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renegade-skywalker · 1 month

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Let Me Count the Ways

Summary:

Days after Moonrise, Merit and Gale recount their first meeting, inevitably describing all the ways in which they love each other, Faerûn be damned. (Set post Act 2, pre-Act 3)

Word Count: 5,025 Rating: E

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Her body ached one and all.

Each of Merit’s limbs carried the weight of the centuries’ old ache they now left behind, the ruins of Moonrise fast becoming a distant memory. If they squinted, the shadow curse was lifting in their steady wake, the hills a touch less sunstarved even from their growing distance as they trudged onward to Baldur’s Gate. Merit was lighter for the sight of it, her heart far less heavy than it had been. But for reasons other than their most recent victory.

It was no wonder she was still wide awake, her limbs now blind to their own exhaustion, her very being a live wire as she finally retired for the evening after taking a much-needed dip in a nearby waterfall with the rest of their merry band. It was more than just the cool of the water and the decidedly viscera-less nature of her now-clean skin, smelling faintly of sweet mint since it was the only herb they could find on the road. The mint brightened her senses, yes, but it was being in Gale’s presence, alone again, much more so.

“Believe it or not,” Gale gasped between kissing her, taking his time each moment their lips met, his hand weaving itself through her hair and pulling her towards him by the small of her back with the other. “I may actually need to breathe.”

Merit smiled against his mouth, not listening.

“No you don’t,” she whispered into yet another kiss, relishing in the way his body arched towards hers, their limbs entwining above the thin sliver of bedroll beneath them. “Not yet anyway.”

As soon as Gale had clasped his tent shut, he and Merit were on each other, hands grasping, breathless, as they collapsed atop his unmade bedroll in the approaching night. And Merit had no intention of stopping just yet. Gale hummed into their next kiss, acquiescing to Merit’s insistent urge to keep her mouth on his.

It was a weak argument, she knew, and one made with the express intention of simply saying something to break the otherwise breathful silence. With a careful hand, Gale angled her head just-so against his as he drank her in, more deeply this time and as if he may never let go. A pleasant chill coursed through her at his closeness and at his lip’s silent behest, affection mounting within Merit tenfold in a way that she almost didn’t know what to do with. She sighed in its shadow, whimpering against Gale’s mouth as she let the feeling wash over her - an overwhelming, all-encompassing warmth that made her shiver welcomingly, the feeling leaving her utterly breathless yet hungry for more.

Gale sighed against her as he slowed the kiss, his hand burying itself more deeply in her hair as his lips unhurriedly met hers again and again, his every caress sweeter than the last, his tongue gently tracing Merit’s in a way that made her mouth water and her limbs magnetize even more-so to his, another whimper escaping unwittingly from the depths of her throat.

No one had ever kissed her like this, held her like this. The insurmountable need to be close to him, to feel him, to taste him, matched with her unfathomable affection for him was something Merit had never quite felt before either, her every moment with Gale both a blessing as much as it was a constant discovery, new layers of love emerging within her by the minute that each felt so utterly different from the last that she was amazed they didn’t each have their own unique names.

Gale slowed their kiss to an eventual halt, every moment of its deceleration saccharine and filled with endless want. He pulled away, his lips brushing against hers, his half-lidded eyes flickering down towards the plush of her mouth before eventually meeting Merit’s gaze, nuzzling his nose against hers.

“I already so often forget to breathe in your presence,” he admitted, his voice a half-whisper. The fingers on the hand he had buried in her hair absently raked at her scalp, his grazing gentle but yearning, wanting her closer somehow even though they were already pressed together. “But without you, I don’t think I could breathe at all.”

Merit felt Gale’s heart race in his chest as her hands braced the base of his shoulders, and in that moment she knew just where all of Gale’s poetry came from. Much like her own writing, his words tumbled off his tongue as if possessed, his very heart poetic and his mouth merely the messenger. She soaked in his expression, then, and the feeling of him against her, almost in disbelief that this man had any aspirations to whole-heartedly sacrifice himself only days prior, for the light that glittered within his gaze now shone bright and quiet eternal. She knew why he’d thought it necessary, and while his commitment had been commendable if not for the sake of all the realm as he was told, Merit was glad now for the rekindled craving for life that coursed through Gale now.

All she could do was kiss him once more. Close-mouthed at first, sighing, pressing him to her as if she never wanted them to part hence. Which was true. But when she kissed him again, soft and slow but starved and aching, Merit parted her lips against his and relished again in the feeling of his tongue against hers, the sensation of his hands traversing uncharted territory along her back beneath her nightshirt. Merit wanted to relive their night before Moonrise again and again, over and over, but with the assured knowledge that they would indeed see another day, as with every encroaching moment she rediscovered her love for him and basked in the warmth of its glow, still astounded that she could feel this way about anyone or anything.

“Merit,” Gale sighed, making her blush all over at the sound of her name uttered so gently, her name the very breath that escaped his lungs. “Merit , I-”

She pulled away and gauged his expression. Merit’s gaze flickered between Gale’s eyes, wide and incredulous, and her heart sank a little.

“You still don’t believe it, do you?” Merit asked in a hallowed heartbroken whisper. That this was worth it? Merit thought wordlessly as she ran her own hand through Gale’s hair and held him close, her other hand tracing his face with practiced pause. Or that I truly love you?

Gale’s eyes flashed wide, momentary surprise coloring his face he sighed beneath her, sheepish.

“I’m beginning to,” he uttered, pressing a kiss to the side of her mouth. “It isn’t quite that I didn’t or don’t believe you, I just-” Gale sucked in a breath. “I’m just… I’m not sure I deserve you.”

Merit stilled then. Unease shuddered through her at the thought. She held Gale closer then, calmed only by the sight of his gaze softening as she did so.

“You know that’s not how any of this works,” she assured with another quick kiss, aching for him in a whole other way now. “Or at least, it doesn’t have to be. Not with me.”

A creeping realization settled over her as she watched Gale consider her words, pondering that a love without conditions might not only be something that in fact existed but something that was meant for him to have.

“I do think you’re an exceptionally talented wizard,” she said, her voice contemplative and soft as she traced the outline of his face with the gentle pad of her finger. “And you forget just how much you’ve done for me, for all of us , but… it’s not even about that either.”

Gale watched her silently, his gaze softening as his eyelashes fluttered in quiet awe.

“Then tell me,” he implored, his voice whispersoft.

Merit looked upon him, the details of his silhouette falling into focus through the gloom of his tent, a moonlike glow emanating through the swath of cerulean canvas that faced the nearest campside torch. He lay beside her now, basking in the hushed reverence that followed his question as one of his hands remained comfortably buried in her hair, the other tracing a lazy pattern against the exposed small of her back. Merit savored the moment, testing its weight in her mind as she memorized its every detail, warmed even by the low chorus of crickets that beckoned nightfall - a comforting sound they had been void of every evening in shadow-cursed Reithwin.

“You were the first to make me laugh,” she admitted, the memory returning to her unbidden, and a small smile along with it. “Did you know that?”

The corner of Gale’s mouth fluttered, a bashful smile threatening to bewitch his otherwise reverential face.

“That first night at camp. But I’m sure I smiled when we first met, something I hadn’t done in some time even before our initial abduction. It was more than that, though, something as simple as the way you spoke, your choice of words. Something about you was just… so very endearing to me, immediately. I knew from the very moment you told me your name that I would come to like you, though I likely already had.”

Without a shadow of a doubt, Gale was the first person Merit had grown comfortable around at camp, the first person she spoke of non-tadpole matters with, soon yearning for not just any kind of casual conversation but finding herself eager to speak with him specifically. About anything and everything, about nothing and all that lay between. It began as they jointly prepared the camp’s meals, calmed by the quiet comfort of assisting in something so mundane and necessary as cooking, something that no doubt reminded her of aiding Fable in the family bakery, but it soon grew into discussion at length about what books they found on the road, swapping stories of things they’d read in other books and longed to read again, and as soon as Merit found a playable lute, though it wasn’t her instrument of choice, it wasn’t long before their discussions turned to music, pleased to talk of her poetry with someone other than a rival bard trying to steal one of her songs.

“You were so very warm when you pulled me from that portal,” Gale admitted in a breathless whisper. “Your hand in mine. After not seeing, not touching, another living person in some time, it was a… a bit of an adjustment to say the least, traveling with you all.” Gale laughed breathily, chagrined but charmingly so. “But I couldn’t stop thinking about you, looking at you, waiting for your gaze to meet mine, for our hands to accidentally touch again to perhaps test whether I’d imagined it. At first I thought it was simply the shock of it all, but…”

He didn’t need to finish his thought for Merit to understand. Gale leaned against her, resting his forehead against hers as his ardent gaze grew brighter in the clearing gloom, the tent now glowing a dark but cool blue, like the sea after a storm.

“Perhaps it was selfish of me,” he said again, his voice barely a whisper as he brought one of Merit’s hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to the soft cushion of her palm and letting his mouth linger before continuing. “Selfish to submit to the wealth of what I feel for you beneath Moonrise in dismissal of Mystra’s charge, but it also feels like… some solemn sense of poetic justice.”

Merit’s brows knotted, an inkling of confusion coloring the otherwise warm ease she felt in Gale’s presence now.

“My tower had been empty for months,” he began, his expression sombering at the retelling of it. “Tara was gone for longer and longer, and upon each of her many returns my guilt grew tenfold. Not only had I not spoken to or seen my mother since I was accursed with my affliction, who’d left the only life she knew behind to bring a son bursting at the seams with magic to Waterdeep decades before, it pained me to see Tara run herself ragged to bring my mother messages of my being still alive, to see Tara wrack herself in search of such things to keep my sin sated, the worry in her eyes…”

Gale’s own eyes dimmed as he retreated further into the darker depths of the memory. Merit cupped his face, turning his attention to the here and now as Gale’s expression fluttered between mournful reverie in recollection and calm reassurance at her touch.

“She’d begged for me to leave the tower, if only to reacquaint myself with fresh air but perhaps better yet to provide a much needed distraction from my otherwise bleak reality only made worse by the machinations of my own mind. Tara had just left in search of something else for me when I finally took her advice, only I didn’t relish in the air or any of earth’s smaller pleasures. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, though, who would I tell?”

Gale let out a hollow half-laugh. No mirth laced the action, only a sobering and melancholic amusement that spoke more to loss than laughter.

“I don’t think I would have done it, then,” he continued, skipping ahead a bit as he took in the severity of Merit’s expression as she listened on. “But… I’d thought about it. Really considered it, ending my life. Saving everyone the trouble. Ending it all there, saving my mother from regretting her decision to upend her life, saving Tara the endless worry of caring for me, ridding myself of the unending guilt. I went deep into the nearest forest, in search of - well, what exactly I’m not entirely sure. A passage to the Underdark perhaps, or an already ruined landscape that wouldn’t suffer any further loss at my inevitable self-destruction.”

Merit had no words, only a soft but unquenchable need to touch him, to remind herself that he was here now, that Gale was warm and full of want for her and life itself. She continued to trace his jaw with the back of her finger, awaiting his continuation even if it hurt to hear the words.

“But before I knew it, I was knocked unconscious and aboard that bloody ship,” he said, incredulous, “And not long after that, you were pulling me from that stone.”

“Shadowheart warned me against approaching that portal, y’know,” Merit contemplated aloud, her voice catching at the thought. “I’m so very glad I didn’t listen.”

“As am I,” Gale said. “Endlessly, so.”

He turned slightly against her caressing hand and placed kiss after gentle kiss against her fluttering fingers.

“To be pulled from the portal was a surprise to be sure, but to fall so desperately in love with the person who did it?” He kissed her palm again, lingering there before continuing, “It was a gift, at first, even before I knew it wasn’t unrequited. But when Elminster informed me of Mystra’s intentions, it felt more like a-”

Gale couldn’t say the words, emotion stilling his words like a cork in a wine bottle. His eyes went wide, wistful yet crestfallen as his other hand pulled her closer until they were utterly pressed together, their shared warmth intermingling to the point where they almost felt as one.

“Like a punishment,” Merit said for him, heartbroken when Gale nodded almost immediately upon her uttering the words.

Unsure of what else to say, Merit lightly brushed what short stray locks of hair fell into Gale’s eyeline as they lay facing one another, admiring the way they draped over his forehead, giving something soothing for her hands to do, an easy excuse to touch him. She remembered the first time she thought of doing such a thing - the night he beckoned her to open herself to the Weave alongside him, his face limned in the glitter of the Weave and the glint of moonlight, smiling softly at her in a way Merit wasn’t sure anyone ever had before.

“I love the gray in your hair, and the way it sometimes falls into your eyes,” she said almost absently, her eyes drawn to Gale’s silvery strands as her fingers continued to caress his temple, relishing as he leaned into her touch. “I love the way your scar dimples when you smile, the birthmark on your temple, and the one on your wrist-”

Merit reached down, plucking Gale’s idly caressing hand to press her palm to his after gently circling the birthmark in question, adoring the way Gale shivered pleasantly at her insistent touch before quietly admiring the way the cool olive of his skin looked against the warmth of her copper tone.

It was the hand she’d pulled from the portal, as if miming their first meeting. He’d looked so handsome then if not a bit bewildered, not so unlike the way he looked now but softer. But touching him, being this close, admiring his every feature - it was more than just finding comfort in the physical. It was seeing him just as he was, letting him know that she saw every bit of him, not asking that any of it be altered, that he was simply loved for who he already was.

“I love the shape of your hands,” she added softly, threading her fingers through his. “And the way they feel in mine.”

Gale brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of Merit’s wrist.

“I never knew,” he said with an awestruck breath, watching her longingly, “That love could feel like this. And it pains me to think that I might have never known, without you.”

Merit stilled under the strength of his lovelorn gaze, struck both by his words as well as by the same realization, the weight of it resonating within her and washing over her in waves.

“There are so very many things I love about you, the list endless as I’ve already regaled,” Gale continued, his thumb running gently across the back of her hand as he kissed the same spot on her wrist again. “Your quick mind, your clever tongue, the lilt of your voice whether singing or speaking, perfectly imperfect, the warm amber of your eyes, the way you-”

Gale paused, laughing breathily again as he blushed, an undeniable desire to live and keep on living shining in his eyes.

“The soft way you look at me, the velvet warmth of your lips against mine, the way you sigh whenever our mouths do meet,” he said even more softly, “The way it feels to kiss you, the way my hands yearn to touch every part of you, the way you feel against me, how warm your skin feels on mine.”

It was half-confession, half-request, the plea clear in the way Gale looked longingly at her now in silent submission - Consider me a supplicant praying at the altar of every inch of you.

Merit’s breath caught in her throat as the notion wordlessly registered in her mind and she matched his gaze, their eyes tender though hungry as they looked upon the other. It only took a moment for Merit to dissolve under the endless ache in his stare and bring Gale’s mouth back towards hers, their hands unclasping only to get lost once more in each other’s hair.

Much like the vision she’d first conjured in the Weave, the kiss started off slow, their every move a deliberate dance as she reveled in the taste of him. Gale’s hands moved from her hair and trailed lightly down her back, his hands grasping at the fabric of her nightshirt as he gently but insistently endorsed its eventual removal. Merit shrugged as she obliged, her shoulders going slack as she allowed him this before her own hands descended to the hem of Gale’s shirt and urged it off in a single lithe movement, running her hands slowly over the planes of his chest as she moved the cloth up, up, up and off.

“I want to give you the stars,” he whispered into his kiss, making Merit blush all over. “But I also want to feel every earthly pleasure with you.”

Gale didn’t allow Merit time to answer, stealing the very breath from her lungs as he wrapped her in another all-eclipsing kiss. He was delightfully warm, but different in the sense most other things were warm. It was almost like touching a sunsoaked stone, the feel of it instantly reaching her bones and some other deeper, more primal part of her she had no name for. As soon as she felt it, the more she craved Gale’s inherent closeness, needing more of it, unsure if the feeling could ever truly be sated. How they managed to thieve so few kisses whilst the Netherese orb remained active, Merit had no idea, her need for Gale forever growing and bordering on insatiable.

It wasn’t long before their every measured kiss grew ravenous, their every shared breath a yearning whimper as Gale brought his hips to hers before urging her leg around his waist, his hand tracing the curve of her thigh as he held her close.

A pleasurable gasp escaped from the depths of her throat as Gale’s kiss grew deeper, his touch voracious as his hands roamed every inch of her, alternating between gently tracing the shape of her or zealously grasping at whatever part of her he could get his hands on. Merit’s hands snaked up his neck, her fingers threading through his hair while her palms cradled his jaw, her thumbs gently tracing the hollow of his face as he kissed her more ardently still. She rocked her hips against his, pleased to feel the warmth of his growing want against her in an instant, immediately hungering to be closer to him, to feel him.

Merit didn’t need to say a thing. She thought of saying something - about what she wanted, about what she yearned for. Merit even considered requesting that Gale spirit them both back to the Weave, her desires supplanting the mere borders of her own body in the instant her want grew precariously into need.

But with a breathless whimper, Merit surrendered as Gale removed the remainder of her clothes and his, pressing the strength of his desire against her thigh as he asked, even more harrowed than the last time, “How am I expected to keep my hands off you?” he uttered as his hands spirited over the entire shape of her, lingering over the rising crest of her breasts and the sloping curve of her thighs. “What if I want to be inside you all the time?”

Another unbidden sigh escaped Merit’s mouth then, this time in unison with the moment she reached for Gale and felt the warmth of his want against the reaching palm of her hand. She tasted the wonder in his very kiss as she did, overcome with earthly wants and earthly desires, something he’d dismissed long before meeting her but now yearned to feel in full. All Merit could think of was how eagerly she wanted to grant his every wish, guiding the strength of his desire towards the wealth of her own until he finally eased himself inside her.

“I love the way you feel,” she sighed against Gale’s panting mouth as he slowly, sensuously rocked his hips against hers, relishing in every inch of her and savored the sensation as if it were both the first and last time they might ever make love. Merit wanted it to continue like this, steady, unrushed yet indulgent, every thrust laced with unending sentiment with the intention of the feeling lasting forever.

The bedroll didn’t afford them much room, but it didn’t matter. All Merit needed was to be close to Gale, feeling the relief of him inside her as she pressed her palms against the warm planes of his back, her fingernails digging ever so slightly into his already sweatslick skin. Their shared heat was sweet, Merit savoring the salt of his sweat as she pressed a kiss to his shoulder just as Gale began to kiss her neck, his hands pulling her closer and closer, angling her against him in a way that made her tremble, her every limb bewitched with a certain sensuous rapture that eclipsed all other pleasures she’d ever felt before.

It wasn’t just the act of it, their bodies acting on primal impulse and feeding on primordial need, but the very deep-seated sentiment of it, the abundance of affection that flooded her whenever she merely even thought of Gale let alone whenever she was in his presence.

Gale pressed kiss after ardent kiss up the slope of her neck, kissing her jaw and then her temple before burying his face in hair as he uttered so sincerely that Merit shivered, “I love you,” he said, panting sweetly into her ear before nuzzling his nose against her neck. “I’ll always love you.”

It was so simple. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t said it before, though not quite like this. Merit urged Gale’s face back toward hers as he continued to urge his keening need deeply, slowly inside her and kissed him equally delicately, unlike any time she’d ever kissed anyone, even Gale, before. Pouring every ounce of emotion into her very breath, the way her lips met his wanting mouth, and in the careful caress of her tongue against his, Merit returned the sentiment in duplicate, their bodies in rhythm together in the dark of another night she wished might never end.

“I love you,” she said into a famished kiss, echoing the notion before she pulled away with a harrowed sigh, gasping for breath as Gale continued to ease his want into hers. “And I want to feel everything with you.”

She hearkened back to what he’d said earlier, Gale’s pace slowing to a sultry pulse still poised deep inside the wet and velvet center of her in response, his eyes heavy-lidded as his gaze met hers, worlds of affection flowing between them in the quiet aftermath.

“How do you even exist?” he asked, incredulous, his eyes searching hers. “How are you even real?”

Merit watched him wordlessly, demure but thunderstruck at his confession, unsure how to answer as her heart fluttered more ardently than she thought it ever could. Gale slowed again but he did not stop, his every movement tender and deliberate but sumptuously so, careful to convey the very weight of his love for her in the way he urged himself inside her, the way he held her, the way he looked at her, and in the very way he panted against her, hungry for more of her but overwhelmed with such endless endearment that all he could do was watch her with a ceaseless yet quiet wonder.

“I’m only as real as you make me,” she exhaled, thinking back to what he said to her in the meadow he conjured before Moonrise - I’m no goddess, she’d said. Oh yes you are, he’d countered - gripping him closer to her and kissing his shoulder again. “As real as the salt on your skin or the heat of the blood running your veins. As real as everything I feel for you.”

Merit wrote about myths, but she refused to be one. Here, now, she was just a woman in love, and Gale would simply have to believe that.

“You deserve so much more,” Gale said, threading one hand through her hair again as he angled himself more deeply inside her, another whimper escaping Merit’s throat at the feeling. “I want to give you the world.”

Merit could only smile breathlessly against him, on the verge of succumbing to the very lovedrunk ecstasy of the feeling of him against her, inside her, his words encroaching on her very heart. Her mind, body, and soul were all strings suddenly singing in unison, their rising chorus reaching an inevitable epiphany.

“All I need is you, Gale,” Merit said as her entire body began to shudder on the approach of utter euphoria. “All I need is you.”

She wasn’t sure he was listening, and in the moment the idea was driven so far from her mind that all she could think of was the complete surrender overcoming her now in the wake of him, lapping at her every nerve in delicious waves as her every limb trembled in kind, Gale’s breath quickening as the feel of him grew more insistent, hungering to feel more of her as she tightened around him. Gale’s pace remained methodic, rhythmic, but in the steady aftermath of her waning elation she felt him soon flutter, too, his every thrust losing fervor until he grew soft, only pulling out because he had to.

Gale sighed, feigning complete collapse against Merit’s chest as he smiled, eventually pressing breathless elated kisses against her expectant lips before pulling her to him again and kissing her even more deeply.

This sort of thing didn’t happen often, simultaneous satiation, at least not in Merit’s past experience, the satisfaction of it still washing over her as Gale kissed her still.

When he finally pulled away, Gale buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent as his lips absently brushed the sensitive swath of skin just beneath her ear. Merit’s fingers ran through Gale’s own hair as she clutched him to her, relishing in the warmth of him as she opened her eyes to the ethereal glow of the tent again, finding calm in the chorus of crickets once more.

She kissed his hair and muttered, “All I’ll ever need is you,” her voice soft, more than a whisper but just as faint. But Gale was already succumbing to sleep against her, his ears unhearing as Merit sighed and instead pressed a kiss to his now-slumbering forehead, stilling there with her lips poised against the pleasant warmth of his skin, relishing in the scent of him and the weight of his body against hers, before relenting to sleep in kind.

“Just you,” she said with a sigh, finally falling asleep against him. “Just you.”

#bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale x tav #gale x oc #my writing #probably too late to post anything but... what the hell

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rex101111 · 2 years

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wanna talk about Ender Lilies and how it gave me a world full of corpses and greed and blood and still made me want to save it but that’d be spoilery soooo

*spoilers*

Alright so I’m not the biggest fan of super edgy stuff, right? Like if you’re into that kinda stuff more power to you have fun but. I dunno you give me a story full of selfish assholes with no desire or ability to improve and ill check out straight away because I can see where this is all going. Everyone is going to be horrible to each other and/or die and I am...not about that life. That’s just exhausting.

If the world is already doomed and dead, and none of the characters in it are interested in either fixing what’s left or restoring it to what it used to be, why should I care?

Enter Ender Lilies, and the place you play in called Land’s End. Right after the first boss fight you are greeted by a blood red sky and black rain and everything and everyone you find is either a heavily disfigured corpse or a heavily disfigured thing trying to chew your baby face off.

The only people you talk to are ghosts. Literally. You are the only living person in this entire damn kingdom still capable of not acting like a starving animal. The world is suffering from a curse called Blight, that corrupts people’s bodies and souls into violent blood thirsty monsters of various shapes and sharp objects that can’t really and exist in constant agony. Your player character, Lily, has the ability to absorb the Blight and thus allow someone to peacefully pass on.

Every time you have a conversation with someone, they are already long dead, in body if not in spirit. Some are afraid and confused like a young boy two feet from the first boss that got turned into a slug, others are relieved to finally be free like an old priest, still more are ashamed of what they became and did like a soldier who turned crazy and killed his friends.

The one ghost you spend the most time with is the Umbral Knight, who accompanies you from start to finish. He has been dead even longer than most of the people in this kingdom, and death no longer holds any terror over him.

He’s the one who wakes you in the start of the game, and pushes you forward. Most video game helpers of his kind would be prodding you in the back to get you to Fulfill Your Destiny and all that, but instead he’s simply there to keep you safe, everything else is up to you, up to Lily.

He’s very empathetic to all the suffering and death you see across your journey, saying small prayers and hoping those you find and free can find some peace at last. He’s also, very importantly, empathetic to just how utterly shitty this situation is for Lily.

She’s a kid, a little kid, and it shows. She can barely run, her dodge has her falling over face in a panic, and her jump barely gets you anywhere. She doesn’t do any fighting at all. What she does is manifest the spirits of the bosses and mini-bosses you find and they do all the fighting while she scurries around trying to keep her head from getting chopped off.

She shouldn’t be doing this. The fate of this miserable kingdom and all its mistakes should not be foisted onto this little girl, and the game fully acknowledges this. Several points in the game has the Umbral Knight express that what he wants is for Lily to get the hell out of this damned place. Leave the death and pain behind and live for herself.

If the game kept going “but you MUST save this place!!! only YOU can end the suffering of these poor poor people!! suffer the pain for their sake!!” it would have been just this side of miserable. The more Blight she absorbs the more corrupt and pained Lily becomes, but I felt the urge to go on anyway because while nobody here asks are even expects my help, they so very clearly need it.

The choice between getting rid of the Blight and just letting it all rot is firmly in your hands, and the game doesn’t even judge you too harshly for it. Its a perfectly reasonable response for a kid like Lily to try and than...just get scared and leave, disappointed that she couldn’t help everyone.

The Umbral Knight hugs her goodbye, and tells her that she should live. This kingdom brought this fate on themselves. Its okay. You can leave. Be safe. Be happy...don’t give him that look...

And because I could leave, because the choice to leave was a choice, I felt all the more motivated to fix this damned mess of a kingdom and give all these folk some peace and closure.

Ender Lilies isn’t too edgy for me, despite the gory imagery and somber tone, because it shows that the world can be helped, that you could leave but you could help...and that Lily clearly wants to help. And she can help.

There’s a glimmer of hope no matter how sad and dire things get in Ender Lilies. Just dark enough that you understand the gravity of the situation, but not too much that you don’t see the point of trying to make anything better.

so yeah play Ender Lilies.

#Ender Lilies #random crap #baaaaah i platinumed this game i wanna ramble with someone about it but non of my mutuals have played it seemingly XD #i want everyone to play it c'mon #its like Hollow Knight but prettier and kinda like Drakengard and Bloodborne

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bonbonthedragon · 2 years

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Bakugou x fem!reader

Note: this is the fact that katsuki does

survive the devils chapter and fluff because

I will not allow otherwise

Warnings: cursing, fluff (reader has a

healing quirk)

It wasn’t that you were crazy, just exhausted. Utterly tired when you watched the scene unfold, how when his eyes went wide so did yours, and when his dropped, yours fell with him. Bakugou was mean, he was uncaring and hatful. But every time your eyes met in the classroom, it was something other than anger that illuminated off the boy. That deceiving facade he presented was depleting, and you felt it. So when you saw him on that field, dressed in blood and glimmering in defeat, you ran.

Maybe it was his corpse you were hugging, you didn’t know. Cuddling up to a limp body on a gurney as there was fighting between wether you should stay or go. In the end it seemed they let you stay, the humming of your quirk keeping the line of his life going, kept that portable monitor beeping. Aizawas voice keep his parents calm as best he could, keeping your eyes closed while tears left to stain his bloodied suit.

“So why can’t we see him but she can?” His mother cried

“Her quirk-“

“How can a quirk help?” Mitsuki whaled

Aizawa sighed, looking back as the nurses set the bed and checked monitors. They had just gotten there. “I know it’s hard, and complicated, but if you want your son to live I believe she is his best option, Mrs. Bakugou.” And he went on to try and explain your quirk, the EMT analyzing.

…

Fuck. What the fuck. Katsukis head felt light, trying hard to open his eyes in this stupid lit up room. Fuckin hospitals were so bright, and for what?

“Don’t move too much”

The boy looked over, his teacher staring back.

“It’s best if she just stays asleep, and you need to rest as well. Plus, she’s not finished with you.”

“Who…” it was then he felt the weight of the bed dipping next to him, an arm lazily slacken over his torso. That arm glowed, a luminous white aura that felt soft. His body buzzed with endorphins, a hum of a silent melody that only came from one person. You were sleeping next to him, body wrapped and an IV stuck in your arm. He could feel every cell in his body being stitched back together while you fell heavier atop him.

Aizawa raised, bringing a cup of water with a straw to the boys lips. He drank, his throat dry. “Thanks”

“Not me, you thank her. She didn’t have too. When she wakes you ring that button for a meal, you’ll both need it.” And he left.

It seemed that was almost Queen because you shifted, foot twisting against his and adjusting your head next to his shoulder. Your eyes never opened but your hand raised from his stomach, treading up to glide your fingers to his cheek and feel the indentions of the wound, and you cupped it. He winced only a second, then everything became light, a softness to your touch as your quirk provided as you took all his pain away. He could feel his skin contorting, feel it as if it was going ahead in time and those rough edges became smooth against your palm. It seemed you were satisfied because you pulled away, for him all too soon, and tucked it back into the warmth of the thin sheets, making a noise before yawing. Your quirk must have really drained you, yet you were still going.

When you finally sat up, he closed his eyes. For what reason, he didn’t know. The monitor was giving him away, each beat going faster and faster while it pumped at the warmth of you next to him. He couldn’t contain it, he hadn’t thought he’d get so close to you. Katsuki felt your eyes on him, the air covered in thick confusion while you planted a hand to his chest almost like you were trying to stop it. You were, trying to get your quirk to help him, if only you knew it wouldn’t work. His heart raced on its own, not because he was wounded and bleeding out.

“The hell” you mumbled, pressing harder onto him.

He almost wanted to laugh, to crack a smile so you knew. He wasn’t in pain, he wasn’t in trouble, he was happy.

“Oi-“ he finally grunted, taking your wrist “ya trying to suffocate me?”

Freezing, you gasped. “You’re awake-He’s-“ and a hand came over your mouth

“Shut up, my head hurts.” It didn’t. Either way you knew it or not your hand came to his forehead, but he dodged. “Don’t waste your energy, it’s fine. And the last thing I need is my nagging parents and doctors in here.” And he dropped the hand from your mouth.

“Ah” you acknowledged, moving your arm away. Some seconds past and that’s when your cheeks became scarlet. Immediately you shot up and got out of his way on the bed, that light glow fading now that your quirk subsided and the heat of your presence left him. He almost pulled you back. “I didn’t mean to- I just fell asleep-“

“S’ fine. That shit wears you out, I get it.” He bit the inside of his lip, looking down at himself. Any blood was gone and open wounds had completely disappeared. “Thanks”

“Yeah…no problem….” The both of you stared for a moment, and you stuttered. “Oh my gosh, this is inappropriate-“ swinging your legs over, you planted your feet on the ground. Just as you put all your weight to yourself, your vision went dark, stumbling back and Bakugou tensed as he tried to catch he you, but you already caught yourself. “On second thought…” you mumbled, holding your head. “Give me a minute.”

“Tch.” The boy scooted over, tugging your shirt down so you fell back into the now empty space. “You need to Fuckin in eat if ya want to walk after doin all that.” And he pressed the button.

“I shouldn’t be taking your bed-“

“What do ya want to watch” he already had the remote, turning on the small tv on the wall, clicking through channels.

“Really I don’t want to intrude-“

“Please” he groaned, “stop whining and pick something.”

“Uh… what…what’s on is fine…”

He rolled his eyes, setting the remote down. It was then you had noticed the gash on his hand, instinctively taking it as your body glowed again.

Bakugou blushed. “You don’t-“

“Katsuki!” Masaru cried, his mother just behind. “You’re okay!”

“And still with that girl?” Mitsuki questioned, eyes darting to what looked to be the intertwined fingers.

Bakugou’s face went red, pulling it away and crossing his arms. “What do ya want, hag?” And a plastic tupil wear full of fruit was thrown at him. “-ow WHAT THE HELL WOMAN?”

“YOU TRIED TO DIE ON ME, BRAT”

Slowly you began to slither off the bed. “I think I’m just gonna- oh”

He pulled you back, “NO” and turned back to his mother where the quarrel continued. Until he realized, and he paused, looking down at where he was grabbing your arm back and how you were shoved just up against him. God, if his face wasn’t already a tomato.

“STOP THROWING YOUR GIRLFRIEND AROUND”

“SHE NOT MY GIRLFRIEND- AHHHHH!!!!!!”

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allgather · 1 year

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“ i made you cry. and i hate myself for that. i swore i wouldn’t be one of the people who left you hurting. ” @ iruka :)

he isn’t proud of it, but iruka avoids kakashi in the days following his return.

they’d spoken when he’d first crossed the threshold into the village, half dead, but miraculously still alive, and again in the privacy of his apartment. there is just so much motion, so many injuries to fuss over for kakashi and naruto both, so many practical matters to attend to, that iruka doesn’t utter a word about it until they are well and truly alone. and then he is silent, perfectly still, and it is absolutely deafening. hands that he doesn’t care to conceal have been picked raw grip the back of a chair at his kitchen table, an implement to steady himself. he looks down at them, breathes deeply, but it comes across more like he’s seething, as he lets himself feel it fully. the quiet anger that grows out of his control. iruka calls kakashi selfish that night and doesn’t raise his eyes when he speaks. selfish and careless are the words he uses, delivered with grit teeth and a voice that almost chokes on the weight of them. this really hurt me. you really hurt me, kakashi.

and iruka wishes he was like any other shinobi than himself, but he isn’t, so his anger intermingles with the grief and the hurt and the terror. he cries. standing across the room from his lover, not allowing him to touch, maintaining distance in all ways. iruka cries and the anger is so visceral, so raw like his still bleeding heart, he’s sure kakashi feels it, too. before he asks him to leave, iruka peels himself from the chair and tells kakashi he loves him. that of course, of course he’s overjoyed and utterly relieved that he is here, alive, with him. old habits die hard, and iruka insists on looking him over before he goes, thorough though his mind is preoccupied and his eyes refuse to quite meet kakashi’s gaze. then iruka sends him away to sleep alone, in a house full of ghosts.

things are busy, or at least iruka keeps them busy, in the intervening days. a loss like asuma's shakes the village and, especially, a number of his former students. it shakes iruka, too, undoubtably. a friend so close they were practically brothers; a loss he feels like it is physical. but his instincts kick in when he sees how the young nin of this village mourn and he extends a hand towards them without a second thought, devotes his waking hours to visiting with shikamaru, ino, choji, and konohamaru in turn. they are hurting, but they smile when they see him and iruka is lightened, ever-so-slightly, that he can be there to feel their grief alongside them. the days are long and emotional, and iruka cries every night, his thoughts pulled to kakashi and that still-raw hurt more than a few times.

it is three days of teaching, followed by bringing meals and condolences to former students, before iruka visits the hatake residence. he has been here before many times, but never like this, never hurting so badly, never quite so nervous. iruka feels cold as he walks up to the front step, and he isn't sure if its the exhaustion or the hurt settling into his bones at last. both, likely, the way he's kept himself moving to avoid thinking of it too much. he brings dinner with him here, too, knocks gently and, when kakashi answers, apologizes for how long its taken him to check-in ( and he means it. he hasn't meant to be angry for so long or to pull away in his hurt, but it was easier, just this once, to choke those feelings back in the midst of other, more pressing crises. to set this wound aside while iruka did what he is best at; caring for the wounds of others. but now he arrives, ready to stitch the two of them back together, too ).

they sit in the living room, opposite one another, and iruka forces himself to look kakashi in the eye. kakashi is the one who breaks the silence first. i made you cry. and i hate myself for that. i swore i wouldn't be one of the people who left you hurting. iruka isn't sure he's ever heard anything quite so vulnerable leave kakashi's lips, the way his voice almost breaks as his speaks. when he answers, something urgent and hot, the familiar feeling of oncoming tears, rises up his throat. he breathes. his voice remains steady enough to speak.

"you haven't left me. i'm sitting right here, aren't i?" his knee-jerk reaction; even in his hurt, in the acute feeling of betrayal, iruka won't let kakashi think that this will be their undoing. he won't let the note of finality in his words sit. "but you did hurt me. i'm not going to pretend i forgive you just because you lived. if you hadn't - " a moment where the tears that sting his eyes threaten to fall and iruka has to press the palms of his hands against them, breathe deeply, breathe fast, to keep his voice from shaking. he doesn't try to conceal his emotions from kakashi, they're long past that, just holds off the tears enough for him to speak. he has a lot to say. "you didn't say anything. you didn't think to leave a note. you - kakashi, it could have been you, too."

a shuddering breath as iruka pauses and fingers move to the back of his left hand, nails poised to dig in. a habit he's been trying to break. kakashi's hand, which he holds so often as a distraction from the urge to pick, is well out of reach. iruka scratches at the fresh scabs instead. "you didn't give me the chance to say goodbye. you didn't - how could you take that away from me? after asuma - " the name is choked, almost a sob. he sees kurenai's face clear as day. the grief of losing a lover, so intense, so suddenly, and it makes iruka feel ill. something shifts and iruka can't take it, the distance he's held kakashi at until this moment. he stands abruptly and closes the space between them, sits down on the sofa where kakashi is. he takes his hands, holds them so tightly it's almost painful. he notices now his hands are shaking, bleeding slightly from the picking.

"i love you." and iruka says it like he means it, firm. "you really hurt me, kakashi, but i love you. and i'm so fucking glad you made it back alive." he has done a poor job of stopping the tears, so he lets them fall in their entirety. they're for kakashi to see, his fault, after all.

#tw picking #tw skin picking #long post #lmao i said a lotta words #me when iruka gets up: ahaha oh nooo i hope kakashi doesn't think he's LEAVING #xhatake

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bitbrumal · 2 years

Text

CARING FOR SICK MUSES ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ █ ▌▌▌@aalberich. accepting

‘ i’m here because i care about you. ’ [ for his big brudder ;~; ]

DILUC something twitches- well, it’s a mass of twitch what happens inside. warbles & warps through the meat of him / slinks through marrow because whatever it is- nameless disgust -has come to call it home. “yeah..?” the rough of his thumb swipes over the mouth of a bottle of wine. it’s sour, as always. they speak of sweet wines, well. that’s not how diluc tells them apart. he remembers who he is, jams the cork back in & tries not to look like he’s hiding a dirty secret behind the bar. gotta disinfect it or take it home, now- ( oh, no. dreadful. )

“okay.”

thoughtless.

there is only a hollow empty in the concept of kaeya & 'luc. a vacuous core that has consumed the earth that used to keep his feet steady. the notion spiderwebs out in every direction; puppeteers & puppeteered all the many aspects of this horror that is the new truth. nothing can shake it. nothing can be believed well enough to shake it. can’t trust he knows what’s what, so.

rather powerful lesson the gods saw fit to teach: trust no-one. not the gods, who forsook his father yet saved the traitorous brother / not the virtue of the virtuous, not the loyalty of the loyal, not the sanctity of good & importance of a light in especially the darkest places. the world diluc strode into that night utterly unmakes the value of all the good fled back to. sunlight is awfully watery in the wake of... no world lead by right over wrong could envelop such monstrous acts- the only way to hold faith in any peace is to be its creator. even if it must come at the cost of someone’s suffering still; does he not forge into the night to kill in the name of safety, then he does not rest at all.

please don’t teach me again. please don’t teach me again, i have learned. please, please don’t-

it’s been that way for years now. it’s, ah. hrm. getting kind of exhausting, really. ( a few feet down & one to the right sits that bottle. ) but there’s no changing it.

change requires an introduction to something new, no? something that could counter what has become the known. & what is known is that ... is not kaeya. & that hurts worse than anything. kaeya himself is the only one to speak to of that night; the only shoulder worth crying on, worth being rejected from -- but kaeya can introduce nothing without paranoia branding him a liar, & enough trust has been shattered between them. unfairly, unduly. marks that have been left on the wrong body & the wrong heart. the wrong self-image, by the look of it.

telling anyone else that kaeya said he’s not one of ours is simply out of the question. & without that lock to inspect, how could anyone help forge a key-?

diluc ruined what was kaeya’s life.

he’ll not ruin what has been rebuilt in the wake of his mistakes, no matter what kaeya may & may not intend to be.

#aalberich #i put this in the before!reconciliation for pain reasons. c: lmao.#ic #rp ✦ diluc #with: aalberich #i have a massive post to make abt WHY & HOW diluc can't move on & for so long.......... but i can't be fucked to use up my hands on it #u: alcoholic kaeya #me: diluc who becomes an alcoholic roughly 8 yrs after that night bc that's how long it takes for him to be whittled down & stop /caring/#i just realised how unlikely it is for him not to reach for comfort eventually sdjf no matter how tightly wound into maintaining composure #he usually is.#anyway .#inb4 the local vintner is found fitfully asleep in his own puke which happens to also be in his own wine cellar #jfjf lmao good luck with that adelinde.#HE LOCKED HIMSELF IN. BET.#ok ok i'll stop

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tiens-letters · 3 years

Text

Oohh another request haha. I love this thank you and i hope you like it :>

were the bruises to your heart worth it?

Childe angst

You mulled over your sister's words for the nth time today. Her voice playing on loop inside your head, drifting in and out of a mundane daydream.

"why are you still with him?" you wondered as well as to why you still stuck with Ajax, all these days in 3 years of being wit him. Perhaps it was devotion, it was love to persevere even in the wrath of crumbling times and yet why does your heart ache a little more these days he's been far from you.

The days when he would come home, wounded and tired you were there to nurse him back. Back then it was something you'd do out of care and worry, which was until these recent days where it felt as if it were a job you didnt want to do as he would shrug you off instead and locking himself in another room. You barely remember the time where you both shared a quiet night basking in each other's presence, with limbs in a tangle and your forehead upon his beating chest, it was almost none existent as the home you both had felt so utterly desolate, void of the homey ambience.

Youve endured a month of his uncalled behaviour, breaking you even further as things slipped from your grasp leaving you empty and in agony. There were times you'd silently let tears fall as he slept so soundly beside you, unbothered by your pain. He's become more and more as the harbinger you forgot him to be and not your darling lover Ajax.

He never noticed your puffy eyes, sunken cheeks and dwindling weight yet he noticed all the small mistakes youve made. Where one day, left you with a bruise on the arm due his snake like grip after blowing up on you right after he came home from a long journey to sumeru.

You left.

Childe came home earlier than expected, once again tired and nursing a few minor wounds on his body. All he wanted was your touch on his skin as you lulled him to sleep only that to his utter surprise that the house was empty. Perhaps you went out for an errand or for another pot of your favourite flower that you kept in the small garden at the back.

Not giving it too much thought, he lounged on the couch awaiting your return, eyelids soon drooping as the soft pillow coaxed him to sleep.

As the grandfather clock swings its pendulum, the sound echoing through the whole room signifying the arrival of midnight, an eerie sound waking Childe back to consciousness. Groggy from rising he scanned the room only to find it darker than before, if it werent for the nearby lamp he switched open, he swore he couldve been swallowed by the darkness.

Were you not home yet?

A dreadful feeling washed over him as your presence was nowhere around the house. He called out for you as he rushed through the halls, a sliver of hope vanishing every corner turned and every door opened led to nothing but misery.

You always leave a note as to where you are going and yet it was another one out of the many abnormalities in his home.

"Darling? Please i hope youre not playing with me!" he calls out to no one in particular, denying the fact of your existence gone with the wind. Your clothes were all intact and so does your other belongings. He thought of every possibility of what couldve befallen his lover, mostly gravitating towards the worst of the worst case scenarious and may the archons forbid, he would never recover from the blow.

"Where are you?!"

Then it dawned on him after much pondering and pulling his falling parts together. The things he did, the words he said it all came flooding through him like a rushing cold river, hitting him fair and square in the chest and came forth an otherworldly pain and regret. He gasps, almost suffocating by the weight of his sins and he wished he had died right then and there in atonement for his crimes.

Soon his vision became bleary as eyes misted over with tears that fell freely from his ocean eyes. He ruined it. Ruined you.

And yet he could not let you go.

Days seemed to pass by so fast that it had already been 5 months of liberation from Ajax's presence. You were slowly building yourself up once again, the temple that was torn down by a single crack, slowly being rebuilt brick by brick.

Your love for Ajax, even if it left quite the bruise to your heart, it was still there, lingering in the air and a part of you missed him so. You wondered how he would be doing, you wondered if he looked for you just as you did when he didnt come home on the date set, you wonder if he wept when he couldnt feel you next to him, just as you did 150 days ago. You wondered if he ever called your name all the while giving a lingering kiss to the painting that hung on the foyer. You wondered if what you both had, had any significance to him at all.

"Stop doing that." you jolted from where you sat, the book falling off your lap as you met your sister's stern glare from across the room.

"Stop doing what?"

"You are thinking about Tartaglia again. Its been over 5 months and that blundering fool never made an effort to find you much less apologize for what he did when you were still there." there was anger in her voice as she recounted the day you came to her door, teary eyed and just utterly torn. Never once did she felt like murdering someone so bad, especially when it had you, her only family involved.

"Im sorry, I-i just--"

"Hush now." she came over in her elegant strides to take you in her arms, the familiar scent of your mother's favorite perfume stayed on her like second skin and you were so grateful that you had her. You let yourself cry in her embrace in quiet comfort.

Childe never stopped.

Secretly searching for atleast a tiny clue of your whereabouts wore him down to the bone and yet he never gave up. How could he? Even if he thought he was so undeserving of you he still pushed on to right what wrong he's made. The details gathered had been insufficient to serve as a lead making Childe more desperate in his attempt to search for you. Nights were spent on scouring places and information seeking and his work, only done in the daytime. He never wasted a wink on sleep as it was an obstacle to getting closer to you and even when his body collapsed due to exhaustion of overworking all he could think was you.

The search has led a certain fatui informant who works for one of the harbingers. With a note slipped in secrecy on a specific time containing an address on the small parchment. It was all Childe needed to fuel his buried hope as he took off towards snezhenaya.

He never imagined he'd arrive right in front of the iron gates that encased the whole estate atop a mountain. The wind bellowed stronger than before as the snow rained harder upon the place. Luckily, he was born in this region and had survived throughout.

He wondered why you came here, to such a dreadful place but then again, anywhere was better than right by him.

Trying to push open the gates only to be repelled by cryo magic, burning through his gloves and into his skin, leaving fresh burns on his palms as he gasped in pain. Whoever lives here clearly didnt want anyone trespassing much less had a fancy for guests.

He was starting to grow cold as his energy was slowly being siphoned by days of travel, it would only take a matter of time before he passes out.

He calls out, hoping someone inside would hear him.

And you did, only that it seemed like the wind but the time you looked outside the library window, you saw a person outside the gates. The familiar ginger hair tousled with the wind and as you strained your ears to hear and that was when it filled your ears, Ajax's voice. Something you havent heard in quite a long time.

As quick as lightning you stood, half running half gliding through the halways and down the stairs, there was no coherent thought, only him. He was freezing outside the barrier and you pushed yourself more to reach him.

Your figure stepping out through the door was almost like a dream to him. Your name oh so longingly leaving his bluing lips.

"Ajax!" you were in time as you caught his figure which seemed lighter than before. He clung to you, legs desperately tryinf to hold him up. You were here, right in his arms, alive and warm.

"Im sorry. Im so sorry. Please I love you." he rambles on, like a mantra he apologizes over and over again, sobbing and stumbling on his words as he held you so achingly close "Forgive me. Forgive me..."

"Step away from him this instant." your sister, Signora hisses from behind you, just as you were about to coax Ajax she already had a cryo dagger aimed at his head

"Sister please!" you plead, your panic growing as you saw Ajax huffing in labored breaths "Let him come inside or he will freeze to death."

Signora sees the urgency in your eyes and the undying devotion you still hold for the man in your arms. She dematerializes the dagger with a wave of her hand.

"Fine but if I see tears in your eyes then dont you ever dare stop me from what Im going to do to him."

"Thank you sister." you smile at her as she steps backs inside the house and you follow in after her with Ajax leaning on you for support. Once inside, you had him lay on the couch by the fire after helping him out of his winter garments and replacing it for a knitted quilt.

"Im sorry." bloodshot ocean eyes looked at you with so much guilt and a love that you almost forgot "I-i im so so sorry."

"Lets talk about this after youve rested." this time you couldnt look at him, the ache in your heart throbs from the bruises it still nursed. You stood before falling further only for him to catch your shaking hand with his equally shaking one.

"Dont leave." he whimpers, the fear of abandonment increasing as he pleaded for you to stay. instead, you let go of his hand and placed yours instead over his eyes making him uncharacteristically shriek surprising you even more, making you think what other worldly pain he was experiencing as of the moment. "No! No No. Please Its dark."

Ajax cries as he thrashed around because he feared that if he sleeps he would go back to the nightmare of you not by his side and that would leave him all cold and alone just like in the past. he didnt want to go back there, not now when he's seen you. As much as he'd hate to admit, he was truly and utterly terrified but you had to let him rest and with the help of your vision he finally succumbed to a dreamless, peaceful sleep. Only that he calmed down did you notice how much he's lost, where your once sunken cheeks, puffy eyes and weight loss now transferred to him and it made you sick to your stomach. your lips found his forehead as you wished him a good rest, you left the room after bandaging his burned hands to gather yourself for when he finally came to his sensible self.

when you thought it was going to take a full day for him to wake up only to find him stumbling about in the living room calling your name on his lips like a broken record. you immediately rushed down and burst into the room to find him clutching his head and gasping breathlessly. he looked crazed until he caught sight of you standing by the door, a worried look on your face was when he finally came to. he ran to you, clung to you like it was the last day of the world to live and sighed into your welcoming smell.

"are you alright now?" you ask him as you part in arms width

"Hit me." he tells you in all seriousness in his worn out state

"W-what?" you were certain he was still out of it until he grabbed your hand in an attempt to hit himself to which you stopped immediately

"Hit me! Scream at me all you want. Call me words Ive called you. Ive broken you! Do you not see that?!" funny how he couldnt see himself, he who's become worse over the course of the months . his tone rose and fell until it was only a whisper above his panting

"Just dont abandon me." he shuts his eyes, steeling himself for your judgment until he felt your hands on his face again, making soothing circles on his cheek

"look at me Ajax." you coax him and he did and he could see assurance and the love for him still remained and he wanted to cry again but tears have long gone abandoned him and left him in such a regretful state, he truly didnt deserve you and you never deserved to be treated that way. "Youve hurt me yes and nothing can change that but I wasnt planning on you leaving you. I couldnt as I love you too much that I wouldnt imagine life without you but Ajax, the things you did to me, to us, was painful."

"I know and Im so sorry." he held himself from rambling as the pain in chest grew even more burdensome, something he would willingly carry as he vows to himself to never hurt you and if he did then he would tear himself down "I love you"

"and I to you Ajax. Just promise me that when you are having a hard time, let us talk it out and not result to screaming and painful banters."

"I promise darling. on my life and everything in this world. I vow to never cause you pain like I did and to only give you love and care that someone like you deserve."

there he was, your Ajax. He was home.

#genshin impact #genshin impact angst #genshin impact x reader #ajax #tartaglia #childe #childe angst #childe x reader #childe x reader angst #childe request #angst #haha yes pain #Spotify

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paimon-rambles · 3 years

Text

You breakdown in front of him

Characters; Xiao, Childe, Kaeya

Notes: I did these slighty different from how I normally do my hcs. These kinda got long (´ヘ｀()

It was interesting to experiment around with it and I'm kinda proud with how it turned out :)

Theres a blurb at the end of each one~!

- Xiao

You were missing him dearly

You were aware that Xiao would be leaving the inn for a while to deal with some Adepti duties. Before he left, he made you a promise that he'll return soon. What you weren't aware of was that soon wasn't going to be that soon

Weeks and a few more passed and you found yourself exploring the inn all by yourself, going to sleep by yourself and waking up to no one. It felt utterly lonely. Not to mention the stress that continued to build up within your system with worry for your boyfriend

Thankfully Verr was there to keep you reassured that Xiao was alright which eased you a bit but didn't fill that empty void. It was until one day you learned that he was returning the very next day-! You swore you were going to cry at that very moment, but alas you kept yourself composed and thanked Verr for the information.

The day came to a close and tomorrow became today. When you awoke, you kinda forgot about Xiao returning on that very day due to your sleepy state.

But you weren't ready for the surprise that would reveal itself the moment you opened your tired eyes.

There he was, standing in your room as he had just entered. His attention was fixed on something else, not noticing you had just woken. In the seconds that followed your drowsiness was gone in a snap and you were engulfed by crushing emotions at once. All the stress that had taken refuge within your troubled mind released

" Xiao!"

The call of his name caught the Adeptus off guard, bringing his attention back to the formerly sleeping figure. What he did not expect to see, however, was to see his lovers gaze distort into a sob as a choked cry left their lips

Before you could stop yourself, crystal-like tears poured from your eyes, dripping down your cheeks like rain before planting onto your shirt or blanket. You couldn't stop it, more uncontrollably sobs escaped you and soon the room was echoing in your cries

In an instant, he was rendered confused and panicked simultaneously. He doesn't know what to do either, personal comfort wasn't one of his specialties

" Y/n, why are you crying? You can tell me"

He nudges his face closer to you in a feeble attempt to calm you down. In his head, he's already speculating that you were hurt or someone hurt you. In which case he's ready to beat them up

" Did someone hurt you? What's bothering you?"

But those thoughts quickly disappear as you wrap your arms around him. Your face was pressed against his chest, you were growing increasingly shaky. A muttered sentence escaped your lips that caused the Adepti to feel an odd clenching feeling in his chest

" I- I just really miss you, Xiao! You were gone for so long, I got so worried. I'm sorry"

Why are you apologizing? Is the first thought that runs through his mind. On the outside, he's kinda just standing there as you sob but on the inside, it's a wild goose run. He's in a panic.

Xiao dislikes seeing you unhappy let alone crying, his favorite aspect of you is when you're happy. Such as your face. He loves seeing your features when you're happy. Your smile, eyes, and how they crinkle when you laugh. Seeing that aspect of you be morphed into a teary gaze causes his heart to drop. He tries all he can think of to make you feel better

Suddenly you feel a pair of firm arms embrace you.

" I'm here now. I won't leave you. I'll always be at your side through everything. Nothing can tear me away from you"

His hand is trying to comfort you by running his fingers through your h/c curls. A soothing little gesture he wishes could help make you feel better. His lips find their way to kiss you on the crown of your head.

Slowly your tears come to a stop, your face snuggling closer to him. His little attempts at soothing had done its magic. You felt your eyes closed as waves of exhaustion started to hit you again. Before you went unconscious you mumbled;

"Thank you"

Xiao starts to have a warm feeling pulsing in his chest, as you clung to him like a koala with the words you said previously ringing in his head. It was a curious feeling.

As he rested you down on the bed, placing the blanket over your form, he leaned over to press his lips to your head.

After you awake from your second slumber, Xiao is sure to stick by your side for the remainder of the day and the one following it

The next time you have a breakdown, he's sticking by your side no matter what. He helps dry your tears off and assures you that everything is going to be okay. He spends the rest of the time distracting you from it. Reminding you that you're strong and you will get through it.

" You're strong y/n, I know you'll get through this and I'll be there with you every step."

He promised to stick by your side through it all and he's not breaking it.

Xiao stumbled backward as your figure latched to him. He was rendered confused, as he struggled to comprehend the last few minutes that passed. He had just returned from a hefty mission and was greeted by the sight of his lover sobbing as their eyes landed on him.

Your arms were wrapped around him tightly as if you were afraid something was going to take him away again.

Hot uncontrollably tears continue to pour from your face, your features already puffing up from it, but that was the least of your concerns. Your focus at hand was your boyfriend. How long has it been since you last saw him? You lost count. But here he was now.

Words spilled out of your lips sheepishly, shakey forms of letters connecting to create a skewered sentence.

" I miss you so much, Xiao." The words choked out and your throat hitch as breathing became a struggle.

A pair of arms went to cradle you, it caught you off guard as you gasped. You felt a forehead lean against yours. The simple act almost spurred on more tears, he was really there.

" I'm here now, I won't leave you. I'll always be at your side through everything. Nothing can tear me away from you." He pressed a kiss to your forehead sealing his promise to you.

- Childe

It was an argument

You finish early with your commissions and head home to start dinner for you and your boyfriend. He told he had a lot of busy work today before he kissed you goodbye and so thought it be a nice surprise for your boyfriend to come to some dinner

The clock ticked down as night approached by the hour. You quickly finished cooking the meal and placed it at the table. The familiar sound of the door opening met your ears and you quickly went to greet your boyfriend

You were expecting to see your boyfriend's signature smile as he greets you. But- what you weren't ready for were the sharp eyes and irritated gaze pasted to his face. You swore his eye twitched the moment you came into his view. It was as if he was upset with you

No doubt about it, it was a long, tiring, and frustrating day at work.

You tried to greet him but you could tell he was a ticking time bomb, at any moment he would snap. You decided to keep quiet, minus the minor greetings and lay out his dinner for him. Childe said nothing in turn.

You went to grab a glass to pour him some water, but just as you went to grab the cup, your ankle gave in causing you to lose your footing momentarily. You didn't fall thankfully and got back on your feet. The same can't be said for the glass cup, it collided with the ground smashing in pieces.

That was enough to tick him off

He snapped out. Scolding you for being careless and for making a mess he'll have to clean up adding to the pile of work he already needs to stress about. He didn't hide his sharp words, each one puckered into your brain

Your feet were frozen in place. Your legs become wobbly as the room grew fuzzy. You could feel your chest growing tight as you struggled to take breaths of oxygen.

Then the tears

Childe instantly stopped the moment he saw the tears. he knew immediately that he went too far and he shouldn't have even snapped in the first place

Burning tears were falling down your face, splashing to the floor

And the guilt came crashing down on the Fatui Harbinger like Zhongli just dropped a boulder on him

" Y/n- I'm sorry I shouldn't have yelled. Please don't cry."

He would hesitate whether he should approach you or not. He wants nothing more than to pull you into a hug and apologize repeatedly

More tears were running down your cheeks, your hands crept up in a feeble attempt to cover your face from him.

" I'm sorry" you choked out full heartily believing this was your fault.

" Y/n, it's not your fault. Love, please look at me, I didn't mean what I said- I promise. Please stop crying."

Those words were successful at soothing your sobs but they didn't stop your shaky legs from wobbling so much. You felt yourself losing your footing once more and you fell to your knees

In an instant Childe was by your side, his arms going to hold you cup your cheeks, using his thumb to wipe the tears off your face. Almost by instinct, your arms went to hug him, you pressed your head against his chest your breathing becoming heavy in an attempt to stop your aggressive sniffling

Childe whispered sweet nothings in your ear, his hand rubbing circles on your back. His lips are glued to your forehead. He has so much guilt and internally he's scolding himself.

His heart clenches whenever he hears your sniffle

" Everything is going to be okay, I promise you. I'll clean up the mess, don't worry about it, love."

After more of his sweet nothings, your sniffles die away, and you're left with in a tired and exhausted state

Childe helps clean up your face, his touches incredibly gentle as if you were made out of porcelain; softly caressing your cheeks while wiping the rest of your tears away with care

He carries you to your shared bedroom where he lays you down and allows you to get your rest. In the meanwhile, he's going to be punching himself all over, regretting his actions. Your scared expression is burned in his brain and he grimaces as he remembers how he acted. He swears to himself to never act out like that again

The following day you'll wake up to your boyfriend pampering you beyond no end. He takes you to fancy dinner, on a nice stroll. He pulls out all the cards hoping you'll forgive him

Whenever you have a breakdown Childe is there to spice up your day. He promises you that everything will be alright and that things will get better. Followed by many kisses and hugs that help soothe you back to your happy self

" Everything will be okay in the end, just you wait. I'm always here to help you every step of the way. Now please stop crying love, it hides your beautiful smile."

He loves your smile, and he'll fight anyone who threatens to take that away. including himself

What even coaxed this argument in the first again?

The question lingered in the Harbinger's head. He was mentally fighting himself over it. So much guilt swirled within him as he replayed the scene that unfolded moments before. It was a simple mistake on your part, but the way Childe acted, he doubts he'll ever forgive himself for it.

He held onto the shaking feeble body of his lover. Their head was towards the ground, hiding their face from Childe but he could already envision your scared expression; tears rolling down your puffy face as you struggled to take a single intake of breath. Your throat was throbbing from sobbing uncontrollably and the sniffles and hiccups that followed after.

The ginger gently cupped your cheek, bringing your face towards him. His heart dropped seeing your glossy e/c eyes. " Love, please look at me, I didn't mean what I said, I promise. Please stop crying." His finger cradled your tears, wiping your face slowly whilst his other hand drew shapes on your back.

You leaned closer to his hand, the little gestures soothing you quite a bit. A few more tears and hiccups escaped from you, the last of your crying coming to an end. Childe felt his chest clench as the corners of your lips curled slightly.

" Let's get you cleaned up."

- Kaeya

You had a nightmare

It was getting late and you had just finished eating dinner. Your day was filled with commissions that easily left you exhausted. All you want to do now is to collapse into your bed and rest.

Your boyfriend was caught up with some commissions, promising to be home soon. Usually, you'd wait until your boyfriend comes home, but your eyes were dropping uncontrollably. And you swore if you didn't do something soon you'll pass out right there.

And so you left some extra dinner in case Kaeya came home hungry and you set off to prepare for bed.

The moment your head hits the pillow it lights out.

It felt like hours had passed, your brain was fuzzy and unable to comprehend what was happening. You were shifting in your sleep, your face morphing into one of discomfort. It was clear you were in distress.

Suddenly, you jolted awake. Your breathing was heavy as panting, you could feel your heart racing against your chest. Sweat was rolling down your forehead, and you felt your chest tighten with each passing second. No doubt you were having a nightmare. A very livid one at that

You hadn't even realized that tears rolled down your face until you went to rub your eyes. You were crying. As more seconds passed more of your panic started to rise.

A choked sob left your lips as you struggled to keep quiet, your boyfriend was still asleep beside you.

In an attempt to not wake Kaeya, you went to leave to another room where you could sob to yourself but as you went to get up you felt something grab your shoulder.

" Y/n, are you alright? Why are you crying, love?" Kaeya's tired voice muttered.

Internally you scolded yourself for waking him.

" Uh, I just need some fresh air." You semi lied

Kaeya saw right through that, and in an instant, he pulled you into a hug, and suddenly you found yourself sobbing into his shoulder. Uncontrollably tears pouring from your face, dripping down and soaking his nightshirt.

In an instant, Kaeya was trying to soothe you. A comforting hand was drawing shapes on your back, whilst the other was running through your hair very gently

" It's alright, cry it out. Everything will be okay." He whispered into your ear.

More sweet nothings followed, slowly calming you down again. Less and fewer tears fell from your glossy eyes and drowned into sniffling as the last of your crying came to an end

You snuggled closer to his chest, listening to his heardrowneas it lulled you to a calmer state. Soon you were returning to your natural self, your shakiness ceasing.

" I promise everything is going to be alright. I'm right here love, I'm not going anywhere."

You stayed like that for a while until eventually, you fell asleep in his arms. You didn't have any more nightmares

In the morning he's gonna be very affectionate and cuddly, lots of butterfly kisses, and hugs. They're coming and you can't stop them

Whenever you have a breakdown, Kaeya is quick to act, he doesn't tease instead he reassures you that everything is going to be alright. (internally he's in a panic, unsure what to do when his partner is crying) He makes sure you take breaks throughout the day and enough rest.

" It's okay to take breaks y/n. You're strong, you'll get through, I just know it."

Another boy who loves your smile, please smile for him

Sobs and sniffles escaped your lips becoming muffled by the fabric of Kaeya's shirt. Tears dripped down your puffy and red flushed face, rolling down and staining both his and your own nightclothes.

It was a nightmare that caused this. It was still fresh in your mind, every little detail prominent and defined. You squeezed your eyes shut, snuggling your face closer to his chest trying to shut it out. In an instant Kaeya arms tighten around you in an embrace.

His lips rested near your ear, sweet nothings rolling off his tongue with each sob you cried. It was comforting. His voice slowly pulled you into a calm state and with each word of affection, the less you cried.

" It's alright, cry it out. Everything will be okay." He whispered. His hand continued to draw shapes and lines on your back, his other gently cradling your head against his shoulder.

Your shakey form slowly ceased and the sound of your sniffles died away until it was just your breathing that was heard.

A sweep of drowsiness washed over you, your eyes growing heavy.

Kaeya laid you down and placed the blanket over your form before leaning to press a chaste kiss to your forehead.

" Good night <3"

696 notes · View notes

imagine-darksiders · 3 years

Text

A gentle touch.

[Strife/Reader]

Summary: Set three years after humanity is resurrected. Strife shows up unannounced in your bedroom in the middle of the night, which would have been rude enough without him getting blood all over your cream-coloured carpet.

Tags: Blood, injury, PTSD, knife, protective Strife, whump, hurt/comfort, fluff, angst, sharing a bed ;), bandages and cleaning wounds, how not to administer first aid.

-----

You have the apocalypse to thank for turning you into such a light-sleeper.

Even though the nights of sleeping with one eye open are far behind you and Earth is back on the road to a long and arduous recovery, you'll still jolt awake if your unconscious mind hears something scuttle beneath the floorboards of your freshly-restored home, and God forbid a tree branch should happen to scratch at the bedroom window...

Waking up with the feeling that your heart is three beats from bursting right out of your chest is exhausting, to say the least. And it isn't just you who suffers from the onset of hyper-vigilance.

It was a decidedly cruel consequence that the resurrected humans were able to recall their lives before the end of the world. Crueller still, they woke up to remember exactly how and where they eventually kicked the bucket, and of course, nobody knew that a significant chunk of time had passed at all since the end of the world and its rebirth.

They thought they were still in danger.

In one moment, all they knew was immense and excruciating pain, and then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, they woke up again, screaming and writhing in the echoes of phantom pain that had occurred almost a century ago.

Three years down the line since ‘The Great Waking,’ and there isn’t a human alive who could claim that they’ve slept through an uninterrupted night.

------

The alarm clock on your bedside table has just ticked over to read '2:36am' when your eyes suddenly snap open and you fling yourself upright in bed, your spine ramrod straight and your ears ringing with a sharp, tinny note.

It isn’t a nightmare that wakes you. At least, not this time.

Worse.

It’s a sound.

An out-of-the-ordinary sound that isn't in keeping with the normal ambiance of your bedroom.

But where...?

....It's coming from your window.

Tired eyes swivel to the curtains whilst your hand immediately flies out to blindly fumble with the drawer of your bedside table. Once your fingers find the cold, metal handle, you rip it open and plunge your hand inside, rummaging around until you feel the reassuring grip of your most precious possession.

Your trusty bread knife. Serrated edge, nine inch blade, perfect for cutting slices of toast in the morning and for tearing through the toughened hide of a hungry demon.

Peace between the Universe’s species had been declared once humanity was fully introduced to the connected realms, a decision that suited a vast majority of Creation. Hell, however, had offered up a fair amount of opposition to the notion before eventually conceding and agreeing – albeit begrudgingly – to honour the peace treaty alongside angels, makers, undead and the rest.

Even demon-kind knew not to incur the wrath of humanity's strongest and most ferocious protectors, the Horsemen.

But... there are always exceptions to the rule. Some demons just... hadn't gotten the memo.

It wouldn’t be the first time one of them had tried to make an assassination attempt on humanity’s envoy.

Heart in your throat, you grasp the knife securely in your dominant hand and peer through the darkness towards the window.

Only a sliver of moonlight peeps through a tiny gap in the curtains. In another blink, the light suddenly disappears, and you know better than to assume that the moon has simply ducked behind a cloud.

Something is standing at your window, blocking out the light.

You think you might actually be sick when you hear the sound again, claws scraping on wood – a sound you know all too well – well enough to send your head spinning into a panic.

Swallowing back the nausea in your throat, you brace yourself, instincts flicking between running for the door and knowing never to turn your back on a demon.

Sadly, the decision is swiftly taken out of your hands. Through the darkness and the deafening roar of blood rushing through your ears, you can make out the distinct sound of your window sliding slowly open.

The knife is a comforting weight in your hand. But it’s less than useless if you don’t calm down and try to remember the lessons that Death has taught you. If the eldest Horseman were here, he’d probably have berated you seven ways to Sunday by now for freezing up and missing an opportunity to better prepare yourself for an attack.

A dark silhouette pushes the fluttering fabric of your curtains aside and pulls itself halfway into your bedroom.

Whatever it is, it’s big.

Breath catching in your throat, you clasp a handful of your duvet and get ready to fling it at the intruder as a distraction, hoping that it’ll be enough to buy you a precious few seconds to gain the upper hand. You've learned that humans are inherently weaker than demons, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned from Death, it’s that strength isn’t necessarily the deciding factor in any battle. You still have your wits. You only hope the demon has less.

Two luminous, golden eyes turn in your direction and you press yourself backwards into the headboard.

Several seconds drag by in perfect silence.

Then...

“Hey.”

And just like, that tension leaves your body like a balloon deflating of air and you heave the loudest sigh you can muster, dropping the bread knife into your lap.

“Damn it, Strife! You about gave me a heart attack!”

With a 'whump,' you flop back against your pillows and take a second to breathe whilst one of the Four Horsemen drags himself the rest of the way through your bedroom window.

Strife.

It's only Strife...

Whilst certainly a dangerous being in his own right, you know you have nothing to fear from the Horseman who had all but appointed himself as your friend three, long years ago, all in an attempt to irritate his brother, Death, of course.

At least, at first.

Death was the one who pulled you from the dying Earth and preserved your life-force as you journeyed together on a quest to resurrect humanity, but after he made the jump to introduce you to his 'little' siblings, it had been Strife who'd taken a particular shine to you, and it had everything to do with a compatible, if terrible sense of humour.

That first meeting sparked what was sure to be an interesting friendship between the pair of you.

-----

“So, my brother went and got himself a human, huh?” Strife had teased, pointedly ignoring the withering look he received from Death to add, “Gotta say, I'm impressed, Kid. Didn't think anyone would have the inclination to willingly travel with my brother. But then, I guess...” He trailed off and you could almost see the smirk growing under his mask. “Deathperate times and all that, huh?”

At once, his siblings all groaned out varying noises of disapproval. Fury, the loudest, cocked her hip and shot Strife a frosty glower. “You are singlehandedly ruining our reputation, brother."

“She's right, you know,” you spoke up, trying not to flinch when all eyes snapped onto you once more, “That pun was pretty deadful.”

The brief, startled second of silence was soon blasted apart when Strife threw his head back and barked out a triumphant laugh, while Death slowly turned to look at you, utterly betrayed.

“Ha!” Strife's eyes positively gleamed with mischief, “You're right, human. Guess I should'a considered the reapercussions of a joke like that, huh?”

“I ought to have known introducing you two would be a mistake,” the eldest Horseman grumbled, earning a sympathetic look from War.

“Sorry, Death,” you said with a perfectly straight face, “You want us to get out of your scythe so you don’t have to look at us anymore?”

Strife had howled.

Death, however, merely heaved a long-suffering sigh. Fury's eyes all but rolled into the back of her skull and War just stood there, struggling to keep his lips from twitching at their corners.

And you had looked around at all of them, a little proud and blissfully unaware of what you'd just unwittingly signed yourself up for.

You'd had Strife's attention from that day on.

-----

Shaking off the fond memory, you tiredly will your mind back to the matter at hand.

You reach across your bed and drop the knife back into the drawer before leaning down and skirting your fingers over the wall in search of a switch. The next moment, there's a 'click!' and the room is illuminated by clustered fairy lights that you've draped around your ceiling, forcing you to squint blearily against the intrusion of light as Strife hauls his leg into your room.

“Honestly. How many times have I told you to use the door?”

“S'locked,” he grunts.

You're in the midst of rubbing your eyes to try and stimulate a little life back into your bones, so you miss the way he stumbles a few steps away from the wall and presses a gauntleted hand to his abdomen.

“Yeah, it’s locked because it's-” You take a quick glance at the clock next to you. “-Two thirty in the morning! Strife, I’m supposed to be up at six to meet Ulthane! What do you need so badly that you'd-... Hey.. Are.. are you okay?”

At last taking a long, hard look, it suddenly occurs to you that the Horseman is... not entirely himself.

He's hunched over, his shoulders pulled in around his neck and his chest rising and falling in long, languid motions. The tattered cowl he wears around his neck hangs loose around his collarbones and it faces the very real threat of slipping off to the floor. At last, your eyes drop to the hand that's clamped over the left side of his abdomen and you blurt out a startled gasp.

In the paltry, pink glow of your fairy lights, you spot an unmistakably crimson liquid dribbling between his fingers, starkly contrasted against the steel-grey colour of his armour.

The next few seconds pass in a blur as you frantically begin kicking off your duvet and scramble out of bed, flying across the room to the Horseman's side.

“Strife! What'd you do!?”

“Oh, that's real sweet,” the Nephilim chuckles wryly whilst he collapses back against the wall and slides down it with a strained grunt, “Why're you – ung... assuming it's something I did?”

Without missing a beat, you snap, “This would hardly be the first time you got hurt because you're a wise-cracking jokester with a big mouth! Now tell me who you pissed off?!”

You drop onto your knees next to him and reach out, fingers hovering tentatively above his stomach. With your focus directed away from his helm, Strife doesn’t bother to hide the way his eyes dart from left to right before they settle back on the top of your head.

“Ah, it was... just some demon, caught me slackin', that's all,” he shrugs, letting you carefully grasp his wrist and lift it away from his torso.

At once, fresh blood gushes from a deep gouge cut into in the dark, leather under-skin he wears beneath his cuirass and you yelp, slapping a hand over your mouth in abject horror.

The sound draws Strife's gaze to you and once he spots the shocked despair on your face, he gives himself a mental kick.

He hadn't meant to... He... doesn't like it when you’re scared because of him.

"Hey, no, no – I'm okay!” he rushes to reassure you, “Don't worry about this. I've had worse!”

“That's not the point, Strife!” you argue, dropping his wrist and carding your hands through your hair, “You're hurt now! And I don't – there's so much blood, and you-” Cutting yourself off, you squeeze your eyes shut and inhale deeply through your nose, willing your pulse to ease so that you can rationally address this situation.

Another lesson Death had taught you - stay calm in a crisis. Panic kills.

Releasing a long, hard breath, you peel your eyes open again and nod, jaw set. “Okay. All right. I need to.. I need water. A-and I need to see the wound.”

The interrogation can come after you've dealt with... this.

“There's a bowl and flannel in my bathroom,” you announce, getting to your unsteady feet and gesturing towards Strife's cuirass, “Think you can get that off so I can have a look?”

Huffing out a breath of laughter, the Horseman winks at you suggestively and drawls, “An' here I was doin' things the hard way to get your attention. You know, you didn't have to wait till I got myself gutted before you asked me to take my armour off in your chambers.”

A wise-cracking flirt with a big mouth.

As exasperating as he is though, you don't mind it in the slightest.

This is your usual rapport, after all. A friendly back and forth interlaced with the occasional, flirtatious comment. At first, Strife had only initiated it because it drove an over-protective Death up the wall. The eldest Horseman had almost threatened to 'remove Strife's libido' until you'd up and flirted right back, distressing the old reaper even further.

It's funny. It's innocent. But right now, it's reassuring, if only somewhat, that Strife is behaving just like his shameless, old self.

Besides, you can give back as much as you get.

“Well, I had to wait for a good enough excuse,” you retort, “Couldn't come on too strong and risk scaring you off, now could I?”

In response, Strife just chuckles fondly and watches you turn and speed away to your ensuite, oblivious to the warm, soft glow radiating from his eyes.

In less than a minute, you're briskly striding back into the room, a dripping flannel in one hand and a bowl in the other, and he suddenly remembers that you'd asked him to remove his cuirass.

Mission failed.

But you don't even bat an eyelid to find it still in place, assuming that the Horseman can't get at the catches on the sides in his current state.

In one, smooth motion, you drop down beside him once more and set the cloth and bowl nearby. “Here, let me help..”

The Horseman's pulse sputters when your tiny fingers reach around his torso and fumble with the buckles and straps that keep his armour securely in place. It doesn't pass his notice that your hands are trembling.

“Hey,” he calls, catching your eye for a moment before you go right back to fiddling with the cuirass, “This is nothin’, you know that, right?”

You only press your lips together and hum, clearly skeptical.

You're working fast and in almost no time at all, the straps have been released and you carefully take the Nephilim's broad shoulder, giving it a tug, guiding him to lean away from the walls so that you can start to peel the bulky armour off.

“Nng, hang on,” he mutters.

Reluctantly, you sit back to let him tug his chest piece loose before he simply drops it onto the carpet next to his legs with a dull 'clang.'

Exposed to the soft glow of your lights, your eyes are instantly drawn to the gaping wound that stretches in a horizontal line across the left side of his abdomen. It seems that something really has tried - and nearly succeeded - to gut him. Several inches long and goodness knows how deep, even against the iron-grey colour of his skin, the gash is alarmingly obvious and the blood far, far too noticeable for your liking. It still comes as something of a shock to learn that the Horsemen, barring Death, can actually bleed.

Wordlessly, you pick up the flannel and wring it out into the bowl of water, wondering if he'll mind that you didn't wait for the tap to get warm before you soaked it. It shouldn't surprise you that the Horseman doesn't protest or even flinch when you gently press the wet cloth to the bloodied skin around his wound, nowhere near the gash itself, not until you've cleared away some of the mess around it and determined its real depth.

You don't notice that his eyelids flutter closed once you press the cloth to his skin, nor do you see when their golden light fluctuates in contentment as the fingertips of your other hand press gently to his stomach, the pressure barely enough for him to feel, but enough to keep you steady whilst you daub at his drying blood.

It takes a formidable effort to suppress the shudder that nearly races up his spine. This is the first time he's felt your skin against his without a single piece of armour standing between you.

Creator, you're so soft! Just like he always imagined you would be.

“Jeezus, Strife,” you whistle, abruptly snatching his focus away from the soothing strokes of your silky fingers,“You've made a real mess of yourself. Why on Earth didn't you just go straight to Death? I thought he was the best healer in your family.”

The warm skin underneath your fingertips jumps as the Horseman puffs out a quick laugh, gazing dopily at your temple whilst you wipe at the edges of his wound with small, careful touches.

“He is,” Strife readily agrees, “But the moody bastard wouldn't be nearly as gentle with me as you are.”

You blow an unimpressed huff from your nose and glance up at him in time to catch his lazy wink. “I can always press harder if you like?”

“Nah.” The Horseman settles himself more heavily against the wall, knocking his skull back against it and mumbling, “Just keep touchin' me all gentle like that. S'nice...”

Quite abruptly, the chatty Nephilim goes silent and the glow from his eyes that had illuminated your face only moments ago suddenly disappears.

“Strife?”

He doesn't respond.

“Hey, Cowboy! Don't you fall asleep on me, you hear?”

There's a long stretch of silence, then, “Won't,” he mumbles, cracking one eyelid open to peer down at you.

Harrumphing, you promptly turn back to the gash in his stomach and wipe the last of the dried blood off his skin, still far from clean, but at the very least, better than it had been.

“Right,” you declare, pulling away to stand up and drawing a decidedly petulant whine from the Horseman on your bedroom floor. “I'm gonna go get the first aid kit from downstairs.”

There’s a shift in his expression and something that hinges on alarm suddenly whistles through his blood.

“I won’t be long,” you promise, "Be right – Hey, woah! What're you doing!?”

Darting forwards, you hastily place your hands on each of Strife's broad shoulders, trying to push him back down as he grabs the window sill behind him and begins hauling himself up to his feet.

“What's it look like ‘m doing?” he answers gruffly, slouching forwards as if the weight of his own head is too much to keep aloft, “Comin’ with you”

Sputtering out a few, incredulous noises, you try to make him see sense. “I’ll bring the first aid kit to you! You need to rest! It's bad enough that you already climbed in through my second storey window!”

But Strife, stubborn as a mule and much, much stronger than you, isn't deterred by your protests. Grunting, he curls one arm over his stomach and takes a step forwards, ducking beneath your light fixture and standing to his full, imposing height.

Even with three years of companionship behind you, you’re still frequently taken aback at how effortlessly the Horseman can make you feel small and fragile when you stand close to him.

Knowing full well that you’ll never be able to force him down again, you allow your hands to slip from his shoulders and fall against your sides like lead weights. You aren’t sure why he’s suddenly so hellbent on following you, downstairs, of all places, but you don’t dwell on it, especially given that you’re far more preoccupied with the fresh blood that has already begun trickling out of his wound to replace the stains you’ve painstakingly cleaned away.

Puffing out your cheeks, you raise a hand and pinch the bridge of your nose. “Strife, please sit down?” You aren’t so proud that you won’t resort to begging, tired as you are and exasperated with his obstinate behaviour. “I’m worried about you...”

All at once, the Horseman stiffens. ‘Oh, now she’s fighting dirty,’ he muses to himself.

Gradually, you lift your eyes to meet his and try your very best to glare up at him, pinning him down with all the stern authority you can muster. For several, slow heartbeats, the Nephilim peers right back at you and you’re almost certain that you’ll lose this battle of wills, which is why it comes as such a shock when his fiery gaze falters, wavering slightly before it promptly drops to the floor near your feet.

It's... rare for Strife to be looked at by someone who isn't ashamed to show that they worry about him.

But the way you're looking at him now? Hell, the way you've been looking at him since he clambered through your bedroom window? You're practically broadcasting your concern.

Strife just... isn't used to seeing that. So he glances down instead, finding the fibres of your carpet particularly exhilarating tonight. Slowly, begrudgingly, he sinks down to sit on the edge of your bed, heavy enough that the frame creaks and groans under the weight of a fully grown Nephilim and he has to hold back a contented sigh at the softness beneath his legs.

From the corner of an eye, he can see that your jaw is hanging ajar and remains so until you give yourself a little shake and throw him a satisfied nod. “Thank you,” you huff before turning on your heel and striding purposefully from the room.

Strife listens raptly to your footsteps disappearing down the staircase, unaware that his hands have curled into tight fists around your duvet.

'It's fine,' he assuages the insistent voice at the back of his head, 'She's fine.'

He took care of the threat. That demon asshole isn't coming after his friend.

You’re only downstairs. He can already hear you pushing open the door to your little kitchen whilst the rest of his senses remain trained on the sounds and smells of the night.

It isn't as though something bad might happen just because his eyes aren't fixed upon you...

Frankly, he thinks he’s being more than generous to allow a full, Earth minute to pass as he taps his heel impatiently against the side of your bed.

Didn’t you say you’d be right back?

...

“Fuck it...”

-------

Perhaps, in hindsight, keeping your first aid kit on the top of the fridge hadn’t been one of your brightest ideas, given that you need a chair to reach it. Then again, securing immediate access to bandages and plasters hadn’t exactly been on the forefront of your mind when you were rebuilding your old home from the ruins it had been left in.

With a grunt, you drop your rickety kitchen chair next to the fridge and clamber up onto the seat. “I have got to find a better place for you,” you grumble at an apathetic first aid kit that sits gathering dust near the wall. Stretching your arm out, you manage to snag it by the handle and drag it towards you-

“The hell're you doing!?”

The violent jolt that shoots through you like lightening nearly sends you toppling off the chair. You let out a yelp, just barely catching yourself on the fridge with your free hand before you whip about to see none other than Strife silhouetted in the kitchen doorway.

“Wh- the hell are you doing!?” you retort, knitting your brows into a frown and clutching the first aid kit against your heaving chest, “Why aren’t you upstairs?”

The Horseman’s glowing eyes are fixed unsettlingly on the chair beneath your feet and rather than answer the question, he ducks under the doorframe and thunders towards you in a few, short strides, leaving you with no time to protest before he suddenly sweeps you up off the chair and into his arms, caging you against a solid chest.

At once, you begin to struggle. “Strife! Your wound! Put me down, you'll hurt yourself!”

But the Nephilim is hardly paying attention. His glare lingers on the flimsy, wooden chair legs for a moment before he flicks his gaze towards the large window above your sink, noting with no small degree of distaste that it isn't even shut.

It’s like you’re inviting danger in.

If you had any idea of the fate he and his siblings are currently trying to protect you from, you might just try a little harder to take better care of yourself.

“Hey!” you continue to protest against his hold but manage to refrain from jostling about too much, mindful of his injury. “For god's sake! What's gotten into you?!”

He offers little more than a noncommittal grunt in response and begins trailing back towards the staircase, casting brief glances at the french doors leading out onto your patio.

'Structural weakness,' he registers, 'Perfect point of entry for anything smaller than a Trauma...'

Shaking his head, he turns sideways to fit you through the kitchen door and takes the stairs up to your room.

After a second, he lowers his eyes to meet yours and finds himself meeting a highly unimpressed scowl. “What?” he asks, the very picture of innocence.

Raising your brows, you snap, “Don't you 'what' me! The hell is all this about? I told you to stay put!”

“You were takin' too long,” he shrugs.

“Too long!?” Indignant, you flick your wrist and rap the first aid kit against his collar bone, “I was gone a minute, max! If you were so worried about me taking too long to fix you up, then why are you moving around and making your injury worse!?”

The light of Strife's golden gaze dims and he turns his head away, staring up towards the top of the stairs and your bedroom door beyond. “S'not me m' worried about,” he mumbles.

It's such an about-face from his usual demeanour that you can do little but blink dumbly up at him and fall still against his chest, your mouth hanging agape.

In silence, the Horseman ducks through the door into your room and sidles over to the bed where, hesitantly, he lowers you down until you're sitting safely on the edge.

In the next moment however, just as Strife drops heavily onto the bed next to you, you slip away and settle on the floor instead, placing the first aid kit beside his boots and fumbling with the latches.

Despite blowing out a rough grumble of disapproval that sounds entirely too much like War for his liking, he lets you go.

Chewing on your lip, you stare at the contents for a moment before snatching up a pack of antiseptic wipes, tearing one out and bringing it up to his stomach.

“You want to tell me why you just exacerbated your injury to rescue me from my kitchen chair?” you ask him, adding as an afterthought, “This might sting a bit..”

When he doesn't reply, you glance up and quirk a brow at the underside of his chin, only to catch him peering back at you from behind heavy-lidded eyes. Then, with a weary sigh, he sags forwards and raises a hand to rub at the back of his neck, looking sheepish, of all things.

Unable to dispel your frown, you blindly begin brushing the wipe underneath his bleeding wound.

He doesn't even wince.

Strife tips his helm towards the bedroom window and slumps further backwards into your mattress, seeming so entirely out of place amidst the colourful duvet cover and frilly cushions.

“Okay,” he mutters, “I uh, I got a confession to make.”

Interest piqued, you make an acknowledging sound at the back of your throat and return your attention to his abdomen.

“Death didn't want us to tell you about this,” he continues quietly whilst you toss the now ruined wipe over your shoulder and pull out a fresh one, “And, to be honest, neither did I. We didn't want you to have to worry, y'know?”

You don't know. And you nearly ask him what you should be worrying about, but you soon let your mouth fall shut and settle for humming curiously instead, trusting that he'll tell you soon enough anyway.

There's a long pause, during which you find the courage to bring your fingers close to the edges of his wound and immediately have to withhold a gag when the motion sends another spout of blood oozing from the cut and dribbling down your wrist.

After a moment, Strife huffs and forges ahead, “Course, War and Fury did want to tell you-”

He's stalling, you realise belatedly.

“-War thinks you have every right to know. And Fury said there's nothin' for you to worry about anyway, cause we've got your back.”

“Fury said that?” you ask distractedly, dropping the wipe and rummaging around for a gauze pad. In response, Strife exhales, a tiny, hidden smile creeping onto his lips. “Fury says a lot of stuff about you that you don't know about.”

Gently, you unroll the gauze and press it against his wound. “Wow, you sure that's your sister? Sounds like she might've been body snatched.”

“Ha!” The Horseman suddenly throws his head back. “Well, if she has been replaced, I sure as shit ain't going lookin' for the original. This Fury is... she's...”

He pauses, tipping his head in thought before eventually settling on, “She's learning.”

You blow out a long, impressed whistle and he nods his agreement, adding, “Yeah, s'weird for all of us too.”

The room lapses into silence once again as you stretch the gauze across Strife's abdomen and mutter, “Hold this,” before your hands are retreating and the Horseman's slide down to keep the bandage in place.

Reaching into the box once more, you take some bandages and begin to unfurl them gingerly over the top of the gauze. “Not hurting you, am I?”

You miss the soft expression he aims at the top of your head. “Never.”

You're more than aware that he probably won't tell you you've hurt him even if you were to stick your fingers in the wound twist them.

“Sooo~....?” you prompt.

Peering down at you, Strife cocks his head to one side and echoes, “Soooo?”

“What did Fury and War think I should know?”

“Oh. Right...” His reluctance is as painfully obvious as a slap to the face but you're slightly more focused on plunging your hand back into the first aid kit and rooting around for a roll of adhesive tape.

He observes you for a moment, growing more and more certain that despite your curiosity, you aren’t actually paying a great deal of attention to his words. Quite abruptly, he asks, “You listening?”

Emitting little more than a vague hum, you finally snag the tape and run your fingernail along the smooth surface, searching for the ever-elusive end.

“You sure?” Strife grunts skeptically, “Kid, this is kind of important.”

Without missing a beat, you nod your chin towards his injury and reply, “Yeah, well, you're kind of important too, buddy.”

Oh.

Oh, that's...

Strife wracks his brain, trying to pluck an appropriate response from amidst his tumbling thoughts. Part of him wants to scoff – of course he's important! He's Strife! The best, damn marksman who ever walked the realms of existence.

But then, there's another part of him that lurks deep behind the walls of hubris and brass he's been building meticulously for centuries, and it gives a little leap at the sound of your words, delighted beyond measure.

Averting his gaze, Strife lets out a chuckle. “You're getting soft.”

“Ah, I've always been soft.”

His heart thrums. “Wasn't talkin' about you, kid.”

You shoot him a smirk as you stick a piece of tape over the bandages covering his injury. “Well, if you're talking about yourself, then you're wrong again. You aren't getting soft. You've always been soft.”

The Horseman mutters something incoherent, but it's his distinct lack of an articulate response that speaks volumes to your ears.

The slight pressure of your fingers as they prod at the tape with tentative care leaves him mourning the centuries he's gone without knowing such a gentle touch. Rolling his eyes down to you, his smile droops and he sighs, sagging forwards to rest his elbows on his knees just as you attempt to place another strip of tape.

“Strife!” you complain, leaning back, “I need to put more tape on!”

He merely blinks at you languidly and says, “Later. I want you concentratin' on me right now.”

“I've been concentrating on you all night,” you huff, though you eventually concede and sit back on your haunches, peering up at the Horseman expectantly.

Studying your face for another moment, he breathes a long sigh and gestures to his stomach. "I told you a demon did this..."

“Uh huh...”

Solemnly, Strife continues, “So more specifically, it was a Shadow Caster. Been on her trail for a couple of weeks now. Finally caught up with her on some farmlands west of the city...”

“Okay?” you nod, digesting the information, “And why were you on her trail?”

He hesitates, flicking his eyes between you and the window a few times before he quietly admits, “She was comin’ after one of my friends...”

“Who?”

The look he throws you is so pointed, you suddenly feel like a fool for missing the obvious.

“Ah.” Understanding, you slowly nod your head.

“Yup.”

“But, she's dead now, right?” You gesture to his wound. “You came straight here after killing her.”

Strife's eyes darken further and each time they try to land on your face, they seem to slide right off again and drop to the carpet. “Uh, yeah. She's dead.”

You heave a sigh. “She wasn't the only one who's after me.”

“... No..”

“I see.” Inhaling long and slow through your nose, you tip your head back and slap your hands on your thighs, rubbing at them anxiously as you gaze around the room. “So, do we know how many there are?”

The Horseman eyes you for several, silent seconds. Eventually though, he speaks up. “Got wind of a small group of about four of 'em. Demons mostly, one undead. You and I've got a mutual... uh, friend, who's been keeping his ears to the ground, and he reckons they’re aiming to provoke another war between Hell and Earth by killin' the human envoy.”

“Wow. Talk about sore losers,” you scoff humourlessly, “So, who is this mutual friend?”

Some of the tension bleeds out of Strife's posture once he notices that you haven't immediately flown into a panic. “C'mon kid,” he snorts, “You know I can't expose my source. He doesn't want you know that he cares about you. Thinks you might start askin' for discounts if you thought he was getting' soft.”

“Discounts, huh?” Your lips quirk up at their edges and Strife smacks a palm over his mask in mock distress.

“Ah, hell, I gave it away, didn't I?”

“I bet his name rhymes with Shmulgrim, doesn't it?” you laugh.

Chuckling, Strife leans back on his hands again and replies, “Hey, you came to that conclusion on your own. Technically, I never told you who my source was.”

With the atmosphere in your bedroom gradually becoming lighter and lighter, you follow the Horseman's lead and relax backwards onto your hands, stealing a surreptitious glance at the bandages adhered to his torso.

It's no longer as surprising as it used to be that Vulgrim is invested in the well-being of his 'valuable asset.' The Horsemen are perhaps his best clients, hence the vested interest in keeping himself in their good graces by looking out for their human ward.

Shaking your head with a knowing smirk, you push yourself up onto your feet and glance down at yourself, brushing off your pyjama shorts, only to grimace when your hands do nothing but smear Strife's blood all over the fabric.

“Sorry... for the mess.”

You raise your head at the sound of the Horseman's voice and find him glowering down at the stains he's dripped onto your carpet, his eyes hooded and glum.

Heaving a sigh that you hope conveys both exasperation and affection, you reach out and place your comparatively tiny hand on his shoulder to give the pauldron a reassuring squeeze, drawing his gaze back up to your face. “I don't care about the mess, Strife” you tell him matter-of-factly, “The carpet's just here to stop my feet getting cold in the morning. You're my best friend.”

Ever so slowly, his luminous eyes grow wide with wonder and he lets his jaw drop open to speak, but before he manages to utter a soft, 'what?' you give his shoulder a friendly jostle and add, “So long as you're okay, pal, that's the main thing. Now...”

Trailing off, you move back around the bed and let your fingers slide off the Horseman's arm, stepping up to the bedside table containing your pyjamas, oblivious to how swiftly and easily you've just swept the rug out from underneath Strife's feet. He twists himself around on your mattress to watch you, his eyes as wide as than dinner plates.

Did you mean to say... best?

He – well, he always knew that you considered him a friend! Hell, he'd even go so far as to say the two of you are close friends.

But best?

Best implies that there's nobody – nobody – that you hold in higher regard than him...

'How did I miss that!?' his psyche all but screams at him, 'When the Hell did I get so important!?”

You aren't even looking at him, too busy rummaging through your drawers, as if you have no idea that you've just pulled his heart right out of his chest and now you have it cradled in the palms of your hands.

You could crush the life out of him with hardly a word.

“So, you never did say!” you call out to him as you duck into your ensuite bathroom and flick the light on, hiding yourself from view whilst you change, “How does the master of marksmanship get tagged by a Shadowcaster in the first place? You’re not usually the type to get up close and personal. That’s more War’s thing, right?”

All at once, the threats that demon witch had made against you ring like klaxons in Strife’s head and he has to make a conscious effort to ignore his instinct to leap off the bed and barge into the bathroom just to be sure you’re safe. He hears the shuffling of fabric against skin as you pull off the bloodied shorts and begin to pull on the new ones.

Grinding his teeth, he spits out, “She just.. got me mad, is all. Made me wanna have the satisfaction of wringing her neck with my bare hands instead of filling her with bullets.”

“Wait, seriously?” Your silhouette suddenly appears in the bathroom doorway and and strife glances up, briefly enraptured by the halo of light glowing at your back. A fellow human might have likened you to an angel. Strife, however, knows that none of the feathery bastards could hold a candle to you.

Garbed in clean shorts that smell distinctly of you, and not copper, you step out into your bedroom. “How’d a demon manage to make you mad? You’re like, the champ of not getting mad. It’s like your superpower.”

“Yeah, well..” he mutters, turning his helm away, “This time, she went too far.”

You’re quiet as you flop down onto the bed next to him, your eyes flicking between his downturned head to the fists that are clenched like vices at his sides, metal claws gripping fistfuls of your duvet so tightly, you’re worried he might end up poking holes in the cover.

Whatever had been said to him must have been bad if he’s this riled up.

Biting your lip, you let out a pensive hum and lean backwards, your fingers brushing over a soft lump near the headboard. At once, your eyes grow wide and your lips stretch into a sly grin as your hand closes over something fluffy and familiar.

Strife is still busy stewing when he’s suddenly brought out of his thoughts by a face that’s shoved promptly into his line of sight. He blinks, drawing his head away to properly see what you’re holding up in front of him.

He can’t contain a chuckle once he realises that it’s none other than your old, toy horse, dangling in front of him with its little, black ears flopping forwards to cover a pair of button eyes.

Allowing a smile to grace the edge of his mouth, the Horseman wordlessly relaxes his grasp on your duvet in favour of reaching out to gently take the soft toy out of your hands, lowering it down into his lap.

“I thought David Hasselhoof might make you feel better,” you tell him, bumping your shoulder against his companionably.

The Nephilim simply smiles, stroking his palm over the horse’s fuzzy mane.

“Hey, Strife?”

“Mmm?”

You fiddle with your fingernail for a moment, dropping your eyes to the bed and taking a breath before you ask, “What did the demon say that made you so angry?”

It isn’t as though you want to pry. But having your friend turn up at your house in the dead of night with his stomach torn open warrants a couple of questions, in your honest opinion.

The Horseman’s brows knit together underneath his helm and he shifts slightly, twisting away from you further until you can’t even see the lights of his eyes. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost dare to say that he looks shy. An impossibility, frankly.

When he speaks, his voice is gentle, a far cry from the normal, strident tone you’re used to hearing. “She, uh, she might’ve made a couple of threats about you.. Bad ones.”

You wait for him to elaborate, but for some time, he doesn’t utter another word, prompting you to ask, “And?”

You very nearly reel backwards into your headboard when Strife whips around to face you. “And?!” he echoes, incredulous, “The Hell d’you mean ‘and?’ Isn’t that enough of a reason?!”

Taken aback, you lift your hands in a placating gesture and stammer, “Woah! I - I just meant... Well, it’s not like I haven’t been threatened before? Just seems like a weird thing for you to get so angry about.”

Without warning, the enormous Nephilim lurches to his feet, the cuddly horse left to tumble, forgotten out of his lap. “Did you not hear me?” he snaps, “She. Threatened. You!”

“A-and that... made you mad?”

“Did - Of course it did!” he all but howls, his voice cracking as it raises in pitch, “She made me listen to all the god damn, sick things she wanted to do to you when she found you! She said - she said, I’d never see you again!” Roughly, he drags his clawed fingertips through his spiky, black hair and exclaims, “Next thing I know, I’m droppin’ Redemption and Mercy, I’ve got her heart in my fist and I’m... I’m...”

He trails off, knocked out of stride by his own admission. You remain silent, pressed up against your head board with the blankets clutched to your chest.

When he notices you staring up at him, small and wary amongst the sheets, the frustration saps from him like water circling the drain. “So... so yeah,” he huffs, his shoulders slumping and a great wave of shame crashing over him, “I got a little mad! I got a little pissed off. Cause I didn’t like hearin’ someone say they were gonna hurt my friend.”

And with that, he just... deflates, not unlike a punctured tyre. All the hot air inside him is dispelled with every heave of his mighty chest whilst he peers down at you, feeling the weight of your stare upon him.

Guilt leaves a sour taste in his mouth, rancid and acidic.

You look so..

...scared.

Sometimes Strife forgets that to you, he’s an unassailable figure from biblical legend, a bringer of the end days and an ancient gunman with a body count higher than there are grains of sand on the earth. Of course you’re going to be scared of him when he’s raising his voice at you and towering over you like this. And all because he’d had the life scared out of him in the first place.

“I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to -” The words die on his lips and he sighs, defeatedly casting his eye over towards your bedroom window. He doesn’t want to leave you, not without knowing that his siblings have dealt with the remaining threats to your life. But... “I’ll just.. I’ll go.”

Turning his back on you, the Horseman bends to retrieve his discarded cuirass and takes a step towards the window, but a voice, thin as the cobwebs in the corner of your room, stops him in his tracks.

“Strife.”

The Horseman doesn’t move. he just stares at the darkness through your curtains.

Minutes pass without another word said between you. He remains stubbornly silent, hardly daring to breathe let alone respond to his name, until eventually, he hears a soft huff and rustling behind him.

Footsteps pad across the room and your scent grows stronger as you draw near, wafting over him like an intoxicating aroma before your hand places itself into his palm and he instinctively curls his fingers around it, shuddering at the feel of your soft skin pressed like silk against his roughened hide.

Your tiny, fragile hand... Creator, he really is just a beast standing next to you, isn’t he? The last time he felt this monstrous was..

No. Strife abruptly slams the shutters of his mind down around any thoughts of the Animus. Now is not the time to let dredge up old memories.

Luckily, your voice breaks through the haze and keeps him grounded. “Come on, big guy. Stay here, please?"

“You want me to stay?” he chokes out a laugh, “Even after I scared you?”

“Scared me? What?” It’s your turn to sound confused. “You didn’t scare me Strife, you shocked me. I’ve never seen you this serious before.”

The Horseman half turns to face you, giving you a glimpse of his warm, golden eyes. “And, I’ve never had a best friend before.” he admits slowly, hearing a soft intake of breath behind him.

“Wait?... I’m your best friend?”

With your hand still in his, Strife steps around slowly to face you, shooting you a quizzical glance. “Uh, yeah? I mean, I don’t exactly have a plethora of friends to choose from, so the competition isn’t that fie- Oof!”

He’s violently interrupted by a soft, squishy body colliding with his.

You fling your arms around the stunned Horseman’s waist and bury your face into his chest, momentarily forgetting about his injury. Strife, meanwhile, has to employ every molecule of willpower he owns to refrain from flinching, fearing that you’ll let go if he does. He can’t ignore how high his heart just jumped at the feeling of you pressed against him, nor the way his soul soars after realising that you still trust him enough to get this close.

It’s something that both he and his siblings are all having to get used to, these impromptu hugs.

Fury had almost flipped you over her shoulder and onto the ground the first time you came at her with your arms open wide, assuming you were going in for an attack.

War had pulled the most remarkable face, a mixture of alarm and wary delight that caused Strife to keel over in hysterics when you threw your arms around his broad stomach.

Death... Well, Strife hadn’t been around to witness your first hug with his oldest brother, but he imagines it must have been like hugging a block of cold stone.

And Strife? Well, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the first hug you gave him. It was so tight and comfortable, and for all of a moment, the only things that existed were the two of you. Inside the binding circle of your arms, his troubles couldn’t touch him, the anguish of his sins took a backseat and he became convinced that he could live happily and peacefully until the end of time trapped in your silent embrace.

The sentiment hasn’t dulled with frequency either. Every hug he receives is as powerful and intoxicating as the last.

This one is no different.

Strife's large, thickset arms carefully raise to your delicate back and shoulders, where he simply folds himself around you, pushing the nose of his helm into your soft, messy hair and drawing in a long, deep breath, earning your snort of amusement.

“You a big fan of coconut, then?”

“Is that what that smell is?” he mumbles, feeling the world settle around him as his eyes slip shut, “S'different from last time...”

“...Setting aside the fact that you remember what my hair smelled like last time we hugged.. I ran out of apple shampoo.”

“Mmm.” He trails off, humming into your hair, a sound that rumbles straight through you and leaves the top of your head tingling.

It takes your brain another few seconds to recall the injury on his torso.

“Oh, shit,” you hiss, leaning back and instantly finding your progress blocked by the Horseman's sturdy forearms. “I'm sorry, I didn't think -”

“- Eh, s'fine,” he cuts you off.

“It's not! I forgot, you need to be resting it!”

Strife grumbles his displeasure when you suddenly become very wriggly. “Strife, let go. You should be resting, not standing.”

Cracking one eye open, he roves his gaze over towards your bed. “Resting, huh? …. Not a bad idea.”

Without warning, he stoops down, and for the second time tonight, you find yourself suddenly swept up off your feet, bleating out a garbled squawk of alarm. “Stop picking me up! You'll start bleeding again!”

Smirking to himself, the Horseman takes two, loping steps towards your bed and lowers you down amongst the folds of the duvet, taking great pleasure in crawling over the top of you to get to the other side, armour and all. It isn't the first time he's rested in your bed, usually following a long night of playing your video games and catching up on all the human things he's been missing out on, and it likely won't be the last.

The bed springs creak despondently as he lifts his corner of the duvet and flops heavily onto his side next to you, grinning at the unimpressed glare you're shooting him.

“I like your bed,” he announces, burrowing himself deeper beneath the duvet, “You got a lot of pillows. And-”

His hand rustles beneath the covers for a moment before he winks... and slowly draws out David Hasselhoof, wiggling him back and forth in front of your eyes. “There's room for a threesome.”

“Oh my god. Goodnight, Strife!” Your lips quiver until you give in and crack a genuine smile, grabbing a pillow and whapping it softly down onto his helm. You get no resistance from the Horseman at all in retaliation. He merely lays there with his head hidden, black tufts of hair sticking out from behind your pillow as his shoulders bounce around a throaty chuckle.

Leaving him where he is, you roll over, turn off the fairy lights and plunge your bedroom into cozy, unassailable darkness.

A thick silence falls over the two of you, and the back of your neck begins to prickle, sensing without a shadow of a doubt that the Horseman's eyes are open and watching you. Sure enough, you peel your eyelids apart and find that your far wall is faintly illuminated by the golden light that emanates from his gaze.

Rolling your eyes, you resign yourself to a long night of fighting for your covers and kicking a wriggling Horseman back over onto his own side of the bed. And yet... if it's him, if it's Strife, it most likely won’t bother you in the slightest.

The alarm clock on your bedside table steadily ticks over to the three o'clock mark and you finally feel sleep crawl up behind your eyes. Just as you think you might nod off, however, the bed shakes ever so slightly, and behind you, there's the sound of shuffling sheets. It stops just as suddenly as it starts and you snort, chalking it up to a certain, restless Horseman trying to get used to the human-sized bed.

Several more minutes pass.

The shuffling starts up again, then it stops.

The same thing happens again a few more minutes later and your eyes snap open when something cool and solid nudges gently into the back of your head and you hear a quiet sniff before the whole bed shudders as the enormous Horseman laying upon it releases a monstrously low rumble of contentment.

-----

Strife leaves his helm right behind you all night, not that you'd know until the morning however, when you jerk awake to your bedroom door suddenly slamming open and Death thundering inside. He takes one look at his brother laying at your back and promptly begins a lecture that you're fairly certain will be the favoured topic of neighbourhood gossip for some time to come.

#darksiders #darksiders 2 #darksiders 3 #Strife #reader #fluff #sharing a bed!#monster boyfriend #interspecies relationships #blood #injury #whump

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violettelueur · 3 years

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— FUSHIGURO MEGUMI || THANK YOU FOR STAYING

↳ featuring : fushiguro megumi from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : mention of blood, mention of injury, mention of death and grammar issues

↳ form : imagine

↳ published : 18 january

↳ pronouns : she/her

↳ word count : 1.6k

↳ request : AAAA YOUR FINALLY OPENN <3 um so for starters i was thinking abt the same scenario for the s/o, where the s/o was megumi’s gf. team tokyo was seeing your *dead* body lying on the ground, not knowing that your actually trying to use the reverse technique slowly. megumi felt he failed at protecting you, when you’re actually still alive but reviving. eventually he came to you, crying, and just kept saying “please dont leave me” “i cant afford to loose anything” “please”. IM SORRY IF ITS TOO SPECIFIC 😭😭 i really want some fluff+angst rn LMAOO. thankyou!! <33

↳ barista’s notes : hello hello hello ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ i had to remove a tiny bit of your request because it is a spoiler for non jujutsu kaisen manga readers ʕᴥ·　ʔ and don’t worry if you think you’re being too specific, i will try my best to make the perfect cup of coffee for you ʕ •ᴥ•ʔゝ☆ but other than that, i hope you enjoy you cup of classic black coffee (jujutsu kaisen request!) and you’re welcome back anytime!

“Y/N, wake up please”

However, no matter how desperate he sounded nor how loud he was. You were non-responsive.

The grass below your body was struggling to soak up all the blood that had been spilt from your unknown wound caused by the special grade curse that you were fighting against.

No one knew how the curse was able to get into the premises of the battlefield of the Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event, let alone how it managed to get anywhere near Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College. However, right now, all Fushiguro knew was that you were in critical condition as you continued to stay silent to his pleas.

“This ain’t some joke Y/N, wake up!” Fushiguro shouted in agony as he lifted your body into his arms, searching for any source of warmth from you that he was desperate to hold. Yet, you were just stone cold.

Frantic, Fushiguro began to search around your body to see if he could find the injury that was the final blow that you took, but there was no visible presence of one leading to the shikigami sorcerer’s anxiety to heighten as he began to wonder what really happened to you. What could have the special curse did that causes you to fall into a coma? A coma right? You were just in a coma? You weren’t dead? You couldn’t be dead?

“Megumi, she’s….Y/N is..” Maki began to stutter, afraid of the junior’s reaction to what she would have to announce as she began to reach out to him, leading Fushiguro to turn to look at her with tears welled up in his eyes which led Maki to look at him with widened eyes.

Never once she ever saw the green-eyed sorcerer have a single tear in his eyes as well as the rest of the sorcerers behind her as they stared at the situation that was happening right in front of them. On the other hand, they weren’t really surprised at the fact that you were the one that brought those same tears into his precious eyes.

You were the first person to ever make them see Fushiguro smile.

Itadori remembered it as clear as day. It was when he had first met you at Harajuku around the same time when he first met Kugisaki. To his surprise that day, you weren’t the new student that they were meeting but rather a current student at the school he newly attended, it was just that you weren’t the one chosen to collect Sukuna’s finger at Sendai that day due to you having a mission of your own.

ꕥ

“So, you’re the infamous student that ate Sukuna’s finger?” you commented, as you walked towards the two students who were waiting in front of the station Gojo has told you to meet everyone at - but to no shock or surprise from you, the said teacher was not there to greet you.

“Oh? Are you the new student we are waiting for?” Itaodori kindly asked, as he took another bite out of his ice popsicle leading to your boyfriend, who was standing next to the salmon-haired boy, to have a say in the newly started conversation.

“No, this is L/N Y/N, she’s a first-year student like us, she enrolled at the same time as me,” Fushiguro informed the boy leading you to kindly smile at him while holding up a peace sign to seem more friendly.

“I’m Itadori Yuji, I’m from Sendai,” Itadori greeted you as he pointed at himself, causing you to nod your head before asking both the boys where your extremely tall teacher was, only for them to shrug at you indicating they had no idea on where Gojo was at all.

‘He probably is buying snacks or something ha?’

“Now it ain’t just the two of us ha Megumi?” you playfully asked your boyfriend as you poked his cheek, leading him to send you a side glance only for a giggle to be your response. Although it was a small interaction, Itadori was able to instantly pick up on something that confused him slightly.

“L/N, why did you call Fushiguro by his first name and not his family one?” Itadori asked in curiosity as he wondered how you were really friendly with the usually grumpy sorcerer. Turning to look at your new classmate, you smiled at him and quickly answered by saying, “no reason really, he just allowed me to since we’re really good friends,”.

Knowing Fushiguro, you knew he probably didn’t want to reveal the fact that you and him were in a relationship to Itadori too early into his newfound friendship with him, so you decided that it was the best for now to tell your new classmate that you two were really good friends.

On the other hand, what you didn’t see was how Fushiguro was looking at you. The shikigami user really appreciated the fact that you weren’t the type to tell the whole world about the both of you since he was a person that thought that not everyone needed to know if he was in a relationship or not leading to a small smile to dawn his face with a hint of adoration in his eyes as he stared at you.

Which was caught by the sights of Itadori Yuji.

ꕥ

However in his sights right now was not the same expression Fushiguro had that day. But how he wished it was. All Itadori could see right now was fear, desperation and regret in Fushiguro’s emerald eyes as he was holding onto your body like he was gripping the small amount of life that you could possibly have left in your body.

“Please don’t leave me,” Fushiguro muttered in a brittle tone, as he gently shook you, not giving up on the fact that you could have a chance of waking up. Not giving up the chance that he gets to see your beautiful eyes. Not giving up the chance that he gets to see your bright smile. Not giving up on the chance that he gets to see you alive.

“I’m sorry for not protecting you, please just wake up, I can’t lose you too,” Fushiguro begged as sorrowful tears began to lightly hit your cheeks with his throat slowly closing up leading to a slight struggle in breathing. Fushiguro slowly and regrettably came to the realisation that you were now gone, leading to a river of guilt that uncontrollably began to flow down to which caused the grade two sorcerer let out a pained scream as his friends from behind looked at the scene with a broken heart.

Gripping on to your body, Fushiguro held your body against his chest and his face was hidden in the crook of your head wanting to hold you for one last time before you were fully taken away from him.

“Hey….Mimi”

Now he was hallucinating. Fushiguro was now hearing your voice as if you were calling out to him. He couldn’t help but fully accept that fact that you were dead and there was no chance you could possibly be calling out his nickname that he hated so much but was so desperate to hear again if he could.

Suddenly to his shock, Fushiguro felt a light but tight grip on his school jacket leading him to slowly pull away with widening eyes to a hand on his jacket causing him to look up to notice your eyes slowly begin to open, showcasing the coloured orbs that the shikigami user was so desperate to see.

“Mimi….it’s really hard to….concentrate using reverse curse energy….when you’re tightly gripping on to me,” you slowly commented with a small smile on your face, to which then you slowly began to sit up only to fall back into his arms due to exhaustion of using a magnitude of your curse energy to heal the injury that the special curse managed to wound you with.

“Y/N!” everyone shouted, as they crouched down to have a clear view of what they were seeing. To their complete astonishment, you were fully awake with a smile on your face leading everyone’s hearts to fill with joy as they were relieved that you were here right in front of them alive and well.

Kugisaki couldn’t help but instantly let tears of complete joy flow down her cheeks as she launched herself on top of you, tightly hugging you close to her releasing all the agonising tension that she was holding in the second she saw your once lifeless body in Fushiguro’s arms.

Gently lifting up one of your arms to Kugisaki’s body to comfort her, you slowly turned your head to stare up at the pair of emerald eyes that were looking at you with such relief and radiance, leading to your other hand that was previously gripping his jacket to then be placed on his cheek as you used your thumb to caress it to help him slowly come back to reality.

To be honest, you could tell he needed it right now. At the beginning of the Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event, you, Fushiguro and Kugisaki were utterly dumbfounded at the fact that Itadori was alive and well after 2 months of assuming that he was dead after Sukuna ripped out his heart and now you somehow you ‘came back alive’ after sustaining a serious injury of your neck being slashed - you knew seeing two people being revived was not what you saw every day.

“I’m sorry for scaring you like that,” you whispered to Fushiguro as you lightly brushed the remaining tears he had on his cheek leading to the stoic sorcerer to softly place his forehead against yours as he began to savour the warmth that he thought he had lost.

“Thank you,’ Fushiguro muttered as he closed his eye tightly, holding in the new coming tears that were threatening to flow down leading to your hand that was on his cheek to be now placed on the back of his neck as your fingers began to caress his hair to help calm him down even further.

“Thank you for staying”

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hobidreams · 3 years

Text

january 1870.

what can you do? what power do you have?

pairing: joseon king!yoongi x reader genre: angst, drama words: 1.3k warning: this drabble contains a form of disordered eating.

moonlit throne index. this is drabble 28. start from the beginning?

“…uinyeo-nim…! …ease wake up…!”

“Can…hear us?”

The world comes back to you somehow piece by piece and all at once.

Words, hurried ones, pierce the haze of darkness that is thick in your mind, tugging you insistently to the surface. You think there are hands on you, taking your temperature from your forehead, checking your pulse, placing a pillow beneath your head. Part of you would like to keep your eyes shut for a little while longer, wanting to rest, but you cannot bear the worry in the familiar voices that call your name over and over and over. Wake up, you think, wake up.

Open your eyes.

In the dim light, the first thing you see is Scholar Park. His face has gone utterly pale, sweat beading down his brow as he frets, biting at a fingernail. But when he realizes you’ve surfaced, his eyes blow wide. He breathes an enormous sigh of relief that turns quickly into a half-delirious smile. “You’re awake!”

“S-Scholar Park…” You try to sit up and it’s a mistake. You feel aches all over; your limbs are slow as if they’re pinned down, made impossibly weighty with fatigue.

A warm hand lands on your shoulder, and you turn to see one of the younger uinyeo, Min-ji, by your side. “Please, stay on the bed, su-uinyeo-nim.”

You nod, settling back as you slowly blink, blink, blink. You don’t remember how you got here. You don’t remember what has happened to make you feel like this, like you’re hollowed out, weak. “But Min-ji, what—”

The door to your room bursts open. Wood scrapes harsh against wood, slamming into its frame.

Your incredulous eyes fall upon the king: the only man who could make such an entrance and demand every ounce of your attention.

“Jeonha!”

Immediately the other two in the room drop into deep bows.

“What the hell is going on here?” He stalks into the room, Eunuch Kim not far behind with concern etched on his features. “What happened?”

Scholar Park is slightly shriveling under the fury of the king’s glare but he manages to say, “we were walking to the library when uinyeo-nim suddenly collapsed. I immediately brought her here with the eunuchs, and called for another uinyeo to treat her. She awoke just a few minutes ago.”

“What?” He whips his head to the side. “You. Why did she collapse?”

Min-ji’s voice is so small as she replies, “I… believe it is fatigue b-brought on by m-malnutrition, jeonha.”

Then Min-ji is shrinking back too, for the king’s scowl grows infinitely at her words. He gives their meaning but a moment to settle in before he bristles. Bares his teeth.

“Let us be alone.”

“Jeonha…” Eunuch Kim starts. You can’t tell if he’s more worried for his charge or for you by the way he casts worried looks between you both.

“Alone.”

It is only after the door shuts behind the others that the king turns on you.

He walks to your bedside until he is close, but he doesn’t touch.

You stare at each other, your labored breaths the only sound in the space until he asks with a low tone, “you have not been eating?” Though he might sound angry, thoroughly annoyed in fact, you think there might be confusion there too. You are silent, so he continues. “Yet, when I ask, the cooks inform me that they have delivered your meals to you as I have instructed. So.” The syllable dips low, dangerous. “Who exactly is the liar here? Who shall get the punishment?”

You… did not realize he kept such a careful eye on you. How much should you reveal? What excuse could you come up with that could spare everyone?

“Not going to answer me? Then I shall have to call someone else. Jin-young. What would she tell me, hm?”

Pressing your lips together, you recognize his subtle look of triumph as you both know you could not drag the beloved cook into this. Your only option left is the truth.

“She… would say that I have... been asking for my meals to be uncooked. That I— I told her I wanted the ingredients to attempt to better my skills in the craft. But instead…” you scrunch the fabric of your skirt tight within your fingers. You take a deep breath, and then confess, “I have been distributing most of the grain, vegetables, and meats to those in town who are in need of it more than I.”

His scowl is so, so deep. “You... have been starving yourself instead?”

“I-I am eating as much as necessary, jeonha.” You don’t tell him that means two small bowls of rice porridge a day.

“Yet you collapsed.”

“I merely overworked myself today, that is all.”

“No. No, I do not accept that excuse. You collapsed. You fell unconscious, due to malnutrition.”

“But jeonha, the famine.” You push yourself onto your elbows. You need him to take you seriously, even as you wince from the action. “The people. The people have so much less than I. Often less than a single grain of rice to pass an entire day and much less any real sustenance to keep them alive. They— they are the truly malnourished here!”

“That is absolutely none of your concern.” Though he never raises his volume to a shout, his tone is no less intense, no less furious as he carefully articulates every word. Biting every damn truth at you. “You are not part of the royal family. You are not responsible for the people like this.”

Rare anger trickles into your veins as you fist your hands. You’ve backed down to him one too many times and this will not be one of them. “I need to do something! Am I meant to just watch them die, jeonha? To pretend that my life is perfect and lavish while I watch them suffer and struggle for want of nothing more than a hot meal?”

“Then would you rather die in exchange?!”

Your breath catches in shock. Your fury tampers down, simmering but not extinguished when faced with his overwhelming intensity, snapped at you as he wraps a firm hand around your arm.

Like a predator, he brings his face mere inches from yours. “I won’t hear of this anymore. You are not to do such things. Do not overstep your position.”

He squeezes you once before he pulls away and proceeds to leave completely, abandoning you to the absolute silence of your room.

You wait three pensive seconds before the door shuts before you let yourself collapse back onto the bed. What little strength you regained feels completely drained from you again. You didn’t mean for him to find out. You had no idea how he’d react but you never thought, never ever thought, that he would actually threaten your life like this. That harsh question repeats in your mind, the implications behind it more exhausting than any fatigue could ever be.

Silly you, to think there’d been a change in all these months. That things between you were progressing and getting back to a point where you could be comfortable with each other again. In the end, you were just deluding yourself. Letting yourself get caught up in the play-pretend that you could be the one to stand by the king’s side instead of the whore at his feet. (“What power do you have?” he asked you all those months ago, his voice abrupt, too coarse as he claimed you. You have none, as he has proved to you yet again. Not even enough to save yourself.)

#ficswithluv #btsghostie #yoongi x reader #min yoongi #yoongi angst #bts angst #bts imagines #bts scenarios #historical au #rain writes #moonlit throne #remember: there are two sides to every coin

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sundaysundaes · 3 years

Text

Falling

Lee Donghyuck/Haechan X Reader | Smut, Fluff, Angst | NC-17 | 11K

Summary: In the absence of your warmth, Lee Donghyuck begins to reminisce the loving memories he’s shared with you in the past three years, regretting how your first fight turned into something that ended it all. Lyrics are taken from this beautiful song: Harry Style’s Falling.

Warnings: Unprotected sex (please practice safe sex!), oral sex, alcohol consumption, swearing

I'm in my bed

And you're not here

The small, barely prominent crack on the ceiling of his bedroom has always gone unnoticeable. It stands only as a silent witness of the meeting between a pair of plumps lips to redder ones, the breathless sounds of frantic moans, and the sacred exchange of loving words. But not tonight. Tonight, as he lays on his bed, sheets all crumpled but with the absence of your warmth, Donghyuck notices everything.

He notices how quiet his room—his entire apartment—feels when it’s only the sound of his own, soft breathing echoes through the air. The walls, the carpet, the bedsheets, the framed photographs that remind him of the joy that used to bloom on his face—everything feels monochromatic. Empty. Shallow. Because ever since you walked out of his life, you’ve taken all the colors with you, leaving him solely in black and white.

And there's no one to blame

But the drink in my wandering hands

With the bitter taste of vodka sitting on his tongue, Donghyuck closes his eyes, allowing himself to remember but not forgive the words he once said to you.

Regrets start to suffocate him at once.

Forget what I said

It's not what I meant

And I can't take it back

I can't unpack the baggage you left

What hurts from a break-up is not the parting of two hearts, but the memories that had been drawn deep within them. It’s not the kiss that he misses, it’s the taste of your lips—the faint scent of strawberry that sits pale in comparison to your natural flavor. It’s the way they move against his own, timid at first then consuming all at once. And how there will be no other girl that will taste the same, feel the same, or emit the same kind of feelings from him.

It’s funny, Donghyuck thinks, how he can only see your smile behind his closed eyelids these days. But he doesn’t find himself laughing. He can’t even remember the last time he found a reason to smile, now that you’re gone.

The moon was hiding behind thick clouds, he remembers, that night when fate walked in and introduced you to one another.

Donghyuck’s eyes were glued to the silver screen, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he witnessed the battle between the villain and the protagonist grew deadly. The thrill of it soon perished, however, when a scent of chamomile shampoo fleeted through his nose.

Your head was falling onto his shoulder as you waned into your dreamland. Unbeknownst to you, you had been leaning your weight entirely to a stranger whose bergamot perfume compelled you to focus on anything besides the movie. It was as pleasant as it was distracting. But after being sleep deprived for three days, exhaustion finally took over and you fell asleep so deeply, you didn’t even have the strength to dream.

Your weight on his body was unfamiliar but it wasn’t uncomfortable for twenty-two years-old Lee Donghyuck. As he took a glance at your face, it wasn’t your beauty that kept him frozen—except for the gentle smile that broke on his lips. It was how peaceful you looked, almost like an enervated child curling up after spending her time chasing butterflies on the field.

Donghyuck shifted carefully on his seat, attempting his best to give you comfort by providing more space for you to lean your weight on. Then he stayed still, his smile never faltered away, the movie long forgotten. He didn’t spare a glance at the screen even when people were gasping at the sight of the protagonist dying in his lover’s arms. He was more intrigued by the thought of your name, wondering whether it would sound as nice as the smell of your shampoo.

When the credits rolled, Donghyuck told Mark and Jeno in hushed whispers to leave without him, throwing icy glares at them when they grinned devilishly at the sight of you sleeping on his shoulder. He went as further as kicking Jeno on the shin when his voice rose too loudly, afraid that he’d wake you up, which made the other man complain because certainly, the background music was louder than anything else in the room.

Nevertheless, you were still deep in your slumber.

Donghyuck begged for more time when one of the concessions workers asked him to leave. Refused and left with no other solution, he sighed and turned his head toward you.

“Hey,” he whispered, heart palpitating in anticipation of finally hearing your voice. “We have to go.”

His voice was foreign to your ears but it was so soothing, almost like a lullaby, that you snuggled closer, wanting to hear more of it. It took Donghyuck three times more with his cheeks reddening to call upon you until you finally found the power to detach yourself from your stupor.

“Hey there,” a boy—beautiful boy—with glowing, sun-kissed skin; round, enticing eyes; and a voice as sweet as honey, beamed at you with a smile so warm, it nearly melted your heart, and you decided ah, I don’t ever want to wake up from this dream.

It was when the usher popped into your vision, stating, “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we’re closing,” that you internally screamed oh God, no, this isn’t a dream, what have I done?

“So that’s what he said.” Donghyuck’s smile was sheepish with a tint of teasing, and your heart moved on its own, yearning for him to display you another one. “But if you still have time to spare, we can go get some coffees or something. I can fill you in on the details.”

“A—” Your voice was hoarse from sleep, embarrassingly so. “About what?”

“About the movie you just missed.” The grin he showcased grew wider and this time, it was so utterly mischievous that you had to break your gaze before heat rushed to your face. “The fact that you’re here watching a movie by yourself must mean you’re interested to see how it ends. I can help you with that.”

“Umm—” You rummaged your purse, pretending like you were searching for something when it was only a poor excuse for you to not be captivated by his eyes longer than you already were. “It’s fine, I can look it up online.”

“But then what should I do with this?” He brought his right hand in the air, pursing his lips. “My arm’s falling asleep. Shouldn’t you take responsibility for it?”

The horrified look on your face made him laugh, and his laughter became the reason why you decided to throw all common sense away and just went with what felt right.

Awkward conversations made you anxious but they died before you could finish your coffee. They were reborn into something that was supposed to only be shared between friends instead of strangers, but with Donghyuck, everything felt so natural, you didn’t even find the will to question it. His affable, carefree attitude was almost inspiring, breaking through your facade as easy as counting his fingers.

“So, how come you went to the movies by yourself?” Donghyuck asked, his coffee long forgotten on the table as he was more drawn to you and the little smile you retained on your lips. “Boyfriend too busy to come along?”

A bit flustered, you brought your head down, hiding your eyes behind your fringe. “I don’t... have a boyfriend.”

Donghyuck raised an eyebrow, lying his chin on his palm as he rested his elbow on the table. The way he stared at you made your stomach flip, and he reciprocated with nothing but a hum, tapping a finger to his cheek. His tiny smile held a thousand meaning.

You hurriedly took a sip of your coffee. “I, uhh, I had some free time today and it’s my favorite movie franchise—I just got to see how it ended. But all my friends have seen it, so…”

“They didn’t invite you?”

“They did. I was just busy with work.”

His voice dropped an octave lower. “And they didn’t wait for you.”

“It’s—” Your chest tightened. “It’s fine, really. I mean, it would only make me feel bad if they waited for me. My schedule is crazy. I haven’t been sleeping properly for three days because of my deadlines.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.” He chuckled and you noticed how his teeth were a little jagged. “I could still smell your drool on my shirt, actually.”

“Oh my God,” you spluttered. “I’m—Please let me wash it for you.”

“And you expect me to walk home half-naked?” His naughty eyebrow raise made your skin tingle. “Or are you inviting me to stay over?” Seeing you part your mouth but lost for words, Donghyuck tittered. “I’m kidding. I would’ve waited for you. No matter how busy you were, I would. And even if I’ve watched it first, I wouldn’t mind watching it again with you.”

You shook your head, both in attempts to disagree with his words and to erase your blush away. “But that would be a waste of money—”

“That wouldn’t be a waste, and you know why?” He leaned closer, body almost halfway through the table. “Because for me, it’s never about the movie. It’s about watching it together with you. About us complaining about the plot holes, talking about the bad acting, laughing at each other when something reminds us of one of our inside jokes. That’s what makes it worth.” As Donghyuck realized how your eyes were locked with his, your breath hitching in your throat with the proximity, he quickly plummeted back to his seat, flushed. “I mean, it applies to everyone—not you, specifically.”

So he could be shy, you wondered. And what else could he be? Maybe buried underneath those mischievous grins, laid a caring heart. Maybe he could be the one who’d understand when you missed three of his calls as you tried to survive your deadlines. Maybe he would cook you breakfast instead of just reminding you to take one. Maybe he could taste sweeter than any boy you’d ever kissed.

So when his curiosity for you matched the intensity you had towards him, you let your walls crumble, welcoming him with open arms.

“It’s going to rain,” Donghyuck mentioned, eyes observing the night sky, dark clouds rumbling as they hovered above you. You were walking next to him, knuckles nearly grazing one another from how near you were though none of you was brave enough to close the distance.

Although obvious, you decided to humor him. “Yeah? How can you tell?”

“‘Cause I’m psychic.” The added wink in the end was a bonus but to you, it became the main reason why you had to drag your gaze to your feet.

Funny how for the past three hours, your smile never faltered away—almost to the point that your cheekbones began to hurt—when you could barely remember the last time you found amusement in anything.

“Are you cold?” he asked, and you promptly shook your head no. Unfortunately for you, your body betrayed you. Donghyuck chuckled softly when he noticed the shivers that ran through your spine. “Want me to lend you my jacket?”

“Oh—no, it’s fine, I’m—”

“It was a rhetorical question, dummy.” The body heat that was imprinted on his leather jacket made you well-aware of just how warm he actually was. The scent of his bergamot perfume was overwhelmingly delightful, but there was another scent underneath it—something that reminded you of summer, sunlight, and sandalwood—that made you wonder, maybe, if he wasn’t wearing this perfume, he’d smell just like this.

He pushed your hair away from your neck, straightening the jacket until it enveloped you entirely with its warmth. “Better?”

You eventually managed to snap yourself out of your reverie. “Were you always this smooth with women?”

“No, I just practiced in front of my mirror a lot.”

“Practiced what?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “The art of seduction.”

“Is that so?” Your cheeks began to warm but it was probably because of the jacket. “Guess I should try that sometimes,” you joked.

“I don’t think you need it,” he cooed, bending himself down a little so you were eye-to-eye. “You already have me wrapped around your fingers from the second I laid my eyes on you.” When you became petrified by his words, his laughter reverberated through the air. “Now, that’s an example. How did I do?”

Ignoring your racing heart, you retorted, “Terrible.”

“Then will you let me practice on you so I can get better?”

Just like that, you found yourself sporting another smile. “Now, that’s smooth.”

Your life had been dull, repeating the same routines over and over again with your job taking most of your precious hours. Being with Donghyuck was a breath of fresh air—a stranger who was attentive to every little gesture you made, every little word that escaped your mouth, as much as he easily stole your attention away. His confidence was inspiring, his laughter was contagious, and you adored every little bit of his quirkiness.

“This feels like a date,” he professes, smiling diffidently to himself. “Would it be okay for me to think of it as a date?”

Suddenly, your vocabulary had diminished into nothing but his name. You nodded, and surprisingly enough for you, Donghyuck snickered, hand reaching out to playfully—almost childishly—ruffle your strands. “Thanks. Then a date it is.”

You wished time could go slower so you could savor the moment, memorizing the heart shape of his lips when he grinned.

You stopped in front of your apartment building, a breeze of cold night wind caressing your cheeks. “Umm, this is me,” you said, dismantling his leather jacket of your body. “Thank you... for this.”

Donghyuck’s fingertips grazed against your knuckles and it took longer than necessary for him to retrieve it from your hand. “You’re welcome.”

“And...” Your mind strayed away from forming the right words as you took notice of him wearing his leather jacket, how it fitted him so perfectly, how handsome he looked. “Umm, thank you for walking me back.”

“Thank you for giving me the chance.” His smile reminded you of spring, your favorite season, the way it blossomed on his face, so warm and beautiful. “I could’ve been a serial killer, you know. Showing me where you live isn’t too smart.”

“You don’t look like a serial killer to me.”

“Yeah?” His smile turned impish. “Then, how do I look like to you?”

You were fast to pivot on your heels. “I think I should go.”

His laughter filled the air. “Wait, I haven’t even said good night yet.”

“Then good ni—“ Your words died on your tongue when a pair of plump lips found their way to your cheek, just brushing lightly against the skin but your entire breath escaped your lungs at once. He retraced his steps before you could respond properly, biting the corner of his lip, looking somewhat unsure.

“Sorry if that’s—“ Donghyuck cleared his throat. “Umm, good night.”

You felt lightheaded, and you shortly blamed it on the amount of espresso you’d gulped too much during the day. “Good… night…”

Donghyuck was too bashful to meet your eyes, which was why you were brave enough to sneak a glimpse at his face. You decided that his sly, confident grins looked alluring on his face, but they were nothing compared to how adorable he seemed when he evinced that nervous, shy look on his face.

It took a few seconds before Donghyuck gave you a weak nod and walked away, taking the same direction from where you came. Something queasy grew inside your stomach, your grip around your purse tightening.

Is it all there is? Am I never going to see him again?

With a heavy sigh, you walked toward your building.

Maybe he doesn't like me that much... But what do I do now? I want to see him again.

I don’t want to let him go without knowing whether I could see him again.

God, for once, just do something for yourself. Do something that makes you happy, be brave!

Taking a deep breath, you chose to gamble.

At the same time you turned on your heels, shouting his name, Donghyuck was calling upon yours and you both met each other halfway, breathless when it didn’t even take you more than twenty steps to reach one another.

“H-hi,” you greeted, voice quivering but not as much as the fingers you curled around the hem of your blouse.

“Hey.” Donghyuck’s gaze softened. “I was wondering—”

“Can we meet again?” You didn’t intend to cut him off so abruptly, but the anxiety within you nearly made your heart burst that you ended up asking the question without waiting for him to finish his. “I—I mean—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“Yes, a thousand times yes,” he answered in one breath, with his sentence ending in chuckles. “You’re adorable, do you know that?”

Your heart was still about to burst but for an entirely different reason. “That’s…” You tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear—a habit that seemed to appear whenever you were too embarrassed to function. “That’s great. I mean, the fact that you want to see me again, not—” Oh God, okay, stop. “Well, then, umm, I guess I should leave now.”

He concealed his grin. “Aren’t you going to ask for my number or something?”

You mentally slapped yourself. “Y-yes, that would make it easier.”

The way Donghyuck was gazing at you made you feel like you were about to fall from the edge of your seat. He must think I’m an idiot. But had you been brave enough to see the gleam in his eyes, you would’ve noticed how he was staring at you so adoringly. “Give me your phone then.” When you just stood still, too busy trying to comprehend that a cute boy was really going to give you his number, Donghyuck added, “To add my numbers, Sweetheart. What, do I look like someone who flirts with pretty girls just to steal their phones away?”

“I wasn’t—” You quickly handed him your phone. “Here.”

Donghyuck’s smile grew playful again. “Care to make it interesting?”

“What?”

“I’ll add my numbers except for the last digit. You gotta guess it.”

“What? Why—”

“Because you’re cute,” he repeated, cocking his head as he returned your phone. “And it makes me want to tease you even more.” You unconsciously began to pout and he nearly whimpered at the sight. “Don’t do that, that’s not fair.”

You mumbled quietly, “I don’t like being made fun of.”

“I’m not making fun of you, I’m teasing you. There’s a difference.” He sighed, fingertips aching to reach out and swat your bangs away from your eyes. “A huge difference.”

You jutted out your bottom lip. “Feels the same to me.”

Donghyuck leaned in, calloused palm finding its way to cup your cheek, lifting your face so the streetlight could illuminate your features. “You need to wash that pout away from your face,” he whispered, eyes slowly going down to your lips that you had to remind yourself to breathe. “Or else I won’t be able to hold myself back.”

It was supposed to be another teasing, you knew he only meant it that way. But all trace of playfulness quickly vanished from his face when he noticed your eyes drifting to his lips—just for a split second—but that was enough. He saw the sign, he felt the chemistry, and there was no way he was going to let it pass just like that. Not when he had been thinking the same thing repeatedly for the last three hours you’d been together.

It wasn’t your first kiss—nor your second or third—but it was the kiss that mattered and you weren’t sure why. Three hours ago, he was a stranger. Now, he sent a trickle of electricity through your bloodstream, as if he was your first love. As if you had been wanting him for years.

A gentle rain began to pour over your heads, tiny droplets staining your cheeks but all you could think about was the way his thumb was caressing your cheekbone, how his lips were warmer and softer than anything you could have imagined, yet fierce and powerful at the same time.

“Am I going too fast?” He asked in a broken whisper, parting away just enough to murmur the question but close enough that you could still feel his words grazing your lips.

“Yes.” But you curled your fingers on the front of his shirt, tugging him closer. Donghyuck sighed into your mouth, eyebrows furrowing as he let himself drown deeper in passion. What started as a chaste kiss became ardent, and you allowed him to taste you enough so that he would fall asleep thinking about your lips. Donghyuck took a hold of your wrist, detaching your grip from his fabric and moved it up, silently telling you to wind your arms around his neck instead. The second you did it, he melded his lips with yours in a passion that matched the blazing sun, entangling his long arms around your waist, nearly lifting you off your feet as he embraced you tighter.

You wanted to preserve this moment. Right here, kissing fervidly under the soft rain in the arms of a stranger, drowned in the feelings of excitement. Because if you were oxygen, then Donghyuck was dying to breathe.

When it ended, you wished it didn’t have to. Donghyuck’s eyes were deep and intense as they peered into yours, growing a bit half-lidded when he shifted them back to your lips. “Hey.”

You mirrored his gentle smile, forehead pressing against his. “Hi…”

“I don’t know about you,” he chuckled lowly, “but as far as first kisses go, I think that was the best first kiss in the history of mankind.”

You tried to suppress your laughter but failed instantly. “Hyuck?”

“Yeah?”

“Judging from that line, I think you need to practice harder on your art of seduction.”

“Let’s just go back to kissing for now. I like kissing.” He pulled you in again, exchanging muffled giggles between playful kisses.

And if happiness had a form, it would’ve had his smile.

What am I now? What am I now?

What if I’m someone I don’t want around?

I’m falling again. I’m falling again.

I’m falling.

It’s almost laughable that the memories that once sparked so much joy in his heart have taken a shape of javelin, striking him deep in his chest, right where he ached for you the most. It tasted like summer when he kissed you in the rain, and the pain that swells in Donghyuck’s heart whenever the memory of it suffices is harder than the storm. And now, it’s the silence of the room—the absence of your presence—that pierces his skin.

It was easy for him to fall in love with you. So easy, it frightened him at first. After his first relationship, the way his first love shed his heart to pieces, he thought he wouldn’t be able to love someone ever again. Wouldn’t have the courage to even try. But when you came into the picture, Donghyuck didn’t even have the strength to resist. You were everything he ever wanted, an epitome of the woman that graced his dreams. And he was a prisoner, trapped under your spell.

So, why does everything have to end?

Now that he’s falling without you catching him, what is he going to do?

He hates who he’s become. He loathes the fact that he can no longer easily smile like he used to. He despises how grimly he envisioned the world these days. As if you were his entire future, and now that you’re gone, his whole world collapses. Donghyuck no longer knows himself, as you were the one who defines him. The one who gave meaning to his life. The one who mended his broken heart.

What if I’m down? What if I’m out?

What if I’m someone you won’t talk about?

I’m falling again. I’m falling again.

I’m falling.

You must hate me now, Donghyuck ponders, bringing his arm over his face, nibbling at the corner of his lip. The things I said… How I let you go without even giving us a chance… I must have hurt you…

It all began that night, on the day of your twenty-sixth birthday. Two years had passed since you shared your first kiss. Little fights over your differences couldn’t be avoided, but they helped nurture the bond you had with him, making it stronger. And each forgiveness was sincere and was rich in kisses. Donghyuck always made sure of that.

As you were fond of movies, your perfect date must involve watching a movie together with him so Donghyuck, dressed unusually handsomely in a white button-up shirt and black khakis that caught you off guard, took you out to the movie theater—the place where fate once meddled in and brought you to one another.

Knowing your taste, he paid two tickets to see the latest romantic movie, two buckets of popcorn, and a coke for him but iced green tea for you, realizing full well how soda had become one of your biggest enemies ever since your diet started. He made sure that your seats were located on the corner top of the theater, private enough for him to snuggle close to you or steal kisses whenever he felt like doing. You didn’t mind because Donghyuck would only kiss you when you seemed bored, never wanting to bother you when you were too immersed in the movie. He simply kept his hand laced with yours the whole time to make up for the loss.

Complaining about the plot holes and making jokes that only you two could understand had become Donghyuck’s habit to keep you entertained during the movie and it was something you always looked forward to. But that night, he was quiet, his eyebrows creasing in irritation but because of what, you were clueless.

“Are you okay?” You asked as you exited the building, this time being the one who reached out for his hand first. Donghyuck stiffened but his shoulders soon relaxing as he intertwined your fingers together.

“I’m fine,” he assured. “Why, do I not look fine?”

You weakly smiled back, uncertain. “You just seem awfully quiet, that’s all.”

He rubbed his nape, somehow looking a bit perturbed. “I just… It made me remember something I’ve been trying my best to forget.”

“You mean the movie?”

“Yeah.” He sighed into the night, puffs of hot air erupting from his slightly chapped lips. “I don’t know about you, but I think the way the movie depicted their long-distance relationship is just bullshit.”

There was so much bitterness in his words that it nearly made you stop walking. Suddenly, there was a thick tension around you, one that made you aware that it would be wiser to drop the conversation. But curiosity was eating you from the inside. He looked so crushed, so angry, and Donghyuck was turning into a whole other person before you.

You asked him what happened.

“I don’t think I want to talk about my past relationship when I’m celebrating a special night with my girlfriend.” He forced himself to laugh about it, but it sounded hollow.

You unconsciously tightened your grip around his hand. “I just wanted to understand you better.”

“Hey.” He pulled you toward him so abruptly, you ended up falling on his chest. His smile was warmer when he looked at you. “Without even knowing my past, you already understand me better than anyone.”

You were still unsettled when Donghyuck kissed your lips to divert your attention, softly biting your lower one just to joke around to ease the tension. “Ah, I can’t wait until we’re home,” he whispered when all laughter had receded and he had his fingers tucking your loose strands behind your ear. “I want to make love to you.”

Your heart beat thunderously inside your chest. “You’re—you’re just gonna say it so blatantly like that?” He used to be so shy about it, asking you to join him in bed by pressing open-mouthed kisses down your neck instead of using words.

“Just wanted you to know my plans beforehand.” He simpered. “Or do you not want to?”

Face aflame, you hurriedly took a couple of strides forward, leading the way with your hand clamping his wrist. “Where are we going?” Donghyuck frowned but followed you nonetheless. “The restaurant is right there.”

“We can have dinner after.” You threw a look over your shoulder, too nervous to smile, but hoped your words would deliver. “Aren’t we going to make love?”

His astonished look soon turned delicate. Donghyuck’s smiles were always beautiful, but the ones that were caused by you were the brightest.

As soon as the door clicked open, Donghyuck half-pushed, half-carried you inside his apartment that smelled pleasantly like him. He didn’t wait until it was properly closed before he latched his parted lips on your softer ones, fusing perfectly in the way no one ever could. A stinging pain erupted from the back of your head when Donghyuck drove you to the wall, not knowing his own strength, but when you groaned against his mouth, it was solely because you needed him as much as he needed you.

“I love you,” he breathlessly said against your neck, tearing your coat away from your body, fingers slipping underneath your dress. “I love you so much, it’s insane.”

It had been three months since you first exchanged the sacred three words, but no matter how much Donghyuck had whispered them to your ears, painted them to your skin with his lips, it still felt like the first time you heard him say the words. It wasn’t just because of how many promises he held underneath them, it was the way he said them—so sincerely, so desperately, as if you were running out of time and he needed you to hear them before you disappeared from his life.

“I—” You flinched, pulling him for another kiss again when Donghyuck hooked his fingers on the side of your lingerie, hastily pushing it down your thighs. “I love you too—Hyuck—”

The bed was not more than twenty steps away but it was long forgotten when Donghyuck, still with his teeth ghosting across your lower lip, hastily unzipped himself and pushed his jeans and boxers lower enough for your hand to find and stroke him to life. “God, baby—” he hissed when you curled your fingers around him, hot breath caressing your jawline. “I want—I need to be inside you—just—”

No one had ever wanted you the way he did. Every kiss was nearly bruising, every hug was almost suffocating, the thrill of it all was overwhelming.

It was almost a whine that escaped his lips when he vocalized your name. As soon as his desperate gasp and pleading moan reached your ears, the butterflies came alive in your stomach. Your skin tingled, even with the lightest brush of his lips. Your fingers found home in his hair when he kissed the valley between your breasts, tugging at his soft strands and earning a low grunt in response.

You gave him a sign, affirming that it was okay to continue and Donghyuck wasted no time. Pushing the fabric of your dress as much as he could until it pooled around your waist, he lifted one of your legs and wrapped it around his hips, one hand sliding down to prop up your thigh, the other one aligning his tip against your entrance.

The friction made you moan, both in pain and passion, as Donghyuck slid himself in one swift motion. The second he was sheathed deep inside, waiting for you to adjust to his size, he drew out a long sigh, eyes shut close as he relished the sensation. But when your gaze met, his half-lidded eyes were gentler than they had been the entire day. Careful fingers framed your face, his thumb rubbing comforting circles along your cheekbone. “Are you okay?”

You weakly nodded, smiling sheepishly. “Are you?”

His chuckles were light and bashful. “I’m feeling great,” he said. He moved his hips without warning, just a little, not too fast, not too deep, but the sensation was enough to make you whimper and Donghyuck swallowed every little noise you made directly with his lips.

A certain thrust made you squeeze around him and he drowned out his moan by mouthing against your shoulder, teeth prickling against the skin. “Fuck, do that again, baby, please.” And as he continued hitting the same spot, it was a given that you provided the same reaction.

Donghyuck was insanely good at making you feel good, and in return, you wanted to give him everything that he desired. “I love how you feel around me,” he confessed under his breath, as if he was talking to himself. “Perfect—you’re so perfect for me—”

Your arms were frantically clutching around his neck, trying to maintain stability when Donghyuck pushed you up the wall, now lifting both of your feet off the ground. He buried himself deeper, moved his hips faster, and kissed you with the desperation of a dying man.

You tried to hold back but you couldn’t. It was too much. His breathless moans in your ear, the frantic sway of his hips, the closeness of your bodies—everything was overwhelming and you came hard on his length, legs wrapping tightly around his waist as Donghyuck chased after your lips.

“Fuck,” he breathed heavily, his jaw hung low. The way you quivered and clenched around him sent fire through his veins. “Did you just come?” he whispered and you bit your lip in shame. The tiny laugh that broke free from his lips were both playful and filled with tenderness. “Already? That was fast.”

Flustered but not given the chance to react, you inhaled sharply when Donghyuck picked up the pace. He was almost growling when his lips grazed against the shell of your ear. “Actually, me too,” he moaned, “Is it—can I come inside?”

You nodded fervently, embracing him tighter and Donghyuck buried his head in the crook of your neck, hips stuttering as he came.

When he let you slide down to your feet, your knees gave out under your weight and you stumbled back to his chest. He held you close, laughing as he kissed the top of your head. “I’m sorry, come here.” Bending down slightly, Donghyuck hooked one arm under your knees and another one behind your back. He carried you in his arms, teasing, “The sex was so good, you could barely stand, huh?”

You playfully slapped his chest. “Shut up.”

But all of his mischievousness dissipated as soon as you both slipped under the duvet, his bedsheets felt silky smooth under your spine. He cleaned the stain that dripped down your thighs with a warm towel, but dipped his head down to taste you directly with his tongue the second he was finished with it. Donghyuck’s eyes never left yours, placing gentle kisses on the inner sides of your thighs and two more on your clit before he slid his tongue along your folds, slowly, as if he had the whole time in the world to please you.

He was always gentler the second time, slower with more feelings instead of sheer passion. So when he slid himself into you again, his forehead was pressed against yours, lips curving up into an innocent smile. “I never want to let you go,” he chuckled between tiny moans. “I want to stay just like this with you, forever.”

“I don’t think it’s physically possible,” you giggled, raking your nails down his spine and he arched his back in response.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could stay connected like this all the time, though?” Donghyuck broke away, sitting on his heels as he rested one of your legs on his shoulder. His fingers were kneading the skin of your thigh, hugging your leg close to his chest as he rocked his hips slowly, savoring every moment. “I mean, ah, doesn’t this feel good?”

You nibbled at your lip, sighing. Good was an understatement but you weren’t sure you could find a term to perfectly define how amazing he felt around you. From where you laid on the bed, you could take a good look at Donghyuck’s eyes—the way they drooped slightly, clouded with both affection and infatuation every time they met yours. How the muscles in his abs were flexing with every movement. The sinful, obscene sway of his hips. The little smirk that broke on his face when you accidentally moaned his name too loud—Donghyuck was... Beautiful. Irresistible. Sexy.

“Baby?” Donghyuck called, chuckling softly as he peppered open-mouthed kisses to your ankle that made you stare in a haze. “You okay down there?”

You pursed your lips. “Just enjoying the view.”

“Yeah?” He brought your leg down so he could fall back into your arms, mouth meeting your jawline before it moved to playfully bite the tip of your nose. “Well, I’ve got something else you could also enjoy.”

You hummed, trying your best to contain your moan when he suddenly brought his fingers down to rub against your clit. “And what’s that?” Though by the way he slammed his hips harder against yours served as an obvious answer.

“Some caramel pudding,” he answered, nipping against your neck as he grinned, careful enough not to leave any marks. “They’re in the fridge. You’ll love them.”

It was hard to focus when he kept hitting the spot that made you curl your toes. “Hyuck...” You pushed a loose strand of his hair behind his ear before you caressed his cheek. “I love you.”

His movements stopped, eyes peering into yours, stunned at first, then melted into something softer than the breath of summer. “I love you too.” His lips never left yours as they spoke each loving word with more sentimentality and less urgency. “And happy birthday, baby...”

When both of you had no strength left but to cuddle in each other’s arms, you gathered the courage to ask once more. “Hyuck?”

“Hmm?”

“I still want to know, after all. About what happened to you earlier. You looked so distraught—I can’t rest before I know what upsets you.”

Donghyuck’s fingers stopped momentarily from carding through your strands but with a heavy sigh, he surrendered.

It was his first relationship with his first love, back when he was sixteen. They were together for four years but knew each other for ten. She was a close friend that grew into something more. Even loving words didn’t need to be exchanged as they could practically finish each other’s thoughts. You felt a pang of jealousy gnawing at you from the inside, at the thought of him having someone so important in his life—someone who had stayed with him longer than you’d met him—someone whose name couldn’t be spoken as it triggered too many emotions.

But for the sake of understanding him, you cast your jealousy aside, no matter how much it hurt.

Donghyuck’s voice had lost its usual cheeriness when he reminisced his past. By the time they graduated high school, she decided to continue her study in Japan. Donghyuck let her go, supporting her plans and dreams like the perfect boyfriend that he was. They were committed to each other, faithful to one another. Donghyuck never doubted her, not even once.

Until one day, during a summer break, he decided to pay her a visit. He bought airplane tickets with the money he’d saved up for months, along with a thoughtful gift for her birthday. But the second he saw her opening the door to her apartment, he realized that she wasn’t alone.

She was never alone. He was.

“Why are you here?” She asked, as if his presence was a bother. Him, the man whom she claimed she’d loved with her entire soul for the last four years. The man whom she had made love to on his bed just six months earlier. Donghyuck would never forget the look she had on her face that day.

“It’s funny how you’ve been with this person your whole life,” Donghyuck breathily said, eyes locked to the ceiling. “And you thought you knew them like the back of your hand and then one day, they betrayed you in the way you thought they were incapable of doing.”

You couldn’t find your voice, blending in with the silence of the room.

But he didn’t hate her, Donghyuck confessed. He hated himself. He hated how stupid—how innocent and gullible he was. He hated how easily he let someone else carry his heart around and let them do whatever they want with it. He knew that she wouldn’t have the power to destroy him, if he didn’t give her the chance. Maybe, if his thoughts weren’t as clouded by his feelings, he would’ve noticed the little sighs she made whenever he told her he loved her. He would’ve noticed the way she sounded much brighter when she talked about her life instead of their lives together during their late-night calls. He would’ve noticed how distant she sounded whenever she spoke his name, as if it was just another meaningless word and not the one that she used to murmur in short gasps near his ear.

And maybe if I hadn’t fallen in love...

Donghyuck fell mute for a few seconds as if he was drifted to another time and space. The hurting look on his face was so vivid that it broke you just by seeing it. Attempting to wash the pain away, you placed a hand on his cheek and Donghyuck grew rigid once before he melted into smiles, leaning into your touch.

“I had to stay for a whole week in a country I didn’t know because I couldn’t refund my ticket. All alone, since my girlfriend cheated on me and didn’t even care to apologize about it,” he murmured against your palm, still sounding bitter but with more ease. “So yeah, I probably have some trust issues now because of that.” He tried to laugh it off. “But it’s all right. I don’t care. I have you now, right?” He laid on his side, facing you with a boyish smile that made your heart race just a little bit faster. “I’m starting on a new page with you. And as long as you’re here with me, I’m the happiest man in the world.”

You reflected his smile though your heart was unsettled. “You’re lame.”

“Excuse me, I’m in love,” he corrected, pouting. But when his hand found yours, his expression grew tender again. Kissing each of your fingertips, he murmured, “We’ll always be together, right? Promise you won’t do that to me, ‘cause I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He knew what loving you could cost him, but you were different. And he was different. He wouldn’t fall into the same trap. He knew how to protect himself this time. So he allowed himself to love you just as much, if not more, moving on but never forget.

Your eyes were focusing on the way he brought your index finger between his lips, the tip pressing against his hot tongue. “Yes,” you softly whispered, hooking a finger around his silver necklace, pulling him in for a kiss. “We’ll always be together.”

So when you received a job promotion a year later, you didn’t know what to say to him. It was your dream job, finally achieving that position after practically hanging on for dear life for five years working in the company. The salary exceeded your expectation, and you would be working under a senior that you admired. The company would pay for all your living expenses, give you your own flat to live with a balcony where you could see the sun rising behind the skyscrapers. It all sounded so perfect. Too perfect.

Except for the part where you had to move to another country that stood three thousand miles from where he was.

You knew you should’ve said something to Donghyuck the first time your director broke the news to you. But you couldn’t as you didn’t know how. During the three years of your relationship, both of you had avoided talking about matters that could lead to fights, only allowing yourselves to discuss trivial, daily things that would make the other pout in annoyance but not fury. The first time you noticed this happened, was when both of you became too busy dealing with your own lives. You had your job to think about, while Donghyuck had his thesis to work on and there wasn’t much time to focus on each other even when you were staying in the same room.

Donghyuck often released his stress by nuzzling his nose against your neck, pulling you into his lap, whispering, “I miss you,” and you reciprocated each time with a kiss but you both stopped before it got too much, with you patting his cheek, apologizing to him with both words and your eyes, “I’m sorry, but I have a Zoom meeting in an hour so I really need to get my presentation done.”

He just sighed, pressing a tiny kiss between your eyebrows. “Well then, I’m gonna go catch some sleep. Don’t work too hard.”

And as he walked to the bedroom, closing the door behind him, leaving you alone in his living room, you realized the distance that grew between you. He used to look back, peeking his head through the door, saying, “Would it really kill you to just join me for, like, fifteen minutes? I’ll be fast, I swear,” which you would answer with a laugh, assuming he was joking. “Why are you laughing? I’m serious!”

Now, he doesn’t even stop to say good night.

You knew you could fix it—he knew he could fix it too—but none of you ever said anything about it, afraid that it would trigger something bigger that neither of you wouldn’t be able to fix.

It didn’t mean that you didn’t try. Every weekend, you would commit yourself fully for him and Donghyuck would accept your unspoken apology with all his heart. You once attempted to drop some clues about your promotion during dinner when he made you your favorite dish, grinning from ear-to-ear as he waited for your reaction. Donghyuck’s Spaghetti Aglio e olio never disappointed you, but you know your words would. So when he was smiling at you, his thumb gliding along your knuckles as he took your hand in his, how could you tell him?

I just need more time to prepare myself. To find a better way to explain.

But before you could find your words, Donghyuck found your promotion letter.

“What is this?” He asked to your horror, body leaning against the doorframe, your letter in his hand.

The maroon dress you were trying to fold fell from your lap as you stood up abruptly, eyes widening in shock. “That’s—where did you get—”

“What is this?”

“It’s...” You trembled. “My promotion letter.”

“Are you planning to tell me about it?” He wasn’t shouting, didn’t even raise his voice, but to your ears, his voice was thunderous.

You fidgeted, fingers fisting the hemline of your shirt, desperate for comfort. “Of course, I—” But there were no words. Your brain was too jumbled to find a proper excuse. So when Donghyuck just lowered his gaze, eyes growing colder, and left the room, you could only call out his name.

He only stopped in his tracks when you grasped his wrist. “Did you say yes to this?” His voice was quiet, eerily so, that it sent shivers down your spine.

You nibbled at your bottom lip. “I was—”

“Yes or no?”

He only allowed you to choose, not explain. With a deep breath, you mumbled out, “Yes.”

There was a moment of silence where you could only hear your stuttered breathing but none of his. “Three months,” he murmured, voice deep and hoarse that you barely recognized it. “The letter is three months old. You had all this time to tell me.”

Panic was bubbling up your chest. “I was going to tell you but—”

The rest of your words died instantly the second Donghyuck slammed the letter on the dining table. Without another word, he stomped off to the front door, grabbing his coat.

“Wait!” You chased after his trails, knees wobbling. “Where are you—”

The door was shut close with a bang.

No matter how many times you tried to call him, he never answered. The only thing you could do was stay in his apartment and waited until he came back to his senses. Now that you were alone in the living room, you began to notice just how much of your belongings were positioned in every corner of his apartment. Your toothbrush was next to his, your clothes were hanging inside his wardrobe, your favorite books were on his shelf, and the walls were painted with more photographs of you than his own. In every picture, you could see yourself smiling in his arms, laughing at something he did or said because that was it, wasn’t it? Donghyuck was the only one who could make you smile so freely, without a care in the world.

So why are we in this position?

It was your first big fight and you had no one to blame but yourself. Hours had passed by and tears began to well from how frustrated you were with yourself, but the front door flung open before they could outline your cheeks.

“Hyuck,” you called out, heart breaking at the sound of his name. Donghyuck’s hair was ruffled by the wind, his nose and cheeks reddening from the cold night air. His hands were in his coat’s pockets, his eyes hiding behind his bangs as he kicked his shoes away. He walked past you as if you weren’t there, heading straight to the bedroom.

Judging from the scent and his droopy eyes, you knew he had been drinking. “Are you okay?”

No answer. He took his coat off, throwing it to the bed, along with his phone—which was clearly functional as always. You had expected him to dismiss your calls, but it still hurt being ignored.

Eyebrows knitting in concern, you went to the kitchen to make him a cup of coffee, hoping that a little caffeine would ease the tension as it was something you were both fond of. You stopped to catch your breath, noticing that it was one in the morning.

What should I do?

“Hyuck…” You carefully said, voice quieter than usual as you walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind you. “I’ve made you some coffee. It’ll help warm you up.”

Donghyuck was sitting at the edge of the bed, his phone in his hands, blatantly ignoring you.

“Can we…” You hesitated, fingers curling into tiny balls of fists. “Can we talk..?”

But the silence was deafening.

“Hyuck—”

“What?!” He suddenly roared, making you take a step back, flinching. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I…” You swallowed your breath. “I know you’re upset about me leaving and I’m sorry—”

“Oh, so now you want to talk about this? After I found out about your letter?” Donghyuck didn’t wait for your response. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this a secret from me! What else are you not telling me?”

Heart dropping to the stomach, you weakly replied, “Nothing, just... I was going to tell you—”

“Yeah? When, exactly?” Donghyuck stood up, throwing his phone to the bed. “When you’re about to go? When you’re about to disappear from my life just like her?”

Being put in the same position as the person who tore his heart to pieces was both sickening and infuriating. “Of course not, I won’t do that to you! I won’t leave you—”

“But that’s all that everybody fucking said!” He threw his hands in the air. “That’s what she said when—”

“Well, I’m not her!” The booming sound of your voice startled you both, but it grew weak in comparison when the eerie silence followed. “Hyuck, you can’t blame me for what she did. I’m not her. I’m not her replacement. Don’t compare me with her.”

For a moment, Donghyuck’s lips were pressed tightly until they grew white. “I never compared you with her,” he said through gritted teeth. “Not until now when you’re doing the same thing, saying the exact same thing to me.”

You cowered slightly under his gaze. The sound of the ticking clock had never felt so loud when you fought for words to say. “It’s my dream job, Hyuck. I’ve been waiting all my life to get this position.”

“Congratulations.” He scoffed, clenching his jaw. “I’m so glad you get what you wanted.”

“You don’t have to force yourself to say words you don’t mean.”

He clicked his tongue in vexation. “Yeah, well, I would’ve meant them, if you had told me about this sooner.”

“I wasn’t able to tell you because I thought you’d be upset about it—”

“Well, I suppose, postponing it until we’re counting days till your leave is going to make me feel fucking elated, isn’t that right, Sweetheart?” There had never been a day where you thought his adorable, warm laughter could turn into something so spiteful. “Let me guess. You’re leaving in like, what, a month?”

You rubbed your tears away before they fell. “Six weeks.”

“Oh, that makes everything so much better! Six weeks!” He cynically laughed, throwing his head back. “You know what? You’re right. I’m so happy. Never been this fucking happy in my whole goddamn life—”

“What do you want me to do?!” The frustration that welled inside your chest finally broke through your lips. “You want me to turn back time so I could tell you right after I heard the news three months ago?”

Donghyuck averted his gaze, his hand going to his head, pulling at his hair roots. “I just don’t understand why if this is so important to you—and if I’m so important to you—why don’t you talk this out with me? Don’t you care about what I think? About how I’d feel?”

Tears were running faster than you could wipe them off your cheeks. “I couldn’t find the right time to tell you.” You choked out. “ And you were busy working on your final thesis too, I didn’t want to bother you—”

“That’s your excuse?!” he gasped in disbelief. “I don’t fucking care about my thesis. I care about you! And you knew how I felt about this—about being in a long-distance relationship—"

“That was the reason why I was waiting for the right time until—“

“Until you can tell me that you’re leaving.” He sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m tired and we’re going in circles. Why are we even discussing this when you’ve made the decision all by yourself.”

Embittered, you asked, “Do you want me to choose between you and my career?”

“No. I don’t.” He finally peered into your eyes, and you could see how there was not as much anger as sadness that emerged in his eyes. “But I’m making my own decision.” When you frowned in confusion, Donghyuck looked away, staring at the wall that was filled with memories as he spoke. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“What?” It felt like the world was swallowing you whole. “What did you say?”

Exchanging stares with you, Donghyuck appeared more weary than furious. “I just don’t see how this is going to work.”

“You’re drunk.” You reasoned out, both in efforts to calm him down and to wash the fear away from your chest. “You won’t be saying any of this if you were sober.”

Donghyuck’s eyes grew colder. “If that’s what makes you sleep at night, sure. Go ahead and think that way.”

Dread was coursing through your veins, making you feel terrified of what was coming. “Wait,” you almost pleaded, “We need to talk about this.”

“I think we’ve talked enough.”

“Can’t we at least try—”

“I can’t.” The confession escaped his lips, his eyes were heartbroken, as if it was you who was breaking up with him and not the other way around. “You know I can’t do this. I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. I don’t want to be that guy who constantly gets suspicious or overly protective of you because of my past. It won’t be fair to you.”

“I don’t care if you’re being unfair,” you replied shakily, “I just don’t want us to end what we have now.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice grew softer. “If we continue this, I know I’ll end up saying things I never mean to say. With three thousand miles between us, how often do you think we can see each other? With you being so busy with your new job, how often can we speak?” But the bitterness in his voice came alive when he added, “We could barely do that when we were in the same room before.”

“It’s about that..?” Realization washed over you like a wave. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Same reason as you,” he replied, “To protect our relationship. That’s what we always do, isn’t it? Pretending everything is fine when it’s not?”

“Hyuck, I’ve tried my best to spend time with you... I thought you’d understand that I have a job—”

“You’re right, but unlike you, I don’t.” Donghyuck weakly smiled. “I don’t have anything going on with my life except you. I don’t even know if I can graduate in time. But you’ve achieved so much. You’re only a few years older than me and yet you’ve already had everything figured out, and I admire you for that.” His words sounded sincere but it only tore your heart open even more. Donghyuck walked closer, his fingers pushing the bangs out of your eyes like the way he used to do but it didn’t feel the same. “You’re already perfect the way you are now. You don’t need me in your life.”

“No.” The desperation was so thick in your voice, that it made you wince but not regret. “You’re wrong, you—There’s not a day where I don’t need you, Hyuck. I want you to stay with me. Come with me. We still have time.”

You don’t mean that. Donghyuck brought his head down, unable to meet your eyes. If you did, you would’ve told me about this sooner. “And then what?” he sighed, sounding so tired. “What am I going to do if I come with you? I haven’t even finished my study, let alone having a job.”

“You can find one in—”

“In a country where I can’t even speak the language?” He bitterly smiled. “I doubt it. I’m not gonna let you pay for my needs—”

“Then, I’ll make some time for you, I promise. Better this time.” Your fingernails were sinking into your palms from how tightly you curled them. “No matter how far we are from each other, I’ll call you every day.”

“I don’t want that.” His words were laced with frustration. “I don’t want you to force yourself to do something for me. And I don’t want to spend my nights imagining whether you’re spending yours with someone else.”

“You...” You were so quiet, you wondered if he could hear you properly. “You don’t trust me?”

But Donghyuck shook his head, gaze softening. “I do. I just don’t trust myself.”

Your mind turned into a blank slate, unable to form a word. Donghyuck’s breathing tattered a little when he exhaled, walking to his wardrobe to pick out some clothes. “I’m gonna go stay at Mark’s for the weekend. Feel free to take out your stuff. Just drop the keys at the lobby when you’re finished.”

You stood still, frozen. It almost felt like a heart attack from the way your heart was hammering against your ribcages. “I don’t want to lose you, Hyuck,” you quietly professed, “I thought we could work this out...”

Donghyuck’s movements were put to a halt, just for a couple of seconds, before he continued shoving his clothes down his bag.

You stood on the side as he walked past you, his natural sandalwood scent had disappeared, buried under the amount of alcohol he’d consumed. “So, this is it…?” You fretted. “For us..?”

Donghyuck stopped walking, glancing at you from over his shoulder. “It’s better for both of us, don’t you think?”

But he didn’t wait to hear your answer.

When you dared to appear at his front door six weeks later, it was the night before your departure. He hadn’t called, hadn’t sent you a single text, as if he was a ghost, only living in your imagination. But knowing it was your last chance to see him, you decided to take the first step.

Donghyuck was wearing the same navy blue knitted sweater that he wore the first time you told him you loved him. You remembered how startled he was back then, unsure of what to say as he was afraid to love someone else after knowing how it felt to have his heart shattered to pieces. That time, he only responded with a hug and a small “Thank you.” As you laid in his arms later that night, you spent every second with your eyes closed but your thoughts awake, trying to figure out why won’t he say it back?

But when you left for work early on the next morning, one arm holding an umbrella over your head to protect you from the morning showers, Donghyuck was chasing after you in the same knitted sweater, his hair messy from sleep but soon be drenched by the rain.

“I love you too!” he shouted, breathlessly, both from running and the rush of adrenaline that pumped through his veins.

You turned around, eyes wide in astonishment, though you didn’t catch his words. “What—” You were about to run so you could shelter him from the rain, but Donghyuck reached your spot faster than you could reach his. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you take an umbrella with you?” You dropped your handbag to the ground, not caring if it got wet from the rain as you focused more on the man who was shivering in front of you. You rubbed his arm up and down before cupping his face. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m fine. I just have something to say before you go.” He broke into a tender smile, pressing his palm against the back of your hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it back last night. I was afraid. Being in love with someone means you’re giving your heart for them to hold or to crush and I didn’t want to go through that pain again but—” He stepped closer, his temple nearly touching yours as he brought his head down. “I love you. I want you to know that I love you too. I don’t want to lie to myself anymore and I don’t care what’s gonna happen in the future. I just love you, so much, that both my heart and my head feel like they’re going to burst.”

And you could only stare, dumbstruck and in awe.

“Say something, please?” He begged, cold fingers caressing your cheek. “Otherwise, I might have to crawl into a hole and die from shame.”

You chuckled lightly, overwhelmed by the sheer happiness that washed over you. “I love you too.”

He seemed so relieved, almost as much as you were, and he twisted his fingers around your strands, chasing after your lips. The kiss was sweeter than honey but knowing him, even the sweetest kiss emitted so much passion, it left you breathless.

“I’m sorry, I know you gotta go to work,” he said, slightly pushing you away before his emotions defeated him once more and he slanted his lips against yours in a more frenzied manner. “God, I know you have to go,” he whispered between needy kisses. “But just—one more—”

When he finally had the strength to break apart from you, his eyes were conflicted, his thumb caressing your cheek, and Donghyuck wetted his already glistened lip as he stared at yours. “Must you go? I want to be with you today.”

It didn’t matter that the two of you just spent the entire weekend together. No amount of time would be enough to satisfy your needs for each other’s touch. So you answered him with your lips meeting his in a frantic kiss, casting your umbrella aside and it didn’t matter that it was cold, with big droplets of rain easily drenching you from head to toe, because Donghyuck was always ready to warm you up.

“Then take me home, Lee Donghyuck.”

But you realized as he tugged you back into his arms, soft lips pressing against your temple, you were already home.

Now… That memory felt like a fantasy, one that you could only dream of having.

“I…” You couldn’t meet his eyes. “I just wanted to get the books I left on your shelf.”

He didn’t say a word, only stepping to the side to give you some space to enter. A month had passed by since he broke up with you, and his apartment still smelled delightfully like him, but instead of making you feel joy, it broke your heart even harder.

“It’s in my room,” he said, all stern with no warmth like he used to have. You nodded, making your way to his bedroom. When you closed the bedroom door behind you, hot tears were about to spill and you tried your best not to be suffocated with the memories of the nights where you used to share your feelings with him, bodies tangled underneath the sheets, lips carving marks on each other’s skins.

You couldn’t breathe.

By the time you managed to collect yourself, you came out of his room with two of your books in your hands while you left ten more on his shelf. You didn’t need any of them. It was only a poor excuse for you to see his eyes once more before you bid your final farewell.

“I made you some coffee,” he said, leaning against the coffee table. “It’s cold outside so…”

You weakly smiled. “Thank you.”

You used to spend hours chattering behind a few cups of coffee, talking about the things that mattered and things that didn’t because everything felt special when you shared them with someone you loved.

But today, every sip of your coffee sounded louder than your voice as no words were shared.

You said you care

And you missed me too

And I'm well aware I write too many songs about you

“How are you?”

“I’m doing great,” he answered formally. It’s funny how he didn’t need spiteful words to hurt you. The absence of his affection in his sentences was more than enough to strangle you.

“Are you… still writing lyrics for Mark’s songs these days?”

“No. I’m busy these days.”

“Oh… With your thesis?”

“Sure.”

Donghyuck didn’t tell you the truth. Didn’t tell you how many papers had been written, scratched, discarded just so he could deal with the thoughts of you. Didn’t tell you the words he wrote about your pretty eyes, your pretty smiles, your kindness, your passion, your everything.

The reason why he let you go was because he knew, you would probably stay with him if he’d asked the question. He didn’t want you to have any regrets. Didn’t want you to choose him because you felt like you had no other way.

It felt like you betrayed him when you kept it a secret for months.

What else will you keep from me, if you can’t even tell me you’re leaving? Will you keep it a secret when you no longer love me the way you used to? Will you keep it a secret when you find someone new, someone better, someone who can stay to wipe your tears and hold you in their arms while I’m three thousand miles away from you? Will you pretend like everything is fine, when we’re straying further away from each other every day?

In Donghyuck’s mind, he thought you’d be better on your own. At such a young age, you managed to chase after your dreams while he was still unsure of what he wanted to have in the future. To him, you were always a step ahead. And tomorrow, you’d be taking your first step to another place where he wouldn’t have the strength to follow.

His thoughts about you were never-ending. And he wrote so much, poured every feeling down to papers, that now as you stood before him in person, there were no more words left to be said and he could only reply your sentences with silence.

And the coffee's out

At the Beachwood Cafe

And it kills me 'cause I know we've run out of things we can say

“I’ll be leaving tomorrow,” you eventually said and Donghyuck glanced at you from behind his bangs, but never stayed for a second longer.

He knew. Of course, he did. He had been counting the days, dreading every second of it. “Take care of yourself,” he responded in a way a stranger would say to another stranger at the end of their brief meeting. “Good luck with your job. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Noona.”

Noona... He didn’t even want to call you by your name or the sweet terms he’d once associated with you. You were truly strangers now.

“Thanks.” You forced yourself to smile, nails sinking into your thighs as you brought your hands to your lap. “You too. Don’t forget to take your breakfast every day. You always skip it.”

It was your job to remind him, who used to serve fried eggs and toasts on his plate and maybe Donghyuck remembered that too because he brought his head down, and simply replied with a hum.

When you took your leave, you handed him a note to your new address. “Just… Come visit whenever you’re in the country. I’d love to show you around.” It sickened you how formal you sounded, but you couldn’t say it any other way.

When Donghyuck took the note, your fingers brushed against his, it almost seemed like the time stopped, just for a little, and he wanted to pull you into his embrace, to tell you how much he’d been missing you the same way you’d been missing him. To tell you how much he wanted to be selfish, to have you choose him over everything in your life because that was how you meant to him. You were everything to him.

Just like how you are to me.

So when he dropped his hand, tucking it inside his pocket, you knew it was really over. Finally, the word goodbye took its true form.

And I get the feeling that you’ll never need me again.

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