#ruer writes

[ruershrimo]

take me back (take me with you) | f. megumi x fem! reader | chapter 7: conversation

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chapter synopsis:

' “I can’t believe you’re leaving us for a boy," she goes, rolling her eyes. She doesn't even blink.

“I’m not.” You are. '

---

Megumi calls you back. You leave for Tokyo again, like a soul yearning for its body.

word count: ~6k; tws: none for now :)!!

19-6-2018

“So you’re really going to let go of them now?” your father asks. 

“...yeah.” 

“That’s good. I’ll miss that Itadori boy, though.” 

You will, too. 

In a way you suppose Megumi and Yuuji are very similar. They’d go well together, be good, fast friends and all that. 

They’re both undoubtedly good people, no matter how they’ve beat people up before and how different their beliefs may be. 

In Megumi’s case, everyone knew how good a person Tsumiki was, her younger brother included. Her kindness and virtue extended itself, inspiring other people around her. But Megumi was a good person, too— polite, patient (most of the time, unless it were Gojo— but who wouldn’t be annoyed by that man, right?), kind in his own way. He cared for you in all sorts of ways in the past, even then you could tell, gentle with animals and objects and your hand. Gentle in his own way. Giving you reminders despite the tiny calumniations sprinkled in (they barely do as much damage as comb bristles can), being sharp because he must have had to, kind because it was in his very nature. Easy on the eyes, tall, deep soothing voice— he ticked all the boxes for that, too. You bet that if things were different, and the two of you had stayed in touch with each other, you’d have fallen deeply in love with it by now. Yet that thought only makes you feel sour now that things hadn’t gone that way at all. 

And Yuuji, too— there was no explanation needed for Yuuji. Even Megumi could tell he was a good person. And at some times he was almost like Tsumiki. You weren’t ever surprised that you’d caught feelings for him, because— who wouldn’t? He was always popular, even if he was ignorant of his own charm around others. But he wasn’t just a good guy with a ripped torso, he was honest, perceptive and smart in conversations. Smarter than he ever credited himself for. Smart in a way you could never be— people with cute faces, nice bodies and good social skills were in a league of their own, practically. You’d thought that for a long time. 

Did either of them ever know how you felt? 

Probably not. Your heart was guarded, intensely so, and you’d never lay your feelings bare and out so easily. You weren’t the type of person to say you loved people as easily as others did, even within your own family. 

This, you presume, is probably an acquired trait, now that you think about it. You were much more different as a child, free with praise and love and unabashed affection as well as appreciation for the people around you. What changed?

(Everything.) 

You miss 2010. You miss Tsumiki the way you miss your mother’s cooking, miss her the way you miss when you wrote emails and letters and text messages to her with multi-coloured pens or your old phone that eventually broke a year after. You miss the conversations the two of you had, miss how you used to be your parents’ little angel. 

And in the end it all comes back to that, doesn’t it? 2010. Nostalgia. Reminiscing on old memories in a way akin to how the elderly do in their youth. That just made you seem more pathetic, because, weren’t you supposed to be making those memories right now, at this time of your life? 

You’re a teenager. You should be going out with friends, and having fun, not rotting at home ruminating on the past, with the only friends you’ve ever had hundreds of kilometres away from you (you weren’t sure if you could even call one of them a ‘friend’ anymore), and your acquaintances not close enough to replace them (how could they ever? How could there ever be a replacement for Yuuji?) 

In a way you feel your life is miserable: awkward, socially-impaired teenage girl with her only friend practically out of her life at this point; nothing special to your name besides a cursed technique that most times does you more harm than good; stuck not being able to completely get over friends she met at eight who left her as quickly as someone can blink their eyes; with the thinking process of a nagging, stubborn mother sometimes, or if not that then a blurry, mingled train of thought that gets delayed or lost when moving from station to station; someone not of use at all. Not miserable, you think to yourself like a slap to the face, pathetic. 

You’re not sure how Tsumiki is now— maybe she has a partner, or better friends than you were, or she’s busy being president of the student council or something (she’d be a sterling leader, of that you’re certain, that girl who you’d always known was bound to go places in the span of her lifetime). 

Hopefully, she’s alright, and doing the best she can in life. That’s all you wish for when it comes to Tsumiki. 

At this point, there’s no point in wishing to join them, or to linger on them and memories of the past. It’s a mosquito in summer heat, which is why, if it stays, you decide, you’ll just suppress and ignore it until it goes away. Even if you didn’t know how long it would take you to get over them— weeks, months, but goodness forbid a whole lifetime or forever— you needed to accept that you’d be like this for nearly the rest of your life: pathetic, lonely— ah, that’s the word that so very perfectly delineates the situation you’re in— and then some. 

So that’s why, when you hear your phone buzzing on your bed like a cicada during a balmy night, you assume it’s someone else. Yuuji must be busy settling in (he’s been texting you, and you took that as a sign that he wouldn’t call), and Megumi must be… —Well. Megumi has made a promise, and it’s not that you don’t believe in him, but it would be better to expect less than what you’d like to in order to evade disappointment. 

Must be someone else. A prank call, or a scammer, or something. Or a telemarketer, but you’d be surprised if telemarketers were calling you and not your father. And you were never one to pick calls up mindlessly anyway, so if it were some stranger out to get you or swindle you, you’d just hang up or check the number. 

If not either a scam or a telemarketer (well you suppose both of those could be scams in certain contexts), though, then you’d suspect it would be either Yuuji (Yuuji’s the one who has been texting you, after all, conversations strewn over checking in with the other over the past few hours or snippets of advice from you telling him not to bother Megumi very much, and to be cautious and keep himself safe) or Gojo— definitely not Megumi, and probably not Gojo either, but still it was more likely that Gojo was calling you instead of Megumi, so you’re considering it— and you can’t really remember Gojo’s number anyway, so what if an unknown number wasn’t a prank call or something—

You wonder if you should just pick it up instead of burying your head in your study notes and overthinking everything. 

But you know it’s definitely not Megumi. 

You check the phone. 

Well, you’ll be damned. 

It’s Fushiguro Megumi. 

You know his number by heart, after all. Keyed it in too many times to forget, and it’s not like he’d have any reason to change it. Not with the way he cares for things, inanimate objects, not with the tenderly quiet, secretly caring, emotionally jaded way he maintains them. 

“Ah… hello?” 

Your heart thumps in your chest and heat flares up in your cheeks with a frenetic speed. 

“Hi,” you blurt out, shakily. You’re sure your voice is quivering, yet your mind feels like it’s barely functioning, almost about to drown in a seven-feet-deep pool, so you can’t really tell. You can’t really hear yourself. 

You don’t know why you feel like this— no, you know exactly why, actually. It’s because you haven’t gotten over him. Your thoughts are scrambled but you know, for sure, that you’re like this because you want to get rid of feelings like these but you can’t. Or because you’ve been saying that to yourself like a mantra, for so long, even though a part of you wants it to stay— out of what, that’s what you don’t know; maybe desperation or nostalgia or an inability to stop dwelling on days long gone. But you know what this is— you’ve seen the movies, read the manga, watched the dramas. It’s romance. Crushes. Something you’re not quite able to call love yet, something you’re too scared to properly name, still, but something you can understand is one-sided nonetheless. 

“…hi. [Name].” 

“Hello…” 

What happens when two estranged childhood friends with a book’s worth of history behind their relationship that happen to be socially awkward teenagers actually have a conversation semi-beyond what keeps them estranged in the first place? 

“Hi— no, wait… how are you?” 

Pot, meet kettle, because you’re going off nothing but the fact that you’re at the very least surprised (the other emotions are too complicated to explain) that he’s speaking to you again, and not just on text, but he’s calling, and he sounds like he’s reading off a script, but the script is in a whole other language, somehow, and the uncertain nervousness in his voice is tangible, even for a deep, low voice like his. 

Script or not, you appreciate the effort, though. 

“I’m good, um… I’m happy you were able to call. It’s been a long time.” 

“That’s good.” 

There’s silence on the other line; time feels like it’s moving achingly slowly. But you’re mildly happy. 

Not happy, maybe, but you definitely feel light, as if you’ve been severed from the heaviness of everything else that has happened lately. This is the first time in years something like this has ever happened. 

“Ah, wait, I forgot to ask! Sorry, um.. how are you?” 

“I’m doing alright, too. Oh, wait, I should apologise. I didn’t tell you— thanks for helping with my injuries the other day. Gojo told me about it after you left. You… you didn’t have to, though. You shouldn’t have risked your health like that.” 

You shake your head. “Don’t mention it. You know why I do this, anyway.” Out of necessity or a need to be useful, you’re not even sure yourself, but he must know, to some degree, right? It seems as if he’d be the one to know the most of this, of you— at least, when matters came to this. “And I’ll be fine, don’t worry. Dr Ieiri probably ended up helping more with the bigger ones once the three of you got back. I mean, she did, right?” 

“…no. She said that she didn’t want to waste her time, so if injuries were more minor like mine, she wouldn’t heal them fully.” 

“...ah.” More minor? Seriously, doctor? You’d normally not question her judgement over matters that she had more expertise in dealing with, but seriously? 

“I’ll be fine, though. Most of the bandages have come off, and all.” 

“I’m glad to hear that.” 

You wonder where he is now, on the bed, maybe, or sitting on the floor. You’ve seen the classrooms, but not the dormitories— you hope wherever he is, that it’s comfortable. That he’s okay. 

“We’re going to see a new student soon.” 

“Really? Have you met them before?” 

“No, but Gojo said she’s from the countryside. But we’re meeting her in Harajuku, for some reason.” 

“Oh, Harajuku! I miss it,” you let out a plaintive sigh, “I can’t wait to be back in Tokyo. You know, whatever happens, I still love that city like nothing else. I know how many people hate it, but I love it so much.” And you love it so much in the first place, mostly because of Megumi and Tsumiki. “Maybe she just wants to chase a bit of the sweet city life— I mean, you know how it is when country bumpkins go to the city for the first time… kind of. Or when they love the city— yeah, that’s a better way of saying it. I was like that, kind of.” 

“...if you’re worried about the train ride here and want to travel alone, I could always pay for you. Uh… wait—” 

“Oh, no, no! There’s no need, uhm— thank you anyway, it’s just—” 

“It’s Gojo’s money anyway.” 

“Pft,” you snort. Anything to seep out some of Gojo’s money like gluttonous leeches, right? “Nah, I’ll be fine. I mean, I don’t even think I’ll be able to come back in a few years’ time, and by then I won’t even be relying on my parents’ money for this stuff anymore— I mean, I will still be relying on their money, but I’ll be managing it as my own.” 

He chuckles lightly over the line, the silent way he shows his emotions, the way that goes unnoticed if one is not attentive to it. It feels like he’s whispering directly into your ear, and the heat on your face (which you weren’t even sure was still there until that point). Your heart skips a beat and it completely, absolutely shocks you. “...the offer still stands.” 

Yeah, you can get behind it if he’s like this now. What happened to him, anyway? Puberty hit him like a brick and gave him, like, one more ounce of emotional maturity? 

You shake your head like a character in a piece of crappy romance fanfiction. No way. Not now, at least. Calm down. 

(...you’re just a girl.) 

“Well, no take backs from now on, okay? Even if it’s, like, five years into the future, you’ll still be using Gojo’s credit card to cover for all my travel expenses.” 

He does it again, that low, soft, attractive sound. Makes you want to hit him and hit yourself at the same time, and then kick your feet up in the air giddily, and then throttle yourself, if it were possible, out of sheer embarrassment. “Yeah.” 

You’re having the time of your life. 

“Anyway, how is everything else? Like, are your studies and grades okay? Is the training you do alright to handle?” 

“My grades are pretty okay,” he answers, “Not like Gojo cares, honestly. And the training’s fine, it’s nothing I’m not used to.” 

“Gojo seems like he’d be a good teacher. When he wants to, he can command respect pretty easily, too. I guess he just… chooses not to. But I saw it yesterday, when you and Yuuji were passed out in the hospital.” 

It still strikes a pang of guilt in your chest, your inability to have done anything else besides calling Gojo over for help. 

“...I suppose he does.” 

“Yeah.” 

“How about you? Itadori, he… he can be an idiot sometimes, but he speaks of you really admirably. He talks about how smart you are a lot.” 

The thought of Megumi calling Yuuji an idiot of all things doesn’t feel like it falls short from him, but it still makes you frown— though, you realise that that’s just his way of expressing things, because in a way he’d treated you somewhat the same in the past, even if he hadn’t shown it outright or expressed it very vividly. Classic Megumi. 

“Hey, he’s smarter than people give him credit for, okay? Wait until you see how talented he is at things other than sports and martial arts. You’d be surprised after trying the meatballs he makes. Would be good if you asked him to give you the recipe sometime; I make them, like, once a week, at least.” 

He sighs, “...I will. But the point is, he cares for you a lot.” 

“Yeah, beautiful soul, that guy. Loves people the way curious children love nature.” 

“That would be a fitting way to put it.” 

“How are the dogs?” 

“My shikigami?” 

“Yeah. Do they have names?” 

“The black one is Kuro and the white one is Shiro.” 

“You named them black and white?” 

“Look, I named them when I was barely six years old, and six year olds aren’t exactly the best when it comes to these things…” 

You giggle, “So the name stuck?” 

“Yeah, sort of.” 

Real cute. 

“What about your father? How is he?” 

“He’s okay, but, well. I guess we’re not that close anymore.” 

“...I see.” He probably can’t imagine a version of you who wasn’t immensely close to her parents. You couldn’t then, either. 

“We’ve been talking even less now that my mother’s in the hospital, but at least I get to talk to him before he eats, maybe. I’ve been doing most of the cooking now that my mother isn’t here and my father doesn’t really know how to handle himself in our kitchen without her guidance.” 

“Oh… if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your mother?” 

“Cancer.” 

You can practically hear the gulp he’s taking, the bobbing of his throat— sensitive topic. “I’m… so sorry to hear that.” 

“It’s okay, don’t be,” you reassure him, “I should have told you that day anyway. I was just… exploding at everybody on that night. I should apologise— I’m sorry for how badly I treated you.” 

“No,” he goes, “No, you shouldn’t. I understand why you were like that that night. And it was mostly my fault, too, so…” 

“No, no, I’m serious! Feel free to ask almost anything as long as I have actual answers to your questions and all.” 

“Still… I just wanted to know. Sorry if I caused you any trouble.” 

“No— you didn’t do any of that at all, don’t worry! I’m alright with people asking about this. Ah, anyway… besides Yuuji, do you have any friends?” 

“Itadori and I aren’t friends.” 

“Trust me, if I asked him, I bet he’d beg to differ. Yuuji’s like that with people— soon he’ll be more important to you than you could have ever thought at first.”  

“Whatever you say,” he sort of grunts, “But I don’t have any friends, I think… except you, maybe. What about you?” 

You were honestly expecting him not to consider you a friend at all, and at this point so much has happened that wouldn’t even be that bothered if he no longer thought of you as one but called you anyway out of his commitment to his promises, or as an apology. 

“I’m surprised you can still call me a friend,” you say. Calling people instead of talking to them physically does something to your inhibitions. 

“...should I not?” 

“No, no, I’m happy,” you say over the phone. You’ll forget this conversation tomorrow, at least, when the sun has risen and the night returns back the hold you have over yourself, your composure, to you. You’ll act like this never happened. So you’ll say whatever you want to now, disgorging yourself of years of withheld secrets. “I’m happy that we’re still friends. I think I like that. 

“Yeah?” 

“Um— yeah, it seems like a good place to start,” you grin slightly. “And I, well. I don’t really have any friends beyond Yuuji,” —You’re not even sure if Tsumiki still sees you as a friend— “Even if I may have acquaintances like Sasaki or Iguchi it still feels like Yuuji’s one of the only people I can give that kind of title to, so, um… the more the merrier?” 

“That’s… nice.” 

“...it is, isn’t it?” 

“Thank you.” 

Why? “Okay.” 

The two of you go through the next few seconds in silence, time feeling like it’s blending and bleeding into a mix of years and events. You can hear the light, steady sound of his breathing from the other line. If you could, you’d sleep to it— fuck the phone bill, you’ll be the one paying it in your father’s stead this time if it was for this. 

It’s comforting, and you don’t want to break it— the quiet. If he can hear you now, can hear how you’re breathing through a smile with your chest only slightly moving, you hope it feels the same as the sound of his breathing did for you. You hope it feels just like home. Like a warm pillow in the one place you love the most that you bury your head into when the weather gets especially cold. 

“Fushiguro!” 

Oh dear. 

Wincing at the sound of the creaking door’s shrill shriek as it's opened and then hits the wall, you know exactly who it is— you’d recognise that voice anywhere. 

“Is that Yuuji?” 

“Oi! I told you not to barge into my room like that!” Megumi shouts. 

“Huh? You’re calling someone? Sorry. Wait, is it [Name]?” 

“It’s none of your business.” 

“Hi, Yuuji.” 

“Can I talk to her?” 

“Is it alright if we do, Megumi? Just for a few seconds.” 

“Fine,” he sighs. You can practically hear that eye roll. 

“Yo!” he cheers. 

“Has everything been okay lately?” you ask. 

“Yeah. We’re meeting a new student soon.”

“Ah, yeah. Megumi told me.” 

“—Oh, and my uniform came in! It looks pretty neat.” 

“That’s good. Maybe you can send me a picture once you start wearing it, then.” 

“I will!” 

Things are going better than you thought they would. 

21-6-2018

It’s been a few days now. 

You don’t know Sasaki and Iguchi well enough to call them friends, but the three of you do know each other. You had never decided to change any contacts with them, and considering that they and you were never closer than acquaintances, friends of a friend— you had never really regretted it. But now that Yuuji is gone— and you know he’s not dead, but still— you wonder whether you should have gotten closer to them, just to be less alone once Yuuji left, even if it could not be the way things were with Yuuji. (“I thought I was a pretty lonely guy, and sometimes I still do. Like— I mean, you’re a lonely girl too sometimes, I think,” he had told you as you patched him up.) 

Still, Yuuji and you were two peas in a pod— so they’re bound to ask what happened to him soon enough, especially Iguchi. 

You’ll have to start getting used to spending your Thursdays alone. And then you’d have to start getting used to every other day without him, too. If you went to the arcade or watched movies or sing-screamed the lyrics to English songs you don’t know the Japanese translations of without his presence there, you know how it wouldn’t feel the same. In life it’s not what you do that matters, you’ve come to realise— it’s who you’re doing these things with. That’s what puts meaning to it all and makes all things done in your life worthwhile. 

The two of them pass you by during lunch. 

“[Last Name]? —Oh, hey!” Sasaki says as she turns around. 

You almost scream and run away like a mouse fleeing from the eyes of a vicious house cat, tremors in your voice. “Hello…” 

“Where’s Yuuji, by the way? The occult club’s going to fall apart without him.” 

You pause. “He transferred to another school…” 

“Huh?” she goes, Iguchi almost reeling back in shock. “Transferred? But why? We’ve barely even made it to the middle of the year!” 

“I… I don’t know, it was something really urgent,” 

23-6-2018 

Your room is a cluttered mess— lucky as you are that it’s the weekend, the past week has been a rollercoaster that knocked your room’s usual standard of cleanliness off track. Scattered all over your desk were worksheets, notebooks, graph paper pages and foolscap paper, chicken-scratch writing and meticulous notes scribbled all over them to compensate for your absence the day after the incident took place. 

It isn’t the time or the discipline you lack— it’s just that it’s going to be awfully tedious. You’ll have to wipe your desk again, and clean the walls, and sort through all your clothes, too, since you haven’t been folding them in any way that isn’t merely fastidious and nearly careless. So as you get to work, you suppose that calling someone wouldn’t hurt. 

Maybe you could call Megumi. That would be okay. 

For the past few years, you’ve never noticed it. So when you do, it hits you like a bullet train at the fastest of speeds. 

You miss him. Not just in the way you miss 2010, the way you miss the past, the way you miss and mourn the person you used to be. It had been so obvious for Tsumiki, but not for him, and now that you know this it’ll be another quiet revelation— another rediscovery of fragments of yourself concealed by memories. 

You miss him— all of him; you yearned to be his friend again because he was unlike Tsumiki who you knew cherished you as you did her; you miss him regardless of who he is now, because somewhere inside him is the boy who read dog books and brought you to the school library and ran your finger through water when you burned it. Somewhere inside him is the person who offered to hold your bag as he walked with you through a snowy garden, and helped you when your nose bled. 

So it would be okay to call Megumi right now. 

“Fushiguro speaking.” 

“Hi, Megumi. Are you busy?” 

“Not right now.” 

“Want to call?” 

“Fushiguro!” It’s Yuuji. “Wanna go—” 

“I said I’m not going!” 

You chuckle, “Be nice. Were the two of you supposed to go somewhere?” 

“Nothing important. Gojo said he wanted us to ‘bond’ with each other, so he concluded that we could watch a movie. Some kind of gory horror film or something.” 

He’s… actually making an obvious effort not to scold Yuuji that much or call him some insulting, derogatory term this time… wow. 

“Ah, yeah. Yuuji likes his horror movies.” 

“Anyway, anything urgent you wanted to tell me?” 

“No, I’m just… uh—” you laugh nervously, “I’m just a little bored.” Nowadays you’re not really sure what he’d do— scold you, maybe, or roll his eyes so hard that you can hear it over the line, or he may even flash into a quick bit of awkwardness and hesitation through his words. 

Or maybe— and this was the worst of it all, he’d ask why you were calling him, and his bouts of awkwardness would have only been something temporary, soon to be replaced once again by anger and annoyance, the same he gives to everyone else— even if you knew he didn’t always mean it, per se. No more special treatment for you. 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah, uh… I have to clean, and usually it’s not as much as what I have to do today, so I just thought that since the only other person in the house is my father and we don’t really talk much anymore, we could, um… chat for a while. Yeah.” 

“Okay.” 

“Uh-huh, so.” You stand up, leaving your phone on your desk and putting the call on speaker mode. The mountain of papers and books is a wasteland and your desk has been degraded to a landfill— the state of it would make your mother a wailing mess— no, she’d faint instantly as soon as she saw it, becoming worse of a mess than the table itself was. “Anything interesting happened lately?” 

“Not really.” 

“Oh—! Yuuji sent me a picture of his uniform the other day. Was that one special?” 

“Yeah. But they let students make adjustments to the uniform, and he said he hadn’t changed anything, so I think that was Gojo’s doing.” 

“Oh, well, that’s Gojo. It suits him, though, right? Not to sound mean or be presumptuous, but…” you chuckle, “When you wear the uniform, you look so formal. It’s not a bad thing— it’s just that Yuuji’s just always been more casual like that. And the red of the hoodie goes with his hair, too!” 

“I guess so.” 

“I can’t imagine you wearing anything other than the default uniform, though. Not to insult you, I mean, you still look good in the normal uniform, I just— can’t imagine it.” You remark, sorting the materials and books by size and subject. You’ve got to handle some of the drawers, too, now that you’ve started and can’t stop your momentum just yet. You can already feel the dust particles that have gathered on whatever is inside them still, jostling around once you’ve taken them out. 

“If you’re going to say it like that, you can just say it outright.” 

“No, no! I mean that I just can’t imagine you wearing, like, Yuuji’s uniform. Wait, what do the other students’ uniforms look like?” 

“The second years?” 

“Yeah. Did they choose the normal ones?” 

“Inumaki did. They have three boys and one girl, but only two of the boys wear the normal uniform. Okkotsu has a special uniform in white.” 

“Oh, I see,” you nod your head, “It’s a nice uniform, though. I wish I could wear a uniform that pretty.” 

“You could always enrol yourself here,” he suggests, “They’d welcome you with open arms.” 

“Maybe they will,” you chuckle, “But my mother would be adamant on me staying in the ‘normal’ world. She’s unyielding like that.” 

“And your father?”

“Wouldn’t mind, at least I don’t think…” you say, “I’ll have to wonder when to tell him if I do end up in jujutsu high; you never know when he’s mad. He’s always unpredictable like that nowadays and it’s not… particularly pleasant.” 

“I see. It would be good if you were here, though. You would be closer to Dr Ieiri that way. And it would do good, because, um… well, I’d like you here. You’d be… good for the people around you here.” 

“Ah, you— you would?” you ask, slightly phased— not like he hasn’t been a bit nicer to you since you’ve seen him again (maybe it was the awkwardness, maybe it was the guilt). “Thank you,” you say, the corners of your mouth tugging up sheepishly, heading to the dusty drawer (you haven’t touched it in what feels like years, usually excluding it from your list of things to clean). 

After a scrupulous amount of wiping away at the dust outside of and surrounding it, you open the drawer with a slight bit of anticipation— you don’t expect much, but you’re a person who lingers on the past like a ghost that has forgotten how time has passed. There wouldn’t be much in this drawer to reminisce on, you presume, but you still approach it with an eager fascination— you’re the type to do so, after all. 

Of everything there, the most noteworthy are two things you grabbed almost immediately— you could never forget how they felt, and the weight that they held in your life back then: a letter, addressed but never delivered to the person you were talking to right now, and a cigarette with a hastily scribbled slew of numbers on it and a lipstick mark on its end. 

Oh, that letter. That letter.  

From what you remember, you’ve never rebelled against your parents before. At least, not with anything major— for a long time, you were their good girl, and you never disobeyed them, as much as you wanted to at times. You still are, still stuck with that age-old drive to be useful. (But was there even a point in that anymore? At least, was there one with your parents?). You didn’t picture yourself as any kind of righteous goody-two-shoes, but you definitely weren’t a rebel or a delinquent. You followed their instructions and seldom ever questioned what they told you, and so it had always been subtly implanted in your brain that they would be alright with anything you did or said. Yet the first time you did actually start to question them, you realised that their belief in your ‘obedience’ as pure love— and maybe it was; you loved them so much you were blinded and trusted them with everything and did anything they wanted their baby to do— you realised they only treated you so lovingly if you were not an actual person with your own ideals and beliefs. 

(But they still loved you, right?) 

Even now, you still do obey them and listen to them. If your father needed anything, he could consider it done; if your mother wanted her clothes to be patched up you’d try your utmost best to withstand the pricking of needles and bring it back to her hospital room with bandaged fingers. It was like that with your mother: even if at times it seemed like the only pain she wanted for you was callouses from a pen or pricks from needles, at other times you feel she could have known you’d end up like her, maybe. Maybe she saw it as a curse: the worlds the two of you were born in were different, and she wanted you to stay in yours, lest you die or live in a world of endless pain. 

You’ve been doing it for a long time: being dismissive of yourself, prone to self-prostration, subservient; the lovingness of a mother, the sweetness of a teenage girl (you hoped), the kindness of a caring friend. Maybe it was Tsumiki— maybe it was because you’d always seen this in Tsumiki. She was always smiling, always caring; taking on the weight of motherhood before she could carry the weight of her school bag. Hugging you with her saccharine smile; braiding her hair with gentle hands and holding your wrist with her hair tie on it even gentler. (You still have it with you. You had planned to start taking it off more once Yuuji left, but you suppose some habits take longer than a week to develop.) All while having that sickening, fantastical, mysterious sweetness of a teenage girl in what you now understand could have been a hidden misery— because caring for someone like a mother while suppressing the thoughts that spoke to you to act like a child was something you wanted to replicate until you realised you understood it. And then you no longer wanted to recreate it. (Maybe that was the way it was for every woman or girl you knew: watching someone you loved hurt themself or not being able to do anything to prevent it when they started. Life was a cycle that way. A very annoying, frustrating one full of unfortunate circumstances and wrongly-picked out decks of cards.) 

“…you know what? I think I may be able to come,” you tell him. 

“You don’t have to go against your father for our sake.” 

“No, don’t worry about it. I think I know who to ask for help. Thank you, Megumi.” 

“Hi, Dr Ieiri?” 

“Kid? That you?” she goes, the slightest bit of excitement stark against her usual deadpan tone. “I thought you’d never call because of that old man.” 

“Haha, yeah— sorry to disturb you, but, um, Dr Ieiri? I may want to take you up on that offer, by the way, but um, I’m still on the fence. I mean, I know I want to be like you and do what you do but… I don’t know, I’m not quite sure about leaving the two of them alone here and all. But anyway, I just called you because I wanted to ask if there was, you know, any way you could get me to Tokyo somehow. I need to pass something to someone, but, um… I guess I’m going with this with the hope that I’ll change my mind and join you. But I’m… perpetually on the fence for now, I guess.” 

“Pft,” she snorts, “You little rebel, I’m in. I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Thank you so much.” 

24-6-2018 

The decision and the plan were made as swiftly as you could. 

You decide to tell your father— you wouldn’t want to deceive him, after all. At least, you’d give him a quick notice. And then you’d leave. Like a snowflake before the first day of spring. He’ll probably tell your mother.  

“I’m leaving for Tokyo for a while,” you say, “I’ll be back before you can even realise I’m gone. Invitation from Dr Ieiri.” 

25-6-2018

“Why?” your father asks, the night before you leave. He suggested going out together at least once before you left. He always knew when you were making white lies. 

“I guess that maybe I’m just too much like you, Daddy.” 

For the first time in years he hugs you on the doorstep, patting you on the back on the day you’re set to leave. “Make sure you study and work hard,” he reminds you. 

“I’m leaving for Tokyo,” you announce.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving us for a boy,” she goes, rolling her eyes. She doesn’t even blink. 

“I’m not.” You are. 

“You know, your father travelled all over the country to see me again after we’d first met.” 

“Oh. Okay?” 

“And he’s always been dedicated to his job and dedicated to helping people.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“I’m saying that the two of you are very similar. I’ve lived through this story before,” she states, “And you look just like your father right now.” your mother says. She hasn’t smiled the way she used to— you remember it vividly, that vibrant gleam in her, the liveliest and loveliest of life— in ages and you don’t think she will, not now of all times. 

“Really? Sometimes he says I take after you more.” 

“You will.” 

It doesn’t feel like a curse. Even if it usually would make your heart well up in guilt, it doesn’t feel like a curse. 

Maybe she knows that her time is running out. Maybe this is resignation. Whatever it is, you hold her hand first, but you’re also the first one to let the other go, your fingers slipping away from hers. You leave the door for the last time in a while, making another round in your life of that carousel of abandonment and reuniting and departures. 

25-6-2018 

Dr Ieiri greets you with a calm smile on her pallid face. 

“Good to see you again.” 

“It’s good to be back here,” you sigh. 

It is. 

You keep your hand on your other hand’s wrist, holding them in front of you. The cherry hair tie on it feels warm against your skin as you exit the station, summer heat embracing it softly. 

taglist:

@bakananya, @sindulgent666, @shartnart1, @lolmais, @mechalily, @pweewee, @notsaelty, @nattisbored

(please send an ask/state in the notes if you'd like to join! if I can't tag your username properly, I've written it in italics. so sorry for any trouble!)

#WE'RE FINALLY ON TRACK WITH THE AO3 VER WOOO!! #jjk x reader #take me back (take me with you) #jjk megumi #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #megumi fushiguro #megumi #fushiguro megumi #megumi fluff #megumi angst #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #jjk x fem!reader #fem!reader #ruer writes #megumi x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #megumi imagine #fanfiction #jjk fanfiction

[forgot-the-acronym]

so I wrote a very short kazuha-centric fic yesterday that’s angsty and not very good

anyways does anyone want to read it

#kaedehara kazuha #kazuha #kazuha genshin impact #genshin kazuha #ruerwimyo talks #writings by ruer #genshin impact #genshin

[a-page-of-a-mad-mans-mind]

we have forgotten the face of our fathers.

cody,Rebecca, and amiyas message:

-I'm getting life insurance, there will be 20-50k set aside for you and your girls. don't kill yourself. also the benefactors/estate holders of my will are Rebecca and you(Amiya Mcgee if she's of legal age). you can all do it or one or two or all 2(3) separate but I expect you to follow what I asked as my voice will be dust and wind, silence. I'm trying to add a clause that until it's fulfilled you will only recive 2k and access to 10k in expenses(upon approval by both rebecca(Christopher Robert Bowling if she's deceased or Amiya Krista Taylor McAdams if she's 18) there will be around 100k before tax for lawyers and hopefully whom or what ever killed doesn't get the evidence I've compiled. I need you understand if you follow through you'll also receive 10% off the back end of the over all amount received through several lawsuits. I want you guys to be alright. ( you and ypur girls and Becca and her children and even her husband Chris)

-I should also tell you that by accepting your role in my estate. you will be putting your own life at risk. This isn't a game, a joke, or a prime time supernatural episode on HBO or showtime. I warn all 3 of you to read everything with the insight I told no lies in ink. Those nightmares our ancestors warned us about in the chronicles of history. Which mostly was written by the victors. Within their one sided verison of history there was more truth then we give credit for. we forgot they are us and we them. No those story's as real as gravity. Yet they or it will defy every rule we are subject to such as gravity. ironic. our ancestors weren't fibbing or stretching the truth. They said magic was real and monster lay behind ever corner, under the bed, with I'll intentions.We say they didn't understand what they were seeing. We write them off saying "it was science a prinitive people didn't understand. Unfortunately they were telling the truth, it's actually us who are primitive. Us who didn't listen. Thats how they win; isolation and selfishness. When no one cares but for themselves how are we different from the jackals, the snakes? and still today that remains true.

We are not the ruers of this blue marble because we THINK our superior intelligence separates us from every thing ese that roams, flys, and swims. no. no. no.

it's compassion. it's love. it's selflessness.

we have forgotten the face of our fathers.

- I'll be posting this on Facebook as a record should something happen to the will or to.

#spilled ink #orion #little bird #life #beautiful creatures #poetry #death #lastwillandtestament #lostwithoutyou #Lynz #rw #soul #human

[ruershrimo]

f. megumi x reader | summer heat

“i’m bored.” 

“i know,” comes megumi’s exasperated reply.

this year the heat waves of tokyo have encroached on a new high, light spilling in abundance from windows sparse in number like water overflowing from a tiny cup. you wrap your balmy arms around his neck, sweat on his silky smooth skin and bleeding through the fabric of his shirt, nearly bare without his uniform jacket on. 

“I’d blow air onto you, but it would just make you feel hotter,” you say, landing an open-mouthed kiss on his cheek, your hands on your knees. he leans back on the edge of the bed in exhaustion, energy seeped out by the heat like blood sucked by a leech. curse japanese floors and carpets— always built for heat absorption in the winter. what if it was hot— really hot, like now? 

“it’s fine. it’s too hot for anything right now.” 

he has skin like snow— you wonder if, with the scalding summer sun on him, he’s going to end up with tanned skin by the end of september. 

he’s right, though. even with his hand on your back, precariously near to your waist, the two of you aren’t set on doing anything and there isn’t any air conditioning in his room either. so you’re stuck here, faces hot and breath hotter, necks sweaty and bodies sweatier. 

you place your legs over his and your forehead against his collarbone, comfortable and calm, even with the sweltering heat. at this point everything in your mind is swimming through warm waves as you feel more sweat trickle down your cheek. 

“I wish we had summer uniforms.” 

“I’ll go buy a fan next time,” he whispers into your scalp. his breath fans against your head like steam. he moves his hand from the sweat of your back, looping his arm around your neck. “it’s too damn hot, I can’t even think.” 

you nuzzle your nose into the very top of his chest for a moment, before raising your head to peck a spot on the crook of his neck. “feels like an oven.” 

you don’t mind the heat, though. not right now. 

okay so this is horrible and really short but I wrote this earlier today while it was really hot just because it was really hot. there's not much to say; I live in malaysia. (this is going to flop but omg it's been SO HOT lately like. sweating all the time and i know i should expect it but STILL)

again, selamat hari raya!

#it's not summer it's just Malaysia #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #megumi x reader #jjk megumi #megumi #megumi fushiguro #fushiguro megumi #megumi fluff #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #megumi imagine #is that a tag? I'm trying to add more tags than I usually do #ruer writes

[ruershrimo]

i.yuji x reader | konbini in the night

there are breadcrumbs on your face. you wipe them off and throw the packaging away in the dustbin next to his bike, the darkness of the night contrasting the bright lights of the convenience store next to you.

“look!” he calls out, the light in his pink hair fading as he exits the store, “I got one of these strawberry sandwiches I keep seeing online lately.”

the glint in his eyes is like powdered sugar on a perfect cake, or fireworks in a starry sky. sweet, bright, unforgettable— a treasure in people’s memories. the convenience store had been like an oasis in the dim, merely lamp-lit streets, and the two of you decided to dash straight into it before getting back to jujutsu high’s dormitories.

“you sure you don’t want anything else?” he asks, “the cashier lady’s actually really nice. I can give you some of these sandwiches, too.”

you’re sure it’s because he’s nicer. that he walked up to the counter, with that adorable face and kind smile, and the lady just treated him the same. like how sunflowers shined at and turned their heads to the sun.

“no, I’m fine.”

“hm…” he goes, “okay. but you should eat more, you know?”

“pft— yuuji, I’ll be just fine. don’t worry, okay?”

“okay,” he says with a pout.

he gets on the bicycle, and reflexively, you sit behind him. (you really have been pavlov’ed into getting on the passenger’s seat every time he’s on his bike, huh?) he places the sandwiches next to where you’ve placed your own water bottle in the basket, and you lean forward so that your face rests against his back while your arms are wrapped loosely around his neck. the hard pillion seat feels as comfortable as a mattress on display in a department store.

the ride back to the dorms— back home, actually— starts mostly mundanely, the wind humming softly against your face, the night dissolving your consciousness in slumber. you feel just that one bit out of control of yourself, and your head feels light to the point where you don’t want to think about anything at all.

“...let’s get married, yuuji,” you whisper under the twinkling stars, your spirit warmly embracing his while you press your chest more against his back. normally you’d be too scared to, especially with your breath still smelling like sandwiches: all too ridden with your own inhibitions— but this night in particular is almost a perfect one, so for once you don’t mind.

there is so much pain in the world but not here. not behind him and definitely not on the seat behind his back. the world ahead is uncertain but you’d be willing to face it with him head-on as long as he’s fine with it.

“huh? married?” he doesn’t know if the red on his cheeks is obvious but he thinks that even if it is you wouldn’t see it under the night sky. you can tell that under his large brown eyes there’s the faintest of blushes— you don’t need eyes to see that.

you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck. he smells like some kind of 3-in-1 shampoo-conditioner-shower gel thing, but you guess that’s a testament to how much you love him since you don’t mind it at all. it’s wonderfully endearing to you now: the plain, minty scent that clings to his trademark ref hoodie, how the ends of his spiky pink hair poke and tickle at your face, how you can hear his low, slow breathing like a soft melody soothing you to sleep.

you’re not going to think that you’ll lose him someday. if you did then you wouldn’t be able to live. but if you didn’t promise this now— now when you’ve still only met him three months ago— and lost him, you’d spend your whole life grieving over him.

“mhm,” you reply, “let’s get married. I want to stay with you for a lifetime.”

and if this isn’t love you don’t know what love is anymore.

he looks back for a moment, and smiles, showing his teeth off like a little kid.

“sure! I wanna have that too.” he turns back. “I mean, I wanna make you happy. really happy. every day. and you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping me happy because I’d be the happiest guy in the world as long as you were. and, and—” —he lets one of his hands go from the bicycle handles; you open your eyes as he starts making gestures with it as accompaniments to his words— “— we’ll have this nice house or something, and it can be whatever you like. we can think of something together. and we won’t have much but it’ll be enough, I think.”

“mhm,” you smile. you bet he can feel the imprints of your lips on his skin, because it lays the slightest of gooseflesh on the back of his neck, the hairs there rising a little. as gross as it sounds you don’t worry if it’s chapped, and you guess he doesn’t mind either. “we’ll have just enough for us.”

he hums in agreement. “yeah.”

it’s quiet for a while, just the night air mixed with his scent, the grass swaying along to a silent tune, him, and you.

“…you know, a lot of people think that things like this come in sequences or something. like you have to at least kiss and do more than studying or going to the store together. we don’t even go to each others’ rooms at night or spend every second together and all… but— I think… I think I already know I want to spend my whole life with you. I mean, I really, really love you. so I get kinda worked up about lots of stuff sometimes but then I’ll see you again and that tells me things’ll be fine. that we’ll work things out.”

“yeah,” you say, your breath brushing against his skin again. it warms your cheeks up as the heat in it spreads around your face like hot tea. “we will. we definitely will. I promise.”

you fall asleep on his shoulder and don’t care about waking up on time the next day.

haha I just wanted to get this out since it’s been sitting in my docs app for about a month,,, also 恭喜发财 to the people who celebrate it, and happy Valentine’s Day since it’s coming up soon! so sorry if this is subpar or has any grammatical mistakes TvT

#jjk yuji #jjk yuuji #itadori yuji #itadori yuuji #yuji itadori #yuuji itadori #yuuji x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #yuuji fluff #yuji fluff #yuuji Itadori x reader #yuji itadori x reader #itadori yuji x reader #itadori yuuji x reader #are those all of the tags? he has a lot due to the different spellings of his name #ruer writes

[ruershrimo]

f. megumi x reader | one moment longer

under the light of the moon, he looks more beautiful than anything.

spiky black hair shining like stunning silver, eyelashes weaved of the silkiest threads one’s genes could offer, green eyes shimmering, scrutinised by the moon’s glow. if there was a painting to describe the epitome of beauty he would be its subject.

the collar of that tidy black uniform you can nuzzle your face into, the hyaline scent of detergent and a freshly cleaned room, the rhythm of his breaths, faint and light, as lithe, warm hands rest on your back the same way puzzle pieces stay connected.

“i love you,” you hear. it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard.

you aren’t a jujutsu sorcerer yourself, so maybe you wouldn’t know enough. still, you know some people say that the world of sorcery is one devoid of hope and humanity; you know the general sentiment among them is that this has always been a sisyphean task, that it was born from the resistance of impermanent lives against an evil which would last for all eternity.

yet how can they let their worlds be entrenched in such darkness and lovelessness?

love and good are everywhere, you think, no matter how much loss there is to endure. you’ve felt so yourself.

you see it when you sip from teacups in cafes where the saucers come with biscuits on the side and your ears notice the shutter of his camera and you gaze at the mellow grin resting on his face. you hear it when he sends you whatever tune he’s been listening to for the past few days, sent with a text saying, “thought you might like this”. you taste it when he presses his lips to yours and kisses him back out of joy in a bold defiance of this world’s sorrows. love and good is everywhere in the mundanity of life and it’s minuscule, quiet moments.

“i love you,” he whispers again, voice as soft as a gentle breeze in an autumn-touched street, but with enough conviction to make the mightiest of rulers fall, you’re sure. you shut your eyes slowly as his feet move languidly in tandem with yours.

“you do?” you ask, “i love you too, megumi.”

one day the world he resides in will take him away from you. one day you’ll be left alone with no one to hold you under the moonlight while it spills into their wooden-tiled dorm room, one day you won’t have anyone to dance with you despite the chills outside.

but today is not that day. tonight is not the night you’ll be screeching and crying as you hear news of his death from a cellphone call. it’s not the night when you’ll be shaking and collapsing over his mangled corpse, if there even is one left.

you want a future together. you want for him to stay even after he leaves graduates, for years and years and years of his life. but even you know that with the life he’s living, with the kind of life where any night is one when he may die, you just wish that it can last for a while longer. if not two years, then maybe two months. if not two months, then maybe two weeks. or perhaps…

…just one moment longer. one moment longer with fushiguro megumi.

I don’t even write for jjk haha, I was just simping at 3 am (I want to sleep. I’ve to wake up before 9 tomorrow. someone pry my phone away from me.) I’m also doing this to cope because gege is cruel. someone help this is probably so bad I didn’t even do any formatting or anything bro that picture isn’t even one of the moon

#lmao what am I doing it’s like 3am #I’m going to sleep this is probably so bad #megumi fushiguro #jjk megumi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #megumi fluff #ruer writes #stuff that isn’t genshin #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #fushiguro megumi #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader

[ruershrimo]

take me back (take me with you) | f. megumi x fem! reader | chapter 4: placeholder

ao3 link for additional author’s notes | playlist | prev | next | m.list

chapter synopsis:

'It’s like doing every little thing that you used to do with Tsumiki, and Megumi, sometimes, too— time spent after or during school, time spent laughing and giggling over the phone, time spent over snacks that keep you so full you don’t even want to eat your next meal— the same, but different.'

---

Yeah, no matter what happens, no matter what changes— you'll live, probably.

word count: ~5k; tws: brief mentions of menstruation maybe?

12-2-2017

Out of everything you wouldn’t have expected this. 

It could have been her telling you about how Valentine’s Day is coming up, complaining about how that one teacher’s been giving her class quizzes every lesson, or gossipping about frivolous things like the drama happening among the girls in her grade. 

But you don’t expect the phone call to go like this. 

“Hello?” you ask into the phone, “Tsumiki?” 

“Hello,” the voice over the phone says. This one is older, more masculine, and you know whose it is. 

It’s Gojo Satoru’s. 

“Ah, Mr… Mr Gojo? Is Tsumiki home?” 

There’s a long pause after that, the silence like paint filling in the gaps of a puzzle when the pieces are lost. 

“…not now,” he says, his tone low and heavy, “Sorry, kid. You should…. you can call on another day, okay?” 

“I… okay. Thank you. Could you help me tell her that her friend [Name] wants to call her? She hasn’t been talking to me anywhere since, um… the start of the year, I think?” 

“Yeah,” he goes, voice aching to the point it makes your heart twinge, “I’ll let her know. Thanks.” 

Then he hangs up. It sounded as if he was holding the phone with all the weight in the world, and had his voice drenched in all the pain in it. 

And you don’t know why. 

-16-2-2017-

It happens once more, and you’re convinced that every time you see them after a while Tsumiki and Megumi slip away completely from your grasp. Tsumiki hasn’t called in months— again, hasn’t responded to nor read any of your text messages and doesn’t even wish you a good morning when you start the week anymore. She always used to do that. You’re sure they would have a reason— you’re definitely sure— but why would they have to go missing on you right after you left? 

And you didn’t even want to speak to Megumi at first. Though the two of you had shared your contacts during your trip in Tokyo and agreed to catch up every so often, you struggled to face him. Perhaps it was childish pride— your wish to have been right and to have him apologise to you, apologise to his sister, too; your wish for him to call you up admitting he was wrong. 

You suppose you wouldn’t mind if he never did, though— you just didn’t want to apologise to him. You didn’t want to lose or give in, not when your life has revolved so much around these two, not when this is the only time you can control things. Your relationship with them is a journey on a swaying boat, and each time they move it you feel you’re about to fall into the water and drown from them turning it over. This is the only way you can do it to them, do it to him in particular, because you’d let only Tsumiki prove you wrong. You’d let both of them do anything to you— at this point you have because no matter how much they promise to call you back, to listen to your voicemails, to meet you again, you’re the one arranging plans to move to Tokyo; you’re the one calling them for what feels like over and over and sitting with your phone pressed to your ear for an eternity only to hear nothing. You moved all over the country, so why did it feel like you were the only one stuck in place as they moved forward from you? 

At this point it’s even hindering you from making any new friends. You choose so much to linger on these two, on two people you met at the age of eight and only knew for a year before you decided to devote yourself to them, that you miss the chance to speak to anyone else your age who could be a lifelong companion no matter where you moved. 

Yet at the same time you can’t handle not saying sorry— if there’s one thing that’s festered in you for years it’s the guilt that’s accumulated from being who you are. Guilt from being a burden, guilt for not having been a better daughter or an easier child to raise, guilt for not apologising after scolding someone over something that never really mattered. What you fought over: in the end, it didn’t matter, right? 

Still, you’d rather be immature than lose control the first time you’ve had it; you’d rather be immature than apologise for something you refuse to say is your fault even if your greater conscience tells you to apologise either way. 

Your thoughts are scribbles on paper, and you can’t decide, really; you can’t make a stand on what you really want: an apology, to apologise, to be proven right, to be able to talk again, to completely refrain from talking to him at all for the rest of your life— 

This really shouldn’t be that big of a deal. So maybe it’s because Valentine’s Day has just passed and you’re lonely and he’s the only one you’ve ever had feelings for, or because this is the compromise you can come up with the part of yourself that wants control and the part of yourself that thinks the world is better off with you being less of a weight on someone’s back. 

Anyway, you phone Megumi up. 

Slowly, you key his number in— you swore not to forget it when he gave it to you last year, when for a few days you had rebuilt your friendship with him through awkward conversations and beating around the bush, only for it to crumble and come crashing down. 

You press the phone to your ear. Its screen feels cold as the side of it grazes the skin on your chin. It vibrates and rings, its hum like a bee’s buzz, as you wait for the reply. 

“This is Fushiguro speaking. If you’re hearing this, I can’t be on the phone right now, so just leave a voicemail message—”

You’ve never felt more hurt after feeling his voice reach your ears. 

-20-2-2017-

You try again. The beep seems to mock you as you put your phone down and collapse against the mattress. 

All of it, the frustration, the melancholic nights spent dialling numbers over and over again, the emptiness that greets you after like an old friend who knows you all too well— 

— it has all happened before. It’s happening again and all you can do is watch as it does, forbidding yourself from interfering with what you’ve claimed is now a relapse of the distancing that you had no control over two years ago.  

10-3-2017

“We may be moving back to Sendai for a while, since we’ve got to settle some things with our old house there,” your father states— you know that you’re guaranteed to be spending your last year of junior high there, though, since it’s less than a month until the next school year— “Are you okay with that?” 

“Yeah, sure.” You don’t have the number of any of your classmates at school, and you don’t really care to ask anymore. “Want me to help with anything?” 

4-5-2017

Anticipation for the summer vacation breaks into your school calendar. The summer of 2017 is the first one you’ve had while having a friend close to you besides Megumi and Tsumiki, with Yuuji and you heading off for arcade games every Tuesday, laughing about goodness knows what in between classes and sending each other videos of old vines on Youtube before Vine died at the start of the year. It’s like doing every little thing that you used to do with Tsumiki, and Megumi, sometimes, too— time spent after or during school, time spent laughing and giggling over the phone, time spent over snacks that keep you so full you don’t even want to eat your next meal— the same, but different. 

With a skip in your step, you head to class. Yuuji’s in there, and hey— it’s a Thursday, so today you’re especially excited. 

That’s what’s been happening to you recently: excitement. Colour. Before meeting him it felt as if things were bleak, dull, grey like piles of dust. Yet you suppose becoming his friend has brought that colour back to you, because now you look forward to days instead of dreading them, all for the sake of him. How romantic. 

“So? Which girl in our class do you like, Itadori?”  

“I don’t like any of them.” 

“Yeah, but if you had to pick one!” 

The other boys don’t even mention you. It does make sense. At this point you may just seem to be someone desperate for his attention: of all the people in your class, you talk only to him, mostly because you’d struggle talking to any other girls, even more so any other boys. They were all intimidating at times: the baseball pitcher who dragged Itadori near his table every now and then, the pretty girls always willing to lend you bobby pins and hair ties with the best makeup you’ve seen and rolled-up skirts you feel you could never replicate and look good in, the smart student council leaders sitting at the front of the classroom completing their homework during lunch periods. Even if what would meet you while talking to them was not ridicule, it would be, at the very least, an uncomfortable silence frozen in the air from your awkwardness. 

And hearing all this kills you because you know it would never be you. You wonder why it does— liking him was fun. It was supposed to be something you dallied in for your own sake, because doing what a girl your age should do instead of rotting in your room comforted you. 

Yet your feelings were fickle, you supposed, because what was a source of joy slowly became a slightly painful twinge in your chest that you ignored each time you waited for him to tell you anything that could have indicated any feelings towards you. It was over from the start: you knew you’d never be the type of person he’d like; your handwriting wasn’t pretty, you were an inelegant klutz, weren’t gentle or caring or anything like that, just awkward. Tsumiki could, though, you think. Tsumiki had a natural grace, and a soothing charm that followed her like the scent of eucalyptus from her shampoo and conditioner. If it were Tsumiki, anyone could fall for her— any boy or any girl, anyone. But it’s you, and you find yourself wallowing in self-pity as you hear him say it before noticing one of the girls— Ozawa Yuko, you think— standing in front of you. 

You don’t know her well enough to say anything about her. Still, you know that she’s a good few inches shorter than Yuuji is, and that whenever you walk past her you can vaguely pick up the scent of camellia shampoo. 

That’s the type that people— boys, at least— like. Graceful girls with elegance emanating from them, radiant and warm and friendly, even if they may be shy. You know how some other students have spoken about Ozawa, mocking her for things she couldn’t control. And it was stupid as hell: you guys were teenagers, there’d be no need for her to want to lose weight now— she still had so much time to grow and losing weight would stunt it, plus she would be adorable either way, too. 

In the few months you’ve known him you know Yuuji isn’t like that. There are boys your age, with their boisterous laughs and common cruelty, and then there’s Yuuji. He’s never said a wrong word about anyone; he likes Jennifer Lawrence and tall girls with big asses but he’s like others in the sense that he loves people who are kind, sweet— someone like Ozawa. 

So when you see Ozawa waiting by the door, about to listen in with a light blush on her face, you know you don’t even need to hear his answer. 

[Name]

Yuuji

Sorry

Is it ok if we don’t go today

I think I’ve to stay home and study

[Yuuji]

aw ok its all good

good luck studying man

[Name]

Thanks

You should have fun with the other boys

 And walk home with them

Sounds kinda gay ngl but eh

[Yuuji]

nah not the same when i’m not walking bakc with u

It hurts a bit as you walk home on your own, but you don’t cry. 

Now it’s time to be useful. 

The next day, you talk to Itadori as usual. Nothing changes. 

But then during lunchtime you head to where Ozawa sits— today she’s in the classroom for a change, and she’s all alone, and you should’ve tried your best to prevent that so that others wouldn’t be like you. If Itadori was the one to be sitting by your desk, you’ll be like that for her whenever you see her. 

“Um, Ozawa,” you mumble, tapping her shoulder. 

She looks up. “Ah… hm?” 

“...good luck!” you say, holding your thumb up as support, “I’ll cheer you on…! If you ever want to talk to him, I’ll help you, okay?” 

You run away before things get too awkward, but a connection established is a connection regardless, and you’ve won for today. 

1-12-2017

Your parents seem on-edge these days, your mother stressed and tired as she always is, your father worried about nothing you seem to know. 

One night your mother places her chopsticks on the rim of her plate. The way she does it is in defeat— silently, firmly so as to show that she wasn’t quite done, that she could still hold them with all her strength in defiance. You only see her that way after your parents fight: that frown, the passively violent, deafeningly soundless aura from her actions. Because it was always your father who “won”. You didn’t have a place to judge— your parents were a sterling team together; even if they fought things would be resolved and you’d have no say in the matter. It was only theirs and if they treated their arguments like fights they brought war weapons to, they would agree that you had neither the life experience to stop them nor the wisdom to solve their problems. You couldn’t handle it either: their fighting and how it froze the air solid, the way it could erupt into them shouting at the tip of their throats so long as they were in their bedroom, because they knew you wouldn’t hear. And so beyond words your father always won their arguments, each of them treating the other like an enemy on the battlefield. 

Your mother turns to you. 

“Your father has to go to Tokyo on the 24th,” she states, “They need him back for something.” 

“Jujutsu sorcerer stuff?” 

“I won’t take long,” your father smiles, as if he had not hurt your mother’s feelings to get her to give up, “And I’m not going to be involved in the actual fighting like last time.” 

“Then why do you have to go?” 

“It’s something really important.” 

You frown. 

He sighs. “There’s going to be an attack on the 24th,” he says, “Something planned by a man named Geto Suguru, a curse user with an extremely powerful cursed technique. I’ll just help with healing anyone’s injuries,” he explains, “…you know, I actually wanted to bring you there and see how things work in real time, since it seems you’ve been interested in your cursed technique lately, but someone didn’t want you to do it.” 

“Don’t bring me into this again,” your mother spits at him. 

“I already told you it wouldn’t involve any of us getting hurt,” he retorts, “If I bring her there I won’t even let her use her cursed technique, I just want her to see how Dr Ieiri and I do it—” 

“Ah!” you go, “Dr Ieiri Shoko, right? Megu— ah, I heard about her last time, from… someone.” 

“From Megumi?” your mother says, “Darling, don’t think about those two anymore, it’s better if you don’t get involved with that or that world at all—” 

“Anyway,” your father interjects, “Do you want to try it, sweetheart? And if it all goes well with most of Tokyo still being intact and us having some extra time left, I can see if Dr Ieiri is able to teach you about reverse cursed technique—” 

“I told you, she’s not going anywhere near all of this—” 

“You and I both want the same thing. It’s not like I want her to be a jujutsu sorcerer, I’m just looking out for my daughter’s interests in healing and recovering things—” 

“Wait!” you interrupt them, “I— let me think about it, actually. Could you let me think about it, please? And I promise I won’t do anything near the battlefield, I swear. I mean— I just thought, um, that since they’re going to do some, like—- actual stuff, I guess?— that I wanted to see how it works. I still don’t want to fight. I just want to see if I could help, you know, and it would be good if I could see how Daddy and Dr Ieiri do it so that I can learn from it and stuff and in the future I can make myself useful to other people and all so please don’t fight—” 

“You’re rambling,” your mother states, her hands on her lap. Ultimate defeat. Absolute resignation from it all. 

You almost want to cry at the sight of it. 

“Of course,” your father replies, “Give it some good thought, okay, darling?” 

8-2-2018

Time moves like tennis balls against rackets. Yuuji will always be a great friend, you’ve decided, even if he doesn’t like you back. Besides, now, things are back to being fun: you’re going to crush on more people and have fun and see if one day someone confesses to you, and maybe by next Wednesday— the fourteenth— your sweet sixteenth Valentine’s Day will be the first one not spent alone.  

Sighing, you close your book again after a long day. There’s pencil lead stuck to the side of your pinky finger as you stack everything together and straighten it against the table so that everything in your bag gets inside all neat and even. 

“Man, [Name], you always keep everything so neat,” Yuuji comments, “I just stuff everything in my bag. Surprised I haven’t lost all my stuff yet.” 

“That’s why all your stuff comes out crumpled,” you say, “Your notebooks come out like they came out a rat’s nest— no offence.” 

“None taken,” he replies, bending down dramatically, “Seriously, [Name], you’re a really good student! Smart, too.” 

“You sure?” you ask, standing up with the straps of your bag slung against your shoulders, the two of you exiting the classroom, “I fell asleep during class and only woke up when she gave us those questions. I’m gonna have to check the textbook to finish it up tonight…” 

“Still smart to me, honestly,” he states, “I’m a pretty dumb guy.” 

You hit him playfully on the shoulder, and he jerks forward for a second before coming back up again. “Nah, be confident! You’re, like, good at sports and English and stuff. I can’t do any sports to save my life.” 

“Well it’s not like I can do maths for shit, honestly.” He slumps down. 

Then— “Ah, wait, Yuji, sorry— I’ve to go to the bathroom for a second to check something—!” 

“Huh? Check what? Wait, uh— want me to hold your bag for you?” 

“Sure—” your pads are in there— “Wait, nonononono— I’ll be fine, don’t worry, just something quick, hold on. You go without me first, ‘kay? I’ll meet you at the famima we always go to.” 

It turns out to not be a false alarm, and the thing comes early by a few days. You’re lucky you at least have some of your emergency supplies with you so that you can still have a fun day with Yuuji as long as you don’t drink too much green tea or coffee. A little should be fine, though, right? 

Still, you could always cell-manipulate your way out of unexpected situations like these. You just choose not to— it’s not worth the trouble of headaches or nosebleeds. Who’d want to willingly bleed from the top and the bottom at once, really? 

You check your appearance in the mirror afterward, and everything looks okay— your hair is normal despite school air’s penchant for ruining it, your uniform looks alright even though your skirt pocket may look a little weird later once you put your phone in it, and your face is the same as earlier today, so… well. You don’t know what that says about whether your face looks good or not right now, but you guess this is alright. 

[Yuuji]

yo

you okay?what happened

who spends ten hole minutes pissing

[Name]

*whole***

Sighs incredibly loudly

Itadori Yuuji. 

What the fuck did you think I was doing

It was my period

Came early :(

[Yuuji]

OHHH SHIT

SORRY…

thought u had a stomach ache or smth

everything okay? 

i can like buy more pads or smth for you

[Name]

Mhm yeah I’m okay

It’s okay I’ve got enough at home anyway

If ur buying drinks could you not get me any kind of tea

Or coffee

Like nothing with caffeine in it

[Yuuji]

yes queen o7

i can go back and bring it up to u yknow

[Name]

Nah

I’m fine

[Yuuji]

ok i bought u a sandwich nd a seasonal drink thing

no coffee or tea 

[Name]

aw thx man

coming soon, otw rn

Though it’s a bit far away, the sight that greets you as you finally arrive shocks you immediately. He’s got a little blood on his face— that’s already way too much then you can handle being on his face. It couldn’t be from anything like acne or a popped pimple; the guy’s got clear skin for days and though there’s nothing but a tiny scratch by the side of his cheek you’re running over to him. 

But this is what’s worse: high school students, about three of them, lying on the floor, passed out like animal carcasses. There’s another one standing, with straight light-coloured hair and enough fear on his face to seem as if he’d just witnessed a war. 

And Yuuji’s expression, which is clear as day even with the distance between you: eyes uncharacteristically cold, face distorted away from his usual boyish grin, aura radiating off of him, lacerating through his usual self like a wolf’s claws through raw, cold meat in the tundra. 

“…what about you?” Yuuji says to the guy with light hair. 

You run. 

“Yuuji!”

“Huh?” He notices you. “[Name]?” 

“Yuuji— what happened to you?” 

“No, just—” He’s back to normal. “Saw some of them picking on someone, so I started beating them up.” 

“What— seriously? You could’ve, like, called the police or something, you idiot!” 

“But it wasn’t in school, so I didn’t know what to do… plus, we’re in different schools and all…” 

“W-well if you call the police, their punishment would have been worse, right?” you sigh, “Alright, what happened to the one getting picked on? Are they okay?” 

“He ran away,” he shakes his head. 

Poor guy.

“…and this one, the one standing up here?’ you ask, “Is he okay? He looks pretty traumatised.” 

“I’m right here, you know!” the standing guy answers. So besides standing in silence, he can talk after all. 

“Oh, this one?” Yuuji points, again not acknowledging him. He was just standing there, stunned like a deer in headlights, instead of lying on the ground. “Just seemed like peer pressure or something. He didn’t hurt the guy.”

“Ah… what’s your name, guy?” 

“…Rin Amai,” 

“You okay?” 

“…yeah, just, I guess, surprised? I mean, by the pink-haired guy’s strength and all. You guys are middle schoolers, right? That means he’s crazy strong.” 

“His name is Itadori,” you sigh, “Yeah. He’s a strong guy like that. He stands up for good things.” 

Yuuji chuckles, scratching the back of his neck, “Aw, thanks, man!” 

“Well, now that they’re knocked out, I can kind of say I didn’t like them that much to begin with…” Rin remarks. 

“Ah, I get that. Nobody likes people like them. When you can, stand up for others next time, okay?” you advise him, “Got any injuries?” 

“No, just a scratch here and there. I’ll be fine. Thanks, you two.” 

“No worries.” 

“Still wanna go to the arcade?” Yuuji asks. 

The two of you say your goodbyes to Rin, who offers to wait with the knocked-out students after that— you’ll probably only ever see him once or twice after this. Yuuji offers to take your bag but you deny him, and the two of you stroll to the arcade. 

This has happened before, really, and there’s some kind of anticipatory grief sticking to you as you ruminate over what he’d done. It’s like you’re waiting for things to worsen: either you tell him that he shouldn’t have beat students up even if it was for the sake of others, or you don’t and make decisions conflicting with your own moral code. The last time you’d seen someone get back from a fight, your relationship with them ended up severed, whether due to your commitment to your own ideals or not. 

You debate on asking him not to do the same next time, not to get hurt and not to hurt people who pick on others, and—  

—the arcade is closed. 

“Aaaahhh! Seriously? Sorry, [Name]. Forgot they said they’d be closed today. Last week one of the employees told me they’d have to settle some issues or something.” 

Of course he’d befriend the employees. It still surprises you that every now and then he’s so kind it hurts. 

“No, it’s fine,” you reassure him, “You know, I don’t really feel up to it today either. Still kinda shaken.” 

“Don’t worry about that, honestly! I’m fine, and they’re fine too.”  

“Will they be, though? Have you gotten any injuries?” 

“Don’t think so. I’ll be okay anyway, though, ‘cause I’ve got a high pain tolerance— ow!” 

“‘High pain tolerance,’ huh?” you sigh, “Is it a strain? Are you okay?” 

He winces, “I don’t know if it’s a strain or a sprain,” he answers, “But it’s on my ankle, and it hurts a lot.” 

“Can you walk?” 

“Yeah, but— it hurts…” 

You rest his arm on top of your back, taking hold of his shoulder, guiding him on the way back to his home. 

His grandfather— a man with grey hair yet enough energy to wake up at 6am before exercising and going on walks every morning— nods after you explain the situation to him, and lets you stay with Yuuji for now due to your worrying. 

The first thing to do with a sprain or a strain is to rest the injured area. 

“It’s strange that you got it on your ankle of all places,” you say, outstretching his leg for him, “Were you walking funny or anything?” 

“Nope.” 

“Maybe you’ve been overusing it, then,” you theorise, “Okay. No running and all for a few days, okay? Or just, until it feels better.” 

“Huh? But I’m in the track and field club…” 

“Spend some time with the occult club or something,” you tell him, “You can just tell the student council president or the track and field club president that it hurts, so you’ve got to go to the occult club to still be able to support your other interests and stuff as you recuperate.” 

“Nah, they’d call bullshit.” 

“Pft. You don’t know if you don’t try,” you joke. “Wait a second, let me go get some ice.” 

He lies down, his arms resting by his stomach. “You know, [Name]…” he starts, his voice louder for you to hear. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m happy you’re my friend.” 

If you were a dog, you’d be wagging your tail and kicking your feet up into the air, so happy that your smile is uncontrollable— and the last time it had been that way was more than a few years ago. 

His voice stays as loud but you hear it better, clearer, as you move up the stairs with the ice pack. “I mean, I thought I was a pretty lonely guy, and sometimes I still do. Like— I mean, you’re a lonely girl too sometimes, I think.” 

You sit down beside him, probably a little too plaintive in your actions than you intended. “…yeah. Guess people could tell…” 

“But, hey. I met you and we get to do all sorts of cool and dumbass shit together. So I’m happy I met you and that we became friends, you know? I’m happy you’re even here. So now we’re both a little less lonely, and the world has two new people who are a little less than lonely.” 

It’s warm despite it being winter— you hope his hoodie and his student jacket are enough to keep him from freezing. Every time you enter his house, you wonder how he must have lived as a child. You imagine a smaller-sized Yuuji,  with wild pink hair and a tired grandfather, living in this house with its wooden tiles and untorn paper calendars from the year 2000, in his endearingly tardy room and boyish clothing choices. The thought of it melts your heart, almost. 

“Yeah. I’m happy you’re in my life, too, Yuuji,” you beam, “I’m happy you said hi to me that day, because I probably wouldn’t have made any friends. Like, I thought every time we moved somewhere we’d move again to somewhere else, so I kind of gave up. I didn’t want to get attached. Because there would always be something happening after, like us moving and eventually I thought every day was a chore, because I had this kind of… how do I say it— this kind of ‘I’ll escape one day’ mentality, like I didn’t move forward to each day anymore. But being friends with you brought that back to me, kinda.” 

“Really?” he says as you wrap the ice pack in a towel and press it to his ankle, turning his head to meet yours, “Makes me pretty glad. Thanks, man.” 

“I’m glad too.” 

“You’re a great nurse,” he grins at you, before leaning his head back against his bed. 

It feels good. The praise feels good. 

Now you really don’t know what to do with him. Or what to do with how you feel about him. 

For a moment you consider this: pressing your hand to his ankle, healing it immediately, placing your hands on his ankle and healing it with your cursed technique. But even so you’d have to explain the whole of jujutsu society to him, and that was meant to be a well-kept secret anyway. Yuuji wouldn’t be the type to do well as a jujutsu sorcerer— he’d save everyone, care for everyone, not because judging who would be right or wrong to save was often convoluted or unsolvable, but because he was a good person. If he failed to help people in dire need, whether it was his fault or not, he would be so guilty he wouldn’t live. You supposed a part of you was like that, too: driven by fear of potential guilt, yet you were driven even more by a need to be useful. If at the end of the day you could help, even if you couldn’t offer someone salvation, you’d accept it— that certain things were out of your control. There would be no point in lingering over not being able to change things you couldn’t change, and your experience in Tokyo last month was part of that. It was what changed almost everything. And you swore you’d never let Yuuji go through anything that would change him, that would take that pure love for the world from him. His name is fitting: his humanity is unwavering, a soldier fighting a losing battle, Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill and living through his suffering, the indomitable human spirit against the cruel indifference of the world and the universe. 

You’ll tell him one day, you decide. 

For now, though, you’ll have to make yourself useful another way: by using the knowledge you have to be at his aid. That’s how you’ll like it anyway. 

“Thanks, Yuuji,” you whisper. 

Yuuji dozes off. You sit next to him as if he’s a patient at a hospital, watching his breath rise and fall. A part of you wants the moment to stretch out into perpetuity, his steady snoring lulling even you to sleep. It’s creepy as hell. And knowing that you could have all of this: seeing him like this, going to the arcade every Thursday, minding each others’ health; all of it without it leading to him liking you the same way you do him— 

—it still hurts. But it’s getting easier to handle it. You’ll deny that it still hurts for as long as you can, staving it off until it really does go away. So you’ll keep silent, no one beside you knowing of your feelings, trying your best to be utilised and useful. You’ll take it to the grave, you’re sure. You’ll continue to be by the sidelines, a helper for convenience and someone to serve, someone to be used.

taglist:

@bakananya, @sindulgent666, @shartnart1, @lolmais, @mechalily, @pweewee, @notsaelty, @nattisbored

(please send an ask/state in the notes if you'd like to join! if I can't tag your username properly, I've written it in italics. so sorry for any trouble!)

#take me back (take me with you) #jjk megumi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #megumi fushiguro #megumi #fushiguro megumi #megumi fluff #megumi angst #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #jjk x fem!reader #fem!reader #ruer writes #wooh that's a wrap for today! for the ao3 readers chapter 6 has been posted on ao3 by the way! #megumi x reader

[ruershrimo]

lyney x reader: hair (drabble)

features lyney

warnings: nothing except the fact that the text isn’t capitalised or proofread ;v;.

notes: what’s this, me writing for a character that isn’t from the first three nations? anw yeah so this is a drabble but it’s over 100 words,,, also sorry but my exams are in. two days. so. I may be m.i.a. for a while… hope you guys are alright with short things like this and the childe one

synopsis: his hair is really pretty, you think.

unlike his siblings, lyney’s hair is slightly different. 

lynette’s hair is soft to the touch, and smells slightly of lumidouce bells. it’s smooth to the point that it’s slippery, always slipping through the gaps in her fingers, always obeying to her ribbons when she’s out at night; the glow of her and her cats’ eyes seeping through the cracks in the walls, learning each of their secrets. freminet’s hair is a beautiful pale blonde, the same as his mother’s before she left; the same as his mother’s, a woman his siblings never knew. it’s straight, but coarse on the ends whenever he resurfaces from the water. nevertheless, it suits his eyes swimmingly. sapphire gems on gold fleece. 

lyney, however, lyney, the leader, the oldest, has hair with the fragrance of rainbow roses perpetually remaining on its strands. he makes little effort to keep it as gorgeous and luscious as his sister’s, when he very well could— to him it’s not as if lynette pays particular heed to her hair anyway, he’s the one who brushes through her hair and gets her the shampoo she likes because he knows she loves it. 

his hair, to himself, is waiting backstage and anticipating a new show no matter how much of a lie it may be; it’s showering as speedily as he can no matter how much he wants to remain in the steady caress of running water, out of habit yet not allowing his siblings do the same, and choosing to brush his siblings’ hair so that they feel comfortable and have the best night’s rest they can have; it’s falling asleep on accident while you kiss his head, rub the pads of your fingers against his skull and brush through the strands ever so gently, as if for a moment he is precious as shards of glass about to shatter even more, as if for a moment he has been redeemed and has never been an actor, has never been a man overdue for confessions. 

lyney’s hair to you is strolling in a field, senses awakened by the heady scent of flowers; it’s the comfort in gazing up at the stage and watching him paint the world until it becomes a sea of clamour, an ocean of awe, a vast land of smiles; it’s waking up to him and coffee being brewed behind you as he’s already set and ready for the day with his hair braided to the side. his hair is pretty, pretty because there was never a time when he was not, pretty because he braids it and makes the effort to keep it neat and tidy even if it’s not gorgeous or luscious, so pretty and hence you comb your fingers through it whenever you can. 

and it doesn’t have to be slippery-smooth like lynette’s, nor does it have to be as ethereal as freminet and his mother’s. you’d love his hair any other way. 

—

“you’ve always got beautiful hair, lyney,” you comment, one day, resting your nonchalance and your chin on your palm and elbow. “you’re always so pretty.” 

he laughs. “why, are you trying to steal my poor little heart? oh, take it away, wrest it if you will. and besides, when have I ever been fairer than you?” 

“always,” you state, matter-of-factly. “but you’re the prettiest. your hair curls a little at the end and it fits the way your eyes fill themselves with wonder when you’re on stage, or how you braid your hair to the side in the morning like that, I think. it’s like lynette’s, but I think I like yours just a little more. it’s really pretty, that’s all.” 

“my, you’ve rendered me speechless, haven’t you?” 

your lips curl into a smile. “I suppose I have.” 

#hehe. hehehehe. I put the ‘readmore’ in the middle this time. I’m being so funky rn hahaha exams are in two days I’m going to decompose #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #lyney x reader #genshin impact lyney #lyney #genshin impact #ruer writes

[ruershrimo]

take me back (take me with you) | f. megumi x fem! reader | chapter 6: beginning

ao3 link for additional author’s notes | playlist | prev | next | m.list

chapter synopsis:

'“Why else do you think I am the way I am? I may be shy and scatterbrained, or a horrible woman with a muddled sense of morality or what I think should and should not happen, when in reality it’s just what I want to happen. But this is why I’m so resolute, and so stubborn. This is why I love you so fiercely. All mothers are like that to some degree, even if my own would never let me bear witness to it.”

You haven’t told her you love her too in years.'

'And Itadori seems… like a good person. I think it’s good, that… you were able to find a friend like that.”

“It was. He’s a really, really good guy.”

“You love him a lot,” Megumi says.

---

You and Megumi set out to prevent an emergency involving Yuuji and a cursed object. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. But at least everyone is fine in the end, even if it means you'll have to walk away from almost everything (or maybe it's the other way around).

You're going to be all on your own. Still, now it seems like this will hurt less now.

word count: ~8k; tws: none for now :)

17-6-2018 

The two of you walk down the lane. It’s midnight. There’s a loitering silence in the air, no words exchanged between you and him, and it twists your heart in brief moments of hurt when you’re not trying to keep your mind occupied with other things. Your legs move subconsciously without you caring to think of them, the route to the hospital ingrained in your mind as if intrinsically there. 

At some point, you think your hand with its sweat and its grip is going to leave imprints like a marring on his skin, but it’s of your own selfishness that you choose to hold onto his wrist anyway. 

There’s a million things you could say to him right now, things you’ll forcefully push to the very back of your throat, things you’ll keep under lock and key in a mangled mix of quiet anticipation and sombre anxieties. Right now you’re holding his wrist and that’s enough for you, to have him walking behind you if not beside, to be two people near each other— not together— in silence since any conversation is not an option; any conversation could lead to the last spark needed to be fanned into the flame for it to erupt bigger and brighter than ever before. 

If you asked about Tsumiki right now, or why either of them never bothered to speak to you since 2016, it could break you apart, of that you’re sure. And even without words it threatens to do so to you like a chandelier of melting wax candles hanging above you being suspended precariously from the ceiling or light lightning soon to be thrown down mercilessly from the sky. 

“The turning to Sendai Hospital is on the right.” 

“I know the routes better,” you let out, and rather disappointingly it sounds brasher and more derogatory aloud instead of the unobtrusive tone you were aiming for— you hope it doesn’t hurt him but then wonder why you still even cared that much about how he felt about what you said or did anyway, “I got myself accustomed to taking the one on the left that leads you through. Quick shortcut and all.” 

You’re not looking back, but the light pull of his hand from the hold of your wrist seems to suggest his slight reeling back in a small sense of surprise and an equal amount of shock, as if suddenly remembering the fact you were your own person, that you had your own autonomy as one, because somehow everyone thought you weren’t. 

It’s strange to look back at how you were before: meek, timid. Too shy to speak up. Too innocent to be angered by anything. Always dreaming, mind bleary as if on a cloud in blurred skies, hiding behind the backs of others like a petrified forest critter. 

And now you’re this— this person who frowns and disagrees and retorts at every little thing, and as much as you have to, as much as it was nearly inevitable the way you turned out, all you can think you share with the person you were when you first met Megumi and Tsumiki was your need to be useful— and even that has been exacerbated by how you’ve grown, how you’ve become this person you grew into. And a part of you— no, just you as a whole— doesn’t like yourself at all. 

Your father was right. That little girl was hopeful, obedient, kind, caring— you don’t know why even then you were dissatisfied with the way you were, or why your dissatisfaction would matter because at that time you’d cared so little about everything besides caring for people and having fun with the pair of siblings that you were so rarely bothered by it, that it was still just a slight whisper from the back of your head that could be shushed or tuned out with library visits and nights in front of the TV and the glow of old cartoons. Your father was right and this is proved even more by the fact that the whole situation just infuriates you on the surface, and just makes you feel like an empty, hollow shell left behind when you reach deeper into yourself. 

That little girl had potential, potential to be useful but kind, obedient and close to the people who raised her even if it meant abandoning her own ideals. But you’d been so devoted to them, you think, that she was killed and destroyed in the world she grew up in, and now there’s a space for her that’s left vacant due to the way she wasted away. You miss her, the girl you once were, you miss being her, how easy and lighthearted everything was and how all of you felt so content in every sense of the word. But you don’t want her back. Now that’s just what makes you miserable sometimes. 

Self-reflection just made you feel revolted by yourself. You keep your eyes on the road. 

“It’s here,” you state, pointing at the building in front of you. 

Sendai General Hospital is an institution made out of bare concrete. Its walls are yellowed and close in on its wards like a prison, coloured using old paint that hasn’t been repainted over and is as pallid-looking as the skin of the people sitting on the beds it is inhabited by. Just being in it feels like a hit to the body and the brain and the senses, too. There are old-fashioned tiles on its floors, their pale beige hue muted yet the blinding shine on them harshly mopped clean. Inside it reeks of an imminent presence of sickness or death or illnesses and conditions never to be able to be defeated and sterile sanitisers. Looking at the latex-blue curtains in it feels like a blindfold unwantedly, forcefully pulled over both your vision and your ears. 

“You and that Itadori seem close.” 

“We are,” you say, then you add, not really knowing why, “He’s my best friend.” Maybe you’re trying to make him jealous, rile him up a bit. But even then you wouldn’t want him to be riled up, nor would you be satisfied if he were to keep silent. Maybe you just wanted to hurt him, to hurt him back or something, if only for something small, even if you’d already resolved not to do so. 

You’ll make sure not to do that again, though. 

Instead he does something else, takes another route instead. “Then it seems you visit his grandfather often.” 

“Uh-huh,” you nod as the two of you enter the hospital, and you have to blink a few times as always in order to adjust yourself to the light and how it reflects off the detachedly clean floor. “My mother’s here, too.” 

“Oh, I’m sorry— is she alright?” 

“She’s okay, I… think. She… she got sick a while back and stays here now,” you explain, “Let’s not talk about that…—I mean, I… don’t really want to.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t have to keep saying that.” It just makes people feel worse. 

He doesn’t push further and you suppose that’s okay. Your chest hurts a bit, like phantom pain on a wound that’s still there. There’s not really a way to explain it but almost everything makes you feel that way these days. Everything makes you feel horrible to some degree. Maybe it’s being a girl, maybe it’s being a teenager, but it’s not quite either, you guess. 

“He won’t be here for a while,” you say, “He’s either still in the room where his grandfather is or he’s buying flowers for him.” 

“Then I’ll just contact them and let them know the whole situation first.” 

Who’s ‘them’? 

“Okay.” You turn your back on him, “—wait.” 

“What?” 

“Do you have any emergency contact or something? Like, a trusted adult who could help you with any of this? In case things go really bad?” 

“...why would you need one?” he questions. 

You roll your eyes, “Just give it to me, damn it… if there’s anything I have nowadays, it’s probably foresight for stuff like this. For emergencies.” 

He gives you the number, albeit a bit begrudgingly. Why’d he have to be so pissy about anything and everything? 

“Okay, thanks. I’m going to visit my mother now.” 

The air and the colour from it seems distant as always, the ward she was basically imprisoned in smelling of the indistinguishable mix of sanitiser and sickness. There her body chains her to her bed, and there is little she can do besides rely on and weakly cling to the nurses who assist her, a frail shadow of what she once was. 

“Hi, Mummy.” 

She turns to you, and your chest constricts. Her hair, once much longer, the type that you dreamed to have as it billowed in the wind, the type that invited you caressively to bury yourself in and take in that heady scent of roses that emanated from it— that hair is now replaced with a cloth wrapped around her head. Radiation. Chemotherapy. 

The wrinkles on her face make the difference between her now and her years ago all the more stark. Every visit you come back here, you’ve forced yourself to be acclimated to this new reality, one where she isn’t waiting at home no matter how tedious the fights get or how exhausting it was eating with someone who remained silent, someone who chose to continue suffering if it meant she could hurt and turn her daughter to guilt (as if that would change anything). At least she was there. 

Cancer is a terminal illness, especially the type your mother is facing— regardless of how much chemotherapy she would struggle through and how much you didn’t want to acknowledge a truth so plain and conspicuously bare, she would be confined to this bed until her final days, her illness like gyves tying her limbs and forcing her earthbound; the bed a cage she could never be liberated from. 

Sometimes she made it a point to you that she didn’t want to liberate herself from it anyway, and you’d never been so depressed yet irked by anything else. (You’d regret everything— not spending time with her, not appreciating her nearly enough— except for your decision to be involved in the Jujutsu world, if not as a sorcerer then as a doctor. That was, and is— your ultimatum. Your end all be all of this whole situation.” 

“Hello. Where’s that Itadori boy?” 

“Not here today, he’s still with his grandfather— maybe later.” You swing your bag over your shoulder, rummaging through it a while before pulling it out. “I’ve something for you, by the way.” 

“Oh! These,” she exclaims, and she smiles faintly, bits of colour rushing back to her face like watercolour dots on moistened paper. “I used to make them for you, sometimes. They used to be your favourite when you were really little.” 

“I know,” you explain, “That’s why I made them. I don’t like them anymore, but… I can’t remember your favourite food or if I ever asked, and I know you don’t like the food they give you here as much as… I don’t know. Your own cooking, I guess.” 

“It’s not my favourite,” she states, matter-of-factly, bluntly, “But thank you for the effort. My favourite will always be my own mother’s cooking.” 

Silence. 

“Now that I look back at everything, there are so many things I regret. Things I should have done but never did out of fear; things I should not have done and never apologised for out of pride. I’d like it if you could be different. Your grandmother went out the same way. At least, even if you had the same illnesses as we did, which I hope the genes for which have been curbed by your father’s— at least you would not leave the world with regret,” she looks down at her hands, staring down at them solemnly like a shadow, an excluded figure. “But it was a good life.” 

“...then maybe you can tell me more. While you— while we still have time. What was your childhood like? What was your mother like?” It feels strange, imposturous, maybe— to be referring to someone basically a stranger as “grandmother”, to name someone so far away from you so intimate, even if the only generation between you, tying the two of you together, was your mother’s. If you had a daughter it would be the same for her, most likely. There’s a part of you that would find honour in becoming your mother once you’d grown, but there’s a part of you that would think being such would accost you horribly, for all time. 

She sighs, “I’ll tell you later. There would be so much to say, like compressing all my words into one tiny paper. The stories have weight in them the same way letters and words in handwriting can be firm and large. But if I were to start,” she begins, “I’ll say that I was born as the daughter of two very powerful sorcerers. Now, I know how much this would sound like some nonsense spouted by your mother, but I think you should listen anyway. 

“My parents loved each other a lot, but my mother had come from an obscure clan whose name I can’t remember, but who had high hopes in them having a child with a powerful cursed technique as their last resort, since, if I recall correctly, there had been a crisis within the clan for it to keep surviving. 

“I still remember when they found out I had no cursed technique and how terrified they were. In me I had a bit more than the relatively normal amount of cursed energy most people have, and so I was expected to have techniques as powerful as they did. They loved me and treated me preciously, like a fragile object, so long as I was quiet and demure— and I guess to some extent I still was and still am today. They wondered what they could do to run from the clan, as if they didn’t have enough power when they were supposed to protect me despite my father’s bullheaded industry and my mother’s patience-formed strength. They lacked grit to grapple against them, and only in this did they lack it, I think; only against my mother’s family did they not have the ability to resolve things whether peacefully or violently. And eventually they just gave up and thought they would just… surrender me over when I entered my adolescent years. I was their daughter. I… suppose they didn’t love me enough. I know it sounds awful— thinking that they should have always protected me, through and through—” 

“No, it wasn’t.” 

“—when it could have been the clan itself that would have been mostly to blame.” 

“But they were still supposed to protect you! They were your parents—” 

“Why else do you think I am the way I am? I may be a shy and scatterbrained or a horrible woman with a muddled sense of morality or what I think should and should not happen when in reality it’s just what I want to happen, but this is why I’m so resolute, and so stubborn. This is why I love you so fiercely. All mothers are like that to some degree, even if my own would never let me bear witness to it.” You haven’t told her you love her too in years. 

“But then when I was an adult I met your father, who was a bit like a country bumpkin, but a formidable sorcerer and a kind, honest person, and I couldn’t help but fall in love with the person he was both inside and out. And for the next few years we struggled to have a child until I found out I was pregnant with you,” she continues, “Even though by that time I was well into my late thirties, we were overjoyed and decided to keep you.” 

Suddenly you wish there had been more time before things were ruined. Time for you to know her better, the beginning of your existence. You would have begged her for old photos, stories, mementos of her and your father. 

“And now the clan’s faded into obscurity, finally. The younger members left and the older ones passed away peacefully. Happy story, right?” 

“...yeah.” It all ended well, but you don’t know if you can say the same for your mother’s. At least, you hope, when she goes away, it can be swift and peaceful like the way her relatives did. 

Then suddenly there’s a buzz in your pocket. An inconvenient one, out of the blue. 

“You should go get that first,” she says. 

“...okay.” 

You lift it up to your face and feel like crushing the damn thing. Old number. Stupid number. Number you haven’t called in months because you’d given up on that bastard— oh. The two of you were working together now. 

You turn away from your mother, creeping to the edge of the room. “What’s wrong?” 

“I just talked to him, but I think it would be easier if you came back and was there with him too since you know him better than I do. And he… doesn’t seem like the brightest. He may think that it’s not important enough to hand over unless you ask him to or something.” 

You muffle your voice with your hand and whisper, “Hey, you shut up, you know nothing about him. He’s way smarter than people give him credit for. But I’m— I’m with my mother right now. Wait for a second. Just ask him to wait for me first; he wouldn’t need any of my help for all of this yet. Make a friend or get a life or something.” 

“...fine. But you’ll have to join us later. He’s bound to ask about you.” 

“Then just tell him I’m with my mother!” you snap, still whispering. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Wh— you little— oh, don’t you hang up now—” 

Weird thing is, he probably wasn’t even being so infuriating on purpose. And you wouldn’t have burst out at someone for being that way anyway. It was only because it was him, specifically. 

You’d sworn to put that past you. 

Your immaturity strikes once again. 

“If you have to go now,” your mother says, “You should. Just come back again next time. I can tell you the rest. Thank you again for the food, [Name].” She doesn’t call you ‘darling’ anymore, doesn’t she? Just your name. 

“Okay. Sorry.” 

You swing the bag back over your shoulder, wearing it this time instead of taking it off, easing your way out of the room. 

“It’s okay,” she assures you, “Goodbye. I love you.” 

“...I love you, too,” you say, but it’ll mingle with all the other sounds in the hospital, and it’ll be drowned out like a ship in the middle of nowhere, your voice soft and thoroughly soused by the cacophony of bleak noises like telephone rings and beeps from electrocardiographs outside of her deafeningly quiet hospital room. 

“Hi, Yuuji,” you greet them in the dimly lit waiting area, “...and Megumi. Sorry to keep the two of you guys waiting for so long.” 

“Oh, hey; it’s okay!” he goes, although in his voice it seems that there’s been some of his usual energy seeping away from him. “Didn’t know the two of you knew each other until just now or that you were a part of some magic curse society. Are you guys childhood friends who met because of all that cursed stuff or something?” 

“Something like that,” Megumi explains. 

“It’s a long story,” you say, not exactly denying him nor conceding his words anyway. Once again, there’s a trace of anger despite your promise to be untethered to your puerility like this. “Anyway, are you okay, Yuuji? How’s your grandfather?” 

He pauses. “Oh, about that… he just passed away.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Yuuji…” you hold the fabric of his jacket (sometimes it still feels wrong to try and hold his hand— it just makes your heart ache again like a scab being clawed at) and pull him into a brief caress, patting his back as gently as you can manage. 

“It’s okay, I’ll be fine,” he smiles as you pull yourself away, “Grandpa wouldn’t want me to be crying right now anyway. So don’t worry.” 

“Okay, I won’t. But if you’re sad, just know you can always talk to me.” 

He laughs, softer than the boisterous manner he usually does so in, “Yeah, I know.” 

Megumi clears his throat, pointedly trying to make a sound, “Anyway. Itadori Yuuji—” 

“Just call him Itadori. You don’t have to be so uptight.” 

“Nah, [Name], I’m fine—” 

Megumi sighs. “Anyway, we need you to give the cursed object now.” 

“Oh, yeah, that,” you start, “So, Yuuji, do you have the thing that Megumi would have explained to you? The cursed object? We need it for everyone to be safe, and all.” 

“Yeah! Hold on, let me get it. I told you I didn’t have it already, but here’s the box,” he says, tossing it over to Megumi. 

He retrieves the box. It’s ancient and wooden, the craftsmanship behind it elite and adroit, and the paper on it has the words for a buddhist sutra written on it like an inscription. You’ve heard of it before, the kind of curse it was meant to seal, but it definitely couldn’t be— 

He opens the box. 

Holy shit. 

“Where is it?” 

“It’s empty…” Megumi panics, “Wait— hold on!” 

Things are bad— as in, they couldn’t get any worse— not only was the school doomed by the loss of its cursed object, the cursed object was Sukuna Ryomen’s finger itself. 

You blame your inadequacy, your inability to have stopped everything sooner— if not for that nobody would have gotten hurt. If not for that there wouldn’t even be a risk of anything happening anyway. You should’ve tried harder to sense it, and you should’ve focused more on it to keep the student body safe and sound. 

It was your fault. No one else was to blame but your useless self, and even if that were wrong, you’d still have the most to be blamed for. 

Megumi has a hand on Yuuji’s shoulder, keeping the other boy from moving, his breathing erratic and his eyes wide in frantic shock. 

“...well, they were saying, ‘let’s open it up to see what’s inside it tonight’,” Yuuji clarifies, standing a few centimetres away from the door, “Why? Is that bad?” 

Sasaki and Iguchi? 

The air in the hospital feels particularly chilly tonight, gooseflesh terrorising your skin all over, and for all the kinds of reasons that would cause anything like such. 

“It’s way worse than bad,” Megumi declared, fear and grim so thick in his voice they were tangible enough to be cut through with a knife. “Your friends are going to die.” 

“We’ve got to go,” you rush, “Now! Quick!” 

It passes by like a blur, as if you’re in that moment and out of it simultaneously. Your mind has been bombarded with and pressed so thoroughly onto the moment, like tissue on a wet surface, that it seems it’s being blanked out, while your legs continue to run despite your mind nearly forgetting, at this point, why you’re running— as if your legs moving so frantically to help them was something intrinsic, something you didn’t need your mind for. 

Sasaki and Iguchi are in danger. Sasaki and Iguchi are in danger. 

You didn’t know them all too well, really— just through Yuuji, and Yuuji himself wasn’t as close to the two of them, being their junior and all. And although a part of you was doing this just because you could, like the way you did when you first discovered your cursed technique, you knew that another was doing this for Yuuji. If in any way they were hurt or could not survive, he would blame himself to no end. He possessed such a kindness within him, so much that it hit the depths of your soul sometimes; shattered your heart so gently a million times over or heated it in the kindly way mothers heated pans on stoves despite the heat of it being greater than that of blue flame. If anything happened to them, no matter how much or how little he knew of them, he wouldn’t be able to live after that. 

The two of them are near the barrier separating the school from the street before you (you struggle with catching up to them— one’s a star athlete and another has been training for much longer than you, you’re sure), the gates tall and enveloped in darkness. You didn’t think much of school except for when it came to your grades and being with Yuuji, thinking of these gates— the ones that you and Yuuji use when you’re running super late— in particular as just a shortcut entrance you paid little attention to, just something treated with indifference as you passed through them whenever you were late. Yet now they echoed denial, refusal, and slim chances— it was unlikely that they’d be alright, especially since this cursed object in particular was the finger of Sukuna Ryomen. 

“Is that the building?” Megumi questions, “Where are they?” 

“Fourth floor— guh!” Yuuji seems to come to an abrupt halt, nearly slamming into what seems to be an invisible wall. A veil. 

“Yuuji!” 

“I’ll handle this,” Megumi declares, hopping onto the metal wires, more directed to Yuuji than you. So even he can tell how selfless Yuuji is, even after only having just met him. 

“I may not know those two that well, but—” Yuuji starts, “But they’re friends! I have to help!” 

“You’re staying here,” Megumi commands, “[Name], if you could— get your father or any sorcerers you know to come here and help.” 

He climbs over the gate. 

He’s going away from you again. Slipping away from your grasp. And now, all you can do is watch. There’s nothing else— nothing else you can do, at all. If you went inside now, you wouldn’t be able to help except— what?— tend to their injuries? Manipulate your own cells into weapons? The former wasn’t possible with how much you’d strained yourself from running so quickly earlier, and the latter was too dangerous: you hadn’t even started with the basics of that yet, on your father’s obstinate insistence that even if he’d let you play doctor he wouldn’t let you manipulate any of the cells in your body into any kind of usable weapon. Any simple wrong move could make things turn south in the most drastically terrifying of ways. If you went in there, you’d just die, and there’d be more casualties, more trouble, more problems caused by you and you alone. 

You can’t even call your father, either. That would always be your last resort— because even if you fought, you still needed him to rest. You didn’t want him overexerting himself by using his cursed technique at all. 

(You were selfish. You didn’t want to lose your father. You didn’t want to have to visit not one but two parents lying sick and tired and grey in matching hospital beds.) 

“Yuuji?” you start, turning to him. “You’re…deathly quiet. Are you okay?” 

His lips quiver slightly, a faint whimpering noise coming out of him. Is he crying? 

“Yuuji, look at me. Are you okay?” you ask, as gently and softly as you can right now, despite your ragged, unsteady, unathletic-addled breaths. You place a hand on his shoulder, slowly rubbing up and down from his shoulder and crook of his neck to his back. “It’s okay. …Megumi’s a good and… capable, strong person and jujutsu sorcerer. He’ll be okay, and they’ll be okay too. Just… just put your trust in him, okay?” 

“I’m sorry, [Name], but I’ve got to go,” he tells you, “You stay here, and call for help or something. I’m sorry, but I’ve just really got to do it!” 

He hugs you, quickly, deftly. And then he crosses the gate, leaving you all alone like Megumi did. You wish he’d hug you longer, that you could take care of him for a little longer— it was your last way to be useful now. 

Still, there’s someone you could call, now that you remember him.

The emergency contact. 

You snatch your phone out, resolute. 

“Hello! Gojo Satoru speaking,” the voice on the other line says. 

You’ve heard it plenty before by accident. 

When Gojo and Megumi are back, Yuuji’s in the form of a figure slung over Gojo’s shoulders like he’s been reply entrenched into slumber, his body seemingly limp and his torso completely bare. There’s barely an ounce of movement in him, except for slow exhales and inhales you can see on his chest. Sasaki and Iguchi are both nearly the same, the former covered in bruises and in a deep, panicked haze, and the latter as asleep as Yuuji seemed to be while harbouring injuries he may never recover from. 

The only non-roughed up one here is Gojo, it seems; Megumi has a stream of blood running from the top of his head in rivulets, staining his sweaty, scraped forehead. 

“Wh— you two, what happened? Why are they all asleep? What happened to Yuuji? Are they okay? What—” 

“Calm down, kid,” Gojo says, “They’ll be fine. I mean, there’s a 100% chance that your friend can be executed, but…” 

“Executed?” you almost scream, “What the hell happened? You said things would be okay!” 

“Uh-uh, again, calm down. I mean, we don’t even know when they’re gonna make him kick the bucket! He ate Sukuna’s finger, by the way.” He holds his arms up in faux surrender. 

“Gojo you ignorant slut! Don’t you fucking dare tell me to ‘calm down!’ He ate Sukuna’s finger? Why weren’t you able to stop anything? What’s going to happen to him now? You know what— give him to me!” 

“You know, it’s not like I’m scared of being hunted down by your father if you use your cursed technique— I mean, I’m leagues stronger than him— but the stuff was too strong. It’s not like you’ll be able to get rid of the finger in your little boyfriend.” 

“He’s not her boyfriend!” Megumi interjects.

“Thank you, Megumi!” Your face is going hot like a campfire fanned by the wind. 

“Oh?” Gojo adds, a teasing lilt in his voice. “Anyway, we’re going to get him to a place where we can cover everything with talismans to surround him.” 

They’re going to execute him at Jujutsu High after.  

“I’m coming with you.” 

“You sure?” Gojo asks, “Your father isn’t going to like you travelling so far away without telling him.” 

Megumi shifts, a little sombre. “[Name], you don’t have to.” 

“...I’m doing this for Yuuji, not for you.” 

“You okay?” Gojo asks while the three of you are back in the hospital. (You hate this building so much.) Iguchi’s been transferred to a ward, Sasaki having woken up and insisting on staying with him. “I’ve got kikufuku if you want some. You must be really tired since it’s so late, huh?” 

The whole situation is so incredulous you’re unsure of whether you want to burst out laughing or dismember someone. 

“...nothing. Wait, let me see Yuuji again.” 

Everyone is asleep, it seems— all except for you and Gojo. Yuuji’s been knocked out, and Megumi’s stuck in the world of his dreams. 

You can’t sleep. There’s just nothing to put your mind at rest. 

At least if there’s one thing you can do it’s this. 

Gojo picks him up by the sides of his torso (now temporarily clothed with a spare white shirt) like a child with a heavy book. “Woah— he’s pretty heavy for a fifteen year old kid.” 

You lay Yuuji face-up on the line of hospital chairs. There are thin scarlet marks right under his eyes— Sukuna’s eyelids, you’ve been told. 

You should’ve done more to protect him. 

Slowly, reticently, you kneel by the side of the chairs. You press your fingertips onto that pair of thin tiny lines. 

Nothing happens. You can’t picture his cells being able to grow back. It’s as if there’s been a slit on his face and its outline has been replaced with brand-new skin. His cells don’t budge. 

“Why don’t you help Megumi? I bet he’s got plenty of healable injuries.” 

“…I don’t think I’ll be able to help much. I could faint if I try helping him now. It’s better to leave it to Dr Ieiri or something.” 

“Pft,” he scoffs, “Shoko? She’s definitely not going to heal all of him. It’ll just be a waste of her time. You can just help him with the tiny scrapes and bruises first. And I’ll even tell her that you did it. She’s really fond of you, you know.” 

You give him a shy, modest smile. “Thanks, then.”

It’s time to get to work. 

Megumi’s skin is smooth like a baby’s just like the last time you felt it, though the frown on his face, ever-present, is bound to cause wrinkles there in less than a few decades’ time. You place your hands on him, bruised and bloody, watching in your mind and directing his cells as they work. 

Once the smaller injuries have been dealt with, you stop. “I can’t really work on the one on his head, since then you’d get another fainted person to carry around, but he should be fine with some bandages and patching-up there, because I’ve already kind of catalysed the start of that area’s healing process a little. Other than that, he should be completely fine. I’ll give it, say… two weeks or so for it to get better completely.” 

“Good work!” he smiles, the outline of his cheeks visible on his blindfold. 

“By the way, Mr Gojo…” 

“You know, I appreciate the respect you’re giving me now, but just Gojo is fine.” 

“Okay, Gojo. Do you think Yuuji will be okay?” 

“I mean, I’m pretty sure. And I’m going to ask them to suspend his sentence. I’ll just see whether he wants that or not once he wakes up.” 

“That’s the thing. I’m not sure if he even will.” 

Gojo laughs. “Don’t worry. He was really strong, and able to switch between being possessed by Sukuna and being himself at will. We haven't seen that kind of talent in a millennia! I’m sure they’ll listen to me, anyway.” 

“Thank you,” you sigh. Thank goodness. “If you need any type of payment, um… teleport to my house whenever you get inconvenient little cuts like bruises and stuff. I can help.” 

“Nah, reverse cursed technique’s got me covered.” 

“Oh, wait— I forgot about that— um… I can…”

“Just leave it to me! No payment required,” he exclaims, holding both thumbs up. “And for the record, the one who wanted to save Yuuji was actually Megumi.” 

You wouldn’t have imagined that would happen. Megumi— pragmatic, serious, unkind when he needs to be (no matter how kind of a person he actually is— no, was— at heart), different from Tsumiki in so many ways. There was no way he would have been the one vouching for Yuuji, someone he’d only just met, to be spared. 

“Really?” you ask, “I… wouldn’t have thought he was the one who would do it. I thought, maybe, you were just… really kind tonight or something…”

“Well, maybe it was because he saw how much you cared about Itadori and did it for you, or maybe he had met Itadori, liked him, and just wanted to save a good person,” Gojo suspects, “But if there’s one thing for sure it’s that your old friend saved your new one.” 

“...oh.” 

You’ll have to bring it up with him next time— maybe, if he’s still there tomorrow…

“I know you’re mad at him, but a lot has happened,” Gojo states, voice lower, softer like a schoolteacher’s, “Still, I won’t tell you that you have to give him a chance or any of that. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to thank him or anything. I’m sure he did it out of his own volition without expecting anything from you. He knew he probably didn’t deserve to if it were you.” 

You pause. “No, it’s just… I’ll talk to him again the next time I see him. Alone, most likely. And I can figure something out. I think that would be the best way to go around things. Thank you, Gojo.” 

18-6-2018 

The aftershocks are still there, although you’ve come out unscathed. 

Last night was a mingled mess, a blur. You’d tried your best to help Iguchi by the time Yuuji was placed in the room of talismans and you could come back to the hospital and visit, but in the end he still needed better help than that. His injuries were too large of scale for how you were at that moment, already tired after healing some of the numbers done on Megumi. 

(You were useless. You couldn’t help anyone. You couldn’t prevent Yuuji from being hit with such soul-striking guilt., couldn’t help Sasaki from being traumatised, couldn’t help Iguchi enough for him to be back at school soon—) 

Sasaki’s injuries were limited to bruises and scrapes, but though you could help her physically, there was nothing you could do to assist her emotionally. 

You stayed with them for a few hours in the ICU and then one of the hospital wards (a floor under your mother’s), your father calling you once the sun had risen. 

“Gojo Satoru told me about everything that happened.” 

“Yeah. I know you’ll scold me, but… not now. I’m sorry, I’m just really tired.” You hang up. 

For all you spoke of wanting to be useful, the night when your powers were needed the most was when you were at your most useless— you couldn’t help them, you couldn’t help attack the cursed spirits, and the only thing you could do was call for an adult’s help like a little, scared and helpless girl. 

You needed to train, and train harder than you had been doing for the past few years. 

There’s a knock on the door, a dot-dot-dot-dot-dot. dot dot. It’s Yuuji, you know it is. How ever could you not? 

Timidly, movements quiet like the room itself, you pull the door knob, seeing him there, relatively unscathed. You sigh in relief, a moment’s respite before you return to the panic you had been living in before since you deserve the respite less than other people do— no, you don’t deserve such a break at all, you’re absolutely sure of that, not after what you pulled, how horribly and utterly useless you were, you’ll remind yourself of that again and again and again— the heart-piercing guilt and the worry and the constant need to care for the people around you, almost like a mother, maybe, but you don’t like that thought as much as you think you should. Maybe if your own mother knew, she’d disagree— maybe she’d tell you that you should be a mother, maybe she’d ignore that you were also a child at certain times— the most convenient ones, probably. When she thinks it good that you, a child, were someone’s caretaker because women should take pride in and appreciate that, she would encourage you to be one; when she thinks it bad that as a caretaker and a so-called ‘adult’ you can have your own autonomy, agency and opinions, then maybe she’d remind you that in her eyes you knew nothing of the world. But maybe, just maybe, there was also a chance that she wouldn’t be like that in any way. 

But you wouldn’t put it past her. 

“Yuuji, are you okay?” There are questions about to spill out of you, tears about to fall like gushing rivers, but you’re just happy he’s alive at this point. 

“Yeah.” His voice is soft. Your chest twinges; it hurts like an awful, intransigent little bruise. “Hi, [Name].” It feels so unignorable, the way it’s filled with such sorrow and worry that it weighs his usually loud and boisterous voice down. 

“I thought that—” you start, lips trembling, “I thought there was a chance I couldn’t lose you. The only thing I could do was—” you sniffle, “Hope that they could delay it or something.” 

“Yeah. I’ll explain it later,” he says, his voice sincere. 

You squeeze the wrist of his sleeve. “Don’t do things like that ever again,” you plead, “Promise me that at least.” 

“I promise.” 

“And keep your promises.”

“I will.” 

“...want to come inside?” 

He walks inside, and you step back to make way for him. 

“Sorry I came so late,” he says to you and Sasaki, who shakes her head in reassurance. “Hello, Sasaki,” he greets, “Is Iguchi okay?” 

They speak for a while— you don’t feel like it’s much of your right to join their conversation, since you did nearly nothing at all when they were most in danger, so you leave them be for a while. It would be better not to bother them right now, anyway. They’ve both been traumatised until it reached beneath their bones within the past twenty-four hours. 

When you leave the hospital, Sasaki tells you that she’s going to stay. You tell her to take care, squeezing her hand one final time. 

You let her, patting her on the back. You’ll call them later— she’d given you her contact— just to check on the two of them. 

“Where’s Megumi?” you ask Yuuji. 

“Oh, Fushiguro? I’m not too sure, but that Gojo guy said he’ll be there soon.” 

“Where, though?”

Sheepishly, in peak Yuuji fashion, he scratches the back of his neck. “Actually, another reason why I came here was also because… I mean, I know you and him weren’t close, but I’m going to the place where they’ll keep Grandpa’s ashes, and I think… you know, you could come with me. I… I don’t think I’d be able to do it really well alone, even though he had definitely made it clear he seriously didn’t want me moping around after his death and all. Gojo and Megumi will probably be there, but I thought it would be better if you were there because I know you better than those two, and you’re my friend. So… could you come with me? I know that he never really showed it, but I think he had always liked you a lot. Like, he was happy we were friends and stuff.” 

“...mhm. I’ll always be happy about that,” you tell him, before pulling him into a hug. The guy must need one right now. You’ve never hugged him before. Your heart hurts. 

The air is hot and humid with the breath of summer, bundles of mosquitoes bound to be breeding new ones these next few weeks. Up in the sky is the sun, bold and bright, glaring down harshly at the two of you. 

“Before he passed away, Grandpa actually said something. He… kind of cursed me, if I’m being honest,” Yuuji starts. “He said I was a strong kid, so I should help people. And I’m going to do that. So that was why when Gojo asked if I wanted to be executed immediately or just eat all the fingers before dying, I chose the second option. I… I think I want to help people that way.” 

‘You’ve already helped people enough. You helped me,’ you almost tell him. 

You frown, because that’s the only thing you can do right now. You search for words to say the same way you do looking for dog books in libraries chock-full with those of other genres. “I’m… disappointed, I— I know I should be grateful, grateful that you’re still going to be alive and all, but… you’re still going to be in danger, and you’re still going to be executed one day. I mean, again, I know I should be happy you’re going to have more time alive and that I can still see you, but what if things don’t go as planned? What if you lose control of yourself once you reach, like, the fifth finger or something?” 

You’re selfish like that. In a way, you’re just the way your mother is. You should’ve always known— you were her beloved daughter after all, and the people you know would be loved the same way she did you since the day she knew of your existence, and maybe even before that. 

“Don’t worry,” he grins, wide as always. Even in an over-enveloping darkness he still manages to be the light. “I’ll be just fine. I’m a strong kid, after all. And we’ll always be friends!” 

Gojo asks if he and Yuuji can talk in private for a while. You wonder if this was how your mother felt as she had to give the person she loved most away (but you will have to go away, one day), because you can briefly tell what Gojo is going to ask. You wonder if she felt this twice. 

Yuuji can’t stay with you forever. In the same way you can’t remain by your mother and father’s sides for all eternity. 

This won’t be the last time you’re here, you think. For a place of death, it’s quite a bit beautiful how there’s such large masses of grass and plants surrounding it. 

Megumi nearly walks past you, his eyes on the old photographs of the deceased all around him. 

“Megumi.” 

He turns around. 

“I just wanted to thank you for wanting to save my friend, even if you may not have wanted to do it for me, specifically… um… I didn’t expect that you’d still be here. Are your injuries okay?” 

“I’m okay,” he answers you. “And also, I…” he hesitates, the first time he’s talked to you for something actually related to the two of you in a long time— nearly two years if you’re counting correctly, but the thoughts in your head are a bit too jumbled to count at the moment. “I didn’t really do it for you, though. It… it was for Tsumiki.” 

“Oh.”

“Wait! I’m sorry, that didn’t… come out right. But I should also apologise for something else. You wouldn’t have been thrown into this world anyway if not for my own demon dogs years ago.” 

“No, no, it wasn’t your fault. And I would have wanted to be in it anyway. There’s not many who can heal other people and all, so I just thought… even if I can’t do as much yet, since I don’t have reversed cursed technique and the drawbacks that come from mine are really bad, I can still help people sometimes if they’re dealing with relatively minor injuries. I can, um… make things easier for people. I can be useful like that. I’d keep to it anyway, because I’m stubborn, but… yeah. It wasn’t your fault, really.” 

“Okay. That’s good to hear.” 

“Yeah. Anyway, I’m happy to know that Tsumiki is okay.” 

Silence again for a while. The air turns a little more sombre, and a lot more awkward. 

“She is. And Itadori seems… like a good person. I think it’s good, that… you were able to find a friend like that.” 

“It was. He’s a really, really good guy.” 

“You love him a lot,” Megumi says. 

“I do. He’s a really good friend. If there’s something I’ll always know I know that, at least.” 

“I can see that. It doesn’t seem like he loves you back in the same way, though.” 

“...wow. Way to be blunt, Megumi. And yes, I do know that, too.” 

“Let’s just… change the subject.” 

“You’re the one who introduced it in the first place.” 

“Okay. How… how are you?” 

“I’m good. Wait, I think you should… go back to them. Maybe they’ll need you there right about now. He’s probably going to have to go to Jujutsu High, right?” 

He pauses. “Yeah. I’m sorry, [Name].” 

“No, no. That’s okay. I expected it. It’s just that I’ll miss him a lot,” you tell him, “He took care of me, kind of. You know I’ve always been a bit of an awkward or shy person, but he still approached me since I was new and we ended up hitting off as friends, kind of. We did a lot of stuff together.” 

Sounds pretty familiar, huh. 

“If you want I can make sure he’s safe for you.” 

“...you should be able to do that regardless of whether it’s my wish for you to do so or not…” you state, “But that would help, I guess. And I’m sorry for my attitude towards you for the past few hours or so. Thank you again.” 

“...I’m sorry I never spoke to you for so long, by the way,” he says abruptly. ‘By the way’? Classic Megumi… 

“I could tell you were. It’s… it’s okay. The two of you kind of have a habit of doing that.” 

All your rage, your loneliness, your feelings of abandonment— and this is all you can do. This is all you can say. You can only just let it go, in the end. 

“I’ll explain it all one day.” 

“You don’t have to if it’s hard.” 

He stays. “No, I will. I promise. And I promise I’ll start to talk to you again, as well. I was just… scared of a few things, maybe.” 

“That’s okay.” 

The two of you aren’t quite friends again yet, but it’ll happen soon. Maybe. And even if it doesn’t, you’re finally able to say, with an open, honest heart, that that doesn’t matter as much anymore. 

“I guess this is goodbye again, then.” 

“Not really.” 

“Oh, right— promise to keep in touch, okay? My patience is running thin with you,” you chuckle at that last part, attempting to joke and make things lighter again. 

“Promise.” 

“I’m going to go home now, by the way. Please tell Yuuji that I wish him the best and I’ll visit when I have my own money to visit Tokyo and all.” 

“I will.” 

“And help me say goodbye to him for me,” you add, “Hope that’s not too much for you to do. Sorry for the trouble. It’s just that I’d actually just about cry if I had to do it in real time right in front of him. Be good to him and be good friends, okay? Keep that promise, at the very least. That’s the one thing that I wish for the most.” 

“Bye, Megumi.” You turn back in the direction opposite of his. 

“Wait—!” 

His hand is on your wrist. Now you’re in front of him, like yesterday, and he’s holding your wrist, albeit a bit gentler than the way he used to pull it a whole eight years ago. 

His eyes are cast away from you, slightly avoidantly and in a way that’s a bit abashed. “I’ll miss you, [Name].” 

“It won’t even feel like I’m not there,” you say. Though his grip is slightly tight, he loosens it as soon as you try to slide it up, as if he’d let you be free of it if you want him to. 

You squeeze his hand instead, turning to face him. It feels warm. It feels like there’s blood coursing through you, the sensation more tender and tangible than it’s ever been. 

“Goodbye.” 

“Goodbye, [Name]. I’ll… I’ll call.” 

“Thank you.” 

Now you’re the one slipping away from his grasp. You move your hand away and walk back. The door slides open. 

2010. Springs, summers, autumns, winters. Hands on wrists, a back faced to your eyes, wide with innocence. Warmth and laughter and happiness and love. Days coloured with vibrant hues and time spent with dog books and in libraries. Frowns were greeted with smiles. Hesitance was non-existent. You didn’t feel a need to compensate for your uselessness. You were a child. You didn’t feel useless at all. You just felt this: a constant leaping in your heart, the corners of your mouth twisting up into a juvenile grin, braiding someone’s beautiful brown hair and tying it with a pretty cherry hair tie. 

You want to cry as you walk back home. 

You’re pretty sure you do. 

taglist:

@bakananya, @sindulgent666, @shartnart1, @lolmais, @mechalily, @pweewee, @notsaelty, @nattisbored

(please send an ask/state in the notes if you'd like to join! if I can't tag your username properly, I've written it in italics. so sorry for any trouble!)

#ohhh my goodness i'm so sorry this took so long #aaa but life's going to get very busy quite soon #so i just decided to post the next two chapters on tumblr first because writing chapter 8 and posting it on ao3 will take a while.... #take me back (take me with you) #jjk megumi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #megumi fushiguro #megumi #fushiguro megumi #megumi fluff #megumi angst #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #jjk x fem!reader #fem!reader #ruer writes #megumi x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #megumi imagine #adding more tags this time hope it works out #fanfiction #jjk fanfiction

[ruershrimo]

HEEEYYYAAA SWEETHEART

so I saw your Christmas event thingy and wanted to request a #13 with lyney x reader, preferably fluff but not like overly fluff so it becomes cringe (I sound bitchy I'm sorry😭)

Anyways congrats on 2 years on the blog,don't forget to eat and drink, mwah mwah(⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

the christmas mix | #13- baby it’s cold outside | lyney x reader

event masterlist

features lyney

notes: hiii<33!! thank you so much for requesting (and for being the first one too!!) aaaa!! anw I’m so sorry this came so late but I wanted to write something a bit longer (to be honest, I still feel like this one’s pretty incomplete, so I may write a part 2 for it!! I just didn’t want to take too much time so I just want to give this to you first.) and I really wanted it to be good because you seem so sweet aaaa <333. but ANYWAY thank you so much and have a merry christmas, mwah!! lmk if you need a rewrite of this and my apologies if there’s not enough (?) fluff (??) or if it's too short!!

warnings: none, except for the fact that it's fem reader, really (I hope that's okay!!)

summary: (set before the current events of the game) it's in the winter of his first show at the opera epiclese that he meets you. you think you may be falling for this stranger, this all-too-busy magician. it's alright if either of you have to go, though, the two of you can stay together-- it's too cold outside, after all.

The first time you meet him, the both of you are young and he’s a nameless stranger you meet at a friend’s party. You hit it off with him and glass bottles clink against each other before you bring the rim of yours to your lips and sip your fonta. 

“So, what brings you here?” you ask the stranger before you. He’s a new, unheard-of magician, you’ve been told. You think he’s the epitome of what magic should be in a world of surging elemental powers and mythical beings— a perfect mix of misdirection and secrets— with all his charm and mystery, and that little bit of dramatic flair he uses to present himself. 

“My sister and I were invited to perform, it seems,” he explains, taking his own sips in, “And you?” 

“Invited? Why, I just waltzed my way in like most of the others. Do you think I’ll be seeing you up there later, then, Mister…” 

“Lyney. Mister Lyney.” 

“…Mister Lyney.” 

“And you won’t be seeing me, anyway. I’ve told the host that my sister and I must attend to some urgent business concerning our first show at the Opera Epiclese tomorrow.” 

“Hm,” you hum, “The Opera Epiclese, huh? Glad to know I’m speaking to a future big shot. Remember me when your tickets are worth every gem and mora in Fontaine, won’t you? I don’t think I’ll be able to steal each and every one to see you again.” 

“Of course,” he grins, “And you won’t have to steal anything, I promise. Nothing would be worth as much as you.” 

“You’ve a penchant for words, I see. And here I thought budding magicians were often shyer than this…” 

“Our introduction to being in the limelight would not change my occasional sharing of the truth. Then he lays his bottle down on the table, and it’s silent and so very unlike how you thought he would based off your initial impressions of him, and so very different from how anyone else would after drinking fonta. He sets it down quietly, stealthily, as if if he were to clash any louder against the wooden table’s surface he would dart out of the host’s house while the liquid in the bottle barely moves, appearing like creases on a red velvety tablecloth. “But!” he exclaims, “Now I really must get going—” 

His voice is like a twinkle out of a music box, its melody even better than the one bursting out of your friend’s gramophone; his eyes are like a velvet coat that pair well with his cheshire cat-like smile; his hair is silky as it is silvery and you want to run your fingers through it. 

So you don’t want him to go. 

“Leaving so soon?” 

“Well, the magician’s life just so happens to be a busy one, dear [name]—“

“Oh? Mr Lyney, I don’t recall having ever told you my name,” you remark, quirking up a brow and holding him by the wrist as he begins to get up. 

The mister giggles, “I’ve heard of you before, of course. Our host informed me of who you were— and so did everybody else at this lovely soirée. Why, who hasn’t heard of the eccentric, renowned [name]? But I really should get going.” 

“Oh, but won’t you stay? It’s just so dreadfully cold out and it would be a shame if you and your sister were to get sick from the winter winds right before your grand show. Goodness, I’ve heard of the severity of all the snow and hail these days, and even some of my acquaintances have nearly succumbed to hypothermia due to it all!” 

He feigns a sigh, his voice like velvet wrapping around your eyes and ears and engulfing your senses, as he sits down again as you keep a firm grip on his wrist, “Well I hope they’re well into a good recovery, [name], but Lynette and I have the thickest coats and a great tolerance for the cold due to our brief time in Snezhnaya a few years ago—”

You pry a little further. “What got you into Snezhnaya, Mister?” 

“Oh, please, that’s certainly a story for another day—” he starts again, taking hold of his hat. 

“Well even if you wouldn’t like to tell me, Mr Lyney, I must know everything I can about you— everything you’d like me to know— in these few minutes you still have. So, please stay?” 

He sighs again, freeing his hat and his coat. “Alright, since you’ve been such lovely company, perhaps I’ll just stay for one more sip.” 

“Perhaps you could stay for one more bottle?” you cheekily suggest. 

“Five more sips.” 

“Please, just one more bottle…” you suggest again, “And come rain or shine I’ll be sure to come for all your future shows, whether they be in the Epiclese or not. Your first one’s tomorrow, right?” 

“…you, my dear friend, have a deal.” 

You laugh, “That took more convincing than I thought it would.” 

“Well you’re definitely persistent as you are eccentric,” he comments, digging into his pocket to reveal a deck of cards, “Now, allow me to show you a magic trick as we chat through our next bottle…” 

—

“Didn’t think you’d be the Casanova type,” Lynette jabs as he finally exits the building, “So you just left [name] there as she kept talking to you?” 

“Well, you know how things are,” he says. 

He already knows he can’t afford this. He’d been honing his magic for years from the streets to the halls of nobles’ houses to their rooms in the House of the Hearth for the sake of Father’s cause. If he were to let just anyone in, if he were to fall back from that tower of deception and secrecy and let it topple, then— 

“I’m sure that Father would be alright,” she states, a knowing, teasing lilt in her voice, “We won’t even be that late.” 

—

There are a handful of things you know about him by the second time you meet. That he used to perform solely on the streets and was then offered the chance to have a show at the Opera Epiclese after gradually gaining renown over the years; that like the cats he adores, he likes fish dishes; that he and his sister have a younger brother. 

The hall itself seems empty, the hues of each chair blurring together to form a sea of gold and red. 

“Why, it seems we meet again!” a voice echoes from behind you, then softer, it goes, “You’re earlier than I thought you’d be, though. And in the front seat.” 

“I know,” you smile, torso twisted, “I wanted to be extra early. And don’t ask how I got to the front seat, would you?” 

(In truth, you’d purchased it from someone who wouldn’t be available and was selling their front seat ticket at a much lower price than it should have been. No theft had occurred.) 

He moves in front of you. “To talk to me once more, I assume?” 

You pause and hum, tilting your head in an acted-out thought process. “Of course.” 

“Well,” he starts, “I still have more things to get ready backstage, and more props and tricks to prepare, so I don’t think I’ll be able to.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind, go ahead—”

He panics. “—But it’s you, so I’ll make some time. About five minutes, possibly— in truth, I do have a trick for you, dear [name],” he says, the words pouring out of him like a magician’s trick of pulling out an infinite number of differently coloured silks sewn together from his pocket. 

You lean forward in interest, and you try not to notice the barely audible gasp threat’s pulled from his lungs as he almost unwillingly backs away, then schools himself again. Maybe you were leaning in too much? “Show me, then,” you say. 

“Alright, then,” he begins, “I have a flower in my hands, and—oh? It’s disappeared!” he narrates, the sun-coloured flower vanishing with a flick of his hand. 

You raise a brow. 

“Now, have you noticed anything near your ear?” 

“My ear—?” Then to your surprise, you feel something tickling at the skin between your scalp and your ear, finding a whole stem tucked behind it. You pluck the flower away, bringing it to your nose and inhaling its scent. “Well, wouldn’t you know.” 

He giggles, “Do you like it?” 

“I do,” you reply, “I just thought you would’ve used a rainbow rose instead. But I love marcottes, too— they have such a sweet, light scent. Marcottes symbolise purity and sincere care,” you recite from a book you’d read, “And rainbow roses… well.” 

“Why, I’ve never learned of the language of flowers before,” he remarks, “…but I can start.” 

“Oh, really? Well, I don’t want you to take up too much of your time— a magician’s life is a busy one, no?”

“I suppose we all have to trade the time we have for something we care about no matter how little of it we have.” 

“Hm, I suppose so. Now, go—! Ten minutes have passed, mister!” 

“Oh—? But I’ve one more thing I need to say, dear [name],” he hurries, taking your hand and lightly pecking it, then letting his lips go and keeping your hands together, “You should stay later. It’s too cold outside for anyone to leave, but… if you need it, once everyone has left, you’re always welcome to stay and bask in the heating the Epiclese provides. Lynette and I will have to stay here for a while after, anyway.” 

You grin at his invitation— or his request, maybe. “I will.” 

“And, Lyney?” you call right as he turns back to face you again. “You’re always welcome to visit me in my own home.” 

You scribble your address on a piece of paper as people start to trickle in. It’s as if there are half as many people as there should be. It’s a sour thought, and, hopefully, in his next show, there’ll be more people.

The marcotte is tucked tightly between your index finger and thumb for the whole show. You bring its petals to your lips when the show is over. 

You hand the paper to Lyney after and you praise his show as you bid him farewell. You leave only a second earlier than he does with Lynette in tow. 

—

In the frigid winter weather, Lyney heads out, shivering, and buys a bouquet of rainbow roses as well as a book on the floral language of Fontaine. 

—

The show actually turns out to be a smashing success among the people who had watched it. The names Lyney and Lynette appear on the Steambird three days after the show, and you have the pleasure of reading an article about it, with details on a trick involving water and fireworks, written by one journalist Charlotte. 

The same day you read it, you open your door to see a bouquet of rainbow roses near your doorstep, hoisted and kept upright by the edge of the door and the wall. 

You wonder how they could have stayed alive without freezing, but you take it in. You already know who it’s from, even though there’s no name, no address— nothing. Nothing besides a note in elegant, cursive handwriting, saying “Thank you for coming.”

A dig through your house finally reveals an old vase of your parents’, a gorgeous, transparent vase of glass with patterns of roses embellishing it near the bottom that you trace with your fingers. You fill it with some tap water, remove the wrapping around the flowers, and place them in the vase. 

They rest near your bed and though the days are getting colder your heart warms at the sight of them every morning. 

So as it gets cold outside you think you’re falling for the all-too-busy magician, with his mystery and his tricks and his beautiful silver hair and violet eyes. 

You ought to invite him sometime during Christmas. And hopefully you can keep him for a while, too, as the fireplace crackles. It’ll be too cold outside, anyway. 

event taglist (please send an ask if you'd like to be added!):

wishing everyone a merry christmas ♡!

#thank you for requesting!! #and thank you for requesting <3!! this was my first one so I was so happy haha #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #lyney x reader #genshin lyney x reader #lyney #genshin lyney #genshin impact lyney #genshin impact lyney x reader #ruer writes #genshin impact #ruer's 2023 xmas event! #genshin impact x female reader #genshin x fem!reader smau #genshin x female reader #genshin impact x fem!reader #lyney x fem!reader #lyney x female reader

[ruershrimo]

#18 with platonic Brother-in-law Diluc! I think it would be funny if Traveller!Reader (jokingly) and Paimon (not so jokingly) kept asking for increasingly expensive things for Christmas. Whether Diluc delivers is up to you.

the christmas mix | #18- santa baby & #7- rocking around the christmas tree | brother-in-law!diluc and traveller!reader (platonic), husband!kaeya x traveller!reader (romantic)

event masterlist

features diluc (platonic), kaeya (romantic), traveller!reader

notes: hello honey, I really hope this is okay!! you were so sweet and I really liked your idea hahah it just took me a while. I’m so sorry if it’s not up to standard and wasn’t worth the wait (please let me know if you’d like me to write anything else in the future to compensate ;v;,,). regardless, I hope you have a wonderful christmas ❤️!!

warnings: none, really (except for no capitalisation, I suppose?)

summary: it seems like paimon doesn’t have any regard for diluc’s bank account (and why would she?), and that your husband and his brother will be having a good christmas this year, whether they’d like to admit it or not.

christmas in mondstadt, you’ve come to learn, is always a cheery, beautiful thing. there are stalls temporarily set up in springvale and the city itself, selling mulled dandelion wine, more varieties of wurst than there were dandelion seeds in teyvat, and all kinds of lovely little trinkets from traditionally made wooden toys to handmade christmas tree ornaments. it’s like the one time of the year when parents are taking their children all the way to dragonspine to play with the snow, the time when citizens are flocking to the cathedral to pray to their lord (who just so happens to be the drunkard singing christmas carols in the tavern), the time when families are gathering by the fireplace to chat and bask in each other’s presence or sitting by the table to enjoy a lovingly prepared meal at christmas gatherings, parties and the like. even some members of the knights of favonius are taking a break no matter how busy they are— especially jean, lord knows how much the lady needs a break— and you and your husband kaeya already have loads of preparations underway for christmas gatherings and the like. 

it was a lovely thing. 

“merry christmas,” your brother-in-law— diluc ragnvindr, the wine tycoon himself— greets you as you enter the tavern after a long day of commissions (it was to be expected, what with all the preparations needed to be made for a safe and pleasant christmas). 

kaeya waves at you as you sit by the counter, before you peck his cheek and tuck some few of his luscious strands of blue hair behind his ear with a “hello, love”. 

“merry christmas to you too,” you reply to diluc, “even if it’s only, like— a whole week away?” 

“well, christmas in mondstadt starts a month before the actual day itself,” kaeya jokes, “and I’m sure my dear brother would be pleased to gift you whatever christmas present you’d like, wouldn’t you, diluc?” 

diluc grimaces as if looking at the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. (it was funny.) “shouldn’t you be doing that for your own spouse, kaeya?” even the way he says his brother’s name sounds like he’s spitting it out, though you know he doesn’t truly despise him, and so you try your best to hold a snort. 

“oooh, ooh, master diluc!” paimon starts, rather discourteously (or maybe out of a lack of care for how the poor man would perceive her) waving her little arms about before his face, “maybe you can give us some really tasty, fancy food for christmas!” 

“hmm, expensive, too,” you join in, teasing him, “oh, please, diluc? or maybe even one of those new automobile machines they’re working on in fontaine…” 

it seems kaeya’s getting the hint— your hint, at least, since it seems like paimon is every bit serious about this unlike you and your husband. “well, you heard them, diluc—” 

“I am not getting you a car from fontaine of all places. and aren’t you already closely acquainted with the actual Chief Justice himself?” 

and on it went, with paimon naming every thing she could think of, and you (or your beloved kaeya) listing whatever else was more expensive than what she did as if you were raising the price at an auction— yet one difference this had from an actual auction was that instead of the buyers paying for the increasingly costly dishes, gifts and goods, it was poor master diluc instead. 

and your brother-in-law, though annoyed, was never fazed by the prices themselves and kept at the empty glasses he had been cleaning. 

—

“do you think he’ll actually get any of what we said we wanted?” you ask as the two you walk out the tavern, a dozed-off paimon in your arms. 

“I don’t think so,” kaeya begins, “but knowing him… well, let’s just say that whatever he decides to do will be interesting, to say the least.” 

“uh-huh,” you reply, raising a brow. 

—

there’s music playing from the gramophone, a jolly tune that kaeya hums as the fireplace crackles in tune with in delight. 

“kaeya,” you call. he stops mid-hum, setting down the cutlery on the table. he gets up immediately, like a pet to its owner’s voice, and suddenly you’re giggling fondly at the thought without having noticed it. 

“yes?” from behind his arms circle you like a warm, snug blanket, luscious and long strands of beautiful blue tickling your back and the nape of your neck, and his hand on your waist. 

“I think that madman really did it,” you grin, gesturing to the bottom of the ornately decorated (courtesy of both yours and kaeya’s ideas for where to place each and every ornament) christmas tree, and each of the gifts below them (from how you know what each one is, you’re quite sure he’s not the best gift-wrapper around, but definitely the wealthiest): a cutting-edge thirty-million-mora watch from fontaine, bespoke paimon-sized garments made from liyuean materials and handmade by inazuman tailors, and even a limited-edition TCG card yet to be fully released to the public (you know cyno would be punching the air right now if he knew). “or, at least, he tried to get some, even though some of the wishes we brought up were almost unfulfillable. he tried to get most of them.” 

“well I suppose we ought to just wait for him to come, if he’ll even visit,” kaeya says. 

“wonder how he even snuck it all here in the first place,” you jest, though you suppose the darknight hero had temporarily done some christmas duties in santa’s stead the night before, “and I’m sure that he’ll come,” you finish, pecking your husband on the cheek. 

— 

“merry christmas,” diluc says as he walks through the door, and although it’s late and most of the others have left, the clock has yet to strike midnight and it’s still christmas night. 

“and a happy christmas to you too, diluc,” kaeya greets, “and I was surprised you actually delivered. you wouldn’t happen to just be fooling us with the wrapping paper, would you?” 

“do you want me to have done so?” 

pft— even after regaining some of what they had before they bore the titles of estranged brothers, your husband was still absolutely incorrigible. (it was really funny, especially now that you knew each word they spoke to the other had less hate and more love than the last; that you knew it was more of playful jesting against a thoroughly annoyed sigh instead of vestiges of a duel many, many years ago.) 

but still. poor old master diluc, having to deal with his brother and his spouse, as well as the borderline unmeetable demands of said brother’s spouse’s long-time travelling companion. 

“haha! I was just joking, diluc. but thank you, for this, I suppose.” 

“mhm,” you add, “you should’ve seen paimon’s face when she saw the wrapping— actually, we were waiting for you to come so that we could open all of the presents together, right in front of the person who’d gotten them for us. 

“paimon!” you call, directing your voice to the rooms above you and up the stairs, “diluc’s here.” 

then she floats down, and, like a child, wags her legs about excitedly. “ooh, paimon was so excited for this!” 

so the four of you open the gifts together, untangling the poorly-tied ribbons (again, you’re sure diluc must have tried his best, and done so on his own, too) and tearing away at the wrapping paper. paimon squeals in delight with each gift opened, and kaeya whips out a kamera for a picture of the four of you. 

—

“merry christmas, diluc,” kaeya says, handing him the gift, “from me to you.” 

—

“grape juice, huh?” 

“of course. he likes it, after all,” kaeya answered as he sat by the christmas tree, wrapping paper, scissors and tape scattered all over the floor, and then he pointed to the leather-wrapped object beside him, “but this makes everything better.”

“a book? it looks beautiful,” you commented. 

“no, a photo album. to capture memories we used to store old mementoes and photos in old boxes, but now that kameras are getting more and more common than ever, I decided to get one like this. see?” he grinned, displaying its opened pages before you, “it has these cases to protect and preserve the photos inside.” 

“oh, kaeya,” you kissed his cheek, “it’s wonderful. I’m sure he’ll love it.” 

event taglist (please send an ask if you’d like to be added!):

wishing everyone a happy christmas ❤️!

#kaeya x reader #kaeya #genshin kaeya x reader #genshin diluc x reader #diluc x reader #diluc #genshin diluc #genshin kaeya #kaeya alberich #diluc ragnvindr #diluc fluff #kaeya fluff #genshin fluff #genshin impact fluff #genshin #genshin impact #ruer writes #ruer’s 2023 xmas event! #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader

[ruershrimo]

childe x reader: five-thirty pm.

features childe

notes: I don’t even know what’s happening here either, so. also, I’ve got exams coming up, so I’ll try to write small things like these before I get back to writing long works 👍🏻. thank you!

warnings: not proofwritten

synopsis: sometimes he thinks he’s too lucky.

Out of all the possible outcomes he could have had in his life, he had never once imagined that it would be so lucky as to have this.

You puff out breaths of laughter into the air like a Christmas carol, eyes relaxed as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck, cooking up giggles from the pot of your chest. He feels giddy, high on your body, happy and healthy, high on your love, warm and welcoming; he’s covered in a blanket by this feeling, lulled to it by its lullaby and its loving.

Your skin is so cold, a bucket of ice cubes during scalding summer weather, his chest feels content and warm like chamomile tea in the winter. Bursts of giggles bubble up from his chest like foam on hot cocoa, the afternoon glow seeping through the curtains and spilling onto your skin in abundance: the sun shines on golden rings, on shimmering shores by the azure seaside.

His eyes lie closed on your skin, the ocean calm and undisturbed, temporarily bereft of its thundering waves, only choosing to remain with tranquillity, only wanting to savour it as much as it can.

Childe’s hands grip the parts of the blankets that flank your sides. “Come on, say it!”, he chortles, joyous breaths rushing out of his body like a flowing current. “Say it, say that you love me, okay?”

With an open mouth and eyes shut from splitting your sides you squeeze the corners of your mouth together to form a coherent answer. “Say— say you love me, first! Say you love me first, Chi— haha!”

And he wonders how he could have deserved you. You who his name is unknown to, you who only knows him as Childe, as a beautiful stranger who stayed and grew to be a friend, grew to be a lover. Grew to be the tide holding you close under the pottered moon, the glass of water to a morning headache as the sun woke.

He is one half of the two of you, a ragtag pair of a couple who tear through opponents as if they are merely wet paper, and kiss under the moonlight as if it’s glow signals a gunshot right at the start a race.

“Come on, I’ll have to go back to work tomorrow,” he whines playfully, “Please? ‘I love you, Childe’: that’s all you have to say!”

“You still have to say it first— I’m the one being left here,” you swing back, “It’s going to be so cold back here, you know? You have to say it first, Childe!”

A faux sigh of defeat pulls the lever for a cheeky grin for you, as his arms loop under you between your back and the comforter, and he pulls you in, tight. He hopes you don’t question why he holds on for just a little while longer every time he does so.

“Okay,” he acquiesces, “I love you more than anything,” he starts, lightly pinching your nose, head moving closer down to yours. When your heads finally connect he repeats, just a bit softer this time, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

You giggle. He feels your skin get warm again, a shift from winter to spring.

“You big softie, you,” you whisper, guiding his lips to yours.

#childe x reader #genshin impact x reader #childe #genshin impact #tartaglia #tartaglia x reader #I didn’t know that was a tag #ruer writes

[ruershrimo]

from ‘take me back (take me with you)’, chapter 5:

@mechalily iwnsjsbsb I actually never thought about that!

(long explanation ahead)

one thing about the cancer though, is that though I’ve never stated what type it is, it’s probably something like myeloma or lymphoma (iirc?? I base things in the series a lot on my own experiences even if it isn’t a self-insert haha).

I also can’t remember if I stated this when [name]’s father introduced the technique, but usually users of cell manipulation can’t really see (?) the cells just by touching that spot or anything— they really do have to study the biology behind it and visualise everything correctly for it to work (I think I did mention reader needing to use a microscope for their cursed technique in… chapter 2? chapter 3? oh dear, I’m so sorry— I can’t remember TvT), so it’s quite a tricky technique to use and comes with more drawbacks than advantages, really… (the only advantage is that this could be used to heal. but even still, a person with rct like shoko could heal as well or even better without needing that biology knowledge necessary for cell manipulation).

basically, what I’m getting at here is that the mother probably has a blood cancer, so her cancer cells are all around in her body. the father lacks the precision, probably, as well as the cursed energy to eradicate all her cancer cells, or to expedite any processes for T cells (if I remember correctly, that’s what they’re called) to get rid of her cancer cells. even if the father may have been an expert, age has certainly worn him down and now he’s probably,,, well. this isn’t stated, because it isn’t really important and I want people to decide how things are for themselves, but his daughter has nearly surpassed him at her young age.

I do admit that this was lazy writing on my part, though— I wasn’t able to think of that. but I’ve always thought of it like this: no matter what happens to the father or the mother, either of them can’t do anything. even for [name]— even if they can affect her through words, in the end she can still ignore them regardless. while they’re a source of motivation for her at times and a reason she does certain things, if either of them die or anything, all that the other can do is nothing at all. I hope that makes sense ;v;,,, I’m also really sorry if I sound defensive throughout this— I promise I’m not. I’m just trying to come up with a reasoning for the plot to still hold up while explaining some things behind it as well 😭. (that said, i’m not an expert on this or anything, so please feel free to correct me on what I’ve gotten wrong!! hehehe)

and about them being annoying hypocrites for parents,,, well,,, they do love her a lot, I’ll say that. sometimes our parents pull stuff like this even if they’re wrong— even if they love her, they’re bound to screw up. [name] IS their only child, and they are quite immature people, still.

but thank you so much for commenting, and thank you again for commenting so quickly! I’m actually quite happy that you brought this up, because I really like to explain the things behind this goofy, silly little series that I haven’t had the chance to state or explain in the story itself.

so, thank you so much!! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ have a good day or night :) <333

#mechalily #take me back (take me with you) #ruer writes #jjk megumi #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #megumi fushiguro #fushiguro megumi #jjk #megumi #megumi x reader #fem!reader #fushiguro megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #megumi fluff #megumi angst #jujutsu kaisen x female reader #female reader #jjk x fem!reader

[ruershrimo]

genshin impact x fem!reader: coloured goodbyes/farewell to childhood

features ayato

warnings: angst (?), no beta we die like ayaka and ayato’s parents :), quite badly written tbh, reader sighs like. three times in the whole thing they do it a lot, I honestly think that everything here is quite tame but if there’s anything that you think needs a warning just lmk :)

notes: YO I’m back haha!! I had genshin burnout for a while + was a bit busy (I’ve yet to update the masterlist and all), but I’m hoping to get back into it soon! I’ve also had my training arc (my ao3 is here if you’re a fan of yuumori/moriarty the patriot, shameless self-plug, sorryyy!!).

this fic is a sequel to yet the waves continue to crash (my writing style has probably changed a lot since then), though you can read it as a standalone fic (it would be a bit confusing though— there are a few callbacks to the first one). a sequel may be a it unnecessary, but I just chose to scribble this down, and I hope you like it!

synopsis: your invitation back to inazuma due to the irodori festival has brought to you one final night with ayato.

Upon your invitation from the yashiro commission, you’ve made a temporary return trip back home; the air in inazuma now feels a little chilly as you inhale. You pay the man who was kind enough to bring you across the sea a few thousand mora.

It feels great to be back.

——

You dump the water from the bucket on it repeatedly. Water gushes into your ears and you want to close your eyes as if there is a waterfall behind you, as if there is a sun above you and not the blaring lights that stare down at you condescendingly in his family’s bathrooms.

“Still cold?” a muffled voice questions.

You care more about whether the water slides into the walls of your ears. “I’ll be alright.”

Ayato watches you as you wash your hair.

“Haven’t tied the knot with any noble ladies yet?” you wonder aloud.

“There was never any time, nor did I ever wish to.”

Not like that would change anything.

For a while all the two of you hear are the hushed footprints atop the puddles of water, and the water beating against the tiles in rhythmic choruses, before the two of you exit the bathroom with the same silence.

Yet that is better, is it not? Better than talking. Cacophonies amidst silence are better than those which end up sounding silent, as if the words were nothing to listen to at all.

He offers to dry your hair for you. His fingers tangle in the strands— they were so familiar to him that they could have been his instrument in the past.

“Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why are you doing this? Why did you invite me to the estate specifically? Why haven’t you married anyone yet?”

“I’ve already told you— there was no time,” he replies curtly.

You stand up, wrapping your fingers around his, attempting, with every fibre of your being, to not recall when you used to do so, much more cheerful than you are now— before everything ended, before the knots were severed short.

(Then you give up, for you will never forget— you are constantly living through what could have been while being alive in what things have become— and you will never stop trying to forget, will never step away from that fool’s mission.)

Turning back to face him, you begin. “I know you, I’ve known you for all my life. And I also know the people of this nation: I know that none would not fall for you.” You take a single step closer to him, feel his fingers reaching near your elbow, barely touching them (yet you can feel that they are there, somehow, as if there was always a way for you to sense him no matter what) gazing at your eyes and not your chest, hands near your arms and not anywhere else. As it is you who had given him the life he never grew up to have, for it was you who let him taste the pure sweetness of childhood and the puerile drunkenness of teenage love.

Does he know that he was the same to you?

“So you already know the answers.”

“Yes, yes I do.”

The love of your life wants you to become his.

Such a prospect is one you shall have to wholeheartedly decline. After years of apprehension, childlike innocence, adolescent bouts of foolishness and heartbreak, the kind that pierced and still pierced your heart and clotted the blood from flowing, not in the morning but in the night when you wish to retire to the clouds of rest and slumber, a force akin to a thorn lacerating through the skin of your chest that keeps you from waking. How many years of sleep have you lost to that man, your prince, your best friend, your closest companion, your confidante?

The roles have been reversed. The love of your life wants to marry you, has confessed to you, albeit without words; you wish to push the rules down upon him.

“What say you?”

Lips trembling, you explain yourself. “I have a life outside of this and places to go, you know. And as much as this is ‘fun’, as much as I enjoy my time with you, and would love to spend it with you always, even— I can’t. Neither of us can. It was us as children who could indulge in those things, yet now, we can’t, the age-old tale repeats. The lovers have to leave.”

“Star-crossed lovers, are we?” he jests, and you almost giggle at the thought. “I love you more than anything. I wish you never had to leave. I wish you could stay forever, I wish I could marry you and that we could place our records in the official documents,” he confesses.

A sigh exits your mouth. You start to lather your hair in camellia oil— you always did use too much— before you give him and answer. “We know each other too much for us to know our words will always have replies from the other. If we argue with each other, we already have all the rebuttals we need against the other. I know you, ayato, sometimes more than I think you know yourself. I know it’s the same for you too when it comes to me.”

He nods, and there is almost nothing for you to describe his face besides it seeming to be one you’ve seen before, that downturned lip with lowered eyelashes and frequent deep breaths.

“I know that you love me. I love you too. Still, what we have is more than love, or more than romance. Because you know how to leave me and how to be left. You know you’ll be able to leave me, because in a way you’ll still have me.”

They claim that as you grow older, you grow wiser. In some ways that is true. Yet, perhaps it is the resistance from carrying out unwise actions is more suited to be a sign of growth. You hope that you are right. You hope you can resist from pressing your lips to his; hope you can abstain from having the soft skin of his lips on yours again; hope you can refrain from doing what would allow your mind to rest, after years and years of being separated from it, in the sensation of the tastes of fruit amidst the bitterness from the tea on his lips, even if only as a final goodbye.

So your prince, your best friend, your closest companion, your confidante, with the years’ echoes upon him, with each of growth’s scars in his soul, lets his silky ocean-like eyes gaze into yours, maintains the distance between his lips and yours, keeps his skin from touching yours. You know it would be the same if your roles were reversed, like how they were before. Things would end up in the same way— the two of you are a product of yourselves and history only. “I know. But I would rather have you by my side than have you only when I miss you in the night, once the day is done,” he argues back. Still his tone is unperturbed, only soft and ever so gentle as he always is, and there is nothing for you to describe this except sorrow. He would never wish such explicit anger upon you; you were worth more than any nobleman or politician he knew. Voice wavering, he chuckles. “I’ve lost all my sleep to you.”

“I’d rather we say that’s your work’s fault,” you laugh, bitter but melancholic, as if the little jokes here and there are the only times when yellow is painted with a thin brush on this saddened, dark, solitary canvas.

Ayato’s lips purse, periwinkle eyes boring into yours as if he were examining you, scrutinising and inspecting you from the inside-out. In those lakes of violet-like blues is a wistful sorrow, a young soul in reminiscence for when they were younger. And indeed, your childhood days must have been full of love— the older you get, the more you realise how each spark of love has been lost. You don’t know how you had lost your love, your childhood, but it had been lost long ago, in some gradual, cryptic process— in which you were smiling and loving one day and had lost the ability to weep on the next. Still, you couldn’t pinpoint when that happened, but it was there, and it was real, and it must have been replacing the love you had before, for it felt just as real as that love did. For what is reminiscing on the past if not yearning for a love left long ago?

But the waves are supposed to crash on, they must, they have to.

“Don’t leave me again, please.”

“We both know what we have to do.”

Then, then— he bends his back, pulls you into the tightest embrace as if he wants to let you go, needs to— but would only do so if he had one last chance to have you and to hold you, through sickness and in health. One chance to have you as if you were husband and wife. “Just one night,” he pleads, his arms tightening around you.

And you weep into the nook of his neck, head peering from his shoulder, and you wait. You wait for the comfort you’d like to have, and there is none. However, you want to stay in the position anyway, in this bittersweet position.

A while after you pull away, and ayato places the sides of his fingers under your chin. He lifts it up, as if only to soak the sights of you in; you do the same and have your eyes to his, hands which search everywhere for something to hold finally wrapped around his hands, gentle and veiny and firm but kind in such a way that is leaderly. There is the moisture of washed hair on his fingers. “Okay,” you answer. “Just one night.”

He brings your chin closer along to his, until you connect at each other’s faces, each other’s souls. When he kisses you, languidly, for the first time in years, you taste the tea off him— its taste never went away— and the saccharine sweetness that you feel emerges in your head from it is all the same. He and you remain that way for a while.

As the two of you pull away from each other, you begin. “I don’t think I can drink tea after this. It would force me into the depths of a depression so deep it would kill me.”

“I don’t think I can do anything after this,” he muses. “Everything would remind me of you.”

“I know,” you choke out, your cheeks wet with rivulets of tears. “And I know you’ll manage just the same.”

Lifting your fingers, you tuck his hair, periwinkle and as blue as a rainy sunset sky, behind his ear, then let your palm fall. It lands on his cheek, pinkish with a tear’s aftermath. “Oh, I love you more than anything.”

His hand holds your wrist. “It’s cruel. Fate is cruel. Fate is only a product of what we have done. Why can’t it keep us from having to say goodbye, over and over again?”

“I don’t know,” you respond, in between high-pitched, incoherent sobs. “Let’s- let’s go for a walk, when this is over.”

Will it ever be over?

“A walk would be alright.”

He turns his back on you, leaves his palm open behind him in invitation. Slowly your fingers crawl onto it, exploring what you’ve held before, nervously, excitedly, with sparks grazing your skin like the glow from a lit lamp. Your hands touch once, and then he shifts forward, and he nearly slips away, the two of you only connected at your fingertips. You wish to pull him back, yet he only pulls you forward with him and your palm shifts to meet his. You slip away again. He pulls you forward. The two of you leave the estate.

You bring your other hand to his wrist and grab it— you don’t pull on it— you grab it, stubborn as a mule, jejune as a child, as if a pinch of immaturity were alright if it were now. If it were before what after had to become. If there were ‘what if’s or ‘would be’s. This time he doesn’t pull you forward once more; you gather your courage to do that for yourself. Then when your hand slides again, with your other hand’s hold on his wrist still intact, you use that hand to clutch onto him. And you believe that in this moment, when he runs away from you and becomes older, farther from you once again, you have been harmed by the lacerating sweetness of a person’s love, and from that you understand that you had been made a grown woman once you’d decided to leave him in the land of your birth, away— far from you.

The stroll in chinju forest is quiet, so quiet you could only break it apart by leaving it behind.

“How’s ayaka?”

He replies, “She’s well. You’d be proud of her now.”

“Yeah,” you choke. “Yeah, I would. I really, really would.”

“I know,” he answers. “And she’d be happier to know you were happy for her as well.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Your footsteps continue creating little melodies, tiny melodies stored into tiny spaces, tiny gaps in your memories of everything else that you will never forget, that you can never re-enter. They will be tucked away, along with him washing your hair and drying it, and kissing you the way you did when you were young, when you were mere children. The quiet echoes on, conquering him, the unconquered, causing the unwavering head commissioner to waver. Yet you’d known him before that, and you know that the man inside that husk, inside that title’s shell, is stronger. Much, much stronger. And much kinder, as a result.

You stop, gripping his wrist once again. “Won’t you turn back and look at me?”

“Won’t you kiss me again?” He turns back with just as much abruptness.

Yes, yes, a thousand times. And then a thousand times more, you want to tell him.

You don’t. Instead you press your lips to his again, you feel the bitterness of tea burst in your mouth before it dissolves into that candied, giddy sensation in your head. “I love you.”

Softly he giggles, “I can’t promise they won’t suspect us of being lechers tomorrow.”

“Promises won’t help anything, really,” you sigh. “You’ll be able to handle everything they throw at you, right? You always do.”

He nods.

“Do you want to handle all of it?”

“If it were you.” He’d walk over scorching coals for you, would bear the brunt of every kind of humiliation for you. He’d put everything below you a long time ago, not in worship or obsession— but just in love, more than adoration— to give you everything he could give and to take everything he could take for your sake only. The two of you continue ambling, by the lake and through the fluorescent bright blues of the flowers, their stems buried into the bushes. “When will you be setting off tomorrow?”

“Before twelve o’clock, at least.”

“Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Where to next?” he ponders. The two of you turn back.

Head rested on his shoulder, you wrap your arms around his left arm. “Who knows? Maybe snezhnaya, or fontaine. I’ll buy you gifts— I heard the dresses worn by young ladies in fontaine are pretty. I’ll get some for ayaka, too.”

“Thank you,” he responds. “I’ll write, so you’d better write back while on your travels. And be sure to tell me everything that happens,” he laughs.

“I promise.”

He cuts a beautiful figure when illuminated by the flowers’ glow. He looks younger, you suppose, as if the weight of time and his life were not constantly applying pressure down on him.

That night the two of you sleep in separate rooms— you will never know what it is like to sleep beside him, to see his silhouette in the night and feel safe, to be embraced by him as slumber ensnares you in the night. You aren’t able to sleep at all, yet when you finally do, its ostensibly endless. You lie with the thoughts of the day, nuzzle your head into the blanket, and finally let tears flow out in rivulets, as if the water had finally crashed through the dam. You can finally rest, can finally, truly, sleep after years without such a night.

The morning after, you wake up and think that night gave you the best sleep you’d had in years. By the time your eyes are open and you squint to see the sunlight beaming at the tatami mat, ayato has ordered for the two of you to have breakfast together before your departure.

To sit you down, he intertwines his fingers with yours and tugs on your hand until your legs are bent beneath you, kneeling on the mat.

“I’m sad, I think.”

“Why do you think you’re sad?”

“Well,” you start, the meals decked out in front of you. “All my life I’d only felt the kind of sadness that makes me cry. The only time I hadn’t felt it was when I first left, and I’d bid you goodbye on that tiny little ship.”

“What did that kind of sadness feel like, then?” he questions, his sweet eyes holding a curious gleam on you, on your eyes that don’t face him in return. Fingers slide across the tatami mat, softly, in some sort of wistful way he can make only you think he possesses. As if it was an invitation. As if he were requesting your permission. You allow his fingers to brush against the back of your hand. He slides his fingers, ungloved this morning, in between yours. “Like a heightened version of the sorrow someone can already feel?”

You pause, “Well, forgive my inarticulateness.” You lean your head towards his, and he guides it down, near his chest. “But they’re fundamentally different. Like I knew what would have caused me sorrow was coming to me, and that I couldn’t stop it, even if I was the cause of it myself. It just feels… tragic, I suppose. That we can’t be humans and live according to our thespian urges, since life in society— a watered down version of life itself, I guess— is just awfully tragic, like the time to say what a shame. And I can’t say I don’t want it because how could we have not caused it?” Your head is in his chest before you realise it, arms circled around his waist. “It’s tragic, it’s so tragic.” And you don’t bawl or cry because you haven’t done so with such fervour in years, only letting out occasional sobs like the one from the night before. There are tears pooling in your eyes, however, so you shut them tight in hopes that you can dream again.

“Don’t cry,” he wishes. “You’ll make me cry as well.”

“Would that bother you?”

“No, but it definitely would make things harder later.” He starts sobbing, quietly.

“Then cry– as much as you’d like. I’m the only person you’ll be seeing– when I leave.”

Life is cruel in the way that humans could have prevented things, yet they did not. It is cruel in the sense that things could have happened, and yet like humans, they prevent these things from happening, time and time again.

Society is cruel in the way that it holds the wrong people back with weapons formed from obligations and names made long before they were born.

All so cruel. Yet so kind in the way it is just.

He caresses your back, cradling your head with his other hand. The two of you sit in silence for a while, the words and your thoughts sitting right beside you. All is quiet, for a moment’s respite.

You retract from the clasp of his chest, and bore your eyes into the pearly seas in his once more, smiles wistful, teary eyes in melancholy. “We had our night yesterday,” you comment. It was like a spell in a fontainian fairytale someone had bequeathed to you. But this time you won’t get married to your prince, your best friend, your closest companion, your confidante. As much as you would have liked to believe it years ago, there are no fairies, or magical shoes made of crystalline glass, or glamorous dresses made from torn fabric. There are no mice, or evil step-family members, or carriages made from vegetables. “Today, everything is going to get back to normal.”

“I know,” you croak, sniffing, the white of your eyes reddened with branches of blood-hued veins.

He chokes back, “I’m going to miss you again,” he pleads, then, “Remember me, please.”

“I could never not forget you,” you echo what you’d reaffirmed of yourself long ago, softly. Your arms circle his again.

“Be sure to visit again. And not after a few years, like how you did it this time.”

“I’ll be sure, yeah. I’ll- I’ll definitely do that.” You blink a few times.

Breakfast is tranquil, hushed. It is eaten in a comfortable silence you won’t have in years.

“When I see you the next time, you’d better be happy,” you warn jokingly while the plates are taken away. “Be married to somebody nice, give your children the family that you had as a child.”

No matter how much it hurts you, you’d hope on the stars for that, since you’d want him to finally love someone more than he loves you.

“I guarantee no promises,” he jests back.

“I know. But do your utmost to have that.”

During the last time he’s accompanying you somewhere, it’s to the docks in ritou. “Time for me to go,” you smile wistfully. There is no gleeful grin plastered on your face like the last time. The sun has only just risen an hour ago, and the scent of summer is nigh, brought on by spring’s lovely, flowered farewell. “It’s almost like before.”

“We’re older now, however,” he muses.

“Hm,” you hum in agreement. “We’re all grown-up. We’re the adults in the stories now.”

Ayato smiles. Is it pride? Joy? Melancholy? Maybe a mix of everything, making it nothing at all? You presume it’s a mix of everything. “And just one thing.”

“What’s wrong?”

“When you’re absolutely sure you’d like to, check your portmanteau. Everything I’ve wanted to say and haven’t said to you is sealed away in a letter inside it.”

You know what he’ll say, yet you want to read them from him anyway. Not because of curiosity, but because you’d like to have something to remind him by, always. Still, you wish to kiss him once more. But not now. You can’t do it now.

And you leave him again, hopping on the ship. “I’m sailing away.”

“Safe travels, old friend.”

“See you, ayato. I wish you well!” you laugh, waving, the tears already pricking at your eyes.

“And I, you,” he waves back.

The day is good. There is good weather, and the sea is calm. With weeps you soak in the sea’s scent, let your skin bask in the fresh summer sunlight and the lack of torrents.

That night you settle in wangshu inn, and you rummage through everything as if you were searching for a gold earring in a bathhouse tub.

Once you find the little piece of folded paper, buried below everything, you sigh, knowingly, bittersweetly. Of course, he would put it where it would be difficult to find, that mischievous little man. And of course, you would not know how he could have done it, or even when he could have slipped it in.

This is what’d been dispatched in the letter:

My dear,

Forgive me for copying your style of sending a letter before a goodbye, though they do claim that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I’d like you to know that I’ll love you always— I cannot imagine how one can stop loving another, much less how one can stop loving you. I will think of you whenever I can, and whenever I need to, so I now give you my apologies in case you’d like me to stop, because I don’t think such is humanly possible. Perhaps, in another life, where we were normal people with normal duties to carry out, and our definitions of heroism and extraordinary acts were just living like decent citizens, we would have felt the joy of last night every single day. And maybe, in that life, we would have consummated a marriage long ago, and had the life you want me to have without you now. Please, don’t feel disheartened by anything, and don’t feel ashamed by crying or feeling horrible either. There is not a single soul who goes through their days without feeling terrible at least once or twice. Please be happy in the sense that you won’t forbid your own sadness or jealousy, and be in peace in the sense that you’ll allow chaos to break into the cracks of your life once in a while. The cracks will be pieced back together, sooner or later, although I myself have yet to find a way to promise when. Your sagacity is derived from how you don’t have all wisdom, and that is the best kind of it one can have, because it is the kind that you have. Your beauty is derived from how kind you are, and how you are one the best types of people in the world— the ones with little sections of the tragic in their lives who still smile eventually.

That line makes you grin subtly. He’s one of the best people in the world, then.

Never feel inferior to others only due to the fact that your head and heart tell you these. Please remember that no matter what, I love you, and if I of all people can’t help falling in love with you, then there will be several others who will see your frown, or see you doing something considered peculiar one day, and they will fall for the same qualities of yours that I had fallen for. Think of these requests as favours you’ll be carrying out for me.

For you I would trade it all.

With the end of this letter I wish you a wonderful rest tonight, my princess, best friend, closest companion and confidante. (If I’m not mistaken, that was the whole list, right?)

You shake your head in light disbelief that he had written this, but also because you finally knew what to do in life. Before you had been wandering over teyvat aimlessly, yet now you knew what you wanted to task yourself with. Before you sleep you press a kiss to the piece of paper. Its scent is just like his.

For now you bid farewell to the one who will always be your prince, your best friend, your closest companion, your confidante, even if he cannot be that person in your life anymore.

And perhaps the two of you have accepted that.

#kamisato ayato x reader #genshin ayato x reader #kamisato ayato #ayato x reader #ruer writes #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #ayato angst #(question mark??)

[ruershrimo]

like it’s the old love. | part 1.1 | “winter beach”

masterlist | next

features albedo

warnings: fem!reader, a few ships, like ganqing and xingyun. but other than that there’s nothing, though you could ask me to add them if there’s anything you’d like me to put tws of!!

notes: woo new series lesgo lesgo!! seriously though, I hope this doesn’t end up being another tiatt,,,, (I’m still working on tiatt I promise)

summary: a walk on the beach in winter hits the spot. spending time with albedo, your all-too-perfect best friend, does that better. the two of you come up with an arrangement, after.

The sand lies by the banks like brown sugar sprinkled on a pastry, warm and sweet and comforting. It’s that perfect, pleasant time in winter— when it’s not too cold, or not too warm that it still feels like autumn, and your fingers only feel like frost if you’ve dipped them in unheated water or gone on without stuffing your hands in your pockets for too long. Winter to the two of you isn’t like the rush of snowflakes, or being huddled up in blankets with hot chocolates– though, a hot chocolate would be a welcome surprise for you right now— it’s visiting the beach when the air’s not too frigid that you’ll be blowing your fingers off later and the water at home will still feel tepid enough to keep you warm after. It’s sleeping in his parents’ used car after a chapter in a book; it’s silence or empty exchanges between you and Albedo that keep you close, connected at the hip all the same whenever you’re together.

There’s pink dusting his cheeks and nose, at the porcelain paleness of his complexion. You have to squint every time your mother is about to take a picture: the wind’s whooshing heads straight to your eyes, so it’s not like you can open them much— and his hair. 

He tugs on your coat as he always has. “Cold?” you ask, turning to him. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “I’ve to show you some of the seashells.” 

He guides you to different spots, ones you think could be a collector’s treasure troves. Since you were young, you’d never really gone out much: your parents only had time to spare for work, and they never had more time to introduce you to any of their friends’ children, or re-introduce you to the ones you’d known from the time when you were in diapers— the only exception being Albedo, of course. The one who’d become your closest friend, no matter how far from him you lived, or the fact that you only visited him and his mother and sister, Alice and Klee, in Mondstadt every holiday you had (and holidays were scarce, especially back home in Liyue). No matter what, he’s still the one who’ll blow on your fingers for you, who’ll find trinkets and gifts from everywhere he knows about more than you do. 

You bend down to unearth one from its blanket of sand as you did to your hands from your pockets. The cold prickles at your fingertips. 

The seashell— or perhaps it’s not a seashell but that of a clam, you don’t visit the beach that often anyway— is a deep marine, with waves of white on it like a rippling in the water or the wind playing with silk. How mystical, you think, no matter how normal it seems or how stupid you sound finding a clam’s shell captivating: that a jewel without any acclaim for its beauty is still a jewel, and even more so once it's observed. 

You stand up again. 

“Think I could keep one of these?” you jest. “I had this friend once, whose grandfather went to these beaches for her grandmother. He collected lots of shells until he had a bag of them, and brought them back to his wife. Must’ve had a nice thing going on there.” 

“I don’t think so. I’ve been told that that’s illegal,” he answers, nonchalantly. “And I don’t think you want those crimes on your track record. Though I could collect some of them for you if you’d like—” 

“No, it’s really alright— I was just joking,” you chuckle. “Don’t think it would do you too good if you had those on your track record, either. Didn’t expect you to take it so seriously.” 

“I’d manage,” he replies. “My mother told me she’d have a place for me, anyway.” 

You narrow your eyes in confusion. “But Alice doesn’t—? Oh…” He’s talking about Rhinedottir. “You still call her your mother? Wait, you don’t have to reply, just got confused, sorry if I’m overstepping anything or prying into things too much.” 

“It’s really alright,” he states. His expression stays the same: a blank slate, yet so… human? There’s something about his face that places his identity firmly onto him, even if it barely changes. Sometimes you wonder how he can keep himself so level, so calm and unchanging each time. And then you give up because you’ve never found an answer and never will. 

Silence pushes itself onto the two of you for a while, the waves crash on the shore leaving bubbles that remind you of milky foam on hot coffee. The sky and the sea are almost one, like those art pieces in watercolour where the colours get darker on the paper the more brushstrokes you apply over their spots. It’s clear and undisturbed, a picture-perfect view of an image you can hear the sea from, a mosaic of sea, sky and sand. 

“Oh, god, my hands are getting numb— how can your hands stand it?” 

He brings your hands to his fingers, pale and long and probably quite lithe with a pen on paper, rubs them over yours, and lays his breath on them. It’s warm. 

“That’s what happens if you keep them out of your pockets for too long,” he says. “You’ll enjoy it once you get used to it. Then you’ll start to love what you’ve never noticed the joy of before.” 

“I’m not saying I don’t like the cold, I’m just not used to the numbness. It stings, really. I guess I’m quite lucky to have you here with me,” you smile. 

He smiles right back at you. “Then it’s fortunate that I’ll always be here to warm them up for you.” 

For a moment everything feels perfect— it’s the best winter break you could have asked for during your gap year, before you enter university. The sun is enveloped in the embrace of pillowy clouds, hidden from the sky. The scent of the sea fills the beach and your hands cling clumsily onto his comfortable jacket while the waves laugh along. For a moment it’s all familiarity with the unfamiliar; it’s visiting the beach like you’d done the year before, yet feeling how unknown it all is to you again. It’s seeing him again and knowing everything and nothing about him. 

“Could I borrow your phone real quick?” you request, hands mimicking the click of a camera. “I want to take a picture.” 

“You don’t have your own?” 

You make a short mime act of fishing something out of your empty pockets, before turning them inside-out, holding your also empty hands up for him to see. 

He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket. “Here.” 

You swiftly snatch it from his hands. “Thanks.” 

Hands in his pockets he turns his head down toward the sand, the trees behind the beach swaying somewhat hesitantly along with the early winter wind. 

“Click, click— okay, pose!” 

In the photo his eyes are fully dilated, every other bit of his stolid expression still intact. 

“I can’t believe I actually got a picture of an Albedo expression! Wait, hold on, I’m going to save it in my favourites real quick,” you giggle, but soon it turns into an onslaught of guffaws. “You should make it into your profile picture instead of that passport photo.” 

You quickly stuff your hands back in your pockets, the phone still with you: you don’t want them to be numb again. 

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks you, though there’s a teasing lilt subtly hidden in his monotonous voice. “And here I thought you wanted a picture of the scenery.”

 “I will, but I still have to take pictures of you too. You’re part of the scenery,” you jokingly reply. “And yes. Thanks for bringing me out here again—” 

“Why don’t we go closer to the water?” 

“Huh—? Ah, sure, but wouldn’t I be getting cold again?” 

“I’ll warn your fingers again once we get in my car, after my mother notifies us of when we can drive home.” Now he’s talking about Alice. “And you’ll get to take more pictures, too.”

So you acquiesce, and gaze down at the ground, at your shoes trailing behind his, leaving solemarks on the sand. It seems as if pieces of shells or whole shells themselves were sprinkled on the ground like speckles of unstirred sugar on a warm beverage. 

You wish you could find a conch to hear the waves’ melody forever. You snap a few pictures before locking the phone between your arm and torso, about to dip your hands in the water— he said he’d help you warm them after, anyway—

He steals his phone back—

“Hey!” you shout, but he already has the phone, and you can already see the light from the flash rapidly appearing and disappearing. “Albedo! Stop!” you order, but it comes out more like unadulterated laughter, tinged with a slight amount of faux disbelief. You try to push it out from the grasp of his hands. 

A seagull passes by, the white of its plumage temporarily covering the two of you. 

And all the play fighting and goofiness… feels good. Wonderfully so. It’s the best you’ve felt in a year, since the last time you and him had met. At home where your parents are usually busy, you’re a different person, a result of having to change from a child to a little adult for the approval of those who make up your life. But here you’re free, at least for a little while; you’re allowed at least a moment of respite, when you’re thousands of kilometres away from home. 

Two giggling children, having fun and being young as if there’s no tomorrow. The two of you have your lives, it’s events stacked before you like dominoes meant to be pushed at the end of your gap years— Albedo has a promising future of being a chemist, like his mother, ahead of him, already on the Sumeru Akademiya track; you’ve got your life back at home, where you have to study, appease your parents enough and go through three years of university until you’ll be an adult in the working world. 

And you probably won’t see him again. 

Or you will, but it won’t be the same— it’s as if he’s a part of childhood, your fountain of youth. You meet him and again you’ve rejuvenated the parts of you that are just two kids who know nothing about each other yet love each other regardless, so unlike the adults you have to be when you’re apart. So without that tiny, drowning part of your child self, how will your interactions be? When that part of you is dead, dried out like a wilted plant, what will happen to the two of you? What will be left but awkward, uncomfortable silence and typical adults’ perfunctory gestures? 

“Albedo! [Name]!” 

The two of you turn behind, stopping yourselves immediately. Your thoughts are torn from you like wet paper. 

“Klee! Don’t run too fast, you’ll trip yourself—” her elder brother warns. 

She speeds up on the sand, scampering excitedly toward the two of you. 

“Oh, she’ll be just fine,” you reassure him. 

Behind her Alice follows, her face like the warm glow of sunlight peeking through winter weather, strolling along. 

“Hi, Klee!” You squat down. 

“How was the walk?” Albedo’s head turns up to meet his mother. 

“It went well. We’ve got to go back in the car soon, though,” she clicked her tongue playfully. “Someone has to go to take a nap once we get back home.” 

(“But I don’t wanna,” Klee frowns. 

“Oh well, Albedo and I will be sleeping too, anyway, so you won’t be missing anything”, you tell her.) 

“You can just text me once you’ve arrived back home. On a side note, though,” she turns to you. “How was your walk?” 

“[Name] tried to steal my phone.” 

“Hey, you can’t say that, I was trying to take a picture!” you retort. “And you stole it back!” 

—

He helps you into the front passenger seat, shutting the car door behind you as you enter. 

You gaze at him as he’s outside, the inside of the car— his car, god, the two of you can drive now— a little world you’ve been suspended in. Same eyes, same cheeks, same face as when you first met. You hope that in the future, nothing changes at all. He’s science and he’s magic, he’s pale blonde hair and striking, inquisitive blue eyes in black winter jackets and white lab coats and button-up shirts. He’s your best friend, he’s someone you rarely meet, he’s someone you’re splitting paths with. There’s a chill from the air that lingers on your skin and if you exhale you can still see your breath disappearing into the air, but you’re lumped under your layered jackets and soon you feel warm as his hands lie on the steering wheel. 

He’s there and it’s warm and familiar and you wish you could stay with him forever. Yet your heart is full of jealousy and worry— he has everything figured out for him, decided for him. He is the boy genius, the prodigy, and you’re someone who doesn’t want to grow up yet because—

“I’ll send you the pictures later,” he reports, pulling you out of your thoughts. 

“That would be great, thanks,” you smile, checking the time on your phone for no reason. “So, how’s life at the Akademiya?” 

From him comes a little hum. “I’ve been alright,” he says. “What I’ve heard from my seniors about the difficulties of studying didn’t seem to affect me much.”

“Ah, I get that. But that’s because you’re smart,” you compliment, though you’re quite sure that he, with his kind of genius, has heard that a million times over. (But you can’t help but bring it up sometimes— if only he’d be a bit meaner about it, less modest or less kind— you’d feel better. Happier. Less envious. Still, that kind of thinking was selfish, meant to be bitten back by your throat forever.) 

He makes another noise— a little, hesitant one of discomfort. 

“But anyway,” you continue, “Any plans yet for your post-Akademiya days?” 

“No— well, I can always go to Mother’s,” he starts, “But I want to continue painting. I fear that if I work with her, even if I’ll still be in Mondstadt most of the time, I won’t have much time left for other activities— like painting and taking care of Klee,” he pauses. “Or taking care of you every time you come back.” 

“Nah, I’m the one who takes care of you,” you playfully retort. “Still, seriously: if you feel like you want to focus on art instead or find a job that lets you keep both science and art, just go for it. You don’t have to stay with Auntie Rhine.” 

You’ve seen his work before, though. Pure masterpieces, all of them: only he can pick out such exquisite colours and paint them in such a methodical manner to produce an item so beautiful, so mesmerising. It’s as if his everything, from painting to work, is built from the foundation of scientific procedures and observation. The first time he had shown you his artwork— the piece in question being a sketch of two butterflies— was a few years ago, and after that you had asked him why he was planning to go to Spantamad instead of Khsharewar. 

“I know that,” he replies. “But thank you. How about you?” 

“I’ve just been how I’ve always been. Nothing’s changed all that much.” 

He’s out here, accomplishing so many things, set to have a bright, fulfilling future; you’re here, taking a gap year not for a break but because of uncertainty, because you’re unsure of what you want to do and who you want to be, a leech on and a burden to your parents who send you away to live with someone else while they’re busy. It’s because you’re scared of not going through the full coming-of-age experience, of optimising the last year you get to be a child, before you become an adult with an empty life (at least, that’s how you think things will end up like for you— being a corporate slave or plain business owner dragging your parents’ hard work through the ground, with only dead dreams and student loans to your name).

And what of everyone else back at home? You tried to get with many friends of yours, giving them support, encouragement and advice when you could. They would all find in you a person to confide in, and you’d be pleased, thinking that you could confide in them too. However, they would then tell you that they’d been infatuated with someone else for a long time or would never be interested in someone before you would have the chance to confess, ever terrified of rejection. 

You fell at every chance you could, just for an opportunity to have a fling, or some kind of love like the types in fairytales and romcoms. All that just to fail and feel lonely in the end. 

You’d really like to say Albedo was an exception. In some ways he was. Yet in other ways he wasn’t— he’s definitely not much different from them, though. Just someone you think you should go for no matter how much he exists outside of your league. Still, you think there’s much reason to be less shy around him, less bashful. 

The rest of the drive is silent, and you don’t know if it’s him understanding you or not knowing what to say (though he always knows what to say, no? Is staying quiet the best he can do for you right now?)— he makes a few turns and soon the two of you are on the highway, heading back to the suburbs. You didn’t suggest any music. You just took the silence in and enjoyed it with him. 

Raindrops begin to fall, lulling you to sleep. He’s still steering the wheel, steady and calm and undisturbed, as your eyes start to close. 

When you’re there he stops the car and starts to unfasten his seatbelt. He turns to you. 

“Tired?” 

“A bit. And I don’t want to be out in the rain…” 

“You can sleep here if you’d like.” 

(“...you actually waited?” you ask, groggily. “I thought I’d only be sleeping for five minutes, and then you’d wake me up and drag me to bed.” 

“Morning,” he greets. “You slept for a whole hour.” 

You groan. “What about Klee and Auntie Alice?”

“They’re in the house.”)

—

You spend the next few hours in the house with Albedo, staring up at the ceiling. It’s golden hour, the sky still painted a mix of both warm and cool hues. The clouds gather above you, though they’ll probably be gone soon enough without any rain or snow. 

A chuckle erupts. 

You laugh, but it tapers off all too soon. 

He’s always been perfect, you think— like a prince out of a fairytale. 

(You don’t know if that makes you hate him or love him.)

When you were little and would visit them, a tiny child with tiny clothes and a tinier suitcase your parents had packed for you, you would scamper your way to Alice before she would read you a fairytale every night. Sometimes Albedo would join. Whenever Rhinedottir wasn’t around, even though he would be fine sleeping alone, he’d still prefer to sleep in the same room as you. 

Over time, as the two of you grew up, Rhinedottir’s appearances slowly dwindled. In your head you had once likened Rhinedottir’s growing lack of presence to the sun during a storm. It was always there at first, though as the clouds began to gather, it would soon be engulfed by dark, dust-like clouds, and no matter how much you enjoyed the storm you would wonder where the sun had gone. 

“And so, the baby princess was cursed. The witches rushed to keep her somewhere safe—” Alice recited, to which Albedo questioned, “Weren’t witches bad?” 

“No, they’re good witches!” you corrected him. “They took care of the princess!” 

Alice giggled. “Oh, yes, my dear. The good witches had placed the princess under their care right after they had heard the curse fall from the wretched witch’s mouth. They hoped to avoid such a fate,” she said. “Yet if there’s one thing you should know, it is that you can never evade the inevitable. You’ll understand once you’re older. 

“Soon, the princess grew to be a beautiful maiden, unbeknownst to the fact that she had been born royal all along. She cared for the animals in the wood where she’d grown, and sang songs of romance, love and freedom while dancing with the flora and fauna. Under the moonlit, starry sky and the towering trees she dreamed of falling in love with and marrying a prince. And he was a rather handsome one, at that. 

“On a day meant to be much like the others, she wandered a bit too far from where she was accustomed to, before she met a beautiful prince. They fell in love at first sight, and decided to get married.” 

“But that would be bringing the curse to her!” you panicked. Albedo stayed silent. 

“Ah, yes, and the wretched witch from before— the one who had cursed the dear princess— sought the engaged prince and princess out, and hypnotised the princess. She was put in a trance, and ended up pricking her finger anyway. Then she and the whole of the kingdom were put in a deep sleep, while nature would be set to reclaim it for a hundred years.” 

“Oh no!” 

“But don’t fret— the good witches were alive, and hurried to wake the prince.” 

“Does he save the princess?” you asked. 

“Why, yes. But she saved herself, too. And their love was what saved the kingdom, for he stood by her side and gave her a true love’s kiss, giving her the strength to think again and rouse herself from her slumber. 

“They soon headed to defeat that wretched, wretched witch, and they succeeded. The people rejoiced, having been saved, and the prince and princess were safely wedded, ruling as king and queen for half a century over the prosperous kingdom.” 

“Woah,” you breathed out. 

Beside you, Albedo was already asleep, eyes shut tight in a slumber as deep as the princess’s. 

“He fell asleep!” 

“Well, I suppose it is getting late,” Alice chuckled, turning the bedside lamp off and tucking you in. “Goodnight, [name] and Albedo.” 

Suddenly, your eyelids felt as heavy as rocks. “Goodnight, Alice…” 

You wished you had a prince, too. Or a princess. Just someone in general. 

(The morning after that, you woke up, and beside you there was no Albedo. He was always, always, one step ahead of you. Maybe you would always be chasing him.

You then headed back to your parents’ home, ready to start school again.) 

“Hey.” You turn to him out of the blue. “Remember the fairytale about the sleeping princess?” 

“...Sleeping Beauty?” 

In fairytales the main characters marry each other; in romcoms the leading characters fall in love. In books the girls are smart, ending up with the people they want. In stories they are not useless; in fiction the characters accomplish things and live their lives to the fullest without wasting any time. 

So you, clouded in your envy for life and joy and excitement, at least for one year, want that too. To be young and free and in love. And then, you’d be alright with being a corporate slave, or with handling the mundanity of your parents’ work while your much more successful relatives watched and judged you, pitying you for the life you’d found yourself forever trapped in (at least, you think they’d do that). 

“Yeah. Are you familiar with the concept of coming-of-age?” 

“Yes, but why…?” 

“Just wanted to know. That’s good, though. 

“I’m going to ask something of you, so please forget it if you don’t want to.” 

For a moment you can see the ever-stoic Albedo gulp, his eyes laser-focused on yours, deep with inquisitiveness and a slight bit of shock. You tightened your hands on his shoulders. 

Outside, the sun has already begun to set, the light blending into the growing intensity of a post-golden hour sky’s marine hue. The clouds have all but dissipated. 

Of all the ideas you’ve had, this is by far the most stupid, dignity-reducing one that you have ever had in that scattered brain of yours

“Date me. I’m a forever young adult-ish soul stuck in a growing person’s body with no life at all who only stops being a ghost when I’m miles away from home. I’ve always struggled with finding someone, so I couldn’t have my coming-of-age adventure or my summer fling. And it’s not like I could have found that kind of adventure with friends anyway, since I’m not as close to anyone as I’ve always been with you, and they’re all people who would never fall in love with me,” you ramble. 

Albedo, reduced to a gaping fish out of water, jaw barely clinging onto his fair face. 

“So I’ve always wanted to ask that if you, because you’re close to me, and I know that it may be a waste of time for you, so I just want to try my luck and if it doesn’t lead to anything or if you don’t want it then you can just forget whatever I said—”

The words stop tumbling out of your mouth for a while. You gaze at him, something indescribable and indecipherable in his eyes, like a snow globe that you can’t look clearly into. He’s staring up at you, and what is he thinking, you wonder and worry, what is he thinking of saying? Will he decline and will he forget? Can you even entertain the notion that he wouldn’t? 

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll do it.” 

“Okay,” you reply. And suddenly it hits, because for the first time even if out of pity due to your pathetic desperation someone is willing to love you or at least act like it. It’s completely quiet before tears roll down your cheeks like they’re from a garden’s canister, as if it’s water trickling down the leaves of plants and onto their patches of soil. He begins to worry, you can tell from the rush of his fingers to rub them off and wipe them dry, to which you assure him that you’re just alright. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to get much better at acting.” 

“Maybe I won’t be acting at all,” he says, and you swear it’s merely a joke of his, so a little grin breaks out on your face. And the only emotion you can understand amidst the sea of his eyes is relief. “I hope you enjoy it, your small fling. I hope you enjoy your young adult novel gap year.”

You giggle a bit harder, inhaling loudly. “Yeah. Best summer fling— one for the best books in YA fiction, I’d say.” 

And in that moment while you bring him to you and hug his chest as tight as you can, the two of you laugh and laugh and laugh, until you’re silent, face still sore with remnants of the sudden smiles stuck on your faces. In that moment you forget your jealousy and keep only your joy alive, like a candle finally reaching that temporary moment with nothing around to destroy it. 

“…But it’s winter, not summer.” 

His sudden remark is so ridiculous that it makes you laugh, playfully swatting at his arm. “I’ll be here for a whole year,” you smile. Classic Albedo. “It’ll be a summer fling for a while. And you’d know what I’d meant, either way.” 

(“Should we tell Auntie Alice?”

“No, let’s just try to acclimate ourselves to it first,” he suggests.

“Right, good thinking.”)

taglist: @sn1perz, @n3r0-1417, @kika-a, @chalksdreams

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#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #albedo x reader #albedo smau #genshin smau #genshin impact #albedo #ruer writes #litol 💿. #fem!reader #fem reader

[ruershrimo]

clorinde x reader: our last summer

features clorinde

warnings: ignore the inconsistencies please I’m still doing exams and scribbled this out in like 30 mins (I’m a slow writer), written before clorinde release, story takes place before clorinde becomes champion duelist (so, like, quite a few years ago before the main canon events), clorinde is older than reader

notes: boom, another short piece! inspired by when my seniors graduated (and most of them were people I had crushes on— istg if my irls find me)

edit from 8/12/2023: ALSO I should add that parts of this were also inspired by call me by your name clips I kept seeing online! haven’t watched the actual movie, sadly… I will one day, though!

synopsis: she leaves you on your shared spot. she’s going to chase dreams, she’s going to chase things you can never imagine having, without you.

The tree branches waved at you as you plucked out another sunsettia.

“You planning on going anywhere after this?” you asked, hands behind your back; playful, youthful, coltish. You tilted your head to the side and peered down at her with an empty gaze.

She shrugged, sitting on the ground, an arm rested over her two knees lazily. “Maybe I’ll be a champion duelist.”

“Woah, good luck!” you cheer before you take a bite from the sunsettia, and it’s this; it’s summers with Clorinde, the sun shining on her squinting eyes and dark hair, and the tart sweetness of fruit bursting in your mouth that you’ll miss. You lick the juice that leaks onto your hand, it’s heady scent spilling into your senses. “Want some?”

You outstretch your hand, and she inches her nose closer as if she wants to breathe everything in, teeth piercing through the flesh of the fruit.

I’ll miss you when you go. I’ll miss this. I wish you didn’t have to, wish you didn’t have to leave me and go away— You sit down next to her, palms on the ground, knees pressed snugly to your chest. “When you go, I’ll be sure I’ll be even taller than you. I would have grown by then.”

“I expect you to keep your word, then.”

There’s a silence for a while, nothing except the rustling of leaves as the branches sway to the wind, one that wafts over you as you stare into her eyes, purple as deep as the sea, and you want her to stay. You’re the first to break it. “Your tie,” you tell her, a little lower than you intended to, and before she’s inspected and returned it in place, you pull the tie for her and straighten it out. “There.”

“Thank you.”

You bite out of the sunsettia again. One last one and it’s all gone, the summers where you’re sweating and there’s nothing but mats for the two of you to lie atop of on the ground. You breathe in her summer scent once more, that one of sweet sweat mixed with old books she was about to tell you of and the metal of swords she had begun to wield, of gunpowder yet to be used; oh and it’s Clorinde alright, sombrely beautiful Clorinde, with her deep soothing voice that makes heat fan against your ear as you feed her fruit from the palm of her hand, with her long, long locks and her reserved disposition, with her gentle, reassuring touch as warm calloused hands take off their gloves and rubs circles against your arms.

“I wish we were the same age so that I could follow you,” you tell her. I wish we were the same age so that I could follow you, so you wouldn’t see me as a child, so I could kiss you and be beside you always. “You’d be a really cool duelist, though. ‘Captain Clorinde’ sounds nice. You’re a good fighter, too. If people say something else just tell me and I’ll shut them up for you.”

“That would not be necessary.”

Last bite. Last bite and it’s all gone. “Last bite?” you offer. Her tongue slightly touches yours, hot breath on your fingers heating you up more than the scorching sun.

“I’ll have to go now,” she states, and gets up. “Goodbye, [name].”

“Bye-bye, Clorinde. Visit when you have the time.”

And you should have done anything you could—hugged her, kissed her, anything. If you kissed her it would be like a man parched; if you hugged her you would have strangled her as if your life depended on it.

Yet when she left you on that empty spot you shared near the tree, palms face-flat on that same soft mat, you could only watch her go.

#clorinde x reader #clorinde #clorinde genshin impact #I know I write too many stories about coming of age and growing up #but hey #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #ruer writes #genshin impact