!” Levi clenched his teeth and pulled himself forward with an aim of backing his words with his actions. After struggling to past your entrance, the force of this fuck brought his tip to your end, drawing shrieks from you and shock from him. Strength of his magnitude had pros and cons, he supposed. His flaws, you deemed them his perfections.
The damp of your cunt was audible, resounding throughout the room. You found yourself at an impossible choice: which was more embarrassing, your voice or your sex? Levi’s thought was similar and opposite, the same choices, just which was better? Levi decided that their symphony was best, and realized he could turn up its volume if he accelerated his pace.
“Levi, Levi…!” To say his name came naturally, practically a swear word: the satisfaction of cursing after injury or mistake, so wrong yet so right to scream it out loud.
Pleasurable pain when he hit your weakest points, a delightful exercise as your walls stretched to accommodate him. His eyes remained set on your face, ears tuned to your voice, translating your body language into instructions. Rapid thrusts to make you pant, but only until you started to choke on your own gasps. Then, he would decelerate, replacing speed with strength. When he filled you up, you would sigh and roll your eyes back. To Levi, that was the sign to dial it back up and get you there.
Since this started, his read on you had been perfectly accurate. You were almost there. Simultaneously yet unknowingly, your inner voices warned: you won’t last much longer. The thing was, you didn’t want to, for you had endured so much already. The heat in your middle was unbearable now. Each nerve had been fried to its last end. This sex had gone on for hours, but your yearning had been years long. In your haze, you were blind towards any reason to deny yourself any longer. You wrapped your legs around his waist and relied on your calves to pull him closer. Bringing him to your end made Levi approach his. “Fuck…!” His voice was a low singsong, an adult lullaby. “(Y/N), (Y/N)...!” No longer a choice between deep or fast, Levi somehow managed both. Physiology threatened to overrule now. No, already…!
“(Y/N), I…I’m - ! ” His mind was racing now. Should he ask to cum or tell you he was? Should he withdraw so that you could get there first? Levi labored to open his eyes, looking to you for an answer. His senses of sight and touch told him: you were already there.
The pulsation around his cock, the steep arch of your spine, your parted lips and blissed-out face. The scrape of your nails down his back, ignorant to the possibility of hurting him. This was how Levi had always wanted it: to be the one you clung to, to offer himself when you were overwhelmed. Count on me. The orgasm that overwhelmed you now, that had been his doing, right?
Once again, it was as if you had read his mind. Without him having to ask, you answered: “Levi, Levi!!” Your hands squeezed him tight, white patches beneath your fingertips. Clinging to him, the life raft through each of your waves. “Y’Yours… I’m yours…”
He had gifted you tissues for your crying spells at work, had picked up your lunch on the way back from break, but this provision was far preferable, much more fulfilling. Even as you turned his skin red, even as your legs clenched him and squeezed air from his lungs - no, even better - those were precisely the motions that pushed him over the edge.
One hand clutched the top of the headboard, tight enough that you heard the wood wince. The other caressed your face with feathered tenderness. In that difference, you were once again reminded of his duality: on one hand, a hardass, but for you, a soft spot. Those dimensions were reflected in his voice, too: swears that made your ears burn and groans that turned the air heavy, yet arid gasps that lifted your soul and praise fit for a princess. While your cunt had run raw and slippery from his fucking, his warm cum filled you and soothed your stings.
As you both came to, Levi lingered inside, patiently waiting until each of your waves crashed - savoring them. With a deep swallow and a delicate nod, he ensured he would handle your aftercare. Kleenex from the nightstand folded and padded against your sex. You sat up in panic, worried about the clean freak’s reaction, but he seemed particularly satisfied. Maybe it wasn’t that he hated filth, but that he loved clean-up. You bit your lip and bit back a smile, believing that the sex tonight had evidenced that.
Though his aftercare was doing much for your affection, it did pathetically little when it came to cleanliness. Both of you realized, not even the entire box would be enough. Levi looked at the wad of tissues in his hand, shook his head, and scowled, nearly laughing at the ineffectiveness. “We’re filthy.”
Slowly, you made your way to his side. Carefully, you reached your arms around his back. Wrapped within your grasp, you leaned him back against your chest and whispered into his ear, “Good thing there’s a shower.”
Levi spun just enough to meet your eye contact, once again checking to see if he had heard you right. Three hours ago, he would have defaulted towards the no, always having believed one could not be let down if they did not get their hopes up. Over the years and especially tonight, your optimism was swaying that opinion. Your sound smile and unafraid stare confirmed: after all that mess, you were also keen for cleanliness. In post-coital clarity, he saw how stupid he had been to wait this long, and Levi almost said those three sacred words right then and there.
But this was only the first night of the trip.
And the first day of the rest of your lives.
// masterlist //
#levi x reader#levi ackerman x reader#levi#levi ackerman#levi x you#levi ackerman x you#levi x y/n#levi ackerman x y/n#aot x reader#snk x reader#aot x you#snk x you#anlian writes#my writing#alias's#oneshot#2023#smut#salt and pepper
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˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ midnight insomnia' - c.yj
SYNOPSIS - its the middle of the night and you have 2 problems; no.1 you cant sleep, and no.2 you miss your boyfriend.
PAIRING - choi yeonjun x f!reader
GENRE - fluff, established relationship
WARNINGS - reader is depicted with a pink colour, reader is called ‘baby’ and ‘girlfriend’, just yeonjun and y/n being really cute with eachother <3
requested from anon: hi! i dont think you've posted yet, maybe your busy or just dont know what to write about since your a new blog, but i want to put in a req.. could you do reader x yeonjun with the prompt “i can’t sleep, come to my bed” id actually die AAH im so curious what you could turn this into, thanks :}
notes: thanku sm for the req! yeah, i havent been writing yet since my brain was blank tbh i had no ideas for a fanfic in mind 😭😭 but now youve added fuel to my fire and ill try start writing more often :3 (and yes, the 127 in the fic was on purpose)
The moon cast a soft glow through the small sliver between your curtains, painting the room in hues of silver. In the quiet of the night, you tossed and turned under your soft blanket, unable to find solace in slumber. As you battled with your insomnia, you just couldnt keep your mind off of one thing; Yeonjun. You couldnt stop thinking about the way he would hold you through these chilly early-spring nights, and how much you missed his warm body next to yours. At this point you’ve realised just how starved you were from him despite only seeing him a couple of days ago.
You gave up on your slumber, rolling like a log from one side of your bed to another to pick up your phone. The sharp glow from the screen hit your eyes, your face instinctively scrunching up since you werent used to the brightness. Your fingers lazily glided over to the message app icon, and then tapped on Yeonjun’s contact. The time at the side of the screen caught your eye, and your realised it was 1:27 AM. You were a little weary of texting your boyfriend at this late hour; you knew that he was probably tired after a long day of practicing and you didnt want to seem selfish or too clingy. But you shook off your bad feelings since you knew that Yeonjun wasnt the type to be able to fall asleep easily either. You began to type your messages…
“jjunieeee..”
“baby… ☹️”
As expected, Yeonjun was of course awake. Your one word messages were opened by him a minute later. He looked at the texts, a little confused on why you’d be texting him right now. Any how, he started typing back.
“y/n? why’re you still up. you better not be up to some weird shi 😐”
“jjunie, i cant sleep. come to my bed.”
“baby, its half 1 in the morning.”
“please..😔 i really cant sleep and i need sum1 by my side 😞”
“y/n you’re going to be the death of me... but what wouldnt i do for my beautiful girlfriend”
“ill be there in 5”
“yippee! 😇 i love you ❤️”
“love you more baby ❤️”
Your face lit up as your boyfriend agreed to come over. You immediately put your phone back on your side table and plugged it back into charging, then quickly tossed the dirty socks that were lying on your bedroom floor underneath your bed to appear a little tidier. After a little while, you could hear a quiet knock echo through your small apartment; your face lighting up once again. Your feet quickly brought you to your hallway, where you rummaged your drawer for your keys. Eventually finding them, you jammed the correct key into the keyhole, twisiting it and gently opening the door. As your boyfriend appears from behind the door, you immediately pull him into a hug, shutting the door behind him. “Whats up with you today?” He teases as he feels your arms lock around him tightly, wrapping his arms around your waist in response. “Just missed you baby.” You responded, taking in his soft scent which you missed badly. “Y/n, we just saw eachother a few days ago..” His chuckle landed right in your ear, warm breath brushing right up against your ear. The sensation of course did not fail to make you blush a little. “Yeah, but ‘just a few days ago’ feels like an eternity to me.” You whisper into his shoulder, finding comfort in just burrying your face in his shoulder and hiding from the world. You feel his hands come away from your waist and up to your back, rubbing small circles. “You really arent a patient person, are you? Now, lets get you to bed.” He whispers as he takes your hand in his and begins to lead you over to your bedroom. You obviously dont resist, and grip his hand back as you walk behind him. None of you made a sound as you walked to your bedroom. Both of your social batteries were drained from the long day you’ve survived today, and all you wanted to do was to hold eachother in peace as you tried to fall back into a slumber.
You walk into your bedroom, and Yeonjun leads you straight to your bed. He lets you crawl in and under the covers as he takes off his jacket and throws it onto the chair you have by your desk. He came just wearing his pajamas, since he knew all you were going to do together was snuggle and sleep. He climbs onto your bed, arms wrapping tightly around your body as your face hides in his chest. His hand runs through your soft hair in a consoling manner, trying to get you to feel more tired and sleepy. His hands work like magic, your eyes beginning to feel heavier by the minute. But before you fall asleep, you give his hand a gentle squeeze and manage to whisper a set of three familiar words.
“I love you.”
#drabble#kpop imagines#one shot#x reader#kpop#yeonjun#yeonjun imagines#yeonjun drabbles#txt#txt imagines#txt fanfic#yeonjun fanfic#yeonjun x reader#yeonjun x y/n#yeonjun x you#yeonjun oneshot#oneshot#txt oneshots#new kpop blog#fanfic
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📝 Emotion, atmosphere and environment: A writing exercise for show-don't-tell
Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that I'm not aggressively against telling. Sometimes telling works for a whole bunch of valid reasons. If you know me at all, you'll be aware of where I stand on the issue of narrow, prescriptive writing rules (if you don't know me, hi, I despise narrow, prescriptive writing rules)
But "How do I show instead of telling?" is still a thing a lot of newer writers have difficulty with and that's what I'd like to dig into. So here's a writing exercise you could try to help build depth and atmosphere around the emotion your character is feeling...
🧠 First of all, pick an emotional experience.
For illustrative purposes, I'm going with LOSS. Then express that emotional experience in ways that can be perceived physically. The following are just suggestions, not an exhaustive list.
🎨 How could the emotion be expressed as a colour?
Grey, maybe. Slate grey. Or a muted petrol blue, perhaps.
🔊 How could the emotion be expressed as a sound?
Deep silence interrupted only by the sound of a ticking clock.
👋 How could the emotion be expressed as a physical action?
Your hand reaching to grasp for comfort out of habit and hope, fingers curling around something remembered, then dropping back to the coldness of the other side of the bed, empty.
🌄 How could the emotion be expressed as a weather condition or natural phenomenon?
The storm passed an hour ago, leaving only an occasional flurry of sleet that melts on contact with the window, sliding down the glass like tears. Outside, a tree that shed its leaves in autumn bows in tired silhouette against the halo of a single streetlight.
🏡 How could the emotion be expressed as a room?
Your nightstand holds the bottle of water you filled before trudging upstairs at midnight, your phone still plugged in even though the battery was full three hours ago, and the glasses you'll put on again as soon as you wake up after sleep eventually manages to swallow you. The nightstand on the other side of the bed holds a small tear-off calendar showing November eighteenth even though it's now January second and a book lying open and face-down with the spine sinking into itself. In the corner of the room, there's a chair with clothes carelessly draped over it a month and a half ago that you still can't bring yourself to put in the laundry. It's four o'clock in the morning and you'd give anything to hear breathing that wasn't your own.
You could try it for different emotions and different situations, in isolation and then connected to something you're in the process of writing.
How could anger, for example, be expressed differently in an office environment compared to a wilderness landscape? How could joy be shown in summer versus winter? How could fear be embodied in high fantasy compared to cyberpunk?
If relating environments to emotions doesn't click for you straight away, could you focus on single-sense experiences for a while? What colour is regret? What does anticipation taste like?
If you have synesthesia (hello, fellow synesthetes!) this could be a wild ride, but hopefully it'll also be fun and useful for anyone having difficulty connecting to the idea of show-don't-tell.
Happy writing! 💜
#writeblr#writing advice#writing tips#show don't tell#writers on tumblr#writeblr community#the shit in my head
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Genshin Characters During Finals Season (College AU)
Characters: Zhongli, Thoma, Venti, Xiao, Albedo, Bennett, Childe, Kaeya
Type/Genre: Bulleted headcanons, comedy
Warnings: Foul language, slightly suggestive humour/for comedic purposes
Zhongli
Calm and collected at first
As the days go by, Zhongli would start looking more and more like a tired dad
Walks around slightly frowning, bags under his eyes from all nighters, and clutching a mug of coffee so hard that people are afraid it’s gonna break, but even more afraid to tell him to be careful
Has heat compresses on the back of his neck and forehead to ease the headaches from the lack of sleep
Probably told Childe to shut the fuck up and mind your own business when he warned him about his cup
“Childe, if I do not kill this final I will kill you in its stead. Leave me be.”
Thoma
Probably part of one of those student care organizations that makes care packages for other students
His smile when he hands out the packages is so bright and healing it could bring back the dead
Always motivating his peers and tries to keep everyone’s spirits up
Offers to get everyone in the study group coffee
He’s not the best at school but he has a lot of friends that are willing to tutor him and do his assignments help him with his work
Likes to snack while he’s studying
“No giving up yet! Let’s take a snack break, you’ll think better with something in your belly.”
Venti
Chills at a coffee shop with a big friend group to “study”
They do jack shit
Probably spends more time staring at the drink menu than his exam notes
Grade A procrastinator, does all his homework the night before it’s due and studies for exams the morning of
Due tomorrow do tomorrow amiright
Always seems to do okay tho?? People wanna scold him for his bad study habits but he actually does okay in school so they can’t really say anything
Doesn’t study hard but parties 100x harder
“Come on, live a little! If your exam is at 2pm, you can just start studying at 9 tomorrow morning and you’ll be fine.”
Xiao
Pulls all nighter after all nighter after all nighter after all nighter after-
No one can ever find him during the day on campus or in his dorm—it’s like he despawned and just does not exist
Only time he is spotted by others is always at 3am in the morning like a cryptid and he looks like a zombie
He’s actually working a part time job along with going to classes and helping others with their work. An angry looking good boy.
Studies in the lecture halls by himself, blasting music as loud as he can on his headphones to keep himself awake
Mf going to go deaf is2g lower ur volume boi
“…hey. I’m getting a coffee, do you want one?”
Albedo
Plans his time meticulously. Has an extremely organized planner where he writes out exactly what he’s going to do at every hour of the day so he can maximize his week
Includes mealtimes, breaks, and poop times relaxation periods
Usually studies in his room, but for some reason people keep barging in on him to ask for study help so he has to find different hiding places to work in peace
So far, the best place has been the graduate students lounge. No he does not belong there, but no one questions him because it looks like he does
“If you really need my help, I have twenty seven and a half minutes between lunch and my bathroom break this Thursday. Come find me then.”
(Rejected quote: “What’s my masters in? No no, the only thing I’m a master of is your mom.”)
Bennett
The type of person to have the “please don’t talk to me I have work to do and if you talk to me I won’t stop” sign on his back while working in the library
Fell asleep while completing an assignment
Missed the midnight deadline for said assignment
Slept through the exam the next morning
At this point just let him sleep at least he won’t have to deal with it then
“That was a good nap…now I got the energy for my assignment and the exam!”
Childe
Would be a good student if he wasn’t bothering other people so often
Probably bakes when he’s stressed. His roommates are always awoken at 4 in the morning to the sound of the oven beeping and the heavenly smell of freshly baked cookies
Has a friendly rivalry with Zhongli. He always asks when Zhongli will be turning in an assignment, and what mark he’s aiming for for the final exam
Turns in the final paper at least a week before it’s due and aims for ten percent higher than Zhongli on the exam
If he needs bonus marks to reach that then so be it
Otherwise slacks off a bit
He’d be a really good student if he wasn’t so competitive with Zhongli all the time
“You good, Zhongles? You trying to squeeze a better grade out of that mug?”
Kaeya
This man probably used red bull as the liquid for his instant coffee
An absolute menace and loves messing with people
Tells them that the exam is on a whole other different thing than what they were studying for, or that the due date of a big assignment was changed
Nobody goes to him for help
If you do genuinely need help with a concept, though, he’s more than willing to help
Just make sure to provide adequate compensation for him ;)
By compensation I mean more red bull this man has drank 3 cans in ten minutes please stop him
“What? If they do shit, that only helps with our bellcurve, right? Their fault for trusting me anyways~”
#I was just being silly w albedos lol#genshin impact#genshin scenarios#genshin imagines#genshin headcanons#Zhongli#Thoma#Childe#Kaeya#Bennett#albedo#venti#Xiao#fluff#funny#my writing
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How do I make my dreams become reality? Pick a Crystal
Get ready for some tough love
Diamond:
You’re going to have to be more realistic about your dreams. Will you be a billionaire with what you are doing right now? Is it realistic that you’ll get into the music industry? Acting? Preforming? You need to start small and work relentlessly. Dreaming and doing the bare minimum is not going to get you anywhere.
If you want to be signed to an agency, are you taking acting classes? Singing classes? Any music classes? Are you going to school to learn about music, acting, or production? Are you healthy and ready for a perfect reputation? A social media screening test?
This also may be a sign from the universe that you must see the bigger picture of what you want to do in life. Write in a journal, in detail, why you want these things. Keep asking why like a child until you know exactly why you want it and why you feel it is your purpose.
Ruby:
You dream of a perfect relationship/friend group.
If you want to be with someone and have a successful relationship or a friend group, it’s important to get back to the basics of what it means to be in a relationship. It takes time, effort, and selflessness.
Are you ready to call a friend at midnight for hours to let them vent about their breakup? Are you ready to make plans with people and keep them? Are you able to be in a group where you may not like one person? Are you ready for a complicated dynamic? Are you ready to be vulnerable? Are you able to go into this with an open heart and an open mind?
Ask yourself these questions on pen and paper. Maybe you are too afraid of making the right decision. With social lives, you need to dive in and find your way to the right people through experience. Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Amethyst
You’re a mystical independent person, perhaps you want to grow as a spiritualist or build a business. Maybe you want to combine the two.
Take your manifestation to a new level by listening to the universe. When you’re doing or thinking the right thing, you’ll see repeating numbers such as 111, 222, 333, etc. this will usually be on a clock. Let the numbers guide you on your journey to success. If the universe offers you an opportunity, take it.
Do not let fear or hesitation get in your way. The universe will give you signs, but don’t hyper fixate on them. Notice them and see if they are relevant. Focus on expansion and exploring unknown territories with an open mind.
Quartz:
You just want to be comfortable, possibly have a family, a significant other, and a generally stable life. You’re DONE. You want peace. It is important for you to budget, pay your small debts off, and use the extra money you get from not having those debts by paying off bigger debts.
Debt is easy to accumulate and hard to get rid of. Being frugal and strategic is going to be your best friend if you want to have a stable life with stable people. Take care of your body, mind, and soul and think about your future. Ask yourself, “do I really need that?” “Will I use that in a month?” “Is this an impulse buy?”
reading books on how to manage your money and make good relationships will also be helpful. If we grow up around people who do not make good financial decisions, or we grew up without much of anything anyway, it’s easy to slip into that pattern because it is all we know.
Start small.
#witchcraft#magic#witch#magick#pagan#paganism#crystals#wicca#metaphysical#pick a pile#pick a card#pick a crystal#tarot readings#psychic readings#psychic reading#witchblr#Crystal healing
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WINGLEADER: A Xaden Riorson POV Fanfiction
CHAPTER 5
At this point, I’m completely exhausted, and the small writing surface attached to my desk looks exceedingly comfortable right now.
“Welcome to your first Battle Brief,” Professor Devera says, turning slowly to examine the entire room.
“In the past, riders have seldom been called into service before graduation, and if they were, they were always third-years who’d spent time shadowing forward wings,”
I can feel Garrick begin to shake with suppressed laughter in the seat next to me.
I reach out with my leg and kick his foot, which only makes him shake harder.
Fighting down the smile that’s trying to make its way to my lips, I remember our own shadowing last year. It was rare that second-year riders got to go, and we single handedly assured they never would again.
We aren’t typically trouble makers, and it wasn’t really our intent to do anything stupid, it just sort of…happened.
It was a near disaster, and ended with a two hour scolding from both Panchek, and our dragons.
I suppress a jolt of surprise as Sgaeyl barges into my mind, unannounced, “An absolutely shameful display from the two of you.”
“Oh? I don't recall you or Cliadh doing anything to stop it.”
“There is little we could do to prevent you both jumping from our backs in order to,” Sgaeyl pauses, “do what, I’m not sure.” she finishes irritably.
“I didn’t–” I start before she snaps, “Pay attention my little wingleader”
My eyes flick up, and from Garrick’s suddenly still posture, I can tell Cliadh has probably said something to the same effect.
It’s so quiet I can hear each of Professor Markham’s footfalls as he makes his way to the center of the room.
Professor Devera leans in to say something to the scribe, and my shadows are already there, pooling from the gaps in between seats.
“Ms. Sorrengail is present today, to the left of the podium, third row.”
So, right in front of me somewhere.
I shouldn’t care so much, but I do.
I scan the room, spotting her quickly. Her hair is in a long plait down her back and I again feel the urge to yank her by the end of it just to prove a point.
She’s already so weak in so many areas, why give anyone an advantage while sparring?
“First topic of the day,” Professor Devera says, highlighting Braevick on the map.
Fuck.
Garrick must be thinking the same thing because I can hear his breath catch.
Professor Devera continues, “The Eastern Wing experienced an attack last night near the village of Chakir by a drift of Braevi gryphons and riders.”
Not quite, but sure, that’s what happened. I wasn’t expecting the situation last night to go the way that it did.
It was supposed to be a regular supply drop, a small group, a quick in-and-out job. The fliers had been too far from our regular drop off in Athebyne, making Braevick Province the closest spot. Unfortunately for us, the fliers caught wind of Venin in the area. Even more unfortunate, they didn’t have time to warn us before we arrived.
Our one and only ally in the Eastern Wing was able to get word from us about what was happening, but Chakir still lost thirty-seven innocent people, and the Wing lost two riders.
And now it looks as though the higher ups have twisted the story, scrubbing the Venin from the brief altogether.
Professor Devera continues, “Naturally some information is redacted for security purposes, but what we can tell you is that the wards faltered along the top of the Esben Mountain. Allowing the drift not only to enter Navarrian territory but for their riders to channel and wield sometime around midnight.”
Well that part is true at least.
They were wielding magic, but the reasons were far from sinister.
“Thirty-seven civilians were killed in the attack in the hour before a squad from the Eastern Wing could arrive, but the riders and dragons managed to repel the drift. Based on that information, what questions would you ask? I only want answers from first-years to start.”
My eyes skate past the rest of the class to land on the back of Violet's shimmering silver head.
It’s silent for a handful of seconds before Professor Devera starts speaking again, no doubt attempting to rouse the first years into answering.
My gaze still on Violet, the class starts their string of obvious questions that you’d ask in a Battle Brief setting.
“Is this the first time the wards have faltered?”
Professor Devera says one word, “No.”
More follow up questions.
“How many casualties did the wing suffer?”
The usual bickering.
Violet leans in and whispers to her friend Rihannon.
Rhiannon sits up and asks, “What altitude is the village at?”
If it were anyone else, I’d assume they were playing a game, making a fool out of their peers. I don’t think that’s Violet’s angle though.
“Markham?” Professor Devera asks the scribe.
“A little less than ten thousand feet,” he answers.
“Why?”
There’s a beat of silence before Rhiannon catches on, “Just seems a little high for a planned attack with gryphons.”
Devera has an irritated look on her face.
“It is a little high for a planned attack. Why don’t you tell me why that’s bothersome, Cadet Sorrengail?” I can see Violet squirm in her seat, and I have to suppress a smile. It’s cute seeing her so ruffled.
Nope. No. Not happening. I’ve made her hate me and fear me. There’s no reality where anything regarding Violet could happen.
“And maybe you’d like to ask your own questions from here on out,” she continues.
My eyebrows raise, wondering how she’ll respond, as the class collectively turns to look straight at her.
“Gryphons aren’t as strong at that altitude, and neither is their ability to channel,” She says.“It’s an illogical place for them to attack unless they knew the wards would fall, especially since the village looks to be about what?” She pauses briefly. I can practically hear the gears turning, “An hour's flight from the nearest outpost.” She turns to the map, “That is Chakir right there isn’t it?”
As if she needed the map at all.
I don’t want to think about the feeling that’s made its way from my stomach up into my throat listening to her address Professor Devera with so much confidence.
And is that a little bit of smugness I hear in her voice?
She’s smart and she knows it.
I swallow loudly and Garrick looks over at me with a bemused expression on his face.
“I believe you humans call them butterflies.”
I swear she does this on purpose.
“Do you enjoy taunting me Sgaeyl?”
She chuffs but doesn’t bother to answer.
If I’ve got butterflies, not only is that horrifying, it’s absolutely unacceptable.
What is this woman doing to me?
There’s another round of questions from the second and third-years. All the same obvious questions that get them no closer to the root of the “attack”.
Time to remind everyone that I am much, much smarter than the rest of the people in this room.
“What was the condition of the village?” I say.
Markham, Malek help him, squints up at where I’m sitting.
“Riorson?”
“The village.” I say, keeping my tone respectful despite my annoyance at this lying game I’m playing. “Professor Devera said the damage would have been worse, but what was the actual condition? Was it burned? Destroyed? They wouldn’t demolish it if they were trying to establish a foothold, so the condition of the village matters when trying to determine a motive for the attack.”
There’s a good chance that Devera knows more about the Venin’s motives, and this is a perfect excuse to see if she’ll let something slip.
Professor Devera smiles, “The buildings they’d already gone through were burned, and the rest were being looted when the wing arrived.”
There it is.
“They were looking for something. And it wasn’t riches. That’s not a gem mining district. Which begs the question, what do we have that they want so badly?”
She has to know something. Anything about what the Venin have been decimating whole villages in search of.
Devera looks around the classroom, “Exactly. That’s the question. And that right there is why Riorson is a wingleader. You need more than strength and courage to be a good rider.”
I can see Dain’s shoulders stiffen a few rows below me.
Someone’s feeling insecure.
Professor Devera shrugs slightly, “We don’t know, just another piece in the puzzle of why our constant bids for peace are rejected by the kingdom of Poromiel.”
It takes a heroic effort not to roll my eyes. Bull. Shit.
“What were they looking for? Why that village? Were they responsible for the collapse of the ward, or was it already faltering? Tomorrow, next week, next month, there will be another attack, and maybe we’ll get another clue. Go to history if you’re looking for answers–”
I drown her out for the rest of the session.
#fanfiction#violet sorrengail#fourth wing#xaden riorson#xadenviolet#violet and xaden#tairn and sgaeyl#sgaeyl#andarna#fourth wing fanfic#shadow daddy
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First off to the birthday anon you own me financial compensation because one gonna be thinking about that forever
And kinda expanding on that maybe when buggy is a bit older its his birthday again and this time they didnt forget and they get a party set up that night. And then buggy doesnt show up. He is gone for hours and they are freaking out. Its well past midnight when buggy shows up scuffed and bruised but okay.
And they are demanding where is was at and why he didnt come to his own birthday party and to that buggy is just dismissively like “oh that was today”
And when the press further about where he was (cuase he wont tell anyone) he is just in general confused he is like “ sorry about the party but like you usually dont care when im usuallyout”
And before his mind can catch up Rayliegh ask “ what do you mean your usually out?”
And the look and buggys face is enough to tell them they once again fucked up and now everyone is trying to remember the last they saw buggy actually on the ship whenever their docked.
Buggy had assumed they knew when he was gone and just never asked either becuase they trusted him or just didnt care, they hadnt left him yet (there had been some close calls). He bother to hear the rest and just heads off to bed
Reggie, my friend! You can't demand financial compensation and then break MY heart in return! What did I do? I'm just the messenger here - well, a very unreliable messenger who adds their own thoughts and takes to other people's messages 🤔 ... but a messenger nonetheless!
All this being said, holy hell, I love this.
I have this Headcanon that, over the years, Buggy turned out to be a far bigger troublemaker than Shanks. At least on one hand, because he had less to lose than Shanks - after all Shanks was the golden boy, and we can't ignore that that must have put a lot of pressure on his shoulders as well - and on the other hand, because Buggy, as we know him, just gets himself into the most miserable situations. [Rayleigh definitely had to have the 'you can't follow strangers, just because they tell you they have treasure in the back of their carriage' conversation with Buggy MULTIPLE times]
Now I'm not just saying this to ramble, but because I think that maybe this is how the situation could have started.
When he was younger, Buggy would every now and again get in trouble for staying away from the ship for too long. I believe in the early days this was by no means on purpose, he was simply set on some goal or another that had him so focused he simply forgot to get back in time (that, or he got in trouble). Which in turn would get him stuck with more chores or maybe being stuck with guard duty for the next island etc.
But over the years, Buggy noticed that he would get in trouble less and less often. And he started to assume that Rayleigh simply realized that he could trust Buggy to stay out longer, since he was getting older and even if he wasn't as strong as Shanks, he could defend himself if necessary.
Only then to realize that the real reason was that nobody even NOTICED that he wasn't there... yeah, that must have hurt.
I don't know if you listen to musicals, but there is this song: "Superboy and the Invisible Girl" from the musical Next to Normal. And I have to say, this whole situation reminds me of that a lot.
Thank you very much for sharing these thoughts with me. Even if it hurts.
[Also, part of me feels like I need to write some happy Roger Pirate head canons, because as I said, I love them so much, and I know I am portraying them in a negative light a lot right now, but that's just one verse of them I could see!]
#thank you for the ask 💙#cipher answers#people are just breaking my heart left and right#no no it's fine go ahead break it#buggy the clown#one piece headcanon
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cw: space odyssey au. inspired by the game haven! a little hurt/comfort
a/n: probably will be part of a series if i ever get the time to write it lmaoooo
it's 2am and you can't sleep.
at least it would be midnight if you were still on regular soil, governed by your usual suns. you'd like to think you should continue to manage the flow of time with the numbers of your digital clock, but you'll land at your new forever home just hours from now, and who knows what waking and resting hours will be then.
the whirring of the ship is easier to hear at this time, although your friend insisted that this was a particularly fancy vessel the six of you manage to steal, nearly silent compared to similar vehicles of its size. it can accommodate many more than just six, perhaps a dozen people really, especially since you've paired off and share single rooms for the purposes of closeness (really lovemaking), however the extra rooms have been repurposed into many other things, including a small laboratory, a library, and a greenhouse, and a room just for tinkering on the engineers' in your party's request. you wonder if instead of sitting in the kitchen, looking forlorn in front of a bowl of reconstituted milk and dry cereal, you should instead check on the plants and the small temperature-controlled aquarium, that way you can keep your mind off things.
you don't think you regret your decision, but you are concerned for the future.
you pass the last room down the hallway, blocking out the muffled giggling coming from bakugou and his partner's room. they had not hesitated to formulate this plan to leave the second the Matching ceremony was over. if anything, they were the strongest believers in this plan. shoto and his love had been slightly more reluctant and particularly keen on asking about the details. after all, you're not sure this planet you are escaping to even exists. you are not sure what you'll find there, and you definitely are not sure you will live in bliss forever. but they have decided to let love guide them to a future where they are free to love whom- and however.
you want to be so sure, and you are sure that you love the man who is still asleep in your bed, but the what ifs continue to disturb your peace.
man cannot subsist on love alone, you've been taught since you were very young. That's why society has left the complicated matter of sex and love and procreation and family to the algorithms set by Credo. Credo is always right. Credo knows best.
so why hasn't Credo stopped you from falling in love? why were you assigned to someone you could not even dream of loving half as much as you do Izuku?
you can't eat love, you tell yourself. and yet, as you gently trace the leaves of the small potted pepper plants that greet you first in the hot humid greenhouse, you remember the way he looked at you with joy when you came to the dock in the middle of the night just weeks ago, panting and overburdened by overpacked bags, professing your will to reject your way of life, and you are full to bursting.
perhaps if your ship crashes you won't have to ever regret your decision, you think, pleased by your own dark joke. the smile quickly turns into a laugh, and then you are crying.
you've left your family behind, even if you will be surrounded by your friends and the love of your life.
you are a fool and so is everyone on this ship hurtling towards an uncharted planet.
even though you cannot subsist on love alone, love wakes to find you, sees you in tears on your knees in the dark of the night and crouches down behind you and holds you close.
love whispers into your ear that you'll be fine and wipes away your tears.
love thanks you for having the strength to follow your heart and promises to keep you safe to the best of their ability.
you turn and accept the consolation in his kisses but say nothing and he understands. you need proof that you'll make a safe landing, and proof that you have made the right choice to leave everything behind.
love carries you back to bed and holds you close until whatever awaits you in the morning comes.
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
This might not grace the date, but I'm writing this half an hour before midnight but to celebrate I got a little treat for you guys, hope you enjoy!
edit: aight i missed the deadline but HAPPY LATE HALLOWEEN
Consider this a make-up for not being able to update Heartstrings, I promise the next chapter will be worth it, but I'm just a tad busy at the moment to properly render it public <3
(we putting those onesies to good use here lmao)
EDIT2: this may have been a future scene in Heartstrings however this was mainly just for halloween, its just a side story but can be taken as whatevr you like
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SYNTAX X READER
Lego Monkie Kid
Context: It's Halloween baby, and you're lucky Syntax decided to play nice and let you dress him up. You're probably the only person he'd ever allow to expose him in that way, so you'd better not fuck this up. Unfortunately, you decide to be a brat.
CW: Language, light suggestive themes
‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹
It's getting late.
You wait by the car with bated breath, eyes scanning for your partner and wishing he'd just materialize there. Unfortunately, Syntax is taking his precious time with the costume you'd picked out.
He's doing this on purpose.
You saw his smug smile before he vanished into the bathroom, caught the way his eyes flicked shamelessly over your figure.
Yes, he doesn't approve of your costume choice, but he certainly sees no problem in having you wear it. The green triceratops onesie is large and baggy, hardly complimenting your body but proving itself worthy in other areas - such as with pockets and a large, cute hood.
Ah, there he is.
Your eyes snap up as the spider demon strides outside, having been staring at the ground, lost in your thoughts.
With a careless eye roll, you wave him over. "Took you long enough."
"Apologies, but I had a difficult time getting past the ridiculousness of your fashion choice, darling," Syntax hums, giving himself a cool once-over before looking up at you. "What is it?"
You cock a brow, all mirth and no pity. "No need to apologize, Dino Boy. It's cute that you feel the need to, though."
"Are we on a tight schedule?" He deadpans.
Well, yes and no.
You are free to trick-or-treat anytime, but people normally close shop after 10 p.m..
Your glare shifts sideways, a fateful indicator of the half-truth in Syntax's statement. His smile merely grows fondly as he watches you start the engine and kick the car into gear. He loves getting on your nerves and reminding you exactly how much he adores the way you try and fail to comeback him. However, there's that infuriating bratty side to you that, although is no match for his wit, never fails to irritate him. It renders his thoughts utterly hazy, and perhaps that's the beauty of it.
You don't need smart comebacks. Your attitude gets you anything you want, and he knows you know it.
"Won't you drive?" Syntax says, gesturing to the open road.
You're staring at him, making goosebumps rise on his arms. But you see no problem in admiring how he looks, smiling wryly. "Sure. No harm in etching you permanently in my memory, though."
He grits his teeth. "Darling, we'll be late."
"You think we have to be on time for Halloween? Ha, maybe the costume does suit you. Dinosaurs have pea-brains, too."
"(Y/N)-"
"Aaaand we're off!" You say, tapping tunelessly on the steering wheel as you edge the gas pedal so suddenly it urges Syntax to grip the arm rest tightly. He sucks in a heated breath, sharp eyes going to glare at the smug smile painting your pretty little face.
Oh, he'll get you for this.
For forcing him into a humiliating outfit for an equally pointless event. For being a brat and making him look like a fool.
However, he's content to bite his tongue and sit back. He'll watch you drive silently, not just to admire your figure or to keep from distracting you, but to allow a plan to evolve. Revenge tastes sweetest on unsuspecting victims, after all.
You, on the other hand, are blissfully unaware of your partner's conniving.
Honestly, you're happy Syntax is doing this with you.
The two of you are heading to the most festive neighborhood in the city. They tend to leave the streets decoration-free until a few days before Halloween, though, to get the biggest reaction out of onlookers and trick-or-treaters. And boy, do they play their cards right. You've seen old posts on social media regarding Halloweens of the past, and a large portion is centered around the neighborhood you're driving to.
Syntax has no clue.
He, assuming he hasn't spoiled it for himself by scouring the internet, will be utterly blown away by the sheer creativity and raw horror of every house's decorations. He doesn't know about the screaming ghouls, the dolls that jump out at you, and the fog that gives scarers the perfect weapon; surprise. Sure, there are a few houses that host little to no decorations, but the ones that do are a marvel.
You spare a glance at your partner. He notices instantly.
"Looking sharp, dino dude."
Green eyes slide down his frame, weeding out the parts he doesn't like. "I look hideous. Onlookers will wonder if I've gone crazy. Are we there yet?"
"Heh, you must be really stressed," you tease, wearing a shit-eating grin. "This is the only day of the year where wearing crazy outfits is normal. Don't you know that? No one will think you're crazy unless you act like . . ." You give him a once over, unimpressed; "yourself."
Oh, he does not like your tone of voice. Amusement, directed at him? You might as well be burning his pride at the stake.
"I'm not stressed, I-"
"Also, yes, it's just around the corner," you interrupt, eyes glittering.
Syntax's breath hitches. He rewards you with a filthy glare, tempted to advance his unspoken warning by bringing out the spider enhancements. Unfortunately, the costume prevents that course of action, curse you and your rotten intuition. He sighs darkly. "That's the second time you found it convenient to interrupt me."
"Oh, is it really?" You feign shock, eyes big and apologetic. It royally pisses him off. "I'm really sorry." Your smile returns, and you drop the act while murmuring; "Wasn't much to interrupt, anyways."
"Hm? Care to repeat that?" Syntax says, forcing calm. You will not best him, not tonight.
Not even in that adorable onesie. Green. His.
You simply shrug, voice calm and innocent. Brat. "Nothing."
He contents himself with the citizens beyond the tinted car window. Eyes half-lidded, he observes their outfits, the silly costumes they'd chosen for this useless holiday. He could be doing something much more productive right now, like being nestled in the comfort of his workspace back home. You'd make him a cup of tea of coffee, settle in the padded chair he'd permanently borrowed from the furniture store. You'd fall asleep to the mechanical sounds of him tinkering, and after the long hours are up, Syntax would wrap you in a blanket and carry you to bed.
You were always quiet, exhaustion rendering you obedient. Syntax smiles to himself, hand going to grip his chin to conceal his amusement. Yes, you behaved when you were tired.
Perhaps he'll get the same result by running you ragged on this little event.
Approaching the outer edge of the neighborhood, you park the car and shut it off. With one last outfit inspection, you and Syntax hop out and meet at the front of the car.
For once, Syntax isn't looking at you.
He's momentarily distracted with the sights before him. You find yourself entranced at his obvious wonder, admiring the way his eyebrows jump up, lips parting slightly. "So? Was it as dull as you expected, or . . ?"
"Not dull, no. I wasn't expecting this."
"And you said Halloween is a silly holiday for childish shenanigans."
He catches the mockery in your tone as you step in front of him, expression challenging as you rest your weight on the balls of your heels. A mere eyebrow lift is your only reward. "I rest my case."
Syntax doesn't mind your heated glance, returns it even as you both begin walking the sidewalk.
Your hands are stuffed into your pockets (you'd also stuck your tongue out at him). "Don't you worry. I'll have you writhing in the grip of regret by the end of this."
"No need to talk about yourself so highly, darling," he quips.
Ah. Syntax feels before he sees you move. On your tip toes, you urge him to halt with a simple prod of your pointer finger against his sternum, hidden under a low-hanging tree. Bringing your mouth to his ear, you allow your tone to drop. "I know you don't hate the costume, Syntax."
The spider demon stiffens before he can stop himself, and he wishes he'd pulled the hood up to spear (Y/N) from this opportunity. "My outfit is awful. Of course I'd hate it," he grits out, focusing on a certain crack in the ground.
You hum musingly. "Wasn't talking about your costume."
Syntax's eyes flick wide in realization, at how you've clearly one-upped him. Seamlessly.
Before he can reply, you kiss his ear and exit his personal space bubble, your presence a mere ghost against his body. Of course, Syntax flushes deeply, fighting to suppress his pride. You're getting to be quicker on your feet. Now, you're all bright eyes and grabbing his hang, pulling him closer to his fate.
It takes a great deal of effort for Syntax to unclench his jaw.
He takes a deep whiff of cool air, blows it out steadily, and tries not to think about how small your hand is, clasped in his own.
Your first stop is a lovely house swathed in spider webs and tombstones. Feet stick up from the lawn, webbed corpses hang like cold symbols of doom along the house walls. But at the end is a shiny orange bowl in the lap of a stuffed scarecrow.
You fight a mischievous smile, nudging Syntax forward.
"Go on. Grab some candy."
The spider demon spares a glance over his shoulder, eyeing the families wandering the sidewalk. "Shouldn't we leave the cavities for the little ones?"
Harsh much?
You give him a harder shove, and he stumbles towards the lonely scarecrow sitting in the chair. "Nah, you'd much rather satisfy your sweet tooth."
Syntax frowns deeply, glad his expression is concealed from you, as you are indeed correct.
Grudgingly, he selects two candies and retreats.
"Happy?"
The grin you've been fighting this whole time promptly emerges, setting your face and cheeks aglow. "Oh, totally. I never knew snickers were your thing. Maybe you should eat one before we continue; you're not you when you're hungry."
Your little jibe makes Syntax want to smart-mouth you to death, want to spring his spider limbs into action and suspend you over the town.
But that would only be another win for you.
Adorable little brat.
Nose upturned, Syntax walks straight past you - but not before grabbing the back of your hood and yanking it roughly over your head. It renders you helpless and blind, and your hands shoot up to fend him off as you yelp impudently. The spider demon chuckles in obvious amusement, his gait now a pleasant stroll now that he's had his fun.
"Come now, (Y/N), I thought you were excited for this," he hums, watching you struggle to lift the hood. "Or do you give up?"
Your bright eyes spear him indignantly. "Fuck you."
"I'll take that as a no."
The next house presents the both of you with a whole different theme, this one stuffy with fog. You both curiously eye the garage doors, painted red with bloody handprints. An equally crimson trail leads to the bowl of candy positioned by the front door, almost hidden from view. Ominous figures guard the treasure, identities concealed with dark rags and cloaks. You're unable to deter whether or not they're real people, or just figures bought from the store.
Nonetheless, you're eager to let Syntax go first again.
"There you go, dino dude. There might not be much left, and I can always get some at another station," you say, feigning politeness. Your warm smile seals the deal.
Oh, oblivious, pretty little Syntax, unaware that his next course of actions will set his pride aflame.
The spider demon flashes you a cocky look, eyebrows raised at your display of kindness. To allow him first dibs, to forfeit what precious few cards you hold in this game you two are playing? He'll never let you live this down.
"You're too kind," he purrs in wicked amusement, striding confidently forward. The hooded figures remain motionless. "Don't worry, you won't regret-"
A shrill scream fills the air.
Syntax jumps back, eyes wide and arms raising to block the attackers. "Ohfuck-"
In the process of doing so, he drops the pillowcase - practically empty, but for future candy storing. One of the figures is responsible for Syntax's sudden movements, having rushed him at the last second, at the precise moment he let down his guard to fish out his choice candies. They were the ones who shrieked, and it even sent chills down your spine.
But a laugh bubbles in your throat, then a cackle, then you snort with amusement. "HA! Nice one, guys!"
Syntax straightens, wide eyes darting from you to the three figures who are suddenly moving, high-fiving each other and laughing among themselves. Breath somewhat uneven, he collects your pillowcase and tries to regain his composure.
Fuck.
That scared him. Or, well, surprised him. Damnit, he should've sensed something was off the moment you'd dropped the sass to let him go first.
He glares when you rush past him to get a high-five for yourself (not before giving him a shit-eating grin). Then, you grab some candy and part those devious lips of yours. "That was fire, guys. He totally deserved that, been acting like an asshole this entire time. He didn't even want to go out! Just wanted to stay home and tinker away . . . so thank you."
One of them laughs. "Damn, you put up with that?"
"I have to. He'd die without me," you say, slowly peeking over your shoulder to give Syntax the haughtiest, most self-satisfied smirk you've ever pulled off. It's almost impressive how badly you want to get under his skin.
After a few short rounds of useless small talk, you finally wish the hooded figures good luck and proceed down the driveway, chuckling to yourself. The spider demon spares no effort to give the scarers the filthiest look he can muster, but he's not sure they even noticed. He's already been reduced to a helpless hobo due to your incorrect recount of events. So a swift turn of the heel and he's catching up to you, heart still off-beat.
You are so. Fucking. Irritating.
At the next house, he casually grabs your arm. "Why don't you go first this time."
You don't miss a beat. "What, you scared, dino baby?"
"No. But I think you deserve a little fright this time around, don't you?" He fires back, cocking a challenging brow.
An amused hum. "We'll see."
Syntax watches you approach the trick-or-treat stand; a quaint blow-up attraction with skeletons and pumpkins lining the walkway. Arms crossing over his chest, he drums his fingers impatiently, eyes spearing the back of your neck. God, he wants you close to minimize the risk of getting lost, but the way your acting has him wanting to be as far from you as possible.
But he's supposed to be investing all his efforts into exhausting you tonight. To render you helpless and kind once again. His sweet, little angel.
Eyes widening, he watches as you retrieve some sweets.
No jumpscare.
No loud, voracious noises.
You return to his side (right where you belong), clean and free from panic or fear. Syntax merely stares down at you in surprise.
His obvious frustration and indignation has you smirking devilishly. With a light snicker, you grab his collar and tug him down to eye level, winking. "Nice try, dino baby. But the universe loves me."
With that, you reach behind him, snatch his hood, and tug it up and over his face.
Payback is a bitch.
Syntax stiffens at your movements, but his face is hidden by the triceratops hood. His face is hot as you raise a hand to cup his cheek. Your smile softens fondly, as you trace his jawline and duck to peek under the edge of the hood. "You okay under there? Thinking about giving up? 'Cause if the universe is on my side tonight, you're totally screwed. In the ass. Royally."
The spider demon contemplates your words, eyes on the floor. He doesn't pull away from your touch. "Perhaps . . . you may be right."
"See? Wasn't that hard now, was it-"
He suddenly lifts his head, green eyes flashing under the hood.
You stay quite still as he straightens slightly - just to have a fair amount of height over you - and looms over your smaller, fluffier figure.
"That may be so," he says, pausing to let the shameless wrath of his words sink in. "But the universe won't be able to protect you from the consequences of your actions. Tonight, in your bedroom. Royally," he finishes darkly.
Swallowing air, you offer a cheeky smile.
God, it's so fucking hard to combat him when he's like this. It has you sheepishly rubbing your arm.
"Maybe that's not a bad thing," you try, wanting to kiss him to stop his heated taunts. That should shut him up, as it's worked before whenever Syntax has the high ground.
However, a kiss is not what saves you, it's the citizens.
Syntax seems to realize them approaching and finally tears his eyes from your face to look around. Tonight shall be your night. He will discard any notion to combat your behavior and instead indulge in your silly antics. To secretly coax you into feeling safe and secure (it's more fun to surprise you than have you suspiciously awaiting his actions). Funny, how fast his itinerary shifts focus. But his own words have lit a spark, put a spotlight on an idea that will certainly have you back to your kind, caring self by the end of tonight.
So with a new plan etched in his mind, he bears down on you a warm smile that fills you with confusion.
"I believe we have houses to visit, my love."
You stare. "Huh? But what-"
All right, he'll bite. He's not even trying and you've suddenly lost the sass he's been brooding about all evening. "Worry not. You look darling in that costume and I would like for everyone to see that."
Syntax doesn't finish that sentence. He doesn't need to. You're his.
Perhaps having twin costumes shall reaffirm that. Curse you and your unintentionally brilliant ideas.
You offer a small smile. "Well, I'm glad you've come to your senses, spider dude."
He's the one to take your hand. "As am I."
#lmk#lego monkie kid#lmk syntax#syntax x reader#fluff#tw suggestive#romance#no angst here we only do fluff#they're in love#tall vs short#halloween special#oneshot#lmk oneshot#guys it's 2am this was fueled by music#TOTALLY kid friendly music#y/n is a brat#syntax is losing his patience
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Some targeted follow-up on 383, courtesy of a disgruntled Mina Stan
(Or, Why the chapter post for 384 is late.)
Ooo-kay, @randomvongenerico, I’ll dance this time because you’re just barely on the right side of “politely asking questions” for someone who, judging by their own page, is probably pretty new here. But please know that I came very close to hitting the block button the moment I saw, “Why do you even care about heroes? Aren’t you a villain stan?” at the very top of a notification chain of twenty-seven comments on my chapter post. The next time you have as much to say about someone’s post, I strongly urge you to just reblog it and add your thoughts rather than indignantly spamming the comment section and then sending a bunch of the same stuff word-for-word via ask when you don’t get a reply in less than 48 hours. Some of us do have lives and commitments outside of Tumblr.
That said, as with last time I got a detailed reply that seemed to genuinely want to hear my reasoning but also edged over into belligerent/condescending territory, I’ll have to ask you to forgive me for being somewhat blunt at times. Digs like, “Or are we going to say Mina is being rude and impolite for having trauma now?” have not earned you the most patient reply I’ve ever put down in writing.
I’ll take your questions and points roughly in order you sent them, though I may omit points I have nothing much to say about, or rearrange them. Anyone who wants to see rvg’s full set of replies in the original order and context is invited to check the comments here, at least until such time as I deem it less of a headache to hit that block button after all.
For everyone else, for the purposes of gauging your interest, this post contains discussion of the following topics:
Mina as she's affected by BNHA's tendency to shortchange the interiority and development of its women. I hit this one from a few different angles.
How the series treats physical damage and how that impacts what I call out as problematic or don't (e.g. why Shinsou's brainwashing got compared to a war crime but Mina's acid did not).
The Sludge Villain, why he shouldn't have been involved in the second war at all, and how his return fails to address the flaws in Hero Society he was originally used to establish.
The circumstances of Midnight's death and the impact of the narrative's ongoing refusal to allow people panel time to grieve for her.
Saving villains, who that maxim applies to, what it means for the heroes' responsibilities, and what it means when they fail to live up to said responsibilities. Specifically addresses Hose Face and Gigantomachia.
Replying to wild presumptions re: which characters I should or should not care about, as well what situations I ought or ought not overthink.
A fair number of intersections between the above topics and other less substantial diversions, including a retraction on my part for a mistake I made in the chapter post that rvg brought to my attention.
Hit the jump.
I think the “pure psychological scarring” thing is just referencing Mina’s trauma from her first encounter with Machia. It’s just there to remind the readers about Mina’s trauma, since it’s been a while since the last time it was brought up. Shonen does this sort of exposition all the time. I wouldn’t think too deeply on it. Like, I mean, it’s technically not an incorrect statement. Mina was mentally and emotionally scarred by Gigantomachia. Or are we going to say Mina is being rude and impolite for having trauma now?
It’s true that the specific line about Machia embodying psychological scarring overlays Mina in a way that’s doubtlessly intended to remind the reader of her trauma. However, if that’s the only function Horikoshi intended the line to serve, he’d have done much better to put it in a text box, delivered to the reader via omniscient narrator. Instead, Mount Lady is the one delivering it, and she is explicitly thinking about Machia in relation to “ordinary people,” flashing back to the scene of carnage left in Machia’s wake, as countless civilians scream and cry for help. She’s not even slightly thinking about Mina in that moment, for all that the same sentiment applies.
When I criticize Mount Lady’s mode of thinking, therefore, my point is not that people are wrong to have trauma,[1] but that it is wrong to dehumanize the source of that trauma. Machia has feelings and thoughts just like any other human—treating him like a symbol of pain rather than a human being, something to be stamped out like a disease or a curse, is the same sentiment as Gran Torino blaming All Might’s pain and the smearing of Nana’s memory on Shigaraki’s very existence. As with Shigaraki, there are reasons that Machia turned out the way he did, and talking like he’s some kind of free-roaming trauma elemental obfuscates the chain of failures and wrongdoings that produced him to begin with.
Incidentally, I wrote a twenty-thousand-word essay on the mass arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front, so I promise you are not going to get anywhere with advising me not to overthink this manga. If Horikoshi didn’t want his readers to take his societal issues seriously, he shouldn’t have presented them as the root cause of so many problems; if you didn’t want to read a detailed meta dive tackling the chapter’s philosophical shortcomings, you probably should have abandoned ship somewhere around the time I started waxing verbose about the ethics authors sign up to engage with when they make the decision to put their protagonists in skintight catsuits and call them Heroes.
On which note:
I have some questions about your logic about the morality of the methods and tactics here, if you don’t mind. So brainwashing and calling Machia mean things is crossing the line, but throwing acid at him is okay? You criticize Shinso using his Quirk on Gigantomachia, yet you don’t take any issue with Mina melting his claws(…). Why? I guess brainwashing is just too much of a villain Quirk, so it just can’t be used heroically?
Judging by one of your later comments, you did some archive-diving to find out if I’d ever talked about Mina before the Chapter 283 post. Judging by this question, that archive-diving did not include the Chapter 282 post. Please see it for a lengthy explanation about what specifically I object to in Shinsou’s use of his quirk on Machia, and a much briefer aside about what kinds of uses I’d have been completely fine with.
As to the difference between hurling acid at someone and brainwashing them to attack their own allies, while it’s certainly true that doing the former would be a horrific crime in real life,[2] that’s down as one of the places where I’m spotting the series its premise. To wit, physical attacks like Mina’s acid are only ever going to be as impactful as the plot needs them to be, and the plot has a history of being wildly erratic about that impact.[3]
You can call accuse me of having a double standard if you like—picking and choosing what I hold to realistic standards—but in essence, I view Mina melting Machia’s claws with acid as Shounen Battle Action Damage. There’s definitely a point at which it would stop being that—if she’d used it on his face instead of the tips of claws he could potentially just retract and grow in fresh—but if I were inclined to complain about every hero who uses a power that would cause ghastly mutilation if used against criminals in real life (acid, fire, concussive blasts, etc), we’d be here all week. Shinsou’s brainwashing doesn’t get that handwave because it’s fully and completely effective.
Btw, Kirishima hearing about Midoriya and the sludge Villain was already established. We have known this since we got Kirishima’s backstory in the Yakuza arc. So this didn’t come out of nowhere.
This is a 100% fair point. I very clearly remembered Kirishima shaking his funk because he saw the clip of the interview with Crimson Riot; I’d completely forgotten that the Sludge Villain attack was one of the things contributing to his funk. Having looked back over it, it still seems weird that Kirishima doesn’t show any sign of recognition in this chapter, but it’s certainly possible that that’s just a consequence of the breakneck storytelling. Regardless, consider that complaint retracted, and thanks for the refresher.
What do you mean we don’t get anything of Mina against Machia and overcoming her fears and previous failure? That’s literally what the chapter is all about. She doesn’t freeze under fear this time and instead jumps into action to save her friends and come in clutch to guarantee the win for her team. She’s the actual MVP here. The actual problem here is that the whole thing gets sped up and abbreviated. What should’ve been 3 or 4 chapters of this battlefield, gets presented and resolved in one chapter.
One of my longstanding issues with BNHA is the difference between the levels of interiority that are permitted to the male characters as opposed to the female ones—how much they’re allowed to dictate their own internal narratives via having their thoughts shown on-panel, and how much room the story affords that exploration. Following are some examples:
Mirko has no thoughts we’re permitted to access about her traumatic double limb loss. While Endeavor’s story of wrestling with his sins and trying to better himself as a person is a prominent, recurring storyline, carried out in the foreground to such an extent that some people complain it’s actually sublimating Shouto’s arc, Mount Lady grows from a money-hungry fame-chaser to a responsible and determined hero completely off-screen.[4] Tamaki and Mirio get dedicated multi-chapter solo battles peppered with emotive childhood flashbacks; Nejire gets a beauty pageant that takes up a grand total of four pages, exactly one (1) of which is dedicated to Nejire’s actual participation.
And so on and so forth. The only two gals we’re really allowed to get into the heads of in a consistent, sustained way are Toga and Uraraka, with perhaps Jirou or Momo as distant runners-up, though Jirou's interiority is mostly concentrated in the Cultural Festival arc and Momo's is virtually all rooted in her bouts with paralytic self-doubt. That's pretty pitiful compared to the number of dudes who get sustained attention paid to their internal landscape.
That issue is largely what I’m getting at when I kvetch about not being shown Mina overcoming her fears. When Kirishima first gets overwhelmed by Rappa, the reason he gets back up is given a backstory flashback that takes up almost two full chapters.[5] Those chapters are the one and only reason we have any context at all for Mina’s PTSD flashback against Machia in MVA. She’s not allowed to “tell” that trauma to the audience herself; we know about it because we got it filtered through Kirishima.
Likewise, when she comes through against Machia in 383, she just—does it. There’re no extended scenes of her wrestling with her fear, drawing on her experience to overcome it; we don’t get a flashback to her training with Bakugou or Shouto.[6] She just tells us about it in a single sentence, then gets a third of a page dedicated to a collage of old scenes. And then, again, she pulls through in a moment of crisis in such a way that her moment of awesome is in service of giving a dude an opening to solve the problem instead of doing it herself.
The coming-through-so-a-dude-can-pull-off-the-finisher pattern is a significant problem with the general power balance in the class: the girls do support while all the heavy-hitters are boys. And doing support is fine! There are a healthy share of boys doing support, too! Kirishima’s own big moment in the Hassaikai arc is playing support so Fat Gum can get in the finishing blow, for example. The problem is not girls having support roles at all; the problem is that while there are boy support students, there are no heavy-hitter, A-list offense-oriented girl students (at least not in Class A). And actually, Mina has always been both interesting and frustrating for me in that regard because she feels like she should be a heavy hitter, but up until this exact chapter, she’s never really treated like one.
It’s never been clear to me why fire and explosions are so much more A-list material than acid, save that Mina doesn’t have Shouto or Bakugou’s intense determination to pull her up to their level from the beginning. Acid is also the kind of thing that could so, so easily have been called a villain quirk, especially in combination with Mina’s mild heteromorphic appearance. She doesn’t ever seem to attract that accusation, however, possibly because she’s so chipper—indeed, in a narrative that had more time for her, I wonder if we’d find that her chipperness is, at least in part, a defense mechanism she maintains for exactly that reason. As it is, though, her personality keeps her as a fun presence in class without ever letting her seize a larger piece of the narrative for herself. But I’ll always wonder what she would have looked like if she were hiding negativity for the same reasons Shouji hides his scars, or if she’d had Bakugou’s burning desire to be #1.
Instead, her most significant backstory moment gets relegated to a flashback intended to advance a male character, while her big moment in the story is freeing Shinsou and saving Mount Lady more or less on the backswing. Admirable in its own right, certainly, but part of a larger pattern when it comes to the roles the Class 1-A girls play on the battlefield.
(I know Machia literally has a Quirk that makes him feel no pain, so that attack did nothing to him. Which in retrospect, makes the poor handling of Mina’s spoltight worse, because it sorta makes it seem like the biggest feat and most powerful move she has ever performed in the series was inconsequential. Yes, I know she literally saves Mt. Lady by using it, but still).
+
The Sludge Villain being faced by a character that has had an encounter with him before like Midoriya or Bakugo would be too obvious and on the nose. Horikoshi can be pretty basic at times, but he’s not that basic.
+
Mina saving Shinso from the Sludge Villain isn’t the important part, the important part is her saving Kirishima from the Sludge Villain.
I’m unclear on why that would be more basic than e.g. Muscular showing back up for no reason save to get clowned on by Deku, or the incredibly twee return of the woman All Might saved at Kamino, but to each their own basic bar, I suppose. On the matter of Mina’s biggest and most powerful move being arguably inconsequential, I agree completely. As I said before, it’s entirely possible that Machia could just regrow the claws—he clearly doesn’t have them in his “base” form, so it’s entirely down to an arbitrary call on Horikoshi’s part whether the damage to them would stick if he retracted them entirely and then regrew them. We haven’t gotten a good look at his right hand yet to see one way or the other, so the jury’s still out.
As to the Sludge Villain and who gets to face him, two things:
1) He didn’t have to come back at all. I can’t help but feel like the only real reason he does is that Horikoshi’s enjoying throwing in callbacks to bit characters from early chapters, rather than because there was any real groundwork laid for their return: the Sludge Villain, the baby in the cloud-pattern onesie, the star-head guy Deku talked to in the first chapter, Jin’s boss from his MVA flashback, etc. At least the returnees from USJ have a modicum of prior association with the League of Villains and thus, indirectly, AFO. The Sludge Villain doesn’t have that, and, honestly? Given his characterization in 383, I’m confused about why he joined up with AFO’s group at all.
It was a specific point of note that when AFO freed the prisoners from Tartarus, the only task he gave them was to rampage, to go wild. When Muscular shows up to bust open the prison Gentle’s in, he tells them they’re free, to do with their lives as they will. We even know from Kashi Kashiko (the guy in 334 who ShigAFO tries to unload New Order onto) that more than one person was freed and immediately headed to the boonies. Given that all the Sludge Villain wants is to sneak away from this fight without getting hurt, why wasn’t he one of those?
It’s always possible AFO called in favors for the jailbreaks, of course—the Warp quirk makes him an enormous danger to anyone he wants to have in his presence when he decides to call in a chip—but there’s been no indication of it if that is the case, I assume because the story doesn’t care about its shallower convict characters.
2) Another reason you might consider critiquing this as a meaningful victory for Mina is that her defeat of the Sludge Villain has literally nothing to do with who she is as a character and the work she’s done. She defeats the Sludge Villain because she just so happens to have a liquid-based quirk that can effectively be used to harm him. She only used the souped-up damage quotient to get through Machia; presumably, a much less corrosive version would have been perfectly sufficient against the liquid-based Sludge Villain.
And that’s particularly annoying because one of the key points the Sludge Villain was originally used to establish was the way that heroes just stood around not even trying to fight him because they didn’t have the right quirks, and why that was a failing of the current system. So when he returns—at the climax of the series! Almost four hundred chapters later!—it would seem the perfect time to explore how the heroes have improved. We should watch them determine that they have to fight him even though they don’t have the ideal quirks for it. We should see them use ingenuity and their surroundings to come up with a work-around, assuming we don’t see them apply the Save Villains maxim to convince him to back off.
But we don’t get any of that. Instead, Team Hero just so happens to have Mina on hand, who just so happens to have the right quirk. It’s a damn waste, is what it is. Not only does the Sludge Villain have no personal relevance to Mina whatsoever, only twice-displaced relevance via Kirishima, she doesn’t even get to defeat him via determination or wits, skill or training—she could have sneezed on him and won. I can’t imagine finding that rewarding for a character you really like.
Finally, I disagree that the important part of this scene is Mina saving Kirishima from the Sludge Villain rather than her defeat of the Sludge Villain in and of itself. She doesn’t save Kirishima from the Sludge Villain; Kirishima is in no danger from the Sludge Villain. He’s Class A’s premier defensive tank character! The only way Sludgey could pose the slightest threat to him is by trying to hijack his body, but Sludgey already has a body he seems perfectly satisfied with and is trying to use to escape. The worst he can do is smack Kirishima around a bit, which, again, is going to be wildly ineffective. He could possibly also attempt using Shinsou’s quirk, but Kirishima is entirely aware of Brainwashing’s operating conditions—note that he doesn’t say a single word to Shinsou the moment he becomes aware Shinsou’s compromised.
Mina saves Shinsou from the Sludge Villain, not Kirishima.
On regards on her developing her new technique due to training with Bakugo and Todoroki, I don’t see the problem. All of the students learn from other adults and eachother, as well as inspire one another. The only problem I have with the Bakugo and Todoroki thing is that we never got to see those interactions. There’s so much stuff we should’ve gotten to see from class 1-A during the aftermath of the first war and we never got.
You are welcome to not see it as a problem. I would probably see it as much less of one if the story cared enough about Mina to actually show us any scenes of her fretting about her strength, wanting to improve herself, and psyching herself up to whatever degree she might have needed to in order to approach Bakugou about private training.
Hell, it wouldn’t even need to be a full scene—BNHA gets plenty of mileage out of 1–4 panels of characters interacting in ways that aren’t immediately explained and then dropping the explanation thirty chapters later. Shinsou’s training with Aizawa was like that, for example. Why not make the time for Mina? Other than, as you bring up, the unseemly abbreviation of the aftermath of the first war. The story at that stage has zero time for any of the students other than Deku—Mina’s hardly the only character whose arc suffers because we don’t get to see her reactions to such a sea change in the society she’s lived in all her life, or the trauma of what she experienced the day of the raid. I’m not going to refrain from critiquing the writing just because it’s not any given character’s fault that their arc is missing huge chunks that are being papered over with flashbacks and retroactive explanations for the scenes we didn’t get.
To be fair about the Midnight thing, no one really had any actual established connection to her. With Momo, Midnight just was her hype woman like two times, and then she entrusted her with the plan to sedate Machia. With Mineta it’s kinda hard to take it seriously because their one meaningful interaction is full of the usual pervy jokes that are synonym to Mineta. I guess Horikoshi tied Mina to the plotline of Midnight’s murder because Mina is a more emotional character, so there’s more he can do with that (and then he barely did anything, but what little he did, did show some great shots from her).
All of the things you cite are things that give both Momo and Mineta more established connections to Midnight, which is exactly why I brought them up as people who should have been involved in the confrontation with her killer. I also brought up that those connections are themselves fairly thin and that Midnight doesn’t really have any strong connections with any of the students. This is in large part why I continue to believe that Midnight being the most emotionally significant hero death during the war[7] is pure cowardice on Horikoshi’s part. Mina getting the final say on that death is just the latest way the story is writing off dealing with it.
Midnight gets no funeral. Aizawa, one of her closest friends, immediately shuts down Mic when he tries to bring her up in the hospital, and neither of them ever bring her up again—for heaven’s sake, Mic doesn’t even think about her in Chapter 372 when bringing up what Aizawa has lost! And when someone finally does want to actually talk openly about Midnight’s death, who is it? Not Momo, who Midnight trusted and praised, or Mineta, an openly admitted fan of Midnight, one perv to another. It’s—Mina, who liked her classes, who is emotional about the death because she’s a good person who’d be emotional about the death of anyone in her social circle, not because Midnight was in any way special to her. For heaven’s sake, she registers her first opinion ever on Midnight the chapter after the deathblow is struck.
And then, to top it all off, there’s that tossed-off, perfunctory line about vengeance, which no one Mina is facing that chapter even brought up, and which she herself immediately shuts down. So not only do I not feel any impact from Mina rejecting revenge because she’s never been shown struggling with a desire for it, but it just feels like another case of Midnight being brought up only to get immediately dropped again. To wit:
Aizawa, who won’t or can’t think about her, chooses instead to focus on his students. Mic brings her up the once and then drops the subject at Aizawa’s request, apparently never to think about her again, despite being given an excellent opening to do so in his confrontation with Kurogiri. And Mina makes three, bringing up how much she liked Midnight Midnight’s classes only in the context of how stewing on the desire for revenge is bad.
And so the narrative just moves on. And it sucks, and Midnight deserved better, even if only in her memory.
…Also, just for the record, Mineta is an incredibly emotional character. He cries as much Deku does! He openly, habitually worries about classmates when he knows they’re in danger somewhere he can’t reach; he worries about Midnight during the war. Yes, he’s a primarily a joke character (and the jokes are outmoded and sexist), but so what if his scene with Midnight is full of the pervy jokes that define him as a character? Midnight is also a perv! She was contributing a perfectly adequate amount of pervy jokes to that scene all on her own! Indeed, that was part of the humor of it—Mineta the lech running afoul of Midnight’s theatrical sadism and being incredibly in love with it even as he runs around screaming about how he’s ever supposed to beat her.
Mineta has been a much-improved character from the war onward so I, for one, would not have any problems at all with taking him seriously if he were allowed to seriously mourn.
In regards to the Mina and vengeance part. Remember again that Mina is a very emotional character. Also remember that when she heard about Shoji’s backstory, she angrily stated that the kind of people who hurt Shoji “should be removed from existence” (I think you said Mina was 100% right in saying that, if I’m not mistaken). So while yes, Mina is a very cheerful, kind and friendly girl, we know the war and her inability to help deeply affected her. The problem is that we never got to explore that or see her go through it. Her inner struggle got resolved off screen in the background before her shinning moment.
You know, I thought about bringing up the Shouji bit in the post. I didn’t end up doing it because that moment doesn’t break the pattern I otherwise described: “Mina doesn’t hold onto anger; she doesn’t brood; she’s extremely well-adjusted in that she cries when she needs to, to get it out of her system, and then she bounces back.”
That all still applies! Indeed, as I said in the post you reference, her comment in Koda’s flashback is clearly presented as hyperbole. She says it in the heat of the moment and no one even blinks because they understand that she’s not seriously suggesting that e.g. all bigots should be murdered in their beds. No one takes her aside afterward to have a gentle talk with her about appropriate levels of bloodthirst or tentatively ask her if there’s anything she needs to get off her chest. After she says it, Shouji gently acknowledges that she might be right[8] and then moves the conversation along; within the next few exchanges, she’s joined the group encouraging Shouji about making new, happier memories for him going forward.
I’m sure the war and her inability to help did deeply affect her. Those things affected everyone. But we didn’t get to see it, so I’m simply not going to accept the story insisting on how noble she is for eschewing the vengeance she was never shown to be contemplating to begin with.[9] You’re welcome to fill in those blanks yourself; god knows I have characters myself in this series for whom I’m willing to make those reaches. But then, my blank-filled characters are mostly in prison right now rather than active in the plot and trying to do emotional heavy-lifting for which the author has woefully ill-equipped them.
Regarding Midnight’s killer. I just didn’t like that part in general. Idk about you, but I don’t like that Horikoshi wrote Mina trying to find common ground with the guy who went out of his way to mercilessly kill a severely injured woman when she was on the ground, too weak to defend herself, and posed no active threat to him. Like, couldn’t you have just let Mina kick his ass? Like, I know the story is setting up the kids reaching out a hand to “save” the villains. But seriously? If there’s one villain who should get his ass kicked, it’s that guy.
This is another clue that you definitely haven’t poked around my backlog in any depth. No. Just no. Trying to save the villains means trying to save all the villains. No exceptions. Anything less means the heroes are just picking and choosing based on personal bias. That means this guy and the rest of the PLF. It means the Tartarus escapees. It even means All For One himself, if anyone can manage it. The heroes are not arbiters of justice. It is not their job to play favorites based on who they’ve seen crying and who they haven’t; it is their job—or so Deku and the general direction of the narrative would have us believe—to save people in crisis.
Should it be their jobs to do all the emotional labor and hand-holding that’s required to talk down someone whose crisis has led them to endanger others? Maybe, maybe not, but the story has been exceptionally clear that they’re the only ones in a position to do it; God knows their justice system isn’t. But given that the climax of the series is revolving around saving villains, if that isn’t the heroes’ responsibility, then whose responsibility is it, and why aren’t we reading the story about them?
I’m sure some people would point that, in-universe, saving people is only half of a hero's job description, and the other half is defeating villains. That’s true enough in the world as it now stands. However, Deku—in what’s clearly meant to be a big inspiring moment—tells the OFA tribunal in Chapter 305 that One For All is a power meant for saving, not killing, and that he learned this from All Might. In 326, in a scene that I have some issues with but that is also obviously meant to be taken sincerely, Stain alludes to the influence of All Might on the next generation, to the embers he left behind being nurtured by the ones who don’t give up.
Thus, if All Might is meant to be the ideal because of his tireless efforts at saving people, and Class 1-A—key members of whom are moving towards saving villains—are being modelled as the collective successors of All Might, it only makes sense to assume that, yes, the series wants us to accept that villains are people who also need to be saved. That means all of them, not just the ones who look easy. What kind of successors will the kids be, if they can’t go even farther than All Might did? If they just turn their backs on anyone who they don’t have the exact right quirk inspiring monologue to save, aren’t we basically just back where we started?
Incidentally, let’s talk about this characterization of Hose Face, which allegedly makes him a villain who doesn’t need to be saved, but just needs his ass kicked: he “went out of his way to mercilessly kill a severely injured woman when she was on the ground, too weak to defend herself, and posed no active threat(…).”
Twice was too weak to defend himself from Hawks when Hawks tried to put a feather sword through his forehead. He posed no active threat to Hawks when Hawks stabbed him in the back. Shigaraki floating in tube stasis posed no active threat to anyone, certainly not Mirko or Mic, both of whom did their level best to kill him by destroying the tube and all its systems that were keeping Shigaraki alive. The PLF had their guard completely down the day of the raids, which certainly didn’t stop Cementoss from ripping the building in half with no warning—how many people do you think might have been in rooms five or six stories up when the floor ripped out from under them and sent them plummeting 50+ feet towards the shattered concrete and broken wood below?
They’re villains, sure. They were going to hurt a lot of people, sure. But aren’t heroes supposed to be better than villains?
Further, I have to contest your assertion that Midnight even was “severely wounded” or “posed no active threat.” Yes, she’d taken a few hunks of concrete to the face and fallen through the canopy, which would severely injure any normally fragile human, but again, this is BNHA, where physical damage is only as severe as the plot demands.[10] Midnight went from splayed on the ground to starting to push herself back up in a single panel, had gotten to her hands and knees two panels later, and was just getting a foot on the ground, preparing to push herself back upright, when Hose Face hit her from behind two pages later.
I can remember being unsure how that fight would go back when the chapter dropped, because, just as the scene cut away, Midnight managed to whip her head around and shoot that fierce glare at the oncoming enemy. Midnight had an AOE attack that was extra effective against dudes, and all of the people coming at her that we could see were men. It was entirely plausible to me at the time that she would win, that she just stopped answering her comm line because she had to focus on the fight.
All in all, she had recently immobilized dozens of people on Hose Face’s side and was clearly still a threat. What would you expect him to do, detour the whole group the long way around just so no one would hurt her? Let Machia get even farther ahead of them by standing back and waiting for her to finish getting up so they could have an honorable fight? Come on; she was part of an army of heroes who'd just attacked their base. Of course he didn’t stand back and hand her the opening to knock them all out with sleeping gas. And no, he didn’t go out of his way to kill her—he and his group were following Machia and just happened to run across Midnight in the path Machia had taken.
Cripes, you make it sound like he spotted her unconscious on the ground eighty feet away in another clearing and decided to run over and cut her throat before rejoining the group. No. Remember, he’s a member of the MLA, the only group in the series that explicitly styles themselves as an army. His attack on Midnight should be read as a soldier fighting an enemy soldier—it’s quick, it’s brutal, it’s merciless. Because, as far as he’s concerned, he’s at war. Both letting a hero go because she was injured (but not so injured that she wasn’t trying to get up again) or wasting time going out of his way to murder someone who’s already dealt with (because he gets his jollies from murder) would have been acting counter to the mission.
I’m not going to tell you he was morally correct—he’s a villain, a cultist, an unabashed quirk supremacist, someone who would have been on the front lines of any terrorist attacks the PLF were planning by virtue of the regiment he was associated with—but just in terms of tactics, he didn’t do anything the heroes haven’t done or sought to do repeatedly over the course of both war arcs. If you feel it’s okay for them to cross those lines but not him because they’re heroes who want to help people while he’s a villain who wants to hurt people, then it’s his allegiance that’s the real problem, not his tactics.
(And, just to be clear, the reason I’m okay with him killing Midnight but not Hawks killing Twice is because of their respective allegiances. Hose Face is a villain. I don’t hold him to a hero’s moral code because he never claimed it to begin with, so he’s not being a massive hypocrite by not adhering to it.)
Any comment on the Mina and Kirishima interaction? What are your thoughts on the “you’ve always been my hero” line?
If I had a comment on it, you can generally assume it would have been in my chapter post. I don’t have much interest in the lens on Mina that, because it frames her as Kirishima’s hero, means we see her heroism almost entirely through his eyes. Again: he gets the two chapter flashback lovingly detailing his personal history, doubts, and motivations; she gets to be a figure inside his flashback rather than ever being able to frame her own. Ochaco may not ever get two chapters dedicated to her backstory, but at least what flashbacks she does get come to us filtered through her. Though, I will say that I find Ochaco’s romance plot largely tiresome, so I do hugely appreciate about Mina and Kirishima that they legitimately are just friends and I don’t have to watch Mina’s arc get devoured by blushing and fumbling crush behavior.
Since you asked, I can think of a scenario in which Kirishima telling Mina that she’s always been his hero would have worked much better, at least for me. It’d fit right into all the post-war material we didn’t get because the story was so laser-focused on Deku.
Start by showing the readers Mina approaching Shouto and Bakugou about training with them. Don’t have them ask why (because Bakugou wouldn’t care why and Shouto would just take the request at face value, especially if she explained that they both have techniques she thinks she could benefit from learning; Shouto would understand that), but have Kirishima notice or otherwise find out about it, and have him bring it up to her later on.
Then, because Kirishima and Mina are friends and should be able to have these conversations with each other, especially in the particularly vulnerable states they’d be in after the war, have Mina actually confide in Kirishima that she’s feeling shitty about freezing up when facing Machia.
Have him remind her of the time he did the same, and expand on what she already knows. I checked back over his Hassaikai arc flashback, and I notice that, while he apologized to the other two girls that were there for freezing up and being unable to help, and while he tells Mina later that he’s saying goodbye to his old pathetic self, he never actually tells her that he admired her courage (unless it’s in some other scene of theirs I’m forgetting about, which is entirely possible; feel free to give me a cite if so). The closest they get to openly acknowledging the way Mina inspired him is her observing that his new styled hair spikes resemble her horns. Have him say it out loud to her after the war, then, when she’s in an emotionally raw place and needs to hear it.
Thus, when he calls her his hero again after the Sludge Villain encounter (if we must indeed keep the Sludge Villain encounter), it becomes a reiteration and callback to that bonding moment, and implicitly him congratulating her on overcoming her fear—like he always knew she would, because she’s his hero.
Why do you care about Mina, btw? You’re a villain stan, correct? So why do you care about Mina’s moment to shine being handled poorly and not receiving the proper care and attention it deserved, if you don’t mind me asking?
Good lord, rvg, just because I’m a villain stan doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to care about bad writing affecting the heroes. If the heroes’ writing were better, it would improve everyone’s treatment, including the villains! If the students’ writing were better, I might actually care about the kids more than I do! If the girls’ writing were better, I would have infinitely less to complain about re: the disparity in how fleshed out they are compared to their male counterparts!
Anyway, I like plenty of heroes. I have observably positive feelings for about a third of Class 1-A[11] and only particularly negative feelings about Deku and Kaminari. I love Monoma and Tamaki. On the pro side, I adore Nighteye, am a thoroughly unapologetic Best Jeanist appreciator, and want to watch way more of Rock Lock mouthing off at more people higher ranked than him. I think Haimawari Koichi is everything Horikoshi desperately wants Deku to be and is failing to write him as being. There are plenty of others I at least think are good company when they’re around (Fat Gum and the Wild Wild Pussycats, for example), and some I would be happy to embrace if the series could stop being so incredibly indecisive about how it wants us to read them (Hawks and All Might are big offenders here).
I realize this is a hyper-divided fandom—we might as well start asking all those manufacturers who made the team affiliation T-shirts for the Twilight or MCU fandoms to make us some Team Hero and Team Villain shirts—but I promise you it’s possible to like characters from both sides of the divide. You don’t have to lock yourself into one position or another.
Frankly, I think most of these characters deserve a final arc better than the one they’re in. I’m just louder about it for the villains because they’re the ones who are going to be left to suffer or be forgotten if the actual ending isn’t up to snuff, whereas I fully expect the heroes to get a lavish epilogue chapter that crams cameos and last second answers into every nook and cranny of the panel layout.
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All that said, rvg, I'm not sure you'll see this at all, as I don't seem able to tag you, which I'm unsure if means you blocked me at some point after spamming my comments and also my ask box or just that tumblr is being tumblr. If you do, feel free to respond if you like, though I'd prefer a reblog and less vibrating indignation if you do. I hope I've made it clear that I really and truly have nothing against your pink blorbo. Indeed, so far as I can tell, we both think her scene was pretty poorly handled; you're just more willing to do the mental legwork on fleshing out her characterization than I am.
Which is fine, but maybe ratchet back on lashing out at people who don't make it a priority to read depth the author is not providing onto characters that aren't their blorbos. Cheers!
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FOOTNOTES
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[1] And way to be, like, super unnecessarily confrontational with those words you put in my mouth, by the way.
[2] And, yes, also a war crime—even more of one, actually. Forcing captured enemy soldiers to fight their own is only officially a war crime in international conflicts, but Japan is a signatory to an amendment to the Rome Statute that classifies the use of chemical agents in armed conflicts as a war crime in internal disputes as well as international ones. Give or take whether the clashes between heroes and villains meet the criteria of “protracted armed conflict between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups” anyway.
I’m inclined to say the use of licensed and regulated abilities like quirks makes the combatants “armed,” but as much research as I’m willing to give this footnote doesn’t immediately clarify how long hostilities need to drag out to count as “protracted.” Certainly the presence of the PLF makes the villain side an “organized armed group,” though.
[3] Dabi’s blue fire is my go-to example: it reduces back-alley thugs to twisted blackened husks but barely even singes Hawks’s forearms; it melts carbon fiber cables but leaves his outfit completely unscathed. Given that Horikoshi can’t even keep Dabi’s damage output consistent with itself across all of his appearances, I damn sure don’t expect consistent damage output between characters.
[4] Sure, Endeavor’s connected to one of the lead students while Mount Lady is not, but that’s all on the writing. There’s no reason that Mount Lady couldn’t have been connected to a student via a meaningful internship or a past acquaintanceship save that Horikoshi chose not to write her such a connection.
[5] That come, I might note, after he already has gotten back up. Perhaps Horikoshi had been doing this “spoiling the outcome before we see the process” thing for longer than I thought…
[6] Recall that the story managed to make time for a flashback of Deku getting training from Ochaco, Tsuyu and Sero as a lead-in to the conversation between Bakugou and All Might about the latter hiding something.
[7] Or, more cynically, the only one, given how tertiary the characters start becoming immediately after her.
[8] And for what it’s worth, when I said that she was right, I was saying that the world would, in fact, be a better place without bigotry. Obviously the answer is not, “Kill all bigots in their beds,” but I wish the group had talked more about what Mina said because it would have been a more frank, more honest discussion about how to fight bigotry than the provided answer of, “Put a bag over your head and hope it goes away on its own if you and everyone like you just act with inhuman levels of patience and calm at all times for the next hundred years.”
[9] Give or take her dramatically shaded angry face in Chapter 338—a face she is making along with the entire rest of her class sans Aoyama, so, again, really not impressing upon me that Mina particularly is a character struggling to avoid losing herself to revenge.
[10] So, you know, all those people who fell from upper floors of the Villa were probably also fine. But it’s one or the other, isn’t it? Either that kind of fall is enough to severely injure people so Cementoss knowingly enacted an opening gambit that stood a high chance of maiming or killing an unknown number of people, or people in BNHA would walk it off with nothing worse than a few abrasions, in which case Midnight was in no significant danger.
[11] In seating order, I like: Aoyama, Tsuyu, Iida, Uraraka, Ojiro, Tokoyami, and, from the war arc on, Mineta.
#bnha#bnha 383#class talk#pink alien on parade#sludge villain#bnha midnight#(deserved better)#bnha critical#bnha damage physics#stillness talks more#randomvongenerico#spent four days working on this so I need a tiny break#but I'll get the next chapter post up ASAP
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it is I, simplesnowflake!
I rebranded to astaralys now that I'm shifting into original projects but I'm very much still the same snow sisters supporter. I've just levelled up with an interest in game dev and picked up pixel art as well, so you'll be seeing less frozen content and more me content
you can find me on these places:
twitter (listen I am not calling it X): https://twitter.com/astaralys
bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/astaralys.bsky.social
ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/astaralys
I'm part of a studio! have you read our webcomic oneshot, Midnight Hour?: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/midnight-hour/list?title_no=872088
But what's happening with TNU, you ask? I admit I have much less time for fic now but still very much enjoy TNU and hope to see it to completion. It's something that sporadically crosses my mind, and when I reread what I've written, I fall in love with the story all over again. So I pick at it during my commute and lunch breaks. We'll get there slowly!
in the meantime, please enjoy this wip chapter 23 scene join me in my struggle to remember what happened in ch 22, it's been 84 years
As always, thank you so much for following my journey and reading my stories. I really want to finish writing TNU for us, and hope you wouldn't mind sticking around for my foray into original stories beyond that. I've been writing fanfic for over a decade (oof my back ached typing that) and knowing every word I've written has been read and enjoyed by at least one person has made me the writer I am today. Thank you for finding my words!
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There was nothing quite like the slipperiness of blood. A slickness that smeared and clung to everything and anything, as if it already knew there was no way to return to the veins from which it had gushed. Its new purpose was to stain and horrify. If it could, with its sheer, crimson volume, petrify those that had evicted it from its rightful body, then its existence had purpose. A river, it would become.
“Your Highness! Are you hurt?” Ronny. A familiar face. An anchor.
“I… y-yes. I mean, no. The… the blood’s not mine.” Kristoff made to get up and slipped. Instead of hitting the marble floor, though, his knee crunched into unmoving flesh. It was a small blessing he hadn’t speared himself on one of the dozen crossbow bolts protruding from the man’s torso like a pincushion.
Herman dragged him upwards and back, none too gently. “We’ll guard the prince! Make sure these bastards are really dead.”
“Wait—” Bile overtook words. Kristoff dropped to all fours and retched.
Scattered words swirled around him as his guards waded through the bodies. “—that big talk about their military. These idiots fought like lumps of wood!”
“Any news from the general? Did we manage to intercept their fleet?”
“Still can’t see a thing out there; the fjord’s completely covered in mist after the wall fell. How did they break Princess Elsa’s magic—”
“Forget that! The queen and princess are missing—we need a search party—”
“With what men? We’re already stretched thin as ice—”
Ice. If he’d kept his head down and continued hacking at the frozen tundra and going home to his family of trolls, he wouldn’t be here, crouched in a lake of dark red. Staring at a canopy of death spattered across the hallway like the reaper itself had danced with a conductor’s wand. How easily could he have been one of those bodies splayed out across the same floor Anna always slid down in her socks, laughing and crashing into his arms? Where was Anna? What if she was lying in a ditch somewhere, just like—
“Oi! Got a live one here!”
“You telling me this runt was the commander of this freak show? What, did you use your own soldiers as meat shields? You cowardly little—”
Kristoff looked up to see his men crowded around a huddled figure. If these southerners hadn’t brought swords and bloodlust to Arendelle… if they hadn’t spilled mortality in these sunny halls…
Don’t be pathetic, Bjorgman.
“Let me talk to him,” Kristoff rasped.
“Sir, this scum tried to kill you—”
“Trust me, I’ve noticed.”
The soldiers quietened. A few stepped away from their quarry, blinking like they had snapped out of a trance. Kristoff knew them all by name, but when they had come to his rescue in a flurry of unforgiving steel, he momentarily couldn’t recognise them. But he recognised himself in their sudden cruelty. They weren’t baying for blood— they were afraid for themselves, their families, their homes. They needed a leader, and Mattias was out the fjord.
Come on, Lord Regent, he could hear Anna teasing. You’re in charge when I’m gone, remember?
But you’re not gone, Kristoff thought. You’re safe with Elsa somewhere, and you’ll come back to me.
He rose to his feet. He’d kept his balance on cliffsides and frozen lakes; he could stomach standing on solid ground, nauseatingly slippery as it was. He stopped before the only survivor of the Isles’ ambush party.
“Let’s hear what the crown prince of the Southern Isles has to say. That’s you, right? Jesper Westergaard?”
Spindly shoulders jerked. Bitter memories of another sneering, auburn-haired prince made Kristoff’s fists and jaw tighten.
“Your father sent you into our tunnels to secure the castle, didn’t he? Bet he didn’t expect us to be waiting for you. He’s probably sitting on the fjord in his big ship, waiting for you to open the gates for him.”
The prince’s sword tinkered on the floor. Herman pushed Kristoff behind him, but Jesper made no move to attack. He only kept his head bowed and rocked slightly on his heels, clenching and unclenching his hand on his sword. Staring down at him, Kristoff realised their adversary was more boy than man.
What would Anna do?
Giving Herman the standby signal, Kristoff knelt down in front of Jesper. “Calm down. Work with us, and no one else needs to get hurt.”
Jesper’s glazed stare remained unerringly fixed on his shoes. Kristoff saw pale lips moving, though. He cautiously leaned in.
“Hurry up hurry up hurry up…”
Kristoff waved a hand in front of the prince’s face. “Hey. Can you hear me?”
“… up hurry up hurry—” The frenetic whispering halted abruptly as Jesper’s head snapped up. Dilated pupils locked on Kristoff’s, swimming in fear and adrenaline and… triumph?
A shiver slithered up Kristoff’s spine.
Freshly spilled blood could melt snow. Yet it only struck him now, as his soldiers let out shocked cries and whipped out their swords for the second time, that the blood he had been kneeling in was icy enough to chill him to the bone.
Jesper finally met Kristoff’s eyes. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, a wicked smile spreading on his face. “Be a good sport and remember to scream, yeah?”
#life update#can i finish this fic before F3 comes out#frozen fanfic#frozen#kristoff#the next unknown#TNU#writing
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Any advice regarding the ap lit exam? Like literally any advice at all? It’s this wednesday and I had a genuinely terrible class and it’s finally hitting me that the test is literally two days from now (well, less than that considering it’s nearly midnight on monday anyway) and I would appreciate anything and everything you have that would result in me possibly being a little less fucked on the exam.
Aha, well. It so happens that I will be off to grade AP exams in the next few weeks (history, not lit, but still) and thus can indeed offer a few pointers on how to maximize your performance on the exam, even if you did have a terrible class and don't feel prepared for it. So:
First: Google some past exams, google the test itself, look at all the official prep material that you can get your hands on. Here is the AP Lit course page with a link to a description of the exam, which should include a rubric with its weight and grading (i.e., what the readers will be looking for in each section). Here's the AP Lit crib sheet from the Princeton Review. There is a list of authors that they advise you to be familiar with, under poetry, drama, fiction, and expository prose. There's no way you can review them ALL, but you can at least take a look at the names and google/wikipedia the most unfamiliar.
Likewise from the link above (definitely go look at it), here's the breakdown for the AP Lit exam format, with a suggestion as to how to plan your time:
The AP English Literature & Composition exam takes 3 hours to complete and consists of two sections: a multiple-choice section and a free response section.
Section 1 is 60 minutes/ 55 multiple-choice questions. It's worth 45% of your mark.
Section 2 is 120 minutes, (40 minutes recommended per essay). It consists of 3 free response questions and is worth 55%:
Question 1: Poetry Analysis
Question 2: Prose Fiction Analysis
Question 3: Literary Argument
Speaking as somebody who graded the short-answer AP essay questions last year, the scoring rubric is fairly flexible. We were reading each one-page response and seeing if it met three criteria, and awarding it a score between 0 (lowest) and 3 (highest). We are advised to err on the side of generosity, even in an otherwise terrible response. Last year, the first criteria for getting a point was "Define the Enlightenment." If the student did that, they got the point, even if the rest of the response was nigh incomprehensible. (And, uh, it sometimes was).
Basically, make sure to read the question thoroughly and make sure you've clearly fulfilled every part of what it's asking. As long as your reader can identify matches for each part of the score, you'll get those points, regardless of how crappy the rest of it might be. Don't assume that a longer response is better; if you're just waffling on and making up bullshit, it will not necessarily improve your score, if you're not addressing the criteria. A clearer, shorter response will be easier for your reader to analyze.
(Yes, a real live human will be reading and grading your exam -- or at least part of it, since we all do different sections and not the whole thing. I am one of those humans.)
Spelling and grammar errors don't actually count against you, as long as the content is readable and makes a correct point. Of course, not that I ENCOURAGE making spelling or grammar errors, but it's not marked against you. There is a long commentary to be had here on how standardized tests are terrible for actually measuring students' overall intellectual capacity and only reward rote memorization, etc etc. But for our purposes, this is beside the point.
Making a brief outline, i.e. labeling the parts of your essay 1), 2), 3), etc., will help both you and us. As long as you then follow that order. There are plenty of students who do that and then write what-the-hell-ever anyway.
On that note: we are shut up for 9 hours every day for a week in a windowless grey warehouse, reading endless handwritten variations on the same question. Please, please, please make sure that you write legibly, since if we can't read it, you won't get points regardless of how brilliant your argument might be.
No one reader has control over every part of your exam, and we obviously don't know who any of the students are. If I was working on an essay question, I would be working ONLY on that question and not any of the other essay questions and/or the multiple choice. Your exam is marked by probably at minimum a half-dozen different readers, and then that score is put together and aggregated into your overall AP score. So even if you do absolutely bomb one of the sections, you have a chance to do well on another one that is marked in a different way/by a different reader.
Take a deep breath, do your best cram job, and go kick that exam's ass. One of my colleagues will thank you for it!
Good luck!
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do you think Ougi could make friends with which Monogatari characters?
oh what a wonderful ask
you came to the right person for this
spoilers (up to amarimonogatari, as well as ougimonogatari but you can skip them if you want) (none of the spoilers except the ones for ougimonogatari are specific i should mention, and even those ones are very minor. you should have read at least musubi id say)
hmm i have no ranking so i will go through them
i think they could be friends with nadeko (in fact i am writing a short fic about that that i will release eventually, probably after my next big fic). (! also some general spoilers for amari for this part !) i say this because nadekos on a path to become an oddity specialist, has met ougi a few times, and also (perhaps most importantly) gets along with yotsugi very well. i think yotsugi and nadeko's friendship is so sweet (the artist and the artist's modeling figurine...) but it makes me think that nadeko would have insight into an oddity's perspective (not to mention that she's Been an oddity) that would make her a candidate for friendship with ougi. like she could definitely handle ougi's chaoticness and i think it'd be a very fun dynamic between the two where nadeko wouldnt yield to or get pushed around by ougi. she'll always have a bit of darkness in her heart and ougi would probably appreciate that lol. not to mention ougi likes her manga and i cant articulate it but this is a crucial factor. like i think as of nademonogatari it couldnt happen, but as time goes on, like a long amount of time i think theres a possibility. itd probably always be a little shaky given their history but given all the changes i just mentioned i think it could happen eventually.
oh this is an aside, but ougi cant be friends with araragi. its not possible. its like. its like if youre already maxed out closeness with someone you cant just go redefining that relationship its already done. ougi and araragi start out with their social links maxed theyre the closest they could possibly be so they can only stay there or drift apart (which they do. which is a good thing). on that note i think they could be friends if they weren't the same person because they would actually be able to get closer and define the relationship instead of having the preset filled out which is also also something i am writing a (longer) fic about for a human/college au type thing
now with kanbaru i think it is possible even in canon. with araragi, not only would i say its bad for ougi to stay attached to him and for him to stay attached to them, but i would also say he's kind of cold and like. tries to avoid them lol. which ig makes sense for him but like ouch dude dont be such a stranger that was literally you once dont act like theyre gonna ruin your life again just cause u said hi to them damn. on the other hand kanbaru we learn in musubi does visit ougi and actually maintains the relationship (she was always more social than araragi anyway). we know what their relationship is like already its ougi torturing kanbaru and just being the funniest little fellow so theres not much to comment on here.
now theres an interesting tidbit in ougimonogatari (you can skip this part if you want but its not major) where hachikuji gets info on the current mystery from ougi, who gets lost at midnight to talk to her, and its implied that theyre close. i love the idea of this friendship between them it sounds really chill. its also implied that ougi is a night owl so i can imagine like them wandering around in the mystical late night/early morning hours and chatting with the local god. and i think they would even have a much different dynamic from araragi's dynamic with hachikuji, bc araragi only sees her when hes lost and so there's an element of hachikuji offering advice that defines their relationship, but i think this would be different in ougis relationship with hachikuji (esp considering they seem to just. get lost on purpose. which idk how that works but cool). if anything, ougi would probably help with protecting the town, pointing out things for hachikuji to watch out for, and then it would probably turn into pleasant conversation from there. i imagine hachikuji would want to check in on them as the god of the town (and as a friend, and just bc shes kind like that), and hachikuji could talk philosophy with ougi and offer her own perspective on things. in that sense it becomes a friendship where they r both trying to help each other. also since hachikuji still cant be seen by people who arent lost (i think this is confirmed in musubi), i think she'd enjoy talking to someone without feeling bad about knowing they were in some kind of bind or struggle. itd be less stressful for her i imagine. so yeah i think theyd just have a mutual help thing that would also include fun chill conversations for the both of them.
yotsugi and ougi... i think it depends a lot on how they meet, what point they meet at, and like. yotsugis mood. bc even with nadeko yotsugi sometimes says theyre not friends and sometimes says theyre besties. shes just like that so i dont think they could ever truly (or i guess, Always) be friends just bc yotsugi consistently is inconsistent. at the same time, ougi is also consistently inconsistent albeit in slightly more consistent ways, they are both kind of toxic, they both give off uncanny impressions (in the theoretical freudian/uncanny valley sense where ononoki is a corpse doll and ougi is just. clearly inhuman in some way but you cant put your finger on how exactly), and they both have the same oddity mindset of "functioning," as a tool in yotsugi's case (she says it a lot in amarimonogatari) or towards a purpose in ougi's case (she says it in owari ge and just. you can tell from how they talk that thats how theyre framing things). so itd be cool bc they have a lot in common... but also, because they both have in common a very work-oriented mindset they might not like. actually develop the friendship outside of like very coincidentally doing a job together for whatever reason (smh at these two girlbosses). i think if they did become friends theyd diss other people together LOL gossip crew. i dont think the friendship is that likely honestly theyre much much more likely to just tolerate each other but i guess you could see their similarities as more proof for why i think ougi and nadeko could be friends lol.
ougi and tsukihi!!!!! yes!!!!!!!!!!! yes yes yes yes yes yes i love it!!!! i want to see it!!!!!!! they have a nice conversation in ougi dark as well as an audio commentary together... what i like about it so much is that tsukihi is so unstoppable and good at putting people off balance that ougi cant completely evade it with their evasion techniques. even ougi can be forced to play the straight man when faced with tsukihi lol. tsukihi is a force of nature, and ougi is also fond of this about her. and tsukihi kind of respects ougi as well from what we get in ougi dark (again light novels) so they have positive regard towards each other and lots of potential for a good friendship i think. what sticks out to me is that in ougi dark i imagine ougi is probably aware before she tries to ahem do a bit of trolling on tsukihi that its not going to be successful because araragi wont see her as anything but his sister. so suddenly it feels like way more of an intimate thing there where ougi is just sorta talkin about stuff before she (presumably in her mind at least) goes to her death. like that whole scene is so cool because ougis strategy for sort-of-not-really-exterminating-tsukihi is kinda partly criticizing her but more than that relating to her (as they both have the same kind of 'false identity') and opening herself up to her a bit... and besides like. the last episode of ougi dark lol, its the biggest moment of vulnerability we see ougi in (and she is willingly putting herself in it instead of being so mysterious as always), and its something that tsukihi also sees! (and doesnt rly know what to do with, which is also kinda interesting to me because shes such a self assured person) and that feels like it could lead to smth really interesting later. and in that scene it really does feel like theyre just kinda enjoying each others company esp on the bike, its calm and quiet and relaxed. i feel like after ougi has separated from araragi some more is when they could have a really nice friendship with tsukihi. back to their dynamics, i think it would sometimes be just very lowkey like in ougi dark which seems rather uncommon for someone like tsukihi, like ougi would bring up interesting topics of discussions and they'd have little mini debates about it that would really be more like chill discussions and itd be nice. and then other times it would be like tsukihi is screaming and all and dragging ougi somewhere to do something with her lol. they have a nice understanding between them..... ah i love it sm. and not to mention they are both so good at fucking up peoples lives it'd be a bonding point b/w them tbh.
UGH SEE THIS IS THE SORT OF THING NISIOISIN SHOULD BE WRITING WHATS HE DOING??? "OUGI IS A SIDE CHARACTER" MY ASS THEYRE ONLY A SIDE CHARACTER BC YOURE MAKING THEM BE THAT WAY GIVE THEM MORE CAMEOS DAMNIT AGH BEING RELEGATED TO THE SIDE DOESNT HAVE TO BE THE END ALL BE ALL SMH SMH........ at least i can write fanfiction instead
thank you for this ask highlight of my day dropped everything to answer it
#fwends....#oshino ougi#ougiposting#monogatari#araragi tsukihi#hachikuji mayoi#kanbaru suruga#sengoku nadeko#ononoki yotsugi#araragi koyomi
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Title: Like Gold
Summary: Sasuke grapples with love and intimacy regarding his developing relationship with Sakura after returning to the village from his journey of redemption. Kind of a character study on Sasuke handling an intimate relationship after dealing with PTSD and survivor’s guilt in solitude for so long. Blank period, canon-compliant, Sasuke-centric, lots of fluff and pining, slowly becomes a smut fest with feelings.
Disclaimer: I did not write Naruto. This is a fan-made piece solely created for entertainment purposes.
Rating: M
AO3 Link - FF.net Link - includes author's notes
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Chapter 15/?: Isthmus
A few days of effortless routine pass, peaceful afternoons melting into evenings spent out of the heat wave in Sakura’s apartment. She fixes a flare-up in his stump one afternoon, green chakra soothing frayed nerve endings. The next, they prepare rei shabu together in her kitchen, enjoyable in its chill as they overlook the street below her window; it’s exceedingly empty due to the rise in temperature, save the occasional passerby or itinerant bird. They do see her neighbor arriving back home once as they eat, the courier at the other end of the second floor. She’s rather quick for a civilian, darting back out into the street and around the far corner after only a few minutes, an additional bag thrown over her shoulder.
“Her boyfriend lives on the edge of the village,” Sakura comments, hand propping up her chin on the table. “A fisherman; he’s out at the lake or the river nearly every day. Ino knows him.”
Sasuke simply nods. Sakura’s apartment building is nice and in a relatively quiet portion of town. While it‘s in a convenient location in terms of access to everything, he can see the appeal of the edge of the village; it’s more naturalistic. It brings to mind recollections of backyards and clan grounds annexed at another edge of Konoha, wilderness teeming at the fringe and a handful of treasured walks with Itachi, dodging thistles and poison oak.
With the expansion of the village proceeding at what he’s gathered in his short time back is a rather breakneck pace - there’s still construction going on in several areas from what he’s seen - he ponders once again how long the edge of the village will stay the edge of the village. Though he’s been watering the lily buds diligently, he still hasn’t gone beyond the memorial stone, into what used to be the Uchiha District. It’s a task for another month, he thinks. Maybe when the autumn equinox arrives; it’s been ages since he was in Konoha for that tradition.
His usual shared dinner with Sakura drifts earlier and earlier, thus offering such glimpses at the lives of the people who pass by day to day during the waning afternoon time slot. There’s an exordium as of late, to stay longer into the night than he has in the past, midnight and beyond. Usually it’s accompanied by some sort of snack Sakura presents in the later hours of their eves spent together, walnuts or bagged seaweed tempura or his small stash of snacks in her drawer. He surmises it may be partly an effort on her part to get him to eat more, which he doesn’t mind, as he particularly enjoys the indulgences that come before said snacking.
“We could watch another movie,” Sakura says near every night like clockwork, cheeks red and eyes sweeping away from him shyly, as if they’ve made any effort at all to watch the one that’s just finished, credits rolling.
He hypothesizes that she could just be better at multitasking than him, able to ascertain at least some of the plot and dialogue despite her lips melding to his for the better portion of each film’s sprawl. In credence of his theory is the fact that her pile of papers has made three further appearances during the earlier evenings, though she always slides them aside to their designated spot on her bookshelf prior to seven.
Sasuke, however, is convinced he is quite incapable of focusing on anything else when her fingers are sliding through his hair and her tongue is drifting along his, sweltry hot. The scent of raspberries is disarming and overwhelming when he’s this close to her, all audio irrelevant background noise in comparison to the hum of each breath Sakura takes. Sometimes, right when they change angles and in advance of their lips colliding anew, he can catch the hint of a sweet sound she makes low in her throat; he thinks it may be the cusp of something akin to a whimper.
It hasn’t helped his secluded profligacies within the privacy of his own bedroom in the slightest, as he yearns to hear just what sort of other enticing noises Sakura elicits during certain… activities. His subconscious persistently fills in the gaps, should he have such a dream; he wakes on several occasions, flushed from visuals that involve peeling thin crimson fabric and midnight netting away from her freckled skin, clearing the way so that he may caress each and every square inch of her.
He knows he’s not ready for that by a long shot just yet. He’s not even ready to trail his fingers anywhere other than across her cheek or atop her shoulder or through her pale hair, silk in his palm. It will take time.
Still. It’s altogether impossible for him to catch even a hint of what’s playing out on the screen when they’re kissing like that. It’s possible that the masculine system is simply wired differently, utterly subservient to such distractions. The aftertaste of whatever tea she’s been drinking lingers in his mouth whenever they finally part, a sensation he’s quickly become addicted to: peach, white coconut creme, caramelized pear, none too sweet.
It’s still very new, but Sasuke is rather enjoying figuring it out. He concludes Sakura must be, too, as she initiates just as often as he does, which has eliminated most of his qualms; he’d been apprehensive initially that perhaps he’d be bad at this sort of thing, with as many times as he’d ruminated without acting on the desire, but he must not be terrible if she returns every kiss with equal fervor. She seems rather good at it, herself. It makes him wonder if she’s ever kissed anyone else. Realistically he presumes that she must have; Sakura was always a pretty girl, even when they were children. The beautiful and capable woman she has grown into has likely attracted a fair amount of attention.
He would never ask, of course. It is categorically none of his business, given the heartbreak he forced upon her for years and the subsequent wait for him to be ready for any kind of closer relationship. He starkly ignores the part of him that aches with a great deal of jealousy at the mere thought of Sakura kissing anyone else, locking it away behind old doors that usher other parlous and nugatory feelings of his away for containment.
It doesn’t matter now. He sort of wishes he could just lose the key to that sort of cerebration already. Other troubling tendencies linger behind that aged wood and its rusted hinges, insecurities and his penchant for self-punishment and his propensity to overanalyze every situation, sometimes to the extent of onerous and unjustified panic.
Someday he’ll get to them, clear away the sediment; spring cleaning, perhaps. For now, he’s content in relishing this new stage fully. He feels… closer to Sakura than before. He knew that would happen, but there’s a familiar ease, a sedate domesticity, that he experiences within the walls of her home that he hasn’t really had occasion to feel anywhere else, or at least, hasn’t had occasion to feel since he was very young. He loves spending all of his time with her, whether it’s cooking or kissing or sneaking an occasional glimpse of her as she scrawls things into her notes, fine pink brows furrowed and jade eyes scanning the paper analytically. Since he’s begun to sit closer to her on the couch, he’s noticed that they appear to be corrections of some sort, her handwriting with its swooping As flooding the margins with torrents of precisely inscribed notes. He doesn’t pry about what she’s working on; it may be confidential, and thus there’s a sort of implied trust in him there, too, of which he doesn’t wish to contravene.
He used to ache for this feeling, pine for it desperately, the indulgence and eudemonia of hours of quietly shared company and more open affections. As a child, he used to train to the point of exhaustion, pushing his body to the limits in the hopes that he could rip the desire for it out of himself. So now, contrarily and to make up for lost time, he allows himself to revel in it. It’s a nice change of pace from licking his aged wounds to the point of septicity.
Following another heated session of kissing that was abruptly interrupted by rolling credits, Sakura mentions something about making iced tea at home soon, or maybe lemonade, as she rifles through her drawer of snacks. A questioning glance is thrown his way as she pulls out his popcorn.
He nods absentmindedly, barely hearing in his distraction, incalescence still cooling behind his ribs, but understanding at least the visual portion of the offer.
“Is there any kind of iced tea you like?” She’s still a little flushed as she turns to face him. “Other than sencha, I mean.”
His brain has barely caught up to his body standing in the dark of her kitchen, outwardly still feeling each of her fingertips at his scalp and inwardly feeling like his stomach is recovering from its compendiary transformance into molten ardor.
“...What?” That which is feverish floods his neck and licks at his ears. He’s so stupidly fixated on that freckle on her cheek, as well as the way her lips look after they’ve been kissing: slightly plump, parted invitingly. That’s done nothing for his aggrandized and enticing dreams, either, frissons of temptation that enwrap him as they slide down his spine.
“Iced tea; do you just like sencha?” She asks softly as she hands him the bag. “Or are there others you like? Or… I can make unsweetened lemonade, too.”
He latches on to the end part of the sentence the quickest, as it’s the only part that computes initially as he drops his gaze to the bag he’s now clutching.
“Lemonade,” he murmurs, trying to force the color from his face and exceptionally thankful that Sakura is a lamp aficionado. There’s limited light to discern said coloring here, unless one has the Sharingan.
“Okay,” she says, smiling brightly. “The next time I’m at the market, I’ll get some extra lemons to make some.”
The next evening, another movie serving as background noise finished, they venture to the kitchen again in search of an eleven o’clock snack. Sasuke opts for the almonds this go-around - he may need to pick up a second bag for whenever the next team movie is - but Sakura trails to her refrigerator, pulling out a small container of anko dumplings.
Sasuke eyes them curiously in the scant seconds that pass prior to returning to the living room. Their dinner was simple today, and Sakura herself grabbed what they needed for the meal from the fridge, so he hadn’t seen that container before now. They appear well-made, visually appealing enough that he expects she must have picked them up from somewhere; perhaps it was the bakery nearest her apartment, the one that he suspects sells confections.
As she sets up the next movie, Sasuke finds himself recalling one occasion when they were Genin, on their lone mission to the Land of Waves, in which she’d scarfed down anko dumplings with considerable delight at dinner. He’d been preoccupied with a rather juvenile eating contest with their third teammate, but he’d still noticed; if there’s one defining characteristic that he has, it’s his ability to be methodically observant, often to the point of his detriment. Racking his brain, he thinks he can also recall at least one other occasion in which she’d ordered them at a restaurant that Kakashi had taken them all to at the tail end of another Genin mission closer to home.
Though he himself doesn’t like dango anymore - she kindly questions him if he’d like any as she takes her seat scant inches away from him, even though she knows he doesn’t like sweet things, to which he politely declines - he still mentally files this information away for future reference as he eats a few heaping handfuls of almonds. He hasn’t stepped foot inside a bakery since he was seven, but he does have access to his own kitchen now.
In this small collection of days that bring May to a close, Sasuke doesn’t receive any mission assignments. He assumes their old sensei and his returned assistant Shizune must be gearing up for the upcoming Chunin Exams, and thus he is probably loath to send many Konoha ninja out in the next few weeks; there is always the possibility of getting held up somewhere for longer than expected. It’s likely that they’re taking an ample chunk of Konoha’s upper ranks to assist in Sunagakure, too, which means there needs to be an even rounding of capable ninja left here to maintain the village’s security. If Naruto’s going with Kakashi, Sasuke expects he himself will be home for a good while, as will Sakura; most of June they’ll be here, possibly even into July, save any sort of emergency. He supposes it’s probable that he will be assigned guard duties with some degree of regularity in the next month.
Going so long without a mission assignment used to bother him, eager as he was when he was younger to attain breaks from the village, but now he can’t find it in himself to care one bit. Summer heat has hit Konoha with the same reprisal it always has, sweltering temperatures coating everything hot and humid. He much prefers simplistic evenings at Sakura’s apartment, watching movies and snacking and kissing her until time blurs to the waning width of a crescent moon.
Amidst all of this, he somehow manages to acquire a summer sickness.
It begins as a tickle in the back of his mouth, possibly near his tonsils. He notices it as he gently sifts his remaining water over greening lily buds well past midnight, just there behind his tongue, and chalks it up to the fact that he was reading the names, the pain in the back of his throat cresting as it always does here.
Once he arrives back at his apartment, he discerns that his mouth is sort of dry, but he assumes it’s due to the fact that it's brutally humid. Even now, sweat is trailing down his neck in the calefaction. He downs an entire bottle of water in one go to counteract it.
He doesn't sleep particularly well, but it's not one of his worst nightmares - he doesn’t throw up this go-around - so he's grateful. However, upon waking, the twitching feeling at the back of his throat has intensified to an ache.
Frowning once his heart rate has decelerated and he's stared out his window for a bit, he procures a cough drop and relocates the lamp to the living room end table so he can read on the couch, sprawled out lazily in pursuit of distraction. The hours evanesce away, and one lozenge becomes five.
An occasional cough quakes his chest, though he thinks it’s from his mouth being persistently dry rather than from anything severely infectious plaguing his lungs. It's… unpleasant. Torrid and irritating, affliction lurking at the back of his throat each time he attempts to clear it. Muscle memory demands he raise what used to be his dominant arm to cough into his bicep sleeve, but it's empty, so that doesn't work so well. What’s left of his left arm only partially covers his mouth.
He's rarely been ill over the past few years, and only once did he ever have any sort of cough accompanying it. He spent very limited hours physically around other people, he supposes, choosing to say little and retire early on the rare occasion that he was under someone else’s roof rather than sprawled beneath the stars alone. Perhaps he caught something from someone he crossed paths with at the market.
His mouth sinks downward once the fit passes, brows furrowing ahead of another cough rising to take its place. He raises his right arm this time, coughing into the interior portion of his elbow, then rises to procure a drink.
It’s wholly disorienting; the world rotates and knocks something aching in his skull. When his fingers skim his forehead, he deduces that it’s warm as the ground relevels itself. The beginning of a migraine, he concludes, as well as a fever.
Reaching for one of the jars on his tea shelf, Sasuke sets a cup of caffeinated sencha to brew, swallows two pain relief pills from the medicine cabinet, and chases the medicine with a cough drop prior to dragging his spare comforter rather unceremoniously to his couch for further comfort.
The tea soothes his throat incrementally, and his headache eases slightly; whether it was the caffeine or the medication that did the trick, he couldn’t say. It's not until he rises to fix breakfast, most of his book on the history of the Land of Tea finished, that he realizes he has some sort of a genuine chill, too. Sasuke scans the thermostat for confirmation as a shiver ripples through him; the temperature reads the same as it always does.
There’s a frown permanently affixed to his face now. He shrugs out of his usual long-sleeved shirt, deducing that a heavier fabric he usually reserves for cooler seasons and climates would better suit the situation he’s found himself in. It helps a little, but he still encases himself back in the comforter, an occasionally coughing cocoon of a human, brows furrowed as he flips through the art book again in want of something to do to distract him from this infirmity.
The sun has climbed higher in the east, just barely clearing the horizon. He’s trying to decide if he should make the jaunt to Sakura’s to cancel their plans for this afternoon, lest he infect her with whatever he’s caught, when the telltale banging of Naruto's fist resounds against his door.
"Teme!" He calls between heavy knocks that are sure to wake his neighbor if she’s home; they’re boisterous enough that they hurt his head with each sharp pound. "Kakashi-sensei is working with Shizune this morning. Let's spar!!"
Sasuke sighs, lone hand rising to his head in pain at the sudden volume as he rises slightly unsteadily, not at all befitting that of a ninja.
"Hey, teme, are you home?!" Additional banging accompanied by a slight twang of an object resonates atop the vertical stretch of wood. “C’mon, hurry up! It’ll be hot as fuck if we don’t go soon! I already promised Hinata-chan that I’d drink this whole thing of water, and-”
"Stop. I'm coming," Sasuke calls, followed by a swallow that requires some effort. His throat hurts more now, he realizes as he nears the door that’s still being hammered on relentlessly by two fists; the dobe must not have heard him.
There has to be a better system for spars than this, he judges, brows furrowing in disquietude. Some sort of designated day and time. He simultaneously contemplates how often the idiot’s volume has bothered his neighbor or woken her child.
His fingers find the knob and he opens the door, only slightly as he doesn’t want to permit Naruto any kind of opening to barge his way in. He is unsurprised to see his best friend appearing as if he’s just rolled out of bed, blond hair skewed sideways and both fists frozen in midair. One is wrapped around a huge thermos that must have been contributing to the audial uproar.
"Oh, good, I thought maybe you slept at Sakura-chan's or something-"
Sasuke’s neck warms as he pins him with an unimpressed look.
"Oh." Intense blue assesses him as he lowers his curled fists from the air finally. "Uh."
Sasuke narrows his eyes when his best friend’s expression morphs into one of amusement.
"You… kinda look like shit," the idiot chuckles.
Observation of the century, he thinks and nearly says, but it’s about two too many words; he doesn’t wish for his throat to ache further than it already does.
"I'm sick," Sasuke deadpans instead, glaring kunai at his teammate with a pounding head. The warm light cast from the rising sun isn't doing wonders for his headache situation; it’s throbbing worse now than before with the continued exposure.
For some reason that results in the dobe’s laugh intensifying. It starts as a snort but quickly escalates into a snicker, then a cackle. If his neighbor wasn’t already awake, she’s sure to be now.
"What's the matter, teme?" He lilts in a teasing voice that causes Sasuke's patience to run thin and his frown run thinner still, incensed. There's a smug grin on the dobe’s face, the kind that appears when Naruto is about to say something catastrophically fucking imbecilic.
“Swap too much spit with Sakura-chan?”
Sasuke’s brow twitches.
“You know, you should go to the hospital-”
Immediately sensing where this line of reasoning is going, Sasuke promptly shuts the door - not a slam, but not muted, either, and no, he is definitely not red in the face, it’s just the fever.
He blocks out most of whatever the idiot ends up saying - some thinly veiled and highly implicative innuendo about making an appointment - through sheer willpower and a lengthy, irritated exhale. By the time he’s switched to inhaling, a new round of laughter is apparent from the other side of the wood.
Sasuke relocks the door in the most methodical, purposeful, and audible manner possible, scowling darkly.
"Don't worry!" The dobe calls from the other side of the door, laughing. "I'm sure Sakura-chan would love to make a house call, just for you! And anyways, she-"
Sasuke stalks to his bedroom and yanks the comforter over his head, drowning out whatever the idiot’s going on about with another forced exhale and determined to go back to sleep for an hour, at least until nine. He’ll figure out what to do regarding their afternoon plans later, he thinks through an additional round of clearing his parched throat, triggered by the sudden change to a horizontal position.
He's tired enough that it actually works. His last thought afore sleep claiming him is that he really is genuinely sick for the first occasion in a while, and is definitely running a fever.
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He's not sure how long he sleeps for - it feels like twenty minutes or so, strange pieces of a hazy and familiar gray dream just beginning to color his subconscious - but a few sharp, precise raps on the door have him rising haphazardly from slumber, ready to lay into Naruto despite how dry and sore his throat is. There’s sleep clouding the corners of his recognition and the edges of his eyes are watering, irritated, as his hand unlocks the door as if detached from his body just yet. The sleepy retort is already on his tongue when-
He blinks in bewilderment, both at the overwhelming amount of bright light and the colors that are still solidifying before him, below his direct line of sight. Definitively, it is not a blur of orange and yellow that comes into focus.
It's pink and green instead; Sakura is blinking up at him owlishly. It’s nearly midday, judging by the sun well above them both. He's slept for the better portion of three hours rather than the one he intended.
"Hey," she greets softly. "Naruto stopped by and said you might be sick." Pale green is both assessing and caring as she gazes up at him. "I assumed we’d cancel our afternoon plans so you can rest, but I wanted to… to check on you.” She motions towards the bag curved around her shoulder.
He blinks as his pupils adjust to the harsh gleam, trying to process through the splitting migraine that’s now surging with a vengeance. He’s still stuck on how he’s somehow slept for three hours, and how his eyes are, for some reason, itching now.
Must be the light. He blinks a few more times for good measure, slowly.
"If… if that's okay," she says, an uncertain expression overtaking her features as he continues to stare at her, brows furrowing finally as his brain catches up with what she's said. “Or… If you’d rather I didn’t, I… I can…”
"Okay." His voice comes out a shred rougher than it usually does, but he manages, pulling the door open wider to let her through; it feels as though his throat has been coated with sandpaper on both sides and it’s grinding against the remaining contents of his pharynx. “Sorry. I slept longer than I thought.”
Sakura’s face brightens, shifting to something like recognition - he’s succeeded in communicating that his delay in speech wasn’t because her presence was unwanted - and her lips quirk upwards.
“Oh,” she murmurs airily, beaming as she moves to step inside, fingers grasping at the strap of her bag. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“...It’s fine,” he mumbles, still disoriented as he closes the door behind them. He examines the lock for a protracted moment, considering, because the idea of the dobe barging in on an examination is not the most appealing mental picture, but he ultimately decides against it. Sakura likely won’t be here for very long, and he doesn’t want to get her ill, either.
Though now that he’s thinking about it, they did sort of… spend a rather significant amount of time kissing on her couch again, the night previous.
And the night before that.
…And the night before that.
He mentally reviews old lessons on contagions from the Academy ages ago, tiredly trying to discern if he has already given it to her. She would be showing symptoms already if he had, he reasons; she would only be a day behind him at best in exposure. His brain feels muddy, like it’s lagging exorbitantly behind everything occurring in the present, just on the edge of slumber.
When he turns to her, rubbing at his eyes a little as they’re still sort of irritated, she’s already slipped her shoes off and is looking around somewhat uncertainly.
His focus meets hers in silent question.
“Um.” Sakura blinks. “Where should I…?”
Ah. This is only her second time here. The couch is probably more comfortable, but it’s also probably covered in more of his germs.
“...Here’s fine,” he elucidates, motioning to the table prior to absentmindedly flipping the kitchen light on. He squints at the offending brightness once he does, head pounding and blinking as it occurs to him that he might appear a bit… unkempt as of yet. He frowns, briefly recalling that his hair tends to skew away from whichever side of his head he slept on.
If she notices, Sakura pays no mind to it. She simply nods once and then turns to take a seat, beginning to pull a kit of some kind out of her bag. He takes the opportunity to pour himself a glass of water, as he realizes he’s presumably going to have to talk in regards to symptoms and he would rather avoid having to cough in her immediate vicinity.
A stretched sip is taken, hydration temporarily soothing his pharynx, before he swivels back towards the dining table. Within the kit, he can see, was a stethoscope, an ear instrument, a cuff to measure blood pressure, what he assumes is a penlight, and a sealed clear bag that contains several things: a tissue, swabs, small tubes, and one of the wooden sticks typically used to hold the tongue down when examining the throat.
There is also a new package of the menthol-lyptus cough drops among the instruments, shiny azure blue like the others. He notices it last, tired brain processing through each item at a delayed pace.
His haggard gaze flits to her with immense appreciation as he sinks into the remaining seat on her side of the table. He’s only gone through about one and a half of the initial three bags she gave him, but he’ll probably use a lofty number of them up during this bout of illness. It was kind of her.
It seems she reads the gratitude in his expression, smiling under his continued appraisal. Her cheeks flush slightly as she rips open the package and offers him one.
“So,” Sakura says softly as he carefully unwraps it. “What are your symptoms?” Her eyes are kind as they temporarily flick to the glass of water in advance of coming back to rest on him. “I’m assuming a sore throat?”
Sasuke nods, bringing the cough drop up to slip beyond his lips.
“...Headache.” He pauses, situating the cough drop into the hollow of his cheek and thinking. “Chills.”
She surveys him for a long moment as if working through her next words or perhaps considering something of note.
“Runny nose or congestion at all?” She questions finally as she picks up the blood pressure cuff. He places the wrapper on the dining table before offering his lone arm out to her.
“No.”
She situates it easily, securing the apparatus around his bicep in advance of upping the pressure. He focuses on the feeling of the cough drop numbing his throat, dissolving into an essence of relief. Pressure amps and declines around the squeezed muscle of his arm.
“Just a little higher than usual,” she remarks eventually. The pressure releases as she peels it away.
“Pulse next, please.”
There’s a delay as he processes the instruction, blinking prior to holding out his arm again; he allows his elbow to rest on the surface of the table between them. Both of her hands ascend to grip his wrist, plying for his radial artery.
Even with as tired as he is, he can’t ignore the latent tangibility of her fingertips feel against his skin there. He barely breathes for a moment, closing his eyes and overly aware of the ambrosia of raspberry for about the three-hundredth time since he’s returned.
“Hmm,” Sakura appraises thoughtfully when her fingers finally fall away and he exhales, thinking this shouldn’t affect him so, especially not now, given their more recent activities. “Your heart rate isn’t really much higher than normal, but that doesn’t mean you’re not sick.”
Sasuke supposes his heart rate when ill certainly would present synonymous to his heart rate when in the immediate close proximity of his girlfriend, her touch at his bare skin for an extended period of time. He briefly toys with the idea of trying to mentally count the measures of his own pulse when they are next occupied with kissing, but that notion quickly devolves into a frown, because it will probably be a while now before he kisses Sakura again.
“You’re more tired than usual?”
Pulled from the doldrums, he nods stiffly as she reaches for the ear instrument, neck warming.
“Do you think you have a fever?” She questions as she puts some sort of cap atop the instrument for what he assumes are sanitary reasons. “Your wrist felt kind of warm.”
Sasuke dips his chin again in confirmation, rotating his head slightly so she can take his temperature via his ear. It takes only a minute.
“One hundred and two,” she informs him softly, taking the instrument from his ear and removing the miniature cap from it to be set atop the tissue, the pile of things to dispose of later. “So a small one.” She sets the instrument aside, turning back to him. “Any cough?”
“Not really,” he answers. “Sore. Dry.” He pauses, then adds, “I cough if I don’t have water.”
Analytical eyes peer up at him before she procures the wooden stick with one hand and the penlight with the other. “Do your lymph nodes hurt at all?”
His brows knit together.
“...I’m not sure.” They don’t feel swollen, really, but his need for sleep has been attracting all of his focus since the sun rose, to the extent that he hasn’t really glimpsed himself in the mirror at all. He also hasn’t brushed his teeth yet today, he realizes with some regret.
Sakura nods as if this makes sense. “I’d like to look at your throat, if that’s okay.”
Sasuke swallows again as she grabs the wooden stick and penlight. He then opens his mouth; the cough drop is a meager remnant stored in the hollow of his cheek.
Sakura frowns once she’s got the light aimed for analysis.
“Say ah, please?”
He complies, feeling inelegant in all respects.
She pulls the stick away after a short few seconds of study, though for some reason she keeps the penlight on. He closes his mouth and situates the cough drop back onto the main spread of his tongue, blinking slowly as the menthol eases the dryness that came with the open air exposure. His eyes feel like they’re about to droop shut any minute.
"Could I look at your eyes quick?"
His brows furrow as he processes the question, flummoxed - I haven’t used them is on the tip of his tongue, in reference to his doujutsu - to which Sakura smiles patiently.
“I think you probably have a bacterial infection. Your tonsils are swollen.” She motions to the penlight still in her palm. "I'd guess group A strep throat, but you don't have any white spots yet. Sometimes the bacteria manifests in the eyes, too. Conjunctivitis."
He blinks once more, regard flickering tiredly but purposefully to the penlight to grant her permission, as if to say go ahead whilst sparing his pharynx the further motion of words.
Sakura’s gaze softens prior to discarding the stick, placed atop the tissue so the part that was in his mouth doesn’t touch the table.
She then switches the penlight to her left hand and reaches toward him with her right.
His brows knit closer together in sluggish puzzlement before she's sifting his hair away from his left eye carefully, touch gentle and expression soft.
Heat licks at his ears. Ah.
He’s an idiot. Of course his hair was in her way. Perhaps he's more out of it than he thought.
Her fingertips graze his cheekbone and part of his temple slightly as she raises the penlight. She shines it into his left first, then lets her digits fall away from his cheek as she shifts the light over his other eye. He hopes they're not infected, or, if they are, that they don't appear too… gross. He vaguely remembers just two other occasions in which he acquired conjunctivitis; neither of them left his eyes particularly presentable, visually speaking.
“They look a little irritated,” she observes matter-of-factly, clicking the light off prior to setting it aside. She then reaches for one of the swabs. “Could I swab your throat for a test? If it is strep, I’ll prescribe an antibiotic.”
Sasuke nods yet again, to which Sakura smiles in response.
“Alright. Tilt your head back, please.”
He stares at the ceiling above him, moving the last remnant of the cough drop to his cheek again before he opens his mouth.
“Say ah,” Sakura instructs. “This will probably tickle a little.”
He does, and she quickly slides the swab over what he assumes are his tonsils, one swipe on each side. Once it’s out, he clears his throat to satisfy the small itch as she situates the swab neatly into one of the test tubes. He follows it up with a sip of his water.
“I’ll stop by the hospital to run this, and then I’ll be back later if it’s positive,” she says smoothly as she wraps the tube again; he expects it’s to offer it some cushion in the kit. “I’ll bring eye ointment, too, just in case.”
Sasuke nods once more, taking another measured sip. She begins placing the other items back into her kit, though she leaves the stethoscope out.
“I’d like to listen to your heart before I go,” she comments. “Sometimes group A can spread to the heart and damage the valves; scarlet or rheumatic fever. It’s probably too early for that if you just started having major symptoms this morning, but it’s standard practice to check anyway.”
“...Okay.” It’s also standard Shinobi protocol to take every precaution available when it comes to the possibility of impaired health, especially involving a vital organ. He’s not particularly a fan of being poked and prodded given his history, but if it’s Sakura, he doesn’t mind. He has come to know that she excels in every aspect of her profession, and bedside manner is no exception.
At that thought, he forcefully shoves the idiot’s teasing from earlier to the back of his mind as Sakura situates the stethoscope in her ears, lifting the chest piece and pressing it to his sternum. He breathes slowly, in and out as his eyes droop somewhat; it somehow makes him sleepier, inanition ready to overtake him.
“Your heart sounds good,” Sakura comments as she removes the chest piece. “No concern there.” She then plucks the other side of the stethoscope from her ears, moving to return that to the kit, too; he assumes that means she doesn’t need to check his lungs this time. The bag of cough drops stays on the table as she swivels her upper body to grab her tote bag from where she’s left it.
“Do you need anything?” She queries as she turns back towards him, and he gets the distinct impression that Sakura the clinician has vacated the premises entirely. “I could make some soup if you want. Chicken noodle, maybe? If you’re on an antibiotic, you’ll want to avoid anything acidic or with dairy.”
Sasuke’s brow furrows. He doesn’t want to get her sick with extended time spent here, but he would be deluding himself if he didn’t admit that such a dish sounds like heaven right about now with the way his throat aches. He may be able to make something similar on his own in terms of having the ingredients on hand, but his will to produce such a dish is another matter entirely. He’s too tired to consider making anything that’s not ochazuke today, and he also knows he likes Sakura’s cooking; he doesn’t doubt that he would like this rendition of soup, given she seems to utilize her slow cooker fairly frequently.
He supposes it is her day off, and they were supposed to hang out later anyways, so it’s not like she’d be neglecting other plans on his behalf. It’s very kind of her to offer.
You shouldn’t just… suffer in silence, if something hurts.
“...Soup would be good,” he admits quietly after some internal review, realizing she’s waiting for a response and he’s taking too long. He pointedly slides his focus to the cough drops atop the wood grain of the table before refocusing on her tiredly. “Thank you.”
A pleased smile blooms on her lips.
“You’re very welcome,” she says. “I’ll try to get Naruto to leave you alone for a bit, too. I’m guessing he nearly busts your door down each time like he does mine? Between the door and the window, I’m surprised my office is still intact at this point.”
Sasuke snorts, and her grin widens in amusement.
“...That’s the reason my door is usually locked,” he admits, something occurring to him as he speaks the words. The knocking earlier, sharp and precise, was not how Sakura normally knocks on a door. Not that he’s heard her knock often as of late, now that he’s thinking about it, but when they were younger, servicing clients in and outside of the village on missions, it was usually a few gentle raps, more of a grazing of her knuckles against the egress. It was a sharp contrast to Naruto’s discordant and careless whacks even back then.
Which means that she likely knocked lightly at first today but he slept right through it.
Suppose it wouldn’t hurt. It’s overnight, always, when his issues with sleep disturbances emerge, surpassing further than a few hours of slumber as a nap does. It should be fine to provide her a way in for later today in case he’s asleep.
Sakura rises with a musical laugh, shifting her tote bag back in place on her shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.” Shining soft green levels him, beautiful and rich with mirth as she turns towards the door.
“...Sakura,” he says as he also rises abruptly, inwardly wincing at what it does to his head. She pauses halfway to the door, angling herself back towards him with a curious expression.
Crossing the small kitchen to the drawer on the far left, Sasuke pulls it open quietly. He doesn’t own enough kitchen supplies to fill all of the compartments in the space, so this one has remained mostly empty, save for the spare nickel-brass key that came with the place. He’s never had a use for it, so he just left it in the same location the previous tenant had: at the back of an unused drawer.
He turns to Sakura with the cool metal in hand, sluggishly so he doesn’t get disoriented again by sudden movement. In one gradual but sure motion he’s extending it out to her.
She blinks twice, staring at it with widened eyes and a nonplussed countenance that makes his throat tighten uneasily.
It is in this moment that his pulse pounds in his ears to the point of careening as he second guesses himself entirely.
He didn’t really think it over much before retrieving it; he just didn’t want her to be stuck waiting outside his door if he’s out by the time she comes back with soup or medicine. He dimly soaks in that this is possibly a bigger deal than his somnolent mind is capable of fully processing just now.
“...If I’m asleep,” he expounds expeditiously, voice marginally hesitant now as he begins to overthink, a sliver of rationality cutting through the haze of fatigue and settling in the form of presage just behind his ribs. Suddenly it feels like there’s something poring through the soil there, disturbing vines and dirt and roots, scrutinizing them afore flinging them away carelessly with the aid of a rusted spade.
They’ve barely been together for two months. Perhaps he has vastly overstepped, made her uncomfortable-
“Okay,” she says as her expression morphs into a shy smile, palm brushing his to take the key.
Once his pulse finds its place again, no longer rushing and echoing in his ears like a torrent of an alarm, he slowly lets go of the sleek metal. Sakura’s eyes are filled with something that looks an awful lot like awe, fractals of seafoam atop a shifting reflected fluorescent light.
Her soft fingers are, as ever, incredibly distracting as they slide away, nimble and graceful. She’s out the door in a few seconds, a sweet-natured glance cast back in his direction before she turns. The door creaks open and closed, and the latch clicks softly behind her.
She locks it for him, eternally polite.
He blinks once, staring at the wood grain for a lingering moment in advance of rotating to land his study on the bag of cough drops.
A feeling is settling somewhat behind his ribs that is rather nice, twisting vines and disturbed roots and other things he’s entombed pushed neatly back into place, utterly at odds with his physical afflictions.
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Several hours pass, more half-formed thoughts a rippling gradient in his subconscious that are not given quite enough time to begin to stew, along with strange scraping noises that filter in and out of his skull.
He eventually blinks groggily to the aroma of chicken soup invading his olfactory senses. It effectively fades the blur of cinereal to simple off white plaster, and he rolls out of bed rather unceremoniously. His headache is at least a little better, he finds, though the dryness in his mouth is not. He gulps down some of the stagnant water in the glass astride his bedside from earlier. He then proceeds to his doorway with it in hand, pushing the door open.
Sakura is stirring soup in what appears to be the slow cooker from her kitchen he was recalling a short time ago, brought here. Savory roasted shiitake mushrooms and sliced green cabbage intermix with the scent now that he’s closer, and she turns to the soft click of the door opening and closing.
“Sasuke-kun,” she greets in a hushed tone with kind eyes, smiling. “You’re awake.”
“...Sakura,” he says in response, somewhat disoriented.
“Your strep test was positive,” she murmurs, turning back to the pot to tap the remaining moisture off the ladle before setting the lid back atop the soup. “I brought you an antibiotic; it’s on the table. Eye ointment, too.”
His focus sinks to the table, and sure enough there are two medications: a tube of ointment that’s labeled Bacitracin Ophthalmic Ointment and a small bottle of pills that reads No. 860015-5578, Uchiha, Sasuke, Penicillin 500mg, Take twice daily. Quantity: 20 tablets. Dr. Haruno, Sakura - No refills.
There is a lengthy moment in which he stares at the clear orange container. His vision adjusts lethargically, lingering on the material transparency, the way it colors the stark white pills contained within it. There is a scattering of seconds where the air momentarily feels crisper in his lungs, harder to respire.
“Thank you,” he finally responds, cutting through the haze of his own thoughts as cleanly as a swipe of his chokuto can cleave through paper. He exchanges his glass of water for the garishly bright container, using his teeth to rotate the lid off.
“You’re welcome,” Sakura acknowledges to his left, reaching for cutlery and beginning to fill the sink, apparently to soak the dishes. Now that he's fully awake, he sees that the cutting board is among them. She must have added a few things to the mix just after arriving here for the final additions to the soup.
“Just make sure to finish the whole thing, even when you start feeling better.” She smiles at him. “In twenty-four hours, you won’t be contagious anymore, either, so you can return to normal life if you’re feeling up to it.”
Lone pill popped into his mouth, he reaches for what’s left of his water. It drags along his throat, scraping irritated tissue; it takes a few more gulps of water to force it all the way down, effectively draining his glass. He shoves away his disdain for the feeling.
“...You don’t need to wash those,” Sasuke says quietly, frowning as he rounds the table, intent on obtaining a new glass of water. “I’ll do it later.”
Fine pink brows arch, then furrow furrow as he places it on the counter nearest the fridge. She’s peering at him as if he’s grown another head.
“Of course I will,” Sakura insists, expression confused. “You're sick, and I dirtied them. After dinner, though.”
His frown sinks deeper, pursuance of the water pitcher in the fridge momentarily forgotten.
“...You’ll get sick.”
There is an enduring pause where she appraises him carefully, as if he’s said something completely nonsensical.
"I… don’t think you need to worry about that,” she finally replies, cheeks flushing a little as she swipes her hand across her skirt once to dry it. They fidget there, bunching in the violet fabric. “You probably got it from me.”
His brows furrow as his fingers rest atop the fridge handle. Briefly she meets his eyes, and her cheeks darken further.
Ah.
He angles his vision momentarily in the direction of the counter, studying the pattern in an attempt at distraction from the acute sensation of flame licking up his neck.
"...Wouldn't you be sick, too?"
Sakura shakes her head in his peripheral vision.
“Well-” She begins, then stops. “Well… I mean technically, I have it, but… I’m mostly asymptomatic. I had a small fever when I checked, running your test, so I did one of my own and it was positive; I’m taking an antibiotic, too . Group A strep has never really given me symptoms other than that, though. And…” She pauses long enough to pique his curiosity, so he meets her stare.
Her cheeks are incarnadine, but her countenance is more akin to apologetic than embarrassment. Her fingers are still restless at her sides.
“I had a patient with strep come in on Tuesday. Group A has a two to five day incubation period, so… Relatively sure that you caught it from me."
Slowly Sasuke nods, and she smiles, but then she turns in a way he can only describe as meek, back to the dishes as if searching for something new to keep her hands occupied.
“So… take this as my apology for getting you sick,” she quips, speaking in a rather regretful tone, one that quickens with every word she speaks, aflush with offers that he immediately clocks as being laden with some sort of misplaced guilt. He’s struck by the tired, absurd notion to laugh, because Sakura is the last person who should ever be apologizing to him.
“Is there anything I can take care of for you? I could bring some new books, if you’d like. If you’ve finished your other ones, I mean. Or… I don’t have to eat here, if you’re too tired. I can come get the slow cooker later if it’s easier for you to heat it up that way. Maybe when you’re feeling better? And-”
“Sakura,” he murmurs, carefully placing his lone hand on her bicep, and she quiets instantaneously, pupils honed in on his.
“...I don’t mind being sick.” The words are out of his mouth before he can overthink them, but they’re true and enunciated as clearly as he is capable; he doesn’t mind at all. He would take being ill again a hundred times over if it means he gets to spend the amount of hours with her he’s been able to recently, and furthermore, to kiss her, like that. There’s a comfort in it, similar to the comfort of seeing her in his apartment for a third occasion or the amenity that comes with someone you love offering to eat soup with you when you’re ill, despite the weather outside being blazing.
It’s arduous for him to voice such things, but he hopes she can understand through his expression alone, as she often can.
I want you here.
Her pupils have widened to the size of saucers, a thin slice of jade green circling their edges just so.
“Oh,” she intones faintly. She peers down to where his hand is still resting, curved gently around her arm, and her face flushes darker somehow. The corner of his mouth twitches; she really is utterly oblivious to what her touch does to him and his pulse, yet is endearingly affected by his touch on her in any way, shape, or form, innocent as it may be.
“...Good.” She says it with what sounds a little like relief, and the spell is broken; he lets his fingers fall away as she reaches to turn off the faucet, sink now brimming with suds and hot water. “We should probably eat, then.”
Sasuke dips his chin once in agreement, reaching to obtain the bowls from a nearby cabinet. He ladles out large servings for both Sakura and himself, more content now that he knows she’s not getting exposed to illness unnecessarily on his behalf. Similarly to the last occasion she made soup, the pot is full to brimming; there will be plenty of leftovers for tomorrow, or tonight, should he wake again or have trouble sleeping in the first place. He’s hungry, he realizes; he didn’t eat lunch. In fact, he has to side-eye the clock to see what the time actually is just now: a few minutes prior to five, the continuance of their newly adjusted meal schedule.
Sakura reaches into the silverware drawer while he oscillates in the small space. Her bowl in hand, he crosses the kitchen to deliver it to the table, placing it in the same spot she sat the previous time she was here for dinner. He embarks on a second trip back for his own, during which Sakura deposits their silverware in their respective spots.
She’s heading back to the kitchen for some reason as he sets his bowl down, the sound of the fridge opening at his back. When he glances her way in question, his gaze softens, because he realizes she’s taking the water pitcher out to fill his glass, forgotten on the counter.
“Would you like some tea?” Sakura questions as she pours, vision colliding with his briefly. “I know you don’t like sweet things, but I brought some honey in my bag; a little might help your throat until the antibiotics kick in. If I brew the sencha strong enough and just use a bit, you probably won’t taste it.”
He shoots her a look that he hopes communicates his appreciation, nodding, before he turns to the table, transiently trying to place what’s missing. His point of study flickers to the eye ointment, then to her bag.
“There’s some in the cupboard,” he mentions absentmindedly, slightly hoarse, wondering if he should apply the ointment now or if it would make him look stupid for dinner. He doesn’t really want irritated eyes - they’re itching a bit, again - but he also doesn’t want them caked with gunk while Sakura’s still here.
“Tea?” She questions with a curious tone. He hears running water from the faucet begin anew, plunking levelly into the saucepan.
“Honey,” he clarifies, distrait before he finally pieces together that the lamp is still in the living room from earlier. He crosses the breadth of the apartment to collect the light source, unplugging it from the outlet nearest the end table.
It’s not until he’s back at the edge of the kitchen, hooking the lamp’s cord into the outlet and flooding the space with softer light, that he realizes silence is still reigning and Sakura hasn't moved an inch.
Sasuke shoots her an inquisitive look, raising an eyebrow as he slides the light flush with the wall atop the table, next to his stack of library books.
“Honey?” Sakura echoes finally, and his unthinking admission catches him.
Calidity blooms on his neck, blistering all the way up to his ears and rushing through the twisted pathways of his veins.
“...Yes,” he mumbles after extensive pause, implication clear and body resolutely still until Sakura turns toward the cupboard with a perplexed expression. It reminds him of the look on her face when he proceeds with a move she clearly didn’t expect him to whilst hours into a match of chess or go: a black piece waltzing willingly into her reach only to parry away in the next turn, if she doesn’t seize it in favor of the continuance of her own strategic maneuvering.
He supposes this is no exception. Sasuke seizes the opportunity to grab the ointment and noiselessly escapes to his bathroom to apply it. The only sound is the open and shut of his bedroom door behind him, a duet of soft clicks.
He takes his time, washing his hand thoroughly and tilting his head back to apply the cool ointment into the small pocket behind the lower lash line of each eye. It’s a bit of a challenge to accomplish the task one-handed without touching the tip of the applicator directly to his corneas - it’s not something he’s done since gaining his handicap, really - but he manages by pulling the skin out with two fingers and holding the tube with the other three. Closing his eyes is a welcome distraction, rolling them in their sockets to distribute the ointment throughout, as it says on the back of the tube not to rub at them with one’s fingers.
After washing his hand a second time, he examines himself for a long moment in the mirror. They don’t look too bad, though the typical white sclera is pretty pink, more clearly afflicted after a few hours of sleep in which the bacteria could apparently fester untreated.
His skin tone has mostly returned to normal, save his neck; he dislikes the slight tinge of a flush that’s hovering stubbornly at his cervical spine, refusing to concede to his will.
Following a deep breath and another minute’s passing, Sasuke crosses the divide of his bedroom and returns to the dining table to the tone of two more mild and muted clicks, gaze shifting to Sakura as soon as he’s carefully drawn the door closed. She’s shut the kitchen light off, it appears; her back is to him, white circle emblazoned brightly across the space between her shoulder blades, but the water is steaming in the saucepan atop the stove, and she’s fastidiously scooping out a vestigial amount of what appears to be the lavender Earl Gray mixture into his lone tea infuser.
There’s a small part of him that’s relieved. It had seemed like something she would like, though he’d picked up a jar each of the loose leaf decaffeinated matcha and the caffeinated peach, too, as well as a modest container of the shop’s honey. He wanted enough variety that she could have tea here no matter what time of the day it is. Sakura’s apartment is vastly superior to his own in terms of variety of things to do, and he hadn’t been sure if she would want to come by again, but it’s good to be prepared, and he’d reasoned that if she didn’t, he could simply deposit the jars and honey discreetly into her contraband drawer sometime.
The scent of sencha overwhelms his nostrils as he sits, intermixing with the aroma of the soup. A mug filled with it is placed next to his bowl; she brewed his first, it seems. He takes to the distraction of food and drink rapidly, bringing a spoonful of the soup to his mouth.
It’s just as excellent as the last time. He savors the way it soothes his throat even as his neck continues in its rogue goal of staying stubbornly blazing. Hearty chunks of chicken, noodles, and a minuscule mushroom slide down his esophagus, drenching everything in a different heat, one that’s relieving. He takes a sip from the mug, after, and it’s definitely stronger than he usually prepares it, but he can't taste the honey much, as she said.
He's alarmed when a muffled sniffle intermixes with the sound of jars being picked up and pushed back into the cupboard. Sasuke watches Sakura uncertainly out of the corner of his vision as she closes the front of the cabinet, and sure enough, she brings one of her hands to her face as if to wipe tears from her eyes.
Now it’s guilt that runs aflame down his spine like a fuse, though this time it burrows sharp into his gut. It wasn’t at all his intention to make her cry.
He experiences a grand moment of internal conflict as he returns his gaze to the table, torn between rising to his feet to do something akin to wiping her tears away clumsily - her name is on the tip of his tongue - and staying put to cede her privacy, as it’s possible she didn’t want him to see that she was crying; she turned the kitchen light off herself, after all. He also doesn’t know if she’s taking anything for conjunctivitis; he washed his hand well, but he doesn’t want to chance giving it to her if she doesn’t have it already.
The remaining water in the saucepan creates a small echo as it’s poured into a cup, shortly followed by a spoon chiming against ceramic as it stirs the contents; then, there are soft footsteps.
“Sakura-”
He is saved from the decision in short order. At his left, she shifts his hair away from his eye and cheekbone with solicitous gentleness prior to pressing her lips there. They linger longer than they have in the past, achingly tender.
“That was sweet of you,” she breathes as her lips depart his skin, voice a little shaky. Even through his fever, the warmth sears him, drizzling down his lungs on the inhale and into his heart. “Thank you.”
When she takes her seat across from him, he sees that her eyes are glassy, reflectant in the lamplight and tempered with such love that it makes him ache.
The dinner is drawn out, yet comfortably quiet in the way that many of their shared meals tend to be. Spoons clink against ceramic bowls and the inside of Sakura’s cup as she stirs her brewing tea. Mugs are raised and lowered, occupying paltry and ever-shifting circumferences. Sasuke puts away two helpings to the tune of it, the soft rhythms of shared life. His throat feels a bit less like sandpaper by the conclusion of it.
“I’d like to check on you tomorrow, too,” Sakura says once they’ve done the dishes and stowed the leftover soup in his refrigerator, carrying over the routine they’ve fallen into at her place just as easily here. She’s standing near his doorway with her bag shrugged over her shoulder, sandals pulled on and twisting the spare key nervously in her fingers at her side.
“Okay,” he murmurs, glimpsing pointedly in the direction of her hand, then back to her to show he understands what she’s asking him. She can keep it as far as he’s concerned - it’s not like he has any use for it, anyway, and he knows Sakura is nothing if not cognizant and respectful of his boundaries, possibly overly so - but perhaps that’s a conversation for tomorrow.
“Okay,” she agrees, flashing him a dazzling smile. Her digits close around the key more surely, fidgeting coming to a standstill as her dimple sinks into existence.
There is an expectant pause where there is usually some sort of kissing, but even if they’re both on the antibiotic, his mouth still tinges with a little dryness now that he’s not consuming some sort of hot liquid. Coughing all over her is the last thing he wants to do.
Sakura exhales slowly. “Well… I’ll see you tomorrow, Sasuke-kun. Good night.”
“...Good night.”
Sasuke stays rooted by the door once she’s gone, lock long since clicked into place for him a second time and her visage burned into his retinas. Torpidly, carefully, he presses his forehead to the cool wood of the threshold.
How is it possible for someone’s mere presence to transform a space in such a way?
He would have been terribly bored - irritated, even - in his apartment alone this evening, and he knows as sure as the sky is blue that any soup he crafted alone wouldn’t have tasted half as good as what Sakura prepared for him.
Reasonably, Sasuke is aware that such things are possible, though he learned that lesson the first time in reverse. He recalls it vividly as he traipses to the memorial stone to water what he’s planted, the way in which someone’s absence robs a house, a backyard, an entire district of all joy.
He shrugs off his shirt once he’s sojourned back home in favor of doubling up on his comforters; the top was coated in sweat from the humid walk. Both blankets are clean currently, he reasons, and if he has them, he might as well use them.
The sheets are cool to his skin initially, a nice feeling against his still fevered skin as he suspected they might be. The blankets enwrap him comfortably, endlessly warm.
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Sometimes Sasuke contemplates what happens after people die. He’s dreamed about it often, ensnared in nightmares of eighty-six bodies or otherwise: if it hurts or if it’s peaceful, like sinking into sleep, and if there is something after all of this. He perceives that there is some truth to reincarnation from their encounter with the Sage of the Six Paths, and that has set him slightly to ease, in the sense that in some liminal way his clan lives on: his brother, his mother and his father, his aunt and uncle, and the rest.
It has also given him additional questions, though. Does part of their soul stay adrift endlessly, clutching their memories like a keepsake to their chest, a threaded nexus tied to their previous life? Or does the spirit depart completely into their next existence, flitting to the most fitting and available vessel to embark on a new annal? The thought of his mother not remembering him or the lilies in their backyard makes his chest ache terribly, brittle and easily broken, and Itachi forgetting him is another agony entirely.
He also wonders if part of their memories could be geographical, tethered haphazardly in pieces to places they loved in life. He knows his Aunt Uruchi loved the bakery with its smell of toasting senbei and pastries. He suspects Itachi enjoyed the bakery, too, with his affinity for dango and other sweet things. He vaguely recalls a festival when they were very young in which they polished off twenty multicolored sticks together and ended up with bellyaches. They’d used the wooden remains to construct a form reminiscent of a simplistic house, lantern glow illuminating the scant lines in the dark, ephemeral and easily ended when it came time to collect them and embark on the journey home.
Sasuke likes to think Itachi also enjoyed the pond he took him to occasionally, the wildflowers they picked to take home for their mother, and the resultant scent of budding blooms that lilted through hallways with dark floors on those handfuls of occasions, intermingling with the scent of their salt-grilled catch come dinner. He knows his mother loved their yard, and their kitchen, too, lilting with freshly brewed jasmine tea in the morning or the quiet din of family once everyone sat down for a formal meal. His mother plucked a bone from his mouth once, a small one he’d nearly swallowed. He remembers her softspoken instructions to be more careful, voice comforting as she reached to the back of his throat methodically with tweezers in the soft light of early evening.
But he is not sure of the sorts of places his father liked, or if there even were any, and that compels worse hurt. Thinking of his father is bruising and convoluted in general, as there is much Sasuke would like to know of him, and further he would like to say to him - most of it, should it ever bubble out of his lungs to be lost in the interminable abyss, is anger - but he was so closed off in life that Sasuke can only wonder aimlessly in his death. His mother was the only person who truly knew his father at his core, he thinks, silent as he was and unyielding in his convictions. He mulls on whether their marriage was truly happy or if that was colored darker by the planned coup, too. He cognizes that his mother likely spent her final days sick with worry about that; Uchiha Mikoto was a caring woman, everything he could have asked for in a mother.
It makes Sasuke doubly furious with him. Didn't he know the risks, what it would mean for the children of their clan if they failed? It is no easy thing, to stumble over the bodies of their ilk again and again and again, the Uchiha children, adolescents and toddlers and one newborn, desperately clutched by a cowering mother in an alley, drained white and nauseatingly pallid, and he still can’t get their faces out of his mind, the way their noses were identical when viewed from the side as he lurched over them in his cowering, tripped-
Stop.
It also makes him furious with Konoha, the most bellicostic he’s been in a long while since the Land of Iron a year ago when he last dreamed this dream, passing through and revisiting his greatest failures, Danzou and the fucking council that forced this further cataclysm of an already cursed lineage on him. Didn't they know annexing an entire clan and letting wounds fester would lead to spilled blood eventually? What the fuck is the point of a village, of shared civilization, if its malfeasant corruption gorges itself on the innocent over and over and over? There is only so much one can take of their life boiling away in their veins with untempered rage until they snap -
Not their blood , a grotesque susurrus inside him whispers, one that envisions the aspostates that signed his clan’s death warrant and one he has desperately tried to drought out of existence to be replaced with better things over the past couple of years: Kakashi’s particular brand of cutting and commiserate wisdom that lingers years after he’s spoken it, Naruto’s relentless optimism and the sense of vying brotherhood that reminds him of Itachi ad finitum - You’re trying to be alone again and I can’t let that happen! - Sakura’s unwavering kindness and altruistic affection - What if I said… I’d go with you? - the feel of her seal against the tips of his outstretched fingers, her soft lips against his as she threads her fingers through his hair, the way the jasmine plant dangling above her window warps a perfect chiaroscuro to frame the freckle on her cheek once the sun has sunk below the horizon just so -
Not their blood, so why would they care?
Take notice of what light does, to everyth-
Corrosion-
For now, for now, for now-
Yes, Sasuke likes to think his years away changed him in at least some marginally minute way. Yet his subconscious returns him to this place cyclically to reread moribund chapters, the single lone instance in which he thought maybe, just maybe, his father was proud of him. He’s still searching for answers that will never come, from a man he has come to realize he holds a monumental amount of resentment towards.
He almost doesn’t wish to contemplate this, as he recognizes it is ages away and much can happen between now and then - and also he is utterly undeserving and woefully ill-suited to care for a child, both physically and otherwise - but if he is ever blessed enough to someday be granted one, he does not want to be like his father. He doesn’t want to perpetuate this sort of aimlessness, the weight of expectation and a mentality of being a slave to blood. This gloom and despondency and misplaced pride will be his end as it was Fugaku's, he knows, if he doesn't rinse the wound out on occasion, acutely feel its sting, its agony.
In this anamnesis, he is barefoot on a dock as he always is, tiny feet placed firmly atop a thin dusting of snow. Orange flames spout from his mouth, chapping his lips, crowning gold and climbing higher and higher into the brumous sky as his throat dries with the heat and amelioration, a thin veiling of illusory safety that was everything to him when he was small and alone and desperate for some sense of control, grasping at straws.
When he turns, coughing from the smoke and faintest remnant of crushed pills pelted into his eyes by bitter winds, he half expects even now to hear the lone set of words from his father that he has tried to replay in his head thousands of times.
As expected of my son. The only way the words live on is via an echo of Sasuke’s own voice speaking them into existence again. He can remember the visuals perfectly with near photographic recall, the day that his father told him that: the ripe fever of life and late summer, the rippling of the leaves a stark contrast to the chill that haunts him in this overplayed dream where he clutches an emptied and mangled marigold prescription bottle. He watches now with his brother’s eyes as he throws it skyward and torches his own name out of existence with the last of his chakra, all of seven years old.
He can perfectly recall his mother's lilting halcyon inflection - When we're alone, all he talks about is you - and he can remember both of his brother's last words to him - I'm sorry, Sasuke. This is the last time , and No matter what happens from now on, I will love you forever -
But he cannot for the life of him remember what his father’s voice sounded like; not the inflection, nor the tone or tenor. It was the only time it ever felt like he held an ounce of affection for him, fleeting and gone the next hour. He only remembers the way their family crest looked as he said it, presented to him boldly as his father turned away from him.
And isn’t that just the richest metaphor? He fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
He doesn't know what it says about him, but he assumes it's nothing good. The phrase inferiority complex has crossed his mind on many such occasions. As he has aged, he's reviewed it with fresh eyes, and wondered if it was all an act, some passing dalliance to satisfy his mother. Shinobi are capable liars, and he knows his father was one of the best. It would be easy for him to feign the mirage of happiness about saying such things.
What would his father’s face have betrayed? Would there have been any certitude had he caught up with him on the walk home instead of trailing a few steps behind in his shadow? Uchiha Fugaku was not a man who smiled often. Conversely, his mouth was wrinkled from being set in a frown so regularly that there was a permanent line just below his lip. Sasuke deems he himself will expediently encounter an identical issue as he ages, though primarily he also believes both he and Itachi took more after their mother, physically. He sees her nose each time he views himself tiredly in the mirror. Her eye shape, too, and the inky black hair, a shade darker than their father’s.
It will be fitting, he thinks, he knows, to watch his mother’s agreeable features bleed out of him and reveal what he’s always been.
It would hurt her deeply, if she heard that thought.
He loathes that about himself.
He loathes a lot of things about himself.
There is no one behind him to offer platitudes or words of encouragement in this particular brand of dream; there never is. The dock of the pond within the Uchiha District and the shore surrounding it, just around the corner of another dead relative’s house, is empty, packed with a fresh dusting of snow and charred blue particles. The wind is blowing, though, almighty chilling and true, making branches ripple in the zephyr as it carries away the gray and the meager amount of heat he's created with it. He outgrew his coat that first winter, and his shoes, too.
“Where did you go?” He is compelled to ask, intonation a scant whisper against slate air rippling as if this whole thing is an illusion - Am I caught in Tsukuyomi again? - but there is no answer. That used to terrify him when he was much younger; he had been afraid his father was trapped in the childlike depiction of hell he’d conjured up in his brain, and that that was why he couldn’t really recollect the way he spoke, the gruffness or whether his voice was tenor or bass.
He returns to land, taking extra care of his steps, and wonders, if nothing else, if the earth will remember his bare feet, a sign that he’s still here, sinking through the snow and other remnants that divide them.
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He awakens to the smell of tea and rice and something else. It’s disorienting, tumultuary, the feel of a warm blanket at his toes and soft noises clinking from the kitchen when just prior there had been cold snow and acutely lonely roads. It distracts him a bit from the morose stinging in his eyes, enough that he can rapidly blink it away, forcibly shrugging off the melancholy as if it was nothing more than a weighty winter cloak, ushered over his shoulders like the layer of his second comforter and pushed back down deep.
“...Sakura?” He calls once he’s been awake for a minute, speech cracking a little at the last syllable, still groggy as he sits up in bed and promptly regrets that decision; the change in position triggers a fresh pounding in his head, aching thumping at his temple as his blood rushes. He reaches for the water at his bedside table with first his left arm, a phantom sensation echoing in empty space before he remembers to use his right.
There is the sound of soft footsteps as he gulps down tepid liquidity, and then a tentative knock at his bedroom door.
“Sasuke-kun?” Her voice resounds faintly from the other side of the wood, as if she’s unsure if she actually heard him call her name.
He blinks, unsure what the hold-up is, then realizes through the fever and rapidly materializing headache that she’s being polite.
“...You can come in.”
The knob turns, and in she comes, very much awake and wearing what he now recognizes as her summer training gear, the cropped top and short skirt framed by dark transparent mesh. He pointedly takes notice of the clock, then, for multiple reasons that are all overshadowed by the fact that his internal monologue has undertaken a fatuously lascivious turn, greedily seeking distraction and here in his bedroom, no less. He then puts together that it’s still somewhat early, only six thirty; she's dropped by to prepare breakfast before her spar with Ino.
For him.
He tries to get a grip on the warmth that’s nudging at his heart, insistent in its beckoning. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s made him food, but he knows she’s occupied on Mondays till after lunch. She’s gone out of her way to do such a kindness for him, added additional things to her schedule.
“Hey-” she says softly as he turns back to her; she’s taking a step toward him with a mug of what appears to be steaming water and the pill bottle he left on the table. He stares at the marigold plastic, slightly desaturated and less contrasting here in the darkness of his room. “Er. I mean… Good morning. I was up early, and I… I thought I’d make you breakfast.”
He nods slowly as his eyes prick at her sweetness. Now that the door’s sitting open, he would recognize the aroma of ochazuke anywhere. He’s never directly voiced to anyone that it’s one of his favorite breakfasts, though he supposes it’s rather easy to piece together that he would like it given his other food preferences. He made it several times when they were away on missions as Genin, too.
Still. In addition to all of the other qualities that encompass who she is, Sakura is as observant as she is kind.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, heart swelling with the relief of being cared for, simple and true, even as his throat aches and his head pounds.
Her lips tilt upwards into a smile, and it is then that he notices, pulled back to normalcy and something providential that’s swelling in his chest, finally tearing his vision away from the pill bottle, that her cheeks are bright red for some reason; the light from the cracked door has her illuminated.
“Of course.” Her focus falls to the glass of stale water he’s put back on his bedside table, then the mug in her hands. “Want me to..?”
Sasuke nods prior to repeating himself. “Thank you.” His words come out raspy and raw.
She pays it no mind, still smiling with scarlet cheeks as she places both the mug and the pill bottle on the surface, taking the glass in exchange. “Of course,” she murmurs, meeting his gaze briefly prior to his reaching for the pill bottle.
“I’ll… um. I’ll go… watch the rice,” she stammers as he sets to opening the lid with his teeth. She turns to go, then pauses, casting her focus back at him, though the trajectory of her eyesight seems directed mainly at the area above his head. “Do you still like ochazuke? I thought, maybe…” She trails off and purses her mouth as he finally pries off the lid, setting it aside.
“I do,” Sasuke discloses immediately, pausing in his ministration of procuring a pill from the bottle, as he recognizes the tone of her voice and the expression she’s wearing as being betwixt and between, unsure of her assumptions or his availability for breakfast together when ill, or, perhaps, uncertain if she’s welcome in his room. “I have it often. Thank you.”
Her posture relaxes completely and any uncertainty dissolves.
“Oh,” she breathes, lips curving upwards. “Good.” She lingers a second longer, jade eyes soft on his directly before she turns and trails out of his bedroom, closing the door behind her.
He stares at the threshold for a lengthy spread of seconds, thinking. He then turns slightly to try to ascertain what she was looking at above and behind him - perhaps some sort of spider managed to entrench the corner with a few spools of web in the night - but there’s nothing he can discern aside from the small amount of texture coating the walls.
Perplexed, he reaches for the mug, pill bottle placed atop the blanket in his lap. A measured sip floods the pill down first, drenching his insides in blessed heat and ease. It feels so incredibly good on his throat that he quickly drains the cup. It does nothing for his head, he realizes once he shifts slightly, extending his arm to place the mug, then the pill bottle, back at his bedside.
A pause to alleviate the pounding has him locking his gaze onto the inscription on the bottle’s label.
Uchiha, Sasuke.
Haruno, Sakura.
He muses less than fleetingly on empty space, the ever-changing weight of melancholia, and the way the earth feels beneath one’s feet.
Turns out that rising doesn’t do much for his head, either, but he does it anyway, padding first to the closet for a change of clothes.
It is then that he promptly recalls that he did not wear a shirt to bed. His face warms at the quandary, realizing he directly invited his girlfriend into his bedroom while half-dressed.
In addition to a little self-consciousness, satisfaction begins to unfold in his belly, because he gathers, unraveling and rewinding the interaction for closer examination, that Sakura was definitely not unaffected.
He journeys to the bathroom to apply the eye ointment and brush his teeth thoroughly before joining Sakura for breakfast, shaking off this new development that he’s sure will beset his dreams the next time he’s asleep and his endocrine system decides to torture him.
Sakura, still red-cheeked, makes ochazuke with nori instead of sesame seeds, he learns.
He finds he likes it better.
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He drifts back to sleep with a full stomach, slipping away into genuine rest in the hopes of cowing his fever, and with it, his headache, into submission until the early afternoon.
This sleep is dreamless, deep and paradisiacally empty aside from a strange clunking noise or two, no room for ruminating on the nature of omneity and complexes.
It’s a sign that the antibiotic is working that he awakens as he hears the key twist in the door. He’s tired, but not as much as earlier this morning or yesterday. His throat is less dry, too, he realizes.
He then sits up in bed and promptly discovers that he still has a headache.
“Sakura,” he calls lowly, just loud enough to be heard through the door as he blinks, vision adjusting to the light now that he’s pushed aside the blankets that were previously encasing his head in darkness.
“Sasuke-kun,” she answers. There’s the sound of an object being placed on the table before she raps on his bedroom door twice.
You don’t need to knock, he would say if the events of earlier this morning had not come rushing back to him.
“Come in,” he says instead. He has a shirt on this time, at least.
The door pushes open.
“Hi,” Sakura greets, regard settling on him fully after only a second of delay at the empty space above his head. Her hair is damp and she’s switched into a different set of clothing. There’s an expression on her face that’s hard to describe as anything but dotingly affectionate. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He shakes his head, eyes finally adjusting to the light. “...I should get up.”
She grins for some reason. “You should,” she agrees, her countenance filled with levity.
He arches a lone brow in question, at which she chuckles, soft.
“Naruto gave me lunch to deliver to you,” she informs him, looking utterly amused. “And you’ll never guess from where.”
Sasuke exhales heavily, rolling his eyes prior to shifting to rise and promptly pausing at what it does to his head. He apparently doesn’t succeed in minimizing his wincing; before he can continue with the motion, he sees her smile morph unmistakably into concern.
“...Do you have a headache?” She questions softly after a lengthy quiet, stepping away from the door frame and closer to his bed. “I can fix it,” she adds, just prior to halting a foot away.
He blinks up at her, immediately reaching the conclusion that he’s been incredibly stupid. Of course she can fix headaches. It just… didn’t occur to him to remember that, or to ask. Conceivably it could be the fever, clouding his judgment.
“Just… if you want,” she tacks on hastily, fingers twitching at her sides. He realizes she’s holding herself back from reaching for him without his express consent.
Sasuke nods, then, just once, but very sure.
“...Please,” he whispers, shifting more so that he’s closer to the edge of the bed. Her fingers stop their anxious repetitions as his feet finally shift to the floor, upper body now easy for her to reach.
He contemplates if this oblivion of chartreuse and charcoal will ever cease in making his affection for her feel like it’s overflowing from a teacup filled to the brim. Sakura’s expression is unendingly soft and a bantam smile plays at her lips as she closes the rest of the distance between them, fingers coming to rest expertly at his temples. Ten points of contact coalesce as she threads her chakra into his being, alleviating the pressure from whatever sort of swelling causes such headaches slowly but surely.
He maintains eye contact with her this time - she’s so short that he’s nearly eye-level with her while sitting - studying the small nacreous circle of jade and tilleul at the outer edges of her iris; the black of her pupils have expanded to fit nearly the entire contents of the space, but there are still microscopic flecks of gold here and there that catch the light. It’s challenging to pull himself back from activating his Sharingan to capture the way she’s looking at him just now. The convolution of tomoe could etch it into his memories perfectly, he knows.
He concludes that she’s studying his eyes, too, or rather, his brother’s. He wonders silently if they appear terribly different from his own eyes, close up. Sakura’s observant; she might be able to discern if there is any noticeable variance from when they were younger, enough to demarcate between the old ones and the new.
Eventually her chakra tapers and her fingers trail away.
“Better?” She questions.
It feels as if his heart is in his throat when he answers.
“Better.” He holds her gaze for a moment longer, exhaling contentedly and struck stupid with the urge to pull her closer to him so he can breathe in more of her scent. “Thank you.”
Her lips curve upwards, and he wants to kiss her badly.
“You’re welcome,” she says, grinning and biting her lip once.
She then surprises him by leaning in, apparently overcome by the same inclination as him. It’s a chaste kiss, achingly slow and gentle, unmarred from the pressure that’s been plaguing his head. Her lashes slide against the highest point of his cheekbones.
Her cheeks are ablaze when she finally pulls back, darker in color than her hair.
“You… should probably eat it while it’s still warm,” she reasons quietly, smile guilty.
“...Probably,” he agrees, taking in the green of her irises one more time before tearing his ocularity away.
He rises to trail after her to the dining table, where he finds a to-go container of ramen. The clear lid of the styrofoam container has been haphazardly carved into sloppy handwriting, he assumes by way of the tip of a kunai.
Sorry. Get better soon, asshole.
-Naruto!
The tail end lettering of the word asshole drifts down the side of the container onto the styrofoam, as the moron clearly ran out of room to finish off his sloppy scrawl. Sasuke resists the urge to shake his head, settling for rolling his eyes instead.
It's a nice gesture, he supposes as examines the soup through the transparent lid: there’s broth swimming with noodles, seared chicken, and chunks of spring onions and mushrooms. His brow furrows and he looks up, then, to Sakura.
"...You already ate?" He questions. Her slow cooker is still on his counter, the pot laden with soup from yesterday in his fridge.
"With Ino," Sakura confirms. "Naruto caught me walking to the library and ran to go get it."
He blinks, curious that she’s visited the library. He doesn’t suppose she’s been there much on her own since he returned; they usually go together. He’ll need to return his own books in the next week or two, come to think of it, since he’s finished the one on the Land of Tea now. It’s sitting next to the lamp on the kitchen table, stacked on top of Art From Around the World . Sakura’s tote bag is lying there, too.
“I think I convinced him to push our movie night to next week,” Sakura offers; apparently his face belied his curiosity. “Ino said Sai was wondering if you’d finished the art book; he finished the one you recommended.”
Sasuke nods. “...I did.” He decides to keep his books until next week, then, if Sakura’s already exchanged hers. He can reread one of them to keep busy, since he feels more awake today. He’d rather go with Sakura than alone anyways, and then he can take it to Sakura’s for the movie. He’s mildly curious what sort of strange comment Sai will have on the book about kenjutsu.
It would probably be fine to voice that, he decides. “...I’ll bring it to the movie.”
Sakura grins at him in response, before her body language morphs into that which belies bashfulness.
“So… Do you feel any better today?” She questions quietly, seemingly searching his expression for something. “Or do you need more sleep, do you think?”
He blinks, searching her own in return.
“I’m awake,” he finally answers honestly, chest warming at the tone in which she asked the question. He recognizes the way she speaks, timid and almost unsure, as the way she acts when she’s about to suggest they do something together, though she shouldn’t be. There are few things that he wouldn’t agree to if they involve her.
“...Better now with no headache,” he adds gratefully after a moment in which she appears to wait patiently for an answer to the other part of his question; it’s hard for him to focus on words when it feels as though his chest is unfurling behind his ribs, flooded with warmth and metaphorical sunshine. It’s the truth, besides; the only thing plaguing him at the moment is the minor hint of a dry throat, which will ease after he eats the ramen from the dobe.
“...I’m glad,” Sakura murmurs after a sustained pause in which he gathers that she’s contemplative. Her gaze flicks to her tote bag on the table for some reason, and then she’s reaching into her pocket, and out comes the key.
“I’ll give this back to you, then,” she says softly, smiling as she presents the flash of nickel-brass to him with an open palm, its polished sheen bathed in light drifting from the living room window. Her focus shifts to her tote bag again briefly. “And I was thinking…”
He reaches out silently, vastly enjoying the way her eyes widen as he presses her fingers back around the key with his own. He holds them like that for a second to emphasize his unmitigated insistence, enjoying the warmth of a hand dwarfed by his own. He momentarily wishes for his other arm, so he could use it to press her fingers in place, too.
“Keep it,” Sasuke counters in a husky voice, amused at the way her mouth has parted in surprise and simultaneously looking forward to a few days from now, when he can get back to pressing his lips to hers on her couch, until they’re plump with evidence of their kissing.
“Um.” She beholds him with an endearingly dazed look etched into her features. Dark pupils examine his hand clasped around hers and then ascend upwards again. Her face flushes with color the longer he looks.
“...Keep it?” She finally whispers, tone questioning as if she’s unsure she’s heard him correctly. Her fine pink brows have risen as high as her facial muscles seem to allow in surprise.
“Keep it,” he affirms, squeezing her fingers around the cool metal once more ahead of allowing his lone hand to fall away.
Her pupils fall to her palm again, slender fingers wrapped around the key, before traveling back up to hold his smitten stare.
Her face is as red as an heirloom tomato. He thinks she’s gorgeous like this.
“...Okay,” she finally mumbles, apparently completely flustered. “I…”
Sasuke gives her a look that he hopes conveys both his seriousness on the matter and his amusement simultaneously.
Her mouth closes once, then opens, then closes again. Her lips are gorgeous, too, endlessly distracting.
“You’re sure?” She questions softly, finally.
He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement, because there have been few things in his life that he’s been more certain of than this.
“I’m sure.”
Long lashes skim her own cheekbones as she blinks before acceptance washes over her. A wide smile adorns her features as she returns the key to its place in her pocket.
Her own mouth twitches ahead of directing her focus to her tote bag again.
“Um. So…” Jade eyes flicker to him again hesitantly, blushing in a manner he finds charming. “So I was thinking. Just… if you’re feeling better. Since we’re both contagious until later today, I mean. I… Well, I talked with Ichika through the window and she set the books outside for me. So…”
She pauses, inspecting his countenance hesitantly prior to smiling again and reaching for her bag.
“If, maybe you wanted some company… If you don’t need to sleep more…”
She pulls out Hazel Wood and Isthmus, the book about the fisherman Ichika recommended to him. The spines catch the light from the window, too.
“...Book club?” She finishes in a questioning voice that’s euphonious to his ears, a suggestion of shared affinity and her smile turning sheepish.
His eyes soften.
“Yes,” he murmurs soft and sure, initiating oblivion by holding her gaze. “...Book club.”
Sakura beams, and he wonders for the upteenth occasion if she knows she’s the brightest, most felicific thing in his life, the breath in his lungs, intenerating and lambent sunlight on seafoam and all the rest.
He eats his meal while she chatters, asking questions at appropriate intervals when his mouth isn’t full. He’ll begrudgingly admit that it’s good while ill; he supposes he accepts Naruto’s apology, though he recognizes that it certainly won’t be the last time he’s teased by the idiot. He silently wonders if Sakura endures the same annoyances from their third teammate when he’s not present, the thinly-veiled raillery and endless stupidity.
That thought is somehow both comforting and amusing. He ponders it a moment further while depositing the last chunk of mushroom into his mouth, chewing methodically.
The pleasant thrumming in his chest momentarily hushes in quiescence when Sakura mentions, “I think you might have a new neighbor soon.”
Sasuke blinks, pausing his sipping of the last bit of broth. The sudden stillness reminds him of the Land of Beasts, the way the lush grasslands stop swaying just before an ugly storm rolls in.
“...What?”
Sakura tips her head to the side, the direction of the wall he shares with the woman and her child next door.
“Your neighbor. I saw her taking boxes downstairs.”
Ah.
The mysterious scrapings and clunkings suddenly achieve perfect retrospective clarity. She in all probability planned this, he realizes glumly; listening carefully to steps and visitors and doorways, searching for the opportunity to make her escape, surreptitiously moving things out and elsewhere to get away from him.
He ruminates briefly if her lease ended this month or if she broke it early, if she paid a penalty in her desperation to get her and her child as far away from him as possible.
There’s a moment in which he becomes keenly aware that he has the volition:
Let this knowledge consume him, allow the inner voice of the parts of himself he loathes to speak.
Or, to focus on the good things that are right in front of him, split evenly and clearly to his cognition as a prism divides light into its according colors, easily recognized as the rose color of Sakura’s hair, the rich berry of her scent, the pale peach of her complexion, the gold and seafoam green of her eyes, the calm azure of her gentle touch and the lilting, mesmeric lilac and honey complementaries of her voice, soft and rich with candor and compassion.
Sakura shifts slightly, surveying him with a curious expression as if she doesn’t understand his sudden disquiet - she probably doesn’t - and a sunbeam settles on the right half of her face and its corresponding shoulder. Two more freckles have inked into existence on the expanse between her trapezius and her neck, a testament to her morning spent outdoors training with Ino.
In an instant, he knows his choice.
“Hm,” he says noncommittally, rising to discard the container and place his chopsticks in the sink. “Guess so.” He takes in the newest flecks dotting her skin again as he passes behind her, allowing his gaze to linger, though he is excruciatingly aware that it will later drive him mad, this overwhelming urge to drag his lips across her skin there, up the column of her neck in a trifold of reverence and adoration and utmost, aching apology.
He’ll contact his landlord, he decides, and pay the penalty for her if there was one. He hopes that, wherever the woman and her child end up, it will bring her comfort and a sense of safety. He knows what it’s like to go without.
He also knows what it’s like to find such senses again, and maybe this is the point: to exist in the blink of an eye in divine space, to be cared for in the iterum, in the coruscating flash that they inhabit the earth. There’s augury to be found in place, surely, the compelling fibers of memory interlocking at the corners of one’s consciousness and a corollary post factum, but it principally tethers back to the person that made the event memorable in the first place, whether it’s a fisherman returning to dry land following a long journey or a girl and her mother inheriting an estate rife with mystifying writings or Sakura taking her side of his couch, closer to him than the last time; the redolence of tart berry overwhelms him, fresh and new.
He admires the way the highest points of her face look when bathed in sunshine, smooth lineaments arching and adorned aurelian, before he realizes for the thousandth time that he’s staring and settles into the mystery book instead.
They read until evenfall, content for plenary horizons to slip into violescent gradients as they discuss the more remarkable points of both books by lamplight to the scent of soup and tea. Sakura tries the decaffeinated matcha, and he watches quietly as she ladles honey into her mug, shooting him a glance that can only be described as sweet and highly appreciative, cheeks glowing deep red.
They return to the couch after dinner, antibiotic anodynes swallowed and roughly halfway through their respective texts.
He thinks he dozes around eight or nine in the evening, book at his chest as he had thought he was just resting his eyes for a minute. Sasuke blinks groggily in the direction of Sakura’s side of the couch as he awakens from the nap; at seeing it empty, his attention flits accordingly to the clock.
Eleven thirty, he notes, shifting ahead of the realization that one of his comforters has been laid carefully over him. She must have switched off the lamp they were reading by, too. He blinks, staring at the cast of moonglow atop the fabric in the desaturated night as perspicuous warmth pours into his belly. Sasuke marvels at the feeling for longer than is stringently necessary, examining the way the blanket is tucked in slightly around his feet as his vision adjusts. It was probably a challenge to situate, especially without waking him; being tall comes with some disadvantages.
Eventually he rises, turning the direction of the kitchen - it was hot today, too, he gathered, so the lily plants likely need another drink - and stops short, eyes zeroing in on that which is out of place.
There is a lone key laid purposefully on the corner of the dining table that is not his own, glinting gold in the scant sliver of moonlight cascading in from the living room window.
His chest ignites anew as it coalesces with his fingers. He turns it over in the soft glimmer of night, relishing the way it feels in his hand, every tactile cut of the metal and every small scratch from extended use. Judging by the amount of wear and the fact that she had it with her, he thinks it must be her original copy, the one she herself has carried around since first residing there instead of a spare.
It feels real in his palm, the physicality of it honey sweet and sinking into his very bone marrow.
For now, he thinks. It clinks into place purposefully next to his own on the key ring before he departs.
#naruto#sasusaku#ssfanfiction#cherry writes#like gold#fanfiction#sasuke#sakura#sorry this is VERY late it's just life is so FRUSTRATINGLY BUSY
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❤️💚 Part 8/9💚❤️
On the first day of October, Phil receives an invitation to a Halloween party and he decides to actually join and try something new.
Phil belongs to the amazing @flareshogwarts
On the first day of October, Phil received a phone call from his parents stating he had received some mail and a parcel, then asking if he wanted it shipped over to the store. Being busy as he was with orders from the beginning of the term, he agreed to it since it was much easier.
When everything finally came, he stared at the parcel oddly, picking up the envelope placed in between the ribbons. The black envelope had his name on, a wax seal with an unknown symbol etched on it. Opening it, he saw an invitation for a high-end club in the heart of London for a Halloween party at the end of the month, black tie event “Please respond by scanning the code on the back? What is this?”
Opening the box, he found an elegant black mask, Phil closing back the lid. It surely must have been a mistake and someone just found the wrong Phil.
However he was proven wrong when a week later an unknown number called him to ask if he received the invitation and if he would attend. Asking further questions he found out there was an open bar and buffet before the treasure hunt began at midnight, him being one of the selected ones to participate.
What did he have to lose? Apart from a suit he already owned and the cab money he needed to spend, he could actually go for a small party, especially since his curiosity was piqued when he was told the questions would be from manga and games. If he didn’t have an upper hand then he didn’t know who did.
On Halloween night at the agreed hour he stepped outside of the cab, eyes going wide at he witnessed the crowd of people. Walking up the stairs, he showed the message he received when confirming, the bodyguards calling over a hostess to lead him to a private party for VIPs.
“VIP are you sure?”
The lady walking in front turned to him with a smile “Yes mister Baker, you are after all a participant in the treasure hunt. Would you like a glass on champagne?” she gestured towards a waiter in front of a double door, Phil taking it just to he would not fiddle with his tie or sit awkwardly with his hands.
Entering a large room, he was led to a table, him waving with a small smile at the rest.
Finishing his drink, he ordered wine next, feeling nervous all of the sudden as if he was out of place. Frowning slightly he tried to push back the thought that made its way inside his mind. But as he stared at the private band and couples dancing, people interacting, enjoying the night, he couldn’t help but let it manifest. Scarlett would have thrived in such a setting.
Taking another sip of his drink, he almost jumped as someone came near him and presented an envelope “The games have begun. You have 10 minutes to answer. Good luck.” His eyes travelled to the rest of the guests, some frowning as they checked the question, him opening the envelope to reveal a question about God of War. Writing down the answer, he smiled proudly, knowing he got it right before he even received the confirmation.
As the night progressed, he abandoned any alcohol so he could concentrate as the questions got increasingly difficult, from normal gamer and anime knowledge, to things one would know by paying attention, rewatching or playing and exploring for countless hours.
At that point he didn’t even care about the prize, it was a matter of pride. It was what he was good at and knew like the back of his hand. And the smug look on the guy from table two would be annihilated. He had a purpose, someone to beat.
On the last question, the guy who Phil didn’t even bother to learn his name, passed his answer before he did, the woman checking the answer before shaking her head, indicating he got it wrong. Looking at the girl who was still reading his answer, Phil held his breath, releasing it when she mentioned he answered correctly “Yes, I knew it.” He cheered.
As the announcement came and Phil was declared the winner of the hunt, he was called on stage, a small trophy being presented to him “Now if you would accompany my assistant, she will take you upstairs to claim your prize. Congratulations once again.”
“Thank you.” He smiled bright, everything feeling like a daze. He sure showed all those expensive suits what he could do.
Being led up some stairs, the girl that accompanied him stopped in front of a door “Through here mister Baker. This is as far as I go.”
Nodding, he inhaled deeply before turning the handle and walking inside a room. Looking around he didn’t see anyone “Hello, is anyone here.” Hearing high heels clicking on the floor, his eyes widened seeing Scarlett revealing herself.
“Hello Phil.”
“What…what are you doing here?” he finally found his voice, however did not approach.
“Well, it’s probably not the treasure you expected at the end of the night, but I wanted to talk to you because I have a lot of things to say if you’ll listen and a lot of apologizing to do.” Seeing as Phil wasn’t saying anything she sighed “If not, you have in the other room the best gaming headphones and a new gaming PC.”
“You did all this? Just to talk to me?”
She nodded, Phil taking a few steps towards her “Look I know I’m not the best one out there. In my own fucked up way I tried to save you from the hurt, from what I bring to the table because I know you care for me more than a friend. And I know that despite what I did, you were still there and I hurt you. I’m sorry Phil.” She walked closer to him, however still kept her distance just in case he didn’t want her near him “I know I said I don’t want us to be friend and that still stands.”
She could see the confusion on his face, that cute nose crinkling as he tried to understand “So you’re here just to apologize?”
“Yes and no, I’m here to say I don’t want us to be friends because I want more. I know it’s maybe late and you don’t even want to see my face but I do care about you…” as she spoke Phil closed the space between them, cupping her cheeks in his hands, eyes searching her face before he leaned in and kissed her, Scarlett feeling him smile against her lips as she kissed him back.
“I love you, I always did.” He finally admitted to her face as he looked in her eyes.
Smiling, she felt her heart beating out of her chest, Scarlett taking a moment to just wrap her arms around him, pulling him in a hug before she found her words again “So do you want to try it? A relationship with me?”
“Yes.” He whispered in her hair, kissing the top of her head.
“Despite everything and how I am?”
“Yes. You know me, the more complicated the challenge, the sweeter the victory.”
Frowning, she looked up at him “Are you referring to games right now?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he smiled “No? Maybe?”
“Mhm, like I believe that.”
Leaning in again to kiss her, he whispered against her lips “It applies to real life too.”
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31 Days of Horror - Day 12 - Martyrs
12/10/23
I begin most mornings at the moment by spinning the wheel to see which film I will watch - I like to know when I should start the film, for example, if I land on a three hour long movie, I won’t start it at midnight. Today when I first landed on Martyrs, I respun the wheel. After everything I had heard about this film, I felt that it wasn’t the best day to watch it, as before I had a family dinner out which I knew would leave me exhausted, therefore, something easier and lighter would be far nicer.
After landing on another film I wanted to watch, Blood Rage, which was exactly the type of movie I was hoping for, I thought about the free time I had today as a result of looking after my friend's cat, who is bound to my bedroom, and therefore, I am too. After sitting on it for a while, I decided to watch both! And I am glad I did :)
Martyrs is a French film directed by Pascal Laugier. The plot is ever changing as it unfolds, and has been hailed as one of the scariest horror movies ever. I see that perspective, although it feels like a weird and impossible thing to award a film. I believe I have also seen Sinister called the scariest movie ever during a long survey, which I bring up because of how different these films are! I’m curious whether people find Sinister scary solely for the jumpscares, which are amazing, or also the plot too? I think it is primarily the jumpscares, which mirrors Martyrs, which I think people find so scary because of how visceral and gross the gore is. It paired nicely with Blood Rage, which has super fun and bloody kills, whereas this film has very bloody and disgusting kills. I find the way a film can frame kills super interesting, based on how the effects are done, how long it lingers etc… Usually, slashers have creative deaths where you don’t linger on the action, they aren’t drawn out or too gross to imagine, but they’re fun to watch, and can still make you wince. There is not a single death in Martyrs that is fun.
I want to start by discussing the way the films acts work - they are incredibly divisive amongst the reviews I have read, and weirdly enough that is the most common criticism, as opposed to the fiendish gore that Saw is often criticised for! Anyway, the film's acts feel unpredictable as far as where the story goes, but I would argue the film never loses its tone, nor its purpose! The first act is a home invasion style film, where we follow a family that appears sweet and innocent as their house is broken into, and they are subsequently killed. For starters, this is such a fun juxtaposition to the grim cold open, showing our protagonist as a child, escaping from the abusive group we learn more about later in the movie. We go from that gritty exposition, to a timeskip which shows us a happy family, to a sudden series of murders. Watching the parents die, you begin to understand their innocence may not be whole, yet as we watch Lucie kill the families two children, the sequence is long, uncomfortable and deeply dark, yet unlike a film such as Cannibal Holocaust, which I will say I haven’t seen, this doesn’t feel like gore for gores sake. It was born in the New Extremity era of filmmaking, which was especially popular in France, and that shines through. My bottom line is that the gore doesn’t feel unnecessary here, it’s uncomfortable, but it is purposeful.
Quickly, I will mention that while many people liken this film to being a part of the New Extremity Wave of films, it lacks many key features of these films. The most glaring, is the absence of any sexual violence or messaging, the former I was relieved to find out, and only watched the film after researching if there was any. Ultimately, the film does retain some features from this wave, such as having a female lead, as well as centering around women as a whole, alongside the theme of spectatorship. Okay so after writing all this, I read an article that says the director in fact denounces the likening of the film to the wave of filmmaking, but I will leave it in as a result of the constant comparisons. He instead discussed this film being about a world that rotted a long time ago, which I think is a perfect explanation of the film.
Returning to the first act, we also are introduced to our protagonist, Anna, played by Morjana Alaoui. Both our leads (for this act) are excellent, showing a contrasting conflict as they deal with revenge, and who they want to be. Their relationship is also deeply interesting to me, given how little we see of it. As of yet, I haven’t been able to decide whether they are friends or lovers, Lucie is dismissive of their kiss early on, while a later phone call from Anna’s mother indicates that they are together. Either Way, I think they work well off of eachother, and have very interesting differing views.
My final thoughts on this act are left with the visions Lucie has, which are grotesque and excellent, some real fun imagery of the corpse that follows her around, attempting to kill her, and I didn’t find Anna’s dismissal of this lifelong plague Lucie has had to live with to be too bad, although thinking about it more kind of bugs me - like why not just believe she is seeing this?!
In the second act, we follow the two as they inhabit the house over night, and as Lucie deals with the vision returning. I really enjoy this section of the film, just watching them live while disputing what is best to do. Sure, it feels somewhat strange as to how lax they are about not leaving the house, but I don’t mind too much! The attempted clean up and realisation that the matriarch of the family is still alive is terrifying, as she sees a glimmer of hope, before Lucie snuffs out her life. Truly, it is dark, and the film offers no more signs of hope for anyone, as Lucie wrestles with her demon, until eventually, we watch her slit her own throat.
Despite how dark this film is, I never felt bad while watching it, which a film like Human Centipede did make me feel. Once again, intent is the key point for me! Martyrs is exposing you to a dark and twisted world, and while we don’t yet understand quite what the meaning of all this is, it does have one. In contrast, The Human Centipede seeks only to shock you, it is designed to make you feel uncomfortable, and nothing more, which isn’t my kind of film at all!
The third act follows the reveal of the torturous group, but not before one of the most spine curdling sequences! Inside the house, we find a basement, where a person is being kept. Their body is withered, but the more frightening aspect is that she has a metal clasp nailed into her eyes. Gross. After this, the group’s goal is revealed, their scale is vast and all the more terrifying! Having the film open up more works nicely in its favour, the horror is amplified when we understand that they are attempting to create a Martyr, a person who can see beyond death through torture. Knowing that they started over fifteen years ago, makes this even more chilling as we are left imagining how many people have been placed into this system.
For me, the three act structure works perfectly, each one offers us something new and different, yet they all flow together perfectly. I think of it similarly to 28 Days Later, where we switch locations and tones three distinct times, which aids in the character's development, and the scale of the scenario.
Before moving onto a more general overview, I want to mention the ending, which delivers on everything I had hoped it would. The montage of Anna growing stronger, repeating the words of Lucie in her head is deeply moving and powerful; the eventual conclusion to the film is hideously dark, and I love it.
Martyrs is a weird film, it’s one that isn’t created to make you happy or fulfil you - some of the time I was clueless as to what I was being told, yet it was sharing something, and I like it for that.
After watching the film I went to my family dinner, the tables surrounding us were filled to the brim with old people! All I could think about while I was there was the ending to the movie, as all the elderly people await their martyr that will never deliver her vision. I already know this one will latch onto me, in the short time since watching it, I can already feel its effects shiver down my spine.
7/10
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