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seokiloquy · 3 years

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Patient Growth - Yaku Morinosuke

Soulmate AU: Red String (the string on your finger points in the direction of your soulmate for about 4 inches of length before disappearing, only to make a full string connection when in each others range of sight)

Requested

Tags/Warnings: GN! Reader, time-skip spoilers, short and sweet.

Word Count: 3k+

“(Y/N), why are you doing math? We had it last semester.”

Pulling the protractor away from your pinky, you looked up to Micky’s face, watching as her eyebrow pushed upwards to her sleek hairline. You clicked your tongue, mouth open for a moment as you slid your notebook in her direction.

“Pythagorean theorem. Seriously, what are you doing?”

You raised both hands off your desk in surrender as you tilted your head away from the girl’s questioning stare. “Okay okay, hear me out.”

“That doesn’t exactly give me good faith.”

“So, the red string soulmate pair has mostly died off as of the late century or so right?”

Micky sighed, swinging her leg over the backrest of the chair in front of you, sitting backwards and she crossed her arms over your desk and leaned forward. “And?”

“And, because a lot of people have no need to know about tricks for the red string we were never taught. A lot of people have tattoos nowadays so I get it, don’t teach about every soulmate history, that’s fine.”

“Get on with it.”

“Okay, okay.” You spun your notebook around for Micky to see it straight on. “After some research, I discovered that people used to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the exact location of their soulmate using the angles of the string attached to their hand.”

“Okay cool, so why are you doing this instead of our English essay?”

Clenching your teeth, you looked away from Micky’s brown eyes to the tiled floor of your classroom. “Well, to be fair I have finished the essay.”

“We were assigned it yesterday.”

“I said it was finished, not good. But besides that. I’ve done five separate calculations, but the angles I’m getting don’t change at all, I’m getting a straight line. No triangle, no location.”

Furrowing her brow, Micky leaned back against the desk behind her, large fluffy hair tickling the back of another classmate’s neck, making them giggle. “Oops, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Mickey leaned back toward you, fingertips pulling at her ends. She sighed, “Have you considered that they might be so far away that 100 metres doesn’t give you enough clear information.”

Reaching for the thread that tied to your pinky, you spun it between your fingers, leaning back as you watched the string fade into invisibility mid-air. “I considered it, but that must mean they’re really far, and I didn’t want to admit that to myself.

“Well, hey. You’ll meet your soulmate eventually, everyone does. So for now, how about you focus on yourself and maybe clean up your essay.”

“Ya, ya you’re right.”

Micky sits for a moment, staring into empty space as your pen slowly lowers back down to the unfinished calculations on the paper. Sighing, she lifted her hand and placed it over yours, stopping the scribbling. “(Y/N), stop. You’re not ready to meet your soulmate if you’re searching for them.”

With a furrowed brow, you clicked the pen close and set in on the table. When you looked up to meet Micky’s eyes the yellow lights in the ceiling dimmed around your vision. “What do you mean by that.”

“Seriously (Y/N). if you spend all your time searching for your soulmate, what are you going to do when you finally meet them? Tell them about the length you went to, to hunt them down? Search for someone else?”

“Of course not—”

Your head shot forward slightly at the smack she landed on the back of it. “Then what?” you didn’t even seem to move. “What do you want to do in the future?”

Picking the pen back up you flipped it between your fingers, spinning it recklessly before it slipped between your digits as they slowly clammed up under the weight of her stare.

“Do you have any clue?” She looked at your notebook before grabbing it from beneath your arms and flipping over a few pages. Slamming it back onto the desk, the sight that met you was one of a completely cluttered page, filled to the brim with words and doodles. “What about this? Art. Writing. You love comics and stories. Why not—”

“It would never last. Starving artists, you know?”

“Get out of that damn mindset. That’s all a hoax, sure it happens, but art and story’s make culture colourful and interesting.”

You sighed, flipping the notebook closed as the beginning of the lunch bell rang. “You say that as if I’d have a giant impact on society.”

“Who says you wouldn’t?”

Russia’s snow was no joke. It made the shorter male shiver to the bone till he managed to get into the building’s lobby. Though, it did persist until he got a hand on the apartment’s doorknob.

Yaku peaked over his model friend’s shoulder, slowly shrugging off his long thick coat before walking back to the coat hangers at the entrance. “You read?” he asked, moving the red string on his finger as it wrapped around one of the hooks.

Lev’s home, shared with his older sister, was a lived-in picture of modern architecture. The flat white walls and smooth stone countertops matched the square windows and minimalist paintings. The rent hardly put a dent in their wallets. Rich people.

Despite the money available, no books shelves in the home were used for actual books, just plants and picture frames. This made the sight of Lev holding a bound stack of paper all the more outlandish. He kicked off his shoes, slinging on the available slippers.

“Huh oh, not often. But Alisa heard that this book blew up and was getting translated into a bunch of different languages, Russian and Japanese included. So we got both and we’re sort of jumping in between the versions for practice, you know? Oh, Alisa’s buying groceries, she’ll be back in time to watch the game though. How was practice?”

Yaku paced over to his friend's sleek kitchen and grabbed a glass, filling it with water. “Pretty good. I'm still getting used to the language, but I’ve gotten a better hang of it. What’s the book about?” The shorter man, two glasses in hand, walked over to his friend and offered one.

Lev gave Yaku a large smile and graciously took it, sipping for a moment before setting it on the coffee table. “It’s a mid-century fantasy, filled with magic, monsters, flying trains. No soulmates though, so you don’t know if the main character’s relationship is platonic or romantic. Not that it’s the main focus of the plot. And the Protagonist is this 18-year-old with no magic but somehow has to stop a magic war from happening between two rival empires. It’s really cool.”

Yaku sat in the opposite corner of the couch, chugging his glass back as he watched an animated movie play quietly on the screen in front of them. “Where’s the author from?” he asked, twirling the pinky tied red string around one of his fingers aimlessly.

“Europe? North-America? Don’t recall. But I did hear that they got scouted to work on an upcoming manga with a small group of authors. Apparently, they are great illustrators. Oh did they design the cover of their book? Ugh, let me check.” Lev reached for his phone on the counter as the door opened behind them.

Alisa, long silver hair tied up into a neat bun, dropped the grocery bags and shook the snow off her head while kicking her coat off. “Lev,” she huffed. “I texted you to help me with the bags. Ah, Mori, you’re here. Good to see you.”

Yaku gave the older model a smile as Lev dropped his phone and rushed to pick up the brim filled bags of food. “Sorry, sorry. I was telling Mori about the books we bought.”

“Don’t worry I managed. Mori, I heard you made it onto the national team, does that mean we’re gonna have to fly into Japan to support you next year?”

Yaku laughed and waved his hand dismissively, “I won’t force you two. But I think the rest of Nekoma would like to see you again.”

Lev let out a loud snort from the kitchen, “We’re going! No doubt about it!” The tall man took a moment to poke his head out, “Oh, Yak— Alisa! You didn’t tell me!”

The childlike anger in his tone made Alisa laugh, turning around to look at her brother head-on. “Tell you what?”

“Your soulmate! Your tattoo is gold now!”

Yaku, from his position, could quickly confirm. The mandala-like flower on the back of Alisa’s neck had gone from a black to a golden shimmer.

Alisa scrambled, quickly pulling her phone close to her chest. With a swipe of her thumb, she brought the phone behind her and pushed and stray hairs up towards her silver bun. The camera clicked.

Yaku raised a thin blond brow. “Do you,” he paused, trying not to chuckle at his friend’s frantic scuffling. “Do you not know who it is?”

“Well, I can’t recall. Nothing was out of the ordinary today.” She tapped her booted toe against the mat before gasping suddenly. Removing the nail she was biting from her mouth, she grunted and pulled her coat back on.

She began to ramble. “That damn cashier! I finally met him and she’s my soulmate? Stupid, stupid!” She stepped through the front door, turning around to give them a smile. “You boys enjoy the game, okay?”

The door closed with a dull thud and click. Lev, hands hanging like dead fish at sides, stood speechless. For a minute he stared at the closed door, not noticing Yaku’s eyes on him, before asking a sudden question.

“Do you want to meet your soulmate?”

“Hmm? Why do you ask?”

Lev stepped back into the kitchen, grabbing a bag of vegetables, silently beckoning Yaku to follow. Heeding, Yaku followed.

“Well, I don’t mean to sound negative or anything. I really want to meet my soulmate.” He trailed off.

Yaku sighed and grabbed his own item to help put it away in the fancy silver fridge. “Everyone has growing to do, and everyone grows at different paces.” He paused, stifling a sneer at Lev looking down at him with a bewildered gaze. He threw a pack of ships into his stomach. “If you never meet them, it was never meant to happen right? But soulmates are funny like that and always find their way to each other. You just got to be patient.”

Lev tossed the back onto a shelf, making the ships crunch daily when they landed. “Do you think you’ll meet your soulmate? Soon?”

“I’ve done a lot of growing, and I like how things are going. So ya, maybe.” Yaku looked back into the living room and to the book that sat in near perfect condition. “If it’s any constellation Lev, I think you’ve done a lot of growing too.”

He looked at the taller friend, immediately regretting his words slightly. Lev wore a cat-like grin.

“(L/N), we’re buying tickets to the Olympic games, do you want one?” Udai asked with an excited grin.

“Uh, hold on.” You pulled the glasses from off the top of your head and onto the bridge of your nose. Standing from your brightly lit desk, you walked over to stand behind one of your teammate’s shoulders to squint at their screen. “Volleyball? Oh, right you played didn’t you?”

The long-haired man laughed, making his chair creak as he leaned back. “So did Akaashi. We know some of the players on the team too.”

You sat up straight, brows shooting as close to your hairline as possible. “You know professional volleyball players?”

Udai let out an airy laugh. “Well Akaashi knows them better than I do, but ya.”

Akaashi, the silent editor that sat across the table, looked up at your bewildered face. “You’re a fan of volleyball?”

“Well, it’s not like I know the name of every player, coach, and team, but I enjoy watching sport in general. Udai, put me on the list.”

Walking back to your desk, you silently listened to your co-authors rattle on about the 3rd act of the story as you made clean lines and whether or not the main character should save the secondary one or not. Sighing, you looked at the black pen you held, before setting it down and gently tugging on your little red string. Akaashi rolled his chair over.

“I’m surprised you haven’t met your soulmate yet.”

“Are you? I’m only two years older than you Akaashi.”

“I suppose you’re right, most people just tend to meet their soulmates at the end of high school or into post-secondary. Typically if they’re in close proximity.”

“Well, I did try to figure out where my soulmate was. My friend convinced me to stop and focus on myself,” you sighed, staring at the papers in front of you. “I’m thankful for that, honestly. If I’m not ready to meet my soulmate, at least I have myself right? I’m happy.”

Akaashi’s head tilted, hair shifting under the fluorescent light as he stared at the small gold tattoo on his wrist with a smile. “Ya, you’re right.”

The stadium, inside and out, was loud. Stacks of hundreds of people slowly making their way around the building and milling about, their conversations made it difficult to communicate.

“So you don’t know how your soul mark works exactly?” Udai yelled into your ear.

“Not entirely. Everyone is different, you know? And not many people have the red string nowadays!”

“Ah, right! Makes sense.”

“Everyone, this way!” one of your co-authors called, as akaashi and another author came back, beers in hand.

Following your group, you made your way to the balcony seats to finally sit down instead of standing among tight groups of strangers. You cast a panoramic look over the circular-shaped stadium at the filled seats that hit the vibrant vinyl colours of the chairs.

“Eh! Akaashi! Is that you?”

Two rows ahead, standing tall, and eagerly running your way was a lanky silver-headed man with a big grin. Next to you, Akaashi stood up, and to be polite you stepped out of his way standing in the stairway to look up slightly at the stranger.

“Ah Lev, been a while.”

Unable to get back to your seat, you stood between the two men patiently.

“You’re here to see everyone right? Oh, who’s this?” Lev asked, turning his head in your direction.

“(L/N), (Y/N). I’m one of Akaashi’s co-workers.”

The man’s thin silver brows pinched together, tilting his head as he inspected your face before suddenly shooting up onto his toes. “You wrote the Rusted Wing series! I love those books!”

“Ah, ya I did.”

“That’s amazing, I-”

A man’s voice called over the speakers, echoing through the stadium. Lev, in an excited rush, insisted on speaking to you later, before running back to his seat where another silver-haired person sat.

Sitting back down, you breathed slowly as the loud conversations around you died and the players made their way onto the court with an uproar of cheers. You smiled, chanting along until Akaashi nudged your arm.

Yaku, completely in his head about the quickly approaching game, kept his eyes on the red jersey in front of him as he walked forward. The music played loudly in his ears and mixed with the messy sound of cheers his head felt like it was floating in a cloud of complete focus on oblivion.

He stood in line, chest rising as he waited for the anthem to begin, but before they did an elbow hit his shoulder.

Opening his eyes, he immediately caught sight of the once invisible red string making a complete line, arching its way up into the crowd where he saw your face above the strangers in the crowd.

Yaku was in a daze. Completely blown out of the water, all the thoughts in his mind seemed to escape him.

The game seemed to have started without his knowledge, and finished just as quickly. Muscle memory had done its job well. Yaku only noticed what had happened when his head was forced up to see the winning scores on a large screen.

“Fantastic work Yaku, and you didn’t even break a sweat! You were a monster out there! Absolute beast.” The head coach’s expression was one of amazement.

Yaku blinked dumbly. “If I’m being honest, I hardly remember a thing I did out there.”

“Well, you did fantastically. Conscious or not.”

When Yaku looked back to your seat, location freshly printed in his mind, you were gone.

He followed the team back into the change rooms. Which happened to be when the rest began to point out the quickly moving direction of his thread. One compared its movements to a broken compass.

Once able to get out of the musty changeroom, Yaku sprinted. The stadium halls were still packed with people. None paid attention to the short man sprinting though. The string had gone still and Yaku eagerly followed it like a trail of breadcrumbs. He knew his fate would be better than the two german siblings because at the end of the trail would be his soulmate and not some cannibalistic witch. He hoped.

The string suddenly shot forward, growing in length. He came to a halt, panting from his sprint; more than he did during the game.

Only a couple metres ahead, head meeting a higher point against Lev’s arm than his own, was his soulmate chatting happily in a circle while maintaining eye contact with his tall friend. The sight made his ears rumble and cheeks burn with embarrassment.

The content smile on your lips when you finally turned his way made all his patience worth it.

I’m getting better at using ‘They’ as a gender-neutral pronoun in writing without making it feel clunky, which I’m happy about.

I hope everyone has been having a nice holiday. - Bacon

Posted: 17/01/2021

#Yaku Morisuke #yaku x reader #yaku morinosuke x reader #Haikyuu x reader #Haikyuu #x reader #oneshot #oneshots #haikyuu oneshots #haikyuu reader insert #reader insert #aus #haikyuu aus #fluff #haikyu #anime x reader #anime #manga x reader #manga

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sinterblackwell · 3 years

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mid-year book freak out tag 🤍

this annual book tag is really popular in the booktube community and through watching my favorite booktubers, i always get to hear about the books they’ve read so far in the year so i thought it’d be fun to join in!!

i don’t have a booktube channel myself but i do think it’d still be cool to get to talk about books on here so that anyone who does stumble upon this tag could enjoy this experience as much as i’ve had.

hopefully maybe some of these books could catch your eye if you’re looking for some recommendations and if not, you still get to learn a little more about my reading tastes.

all the books i mention below the cut have links so that you can check them out if any of them peak your interest!!

1. best book you’ve read so far in 2021

- fifty words for rain by asha lemmie

this is one of the very few books where i felt such immeasurable grief over a fictional character. the main character nori goes through so much pain that when she does receive the love she deserves, it’s enough to bowl you over. this book has one of the strongest sibling relationships that i’ve ever seen and deals with such difficult topics being that nori herself is a mixed race child dropped off on her own in japan in the late 1940s.

2. best sequel you’ve read so far in 2021

- our dark duet (book two in the monsters of verity duology) by victoria schwab

i haven’t read that many sequels this year, although there are some new & anticipated releases that will change that (ex: cazadora [book two in the wolves of no world series] by romina garber)

our dark duet is one of two sequels that i have read and it’s the one that stands out to me the most because new monsters, new perspectives, and really surprising writing choices towards the end made this book an absolutely iconic and memorable finale of the monsters of verity duology.

i feel like this author is the best example as to the kind of writing i love based on the books they’ve written, even though the endings to some of their works seem to always leave me a bit unsatisfied. with that aside, the way v.e. schwab crafts these characters and depicts different relationships in dire settings makes for darkly intriguing premises and i’m really glad that i got to stumble upon their books through this duology first.

3. new release you haven’t read yet but want to

- the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo

a great gatsby retelling with a queer asian protagonist and magical realism (from what i read of the first couple of pages) !!

this book seems to include a lot of things that i love in fiction, which always leaves me a bit hesitant because even with that, it might just lead me down a road of disappointment, key word: might. i have read a bit of the beginning before buying a physical copy just to be careful but from what i have read, i’m really excited to get to this!!

4. most anticipated release for the second half of the year

- the taking of jake livingston by ryan douglass

i just recently found out that this book is pretty short so based on the premise alone, i’m really interested to see how the author handles these sensitive topics broached in the summary and subverts them to fit the horror genre.

i follow the author on twitter and love everything they’ve had to say so far about this debut (and it comes out in my birth month!!) so i can’t wait to support them after the release.

5. biggest disappointment

- the gilded wolves (book one in the gilded wolves trilogy) by roshani chokshi

fun fact: i actually really enjoyed this one (i didn’t give it four stars on goodreads for nothing) but i did change my rating in my review to a 3.5 because as much as i loved the setting, characters, and fantastical elements that this story has (+ the writing was beautiful), i didn’t care about any of the romance between the characters, which i think for a lot of readers made their reading experience better but for me, it ruined mine.

personally, i feel like this book would’ve done well without any romance and so i could’ve absolutely given this a five-star. but then if there was no romance, the ending might be a bit different but even then, i just didn’t care about any of the romantic tension or angst that was going on between these characters. and from what i heard of the sequel, the silvered serpents, there’s even more angst and i feel bad that that just repulses me because i don’t experience romance repulsion much, i actually do like romance a lot of the time, but there’s some cases where i either just don’t care about the romance or something about it sets me off. in the case of the series, well ……yeah.

it makes me so mad, though. because again, everything else about this first book was amazing!! it is absolutely rich with history and its characters all have such distinct roles in the story that i enjoyed being in each and every one of their perspectives. enrique is the historian of the bunch so being in his eyes made all these different clues they would find so interesting as we learned about their backgrounds. and same with zofia!! who is beyond skilled when it comes to math, and i love how her mathematical skills transfer so well in her ability to understand certain things that the other characters might’ve glossed over.

all of that and……the romance just wasn’t for me. it wasn’t the main focus, per say, but it did drive certain things that would inevitably happen in the story and that irritated me way more than i care to admit.

6. biggest surprise

- happily ever afters by elise bryant

this book had a lot of things that i usually don’t enjoy as much in other stories and the main character, tessa, herself makes some decisions that are so naïve and seem so selfish that you would think i’d dislike her.

however, there was a lot charm and empathy in this book that made our protagonist feel more endearing to me and if anything, i could understand why she makes the choices that she does and how that affects the other characters. i loved how much care the author obviously had for her main character and there were just a lot of other aspects to this novel that compelled me to love it more than i expected.

the romance, too, the way the author handled it, was absolutely phenomenal (see: i do like romance sometimes), and as someone who cares about friendship a lot in stories, in this one, how the author portrayed the importance of having your friend’s back made the story even more top-notch to me

7. favorite new author (debut or new to you)

- olivie blake

i’ve only read her latest novel, the atlas six, but from just the writing in that book alone and how the author constructs the characters so well, there’s already this undeniable trust i have when it comes to her writing—when it comes to knowing how sincere and perceptive she is in the direction that she has and will take in her stories, in the fates of her characters.

every writer has their own story to tell but with this one, there’s something about how she’s already laid out the pieces on the board in the atlas six that makes me think she already knows what story she’s drawing up now, more than her readers will be able to expect.

i follow her here on tumblr and so i’ve seen her responses to inquiries about these same characters or just general themes she explores in all of her works and her insight and way of thinking absolutely blows my mind, so much that its made me want to read everything she writes. i just recently bought the e-book copy of masters of death and i’m really excited for that one, just the same with her upcoming release, my mechanical romance

8. newest fictional crush squish

- noah from meet cute diary by emery lee

i don’t have fictional crushes, much less crushes in general, but i do have squishes, which is basically like platonic attraction. and in the context of this question, i genuinely do like noah’s character enough that i’d love to be his friend

noah is a pretty interesting character as far as how readers perceive him goes. some readers absolutely despise him while others may see themselves in him and then again with the few who just generally like/love his character. in my case, i really like him, and for all these different readers, it all centers around one thing.

it’s the fact that noah is a bit of an asshole

he’s an asshole who’s sometimes selfish and makes judgements pretty quickly, even when those judgements are actually right. he has a bit of an attitude that makes him seem stand-off ish and it’s that attitude that throughout the course of this novel develops so that he becomes more endearing. there’s so much more i can say about it, but i feel like i’ve said enough in this review, so if you want to learn more him on that front, you can read it if you want

besides the reasons already stated well enough in my goodreads review, another reason why i’d want him to be my friend is that i feel like it would just be really fun to hang out with him since in this novel, he notes down a lot of potential settings for his meet cute diary submissions on his blog. these settings are more for romantic dates and to have the chance to flirt and be with your crush but it’d be nice to think how good of a time we would have as friends. friends can have as many dates, just as much as any other couple, and so with noah i feel like it’d be nice to get to hang out with someone and be out of the house

he’s also a big manga reader (it’s not fully explored in this book but it is briefly mentioned) and as someone who wants to get into reading more manga, i think it’d be cool to not only get some good recommendations from him but just in general get to talk with him about it and have cool discussions about the different plots and characters.

9. newest favorite character

- sinter blackwell from all the better part of me by molly ringle (no surprise there)

sinter’s just a character who’s really charming and has a heart of gold. his love for theatre and how he expresses himself in fashion and music, along with getting to see how he became more comfortable in his sexuality and learned what being bi meant for him meant a lot to me.

the twist in the middle of this book where we see him come to fit into this new role that neither he nor me as the reader could’ve expected made the journey throughout this book feel even more heartfelt and i love how much by the end, he becomes a better version of himself than he was in the beginning. and by better, i mean that he knows more about himself and what he wants and he grows even more confident than he’s always already been.

i just love him, that’s….yeah

10. book that made you cry

- the cost of knowing by brittney morris

i cried at what was one of the happiest moments in these two characters’ lives because i knew what would happen after, so you can imagine how much harder i cried when what happened actually….happened.

this book just made me feel really sad

11. book that made you happy

- anxious people by fredrik backman

for a book that i now consider one of my new favorite comfort reads, it’s really fucking sad. as sad as i just mentioned the cost of knowing was right above, this one is just the same except it’s in those sad moments that i got a lot of reassurance and felt this warmth from seeing how these different characters who were complete strangers to each other interacted with one another.

this story is absurdly funny and has some interesting twists but the root of it all left me feeling near the end so appreciative of having given it a chance since it did take me months to finally get to reading it. highly recommend 💛

12. most beautiful book you’ve bought / received this year

- night. sleep. death. the stars. by joyce carol oates

this book was at least $35 and you know what? it was worth it.

i don’t buy a book unless i’ve read it already and really liked it but there are cases where i do take a chance on some and take out my wallet—either because the book isn’t available at my local library or on libby/scribd. either way, even then i do try to be really careful because i don’t want my money to just go to waste like that

with this book, it isn’t just the cover that pulled me in nor the title (they’re both really beautiful, i mean), but i did read bits and pieces of the first couple of pages when i came across this hardcover copy during my visit at barnes & noble and the writing was stunning so i’m hopeful that the book as a whole can leave me with a nice reading experience.

13. books you need to read by the end of the year

- the messengers (book three in the greystone secrets series) by margaret peterson haddix

- infinity reaper (book two in the infinity cycle trilogy) by adam silvera

+ a lot more but my fingers are getting tired so here are just two i do want to get to in the near future. i pre-ordered a copy of infinity reaper over a year ago and have owned it since the beginning of march of this year and yet i still haven’t read it, i can’t believe myself sometimes.

to be fair though, i am just really terrified about what i’ll read in this second book after the events in infinity son, the first book. plus, the author is known for a lot of angst and pain in his stories when it comes to the fates of his characters, which yes, i absolutely adore. he’s my favorite author for a reason, but……i don’t think i can handle it rn :/

#❣️#this was fun :’)#booklr

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