Unrequited Love - Blog Posts

I think what I love about gilderat is how complex it could be. Imagine the marauders, absolutely despising gilderoy for how stuck up and stubborn he is (not Like there any different). But then there was Peter, less stuck up and stubborn than the other marauders and also absolutely obsessed with gilderoy. He never expressed these feeling to anyone and he was good at hiding it, until gilderoy was moved into Peter’s class because of reasons he was paying attention to. Slughorn paired gilderoy with Peter claiming “you will do better with him rather than mucking around with all your dumb friends,” so Peter reluctantly agreed.

Over the next year Peter would absolutely despise gilderoy for being smarter than him and absolutely despise how attractive he was. So when it was late and they were Together in the potions classroom, Peter was very ready to go back to his dorm and sleep. That was until gilderoy practically pounced on Peter, there lips interlocking and Peter didn’t complain. Instead gilderoys hand pulled frantically at Peter’s hair and Peter pulling on gilderoys waistint, wanting him closer.

And they kept it a secret, for a while atleast. But they never dated, atleast that was gilderoy said, and yes there was the whole cologne thing, Peter would ask but never get an answer. And yes Peter also asked why they couldn’t date, because he loved the sneaking around in broom closets and empty classroom, once even in the dorms at a gryffindor party. But gilderoy would play it into the fact that he was “straight”

So they kept it a secret, for a while atleast. That was until Peter had enough, he confessed how he actually felt about gilderoy and gilderoy never spoke to him again. James knew soemthing was wrong with Peter so that how the secret “got out” only to James of course and he never even made fun of Peter for it.

Gilderoy however, did like Peter. He was just scared that Peter was lying to him. Peter pettigrew the weird kid that was roped into the “popular crowd”, he must be secretly and arsehole waiting to put gilderoy to the entire school, or just using him for to get off.

In a letter sent to Peter after they graduated, it included the name of a perfume and an apology. Peter knew who it was from immediately, but he never accepted the apology

alex turner's love letter to alexa chung and forgotten letter #68 by james andrew crosby.

i just want you to hold me in your arms

just once

Unrequited love

I feel you around me. You’re everywhere and I can’t get you out of my mind. I love how red your face gets all the time. I love it. The only thing I admire most in this world. I was out with my friends, one of them was all red in the face because of the cold weather but the first thought that came to my mind was exactly you, with a red face. It’s so unique to me.

I don’t know if this is love. I don’t think so. I’ve never even talked to you.

You stare at me. You continuously look at me. But I don’t know why. You don’t talk to me. You don’t dare make the first move. You observe me from afar.

And I think: “What if he’s only curious about me? What if he’s only looking absentmindedly?…”

But I know too well that none of that is true. He isn’t curious.

But I don’t know how to define this.

I attempted making the first move. But he turned it down immediately.

And the next day. I see him again. I had left my glasses in my class, I was having a terrible headache and I just wanted to go meet my friend. So I go downstairs and walk towards my friend’s class. He comes close to me, I stare quickly at him and then I avert my sight to the other side, avoiding him at all costs.

I’m talking to my friend, and she tells me: “He was looking at you!”

I bewildered look at her.

I need help. He is making me go out of my mind. Can’t God help me with this. Or remove him from my life to stop tormenting me, or just make him do something that makes me at least have a talk with him, so I know what his intentions are.

I can’t live like this.

He makes me anxious. Conscious of myself. Before I get out of class, I fix my hair and my makeup. And while going to my friends, I always look around for him. Even if i’m blind. I find him somehow.

reader who can’t stand satoru but then he gets hit by a curse that turns him into a cat. you find him, to his dismay, and take him home, only for him to realize how different you are when he isn’t around to pester you.

at first, he causes a lot of trouble. breaking things in your house, tearing up the pillows. he just wants to be a human again, but nobody can understand him! but you still take care of him and coddle him no matter how much trouble he causes, so different from how people treat him normally, as if he were a nuisance (which he kind of was on purpose). and he finds himself falling for you without realizing it.

so he stops being a bad cat, steadily losing hope that he’ll ever be human again. and satoru would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t enjoy how you stroked him while you read a book or let him sleep beside you at night. maybe it wasn’t so bad? so he decided then if he was going to be just a cat, he was fine with being your cat.

the higher-ups had taken note of his absence, obviously, and he only knows cause you’ve mentioned it to him. you had this endearingweird quirk where you’d talk to him as if he were a real person.

throughout his stay in your home as a house pet, satoru finds out a lot about you. you’ve always kept to yourself, but you vent your frustrations out to him while he’s like this, and he offers his comfort the best he can. which you appreciate, rewarding him with kisses that he secretly enjoys.

once he turns human again, by some miracle, his first thought is to go and find you. and when he does, you give him the cold shoulder like you used to, and it surprises him. before he realizes that, ah, he wasn’t your pet anymore. he was gojo satoru.

satoru realizes his feelings for you in that moment. when he feels the ache in his chest from your dismissive behavior, it leads him to starting his most important mission yet—winning your heart once more.

but this time, it’ll be as a person, not a damn cat.

「 STUCK IN THE MIDDLE 」 💧 PROLOGUE

PAIRING : Gojo Satoru x Reader.

OTHER CHARACTERS : Geto Suguru. Ieiri Shoko. Iori Utahime. Nanami Kento. Fushiguro Megumi. MORE....

GENRE : Angst.

TAGS/WARNINGS : NSFW. Unrequited Love. Childhood Friends. Toxicity. Friends with benefits. Past relationships. Set in the Jujutsu World (will take & use canon events but NOT exactly canon compliant). Profanity. Injury & Violence.

SYNOPSIS : For as long as you could remember, there was Utahime and Satoru. From the chaos of your years together at Jujutsu High to the following years of going through the crushing burden of having to teach young sorcerers in training, they have always existed in every variation of your memories. They’ve been together for as long as you could remember and your lifelong love and admiration for Gojo Satoru has no place in the friend group you’ve all tried so hard to keep together. There has only been Utahime and Satoru... Until there wasn’t. And suddenly, you’ve found yourself stuck in the middle of it all.

TAGLIST : OPEN

The clouds swallow every bit of light the moon is supposed to give, casting the room in swirling shadows and creeping darkness. If you listen closely, ignoring the thunderous beating of your heart against your chest, you’ll hear the melodic howling of the wind. There was something ominous about tonight. Ten or so crows fly in a never-ending circle—almost as if telling you something. Like a bad omen, a wolf dog howls in the distance. It’s going to be a long night and you know it. 

You’ve known it since you saw the familiar black car pulling up as you watch through the windows of your room. You’ve known it since you decided to open the doors to your home five hours ago—a slave to the jewel blue eyes of the man you’ve loved for as long as you could remember. You’ve known it since you felt the sharp pain against your back as he slammed you against the mahogany, lips latching onto your neck with a sharp inhale of exhilaration. As if he’s been waiting for this, waiting for you. Like you are the salvation from the hell he’s been living. You’ve known it since he pushed himself into you. Some kind of twisted fulfillment to the dreams you’ve prayed for every single night.

“Jesus,” he breathes, eyelids drooping shut as he enters your warmth. 

The intrusion makes you clench involuntarily, toes curling as the first taste of heaven engulfs your whole body. A whimper escapes through your lips, a small cry of both pain and pleasure. His length fills you up to the brim. Chokes down air from your lungs until you start feeling like you couldn’t breathe. He fits so perfectly inside you with every ridge, every vein grating into the gummy walls of your insides and hitting every sensitive part of you. 

When he starts to move, building his pace and starting slow, you feel yourself leak even more—inner thighs slick with the cream he’s messily spreading all over the both of you. Mindlessly, he starts to move even faster, length pumping in and out of you in an attempt to reach your highs. The head of his cock nudges your cervix, a painful knock that sends your mind reeling. A powerful and welcome pain that keeps your head light with eyes rolled back and a scream building up from the back of your throat.

Reaching up, you wrap your arms around his neck, meeting his rough thrusts with equally rough jolts of your hips. Grinding against his length, you feel him reach even deeper inside you causing you to clench harshly, a scream ripping from your throat as you feel his own arms wrap around your waist to steady you.

“Jesus, fuck,” he curses, teeth gritted. “Loosen up, sweetheart. Gonna—fuck, gonna lose my fucking mind. Relax, sweetheart, y-yeah— shit, that's it, good girl.”

The room fills with a plethora of your labored breathing and curses, a sign of the ecstasy that connects you with the man beneath you. With shaky thighs, you lift yourself up from him, a squirt of juices wetting his abdomen and thighs. You feel yourself fading out of consciousness, insides overstimulated from the feeling of the strongest fucking in and out of your womb. Still, you fight it, dropping back down his thigh with teary eyes as you reach up to cradle his face.

“More, ‘Toru,” you moan with a sluggish grin, nipples hard and rubbing against his sweaty chest. “Wanted this for so long, ‘Toru. Needed this so, so bad. Please, please, keep going—nnghhh.”

He ignored all of this, fingers silently  reaching between your bodies to rub tight circles on your clit—drawing you closer and closer to another orgasm while his other fingers splay against the small of your back, holding you close to him.

Everything is so perfect. 

You against him, him against you. Your bodies in perfect rhythm and melody. This is a dream come true. It's that one moment in life that makes you go, finally. Every breath, every feeling, every touch, every connection of your body with his gets amplified and it's all you could see and hear and feel. 

It's all you are. It's all you ever wish to be.

Until everything in the moment fades away from you as you reach another orgasm, your walls warming with the flow of his own high releasing inside you. Then, you barely even feel the next rounds of movement as he continues moving in and out of you. Suddenly, all you could feel and hear was that voice in your head telling you all the reasons why this is wrong. Suddenly, the pleasure and achievement that came with Gojo Satoru finally seeing you in a different light and getting intimate with you is crushed by the pain that reminds you why this is nothing to be proud of. 

This wasn't supposed to happen.

With a strike of pain on your chest, you hear your own voice in your head. Playing over and over like a broken record. Whispering until it's a loud blaring in your thoughts:

This is a mistake. 

He's your fucking best friend. She's your friend too.

He's broken, he's sad, he's confused. 

They've just broken up.

He's just using you. 

All of these play into your head like a melody you're not ever going to forget. It's a steady hum within you. A constant reminder that never fails to make you flinch even as he pulls out of you and falls unconscious with sleep on your side of the bed. Like a persistent devil, your thoughts are in chaos until the moment you shut your eyes on the bed beside him—curtain drawn for you couldn't stand to see the bad omens so painfully and obviously laid out as a reminder of what all of this is and what it isn't.

You're never going to forget, you think.

Not as your heart breaks when you hear the silent buzz of Infinity enveloping Gojo Satoru—a thing to keep everyone at a distance, a sound inaudible to everyone else in the world but you. 

Infinite Rewind

Gojo Satoru x reader

Synopsis: Instead of dying, you are sent 13 years in the past, but this isn't your face. "Let's cut the shit." The white-haired kid grins. "Who are you and what're you doing in Suguru's body?"

Word Count: 18.1k

(Warnings: slight yandere, death, murder, inaccurate Tokyo geography, blood, violence, mild gore, obsession, unhealthy relationships, child abuse/neglect, time looping(?), fem!reader) Ageless blogs that try to follow me will be blocked

First, you saw a monster. 

It was big and horrible—nasty teeth. You heard screaming. People. Running as fast as they could away from the creatures. Pain. 

And then, you saw a bright, clear sky. 

The sun was blaring down at you. It was so hot. Wasn't it December? How was the sun out at night? 

"Hey, you good?" 

A girl is looking at you. Short brown hair. She's peering down at you, wearing a high-school uniform. How is she wearing all black when the weather is so hot? 

When you don't respond, her eyes squint. 

"Suguru, are you okay?" 

That's not your name; your mouth moves faster than your brain.

"I-I'm fine." That wasn't your voice. It was deeper. More masculine. What the fuck happened to your voice? 

The girl gives you another strange look but you're too busy freaking out over your new voice. Your hands are different too. A completely different skin tone, larger. 

And then you're fumbling with your pockets, clothes you know you didn't buy. The girl is calling for you again but you're too busy pulling out a fucking flip-phone and looking into the black screen, the only thing you have for a mirror. 

Purple eyes stare back. These aren't your eyes. This isn't your nose. This isn't your hair. This isn't your face. You blink. He does too. You open your mouth. So does he. You pinch your cheek. In the reflection, he winces. 

Oh, you just fucking bodysnatched someone. 

ⴵ

Ten minutes later, you conclude that your name is Geto Suguru, you are a 16-year-old boy, the year is 2006, and you attend a religious academy. 

"You're finally acting normally again." The girl-newly discovered as Ieiri- says. "No more weirdness." 

You don't blame her, considering you grabbed her by the shoulders, asking ridiculous questions like: what year is it, who am I, why am I here, who are you, am I dead, is this Hell, etc. For a teenage girl, she took your outburst well. 

"Sorry," you say and by now you've gotten used to your voice, "it must have been the stress from studying." 

She just hums, continuing to walk beside you. Though, Ieiri had a point. You were definitely calmer, and it was mostly because you figured it out. 

You were dreaming. 

You were lucid dreaming, to be more precise. Your brain was conjuring up a weird setting and you just happened to be placed in another person's body. You heard about this happening before. You were just so freaked out because this was the first time anything like this had happened to you. 

An impulsive part of you wants to tell Ieiri that this is just a dream, but you've heard weird things happen after a lucid dreamer tries to break the illusion. It's best if you just let it just play out and see where this goes. 

“Excited?” 

“Hm?” You ask. And Shoko rolls her eyes. 

“For the mission you have this evening. Special grade. Sounds scary.” She says, her sarcasm evident. 

Mission? Special grade? You don’t know what those words mean but it sounds like a school field trip. Shoko takes your hesitance as something else. 

“Ah,” she says, “so you forgot.” 

“I didn’t.” You reply on instinct. 

“I expected this from Satoru, not you. You should stop hanging out with him, he’s starting to rub off on you.”

You give a sheepish laugh, and it’s enough to quell her questions. 

She leads you into the school, all through the winding halls and through an office door. You couldn’t be more grateful, it’s not like you would have known where to go. It’s a teachers room. Two people are already inside. 

“Wait, for once, I’m early?” The boy with sunglasses asks, voice dripping with amusement. He’s leaning dangerously on a chair. You stare at him. You’ve never seen someone with white hair before. It can’t be real. 

“He forgot.” Shoko pipes up and the boy cackles. 

“That’s hilarious. I’m starting to rub off on you.” Ah, this must be Satoru. 

You give a nervous smile. “Haha, yeah.” 

The boy stops rocking in the chair. Three pairs of eyes look at you. Your uniform feels itchy.

“Gojo, stop making such a ruckus.” The man, presumably his teacher, gruffs. "You two got the briefing yesterday. Do your job and for the last time do not leave your assistant manager behind again." 

Gojo groans, and you delve into more confusion. Before you can say anything, the kid is hopping out of his seat before lazily striding out the door. Shoko and the teacher look at you expectantly. 

Oh, you were supposed to follow him. 

Not wanting to make a scene, you catch up to Gojo. He's tall, his footsteps are long and wide. But you're tall now too, so it's easy to keep up with him. This new body of yours has a lot of pros. 

"Yaga's so annoying," Gojo suddenly says, "constantly nagging us like that. It's not our fault the assistants can't keep up." 

What should you say? You clear your throat. 

"He just wants what's best for us." 

Wrong answer. 

"Where'd that come from?" He snorts. How charming. "I know you agree with me. You're just tryna' act like the nicer one, again. It's starting to get a little old." 

Is that how 16 year-olds talk? Rude, but also strangely off-putting, like he can see straight through you. Or more accurately, he can see straight through Suguru. How close are these two, anyway? 

Why did any of these questions even matter? This is a dream! You need to wake up already. 

On the campus grounds, a sleek black car waits outside for you two. Along with a miffed man in a black suit. This must be a very rich school for a field trip to have a chauffeur. Where were you two going again?

Gojo hops in the back, taking one of the window seats. You take the other. In your own body, you would've fit nicely. But Suguru's legs are long, and the spacious car feels cramped. You should've taken the passenger seat. How do tall people live like this? 

The ride is quiet. Out the corner of your eye, you catch Satoru type away on his flip phone. A moment later, yours beeps. You still have no idea how to use Suguru's phone or his password, so you ignore his message. Satoru groans. 

Quickly, you learn that Satoru has a very low attention span. When looking out the window gets boring, he bugs the chauffeur. When the chauffeur ignores him, he starts bugging you. 

"Hey heyyyy," Satoru says, "when this is all over, we should go to that new ice cream place. Like you said, we should." 

You look at him. "Uh, sure." You say. 

"And you should pay for it, 'cuz you said you owed me last time." 

Fine, whatever. "Sure thing." 

He grins. You can't see his glasses, and it makes his smile even more unnerving. This kid. 

This doesn't feel like a normal field trip at all. Why did you stop in front of some rackety house that looked as though it were about to collapse? You turn back to the only adult in the vicinity, but he's out too. He takes out a lighter and a cigarette. In front of impressionable children, too. Wonderful. 

"I'll wait out here." He says, though his tone is uncaring. "Since we're out in the country, there's no need for a veil. Do your best." 

Veil? What? Gojo's already going off again and you've already decided to be his chaperone, so you follow. You reluctantly trail behind him. Feet crunch the leaves. The house grows bleaker and bleaker. 

"Okay, I have a plan!" Gojo exclaims when he gets through the squeaky door. He's so loud, can't he be quieter? "I check upstairs and you check the ground floor and the basement. Got it?" 

Check the house? Were he and Suguru electricians in training or something? That still wouldn't explain why a grown man decided to drop off two teenagers in front of a creepy mansion. And why in God's name did Gojo want to split up?

"I-I don't think that's a good idea," you say, "shouldn't we try to stick together?" Or, better yet, leave. 

He clicks his tongue. "Ugh, you're so lame. Not like Suguru at all." 

Wait, what did he say? You're about to call out to him when he climbs up the stairs, disappearing from view. Unbelievable. 

This kid was starting to get on your nerves. Enough, you were leaving. You could have a nice dream where you met and fell in love with Zendaya, not babysitting some teenager, whilst possessing another person's body. You were going to wait outside with the man and hope your dream finally came to an end. 

Except, you couldn't go outside. The door was gone. 

It-it was right behind you, right? The entrance was right behind you. You couldn't have gotten turned around so quickly? What the hell happened? Or maybe you had gotten turned around? Considering how distracting that Gojo kid was, you might not have realized it. 

You look around the house. Looks like it'd been abandoned for a while. There's dirt on the shelves. Chairs were toppled over and left to rot. The wooden floorboards dangerously creaked beneath you. Just what had happened here? 

There's no patio door. No door leading to the outside. At the same time, you hadn't explored everything yet. Each door led to a room. The only door that didn't, led to a basement. And no, you weren't going down there. 

When you got back to where you started, you noticed something had changed. 

There was a person. Seated right at the base of the stairs? 

Gojo? Was he done with urban exploring? Maybe he knew the way out. He stands up, reaching to his full height, then higher, then higher. 

Gojo was tall, but this thing was taller. Gojo was human. This thing wasn't. 

What the fuck you can only mouth because your voice is stuck in your throat when it takes a shaky step towards you. It's a black husk of a figure, too skinny but too tall and twitching fingers. You don't know how you could've mistaken this for the kid. 

Another step. You're running, back into the house, leaping over the fallen shelves and creaky floorboards. It gives chase, and you can hear it groan behind you. It's deep and rumbly and terrifying. It just motivates you to go faster. 

It's slower than you. That's good, but it seems to realize this. You can barely celebrate your advantage before something heavy is smashed into your back, sending you toppling to the floor. You and wooden chair crash on the ground. 

It hurts. 

Everything hurts. 

Dreams aren't supposed to hurt. Because this wasn't a dream. 

This was real. You were stuck in the year 2006, stuck in another person's body, about to get mauled by a monster. 

You were going to die. 

You aren't even fighting anymore. How pathetic is that? The shock numbs your body as the thing grows closer and closer, all you can do is reach your hands up, protecting your face. 

And then the creature explodes. 

An implosion. It's skin and bones twist in a way no one should. There's a shriek, something wrong and high and inhuman before it's gone. Like it never existed in the first place. 

After all that, he's still smiling. Like the cat that just caught the mouse. 

"I guess we're not pretending anymore, are we?" Gojo asks, stretching his arms. "That's good. That game was starting to get a little boring, anyways. Now, then." 

He folds his glasses, tucking it on his uniform. Blue, his eyes are. As blue as a clear sky. 

"Let's cut the shit." The white-haired kid grins. "Who are you, and what're you doing in Suguru's body?"

ⴵ

Contrary to your belief, Gojo Satoru is a good listener. 

There's never an interruption. Not even once. Every once in a while, he nods, a hand on his chin. It's probably because he can't interrupt. You just keep going on and on. Word vomit. 

He only speaks when you pause to catch your breath. "So you are from the year 2017, and you went back in time to body-snatch someone. I had a feeling your technique had something to do with possession." 

You look at him warily. "Wait, you knew this entire time?" 

You two hadn't moved from your earlier spot. You were still sprawled on the floor, still feeling the adrenaline surge through you. Gojo had transitioned to squatting on the floor. He scratches his neck, still so casual. 

"I have good eyes. Don't worry about it." He shrugs. "Anyway, you seem pretty harmless, and as annoying as it is not having Suguru around, I doubt killing you would do any good." Why is he being so nonchalant about murder? Is this kid really sixteen?

"I think we gotta' just wait around until your technique reactivates." Gojo whistles. "2017. That's like a decade away. I wonder what happened for your technique to show up." 

You blink, trying to remember the date. 

"It was Christmas Eve..." You glance at him. "And then I was here." 

He thinks for a moment. "Yeah, I got nothing." Of course. 

He sighs, before sprawling on the dirty floor, belly up. You grimace at his antics but choose to keep your mouth shut. 

He doesn't seem very worried. At the most, he looks mildly inconvenienced. Why isn't he worried about his friend? 

When you ask him, he just snorts. 

"Sorry, but you're not that scary. Besides, I don't have to worry about Suguru. He's strong." 

Well, that's nice to know, but one other thing still bothers you. 

"You speak so casually to me," you mutter, "You know I'm older than you, right? I'm 22." 

He laughs. "22? Damn. You're old, man." 

"That isn't old!" You argue. "You have no concept of age since you're just a teenager." And why did he assume you were a man? Oh right, you were trapped in a teenage boy’s body. Of course.

"I mean, technically, I'm older than you, right?" Gojo ponders with a grin. "If you're 22 in 2017, that makes you what—11 in 2006?" 

You say nothing because you have a feeling that if you continue to argue with him, he'll just drag you down to his insanity. 

"Technique, you've said that a couple of times." You look at him. "That's what you call your 'powers', right? Does Geto have one too?" 

"Yeah," Gojo says, "but you can't use it. You have zero cursed energy. Honestly, it's at the same level as a plant. A bit lower than regular humans. It's a little impressive, actually." For one second, could he stop being so condescending? 

"What's his technique?" You ignore his comments. "Could it be related to how I got here?" 

He gives you a look over. "I doubt that, but Suguru's technique is curse manipulation. Uh, you remember that thing you saw earlier." You nod. "Yeah, he can control and absorb them." 

He sounds pretty awesome. You look at your hands. Not your hands. Geto's hands. They're paler than yours, and a lot longer. This isn't your body. Your soul can feel it. You can feel the guilt too. 

'I'd give it back if I could,' you think, 'I just don't know how.' 

Gojo's getting up. He stretches. He was lying on the ground but you can't see a speck of dirt on his uniform. 

"Okay, then. No use mopping around." He grins down at you. "Maybe Yaga can do something about you. Let's get you back to jujutsu tech." 

You blink up at him. His hand is outstretched, reaching out to you. He's still grinning that insufferable grin but his eyes have slightly melted. 

"Okay." You say, barely touching his fingertips. "Let's-" 

And then Gojo's gone. And then, you're standing. And then it's cold. 

You're wearing a coat; weren't you wearing a uniform before? There's no clear sky. It's nearly dusk. 

You were standing on the sidewalk, where people bustled all around you. You fumble through your jackets, putting out a phone. An actual iphone. You flick on the screen. 

December 24th, 2017, 7:06.

Holy shit, you were back. 

Was it because you touched Gojo? That makes no sense, but how could you explain anything else that happened so far? God. You rake a hand through your hair. Your hand. Your hair. You can't believe how much you missed yourself. It felt so good to be back. 

Your mind is spinning, you had no idea what the fuck just happened.

For now, you just wanted to turn your mind off and grab a drink. 

You know there was a bar not too far from your location. Along the way, you pass by the bustling town. There's a couple walking side by side, giggling over something you couldn't hear. Right, it's the 24th. You remember your empty bed with no one to share it with, and you cement your desire to drown yourself in alcohol today. 

Your self-pitying session is almost how you nearly miss him. His shoulder brushes past you. You're about to apologize when you hear his voice. It's familiar. 

It used to be your voice. 

It's all there. Black hair, but it's longer this time around. Of course it is, he's had years to grow it out. He's tall, he must've grown since highschool. His broad back is the only thing you see, you're almost afraid to reach out to him. 

"Suguru...?" 

He freezes like you've shot him. When he turns around, it's like looking into a fractured past. He looks older, no longer a youthful teenager. You should have paid more attention to his eyes, how scrutinizing they were, how condescending his fake smile was. All that you could think of was that it was actually him. 

"Do I know you?" He tilts his head. "Apologies, but my girls and I are quite busy." 

You don't notice the two young ladies beside him until Geto points them out. Teenagers, maybe just around the age when you first met him. He was a father now. 

You're so swept up by the emotions that you barely notice they've continued walking. You stumble behind, ducking behind the alleyway they went into. 

"Wait! Geto!" You call. "Please! We need to talk!" You still needed your answers. You didn't know care how desperate you came off as. 

In hindsight, you should have noticed that they looked more annoyed than worried about a stranger chasing them across the street. 

The one with the ponytail scoffs. "This one talks an awful lot. How annoying." 

Geto sighs. He leaves his daughters, finally standing in front of you. This is what you wanted, right? A chance to talk to him. 

Still, you can't help but feel wrongness within you. His smile is off. 

"Most monkeys are just that, unfortunately." You don't move. You can't. Not when he places a hand on your skull. "I suppose it'd be humane to put this one out of its misery." 

Geto Suguru crushes your skull. And then you die. 

ⴵ

Again. You died again. 

This is the second time Geto has killed you. Fuck, you should've realized. 

"Back again, Greeny?" Gojo asks. 

He and Suguru were sitting outside in the grass. Satoru's holding up a few playing cards. You look at Suguru's hands and find yourself doing the same. 

Not again. 

"What year is it?" You ask warily. "And what did you just call me?" 

Gojo grins with teeth. You remember he compared you to a plant before, didn't he? He's so clever with nicknames; someone should give him an award. 

"Welcome back to 2006!" Gojo beams. "It's only been a couple of days since you left. And why are you so grumpy? I'm the one who just lost a player." 

You weren't grumpy, you were pissed. You figured out what's been going on with you, and it's all because of the asshole you're possessing right now.

The look on his face when he killed you. Like you were nothing more than an animal. A monkey. Now, you feel a lot less guilty about possessing his body. 

At least you figured out two things. You know how your technique works. Whenever someone kills you, you are sent back in time to take over their body. But you can go back whenever you touch Gojo, or perhaps just another sorcerer. 

Secondly, you have access to Geto's memories. 

It didn't happen the first time you died. It must have been because the kill wasn't direct (from Getos curse, rather than himself), but milliseconds after Geto split your skull in two, your brain was overwhelmed by his past, his present, as well as his future. 

Geto was set to die on December 24th, 2017. At the hands of his best friend, Gojo Satoru. 

Fuck him. Let the bastard die. You didn't give a shit. 

You reach over to touch Gojo's arm, ready to leave. He pulls back with a snicker. Ugh, the brat must've figured out your technique, too. 

"Stop messing around." You tell him. "I need to go back to my timeline." 

"Sure, sure," he says as though speaking to a time traveler is just another Tuesday. "But first, finish the game with me." 

"No." You tell him before leaning out even further. He isn't moving away anymore, but you still can't reach him. Fuck, he must've activated his technique. 

Despite your annoyance, you decide to keep the future away from Gojo's ears. He doesn't need to know that he'll be the one to kill Suguru. He shouldn't. Not at his age. He's just a kid. 

"Just one game! I promise!" He pleads. "Then I'll let you go. Suguru never lets me beat him, I want an easy opponent to boost my ego." 

You roll your eyes, but you settle down, picking up the cards. You already know the rules; you have Geto's memories, after all. 

It's silent, save for Gojo's humming. When you place down your King of hearts, you ask:

"Hey, is my cursed energy different at all?" You ask.

"Not really." He squints. "Wait, it has grown a little. Aw, Greeny sprouted!" 

So, every time you die, your cursed energy increases. That, or your cursed energy, increases every time you time travel. It doesn't matter either way. Does this mean you can use Geto's technique now? It couldn't hurt to try, right? 

There's a demon-no, they're called curses you know that now- floating beside you, just a little ways away. Small. Barely fourth grade. You stick your hand out, calling out Geto's power. There's a pull, a rush of energy. 

A blue ball drops into your hand. 

"Holy shit." Gojo leans forward. "So you can use his techniques." Surprisingly, there's no wariness in his voice. Just awe. 

"Yeah." You breathe before glancing up at him. "Shouldn't you be focused on your cards?" 

He shrugs, tossing the cards away. "What cards?" 

You sigh before staring at the ball. Well, you captured the curse. All that's left to do is swallow it, right? You can do that. You open your mouth. Gojo is still staring. You scowl. 

"Look away." 

He rolls his eyes. "It's not like I haven't seen you do this before. Well, not you, the guy that you bodysnatched." 

Ass, you keep that in your head as you hold your breath. You swallow the ball down. 

Instantly, you choke. 

It's horrible. Like a rotten carcass on the highway, oozing blood and oil and pus. You start dry-heaving, suffocating, spit dribbles down your chin. Nothing comes out. You've already absorbed it. The taste of a cursed spirit no one knows. Like swallowing a rag that was used to wipe up vomit and shit. Exorcised. Ingested. Exorcised. Ingested. Exorcised. Ingested. Exorcised. Ingested. 

"Is it really that bad?" Gojo observes you. "That guy swallows them down, no problem." 

Because Suguru was used to this taste. He was used to the responsibility. The hoarding mass of distraught absorbing a curse comes with. It was a disgusting art. Something he'd perfected to mask for years. Until he couldn't take it anymore. 

Fuck, you might have lost your mind, too, if you kept having to eat this. To protect people who were happy you failed. 

You snapped out of it. Suguru's memories were affecting your own. That's probably a sign that you need to get out of here. No way would you be sympathizing with someone so monstrous. 

"Hopefully, I never do that again." You slowly recover, wiping your spit away with your hand. You lean back on your hands, exhausted. 

"Something I've always wondered." You call out to Gojo. "What did Suguru ever think about someone possessing his body." 

Gojo laughed. "Funny thing. He never knew." 

"What?" You look at him. "No gaps in his memory? Nothing?" 

"Nope," Gojo said, "he remembered what happened in the house, but he thinks he did everything. And then he said something weird." 

You perk up at that. "What did he say?" 

Gojo tilts his head. Then, he shrugs. 

"I forgot." Typical. 

You pinch your nose bridge. "So, did you tell anyone else about...this?" You gesture to yourself. 

"Wait, you're supposed to be a secret?" You look at him in alarm. "In my defense, I didn't know, but I haven't gotten the chance to tell anyone. After the mission, Suguru and I went to the arcade, and then I kinda' forgot about it." 

Well, at least Gojo's arrogance works in your favor sometimes. You can't let anyone know, especially anyone connected to the higher-ups. From Geto's memories, you know they don't like anything new. It's best to stay under their radar. 

"Good, well, from now on, we're keeping it a secret. Got it?" 

"What are you two keeping a secret?" A new voice pops up. You jump. 

You know him—at least from Geto's memories. Haibara beams at you. He looks so alive in the sunlight, smiling and with bright eyes.

He'll be dead within a year or so. 

Gojo takes advantage of your shock. "The bodysnatcher wants me to promise that I won't tell anyone that a curse-user is possessing Suguru's body." 

"What the hell? You just promised that you wouldn't tell anyone!" 

"Uh, technically, I didn't promise anything yet." Gojo retaliates. "But okay, fiiiiine. I won't tell anyone....except for Haibara." You groan. 

"What's going on?" Haibara's smile fades. "Wait, Gojo, is this not Geto? Is this person actually a curse-user!?" 

"I'm not a curse-user." You correct. "I'm not a sorcerer either, for the record." 

"You just used a curse technique to travel back in time to take over someone's body." Gojo enunciates. "Sounds like a sorcerer to me." 

"Wait, you're a time-traveler, Mr. Not-Geto?" Haibara asks and you are genuinely impressed he's able to keep up. 

"The name’s Greeny, Haibara." Gojo supplements. Haibara nods, still a bit unsure. 

"So...do we fight Greeny?" 

"It's not my name." You get ignored. 

"Nah, it's all good. Greeny's harmless. Just a weakling, don’t worry about it." Rude, but you don’t think you’d want Gojo to take you as much of a threat, not after knowing what he can do.

"Oh, okay!" Haibara instantly relaxes. The kid's really trusting, huh? 

"Okay, fine, but no one else can know, got it, Gojo?" This promise doesn't matter. It's not like you're planning on returning to the past anytime soon. As soon as you return to the present, you are leaving Tokyo and escaping the night parade of 100 demons. Fuck that. You don't want to die again. 

He waves you off. "Yeah, yeah."

He's so insufferable. You don't know who's worse: the genocidal maniac or this brat. 

"Give me your hand. I want to go home." 

Haibara looks confused. "Wait, why does Greeny need your hand?" 

"It's how the curse technique works," Gojo explains. "Greeny gets sent back in time, and then my true-love's touch sends him careening forward into the future." You frown at his comment, but he turns to you before you can say anything. 

"Which reminds me, Greeny: ever figure out how your technique works?" 

No way are you telling a kid that their best friend killed you....twice. Instead, you just shrug. 

"Haven't figured it out yet." 

Gojo stares at you. "Huh." He responds. "Well, if you ever figure it out, lemme' know." 

Sure you will. You hold up your hand. Gojo, finally holds his own up. Out of the corner of your eye, Haibara waves. And then you're back in your own body, on December 24th, 2017, 7:06 pm.

You waste no time. You push at the crowd, squeezing through the hoards of people. You need to get out. You need to leave before the death parade starts, before you're trapped in that terrifying cycle of death again. 

You need to leave. 

Exorcised. Ingested. 

No no no. Shut up. This wasn't you. This was Geto's memories. 

Exorcised. Ingested.  

You need to leave. 

Exorcised. Ingested. 

You need to survive. 

The taste of a cursed spirit no one knows. 

You stop, right there in the middle of the sidewalk. People glare, cursing as they move around you. They don't know this place will be a bloodbath in a matter of minutes. They'd all die. But you could stop it. 

If only if you hadn't accessed Geto's memories. If only if you hadn't eaten that damn curse. If only if you hadn't sympathized with a murderer. Maybe you'd have the courage to escape your future. 

But you'd felt that taste. Horrible. If you eat enough, you could go insane. If you were lonely enough, that would do it too. 

The taste of a cursed spirit no one knows. No one except for you. 

At 8:06 the screams start. The monsters come out to play their song. You close your eyes, forgive Suguru, and you die once more. 

ⴵ

For once, when you open your eyes, Gojo isn’t there with you. 

You’re still on the campus of Jujutsu tech. Suguru was just about to grab his soda from the vending machine. You finish his job. The can feels cold. It feels refreshing on your tongue. It’s a momentary distraction to the fact that you have no clue what you’re doing. 

You understand your cursed technique, but you still struggle with the application. Fuck, what did you do? You were utterly fucked. You’re playing a dangerous game. If you died- if Geto died- here, what would even happen? 

 The worst part is that you can’t even think of the hypothetical because there’s no other choice. You needed to do this. To not only save the people in Tokyo from the Night Parade, but to also save Geto Suguru. The man who has killed you three times now. 

Geto’s dissent starts to worsen at Riko Amanai’s death. If you could prevent that from happening, you could probably change history. But Geto’s true fracture begins with the curses themselves. They were rotting him from the inside.

You grimace, but you have to do it. You have to eat every single curse that Geto couldn’t swallow down himself. 

One was coming up. In less than an hour, Yaga will call you and Gojo for a mission. It’ll be a special-grade grave-type curse. Dispatching it will be simple, but Geto would be the one to exorcise it, ingesting the screams of all that the curse devoured. You needed to prepare yourself for that. 

Maybe you should save some of this soda to wash the taste off later. 

“Geto!” Someone cheers, you jump, but Haibara’s already poking his head around the wall. He grins. 

“Hey! Oh, you’re not Geto, aren’t you?” He tilts his head. “Greeny?” 

“Keep your voice down,” you whisper, “wait, you can recognize me?” 

He nods, after checking to make sure no one’s around, he says, “yeah, your eyes are different? It’s hard to explain.” He tells you. 

Huh. Interesting. 

“You’ve been gone a while.” Haibara beams. “It’s been a few weeks. I’m glad you’re back, Gojo was starting to get cranky.” 

It’s probably because he had no one to mess with. Poor him. He has all your sympathies. Ass. 

“I’m glad to return as his punching back.” You mutter. 

Haibara shyly shuffles his feet. 

“So, are you really from the future?” He asks. “Was Gojo telling the truth?” 

You nod. “Haibara, you haven’t told anyone, right?” 

“Of course not!” He instantly says. “Not a soul. Not even Nanami, and I tell him everything! Your secret’s safe with me.” 

“And Gojo, too! I know he doesn’t look very trustworthy, but me and him have kept it under wraps.” 

Reluctantly, you can’t help but agree with the kid. Gojo is annoying, but so far, he hasn’t done anything super harmful. 

“So anyway, Greeny.” He clears his throat. “Considering you’re from the future and all. Would you mind telling me what my future will be like?” 

You blink at him. He takes it as a sign to continue. “Nothing much! I just wanna know what I’ll be doing in 2017. Will I finally be a grade 1 sorcerer?” 

You think of Geto’s final memories of Haibara. A child burying another child. 

“Sorry,” you lie through your teeth, “but I didn’t know you in my future. Again, I’m not really a sorcerer.” 

Haibara nods, disappointed but still very excitable. He asks you about other things about the future, and you try to answer to the best of your ability, but you can’t shake off his dead glass eyes, staring at you from the morgue. 

“Another thing, we should have a code word.” Haibara exclaims. 

You blink. “A code word?” 

“If we ever meet in the future,” he explains, “y’know, in 'Groundhog’s day', he has to keep explaining what’s happening repeatedly? In order to prevent that, we should have a secret word between eachother so I instantly know who you are.” 

Not the same exact situation, but it sounds like exactly something a child would come up with. You indulge him anyway. 

“Okay, what did you have in mind?” 

“Well, it can’t be anything too crazy, or we might attract unwanted attention.” Haibara puts a hand on his chin in serious thought. You smile. 

“Got it! If you ever see me, just yell ‘brocolli head’ really really loudly. Then I’ll know.” Haibara chirps. 

“Wait, why broccoli head?”

“Because broccoli heads are green!” Haibara chirps happily.

You’re starting to learn it’s best not to question his logic.

You nod, very amused. “Sure thing, Haibara.”  

Someone calls out his name. He jumps before he waves to you. You watch as he joins with Nanami. They talk about something you can’t hear. Haibara laughs and you decide it would be a shame if his laugh was lost to death. 

Gojo finds you eventually. You can’t hide from him forever. You were walking into the school when he caught up with you. He’d ran there. His breath was slightly ragged. 

“Greeny, couldn’t get enough last time, huh?” You shoot him a look. 

“What are you talking about? Doesn’t matter, we need to go, the missions coming up.” 

Gojo’s smile dips ever so slightly. “How’d you know about that?” 

It’s probably not a good idea to tell the guy's best friend that you’re possessing that you’ve unlocked his memories. 

“Haibara told me.” 

“Ah,” He replies, “let’s go then.” 

The car ride is different this time around. Less tension. You aren’t as confused. Gojo is seated quietly beside you, watching the scenery go by. The assistant is too preoccupied with belting the radio to notice Gojo's words. 

“Figured it out yet?” He asks. “Your technique.” 

He's persistent about that answer, isn't he? You're sure the only reason Gojo cooperates with you is because he thinks you're inhabiting Suguru's on accident. How would he react if he knew you were doing it intentionally? It's best not to get on the strongests’ bad side. 

“Oh, not really, but I think it’s random. I can’t seem to find a set pattern. Maybe Suguru calls out to me, somehow?” 

“Maybe.” Gojo replies. His time is flat. Anxiety flips through your stomach. 

“You’re different this time around,” Gojo says. 

“Am I?” You ask. “I guess I’m just more determined today.” 

He gives you a look over. "Oh yeah? What for?" 

"The curse. I'll exorcise it, today." 

You don't know how you wanted Gojo to react to that, but you're still disappointed when he turns back to the window. 

"Do whatever, Greeny." 

In the end, you do swallow the curse. You manage to hold your gags in this time. 

It's worse than before. It makes sense. This curse was first-grade. Stronger. In terms of taste, it was like curdled blood and mold. You were so grateful for that soda. 

Gojo only watches with a tilted head. 

"You're getting better at that."

You give a weak grin. 

"Practice makes perfect," you reply, "do you think I'll get strong enough to absorb a special grade soon?" 

He doesn't like your question. You can see it in his stiff expression. 

"Maybe. Why do you want to swallow up curses, anyway? Last time you were here, you were practically begging to go back." 

His response wasn't exactly hostile but far from his usual playful attitude. You knew you'd have to confront this eventually. Despite how nonchalant he acted, it's clear Satrou doesn't enjoy watching someone prance around in his friend's body like this. If he starts to dislike you, it could rupture your entire plan. You need his cooperation, more than anything, to save Suguru. 

A little bit of the truth. Just a bit. It can't hurt, can it?

"Curses taste horrible," you say, looking at the ground. You can still taste the remnants of it, "it's the worst thing in the world. I can't even explain how wrong it feels to eat one. I thought...while I'm in his body...I could maybe help Suguru a little. I could ingest the curses in his stead, so that way, he still gets to absorb it." But it'll lessen the trauma it has on his mental state. 

You can't see how Gojo feels about that. Those glasses of his cover everything. But you know he's staring at you. The six eyes are taking you apart, observing you whole. 

"Did you know Suguru in the future?" He asks. 

"I didn't." The man that killed you. The man that will keep killing you. And you'd forgive him each time. 

Another beat of silence.

Finally, he just sighs. "You're the kind of person who'll jump in front of a truck to save a kitten, right?" 

You give a sheepish laugh.

"That isn't a compliment, by the way. You're just really reckless. And maybe stupid, Greeny." His tone isn't mean. 

"My name still isn't Greeny." You tell him. 

"Oh yeah, what's your name, then?" He's reverted back to that teasing lilt, and it almost makes you relax if you don't note the curiosity underneath. 

So far, you've been lax giving away information regarding the future, but you don't think you should continue that. What if you're too careless and the future changes in a way you didn't intend? A name, personal information, that could be way too dangerous. 

"Actually, just call me Greeny. I like that name a lot better." 

"You complained about it all the time, though?" Gojo argues. 

"It's starting to grow on me." You grin. "Grow? Get it, because you compared me to a plant and-"

"Stop stop, you really are an old man." Gojo groans. You just grin wider. Then, you grimace.

“I can still taste it.” You complain. “I’d kill for a cigarette right now.”

“I caught our assistant manager smoking a while back,” Satoru suggests. “Maybe you could go and beg him for one.”

You toss him a look. “Suguru doesn’t smoke, and I’m not giving a teenager a nicotine addiction.” You have found lighters inside Suguru’s pockets, but you have a feeling it isn’t for his own cravings.

"Hey, could you do me a favor?" 

He gives a wordless hum.

"Maybe after this, could you take Suguru out to a cafe'? I can taste the aftertaste of the curse." You shudder. "Just get him something to wash it down." 

Also, Suguru couldn't go back to his dorm after this. Suguru dissented because of his fractured relationship with everyone, not just with Satoru. You'd try to bridge the gap between him and his peers as much as you can. You go through Suguru's flip phone, asking Shoko if she wants to join the two. 

When you're done with that, you snap the phone closed. 

"Okay, I'm done here. You two have fun, okay?" You raise your hand. 

Gojo just huffs, amused. "Sure sure. By the way, someone wanted to thank you." 

You blink at that. "What?" 

He shakes his head. "Don't worry about it."

He gives you a high-five, and then you're back in 2017 in your own body. 

Temporarily. So far you figured out that you get sent back an hour before the night parade happens. 8:06. Considering you have a couple more minutes to kill before you’re killed, you reach into your pocket for that cigarette you’ve been craving. You pick the first out of the box, cherry burns just out of corner of your eye.

You notice things now. The children giggled to their parents. Old couples gingerly held hands with sweet smiles. You'd save them, but first, you need to save Suguru. 

And do really do that, you'd have to save Riko. 

Easier said than done. You could go back in time, but you can't really control when to go back in time. It's been random, but your trips are typically two days away from each other. You can work with that. 

But in order to get to Riko's death, you'd have to die...a lot. Absorbing curses made Suguru lose his mind, but how well would you fare with dying over and over again? 

"Hungry?" 

Someone looms over you. A woman. She's pretty, with short hair and bangs. In her hand, she holds a bag of chips. 

"The vending machine gave me an extra." She gives a laugh. She kind of sounds like you. "Would you like one?" 

"Oh." You take it. "Thanks." 

"Don't mention it." She trots off into the crowd. You watch her.

A stranger's act of kindness. She didn't even know what would happen to her soon. You grip the bag, it crinkles in your grasp. 

It didn't matter how well you'd fare with dying over and over again. You'd get over it. So many innocent people depended on you. You can't just abandon them like this. 

You're the kind of person who'll jump in front of a truck to save a kitten, right? It's aggravating how accurate he is, honestly. 

The screams start up again, and you forgive Suguru. 

ⴵ

It takes a few cycles to finally reach the day Amanai Riko is assassinated. Whenever you deem yourself too early, you often accompany Gojo on a mission and exorcise a special-grade curse. Your overall plan is working, bit by bit. Each time you return, Suguru's memories swarm you. Each curse he remembers as less painful. 

It's why you get worried when you get there a little too late. 

"Something wrong?" Riko asks. 

You've stopped in the middle of the hallway, and of course, they're looking at you strangely. You know this place. Tengen's barrier is just an elevator ride away. Suguru, Riko, and Miss Kuroi were all almost there.

Fushiguro Toji has already arrived. 

In the first timeline, Geto leads the girls all the way down to Tengen's barrier. He puts his trust in Gojo. Of course, he would. They're the strongest. And in the end, Gojo does kill Toji. 

But the kill comes too late. Riko still dies, and the fracturing happens. 

You thought you'd have more time. If you had arrived a bit earlier, you could have fought with Gojo, and the chances of defeating Toji would have significantly increased. 

What do you do?

"What's the matter?" Miss Kuroi asks. She's supposed to die today, too. 

"Sorry, ladies." You smile. "But I need to go back for him." 

You don't answer their calls, running back up the hallway. The sun's bright, shimmering beautifully in the sky.

It contradicts the blood dripping all over the stone floor. 

Gojo's lifeless body is draped across the rubble. It's a horrifying sight. Eyes that were once like the sky are just this empty blue. A dead sea. He isn't breathing. You know, if you touched his wrist, you wouldn't feel a heartbeat. 

"Hate to break it to ya', but the Gojo kid's dead." Toji's right behind you. You can feel him grinning. 

You know Gojo isn't dead. At least, he won't be dead for a while, but seeing the boy who used to tease you, annoy the shit out of you, laugh at you, be so....it made you freeze. Falter. 

You were wasting time. 

"Sorceror killer." You say after a minute. You almost can't bring yourself to turn, to look at him. The man who kills Gojo. The man who could've killed Suguru, but chose not to. "You certainly live up to your name." 

Toji's grin widens. The only man in the world with zero cursed energy. It'd be awe-inspiring if it weren't so terrifying. 

It's funny. You weren't afraid of dying, not anymore. You were afraid of failing. Failing when you were so close, when victory was just a blink away. 

"The flyheads." You mention to the swarms of curses all around you. "That's really smart." It gives you an idea or two. 

You have Suguru's memories, but they aren't always concrete. You just have snippets. A general idea of what happened within a certain event. It makes sense. Humans can't remember everything. 

But regarding the memories of Suguru and Fushiguro, everything is crystal clear. It's almost like you were there when it happened. 

It also means that you know Suguru, at this current level, won't be able to defeat Fushiguro. 

But Suguru doesn't need to beat the sorcerer killer; he just needs to hold him off. 

Currently, Suguru's body contains 368 curses: 3 special grades, 24 grade ones, 33 grade twos, 103 grade threes, and 205 fourth grades. 

You release all 368 of them. 

In another timeline, these curses would look to you as something to devour. Today, these curses have a new target. 

It won't stop Fushiguro. You're not dumb enough to think that. But it should give you time. Hopefully, it'll be enough time. 

Your knees hurt when you collapse next to the corpse. Gojo's so beautiful, even when he's dead. 

"Gojo." You shake him. Nothing happens. "You need to wake up. Gojo." 

Nothing happens. You don't know what caused Gojo to become the strongest, Suguru wasn't there. For once, you are blind to the past. 

"Riko needs you. Wake up. You-you need to go and save her and Miss Kuroi." 

His body's so cold, and you know he's dead because when you touch his skin, you don't wake up in the present. You push against his body, and he falls limply right back to place. You're sure this sight will haunt you for the rest of your life. 

"Satoru." You beg. "It's Greeny. Please, please, please wake up."

 Nothing happens. 

Everything happens. 

The brightest blue you've ever seen. It's heavenly. A glow that warms and chills your skin. It takes a while for you to see again. When you do, Satoru is standing. 

Somehow, his eyes are even brighter. You don't think you're looking at a teenage boy anymore. 

You're sitting in front of God. 

"Greeny." he states, voice flat. "You're late." 

You manage to smile.

"Sorry." 

You’ve seen Satoru fight before. He’s always calm, body relaxed as he practically floats in the air. Those fights differed from Suguru’s memories—post Satoru’s awakening. There’s always this twinge of desperation. An aftertaste of bloodlust.

But seeing it for yourself is something else entirely. Even with Suguru’s heightened senses, you still can’t follow him. He’s barely a mirage. One milisecond you can see a blue flash, the next you see nothing.

It's barely a fight. Not this time around. Fushiguro is completely unmatched. There's a flash of purple. And then, it's over. 

Fushiguro is in shambles. You didn't realize he was human until he started to bleed and shatter. Parentage over labor. It's sobering, in a way. 

Satoru's mouth moves. You're too far away to hear anything. They stand there for a few more seconds until Fushiguro slumps. Then, he falls.

You wonder when you got so desensitized to death. 

Gojo stands there. You should let him compress, but the clock is ticking. You need to do one more thing before you can let Suguru go. 

"You need to go." You say when you're close to him. He doesn't acknowledge you. "Riko's about to enter Tengen's barrier." 

He looks at you right then. His eyes. They're so bright, but they're strangely lifeless. Like he can't process you, your words. 

"I can see you now," he says, "it was so foggy before, but now, you're crystal clear." 

Six eyes look at you. You don't think you're hiding behind Suguru's face anymore. 

You clear your throat. 

"Gojo." You remind him. "Riko. You need to stop her." 

He blinks back into focus, rising from his high. 

"Oh," he says after a moment, "right." 

You stop him before he can walk any further. You hold out your hand. 

"You and Suguru." 

For the first time in a while, Gojo hesitates to send you back. You wait a couple seconds longer. 

"Yeah," he finally says.

His skin still feels cold. 

ⴵ

This death is a lot more painful than the others. 

The curse that's holding you is more intelligent than its predecessors. It keeps you alive, tearing at your skin, feasting on your flesh. Blood is everywhere. You scream until it rips out your vocal cords. It's almost a mercy to just die. 

You forgive Suguru. 

ⴵ

Time skips a lot faster now. 

You stand in 2006, four months after the death of Fushiguro Toji. It takes a second for Geto's memories to kick in. What you see makes you nearly cry in relief. 

Gojo and Geto made it in time. You can still remember the tears spilling down Riko's cheeks, the smile on her face when Geto asked her if she wanted to go back. They were safe. They were home, with each other. 

You did it. You actually managed to pull it off. 

But you can't celebrate, not yet. From what you can gather from Suguru's memories, Geto defects after four years. You've just held off the eventual. 

It's nearly the middle of December. The air feels a bit chillier. You stay on that bench where Suguru once occupied. He was finishing his lunch. Usually, he'd eat with Satoru, but Satoru wasn't on campus these days. 

Right, you weren't finished with your work, yet. There was still one other issue. Suguru went on missions alone these days. Swallowing curses, letting them fester and rot in his body. It's isolating and grueling work. You might have been able to help him with the absorption, but your aide won't be enough to prevent his eventual downfall. 

You'll have to deal with his natural isolation. To do that, Suguru will have to make friends with people who aren't Satoru. 

Suguru does have friends, but he's the closest to Satoru. Considering Satoru is getting busier each passing day, Suguru needs to broaden his horizons a bit. 

It's a good thing this school is filled with such colorful characters. 

Haibara and Nanami were sitting in the back of the school. From Geto's memories, their dynamic was interesting. Haibara was definitely more outgoing than the two, but Nanami seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. They looked out for each other, in that way. 

Ah, Shoko was there, too. You haven't seen her since your first day. Her hair's grown longer. It lightly brushes her shoulders now. The cigarette in her hand burns a cherry red. 

Your reaction is rooted in Suguru's instinct than anything on your part. You reach out, taking the cigarette and stomping on the embers. 

"You shouldn't smoke in front of kids." You tell her, hoping she didn't read too much into your action.

Shoko scoffs, but to your satisfaction, she doesn't take out another one. 

"We're just one year below you." Nanami retaliates, but he looks more at ease now that the cigarette's out. 

"Did you finish lunch already, Geto?" Haibara asks kindly, then he takes a closer look. "Greeny?" 

You suck air through your teeth, giving Haibara a scathing look. Instead of looking exasperated, Nanami looks confused. 

"What's Greeny?" Nanami asks, and Haibara weakly laughs. 

"It's-uh-my new nickname for the tree that's growing over there!" He wildly points to something just behind you. "'Cuz it's so...green!"

"Of course." You note the hint of affection laced within his tone. 

"When'd you get back?" Haibara recovers with eagerness. 

"Recently." You grin. "Nice to see you again." 

"You saw him this morning," Nanami interjects, and you shrug. When he frowns, you know you pulled off a perfect Suguru impression. 

Suguru melds into the conversation perfectly. Haibara says something funny, Shoko and Suguru agree, Nanami disagrees. It's a lovely little cycle that ends when Nanami grumbles and picks himself up to go. Shoko starts to follow suit when you stop her. 

"Your hair's nice." You tell her. 

She hums, grabbing a strand to study it. You can see hints of dark circles beginning to form under her eyes. She looked livelier when you first met her. Curses have been popping up left and right since Fushiguro's death. Everyone is overworked, but Shoko looks like she's getting the brunt of it. She's one of the only people who can use RCT on others, and there aren't many healers on her level. All of the strongests share one thing in common it seems. 

"Pretty soon, it'll be longer than yours," Shoko replies. You smile in response. 

"Where are you going?" You ask. 

"Dorm," she replies, "I'm behind on paperwork." 

You had a feeling she always was. You gave a look of sympathy, but misery loves company. 

"I have some work too," You 'remember' the piles of papers lodged on Suguru's desk, "Maybe we can do it together later. The cafe right next to campus? It'll be my treat." 

She looks at Suguru. Her eyes are a pretty color. 

"Sure." She shrugs. "see you then." 

You feel your heart thump twice in your chest and decide that your work here is done. 

Haibara stares at Shoko's disappearing back. The forehead flick comes from both you and Suguru. 

"That hurt." Haibara whines. 

Good, you inwardly think. 

"Sorry." You tell him. He rubs his head, and you wonder if this is how kicking a puppy feels like. 

Luckily for you, Haibara recovers quickly. 

"You've been gone for a while." Haibara tilts his head. "What happened?" 

You can't exactly control your technique, it's more like it has a mind of its own, placing you exactly where you need to be placed. Instead of answering, you sigh, leaning against the wall. 

"Timeline gimmicks." You tell him tiredly. "It's hard to explain." He frowns, but he takes it as an answer.

"Do you know when Gojo's coming back?" You ask. "I think it's time for me to go back again." 

In previous time travels, you and Haibara tried to see if any physical contact would be enough to send you back. No matter how many times you two high-fived, shook hands, or even held hands. Nothing worked. Only Gojo Satoru could activate your technique. It must have something to do with the amount of cursed energy another person has. 

“He should be getting back later this evening.” Haibara muses. “But I’ll be happy to keep you company!”

It's nice to hear him chatter. If you'd let him, he'd go one and one. But you like hearing him talk about his sister. Apparently, she’s also a sorcerer, and his affection for her makes you smile.

"You remind me a lot of her, actually." He tells you. "Even though, y'know, you're a man." It's enough to get a laugh out of you. 

“Do you have anyone in your family who can see curses?” Haibaracasks.

“No,” you answer honestly, “at least, not that I can tell. My dad never spoke of curses or strange powers when I was growing up.”

You think he would have said something; after all, you two were too close to have secrets from each other. Your father was a single man, who took to raising you himself after your mother passed away. He often said you had her laugh.

“Maybe you’re one of a kind,” Haibara suggests.

You agree with him.

Gojo finds you before you can find him. He comes up to you with a grin and a wave.

“Hey, long time.”

His sunglasses are tilted down. You can see his eyes. They’ve lost the mania he had in his fight with Fushiguro. You’re relieved at that. You still can’t shake off that strange thing he said to you.

Wordlessly, you raise your hand. Satoru frowned.

“You wanna leave so soon? You just got here.”

“I’ve been here for hours,” you tell him, “also, you aren’t very concerned that someone is using your best friend’s body as a puppet.”

“He’s been through worse,” Satoru tells you off with a wave. Some friend.

“Let’s go to the arcade,” he suggests.

“Do that with Suguru.” You tell him. “I’m not hanging out with a high schooler.”

“Right right, my bad. I keep forgetting you’re an old man, Greeny.”

“22 is not old,” you say with exasperation, “didn’t your birthday just pass? You’re just five years away. I’ll see your attitude change, then.”

He grows quiet. You feel like you messed up somewhere.

“How did you know about my birthday?”

Fuck, you keep forgetting about keeping Suguru’s memories a secret. It takes everything within you to just relax.

“Haibara told me,” you say, “blabbermouth. You know him.”

“Oh.” Gojo replies. “Huh.”

You shuffle your feet. Distantly, you wonder what shoe size Suguru wears.

“How did your mission go?”

“Horrible,” he’s instantly back to his usual self, whiny and complaint, “and the curse was so ugly too. It was oozing goo everywhere.”

You frown. “Sounds gross. But you won, right?”

He doesn’t even answer. You secretly admire his sheer confidence. You certainly weren’t that when you were at his age.

“How’s Amanai and Miss Kuroi?” You ask.

“Safe.” He tells you. “The higher-ups weren’t really happy with us after that; pretty sure all these sudden missions are punishments.” He frowns. “But they’re fine. Miss Kuroi officially adopted her, so she’s a Kuroi now, too.”

You smiled. You already knew all that, but it’s nice to hear it.

“You saved them,” he says.

You laugh, “I didn’t do a thing.” You tell him. “You and Suguru did all the heavy lifting. I just caused some property damage.”

“You did.” He replies. “I don’t know how, but things always manage to work out whenever you’re around.”

You don’t like how he phrases that, but you don’t react.

“You think so? Maybe I’m lucky.” It’s supposed to be a joke of some kind. Neither of you laugh.

“You really don’t know us in the future?” He asks.

Maybe you should’ve asked Shoko if you could have a cigarette.

“I really didn't,” you say, “Honest, I—I have no idea what’s happening. I’m just as lost as you. Hopefully, I can figure out how to control my technique, and you won’t have to see me again.”

You never stopped feeling guilty for doing this to Suguru. Controlling him. Forcing him to laugh with his friends, make decisions based on your feelings rather than his. But you’re so close. You promise yourself that once you fix everything, you’ll never cause someone this much pain again. No matter how many times they kill you.

Satoru’s fists tighten. He looks even more upset at your response.

“That’s not what I—” He cuts himself off. You wait. Satoru says nothing more.

“You’re annoying.” He tells you in the end. It’s clean and cut, but it sounds like him. More confident, less wavery. “And stupid too.”

You can’t help but smile.

“Thank you. Am I done entertaining you now? Can I go?” He grumbles, holding up his hand.

“Yeah, sure, Greeny.”

ⴵ

You forgive Suguru.

ⴵ

Something’s wrong.

You can feel it. Something’s wrong.

You look through Geto’s memories. There’s nothing. Everything’s going as it should be. Everything looks perfect. Then, why do you feel so wrong?

Currently, Suguru was finishing excorcising a curse. You absorb it, swallowing down the remnant like it’s a pile of rusted nails but even the disgusting taste isn’t enough to wash away the feeling of dread.

The walls of the hospital was empty. The auxillary managers had already cleared everyone out by the time Suguru had walked in. Maybe it was the silence that added to your stress?

You walk out. Nothing changes. One of the managers comes up to you with a clipboard.

“The curse was exorcised.” Suguru tells them. “It wasn’t first grade, it was special grade. It was still disposed of.”

He curses, scribbling something down on his clipboard.

“The wrong information again.” He hisses to himself. “If we keep doing this, someone will die. We need more people, we’re way too stretched out.”

Those words are familiar. Hold on.

“Wait, what day is it?” You ask the frazzled-looking manager.

Offhandedly, he responds. He says the date so casually, and yet his mere words feel like a bear trap, tightening on your leg.

No. You should have had more time. Why weren’t you given more time?

Nanami and Haibara have probably already been dispatched. You go through Suguru’s phone, finding Haibara’s contact. It doesn’t go through. Nanami doesn’t pick up either.

You won’t make it in time. Even using Suguru’s curses, you won’t be able to reach them until it’s too late. Suguru’s memory of that day is muddled and dark, but Haibara’s dead corpse laying on the examination table. The pieces of him that Nanami could bring back.

You wouldn’t be fast enough.

He picks up on the second ring.

“...What’s up?”

“It’s Haibara.” You spit the words out as fast as you can. “Satoru, you need to go and get him right now, he isn’t going to make it—”

“—Greeny?” The exhaustion in Gojo’s voice is gone. You can hear something rustle behind him.

“Satoru, listen to me.” You beg. “Haibara and Nanami were just dispatched on a mission, but Yu isn’t going to survive it. It wasn’t a second-grade curse; it was a first grade. Please, you have to go and save him before it kills him.”

It’s silent. It feels like hours have passed when you know it’s just three seconds.

“We’ll talk later, Greeny.” The line clicks.

You’ve lost the trust of the strongest.

ⴵ

The future has changed when you get to campus. Haibara’s status is still alive. Barely. But he’s still there. Shoko’s currently taking care of him.

Nanami remains quiet the entire time since he returned with Haibara’s battered body. The only thing you can think of to offer comfort is to pat his shoulder. He barely even registers it. It’s more for you than for him. You’re self-soothing, taking care of something else, so you don’t have to recognize your own panic.

If Haibara dies, right here, on this day, everything can change. Everything can go back to the way it was in your original timeline. Haibara, with his sunshine, smiles, and bright eyes. His death is so important, and you can’t even think of him right now.

Gojo Satoru knows you’ve been deceiving him.

This is bad. So very bad. If he starts to suspect that you know more than you let on, he might deem you enough of a threat to kill, regardless of whether or not you’re in Suguru’s body. It’s not like that hasn’t stopped him before.

Gojo Satoru is selfless. He’s selfless enough to kill his best friend, if he thinks it will save everyone.

But if Gojo kills Geto here and now, would that really be bad?

You’d lose your path to the past, but the threat to your life would be over. Even if you did die in Suguru’s body, at least the people of Tokyo will be spared the Death Parade. You’ll still get what you want. And it will be much easier than your current plan.

Nanami shuffles behind you and you instantly snap out of it. That wasn’t you. It couldn’t have been you. That same lack of apathy when Fushiguro died in front of you.

It seems like dying over and over again caused you to lose bits of your humanity.

Shoko comes out. Nanami stands up, a tall ball of nervous energy. Shoko removes her mask. Her dark circles have grown even more prominent. She’s only 17.

“He’s still alive.” Nanami sags. “But he isn’t responsive. I’ve done all that I can.”

She looks at Nanami, and then she can’t anymore.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Nanami rasps, the most emotion you’ve ever seen from him, “don’t apologize. It was my fault. I should’ve taken better care of him.”

You swallow. It wasn’t his fault, you wish you could tell him that it was yours.

You wonder what Haibara’s younger sister looked like. A spitting image of him, perhaps. Shorter. Darker hair, bigger eyes. Their smiles would look identical. What would she look like when she’s told her brother died doing the profession he forbade her from doing?

You can’t do that to her. You can’t be the reason she loses her brother the second time.

You’re not sure if a God is even out there. How could there be? What kind of entity would do something like this to you? Still, you sit on that bench, right outside the room where Haibara’s body lay, and you pray for a God.

Gojo’s footsteps stop right in front of you.

It’s hard to get the words out. For a minute, he just stands there.

“Did you exorcise it?” You finally ask.

“Yeah.”

You lift your head up to look at him. Even in his school uniform, he’s regal to look at. Like a warrior of the sun, blessed by the moon, sent to vanquish beasts and monsters.

Now, his blood-soaked sword is pointed at you.

Make it quick. You can only think. Just make it quick.

“Not here.” You say.

Nanami was still shaking. Shoko was right beside him. So you stand, you drag yourself away from Haibara’s fading presence, and Gojo follows behind.

It shouldn’t be this pretty outside. The sun is bright, and the sky is clear. There should be rain. Enough rain to drown the Earth.

“I figured out your technique a while ago, y’know.” You don’t look at him. You can’t. “Dying. Death activates your technique. Each time you die, you’re sent back 12 years in the past.”

You grip the fabric of your uniform until your knuckles turn white. Satoru’s cruel enough to continue.

“But I never got why your soul kept possessing Suguru’s body. It always felt kinda’ random. Unless he was the one who was killing you. Over and over again.”

“Gojo. Stop.” You beg.

“That’s how your CT works. Every time you’re murdered, you go back in time so you can kill them when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable moment. It’s a pretty powerful technique, all things considered. I might not even stand a chance against it. Assisted suicide, never expected that from you of all people.

But you never do. Each time Suguru kills you, you just come back and try to save him and everyone else your hands can reach. I can’t get why you did that.”

He steps in front of you so you can see him. The God that he is.

“Let’s cut the shit, Greeny. Tell me what future is so bad you’re willing to die over and over again to prevent it.”

The worst outcome you could have ever thought of was standing right in front of you.

Satoru was demanding to know his future.

And...you couldn’t.

You’re taking in a shaky breath. It’s not enough oxygen. The sky was close to crumbling, and you still couldn’t breathe.

“There’s nothing to know.” You try. “There’s nothing, I’m fixing it—”

“—by Suguru killing you, or is this considering killing yourself, now?”

“You don’t understand.” Your voice is cracking, so high-pitched that even Suguru’s vocal cords can’t keep up. “You don’t get it. You can’t.”

“Then help me understand.” His voice is as ragged as yours, he steps closer, you step back. “Tell me why my friend would do something like this to someone.”

It clicks right then. Satoru’s anger isn’t directed at you.

No, it’s directed at Suguru.

It’s even worse than you thought.

“He—he was better than me. He was supposed to be the best out of all of us. I wanna deny it all that I can but—but I can see the proof right here in front of me. And—And I don’t—” His voice breaks too much to continue. 

You’re breaking, too. How many times have you been doing this, over and over again? All alone, with no one to support you. To comfort you.

The words are right there, threatening to bubble out. It’d be so easy to tell Satoru everything.

And maybe you would’ve, but then you looked at him.

Despite how disingenuous Satoru acted, you knew he was kind. The kindest person you’ve ever met. He’d sit there and listen, and he’d break every bone in his body to help. That’s just how he was.

Satoru was selfless, he was selfless enough to kill his best friend here and now if it meant he’d save the millions in Tokyo.

You can’t put another burden on the strongest.

You can’t do that to a kid.

“It—it isn’t him.” You manage to spit out. “He isn’t doing it on purpose. It’s not his fault.

It’s the curses. They were too much for him; they overtook his body. Suguru couldn’t control them anymore.”

He says nothing. It’s like you’ve put a spell on Gojo somehow, freezing him in place. Satoru can’t do anything but stare at the talking puppet that’s his best friend.

“He lost so many people.” You continue. “Riko, Miss Kuroi, Haibara. He couldn’t take it. It was too much. His body succumbed to the curses, and they took over Shinjuku. That’s how I keep...”

It’s okay to lie like this, you justify to yourself. Because the Suguru, you know—the one with fake smiles, beady eyes, and a broken expression—isn’t the one that Satoru knows. They’re two completely different people. Years—timelines—apart from each other. They aren’t the same.

Even then, you forgave both Sugurus a lifetime ago.

You’d get on your knees if you know that would make a difference. You’d plead and beg and cry if it would get Satoru to drop it. In the end, you can only stare at him.

“All I’m asking is that you trust me.” You whisper. “Believe that I’m making this right. Please, Satoru?”

His eyes. You can’t tell what he’s thinking. He’s gone quiet and dull. The same look he had when he fully awakened his technique. The day he became God.

But he’s not a God. God’s don’t cry.

He leans ever so closely until his head rests on your shoulder. His body shakes.

“You’ll save him, right?” He asks. Gone, is his aura of confidence and resilience. He’s nothing more than a shell. If you feel something stain Suguru’s uniform, you say nothing about it.

You smile anyway.

“I will.” You tell the truth. “I will save him.”

You think of something morbidly funny.

“I’ll die trying.”

His shoulders shake with quiet, genuine laughter, the kind that’s wet and sticks to the top of your mouth.

“That’s fucked up, Greeny.” He whispers.

You hum, reaching up to pat him on the back. It takes another minute before he gathers himself up. His eyes are shiny. Satoru blinks it away.

“Haibara will be okay.” He says with such conviction. “I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of Suguru, too.”

He doesn’t get it, not yet. He doesn’t understand that Shoko and Satoru and Haibara and Nanami need him. He’ll get it soon, though. You managed to put Suguru on the right path.

For now, it’s all you can do. 

“I know you will.” 

He scoffs, right then. 

“You’re really annoying, you know that? Next time, don’t piss me off like that. Just tell it to me straight.” 

Rely on me. Lean on me.

“I’m sorry,” you say and you truly are, “I won’t leave you in the dark from now on. I guess I just forgot that I had a friend in 2006.” 

His eyes get a little brighter. “It’s actually 2007—” 

“Shut up.” He laughs and it sounds like him again. 

You reach out your hand and his grin fades, the tiniest bit. He mirrors you, regardless. 

This time, you hesitate.

“You should learn how to be selfish every once in a while.” You tell him. “I won’t fault you if you’re selfish. I don’t think anyone will.

He doesn’t answer that, but his touch is finally warm.

ⴵ

It hurts. It hurts so much. Blood seeps into the pavement. You can hear the curse laughing. It sounds like him.

You forgive Suguru. 

ⴵ

It’s today. 

You can feel it. You don’t even have to look at the date to know.

The catalyst for December 24th, 2017.

Suguru’s already dressed. You’re currently standing in front of a shotty mirror, watching your reflection.

He looks tired. His smile’s a bit muted. You notice a scar you hadn’t seen before. An unregistered special grade curse, Suguru’s memory gives.

He’s different from when you saw him a year ago, but there’s still a spark in his eye. You cling to that hope, as hard as you can.

You step out of the room. It isn’t Suguru’s. He’d rented accommodations with an older woman and her son for the mission. Their place smelled like home. It made your stomach turn.

She smiles when she sees you coming down stairs. She looks kind; she has the eyes of a mother. You’ll never understand how a person who raised children could do something like this to another.

“Mr. Geto.” She chirps. “I’m so glad you’re awake! Would you like anything to eat?”

“No, I’m fine.” Better get this done sooner than later. “I should be heading back now, anyways.”

Suguru had already absorbed the curse tormenting the village last night. You can feel the sticky aftertaste in your mouth. He should have left the village yesterday, but the people were insistent he stayed one last day as thanks, feeding him all they could.

Now, it’s obvious that it was a way to butter him up for today.

Her smile grows a bit nervous. She shuffles her feet a bit.

“If it isn't too much.” She starts. “The head of our village asked if you could look at something.” Her eyes darken into disgust.

You fight to keep your smile.

“Of course. Please, lead the way.”

It’s worse than you ever could have imagined.

You’ve seen this play out so many times in Suguru’s memories. He reminisces about this moment a lot. Because of that, you knew this scene too, like the back of your hand.

And yet, seeing two children huddled together on the floor. Nothing could prepare you for that.

The village head is saying something. The woman who Suguru roomed with is yelling at the scared kids, but you can’t hear any of that.

Their clothes were dirty and ripped. Their cheeks were hollow, and they looked like they hadn’t eaten for days. Himiko’s eye looks swollen.

The twins.

The first time you saw them, they stepped aside and let Geto kill you. There’s something oddly poetic about you being on the other side.

They tremble as they continue to look at you, flinch whenever that woman raises her voice. They must think Suguru’s here to kill them.

They’re too young to think like that. They’re too young to see the horrors of this world so soon.

It’s a mistake to look towards the end of their cell. Dirty water and dog food.

How could a human do this to them? How could a mother do this to them?

You feel red. It coarses through your blood, your veins, your soul. It feels like there’s lava right underneath your skin. Shuddering, tittering anger.

There’s more than enough fire to burn down an entire village.

‘Suguru,’ you think to your companion, your tormentor, ‘I think I’m starting to get it now.’

You reach for the bars of the cell. The twins shrink away.

“Ah! Mr. Geto, you musn’t get too close to them—”

“I’ll take them.”

“What?” The head of the village asks.

“The children.” You straighten yourself up. “I’ll take them off your hands.”

It’s pointless to do anything to these people. They’re delusional enough to think that they’re in the right. By torturing these children, they’re protecting their own. It’s fear. That’s all it ever was. Even without a curse, it’ll fester on and on until this village is nothing but abandoned homes. There’s no point to punish these people any further.

If you look at the adults a bit too long, you’re afraid of what you’d do, even without Suguru’s interference. Instead, you focus on Himiko and Nanako, looking into their wary gazes. Their hands are so tiny. You could protect them with your own.

When you got out of this backward village, you’d find them something to eat.

ⴵ

You go to Shoko first.

She looks surprised to see the twins. You can’t imagine why. Still, her voice is calm when she speaks to them, setting both of them up in the clinic room. Since you got them into the car, Nanako and Himiko seemed to calm down. Himiko even told you the name of her doll.

A little while later, Yaga comes for a visit. He’s the principal now. Usually, his voice is filled with gruff, but he’s oddly gentle when he speaks to them. Nanako cracks a shy smile.

You can’t escape the ‘we’ll talk later’ look he gives you. Inwardly, you sympathize with Suguru. But a harsh lecture is better than being branded a murderer.

He hasn’t come by, yet. With the twins aided for, you decide to go find him yourself.

Walking through campus feels a little nostalgic. The grounds of the infamous jujutsu technical college are a bright green. It’s summer again. You’ve met so many colorful characters since your time here. You’ve only seen snippets, mere seconds of their lives, and yet it feels like an entire lifetime.

He’s sitting on a bench when you finally see him, nursing a drink. He doesn’t acknowledge you. You have to roll your eyes at his childish behavior, plopping down beside him.

“Hey.” You say first.

“Heard you adopted two kids,” Satoru says, “Never thought Suguru would be a teen mom, but here we are.”

You laugh, light and breathless. The sky is so pretty today.

“I don’t think he’d have it any other way, personally.” You respond.

He reminisces on your words.

“This happened before too?” He asked.

It did. It was a lot less of a happy ending, however.

“Yeah,” you say regardless, “he took good care of them last time. He’ll do the same in this timeline too. I’m sure of it.”

And this time, he’d have help. Shoko, Satoru, his teachers. They’d all be there for him. Suguru’s memories haven’t changed yet, but you know the future you step into will be a different one.

“In any case, I’m glad I got to see jujutsu tech one last time. It’s a beautiful campus.”

“You act like you’re leaving,” Satoru says, uncaring. “You’ll just come back again next month. Or next year.”

You play with your fingers.

“I...won’t be doing that from now on.”

He pauses. Then, he looks at you.

“What?”

You can’t gauge his reaction, but he doesn’t look happy. You find this a bit hard to swallow.

“I fixed the future.” You smile at him. “I finally did it. Suguru won’t break. Himiko and Nanako won’t lose their father. You won’t lose a friend, anymore. There’s no reason for me to keep coming back. You’re all free.”

You phrased the last part as a joke, but Satoru isn’t laughing.

“Wait, you’re leaving? You’re...leaving leaving.”

You nod. “I can’t believe it either.” You still can’t believe you accomplished everything you set out to do. A task that seemed so impossible, now you’re standing on the other side of it.

It wasn’t truly over. Not really, but you were able to get Suguru through the worst of it. Now, you were sure Satoru and Shoko would take up your mantel, pushing Suguru through the finish line. Just like he’ll do to them.

Satoru’s quiet.

“You seem happy.” He notes.

“Well, I did just save everyone, I think I deserve to feel a little good about myself.”

For a moment, you want to ask if it’ll be okay to visit everyone in the future. To see how Shoko and Suguru and Satoru are doing as adults. You stop yourself. Of course, they wouldn’t want to see you. You needed to stop being so greedy.

This, was more than enough.

“Will you at least tell me your name?” Satoru asks.

“You know I can’t do that.” You tell him with a smile.

“Right right.” He laughs, it sounds hollow. “Time travel, bullshit. Makes sense.”

“I’ll miss you.” You tell him.

He straightens himself up.

“I’ll miss you too, old man.” He responds. “You were a lotta’ fun to mess with.”

For once, you aren’t offended by the old man’, comment. If anything, it feels somber.

“Can I ask for some advice?” He suddenly asks. “Y’know what they say, ask the old and wise or whatever.” Okay, now he was starting to push it.

“What is it?”

It’s his turn to shuffle with his fingers.

“What would you do if...there’s something you really want, but no matter how fast you run, you just can’t catch up to it?”

You glance at him. He looks earnest. Did something like that even exist for Satoru?

“Something I can’t catch up to?” You ponder out loud. “I guess I’d have to make a big enough ruckus to where it has no choice but to look back.”

He frowns. “That makes no sense. You’re growing senile.”

You laugh. You’ll miss this brat.

You wish you could stay more. You wish you could ask about Haibara, and Shoko, and Nanami, but the clock is ticking.

Suguru’s getting impatient.

“Bye, Satoru.” You reach out your hand.

He scrutinizes it, before clasping it within his own.

“Yeah, Greeny.”

Within a blink, you’re back again in the middle of Shinjuku. December 24th, 7:06 pm.

It’s the same as always. People bustle around you. Children’s laughter. Everything always repeats itself, but you don’t think you can ever get sick of it. You’ll savor this peace for as long as you can.

You reach into your pocket, flicking out a lighter and the first cigarette of the box. You don’t know why you always chose this one. Despite outmaneuvering time itself, perhaps it’s within human nature to follow what’s written stone.

You’ve relived this hour so many times that you can list everything that happens. Down to the exact minute. 7:08- a little girl wearing a red dress walks by. 7:09- a lady with short hair catches your eyes and smiles. 7:14-an old man and woman bicker with each other as they pass you by. 7:21- A little dog sniffs the bench you sit on. 7:34- Two schoolchildren run past you, babbling. 7:45- five construction workers grumble out their grievances. 7:58- a businessman talks loudly on the phone.

You wait. You sit on a bench and wait until 8:06.

Five seconds after 8:06. Twenty seconds after 8:06.

The clock clicks to 8:07.

You were expecting to feel something else. Celebration. Elation. You half-expected to cause a scene and jump for joy right there in the streets of Shinjuku.

None of that comes. There’s just a feeling of relief. A weight presses you down, and you slump in your seat.

It was over.

It was finally over.

How long do you stay like that? Hours? Days? When you feel like you can finally breathe again, it’s only 8:12. Time travel warped your sense of time.

You stand up, stretch, feel your bones crack and pop. In the second timeline, you wanted to get a drink to drown your misery of nearly getting killed by a curse and being alone on December 24th. It felt like a lifetime ago when being single was the worst of your problems.

Honestly, you’d stay celibate for the rest of your life if it meant you wouldn’t have to go through that ever again.

Tomorrow, you’ll decompress and devolve into hysteria over what happened.

Next week, you’ll check yourself into therapy.

Today, you decide to go home and sleep for a couple hundred years.

You must look like a zombie with the way you wobble down the street. Physically, your body is perfectly fine. You’ve suffered no bruises or cuts. Even the numerous times you’ve been killed leaves nothing on your skin.

Mentally, you’re in shambles. The indomitable human spirit within you is snuffed out.

The stairs to your flat is your last enemy that you must vanquish before you can reunite with your adoring bed. You cling onto the railing with dazed eyes. You don’t see the curse until you’re right before it.

Distantly, you wonder how often you’ve passed a curse and didn’t even realize it. It’s almost instinct to reach out with your hand, intent on absorbing it.

Nothing happens. You remember you aren’t Suguru anymore.

It’s a grotesque-looking thing. No eyes, too many hands, a gaping mouth. It turns and looks at you.

Strange. Its’ smile mirrors the one in the abandoned house.

Adrenaline. You feel it coarse through your veins, meld into your bones, explode in your skin. You’re stumbling back, nearly tripping down the steps in your haste to get away.

It screeches. Loud and clear and angry and you can almost feel its teeth chomp on your leg, ripping your muscles and skin to mere tatters.

You’ve died before. You’ve been skinned alive before. You’ve been eaten before. Yet, it all amounts to nothing compared to the fear you feel at the thought of the curse catching you.

It can’t have been nothing more than a third grade. If you were taller, larger, special-grade, you could have killed it immediately. But you weren’t, not anymore, you were at the same level as a plant. Useless. Helpless.

A dead man stumbling, tripping, running.

The streets were quiet. You supposed that meant there’d be fewer casualties. But it didn’t make you feel any better. And even if there were people around, no one would have been able to help you.

Your brain isn’t working as clearly. Fear is the only thing that guides you. You’re reduced to a rat scampering through a maze. Sooner or later, that rodent reaches a dead end.

The alleyway was blocked off. You felt the rough brick wall scrape your hands and even the feeling of your raw skin couldn’t assuage your heart pumping in your throat. When you whirled your head back, it was right there, and you knew you were dead.

Again.

I might kill you, if it’s feeling generous. It might cut your legs off and watch you bleed, if its feeling kind. It might eat you, if it’s a decent curse.

It shouldn’t be happening. You fixed it. You were supposed to have fixed everything. But clearly you didn't. There must have been some piece of the puzzle that you forgot. Just one thing and if you go back and fixed it, everything would be okay. You forgive Suguru—

You don’t see what happens. One moment, the curse is there. The next it isn’t.

“Those things are so annoying.” The newcomer complains.

No, not new. You know him.

You blink. He grins. It’s kind. A toothy smile that warms.

“You alright?” He asks in sympathy. “Curses are pretty scary, aren’t they? Are you hurt?”

It’s him. You weren’t in 2006. You were in the present, here and now, and he was here with you.

He actually made it.

“Ma’am?” He asks.

It wasn’t intentional. You just blurted it out, the promise you made to him. It was a decade for him. Mere hours for you.

“Um, broccoli head...?” And then you instantly regret it.

Haibara Yu takes a minute, eyes squinting like you just grew a new head.

Then, he gasps.

“Greeny?”

ⴵ

A few minutes later, you’re seated at a restaurant. Haibara has not shut up.

“—I—I can’t believe it? It’s actually you! I thought I’d never see you again ‘cuz Gojo said you weren’t gonna be around anymore, and—and then suddenly you pop up outta’ nowhere—not that I’m complaining— but—”

“—Haibara.” You interrupt. “Please, slow down.”

He stops himself, right when the server comes with drinks. He shoots the waiter a smile, and then he’s back on you.

“Sorry.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I—I got a little excited. And nervous. It’s just...well, I didn’t expect you to be a girl.”

That might have been your fault. Both Haibara and Gojo kept referring to you as a man, so you decided to roll with it. Earlier, you would have justified it by insisting the less they know about you, the better. Now, you just think you were being petty.

“So, how you’ve been? A whole decade...” You murmur to yourself.

“Fine! But what about you?” Haibara asks, concern etched into his eyes. “Where’d you go?”

Wow, he was actually worried for you. Despite being in Suguru’s body, you didn’t really feel like part of the group Shoko, Gojo, Nanami, and Haibara were part of. You felt like an outsider, being somewhere you didn’t belong. It's because you were an outsider. Nevertheless, it’s nice to know one person missed you.

“This might be a little hard to believe, but I just came back to 2017 two hours ago.”

Haibara gapes.

“Wait, so to you, that whole thing happened, today?” You nod. He leans back in his chair.

“Holy fuck.” You laugh at his awe.

“Thanks for saving me, by the way.” You change the topic. “From the curse.”

He waves it off. “I was just paying my debt. From what you did for me all those years ago.”

Ah, Gojo must have told him. Oddly enough, Haibara doesn't seem all that perturbed that he shouldn’t exist currently. At the same time, it feels just like Haibara.

He’s different from when he was younger. Taller. The baby fat is gone. His face is more built, just like the rest of his body. His eyes are less round, but they haven’t lost the spark. A few scars here and there, but he’s all in one piece.

You weren’t able to see what he looked like as an adult from Suguru’s memories, he’d never grown up. But now, you can see it for yourself. You can see the active change you made in his life, to his life.

“Haibara—”

“Yu—” He says seriously. “My friends call me Yu.”

A smile twitches on your lips.

“Tell me about everyone.” You scoot your chair closer. “You, Suguru. How is everyone doing?”

He perks up at that, clearly delighted to be talking.

“Great! Everyone’s doing great! You should totally come visit the school, sometime. They’d love to see you. Uh, even if they don’t technically know you, but I’m sure they’ll love to meet you!” He rambles, and it’s nice to know he hasn’t changed from his younger self.

“Let’s see, Kento’s teaching the first years. I teach the second years—”

“—You’re a teacher?”

He nods. “We all are! Except for Shoko, but she has her own thing going on. Anyway, Mimiko and Nanako have become second-grade semi-sorcerors. Isn’t that incredible? I’m just a first grade semi-sorceror, and at their young ages too! But Suguru wasn’t surprised, he kept saying his girls were prodigies. Oh! You probably want to know about Suguru too, right?”

You nod. Even if you hadn’t done anything, you don’t think that would have stopped his enthusiasm.

“He’s a teacher too! At least, for right now. Yaga’s been wanting to retire, and there have been talks of Suguru becoming the next principal. Principal Geto has a ring to it, right? Oh, and Shoko is currently planning the wedding. You’ll definitely be invited, of course! She said I could bring a plus-one. Oh, and—”

It goes on like that for hours, you think. Not that you mind. You listen to Yu babble on and on about his friends, his students. He talks about Nanami’s recent baking addiction, Shoko’s new office cat, Suguru’s favorite tea pot. It’s a never-ending surge of information.

Eventually, you catch on to the fact that he’s deliberately leaving someone out.

"Yu?" You interrupt him while he's talking about the prank the fourth year pulled on Nanami. "What about Satoru? What's he up to?" 

Maybe you were overthinking things. Haibara likes to talk; perhaps he forgot to exclude someone else's story in his rants. But then, he grimaces. For the first time in this entire conversation, Haibara is reluctant to talk. 

"Satoru is..." He winces, and your hands turn into fists. 

No. No. You were supposed to save everyone. Why hadn't you saved everyone? 

A warm hand grips your own. You'd been shaking. 

Yu gives a soft smile, and you remember he's no longer younger than you. 

"He's not dead." He assures you, but his smile fades. He straightens himself up, and his hand pulls away. 

"Satoru defected from Jujutsu tech. We don't know where he is." 

What? You must have misheard him wrong. Satoru wouldn't do that. That's not like him. This is some sick joke.

But there's no teasing grin on Haibara. His face is grave. You hate it more than anything. 

"It happened when he was a fourth year. No one really knows what happened. Suguru refuses to say anything about it, but I think he's just as confused as the rest of us. It came outta nowhere." 

Yeah, it definitely came out of nowhere. It's so random. Why would Satoru do that? The last time you saw him, he was so happy. He was smiling; he teased you. What happened? It made no sense. 

"So, you haven't seen him for nine years?" You ask. "Not even a glimpse?" 

Yu shakes his head. "Nothing but his residuals. That's how we know he's still alive." 

Nothing computes in your brain. None of it made any sense. You saved Suguru. That was supposed to make everyone happy, including Satoru. Why would he turn around and do this? Defecting made no sense.

"We've actually been tasked to execute him. Since he’s been branded a curse user, all four of us. " Yu laughs with no humor. "Isn't that insane? I don't think any one of us could even fathom doing that, even if it were possible." 

It wasn't possible. Gojo was the strongest. Nothing could go toe to toe with him. Once he put his mind to something, no one could stop him.

But maybe you could. 

You're shutting that idea down immediately. You were done. You were done with dying and time-travel and strange powers. You wanted it all to be over. It'd be so easy to thank Haibara for the nice meal, to go home and sleep this entire day off. Satoru dug his own grave, he can go lay in it. You weren't responsible for someone else's actions. You wouldn’t. You can’t do that another time.

You're the kind of person who'll jump in front of a truck to save a kitten, right?

You hate that brat so much. 

You close your eyes. Take in a breath. Then, you open them. 

"Haibara?" You ask. "Did Gojo tell you how my technique worked?" 

He shakes his head. You grimace because convincing him might take a while.

"Okay, well, I'll need you to do a tiny favor for me."

ⴵ

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Oh, you're back already?" Satoru says casually, turning back to gaze at you. "I just left today. How did you convince Haibara to snap your neck? That guy cries after killing a mosquito.”

You’d caught him just as he was leaving campus. Yu’s body was less athletic than Suguru’s. Your breath was slightly ragged, pulled down by minor exhaustion.

It doesn’t weigh down your frustration for Gojo Satoru. The biggest pain in your ass you’ve ever met.

“Shut up.” You snap. “Just answer the question.”

“We haven’t seen each other for a year and that’s how you react?” Satoru ignores you. “That’s mean, Greeny. How ‘bout we discuss my treason over steak. Haibara can pay.”

“Satoru.” You beg, “Why are you doing this? What’s the point? Why is everyone happy with their life except for you?”

That seems to get him. His posture stiffens ever so slightly. You can see him work his jaw. He finally drops his act.

“You didn’t have to come back, y’know.” He murmurs quietly. “You could’ve just stayed in the future. Like you said, Greeny, everyone’s happy with their life. 4 outta’ five. That’s a passing grade.”

For once, you wish you could possess him. You wished you could open his brain and peer into his memories until he finally made sense.

“I could never leave you behind like that.” You say the truth just as quietly. “I’ll die a thousand more deaths than do that.”

He smiles. It looks genuine as it looks painful.

“Yeah, I know. I know you, Greeny. Always gotta’ play hero.” He gives a bitter laugh. “That’s why I defected.”

You stare at him. He’s a fourth-year now, even taller than before. You aren’t equal to him anymore in this body, now you’re starting to think you never were.

“Satoru.” You start because what he’s saying can’t be the truth. Your heart broke and broke. “Did—did you leave—did you leave everyone for a decade just so I’d come back? Why would you do that to yourself?”

He doesn’t say anything. Then, he steps forward, just a bit.

“It’s your fault,” Satoru says like it’s instinct to blame you for his actions, “this was your idea.”

What’s he talking about? And then memories of the two of you sitting on that bench just outside of campus.

What would you do if...there’s something you really want, but no matter how fast you run, you just can’t catch up to it? So that’s what he meant. You were an idiot.

“That’s not fair, Satoru,” you say regardless, “I—I never—I couldn’t expect you’d do this.”

“What choice did I fucking have, Greeny?” There’s rapid steps and he’s in front of you, desperate and wild. “You—you just left me here. You left me alone and I couldn’t even look for you because I know nothing about you. Your face, your eyes, your hair, not even your fucking name! How’s that fair?”

It’s true. It’s all true. As much as you tried to claim you tried to make everyone happy, you only focused on Suguru. And Suguru’s happiness enlisted space from the strongest. In a different timeline, things would be different between them. A button he never left behind. Words Satoru never said. That timeline held too much pain and suffering, so you scrubbed it from history. In this rendition, everything was changed. Suguru had Shoko. Yu had Kento. Who did Satoru have?

You saved Suguru in this timeline. But to save him, you neglected Satoru.

Satoru must have known. He must have known you intentionally distanced Suguru from him, but he allowed it anyway. Satoru’s selfless like that. Too giving. Too Godlike.

But he’s selfish too. Purposefully demeaning himself so he could get one more glimpse of you, uncaring if you went through hell for his sake. Too taking. Too human.

Once, you told him that if he was selfish, just once, you wouldn’t fault him. What a liar you are.

You forgive Satoru.

“I’m sorry.” Haibara’s voice is like your own. You step closer. His infinity lets you in. “I’m sorry Satoru. I didn’t mean to leave you alone.”

It’s hard to wrap him in a hug. The brat’s too big. He sinks into your touch like a tiger, filled with dangerous claws, retracted just for your sake. He shakes the tiniest bit; even now, he’s keeping himself as a pinnacle. If you hear a sniffle or two, you don’t comment on it.

It’s why your heart breaks to tell him the truth.

“I can’t give you my name.” You whisper in his ear. He pulls back. He doesn’t look at you.

“Yeah, I know. I know. time-travel bullshit—”

“For now.” You add. “I can’t do that for now.”

Three pairs of eyes look at you. You’re not hiding behind Haibara anymore. You’re not trying to.

“December 24th, 2017. 8:06. Tokyo Skytree.” You look at him. “Can you wait until then?”

For you, it’d only be an hour. For Satoru, it’d be a decade.

You expect him to reject it, to yell at you. You decide if he wants to be selfish; you’d let him.

“If you don’t show up, I’ll turn evil.” You laugh. His grin widens and he’s back again. “I’m serious. I’ll take over the world. I’ll throw the biggest temper tantrum ever.”

“You’re such a brat.” There’s no hostility in your tone. “I will. I promise.”

‘I’ll save you,’ You promise in your head because he’s too prideful to hear it.

“Is it still possible for you to go back?” You ask, the wariness present again. “The higher ups haven’t taken any action against you, right?”

He shakes his head.

“I think Yaga might yell at me, but other than that.” He shrugs. “They’ll decide it’s teen rebellion and sweep it under the rug.”

You laugh again. Satoru shoots you a toothy grin.

When you reach out a hand, Satoru mirrors you. He clasps your hand in his. For once, you wonder how they’ll feel on your own.

“See ya’ later, Greeny.”

A blink. Satoru’s gone. Your hand is empty, and you’re standing in the streets of Shinjuku once again.

ⴵ

December 24th, 2017. 8:06, at the top of the Tokyo Skytree.

Why did you decide on that date and time for all the places? You were so fucking stupid. You needed to stop being so poetic.

It’s already 7:12 when you’re desperately waving down a taxi. The driver looks disinterested when you blubber out the location. When he tells you it’ll cost extra because Sumida City isn’t part of his route, you’re more than happy to fork over the money.

It’s already 7:35 when you stumble through the interiors of Tokyo Skytree town. It’s crowded. Fuck, it’s December 24th, of course people would be out and about.

At 7:44, you finally reach the observational building. And then you hit upon a snag.

It’s closed.

Renovations, the sign reads, accompanied by an irritatingly cute drawing of a cat, please come visit us next week.

Would this excuse be enough to satisfy Satoru? You’re only human. Surely he’d understand if you couldn’t make it because the entire building was shut down.

Or wait. Was this Satoru’s doing?

You look up at the tower. Lights were still on and flickering. No crowds. No people. No prying eyes.

Let it be known that you’ve never trespassed before, until you met Gojo Satoru.

With a guilty conscious, you step over the line. You justify it by convincing yourself you were saving the world because you know Satoru wasn’t joking a decade ago.

The elevators still worked. Thank God. Yet another hint he’s paving the way for you. You made the location, but it feels like you’re a mouse stuck in a human-designed maze. Even though you set up the game, he’s still managed to rig it.

You land on the first deck at 7:52. At 7:56, you reach the second observational deck.

It’s empty. You’ve never seen the skytree so empty before. Not a single soul is here except for you. Your footsteps echo across the floor. Were you early?

Out the corner of your eye, there’s a post-it note stuck on the window. A hand-drawn arrow. Up ahead, there’s another one.

You follow the next, and then the next. All the time you don’t know how to feel about him doing all of this just for an encounter. Something bubbles in your stomach. You’re pushing it down.

You follow the post-its until there’s one placed right on top of a door.

Authorized personnel only. Why does this brat continue to test you?

But it’s already 8:03; you’re far too deep to complain.

A service elevator greets you. If you press the button, it’ll take you all the way up to the broadcast equipment, the top of the Tokyo Skytree.

It’s different from the past two elevator rides. The service elevator isn’t all that polished. The wheels squeak a little too dangerously at times. It’s slower, too.

That’s bad, because now you’re starting to think.

That familiar feeling boils within your stomach, again. You’re anxious. It’s strange to say, but meeting Satoru through Suguru, meeting Satoru through Yu, it felt like you had a protective shell around yourself. You were free from his judgement, only invoking curiosity.

If you show yourself to him, how would he react? What would he say? Would he get angry that you made him wait a decade for such a blunder? Even worse, what if he doesn’t get angry?

What if—what if he’s disappointed by you?

Cold feet. It freezes your toes. You want to go back. You want the elevator to go back down, you want to go home and hide away.

But you promised Satoru. He deserves answers.

Pathetic answers are better than no answers at all.

Instead of your soul being protected by a sorcerer's body, it’s protected by your own. You’d steel yourself for whatever comes next. You could melt after.

It’s windy up here. That’s the first thing you notice. Icy wind cuts at your face and your eyes squint so they don’t dry out so quickly. It’s colder, too; your jacket is nice protection, but nothing helps your vulnerable hands.

But the view. Oh, what a view.

The sea of twinkling lights shines from the city. The sun has set, leaving Tokyo to do nothing but shine. She’s gorgeous like she’s picked the stars from the sky, burying them within her own soul. You could stay there forever, if she let you.

It’s 8:09. Satoru was late.

Or maybe he just wasn’t planning to show up.

You lean away from the railing. It’s just like him to make huge gestures and at the last moment, ditch everything. The balloon in your lungs deflates ever so slightly.

And then, you can feel hands.

Around your shoulders, caging you in. Large and warm despite the icy air. You know these hands. They’re familiar, even a decade later. His chest presses up against your back. His face settles in the crook of your neck.

His laugh tickles your ear, and you aren’t so cold anymore.

“Caught ya, Greeny.”

(“Did something happen to you, back there in the house?”

"Hm?" Suguru asked.

They were wading through long grass and overgrown weeds. Satoru glances at his friend. Suguru looks fine. His cursed energy has gone back to normal. That's probably good.

"You were just acting weird," Satoru said, "I mean you fell on your ass in front of a curse. Embarrassing."

Suguru huffed, a red hue across his cheeks. "Shut up, don't remind me."

'So he remembered,' Satoru thinks, 'didn't expect that.'

They're almost to the car when Suguru speaks again.

"Actually, I did feel a little strange," he says, "I felt like I wasn't really all there. There was this voice, guiding me along."

"Really?" Satoru shivers. "That sounds creepy."

So the entity within Suguru was a bad thing after all. He should try to get rid of it if it ever comes back. It might take a complex spell or something-

"Not really." Suguru said. "It's hard to explain, but it felt....nice."

"Nice?" Satoru echoes.

"Yeah."

And then it's quiet again.)

barbarian bakugou who has an arranged marriage with you to strengthen the kingdom and refuses to accept he's actually falling in love with you along the way

Barbarian!Bakugo x reader

Warnings: mention of injury

Bakugo had married you as a plot for his own strength, for his tribes strength. You were a means to an end for his dream, and past the official ceremony for your lives to be intertwined, he still hadn’t changed his mind on that. He never even considered changing his mind, because he simply didn’t acknowledge you, he didn’t need to. As if he had some sort of tunnel mindset, that focussed on one thing and only that, to be the best. Everything around him was blackened, cast into darkness by a shadow, apart from his one goal. This was an arranged marriage of convenience. And that was it.

And at some point, you understood that. Particularly on the day, when his large rough hands held yours, as he promised his life to you without a single ounce of his heart truly in his vows. You weren’t a soulmate to him, or barely even a wife, you were a ladder for him to climb over and reach a new piece of land to conquer. What did you expect from a barbarian? All they knew were how to kill and strike chaos, you doubted love was even a developed concept to his kind of people, or maybe they just didn’t care for anything that wasn’t covered in blood. And having understood that, you gave up trying to be that caring wife you really wanted to be. Or at least you tried.

It was hard, pretending a part of your heart didn’t want to love him, because you really wanted to. Bakugo is a hard worker, and took care of your every need be it clothes, wine or any precious jewel from any other land if you ever asked, but none of his heart or even an ounce of feeling was ever put into it, he done it only because you asked and part of that made it hurt even more when asking him for anything. And so, slowly giving up on getting him to be a loving husband to you, you simply and only attended your official wifely duties like attending public feasts with him, but kept yourself much more distant from him in all other aspects. It hurt too much to be near him, like standing close to the sun. But in the same way, standing too far from the sun would kill you, so you remain close enough where it stings, but you at least survive.

And maybe that’s what’s triggered this all, now that Bakugo thinks back to it. When that initial off-putting glow in your eyes faded to a glassed over, dull and greyed look. Maybe that’s when he started to look at you more, see you more. All when it felt a little too late. Seeing you slowly give up on trying to be that intimate lover you wanted to be for him, that he never really wanted, instead you became a more quiet version of yourself. More mute, less touching, more forced. It bothered him.

He notices it, without even realising he’s noticed it. How you go from trying to link arms with him and walk side by side with him, to walking constantly 3 steps behind him. Like some sort of subordinate, you were quick to understand your position in this marriage and somehow that irritated him. Only he would be able to able to be mad about someone doing their job too well. Call him picky, but he didn’t know why it annoyed him himself.

You still shared a bed, the shame of not sharing one was far greater than the shame of exposing yourselves to each other, was it how your skin felt? Was that what caused it all? Bakugo felt like, when he looked at you something deep in his chest was capsizing, a cavity grew there and it ached. As any man would, he continued to ignore it. But when your skin brushed against his in bed, when he felt that warmth your body hid away behind cold stares, it was hard to ignore that ache. Instead that ache would travel from his heart to his mind, and then it does it’s loathe-some wandering.

Thinking of you.

The more he tries to figure out why, the more you consume his thoughts, even when all bloody on hunting grounds, on the edge between severe injury and a bounty able to feed a family for a week, he still thinks of you. The way you smelt when you were against him in the morning unintentionally while you slept. That way you have some more colour and life to your expressions when you talk to the maids or get a nice cut of meat on your plate at dinner. And the way you- fuck. He’s cut his hand while tackling down a boar without even realising it. It’s your fault.

Its you. It’s all you. Why he’s acting weird or can’t even think, its all because of you, somehow sometime you’ve done something to him and he hates the feeling of it. And that powerlessness he feels of being so strong and feared, yet unable to figure out this lingering feeling he has bothers him even more.

You smiled at the seamstress today. And even spared a laugh. Katsuki didn’t intend on walking in on it, but he was passing by, on his way to the armoury when he saw you talking with the aged woman. You looked pretty when you smiled.

Pretty.

When was it he started having words like that in his vocabulary? Maybe when he called over the female jeweller, asking her what would be the best and most precious jewel he could give you. What was he doing anymore? Barbarians didn’t give each other shiny stones on delicate chains, they offered the skins of the most ferocious beasts in the land as a sign of deathly devotion. That was until he found out courting behaviours where you came from were much different. So here he is trying to accommodate to your customs. For you.

What is he doing?

He tries to deny it for a few weeks, pretending it’s nothing. He must be tired, stressed, heck maybe he’s just adjusting himself to having a woman so close to him. But pretending becomes less and less possible by the day. He hates waking up next to you. You always look so defenceless, the guard you have up around him constantly has vanished while you lay there asleep, face completely relaxed, hair unruly, skin bright, much like the you that he met before you married. On most days, he’ll force himself out of bed, pretending he’s having insane thoughts only because he just woke up. He must be half asleep.

Denial.

The fact that you consume his every waking thought makes him more antsy around you, more agitated. He can’t stand the sight of you, yet equally when you’re away, his mind obsesses over you even more. He’s reached a point where the only time he can silence his mind with all its incessant thoughts of you is when you’re right by his side, but that causes a whole new problem for his heart. When was the first time you started to fill his mind with thoughts of you you you? When his heart ached around you and apart from you, when his throat itched every time he spoke to yo-

He remembers now. It was the first winter night you spent together wedded, by then you were only wed for two seasons, and this winter were to be the roughest yet, where things become their worst and darkest in the tribe. Food becomes scarce, the weather becomes cold and brutal, and more people become irritable in these harsh conditions. Katsuki hated the cold, and he hated having to hunt in the winter even more. It was a shitty day, and unexpectedly he came home with an injury from a wild animal he wasn’t prepared to face. It was a large cut on his arm, still bleeding but slowly by the time he arrived home. He remembers that look in your eyes, pure fear, not of him but for him. He remembers how you stayed awake all night, sitting by him with a warm cloth, helping him with his wound. You didn’t even need to do all of that. You shouldn’t have to, there are plenty people equipped in the tribe able to take care of wounds like that. But you insisted he sat down and helped him. Your skin was warm. And your touch was soft, far softer than anything he had experienced from others around him.

His cut was ugly, with dried blood already covering half of it, while the other half spewed more, and he could tell you hated the sight of it, the way your eyebrows furrowed as you pulled a pained, contorted face at every swab to his injury said it all. And yet, as much as you hated it, you did it for him. You helped him take care of it, even after he insisted he could do it himself and that you should sleep. He watched your tired eyes as you let his blood dirty your clean hands throughout the whole night. He asked why you even bothered, because you didn’t need to do all shit. What the fuck was it you said to him that night?

“Because I’m your wife.”

Yeah it was then. Thats when he first felt that feeling. What caused this whole mess in his mind and heart in the first place.

Or probably, it was all of it. A little bit of everything, that made him stop thinking of you as a tool, and more as a woman, his wife, his love. Seeing you for who you were, more than what you let him see, and trying to understand you more. The more he thinks of it, the more the pieces all start to fit into a much bigger picture he was too blind to see before. He had only focussed on one piece for so long that he had lost sight of that big picture, which made it all the more impactful when he stood back and finally looked at it all at once.

Love.

Did he really love you? He must have. It’s the only explanation for his absurd behaviour. To think someone responsible for so much spilt blood was able to reserve the most tender part of his heart for something as delicate as love. It’s a shock, and he refuses to believe it at first, but the more he rejected the idea, the more it became obvious to him that he did love you. It’s why he insisted you stayed by him whenever you could, why he even bothered anymore in this marriage.

Unfortunately, he’s a little late, you’ve already lost your hope in having him love you. He hurt you without even trying to, without laying a hand on you. And somehow that made it hurt even more. Once Katsuki realises his fault, he’ll start to live his live devoted to you tirelessly, because if given the chance to earn your love all over again, even if he worked to the day he die for it, he’d take it.

I hope you like this! I love writing about mixed emotions and pining… so this was super fun to write :) if you enjoyed, don’t be shy to like, comment or reblog, because I read everything you guys say!

fifth wish

pairing: jungkook x reader

wordcount: 18k

glimpse: jeon jungkook, world-class socialite and nepotism baby, should be out every night to celebrate while he’s at his prime. why should he fake-date his bodyguard instead?

alternatively, jungkook regularly throws coins to wishing wells with only one desire in mind — to get rid of you.

[ angst, unrequited love (at first), emotional constipation, jk is Very Frustrating to be with, so much pining, the constant repetition of the notion that one must amount to something to be deserving of love, rlly wholesome fluff, mentions of blood n injuries, whole 360 redemption arc dw i am not evil ]

notes: i’m back :) this belongs to the take five universe (take five feat. yoongi, nine to five feat. jimin) n although it’s a completely different jungkook, it’s still on the same vein!! thank u for waiting for me <3

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!! even replying to this post sends me over the moon :)

Keep reading

bkg slowburn partners to lovers excellence

fyi: aged up, drinking, not beta'd, deal w it

Cupid's Chokehold (3.7k)

"I'm falling in love with you."

It rolls off your tongue without a second thought, and you relish the relief of your confession. Katsuki can't control his surprise, and you can read his answer off his face, and for a brief moment, you regret making your move.

The sting of rejection is quickly numbed purely by willpower, and you laugh airily.

"You have a terrible poker face," you tease lightly. You steel yourself for the next part by deeply breathing through your teeth. "You aren't interested in me."

"It's not like that," Katsuki mumbles quietly, his ears turning pink. "I need to focus on my career. We both do."

"Gotcha," you whisper, looking off into space, head turned away from him. "No, you're right." You clear your throat and begin to wrap up your trash from your forgotten lunch.

Katsuki seems to want to stop you, but he's silent as he watches you step out of your seat and make a quick visit to the nearest trash bin.

"Look, we're good," you assure him as you prepare to end this shared meal. "Nothing's changed. We're partners."

Katsuki raises a brow at you, remaining in his seat. "Then how come you're leaving?"

You respond with a dry laugh, fighting down the pit in the back of your throat. "Give a girl a second to wallow, Bakugo," you huff. Shrugging, you awkwardly shift your weight back and forth between your stance. "At least I won't be so distracted during patrols anymore."

It's your weak attempt to lighten the mood. Although, it's hard to commit when trying to come to terms with your rejection. Unfortunately, Katsuki doesn't find it amusing, and his expression remains a combination of surprise and confusion.

"I won't be as weird tomorrow," you brush off sheepishly. "Get home safe." With a single nod, you turn to leave before anything can stop you.

You feel like you can breathe again once you shut your door and feel your car engine rumble to life. Before you can shift gears, a wave of embarrassment and shame washes over you, and you throw your head back against your seat.

Pressing your hands against your face, you let out a sound of anguish, feeling like a fool. Raking your fingers back through your hair, you sigh.

"You just can't shut up sometimes, can you?" Your voice is quiet as it disturbs the otherwise silence in your car. "Brush it off. You're not dying." You shake your head and quickly note where the alcohol in your apartment is for when you get home.

-

Katsuki doesn't notice anything different about your dynamic in the days following your confession. You make eye contact easily and banter with him like nothing has happened. You're civil and, for the most part, stay on task during patrol.

You're the perfect partner, and yet, Katsuki can sense something has shifted.

"You're late," he grumbles, glaring at you as you stride to your desk with a compostable coffee cup in your hands.

"Would you relax," you dismiss him with a flimsy wave of your hand. You drop your bag onto your chair and start peeling off your layers. "We don't start for another ten minutes. I'll be right back."

You disappear to change into your uniform, and Katsuki takes this opportunity to invade your privacy.

"You don't drink coffee," he states skeptically after bringing your cup up to his nose and taking a whiff. The stench from the coffee is strong but not enough to cover up the scent of your lipstick coating the mouthpiece. He didn't even realize you wore makeup.

"Hey, don't drink my drink," you chastise as soon as you return, adjusting the sleeves of your uniform.

"You don't even like coffee," he accuses, setting your cup back on your desk. You respond with an incredulous laugh.

"No, you don't like coffee," you correct him. "I'm perfectly happy drinking coffee."

"Why would you need to drink it anyways? Didn't you get enough sleep?" Katsuki's glare softens as he gives you a quick scan, picking up the exhaustion clouding your eyes and the tentative way you handle your stationery. "Did you at least eat something? I don't need you passing out on me during a fight."

"You almost sound worried," you say with a dry tone, covering it up with a hollow chuckle. "Where's the trust, man?"

"There is none," Katsuki bites back quickly, but the humored glint in your eyes relieves him. "Are you almost ready to head out?"

"Can we ever just start when our shift starts?" You groan with a roll of your eyes as you return your stationery to their respective spots on your desk.

"Being on time is being late," Katsuki reminds you of what feels like the millionth time since he's met you.

He can hear you poorly imitate him behind his back, but when he turns to glare at you, you're inspecting your nails and obviously feigning innocence.

It's all too normal for his liking, and he's unsure why. He should feel grateful that you're not awkward after your confession and that you've moved past it and carried on your professionalism, but he's not. Not entirely, at least.

A little part of him can't stop hearing your confession.

"I'm falling in love with you."

Every time he meets your eyes, there's a brief pause, and Katsuki can't tell if it's imagination. You glow whenever you smile, even if it's not directed at him, and he can't look away from you.

You still grab lunch with him after your shifts, although now there's a thin blanket of tension veiling your conversations. And, outside of work, there's no contact from you.

Katsuki misses the days when you'd message him in the morning before your shifts, asking if he wanted anything from the shop that you stopped by for quick meals. He'd never take you up on your offer, but now he'll see you walk in with a to-go cup and wonder if you forgot to text him. He knows the truth, though.

You're trying to get over him. He can see right through your efforts, no matter how subtle you're trying to be. Katsuki notices the way you freeze up whenever he brushes his hand against your arm or grabs at you to check for injuries.

Every time, without fail, you'll clear your throat and yank yourself away from him, avoiding his accusing glare.

"I'm fine," you grit out, holding your arm that's obviously in pain. "I'll be good. Thanks."

Just let me take care of you, Katsuki will think bitterly to himself, watching you stagger away and doing nothing about it. You never used to be this difficult when he was just trying to do his job.

You'd argue that caring for you wasn't part of the job, and he'd find every fiber of him disagreeing with you.

"What are you doing this Friday?"

You're obviously surprised once you comprehend what Katsuki is asking towards the end of your patrol. You look flustered and waging an internal battle in your head.

"My idiot friends are having their monthly get-together," Katsuki explains, uncharacteristically mumbling. "They asked if you wanted to join."

"What?" You laugh, amusement washing away your nerves. "You're inviting me? What are they holding over you to do this?"

Katsuki glares at you, irritated that you guessed correctly. Mina threatened him to invite you, otherwise, she'd show up unannounced at the agency and introduce herself.

Normally, he'd go unphased by her threats, but ever since your confession, Katsuki's felt a shred of anguish that you'll disappear one day.

Even if he couldn't give you the relationship you hoped for, he wanted to provide for you somehow. And, if he had to expose you to his personal life a little more, then he was okay with that. As long as it meant you'd stay with him.

"They threatened to ambush us during a patrol if I didn't."

You fail to stifle your laugh, and Katsuki hopes to elicit more of that from you.

"I appreciate the offer," you eventually answer, and Katsuki feels elated at your initial positivity. It quickly dissipates when you reject his invitation. "I have plans this Friday, actually. For once." You laugh at your deprecating allusion, but Katsuki maintains his aloof expression.

"Suddenly, you're too good for my friends?" It was meant to be a joke, but his abrasive tone reveals his vulnerable ego.

You visibly hesitate to respond, and Katsuki wonders what you're fighting yourself on. What are you holding back from him?

"I have plans already," you repeat with more force, finalizing your explanation, and Katsuki feels irritation bubbling in his stomach.

You didn't make plans that required you to leave your apartment often – Katsuki knew this. You lived with your best friend, so most of your time outside of work was spent at home. Whenever you managed to come across real plans that involved wearing nicer clothes than sweatpants, you'd normally chat Katsuki's ear off about your anticipation.

"Do you have a date?" He blurts his question out before he can comprehend the thought, and he can feel the tips of his ears get warm with embarrassment.

You can't fight back the surprise from reaching your face, and Katsuki knows the answer before you nod.

You laugh sheepishly at getting caught, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear – a nervous habit Katsuki has caught on to after two years of working with you.

"Yeah, I do," you murmur, looking everywhere but at him. "My roommate set it up with her boyfriend's friend."

How come you didn't tell me, he wants to ask, but he already knows. "Is he nice?"

"Yeah, he's..." He watches your eyes glaze over as you get stuck in your head before clearing your throat. "He's nice. Why?"

Katsuki shrugs, feigning indifference. Inside, he's frustrated, but he knows he shouldn't be.

You're his partner. His work partner.

As long as this random head that's taking you out doesn't distract you during your patrols – when you're with him – then he can't shouldn't complain.

"Will you tell me how it goes?" His question is quiet because he's embarrassed to ask, but he wants to know. He knows not knowing will bother him, and he can't explain to himself why.

"Um, sure," you hesitate to answer, almost questioning yourself.

You keep details of your date private from him after Friday comes and goes. The curiosity eats at Katsuki whenever he catches you glancing at your phone or smiling at yourself at your desk, but he keeps it to himself.

-

Your shift today was harder than usual. A few minor misdemeanors followed up with a villain attack.

You could tell that Katsuki was frustrated throughout the whole time, keeping quiet and growling to himself more often than usual.

After, when you were packing up your things to leave for the day, you noticed Katsuki sitting at his desk with his head hanging low. His arms are relaxed against the chair handles and you think he looks defeated as people walk past him without a glance.

"Trying to get food?" You pipe up, sliding past him to lean back against his desk. You keep your demeanor light, resting your hands against the surface and keeping your chin up. "I'm starving."

"You head out without me," he mumbles, flicking his hand.

"Nah," you hum, smiling at him with encouragement. "Come eat with me."

"Wouldn't that make your boyfriend uncomfortable?"

Boyfriend? You frown at your partner, tilting your head with a curious look.

"My nonexistent boyfriend would probably be more concerned with my obnoxious partner giving me attitude when I'm hungry."

Katsuki finally looks up at you, and you widen your eyes in exaggeration.

"Oh my god, finally," you rasp, holding your hand against your chest. "I was planning on getting you a vest for your birthday to help you with your posture."

"You don't even know when my birthday is," he answers with a sneer, but it doesn't phase you.

"Of course I know when your birthday is, Bakugo," you tell him. "Now, can we please go eat?" You bounce off of his desk and pat his bare shoulder, shortly relishing the satisfying warmth that emits from his body.

Katsuki catches you by surprise when he holds your hand against his arm, squeezing gently.

"Are you okay?" You ask him, knowing what his answer will be but hoping for a rare moment of vulnerability.

"Just tired," he mumbles, not looking at you. You smile softly, understanding where his exhaustion might be coming from, and use your other hand to pat his spiky head.

"You're working hard," you remind him with sympathy. "You did a good job today."

Katsuki doesn't say anything, just responds with a nod.

You start to pull away, but he holds you in place for another moment. Your heart stutters in your chest, and you're hit with a familiar wave of infatuation that you've been desperate to avoid.

"We did a good job today," he finally says. "We're partners."

"I know, Bakugo." As badly as I want to be more, we're just partners. "You're not getting rid of me, unfortunately."

You're forced to yank your hand out of his, avoiding his glare when he turns back to look at you.

"Let's head out already," you plead, creating some distance between you before checking back to see if he's following you.

You can't fight back your smile when you find him out of his seat and pacing over to you.

-

Katsuki hates seeing you in Mina's apartment. It's like his worlds are colliding, and he's still not mentally prepared after a week.

He's grateful you let him pick you up and take you instead of finding your way there. He's also quietly pleased that you're glued to his side because you don't know any of his friends.

"I hope your friend likes this wine," you nervously babble in his ear, and it makes his skin vibrate with how close you are. "How do you not know what alcohol your friends like?"

"Cause I don't care," he bites back, arms crossed over his chest and sending you his normal glare. "And you shouldn't either. Not like they're your friends."

That was obviously not the right thing to say, and Katsuki immediately regrets it when he watches your expression fall.

"Then, why did you invite me?" You sound frustrated and lean away from him slightly. "What am I doing here?"

"Saving me from a night of nuisances."

Katsuki thinks he hears you mumble "Typically," but doesn't respond because Mina and Eijiro approach.

"Hey, Bakubro," Eijiro greets with a wide smile, clapping a hand against Katsuki's arm. "And hello to you too!"

You give them your name with a polite smile and present Mina with your gift. Katsuki has to fight the urge to put his arm around you – to protect you from his friend.

"I didn't know what to bring, but I hope you like this wine."

Mina squeals in delight, taking the bottle from your hands and inspecting it before throwing herself at you. Katsuki's skin prickles at the sight.

"I love wine!" She cries with glee. "You're so considerate! Bakugo never brings me anything."

"When do you ever bring me anything?"

"When do you invite me over?"

The glare Katsuki sends Mina is fatal, but she's unbothered, much to your apparent satisfaction.

"Let's open this right now!" Mina drags you away by the arm, and your panicked expression is enough to bring a soft smile to Katsuki's lips.

"So, she's the partner?" Eijiro takes your spot next to Katsuki and nudges his arm. "Think she's into you?"

The question makes Katsuki scoff, sending his friend a silencing look.

"She is? How'd you find out?"

"She told me," he answers gruffly. "Over a month ago."

Eijiro's eyes almost bug out of his head with how surprised he is.

"Why didn't you say anything? That's awesome, dude."

"Why would that be awesome?"

"Because it's obvious you're into her too?" Eijiro's brows furrow as he looks at Katsuki, who feels a burning fire in his chest light up.

"Excuse me?"

Eijiro sighs, scratching the dark scruff under his jaw. "Come on, man."

"What?"

"You invited her to Mina's shindig," Eijiro points out. "You've been her partner for, what? A few years now, and you're finally bringing her around to meet us?" Katsuki just glares at him.

"Maybe you should mind your business," he tells his friend.

"You're defensive because you know I'm making a good point."

"When have you ever made a good point?"

Eijiro feigns offense when he puckers his bottom lip out in a pout. "I've been known to have good insight occasionally."

"This isn't one of those occasions." Katsuki notices you reappear from the kitchen with Mina, carrying four glasses of wine between you. He clears his throat obnoxiously, successfully silencing Eijiro with a look this time around.

"Hey, here's a glass," you tell him, handing him one from your hand. Katsuki takes it but isn't sure what to do with it.

"I didn't ask for this," he mentions as Mina hands Eijiro his glass.

"He means, 'thank you'," Eijiro answers for him.

"You don't speak for me," Katsuki barks, but your soft laughter kills his irritation.

"Don't worry, I know how he works," you tell his friends as you sip your drink. "He's actually holding my second glass for me."

Mina giggles at your statement, but the smile on your lips tells Katsuki that you aren't joking.

A short while later, after Mina moves on to her other guests and Katsuki has resituated you and him on the couch, you swap glasses with him.

You're invested in a conversation with Sero, angled away from Katsuki, but your legs are curled under you, and the fabric of your socks flick against his legs.

"I'll be back," he mumbles as he rises to his feet, empty wine glass in hand.

He finds himself in Mina's kitchen, a few guests lingering around and chatting. He comes across the wine you brought, empty in an ocean of half-drunk bottles.

Before returning to the couch, he refills your first glass with another wine he finds himself hoping you'll like. You're alone and on your phone by the time he comes back.

"Decide to join in on the fun?" You ask with a beaming smile once you realize he's returned. Katsuki finds himself pleased at the sight of you dropping your phone into your lap without hesitation as he falls into the cushion next to you.

"For you," he says plainly. "For when you finish that glass."

You frown at him playfully, taking another swig from his original glass. "You trying to get me drunk?"

"God, no," he exasperates. "Wanna make sure you're having a good time."

"Good call filling up another glass then," you laugh.

I know how you work too, he finds himself thinking.

"I am having a good time, though," you confess, resting your hand on his leg and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Thank you for inviting me. I like your friends."

"I think they like you more than they like me."

"Everybody likes me more than they like you. That's how our dynamic works."

Our dynamic. Everything you tell him comes out more meaningful than he assumes you intend. Katsuki doesn't know when that started to happen.

He cherishes the dynamic between you, and for the first time, he's worried that it's in jeopardy. That it's been strained since you confessed to him, and, right now, he's on borrowed time with you.

"Thank you," he tells you. "For coming. You didn't have to."

"I did, though, " you correct him. "Mina tells me she would have shown up unannounced at the agency if you kept me from her any longer."

"Well, she's an idiot."

You give him a knowing smile, leaning against his arm. "Then, you're an idiot by association."

"Shut the hell up."

Your gentle laughter is muffled by the wine glass against your lips. You finish your drink in a single sip and immediately hold the emptied glass to Katsuki. He wordlessly switches your glasses.

He watches intently as you take an experimental sip from the wine he chose for you, and the satisfied hum you release tells him you approve of his choice.

"This is really good. Nice choice," you tell him, holding it out for him. "Did you try it?"

"I'm driving us, remember?" He glares at you for your ridiculous question, but you roll your eyes.

"It's a sip, Katsu-" You stop yourself midway, and Katsuki notices the flush in your cheeks, but not without actively searching for it. "it's just a sip, okay? Try it."

You're shoving the rim of the glass to his lips before he can call you out on your mistake. He reluctantly takes a little sip and his face twists in disgust.

"I don't like wine," he tells you, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after you spill some against his face.

"Well, that's a shame," you sigh dejectedly, throwing back the remaining wine with a few swigs. Even Katsuki knows wine isn't chugging alcohol. "I'm gonna run to the bathroom."

And when you return a few minutes later, Katsuki notices you curl up in your seat a little further from him.

an: wrote this for @/sarahlovesseb ♡

「 CRY FOR ME 」 ♡ MASTERLIST

PAIRING : Suna Rintarō x Reader. Sakusa Kiyoomi x Reader.

GENRE : Angst.

TAGS/WARNINGS : NSFW. Fake Dating. Unrequited Love. Profanity. Enemies (not really) to Lovers. Friends with Benefits. Not very canon compliant.

SYNOPSIS : You have been in love with your best friend Sakusa Kiyoomi for as long as you can remember. The problem? He is in love with somebody else. And for you to snag even the tiniest bit of his affections, it seems like you would willingly go through drastic measures.. Even if it means teaming up with his lifelong rival, Suna Rintarō

TAGLIST : CLOSED

PLAYLIST + sunayn texts + sunayn crumbs

CHAPTERS

PROLOGUE

ACT I – PARTNER

ACT II – PLAYING WITH FIRE

ACT III – BLUR

ACT IV – LET'S NOT FALL IN LOVE

ACT V – SAFETY NET

ACT VI – LIE TO ME

ACT VII – TEACH ME HOW TO LOVE

ACT VIII – ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS STAY.

ACT IX – ALWAYS

ACT X – BITTER LOVE

ACT XI – AFTERGLOW

THE FINAL ACT – CRY FOR ME

EPILOGUE

wastelands.

↳ suna rintarou x f!reader

— series masterlist.

summary. after a viral pandemic wiped out half of the world’s population, a group of abandoned young adults embark on a life-threatening journey in hopes of finding a safe permanent home. unfortunately, for you and Rin, love is only a temporary option.

genre. heavy angst, unrequited love, post apocalypse au, 18+

fic warnings. explicit smut, profanity, gore, infectious diseases, zombies, usage of guns and other weapons, smoking, blood, killings, suicide, minor and major character death

general masterlist + playlist + official art + group fanart + ko-fi

+ one + two + three + four + five + six + seven + eight + nine + ten + epilogue

status: completed

all rights reserved © 2021 saintobio. please do not copy, repost, translate, or modify my works in any platform.

how to mend a broken heart

Pairings: Bakugou Katsuki x Reader & Todoroki Shouto x Reader

Warnings: Cursing

Word count: 8424

A/N: my first time posting on tumblr so pls be gentle lmao thanks

It was strange- the way his crimson eyes linger over the cute bubbly girl off in the distance. Was he even looking at her or was he staring off in her direction? Did he even notice he was zoning out? “Earth to Katsuki.” You say, eyes never leaving his face. You could see it. His eyes following her every move and when she smiled- a faint pink dusted his cheeks. Did he even notice you next to him? “Katsuki.” You say a little louder this time, giving him a poke on his arm. 

“Holy fuck!” He growls, head snapping around, eyes glaring but instantly softening as soon as he realizes who it is. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” 

“You like her?” You tease. It wasn’t possible right? The Great Bakugou Katsuki has a crush on Uraraka? “Shut the hell up.” 

Oh. He didn’t deny it. 

Keep reading

sitting in your sweatshirt, crying in the backseat

ph! katsuki bakugou x fem! (though i don't state pronouns) reader summary: katsuki realizes his feelings a little too late contains: mentions of sex, angst (with a maybe happy ending) word count: 2.8k words masterlist

Under the shadows of the coming morning—the sun rising through the blinds of the bedroom windows in your apartment—Katsuki liked to pretend that you were his. 

Just his. 

He tended to be up earlier than you anyways—with years of waking up for hero work instilled in his sleep schedule—but he liked that time. It was quiet in the mornings; only the sounds of the early morning traffic and the birds nested in the tree next to your apartment to keep him company besides your breathing: breaths that were soft and sweet and slow. 

He would curl his palm over your cheek, pressing your figure closer to his as he watched your chest rise and fall under him, stroking your skin softly with his rough thumb—because you were his in that moment. 

Just his.

In those times, he would forget what the reality of his life was—the way you would stare at him tiredly every time he knocked on your door past 1 am, the lingering feeling of your fingers on his cheeks when he leaned in for a kiss, how you would oblige him no matter how many times you’d called him while drunk and upset, the kisses he left on your forehead before he left you alone the next morning—

—That you were not his and he was not yours, no matter how many times he liked to repeat it to himself.

It’s because of my work—he said to himself in the morning, stroking your hair out of your face.

It’s because I don’t have the time to commit—he whispered, nestling himself into the crook of your neck so he could smell the lingering scent of mint, strawberries, and sex.

If only we met under different circumstances… If only my job wasn’t so demanding… If only it was easier… If only I could commit…

If only…

After a while, you only nodded when he whispered those words at three am and your head was resting on his bare chest—like you believed him. 

(Before you would get upset, turn away, tell him to leave—and the cycle would repeat.)

You’d kiss his neck in acknowledgment, curling up in his arms like a cat would—uncaring, unaware. 

He wished he could do the same; just accept the reality in front of him. 

But it didn’t matter, because right now, you were his. 

Just his.

It was the complacency that let the cycle continue; but it was the complacency that became his downfall. He realized this when he stopped leaving you after ten minutes of waking up—waiting for the pink sky to turn bright, watching your eyes flutter open under the light of forthcoming day, the small smile that creeped into your eyes when you realized he was still there—mornings spent in the kitchen drinking coffee and sharing laughs while you paraded around in the sweatshirt he left the first time he came over. 

(It was his favorite in school—black and oversized with a small embroidered insignia of All Might above the right breast.

He didn’t even know he’d lost it until you came out wearing it one morning—and some of his old cologne was still lingering on the collar.)

He let himself forget—deluded himself—into thinking it would last. That he wouldn’t eventually have to pull away, and the dream-like haze he’d lost himself in with you wouldn’t end.

Just his.

It happened five weeks later, after a month-long mission: the morning after, and you were standing in a shirt that wasn’t his with a coffee mug pressed up to your lips like it would hide what you were about to say.

“I think… I think we should end this here, Katsuki.”

The words didn’t register at first, and he stood there staring—trying to come up with an answer.

“This?”

“...us.” Your lips pressed together solemnly, as if whispering a prayer under your breath—and you let out a tired sigh. So very tired. “Our relationship.”

He grunted, unwilling to open his mouth in retaliation. The fear that had been festering in his head began to rise, ugly and thick like bile coming up his throat—and he stood still, silently, staring at the coffee you made for him with too much sugar in the mug he got you from a mission a couple months ago. 

“...I’ve been seeing someone,” you let out—but Katsuki didn’t dare look at your face; Venom sat at the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spit out—

—Because you were supposed to be his. 

Just his. “Don’t call it a relationship,” he settled on—enough spite in his voice that he knew it would deter you. “It never was one.”

He expected you to look relieved when he finally stared up at you again, but your expression seemed more soured than before: like you were expecting a different answer to push past his lips. It was quickly replaced though, by a smile that didn’t seem to meet your eyes like they did when you’d wake up in the morning to still find him in bed next to you, before taking another sip of your too-sweet coffee.

“Thank you, Katsuki.”

He didn’t know what you were thanking him for—your time together? For letting you go when you’d both been hooking up like this for almost a year?

And he wasn’t even sure why it felt so bitter. He’d known from the beginning that, whatever this was, wouldn’t last forever. 

Why would you stay in something like this, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to give you more than the little bit of time he already did? Why wouldn’t you want someone who consistently woke up with you in the morning to give you breakfast in bed, or brought you flowers after work, or could take you out in the evenings for dinner?

You deserved that—you deserved all of it. 

So why did he think (hope) you would settle for the little moments he offered you when you could have the world?

He kept his face blank when he left your apartment that morning—drilling the hole in his brain that had been dedicated to you in silence—simultaneously missing the sound of sobbing that came from your apartment as soon as he stepped out the door. 

He thought he would be okay—that in a week or so, it’d be back to how it was without you. 

But it wasn’t.

One week turned into two; two weeks turned into four; and four weeks turned into sitting at the bar, drunk while still in his hero outfit, with Kirishima sitting next to him as he rambled on about you.

You were the only thing he thought about, the only thing he could think about—he missed the scent of your body wash, the warmth of your skin on his, the small teasing smiles you’d give and the dimple that only appeared on one cheek, the too-sweet coffee he’d subject himself to drinking, watching the sunrise while feeling you laying next to him…

Everything about you felt like home.

He’d even gotten distracted the other day during a villain attack because there was a civvie who looked just like you in the line of fire and he’d panicked. 

“It was such a fuckin’ rookie, stupid ass mistake, and I still made it,” he took the last sip of his pint before letting out a small, frustrated grunt because it was finished. 

Eijirou moved to prevent Katsuki from flagging the bartender down for a refill—he was drunk enough after two pints; instead, he signaled for the check while Katsuki groaned in response.

“I’m not fuckin’ finished.”

“Yes, you are,” Eijirou stared at him with a pinched expression. “You have patrol first thing in the morning—you’ll thank me for it then.”

Katsuki huffed under his breath in resignation—unfortunately Eijirou was correct. Not only that, but the upcoming lecture he knew would be coming from the higher ups would be infinitely worse with a splitting hangover. 

“I’ll pay for it,” Eijirou shooed him off his barstool. “Just go stand outside for a bit, maybe the cold will help sober you up a little before you go to sleep.”

Katsuki could only huff in response; his mind was swimming and blurred and his head felt heavy enough that he could only comply with what Eijirou had said—he’d have to pay him back for it later. Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, he trudged outside. 

The late-winter-early-spring winds nipped against his skin as soon as the door shut behind him, and Katsuki pulled the scarf he was wearing higher up to fully cover his neck and chin—shifting uncomfortably in the cold while he waited for Kirishima. The street was basically empty except for the couple people walking in and out of the bar; he guessed that it was too cold for people to be wandering around at night. Most of the shops on the streets were closed too, leaving the only illumination to come from the blinking street lamps that lined the sidewalk and the gibbous moon above.

“What’s takin’ so fuckin’ long…” he muttered under his breath—trying to peer into the window to see what Kirishima was doing. 

When he turned back, he spotted a couple walking in the distance; though he couldn’t make out their faces, their intertwined hands and the closeness they exuded was enough. Katsuki could see his breath in the air when he sighed, loudly, mind buried in the memories of what could have been—until they were close enough that he could make out their faces: and he realized, it was you.

And you looked happy with the extra, he couldn’t lie—all cheeky, rosy smiles and giggles as he told you some joke that he could barely get through without laughing himself; you were holding a bouquet of pink and yellow tulips in one hand, with the other hand clasped in his (which he occasionally brought up to his lips to kiss the back of); he was carrying both the leftovers of the restaurant you both just went to and a shopping bag from a store you’d always liked.

You looked… at peace—with yourself, your situation.

But as happy as you looked, he couldn’t help the ugly, selfish feeling boiling in the back of his throat.

Because you were just his.

Because… that should’ve been him.

It should’ve been him—holding your hand, leading you through the night with confidence, and the other holding everything you wanted to buy while you smiled and giggled on his arm. 

You’d love teasing him. You’d loved spending time with him, as little as it was.

And though he’d refused it for so long, you’d loved him too.

He’d spent weeks, months, trying to ignore that fact when the two of you were together, if you could even classify it as that—and here he was, stuck in the same fucking position; he was destined to just watch you from afar as you moved on from the cycle he’d pushed you into, while he lost himself in it instead.

Maybe he was just selfish.

Katsuki didn’t even know when he started following you both, distantly (maybe he couldn’t help it, maybe he just wanted to make sure you reached home safe)—Eijirou was an afterthought at that point—and when you’d finally reached your apartment.

The extra even offered to come up and drop the bags off so you wouldn’t have to carry them up the stairs yourself, but you declined: kissing him shortly before waving goodbye and watching him leave. 

Watching you kiss him seemed to wake Katsuki up, his glazed over eyes finally seeming to register his surroundings: the streetlamps overhead, the light from the apartments lining the building, the little crack in the paint of the building where he’d once apprehended a villain to save you, you staring at him—

—you were staring at him? Katsuki didn’t shift from where he was standing as you walked up to him, leftovers and shopping and tulips forgotten on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.

“Katsuki?” Your lips barely moved, and your hands were pressed to your sides. You were trembling slightly—and he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or him.

He didn’t answer; he couldn’t will his mouth to open in front of you.

“Wh–What are you doing here?”

Even worse, he couldn’t bear to tell you the truth.

“I uh… I was on patrol nearby.”

You stared off to that little crack in the painted wall as if you were reminiscing, avoiding his gaze—your fingers rubbing together red in the cold with wobbly knuckles.

You were freezing.

“Here,” he grunted, slowly pulling his scarf from under his neck to hand it to you. Your expression instantly changed, and though you tried to dissuade him, the visible puffs of air coming from your nose were enough to tell him that it was something you needed.

“I… Thank you…” you whispered, letting him wrap it around you. “You always said you hated the cold, so…”

“Doesn’t matter. You clearly need it more than I do.”

This was his final act, he’d decided. He couldn’t hold you back any longer—not when he couldn’t give you what you wanted and needed out of him; no, it was what you deserved. Maybe his final act of stupidity would mean enough to him in the future that he’d be able to move on; and maybe one day the stupid scarf would just be a memento you had, instead of a reminder of the hurt he knew he’d brought.

And it was all so fucking dumb and poetic—standing in the spot you’d both met, saying your final goodbyes with your happy ending just waiting in the distance: waiting for him to get out of your life so it could be whole and right again.

But when you turned around, and started walking back towards the tulips he never bought you, leftovers from the restaurants where he never took you, and the clothes he’d never offered to buy—your apartment where his sweatshirt was laying in the first, top drawer of your dresser—the words were choked out of his throat.

Because you were supposed to be just his.

And maybe the alcohol in his system had the influence, but he couldn’t let you go: not when you were the best thing that’d ever happened in his entire life. 

The echoing sound of boots slapping loudly against the pavement and your name being called out by his heavy cries was enough to stop you in your tracks—and at first he thought it was because you didn’t want to see him again: but when he called your name once more and you turned around, he learned it was because you were already crying.

“I…I love you,” he whispered when he was close enough, fighting the urge to wipe your tears away like his own weren’t following quickly behind.

“Katsuki…” you smeared your cold fingers over your face, trying to wipe away the evidence that kept falling. “I-I…Y-You…Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for those words to come out of your lips?” you couldn’t really stop the tears from falling now—and he could only pathetically watch as they did. “Do you know how much I’ve fucking ached and cried over those three stupid fucking words? And now… Now that I finally feel okay, you’re standing here—pretending like you can make it alright again? How can you–”

“I love you,” he repeated, grounding his stance in the pavement. He couldn’t let you slip straight through his fingers. “I’ve loved you since I blasted that idiot against that wall to save you. I’ve loved you since you dressed my wounds in your apartment. I’ve loved you since we met at that coffee shop again down the street. I’ve loved you through every night spent together, and through every mission spent away…” He repeated your name once more, cradling your face in his rough, cold palms like he would an oath to his heart. “And—m’sorry… I-I know I was a fuckin’ idiot this whole time not realizin’ it, and you can hate me all you want but I… I just needed you to know, ‘kay?—I couldn’t let you walk out of my life without knowing.”

He couldn’t even face you anymore, not when he could feel the tear that’d begun leaking down his cheek at the thought of you rejecting his admission: a secret he’d kept close to his heart, burying it underneath years of repression and loathing.

And now it was out in the open, left for you to stomp on if you wanted to.

“You say that now, Katsuki,” you uttered, the tears now drying on your cheeks. “But we both know that whatever this is isn’t gonna last.” You scoffed bitterly, putting your hands over his—perhaps in an attempt to remove them from where they were plastered to your skin—but instead they just rested over his while your bottom lip wobbled dangerously. 

He knew you were right. He knew that everything you said was true.

And yet—

—he kissed you anyway. 

Because you knew: that you were just his and he was just yours.

can you please do some angst anything, like a one shot or just something, my heart hurts

Had been a while since I did a request, sorry I only just saw this bebe. Here ya go.

Bakugo has always had the prettiest eyes. Crimson orbs that some would find intimidating but to you, it looks like rubies that you can spend hours staring in awe at. They're fairly expressive too. What his mouth can't ever say, those damn eyes express.

That was why you can tell it's real.

He's happy. Really happy.

You couldn’t take your eyes off him as he talks animatedly on the phone. A small smirk tugging the corners of his plump lips. "Shut up, idiot." You hear him say, shaking his head. "I gotta go, Y/n is waiting- So stop bothering me already." But you know from his tone and the way he's smiling to himself that he doesn't mean it.

And then, you hear him say, "Yeah, yeah. I love you, too." His voice bleeding of sincerity and adoration that you had to look away. You scoff to yourself, a wry laugh escaping you as you train your eyes on the logo on the steering wheel. Doing, trying anything, to keep your mind off the ache growing in your chest.

You hear the car door open and you plaster a smile up at him. He mutters his quick apology as he straps in. "Thought you'll never hang up. Simp." You say teasingly, covering up for any trace of the hurt you're feeling inside. A chuckle escapes you when he playfully punches your arm. "I'm no fuckin' simp, shithead!" Bakugo says, laughing a little. "Step on it, we're going to be late."

You rub the spot on your arm that he hit. Not because it hurts but to ground yourself. That this is all you'll ever be. The buddy. The best friend he banters and playfights with, the sidekick he always choses to work with.

Nothing more, nothing less.

It didn’t help that your assignment tonight is surveillance. You don't think you could bear all the hours ahead with him. Knowing Bakugo, he'd probably start talking about her. After all, you had just gotten back from a mission with Todoroki. And usually, once you got back home, Bakugo would be telling you all about the things that happened to him. It had been that way for years. Something you looked forward to. Or at least, you used to.

You already know the things he'd tell you tonight, and you already know he's about to completely break your heart.

Bakugo notes the activity of the suspect you two had been watching from the building across the rooftop you two had set up on, while you softly mutter the details on the communication device in your hand, feeding the information to your police partners. When the person under investigation head to bed, you two relaxed a little.

"Hey, so you must’ve heard." Bakugo starts as you stretch your neck. Oh no, here we go. You blinked and put on the smile you've been rehearsing since you have taken the plane ride back home. "Yeah, it’s on every tabloid." The forced laugh you let out even had you impressed. "You're back together. Again. Woohoo. Big surprise." You say monotonously.

"Yeah. Fuckin' paparazzi won't leave us alone." Bakugo rolls his eyes. He stretches too, mimicking you as you roll your shoulders and crack your knuckles. "It just happened." He then says. You swallow hard, not really wanting to hear more.

"You know that charity shit we were supposed to attend together?" He asks and you nod numbly. Of course, you do. You were so excited that Bakugo asked you to accompany him to this charity ball as his date. You both even planned to match  outfits like how stupid kids would want to do with their best friends.

"Yeah, well, she came that night and she happened to be seated at our table."  He says it like he still couldnt believe his luck, stupid beautiful smile adorning his face. He then went on to say how she had moved to your vacant seat so he can have someone to talk to in the event filled with A-list celebrities and government officials he had no fucking interest in mingling with. "We got to talking and next thing I knew, we were the only ones left in the fucking ball." He laughs.

Normally, you adore this ugly laugh of his. And normally, you would have scold him for being loud and potentially giving away your position. If only your heart wasnt breaking into billions of tiny pieces in your chest.

"Wow," you roll your eyes and looked away, the fake smile you had on your face faltering. "Glad to hear you had way more fun without me." You say, laying the sarcasm thick. You hadnt meant to but you tremble, a soft sob almost escapes you.

Bakugo frowns and shrugged his jacket off, thinking you were just cold. He puts it over your shoulders and when you just stared at him, he takes your arms and puts it through the sleeves. Bakugo zips it up to the collar and puts the hood over your head, even pulling your hair free before smoothening it around your face. It’s his fucking actions like this that had you hoping. Had you thinking that maybe, just maybe, there's something there.

You look up him, thinking, why couldn’t it be me? Could it have been me if I were there with you that night?

"Y/n." Bakugo frowns as he says your name so uncharacteristically soft. You then notice the worry that paints his features as he slowly reaches to wipe your cheek. Bakugo's frown deepens when new ones replace the tear he had just wiped away.

A wave of panic rises in your chest as you replace his hands with your own, harshly wiping your tear steaked face.

"Shit, sorry." You force a laugh. "The fucking wind is too strong up here." You reasoned but you are not fooling him. "I'm gonna go in first, you take first watch." You got up, making a beeline for the door but a strong grip around your wrist stops you.

"Y/N, look at me." Bakugo says, his voice so low you barely heard it. He calls your name again but you still didn’t turn. Your face crumples and more tears flood your eyes.

Taking a deep staggering breath, you wiped your cheeks with your free hand and cleared your throat. "Bakugo, please. I'm tired." You tried to tug free again but he kept his vice grip on you.

He pulls you and made you face him. You can see Bakugo was breathing a little heavily too. "Y/n, is there something we should talk about?" He tries to meet your gaze but you kept your eyes on the ground. Bakugo asks again but you clench your jaw and shook your head stubbornly. "No, there is nothing to talk about."

Bakugo was getting frustrated you could tell. Still, he takes a deep breath and held your face with his other hand, asking, "Then what's wrong? Damn it, tell me." 

Everything, You think to yourself.

You're the one whose been there for him all this time. And it took one night for him to fall in love with her all over again.

You want to be happy for him because you can tell that he's truly happy. But you just can’t.

You love him but he loves someone else.

You know he loves you, but never the way you love him.

Everything is fucking wrong but there's nothing you can do about it so instead you say stubbornly, "Nothing."

To your surprise though, he grabs your shoulders and shook you. "What the hell is wrong with you, then? Why won't you fucking tell me??"

"Nothing. Is. Wrong."  You articulate, shrugging from his hold to take your seat back by the ledge. But he grabs hold of you again, this time catching your hand.

"Stop it." Bakugo grits his teeth. "I know something is wrong. I know you." He says and his eyes widened when you let out a bitter laugh.

"No, you don't." you deride, shaking your head.

"Bullshit! Of course, I fucking do!!" He yells at you. "We've been friends for years!!"

You glower back at him, feeling the stupid tears stinging at your eyes again and your breathing get shallow. "Some friend you are then!" You yell back. Bakugo grimaces, looking at you like he's never been so offended before in his life. He was actually fucking hurt.

"You don't know shit about me, Katsuki." You jab a finger at his chest. "You don't even fucking care about me enough to actually get to know me! You only keep me around because I standby you through everything!" Bakugo staggers a step back when you pushed him with all your might, tears endlessly streaming down your face and neck.

"God, if only you'd have really taken a close look, gave me even a shard of your fucking attention," you whimper, your hands balling into fists against his shirt. "Then you would have known," you feel like youre losing your strength, like your knees could give out underneath you, "that I stayed by your side all these years because, b-because,"

Bakugo swallows hard, his hands circling your wrists. Deep down he sorta knew but he was just denying it to himself. Because he knows he could never reciprocate your feelings.

Please don't fucking say it..

But you do,

"I am in love with you."

A gush of relief floods you, finally having said it after all this years. You closed your eyes so you wouldn't see his reaction. His silence and his hold slipping off of you were enough.

"Y/n, I-"

Bakugo didn't know what to say. His hand is twitching because he wanted to reach out and hold you but he doubts that that is a good idea right now.

"I'm sorry-" he starts, warily trying to reach for your hand again but you shake your head and slipped your hands in the pockets of your jacket. His jacket.

"Me too." You cut him off. "I.. can't be friends with you anymore." Your voice breaks as you admit the sad truth. Bakugo's eyes widened. You can't mean that, right? But the lifelessness of your voice made Bakugo's heart clench. You take a deep breath and bore your gaze to the ground.

You just ruined your friendship. But you guess that's good. You'll finally have a reason to not be by his side all the time anymore and endure the pain of this unrequited love you've had for him for years.

"Y/n-" he tries again. It’s the only thing he could do. Try. Because you're slipping away and he doesn't want you gone. But you scorn away when he tries to reach for you again.

"I cant," you whimper, "I'm sorry."

The days that followed consisted of you taking in other assignments that lead you to work with someone else. Whenever you'd bump into Bakugo, you'd keep your eyes trained ahead while Bakugo couldn't help but stare and long to talk to you again. But he lets you be, thinking, well, hoping that you just needed time. That one day you two will be alright again. Because fucking hell, it's only been days and he misses you so damn much already.

He realizes how present you were in his life. Realizes how badly he took you for granted. Realizes that every morning he wakes up, it’s your texts he first checks. Realizes that with even the smallest inconvenience, it's you he wanted to call and vent out to. Realizes you're that one person he can say anything to, things he couldn't tell even his own damn girlfriend.

Because you were his person. That one person who always listened without judgement and takes him as he is.

Because you got his back no matter what.

Because you.. loved him.

Fuck.

Bakugo throws his arm over his eyes as he feels that pang of longing and regret. He finds himself jumping out of bed. It was supposedly his day off but he comes to the office running.

But when he reaches your desk, you were nowhere in sight.

And on his desk, was your resignation letter.

Heres a silly little poem!

You love them, You want them, but you could never reach them.

Will you still love them after their face is no longer obscured?

Will you still want them after the filter that once sheltered the laughable features is absent?

Honesty is always present, favorable or not.

It is always there, waiting for the moment to obstruct them.

i wish to kiss you

in places the sunlight from the window doesn't reach

at the wrong moment to breach

on the dented mattress and pillow

in the heart you will never let me know.

- reddestofscarves, 10:23pm on febuary 8, 2024

She tastes like the metallic burn of blood.

She smells like the pop of wood as the fire consumes it.

She feels like the static that clings to your clothes.

She looks like lightning as it cracks the sky.

And he fancies himself Zeus.

Devotion

I wonder if anyone has studied me in the ways I’ve studied you,

Faithfully cataloging every habit and hobby and quirk,

Because to be known is to be loved, and how i love you,

The great loves of my life, my sisters, friends, and not quite lovers,

I wish to cradle you close, in the palm of my hand.

Every act of creation is done with you in mind,

A gift, made with the hope of being treasured by you,

To make you understand the depths of my love,

I try to cry out, “see, see how i know you! See how i love you!”

But speaking the words is a difficult task that leaves me vulnerable,

To a rejection i couldn’t face if you didn’t know or understand,

The depths of my love.

So i’ll choke on the blooms of my love for all of you,

The great loves of my life, become part of me,

In lilies and peonies and lavender, crawling up my lungs,

And i would gladly die, just for the thought of having given you,

The hope, the feeling, or even the faintest notion,

That you were loved.

Do you dislike me?

Is the question that won’t stop pervading my heart. My senses. My rationality. Slowly disintegrating my internal defenses.

Stoic. That’s what I used to think I was. But I don’t know how I can appear that way. Whenever my gaze settles on you, I can feel all sense of logic start to decay.

I might seem like a pervert, But I’ve been looking at you. No matter how many times I try to find fault, I end up falling deeper – what a fool.

I don’t have time for a relationship.

There’s so many, too many Barriers in the way. But my thoughts of you, of us, They seem to hold far too much sway.

You’re so out of my league, But still, my delusional mind, Can’t help but imagine what it’d be like To have our fingers intertwined.

You and I can’t manage. Won’t manage. We won’t have any time.

What am I saying? Why do I assume you’ll say ‘yes?’ It’s unreciprocated, where I know you are for whom I pine.

I’m hanging on your every word. And I know this isn’t great or healthy. But I keep thinking about you, And it turns my legs into jelly.

After a year of thinking, Of squirming, All this aching and burning. I’m finally readily admitting.

I’m absolutely smitten with you.

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Very interesting topic, would 100% recommend having conversations about it

does anyone know about the yearning & the wanting

I think it's so much worse this time because for the first time, I had someone. I had someone who I wanted to tell everything and do everything with anf it was reciprocated... For a bit.

But now, that's gone, but it feels like a new and beautiful path to happiness was unlocked and I got to see it and experience how wonderful it was, but now its gone. And even though it hurt so bad most of the time that good times were euphoric.

Nothing can compare to it now. So everything feels hollow and empty.

And I can't get it back because there is not a single soul on this god forsaken earth that would ever want me. Even the one who claimed to like all my odd habits left me and hasn't looked back once or regretted it.

I was just that easy to leave apparently.

But now I wish for a type of love that I will never have because who could ever love me? I sit here aching and so so empty.

I think it might've been better to never love at all. To not have any of these memories of a happiness I'll never have again.

I think it would hurt a lot less that way.

Because I know I gave it everything. It consumed my whole heart and soul and I had so much love to give because finally someone chose me! But now that love has nowhere to go because I got left out of nowhere like there was never a reason to stay.

So now I sit with all that love that I never got to give and it eats me alive. It feels like poison. The empty ache never leaves and when I finally make one step of progress I get sent right back again. And then suddenly there's more poison. Because my hope still hasn't gone away. It stupid and oh so painful but I still hope with my whole heart that I'd be enough to come back for, but I keep getting hurt time and time again.

And I can't stop myself. I go back willingly the second you show interest in me. Because my pride is already gone. My mind is already a mess, you can't possibly ruin it more than you already have.

I have nothing to lose and everything to gain, but everytime that I do gain something, I lose it right away. And I face pain all over again because I never thought that the world could be that cruel. I didn't think I would lose my only lifeline once again, but I should've learned by now.

No one was ever going to save me. They're just going to watch me flail and struggle as I try to find even the most insignificant reason to live. And then they cruely yank it away from me.

I can't keep going like this.

It would be easier just to drown.

I need him but he doesn't even want me.

Tw: suicidal idealation, sh, sui

Nobody noticed when I stopped including myself in the photos. When I stopped trying to stand out in the group. They didn't notice that I started to fade into the background more and more. It was like I wasn't even there.

Every time I've cried it's been alone. Not once has someone helped me through a panic attack. There is no one here who will help me. I am alone. Why won't anybody help me? I've done everything that I can to save them.

I can't seem to let them go though. Especially the one who hurts me the most. Because even though he makes me feel like I don't matter and am just annoying, he's the only one who really makes me happy. So when he is nice to me my heart is so happy even though I know it won't last and that he'll be back to acting too good for me soon.

But he just doesn't get it. When I message you something random, that's my desperate cry for a distraction. I need help, but he pops in and out of the conversation and then I know that I mean nothing to the person who is my world. And then I cry. I cry until I can't breath because I need him but he doesn't even want me.

Nobody wants me.

I'm so tired. I can't keep going like this. I need someone to love. Someone to give me something to live for. But I don't have that.

So I live only because I have failed to die. I don't take the pills because I can't move my body. I just stare at the wall and feel the tears fall. I give myself drawings made of scars because I don't deserve to have something pretty without pain.

Maybe someday soon I'll finally get the courage.

Unrequited Love: Bokuto

The stadium lights burned like stars overhead, casting long shadows across the polished court. The roar of the crowd swelled in waves, a living, breathing force that surged and broke against the walls of the arena. Bokuto Koutarou stood still in the center of it all, his heartbeat syncing with the rhythmic beat of the game.

This was home. It always had been.

He bounced on his heels, palms slapping softly against his thighs, golden eyes flicking up and over the rows of fans packed into the stands. He always did this before a game—scanning. Searching.

Hoping.

You came to one of my games in college once. Said you wanted to support me even if you didn’t know all the rules. You sat in the front row with snacks and one of those handmade signs, grinning like it was the best thing you’d ever done. You were so proud of me. I couldn't stop staring.

It wasn't until the second set that he saw you.

Not in the front row this time. A little higher up, tucked into a row of seats that caught the golden light just right. You looked the same. Soft expression. That familiar warmth that never failed to center him, no matter how chaotic the world got.

But this time, you weren’t alone.

Your fingers were laced with someone else's—a man with kind eyes, a relaxed smile, and a wedding band that mirrored the one glinting faintly on your hand.

Something in Bokuto's chest twisted. An old, familiar ache he had kept buried deep down beneath years of laughter, late-night texts, and every moment you sat beside him without ever realizing what he wanted to say.

But his body knew what to do. The ball was set, high and perfect, and he soared to meet it. Muscles coiled, arms arched, and then—the strike. The ball slammed to the floor on the opposing side like thunder cracking through silence. The crowd erupted.

He didn't hear any of it.

We used to sit on the school rooftop and eat lunch together. I’d talk about volleyball like it was a religion. You’d talk about music, books, strange little thoughts that made no sense but always made me laugh. I think I fell for you the first time you passed me a rice ball and told me to stop overthinking my spikes.

He never told you.

Not once.

There had been chances—so many chances. Late-night calls that lasted too long. Moments when your eyes lingered. When your laughter felt like something he wanted to wrap both hands around and never let go.

But the words never made it past his throat.

He told himself he had time. That he didn’t want to ruin the beautiful, easy thing you had. That being near you was enough.

And now, watching you from across the arena, smiling at someone else the way he used to dream you’d smile at him, Bokuto felt the weight of every second he’d spent silent.

As long as you’re watching, I’m happy.

That’s what he told himself. And maybe, on some level, it was still true. Because you were watching. Eyes bright, expression soft, hands clapping politely after every point. You were here.

You came.

Just not for him.

Even so, he glanced up again, caught one more glimpse of you laughing at something your husband whispered in your ear. His chest ached, but his lips pulled into a quiet smile.

Because even if your heart belonged to someone else, even if he was just a fond memory in a long list of friendships—

He would still play his heart out.

Because if you’re watching, then that means some part of you still remembers. Still cares.

And maybe that was enough.

He wiped sweat from his brow, steadied his breath, and returned to the service line.

Eyes on the ball.

But just for a second longer, heart still caught in the stands—

Watching you.

Unrequited Love: Kenma

Kenma Kozume had never been good with change.

He liked things predictable. Safe. Video games had taught him that if he kept his strategy consistent, if he memorized the patterns and played smart, he could survive anything. Life was just another game to him—one where he preferred to stay in the background, keep things stable, and avoid unnecessary risks.

But nothing about this felt stable. Nothing about this felt safe.

Because you were leaving.

Kenma sat on the floor of your apartment, legs crossed, a cardboard box in his lap. Around him, the room looked smaller than it used to, packed with boxes stacked high, shelves stripped of their usual clutter. The air smelled like old books, packing tape, and a faint trace of your perfume, and for the first time since he had known you, your space didn’t feel like home anymore.

Maybe because it wasn’t. Not for much longer.

You had been a part of his life for so long that he barely remembered what it was like before you. Since childhood, you had been there—first as a quiet presence at his side in elementary school, then as the only person who could sit with him for hours, gaming in comfortable silence. You never questioned the way he was, never pushed him to be anything other than himself. And as the years passed, you became his constant, his safe place, his person.

And now, you were leaving.

“So, you’re really going, huh?” His voice was quiet, neutral, but even he could hear the strain in it.

You looked up from where you were sorting through a pile of miscellaneous things—old letters, tangled earbuds, random trinkets you had shoved into drawers over the years. You smiled, but it was the kind that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “Yeah. It’s happening.”

Kenma’s fingers curled around the edges of the box. He had known about this for weeks now, ever since you told him about the job opportunity in another city. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He had told himself it wouldn’t change anything. That you would still text him, call him, visit when you could.

But now, with everything packed up and your walls bare, the reality of it all settled like a weight in his chest.

He had never thought about a life where you weren’t here. Where he couldn’t just send a message and have you show up at his door an hour later with takeout, where you weren’t sitting beside him on his couch, watching him play through whatever new game he was obsessed with that week. Where you weren’t just…

Here.

You sighed and flopped onto your back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m kind of freaking out,” you admitted, voice light, almost playful. “New place, new people, new job. It’s exciting, but also terrifying.”

Kenma swallowed. He should say something. Something encouraging, something that made it sound like he was happy for you, like he wasn’t falling apart inside.

“You’ll be fine.”

You turned your head to look at him, and for a second, he thought you could see right through him. That you could tell he was barely keeping it together. But then you smiled—soft, familiar, warm.

“Thanks, Ken.”

He nodded, looking away. He focused on the box in his lap, on the way his hands clenched the cardboard just a little too tightly.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He had never needed to say anything before. He thought you just knew—that you had always known. That there was no rush, no deadline, no moment where he would run out of time. Because you were always here.

But now, you weren’t going to be.

And Kenma realized, too late, that he had never even given himself a chance.

The packing took hours, and Kenma stayed through all of it. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to be, and he didn’t want to be anywhere else, anyway. He helped you sort through things, separate what you were keeping from what you were leaving behind. Every item had a story, a memory attached to it. The hoodie he had lent you once and never got back. The game controller he had bought for you so you could play co-op with him. The tiny cat figurine you had won at a festival and insisted looked just like him.

All these little things that made up you.

All these little things that reminded him of what he was losing.

He wasn’t good with words. He never had been. He wasn’t like Kuroo, who could charm his way through anything, or Bokuto, who could wear his heart on his sleeve without fear. Kenma had always been quiet, reserved, hesitant. But when it came to you, his feelings were loud, screaming inside him, demanding to be acknowledged.

But he had never said anything.

Because what if he did, and you left anyway? What if it changed everything? What if losing you as a friend hurt worse than losing you to distance?

“You should take this,” you said at one point, holding out an old, well-loved game case. “We never finished it together.”

Kenma stared at it, then at you. “Then take it with you.”

“I don’t have my console anymore. Sold it.” You grinned sheepishly. “New city, new start.”

His grip tightened on the game. He didn’t like that answer. He didn’t like any of this. He had never been an emotional person, but right now, something bitter sat at the back of his throat, something wrong.

You were leaving. You were letting go of all these things, of this life, of him—and you were acting like it was just something that had to happen.

Kenma had spent years convinced he had all the time in the world. But time was up. And for the first time, he didn’t know what to do about it.

It was late by the time everything was packed. The apartment looked empty now, stripped of everything that made it yours. You stretched, yawning, then turned to him with an expression that was far too casual for what this moment felt like.

“This is it, huh?” You nudged his arm lightly. “One last night before I go.”

Kenma’s stomach twisted. He forced himself to nod. “Yeah.”

“Hey.” You tilted your head, watching him. “Are you okay?”

No. No, he wasn’t. Because this wasn’t fair. Because he should have said something sooner. Because he didn’t know how to deal with the fact that tomorrow, you wouldn’t be here anymore.

“Yeah.”

You frowned, unconvinced, but you let it go. Instead, you stepped closer, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug. Kenma stiffened for a moment, caught off guard, before his body reacted on instinct, arms lifting to hold you back just as tightly.

“I’m gonna miss you, Ken.”

The words hit him harder than he expected. He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, trying to memorize this—the feel of your arms around him, the warmth of you against his chest, the way your head fit perfectly against his shoulder. Trying to ignore the aching thought that this might be the last time.

He wanted to say don’t go. Wanted to tell you to stay, that you didn’t have to leave, that he—

But he didn’t.

Instead, he whispered, “Me too.”

And he held on for as long as he could.

Unrequited Love: Atsumu

Atsumu Miya has experienced a lot of victories in his life.

Winning nationals in high school, standing on a podium with a gold medal around his neck, putting on his MSBY Jackals uniform for the first time—all those moments were huge. Defining. Things he’d worked his whole life to achieve.

But none of them compare to this.

None of them feel like the world just tilted sideways, like something fundamental in his chest just snapped into place.

All because of you.

But before that happens, he’s just living his normal life—coming off a grueling practice, shoulders aching, hair still damp from the shower he took before leaving the stadium. It’s not unusual for him to swing by your place. He’s been doing it since you were kids, long before volleyball was more than a game he played with Osamu in the backyard.

Back when you were there to keep him and his twin from going at each other’s throats.

He still remembers it so clearly—one of their first real fights, barely more than kids, fighting over a volleyball like it belonged to one of them more than the other. He doesn’t even remember what was said, just that he and Osamu were practically nose to nose, hands gripping at the ball like it was life or death.

And then, you appeared. Huffing, exasperated, already tired of their nonsense even at that age. You didn’t yell at them, didn’t try to make them share.

No, you just showed up with a second ball and tossed it right between them.

“There,” you said, hands on your hips, watching them with that unimpressed look you still give him when he’s being stupid. “Now you both have one. Can we play now?”

It was such a simple thing, but from that moment on, Atsumu couldn’t imagine life without you in it.

Through middle school, high school, and even now, with Osamu off running his shop instead of playing, you’re still here.

So he doesn’t hesitate to knock on your door, doesn’t even think twice about it. He’s just tired—wants a break from the noise of his own place, maybe some food if you’ve got anything lying around. You always let him crash, let him just be without the weight of being a pro athlete pressing down on him.

But the second the door swings open, everything changes.

Because you’re standing there, looking at him like this is just any other visit, wearing his jersey.

His mind shuts down completely.

The MSBY Jackals jersey. His number printed on the back. His last name stitched across your shoulders.

And worse? You're a mess. Hair disheveled like you just rolled out of bed, mismatched socks pulled halfway to your shins with a pair of his old shorts—ones he barely remembers giving you, but you always claimed were comfier than your own clothes. The jersey is oversized on you, hanging loose around your frame, the sleeves slipping past your shoulders.

It shouldn’t make his stomach flip like this. Shouldn’t make his chest tighten, heat rushing up the back of his neck like he’s some dumb teenager who’s never talked to a girl before.

But it does.

He stares. Blinks. Forgets how to function.

"Is that—" His voice cracks like a loser, and he clears his throat, trying to play it cool. "Is that my jersey?"

You blink at him, then glance down, pulling at the fabric as if you just noticed what you’re wearing.

“Oh.” You inspect it briefly before shrugging. “Yeah, it is. I got it after your first game. I had to have your number.”

Atsumu feels like he just got hit with a full-speed serve to the chest. You had to have his number?

Like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t mean anything.

And that somehow makes it worse.

Atsumu short-circuits.

Because you mean it. And you don’t even realize what it’s doing to him.

His brain is stuck on a loop.

You didn’t even realize it was his. You put it on without thinking. You’ve been wearing his number all day, and it wasn’t a big deal to you. But it is to him.

His ears burn. His entire face burns. His heart is pounding in his chest, so loud he swears you can hear it.

You frown, tilting your head. "Tsumu? You okay?"

No. No, he is not.

Because suddenly, he gets it.

This feeling in his chest, this weird tightness, this warmth that’s always been there but never quite like this—it’s been building for years, hasn’t it? And he never noticed.

But now, staring at you in his jersey, standing in his doorway, looking at him like you always have, like you belong here—

It finally clicks.

And it wrecks him.

His mouth opens, then closes. He should say something. He should say anything. But what the hell is he supposed to say? That seeing you in his jersey makes his entire body feel like it’s overheating? That the thought of you buying it because you wanted his number is making his brain malfunction? That he suddenly doesn’t know how he’s supposed to just go back to normal after this?

He swallows thickly. His hands clench at his sides before he forces himself to shove them into his pockets. "Yeah. I—uh—guess it looks good on ya. Or whatever."

You give him a look like you don’t believe him. Like you know something’s off. And he knows you—knows you’re about to press, about to dig in and make him talk about this sudden identity crisis he’s having.

Which means he needs to stop you.

"Anyway," he blurts out, pushing past you and into the apartment like nothing just happened. "Ya got anything to eat? I’m starvin’."

You let it slide, just like you always do, shaking your head as you close the door behind him.

But Atsumu?

He knows he’s never letting this go.

Because this isn’t just some passing thought, not some weird, fleeting moment of confusion.

This is real. This is big.

And for the first time in his life, Atsumu Miya is terrified.

Worse? He thinks he might like it.

And that might just be the scariest part of all.

Unrequited Love: Oikawa (Bonus)

The team was loud, as always.

Oikawa, now freshly showered and looking somewhat like himself again, was in the middle of being teased by Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

“So, Captain, let’s talk about your tragic love life,” Matsukawa said, slinging an arm around Oikawa’s shoulders.

Hanamaki took a dramatic sip of his drink. “Yeah, we all knew she was gonna break up with you before you did. What does that say about you, huh?”

“Shut up,” Oikawa groaned, smacking Matsukawa’s arm off him, though there was no real heat behind it. You could see his mood rising with every passing moment.

“Hey, at least you still have volleyball,” Matsukawa said, raising his glass like he was making a toast.

“Right, the one true love of your life,” Hanamaki added with a smirk.

Oikawa sighed dramatically. “You guys are the worst.”

You watched from the side, letting their banter wash over you. The ache from earlier was still there, a dull weight in your chest, but at least Oikawa wasn’t sulking anymore. That was the important thing.

A presence appeared beside you, and you didn’t even have to look to know it was Hajime.

“I’m impressed,” he admitted, crossing his arms as he watched Oikawa shove Hanamaki. “I tried to get him out of bed earlier, but he wouldn’t budge.”

You smirked, nudging him lightly with your elbow. “That’s because you don’t know how to sweet-talk him, Hajime.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. If I tried sweet-talking Oikawa, I’d never hear the end of it.”

You snickered. “Yeah, he’d probably take that as an invitation to propose.”

Hajime shook his head, amused, before glancing at you, his expression shifting into something more knowing. “So,” he said casually, “are you going to make a move, or are we just going to keep going in circles?”

You exhaled sharply, running a hand through your hair. “Please, you should’ve seen what he told me earlier.”

Hajime raised an eyebrow.

You turned to him, pressing a hand to your chest mockingly, and sighed dramatically. “He looked me in the eye, Hajime. And do you know what he said?”

Hajime waited.

“You’re a good friend,” you deadpanned, voice dripping with bitterness.

Hajime winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah.” You let out a short laugh, shaking your head. “So, no, I’m not making a move. Not when he clearly doesn’t see me that way.”

Hajime was quiet for a moment before shrugging. “You never know. He’s an idiot. You might have to spell it out for him.”

You huffed, watching as Oikawa dramatically whined about something to the others. “Yeah, well… I think I’ve done enough for one night.” Then you hear a whine of your name. You look over to Oikawa's pleading face along with Matsun's and Makki's devious ones.

“You promised me they would give me a break!” Oikawa suddenly called out, his voice carrying over the chatter of the team. His eyes locked onto yours, pleading dramatically, though the glint of betrayal was exaggerated.

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t suppress a smirk. “C’mon, guys, give him some slack,” you called, raising your hands in surrender.

Hanamaki gasped in mock offense. “Oh, so now you’re defending him?”

“She’s going soft,” Matsukawa said, shaking his head.

“I am not going soft,” you shot back, narrowing your eyes.

Hajime, beside you, smirked before stepping forward. “Actually, now that I think about it… didn’t Oikawa almost cry in first-year when he lost his favorite knee pads?”

Oikawa whipped around. “Iwa-chan.”

“Oh, right!” Hanamaki’s eyes lit up. “The ones with the little stars on them?”

“You guys swore to take that to the grave!” Oikawa cried, scandalized.

“I don’t know, man,” Matsukawa said, leaning back with a grin. “Kind of sounds like a moment that deserves to be remembered.”

As the teasing escalated, Oikawa slumped in his seat, arms crossed, pouting like a child. “I hate all of you.”

You laughed at the whole exchange, and when you glanced back at Oikawa, expecting him to still be sulking, you caught something different—something small, almost imperceptible.

He was smiling.

It was barely there, just a slight tug at the corners of his lips, but it was real. And for a brief moment, as his gaze lifted, he met your eyes.

The world around you blurred, and warmth spread through your chest. You swore you felt your heart stutter, just for a second.

And then, as quickly as the moment had happened, you cursed yourself for it.

Get a grip, you scolded yourself, tearing your gaze away.

Oikawa was still laughing with the others, completely unaware of the effect he had on you.

You exhaled, shaking your head, willing the butterflies away.

Hajime, still standing beside you, didn’t say anything, but when you glanced at him, he was looking at you with a knowing expression.

“Not a word,” you muttered.

He smirked. “Didn’t say anything.”

You groaned, shoving his shoulder, but he only chuckled in response.

Unrequited Love: Oikawa

You’d known Oikawa for as long as you could remember. From messy sandbox battles to after-school practices that went late into the evening, he’d always been there—your first friend, your longest friend. The three of you—Oikawa, Iwaizumi, and you—had always been a unit, bound by years of shared childhood, inside jokes, and more than a few arguments.

But right now? Right now, Oikawa was testing every ounce of your patience.

“Hajime said you’ve been holed up in here for hours,” you said as you shoved open his bedroom door without knocking. “What’s your excuse this time?”

Oikawa groaned from the depths of his bed, a mess of blankets and pillows hiding all but the top of his ruffled hair. His room was a disaster zone: clothes scattered everywhere, an abandoned volleyball rolling lazily near the desk, and the faint smell of coffee from the cup Hajime must’ve left here earlier.

“Go away,” Oikawa muttered, voice muffled by his pillow.

“No,” you said firmly, kicking the door shut behind you. “I’m not letting you sulk forever. What happened?”

He rolled onto his back, his face pale and his eyes a little red. “She broke up with me,” he muttered, his voice cracking just enough to make you wince. “She said I was too focused on volleyball. That I didn’t care enough about her.”

Your heart squeezed. You’d seen the writing on the wall. Oikawa was intense about volleyball—obsessed, really. It was one of the things you admired about him, even when it frustrated you. But it was hard to hear him like this, even harder to know that he’d never think about you the way he thought about her.

You crossed your arms, steeling yourself. “Well, she’s not wrong,” you said, your tone blunt. “You’ve got a one-track mind, Tooru. Volleyball this, volleyball that. What did you think would happen?”

His face scrunched up in annoyance, and he reached out to grab a pillow, lobbing it weakly in your direction. “Gee, thanks for the support.”

You dodged it easily, smiling despite yourself. “I’m serious, Tooru. You’ve got to figure this out, or you’re going to keep pushing people away.”

He groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. “You sound like Iwa-chan.”

“Maybe that’s because Hajime and I are the only ones stubborn enough to stick around while you throw yourself headfirst into everything,” you shot back, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Do you even realize how much we’ve put up with over the years?”

He peeked at you from under his arm, a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You guys are too stubborn to leave me.”

“Damn right we are,” you said, reaching out to flick his forehead. “But don’t push your luck.”

Silence fell between you, the tension lifting slightly. You leaned back, resting on your hands as you studied him. His hair was a mess, his shirt wrinkled, and he looked younger somehow, like the kid you used to climb trees with instead of the volleyball star he was now.

“Come on,” you said eventually, standing up and brushing imaginary dust off your pants. “The team’s going out. You can’t stay in here forever.”

“I don’t feel like it,” he muttered, sitting up slowly.

“Tough.” You grabbed his wrist and tugged, ignoring his protests. “Go shower, change, and join us. I’ll wait in the living room to make sure you don’t crawl back into bed.”

He sighed, dragging his feet as he shuffled toward his dresser. “You’re so bossy.”

“And you’re so whiny,” you shot back, grinning. “Go!”

Just as you turned to leave, his voice stopped you.

“Hey.”

You glanced back, raising an eyebrow. He stood there, clothes in hand, his expression softer than usual.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice quieter now. “You’re a good friend.”

The words hit harder than they should have, settling like a stone in your chest. But you forced a smile, pushing the ache down where it belonged.

“Of course,” you replied, your voice steady.

You closed the door behind you, leaning against it for just a moment.

Being his friend was enough, you told yourself.

It had to be.

There is nothing more painful in this world than to be in love with something that can never be.

-Laura Chouette