𐑺 ˖ ࣪࿐ྂ 𝐈𝐅 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐍’𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐇𝐈𝐌 (𝒲𝒪𝒰𝐿𝒟

Quarter Quell II

Yandere Jungkook, Hunger Games AU

Warnings; gore, death, yandere behavior, killing, strong language, kids murdering other kids, male on female violence (special trigger warning: if you have suffered abuse or are extremely sensitive to like-mannered scenes I want to take a moment to warn you that there is certain scenes in which male tributes will hurt and overpower other female tributes. If this will trigger you, please refrain from reading and I apologize beforehand.)

Words; 12.8k

The Capitol of Panem maintains its’ hold on it’s 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games.  Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains.

The end had arrived.

Faintly, in the back of your mind, you could hear a doomful melody accompany your death march.  Hauntingly beautiful bells and strings swam in your consciousness, making the awfully bleak scene even more gothically tragic.  A personalized soundtrack for your promised annihilation.

On either side of you was a peacekeeper, each of them holding a gun to ensure your spineless obedience.

You followed them silently…wordlessly…mindlessly.

The sound of footsteps echoed in your ears as they bounced off the surface of the concrete walls.  They guided you deeper into the grey, sterile and fluorescent-lighted corridor. Each pace forward only further locked in your fate.  And as a slave to ruthless destiny, you continued onward.  

You were marching to your death.  

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instead of buying the bighit water please consider donating the same amount it’s worth ($25) to charitywater.org 💜 even if you’re not considering buying and you can afford it please consider donating anyway to help end the water crisis. i definitely will next week when i get payed

ch2/ch4

summary: You’d sworn you didn’t want anything to do with your father, or with your family business. You’d left the country for college, and by the time you’d started your second year of grad school your old life felt like a distant untrustworthy memory.

So when he calls you in late November to tell you he’s dying, your carefully constructed boundaries crumble. You agree to come home for Christmas, on the condition that you help him sort out his will.

By the time your plane lands, it’s too late. He’s died under mysterious circumstances while your plane was in the air. Chaos ensues, when millions of dollars, thousands of weapons, and a thriving criminal enterprise are willed directly to you - and your husband.

Just one problem? You’re not married. Yet.

genre: fluff, smut, angst

cws - mafia tropes, guns, threats, violence(physical), yan!oikawa for plot reasons, blood mention, drug mentions, reader’s father is dead, and in this chapter we have his funeral and she eulogizes him. All characters in their mid twenties. f!reader. reader’s skin shows bruises(sorry couldn’t get around this for plot reasons), readers celebrated christmas as a child.

Ch 3: Kuroo I

There’s an awkwardness as the meeting breaks up, it’s clear you’ve never received so much male attention, from your averted gaze and nervously dancing hands. People resist the urge to walk right up to you, so you take Kuroo’s drink out of his hand and sip it. He shakes his head,

“Kitten,” he snatches the drink back, somehow not spilling it on his perfectly pressed suit, “I thought you were too pure to steal.”

“I’ve stolen things!” You retort, non crutch hand flying to your hip in protest.

“Ah,” You hear behind you. You turn and see Akaashi, an apology clear in his gunmetal eyes. “I’d love to borrow the lady.”

“I’m sure you would.” Kuroo smirks. “Lyvochka can babysit.” Lev stands, pouting a little.

“Being your bodyguard is actually a demotion, just so you know,” he mumbles to you and Kuroo just shakes his head and waves you off. You crutch forward, moving awkwardly through the private country club room over to the bar. Lev follows, but Akaashi helps you into a tall stool handing your crutch to the huge blonde, then sitting next to you.

“So,” he says, shifting his weight. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.” He gets the waiter's attention, ordering a round of drinks with a wave.

“How are you?” You say, and he furrows his brow.

“It’s odd, to have you ask me that.” He looks out the window for a moment. “I’m alright, I suppose. I’m quite worried about you.”

“Am I um,” you lean forward, “What do you think of Kuroo?”

“He’s certainly been a trusted ally over the last few years.” Akaashi muses. “But he’s a dangerous arms dealer, no matter how charming he might be, there’s blood on his hands.” You feel Lev stiffen.

“Akaashi,” you say quickly, quietly, “If um, if you still, I mean if you ever, you know, loved me, I need your help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he takes both your hands, “Of course I’m going to help.” You look out over the room, nodding.

“I need to know what to do.” Your voice is a teakettles whisper, high pitched and pained. “And I’m so scared of um, of what could happen if I choose wrong.” He takes your good hand. “I need you to tell me what to-” he cuts you off by bushing your hair out of your face.

“This is not a place we can discuss it.” He leans in, so close to you that you can count the freckles on his nose. “You’re alright, he’s treating you alright?” You feel his hand brush your waist and something heavy drop into your pocket. You don’t react at all, just nodding.

“He’s been a gentleman mostly.” You shiver. “He’s a little honest, but I suppose, ah, that’s not a terrible thing in a husband.” Akaashi does a little head shake, surprised.

“You’re thinking of picking him?”

“I am.” You take a sip of your drink. “I always liked dark hair.” The smallest smile crosses his face. “Plus, he’s smart, an ex med student, I could talk to him about my work, and about chemistry, and he’d be able to follow.” You blink a couple of times, remembering, “Oh wait, I’m so sorry, how’s your family, I should have asked, I’ve been so preoccupied with-”

“You buried your father today.” He says, a hand coming to rest on your knee. “I don’t expect you to be concerned with me,” he looks into your eyes, the delicate softness there is like running his hands over the lightest filigree sheets. He wonders, after all these years, if the scars and calluses would catch, and tear holes in you. “But of course you are, because you’re still you.”

“Are you still you?” You ask quickly, feeling the alcohol bringing the blood to your cheeks. You glance down at the scars on his hands, the bulge of the guns in their holsters on his shoulders. “Are you still um, you know, after everything, are you, still-”

“Sometimes.” He says, and the admission is painful, the words sharp enough in his throat to draw blood. “Sometimes I am.”

“I understand.” You say quietly, as he reaches out and inspects your bruise.

“I’ll kill him.” Akaashi mutters. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Please don’t.” You say quickly, and he cocks his head. “I mean, um, I just, I don’t want you to kill anyone.” He looks uncomfortable. “Not for me, at least.” He goes to respond but a Lev places a hand on your shoulder.

“Kuroo wants to leave.” He hands you the crutch. Akaashi gives you another quick hug.

“I’ll see you shortly.” He says. “I promise.” You nod, and Lev helps you out of the room, followed by the rest of Nekoma.

“Not going to let anyone else talk to me?” You say, when Kuroo takes his place at your side.

“I think it was rather generous of me to let you speak with Akaashi.” You slip your hand in your pocket, feeling something cool and glass. Akaashi had slipped you a cell phone. You do your best to keep your reaction from your face. Kuroo helps you into the car, your nostrils filled with the scent of clean leather again, as he pulls you next to him. “So,” he rolls up the partition, “Did I come through or what?” You nod slowly.

“You did for the most part.” You shift uncomfortably. “Oikawa is going hurt me. For sure.” You let out a long shaky breath and Kuroo inspects you for signs of acting, signs of a larger game, and finds none. Only genuine terror.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He says seriously.

“Not that I’m not grateful, but why?” You look up at his handsome face, he’s perfectly clean shaven, you realize, not a nick or a missed spot.

“Because when we’re married,” he says, and your mouth drops open, “I want you to remember what a good job I did taking care of you.” He picks you up and sets you in his lap with a soft grunt. “I want my wife to like me.”

“You do?” You give him a half smile as you stretch a bit to straddle his long legs in your tight black dress. His hands come to rest on your thighs.

“I do.” He says brightly, before leaning in to speak directly in your ear, “Which is why you’re going to show me what Akaashi slipped in your pocket, and I won’t punish you for not telling me the minute we got in the car.” Your blood runs cold,

“Kuroo I-”

“Shhh, Kitten,” He opens his hand, “It’s alright, like I said, you’re not in trouble, I’ll give it back, but I’d appreciate honesty from my fiancee.” You swallow and place the cell phone in his palm with trembling hands. “Oh,” he looks at you, sharply, seeing the fear on your face, “Oh you’re trembling, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He reaches out and cups your face with his free hand. “I’m going to do my best to take care of you, so any help you can offer would be appreciated.” You nod.

“What um,” you ask quietly, still in his lap as the car starts moving away from the country club, back to the city, “What does a punishment from you look like?” He considers.

“I’m a confident man.” He says, after a long period of silence. “I like to be in charge, and if we were married, to a degree, I would expect you to submit to me.” He says all of this without a hint of embarrassment or contrition. “Not I mean, day to day, I’m not going to tell you what to wear, or what to eat, unless you want that. But specifically, in the bedroom.”

“That’s so old fashioned!” You protest, and he shrugs.

“I think you’re going to find very few heads of mafia houses that don’t have similar tastes to me, and besides,” He straightens a little, “Tell me you don’t get a little turned on when I give you an order.” You shake your head, sighing. “Just tell me you don’t like this,” he says, reaching up and wrapping a huge hand around your neck, not squeezing, it’s very gently possessive. He smirks. “Your pupils are so dilated, kitten, it’s okay to say you want me to be in charge.”

“I hate you.” You mutter, looking away, and you feel him tighten his grip and pull your face closer to his own.

“See that kind of insubordination I just can’t tolerate.” He tightens his fist until you’re gasping.

“Kuroo, please,” You wheeze.

“Tell me you want me to stop.” He orders, and you bite your lower lip. He crows with laughter. “Should we see if you’re enjoying yourself?” Your eyes dart over your shoulder, and he shakes his head. “First of all, focus on me, second of all, I don’t give a shit who hears.” His tone gets cold for a second, “Sit still.” His fingers ghost your panties, slipping them to the side. “Awfully wet, kitten,” he purrs, basking in his victory as you shudder in anticipation, “Whatsa a matter, afraid they’ll take away your feminist card if you call me daddy?” Your mouth drops open,

“I’m not going to, ah,” he tightens his grip on your neck again. “Kuroo, I’m,” you gasp, “That’s,” your eyes start to water as you meet his burning amber gaze.

“I can do this all night,” He says flippantly, “You, not so much.”

“F-fine,” you croak, and he relaxes again, letting you breathe, his other hand still barely brushing your sex. He follows your gaze.

“No, if you want more,” he says, “You need to ask for it, and it’s a testament to my good will that after so much resistance I’m still interested in your pleasure at all. That will not always be the case, you have my word.”

“Please,” you beg, “please touch me.”

“A good start.” He says, eyes glinting. “But you’re a smart girl, right, you know what I’m waiting for.”

“Please touch me, daddy.” You plead with him, and he chuckles.

“You are just as cute as I thought you’d be, saying that.” He pushes a single finger inside you, and you nearly double over, but remembering what you’d learned in your limited experience, instead of catching yourself you wrap your arms behind your back, holding onto the opposite elbow. “Look at you!” Kuroo crows, “For that, you can cum when you want to, Kitten, I won’t make you beg.” He slips a second finger inside you, scissoring them a little. You gasp, and lean forward, “Sit up,” he says, “This time I want to watch you.” He’s incredibly skilled, making quick work of you, he’s already got you moaning softly, with gentle reminders to look at him, not to break eye contact, when he starts rubbing your clit with his thumb in addition to finding the spot inside of you that makes your eyes roll. You try your hardest to be good, to listen, but your eyes keep flicking to his muscled forearm, tensing as he fucks you with his long fingers.

“Oi,” He says sharply, “Final warning not to break eye contact with me.”

“Y-yes,” you choke out, “Daddy, thank you,” He softens a bit at the title,

“You’re getting close, I can feel it,” You nod emphatically, “Ask permission.”

“Please can I cum daddy,” the words spill from your lips and he smirks,

“Hmmm.”

“Please.” You beg, and he sighs, forcing another moan from your lips when he presses up against the spongey spot inside of you.

“Cum for me.” He orders, and you do, vaulting off the cliff of your orgasm, Kuroo lets go of your neck, and guides your face into his chest, “What a good little kitten,” he purrs as you tremble in his arms, dangling his fingers in your face, and to his shock and delight you seem to understand the implicit command, sucking his fingers gently until they’re clean.

“You just got lucky,” you mumble into his neck, “That I happen to be submissive most of the time in bed, you could be with someone who only likes to peg you.”

“I could sense it.” He brags, “Plus there’s no woman I can’t dominate, you’re all putty in my hands.”

“I think your feminist card is gonna get revoked.” You grumble. He shakes his head.

“Men get to keep ours no matter what, for letting you vote!” He boops your nose, and you roll your eyes, “Ah, ah,” he catches your chin gently.

“Fine.” You grumble, climbing off of him.

“So,” He hands you his cell phone, “I’ve been looking into volcanology programs in Tokyo, I’m not sure how your grades are but these seem to be decent.” You look up at him eyes narrowed. “Yes?”

“Ah,” you choose your words carefully. “Two things. One, um, you really think I’m going to choose you?”

“No one is going to give you as much freedom.” He shrugs. “And that’s what you want, I can tell. The second thing?”

“I think I’m struggling with the tension between the man who wants me to submit to him and the man who picked out two excellent volcanology grad programs for me based on a passing comment?” He shrugs.

“I looked into sedimentology,” He says, “But you’d need somewhere with a specific kind of coastline to get practical field experience in uh, the kind of facies profile, and uh,”

“That was very close.” You smile at him. “But yeah.”

“I have,” the car pulls into the mansion driveway. “Very little use for things that don’t have utility, beautiful women are nice, kitten, good to look at, enjoyable to fuck, but I could never love someone that was simply beautiful.” He pauses, “And listening to you talk today, about your parents, about the love you dreamed you’d have, if you choose me, I will endeavor to give that to you.”

“And the volcanology?” You say, he thinks about it, before opening the door.

“You may have witnessed love as a kind of worship, a kind of radical devotion, in the love your parents had for each other. For me, love is about a deep understanding one person can have of another.” He opens the car door. “You look surprised?”

“You’re still a brute.” You say, after a moment. “Still an arms dealer,” he chuckles, “Even if you’re smart and charming.”

“Sounds like you’re reminding yourself, and not me.” He hands your crutch to one of his men and plucks you off your feet while you squeal. “I have some work to do.” He says, opening the door to his home with his elbow, snow falling around you. “Unfortunately, due to your little untruth, earlier, I suppose,” he couches, when he sees your face fall, “A lie by omission is still a lie, kitten, I will have to restrain you, it’s just a formality, and I promise not to be more turned on by it than would be appropriate.”

“Kuroo!” You protest, and he chuckles.

“You’re adorable when you think your indignance is righteous, but I’ve already promised not to enjoy it.” “You said more than would be appropriate.” You squirm in his arms but he only holds you tighter, carrying you up the ornate staircase.

“And that would be very little, considering the circumstances.” You’re struck now, that you’re no longer in shock, how cozy Kuroo’s mansion is. The wood floors are a golden oak, the walls are soft cream adorned with art, and there are dark complex oriental rugs underneath the dark furniture. There are fireplaces crackling in nearly every room you pass, and the house is completely decked out for the holidays, pine branches adorning bannisters, filling the house with the sparking scent of christmas trees. Kuroo notices you looking. “Do you like it?” You feel a twinge of sadness.

“It looks like Christmas on TV.” You murmur, leaning against his broad chest.

“Did your father not celebrate?” He asks, as he elbows his way through a door to a more discreet stairwell.

“Not as a family, really. Especially after my mother passed.” He gives you a little squeeze. “I love Christmas though, in New York.” You sigh, “It’s like the whole world comes out, and everyone who lives there complains about the tourists, but I, I love it. The light is softer, and the snow gets gross but it’s just,” you struggle to find the words, “Sorry, it’s a feeling, I’m, I don’t have the words.”

“I’ve been to New York, but not for Christmas.” He says, reaching the top of the stairway to the third floor.

“Ah, am I being moved from where I slept last night?”

“Yes.” Kuroo says, opening another door with his elbow. “This is my room.” You look around, the walls are a deep green, with raw dark wood molding, and a huge wall of bookshelves. There’s a window seat that faces the front yard and the street, and you can see the snow swirling on the roof.

“Oh,” You look up at him.

“I won’t touch if you if you tell me you don’t want me to.” He says cheerfully. “But I think given what a sweet little thing you were in the car,” you feel your face burn, “There’s little danger in that.” He deposits you on the bed, being careful not to touch your wrist or foot. “I’m not sure, if you’re planning on sleeping your way through the most powerful men in Tokyo,” he goes over to dark wood antique armoire and starts rifling through the drawers. “But it’s not something I would hold against you, just so you’re aware.”

“Really?” You cock your head at him and he turns around, placing a hand over his heart.

“Do you really think me so petty that in my jealousy I might think less of you?”

“Kuroo we met twenty four hours ago.” He screws up his face.

“I keep forgetting. That’s a good sign, though I think.” He pauses for a moment. “I don’t think experience diminishes a woman, and furthermore,” his lips curl into a smirk, “If you were to, sleep with the rest of them, and decide I was the most skilled-”

“There it is.” You jump in.

“Kitten!” He pulls something from the drawer, a length of red rope. “You’ve got quite a mouth on you.” He says, as if he’s just deciding this now. “I like it, don’t get me wrong, but, I look forward to seeing what else it’s good for.” You laugh.

“You’re absurdly confident.”

“I know.” He says, gently moving you so that you’re lying on your side. “I’m not about to tie rope over your broken wrist,” he says, when he sees you flinch. Instead he carefully ties your elbows together in front of your face, and attaches the other end of the rope to the headboard. “It’s a little uncomfortable I’m sure.” He says, still cheerful. “But that’s what makes it a punishment.” You stretch a little and he carefully arranges your hair so that you can see. He then takes a pillow, and slips it under your broken ankle.

“Ah, Kuroo.” The adrenaline of the meeting and the funeral having worn off, you were in pain again. “The pain meds?” He thinks about it.

“You can’t have them unless your blood alcohol level is below a certain threshold, you had two drinks, straight liquor, one of them, very quickly,” he shakes his head at you, “Scotch is not meant to be gulped, by the way.” You roll your eyes at him and he chuckles dangerously. “Oh that’s such a bad idea for you, I’m keeping track of how many times you do it, by the way.” He looks up and to the left, doing some complex math in his head. “And, you may have one percocet in an hour. I’ll have Lev bring it up to you.”

“Why not now?” you ask, trying not to whine as the pain in your foot grows worse by the minute.

“Because you can’t mix alcohol and painkillers.” He says, “Sorry I don’t want you to die, I’m a spoilsport like that.” He pauses when he reaches the door handle. “Is there anything not drugs that I can have someone get for you?”

“Um, dinner?” He blinks a couple times.

“Of course.” And like that, he’s gone. Kuroo bounds down the stairs, stopping to give instructions to one of his servants before opening the secret paneled door to his study, where the rest of the men are waiting.

“You should have just kept her.” Kenma says, voice barely above a whisper as he pours over paperwork, sipping a glass of bourbon.

“I’m not fussed.” Kuroo shrugs. “She likes me.”

“Yeah,” Lev says, a note of annoyance in his voice, “I nearly crashed the car, those partitions aren’t exactly soundproof you know.” Kai looks sharply at Kuroo, who flops on the couch.

“Did you have sex with her?”

“No,” Kuroo shakes his head, pouring himself his own drink. “Just demonstrated to her that I was a person who would be interested primarily in taking care of her.”

“She’s right,” Lev grumbles, “That you’re just lucky that she’s submissive, Kuroo there are women who switch, and dom.”

“You’d know all about that.” Yaku says dryly.

“And so would you!” Lev grins, and Yaku’s face burns, “Nothing to be ashamed of,” he ruffles the shorter man’s sandy hair, “I love a woman who takes control.” He considers, “Sometimes it’s nice to just throw them where you want them though, that makes sense Kuroo.”

“Ah,” Kuroo says, “I know professional work environment went out the window when we started running guns but perhaps I don’t need to know the details of-”

“You fingered a girl to completion in the backseat of a car I was driving after her father’s funeral, and you made her call you daddy.” There’s a silence, Kuroo blanches, “Yeah, I think you might be going to hell.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Kuroo mutters, ears reddening.

“Oh my god,” Yaku says, “Kenma look, he’s actually capable of shame.” Kenma lifts his head, inspecting his friend and leader.

“We should be plotting our next move.” He says,and Kuroo nods.

“I have a point of order.” He turns to Lev and Yaku. “I want you to find out what happened between Oikawa and our guest.” Kenma sighs. “I assumed she was exaggerating when she arrived here, perhaps in shock due to the death of her father. But I pointed a gun at him and told him to leave her alone and he nearly didn’t back down.” He sighs again. “Shippments running smoothly?” Kenma nods.

“I’m moving them extra cautiously due to the general unrest after the stuff today,” He mumbles, “It’ll slow us down but it won’t cost anything.” Kuroo smiles at the younger man, who doesn’t return his warmth.

“Alright, everyone out.” There are a few grumbles, but Kuroo catches Kenma. “Except you.” Kenma nods, brushing back the strands of his hair that have escaped from his bun. Kuroo waits until they’re alone to speak.

“I need you to get on board here.” Kuroo says, sitting in front of his childhood friend, knees resting on his elbows.

“I’m on board.” Kenma lifts his head.

“I can tell that you aren’t.” Kuroo sighs, “Listen, I know-”

“You have to do this because of me.” Kenma says, and there’s a rare raw emotional edge to his voice, “This is my fault.”

“Absolutely not, you did what you thought was right-”

“But I was wrong, and you had to clean it up!” Kenma hisses, “I don’t, I’m never wrong.”

“There was no way for you to know he’d retaliate to something like that,” Kuroo rolls one of his shoulders, stiff from the time spent in the pew. “And, it’s not your fault you were taken, and of course I came for you, and,” he notices Kenma look away, “Look at me when I say this.” Kenma lifts his head. “I would shoot that bastard again. Right now. If he were here, for putting a gun to your head.”

“You’re going to marry his daughter.” Kenma whispers.

“And I’ll spend the rest of my life atoning for-”

“Love isn’t atonement, you can’t pretend that those emotions are going to coexist, that you’ll, that you’ll find peace, living like that.” Kenma interrupts him. “You didn’t want to get married.” Kuroo shrugs.

“Honestly,” His lips quirk into a half smile. “I like her. More than I should. She’s beautiful, sure, but she’s smart, nice birthing hips.” Kuroo teases, and Kenma full on shudders. “It’s important to me,” he says, pausing, choosing his words precisely, “That you know that I don’t take killing to save your life lightly, but that I’d do it again.”

“And now you’re going to go,” Kenma’s eyes burn with tears, “And fuck his daughter.” Kuroo stands groaning loudly.

“I like her, more than plenty of women I’ve fucked!” He pleads with Kenma, “Sometimes, things have to be done, and I can see, when I look at her, I can see the future, I can see breakfast, I can see fresh squeezed orange juice, I can see her teaching our kids to play piano, I-”

“She’s going to hate you, when she finds out.” Kenma says, bitterly.

“She’s not going to find out.” Kuroo rubs his face.

“You can’t keep a secret like that from the woman you intend to marry,” Kenma shakes his head.

“I want her,” The butterflies in his stomach are making him dizzy, “She’s, you saw her today, speaking in church, she wrote that eulogy in 12 hours, barely awake, slightly concussed, she’s getting an advanced degree in science and she desperately, desperately needs someone to take care of her.” Kenma shakes his head.

“You shot her father.”

“It turns out that was more complicated than we originally thought.” He rubs his eyes. “Listen. Don’t feel guilty. I like her, this is a great outcome for me. Possible stress relief, a wonderful woman who willingly engages with me intellectually, she even likes chemistry.” He pats Kenma’s head. “And I’d do it again.” There’s a pause, Kuroo walks towards the door, then stops. “But we have to,” he glances out the window, “We have to take responsibility for our actions. Whatever Oikawa’s got planned for her, she wants no part of it. We should assist in her avoiding that fate, regardless of what she can do for us.”

“You’re a saint.” Kenma says dryly.

“Hardly.” Kuroo’s tone has less humor in it. “I’m not a superstitious man, it pays in my line of work not to believe in an afterlife, or hell,” he shudders, “But today in church, listening to her speak, and sing, I just,” he considers, “That’s who I want eulogizing me.” Kenma looks at him sharply. “And I’ll give her excellent stories to tell.”

“It’s not like you to fall fast.” Kenma leans back in the couch, his suit wrinkling a little.

“It’s not, it’s not just romantic,” Kuroo pauses, “I feel a sense of responsibility, and I’m an excellent judge of character. I know who she is, and I like it. Also, you saw the way she was shaking when she turned up on our doorstep.”

“It would make me a bad advisor,” Kenma reaches out and takes a sip of whiskey, “If I didn’t point out the possibility of her having her own agenda.” Kuroo nods.

“I’m not blind to it. I promise.”

“You can be!” Kenma grins, “That’s what I’m here for.”

Kuroo makes his way up the stairs quietly, hoping not to disturb you, but the second he pushes the door open, your eyelids flutter, and you stir.

“Ah, sorry.” He says, ducking into his private bathroom to wash up.

“It’s okay,” you say, your voice more tired than you expect. “Are these your normal hours?”

“I don’t really keep normal hours.” He responds, splashing cool water on his face before reaching for his bottle of listerine, “I have painkillers for you though.” He dries his face and spits the mouthwash in the sink, slipping out of his loafers. “I have to admit, I’m a little nervous.” He watches you muster a smile. “Oh,” he sighs, realizing, “Oh, kitten, you’ve been crying, hold on,” He fumbles in his pocket for the little bottle of pills, he rushes to your bedside as you hide your face in the pillow.

“Sorry,” You say, throat painfully tight, “I just, my dad,” you sniff. “And everything hurts, Kuroo, and I’m scared, and I’m vulnerable, and I hate being vulnerable.” He dashes to the bathroom and comes back with a glass of water.

“Open your mouth.” He says firmly, and you obey, letting him place the purple pill on your tongue, then tip the glass of water into your mouth. You’re still dutifully attached to the headboard and he takes a moment to pat your head. “Just sit tight for a moment, and I’ll be there.” He rips himself out of his suit, tossing the clothes on an armchair and coming back over to the bed in only his boxers.

“I-is that how you sleep?” You choke out and he shrugs.

“It’s how I prefer to sleep, yes.” He reaches over and quickly unties you, letting you fold in on yourself. “Oh,” he coos again, “Come here, I’m so sorry, alright, I’m so sorry.” You sob against his bare chest.

“S-so embarrassing,” you get out between sharp breaths.

“It really isn’t.” He rubs your back. “The things you’ve been able to do today, speaking up at the meeting, eulogizing your father at all, coming here, even the decision to try and hide the phone from me-”

“I didn’t,” you sob, “Decide that, I was barely thinking at the time, I just,”

“Shhhh,” He rocks you back and forth, “When my father passed I was inconsolable for a week.” You snuggle against him, trying to modulate the ugly sounds coming from your throat. “You’ve been so strong, and you’ve been in so much pain, you’re going to sleep well tonight.” He kisses your forehead. “You know you’re safe, right?”

“Yeah,” You warble, “I know I’m safe with you, Kuroo.” You feel the painkiller numbing your limbs, making your head feel lighter as he kisses your head again. “Can I ask you something,” you say, and his heart jumps to his throat, could you have heard, somehow could you know- “Are you going to sleep with the lights on?”

“Ah no.” He says, barely maintaining his cool as he gets up and flicks the lights in the room off. “You’re fine with this amount of darkness?” You nod, stretching across the bed.

“Your sheets are nice.” You wipe your tears a little.

“Of course they are.” he climbs back in bed, joining you under the covers. “I told you, I like beautiful things that also have utility.”

“Okay follow up question,” you say, when you’re lying down together, “And then I’m done talking because I can feel myself unmooring from reality and I don’t want you to interrogate me while my subconscious is accessible.” He chuckles. “I feel like you’re being too kind to me. This feels like a trap.” He nods.

“I did tie you down?”

“Right but you keep comforting me.” You scoot a little closer. “And it doesn’t feel manipulative, but that means it probably is, I just, I keep trying to imagine and predict the actions of people around me I want, I want to be safe, and I want to do it myself.”

“And it’s the last point that’s sticking, isn’t it?” He props up his head on his palm. “That you want to save yourself, you don’t want me to protect you, or Akaashi, or Bo or Oikawa, you want to be back in your apartment making what, minimum wage, TAing three classes a semester, all because in that life you didn’t have to rely on anyone else.” You lie there in stunned silence. “I can tell that part of it is stubbornness, perhaps your father would have called it grit, or something American like that.”

“I can empathize with the need for independence,” He continues, “But what I don’t understand is denying yourself comfort and success in order to achieve it.” You sigh deeply, and even in the low light he can see that your eyes have glazed over. “So tell me the truth,” he reaches out and cups your face, stroking your cheek. “Why won’t you let me take care of you?”

“You’re an arms dealer.” You slur a little.

“And you’re that moral?” He watches you flop on your back, clearly you’re feeling the side effects now, moving more freely than he’s seen.

“I stole a toothbrush once.” You mumble, and he sits up, grinning. “No, none of that,” you swat at him absentmindedly. “I thought about it for months, years maybe, and I didn’t even do it on purpose.”

“I’m sure whatever corporation made that toothbrush really hurt from the ten cents loss.” Kuroo offers, smiling, but you scowl.

“That’s not the point, the point is that as soon as I was old enough to know what my father did was dangerous and illegal I was terrified for him. I didn’t want to join clubs, or make friends, for years I just completely isolated myself out of fear that if I didn’t my father could get hurt, or people I brought into my life could get hurt.”

“Oh shit,” Kuroo murmurs, floored, “You’re thinking about your kids.”

“Like you assholes don’t want to have your own goddamn kids. I’m not ready by the way,” you say, a slight slur to your words, and he chuckles darkly.

“We all do illegal things though.”

“Some of you do less illegal things, right, there has to be a scale,” you say desperately, “I don’t want to be taking my kids to visit daddy in jail!” His lips curl into a smile.

“First of all, love that you referred to me as daddy-”

“I didn’t-”

“Second of all, you and I are people of science. So let’s set benchmarks, and turn this into a set of actual criteria that you can use to know data wise who is the right person for you, so that you can ignore the data and follow your heart into my arms again.” You shake your head but when Kuroo flips the lights on he sees the smile you’re fighting. He grabs a notebook from his bedside table, and a pair of glasses.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, sitting up, and he smirks a little.

“Try not to drool, kitten.” His joke doesn’t have the effect he’s used to though, with the slight fuzziness of the pill you’ve taken it seems like you’re having a hard time controlling your genuine reactions in favor of snippy comebacks.

“Kuroo, when does an arms dealer have time to go to the gym?” He shrugs, smirk widening at how you can’t take your eyes off of his abs.

“I have a gym at home.” He explains. “I played volleyball at a pretty high level in high school and college, so I go crazy when I don’t work out.”

“Gym in the basement huh?” You scoot up on the bed and he takes the hint, moving you so that you’re nestled against his chest.”

“Is your foot okay?” He asks and you nod. “And no, the basement has other purposes.”

You shudder against him and he rubs comforting patterns on your upper arm. “Alright, so degree of illegality is important.” You nod. “What else?”

“I’d like to be romantically and intellectually attracted to them.” You mumble, and Kuroo nods. “And um, the amount of freedom they’d allow me, that’s important too.” He nods, scribbling on the pad. “What else,” He feels you relax against him, with your head on his chest, “Do you think is important?”

“Well you’ve said you’re not ready to have kids, right?” You nod. “How long they’re willing to wait, because most of them are going to assume you’ll be ready right after the wedding.” You shiver again and he leans down and presses his lips to your forehead. “Daichi and I will look after you, alright?” The words fall from his lips before you can stop them, but he’s not entirely sure you understand. “No one is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, as long as I’m alive.” You blink up at him, eyes unexpectedly wet.

“I just don’t understand why you care.” You whisper.

“Does it matter?” He stops rubbing your arm for a moment.

“I need to understand things.” You complain, melting against him again.

“We’ll use your ex as a benchmark.” He says quietly, changing the subject. “Rate him for me in those things out of ten.” You screw your face up.

“He wasn’t illegal,” you mumble, “So zero.”

“Really?” Kuroo says dryly and to his shock you consider.

“He wanted to be a politician,” you slur a little again, “So a two.” Kuroo laughs genuinely. “Give him a 6 on intellectual and romantic attraction, and a 7 on freedom, and a 4 on willing to wait till I was ready to have kids.” Kuroo notes it in the legal pad, and you yawn again. He reaches over and flicks off the light. “I’m surprised,” you mumble, “That you aren’t trying to seduce me right now.”

“You’re in no shape to have sex.” Kuroo says firmly. “You have at least two broken bones, and you’re definitely too incapacitated to consent.”

“And you care about that?” He reaches down and pinches your arm playfully

“Of course I do.” He pauses. “Are you scared, for tomorrow?” You swallow nervously.

“Akaashi seems different.” He nods.

“I’m gonna give you the phone back, but with our numbers in it. You can text Lev for minor issues, and me for major ones.”

“Minor issues?” You settle under the blanket next to him as he lies down again.

“I’m,” he pauses, “Sensitive to the fact that you’d likely have a female friend to discuss these matters with. Lev’s all I have to offer you, and I promise he is as simple as he looks.” You laugh lightly. “But if you’re in a situation where you’d like me to come save you, like the pretty little damsel you are,” you groan loudly, “You may reach out to me. Now sleep, Kitten, that’s an order.” You obey surprisingly quickly, the drugs in your system making you nearly pliant. He watches you for a bit, watches the muscles in your face relax, your breathing soften, and tries to imagine spending the rest of his life crawling into bed with you.

“You know,” he says quietly, knowing you can’t hear him, “You’re too smart for your own good.”

His windowseat faces the east and sun spills through it onto the stained wood floors, warming the room with a golden light. You stir, the painkillers having worn off, your foot and wrist throbbing gently.

“Mmm,” Kuroo groans softly. “Don’t move.” You realize you’re still nestled against his chest, cheek pressed to him, one hand resting at the center of his ribs, his arm wrapped around you, hand resting on your hip.

“Can we sleep in?” You whisper, and he nods without opening his eyes.

“Someone comes in to wake me up when things are important.” You sigh happily and close your eyes again, the tiniest alarm bell going off in your brain at how comfortable and safe you feel in his arms. You wake a few hours later, and untangle yourself from his limbs, hobbling to the bathroom while he snores softly. You brush your teeth and use his mouthwash, cleaning your face with his skincare, picking up one of the nearly untouched bottles.

“Kuroo,” you call, one hand on the counter so you don’t have to put any weight on your foot. “Do you even use this stuff?” He groans loudly.

“I don’t know what any of it’s for, it’s been sitting there since my birthday in November.” He rolls out of bed and follows you into his bathroom. “I hope you’re not putting weight on that.” He eyes your foot.

“I have to get around a bit!” You protest and he shakes his head.

“Hopefully the others will scare you into obedience so that I don’t have to.” He reaches for the first bottle. “So what does this do?” You snatch it from him, and examine the label.

“This is toner.” You set it back on the counter. “You have to wash your face first.” He grins.

“Do it for me.”

“What?” Your mouth drops open as he sits on the closed toilet, still shamelessly just in his briefs.

“You heard me,” He says, a lazy grin stretching across his handsome face. “I want you to wash my face for me.” You roll your eyes and he chuckles dangerously. “God you’re lucky you’re injured, I’d take you over my knee for that.” You squeak with fear and he nods. “There, that’s a healthy reaction. You shake your head, reaching for the cleanser and reading the label.

“This isn’t probably what I’d pick for you,” You explain, “Because your skin looks healthy and this is kind of astringent but ah, I’m not an expert.” He nods sagely, watching you squirt some of it onto a clean washcloth, then wet it. You hobble over to him, bracing your weight against the marble counter of his sink. He pats his thighs, and you hesitate for only a second before sitting on his lap, straddling him. He holds you steady, strong hands resting on your waist.

“Ooh,” he hisses, “That’s cold, Kitten.” You gently dab at his face with the soapy end of the washcloth, careful not to pull or put too much pressure on it. “Actually,” he mumbles, “That feels very nice.” You take the other end of the cloth and clean the soap off of him, then go to stand, but he holds you tightly.

“You have to let me get the rest of it!” You protest and he thinks about not letting you go, enjoying the warmth of your body on his thighs, but he releases you after a moment, and he watches you peruse the other bottles. You take your time with each step, and his hands drift lower, coming to rest on your hips, then your ass, by the time you’re gently working an oil-free sunscreen into his skin. “Okay,” you say, with as much cheer as you can muster, “You are free to go.” He takes you by the thighs and yanks you closer, so that your chest is flush against his.

“Yes, but you aren’t.” He says, standing, holding you by the thighs as he walks you back to the bed. You reach up and brush away the hair in his eyes.

“Your bedhead is wild.” he laughs, laying you down on the bed, looking, almost vulnerable for a moment.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, and you look so surprised for a moment he wonders if you understood.

“Ah, sure.” He laughs and climbs on top of you, carefully avoiding your wrist and ankle, but holding your free hand, pinning it to the mattress as he presses his lips to yours, and your struck immediately with how deftly and tenderly he kisses you. He moves his lips carefully, occasionally you feel the scrape of his teeth against your skin, immediately soothed by a swipe of his tongue. You grind your hips up against yours and he groans into your mouth.

“You’re going to be the death of me.” He mutters, “Someone’s coming to get me for a meeting in,” he glances at the clock, ten minutes.”

“Better make me cum before then,” you whisper, and he laughs loudly before shoving you roughly back on the bed.

“Who said,” he leans down and growls in your year, “That I give a shit about your pleasure,” you moan, almost involuntarily as he rips your pajama pants off you and parts your folds, “Lucky I’m even gonna prep you,” he buried his face in your neck, pulling more music out of your mouth, “Insubordinate,” you feel him bury two fingers inside you and curl them, you gasp at the odd mixture of pleasure and pain, “Fucking bitch.”

“Fuck,” you swear, as he starts pumping them inside you, “Daddy, please,”

“Daddy please,” he repeats, mocking you, “Think that’ll save you? Remembering what you call me is the bare goddamn minimum, kitten.” You’re warming up, slowly he can feel you start to drip around his fingers as he sinks his teeth into your neck.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, clinging to him, raking your nails down his back, the way his fingers are pressing against that one spot inside you, setting off fireworks on the back of your eyelids, your back arching off of the mattress. He leans back, conscious of the time, done prepping you, your ankles around his shoulders as he peels his boxers down and pumps his cock a few times, before pressing the tip of it to your folds, teasing you, despite the limited amount of time.

“Birth control?” He asks and you nod.

“Nuva ring.”

“We can fix that,” he says, with a manic glint in his eye as he shoves his entire length inside you, robbing you of the air in your lungs. He watches your face twist with pain, then melt to pleasure as he moves just a little inside you, a loud groan stuttering from his lips, “Oh my god,” he leans down again over you, “Oh my god, it feels,” he closes his eyes, “Fuck, can I move?” The squeezing of your walls around him, so wet, so warm, is making him dizzy, so when you nod, eyes squeezed shut, it feels like he’s been granted a goddesses blessing.

“Fuck,” he snarls, rolling his hips against yours, “Relax a little for me, alright, can, I can barely move in there,” you try your best, letting out soft whimper that drives even more blood below his waist.

“Daddy,” you warble, your beautiful eyes welling with tears as he fucks you, “Daddy, please,” He looks down at you, so beautiful, so helpless like this, the sunlight outside reflecting on the snow burning through the window, an illusion of warmth, of brightness in the window. He reaches down and palms your chest, rubbing then pinching your nipples, pulling a sharp keen from your lips as you struggle to form a sentence. “Please,” you get out again, all resistance forgotten, the early morning light making his eyes shine like embers, “Choke me, please, m’so close, wanna-” you're cut off by a huge hand curling around your throat, cutting off your air supply.

“You cum when I say so.” He orders, luxuriating in the feeling of being buried to the hilt in you, of having you writhe beneath him, so reactive to his touch.

“Ah,” you gasp, the tears in your eyes spilling over as the loud smack of his hips against your ass fills the quiet morning.

“M’gonna,” he grunts, “Gonna send to Bo with a pussy full of my cum, you want that?” You nod emphatically. “Beg for it.”

“Please,” your voice is small and hoarse, he tightens his grip, “Daddy, want, want your cum, please,” He reaches one hand down and rubs your clit while pounding into you and you can’t help it, your back practically arches off the mattress,

“Cum for me,” he orders, “Tell me who you belong to, and cum for me.” He takes another moment, committing this to memory, your blissed out face, teary cheeks, the sound of your voice when you say,

“You daddy, m yours please, please, please cum in me.” He groans loudly as you vault over the cliff of your orgasm muttering holy ecstasies in his ear, as he gets even harder inside you, before finishing with you, thrusts sporadic as he carries you through your high, before flopping, sweaty on the bed next to you, just as there’s a soft knock at the door.

“Ten minutes.” He calls, and then turns to you, desperate to observe you in one of the few moments he could be absolutely sure you weren’t playing him. You smile softly at him, and shudder as you feel the aftershocks of your orgasm.

“Be a good girl for me,” He says, “No unnecessary risks before you come back to me.” You laugh lightly. “I’m serious, come back to me relatively unscathed and I’ll give you a reward.”

“Ooooh,” you coo, “A reward?” He nods. “And can I assume, if the inverse proves true, I’ll be in for a punishment?” He cackles like a hyena.

“You’ll be all healed up then, kitten, so don’t push me.” You sigh deeply.

“I can’t believe I have to trust you.” You stare at his ceiling. “You’ve given me nothing but good reasons to believe you’re well intentioned, and I have almost no other allies in the entire country, and I have to trust you, of all people, exactly the type of man I’d cross the street to avoid.” He rolls over to look at you.

“And what type is that?”

“You’re all together too confident.” You mutter, still staring at the ceiling. “Every part of this feels like a trap, except,” he watches you catch yourself.

“Except what?”

“I can’t say it to you.” You mumble. “It’s naive.”

“Do you think I’d think less of you,” He reaches over, and fixes your hair, “If you were a little naive?”

“I don’t know.” You swallow. “I don’t know why I care what you think.” You groan, rubbing your eyes with your good hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He sits up a little. “I can’t believe my father doomed me to this.” You sit up, and pull your pajamas back up, reaching for your bra. “He must have hated me after all.”

“I”m sorry.” He says quietly, and you sigh again.

“If you were really sorry, you’d drive me to the embassy and let me get on a flight home.”

“Oikawa would have you in whatever dungeon you’re so afraid of in minutes.” He springs up, getting dressed. “I’m sorry that I can’t do more for you, I am, genuinely, kitten.” You sigh again, wriggling into a comfortable t shirt and leggings that Lev had grabbed for you, “And,” he says, raising a long slender finger, “You aren’t running away anyway, until you find out who killed your father, isn’t that right?” Your mouth drops open. “I’m an excellent reader of people.” He says with a shrug.

“If we’d met under any other circumstances,” You collapse into a chair, adjusting the brace on your wrist. “We would not be friends, I’m telling you this now, for your own good.” He chuckles, glancing at the bed.

“You knock out a quickie with friends often?”

“Go to hell.” You feel your pulse quicken, expecting swift retribution, but he just laughs.

“I’ll do ya better when you’re mine for real, promise.” He stands in front of a mirror, tying his tie. “Akaashi and Bo will be here for you in about half an hour,” he opens a drawer, “Here is the cell phone, with our phone numbers.” You remember something.

“Is Lev coming with me?” You ask and Kuroo shakes his head.

“Someone from your next place will be there, from Date Tech, I’d have to hazard a guess at Aone, maybe? If they could spare him.” Kuroo shakes his head. “He’s giant, like Lev but ah, wider?” You shudder. “Oh he’s very polite, and if he isn’t, you just give daddy a ring and I’ll-”

“Absolutely not, you may not refer to yourself in third person as daddy.” You interject and he smirks.

“Isn’t it wonderful how you have absolutely no say in the matter?”

Kuroo leaves you in one of the front sitting rooms with Lev, and Kai catches him on his way back to his office.

“You’ve slept with her then?”

“Only mostly literally,” Kuroo shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s resisting trusting me, but I think she’s getting there.” He rubs his eyes. “I,” he pauses, “I’m feeling unusually conflicted about lying to her about things. I find myself, doing everything I can to avoid it, changing the subject, pretending I didn’t hear her. It’s, it’s strange, it feels involuntary in the moment.” Kai shakes his head.

“That is unusual for you.” He muses, warm brown eyes searching his friend's face. Kuroo rubs his eyes more.

“I’m going to miss her, when she’s gone.” He leans against the wall and Kai smirks. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

You’re laying on the couch in the main room about an hour later, with a suitcase of the things Kuroo bought you sitting next to you as men bustle in and out of the sitting room. You’re halfway through Oryx and Crake, propped up on some pillows, when Kuroo rushes in, clearing his throat. The room empties of people immediately.

“They’ll be here in a few.” He says, and you nod. “I'm serious, if you need anything, please, please text one of us.” He hands you the phone. You smile at him.

“I will.”

“And remember what I said, about a reward for returning to me unscathed.” There’s a honk in the driveway and Lev sticks his head into the drawing room.

“They’re here.” He says.

“I remember.” You say quickly and Kuroo stands as you all hear, Hey hey hey!

“Bo came?” Kuroo says, and Lev shrugs. You glance out the window, Bokuto and a man you don’t recognize are sitting in the front seat of a vintage luxury car as Akaashi gets out of the backset. “Shit sweetheart,” he says to you, helping you to your feet. “You oughta feel important.”

“Trust me,” you look out and catch Akaashi’s eyes, reading his genuinely relieved expression. “I do.”

bos taurus | dogmeat series pt., i

mafia butcher Simon Riley x Reader

You don't question your brother when he sends you to drop off packages to his friends, but when the enforcer for the 141 shows up to teach the small-time dealer selling on their turf a lesson, you realize there are different ways to pay someone back with pounds of flesh.

(OR: your brother owes them, and Ghost is content to let you settle the debt. after all, if you wanted freedom, then you shouldn't have caught the eye of the butcher of the 141, should you?)

18+ SMUT. noncon. objectification. marking. kidnapping. threats of violence. unsafe sex (manipulation into unprotected sex). rough sex. size difference. breathplay. 10k of foreplay. light pussy slapping. overstimulation. mafia au.

SERIES MASTERLIST | AO3

The goal is to be as quick and discreet as possible. 

In and out, he says, looping the baggie around his index finger. Inside, a snowfall of white powder settles at the bottom. 

Meth this time. Oxytocin the last. 

He ties it tight before giving the bag a quick shake, breaking up the clumps. Satisfied with the way it looks, he turns toward you. Levels you with a sombre look, the picture of a concerned older brother. 

You almost fall for it. Believe it. But the clouded, flat edge to his gaze undercuts his worry for what it really is. A farce. 

“And if it seems sketchy—”

—run.

But your knees are locked, soles glued to the pavement. You can't move even though everything is screaming at you to flee. 

The problem, maybe, is that there's nowhere to go. Escape cut off, filled by a body, a man—even though the idea, the mere notion, of thinking this behemoth as human, flesh and bone; blood and tissue, is laughable when he's so clearly a beast. A monster. 

He fills up your field of vision. Your line of sight was eclipsed by the thickness of his waist, the broad expanse of his shoulders. Thighs that are as wide as the trunk of a tree. Arms boxing you in. A prison of obsidian. A black shadow. 

In the panic that surfaces, surging to the top like an oil spill, you catch a pocket where he doesn't root. A small alcove between the bend of his elbow and the slot of his knee perched against the wall. Enough room for you to—

“Wouldn't do tha’ if I were you.” 

His voice seems to shake the earth, rolling out of his broad chest like the low, brassy roar of a lion; a rumbling thunderclap. 

You feel sick—

The leather covering his hand is cold when it closes around your arm, grip tight. Bruising. Trapping you with just the slightest effort. 

“Go’ a problem, you and I,” he starts, and it's almost conversational. Might be, perhaps, if the clean, sleek outline of his gun inside the unclasped holster around his ungodly thick waist wasn't threatening you more than the grip he has on your arm. “How do you reckon we can fix it?”

You have a meagre twenty dollars in your pocket. Less money for them to take if things go awry. If they decide that the little girl standing in for her older brother was an easier target to rob—money and drugs—than to settle things fairly. Money, goods. Hand over hand. 

Just like the movies, he'd said. 

Just like the movies, you think when he leans in closer, bulk swallowing you whole. 

There is a pockmark in the corner of his crooked, misshapen nose and the crease of his eye. A scar, maybe. It's circular—almost perfectly so; a silver-pink moon on the angular ridge of his nose. Uneven, craggy, like crumpled printer paper. 

It looks almost like—

You think of the mark on your arm. Soot-stained. The smell of burning hair, tissue. The searing pain. 

“I–I can pay you—” you stammer out, tearing your gaze away from the ugly mark on his skin. A cigarette burn. It makes you shudder. 

He cocks his head slowly like a big, dumb dog, but there's something eerie in the ink spill of his eyes. The soft matte of a saltwater crocodile staring at you from beneath the murk. Calculative. Hungry. 

“Pay me?” He echoes slowly, dragging the words out mockingly. “D’you know ‘ow much trouble your brother is in? For sellin’ ‘ere of all places?” 

“No,” you swallow. It feels like your heart is stuck inside your throat. “I–I just—”

“Run ‘is errands,” he finishes cruelly but you can't deny it. “Ain't you a good little sister? Almost makes me wish I ‘ad somethin’ as sweet as you f’myself growin’ up.”

You don't answer. He doesn't seem to be looking for one, really; just empty words to fill space. To echo in your head, barbed wire around any sense of comfort you might have felt. Punishing cruelty. 

He has the upper hand, it says. He's the one who makes derisive jokes while you tremble in his grasp, and try to make yourself as small, as unassuming, as possible. Hiding from the predator in plain sight. Hoping he passes you over for something bigger, more calorie-dense; the effort to catch and consume you expends more energy than the return. Hardly worth it in the long run. The comfort of a risk-reward ratio, right?

But he's opportunistic, it seems. A snacking scavenger. 

Could eat, it says, like a basking tiger keeping a mouse trapped between his paws, letting it squirm and squeak as he slowly licks his lips. Not enough to fill its belly but enough to satisfy the gluttonous urge a predator has to eat. Sharpening its teeth on flimsy bones. Child’s play. 

It's a fitting image, especially with the way he arches over you, looms; fingers looped around the thick of your arm, holding firm, but not—

Not as tight as he could. 

It's a loose-fisted grasp. Lazy, almost. He knows you won't run—or, at the very least, knows you won't get far. 

You peel your gaze away from his, dropping it to the curve of his shoulders—the width of them is just as dizzying as his height; broad, muscular. Pulling it further down the length of his arm, covered in a thick jacket. Black corduroy. Ashes stain the cuffs. A bulky watch juts out from his wrist. Gold. Glinting even in the grey-blue gloom of an overcast evenfall. 

His muscles tense. Hand tightening around your arm, fingers digging hard. Rubbing muscle painfully against bone. 

A warning, maybe. Stop looking—

But something else catches your eye. Blood red. The colour of meat. A fresh kill. 

The back of his hand has a blooming rose. Petals spread out, unfurled. In the middle, a milky skull sits. Stencilled in boxy, yellow letters is ONE-FOUR-ONE—

You know what it means even as your mind whirs, gears turning, turning; plummeting into a tailspin, making excuses as it falls, dragging your heart down alongside it. An area code. Some special date. An inside joke. 

But you've seen the marking around town before. Heard whispers about them from your brother, his friends. 141, they say, and then: mafia. 

The real deal, he said, puffing around a joint his friend rolled. It's too tight. He scoffs, and rips it out from between his lips. Shitty roll, man, make another one—

Mob. Mafia. Gangsters. It seemed so extreme, Hollywood. Fiction, fantasy, all rolled into one. Tony Soprano. Ralph Cifaretto. Michael and Vito Corleone. Tony Montana. Larger-than-life men created on paper. 

You think your brother thought so too. Child's play. Grown men selling weed to kids for two hundred an ounce. Buying themselves sleek, black cars—G Wagons, Escalades, Cullinans—on the Xanax they sell at clubs, parties. Cocaine. Heroin. 

Nothing to worry about. 

Then his friend went missing. 

Sent out on a routine delivery to drop off cocaine to well-dressed men in suits outside of a local butcher shop. A normal, nondescript Tuesday. 

But he wouldn't answer his phone. Texts were being delivered, read, but no chat bubble appeared. Nothing sent back. Calls went straight to voicemail. He wasn't at home. Wasn't at his mum's. No one saw him. Heard from him. 

Your brother didn't call the police. Didn't report him as missing. 

It's just not what they do, he said. You don't involve them. Ever. 

The most shocking part of it was that no one saw anything. He just vanished. Disappeared—stock an’ all, your brother angrily spits—without a trace, picked up off the streets. 

If it was the police, someone would have said something by now. They're hardly discreet. And a rival—

Well.

The biggest problem was that your brother was blindsided by his own small-time success. An accumulation of little wins bolstered his confidence. Overfed his ego. This fallout was tunnel vision. A refusal to see the bigger picture. 

Or the storm clouds looming on the horizon. 

You'd heard of the 141 in passing. Little quips, anecdotes from the passel of friends that congregated around your brother—often getting high on the couch and watching old cartoons; sharing a joint back and forth between gossip. 

Through rheumy eyes, they'd talk about the real gangsters in town—much to the irritation of your brother—and swap tales of run-ins and feats they heard from a friend (of a friend, of a friend). Most of the guys were known already. Soap and Gaz are the biggest names that cropped up on the streets through reputation alone. Both fighters for a gym. MMA, mostly, but whispers of street fighting and extracurricular activities weren't uncommon. 

Liked the thrill of it, they said. But the worst was a man simply known as the Ghost. An enforcer for the 141—a fucking butcher, more like, Liam cut in, jaundiced eyes widening—the guy who took care of problems. 

“Can't be,” your brother scoffed, lifting off the couch to reach in his back pocket for his wallet. A small anthill of white powder poured into the glass table. “They don't get involved in our shit—”

And for the most part, you're sure that's true. Dealing to the same circle of people—outreach spread through word of mouth—seemed paltry in comparison to the scale of an operation that had a money laundering gym. But the problem was that your brother lacked common sense. His ego often got in the way of foresight. The shadow greed casts blocking out the bigger picture. 

Like—

Territory is territory—regardless of what's being pushed. 

You wish there was a modicum of surprise when his friend turned up. Barely recognizable. Sent right to the morgue as a John Doe. 

Most would see the marks on the man's skin—the distinct lack of blood—as an indicator to abandon ship, find the boss, beg for forgiveness, and maybe even try to strike up a deal. But—

That picture is hidden under his anger. Greed. Selfishness. 

He sends you instead. 

You're somethin’ they ain't expectin’, he said. Won't mess with you.

Right. 

He catches the realisation dripping down your brow—beads of sweat gathering at your hairline; anxiety, fear, churning your stomach—and hums. Cocks his head to the side. 

“Was expectin’ ‘im t’show up, though—” he murmurs, hand tightening around your arm. The pressure, the sting, is eclipsed by the gnawing sense of dread biting viciously into you. “Told ‘im if I caught ‘im sellin’ on our streets again, there'd be trouble. Thought we ‘ad an agreement after ‘is friend. But—”

His eyes cut to yours. It feels like a knife to your guts, sinking into soft tissue. A pain you can't breathe around. 

Won't mess with you, you think, and then viciously—sadly—he knew. Was warned by them and still sent you out. Let you take his place for whatever comeuppance they decided he deserved. 

It should shock you. You almost wish it did. Desperately clinging to the threads of surprise that slip through your oily fingers, grasping onto the nothing but empty air. Numbed to the resignation that trickles in. 

Of course he would leave you here to save himself. Letting you fend off whatever they threw at you alone. Leaving you trapped between a brick wall and a wall of a man. 

The excuses are there. They pool on the tip of your tongue—it isn't me, don't do this, it's my (stupid, selfish) brother you want, not me—but you swallow them down and try not to wince at how quickly they dissipate when you do. It doesn't matter in the end because whatever you have to say won't negate the drugs in your backpack. The empty house you'll lead them to—your brother probably squirrelled away somewhere until this blows over. Half-hopeful you'd call him and say everything is fine, the deal went smoothly. You're on your way back. Or that the debt he racked up with them is settled by you. 

It's half-hearted when it slips out again, caught between resignation and dread. A brittle whisper. A prayer—

“I can pay you. Whatever he owes, I can—”

He's already shaking his head. 

“Too late for that, birdie. ‘sides, I don't want your money.”

He moves back, rocking on his heels to put a small measure of distance between your bodies. In that scant space, he drops his gaze, sweeping it over you. His eyes darken.

When he pivots them down, catching yours, you can't stop the shiver that crawls up your spine. 

That calculative gleam is back. 

“But I think we can work something else out.”

Something else turns out to be ushering you into the backseat of an old Ford pickup. 

The door whines when he opens it. Rust flaking off, falling to the ground by your feet. Your mind reels. Spins comparisons to falling snow, dried blood. 

He hauls you in with his hand wrapped around the nape of your neck, thick thigh sliding between your own to boost you up. The protest—a mindless, reactionary squeal at being manhandled—only makes him chuff. A brief flex of his fingers around the skin of your neck is the only warning he gives before it pulls away, and wraps tight around your waist. His thigh flexes, muscle drawing taut as he shifts his foot up to the running board, lifting your feet off the ground and seating you fully on his leg like a child.

(In his hands, you feel like one, too.)

The motion makes you slip, back glueing along his broad chest with a shallow thump. You feel the rumble of his laugh trembling up your spine before you hear it. 

“Careful,” he drawls, oiled with amusement. “Might slip.”

Anything you could say in response is choked back when he bumps the corded steel of his thigh into the seam of your legs, pushing tight to your clothed cunt. His intention is unmistakable this time. Unignorable. And with the rasp of filtered, balmy air against your crown; the pull of a groan when you rock back into his groin, the noise still slicked with mirth, you feel a knot of dread spool tight in your belly. 

Something else is dragged back to the forefront, coiling like wisps of smoke around you. 

And you knew. It's shocking, you think, but not necessarily a surprise. To call it a dichotomy would be lying to yourself, and so, you settle against it. This notion that what he wants—wanted—is flesh. Not money. Not retribution. 

Not to talk things out like you'd hoped he’d try (grabbing onto the idealistic thread, holding it tight to your chest); bringing you in and forcing you to convince your—stupid selfish greedy—older brother that quitting was the only option. Dangling you—baby sister—over his head in an appeal to his emotions. Familial bonds. Love. 

That thread is cut. Snipped. 

Probably severed when they first came to him with an offer. No strikes against him and yet—

The idea of using you to make him bend was expunged from the drawing board. It's not even a plan b, or c, or z. 

And—

You knew. Have known. Maybe that's why it's so easy to swallow around the panic when it lances through your chest, climbs up your throat. You can think and feel and breathe around this dagger in your back like it was there the whole time and you've only just noticed it now. 

Nothing but a small, whispered oh in the roiling polyphony of your emotions. 

It sits there as he manuevers you into the passenger seat of his truck, your head spinning around the indescribable sensation of being woefully cognisant despite the paralysing fugue pressing against the bubble of stark awareness that keeps it at bay. It manifests itself as a numbed sort of shock. Or more accurately—

Indifference. 

Defeat. 

His hand brushes your cheek, the snag of dry leather against humid skin tugs uncomfortably at your flesh, stinging as they dance down to your jaw, the delicate line of your vulnerable throat, skimming over the curve of your breast—

And it's too much. Too present. Too real. 

Autopilot. Dissociation. Derealisation. All of these concepts slip past the bubble of hypervigilance, skidding the surface like a pebble thrown over a lake. Out of reach as he unashamedly gropes you, barely making an effort to mask his actions as just buckling you in. 

You pretend, though. Curl your fists around the sides of the seat, fingers digging into the worn foam. Head lulling back on the headrest. Eyes fixed out the window as he walked around the front, head and shoulders still visible in the windshield despite the height of the truck. It makes your heart leap, stuttering in your chest as the absurdity of his size is brought back into focus. Too big, you think. Grossly so. 

There's a moment when you think about running. Toying with the idea of sliding your hand over the lock, pulling the door open when he's too busy on his side to notice. It'll give you an advantage—a head start. Enough time to slink through the dense forest of concrete buildings lining the industrial zone, and into somewhere safe. Help, a behemoth is chasing me—

But the door clicks. Swings open with a squeal of rusted metal just as your fingers twitch toward the handle. Hope evaporates with each lurch of the cab as he climbs inside, metal creaking under his weight when he settles in the seat. 

From the corner of your eye, you can see his head tip. Chin angling toward you. Staring. Assessing. 

When he speaks, you feel the words like cold fingers dancing maliciously down your spine. 

“‘pected you t’run.” 

It's said idly enough. Nonchalant. Tone even, if a little cruel, and you wonder if this is some test. One that you passed—and failed—in equal measure. 

He doesn't look away. It takes less effort than you wish it did to peel your lips apart, to breathe in the stale, mulch scent of the cab—something overgrown, rotting, and damp—and mumble:

Where would I go?

It seems to amuse him. He hums around a mouthful of mockery before turning away, pawing at the ignition. Gloved hand curling over the wheel. 

“Smart girl.”

You don't feel very smart. In fact, you feel very small. Stupid. Maybe you should have taken a stab at it—running. Tried, at least, to save your own life before the jaws of the beast closed over you like an iron bear trap around your ankle. Fought like hell. Clawed and kicked and screamed. 

When most kids read the back of a cereal box, you learned about secondary locations. You know better than this. 

But the truck sputters to life in a belly-deep rumble, hacking up soot into the air as he pulls the lever into DRIVE. The fight inside of you—however ephemeral it might have been—dies inside the smoke spilling out of his exhaust. Gone so quickly that you begin to wonder if it was even there at all—

Must be, you think, eyes listing outward. Keen. Mapping the twists and turns—a futile effort in the end: he doesn't bother hiding where he's taking you, and you've been down these old, grim streets more times than you can count. 

It doesn't surprise you much when he turns down the street leading to the butcher shop. An old relic that still carries the marks of a booming farming town before it fell victim to industrialisation. Concrete skyscrapers in place of lush cornfields. Warehouses over old barns, ranches. Cattle, meat, produce—it all used to be a mainstay here but now hides under layers of steel. 

The dark windows of the small shop gleam with hazy smears of neon blue, red, when you pull up, catching on the array of rowdy bars across the street. All clubs that belong to the 141. A playground of drugs, sex. More money than you'd ever see in your lifetime. 

It's an uncanny juxtaposition to the quiet, assuming street right across from it. Barber, butcher, accountant firm, antique store. All dark inside and bathed in the smeared stream of glimmering neon as lights flash in the fading glow of twilight. 

He pulls up to the curb in front of the shop. A bold move if the streets weren't so empty. Lifeless. The clubs won't be open for four more hours. Everything else follows the same nine to five as the rest of the world. The shops closed an hour ago, and everyone in town seems to know not to linger here after dark. 

The air seems to stagnate in your lungs when he cuts the ignition. Slips the key into his pocket. 

“Don't get any funny ideas in tha' pretty little ‘ead o’yours.” 

“Funny ideas,” you echo, toneless. Flat. It rolls out with your exhale. Words that might have been smarter to swallow down. “Like following a stranger to a butcher shop?” 

“Lippy little thing, ain't you?” He scoffs. The truck creaks when he shifts. “Ain't go’ no one t’blame but yourself. Told you what would ‘appen if you kept sellin’ in our territory. You should ‘ave known better.”

“That was my brother.” The words slip out before you can stop them. “Not me—”

“‘ow am I suppose t’know that? You were sellin’ where I told ‘im not to—” he has the gall to shrug. Spit these careless words at you like it wasn't life or death. “That's all there is to it, birdie.”

“That's not fair—”

The truck groans under his weight, shaking from side to side as he leans over to push his door open before turning back to you, rolling his eyes. 

“Life ain't very fair, is it?” 

The acerbic words are flicked out from between his teeth; an apathetic, droning curl clinging to each syllable. He doesn't care. Won't. What happens to you next is your choice, and yours alone. 

And he's just doing his job—

“When I get out of ‘ere, you ain't gonna do anythin’ funny—”  

His hand lashes out. Gloved fingers close over the thick of your throat in a blink. Fear lags by a beat, giving him enough time to sink his fingers over your neck, and when it catches up—heart rabbiting in your chest, thudding in your ears; roaring as your pulse thunders beneath the press of his thumb—he’s already got you in his hold. The width forces your chin to lift, stretching up to accommodate the curl of his hand around you. 

Trapped like a rabbit. Cattle to the slaughter. 

He tilts his head down, keeping his eyes on yours as he forces your crown into the headrest, chin lifted up. It's uncomfortable. The curve of your neck cuts off your airways. Constricts your breathing to shallow gasps. An ache grows in your nape. 

The swell of panic, fear, in your eyes makes him hum. But there's nothing echoing back. An absence of light in the deep, placid pits. It looks like still water. A stagnant lake. 

It's unnerving how dispassionately expressive his eyes are. Wild, wild. Vats of ink. Pools of obsidian. Ringed in red-lined ivory. Long, ashen lashes dusting over the smears of charcoal under his eyes. Sleepless nights, maybe. Fatigue. The corners are tattooed with coal, leaving behind a thumbprint in the crease. 

But empty. Barren. No light.

Like black holes. Eating everything around it. Devouring all that gets too close, but giving nothing in return except a bottomless crater in the bruised-plum nebulous of space around it. 

You're not sure you like it. You can't look away. 

But in staring back so hard (getting pulled in deeper and deeper), you catch the twitch in his left eye. A shallow spasm. It throws off the symmetry when he blinks, one eye a sliver of a second behind. Desynchronized in a way that seems so—

Unlike him. 

Disjointed. 

You blink in response. Perfectly synchronous. 

His lid twitches again. Just once. Brief. Pale, pink eyelids drop, unveiling a nebula of indigo veins on the smooth, thin surface as they roll down to half-mast over his eyes, now narrowed slightly in contemplation. Thought. 

Whatever is happening in his head can't be good. It causes a ripple over the lake. Little rings rebound outwards. 

He looks away first. A quick slide of his eyes to the corners, glancing out of the passenger side window. Whatever catches his attention is unknown to you. The anchor on his hand around your throat keeps you still. Immovable.

(Every instinct in your body compels you not to look away from him because nothing outside could ever be scarier, more dangerous, than him.)

A second later, he breathes in through his nose. The fabric of his mask is pulled into his nostrils from the force, forming little black holes under the crooked arch. 

You hadn't really given much thought to his appearance outside of big, massive. But there's a strange asymmetry to the slopes and valleys beneath the balaclava. Trying to map his face, fill in the blanks with just black cloth and vague, lopsided outlines, is impossible. There are too many gaps. Too many missing pieces. You can only wonder, then, what he looks like under it. 

Monstrous, you hope. 

It's just a coincidence that he looks at you the moment the thought passes, but you flinch like a naughty child getting caught doing something you shouldn't when the heavy, dour weight of his impenetrable stare is levelled at you once more. Your heart stutters. It's loud in your ears. In the truck. 

You wonder if he can hear it just as loudly as you do—

Another blink, and his gaze flickers down, settling on the gap between your lips, watching the little tremble they make with each shallow hiccup of air you greedily suck in. His head tilts to the side, eyes never leaving your mouth even as he leans down, masked lips brushing over the beading sweat gathering on your hairline. 

It's a brief touch. A taste. You tremble when he pulls back, fingers tightening around your flesh. 

His eyes are lavascapes.  

“Are you, birdie?” 

You almost forget what he's asking. The conversation hidden between the scant beats it took for him to measure your worth with the blistering intensity of his stare, and the tumult of your feelings still looping around each other in your belly. Knotting up tight into a ball. There's fear, of course there is. 

But the rest—

You'd rather not think about. 

The grip on your throat eases just enough for you to shake your head no to whatever he is asking. Doing anything funny, you think, scrambling at the tangle of memories flipping past, trying to connect the pieces to a puzzle you've already forgotten. 

It must be the right response. Or maybe it's another question like before, a test where there’s no right answer. 

Run, stay. 

Smart and stupid. 

But it seems to appease him—marginally. His eyes crease. Tightening. His other hand folds over your throat, sliding until his palms kiss the sides of your neck in a near-perfect symmetry. 

Something frissons across the blank, placid lake of his expression. Another ripple. A shudder. He leans in for a moment, nose touching the apple of your cheek, and when he breathes in, it’s sharp, reedy. Cold air ghosts over your skin. Long, pale lashes flutter when you swallow. 

He hums quietly under his breath before peeling back. The flatness to his gaze is back; a cold, impenetrable distance widening like a chasm as he uncoils around you. You almost fall for this—this indifference. An icy nonchalance. But you've been eating the minuscule quirks of him just as ravenously as he's been devouring yours. 

There is something there. A fracture, maybe. A splinter. 

But what leaks through from the other side isn't anything close to warmth. It's—

Hunger. 

The shift in your throat draws his molten gaze to your neck, still wrapped tight in his firm grip. Your reflection blooms in the vat of black; eyes wide, all white. Pupils narrowed to a pinprick. Mouth slack, corners tugging downward from the pressure of his hand. The tilt of your head. His thumbs press under your chin, pushing you back further until it feels like your neck might break—

He stops. Shifts. You puff out a shallow breath. 

What looks back at you is unremarkable in the murk. A sliver of fear. A slip of unease.

Eye of the beholder, you think when his breath chuffs out shallowly through the mask. When that hunger is ground down to a raw, esoteric fissure hairlining the black of his eyes. The widening expanse of his pupil. 

You wonder if it's your fear that itches under his skin, dredging up something predatory in his hindbrain. The urge to chase. To bite. 

But the nearly indiscernible flicker of his gaze has you brushing that idea aside when it snags on the expanse of his hand coiled around your throat. Easily swallowing it whole with just his palms. 

You're not a small thing, but the indomitable size of him makes you feel insignificant. 

You think he feels it, too. 

His fingers flex over your nape, stretching. Pulling. It pushes the flat of his palm into your throat, ridges crushed against your trachea. But you can still breathe. It's shallow. Hoarse. A touch painful. Dizzying in a way that makes you feel like you're on a rollercoaster. A teacup ride that just spins and spins and spins—

The gap closes. A sliver of air snakes down your throat. Muscles flexing, shifting. Struggling to swallow around the pinch of his hand. A harrowing task when you feel the gloved fingers link to the first, then the second knuckle, tying together in a too-tight, impossible, noose around your neck. Thumbs overlap. Fingers slide into place. It forms a chain of his hands with no gaps between them. Not a single sliver of skin shows from under the leather of his gloves. 

He makes a sound when they meet—a nasal groan in the back of his throat, mouth clenched shut so the air has no choice but to tear through his nose. It's raw. Fractured. The devastating moan of a tiger nuzzling at its meal. 

Your vision blurs. A black fog presses into the edges, seeping over the arch of your peripherals. Dripping down slowly over the hazy smear of the man. The way the ochre sun peeks over the angular roof of the accountant's office illuminates his back and casts swaths of shadows over his front. Drenching him in murk. 

Despite the flickering darkness shuttering over your sight, you don't blink. Even as the tears prickle at your eyes, they stay open. Fixed on him. Black holes, you think, watching as the fever marbling those obsidian pools recedes. Cools. 

He makes that noise again. Softer this time. A purr from deep in his chest. A breath. And then he peels back. His hands go slack. His shoulders slumping back into the lax, easy spread from before as you gasp hard, nearly choking on the flood of air that roars down your throat. 

Your cheeks feel hot for a moment, and then cold. Icy. You don't have to touch them to know that you're crying. That the deluge clinging to your lashline spilt over, dripping messily to the collar of your shirt. 

The placid lake is back. In the stillness, you heave. Mouth hanging open, chin quivering. His thumb lifts, slides over the curve of your chin. You don't feel it. Numbed, maybe, by the brief kiss of hypoxia. But you see it. Watch as he slides it up to the jut of your lower lip, the black, angular tip tickling over your skin. He follows the seam between skin and lip, tracing it to the corner of your mouth. It's slick. Drool pools in the crease, dribbles over the top of his finger. His eyes drop when he mops it up, catching it on the pad. 

He makes another noise. An arid rasp bubbling between the soft tissue behind the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue. It's ugly. The shiver you try to fight back slinks through. 

His hand peels away from your neck, movements lax. Slow. The unwinding gait of an idling tiger in no real rush, no hurry, because there's nothing in the frigid Arctic that can touch him. 

You watch him with flared eyes as he brings his thumb to his clothed mouth, and rubs your spit into the fabric of his mask. 

His eyes don't break away from yours once. 

Your spit doesn't stand out against the black of balaclava, but the idea of it burns through you. Throwing you headfirst into a dazed stupor. Dizzy. Confused. 

Satisfied with whatever it was supposed to mean, he clambers out of the truck before coming around to your side. Distantly, you're sure this is what he meant by funny ideas when he passes the headlight, head straight and eyes gliding around the empty street. An opening to run. You know where you are. It would be easy to flee. Hide in the construction zone just ahead, tucking yourself into the tightest corner you can find until help arrives. 

Help, though. 

Officer, please. I got caught selling meth in the mob's territory and now they're going to skin me alive. Please hurry—

Right. 

They'd rather help bury your body than get in the way of the mafia. Gangland violence isn't their concern unless it tumbles out into the street. Fat wallets keep even the most compassionate person quiet. Willing to turn a blind eye. 

You'd be thrown in a cell. Or dropped off at their doorstep. 

Either way—

You won't be coming back alive. 

There's nothing to steel, harden, when he pulls the door open, your nerves long since ground down to fine powder. Nothing to fight against, either. He hauls you out of the truck, hands firm on your skin. Bursting blood vessels easily between his fingers. Barely any effort at all to crack your bones. 

The moment in the car seems miles away when he pulls you in front of him, hand curling over your nape. Any flicker of humanity rendered out when he pinches you tight and shoves you forward. Dragging you back to the butcher shop by the scruff of your neck, leading you down a narrow set of stairs to the basement where pale white carcasses hang from hooks on the ceiling. He laughs when you tense. When your heels dig into the brown-stained linoleum. 

Ain't gonna hang you, he mocks, fingers dipping punishingly into the sides of your neck. “Not yet, anyway—”

It brings little comfort when he drags you to a room in the back, kicking open the door with the toe of his boot before pushing you inside with a nudge against your nape. 

It's dark. Walls covered in stains; mould, mildew. Something you hope is just rust. A single mattress is shoved into the corner; sheets stained with sweat and grime. Tinged a pale brown. Two pillows sit at the top, lopsided and matted with use. Threadbare. A twisted, black heap of fabric sits at the bottom. Wisps of cotton poke out from the cigarette burns. 

A pair of muddy, black boots sit against the wall at the end of the bed. A basket of clothes—jeans, black shirts, black sweaters—is piled on the wall across from the door. 

The room smells of stale sweat and old cigarettes. 

You don't want to be here. The thought is abrupt. Immediate. Unease prickles along your nape, warmed and damp under his gloved palm. Between the look of the room—the floors stained the same suspicious brown, the rumpled bed in a corner—and the smell, you know this is not a place you want to stay. To be trapped inside with a man cut from Everest; whose hands are more dangerous than the sharp end of a knife. 

He must feel the tension brimming beneath your skin; the spark of adrenaline surging through your veins. The clamp of his hand on your nape digs in tighter. Holding firm. 

A breath tumbles out, thickening with mockery. “Like I said,” he leans down, pressing the mountainous width of his chest into your spine. The accentuation in your size difference, how big he is in comparison to you, makes you feel like prey. Small. Brittle, thin. He eats you whole. Spares nothing for later. “I wouldn't do that if I were you.” 

Another nudge and you're pushed further into the room. He leans away, foot shoving back on the door until it snaps shut with a noise that cuts through the gossamer that spun around you, bifurcating reality from dream. The haze is wafted away, and all that remains is a barren room with a lumpy mattress, the smeared stain of rotten blood coagulating on the floor, and his body boxing you in. No escape. 

The rumble of his chest shakes loose the cobwebs spooling across your thoughts. A brush of humid air ghosts along the line of your jaw, dampening the skin below your ear as he leans in close, too close, and purrs: 

“Go on now. Strip for me.” 

Each scrap of clothing you slowly roll off of your body is exchanged for a slip of information about him—who he is (Simon Riley, the name rumbled through the split between his teeth; a low, brassy purr as his eyes gleam in the dark, drilling into the expanse of skin unveiled to him)—and what he wants—

Nothing, he tells you, lifting one massive shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug. Jus’ what's owed to me, pet. For stickin’ my neck out f’you. 

You don't think he did. Not really. But you're harshly reminded of the unsubtle threat. The gun balanced on his massive thigh. So wide, so big, it seems to make it look smaller in comparison. Tiny. A toy. 

Child's play. 

It's made worse, somehow, as he lounges. Sprawls out on the bed, legs spread, pulling taut on the jeans that stretch around the thickness of his upper thigh, bunching around his calves in a half-tuck inside his black boots. Arms flexing. Folded over his broad chest. He rolled the sleeves of his black shirt up to his elbow, showing off an impressive tapestry of harsh, faded black ink. Crisscrossing lines. All asymmetrical. Guns, barbed wire. A bullet with a wide, toothy grin—

All of it knits together; woven into a tangled mass of muscle. Of man, hidden under scar tissue. Rope burns on his wrists cut so deep that the skin is permanently dented in. More cigarette burns hidden inside the mess of ink. Jagged lines—from a knife, maybe; bullet wounds. 

His skin tells stories of a terrible life. Ink spills over the worst of them, but they're visible under the fading charcoal. A series of burns—acid, fire, chemical—and raw, torn skin. He looks like he's been mauled. Pressed into the cold metal of a wood chipper until chunks of flesh were taken out. But even with these deep gouges, craters of missing tissue, he's big. Bulky. Soft—like a tiger. Predatory muscle tucked away under a thick layer of fatty tissue. 

The pillowed pouch of his belly, the softness around his biceps—

It belies the danger underneath. The steel. 

But as scary as it is, it has nothing on his eyes. 

Glinting in the dim room. Dark pools of obsidian that follow each movement with an almost clinical keenness. Sharpened to a razor's edge. 

They might be pretty, you think, if they weren't so intense. So liquid. His eyes gleam like wet ink, languidly rolling along his lashline as you clumsily shed your jacket, your blouse. Shoes, socks. Pants. Until you're in nothing but your panties.

Swallowing around the influx of panic that flutters like little birds beating their wings against the soft walls of your throat, you slip your fingers into the hem, now or never, and—

And you hesitate. 

There's a difference between undressing willingly and doing so to save your life. It should spurn you on—survive, survive, survive—but you freeze at the apex. The summit is within reach. 

You know what happens when you climb it. Cross over the invisible threshold. 

What you've been trying to ignore this whole time, ever since he shoved you into the room with a huff, taking his perch on the edge of the bed, legs spread wide, but in such a terrifying state of vulnerability, nearly nude, you can't any longer. Can't avert your gaze to the stained linoleum in a thinly veiled effort to keep from glancing at the thickening bulge lying prone against his thigh. 

His—

Well. 

You knew what he wanted when he grabbed your face in his hand, squeezing your cheeks until your lips pursed, puckered for him to run his finger along the inseam. Prying your teeth apart. Rubbing his finger over your tongue, eyes dark—full; black holes pulling, tugging you in, dragging you closer to the event horizon framed in a ring of arsenic—and locked on to the sight of his gloved knuckle disappearing into your mouth. Wanting. Hungry. 

You knew. And now—

Committing to it is legions above what you’re mentally prepared for. Nausea brims, churns your stomach. Unease curdling inside of you like rotten milk. 

You don’t want this. But you don’t have a choice, do you?

That notion, the idea, prickles along your nape, raising the fine, peach-fuzz there until it stands on end. 

You freeze. Movements still as every muscle in your body tenses. Coils. You can't do it. Can't—

A huff is dragged out of his chest as he sits up, knocking the gun carelessly to the mattress. His eyes daggering, sharpening into needlepoints, as he stares at you. 

“Gotta do everything f’myself, do I?” 

A grunt and he’s up. Pulling himself to his feet with nothing but the flex of his abdominal muscles. 

There's no reprieve. Not a moment graced to gather your bearings before he crosses the distance between you. Once a comfort, a chasm, now conquered in a single stride.  

The tips of his gloves are cold when they brush over your skin, sliding down the slope of your waist until they meet the hem of your panties. The last piece of modesty you have—

But he doesn't wait.

You're aware that this isn't a non-consensual thriller where the lead looms over the hapless love interest, eyes blazing with passion and need. That each interaction is drenched in a thick, palpable tension tethering the two together. Urges coalescing. Threads pulling taut, magnetic, dragging them closer and closer to the brink until they tumble over. 

This is reality. And he doesn't stare into your eyes with an all-consuming desire as he slowly removes that last scrap of fabric keeping him from devouring you. No. 

His skin-warmed fingers push under the elastic band with a rough shove, curling into the fabric until it tightens across your pelvis and thighs, and then he huffs, annoyed, and pulls. Pulls—

Until something gives. 

The lace yields to the tension in his flexing bicep, and scrapes over your skin as it rips apart in his hand, threads snapping. Popping. 

It hurts. Stings. You hiss, but the noise is ignored when he peels the ruined scrap of fabric from your legs, shoving it into his back pocket with a grunt of satisfaction. He looks back to you, eyes rippling like the dark, ink-black surface of a lake during nightfall, and coos, mocking and mean—

“Not s’hard, was it?”

He leans closer to you, a hand skimming up your spine before his fingers curl around your nape, keeping you still for just a breath before he pulls you into him with too much force. Your hands lift, palms slapping against his thick stomach when the movement nearly topples you over and threatens to break your nose on his chest.

“Makin’ me do all the work when y’supposed t’be payin’ me back? Ain't very nice o’you, is it?”

He touches you like he's taking stock of your worth. Grabbing a heavy, rough palmful of your beast in his hand, squeezing. Testing the weight, the softness, how supple you were between his fingers like he might with a piece of fruit. Meat. Prodding into the flesh, feeling the ripeness there. Gauging whether or not it was a piece he wanted to keep. 

It's demeaning. Humiliating. He treats you like cattle; presses into the elasticity of your muscle, examines every inch of your skin for blemishes. Scouring for imperfections. There's no softness in the way he grabs handfuls of your body—squeezing your breasts, pushing them together, rolling your nipples between his thumb and forefinger; pinching your belly, your sides, your waist; curling his fingers under your thigh, lifting it until it hitches over his waist, cunt exposed and pressed tight to the bulge trapped in his jeans. Your ass is handled rougher than the rest. Each cheek sitting in a hand, squeezed and punched and spread embarrassingly wide. 

He ruts into you as he does it. Pushes the thick, fat length of him into your belly, rolling his hips against you with a heavy, ragged puff of air. 

He feels big. 

Everywhere, of course—it’s not so much his height, but the absurd width of him that really digs into your hindbrain, crossing all those intricate wires until they're tangled up, knotted together. Seeing his thigh, the same scale as a tree truck, slotting between yours—a mere branch by comparison—makes your belly flop. Turn over itself.

The muddled wires spark. Heat pools between your hips.

He could crush your head between them like a bear pushing its paw down on a watermelon. 

It's fear and heat. 

The two work in tandem, forming a seamless cohesion, as they flit down your spine, brimming up the urge to sink to your knees, the need to roll over and show your belly. A paradoxical desire to both run and be chased. 

You're not sure if he's tendering your meat to eat later or if this is the usual type of foreplay he engages in, but once satisfied you're softened up enough for him, he shoves his fingers between your thighs with an abrasive hum that reverberates through his belly, tickling your palms. 

“Tired o’waitin’,” is what he says when your head jerks up, eyes widening in shock. Terror. Horror. “Don't look so surprised,” he huffs, dryly. Voice a rough scrap over your cheek. “What'd y’think was gonna ‘appen?”

“Wait—” but he doesn't. 

His fingers twist, pushing through your folds to graze your clit. It isn't gentle. It's sudden, quick. You gasp more from shock than pleasure; the rough slide of leather feels strange on your flesh, and your head is too muddled to separate fear from bliss.  

Despite that, your body heats. Reacts to his touch. Your lower lip wobbles. You bite back another sound that crawls up your throat when his knuckle catches on your clit again, the pressure just shy of too much. 

The burn, the fever, melts the unease. Shallow gasps spill out. Your cunt clenches, fluttering around nothing—throbbing, growing sticky, slick; achy and empty—when he starts to glide his digit between your folds. Little sawing motions drag each groove and stitch of his gloves over your pebbled clit, each thrust of his hand between your thighs making heat pool between your hips. It's done so clinically, so detached, like his hand rubbing over your leaking pussy was nothing to him. An action to get done, a task to complete. 

It's the shame of that, the embarrassment, that makes you want to weep. Your fingers dig into his chest, nails pulling uncomfortably on the pleated bumps of his jacket as you grip the fabric right between your fists, clinging to him like a newborn fawn—all wet-nosed, teary-eyed; knobbly knees threatening to buck. 

“S–stop—” you mewl when the monotonous rhythm melts into something harder, more intense. Heart thudding in your chest, heat burning you up as he turns his hand, palm up, between your sticky, shaking thighs. He rubs his hand back and forth, curling his middle finger up when he passes your hole, tip pushing against your leaking rim. 

The friction aches. The stretch stings. The leather feels strange, foreign when it pries your folds apart and dips inside of you. 

You don't like it. It's too much—

He makes a sound—a tut—when you pull away from him, standing on the tips of your toes until the blunt curve of his finger slides out of you. He sucks his teeth in a mockery of disappointment before digging his fingers, hard, into the sides of your neck. A warning. You whine. Whimper—

It goes unheeded. And when you press your thighs tight together, shivering at the slip-slide of your skin rubbing against each other, he growls. The noise is inhuman. Animalistic. 

Your act of deviance comes with a swift, bruising punishment. 

His fingers tighten on your neck once again. A warning squeeze as he reaches down with his other hand, grabbing your hip. It keeps you still, immobile, as he bullies his boot between your feet, kicking your legs apart. You're not expecting it. When you stumble, he huffs in amusement. Can't hold yourself up? Want me that bad, huh? Needy fuckin' thing, ain't you?

You don't get a chance to respond. His palm splays wide over your hip, leather creaking as he flexes, stretching his fingers out, tapping some soundless beat out against your skin. Touching you like he's owed the privilege. The right. And in many ways—

Go’ a problem, you an’ I

—he does. 

Brute strength, and an unmatched, almost laughable, dearth in your physicality ensures that he has the upper hand—even without the gun he left on the mattress; darker and flat, a full matte compared to what you were expecting. 

(They're always so shiny in movies, aren't they?)

The threat of it—dull as it might be—roots you to the spot as he slides his hand down, thumb brushing over your belly button, dipping in; pressing until your stomach starts to ache—

It peels away when the whine wells up, sloping down, down. Teases your mound with the tips of his fingers, gentle swipes along the sensitive seam of your belly and pelvis, the sensation is an odd tickle that pulls at your navel, pulses at the apex of your thighs. You mewl—a slow, soft thing that barely makes it out from between your teeth—and he lets his hand drop. Palm flat against the soft flesh of your mons, fingers reaching, spreading, until they curl over your folds. Index and ring finger tucked tight into the hollow bend of your pelvis and thigh. The tip of his middle rubs gentle strokes over the skin above your clit. It's a whisper of pleasure. The idea of a touch. 

Mindless, your hips flit, following his hand—

“Needy.” 

It cows you. Douses you in icy shame. There's barely any mockery in his even, observant tone, but you feel it unfurl over your shoulders all the same. 

He doesn't give you a moment to think, to let the ripples of humiliation take over, forcing you to pull away, hide. His fingers trail over your hood, the pebble of your clit. The sensation, the cool undertone in the leather of his glove, is unlike anything you'd felt before. The thick stitches in the fabric catch on your flesh, nerve endings flaring in pleasure. Heat blooms in your belly. 

It feels good. 

You gasp, head tipping back. His hand winds around your waist when your knees buckle, catching you with a rasping huff—

“Feelin’ good, ain't you?” He pulls you tight to his chest, finger rubbing circles around your throbbing clit. Your cunt clenches, empty, and you whine, needing something more. Something to fill the ache inside of you—

His finger slips. Slides easily between your folds, parting your lips around the thick of him until he reaches your drenched hole. The sounds it makes when he taps his finger against your fluttering core makes your toes curl. Has heat blistering over your cheeks, down the slope of your neck. 

It makes him groan. The low growl makes you throb, clenching in needy little pulls, pulses, as his finger dips into the slick dripping out of you. 

“Suckin’ me in,” he grunts, and pushes his finger inside, thrusting up to the last knuckle. Palm tapping against your folds as his index and ring finger close to give him more room to sink deeper into you. The messy, slick squelch is loud, rolling over the mewling gasps that tumble from your lips. 

Heat floods your belly at the belly-deep groans he lets out when you squeeze around him. 

“Stranglin’ my fuckin’ finger, birdie—” 

He leans down, knocking his forehead against the side of your face. It's more intimate than you were expecting. Jarring. The proximity plays a twisted game inside your head—the urge to run, to roll over coalescing into a paralyzing tailspin. Rooting you to the ground when the warm, damp knit of his mask grazes your cheek. 

The intimacy of his head on yours is eclipsed when you can feel the shape of his mouth through the fabric. 

It's softer than you expected. A plush, fleshy give when he presses his lips against your skin. And—

A gap.

On the side of his mouth, there's a gouge. A pockmark. You feel the gap, the absence, of his flesh when he rolls it over your cheekbone. You try to read the asymmetry of his face—mapping all of these misshapen parts; his mauled lips, the crooked nose that digs into your skin and leaves behind a tacky smear of condescension when he breathes out through his nostrils in a heavy puff of air—and convince yourself that you're doing it so you can bring these patchwork pieces to the police later. 

Survival, you think, your head tilting back as he noses down your neck, tickling along your skin. 

(And when your cunt flutters around the rough, thick drag of his finger petting along your walls, you add: a bodily reaction. That's all it is.)

He takes another lungful of your scent before he rocks back on his heels, pulling away from you. Straightening up. Looming above you once more. 

“Now—”

He pulls his finger out of you slowly and you try not to whimper at the empty feeling that brims up. The way your hips rock toward him, seeking and eager. Wanting.

Needy, just like he said. 

Just a bodily reaction—

He holds his hand up to the dim light flickering over his head, fingers spreading apart as he takes in the glossy shine of his middle finger. 

The gleam of it makes your ears feel hot. Shame pools in your belly as he makes another noise—a groan, deep and low, in the back of his throat. Eyes darkening as his pupils bloom, eclipsing his irises in an endless pool of black. They flicker toward you, listing half-mast in a way to leonine, so predatory, that it shudders through your bones. Run, run—

His hand flexes around your waist when you twitch. A warning. A threat. You tremble when he leans in, masked lips brushing over your cheek once more. Breath ghosting through the fabric, tickling the inside of your ear. 

He smells of war. Of fire and brimstone. Napalm and nitroglycerine. You want to close your eyes, look away, but you can't. His proximity alone roots you to the spot. Turns you into a prey animal, frozen on instinct alone as he prowls around, creeping closer. Maw stretching wide, drooling dripping off razor-sharp canines—

“Let's see if y’worth all the trouble.” 

—and he bites.

Knocks his palm into your sternum, roughly shoving you down on the mattress.

His hands fall to the button of his jeans. “Ready?” He asks, but doesn't seem to care about your answer. Opts, instead, to fall to his knee beside you. It pulls on his zipper, tugs it all the way down with a sharp, metallic sound that cuts through the stagnant air as each ring of teeth is pried apart. 

You can't help it. You look. Dragged there by something primal, magnetic—the morbid curiosity to see the monster for yourself as it tries to take a bite. 

And almost immediately, you wish you hadn't. 

The spread of pale skin, dark curls jutting out from the split of his jeans, makes everything feel more real, and moving fast. Whiplash quick. Happening in a blink:

The shift of fabric as he pulls the mask up over his lips, letting rest on the crooked bridge of his nose. A flash of his mouth, mangled. Mauled. Full of ugly, pale pink scars. A gap where tissue once knit his upper lip together. The bite of crooked teeth as he brings the sticky, wet tip of his glove to his mouth, sinking in. Pulling. Tugging. The roll of skin—a rose, a gun, a skull—all encased in barbed wire; thick rivers of blue-green veins. 

Another pull and it's free. Dangling between his teeth for a moment as he reaches up and shoves the jacket off his shoulders. Rolling and thick. Wide. A broad chest. Soft belly. There's an inch of flesh around the expanse of him—biceps, thighs, calves, chest, stomach, shoulders—but it's a buffer for the corded, streamlined muscle beneath. A layer of fatty tissue. 

Like a tiger, hiding its dizzying musculature beneath a thick, loose pelt. 

When he moves, it flexes. His shoulders roll; muscles bunching together, pulling taut under soft skin. The jacket slides off. Falls to the ground behind the mattress. Forgotten, discarded. The glove is next to go. Dropping from between his teeth, landing just beside your ankle with a muted thud. 

He follows after it. Ink spilling over his lashline as his eyes drop, staring at the roll of his skin tucked on the outside of your thigh. Trailing up to your knee. Your hip. The split of your cunt beneath your other leg; knee tucked to your chest. 

A flash of something, a flicker, is the only warning you get before the back of his hand is nudging the glove off of your skin, replacing it with the rough, calloused grip of his palm. 

You jerk at his touch, flinching back—

He's intimidating above you like this. Leaning back on his haunches but still as tall as you are standing up. The sheer absurdity of his height—his width—is dizzying. Gives you vertigo when you look up. 

His throat shifts when you move. A swallow. Coarse stubble grows down the column of his neck, dusting over his lower jaw, chin. The rest is swallowed by the balaclava bunched around his crooked nose. 

He's not—

He's not handsome. 

A smattering of crisscrossing scars, burns, skin pocked and gouged out in deep pockets along his flesh—the slide of a knife carving away at him, you think; digging down to his marrow—all take away from any sense of modern attractiveness you might feel for him with his broad, jagged nose and full lips. 

But there's something rugged about him. Untamed. Wild. Appealing in a dangerous way. 

You don't know if you would have let this happen under different circumstances. If this minacious beauty of his would have worked on you enough to want it outside of this awful, almost unfathomable trade. 

He's too big. Wouldn't even fit inside of your house—

The graze of his thumb on your angle knocks the thought loose, and you're dragged back to the heat of his hand. Rough and coarse; palms slightly damp from the glove. It tugs on your flesh as he draws it up, a rubbery sort of pain as it catches on the soft, dry skin of your ankle. Your shin. 

He follows behind a second later, pulling himself into the mattress with a huff, knees shuffling forward as he crawls over you. The jostling rocks your body. Makes your breasts shake as he lumbers on the bed, hand still sliding up, up, until his fingers curl over the bend of your knee. 

The bed dips under his weight. Your body sagging, rolling into the divot beneath his knees. Tucked under him. Loomed over. He stares down at you through the cutout of his mask, eyes liquid in the gloam. Pools of melting, dripping obsidian. Black holes. Event horizon—

You look away before it drags you in. Submissive. Softened under the harsh burn of his flat, wide stare. He chuffs when your nose brushes over the thin skin of his wrist, mouth sliding over the thick, pulsing vein stretching down from his inner arm and curling into the bend of his hand. Your lips purse, and he makes that noise again. 

Quietly amused, and—

He shuffles forward until the backs of your thighs are pulled over his, spread out on his lap. Bare. Open to him. 

And he looks. 

And looks. 

Hungry, you think. Quietly amused and hungry—

The notion is wrenched out of your head when he shifts his weight. Watches the folds of your pussy open for him as he pulls your knees wider apart, head dropping between his massive shoulders, gaze drilling into the split of your thighs. Gasping at the sting, the sudden stretch, does little to deter him from shoving your leg down until the outside of your knee touches the bed. Muscles straining. Pinching. It hurts; hipbones twinging in agony. 

But the embarrassment burning through you singes all the pain. 

You're spread open under him. Bare. Legs tangled around his waist, stretched wide around the width of him. Ankles knocking into the hard plains of his lower back each time he shifts. 

“Fuckin’ hell—” he grunts. Snarls. The word ripped up from the back of his throat, forced through the twisting channels of his nose. Nasal and ugly when it scrapes out between his teeth. “Gonna ruin this pretty pussy, birdie.”

It's a threat. A promise. You twist, mouthing your protests into the warm skin of his wrist. 

There's something about his voice—that airy, brassy tone—that strikes a chord deep inside you. Makes heat pool between your thighs, leaking out in a syrupy mess—

His hand peels away from your knee, sliding down your sticky, damp inner thigh until his knuckles graze the sensitive slip of skin sitting between your outer lip and hip. That ticklish, belly-fluttering sensation blooms in your groin as he rubs his scarred knuckles over the crease, catching the slick gathered there on his thick, meaty thumb. 

“Fuckin’ soaked,” he groans, shifting his fingers until they cover the whole of your cunt, cradling you in his hand. He holds you like that for a beat, eyes locked on the way you're swallowed up by the broad stretch of his palm. 

The rough drag of his skin over your folds feels good. An all-encompassing heat spreads over your tender flesh from the curve of your ass to the bump of your mons where his middle finger rests, almost touching the strip of skin between your loins and your belly. Held in his grasp. Cradled in his palm. 

Your thighs twitch. A shallow jerk as your knees try to bend over his hand, but you can't. With his thumb and pinkie tucking into each crease between your outer lip and leg, it keeps you from closing your legs. Hinged by the wide, flat cup of his palm. 

And it shouldn't bludgeon through you the way it does. All heat. All want. Need. A growing ache you can't think around. 

(bodily reaction, you think even as the image of his hand—big with thick fingers, scarred knuckles; streaks of faded, ashy ink etched into milky, veined skin—laying over your pussy, swallowing it whole, sears into your mind—)

“Can feel your little cunt,” he grunts, feeling the pulse, the little throbbing pulls of your muscles as they twitch at the sight. The feeling. Clenching down around nothing. “Greedy little thing, ain't you, birdie?”

Anger paints his words as he rasps them out. A teeth gnashing, jaw clenching frustration that needles into the scorn, the fury, forced out between the tight seam of his crooked teeth. 

You don't understand it. Can't, maybe. 

But it's tucked away as quickly as it appeared, shifting into an ugly, mocking derision. Dry. Acerbic. His teeth flash, lip pulling upward in a sneer—a snarl—before he hums, sliding his hand down. The drag of his damp, rough fingers over your swollen folds has your knees falling open wider around his thick thighs, baring yourself willingly to him. 

Want it bad, don't you? He mocks, and the sound of his voice alone has your pussy clenching tight, belly fluttering around the abrasive scrape of his tone. Brassy and full. Gritty. You whine, hips inching up—

His hand peels off of your slit. The rush of cold air drags another whimper out of you, hips pushing up to chase the heady, molten feeling of his skin on yours. And he's amused by it—a laugh echoes out, crackling in the hollow of his throat at your desperation—but you're too achy, too hot, to feel the simmer of humiliation nipping the apples of your cheeks. 

He's not even making a real effort to pleasure you, to make you feel good, and yet—

Your hips twitch toward him in needy, mewling cants; please sits on the tip of your tongue, cradled between your teeth. Slips out on a shaky, breathless gasp when he meets you on the next buck of your hips, palm slapping over your wet slit. 

The crack echoes through the room. Rough, dry skin on soaked flesh. 

And it shocks you more than it hurts. The sting is there, of course, but it's just an afterthought to astonishment. An eye-widening disbelief masking the way your cunt smarts, throbbing from the slap. Nerves muffled behind the burn in your eyes, the searing heat pooling in your sinuses. 

Wrenched open, unblinking as you stare up at him, your eyes begin to sting, to water. You blink, and feel something hot trickle down your cheek. A tear. His eyes snap to it. Pupils narrowing to a pinprick as he watches it slide down your face, little droplets clinging to your jaw. 

“Poor baby,” he mocks, tilting his head as he tracks the teardrop. “Better behave.” 

Behave. Like he's admonishing a child and not an adult. 

It morphs; rots. Becomes yet another thing you shouldn't feel feverish over. The slick, sticky feeling grows between your thighs as your cunt flutters at the humiliation of it all. 

And deeper—maybe—the bastardized sense of care—

(Punishment is affection in its own, special (awful) way and you've been aching for something just like it, haven't you—)

It's pushed down. Swallowed. And you know in the back of your head that if you keep eating these feelings, you're going to be sick. But you can't stop. Barely breathe around the idea of them sometimes—

“Tha’s’it,” he coos like he knows. Sees them bright and burning behind your irises. Little flickers of need, a smouldering want that you'll never grasp at yourself. 

So he gives it to you. 

The rough slide of his hand, all scarred and dry and calloused, scrapes over your slit once more. A full, flat stroke upward until your clit bumps into the ridge of his palm. Then down, down—

His fingers spread. Ring and index prying your folds apart as he pushes up once more, opening your seam to slip his middle finger through the slick, sticky mess that drips out of your burning cunt. 

“Gonna be good f’me?” 

The slide of his fingers drags the tip up to the bump of your clit. You stare down at it, fixed on the jut of his ink-black knuckles threading through your folds. The crease of his nail as he slips his fingers up higher, pad pushing over your pebbled clit. They're dirty. Grey-black under his nails. Congealed with dirt. Blood, maybe. 

Your stomach churns even as your hips lift. Eager, searching. Hating yourself each second of it. It's gross. Disgusting. 

You want his dirty, thick fingers inside of you—

“When I ask a question—” the tip circles over your clit. A shallow roll that pools heat between your thighs. “I expect an answer.” 

“Y–yes,” you stammer out, hips flexing against his hand. Seeking more of that white-hot bloom of pleasure he brings with each pass of his finger. 

“Good girl—” and you hate how it burns you up from the inside out. “Wasn't s’hard, was it?”

The retort is bitten back with the slow swipe of his finger drawing tight, small circles around your clit. His fingers are rough, scarred. Too dry. The abrasive drag over your soft sensitive flesh makes you whine—a drawn-out whimper nestled between clenched teeth. 

It's too much. 

Too harsh. Too sharp.

He rolls your clit under the pads of his fingers in jerking half-circles. Puts too much pressure on the bundle of nerves than you ever would—your touches are always soft, sickeningly sweet; gentling your flesh until you cum—and the sting, the burn, of it makes your toes curl. Body burn. 

It's good. 

And that's the problem. 

It shouldn't be. His touch shouldn't make you so wet, growing slick and sticky between your spread thighs, bare to his hungry, prying gaze. Shouldn't make you moan. Hips twitching with each stroke of his fingers—

And then he peels away from you, but the time to mourn the loss of his touch, the fear of losing this trembling ember pleasure, is snuffed out when he presses his wet, slick fingers against the inside of your knee. The touch is intentional. Insistent. He makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat before pushing it down to the mattress. The twinge of pain swallowed up as quickly as it forms when he drops to his elbows between your thighs, forearms curling under your legs, and tugs you sharply into him. 

Heat floods your belly when the backs of your thighs press tight to his broad, muscular shoulders, but it's nothing compared to the sight of him on his knees between your legs. It's so obscene you nearly weep—

And then he leans down and licks a long, broad swipe of his tongue over your cunt. 

You hadn't expected it, maybe. His mouth on your pussy, his broken, jagged lips sealing over your pebbled clit. Going down on you seemed too intimate for what he was after. His end goal. It does nothing for him at all—

You realise your mistake when he dips his tongue into your hole and his hips jerk forward. Unconscious. Eager. Seeking. The shifting drags his jeans down his hips, and his cock slips free. 

Most of the cocks you've seen—in porn, pictures, art—jut out from the person's groin. standing at attention, the nasty comments used to say. Jokes whispered on the playground. But his falls. Droops down between big, folded thighs. Skin marbled in shades of red, peach. Deep gouges dot his upper thighs, some sinking deep enough to reach bone. More scar tissue than flesh. 

—than man.

It looks raw. Fresh. Some injuries not too dissimilar to the Wagyu hanging in the front of the storeroom, on display and oh, so out of place in a town where the richest man must be just a hair above the poverty line. 

On paper, anyway. 

You swallow, avoiding his gaze as he pauses, dark eyes watching you with his mouth pressed against your seam. Unmoving. Still as a predator between your thighs, cock visible between the bow of his torso, jutting sickeningly from mangled legs as you gawk at this hideous thing that makes several, half-hearted attempts to spring up towards you, spitting clear, milky liquid all over with each jerk. Tugged down by its own weight. Too heavy to fight against gravity like the rest of the cocks you've seen have done—

Normal cocks, you amend. Textbook. 

His is anything but. 

Ugly, you think again, stomach churning. Roiling. Obscene. An odd thing considering what you're looking at but all too fitting with the way it droops, big, flared head drooling pre-cum all over the bed in long, dangling stands that prickle over your jaws—half nauseous, half hungry, too. Saliva pools in your mouth even though the sight of his cock scares you. Fills your belly with dread. Misery. 

It looks like a bruise. Skin smeared with purples, reds. Patches of pink. Long, thick veins run up from the fattened, full base to the divot of his frenulum. Thick. It hangs low. Drips. 

He raises slightly and shoves his hand down between his thighs, big hand curling over the fat base of his cock. His grip is tight around himself, and he strokes up, from base to tip. It squeezes more precum from the flushed, fat head, and dribbles between your spread thighs in a thick, pearlescent puddle. 

It makes your mouth dry. That twinge in your jaws coming back. Festering. You wonder if he'll make you take that thing in your mouth. Choke you on it. Taste his precum—

“Fuck,” he snarls into your cunt, hand jerking over his cock. “Keep lookin’ at my cock like tha’, birdie—”

You gasp at the rough grunt, the way it seems to tremble through your sensitive flesh. More, though, from the way he sounds. His voice brassy, rough. Unkind, but the words bloom a fresh heat behind your navel. 

His voice does things to you. Things you're not allowed to like. 

Those thoughts are knocked from your head when he bows down again, eyes still fixed on you, and seals his wicked mouth over your cunt. It's hard to compare it to anything else other than being devoured. Eaten in the truest sense of the word. 

His tongue splits down your seam, tip digging into your slick hole. A groan bubbles up at your taste—the soft, fluttering clench of your body trying to drag him in deeper. Needing him deeper. A huff of air ghosts over you, dipped in the same derision as earlier but the harsh slap of skin on skin, his hand working furiously over his cock, makes you acutely aware of how much this affects him. 

“Taste good, birdie,” he grunts, and then sucks your fold into his mouth, laving it with his tongue and teeth until the skin is tender, swollen. “S’fuckin’ good—”

Your breath catches when the crooked arch of his nose presses taut to your clit. Pleasure twisting in a dizzying pirouette inside your belly, winding tighter and tighter—

His nose jerks up on your clit. Lips moulded to your seam, you hear him rasp eyes on me, birdie. Don't fuckin’ look away—

The rough snarl trembles through your body, sinking its teeth into the coil until it snaps under its jaw. Your knees snap around his head as your release locks your joints tight. His name, Simon, a hoarse cry on your lips. You barely have time to bask in the ripples of pleasure throbbing through your body before he rips away from you with his teeth bared, and his chin wet. 

“Fuck—!” he snarls again, shoving your knees apart as he lifts his massive body up from between your thighs. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gotta be inside your tight cunt—”

He towers over you, grinding his cock into the apex of your thighs. The drag of his cock—a little damp from being stuck inside his jeans all day; balmy—against the dry skin of your belly makes you shudder. Shivering beneath him as he huffs through the mask. Head bowing. Dipping to look at the way his cock slaps down on you. Cockhead nudging above your belly button, dribbling a small puddle of pre-cum that gets smeared into your skin when he rocks back on his haunches. 

His hand wraps around the thick base of his cock once more, squeezing tight as he grips himself above you. It makes the head swell, engorged with blood. Thickening in his hand as globs of pre-spend leak out onto your belly. That feeling in your jaws comes back—nauseous and wanting. 

He leans back with a hum. “Like my cock, eh, birdie?” 

The crass words bring a fresh bloom of heat simmering in your veins, creeping up your collar. Like doesn't really cover what you feel when you stare at it—his inked hands running along the long, veined shaft—and the unsettled feeling in the pit of your belly rears when he nudges forward, the weeping head of his cock bumping your mound. 

It's humiliating how much want floods through you just looking at it. At him. Disgust, dread, desire. 

You don't answer. Not that you really need to—

Your silence is loud enough. 

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, the rasp thick in his throat. “M’gonna give it to you, pet—”

And he does just that. Slips the head of his cock down the slope of your mound, letting it graze your clit until you're panting, whining softly for more, and pulls it over your slit until his pre-cum is smeared over your drenched folds. You know exactly what this is even without glimpsing the ugly burn of his possessive desire smouldering in the back of his eyes—ownership. Greed. Hunger. It revels in the stain on your skin, from belly to slit; his, all his. Outside and soon—

In. 

It shocks a creeping sense of worry into you. “Wait, what about a condom—”

He snorts, ugly and caustic. “What about ‘em?” He taunts, and it's flat. Playful. 

“You should—”

He drags his gaze away from the pearlescent smear of his spend on your folds, your clit, and the even, placid look in that stagnant lake tells you everything you already knew. 

“I've never—” you start, wincing at the kernel of fear lacing your hoarse words. “Not without a condom—”

It's the wrong thing to say. Near cataclysmic. He drops his head back with a groan that rumbles out of the slope of his throat, sounding like the rip of a chainsaw. 

“Firsts for everything,” he purrs, and he nudges your entrance with the bare, weeping tip of his cock. 

“But—”

His hand lifts, catching your jaw in the too-wide span of his palm. The force makes your teeth clack together. 

“Need me to gag you, birdie?” 

You swallow. It's not much of a choice. Gagged and fucked raw, or—

Just fucked raw. 

No gag. No condom. You fight back a shiver and wish it was all just from fear. 

“No,” you murmur, like you have a choice. “No gag.”

“An’?” 

“Um. No–no condom, either—”

It's not enough. "What are you gonna let me do to this pussy, birdie?"

You know what he wants. What he's angling for. But there's a line, you think. A delineation between unwilling participant, coercion, and giving into the need that slinks down your spine, and rots inside your belly.

(Being forced to ask for it isn't permission, but what happens when you want it more than your next breath?)

The shame can come later, you think, and feel yourself give in. 

"Cum—cum inside me—"

“Good girl, birdie.” 

You hate what that does to you. How eagerly your body reacts to the dark possessive curl in his eyes when you do something he likes. 

He nudges your entrance again, this time with purpose. Intent. A heavy pressure pushing on your rim. Too tight, you think, and the sting of the first inch he feeds—forces—into you burns, pulsing behind your navel. His tip isn't even in yet, and it's already too much. 

You think about telling him so, offering up your mouth instead, but he leans down on his forearms, and catches your lips in a bruising, biting pantomime of a kiss. A blood-soaked parody with more teeth and tongue—sinking into your lips, nipping hard until the skin splits; catching all that spills with his tongue. 

With his weight pressed against you like this, there's nowhere to run when he cups your throat in his hand, winding the other up above your head, forearm tight on your crown to cage you in. And then he shifts. Bears his hips down on yours until the fat head of his cock pops inside of you. 

Your squeal is chewed up between his teeth, swallowed down with a rumbling groan. 

Caught beneath him, trapped, he works himself into you demanding, heavy thrusts. Each inch burns more than the last. A stinging stretch that brings tears to your eyes. It's already too much and it's not even half. Barely even the tip.

“Can't—” you slur into his wet, demanding mouth. “No more. I–I can't—”

The breath rushes out between his teeth. Your watery eyes drop to the divot above his canine. A permanent snarl. A condescending sneer. 

“You can,” he says decisively, words ground out from between crooked teeth. He presses them to your cheek, nipping at the skin under your eye. Possessive and wanting—

(Hungry for something you can't name—)

“And you will.” 

—Or maybe you just don't want to. Can't look at the thunderous need draped over his mangled, battered face without thinking of the rumble in your chest that echos back against his thundering call—)

Stupid, foolish thing—

The dark promise of his words isn't a threat until his hand tightens around your neck, nails grazing your skin, and he adds, all of me, birdie as he grinds his hips into yours shallowly. Broad chest expanding with each ragged inhale. Cementing his taunt with a steel edge as you try not to come undone beneath him. 

You'll take every fuckin’ inch—

He pulls back until only his glands stretch you open, and you know what's coming when his fingers grip the sides of your neck tight. Holding on. Anchoring you to the bed as he nudges his forearm tighter between your skull and the wall, a protective hold. 

Before you can tense up, bracing for it, or even cry out no, please, don't, you can't take it, he huffs, and then slams his hips forward, splitting you open on the fat stretch of his thick, too heavy cock. 

Maybe it's hysteria, delirium, but the blunt press of his length against your tender, sore walls balms the ache, the sting. The deeper he pushes, the less it hurts. A paradox that leaves you whimpering under his hand, heels digging into the broad stretch of his waist as you struggle to decide if you want to kick him away or pull him closer. 

A war you don't have the power to win when he surges forward, burying himself to the hilt with a growl that shakes the fragile tendons surrounding your heart. Fear, misery. Pleasure, pain. It admixes. Coalescing into a dizzying sense of fullness, unbearable pressure. Catastrophic in its heaviness as your mind reels, struggles to come to terms with the gut-wrenching, heart-aching uncertainty of how you're supposed to go on without having him seated as deep inside of you as he can get. You've never known emptiness before him. Before now. Mere seconds ago. 

And now, the thought of it leaves a palpable hollowness itching behind your ribs. Festering. Rotting tissue and bone. 

“Simon,” you choke, sobbing his name out under the firm press of his hand. “Simon—”

But he knows. 

His arm curls over your head like a crown, and you can easily forget the pinch of each thorn when he holds you tight. Protectively. Possessively. Securing you in his arms before he lifts up, palm sliding over the mattress, touch tender against your cheeks, and then settles it on the indent of your knee. Widening you for him as he spreads his thighs under yours until you're opened up for him. 

Those dark eyes are dragged down to the split of your legs where his cock disappears into your slick, swollen cunt. You follow it down, gazing at the impressive width of his stomach bowing over you until they land on the jut of skin pushing out from a messy smatter of damp curls around the base of his cock. 

The coarse hair of his groin unfurls as it sticks to your wet lips, and he rolls his head back over his shoulders he heaves through the too tight stretch of your walls over his length. You feel the pulse of him inside of you, thudding like a heartbeat. It blooms molten under the feverish weight of his lidded, dark gaze. 

“Fuck, birdie,” he rasps, and it's scorched. Charred. “Look at you—”

As the world is condensed, narrowed down to nothing but the near impossible stretch of his cock seated as deep inside of you as he can get, he leans down, scarred, mangled lips brushing cruelly over your ear, and whispers, see? Told you'd take me. 

Every fuckin’ inch. 

Your hand jerks to your belly, fingers dancing over your navel as if to feel him there, bulging from under your skin. Nearly hysterical as you try to come to terms with the pulsing, white-hot ache of him inside of you, slowly acclimating to his girth, his length. 

He grunts when he sees what you're doing, eyes flaring as your fingers skirt around your navel. 

“It's—” you shudder, gasping for air. “It's too much, Simon, I can't take it—”

He rolls his hips with a groan. “m’cock too big for you, birdie?” 

His usual cadence is flat, droll, but an unmistakable sense of masculine pride, a deep, egotistic sense of satisfaction, drapes itself over his brassy words. Glueing to the scorching rasp of his voice in a way that makes you unerringly certain that he likes it. Likes that his cock is too big for you. That it hurts. 

“Y’can take it,” he prompts, forcing more of himself into you until something snaps. Splits. Makes room. Carves out a space for him to fit. 

The brief flash of pain is soothed when he's seated deep. That same paradoxical balm making itself known as he flattens his hips into yours with a noise—half a grunt, or a growl; a lazy, pleasure-soaked snarl. You're not sure what it is, but the sound knocks the air from your lungs, igniting inside of you like a spark inside a tinderbox. 

It's only when his balls are flush against you that the same masculine pride brims up again. Primal. Animalistic. The urge to present your soft belly rears up suddenly, and it's only stifled when he grunts again, looking down at you with lidded, black eyes. 

“Now, be good and let me fuck your tight cunt.”

He's not looking for assent. Nothing you could say at this moment will sway his mind one way or the other. There's a nasty spool of determination welling up like blood on a pricked finger. Beading up to the surface in a clean, neat droplet as he rolls his broad shoulders, and shuffles into a comfortable position on his haunches between your spread thighs. The motion jostles his cock in a way that makes your breath hitch with each jerk. 

It's not painful. Not particularly. But you're overwhelmed by the sensation of utter fullness in a way you've never experienced before. Each grind of his cock against your overly stretched walls deeping that incipient feeling of anxiety brewing in your belly that one wrong move and you'll tear. He's just—

Too big. 

And despite his claims—or rather, in spite of them—you don't think you can do it. Don't think you can take him. It's too much. It feels like being turned inside out and then put back into place. An uneasy sense of discomfiture blooms with each too-tight, too-sharp tug of his cock pulling taut on your rim. 

Almost deliriously, you think you can feel the pulse of his cock inside your goddamn throat. 

“Simon—” you start on a tremulous breath but he cuts you off with a hum. 

“Relax.” 

You can't. Can't—

“Fuckin’ hell, bird,” he rasps, leaning down suddenly until his face was pushed tight into the curve of your neck, breath shallow on your thudding pulse. “Stop squirmin’ ‘round me like tha’ or I'll cum right fuckin’ now.”

Your heart stutters. Gallops painfully in your chest. His words make you dizzy because for as much as this feeling of him, his cock, inside of you dances on a delicate precipice of being more than you can feasibly handle and somehow the most incredible thing you'd ever experienced before, you hadn't considered how he'd feel. 

Inexplicably, it pleases you. 

There's something so strange—so extraordinary—about bringing a man like him, like this, to his knees. Pleasuring him by just heaving through the white-hot stretch of his cock inside of you. Making him bury his head in your neck, groaning about how he was gonna fuckin’ bust, pretty thing, fuck—

It was a powerful feeling. 

Unwarranted, maybe. But incredible, nevertheless. 

“Fuck,” he grunts, and you feel his throat work around a thick swallow. “Gonna fuck you, birdie. Gonna fuck this pretty cunt so fuckin' hard until you beg me stop—”

And he does just that. Rears back from your neck, and settles again between your thighs—quicker this time. With an urgency that makes you whimper when his cock grinds against your walls hard enough to bruise. 

When he finally pulls out until only the flared head of his cock remains, you knot a fist into the thin pillow, clinging on, and latch the other onto his hip as if that could somehow stop the vicious promise in his eyes about poundin’ you into the goddamn mattress. There's a flash, a brief flicker of his eyes, and then he thrusts back inside of you with a grunt that makes your belly clench, and your back arch. 

True to the promises he gave, it's brutal. Violent. 

Any pleasure you feel is leached through osmosis. A tether bound around his own. 

His arm is shoved under your back, angling your pelvis up. Thighs dangling over the thick spread of his own, ass seated in his lap. He drives into you, thrusts deep—grinds his hips until your moans break into hoarse screams, whimpers. Makes your eyes roll so far back, all you see is black even when you blink your eyes up at him. 

He carves a spot deep inside of you with each delirious piston of his cock, pounding into you with brutal thrusts, and then holding tight when his balls slap against your ass. Digging the head of his cock into the seal of your womb until it aches behind your navel. Each breath feels like glass in your lungs—

“Tha’s it,” he slurs in your ear, mouth damp against your skin. “Take my cock so good, pretty birdie. Little pussy was made for it, weren't you? Tight cunt all mine—”

His gruff words tug on that tether until you're wrapped around him like a bow. Following him down this endless spiral as he slams inside of you over and over again, cooing in your ear about the sounds you made for him, pretty cunt so fuckin’ wet f’me, birdie, hear tha’? all f’me—

“Cum f'me, birdie. Want this pussy cummin’ ‘round my cock—”

“Can't—” you gasp, arching into him, desperate and needy. It rides a line between pain and pleasure; a needlepoint you wobble on. “Need—”

You try to reach down, to touch your clit, but grinds his hips into yours with a snarl. “Cum ‘around my cock, birdie.”

“Touch me—”

“Fuckin’ hell—”

It edges on too much. Pain and pleasure teetering on a knife's edge, split apart by a line the width of a razer. Looping and tangling around each other until you can't differentiate between the two. But it makes sense, you suppose, staring up at him arched above you like a black cloud of smoke. All hunger and fire. Consuming, devouring, everything in its path. A wildfire. 

Butcher, you think again when his hand wraps around your throat. A mimicry of what he did in the truck, forcing your eyes on him. Your life tucked neatly against his palm.

These hands take lives. It's what they're made for. All scarred, and thick. Scar tissue and bone. Muscle and cartilage. Meant to render meat of cattle. Slaughterhouse in the shape of a man. Consumption personified. 

But where there should be fear, all you feel is an echoing sense of hunger. Leatherbound to each other, maybe—

The look that passes over his eyes as he stares down at you, cupped in his palm, seems to fit perfectly into the fractured gaps inside yourself you try so hard to ignore. And what doesn't—

Well. 

He'll make room to fit. 

You reach up, curling your fingers around his thick wrist. His eyes flash, but he doesn't slow his thrusts. Doesn't stop. Just watches as you peel his hand away from your neck, bringing it up to your mouth. 

On his palm, there's a piece of skin that's unblemished compared to the rest of his worn, burnt hands. A strip just big enough for you to sink your teeth into. 

And you do. 

“Fuck, Birdie—!” The snarl is ripped from his throat. His thrusts grow harder, sloppier. Each bit of strength in his muscled hips and thighs is used to pound into you until your vision blacks out. It hurts. Aches. Your heels slip down, catching on the broad expanse of his lower back. And you tighten them around his waist, pulling him closer. Deeper. “Fuck, Birdie, fuckin’ cunt was made f'me, wasn’t it? So cum on my cock. Now—”

Whining, you shake your head. “Can't. I can't. I need—”

You don't get to finish. With a huff of anger, he rips his hand off of the mattress, leaning back on his haunches, and shoves his hand between your thighs, scarred fingers stroking over your pebbled clit. It's rough. Sloppy. His anger hums through his body, skewering into you as he glared down, gaze swinging like a pendulum between the split of your thighs where his cock disappears into your swollen cunt, his fingers rubbing over your clit, and back up the hand around your neck, the tears staining your cheeks. 

There's an edge to his thrusts. A viciousness in the way he pistons his hips into you. Dark eyes catching every flicker—each wince, gasp, moan, whine all meticulously catalogued and exploited. He finds the spots that make your hips jerk, twitching both toward and away from him. Angling into the ones that have your eyes rolling back into your head, drool dribbling past your slack lips as you gasp his name out into the dank, humid air. 

It smells of sweat, sex, and him. Something brutal, bloody, and dark. Rotten leaves. Charred forests after a rain shower. Dangerous. Tinged with a slight acrid, chemical stench—benzene, oxidizing iron. It drips down your throat, and drenches your lungs. Staining you from the inside out. 

And he exploits that, too. Leans in, and breathes heavily against your upper lip, your cheek. Drowns you in his scent. His sweat beads along his jaw, droplets raining down over your brow. Soaked in his essence. Unable to see, smell, or touch anything that isn't him. 

With his hand over your mouth, teeth sunk into his palm, all you can taste is him, too. Leather. Gun oil. Blood. 

The ravenous look in his eye sharpens, turning into deadly points. 

“Such a pretty fuckin' bird.” He rasps, the words shattered, mangled in the back of his throat. They carry the scent of blood when you breathe them in, and you wonder if he forced them through glass. Pushed them out with his bloody fists. 

You bite down harder in response, keening through the white-hot pain of his cock spearing deeper than before, stretching you past your limits. The taste of blood on your tongue, the rasping snarl pulled from his chest, his fingers toying with your clit, push you over the edge once more. Again and again, and again, and—

His hand peels away from your oversensitive clit, dropping down to the mattress beside your face. He follows quickly after several impossibly deep thrusts that shove you higher up on the mattress, pressing in until his balls sit flush against your ass, cockhead battering against your cervix, and he groans—deep and liquid—when he comes, spilling inside of you. Rooted deep, cock twitching, Simon drops to his elbow beside your head, smothering you under his weight as the tension in his body bleeds out. 

Your teeth stick to the divots in his hand, and the sensation of ungluing them from the wounds you gave him makes you shiver. Slowly, you roll your tongue out, chasing the drops of blood, and breathe heavily through your nose as he burrows deeper inside of you, chest shuddering over yours. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he rasps, hips jerking into yours with a slap that echoes through the room. “Little tease, ain't you?” 

Even with his cock softening inside of you, it's still thick. Fat. Stretching you open as he yawns out above you, bloodied hand dropping down to cup your neck again, forearm resting heavily between your breasts. He raises slightly on his elbow, black eyes glinting in the shallow dark of the room. Piercing as they drill into your sweat-slicked face. 

It aches when he moves. When he presses his hips harder into yours, the muscles in your legs throb as his broad waist splits them apart. Your feet dangle, sliding uselessly down his back, over his ass, before coming to rest curled around his thighs. Melting into the mattress, tender and sore and all chewed up—

You feel like a massive contusion instead of a person. A pestle. His. 

The thought makes you shiver, and his eyes flash in triumph like he knows. 

The feeling of him pulling out of you draws a whimper from your lips. The drag on your sensitive, bruised walls is a strange mix of tender pleasure and pain. He chuckles at your mewl—dark and low; the sound of nightmares, you think. Crackling sap on charred wood. 

You try to pretend it doesn't make you shudder, but the way he hums in response dashes the feigned oblivion before it can form. All you can do is heave on the bed, and watch him through narrowed slits as he leans back on his haunches once again, head cocking to the side. His dark eyes fixed on the split of your legs. The ache in your cunt growing sharp under his molten stare. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, the shallow groan pulled out from between clenched teeth. You wonder if the mangled curse was unintentional. Ripped from his throat before he could clamp his jaws around it—a crack in the facade. A hairline splinter in the indomitable mask he wears. 

Your heart lurches. None of this makes sense, but your head is too muddled, too syrupy, to think much at all. A quandary for later when he throws you from his bed with a harsh slap on your ass and a and don't think about doing this ever again. 

But you don't think you can move. “Give me a minute,” you start on a trembling breath. “And I'll—”

His brows move but his eyes stay fixed on your sore cunt. You can feel him leak out of you, spilling on the mattress in thick globs. The sensation makes you shiver. 

“You'll what?” 

It looks like he has to forcibly tear his eyes away from you, reluctance forming a cold, angry crater between his brows. The brunt of his ire—white, burning—makes you want to supplicate yourself at his feet, roll over on your belly and show the beast you mean no harm. 

(Run, and run far—)

He huffs. “You'll what, birdie?”

It takes a minute to find your voice through all the panic clogging your throat. “I'll leave, um—”

He peels away from you with a loud, rough snort, and drops to his his elbow beside you. Hands curling possessively over your waist, fingers tight. Unyielding. 

“Not goin’ anywhere, birdie. Told you, didn't I? You're mine.” 

“I'm—”

“Go to sleep.” 

He pulls you roughly to his chest until your head is pillowed on his shoulder, and then rolls on his back, keeping you cushioned at his side. You try to move, but his arm wedges under your neck, curling over your shoulder. Trapping you to him. 

The panic wants to come now. To rage against the shackle of his embrace, to run home and scrub your skin until it bleeds. But the exhaustion collapses over it all until your eyes feel too heavy to hold open. Too painful.

As you drift, aimless and dreamless, his voice cuts through the fog. “Gotta learn ‘ow to cum with nothin’ but my cock inside of you sooner or later, birdie. Or you won't be coming at all—”

It sounds like a threat. A promise. You fall asleep with the words echoing in your head, his arm an anchor around your waist. 

He wakes up hungry. 

A gnawing in his belly pulls him from the thin doze he fell into after fucking you three more times—with your face pressed into the mattress, ass in the air for him to rut against like a beast; teetering over his hips, the spread of them too wide for your thighs to split over leaving you precariously unbalanced and shifting your weight above him as neither knee sat comfortably on the mattress; and on your belly with him crushing you to the floor under his bulk. The memory of which makes his spent cock stir, twisting limply against his damp, sticky thigh. Matted down with drying cum, sweat, the slick wetness of being buried inside your messy cunt. 

Filled now with his cum. 

He groans low in his throat as he thinks about it. The sloppy way you let him take you over and over again until you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore, passing out before he finished. Letting him fuck his cum inside of you as you whimpered in your sleep—

Perfect little thing, aren't you? So good to him.

Simon can't remember the last time he fucked someone, much less when it was this enjoyable (an understatement, of course; in the back of his head, wheels spin round and round as he tries to come up with a plan to keep his cock buried inside of you at all times while still doing his work—), and the overflow of unquenched lust churns in his belly. A hunger he can now slake on your willing body. In the silence, he purrs—

But the effort, the exertion, dredged up a different need inside him. 

Simple hunger. An appetite. 

He could eat—

his eyes slant toward the top of your crown in the dark, and he amends it, quickly, to: in more ways than one. 

He'll go home in a minute. Make himself a steak from the prime cut he butchered a few days ago, leftovers that no one had any qualms about when he took several pieces home with him. 

(and really, why would they argue with the butcher who keeps their wallets fat and their bills paid?)

It was left on the counter earlier before he got the call that your brother was making another move. Now a perfect room temperature as it waits for him to come back. Cook it the way he likes—

Rare. 

The perfect grill is a nice char on the outside, but bleeding red on the inside. Basted in duck fat and garlic. A sprig of rosemary in the pan, but not touching the meat. Just enough to give the juice that earthy, sweet flavour. Let it rest for ten minutes under foil with the rest of the fat poured over it from the pan. Served as is with maybe a dash of salt and pepper on the side. 

Simple. But incredibly difficult to perfect, he finds. 

Everyone tries to make it fancier than what it needs to be, but at the end of the day, meat is meat. And going from picking scraps from the garbage outside of the Italian butcher on the corner to ordering his own pretentious filet mignon still gives him a sense of unease. Whiplash, perhaps. Nothing to something—how about that, Tommy? 

Maybe that's why he prefers to raise and butcher his own cattle. A never-ending supply of meat for him to sink his teeth into even if this whole thing goes belly up and he's back to begging for morsels on the corner. Tommy hiding in the shadows with a baseball bat waiting to ambush the richer men who happen to feel altruistic that day. 

This practice bled over into his current occupation, too. The basement of that same Italian butcher shop he used to sneak expired sausage from out of the bins is now his home base of sorts. A money laundering front of the 141. Headquarters for them to congregate in secrecy upstairs. And here—

A torture chamber for those who tried to cross them. Strung up on meat hooks like the cattle they eat, the ones he feeds them, until he makes up his mind on what he wants to do to them. 

It's where you should have been, he supposes, thumb brushing a spot of dried blood on your shoulder, right below a nasty bite mark on your forearm. The ring nearly black from the clotted blood pooling in the indents. It matches several others on your thighs—top, insides, back—and neck, belly, collarbones, sternum. All chewed up. Marked by the butcher. 

In working for the old Italian man who ran the shop when he was eighteen, he learned that most of the butchers preferred to mark their carcasses when they came in. A little x on the fat to signify they'd be the ones carving up the prime meat. 

He didn't think you could handle his knife, so he gave you his teeth instead. But the implication is clear. 

His. 

It's overkill considering his reputation, and the claim he already had on you. Because even before this, back when he saw you through the window of his shop as he was moonlit as a legitimate butcher and businessman instead of the enforcer, the brute, everyone already knew he was, his interest was clear. You were off-limits. His to deal with. 

And while Price refers not to get involved in small-time street dealers, the warnings Soap and Gaz impressed onto your brother should have been the end of an irritating situation and not the beginning of a fuckin’ headache. But no. He had to push. And push.  

Until Price gave the order to take care of it. 

And that he did. 

(With the added benefit of killing one bird and keeping the other in a pretty cage.)

Price probably won't like his solution, but Simon racked up enough favours to keep a little pet of his own. Been a good boy for a long, long time now, and he supposes he's owed a bone. 

Or a sweet thing tucked tight to his side having passed out some two hours ago after he slaked his dizzying thirst on you over and over again even though it doesn't feel like it's been enough. 

It's rare that he has an appetite for people. Even rarer that he lets this meagre hunger consume him like this. But there's something about you that makes his teeth ache in the same way they often do whenever he's hungry for meat. 

He wants to devour you. Consume you. Eat you alive and save nothing for anyone else to taste. 

(So—

Price will just have to let him keep you, won't he?)

The mattress vibrates under him. His phone buzzing with an incoming text. He reaches over, pulling it close enough to read the notification on his screen. It's from Soap.

All her stuff is on your porch. 

He hums, but doesn't reply. Simply opts to drop his phone on his belly, and tug you closer to his broad chest. He'll wake you in an hour, and the stirring in his groin tells him it'll be for another round. Maybe he'll take you in the freezer. Make you cling to the hook hanging down from the ceiling as he fucks you like that. He has a pair of ties for ox, lamb legs, that he can loop around your wrists and heft you up on. 

It'll hurt, he's sure. The binds weren't designed with comfort in mind, but he can easily bear your weight as he pounds into you from below, your pretty legs wrapped tight around his waist. 

The image, the thought, alone has him thickening against his thigh. He reaches down, gripping the base tight in his hand as he pulls you even closer, burying his nose in your crown. 

At the very least, he wouldn't be lying when he told Price he strung you up. 

Three rounds—on your back, your hands and knees, perched above him like a pretty goddess he stole away from a temple—and he still isn't satisfied. Fuck. He breathes in your scent and doesn't think he ever will be. 

He'll get you out of here, take you home. Make you the steak he likes for a late dinner, rare and simple—the same one he gave your brother weeks ago when he dragged him into the shop, strung him up on a hook, and demanded payment for his disrespect. 

Who'd have thought that his payment would be you? 

(fitting, though, since he'd had his eye on you for a while now—)

He nudges you when his phone chimes again with another message doubtless from Soap telling him all your things have been tucked away. Matters dealt with. 

“C’mon,” he grunts, running his hand down your spine. “We’re leavin’.”

You blink at him slowly. “Leaving?”

He nods. “Get dressed.” 

You're quiet as he turns, reaching for his jeans left in a heap beside the mattress, but he hears the hitch in your throat. The click when you swallow. Unbothered by it, he turns, giving you his back as he wedges his feet inside the trousers, pulling them up his legs. 

The bed shifts behind him. “I—I can walk back to my brother's—”

The hope in your voice is a delicate thing. Fragile like fine china. A pretty, vulnerable tchotchke meant to be seen, admired, but not touched. Not handled roughly. 

Unfortunately for you, he's never had much of a gentle touch. 

When he throws a glance over his shoulder, he's not surprised to find your arm folded over your bare breasts as you kneel on the mattress, your palm resting flat between your parted thighs, wrist and forearm covering the slip of heaven between them from his greedy, prying gaze. 

It paints a startling picture, he finds. One with you looking thoroughly ravaged. Taken. But presenting it in a soft sort of sensuality meant to make a man feel both hot under the collar and like an unrepentant voyeur. 

Pretty bird, he thinks, and feels his cock stir. 

He rises swiftly, hiking up his jeans around his thighs as he goes, and then turns to you with a heady desire to crush that gossamer of hope between his greedy hand like a silken cobweb that will stick to his fingers. 

“Not goin’ to your brothers,” he says, pushing his tongue against his cheek to stem the ache burning in his muscles. 

You shiver, eyes growing wide, frenzied with fear as you stare up at him. The shift of your throat when you swallow makes pre-cum dribble out of his fattened cock. He's never really had much of a taste for it, but he's overcome with the urge to see you cry—

“Where are we going?”

Amid the ache in his loins, the flickering fantasies of your pretty, lachrymal face gazing up at him helpless, hopeless, and needy, he catches the edge of panic when you speak. The razor-sharp tremble of fear. 

But buried amongst it, hidden in the bruised look you give him as he towers over you with his cock bulging in his slacks and his eyes burning with want, he finds a keen sense of eagerness amongst the rubble. Agog, almost. 

And fuck. If that doesn't do something awful to him. 

“What?” He taunts, cocking his head to the side as your breath grows shallow and your eyes wide. “Did you think that was enough to pay your debt, birdie?”

“What? You can't—”

“Don't like it—” he lifts his shoulder up in a cool, indifferent shrug, enjoying the dismayed expression that falls over your brow more than he should. “—go to the police.”

“The ones on your payroll?” You spit, eyes flaring wide like an angry cat. “You—”

Several things might have continued in place of your choked, angry sob, but it's swallowed down as pragmatically as it was the first time he cornered you earlier today. And as beautiful as your ire is, he finds the cornered look on your face to be much more pleasing. Prettier. 

“C’mon, bird,” he mocks, holding his hand out toward you with a tick of his lips. “All your stuff is at home. Don't be stupid.” 

“Stupid?” You gasp in indignation, but there's a bruised look in your eyes. A wounded thing that makes his breath hitch in his lungs for reasons he can't really ascertain, but just knows that he likes it. Likes it a lot. “This is—insane.”

Again, he shrugs, but the indifference this time isn't the same manufactured callousness meant to inspire fear. The conversation is stale already. Grating on him. He's not used to having his orders ignored or questioned. What he says usually goes—either through association or reputation, or just the fact that no one has ever come close to filling the same measure of space as he does—and questioning him like this makes him feel too much like a boy, and not enough like the living ghost he pretends to be. 

“You can't do this. It's not right.”

An appeal to his humanity. Cute. He huffs, reaching down to fasten the button of his jeans. The sound the zipper makes cuts through the room. “You're mine, birdie. Better get used to it.” 

Catching your eye as he says it was only meant to reignite the kindling fear you have of him from extinguishing. A scared prey animal was a better pet than an angry one. But the look on your face catches him off-guard. 

It reminds him of a flightless little bird shivering in a child's shoebox. Tiny broken thing his mum warned him not to touch or its mother would abandon it to die on its own. 

“Until the debt is paid off.”

A statement, not a question. He shrugs, but doesn't respond. Tilts his head toward the door. “Let's go.” 

His lack of reassurance doesn't soften the flint in your gaze, but the prospect of recompense seems to spurn you on. Another wishbone of hope to cling to. And despite himself, he lets you keep it. Lets your little finger wrap around the delicate bone for comfort because as much as you might think there's a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bigger piece, he has no intentions of letting something like that get in the way of his appetite even if you do. 

(And his hunger has always been particularly voracious, hasn't it?)

“Come, birdie. Gotta get you home, and fed, don't I?” 

APARTMENT 345 — EP TWO : WEDDINGS

feat. karasu, otoya, yukimiya || wc: 9.4k synopsis: moving into a new apartment with three men isn't exactly the most easy feat, but you think there's something quite unusual about your new roommates that makes life seem a little more fun. ↳ episode synopsis: when otoya asks you to be his plus-one for a wedding, you find out that there's more than him that meets the eye. so much so, that it somehow wounds you accidentally locked in a bathroom alone together. contains: fem!reader, she/her pronouns, roommates au, modern au, fluff, slight crack, forced proximity, reader wears a dress and heels, subtle classism, family issues series masterlist ☚ previous next☛

Otoya Eita is a curious case of someone who you suspect isn’t who he seems to be.

Something bugs you about him, something gnawing in a little crevice of your mind. Perhaps it’s that seemingly nonchalant exterior that you think is a little too lax for someone with adult responsibilities like him. Or maybe the way he’s much smarter than you think he was initially. Something of the sort, there’s a lot of peculiarities about him that just don’t seem to add up to what he thinks he’s trying to convey to you.

He says he earns the least out of the four of you—yet he owns a Lexus, multiple expensive colognes, and he’ll show off some new pieces of Chrome Hearts or David Yurman he bought. You figure that one watch of his is at least a third of your salary.

He says he’s not looking for something serious in a relationship—yet you’ve seen him wallow in his misery a few times when some girls wouldn’t call him back. Then he’ll get back up in a matter of two days or less to find someone new to play with.

He says he can't pay the rent this month to you and your other roommates dismay—yet he somehow always pulls through with the money at the last minute to a mysterious degree. Where he gets it from, you think you’re better off not knowing… especially since you’ve eavesdropped on a few of his conversations with someone shady on the phone, asking about a boon of some kind.

Otoya, to you, at least from a few months ago, was the most open roommate out of the other three. Now, you’re not so sure. Unlike Karasu and Yukimiya, who have gotten closer and more amicable as times went on, Otoya seems to have shut himself in with you to your dismay in the past weeks, despite him being the first roommate you were truly comfortable around. He seems to be an enigma to you more than anyone you’ve ever met—you don’t know how to decode him. And to be honest, you’re not sure if you should. Maybe you’re best placed in this pool of ignorance you’ve been trying to get out of to understand your roommate, absorbing it and letting it linger around you.

He has this outer layer to him; a mask of a seemingly chill guy who goes with the flow, someone who lays back and lets life do its work for him. He’ll just simply follow along wherever the wind takes him. 

But something eats at you, that gnawing feeling always just lingering about. A gut feeling whispers in your ear that there’s something deeper, more intrinsic about him. You’ve acknowledged the suspicion, but you’re not too sure if you should try and operate on Otoya to properly pluck out his brain. After all, there might just be nothing there and you’ve been paranoid this entire time. Maybe it’s best just to stay out of his business (though, you sometimes find it hard not to, especially when you sometimes find him talking to someone on the phone with pinched brows when you enter the apartment, only for him to hang up the call when he notices you, his default face placing back onto his visage.).

And you’ve been doing a good job at it. Until now, when an opportunity presents itself for you to prod your nose around the hidden secrets of Otoya Eita. All because of an extended wedding invitation from him.

“I need a plus-one from my cousin’s wedding next Saturday,” he had said to you a week prior, scratching the back of his neck lazily. “I’d ask Tabito or Kenyu, but uh. I don’t want my folks to get the wrong impression, ya know?” 

You had snorted under your breath, laughing, but said yes without thinking of the consequences at the time. It was only yesterday that it hit you that you’d be meeting Otoya’s family despite only knowing him for a few months whilst nothing absolutely nothing about Otoya’s personal life despite what he gave to you, much less what kind of people his family were. 

So you ran to Karasu, who had known him the longest, and in a panic, asked him what sort of people they were. Unfortunately, he wasn’t much help, only giving you a sheepish smile and telling you, “They’re quite the weirdos, ‘s all I’ll say—at least from when I met ‘em. Sorry, sugar.”

When you asked Yukimiya, you ran into the same dead end. The brunette also only gave you a pitiful look. “Just try not to talk to them too much. The less you know, the better.”

Their responses did nothing to calm your nerves. If anything, it amplified the apprehension from twice it was before. You wish you felt it earlier in the week, however, since that at least allowed you more ample time to actually buy a better dress than this dusty rag that you had worn for a friend’s garden party a few years back. 

You think this is the longest you’ve stared at yourself in the mirror that you’re becoming an eyesore to yourself. The baby pink dress with puffed short sleeves and layered tulle feels out of date; it’s weird around your waist and just doesn’t seem very elegant for the type of wedding Otoya had described. Too casual, too childish. 

A knock comes at your door suddenly.

From the door reveals a dressed-up Otoya Eita before you, uncharacteristically sharp in his crisp grey-black suit and pistachio green tie. His hair is parted neatly, his bangs usually grazing his face now pushed to the side to show the entirety of his features. 

A smirk displays itself on your face. “Someone looks rather handsome.”

Otoya hums with satisfaction at your approval, taking a singular finger and dragging it along his jawline. Something called mogging, if you call correctly. “It all comes naturally to me.”

He lets himself in your room, whistling at your messy bedroom littered with disarrayed clothing that you were trying to pluck out and make a nice arrangement with. “A little birdie told me you were having trouble choosing an outfit.”

Your shoulders droop when you spot yourself in your mirror again, your dress looking like it was just plastered on you rather than fitting you. 

“I’m assuming my groans of despair were louder than I thought they were,” you sigh despondently, hands attempting to try and fiddle with the layers of the dress so it seems right at least in the mirror. 

“I know you said to dress nice, but this is all I have…” you turn to Otoya, who curiously pinches one of your business dresses in his fingers. “I’m sorry, I would’ve totally gone shopping sooner had I known it’d be a big deal.”

Otoya gently places down the dress and turns to you with a barely-visible quirk of his lips. “It’s not bad but I might have something else in mind that might help ease your mind.” 

He excuses himself out of the room and returns back not even a moment later with a large white zippered bag hung by a hanger. It’s thick and padded, clearly a bit of weight to it. You’re a little appalled, not expecting Otoya to go out of the way and quite literally get you a dress of his own means. But this also meant that if Otoya was doing more than what he was used to, swaying from his normal route of winging it and actually doing proper preparation for this, it ultimately meant that this was a much bigger event than you anticipated it to be. And you surely had to be ready to size yourself up for such a manner.

Otoya delicately places it on the mountain of clothes on your messy bed, carefully unzipping the bag to reveal a magnificent, floor-length, pear green sequined dress that reflected light so elegantly, it almost created a natural spotlight on itself. Held by thin straps, the chest area was highlighted from all the sequined and carefully-placed cherry blossoms speckling about that brought out a certain uniqueness to the dress. It looked preciously handmade, as you think no machine could delicately craft such petals from fabric and sequins. 

It was magnificent and mature, something that clearly contrasted with your current dress. You couldn’t deny that Otoya had great taste when it came to fashion, both for men and women it seems, only second-best next to Yukimiya, though he came damn close to taking over his position on the podium.

You gasp aloud at it, clearly impressed at its meticulousness. 

Otoya holds it up by its hanger, showing its full glory to you. “I’m really hoping it’s your size, but d’you like it? You wanna try it on?” 

“I—” you falter. The dress was just so elegant that you don’t think someone like you should be adorning it; it was clearly fit for someone more high-class like a socialite or an actress. “Where did you even get this?”

He shrugs, nonchalant as ever. “Bought it on my way home yesterday. Thought you might want to wear it as a backup just in case.”

“I’m really hoping this is a rental,” you worry about, biting at your fingernail. Something seems rather ominous about all those sequins flashing about, like they’re warning you not to touch such preciosity. “How much was this?” 

“Mmh, not telling,” Otoya says and slips the dress off its hanger to your panic. “Just know I’ve got it covered.”

You frown.

“Rent’s coming up soon,” you warn, “so if I find out you chucked some money out the window just for a mere dress, you’ve got a storm coming, bud.”

Otoya chuckles fondly. “Relax. I already gave my stuff early, so don’t stress about it anymore and just try it on.”

Ignoring your protests, he forces the dress in your hands and makes his way out, waving his fingers as he leaves you in the desolation of your room. 

A pull of his neck releases the tension from it, rhythmic cracks from bones echoing in the hallway your room was located from. Otoya sighs, the weight on his shoulders heaving down on him more than ever today that he hopes will expel from himself once this day is over. 

He feels bad, dragging you into this mess. But Otoya thinks that he can’t handle the masses by himself, he needs some sort of stabilizer, someone to help him keep on his feet. Karasu and Yukimiya knew about everything already, so they knew about the trials and tribulations that he faced back then, and clearly didn’t want to go through them again. He couldn’t drag someone from his roster either—he didn’t even know half of their last names. 

It wasn’t his fault you just happened to be right there. With your grace and presence, you were the perfect person to have at his side for those hours he’s going to have to face head-on. All he has to do is just pivot his attention to you, knowing that it’ll be his that you’ll be yearning for as well in a room of strangers. It was an equal exchange. 

Still. Even though you’ll be at his side, it doesn’t shake off the unease that lingers about. 

Otoya settles himself on the couch, feeling tension stiffen his joints again. A warning sign to expect the worst, he assumes. Whatever. It’s just a few hours. He’ll reset and return back to normal in no time. This too shall pass, or whatever bullshit Yukimiya spews.

He cracks his neck again, making Karasu, who sits lazily next to him, cringe. 

“Don’t do that near me,” he mutters, averting his attention to the soccer match on the TV. “Freaks me out.”

“It’s just bones, don’t think your two-hundred six are any different from mine,” Otoya insists, going to crack his knuckles to Karasu’s displeasure. 

In the corner of the couch, Yukimiya throws some popcorn from a bowl in his mouth, grinning when he sees such a dapper Otoya in front of him. “You look good. For once.”

Otoya mopes, a light offense grazing him. “‘For once?’”

Yukimiya shrugs, still stupidly smiling. “Guess you wanted to look good for (Y/N).”

He frowns. 

“This is a wedding. Why wouldn’t I try to look good?” Otoya remarks, clearly unamused. He’s not sure if he’s up for a childish banter right now, not when he’s got too much on his plate. 

Karasu snickers at his appearance. Normally it was him and Yukimiya that looked rather tidy in their outerwear, so it came as comical to see the person who donned himself in the first clean thing he blindly plucked from his closet to be adorned in such fashion. “Took some money outta yer trust fund to get that suit o’yers, huh?” he slyly asks, nudging Otoya with his elbow.

Otoya rolls his eyes. “I’ve always had this, dumbass,” he insists with folded arms. “I just don’t like to wear it unless I have to.”

Yukimiya is next to chortle. “Maybe he used the money to buy (Y/N) that dress. Looked pretty expensive to me.”

Otoya thins his lips. Then looks away, the tip of his ears revealed by his slicked hair dusted with red.

Karasu and Yukimiya clearly take notice of his reaction that clearly can’t guise a lie even if Otoya tried to create one, bursting out into laughter when they make eye contact with one another.

“Aw, lookit this loverboy over here!” Karasu hollers and grabs Otoya by the neck, making him wince at Karasu's strength. “Didn’t know ya liked her that much!” 

“I don’t…” Otoya grits his teeth, “I just… wanted to get her something nice.” 

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Yukimiya cackles and lightly kicks at Otoya whilst he throws some popcorn his way, speckles of yellow-white fireworking over the living room floor. “Get your non-girlfriend plus-one a real fancy dress out of the blue, yeah? How much did it cost Prince Charming?” 

Otoya sighs. “You idiots can’t decipher the fact that this is all for a wedding, can you?” he states with a flat voice. “You both know how my family is… I just don’t want her—”

Heels click softly suddenly, a shy pattering coming from the hallway. 

“I don’t mean to interrupt but…” your voice breaks through the playful atmosphere, making all the men pause and look in your direction. “Er, sorry Otoya. Is this how it’s supposed to fit?”

Three spotlights turn to you from the coach from your roommates at once, suddenly drenching you in shyness at such vapid attention. Otoya is stunned at what he sees, breath hitching slightly when you present yourself before them. 

He has to give himself a pat on the back because not only does the dress fit you right, it fits you so perfectly that it looks like it was made just for you. You’re going to blend in perfectly, he thinks. 

Otoya abruptly stands up from the couch, clearing his throat and sending a soft smile your way—a rare feat considering how stony Otoya’s face could be.

“Fits like a glove on you, babe,” he compliments. 

You warmly smile at him, relieved. Karasu and Yukimiya glance at each other, suppressing some teasing smirks, shoulders shaking.

The clock is ticking, and Otoya figures that you and him have to get to the venue soon before traffic starts. You wrap up some last minute adjustments to your outfit before you and him bid Karasu and Yukimiya goodbye with a wave. 

“Get us some goodies if they’re offerin’ any!” Karasu shouts. 

“Give my warm wishes to the couple!” Yukimiya calls out just as Otoya closes the door. 

His sedan looks sleek as ever in the parking lot and you think this is the first time that Otoya actually looks the part to own such a luxury vehicle. He seems to be the gentleman tonight, seeing as how he opened up your car door for you to let you in, a hand holding yours to help keep you steady from the imbalance your heels might offer.

“Am I getting the princess treatment tonight?” you ask playfully as Otoya settles himself into his car. 

“When do you not?” inquires Otoya as he slings back one of his arms on the back of your headrest, veering his head to help him reverse despite having a back camera with sensors. You roll your eyes jovially at his antics, supposing that his flirting tactics just come a little too naturally to him even when he wasn’t trying to do so. 

The car ride is not too long, the venue being a lot closer than you thought initially. And clearly, a lot more grand, the pictures you saw from Google not doing it justice as you drive by it to its back parking lot. 

It’s a large garden conservatory, filled with lush flora all over both inside and out and glittering the place with natural color and textures. A large window dome ceiling looks overhead the space, all the windows letting the setting sunlight in in a manner so majestic that you think it was haloed by the hand of the Sun itself. Two large ponds sit before the entrance on the grass, koi fish swimming about the many lilypads and lotus flowers that bloom before you.

Weariness grows within you when you stare at the building. You want to ask Otoya if you’re sure this is the right venue when he moves forward in the line of many cars to get a parking ticket, seeing as how you’ve never seen such a lavish venue before, but when you pass by a banister that reads a familiar last name of the groom, your words falter. 

Welcome to the Wedding of Otoya Teruo & Hirai Hiromi, the banister states. 

Up comes the gnawing feeling of suspicion again, like Otoya is hiding something, especially when you see his eyes narrow at the banister. Something is off. His mask is slipping, you think. 

You know you should stay cautious and try to mind your business about him, but you’re just his friend and roommate after all and you’re not as close to him as Karasu or Yukimiya. But you feel pressured by an unknown force to try and squeeze something out of him that can help you gain a sense of the true Otoya. 

Your fingers itch to lift the mask off of him, to truly see him for who he is and not just the nonchalant, flirty roommate. 

“This wedding is pretty extravagant,” you admit after Otoya gains his temporary permit from the parking attendant. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

Otoya drums his fingers on the steering wheel of the car, blowing some spare hair out of his way. “Yeah. There is.”

Your eyes go to glance at him, body unmoving. “Well…” you start, fiddling with your fingers when he doesn’t elaborate, “are you gonna say something?” 

“You might not like it,” he says honestly, his own gaze focused on trying to find a space, his car moving at a snail’s pace. “You seem stressed enough as it is.” 

He’s observant, a trait you’ve picked up from him over the course of the months. Almost a little too much so… were your anxieties that obvious that they leaked out without your knowledge? 

Your lips pull a frown. “I can handle it. I’d rather know too much than not know enough. I’m meeting your family, after all.”

The mention of the word “family” irks him a bit, a slight tick from his jaw. A sigh drifts out from him, like he was expecting this from someone who’s mindset was so head-on for most things. “You should be careful about what you wish for.”

“Otoya,” you declare a little more sternly. He purses his lips at your calling of his name, akin to a mother scolding a child. 

“Fine then, you asked for it,” he mutters, swerving his car suddenly into a blank space and jutting his gear stick into park. He leans his elbow on the center console and somehow forces you to look at him without touching or commanding you. You stay still where you are, but you focus on the droning look of Otoya’s green hues that bore into you, warning you almost.

“My family owns a subsidiary business of a large investment management company,” he begins with a tone so robotic, it sounds almost generated. It doesn’t sound a bit like him. 

You were planning to uncover the true essence of Otoya Eita and why he’s been rather shut-in recently from you, but you never expected him to reveal everything about himself all at once because he spits out everything to you in the matter of seconds, leaving barely any for you to stay curious since he seems to ask every question you have in mind immediately. 

“Specifically, we handle index funds. Yes we’re wealthy. Yes, I’m a trust fund baby. I just try to earn money my own way since I don’t want to rely on my parents that often. No, I can’t just give you money flat-out. No, do not ask me if you can dabble in them through me—Karasu already tried. I’ve got barely any knowledge in business and I want it to stay that way.

I have two sisters. Both of them are following my parents’ footsteps, which makes me a black sheep in the family. Stay away from them if you can, same with my parents. I don’t keep in contact with my family a lot for that reason and I only came here because Teruo is the only relative that I’m close with and that gets me.”

An apt pause goes by in the car. 

“Ah…” you mumble, eyes wide as you nod slowly.

You thin your lips, not sure if you should say something at the moment, an exponential flurry of questions constantly rising to thoughts that you think you should hold yourself back from asking in the meantime as clearly this was just too much information to digest at once. 

Otoya snaps you out of your thoughts with an actual snap of his fingers. You blink. 

“This is important, so listen carefully,” he states, atypically serious. There’s almost this pleading look on his face if you look deeper into it. “All you need to do is keep your pretty little head down and let me do the talking, yeah? Don’t try to pretend to be someone you’re not if someone asks you who are—rich snobs can sniff out a phony in seconds. Just don’t give them too much information. Any questions?”

This is very unlike the usual Otoya you saw, and you think this is finally the real version of him that he’s finally allowing you to see; this more vulnerable, more historical side to him that you would’ve never guessed the current Otoya you knew (or thought you knew) well came from. 

“Uh… who else should I avoid other than your sisters and parents?” you ask. 

“Quite literally almost everyone on my side of the family, ‘cept for Teruo and my great aunt Hisako. She’s weird, but chill. Everyone else?” Otoya rolls his eyes. “Chances are if they look like me, then just stay away.”

You affirm with another nod. “What are your sisters’ names? Just so I can be wary.”

“My oldest sister goes by Eimi, my baby sister goes by Eiko,” Otoya describes. “Avoid nee-san the most—she can see through people easily. Eiko’s got a baby-face, but don’t be fooled. She’s a spoiled brat and a bitch if you tick her off.”

You wince at the insults he throws at his sisters, but you have no room to judge. Otoya grew up with them, you did not. 

“Er, how about your parents?” you inquire. 

“You don’t have to worry about them,” his shoulders sag a bit, “‘cause they’ll probably avoid me if anything.”

Otoya suddenly turns to you and you can see this foreign tiredness to his eyes; it’s not the normal lethargicness you see him being casted upon, but rather from exhaustion. 

That’s what happens, you suppose, when you come from such a family of prestige—you can’t even imagine the amount of expectations he probably had to live up to prior to being your roommate. You’ve never seen him in this way before, seeing him almost defenseless before you.

Eyes closing, he breathes slowly, trying to regain his natural lull again as best as possible. Otoya cracks them open again, a familiar glaze over lime green.

“Just stay close to me,” he mutters almost beseechingly. “Okay? For both our sakes.”

Otoya was right. Money really makes people much too vain for your liking. 

Despite looking the part of the family, Otoya himself had an aura that made him stand out in all the wrong ways, drawing side-eyes and whispers from people that knew about him and his reputation as you and him walked about the conservatory, trying to find the groom. You’re a part of it too, his notoriety stretching to you. Every time you try to sneak a glance at one of those dirty looks you think is being thrown your way, just when your vision clears up, they go back to talking in nonsensical manners amongst themselves and laughing much too sweetly. 

An older middle-aged woman in a yukata suddenly begins to approach you and Otoya, a faux smile on her face that he doesn’t return. Her face is placidly smooth, eerily so, but the botox can’t always hide the essence of bitter time, and you think that smile is just as fake as her lips. 

“Eita, what a pleasure to see you here,” she greets. “Teruo will be happy to see you.”

“Auntie Kazuko,” Otoya replies simply. “It’s good to see you.” 

Her smile doesn’t falter and she draws her beady eyes to you, lighting up in mischief. “Hello there. I’ve never seen you before.”

You can feel Otoya stiffen before you, but you squeeze his arm in reassurance that you can temporarily handle yourself. 

“My name is (Y/N) (L/N),” you greet with as much false compassion as you can muster, giving her a slight bow of respect. “I’m his plus-one for tonight. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“(L/N)...” Kazuko draws on her tongue, tasting your last name delicately. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of such a family. What do you all dabble in?” 

“She’s not one of us, Auntie, she’s just a friend of mine,” Otoya cuts in before Kazuko can make a judgement. His tone is so much sharper than normal, serpentlike, almost equivalent to his aunt’s. 

Kazuko’s smile stretches wider, eyes widening and you swear her pupils constrict themselves like a cat venturing for its prey. You swallow. 

“Ah,” she murmurs, lilting her head to examine you fully. “My apologies. I just thought with your looks and your dress that perhaps I just wasn’t akin to your name. Seems I’ve been mistaken.”

Your dress suddenly feels constricting on your body, too tight. “Oh, I just—” you start, shuffling.

“Oscar de la Renta’s Summer 2023 collection, yes?” she asks you. A shiver runs down your spine when his aunt refuses to move her formidable gaze away from you, almost testing you.

You go rigid. No wonder why you felt so intimidated by the dress; a piece crafted by a distinguished fashion house was given to you by Otoya. And while you’ve dabbled in the world of high fashion before, you’ve never been in a status that allowed you to just casually wear $2,000 pieces like they were nothing. 

Words fall heavy on your tongue, trying to compose yourself so as to not seem small in front of her. “I don’t really—”

Otoya beats you to it first, swooping down to save you before you accidentally embarrass yourself. 

“His Pre-Fall 2025 collection, actually,” he says, face still blank.

Your throat feels dry. Kazuko had a trap set up ready for you and if it weren’t for Otoya’s quick reflexes, you probably would’ve ended up dead meat not even fifteen minutes into this wedding.

Kazuko’s smile falters a bit. Her gaze hardens at you but pivots to Otoya. “I’m sure she has a voice of her own, Eita.”

“Where’s Teruo?” he inquires boredly. “Just wanna give him some support before the big show.”

Kazuko huffs, but silently points to the right corridor of the hallway, her eyes cold and sharp and daggering when they burn into the back of your back as Otoya leads you away from her. 

“I’m assuming she’s one of yours…?” you ask softly, noticing how Otoya’s own gaze softens and body loosens when she’s out of view.

“She’s his mom,” Otoya admits as you trail down a hallway of doors as you approach the large door at the end of the hallway. “It’s crazy considering they act nothing alike. Or look alike. I can’t tell if it’s because of all the botox or if just being a bitch ages you quicker.”

A stifled giggle muffles itself under your hand, a small bit of humor distracting you from the tension in the room. 

True to his word, you meet the rather outlandish and loud Teruo, whose naturally extroverted nature is a breath of fresh air in comparison to everyone else. He shakes your hand warmly, telling you thank you for being here with Otoya, who many thought wouldn’t even show up, with a date nonetheless. You can understand why he and Otoya get along so well—they’re quite the oddities in the family. 

He tells you and Otoya to go get settled soon in the venue with a shining smile, clearly excited to meet his shining bride. A lovesick man is always a treat to witness you think. 

Skittering eyes are on you when you and Otoya settle down in your chairs and he can sense that your unease has amplified. It’s not like the same eyes that scan you aren’t observing his every move as well. Oddly, your out-of-place disposition that just seems to draw more attention than him than he would’ve liked brought him this solace—knowing that he wasn’t alone in not quite fitting in with the rest of the crowd. It was cruel to perhaps place you in a co-dependent position with him for the time being, but he figured he had to be just a bit selfish to keep his sanity. 

You lift your gaze a bit and suddenly make accidental eye contact with a man in front whose head is turned ever so slightly to examine you, only breaking it when you notice him. There’s a few other eyes on you and Otoya, some even going to whisper behind their hands to share gossip.

You swallow dryly again, hands feeling clammy until a warmth slithers its way to one of them, squeezing it lightly. 

You turn to Otoya, who idly gazes at you from the side and gives you a comforting nod. 

“You’re fine. We’re fine,” he mutters softly. “Just ignore them. They won’t remember you tomorrow, anyways.”

The Otoya you’re familiar with somehow creeped back into this persona Otoya has been guising under, that coolness he’s notorious for bringing you comfort in knowing that this feeling won’t last for long. Relief in knowing that part of him isn’t entirely buried for the time being warms your nerves.

The lights dim. 

You breathe steadily. Otoya squeezes your hand again and you return it, a silent agreement that you and him just have to stick it out for a few more hours together.

Despite the evident class and structure of the reception’s venue, the reception itself is rather rowdy. It’s too close and personal with the families, so you and Otoya have stowed away somewhere isolated and quiet, where you watch him play rhythm games on his phone intently. 

“You suck,” you state as he misses a note. 

“You swa—” 

Otoya pauses mid sentence, closing his mouth.

You stare at him intently with a plastic grin, eyes wide and unblinking as he tries his best not to look at you and focuses his gaze on his phone. The douchebag jar was nearing its halfway point, if you could recall correctly.

“Finish that sentence, I dare you.”

“I’m good… thanks,” he mumbles. 

“Good choice,” you cheerily state to his dismay as he begins another level. 

The low hum of the game echoes through the part of the corridor where you and him settle yourselves in, the quietness lulling you both from the apprehension earlier. You can hear the cheers from the reception, but you and Otoya are better off just absorbing it rather than partaking in it. It’s not like they wanted you there anyway.

He’s much more relaxed now, ever since you and him moved away from all the commotion of his family that you witnessed in full light were just as everything Otoya had said they were. Judgemental, proud, and conceited. 

“Hey,” you begin softly, resting your head on his shoulder and watch his thumbs prance about. “How come you didn’t tell me any of this before…?”

Otoya hums questionably, feeling the warmth of you radiating onto him. “What? My family?”

You nod. The fervent taps of his phone and echoes from the party are the only things that ring out into the silence for a bit, but Otoya eventually breaks after choosing his words carefully. 

“Unless I’m forced to, I don’t like telling people about them,” he says, monotone and unfeeling. “For reasons you obviously saw. Also ‘cause I hate associating myself with them.”

That’s understandable, you think to yourself. You don’t think that you would be able to live with yourself if fate forced you to be a part of such a snobbish collective of rich folk without trying to break it off and make a name for yourself. 

“It’s why I refused to go into the financial business field in college and chose music instead,” he continues to your astonishment. Not necessarily a man of many words in regards to himself, Otoya was always more of a secretive person to you, especially in consideration of recent weeks, so to hear him unsheathe truths of himself without you prying came as a small surprise. 

But this is good, you think, to let him be vulnerable around you. To take that mask off.

“Your parents weren’t mad?” you ask.

He snorts loudly, shaking his head. “Oh no, they were pissed. Threatened to cut me off and everything.”

You perk up. “But you said you’re trust fund baby?” 

“I am still,” he confirms with a nod. “Because I told them if they did, I’d reveal to the press all the scandals they covered up. And there’s more than enough to hand out to properly damage their reputation.” Otoya shrugs loosely. “My uncle on my mom’s side especially has quite the stack. Really likes that one gentlemen's club down on Twenty-Eighth.”

Your eyes widen at his quiet ferocity. Only a few hours prior, you would’ve never thought that Otoya you saw on a day-to-day basis would dabble in such matters, only doing his own business as he liked. But seeing this new side of him stirs sparks of interest within you, seeing as how there’s this undertone of determination and ambition he nurtured himself, very much unlike the lethargic, easy-going roommate you saw. 

Otoya, without averting his eyes away from his phone, senses your shock and cracks a grin. 

“Surprised?” he inquiries, a subtle slyness in his voice.

You’re nothing but. You let out a brief laugh in astonishment. 

“A little bit,” you murmur. “Sorry, I just kind of always took you as—”

“—a slob? A sloth? A laggard?” Otoya lists down. “You can say it, I’ve heard it all before. They’re pretty much true anyway.”

“I was going to say ‘laid back’,” you mutter, shoving him a bit to his amusement. “‘Care-free’ even, you dunce.”

He cringes at the familiarity of the nickname. “Gross. You’ve been hanging out with Tabito too much.”

You’re about to hurl an insult back at him but Otoya stands up abruptly when two feminine voices suddenly trail through the hallway. His face remains still, but there’s a seriousness to his eyes that narrow when they grow closer.

“I feel as though Teruo went over his budget,” a familiar voice drawls steadily, two pairs of heels clicking in synchronicity. “All for a commoner girl?”

“Well, Teruo-nii has always been like that,” the other, younger in intonation, replies in what seems to be an attempt at comfort, but comes off as standoffish. Otoya’s brows knit in concern at the second voice, clearly accustomed to it. “Always loud and grand. Explosive, some may say.”

“I hope your brother won’t be doing that with that girl he came along with,” Auntie Kazuko’s voice chides. “Then again, I doubt he’ll ever get married anyway. He doesn’t seem like the type to do so.”

The younger voice laughs in amusement. “It might be better for us anyway. We don’t need more drama from someone who’s stirred up quite a storm already.”

Your eyes soften in pity at the implication of Otoya, who just stares at the two approaching shadowy figures in the hallway. You want to refute their statement, but your words falter when Otoya suddenly grabs your arm and pulls you further from them, your heels rapidly clicking against the floor. 

“Hey!” you exclaim with a slight yelp in pain from his grip. “Where are we—”

“Just away from them,” he grimaces. “I don’t feel like talking to nee-san today.”

His older sister. Eimi, if you could recall, the one who was able to see through people. You’ve never heard of her until today, let alone know what she looks like, but you can already tell from Otoya’s urgency to get away from her that she’s not a force to be reckoned with. 

Otoya leads you down one of the corridors leading to the entrance but hisses out a swear when he sees a cherub-faced woman talking politely with an elder, a head of long snowy white hair with that strike of green mimicking his own. He turns back, only to see the shadowy figures from earlier approach you both closer and closer as the seconds pass. 

He groans out loud. He hates things like this—problems that require too much worrying. It was such a waste of time dabbling on things that were out of his control, such as this scenario before him, and Otoya thought he had gotten away from the hazards of it when he left the family but he supposes that he’s doomed to face such troubles whenever they’re in radius.

His eyes scan his surroundings for a way out, not finding any that won’t lead him to cross paths with people until he spots a certain door. 

“Sorry babe,” he mutters lowly to you and pulls you to the men’s bathroom to your horror. “This won’t take long, I promise.”

You gawk at him when you see the male symbol on the door. 

“Dude!” you shout in protest, but to no avail does it work in changing Otoya’s mind seeing as how he slams the door shut and locks it, pressing himself up against the door as a barricade. 

To your relief, it was a single stall bathroom with no one in it to bother you both, one gold-plated toilet sitting next to the door and a marble sink across from it. Otoya swallows thickly, pressing his ear up against the wall to properly hear outside. He can hear the semi-condescending voices of his sisters murmur through, his name being bounced around once or twice to his displeasure. 

A small velvet stool sits right in front of the door and you let yourself take a break from the stress of your heels, watching closely as Otoya observes the outside within the inner safety of the bathroom with his ear.

“I think we’re all good,” he asserts when turning back to you.

You don’t enjoy seeing him like this—it felt uncharacteristic of him to be so restless around people he was supposed to have fun with. It’s clear that he didn’t want to come from the very beginning.

“Hey,” you start, “I get that Teruo is your cousin and everything, but we can go home if you really want to.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I promised him I’d stay for at least the majority of the reception. Just until the toasts. Said I didn’t have to interact with anyone, but he wants me here. I owe him that much.”

“Well that isn’t worth being uncomfortable for nearly five hours, I’m sorry,” you remark tiredly. “You don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here. I think it’s just best if we leave.”

Otoya turns to you, a slight furrow in his brow. “He’s the only person in this family that I refuse to let down. Everyone else can go fuck themselves, but I’m doing this for him.”

You sigh, rubbing your forehead, a little vexed at this foreign stubbornness considering Otoya would usually go along with most things. 

“You haven’t let yourself breathe even once the entire time we’ve been here,” you point out with concern. “I’m sure he’d understand.

Otoya takes your words in for a moment to consider, but ultimately shakes his head again. “It’s just a few more hours. Let’s just tough it out.”

Frustrated, you get up and dust yourself off, moving towards the door. You’ve had enough for one night; you’re tired, your esteem has been kicked down from all the shady comments sent your way, and all you want to do is just take off this dress and makeup and sleep. Meddling around in rich folks’ business was not your ideal Saturday night. 

“You can stay if you want,” you huff, grasping the handle and whipping your head around to face him. “But I’m gonna grab an Uber. I’ll see you back home. I’ve done my part.”

Otoya shrugs loosely, unfazed as he takes your spot on the stool. “Go right ahead, princess.” 

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.”

You throw him another judgemental look, one that he doesn’t do much with except for give you a questioning raise of his brows as you tug on the doorknob to swing yourself out of the reception’s venue.

Oddly, however… it refuses to budge.

You pause. Then jerk it again. Nothing happens. The door stays where it is.

“What…” you mutter, pulling on the doorknob again, fiddling with the lock multiple times to get the right latch. With every turn of the lock, however, you run into the same problem. “You can’t be serious? It’s stuck?”

“No way bro can’t even open a door right,” Otoya snorts and stands up. His hand goes to grip the doorknob and give it a pull from his own means, but even he can’t seem to get it to open. 

“I’m telling you, it’s stuck,” you insist as he repeats your own methods, all reaching no avail.

Otoya constantly pulls on the doorknob, each yank being harsher than the previous. “It literally just opened a minute ago—hold on…”

“Don’t pull too hard,” you warn when he begins adding more of his strength. “You might—!”

Something clicks, and Otoya figures it’s the latch. He gives it one last harsh tug, only for the actual knob of it to snap off suddenly to your horror, a gasp pulling from your throat.

He steps back a little, examining the chunk of metal in his palm. He gives you a blank look. 

“So… we may be stuck,” he says all too obviously, making you smack your forehead.

“Well duh!” you groan out loud and examine the broken lock that seems completely hopeless to try and solve a way to maneuver it.

Otoya is quick to pull out his phone. “Lemme call Teruo and see if—shit, my phone’s dead.”

He shows you the empty battery icon flickering on his screen, your dread expanding. 

“I didn’t think rhythm games took up that much battery…” he falters, tucking it back into his pocket. “Try yours.” 

Thankfully, you have your phone still at 40% battery when you pull it out, the number keypad at the ready, only for you to whine miserably when you see the No Service text on the corner of your screen. Of course you somehow land in the only place in the venue that is just slightly out of service.

“First rule of thumb whenever you enter a place,” Otoya holds a finger up, one that you have an urge to snap from the irritation that boils within you. “Always ask for their wifi password.”

That’s not how it works… you hiss at him in your mind, trying to avoid escalating this situation. You stare at him darkly, his lax personality not doing much to help your unease in this moment and wonder how many hours it’ll take for you to go insane and strangle him. 

Two, you think. One, if he tested his luck.

Surprisingly, after three and a half hours have passed, Otoya still has a beating heart. He’s been the patient one out of you two, watching you as you pace back and forth to try and conjure a plan to get out while he was just riding on the wave of hoping someone would come by soon to try and use this bathroom. 

You’ve tried going on his shoulders to try and receive a signal, pushing the vent to see if you could spy-movie—only for it to be much too small for a human body to fit, and yelling for help whenever someone passed by, only for your shouts to be drowned out from the music.

The music has died down, but your voice is gone from all the shouting. You’ve given up at this point, just hoping that a custodian will somehow break their way through after hours.

“Has no one attempted to look for you yet?” you question wearily when you slump down next to him on the stool. 

Otoya gives another one of those loose shrugs of his again as he bunches up his suit jacket, plopping it on his lap. “Bold of you to assume that family gives a damn about me.”

The way he says it seems too casual, like he was used to this. Like this was normal for him. It’s unsettling to you, knowing that such a large and prestigious family would think of one of their own so scathingly that his existence barely mattered. 

He sees you giving him a pouted look and sighs. “You don’t have to pity me. I chose to leave that life while knowing the consequences.”

“But even so… it doesn’t bother you?” you question with sympathy laced in your voice. “When they talk about you like that?”

“Hah,” Otoya gives a smileless laugh, rolling his eyes. “I promise you, I could not have given less of a shit about what they think of me. They can say whatever they want; I got what I wanted at the end of the day while they’re stuck slaving away at an office.”

You give him a stony look, silently reminding him that you and his other two roommates worked corporate.

“My fault,” Otoya excuses with guilty haste. 

The rigidity in your face softens once more, your mind trailing back to all of those side-eyes that everyone had thrown in Otoya’s direction from before. 

The Otoya you saw today just seemed so different from the one you were used to at home, so much so that you still can’t decipher him out and if anything, the Otoya that you had witnessed today just even caused more confusion to you. The usual Otoya, the one you suspect is just a mask, is this composed and carefree guy that dawdled around the apartment as he pleased, doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. This Otoya however, was much more uptight, much more weary of his surroundings—you almost think that he’s mimicking his family in some manner.

Maybe that’s why he’s been so closed-off with you recently. Family can bring out the best and worst in people, so the days leading up to this event were the reason why he’s been so strayed from you lately.

“You know,” you start quietly, earning Otoya’s attention. “I wish you didn’t feel the urge to have to hide something like this from me. Unless I made it seem like you had to…?”

Otoya examines you in full, scanning how bleak your face is, how sincere it was. 

He remembers the first day you came into the loft—you, sitting there on the couch with your fidgety self squirming about. Originally, Otoya had not really thought that hard about you during the first few weeks you and him were living together, seeing you as no more than just a girl he wasn’t allowed to cross boundaries with to ensure nothing unnecessary would blossom. Even Yukimiya and Karasu had told him not to try anything funny, though he insists he wasn’t going to anyway.

But times change, as they always have. A crack was made in the wall he put between you and him from a specific day he saw you bring home a certain vinyl, one that he already owned from his own collection. That was his first break with you, your shared love of music—the start of everything. Of you and him. A unique relationship with a girl he’d never had before.

He thought it’d just be nothing more than that, casual chats over new albums and artists and whatnot. Until the small hangouts started to arise, where it’d just be the two of you venturing around places like record stores or flea markets. It was nice, being able to hang out with a girl without any other intentions. Perhaps that’s why Otoya allowed himself to get closer to you—you were a safe option. Someone he was able to breathe around just like Karasu and Yukimiya. 

Someone he saw as an escape from the roots of himself.

“I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” he says. “I just never brought it up because I thought I didn’t have to at first,” He shuffles his feet about, almost ashamed. 

He never even realized he was closing himself in from you when he received the wedding invitation all those weeks ago, a reminder to not forget where he came from, who he was supposed to be. That no matter how many times he attempts to bury it, that lost potential he never wanted to live up to was still a remnant of him. 

“I figured that if I possibly did, you’d view me differently,” he admits, “you’d view me as someone I’m not.”

He had a point; money does a plethora of things—one of them being the way people see each other. Whether one person saw the other as a walking piggy bank, or someone they could depend on financially, or someone they should envy, money was always attached to some sort of ugly feeling that you figured Otoya didn’t want you associating with him. Not from someone he had such a unique connection with.

“I didn’t want that,” he confesses and raises his head to face you in full. You can feel your heart skip a beat when he goes to directly stare into your eyes with those lime green eyes of his that hold nothing but genuinity. “Especially not from you, (Y/N).”

The way he says your name is delicate, like it’s fragile. The lack of endearment and nickname reveals the earnesty of his nature.

It comes to you suddenly, that epiphany you had been searching for.

You had spent all this time wondering about who the true Otoya Eita was that you didn’t even realize you had been face-to-face with him this entire time. That, in reality, the seemingly-fake Otoya was the one you saw plastered on his face when it came to his family matters, people that brought the worst of himself to light. He kept it professional, keeping them at arm’s length as to not let anymore of those feelings only they could conjure to light. He was just trying to bury that part of him on your behalf to keep letting authenticity bounce between you and him. 

But Otoya is a good man. A tad bit annoying, yes, you won’t deny you’ve seen some vices of his unfiltered self, sure, but at the end of the day, despite having that immense access to wealth, he still somehow lived humbly. It was ironic seeing as how he detached himself from his riches to become a happier person, but he’s clearly put in the work, seeing as how he seems to be content where he is. Everyone around him seems to be, as well. 

You give him a gentle smile. 

“I don’t think I would’ve viewed you in a different light even if I tried to,” you murmur. “You’re too much of a good person. I think everyone can see that, Otoya.” 

His eyes widen a bit from your tender response before softening. Your response is tender, an honesty he’s not familiar with, but embraces nonetheless. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

One of his legs shuffles around with yours, linking them together in a loose manner. Otoya turns to you. 

“You can call me Eita, by the way,” he proclaims quietly. “I don’t mind.”

The clicking of metal suddenly startles you awake, your body jolting so harshly, Otoya’s suit jacket falling to the ground from your body. Your head jerks up from Otoya’s shoulder, accidentally waking him up, whose own lied on top of yours for the small catnap you and him took, a groan rumbling out of him. 

“Awhuzz happening…?” he asks blearily, eyes half-closed.

It takes a bit for your vision to adjust, but the inner mechanics of the broken doorknob are suddenly moving on their own, a muffled voice outside muttering about. You tap on his arm rapidly, pointing your finger towards it. “Look, look!” 

Otoya’s drowsiness still stirs within him, but you go up and rap on the door, indicating to the person outside that someone was still here.

“Hello?!” you call out, hearing an exclaim from outside. “Hello! Sorry, but there’s two people trapped in here! Can you let us out please?!”

You watch eagerly as whoever is outside fiddles with the broken lock, the latch suddenly clicking and the door swinging open to your relief.

A custodian with his supplies appears before you, your unknowing knight in shining trousers. He widens his eyes at the both of you. “What on earth are you kids doin’ here? We’ve been closed for three hours already.”

I’m so sorry, the lock broke and we both got trapped inside since around eight or so,” you confess as you hand the custodian the broken knob. You check the time on your phone, the time reading 01:34 AM. “Oh gosh, we were stuck in there for that long?” 

The custodian eyes you both suspiciously, raising a bushy brow. “And exactly why did you both move into the same bathroom when clearly…?” he eyes you up and down, moving his gaze to the male symbol on the door.

It was your turn for your eyes to widen, a heat rising on your cheeks. 

“N-no sir, it wasn’t anything like that…” you stutter, shaking your head. “We just—will you shut up!” you snap at Otoya, who quietly snickers behind you to your disbelief.

The custodian sighs, dismissing it and just wanting his job to be over with.

“Y’all better get movin’,” he warns, checking behind his shoulder. “Security doesn’t take too kindly to who they think may be trespassers.”

When you both finally walk outside for the first time in hours from the bathroom and pass by the reception venue, it’s dark and completely devoid of all the decorations you saw earlier, eerily desolate. Otoya’s car is the only one that remains in the parking lot, with the exception of the night crew, and you couldn’t feel more relieved to be sitting on something other than a velvet stool for once. Who knew cold leather seats could feel so pleasant?

“It would’ve been easier if you just went along with what he was implying,” Otoya points out as he travels down the road, a smirk toying on his lips. “Would’ve been funnier, too.”

Your jaw grits, a familiar reaction whenever he says or does anything preposterous to you. He’s lucky he’s driving and not still stuck in the bathroom with you, because if he wasn’t, you most definitely would’ve strangled him by now. 

“Twenty bucks in the douchebag jar when we get home, Eita,” you hiss.

He stifles a chuckle, a warmth within him blooming when he hears his name falling from your lips. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

☚ previous next☛

a/n: this chapter sucked the absolute life out of me good god im glad it's over... a little bit of a serious one, but dw i'm pinning that clown nose on otoya again soon! also, this was the dress that otoya had reader wear; it's an actual piece from the oscar de la renta's collection otoya stated.

yukki's chapter is next, one that i'm quite excited for! i think that's where all the drama is going to start to happen so i hope you'll stay tuned (spoiler: they dance together aaa)

thank you sincerely if you made it this far, i hope you enjoyed reading! comments and reblogs are the best way to support your writers; they're always appreciated and never unnoticed <3

taglist (link to join): @okkotsuus @solaqes @cz19y @kiritokunuwu @/ilovenijironanase @cyberheartrebel @tecchouss @/inojinieee @beoms-sugar

*those with /, please turn on the ability to tag you in posts!

Happy Iwa day! Can you please create a ‘waking up with Iwa’ drabble?

Thank you!

... dont blame me for taking this fluff and turning it into smut tho hfygusdgfd sorry sorry i am only wholesome in asks but not in writing

tw yandere, somnophilia, hate-fucking, possession, noncon

You've haven't gotten used to the achy, sore feeling of having your poor pussy stretched and abused for hours when he starts bothering you during naps too. When your brief moments of sleep get interrupted by a slow few pets along your hairline, your sides, along the curve of your ass. It'd be romantic if it was anyone else, if you didn't wish you could blink his face out of existence.

Iwaizumi's roughed up fingers toy along your slit with spit-strung lines that still leave your thighs all sticky, when you barely manage to pull yourself back into consciousness. The room is never how you left it. He can't stop himself from cleaning up in the pretense of love and care, and apart from angering you -you could help if he didn't insist on fucking you until you passed out- it at least serves as some sort of sense to tell the time.

As you try to push yourself up onto one arm, Iwaizumi grunts softly, before breathing your name. You hate how he says that too. You can tell that his first instinct is to push you back down, but instead he just dips his digit in and out of your awfully sore hole. You notice that the room is clean. The fresh sheet smell is nice, and you bury yourself deeper into them.

"Morning, doll."

You choose to ignore the wistful longing in his tone, and jerk as he strokes a particularly sore spot. "Aw, Iwaizumi, that hurts." He doesn't stop, and you swear a slight glint of enjoyment even passes over his face when his fingertips curl deeper inside you. "Aw, aw, that hurts!"

"Hm, someone's still sore from before, huh." You nod, and try to reach behind you a little to dig your nails into his forearm- but he presses your wrist to your back with a pleased hum. "Well, maybe you deserve that, doll." Tears spring into your eyes, and you glare. God, you hate him. Even if he hadn't stolen you away from your family and locked you up in his fancy prison, even if he hadn't raped you and embarrassed you and hurt you- you'd hate him.

It lingers on the tip of your tongue when he pulls his fingers out of your wet, because of his spit and the motions only, pussy and slots them between his plush lips. Olive eyes find yours as your mouth opens, and maybe he knows you, because one brow lifts. I hate you. I hate you, you think, and bite your lip hard, but it doesn't come out of your mouth. Your body refuses, and you tear up more. Last time you said it left you choking on his cock for long enough to have you gagging your throat raw.

But your tongue still brushes your teeth, and you whimper when he rolls you over. "I-"

"You love me." He pats an impatient hand against your thigh, and you lift it to make room for his narrow hips and thick thighs. "You love," he kisses your leg, "me. This gives you meaning. You're right where you need to be." Of course his cock is already hard. Of course the flushes head is leaking a bead of precum, he can't ever help himself. "My doll. My little puppet."

He lines up, and his mouth corners twitch up a little when your lip is bitten painfully tight between your teeth. You cry out a little noise at the sting, the hurt, the already raw flesh getting overabused from the second he slides in-- shudders above you like he likes it. It hurts. It really really hurts, and yet, your cunt squeezes around him as wetness automatically lubes up his thick cock. "You love this, pretty girl. If you don't yet, you will."

his redemption | 01 | bakugo x reader

synopsis ⤸

after unknowingly moving in next door to a renown gang-leader, you are thrust into a foreign world tainted by the scars of his past. will you be able to help him redeem his sins before they finally catch up to him?

chapters ⤸

next ᝰ

themes ⤸

fem! reader, 18+, gang au, gang-leader! bakugo, doctor! reader, dark fic, one night stands, friends with benefits, unrequited feelings, mutual pining, smut, graphic depictions of violence, kidnappings, mentions of blood, dubcon

word count ⤸

5.1k

a/n ⤸

this is yet another story that originated for a different fandom, but i love this story so much, n i really want to finish it one day, so i’ve decided to rework it for bakugo. pls note that this’ll be on the darker side, so pls check the tags before you read (i’ll be updating them as i write). pls, pls let me know what you think!

reblogs, are appreciated ~

bakugo katsuki is no stranger to women, much to your dismay. 

this is a fact that you learn just a few days after moving into your new apartment block. on the first morning of your arrival, you’d exchanged introductions with the rest of your neighbours, only the angry red eyed man with the blonde ‘fro—as new neighbour denki had described him—hadn’t answered your polite knock, despite the fact that the man’s apartment is situated just a wall away from your own. you’d left with the promise to return the next day. 

come the second morning, and you had been so sure that you’d seen a man of denki’s exact description, standing out on the shared balcony, a cigarette in hand. however, by the time you’d made your way down the hall and stepped out onto the concrete, said figure had disappeared from sight, and once again, there was no answer at number 34. 

by the end of the third day, you were beginning to wonder if he existed at all. 

however, by nightfall, you are made all too aware of his presence. 

after yet another tiresome day of unpacking your belongings, you’d been rudely awoken by the sound of loud, chaotic laughter in the early hours of the morning. at first, you had  thought that you’d imagined it, considering the apartment next door had been seemingly vacant since the day you’d moved in. but when you hear the noise again, followed by the sound of a low, gruff voice—a man’s voice, you realise—you can only heave a heavy sigh. you try to give them the benefit of the doubt, hoping that they’ll be quick to go to sleep, only for your hopes to diminish into thin air when you then hear a breathy moan. 

the man’s voice follows, evidently deeper than his female company, and in turn, you roll over in bed, holding the plush cotton of your pillow over your head. you aren’t sure what time it is, but you suspect that you have just a few hours to get some rest before you have to be up for work. 

however, despite your prayers—and much to both your annoyance and horror—the red eyed man with the blonde ‘fro proceeds to keep you awake until six o’clock in the morning. when you are then forced to haul yourself from the comfort of your bed, it is with an exhausted sigh, your eyelids drooping heavily. rubbing a finger under your eyes, you go about your morning routine, readying yourself to start the day with a much needed cup of coffee. 

exactly forty-seven minutes later, you are leaving the apartment, pausing to ensure that the door is locked tight behind you. but just as you step out into the hall, the door to number 34 quietly creaks open.

you glance up to see a scarcely dressed woman exiting the apartment, attempting to tip-toe into the hallway as she swings the door shut. light brown hair messily dragged into a bun, she carries her heels in one hand, purse in the other, her clothes haphazard as if she’d rushed to get dressed. she wears a scowl that matches your own, and you conclude that the brunette has indeed become the victim of a rude awakening. you watch her, a brow rising as she then turns and lets out an admirably high-pitched shriek at the sight of you stood before her, arms crossed over your chest. 

‘o-oh god,’ she all but exclaims. ‘you sure scared the crap out of me, lady!’ 

you don’t bother to apologise. 

you eye the woman with a look of disapproval, your head tilting to the left at the sound of the door to number 34 swinging open once again. 

denki had been right, you think to yourself as you take in the wild mess of blonde hair that hangs across his forehead, tousled and unkempt. and his eyes are a strikingly angry shade of crimson, you’re surprised to see that that fact is also true, your own boring into where there’s a scar that cuts through his left brow. he’s tall. much taller than you’d imagined, clad in what you guess to be a makeshift set of pyjamas—a loose tank-top and a pair of jogging bottoms, the waistband hanging dangerously low on his hips. 

you blink up at him, immediately tensing as you realise that he’s caught you staring, those scarlet coloured orbs focused on you. awkwardly clearing your throat, you attempt to save face by taking a small step forward, thrusting your hand in front of his face. 

‘h-hi,’ you grimace at how your voice stutters. clearing your throat, you offer your name before forcing a small, but polite, smile, ‘i just moved in next—’

‘i know.’ 

he completely ignores the brunette as if she’s not stood right before him, and this only causes her scowl to deepen. 

your outstretched hand falls to your side, quickly realising that he’s not going to return the handshake. ‘oh... well i tried to—’

‘i know,’ he interrupts again, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossing over his chest. the movement has the lines of his biceps tensing, and you belatedly chide yourself for allowing your eyes to dart to the offending muscle, glaring at his skin. the man looks at you, expression bored, ‘heard you knockin’.’

‘oh,’ involuntarily, your shoulders slump, before your brows pinch together, barely concealing your annoyance. you fail to do so, it seems, as the man before you makes a little noise at the back of his throat before the reds of his eyes languidly drag down the length of your body, before trickling upwards. you grip your handbag a little tighter, teeth clenching together. ‘well, as i said, i’m—’

‘new neighbour,’ he cuts you off once more, voice now lilting upon a tone of amusement when you don’t bother to mask the glare that now mars your features, ‘i know.’ and then, to your surprise, he leans forward, offering his hand. ‘bakugo,’ is all he says as you reluctantly accept his handshake. his hand is warm, his grip burning into your skin, the length of his fingers much longer than your own. you almost relish the touch of his palm until you remember just what he had been doing that had kept you awake all night, and instead, you all but snatch your hand away. 

‘and i’m camie,’ the brunette snaps from your right. 

bakugo’s eyes flicker to glance at her, somehow appearing to have completely forgotten that she’s been stood beside you. expression bored, he hums, ‘camie? thought your name was—?’

‘wow,’ it is you who interrupts him this time. 

camie scoffs loudly. she almost looks as if she wants to cry and you can’t help but feel a little sorry for her, glaring at him on behalf of the other woman, who—without saying another word—rushes down the hallway as best she can without shoes on. you gawk after her, wincing when the main door slams shut, listening as the noise ricochets down the hall, an echo following in its wake. 

‘tsk,’ bakugo tuts, as if disapproving of the noise. a frown is pulling at the space between his brows when you look at him, his eyes darting to bore into yours, his expression lacking any form of remorse. 

you stare back, incredulous. and because you simply can’t help yourself, you sneer, ‘is that how you treat all women?’

bakugo doesn’t appear to appreciate your curt tone, his spine straightening until he’s standing a little taller, gaze sterner. 

‘she got what she came for.’ 

as if you could forget the way that he'd kept you awake all night. your frown deepens, ‘i’m sure.’ 

he looks as if he doesn’t know how to reply. or maybe his unnerving silence is purposely aimed your way because you’ve managed to hit a nerve. you’re not sure. 

but once you check the time on your watch, you realise that you have just twenty minutes to make your way to work. ‘shit,’ you curse softly, rushing to turn away without another look in his direction. yet when your hand curls around the handle of the entrance door, he calls out to you again. 

‘see you ‘round,’ he says lowly. your neck cranes to glance at him from over your shoulder, fighting back the urge to shudder once you catch sight of the scowl he aims at you. within the blink of an eye, he’s smirking, the whites of his teeth gleaming as the corners of his mouth stretch. unnerved, you stumble enough to lose your footing, just managing to catch your balance on the doorframe. bakugo’s eyes squint down at you, ‘you be careful there,’ he mocks, waving a hand, ‘... neighbour.’

you all but run out of the apartment block, exhaling with relief once the door slams shut. 

and all the way to work, you dawdle. 

the introduction to your new neighbour wasn’t what you’d planned at all. you’d hoped that the two of you would exchange pleasantries, maybe occasionally share cups of sugar, if needed. but after just one meeting, you already regret being so eager to meet him. 

and new neighbour denki certainly hadn’t warned you about how annoying the red eyed man is. how rude he is.  

how frustratingly hot he is. 

as soon as that thought enters your head, you shake it free. 

you remain lost in thought until the moment you reach the clinic, almost walking face-first into the glass door. huffing down your embarrassment, you hope that no one notices the way that you stumble your way through the reception and towards your office, barely remembering to breathe a morning greeting to ochaco, who waits for you at the front desk. 

the dark-haired woman scuttles after you, closing the office door as you busy yourself with discarding your coat and bag onto the two seater couch before heavily slumping in the chair at your desk. ochaco places a file onto the desk, offering an apologetic look as she watches the way that you warily eye the folder. 

‘he’s new,’ she tells you, soft spoken and smiling sweetly when you glance up at her. ‘he signed up last—’ 

she’s interrupted by the sound of the door flying open so violently that it roughly smacks back onto the wall behind. mina bounds into the room, clapping her hands excitedly, beaming. she wraps a strong arm around ochaco’s shoulder—who squeaks with surprise when she almost topples over—and squeezes. ‘did you tell her? did you, did you?’ 

ochaco points at the file on the desk, ‘i was just—’

‘oh my god!’ mina exclaims, interrupting. ‘you have got to see this new patient—i begged nemuri to let me have him, but she said some shit about professionalism—that stone-faced bitch. i mean, how the hell am i not professional?’ 

you stifle a laugh, leaning back in your chair. 

mina’s hands are snatching up the file before you can take a peek. ‘god,’ she groans, dropping the file back down so that it smacks against the surface of the desk. ‘it’s so unfair.’ 

‘i’m sure,’ you hum, ochaco giggling behind her hand. 

‘just wait until you see him. i can’t believe nemuri is letting you have him.’ 

you let the comment slide, reaching for the file and flicking the first page open. but as soon as your eyes fixate onto the photograph that is paper clipped to the information sheet, you bolt upright, slack jawed. 

mina calls your name, frowning at your reaction, and when you don’t reply, her grown deepens. ‘okay, i know he’s hot but—’

‘i know him,’ you snap at her, glowering. 

‘you do?’ mina asks, dubious. 

you drop the file to the desk, head in your hands as you groan loudly, ‘he’s my new neighbour. i met him this morning.’

the curl of mina’s grin is now mischievous, ‘oh?’ 

you grimace, ‘don’t look at me like that. he’s not hot at all. he’s such a... a... whore.’ ochaco’s eyes widen at the insult, cheeks red. you elaborate, jabbing your index finger at the file, ‘i bumped into his one night stand this morning... he didn’t even remember her name. asshole.’ 

mina snorts, ‘just your type then,’ she laughs at your annoyed expression, ochaco’s one of concern. 

‘i can’t believe this,’ you groan again, head tilted back as you peer up at the ceiling. this is just your luck. of all people, of course it had to be you to be assigned as his doctor. 

‘maybe you could ask nemuri if someone else—’ ochaco starts, words dying on the tip of her tongue at the sound of mina clearing her throat. the brunette woman swallows, stuttering as she corrects, ‘o-or maybe you could recommend that mina—?’ 

‘yes,’ the pinkette cuts her off, hand forming a fist as she grins, eyes gleaming with glee, ‘this is perfect.’ 

you lift your head to look at her, bewildered, ‘it is?’ 

‘uh, duh?’ mina looks at you as if you’ve suddenly sprouted a second head. ‘i get him as free eye candy, and you get to fuck him without getting into trouble. you know, conflict of interest and all that crap.’ 

‘i’m not going to f—’ you clear your throat at the poor choice of wording, ‘i’m not going to sleep with him, mina.’ 

she almost looks offended, ‘come on. he’s hot. and he lives next door, so you know, no walks of shame.’ 

you run a hand over your face, ‘sometimes, i honestly... really question why we’re friends.’ 

ochaco titters at this and mina pretends to have not heard you. 

‘i’ll ask nemuri if i can hand him over,’ you relent. ‘if you want to deal with him, then be my guest. rather you than me.’ 

mina completely ignores the bitter bite to your tone, sighing dreamily as she stares down at the folder, the first page flipped open to show his picture. the three of you peer down at the photograph with mixed expressions of curiosity and distaste. 

‘he’s not bad looking,’ ochaco offers. 

you huff, ‘don’t encourage her. please.’ 

her smile is gentle, ‘i just think it wouldn’t be too bad if you... had some fun.’ 

‘see?’ mina’s arm is wrapped around poor ochaco’s shoulders once more, ‘she gets it.’ 

‘okay, i’m not listening anymore,’ you stand from your seat, shutting the folder with a flick of your hand and then ushering your friends to the door, ignoring mina’s exaggerated protests. you gently push them out of the office, pausing to grab at the white lab coat from the stand by the door. ‘i’m not sleeping with him and i don’t need to have fun—don’t give me that look, ochaco, you’re just as bad as—’

‘ladies,’ the three of you look to the left to see your senior practitioner standing with a scowl slanting across her forehead, heeled foot tapping against the linoleum flooring. ‘we must not be busy enough if you have time to be chit-chatting in my clinic.’

mina’s lips purse. it is no secret that both she and nemuri have a love-hate relationship, their constant bickering often subject to many jokes shared amongst the staff body. nemuri’s temper, matched with mina’s childish stubbornness is no fight that any of them particularly enjoy witnessing, especially after the time nemuri swung for mina’s head when cleaner-boy-turned-prankster sero had convinced the pinkette to jokingly lace nemuri’s alcohol with laxatives during an after-work party. luckily, she hadn’t consumed the liquid, but she had been angry enough to leave a mark on mina’s cheek for a week afterwards. 

you, on the other hand, as well as ochaco, much prefer to remain on nemuri’s good side. the woman does sign off your pay-checks, after all. 

‘actually,’ you start, faltering when narrowed sky-blue eyes glide over to you, unimpressed by your attire. heeding the unspoken warning, you quickly swing the lab coat over your shoulders, shoving your arms through the respective holes. the palms of your hands are flattening down the fabric as you dare to ask, ‘could i have a word?’ 

nemuri eyes you, a dark brow quirking upwards. 

‘please?’ you urge. 

nemuri glances at the other two women who stand behind you, and whilst you can’t see their expressions, you can already picture the annoyance on mina’s face. ‘do you not have work to do, ashido?’ nemuri barks, and ochaco is already shuffling away before the older woman’s anger can be aimed at her. 

smart. 

you hear mina click her tongue, but she doesn’t argue back, and you listen to the clacking of her heels until they quieten behind the slam of a door. nemuri’s gaze lingers on you for a second longer, and then she’s turning away, leading the way to her office. once inside, nemuri takes a seat behind her desk, the woodwork cluttered with paperwork. she points a manicured fingertip at the chair opposite, and without question, you follow the instruction. lowered into the comfortable seat, you wait for the older woman’s attention to focus on you, watching as she searches the pockets of her own lab coat. when she can’t find what she’s looking for, she grumbles under her breath, quickly giving up. 

settling back in her chair, her stare fixates onto you. 

‘now,’ she drawls, teeth bared as she smiles. ‘what can i do for my favourite student?’ 

๑

it is dark when you arrive home, soaked through from the rain that had poured from the heavens when you were just minutes away from your apartment building. 

you’re not sure of the time, but you suspect that it’s well past midnight, kicking your sodden shoes off at the door, barely remembering to shove the key through the lock. dumping your purse on the small dining table, you shrug off your coat, shoving the damp material into the washing machine, along with your stockings. a trail of water follows you to the bathroom, your fingers snatching a clean towel from the radiator. however, you don’t get the chance to dry your hair, as a loud knocking at the front door has your spine stiffening. 

exhaustion has you debating on ignoring whoever is at the door, but when they knock again, the loud thumping is now desperate and repetitive. 

‘alright, alright!’

you’re unlocking the front door, yanking it open, ready to reprimand the visitor for making such a racket. but as you pull open the door—only for a heavy weight to suddenly slump against you, enticing a winded oof! from your lips—the words die on the tip of your tongue. 

‘what the—?’ 

staggering under the extra weight, you struggle to remain upright. recognising the flash of blonde hair that tickles your cheek, you heave the man up into a standing position. 

‘bakugo? what on earth are you—?’ 

he grasps at your arms, using your shoulder to balance himself as he hauls his body to lean against the doorframe with a strained wheeze. his face is unhealthily pale and you notice the beads of sweat that have collected upon his forehead, threatening to trickle down the curve of his cheek. heavily lidded eyes blink down at you and his voice rasps as he says, ‘need help.’ 

you see it then; how he’s clutching at his ribs, his body trembling as the length of his spine presses against the doorframe. your eyes widen at the startling amount of blood that soaks a crimson stain through the fabric of his light-coloured t-shirt, the thick liquid smeared along the bumps of his swollen knuckles. your rain-soaked skin is forgotten, the towel closing over the back of his hand, adding pressure.  

‘w-what happened?’ 

‘you. you’re... a doctor... ain’t you?’ his eyes are squeezed shut, his breath wetly rattling from between his lips, the lower one split. 

you stare at him, ‘how do you—?’ 

‘help me,’ bakugo hisses, gaze smouldering as he grunts in pain when you press harder. ‘please,’ he adds reluctantly, the word forced out between gritted teeth. 

pausing to kick the door shut, you guide him into your small apartment, carefully supporting his weight as you walk him toward the bedroom, lowering him to the mattress as gently as you can. he strains out a groan of pain, eyes screwing shut, and you easily forget any form of annoyance that you’d harboured towards him, grimacing as you gently nudge his hand out of the way to peel his shirt back. 

unsurprisingly, the wound is fresh, deep enough that it’s still weeping, but not so deep that you can see fat. it’s a relief and you allow the emotion to sag your shoulders, a breath escaping you. you slide the towel over his skin once more, pressing hard. 

‘keep pressure on it,’ you order. fingers shaking, he does as you say, clamping down onto the towel that has already begun to morph into a brilliant shade of red. the sight is a concern, and you rush to grab the first-aid kit from the bathroom before returning to kneel beside him, pausing to look over his prone form. he appears to have formed a fever, so you decide on opening the window, allowing a trickle of cool air to flow into the room, chilled by the rain outside. 

suppressing a shudder, you hope that it’s enough to ease his fever, your hand moving his aside to check the wound once more. it’s a few inches long, the cut clean. you can sew him up—you’re more than skilled enough to do so—but you’d much rather him be checked out at a hospital. you voice this opinion to him, only to be shut down almost immediately. 

‘no,’ he manages to gasp around a tense moan. ‘no hospital.’ 

‘but—’

‘i said,’ he hisses, head raising from the mattress to glare at you, ‘no fuckin’ hospital.’ 

you bite back a retort. it’s no use arguing with him, especially when he’s bleeding out onto your brand new bedsheets. ‘fine,’ you relent, tone brash and eyes hard. ‘i need your shirt off.’ 

he eyes you dubiously, warily. 

‘it’ll give me more space to work,’ you clarify. ‘plus, it’ll be much cleaner. it’ll decrease the risk of—’

‘yeah, yeah,’ he grunts, making a move to sit upright, his abdominal muscles tensing. only, he collapses straight back down, quickly followed by a pained wheeze. ‘i-i can’t...’ he suddenly forms a fist, slamming it down on the mattress beneath him with a frustrated curse, ‘fuck!’  

your hand closes around his, ‘it’s fine,’ you try to calm him, slightly panicked by his small outburst. you don’t think that he’ll hurt you—or at least, that’s what you hope—but the clenching of his fist and the welling of his darkening orbs has your stomach knotting with nerves. lest you allow it show, though, your expression is forcibly neutral, ‘don’t move. i’ll just use scissors.’ 

he huffs a noise of disapproval but doesn’t move, so you open up the first-aid box, throwing the lid open so harshly that it almost snaps from the hinges. grabbing the scissors, you make quick work of slicing through his t-shirt, his brows pulling together at the sound of the fabric tearing until you tug it from under his back, throwing it to the ground. he grunts as you accidentally jostle him, but you pay no mind, already reaching for the anti-septic wipes. 

‘this is going to sting,’ is the only warning you spare him. 

‘just hurry the fuck up,’ he snaps, only for the expanse of his chest to vibrate with a pained growl when you smooth the first wipe over the wound. his hips jerk upwards, head falling back against the bed. 

‘hold still,’ you snap, elbow roughly digging into the soft tissue of his hip in order to keep him still. he mumbles something under his breath but you aren’t listening, cleaning his wound with a practiced pace. as you work, you are privy to the sight of the family of scars that litter his torso. there’s one, long and jagged, that traces from his right hipbone to his navel, the edges uneven. you dread to imagine what could have caused it. there are a few smaller scars that encircle his left collarbone, splattered down to his nipple, another large one that expands across his ribs, disappearing as it curves around to his back.

you know that you shouldn’t be staring. 

he’s a patient. 

but that doesn’t stop you from admiring him. because despite the scars that taint the golden kiss of his tanned skin, and despite the fact that the heat of his blood  warms your hands as you work, congealing in a way that makes your nose crinkle, you can’t help but agree with mina. 

he really is a sight to admire. 

the blood-flow ceased, you ensure that the wound is thoroughly cleaned before proceeding to select a sterile needle, ripping open the packaging with your teeth. squinting with one eye closed, you guide the thread through the loop, shuffling closer on your knees. 

‘’kay,’ you breathe. ‘gonna close you up now.’ 

when you receive no reply, you look up, only to see that the pain has rendered him unconscious. it’s probably for the best, you conclude, pushing the needle through his skin and forming the first stitch. with practiced ease, the stitching is neatly formed in short timing, cleaned and bandaged with careful precision. 

after, you pack away the first-aid kit, careful to not wake him when you move from the bed to discard the used wipes and the bloodied needle. in the bathroom, you scrub your hands clean, drying them before returning to the bedroom to gently remove the stained towel from his curled fist. you discard the fabric of his ruined t-shirt into the bin, setting the washing machine to cycle after shoving the towel in to join your coat. 

closing the bedroom window and switching the light off, you collapse into the chair by the vanity table. tiredly, you eye his sleeping form, his skin illuminated by the dim light emitted from the lamp in the living room. a thin sheet of sweat coats his forehead, blonde hair now appearing a light brown as it is dampened. his lungs expand and deflate at a slow, but even pace, and you know that he’s out of danger, despite the pool of blood that has crusted the bedsheets. you’ll have to replace them. 

for now, exhaustion catches up to you now that your adrenaline has settled, and it only takes seconds for your eyes to droop closed. 

๑

it feels as if just minutes have passed when your eyes snap open to the sound of someone swearing loudly. 

bleary eyed, you jolt upright, double taking when you remember that you’re not alone. bakugo is now sat up, much to your surprise, however, you aren’t able to get a good look at him when he turns his head towards you. 

because there’s now another person in the room. 

hair as crimson as the blood that his friend had shed, with the red of his eyes to match, eijiro kirishima looms over his friend. he’s also tall, maybe even taller than the blonde haired man hunched over on your bed, his body equally as fit, biceps bulging as he hooks an arm under bakugo’s armpit, yanking him to his feet as if he weighs nothing. 

you are on your feet in seconds, hands reaching with the intention to push the man with the blonde ‘fro back to the mattress. but before your fingertips can even touch him, kirishima is unkindly shoving you backwards, glowering as he gives you a once-over, jaw ticking. 

‘move it, lady.’ 

‘he’s in no fit state to move,’ you protest. 

kirishima barks out a laugh, easily balancing bakugo on one arm as he rudely jabs his index finger in your face. ‘trust me, he’s had worse.’ he waves his hand, indicating that you move, ‘now be a sweetheart and move over, i need to get him outta here.’ 

you stare up at him, eyes narrowing as his frame towering over yours as he takes a threatening step closer. 

‘listen, lady,’ he seethes. ‘soon, this place’ll be swarmin’ and i need’ta get him outta here before they get here. he can’t fight like this.’ bakugo makes a noise, appearing on the brink of unconsciousness once more, head lolling against kirishima’s shoulder. you aren’t even sure how the redhead managed to break into your apartment in the first place, but you don’t need to question the mild panic that he allows to pass over his features, clearly concerned for his friend. he doesn’t wait for your reply, barging past as he hauls bakugo from the bedroom. 

you follow after them, protesting. 

‘you could re-open his wound!’ 

kirishima uses his spare hand to pull the front door open, ‘like i said, he’s had worse.’ he makes to pull his friend out of the apartment, but you halt him with a hand on his clothed shoulder. 

‘w-wait!’ 

much to your relief, he does, watching as you disappear into the kitchen, noisily fumbling around in one of the cupboards. on rushed feet, you return, pressing a bottle of pain-killers into the palm of his hand. ‘at least make sure he takes these. they’ll help him,’ you plead. kirishima eyes you, expressionless eyes critical as he silently regards you. you’re not sure what he’s looking for, but he seems to approve, nodding once as he shoves the pills into the back pocket of his jeans. 

just as kirishima is hauling him over the threshold, bakugo manages to lift his head, eyes barely open as he looks at you. 

‘i owe you,’ he’s barely able to exhale, features twisting in pain as he clutches at his bandaged side. and then before you reply, they’re gone, disappearing out of your line of sight as the door to the apartment block closes, announcing their departure. 

for a long time after, you stand in the doorway, waiting. 

waiting for what, you do not know.

eventually, you lock the door before returning to the bedroom. the apartment is now eerily quiet as you listen to the sound of police sirens shrieking in the distance. slumping back into your chair, you rest your elbows on your thighs, pressing your face into the palms of your hands. you inhale, breath shaking as you wait until the sirens have faded into silence.

the entire encounter feels like a damned dream, but the blood-stained bedsheets are the only evidence of bakugo’s lingering presence. 

and with a chest-heaving sigh, you suspect that this won’t be the last you’ll see of him. 

© obitohno. all rights reserved. do not repost my works.

UNHAPPY BULLY

SERIES PART 1-4

Warning: May contain triggering content, bullying, mentions of blood, and other things you might not like. Errors might be present, please don't mind them. Enjoy!

Summary: She's the quiet one, she's the loud one, he's her tormentor, he's her problem at school. He might be obsessed with her.

Word count: 7.4k

Since it was requested and liked, I decided to make a story with almost the same premise, excluding the one-shot material, it's the full package. There's more to come. If you want;)

The more she tries to avoid it, the harder it gets. It's a bittersweet truth.

Subjected to his mean words retained a cynical outcome on her conviction, always glaring at her, smiling at her misery, touching her with intent to hurt, tossing paper balls at her, sometimes pulling her hair If she ever had the tragic coincidence sitting in front of him. Whenever they shared eye contact, she feels as though he is wordlessly disparaging her with his blood-red eyes. For the most part, however, it wasn't physical.

Today, he seemed more competitive.

Sitting in the far back with the other girls, separated by gender, she observes the way her blonde bully perfects his task, hearing her male classmates cheer at the sight, for anything minor or major, she had gotten adjusted. Her teacher returned, a whistleblower hanging from the collar, a small stick he likes to use at his grasp.

The girls beside her quietly laughed, whispering something into each other's ears, some lack shame she presumes.

They tapped her shoulder and gently uttered 'the boys told us to give you this message, Katsuki likes your black underwear.' She ceased, side-eyed her giggling classmate, then pressed her lips together, the humiliation sweeping up her body, she nervously looks back at their teacher, attempting to disregard the dreadful beats of her heart. Thoughts ran rampant in her affected mind, she clenches her fist around her wrist, swallowed her unease when the teacher noticed her.

"Let's see how much you've all improved since the last time, we'll be doing a race test, then throwball test, finally, strength test." He sternly spoke, glancing at his students, some appearing excited, others apprehensive.

"First row, you are up."

The words dulled themselves, the noisy cheers and girls talking tuning out, she just couldn't help but overthink, the most consistent thought being, 'when- how did he see it?' She has been so meticulous in evading him, no boys were allowed in the changing rooms unless someone beguiles, leaked information to disrespect her. It wouldn't be uncharacteristic of her classmates. She briefly looked at the other side, watching the blonde focus on the current race, however, slowly looked her way and smirked, as if he was anticipating her reaction.

She was the one to break away the instant their gaze met, steadily inhaling while she bit on her lips, she attempts to concentrate, hopefully, neglect her pressing notions for a short while, so she doesn't end up butchering her physical test.

"Ok! The last row, you are up!" She rose, jogging behind the girls to catch up, each race consisted of five students, she was up with the gossiping girls and two mean girls who probably knew what colour of underwear she was wearing now. She gulps, slowly taking her place in between them, failing to dismiss the pessimistic feelings, she got in her position, her heartbeat accelerating, she feels like she isn't in the moment when the whistle sounds out and the five of them galloped.

The applause was loud in her ears, shouts and raving she heard of her that managed to bother her. She kept up her pace, in the lead before the black-haired classmate caught up, then she listens to her say. "You suck, black underwear." She teased, quickly running forwards, she grimaced, using her last bit of energy to force herself to move hastily. As they neared the finish line, she sprinted right behind her, both of them now in the same place. It could be a tie if they kept up. She gave her nasty glare, putting all her strength and eventually left the girl behind, securing herself the first place.

She had never won the golden opportunity before, so it came as a pleasant surprise when her teacher cheered and said, "Woah! That's a big improvement, you had come last place, right?" He asked, she nodded, breathing heavily. He patted her and sent them away, then she saw, the shocking look in the girl's grey eyes. Hatred.

"She came first place, okay how did that happen?" She heard them mutter amongst themselves, staring at her as if she had grown another head.

"She must have cheated."

She sat down, pulling her blue water bottle out only to see it empty. Someone... Drank it? She knew exactly who it was. She groaned, thirsty but toiled to keep her temper in check, she leaned back, resting her trembling legs as the adrenaline fades off. Her throat itching for some water.

Wiping the sweat off her eyebrows, exhausted from just the first test, she inspected the boy's competition around the ground, a certain green-haired boy seizing her attention, in the last place, but still pushing with all his might. Small-ish, lean, short, and quirkless, a distant friend from childhood, he's another victim of her bully, known as deku, while she was referred to as loopy, in short, crazy.

"Ok! Last team! You are up."

It was katsuki's turn, she could heed the boy's gaiety already, the blonde pushed past the depleted greenette who didn't say anything and walked back to his seat, even her female classmates smiled, silently interested in seeing him.

"On your marks, get, set, go!!"

The five boys were off, and her bully quickly obtained the lead, the four others wanting to get the first place but Katsuki had already travelled a long distance and they wouldn't reach in time. He was going to win from the very beginning.

The crowd lauded, flaring the guy's ego, he gave a big restrained smile, moving back to his place, with a huge swell of arrogance, settling down in the middle of the restless boys, still celebrating their bets.

"Now then we are done with the racing test, we can go onto the next game, throwball. You'll be divided into two teams, consisting of both boys and girls, gather round, I'll team you up." Everyone got up, thrilled for the match-up, she wasn't too pleased about it, lazily hauling herself as she blended into the mob, observing her teacher evaluate his choice and gripingly put them into wrong teams.

"Team A, Miyamura, shin, Makoto, lolly, rudo, midoriya..." Then he carried on, she didn't get picked in that team, and neither, her bully, she was about to get teamed up with him, wasn't she? This day couldn't get any worse.

"Team B, Bakugo, Rosie, Haru, Asahi, lei, Aiko, Aoi..." Then his wrinkled eyes landed on her, she knew she was doomed.

"And L/n! Ok, we are good to go!"

It had been such an awful experience discussing strategy and arrangement with her bully, he straight up didn't want her in his team, but begrudgingly decided to have her beside him in the middle. She knew she was to be horrible at this, and he was going to hate her more now since he's so obsessed with winning, with victory.

The match began, most of the throws ended up on the blonde's side, and whenever it did head towards her, he would catch it instead, one time, he even hit her on the cheek with his elbow when he caught the ball, it hurt, she started to dislike him even more.

The fierce competition was ongoing, she had thrown a grand total of two times, miraculously, he deliberately plucks her out of place when she had to receive the brown orb, she ended up on her butt at least thrice, and they were in the lead, a few points and it will be over.

Relief had flooded her senses upon thinking the finale, she was expending less awareness when Katsuki yelled her name, and she was met with the ball to the face, disorienting her vision, she stumbled back, gripping her throbbing nose and face, she looked down at her palms and found blood, the dark red liquid slowly drips down her lips, she swallowed, looking at her teacher who rushed towards her before taking her off the field. Everyone stood still, silence engulfing their once clamorous contest.

She suffered a minor nose bleed, got cotton stuffed in her nostril, and had an awkward atmosphere upon entering the classroom, she was expecting someone to tease but none were sneered her way and the rest of the classes went on normally. She hadn't gotten any 'are you okay' either, she doesn't know if she preferred it or not.

Her P.E teacher nearly had a heart attack, one of his statements stuck with her, 'you are so delicate, you need to get strong.' He meant it with good intentions, she had heard that expression from her parents as well. Her bully hadn't backed off from making her day a little less bad by stealing her notes for the upcoming class. If she was caught not possessing her notebook, she's bound to get lectured and punished.

She hated him.

After class, she confronted him.

"Can you give me back my notes?" She vehemently spoke, arms crossed, one leg stuck out, tapping against the floor impatiently.

"Oh, you look ugly with those in your nose." He said, faking an exaggerated disgusted facade.

"Return it back or else..."

He turned towards her, fully facing her with a tough look in his eyes, she returned the gesture, pinching her lips with the way he stood with pride.

"What are you going to do? Report me?" He taunted, leaning inwards, challenging her with a glare.

"Yes, this time to the principal."

He laughed, grumbling, "just for a book?" He tsked, continuing, "you are pathetic."

"No, for everything you've done." She spits back, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Oh! Is that so? What evidence have you got against me? Deku? He won't get in a word, he's a loser, and you are far worse than him." He retorted.

"The principal won't have a reason to deny if I bring my parents into the picture, plus you still have my notebook with you, you haven't returned so it should be proof enough." She responded, not missing the way his lips twitched, his eyes hardening.

"Hey, dude! Why are you keeping us waiting for so long?" His friends shouted from the front of the class, halting at the sight of their friend and his victim, "you want us to leave without you?" They smugly smiled, elbowing each other, then slowly walking out, leaving the both of them to themselves.

"If you say anything to anyone, I'm going to make your life a living hell." He threatened, grabbing her collar and propelling her towards him. "You don't want that, do you?" He ceased for a moment, grinning wide as if he had gotten a brilliant idea, he resumed, "if you want me to stop, maybe we could do a trade."

"No thanks, I know how you are, it's probably not in my interest." She bravely muttered, it irked him, he shoved her away, the smile on his face fading away, "you don't know when to give up, do you?"

He grimaces, shifting back to get his backpack, plopping it on his shoulder, he stared at her maliciously and said.

"If you want your notebook, you gotta have something in return for me."

With that, he left.

She strutted there for a short while, reflecting on her alternatives because no matter what, he somehow manages to outsmart her. Every time.

When her tears were more than her words, her courage less than that of her quirk. She met her bully, with blonde hair, ruddy eyes, and an enlarged ego that seemed to increase tenfold once applause was sent it's way, it was a one-time thing, she was just going to play along with boys her age, perhaps younger since she had no one else, and while most of them were against it, a sweet green-haired boy insisted, holding her hand and bringing her with him.

It was discouraging to be thereafter the severe disagreement, however, she still followed, she was the only girl with four to five chaps.

That day, was the first and last time she was ever going to reside in that group.

They were far rowdier and carefree than her, proudly walking in the street, she and the other boy trailing behind them, and then they stepped inside a convenience store, she had watched them buy stuff, all might items, she observed their smiles upon tearing it open, right outside the shop, grinning in delight.

The blonde kid was far happier than any one of them, denying his now treasured object any spying eyes, protecting it and retrieving it inside his pocket. She felt out of place, for some reason.

Then, they played hero and villain, like any other kid she's seen, she had to be the one rescued, and she oddly delighted that. The green-haired boy was a villain, while the blonde one was a hero, she was the civilian who needed saving. It was a fun pastime, her heart was beating fast, watching the two quarrel, until the greenette got harshly pushed down. She got up and asked him if he was okay, it did not please the others.

"You are supposed to ask me if I'm okay, not him!" The blonde sneered at her, she frowned, lowering her gaze, muttering, "was I supposed to? But you weren't hurt." She innocently replied, "even villains are humans like us, they get hurt too, you know."

"Do you have a crush on deku or something? Because you sound stupid." He argued, she shared brief eye contact with the kid, a sad expression now on her small face.

She doesn't know what to say.

"I think I like him more." She hesitantly answered, "you don't know how a hero should act, they are never mean to anyone."

It bothered him.

Then came a hard shove.

That was what she recalled, seeing the all might plushie at the store, safely tugged at the corner, almost gone, the shop had a handful of customers at this time, nowadays, finding hero merch was common, and it got a lot of attention and profit. All might has never been her favourite, not after her mind associated that bitter memory with meeting her bully, then the green-haired boy, Deku, she never got herself to know him, maybe she was upset, angry with how things flipped upside down. Or she just resented him for suffering around those mean kids, it made her sad thinking about him, two of kacchan's victims.

"Oh! um..." she faced the timid voice, finding her greenette classmate standing before her, shying away from direct eye content, she turned away, picking the item from the toy section and prepared to depart, "you're taking that...?" inquired the boy, particularly no feelings stuck out to her, she felt nothing towards him, neutral, leaning a little towards dislike from time to time.

"Yes, did you want it?" she asked, ready to hand it to him, but he hastily disagreed, "n-no! It's fine! I've never seen you here, buying all might stuff..." he awkwardly replied, pressing his lips into a thin line. "I usually don't but because of someone, I have to," she responded.

His eyes light up, and he flashes her a tiny smile, "is it a gift?"

She quickly shook her head, furrowing her eyebrows and narrowing her eyes at the image of having her bully as a kind of friend, "no, I just gotta get it for my notebook." he questioned her with a puzzled look, "as an accessory?" she grinned, faking enthusiasm. She couldn't deal with any queries right now. She tries to leave, but is stopped again, by a curious boy who asked, "are you and kacchan... in a relationship?" she quickly answered, in a bitter tone.

"No." she gave him a brief glance and took off.

'He calls me loopy for a reason, perhaps he is right.'

The next morning, she approached him, demanded her belonging, and got back a crude response, asking for a little something, she had gotten a plushie but, would he even want it? A grown boy who was a bully would want something soft that she went out of her way to get, with her pocket money, to her liking, he wouldn't, a hardened guy like him can't appreciate it.

"Unless you give me something precious of yours, I won't give it back." he arrogantly declared, further irking her, her eyes sting, her throat tightened, and the urge to slap him amplified.

"I don't get it, what do you want?" she mumbled, irritated. As if she would ever willingly hand him her most treasured item with ease.

"Hmm, preferably something black." he shrugged. He knew that she knew what he was talking about, but she acted obliviously. "A mask?"

He moved forward, and softly whispered, "Black underwear loopy, remember that?"

She immediately pushed him back, ignoring his wicked laugh, and sat down, recoiling from stress and anger, glaring at his taunting form, how long can she go without her notes.?

At lunch break, she eagerly requested some of her classmates to lend her their book but, nobody was ready to hand it off and hope for the best, he seriously threatened them not to give her any help?

At last, she stopped in front of her final choice, Deku.

She stopped him as the entire class emptied, even their bully, so it was just the two of them, alone, together, as victims. She halts at his desk, gulping down her concerns.

"Can you lend me your science notebook, I promise I'll return it as soon as possible." she spoke pleadingly, he nervously stared at her, "um..." without hearing his answer, she slouched, speaking a little louder, "don't tell me Katsuki threatened you too?" he bowed his head down, looking up regretfully, confirming, "kacchan's been telling everyone not to help you with anything, but..." he finished, voice latched with sorrow. Their gaze connected, she fought the urge to tear her eyes away from him.

"Is that why you were getting him that plushie...?"

She momentarily ceased, thinking it through, then gently uttered.

"I wasn't thinking about it, I just bought it impulsively. Besides, not that he will return my notes either way, even if I gave it to him before he laughed." she honestly replied, correcting her posture and stepping back. Now aware, even he might not be able to aid her.

"But- you got it for him..." he softly mumbled to himself, lowering his eyes to his plain neat desk, hands gripped in his laps, blinking at his held fist.

"I don't get it, why are you so upset about it?" she mused, observing his expression alter and diffuse. "I-I'm not! I promise, just, do you regret meeting me?" he suddenly surprised her with the query, she watched him shift nervously in his seat, avoiding her eyes like it meant something horrible, "no, I don't. Actually, I don't think I've made amends with you."

He tearfully glanced at her face, wanting her to carry on but she turned her face from him and clutched the straps of her bag in her fingers, saying one last thing before cutting her short conversation with him, "it's okay if you don't wanna help, no problem, I'll see you tomorrow."

She leaves. The sting of guilt doesn't take long to invite itself in.



The school campus is brimming with students, tall, short and alike, striding their merry way home, she was one of them, gaze cast down, attending to the dirt crushing underneath her school shoes, it was breezy for a moment and then it wasn't, the light slowly veering orange. A heavy arm suddenly grabs her neck from behind, prompting her to avert her gaze to the familiar person holding her waterway in a tight squeeze.

"You're coming out rather late, what were you doing with deku?" The grumpy raspy voice of her tormentor sounded near her ear, she shoot him a scowl, about to plop his arm back to his side, however, he resettled his grasp and further leaned over to her cheeks.

"You could have my notes if you are so desperate." He mocked, snickering at her miserable endeavour.

"Yeah sure, why don't you just give me my notebook back." She acknowledged.

"What if I burned it and threw it away, you still want it back?" He muttered, drawing closer to her, his arm now slithering to her waist, just low enough, clasping her hipbone, perking up at her startled reaction.

Without saying anything, she ripped off his hand, removed it from her body and jabbed it to his left side, rejecting his terrorizing grimace, quickly stepping away from his reach, ambling towards the entrance.

"If you are not going to tell me then I'm going to ruin it, and I won't give you mine either, not like anyone else is going to entrust their belongings to you." He shouted, knowing where to pull her strings.

Even though she wouldn't admit it, she needed it before tomorrow.

She thinks for a quick duration, examining for any tell-tale signs of dishonesty or animosity, she forced herself to oblige, she couldn't get reprimanded for something fixable. Hesitantly, she speaks up.

"Fine." She swiftly made her way towards him, defensively folding her arms near her chest and disapprovingly staring at his arrogant face.

"What's your deal with that nerd?"

"I asked him if he would give me his notes, that's all, plus we met at a shop yesterday, nothing happened, I was just looking for something to buy." She responds.

He doubtingly peers, soaking in the slightest shift in her movement, her face, and his gut told him she wasn't lying right under his nose, he hums, pulling his bag off his shoulder, he quickly takes his book out, hands it to her, not before lifting out her reach.

"You better not damage it, or pour any drop of water, juice, anything, think you can do that?" He boasts, chancing to get an 'aye' out of her lips. She frigidly nods, lips tightened.

He smiles, content with his plan.

"Good. You better come to school tomorrow, don't even try to get me into trouble for getting absent with my notes."

"Okay! Geez, you have too many restrictions on your list, why the demand?"

"You should know who's in control right now, you say anything more and I'll snatch it back." She silently groans, mentally mourning her desperate decisions.

Her room reeked of jasmine. Denser in the centre of her space, her bed still unmade, curtains half drawn and her worn clothes thrown on her stool, she sat down on the comfy mattress, drawing out a relieved sigh, she inspected her sloppy area.

Suddenly standing up to view the book on her study table, she didn't notice it before, but his notebook oddly smelled like caramel, a little bit of burnt sugar, and an unidentified fragrance she couldn't pinpoint, was it apples? Or perhaps it was a men's cologne.

Seeing her phone, she instantly kept it back into its original position, interested in checking on the latest news about recent incidents, unfortunately, as soon as she opened it, she saw a lot of messages on her insto and reluctantly decided to hold off her mundane endeavour.

As she tasks herself to answer, she finds a few accounts of her classmates, and then it leads to her curiosity heightening and ripening, perceiving their cringe profile and caption, in the end, she managed to unearth one shocking discovery.

Her bully had an account.

She couldn't negate the familiarity between him and her hypersensitive torturer, it had to be him, no posts were made, just a simple affidavit to show his personality, she wants to bet his side-bubbies did this for him, but there's always a possibility of being false. Most of her classmates were following him, except her, and her distant friend.

Maybe he was dared to make an account- there's no way he did it out of his own will.

KATSUKI BAKUGO IS NOW FOLLOWING YOU. 1 SEC AGO.

Her eyes grow wide.

She receives the notification before a request to message, she wildly couldn't approve his follow petition, she could block him. Even if that sounds harsh, he's committed worse. Sadly for her, he is just going to afflict her more misery if she doesn't.

The proclamation reads, 'follow me back loser, you don't forget to bring my notebook tomorrow if you don't return it, I'm going to kill you.' He cared more about his paper tablet than her feelings. She stiffly hovers over the button, her thumb slightly trembling, stare trained on the smirking face of her bully, his picture confirmed it.

It was him.

Hesitantly her fingers tapped on the letters, erasing her sentence twice, rephrasing it properly in case he assumes it wrongly, the entire time, she doesn't realise she was holding her breath, chewing on her lips, reading her memo thrice, she sends it.

She accepted to follow him back and then blacklisted him. She couldn't see his messages and it was better that way.

Besides, not that he will care.

About to retire from her device to freshen up, disregard and forgive, she gets an unknown call, she immediately rejects it, standing up to close her curtains. It was likely just a bogus call.

Now adorned in soft clothes, she plops on her chair, her phone on mute, prepared to relax and binge-watch videos, but her mother shouting for her presence downstairs had compelled her to put her idea on wait again. She internally groans, carrying herself towards her mother's voice.

She retreated to her dull space after a tough while had breezed by, mildly annoyed but still had a soft tint in her eyes, grabbing her gadget to take pictures of her bully's notes since she doesn't feel like writing and it being impossible jot it down in a single day, she chose to print it out the next morning before school. She opened the slab, gently turning the papers and observing his rather neat handwriting, too elegant for a fella like him. She was astonished.

At unlocking her golden covered phone, several unknown calls had been made to her number, she got uneasy. Checking it prior to making a quick call to know who was trying to get a hold of her. She bought it to her right ear, nervously surveying her entire room as the call begins to drag on.

Until a firm stern voice startled her senses.

"Why didn't you pick up earlier?"

She knew who it was just by the tone of his voice, low, raspy, and an angered portrayal of him already playing inside her head.

She spoke.

"I didn't know it was you." She defended, her legs glued to the floor as she stiffly tried to think ahead, bitting her lips for reassurance.

He didn't answer.

"So- how did you get my number?" She anxiously inquired, glancing at the walls, anything her gaze landed on. She needed some sort of closure, her heart was slowly starting to pound faster.

"Deku gave it." He replied in a single breath, his line on the call was oddly quiet.

She looked at her clock, it was already past nine, was he a late sleeper?

"It's late, I'll hang up now. Bye." She sheepishly uttered, quickly tapping the red button and moving into her chair. She concludes with how different he sounded.

The next sunrise, she woke up late.

She didn't concern herself, at first.

Then recollected her plan to print his notebook just in case, then came her frenzied rush, unfortunately, she had less time to spare and ran out the door with her mother screaming to have breakfast, she sprinted, legs shaky and adrenaline coursing through her blood, breaths short and quick, inhaling through her mouth, her dry uniform dampen with sweat.

Jogging hastily at the scenery of her destination, she galloped across the deserted surface, dismissing the prying stares by her classmates, already in class and seated by the window. She stopped in front of her classroom door just on cue for the bell to ring and signal their impending lot. She collapsed, only to sit straight up and anxiously rampage her bag's contents.

Fishing out the notebook.

Searching it to see if it was the correct one.

It was, she could pass it over during lunch break. The problem was, approaching him willing, after the tactics he pulled on her, she's uncertain, cautious, careful, she shouldn't let him take advantage of her meek nature but, when their eyes connect and he glares with potent bitterness, her heart halts, and the air captive inside her lungs. He was intimidating.

She avoided him, solely for that rationale.

Part of her did not want to admit, she was frightened.

Instead of delivering it to him herself, she begged one of his side-buddies to do it in her cause, and he strangely consented, muttering her thanks and departing with the notebook. She grew more sentimental over it than her bully.

Positive this subsisting to be the last time she had to repay anything of his.

Besides, he was probably enraged she arrived later than sooner and was adamant about teaching her a lesson via a harsh glint, she's subconsciously made a comparison to him being moody vs his usual temper, pondering the same thing upon dropping down on her seat and getting a candy bar out of her pocket. In a hurry, she left her lunch box as well, and she didn't have breakfast either, so this was much she could afford with her current pocket money.

Students were present with her, just her bully and his friends were missing, breaks were her least and most favourite time of the day, it is also when her heckler was picky on her.

In the back seat, her green-haired friend shyly peeks at her figure, his hand grasping a pen and words neatly in scribbled. Wishing to talk with her, but decked not to.

And his intuition was right about it.

Entered their childhood bully with hands stuffed in his pockets. His buddies eluded from his side, standing straight as he loomed over the spirited female, immediately glancing up to stare at him, he lours, deferentially uttering.

"Why didn't you come to give me my notes huh? Are you that ungrateful?" He narrowed his scarlet eyes, furrowing his cream coloured eyebrows.

"I bet you are, didn't even say a word of gratitude after I humbly gave my help to you. You thankless brat." He scornfully ridiculed her, the girl took no intuitive to respond, drinking in his words, admitting mentally, he was right, she didn't thank him. Silence followed.

It was tense for a long moment.

She opened her lips and said.

"Thank you." She wasn't as prideful as him, and it didn't seize much out of her to say something appreciative.

He appeared taken aback, however, his hardened expression endured, he let out a disgruntled sigh, still glaring at her being.

Watching her without saying anything.

"Hmph. Loser." Finally, he mouthed, showing her his back and fled.

Her timid friend had taken note of everything unusual, but simply looked down and dismissed his longing to communicate.

But still, his gaze lingered around her.



School had ended, and she arrived home early, stomach protesting for some delicious contents, without having done anything she normally does after coming home, she strode towards the kitchen and opened the fridge. To find vegetables and none of her delightfully treats, she plopped down, upset with her spotting. "Oh you are home so quickly, you must be hungry." Her mom mocked behind her.

She internally mourned, speaking without thinking, "I am, I had to go without breakfast because I borrowed a notebook from someone troublesome." She frankly confessed.

"Why is that? You weren't absent for at least a week." Her mother remarked, walking towards the counter to prepare her daughter's belated breakfast.

"Hmm. This person insisted on giving me their notes and also demanded I give them back in time."

"Sounds like someone troubled."

She chuckled, sounding in agreement.

"I don't want you staying with anyone with bad influence, you hear me? Teenagers and alike are pretty rowdy these days." Her mother said, keeping the filled plate beside her daughter.

"That's an understatement."

"Well, you know better than me, don't remain in a bad friend group if it isn't for you."

She nodded, finding nothing wrong with the elder's worries. Besides, she was correct.

Finishing her food, she takes off to her room. Still craving for something sweet, but she was exhausted, she didn't want to do anything but rest and sleep, no homework, no nothing, even if she got in trouble for it.

Laying down after changing her outfit, she browsed through her phone, accidentally opening and closing apps she wasn't supposed to. Insto was now her least preferable place to pass time after she found out her bully and classmates also had accounts she never recognized until currently.

The screen is abruptly altered and she suddenly rises, seeing the unknown caller ID yet again. She did not want to pick up.

Thwarted, she childishly frowns. Huffing before accepting the call.

"Hello." She mumbled.

"Shut up loopy, why aren't you replying to my messages? You ignoring me!?" She could visualize his temper flaring.

"What messages? I didn't get any." She acted pretentiously, recalling herself blacklisting him, right after she replied to his first texts.

"Oh, I get it. You are ignoring me." He softly declared, declining her answer by cutting off the connection.

Abandoning her in sharp silence.

Her first few epochs at school have been uneasy, tense, although the peace was addicting, it was far unnerving existing without any unpleasant response or jeers, she shouldn't feel remorseful but, somehow it resolves in her pitying him, not her. Was it emotional manipulation? Or was she tripping herself?

He was frowning her way whenever she feigned ignorance, it bothered him, during breaks he would near her only to push shoulders and dismiss her certainty. Whilst classes were going on, she observed him break a pencil from the corner of her eyes, they sat at a place where they both could catch a glimpse of each other, in the middle, a few seats further or less, she on the left, closer to the window and he on the right.

Throughout it all, her lower abdomen was aching, maiming in a horrendous way that meant something bloody.

Quickly she got up, everyone's attention focused on her, moving towards her stunned female teacher, slightly leaning forward and she whispered. "Can I use the bathroom, please?" She pleaded, staring at her with soliciting eyes.

Her teacher thankfully let her, she raced to the washroom, mentally thinking, wishing her menstruation hadn't started. Regardless, she enters the restroom, rushing into a stall and removing her undergarments. To see dark red spots, she groans, whimpering at the sight.

Did she even bring pads?

Quietly, straining an innate smile, she arrived at her classroom, walking to her seat with a lowered gaze, slowly and steadily settling down, involuntarily, internally, cringing. Following this class was lunch break, so she could survive this.

What little time was left in that duration, her eyes were blown wide, lips pressed tight, and her notoriety drifting off. Her complexion dimmed as sharp jolts of pain coursed through her guts, she swallowed her spit more times than she counted, hands on the desk, her index finger squeezing the other, legs kept close and on the edge of her seat. Just subtly grinned when her teacher looked at her weirdly.

Subsequently, prior to any students leaving, she bolted out and disappeared into the hallway. Her bully watching her.

Coming back, appearing so much brighter and soothed, she swiftly took her place, bringing her lunchbox out and prepared to eat her agony away. Chunking on a piece of fried chicken, cold but still good, she softly chews in the noisy classroom, opting to take another bite but stopped herself as someone bought an empty chair in front of her desk and made themselves comfortable.

"You look stupid." He said.

She just peered at him unbothered, putting her meal into her mouth and cutely munching, no more meeting his eyes.

He grimaced in disdain, pushing himself forward, the mental feet of the chair scratching against the floor. He smirked when she stared at him, pleased with grabbing her interest.

"Why aren't you replying to my messages?" He pressured. She shrugged carelessly, darting her eyes around her desk.

"Hmph." He groaned, continuing, "guess you still don't know how to be grateful." He mocked. She promptly got disturbed.

"Yeah, you could return my notebook." She said he threw her a glance, offering her a warning stare.

"If you weren't such a brat, I would." He laughed, maintaining eye contact.

"I'm not the one bullying myself."

"You sure you can just talk back to me? Because last time I checked, I still have your notes and I can destroy them." He challenged, she took the bait without a second thought.

"I'll just tell the teacher you did it." She threw back, carrying on, "I mean how much can they ignore? It wouldn't be the last time you'll do it."

Without any inclination, he shoved her lunch box off the table, spilling the contents on the dirty floor. Strengthening his nasty glare, shoes planted on the surface, eyebrows furrowed and back erect, ready to take a swing at her face if she dared to say another accusing word.

She held her breath, staring at his face, all her classmates noticed their commotion, slowly she looked down at her spilt food, her heart beating loudly in her chest.

"If you so much as to say a word to the teachers about me, I'll end you." He hissed, his voice ringing in the calm room.

She struggled to keep her voice low.

Throwing daggers as he stood up and receded without voicing any foul words, pushing past the confused students who gawked at the scene.



She had horrible cramps the next day.

She took a day of leave, swimming in her blankets, curled up inwards, squirming, curtains were drawn to a complete close, encasing her space in a gloomy glow, tranquil except the tone of the waft, a mildly sweet fragrance roaming in the air, occasional noises of vehicle, the indistinct tune of birds. The girl tossed her blanket, feeling too warm and sluggish. Her eyes were heavy, the lure of unimaginable dreams getting tougher to resist, limbs loosely plonked, hoping to surrender and sleep without a care in the world.

She was startled awake late evening, feebly wiping the drool and gingerly attempting to recollect her last thought, stretching her toes, rubbing her face, and picking her non-functioning self up. In her dreamy state, moving towards her phone to disconnect it from the charger.

The thing she saw first, were five missed calls.

She glanced at the clock, assuming what time she drifted off to sleep, however, the calls were recent, fiddling with her choices, she goes back to bed, to lazy around till tomorrow's doom, but, seems like whoever was calling her weren't so patient.

She received it, somewhat composing herself and activating her mind.

"Hello-"

"Why weren't you at school." His deep voice interrupted hers, she blinked, pushing her lips and pressing the device closer.

"I wasn't feeling well." she honestly answered, stiffly standing in front of her bed.

"Yeah right, like it didn't have to do with what happened yesterday, you told your parents, didn't you?" he senselessly points the finger at her, impeaching her.

"I don't understand what you are talking about, I've been very generous with you since we've met, I haven't gone around telling everyone your bad qualities." she angrily retorted, torso leaning forward, lips tightened, and pulled upwards. Disliking his way of accusing her.

"And you've been shamelessly passing messages over to me by others, you think you have the right to be angry at me?" she calmly explained, mildly pitching her tone up.

"You haven't even given me my-"

"SHUT UP!!" he abruptly yelled on the call, surprising her, biting her lips from saying anything more, she could, but she had to be mature with the immature.

They both didn't say anything. He was breathing heavily she noted.

"First you go ahead and block me, then you have the guts to ignore me like if I'm nothing! You really know how to get on my nerves!" His voice cracked, and he sounded uncharacteristically hurt. "You better unblock me and reply to my messages." he darkly threatened.

"Or else..." she goes still.

Both sat in absolute silence, she was feeling uneasy, repressing the immediate urge to sever their unneeded conversation. Because she didn't feel comfortable nor safe.

"Why didn't you come today," he asked again. She thought twice before opening her bitten lips.

"I... wasn't feeling too good." she tensely replied.

"Aren't you going to ask for my notes?" He sounded like he was giving her an order rather than a stretch of kindness. "N-no... I'm fine, thanks."

"You'll be coming tomorrow, won't you?"

She gulped, wide eyes staring at the calendar, softly responding.

"I'm not sure."

"You won't come tomorrow?" he shamed daze, unconvinced with her uncertainty, now delicately mocking her with a low hostile tone.

"If I'm okay tomorrow, I'll come." she firmly stated.

Even though no words were spoken, she could feel his displeasure.

"Tell me your address." he sternly spoke.

She anxiously considered her few options. Outright telling what he wanted, or being clever about it and cutting the call midway, but he would confront her the very next day.

However, her mom shouts her name and it ended up being the perfect opportunity to say their goodbyes. "Sorry, gotta go now."

She quickly pressed the screen, tacitly stopping the call. Dropping her device and slowly inhaling, thinking over their exchanged words, she feels as though her heart would burst out her ribcage, closing her eyes for a moment, she wobbles her way to her mother.

"There you are! You've been sleeping for long dear, do you want some medicine?"

She declined, mulling over to sit, behaving unusually. Not bound to go unseen by the elder.

"I think I need a new haircut."

It wasn't like she couldn't afford another leave, she could sit all day in her room without worrying what her bully was going to do, irritatingly so, he's turned to online communication when he can't torment her face to face, eye to eye, recycling a loop of misery, designed purely for her. He was going to force her to give him her home address, if he hadn't already made someone vomit it by violence, verbally or physically. 

She already knew what was in store for her, and dreaded it. 

She almost thought of returning midday with an acted performance of a minor stomach ache or anything she could pretend but realized would only be prolonging the inevitable.

She still didn't want to go.

Stiffly sauntering across the stress, unwillingly making her way to school, to remain a prisoner till the noon, steadily increasing her pace, she carried on, heart dreadfully pounding, releasing shallow exhales, her mind figuring all sorts of scenario to toil with, but still the intense urge to just trot back to her dwelling and not take a step out till she feels stable.

As she continued, she fell into disquieting notions. Soon ceased before her loathed destination.

Faking her smile upon catching a familiar face of her teacher, muttering a good morning, and a slight nod. Then resumed her sad walk to class.

She really wanted to turn back.

She didn't want to go.

She couldn't take it.

Impulsively, desperately, she sprinted through the hallway she'd just passed, pushing towards the entrance and booking it. She did not want to stay.

She kept running till she arrived in a remote area. Gasping heavily, gulping her spit to her scorched throat. Her heart still thumping as loudly as possible, the realization of terror sparked up, dread pooling in her stomach.

She had an arduous time breathing. Her chest was hurting, a keen burning sense rippling inside, she felt tears stream down her warm cheeks, she feels awful. She told her mother she'd go to school and not wander off to the city in a fit of distress, her teachers saw her, wouldn't they question and notice her disappearance? Perhaps even call her parents and let them worry.

Even if she did go back, what reason was she going to give? She came back because her stomach was hurting? Because she was scared? Because she didn't want to go.

Considering both truths and lies.

She'd need to calm down first.

TAGGED PEOPLE

@1zzielizzie @survivorofmath

If you wish to be tagged, let me know.

cipher I

ran x reader, mikey x reader, sprankle of rindou x reader

summary - you’d been dating Haitani Ran for nearly six months when you discover a letter in code on his desk. When you decipher it, it brings more questions than answers.

cws - rough sex, f!sub reader, intrigue, code, mystery, ran and mikey are both in love with you, reader is in grad school, smut. bonten ish timeline. this ch: drugging of reader(consensual, she knows it's in there and doesn't refuse to drink it), alcohol, jealousy, mikey kisses ran’s gf(you) this chapter. not real manga spoilers i killed some characters off pre this timeline but that’s an emme thing not necessarily a wakui thing.

note - im re writing this but this chapter has light rewrites. it's also posted on ao3.

- next

Ran bursts into the room loudly and Mikey scowls, unable to look away from his subordinate’s huge hand resting on the curve of your waist. Ran’s silver rings glint in the low light of the private dining room at the back of the club, and despite his best efforts, Mikey can’t help but bristle at the mark of casual ownership as you shift your weight uncomfortably in your heels. 

“What’s so important that I needed to drive across town?” He drawls, violet eyes icy. “We good to just let her wait outside?” Kokonoi nods, and gestures to one of the men by the door. 

“Keep an eye on Ran’s,” he pauses, and Mikey’s stomach does a backflip as a huge smile spreads across your face, and you glow with joy like a candle lit on a cold winter night. You giggle, the sound is bell-like, it cuts through the smokey silence.

“She’s my girlfriend.” Ran says, the way someone announces a hard earned promotion, and the way you smile at the idea of belonging to, to that fucking oaf pushes Mikey to down the rest of his drink. “So keep your hands to yourself, huh,” he says to the man with a wink, who nods,

“Yes sir.” He says. You take the new man’s arm agreeably, and Ran palms him some cash, before collapsing on the table, and pouring himself a drink. 

“Girlfriend, huh?” Kokonoi says, raising an eyebrow. 

“He just wants kids.” Rindou pipes up from the corner, bitterness dripping from his voice. “He’s not gonna stick with this once he gets what he wants.” 

“I absolutely am,” Ran counters, a cocky smile playing on his lips, “Have you seen her? And she’s the best pussy I’ve ever gotten, so guess what, fellas?” Rindou groans, massaging his temples. “I’m locking it down.” 

“You’d have to,” Rindou snips, “Before she realizes she’s a grad student with a world class IQ dating someone who’s preferred method of argument is a brick-” Ran rolls his eyes. 

“Enough.” Mikey says quietly, ending the conversation. Kokonoi pushes a folder across the table. “Someone sent this to Kisaki.” Ran raises his eyebrows.

“To Kisaki?” He opens the folder, and takes out a folded letter, printed on heavy cardstock. It’s embossed with a blood red dragon. The letter itself is incomprehensible at first glance, complete gibberish. “Why would we get a letter in code?” He murmurs, “What’s the purpose?” 

“Look at the address at the top.” Rindou says, a touch of impatience to his voice. Ran obeys, brow furrowing. 

“That’s the address to the apartment we shared that summer,” Ran says, meeting his brothers eyes across the table, “That’s an address in Roppongi?” 

“Whatever’s in this letter,” Rindou leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, “It’s addressed to you and I.” Ran nods, snapping a picture of the letter on this phone. 

“The red dragon’s are new,” Mikey takes a sip of his drink and shrugs, “Whoever they are, I’ve never heard of them.”

“Where’s Kakucho,” Ran asks, fumbling for his Juul, taking a puff, filling the air with an artificial cotton candy scent. “And uh, the rest of ‘em?” 

“Busy.” Mikey responds without making eye contact. “I’ll read them in for you. See if you can make sense of the letter.” Ran nods, “Whatever it is, it seems to have to do with the two of you.” 

______ 

Ran finds you at the party easily, your laugh coruscating above the low music, the clouds of smoke, the dull roar of conversation. Anxiety twists in his stomach but he relaxes a little when he sees you standing with another woman. 

“Baby,” he says, snaking an arm around your waist. “Who’s this?” 

“Elena,” You gesture to the beautiful woman, in a slinky purple dress, her dark eyes sparkling in the low light. “This is my boyfriend,” you can’t say it without giggling, “Haitani Ran.” He moves to stand behind you, folding over a little so that he can tuck your head under his chin. “Elena works with um,” you gesture, trying to remember, “Your um, your friend, Kokonoi.” Ran sizes two things up very quickly, one, there’s no way Elena works with Koko, her dress is off the rack, her nails are unmanicured, and there’s a tattoo that snakes around her neck that he’d remembered. It’s a python, curling down her arm, the head resting below her clavicle, its eyes as cold and dead as her own. 

“She was just getting me a drink,” you say, and Ran gives her his most bone chilling smile, the kind that’s all lips and teeth, and no warmth in his eyes. 

“If you’ll forgive me,” He gives you a squeeze, “I'll get my lady here a drink, I’m old fashioned like that.” Elena presses her lips together. “Koko will be out in a bit, if you want to see him?”  She shakes her head. 

“Oh,” you reach out and touch her arm. Ran thinks for a moment about how much he loves how trusting you are, and how often it wakes him up at night. “But you were looking for him, right?” Ran narrows his eyes at her.

“I can have some people show you where he is?” He keeps his tone casual as he offers.

“I will find him myself.” She says, giving you both a curt smile, he recognizes her accent as Russian. “Nice to meet you, Haitani.” 

“Likewise.” He watches her disappear into the crowd and decides it’ll be someone elses problem, turning back to you, “Sweetheart, you look fucking stunning,” You laugh again, tension dissipating, “Seriously, every guy in here  is eyeing up what’s mine,” he takes your arm and spins you like you’re swing dancing. 

“Ran,” you laugh again and he spins you into his chest. “You’re just paranoid,” he cups your face with both hands, leaning down and kissing you tenderly before leading you on to the dance floor. 

_____

Mikey stands at the doorway, watching Ran’s hands wander your body, pulling your hips flush against his own. 

“You could have asked her out,” Mikey doesn’t jump at Kokonoi’s voice behind him. “You saw her first.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turns to the other man, who raises his eyebrows. 

“So we’re going to pretend you’re not staring at Ran’s girl instead of going home with any other woman here.” He says, a smirk flashing on his face. “That’s fine, boss, I can look away” Mikey shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I don’t,” he says, frustrated, “You don’t just pull someone into this life, without thinking about it.” 

“Is that what’s bothering you?” Koko drawls, “That he didn’t think?” Mikey turns away from the party, heading back to the private dining room. “It’s Haitani,” Koko follows him, “He wanted something so he took it.” 

“When you pick flowers, they die.” Mikey says, emotionless, remembering the cut roses on Emma’s, on Baji’s, on Draken’s graves. He steps into the private room, Rindou’s left to join the party. “I was thinking, that when you pick flowers, they die.” He massages his temples. 

“Well he was thinking about her pussy,” Koko says, pouring himself another drink. Mikey groans loudly.

“My head hurts.” He complains, the dull throbbing at the back of his neck only grows by the hour, he takes another swig of his drink. “Tell them that I want everything on these red dragons on my desk in the morning. Everything they can find in twelve hours.” 

“Yes, sir.” Kokonoi responds, and Mikey hesitates. 

“Why don’t you join the party?” He asks, and he sees it again, that heavy, dark sadness, that mutual feeling that had sparked the friendship between them. 

“There’s nothing for me out there.” He says, gravel in his voice. Mikey nods, and goes to get another drink. 

“For me either.” The lie falls from his lips like water. 

______

The party is in full swing a few hours later, when he watches you slink off, stumbling down a hallway. He sighs, following you, Ran’s distracted by some spectacle, drugs, maybe, he hopes it’s another woman but knows that you somehow have held his attention longer than any of your predecessors. He finds you laying on a bench in a hallway upstairs, and he nearly stops breathing when you reach for him. For a moment he wonders if you’ve made a mistake, if you think he’s Haitani, but when he sits next to you, you sigh his name, a soft, sad song. 

“Mikey,” you say again. You sit up and rest your head on his shoulder. He can feel the warmth of your cheek through his t-shirt. “Am I an idiot?” You slur a little, and he grunts lightly, breaking every rule he has when he slips an arm around your waist, his fingers sinking into the plush of your hip. He doesn’t answer, so you lift your head a little to see if he heard, but he pushes you back down into his shoulder. 

  “You’re drunk.” He responds. You can feel the base from the party downstairs reverberating through the walls. 

“But am I,” you sigh, “What am I doing, Mikey?” You rub your eyes. “I know, alright, I know you ‘n Ran don’t work in finance.” You sigh, picking at the hem of your dress. His heart thrums in his chest at your closeness, despite your words he’s elated, happier than he’s ever been, maybe, and your makeup is smudged under your eyes in the most perfect way. “I know you’re, you’re involved in some bad shit.” 

“Bad shit?” Mikey repeats, almost not listening to you, delighting in your soft body pressed against his. 

“I’m not,” you sit up a little but he pushes you back down again, this time tucking your head under his chin to hold you in place. You continue. “I’ve seen things, alright, but that's not important. I’d never, never do anything to hurt you, or him.” He’s silent, you smell so good, like sweet strawberry shampoo and daydreaming, like the crisp fall air, like the last time he’d actually felt invincible. “M right, aren’t I?” You say staring straight ahead, having given up trying to move away from him to look in his eyes. 

“You’re safe.” he says, by way of confirmation. “I’d never let anything,” his grip on you tightens, “Not anything ever, happen to you.” 

“I trust you.” You murmur and his chest aches dully. He makes a decision, sighing.

“You’re not going to remember this,” He fumbles for something in his pocket.

“Fuck you,” you giggle, “Yeah I will.” 

“No,” he says, taking a flask from his suit jacket, and dropping a pill into it, watching it sink to the bottom of the metal container. “No  you won’t.” 

“Mikey,” you whine, eyes widening, “Don’t wanna, don’t wanna forget.” You nuzzle into him. “I had fun, had a good time.” 

“Be a good girl for me,” he says, his heart aching in his chest, but his eyes darkening. “Drink up.” You take the metal flask in your hands, you let out a short huffy breath. He reaches out to tip  it into your mouth. He stops, a thought forming, and before he can stop himself, he leans forward, every nerve in his body sizzling like a high wire on a humid day. “Just, give me this.” There’s something soft in his tone borne from one of the last warm parts of his soul. He leans forward and kisses you hard, grabbing at your face, sucking at your lower lip with a clumsy, desperate hunger. He pulls away, breathing hard, his blood roaring in his ears. 

“Mikey.” You whisper, staring at him scandalized. You didn’t slap him, hadn’t run to tell Haitani. Both, he tells himself are good signs. That is, until you open your mouth and speak again, voice infused with an acid desperation. “Am I making a mistake?”He presses his lips together, thinking for a moment, before taking the flask from you and holding it to your lips. You drink obediently, and then wipe your mouth, coughing at the bitter taste. 

“You already made one,” he says, watching your eyes lose focus, and then flutter shut. You lay down on the bench and rest your head on his lap, and unconsciousness sweeps you away. He starts to pet your head but he withdraws his hand quickly as he hears Ran thundering up the stairs. He takes in the scene for a second before sighing with relief. His eyes are wild, and his hands are shaking. 

“Shit, we’re uh, Sanzu brought a fuckton of coke, is she passed out?” Mikey nods, flashing the metal flask. “Ugh,” Ran rubs his eyes. “What did she see?” Me, Mikey thinks. 

“She’s onto you.” He says shortly, reluctantly scooting away from your unconscious form. “Onto us. You gotta read her in or cut her loose.” Ran nods, eyes artificially wide and focused. 

“You give her something?” He asks and Mikey nods, standing. 

“She’s not gonna remember tonight.” Mikey finds the ability to keep his voice cool and nonchalant, as if the idea of you forgetting him didn’t shatter whatever he had left in his chest. Ran nods again, more slowly this time.

“Probably for the best,” He lifts you up off the couch in one smooth movement, “She wasn’t having a good time,” he coos down at your limp form, “Baby never drinks that much, I dunno what got into her.” Mikey doesn’t respond for a moment, thinking. “Shit, though, she was talking to someone, I wanted to ask her about it.” He muses, turning to Mikey. “Woman said her name was Elena, and that she was here for Koko, but obviously wasn’t. Snake tattoo. Ring a bell?” Mikey shakes his head, looking mildly concerned. 

“Are you going to take her home?”

“Back to my place.” Ran confirms. “I’ll uh, I’ll do coke with Sanzu another time.” This, Mikey thinks, this is the worst part. Because if Ran were shitty, and awful, and villainous, he could justify it, he could have Sanzu put a bullet in his fucking head, and be done with it, he could sweep you off your feet, buy you anything you wanted, fuck your brains out. But you bring out a side of the executive that Mikey’s never seen before. It’s almost, kind. Almost. “Gotta take care of my bitch,” he kisses your forehead, cooing condescendingly. “If I don’t lay her down right she could choke on her own puke if she throws up, these forget me pills are strong shit.” A vein in Mikey’s forehead twitches. 

“Are you reading her in?” He pushes.

“To the Bonten shit?” Ran looks conflicted, and Mikey knows why. Knows that the ‘bad shit’ Ran and Bonten gets up to might scare you away for good. “Nah, I dunno,” he hesitates, leaning against the wall. “I dunno.” He repeats. You let out a soft, uncomfortable moan. “Alright, alright,” he grumbles, shifting you so that your face is in his neck, and he’s holding you with one hand. “Baby let’s getcha home.” He thumps down the stairs and as soon as he’s gone Mikey whips the metal flask as hard as he can at the opposite wall.  “Fuck,” he snaps, when it just dents the wall and doesn’t break, and rubs his eyes. “Fuck.”