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wannaeatramyeon · 9 months

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Ryuhei Kuroda x Reader: Moon and Tide

F!Reader. Colleagues to Lovers. Mitsuki leaves, Ryuhei has some realisations.

Ryuhei experiences his first heartbreak at nineteen.

(In truth, his heart had broken time and time again with his unrequited love. Each time that Mitsuki dismisses him, each time he saw her with Shiba Inu.

But each time he used to see her, he also fell in love all over again too.)

Shortly after Sinu Han leaves, Mitsuki also departs.

"What?!" Ryuhei slams both fists down on the boardroom table, "Then I quit."

"Haven't you harassed her enough? She obviously doesn't want you to follow." Samuel Seo gazes over the top of his glasses, smirk on his face and relishing the blonde's distress.

"Watch your mouth." Ryuhei snarls, low and menacing, a clear warning as any.

"Samuel is right," Eugene is calm, voice even. "Please respect Mitsuki's wishes this one time." Unlike all the other times you've ignored her boundaries does not need to be said.

The room stills at his words. The chairman has spoken, although it does nothing to dissipate the tension. The air hangs heavy. Like an elastic band stretched taut, to its limits.

Samuel observes Mandeok tensing and Ryuhei’s nostrils flaring, and he wonders who will break first.

Ryuhei's eyes flit around the room. The silence, lack of support, from Kenta or even yourself is damning.

"Fuck you," he hisses. Leaving, not wanting to be here a second longer.

The door slams, reverberating off the walls.

"My apologies for Ryuhei's interruptions," Eugene gestures to you, "In Mitsuki's absence, Y/N will take on her duties and title."

You give a curt nod to the rest of the room, acknowledging your promotion, but your eyes stay glued to Ryuhei's empty seat.

To both of your surprise, you're the first one to reach out.

(You like to think it’s you fulfilling your new duties as president. The alliance, the uncomplicated relationship you always had with Ryuhei helped too.)

Gently knocking on his room door, calling his name. The voice, the tone, the pitch pulls him out of his mood. Briefly, for a second, before he realises the two of you sound nothing alike.

"Go away,"

He watches you respond by jiggling the handle aggressively. So much so that the entire door shakes then a second later - it opens with you striding in.

"That's handy," Ryuhei, lying in bed, glances over at you rearranging the pins back into your hair, "And a complete invasion of my privacy."

"Like you ever cared about anyone's privacy,"

Right. Another jab about Mitsuki. One that he used to take on the chin because it's true, he's not ashamed. He pines after her openly, certain that everyone in 2A would have heard of his antics by now, if not the whole of Workers.

Tonight is a different story. It's less the wound being raw and tender and more Ryuhei is missing an entire limb.

How can she leave without saying goodbye?

He misses her.

Ryuhei throws the covers over his head.

The message is clear though not enough to drive you out or to muffle your voice.

"You have 3 days to get yourself together, then I need you by my side."

Fuck off he wants to say. But what's the point anymore?

"I have negotiations that could go wrong. I need all the manpower I can get my hands on."

Like you wouldn't be able to handle it by yourself, a small voice in his brain retorts.

Whatever. This, Workers, everything has all been a complete waste of his time.

Ryuhei was officially Mitsuki's bodyguard, and it makes sense that his duties now extend to you.

Everything else thus far has transitioned smoothly, except your current dilemma: how do you deal with a bodyguard that doesn't want to guard you?

After the three days, you barge in at the crack of dawn and try to wrestle him out of bed. Out of the room that stinks of despair and depression.

A one sided obsession that has run its course, ended in the best way it could. You don't voice these thoughts out loud.

Ryuhei is a dead weight in your arms, childish and insolent and completely unhelpful.

He's a grown man. There's little you can do.

Your lips crease thin with fury but no words spill forth.

You leave without him.

It's a full week later that Ryuhei musters up enough energy to crawl out of bed, throwing on something half presentable to stretch his legs.

Wandering the corridors, guilt creeps over him when he sees you talking to Kenta, right arm bandaged and in a sling.

Kenta nods at his friend's reappearance, you ignore him completely.

Well. He supposes he deserves that.

Seeing you kick starts a little change.

Not a lot, enough to get Ryuhei out of bed every day and put up an appearance of semi-normality. Key word: semi.

He slumps over a desk half the time, willing away the hours by fiddling with the edges of papers and documents, heart aching.

(A small part of him, maybe the most pathetic part, wants to doodle Mitsuki's name over and over.)

Other times he takes to training with a ferocity that surprises himself.

The only moments he feels anything other than a hollowness is when he's by your side. Eyes constantly attracted to your broken arm.

Steel pins, Kenta had mentioned, face grim as he clicks his lighter, adding that it was only thanks to your quick thinking the executives of Workers made it out alive.

Huh, it was that bad?

The guilt builds, claws under his skin and at his conscience. Could have sworn you were ambidextrous except now he watches you struggle with your dominant hand out of action.

He's not sure if it's out of stubbornness or forgetfulness that you have used chopsticks all week. Albeit your dexterity has vastly improved since Monday, watching you is nothing short of exasperating.

Ryuhei’s peace offering comes in the form of a spoon.

You've barely exchanged words since that day where you tried to hoist him out of bed. Only on a needs-must basis. Terse and to the point.

You were thoroughly pissed off and everyone knew it.

Righteous in your anger at first. You had explicitly said that you needed all hands on deck, implicitly asked for his help and frustrated he couldn't separate his personal feelings enough to do his job when there are lives at stake. Over the past couple weeks, your ire has reduced, cooled until he is now nothing but a thorn in your side.

"Go on, just take it," The thorn in your side holds out the utensil.

You ignore him.

"Or else I could just feed you?" He offers, a hint of mischief returning to his eyes.

Ryuhei huffs when you tell him he can try if he wants a broken arm to match yours.

Inch by inch, you thaw.

Would have thawed quicker if Ryuhei lessened his efforts to get back into your good graces, causing headaches and extra work more often than not.

Still, he tries. Following you around, part bodyguard, part puppy. You appreciate it in hindsight. It’s almost cute.

Little by little, he also regains the bounce in his step.

Ryuhei tries once to contact Mitsuki.

She says she has no plans to return or to see him again.

She doesn't offer anything else.

He stays silent the whole time.

Some may consider that a form of closure, Ryuhei isn’t sure. Things at least get slightly easier after that.

Once an all encompassing searing pain, the hurt and heartbreak eventually settles and dulls into a throb.

Normalcy becomes less of a facade.

Ryuhei flips off Eugene in earnest, tells Samuel Seo to eat shit with sincerity, struts 2A with his confident gait once more.

"Nomen," you nudge him lightly with your shoulder. Even with your mask on, he can hear the smile in your voice. "It's good to have you back."

"Yeah," he agrees. It is good to be back.

Not everything is smooth sailing, however.

In his more melodramatic moments, in which there are many, Ryuhei vows never to love again, never to so much as gaze at another woman, and promises a lifetime of chastity.

You snort at the declarations.

"What?" He snaps and you pointedly return his gaze as he remains indignant, "You don't count."

You let that particular one slide but- "Who's going to sleep with you anyway, you're a pathetic asshole."

"A very handsome pathetic asshole," he corrects.

"Hmm." Yet you don't disagree.

It's only later that day, stuck in another godforsaken meeting with you and Eugene, when boredom strikes and his mind wanders that Ryuhei realises that you didn't refute his claim.

He watches you, head tilted and eyebrows furrowed.

Huh.

Ryuhei doesn't care about you, not like he cares about Mitsuki. Though he doesn't care about anyone the same way he cares (cared?) about her.

It's not personal.

His relationship with you has always been easy, flirtatious without intent.

Sharp words and double entendres litter your conversations. Fun during the better moments, aggravating during others. Skin deep, superficial. He doesn't know you beyond the limits of your words, not really, and the experience is mutual.

Others have commented on your strength and character before. Formidable. A force to be reckoned with.

Even more have taken note of your looks, a common water cooler topic.

To Ryuhei, you're like the moon. Sure you're nice to look at. Yet when Mitsuki is the stars and beyond; dazzling, glittering with untold adventures, how can anyone possibly compare?

(In the end, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Though not in the way Ryuhei expects.)

He carries out his new bodyguard tasks without complaint.

It only made sense with your arm out of commission, and him technically and almost literally being your right hand man, that he carries your bag, your coffee too. Really, whatever you need.

What’s more, he now knows you take your coffee exactly like him. Quadruple shot, milky and disgustingly sweet.

Spends more time scrolling on your phone than a president probably should.

Hate sitting with your back to the door. And in meetings where there are no other options, Ryuhei makes sure to position himself opposite instead of being next to you. Himself sat where you would have preferred. One eye on any potential dangers, and giving a reassuring, roguish smile that eases your worries.

Bags under your eyes naturally mean a poor night’s sleep. Bags under your eyes and hair in a ponytail means you do not want to be here today. Something you would never voice out loud, but Ryuhei can read you anyway.

On those days, he makes sure he’s always one step ahead and extra considerate. He’s not completely altruistic, he also doesn’t want to be shouted at again.

The emptiness still comes and goes, catches him out when he least expects it. Usually he feels Mitsuki’s absence more than remembers her presence.

Ryuhei notices you a bit more too, these days. Ever since your offhand agreement.

The way you say his name is nothing like how she used to. The way you look at him is nothing like how she used to.

It’s actually warmer.

“You fucking idiot,” your tone is a complete contrast to your gentle hands, now completely healed and bandaging up his instead.

Ryuhei pouts with mock hurt and you roll your eyes. You will not give him sympathy, not for this.

(A yelp diverted your attention earlier today, and you rushed to find Kenta holding his lighter and Ryuhei cradling his own hand, wincing in pain.

You took one look at the two guilty faces and realised that the blonde moron wanted to learn how to set his finger alight like Kenta without hurting himself.

Ryuhei is one thing, but you expected better from Kenta. You turn to him, disappointment painted on your face and tell him exactly that.

“What about me!” Ryuhei had the audacity to pipe up. You roughly snatched his wrist and dragged him away.)

“Don’t set yourself on fire again,” you punctuate each word by sharply jabbing him in the chest with your finger.

Ryuhei flutters his eyelashes at you in a way he thinks must be quite charming and endearing. Who knows where the hell he got that idea from. You’re tempted to gouge out his eyes more than anything.

Somehow, you manage to resist. You also refrain from rolling your eyes at him again.

(You worry if you do that anymore, they might get permanently stuck and never return back to normal.)

Ryuhei studies his injured hand. Lying in bed, other hand behind his head, holding it up into the direct path of the silver moonlight cutting through the darkness.

He moves it, angles it this way and that. Letting the highlights and shadows illuminate your neat handiwork.

Something about this makes him feel funny. A little light headed.

He can’t recall the last time anyone touched him so kindly. Can’t recall anyone ever taking care of him when he’s been hurt before.

If he squints and looks at the neat little knot just right, he can almost see a heart shape.

It’s odd.

Were you always this flirtatious? Was he always this coquettish with you?

Did you always return his taunts with such a sparkle in your eyes?

When did you start having so many inside jokes, your own moments snickering together?

And it’s like he can finally see you. No longer subjected to his previous tunnel vision, he finally understands what everyone has been saying.

You’re much more stunning than Ryuhei remembers.

He also doesn’t remember your smile making him feel this way before.

Lastly, he remembers saying ‘you don’t count’. His words have come back to bite him.

Ryuhei wakes up at his usual time on a Wednesday.

It’s a nothing special sort of day.

Slinks out of his bed like he usually does, goes about his day as he usually does, teases you with intention and a quickened pulse. Which… ok, that one is new.

All in all. It’s fine. It’s an unremarkable Wednesday.

Except the dull ache in his chest, one he has had to endure for the last couple months, isn't there anymore.

There’s a different type of guilt at play.

First-

When you’re used to something for years and years, it takes time to break out of a habit. For the first time, Ryuhei begins to see his attachment to Mitsuki as the unhealthy obsession that it is.

He’s not fully ready to pick this apart just yet.

Second-

How do you separate a rebound from something real? That you’re not just a replacement, a new person to pass the time?

And that idea, that you’re a replacement for anything, shocks him. It’s unimaginable to think of you as a passing fancy because you deserve so much better.

That really should have given him an inkling.

On the other hand. When Ryuhei has only surrounded his love life with the one red flag, and himself being the other red flag too… he has a lot to learn.

Unfortunately you did get one thing right: Ryuhei is pathetic. His baseline personality is an absolute simp.

Maybe it would have been different if his informative years played out differently. Alas.

Alone, he tries to dissect his thoughts and feelings. In your company, he is much more simple. Constantly wanting to capture your attention, which you give easily and with minimal conditions.

Ryuhei can now read you like the back of his hand, knows your preferences so well that he’s able to anticipate your needs before they develop into needs. Wants, at best. Perhaps not even that.

And when other people look at you, the desire shown easily on their face that he has tried to tamper down, his possessiveness and jealousy flares.

Unsubtle shoulder barges and sneers are thrown in their direction.

But Ryuhei is nothing if not patient. He supposes it won’t be so bad if you turn him down and you’re happy with someone else.

He’s used to that.

Giving you the opportunity to turn him down though, he’s not sure yet how to go about.

Conveniently, an opportunity does arise.

Celebrating the new Fifth Affiliates, Eugene had said, showing his face at the gathering for about ten minutes before leaving.

Then the two newbies, who Ryuhei doesn’t bother to get the names of because he sure as hell doesn’t want to know anyone with tacky ‘H’ tattoos (on their forehead and neck for crying out loud!), leave shortly after.

Ryuhei also considers it a small victory when Samuel Seo departs, after a very witty verbal sparring to see who can tell each other to fuck off in increasingly creative ways.

“You’re so fucking juvenile,” you sigh, though you begrudgingly admit that you were impressed throughout that display.

“At least I got the last word in,” Ryuhei grins, giving the finger to Samuel’s retreating back.

The room empties out at a quicker rate now that the non-mandatory, completely optional (if you want to keep your job) gathering is devoid of the more severe senior management.

No more than another 30 minutes pass and only you and Ryuhei remain. Two small figures in an oversized room, full of empty tables but one.

Ryuhei rests one elbow on the table, propping up his head and looks at you with a cocky smile.

“Remember when I said I’m never going to gaze at anyone ever again? That was a lie.”

“Really.” You deadpan, resisting once more the urge to roll your eyes. It might be the most difficult thing you have ever had to do.

“I lied when I said you don’t count too.”

Ryuhei, for all his flaws, has only ever been forthright with his emotions. In his own roundabout and very sex-pest way with Mitsuki, though he did confess in the end. As for right now, well, he has learned his lesson.

You give him a response he didn’t expect.

“I think you should spend more time on your own first.”

Ryuhei is immediately placed on a leave of absence the next day.

You explain clearly to him as he sits opposite, his very official letter scrunched in his fist and feeling extremely petulant, that while you do like him, he needs some distance to everything.

He only hears the first part. You like him? You? Like? Him? The words swim round and round in his mind.

“Ryuhei,” you snap your fingers and him out of his daze.

“Then what’s the problem?” he whines.

“Don’t make me into another Mitsuki,” Ryuhei opens his mouth to argue that he won’t, there is no way-

“Ryuhei,” you repeat his name again in an authoritative tone that leaves no room for argument. Echoing your words from yesterday. “You need to spend more time on your own. This is non negotiable.”

Ryuhei sulks like there is no tomorrow.

Tries to manifest you outside his door but to no avail. He doesn’t see you at all.

That just about surmises his first week.

The week after, he thinks about you. How strange that you started as colleagues, almost friends first. How well he actually knows you.

Now months after Mitsuki has left, Ryuhei can only piece together fragments of her.

Even still, he had never seen the whole picture. He never knew her in her entirety, only the portrait he painted.

What becomes exceedingly clear is his one sided behaviour.

The fog, the rose tinted glasses fully lifts in the fourth week.

The sixth week he carefully pries open the past.

Gently picks apart what he wasn’t ready to before.

Moments of self reflection are painful, embarrassing. If the earth could open up and swallow him whole, he would gladly take it.

He still feels something for Mitsuki, though pertaining more to the remorse and shame side rather than anything else.

In an ideal world, he would seek her out and offer an apology for his past behaviour. However, in the real world, that only helps to alleviate his own conscience.

He has already reached out once before and she has given her answer.

Nothing else from Ryuhei now would benefit either party.

Two full months later, Ryuhei sees you once again at work.

Your smile still makes his heart flutter and brain short wire.

Except he can now see you as a whole person, all your flaws and faults too. What he used to ignore with Mitsuki, blinded by his obsession.

His feelings for you don't change.

Ryuhei wonders when he started to like you.

Thinks his heart liked you before his brain even realised. When the time is right, he needs to apologise for how long it took him to fully catch up.

He remembers thinking of you as the moon once, paling in comparison to the stars and the great beyond.

That wasn’t quite fair. Wasn't accurate at all.

If you are the celestial body, luminous and hung high in the heavens by the gods themselves, then Ryuhei considers himself the tide.

He understands now, with its lunar radiance, there is nothing that comes close.

Quite simply: 月が綺麗ですね

(The moon is beautiful, isn't it?)

At twenty, Ryuhei experiences real love.

Experiences what it truly means to love and to be loved.

#lookism #lookism x reader #lookism webtoon #lookism manhwa #lookism fic #ryuhei kuroda #ryuhei kuroda x reader #ryuhei x reader #wannaeatramyeon #3.5k words on this fucking asshole #a little. maybe a lot OOC.#trying to break him out of Mitsuki's grasps #✨character growth✨#making this pathetic meow meow less pathetic

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artemis32 · 1 year

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Yandere Second Affiliate I

For my lovely anon <33 I went the more platonic route, and added Sinu because this took so long (I'm trying to be nice)

I only included four of the members from the second affiliate, if you'd like me to include the other members, let me know :))

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art's 21st birthday celebration masterlist

lookism masterlist

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Mitsuki Soma was the first to meet you.

Truth be told, you really weren't anyone important. Not in anyway that matters.

You were some lowly member of another affiliate, or the family member of one. Or maybe you were a young assistant to one of the spectators visiting the circus.

Maybe you were an accidental pick for the circus itself - no, not accidental. They didn't make accidents.

If she thinks back hard enough, Mitsuki might be able to remember. Maybe you were added to the list of people there for entertainment, meant only to add a small shock factor. After all, no one expected some small girl to be involved in such vicious fighting.

But regardless of who you were or how you came to cross paths with the second affiliate, Mitsuki was enthralled the moment she laid her eyes on you.

Something about you was just so alluring, in the most pathetic way possible.

She was surrounded by strong, capable people - people who had the physical strength of ten men, people smart enough to topple world-renowned businesses, people who were all extraordinary and the best at what they did.

So when she saw you - dull, so plain you nearly blended in with the walls, completely unnoticed by those around you - she felt something shift within her.

Her interest in you is intense and obvious, and no amount of shy refusals will get her to back off.

Ryuhei Kuroda took an interest in you because of that. After all, you had to be something worthwhile if his Mitsuki took an interest in you - unlike that stupid Sinu Han.

While his interest may not be as intense or invasive, it still makes you uncomfortable. Something about his gaze, the intensity of his leering stare - it makes you feel as though he knows things you don't even know about yourself.

His playful attitude also throws you off, especially with the business that he's in. Why was he so gleeful while fighting? Beating people half to death couldn't be all that fun.

What started off as interest born of a feeling akin to jealously quickly grows into something else.

Yes, he was jealous in the beginning, he was man enough to admit that - how could someone as plain and unassuming as you catch the attention of Mitsuki? He was right there! And surely ten times more interesting!

But that jealous, burning curiousity had changed somewhere along the line, and now his own interest sat on par with Mitsuki's, not that he'd ever admit it.

Speaking of Sinu Han, you were barely a blip on his radar at first. He was there to do a job, he couldn't give two shits about you.

At least, that was how it had been for the first few months after you'd arrived.

It was all but inevitable that he noticed the attention you garnered from Mitsuki and Ryuhei. That sparked his curiosity.

Two of the most uninterested, cold people he knew, both captivated by the same girl? You had to be something special to be worth their time and attention.

At first, he regarded you coldly, keeping an apathetic distance, but that didn't last long after he spent a bit of time with you.

Something about the warmth of your company, the softness of your presence - it was all achingly familiar, but he couldn't quite recall where he'd felt before.

After many, many months, he latches on to you, growing attached like an abandoned child.

And just like that, you've got another grown child attached at the hip, never giving you a moment of peace.

Kenta Magami tried to keep his personal feelings under lock.

What good would some obsession do him. He had plans for his life, he had to take revenge against Gun. He couldn't very well do that if his mind was preoccupied with some random girl, could he?

But despite his best efforts, he couldn't help his feelings.

Obsession was a slippery slope for all four of them, and just like his colleagues, you charmed him, captured his attention in ways he couldn't understand.

He probably scared you the most, after Mitsuki. Something about the look in his eyes when he caressed your cheek or kept you company while you ate - it chilled you to your core.

The single-minded focus, the intense aura that surrounded him whenever he stared at you, lost in thought - it terrified you.

They all terrified you.

And the times when you weren't scared, shaking from anxiety and exhaustion, you were bored.

They acted as your only source of entertainment, and left you locked up like some show bird when they weren't around.

You had all your needs taken care of, but you couldn't leave, and you couldn't speak to anyone beyond the executives of the Second Affiliate.

At the very least, your life was more comfortable now than it had been. You no longer had to worry about keeping a roof over your head, or when your next meal would be, or your safety while walking to and from work. Hell, you didn't even have to exhaust yourself working more hours than you had to at a job that payed below minimum wage, nor did you have to stay up till the sun rose studying for classes you couldn't afford.

Despite all that, you couldn't bring yourself to feel grateful for your situation. Trading in one hardship for another was hardly cause for celebration.

The second affiliate executives are horrible yanderes - you have no peace, no personal space, no autonomy.

You're forced to give up bits and pieces of yourself in exchange for their protection, if you could even go as far as to call it that. Truly, you have to have a great deal of mental fortitude to be able to deal with their mind games and not-so-subtle manipulation.

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