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kjhmyg · 2 months

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blooming

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader trope: sunshine oc x grumpy jk au: florist!oc x tattoo artist!jk wc: 1k

a drabble request from anon for sunshine protector jk. honestly was doubting the capability of writing jk as a grump but anon, i hope i did it justice and i hope you like it! <3

the tiny bells attached to the entrance chimes as you enter the shop, the smell of fresh flowers greeting you so kindly in the morning. the hour leading up to opening is one of your favourite parts of the day. your flowers are your babies; you sing to them, you change their water, place them gently back into their little spaces, assemble new bouquets to put up for sale, then choose which ones go up front on the daily display.

upstairs, you hear the clinking and clanking of your neighbours. the tattoo parlour above starts a little later than your flower shop, usually seeing their first customer around noon. an unlikely combination, one which leaves most of their clients confused as they step inside, till you point out the steps to the right of your shop which leads up to the parlour.

but you don’t complain. it brings a nice mix to your client pool. besides, your other favourite part of the day is getting to see your favourite tattoo artist.

“ahem⎼”

you turn on your heel, snapping out of your thoughts. putting on your best service voice, you were ready to greet a customer, only to find the next best thing. “oh,” your face softens, “good morning jungkook.”

“morning.” he leans against your counter and nods to the spread of flowers laid out on the long table behind you. “are those flowers that interesting? didn’t even hear me come through the doors, did you?”

“sorry,” you smile brightly, and he can’t help but to mirror it. “i was looking through this customer’s request. it’s a little odd.”

“why?”

“because see,” you bring the request ticket over from the table and lean over the counter so he can see it, “these flowers don’t go well together at all. and i know, i know, it’s a custom order. but as a florist, i should be able to tell them if i think it’s not a good combination right? i mean the colours are all over the place. look, you can’t have too many bold colours together, it’ll take away the beauty from each flower. plus it'll look so messy. but at the same time it’s their choice and they are paying for it so i don’t know.”

jungkook looks at you with a blank expression. his arms are crossed on the counter, and his freshly washed hair rests nicely on his shoulders, curved at the ends.

“what?” you ask him, shrugging like you didn’t just spit out an entire rant contemplating someone’s custom order.

“is it really that deep?”

you give him an exasperated look. of course he wouldn’t get it.

he raises a brow, then smirks at your silence. you’re never quiet. not for long anyways. for a moment he wonders if he's hurt your feelings. he tends to do that sometimes. “i’m sure you’ll figure it out. besides, bold colours can look good together.”

“but not always.” you drum your fingers on the counter, pursing your lips in thought.

jungkook keeps staring. till your eyes flutter back to him, and you lock eyes for far too long and your heart starts racing. he blinks away first. dropping his bag and leaving his helmet on your counter, he walks across your shop and takes a look around before plucking out four flowers. two yellow flowers and two black ones.

“hey!” you protest, “those are expensive!”

jungkook ignores your nagging. he places them on the counter top and pairs them up, one yellow daisy with one black hellebore. then he starts intertwining their stems, creating a tiny knot at the bottom for each pair. the yellow and black flowers sit nicely next to the other. “see? they look good together, don’t they?”

he reaches over and places one of them into the front pocket of your apron. the other, he slides across the counter in front of you.

“or maybe not,” he shrugs, “you’re the florist here.”

“execution could be better,” you giggle, admiring the flowers in your palm, “but it’s cute. maybe you should rethink your career. come and work with me instead!”

jungkook lingers just to watch the way your eyes twinkle as you twirl the flowers between your fingers. all he did was tie two flowers together, yet you act like a kid with a new toy. and when you look up at him again and give him the widest grin, he decides it’s time to go (else he’d spend the entire day down here).

he starts collecting his belongings, swinging his bag over his shoulder and grabbing his headgear. “oh,” he says, remembering, “this is for you.”

he’d placed the cup carrier aside earlier while talking to you. jungkook checks the order plastered on the side of the cup before placing it in front of you.

“wait but,” you start, “i don’t drink cof⎼”

“it’s earl grey.”

your smile drops momentarily out of surprise. you had mentioned a while ago how you couldn’t stand the taste of coffee.

“later, flower girl.” jungkook makes a turn for the steps.

after the first few steps, he pauses when he feels something tugging on his arm. he turns to find you standing there, with the flower he’d made earlier in your hand. getting on your tiptoes, you tuck his hair back and gently place the daisy and hellbore combination behind his ear.

“aw, you look pretty!” his brows furrow and you know he’s probably going to remove it as soon as he makes it up the steps but you don’t care. you wrap around him briefly before letting go. “thank you.”

before he can say anything else, the bell chimes and you welcome your first customer of the day. jungkook walks up the steps with a roll of his eyes, listening to how excited you get as you go through your collection of flowers. how you could be so chirpy at this hour, he’ll never understand.

upstairs, he drops his stuff in his corner and brings suga his cup of coffee while sipping on his own. the older friend, sanitising his tools for the day, stops mid-clean. “what the hell is that?”

he refers to the flower behind jungkook’s ear. “oh. nothing.”

“ah…” suga smiles, accepting his drink. “you and flower girl have been getting along well.”

“she’s nice to talk to.” jungkook says, not thinking much of it. suga scoffs, knowing his friend too well.

jungkook walks back to his corner, removing the flowers. his hand hovers over the trash can, flowers in his palm. he looks at it again, then smiles. instead, he places them on his desk, right next to the pressed flower coaster you had given him months back. he chuckles, looking at the contrast of these items to the rest of his workspace.

sighing, he starts his day, with a flower blooming in his heart.

#jungkook x you #jungkook drabble #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #it's been a while!!!#i forget how exciting it is to post

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rainbow-nerdss · 13 days

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AITA for accidentally traumatising a 13 year old kid by pretending to be his dead mom?

So basically a couple of weeks back i (33F) was at work and I noticed this guy (30sM) staring at me. Now, this isn’t totally unheard of, I'm kind of used to it because I've done some acting in the past and sometimes people sort of stare while they try to figure out where they know me from. Usually I ignore it, but this guy was like crazy hot so I figured, fuck it, I’ll go talk to him, maybe make a sale out of it. We sort of talked a bit while I served him, and found out he’s a single dad. He had sort of sad vibes and I was kind of into it so when he asked me out I said sure, why not and we agreed to go for dinner.

So everything was going well for a while, we went on a few dates but mostly we facetimed bc he works 24 hour long shifts and scheduling dates around that and a kid is tough, which i totally understood and I was happy to be patient with him. I should also say we still haven’t kissed at this point, even when he took me out on a boat on a lake, which was probably in my top 5 dates of all time? Anyway, I got the vibe he was holding back a bit but I figured I could wait bc he seemed like he was working through some stuff and dating in LA is fucking hard.

What happened next was where the real shit started to hit the fan, though.

Basically, I decided to bring him some brownies at work, but I mistimed it and he’d already gone home so I gave them to his coworker who looked at me like I was a ghost or something. I should have recognised something was off then but I brush it off and the next day I get a call from the guy, and he asks me to come over to his place which hasn’t happened before. I figure this is a good sign, that maybe he’s ready to start moving things forward, but when I get to the house, there’s all these pictures on the coffee table and they all look EXACTLY like me. My first thought was: holy shit, this guy’s a stalker. Great. Then I looked closer, though, and the pictures weren’t even of me. Turns out, I look exactly like this guy’s dead wife???

Anyway, that was wild and obviously I left after hearing him out a little bc I just needed to wrap my head around it.

Now this next bit might be where i’m the AH, bc i haven’t had a chance to do any acting in a while and I genuinely felt bad for the guy, he just wanted a chance at closure with his wife and I couldn’t really fault him for that.

So long story short, I cut my bangs (they looked cute in the pictures of his wife so I figured they’d work on me) and I went to his house in character as his wife and encouraged him to say what he needed to say to her. Things got pretty heated and he shared some really intimate thoughts and feelings so I was getting into it, you know? We embraced and I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I thought it really helped him until the door opened and in walks his kid with a woman who is apparently his girlfriend? So i guess the single part of “single dad” wasn’t totally accurate either.

Also, the kid called me mom, which kind of broke my heart, and I feel like maybe I might have fucked up somewhere here.

So reddit, I have to ask AITA for pretending to be a dead woman and accidentally being the other woman while simultaneously traumatising a thirteen year old kid?

#911 spoilers #kim 911 #eddie diaz

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evenyvn · 1 month

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—another househusband! aventurine x breadwinner spouse! reader (might make this a whole series atp lmao.)

cw ;; gn reader, kissing, pretty much sfw really.

part 2 of this

househusband! aventurine who will wake up every morning before you, even though he's not a morning person, will pepper kisses all over your face to wake you up, and if you still don't wake up he will continue kissing lower until you do so you will never ever found yourself getting late to work.

househusband! aventurine who cooked breakfast, lunch and even dinner for you, at the first few years on his new life he kinda struggles to cook since he never cooked before (can only cook instant ramens because he's super busy on his former job and only order take outs or eating on a fancy restaurant before), but he's eager to learn for you, even when you said he don't need to.

househusband! aventurine who will pack you one of those cute bentos with cute little message written by him, always have the best ingredients full of nutrients and if you're a picky eater like me, he'll make sure to ask you what do you want for lunch and make sure you had your fill, and if you forgot to take the lunch box with you, he'll go to your office/work place to send it by himself to you, it's a win win situation, you get to eat and he get to spend lunch time with you. (cue the envy stares of your coworkers)

househusband! aventurine that likes to bake, he usually bake cookies and give them out to the neighborhood to make a good impression, people compliment his baking skill, the wives is asking for recipes (he won't tell them tho lmao gatekeep).

househusband! aventurine who is as charming as ever, charming the old vendors to get discount with his words, he's fun and easy to talk to, they definitely saw him as their own grandson now, sometimes they even called you out when you passes by their vendor and gives you free stuff that doesn't sale for today (like veggies and other cooking ingredients), when you ask aventurine about it he just smiles and says something like "it couldn't be helped, they had fallen into my charms like you do"

househusband! aventurine who gives kisses for goodbyes and welcomes, if you somehow forgot to kiss him atleast three kisses he will sulk all day while doing chores around the house, and you'll get a silent treatment when you got home (don't worry it'll only last 10 minutes before he's latching on you again, whining for "compensation" kisses).

househusband! aventurine who likes to get taking care of as much as he like to take care of you! he like being a little spoon when you both are cuddling, but sometimes if you have a really really long day at work he'll gladly spoon you if you ask him!

househusband! aventurine who'll get really clingy on your day off, literally have the tightest grip on your body and will not let go even if you need to go to the toilet, goodluck holding it lmao (pro tip : he's weak to your kisses so make sure to use that for good).

✦thank you for reading! likes and reblogs are very appreciated 🫶

#honkai star rail x reader #aventurine x reader #honkai star rail x you #aventurine #aventurine x you #✦;; aventurine

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marvelsmylife · 3 months

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Not As It Seems

Pairing: Rhysand x reader

Plot: to outsiders they see your life is perfect. Being mated to one of the most powerful high lords and named high lady of the night court everyone thought you were happy (including your mate). What happens when the mask you’ve been wearing finally falls and Rhysand discovers what’s been troubling his darling mate.

a/n This is based on this request. Let me know if you want a part two where Rhysand confronts the person responsible for his mate's suffering.

ACOTAR Masterlist

Prompt List

If someone had told you when you were younger that you would be mated with the high lord of the night court and given the title of high lady you would’ve laughed in their faces. Yet here you were, living every female’s (and some males) dream of being mated to Rhysand.

You met Rhysand one cold autumn morning. You had arrived at your job two hours ago at your bakery when Rhysand strolled in and requested one of every pastry you had for sale. You gave him a puzzled look and asked if he was sure: “Of course I’m sure. I could smell your delicious pastries a few blocks away,” Rhysand responded with a warm smile on his face.

A shy smile crept up on your face at Rhysand’s compliment. While you were used to everyone always complimenting you on your pastries, having your high lord compliment you made you go shy. “I’m flattered,” you sheepishly said while carefully placing the treats in the box.

A surprising look appeared on Rhysand’s face when took the box from your hands and took in your appearance. Mate Rhysand mentally told himself when he realized you were the female he had been dreaming about for as long as he could remember.

Not wanting to scare you off, Rhysand settled with simply asking you out to dinner before slowly revealing that you were mates.

He was grateful he did that. You built your relationship organically, and when he finally confessed that you were mates, instead of resenting him for hiding such a secret, you kissed him and told him how happy you were that you were mates.

There was only one problem in your relationship, you rarely talked about your family and what you were like growing up. Every time he tried to pry into your past or family, you would always charge the subject or ask him to drop it. He was tempted sometimes to slither into your mind and see what was so bad about your childhood that you refused to talk to him about.

He didn’t though.

He knew you would resent him if he invaded your privacy in that way just to get an answer. Instead, he’d change the subject to something more pleasant.

It’s not that you didn’t want to tell Rhysand about your childhood. To people who didn’t know you personally, they thought you had a great childhood. But the people who truly knew you knew that was the farthest thing from the truth.

While you were still in contact with your mother, your relationship with her was complicated, to say the least. Growing up, your mother would display all the signs of a narcissistic parent. Always finding a way to make your accomplishments hers and insult you when you did something minutely wrong.

It got worse when you were an adult and opened the bakery you still operated. She didn’t ask; she demanded that you give her half of your earnings from the bakery to make up for raising you. You foolishly agreed to her demand even though you were barely making enough to support yourself when you met Rhysand.

Once you had your mating ceremony, Rhysand would beg you to stop working because he had more than enough and then some to support you, but you rejected him each time. You didn’t want to put the burden of supporting your mother on Rhysand, so you told him you just loved your work too much to close it.

Because you were under so much stress with not only running your bakery by yourself but also doing the duties a high lady is supposed to do, you found yourself stretching yourself thin. You couldn’t find a moment in your day to just sit and relax, and when you did, it was only for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, that manifested into you not wanting to do anything during the days you actually managed to get off and started developing depression episodes.

You didn’t want anyone to know you were silently suffering, especially Rhysand’s. He had so much on his plate, and you didn’t want to add to his worries. So you’d force a smile so no one would know; know that you were silently fighting with your mother because she was growing more entitled to your money. Your mental shield was always up and so guarded; not even Rhysand could penetrate it.

You finally hit your breaking point one afternoon when your mother stopped by your bakery and demanded that you tell Rhysand he needed to start paying her money as well. In her words: “His money is your money, and your money is my money.”

Not being able to contain your anger towards your mother, you unleash all the frustration you have had towards her for the past three centuries. By the end of it, your mother dared to slap you across the face and growled: “You ungrateful child! You would have nothing if it wasn’t for me! I should have been Rhysand’s mate so I could have that fortune you have, not you. But seeing as you are his mate, I’m expecting you to give me his money by the end of the week,” before storming out of the bakery and disappearing into the streets of Velaris.

You didn’t know how you managed to get home, but when you did, you had the inner circle panicked with the state you were in. “Y/n. Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Mor asked, worry laced in her tone: “Azriel, Cassian, go get Rhysand he’s-”.

Azriel and Cassian were out the door before Mor had a chance to finish her sentence.

Mor and Amren meanwhile tried to get you to sit down with them, but you just brushed them off and disappeared into your bedroom. You knew they meant well, but you wanted to lock yourself in your room.

Not even five minutes later, Rhysand burst through your shared bedroom. Rhysand knelt down and cupped your face: “My darling y/n, please tell me what’s wrong? Tell me so I can help you,” there was a sense of panic in his voice.

“I’m tired Rhysand” you replied blandly. Rhysand remained silent as the other stormed into the room and watched the scene in front of them: “I’m so fucking tired of pretending I’m ok.”

@paankhaleyaar @amara-moonlight @favsrachz

#rhysand imagine #rhysand x reader #acotar imagine #acotar x reader

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dilatorywriting · 1 year

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Valentine's Day Special: Let Them Fight

GN!Reader x Malleus Draconia vs. Azul Ashengrotto vs. Vil Schoenheit Word Count: 5.3k

Summary: Who knew that in a world of magic, and mayhem, and outright villainy, that it'd be something as stupid as Valentine's Day that would push these idiots over the edge. Or, Malleus, Azul, and Vil go to war over some chocolates

A/N: This MC/Plot takes place in the Heroes vs Villains universe -- specifically Post-Staff's route, rather than any of our other lovely idiot husbands.

There was always some sort of strange overlap of customs from your world to this one. Halloween seemed to have survived more or less intact (even if it was a bit more, uh, extreme than the subtle evening of giving out treats and dressing as ghosts that you remembered). Winter Holidays were still very much a Thing, even if all other connotations had been stripped from them. Moreover, it was like someone had taken your familiar Earthen calendar and just sort of… mirrored it. Distorted it a bit. Just a lil’ bit more chaos than would have been socially acceptable back home.

So when you made a sly little joke about stocking up on discount chocolates after the Valentine’s Day rush and no one laughed—not even a little chortle, or an irritable eyeroll—you initially thought it was maybe to do with the irrationality of Sam’s Shop ever having a sale to begin with. You had not assumed that, you know, there was no Valentine’s Day at all.

“It’s an important holiday, then? Where you’re from?” Azul mused, busy scribbling endless, chicken scratch, notes in the margins of some form that was probably very important.

“I mean, not really,” you frowned, tossing your Mostro-Branded apron onto its hook. “Maybe. Yes? I don’t really know, actually.”

He hummed and moved to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Well, whatever it is, I’m always looking for new events to host at the Lounge. What exactly is it?”

“It’s a sort of special day for couples. Romance. Lovey-dovey nonsense,” you shrugged, and watched Azul’s finger slip off the slick metal frame of his glasses and nearly take his eye out. You waved off his obvious disgust with a dramatic sigh (I mean, why else would he be so stiff and red?). “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s ridiculous.”

“I—I never said that!” he spluttered, and then paused to cough into his fist and clear his throat. “It just—I just wasn’t expecting something like that to…”

“Exist?”

He grinned, wry. His cheeks were still a bit too pink. “Precisely.”

“You would have loved my world,” you said. “Very capitalistic. Lots of cash-grab holidays like that.”

Azul laughed.

“I’m sure I would be fond of any place you came from.” He paused, and his expression puckered up a bit miserably—like he really hadn’t intended to express such a sentiment aloud. But he managed to smooth the sharp line of his frown back into that usual, smarmy, smirk of his easily enough. “But either way! Tell me more!” he grinned, reaching forward to grab a stack of blank paper and a fresh pen. “I’d love to hear all about it.”

The next day you were supposed to help the Drama Club start building some stage scenery for their newest play. It was proper grunt work, which was perhaps the only sort of work you were actually qualified for. And Vil always made sure that there were plenty of disgustingly healthy but still quite tasty snacks available for the help to munch on. The food spread alone would have been worth the trip, but on top of that, Vil had made you promise. Practically a blood oath, binding you and your meager free time to the shitty supply closet in the corner of the Auditorium. And as sour as he could be sometimes, you really could never say no to him when he always looked so heart meltingly fond whenever you did agree to while away the hours at his side. That lovely face and even lovelier smile of his were fucking lethal. A war crime, surely, to use it against someone as plain and susceptible to bribery as you were.

But today you were now an idiot on a mission—an idiot determined to spread the joy of a trashy holiday that really probably shouldn’t exist in the first place, let alone in a world where people worshipped storybook villains as veritable deities. And you’d already bought all the molds, and the trays, and you really didn’t have a lot of spare pocket money to begin with, so letting this investment go to waste would not only be a shame, but a terrible business investment.

“What do you mean you’re not coming,” Vil sneered, glaring down his perfectly straight nose at you.

“I really am sorry,” you said, mostly genuine. “But I have something I need to do this afternoon.”

“You’ve made other plans?” he frowned, something a little too unsettled to fit with his usual regality twisting across his expression.

“I have to get ready for Valentine’s Day,” you explained, and his brow tugged down further. Though that earlier twinge of panic seemed to have vanished at least. You pointedly shook your grocery bag full of goodies. “I’m going to make chocolates for everyone.”

“Chocolates?” Vil echoed, confused.

You nodded. “It’s a tradition back home. You give stuff like candy and flowers to the people you care about. Normally it’s a holiday for couples, or whatever. But. Well…”

The ‘I Am Fully Aware That I’m Single as a Pringle, Please Just Let Me Have This One Thing’ was left unsaid, but it hung in the air around your head like a very persistent storm cloud nonetheless. Vil, magnanimously, seemed perfectly happy to ignore the Woe Is Me implications spewing from your mouth. Instead, he leaned forward until he was dipping precariously close into your personal space. His amethyst eyes had lit with blatant interest at your ramblings, and he hummed low in his throat.

“Is that so?” he mused, gaze lidded and warm. “That sounds… intriguing.”

You nodded past the heady scent of his cologne fogging your head. What was it with attractive people, huh? It was so unfair. You don’t get to look and smell good. Pick a lane. Save some dignity for the rest of us.

“So, I promise I’ll help another day. I just have a feeling making chocolates is going to wind up being a lot harder than I think it will.”

Because that’s how it always went in your stupid slice-of-life shows. The poor, harried, protagonist thinking they’re doing a good deed—painstakingly constructing their own, special, homemade goodies for all their important people. Making them with love. And then having it all blow up in their face like a goddamn, cocoa flavored, nuke. Nope. Not you, motherfucker. Your chocolates were going to be divine. You were going to take every, tropey, precaution in the book. And that of course included allotting yourself ample time to make mistakes your masterpiece.

“Of course,” Vil grinned. “How could I possibly begrudge you for wanting to spend your time on something so heartfelt?”

“Thank you,” you blurted, relived. Because at least he got it. Azul had been so ridiculously insistent that you should prepare all your Valentine’s Day wishes as a team. Which was not the point. He’d spent hours last night trying to wheedle his way into your plans—with endless platitudes about ‘business partners always being there for each other,’ and ‘how would he know if he was celebrating to your standards if he wasn’t given a model to work off of first?’ Utter bullshit. He’d probably just wanted free labor.

“Tomorrow, then?” Vil beamed and you nodded.

“Tomorrow,” you confirmed.

“Well, then,” he hummed. “I better get to work as well. I suppose the scenery can wait.”

You nodded in farewell and began the trek back to Ramshackle and its marginally functional kitchens. You hadn’t realized Vil was taking on any new projects, but if it was enough to have him putting off the Club’s activities as well then it must have been pretty important. Maybe he’d get you tickets to it whenever he finished—whatever it was. If there were tickets? How did any of the things he did actually work? Hell if you knew.

Making chocolates was, in fact, a laughably easy endeavor. And you found yourself cursing every goddamn Shoujo Bullshit Manga under the sun for leading you to think otherwise. The hardest part of the entire thing was fighting off Grim and his wandering paws.

You made up some basic truffles which were, again, stupidly simple. Just some messily chopped chocolate, cream, and a little splash of vanilla to make it Special. Once those were shaped into messy blobs, you dipped them into some more melted chocolate and bam. That was it. That was literally it. You felt like a genius—sitting there mushing up balls of cocoa like high-end playdough.

By 6PM, you had all your little darlings tucked into the refrigerator to harden, all the gauzy, red, boxes lined up on your counter and ready to be filled, and Grim had been placated with an offering of all your dirty mixing bowls. The tiny, demonic, beast was passed out at the dingy kitchen table—one of said bowls wedged onto his head like an astronaut’s helmet. Hopefully it was just a food coma and not, like, an actual coma-coma. Real cats couldn’t eat chocolate, but Grim never really seemed real at all. So hopefully he’d be fine.

You wiped down your cooking space once, twice. Paced up and down the narrow hallway until you were wearing away the already threadbare rugs, and spent way too long just standing in front of the fridge—staring in on your chocolates like a psychotic kidnapper scoping out their next victims.

Eventually you realized that you maybe needed to do something with your evening that wasn’t just creeping on your confections, and set out into the frosty, night, air for a stroll.

Which is, of course, where you ran into your familiar, horned, friend—staring up into the starry sky in a wistful manner that darkened his pale complexion into something nearly ominous. He always looked a bit like that, like something unearthly and detached from the rest of the world.

“Tsunotarou!” you chirped happily, and that adrift-at-sea expression of his melted right off his face.

“Child of Man,” he greeted, inclining his head politely. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this evening.” His brow furrowed, almost confused. “Is it not too cold for you?”

Your breath was, in fact, fogging in front of your face. And you couldn’t really feel your toes anymore. But the electric anticipation of tomorrow was keeping you warm enough. Even if only in spirit.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you waved him off. And then, because you couldn’t help yourself, you leaned forward on your tippytoes and blurted out, “Happy Almost Valentine’s Day!”

“Valentine’s Day?” Malleus repeated back at you, looking like you’d just handed him an unsolvable differential equation.

“It’s a holiday from back home,” you explained for the umpteenth time that day. “And normally I’m not too fussed about it, but this year I’m really excited to give everyone their chocolates!” You grinned. “And you too, of course. I have to make sure I give them to all my important people.”

The furrow between his brows vanished, but the blatant, gaping, confusion remained. He looked like you’d nearly startled him into an early grave.

“I am one of your most important people?” he asked, slow as a tortoise making its way up an incline.

You nodded cheerfully, still bellied by your earlier culinary successes and excellent mood. “Of course you are! We’re friends, aren’t we? And besides. Valentine’s Day is for showing people how much you care about them.”

“What an interesting concept,” he mused, bringing a finger up to tap at his chin. “To think your world had such a heartfelt tradition—it’s quite a lovely surprise.”

You laughed. “If you think the chocolates are special, you should see what some couples do for each other. Rooms full of flowers, fancy date nights—I’m just managing the bare minimum.”

“Couples?” he echoed, and you felt the first teeny, hot, thread of chagrin work its way past your enthusiasm.

“Well, normally Valentine’s Day focuses on, like, romantic things,” you said, averting your gaze just in time to miss the tension lance through his shoulders. “But it can be for all sorts of affection!” you hastily added.

“Is that so…” the Prince hummed. He lifted his pensive gaze once more and stared you down with that weighted intensity that you’d only just recently learned how not to buckle beneath. “And you wish to celebrate this day. With me?”

“…you don’t mind, do you?” you asked, hesitant.

“Of course not, Child of Man,” he beamed, his lips curling up into a smile that put all his too-sharp teeth on display. “But you’ll have to excuse me now, I’m afraid. It seems I have some preparations to undertake this evening.”

“Oh,” you blinked. “Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Yes,” Malleus said. “You will.”

It was officially Valentine’s Day, and you were ready to begin your mission of forcing your sweets onto every, single, one of your reluctant friends. Let them be pissy and tsundere. You weren’t afraid to weep and proclaim your undying, shounen-talk-no-jutsu, levels of friendship. Okay. Maybe you were a little. But these grouchy bastards had very easily become your grouchy bastards, and so help you God, they would suffer under your affection and they would like it.

There were plenty of small boxes—all nice, neat, corners with little bows perched on top. But you had also prepared a singular, larger, tray. It was cleaner cut than the rest, with bold, contrasting, colors and a simple elegance. You stared it down with a strange sort of disquiet brewing in your gut. Maybe you were being presumptuous. Goodness knows you’d more than dealt with the searing, emotionally destructive, consequences of that before. But all the same…

You squared your shoulders and spent a moment convincing yourself that your spine was quite sturdy—a proper, titanium, support system—and then popped the Big Box into the bag with the others.

Your first stop was Heartslabyul, and you burst through the ornate, crimson, doors like a manic home invader.

“I come bearing gifts,” you proclaimed, merrily doling out the boxes to your favorite idiot duo. You set three more aside, with little labels for Riddle, Trey, and Cater respectively. Normally you wouldn’t trust a dorm full of teenage boys not to devour any scrap of unattended food in sight, but Riddle had long since struck the fear of God into these poor lads. So you figured it’d be safe.

Deuce’s face lit up and he accepted the chocolate with near starry-eyed enthusiasm.

“Are these your holiday presents? Like the Santa Claus?” he asked, looking very much like a bouncy golden retriever preparing itself for congratulatory head pats.

You leaned forward with an indulgent huff to give him his pats. “No. But close enough.”

You pawned off three boxes on Ruggie when he tried to duck past you in the hallway—one for him, one for Leona, and one extra as payment for making him do your dirty work of playing delivery boy to Mister Grump in the first place. You slipped Jack his on the way into Trein’s morning lecture, and managed to press a box into Jamil’s hands before he slunk off to the library. Kalim cheered so loudly when you handed him one that your ears started to ring.

And then trouble arrived in the form of two, slippery, eels draping themselves across your shoulders. Normally the destructive duo seemed to act on their own prerogative, but on this fortuitous morning their Lord and Master was surprisingly not too far behind.

“Shrimpy!~” Floyd trilled, dragging you into a one-armed hug that was really more of a slightly-less-aggressive headlock than anything else. “Azul says you came up with this stupid holiday! And he made us work all day yesterdayto put together stuff for the Lounge! It’s not fair!”

Your legs shook under the weight of the new tumor that had made its home on your back.

“Now, Floyd,” Jade chirped. All finely manicured cruelty. “If you’re to blame anyone for going overboard with this entire situation, you ought to lay the fault on our fearless leader.” His bi-colored eyes flashed, amused. “Isn’t that right, Azul?”

Said ‘fearless leader’ looked like he was sucking on a lemon. He glared bitterly at his subordinate, seeming to share an entire, silent, argument with him, before turning back on you with a heavy sigh and the barest hint of angry flush in his cheeks.

“Prefect,” he grinned past his obvious discomfort, all sparkling, white, teeth. “I have to thank you for sharing so much information about this ‘Valentine’s Day’ of yours. It’s such a unique event, and it seems like our preparations at the Lounge are already being received incredibly well.”

“That’s good,” you nodded, trying and failing to shrug the Leech off your shoulders. “I’m glad I could help.”

Azul hummed under his breath, his eyes darting away for a moment. His glasses reflected the muted light of the hall in an odd way—making it difficult to read his expression. He cleared his throat and when he looked back up at you, the tips of his ears had gone pink.

“You’re more than welcome to come by, of course,” he beamed, suave as could be.

“I mean,” you blinked. “I would hope so. I work there.”

Floyd let out a bark of laughter and Jade snickered into his glove. The pleasant pink tinting Azul’s skin was heating to a near sunburned red. He looked down and coughed into his fist.

“Yes…” he mumbled. “I—I’m aware. But what I meant is… What I meant—” He frowned. It was a tight, pouty, little thing that scrunched up his entire face. That mottled red had spread to the bridge of his nose.

“I do believe what Azul is trying to say,” Jade stepped in, clearly taking some sort of pity on his tongue-tied friend. Or perhaps pity was the wrong word for it, seeing how smug he looked, “is that he would like to invite you to the event personally. As an honored guest, not an employee.”

“Oh,” you blinked, startled. Then hesitated, cautious on instinct. There was always some sort of catch to the Octomer’s kindness. “I don’t know if I could afford whatever fancy thing you’ve thrown together.”

“You wouldn’t be paying for it,” Azul assured you, some of that sickly flush having finally started to recede from his cheeks. You hoped he was feeling alright. “You’ve contributed more than enough for the day. It would be on the house.”

Jade loudly cleared his throat and Azul huffed, eyes sliding away yet again.

“I would be paying,” he finally mumbled. And then, even quieter, “As I believe is the custom.”

Just as you were about to thank him for his startling bought of generosity (and also ask after his health, because between the weird, pink, tinge to his skin and the aforementioned generosity, clearly somethingwas out of sorts with him), you noticed a sneaky hand working its way into your bag of goodies, and you immediately were on the defensive.

“Hey!” you snapped, spinning out of Floyd’s stranglehold. “You only get one!”

“Then I want the really big one!” he demanded, making grabby motions at it.

“No!” you squeaked, and clutched it protectively to your chest. The trio looked at you with varying degrees of surprise and you cleared your throat awkwardly. “This one—This one is special.”

“Oh?” Jade cooed, eyes flickering back towards Azul, who seemed determined to look absolutely anywhere else. “Is it now?”

“Awww,” Floyd whined. “That’s no fair! Who’s it for, anyways?!”

You gripped the box tighter and now it was your turn to stiffly avert your eyes down to the ugly carpet. “It’s not—I’m not—” you cleared your throat and forced the jitter from your voice. “I’m not ready to give it to him yet.”

The silence that followed was absolutely the worst thing you’d experienced in a long, long, time. Overblots and all. You could practically hear your blood pounding in your ears. You were just about to turn and beat a hasty retreat when a familiar, snappish, voice called your name from the other side of the corridor.

“There you are, potato,” Vil huffed, coming to stand at your side and bodily inserting himself between you and your tormentors. He met Azul’s petulant sneer with a frankly terrifying one of his own. “What are you doing here? I thought we agreed you’d be eating lunch with me today.”

You remembered no such thing, but if it got you out of this verbal minefield of a conversation, you were more than willing to take the claim at face value.

“Apologies,” Azul cut in with all his usual, mafioso, flair. “But the Prefect will be taking their afternoon meal at the Mostro Lounge today.”

“Is that so?” Vil hummed, sounding positively venomous.

“Unless you think you can make an offer good enough to sway them otherwise,” Azul chirped, equally as unpleasant.

Vil laughed—cold and sharp as crystal. It was the most elegant display of blatant irritation you’d ever seen.

“Of course you’d only consider this entire situation on a transactional basis,” he drawled, entirely unimpressed. Azul flinched and his expression screwed up into something near petulant. “I would expect no less. Are you planning to lock them into a contact too, hmm? Sign away everything in formal, sterile, terms?” Vil crossed his arms, and you were reminded sharply once more how very, very lucky you were to not be on his bad side (even if you hadn’t realized before all this that Azul apparently was on said bad side. You had no idea they disliked each other so terribly). “I really hadn’t expected you to have a single, romantic, bone in your body, and yet somehow I’m still disappointed to be proved so entirely correct.”

Azul looked ready to explode, and even though Jade and Floyd and melted back into the shadows at the start of this entire encounter, the pair of them were starting to look a bit murderous too—like sharks lazily circling the dark, ocean, depths.

“Don’t you think you deserve better?” Vil asserted, turning back to face you with a soft cant of the head. You blinked back in shock.

“Uh,” you gaped, absolutely fucking lost.

And then, like a beacon of unrivaled, black-drenched, hope, you spotted Malleus making his way down the hallway. He was flanked by his trio of housemates-cum-pseudo-bodyguards. Normally you tried to leave him alone when his rabid, green-haired, guard dog was yipping at his heels, and on top of that, the idea of using your classmates’ ingrained fear of the Fae Prince to your own advantage upset your rather staunch sensibilities. But this was an emergency.

“Tsunotarou!” you called, and it absolutely sounded like the cry for help it was.

He perked up immediately and you watched him nearly crash to a standstill. And then his sharp, neon, gaze locked on the dueling Housewardens circling you like a pair of snapping wolves, and his merry expression shuttered into something positively glacial. Which was—Fuck. I mean. Come on. What the fuck was going on today—

“Child of Man,” he droned, crossing the short distance with all the grace of the near-mythical, arcane, master that he was. His posture was more collected and regal than you’d ever seen it, and he loomed all the taller for it.

Azul and Vil had gone tense at your side, one certainly more so than other. The Octomer looked incredibly unsettled at Malleus’s sudden arrival, but Vil just looked angrier. It was the sort of unpleasantness that bloomed whenever someone challenged him or his competencies over and over—inevitably pushing the normally composed beauty into an indignant rage.

“Happy Day of Valentine’s,” Malleus continued, slotting himself firmly into the veritable territory dispute going down. “Are you quite alright?”

No, you wanted to wail. No! I’m so confused! I have no idea what’s going on! I just wanted to give my friends chocolates!

But you never managed to get those words or any others past your lips, because Sebek Zigvolt shot to his master’s side with all the speed of the lightning for which he was so named, and immediately began to scream.

“HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT THE YOUNG MASTER’S AFTERNOON ROUTINE!” he shrieked at the top of his very impressive lungs.

You weren’t sure if he was howling at you (very likely) or just anyone who wasn’t Malleus, but Jade took the opportunity to slink forward from the shadows with a sharp tut-tut.

“Perhaps none of you deserve the Prefect’s special attentions,” he piped in, sounding very much like someone intentionally throwing a cannister of gasoline onto an already roaring fire. “Or any chocolates at all—let alone the ones set aside for someone special.”

At this, silence once more rang through the corridor and you wanted to throttle that stupid eel.

“There is a special box?” Malleus asked first, brow shooting up as his expression tugged with… something.

“I—I mean, I made all of yours special!” you defended, holding the wrapped treasure tightly to your chest. “But… I guess. Yes. There’s one that’s a little bigger than the others.”

At this, all three Housewardens exchanged pointed looks.

Jade smiled serenely once more, and then continued his absolute massacre upon your person.

“Yes, indeed,” he nodded. “And our dearest Prefect only just mentioned that—hmm. How did you word it? Ah. That’s right. ‘I’m not ready to give it to him yet.’”

The trio tensed. All looking absolutely ready to pounce. At—at what, you had no idea.

“Perhaps,” the wretch mused, “it would be best for you all to temper your rage until the victor is decided, hmm?” He paused to tap at his chin for a moment, and then his lips split into a mean, jagged, grin. “Afterwards? Well, I suppose that whole cheery sentiment about ‘love and war’ still holds true.”

You gulped, feeling startlingly like Jade had just tried to serve you up on a silver platter.

But when neither Azul, Vil, or Malleus made any further moves to murder each other… well. As sacrificial as it all felt, at least it must have worked.

The rest of the day passed in a tense sort of fugue. You certainly hadn’t expected your attempts at bringing some holiday cheer to Night Raven to go so… Uh…

But either way, you managed to survive through the rest of the afternoon, and before you knew it, all that remained of all your tireless efforts and good will was the Special Box. The big one. The one that you’d put together with extra care and hopes for better things. You glared down at it for a moment, feeling sweat starting to bead over your palms. But you couldn’t chicken out now. Not after you’d come so far! Everyone was acting so strange, and it was all so weird. And as much as that unfamiliarity had your teeth on edge and your hackles raised, you didn’t want to regret not giving out the last of your well-made sweets.

Well, here goes nothing, you frowned. You took a deep breath, willed yourself to be brave, and smiled your biggest smile.

“Here,” you beamed, more than a little shy and still a bit horrified by whatever pissing match had been going down earlier in the day, and finally offered the grandest of your chocolate boxes to the man standing opposite you.

Divus Crewel accepted your offering daintily, plucking at the crisp, sharp, wrapping with his crimson gloves. He arched one of his thin brows at you and you fought the nervous heat rising in your cheeks.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” you blurted. “I know it’s not a thing here, but I thought it’d be nice.”

The second eyebrow joined the first—practically jumping all the way up into his fringe.

“I appreciate the gesture. Though from what I understand of all the garish advertising I’ve seen for Mostro Lounge’s new event, I assumed this was a holiday for romantic overtures,” he intoned, wry.

You spluttered and waved your hands furiously. “I mean! Normally! Yes! But also…” You trailed off, fighting the urge to fidget. “If you don’t have a—a, well, someone, then Valentine’s is just a nice excuse to give something to people you care about.” You averted your gaze and lost the battle to twist your fingers into your jacket sleeves. “My family used to give me chocolates every year. So. I thought I could… Well…” you trailed off on a grumble, embarrassed.

Crewel sighed and popped the lid off the box. He plucked two truffles from their casing—keeping one for himself and handing you the other.

“Well, then. A very happy Valentine’s to you, Prefect,” he droned and popped the chocolate into his mouth with a thoughtful hum.

You lit up like a Christmas tree and happily gobbled up your own treat. So distracted were you by the one-two-punch combo of the delicious sugar and even sweeter taste of your Professor’s approval that you almost entirely missed the pointed glare he shot over your shoulder.

“I appreciate your regard,” he said, loud. Sharp. And like he wasn’t talking to you at all. “And while I’m certain that if you do pick a ‘someone’ for yourself to celebrate with in the following years, they’ll have to work very hard to be worthy of such a gift, hmm?” His lip curled unpleasantly, in direct contrast to the indulgent warmth that had been tugging at his expression only a moment before. “I could hardly allow you to waste such a thoughtful gesture on someone unworthy.”

The Octavinelle Housewarden had the decency to look at least a little panicked—his face going pale and gaunt from where he was shrinking into his high collar. There was a frantic look about him, like he was trying to weigh the cost-benefit ratio of going up against his professor in his head, and realizing that he was stupidly, willfully, walking right into a lose-lose situation. And that, sadly—miserably—he was going to keep doing just that. The other two, however, looked entirely undeterred. Schoenheit curled his lip right back at him, more than ready to duke it out here and now, and Crewel fought the urge to remind the blonde that he was the adult in this situation, thank you very much. The adult who could very well revoke the Warden’s access to his Alchemy Labs as it suited him. The very alchemy labs that he knew Vil had been using to concoct all kinds of new, personalized, gifts for you. Draconia simply looked on with that unnervingly ancient, green, leer of his. Like he was staring down a particularly fascinating game. The Fae Prince was the most unsettling of the trio, if only because that while Crewel was more than confident enough in his abilities to subdue his other wayward students, fighting off an Immortal, All Powerful, Dragon was going to require at least a little bit of prep work.

Divus Crewel sighed, and it rattled all the way out from the marrow of his bones.

“Come, then,” he rumbled, directing you to follow him back into his office. “It’s not chocolates, but I probably have some of those ridiculous cookies of yours lying around somewhere.” Which he did. Boxes upon boxes of them. Tucked away special for whenever you came to visit. Not that he’d ever willingly admit that, even under the pain of death.

Your eyes went wide and warm as you positively beamed.

It was rotten work, certainly. He shot one, last, warning glare down the hall at the trio of infatuated interlopers as he firmly shut his office door behind you and your absolute oblivious idiocy. He’d do it. Of course he would. But, Christ alive. He was going to need a stronger drink.

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