-The Cruel Prince-

a/n - sorry i was gone guys my depression got really bad :p

he laid on the bed. the buzzing of the fan made him sick to his stomach. wrappers and clothes and cups and pages were thrown all about his room. his own mind held him back.

the days felt like a time paradox. the hours felt like torture. the minutes felt like hell. the seconds felt like death.

he needed something to hold on to. anything. just a tiny bit of hope. he needed something to pull him out of his own head. anything. just a hand to pull him out of that train wreck.

that was, until you came along.

the second his eyes fell upon you, it was almost like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. he could breathe. he could see a hopeful light.

for once in his life, the storm clouds dispersed and a rainbow began to shine through. it was like you were his saving grace.

years passed and tears passed. keeping the storm away was hard for him at times. but he held you close.

he held you tight in his arms, feeling like he had a home. somewhere and someone to lean on. someplace to go back to when things got hard. something he needed for so long.

he muttered softly: “i will never let you go.”

DAZAI, fyodor, poe, AKUTAGAWA, hobie, MIGUEL, simeon, LUCIFER, GIYUU, obanai, zhongli, NAGITO, and any other of your clinically depressed favs <3

oh, how he long to grow old with you. to suffer with back pains, headaches, and strands of silver hair shining in the sunlight together. to drive around and reminisce to your kids about your high school years, to come home to you and your voice, your kisses and your sweet embrace. he wants to build a home with you, whether it’s far away and in the feild where the sun sets beautifully every night or if it’s in a small, cramped apartment— decorated with things that make it a home. to hold your hand every night and listen to your whispers and laughter when he tickles your sides, to kiss you early in the morning before he goes to work, tucking you in. to see you in the morning everyday.

but for now, he’s gonna have to hide that pretty velvet box for a little longer, just until he gets your parents’ blessings.

HINATA, kageyama, oikawa, , KITA, miya twins, AKAASHI (hq), megumi, GOJO, ITADORI (jjk), CHUUYA, dazai, jouno, KUNIKIDA (bsd), WRIOTHESLEY, CHILDE, kazuha, zhongli, ayato, DILUC (gi) + ur favs !

Something's coming...

nanami is a "help me understand you" guy. he doesn't want you to swallow those feelings, he wants them out and free. every bone and cell inside his body yearns to comprehend you.

when you come home from a stressful day and lash out on him, he knows this anger is misdirected. he knows it so well, though he wants to understand you, he would not be a rug for you to step over and wipe your feet.

"think about what you're saying, would you want me to treat you this way?"

and it all clicks in place. no, you would not. and there he stands with open arms, inviting you to just suffocate in his arms. he would ask all about your day, listening. his focus all on you, his eyes attentively following your every move.

𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞

pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader

summary: six years ago, when they placed that sorting hat on your head, nobody expected for it to assign the muggleborn to the slytherin house, but it did. six years later, you find yourself as alone as the day you walked through those doors. little did you expect the prince of slytherin, the pureblood maniac himself, gojo satoru, to be the one to coincidentally fill your empty hours.

warnings: gojo is a pureblooded slytherin, slight angst, slight messy makeout

word count: 12.6k

note: part two is out now! comments and reblogs are always appreciated! thank you to @jadeisthirsting for beta reading as always!

part two

slytherin!gojo masterlist + jjk masterlist

When you were little, all the strange and peculiar things that happened to you, such as Ms. Bromsely, the awful maths teacher's desk going up in flames, or Patricia Gallaghers rings disintegrating after she teased your dress, were chalked up to chance or just something else.

Your mother was too busy covering extra shifts down at the pub to worry about it, so she rarely made an occurrence to the meetings your headmaster had scheduled, resulting in very awkward meetings with just you as you were explained how peculiar it was that you always seemed to be in the middle of all these weird occurrences.

So when that brown spotted owl almost crashed into your bedroom window at the ripe age of eleven, explaining that you were chosen to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you suspected that one of your classmates was playing a cruel joke on you, but alas, it turned out to be very real. 

You were whisked away soon enough, stumbling your way in some sort of haze through Diagon Alley, and then in a blink of your eyes, you found yourself waving goodbye to your mother from that red train, on your way to a life you may have only imagined when you were younger, dreaming of a place far away from where you were.

And you loved it.

The feasts, the history-soken steps that you walked on every day to get to class, the little town that was within walking distance that you could go to every weekend. 

While most of the students here had been introduced to this early on in their lives, you hadn’t. Your mother was just as shocked and as bewildered as you were all those years ago, and given your special circumstances, sometimes you wondered if you were yet to see the thick of it, wondering if some things were hidden from you given your upbringing, given your blood.

But you blinked out of your stupor, being brought down from your daydream to the sound of quills scratching, the smell of faint smoke burning in the background, and the quiet sounds of different animals in their cages. All of these tall-tell signs of the transfiguration classroom. 

After years of spending time in this classroom, it slowly became one that you’d look forward to, and despite most Slytherins having an aptitude for potions or defense against the dark arts, transfiguration was where you shined the best.

The light that carded through the high arching windows illuminated the desks, and you were glad seeing how the back of the classrooms was usually the most poorly lit place. Unfortunately, they’re the only places you found yourself sitting throughout the years, which is just another reason why this specific classroom in itself brought you a slight sense of comfort. 

“...cross-species and inter-species transfiguration is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, sort of transfiguration to achieve. Even the most accomplished witches and wizards find themselves struggling with it,” you watched as Professor McGonagall walked around the front of the classroom, her graying hair pulled into a tight bun behind her head, her emerald robes swaying behind her like green waves, “The only way we were able to replicate this form of magic is through ancient runes.” 

Her eyes raked over all the students of the class, to make sure that everybody was understanding the weight of her words. As seventh years it was expected that you all would be ready to face the challenges of such a high-level class. But especially with Professor McGonagall, seeing just how difficult her classes usually were. 

“Of course, this was all covered during your fourth years, so I hope that some of you,” she gave a knowing look over her glasses, “Remember your lessons.” 

You momentarily caught her eyes.

You squirmed in your seat, knowing that her displeased look was directed to the Gryffindor’s sitting next to you. The boy to your left had his mouth open in a large yawn, promptly shutting it when McGonagall looked at him, and the girl to your right was busily finicking with a piece of parchment, trying to figure out how to enchant it so that it could turn into a swan to send to her boyfriend who was sitting across the class. 

You loved Hogwarts. Most of the time. 

The reason why you usually found yourself at the back of class, sitting with people you barely knew, and the reason why you were yet to experience most of the core memories other witches and wizards your age experienced was because you weren’t welcomed the way other would be by their assorted houses. 

Nearly six years ago, when Professor McGonagall placed that sorting hat on your head, you didn’t know what to expect. 

You had heard from some of the people that you sat near on the train that Gryffindor was best. Of course, the boy who said it came from a family of Gryffindors, but his friends seemed to agree with him. Ravenclaw was only for the smart people, which you hoped you might be sorted into and Huffelpuffs were known for their loyalty, which, judging by your mother's statement about how you dared to leave home, you didn’t have much of. 

But the Slytherin house seemed…forbidden. 

At least for you, anyways. 

“And what about that girl we saw?” One of the boys pointed outside the carriage window into the little hall outside, pointing to a much older girl wearing green robes, walking with some other friends who wore adorning colors, “What house is she in?” 

The other boy, who seemed to have the most knowledge out of anyone, scoffed, shaking his head. 

“Not for you, sorry,” he leaned in closer as if he were telling a secret. You tried to listen in, not making it obvious seeing how you weren’t any of their friends and how this was the only cart available with space, “That’s the Slytherin house.” 

“Why’s it not for me?” The other boy argued, his face pulled into a scowl.

“Well, Slytherins are many things. Ambitious, cunning,” the other boy said but shook his head disapprovingly, “But above all else, they’re all purebloods. Some are half-bloods, but even that’s rare. You’re coming from a muggle family. My father works at the ministry, and he says that some of the people in his department who were Slytherin still despise muggle-borns and muggles even long after they’ve left.”

So you had a basic understanding of what to expect. Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Gryffindor.

But when the hat cried out “Slytherin!” you almost jumped in your seat, looking behind you at the professor, your face of hesitancy surely mirroring hers. 

And you soon found out that the boy on the train (who was sorted into Gryffindor, big shock), was right. Word spread quickly that a muggle-born was sorted into Slytherin, the first in centuries, and that it surely must’ve been a mistake. 

But the sorting hat doesn’t go back on its word, and what was said was done. So six and a bit years later you found yourself as the pariah of your own house and were forced to fade into the background to avoid any further trouble. 

“...and this is the one project in which I’m having you work with partners, picked by me, of course. The research that is needed to go into this is too much to be done alone.” Professor McGonagall continued, and you perked up in your seat a little bit, your brows furrowing at her words. 

You felt a part of your heart race at the thought. Normally when professors assigned partners, it either left you with a fellow Slyhterin who hated your existence and forced you to do the project on your own, or somebody from another house who didn’t know you and forced you to do the project on your own. 

Your tongue felt heavy as she began reading off the paired names on her list, your hands becoming clammy. 

“Miss Finnegan and Mister Belton. Miss O’Shea and Miss Adan,” The girl next to you, who you quickly pieced together was Leila O’Shea groaned, her face depleted as she realized she wasn’t going to be paired with her boyfriend, and you watched as she sulkily went to the other girl's desk. 

You listened in anticipation as she went down the list, your heart beating loudly and comically in your chest the closer it seemed that she was getting to the end. 

“Mister Reeve and Mister Thompson,” she paused momentarily as she watched the two boys clap each other on the back, her lips threatening to quirk up into a smile, just waiting to read what foolishness they were going to write, “Miss Ward and Mister Green,” you felt like you might be getting off the hook, that maybe she took pity on you but it all came crashing down when she looked at you, a knowing look in her eyes far worse than pity as she read your name along with perhaps the singular person you would’ve paid all your money to not be paired with, 

“…will be with Mister Gojo,” you heard some of your housemates laugh out loud, some of them pushing at the boy and ruffling his hair as if he were the one that was going to face the brute of everything. He sat near the front, and you could see a flash of his white hair as he begrudgingly began to pack his things up, having no choice but to sit next to you seeing how the seats next to him were filled up. 

You watched as she rolled the piece of parchment back up as if she hadn’t just sentenced your public execution, and she raised a singular thin brow at the faces that were looking back at her, “Well? Get a move on. This essay is due in a month.”

You tried to take in a deep breath, your eyes trained on the blank piece of parchment in front of you as if you couldn’t hear his footsteps getting closer and closer to you, as if you didn’t just feel his robes brush up against your legs as he sunk into his seat.

This can’t possibly be happening.

Anybody would’ve been better than him. Even Marley Petterson and her constant poking and teasing about how your clothes were held together by scraps, and how you must’ve lived with mud people before you came to Hogwarts would’ve been better than him. Being forced to be a partner with the Prince of Slytherin was torture, and you wonder if after all these years Professor McGonagall was just now starting to show her distaste towards you. 

That day on the train was the first time you heard his name. 

“You see that boy? The one with the white hair?” The boy discreetly pointed out the window to one of the kids standing outside your cart. All the other boys hurriedly nodded, each craning their necks to get a better look at him, “He’s a Gojo. He comes from a line of Slytherins, each one worse than the one before. They’re purebloods, obviously. You wouldn’t find a speck of anything else in them. They’re rich too, filthy rich. They could buy this school if they wanted to.” All the other boys guffawed, but he seemed serious as if this stranger's family was nothing to be taken lightly. 

“When it comes to Slytherins, there are four families to be wary of. There’s the Gaunts and the Malfoys. There’s the noble house of Black, but lastly…them. House Gojo is one that every other wizarding family steers away from.”

After the day you were sorted you also quickly realized why most wizarding families stayed away from them. His word seemed to be law, and all the other Slytherins, especially those in his inner circle, held him to it. 

You peeked from the corner of your eye, watching as he unpacked all his supplies, his face contorted in obvious anger and disgust, and you thickly swallowed. You had done a good job in staying away from him these past couple of months, fortunate enough to only be called a mudblood and an offense to their ancient house a couple of times by him and his posse. 

His left-hand ring finger almost caught your eye in the sun, the gold ring with his house emblem shining brightly, a clear reminder of your difference with him, and you tried to hide your old school bag, riddled with holes and stains, something you just couldn’t replace. 

When he was done unpacked, he sat there for a couple of seconds, the silence between the two of you thick and heavy. You felt like you could choke on it, your fingers twitching to do something, to leave.

“...this is insulating…” he was talking to himself, shaking his head in disbelief as you sat awkwardly, not knowing what to do.

Gojo Satoru wasn’t one for many words. You had observed him from afar, long enough to see that aside from the occasional words he’d exchange with his closest friends or the few times he’d mutter traitor under his breath when the two of you locked eyes, he was a more brooding type of person. 

When he was angry, he hid it well. His cheeks might’ve flushed a bit, his nose flaring, but he never made an outburst. Which is why, at this moment, you could tell that he wasn’t in a particularly elated mood. 

“I…” you started, your mouth going dry at the way his eyes snapped to you, cold and cruel, “I can do the essay. I’ll get it done in time…if you want.” 

Most times your partners would just tell you to do the work, expecting (and knowing), you’d just say yes and go along with your day. But here, you couldn’t afford to let your guard down, rather having your pride be bitten at rather than your overall self. 

You heard him snort, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he rolled his eyes. 

“What? And have you do everything wrong?” His voice was hushed and clipped as if talking to you a second longer than needed would ruin him and everything he and his family stand for. 

He unrolled his piece of parchment, opening up his book as he kept his head down. 

“Well, I’m fairly decent with transfiguration,” you spoke up, trying for a smile that quickly fell when you felt his eyes burn into yours. For most of your time at Hogwarts, the only times you’ve ever really spoken to Gojo was when he was hurling insults at you, his words spurred on by his group of friends behind him. 

Gojo Satoru knew his worth. He knew that his family name would last through centuries and that the gold his family owned could buy out the entire ministry if they wanted to. Those around him treated him as such; as if his word was law. It also didn’t help that he was incredibly charming, growing into his looks over the years. 

You watched as he grew taller, his lanky figure now filled out with muscles that you could sometimes see through the baggy uniform. His eyes were always a topic of conversation, the infamous Gojo blue. His arctic white hair grew a little longer, sometimes falling in his face when he wasn’t aware. He was gorgeous, and you couldn’t even lie to yourself that he wasn’t.

Aside from his looks, he was also freakishly smart. If he hadn’t been sorted into Slytherin you were sure that Ravenclaw would’ve been fitting for him as well. He was always top of the class with O’s on every exam. 

Above all else, he knew his difference from everybody else. Even his closest (pureblooded) friends weren't even near his level. Even before he could walk, he’s been told of this. Not only that but he’s been told of the vileness of muggleborns. How their nature threatens the very fabric of wizarding society, and how muggles who have somehow been blessed with magical abilities are below humans, that they don’t deserve the rights every other witch and wizard has. 

Which means that you, the sole muggle-born in Slytherin, stood against everything Gojo Satoru believed. You were an abnormality, inhuman, somebody that he should resent for even existing.

“Well, we could always divide the work…?” You offered, your feet anxiously bouncing on the ground as you waited for his response. One of the blessings of sitting so far away from everyone else is that sure, they looked over to see how this was going, but at least they couldn’t listen in as you embarrassed yourself even further. 

His eyes darted over to your paper, blinking once, deep in thought. 

He sighed deeply through his nose, swallowing thickly as he gave you a singular, curt nod. 

“Hm,” he hummed, not even sparing you a glance as he began going to work, his pen scratching against the paper as his eyes began reading over the page, “But I’ll read what you write,” he said quickly, “I refuse to have my rank tank just because you mudbloods can’t do your work properly.” 

Mudblood  

After six years of it, you know you should’ve gotten used to it, but the stinging in your chest would argue otherwise. 

Your shoulders sank, eyes falling to the ground as your fingers fidgeted. You murmured something inaudible as you opened your book to the page McGonagall instructed you to. 

—

The days moved on and everything continued as it always did. 

The essay you had to write with Gojo was a slight hindrance in your usual schedule, but the two of you worked in silence in class and never interacted outside of it. Sometimes when his elbow would accidentally bump into yours as the two of you were busy writing he’d make a sort of noise in the back of his throat, his hand snatching back quickly as if you had somehow burnt him, but that was the most of your interactions. 

Sometimes when you were in the common rooms, late at night, you could hear him talking with his friends, talking about how heinous and ridiculous it was that McGonagall paired the two of you together, but you tried to ignore it.

That following week you found yourself back in the transfiguration classroom, working away quietly as you tried to understand the scriptures on the pages you had to read. You found yourself lucky that this subject was the one you might have some sort of talent in, seeing that this sort of ancient magic was just as difficult as McGonagall made it out to be. 

You heard some mumbling next to you, your eyes discreetly looking over at your partner, only to find his head in his hands as his brows furrowed in both annoyance and confusion. 

“...what does this…?” You heard him say to himself, watching as he flipped the page back and forth as if he was missing something. 

You looked back at your work, the talking around the room drowning out whatever it was that Gojo was saying to himself. 

Or at least you tried to drown out the noise, if not for the fact that your partner made some sort of sudden movement that managed to knock his ink bottle down, spilling ink all over the table. You moved your work to the side, watching as some of the ink soaked into your robes.

“Fuck,” he snapped, moving suddenly from his chair so that the ink would drip onto his clothes, “damn it,” he looked around almost helplessly, his hands clenching in anger after seeing all his hard work soaked up in black. 

“Wait,” you suddenly say, your arm outstretching over his body, watching as his head snaps over to you, “Stop moving for a second.”

He didn’t have much time to bite back at how dare you order him around because you had already begun to pull out your wand, flicking it on a quick movement as you murmured “tergeo,” watching as the ink slowly yet surely began clumping up in the middle of the table, going back with snake-like movements into its bottle. 

There was a beat of silence. 

Gojo sat still in his seat, his lips pursing as he finally let out a deep breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Thanks,” he said, but it seemed like he had to bite the word out, choking on it as if thanking you was taking too much of his mental willpower to do. 

You nodded briefly, still watching him as he settled back into his seat. 

“Uh,” you scratched at the back of your neck, knowing that you’d probably regret asking this in a matter of seconds, but somehow not able to stop yourself as you continue talking, “I don’t mean to be rude, or intrude, but is everything alright?”

You hold your breath as you watch Gojo sigh, his eyes shutting briefly. You braced yourself to be snapped at, to be victim to yet another reminder of how much you’ve tarnished the Slytherin name, but he just shakes his head. 

“No,” he seethes, but when he peeks over at you he licks his lips, gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he grabs his papers, moving it over to the middle of you two as he motions to it, “Everything is not alright. Something’s wrong with the book…and I have no idea what. I’ve read this page at least twenty times and it makes no bloody sense to me,” 

You try to hide your surprise. 

That’s probably the most he’s ever spoken to you without any mention of your muggle heritage. 

You move in a little closer to look at what he’s pointing to. You try not to heat up under his stare, squinting your eyes as you try to make sense of what it was he was writing, trying to hide your reactions when you realize that he was doing most of it wrong. 

The point of this essay was to learn about the origins of cross-species transfiguration, and eventually an animagus transformation and how it even came to be. 

You had to reference at least five other books and scrolls to piece together the correct herbs and spells needed to even begin the process. McGonagall honestly probably told everybody to reference the textbook because there was nothing in it. This essay was a testament to how many people went out of their way to learn about the true nature of transfiguration. 

What Gojo had written was something you were sure almost everybody else was writing as well, a mistake you almost made. His research was simple and black and white, and he was getting everything wrong because he was missing at least ten different very important points. 

“So,” you swallowed nervously, chewing on your already chapped lips, “You have the main ideas down,” which was a lie, “But there are just some things-” Before you could even finish your sentence the bell tower chimed once, twice, and then a final time, telling everybody that their class was over. 

All around you people began hurriedly packing up, surely excited for lunch, the chatter of conversations growing in volume, and you didn’t have to look at Professor McGonagall to know that she was irked by her student's sudden enthusiasm to leave. 

Gojo sat motionless, still looking over at you, waiting impatiently for you to finish. 

“I…” you scratched at your hands, “I can’t go over everything right now, but tomorrow I’ll bring in the other-” He raised his hand, packing up his bag as he cut you off. 

“No, not tomorrow, I’m already behind,” you watched as he shoved his papers into his leather bag, “Just explain it now.” 

You wanted to laugh, not knowing how long it might take to explain your twisted thinking process to him and you doubted he wanted to stay in this classroom with you for a minute longer. 

“Well, there’s quite a bit of things,” you searched for the right word, “Missing. I have to study for the potions exam right now, but I’m going to be in the library tonight anyway. I could show you then…?” 

You stood at your chair, your eyes looking up into his, wavering. 

What did you just do? Surely he’d laugh now in your face, roll his eyes at how absurd it was that you could even suggest such a thing, just as he usually does.

Instead, he looks at you, then at his paper, and then at yours, which is at least three pages long at this point. He’d never admit it out loud, but you were understanding this assignment better than him and nobody in his group seemed to understand it as well as you were. 

“Fine,” he runs a hand through his hair, the white sticking out between his fingers like snow perched on grass.

Your brows furrow, your lips pursing together in sudden confusion. 

“What, okay,” you fiddle with your fingers, tugging on them in that anxious way you always do, watching him tighten the straps on his bag, “But wait, what time…” You try to call out but he has already left, his robes swaying behind him as you stand alone at your seat.

You slowly begin to pack up, your thoughts running at what you have just done.

—

The potions exam went well enough, but you couldn’t stress out about it too much right now. 

After dinner (which you ate earlier than most, too anxious to be late), you made your way to the library, found a table near the back, somewhere that didn’t get a lot of foot traffic, and set up your workstation for the time being. 

Amongst many of the amenities Hogwarts had, the library was one of them you loved dearly. 

It wasn’t usually too busy, but it filled up quickly the night before some exams. But you didn’t mind it, you liked being surrounded by people. In the Slytherin common rooms, you usually had to wait until everybody had filtered out or had gone to bed before you could make your way down, not wanting to face their icy looks or the way they’d talk behind their hands when you were near, so you opted to be in the library above anything else. 

The muted sounds of pages turning, of people talking in hushed whispers, and the books that would sometimes rearrange themselves were calming. You liked the candles that were lit carefully around the large room, illuminating it deep into the night. 

You made sure that the work you had already written was set out, your quill resting straightly adjacent to it, your ink pot above it. Your pile of books sat neatly to the left. You wanted to seem as organized and as composed as you could, this might be your one chance to show the prince of Slytherin that you weren’t the slob he must imagine you as. 

The clock on the wall ticks, and you note that it’s nearly ten minutes till five. You chew on your lips, cracking your fingers as you keep your eyes trained on the door, waiting for the familiar mop of white hair to appear. 

After the first ten minutes, you begin fidgeting again, moving your papers centimeters above where they were as if they could appear any straighter. You weren’t wearing the usual house robes, and you hoped that your decision didn’t cause him to walk in, scan the area, and leave because he didn’t see what he expected to see. 

But you pushed those worries aside, just doing your best to watch the people who filed in and out of the large double doors. 

After the clock struck six, you began to stop looking at the doors, instead choosing to just get some work done while you were here, and opened up one of the books. Of course, he probably just lied just because he wanted to. There might be some of his friends standing outside, snickering as they watched you wait stupidly. 

You felt your cheeks heat up in embarrassment, feeling like an idiot.

For the next half hour, you busied yourself with reading about the start of the animagus process, about the mandrake leaf, and the strenuous process of keeping it on your tongue for an entire month. 

Around you, you could hear the scrapping of chairs on the floor, and how most of the people were beginning to leave seeing that it was getting pretty late. The library closes promptly at eight, and although it was an hour till that happened, most people left till then. 

Your eyes flitted to the door, not seeing anybody, and deflated. 

Stupid, you repeated in your head. 

So you began shutting the books strewn out in front of you, packing them all up in your bag as you rubbed at your tired eyes. Madam Pince also made a deal if you left any ink splotches on the table, so you cast a quick tergeo charm to clean up any spots you might’ve missed. 

“You’re leaving?” 

You looked up from the table, eyes squinting to see his tall figure standing in front of you, his face flushed red, sweat dotting on his brow bone as a bit of his hair stuck to his face. Gojo was panting, his chest heaving up and down as if he had just run across the entire castle, and his brows were creasing in the middle, looking down at you as you seized your packing. 

You note his green quidditch robes and muddy boots. 

“I, um,” you looked at the nearly empty table in front of you, and you shook your head, giving him a small smile, “No, no, I just got here.” 

He looked at your bag, as if not believing you, but not caring too much as he hummed in the back of throat, rounding the table, and plopped himself down in the seat in front of you. 

Wordlessly, Gojo began taking out his supplies, and you figured you might as well, setting everything back up to where you initially had it.  You watched as he slyly looked around the two of you, his shoulder becoming less tense when he realized it truly was just the two of you left in the library. 

“Practice took up too much time,” he mindlessly explains, a clear explanation for why he looked so different from the put-together self he usually is. He pushed some of his hair out of his face, his breathing still a little erratic. 

You nod, swallowing thickly as you pretend to understand the ins and outs of quidditch. 

You were aware that amongst one of the many things Gojo could do, on his long lists of talents (which if there was a list would consist of his ability to speak five languages or his incredible ability to calm any creature down), was that he was an amazing seeker. 

While you weren’t very familiar with how quidditch worked, despite trying to best to follow along with others' conversations as you listened in, you could understand that his forte on a broomstick wasn’t talked about just because he was Gojo Satoru. 

He was fast on his broomstick, and thought it could be chalked up to the fact that every year he came to practice with the newest model, he could whize past anybody. He was nimble as well. With how large his hands were, larger than the other house seekers, he was able to secure a win for almost every single match ever since he got recruited. Last year he was named captain of the Slytherin quidditch team, so you were able to piece together that he got held up with the recent tryouts.

“That’s um,” you scratch at your arm awkwardly, “That’s alright…okay so I’ll try to be as quick as I can, but there’s a lot that McGonagall wants us to do,” you start slowly, letting his get situated as you push forward the first book that helped you out, “Oh, that textbook doesn’t help…right now,” you quickly said as you saw him pull out the assigned reading, saw how he looked at you for a second, his face scrunching up in an unreadable emotion. 

“This one is good, though,” you motion to the one in front of you. 

Gojo’s movements are slow as he takes it, eyes scanning over the title until he looks back at you. 

He doesn’t do much talking, you decide. 

“This book covers cross-species transfiguration, but it briefly mentions inter-species transfiguration. But the author referenced this one,” you pull out the other hefty textbook, sliding it over to him, “And this covers all things related to inter-species transfiguration and then goes into animagus transfigurations.” 

You pause, biting your cheek to stop you from rambling on. Transfiguration was something that you could talk about forever and ever, and you’d never really talked about out loud to anybody else up until now. 

“McGonagall said that the essay was on inter-species, she never mentioned animagus transfiguration,” Gojo said suddenly, pushing the two textbooks back, letting out a heavy sigh as if this was all a waste of his time.

You nod slowly, picking at some of the skin around your nails.

“R-right, and you’re right,” you quickly sputter, nodding, “But because cross-species and inter-species transfiguration are so close together, I doubt that this was what she wanted our month-long essay to be about. Which is why,” you pull out some old essays you had done earlier in the year, “I referenced back to these animagus essay’s we had done. I mean, she wouldn’t introduce us to the topic and then drop it for no particular reason, right? I suspect she wanted us to piece the two and two together.”

Gojo gently took the papers from your outstretched hand, his eyes raking over your words, and then back to the textbooks. He seemed to read it intently as if things were slowly starting to click for him. 

“Which is why the textbook she gave us isn’t really helpful, because it resembles more of an herbology textbook rather than transfiguration. So I think that this textbook, if anything, should be referenced at the end of the essay, seeing how it mentions the mandrake leaf and the properties of the chrysalis of a Death’s-head Hawk Moth. It’s all instructions on how to become an animagus without saying it.”

His eyes, a different shade of blue in the candlelight, watched your every moment. He listened carefully as you eventually did end up rambling, watching the way your face, on its own accord, twisted into a proud smile at your clever handiwork. 

You abruptly stop to catch a breath and glance up at him apologetically. 

“I’m sorry, I went too fast,” you shake your head, rubbing your temple in your hands, tired from staring at textbooks for as long as you’ve had. 

“No…it made sense,” Gojo murmurs suddenly, his lips pulled into a thin line as he quickly looks away from you, back down to his work which was now surely long after your in-depth analysis, twisting and turning that gold ring on his finger, the one he always wore, the symbol of his family crest as he looked through the books you had offered him. 

You stay silent, not knowing what to do, resting back in your seat, picking your nails. 

“Well, that’s all of it,” you rub your hands against your pants, your dry eyes blinking a couple of times, yearning for sleep.

“You could’ve said this during class,” he said, still reading, his attention preoccupied, as if this was a hindrance to him. 

You wet your lips, trying not to clench your hand in anger, frustration, and years of pent-up emotions, as you slowly nod, pulling the leather strap of your bag over your shoulders as you begin to stand up. 

“Right, sorry,” you apologize quietly, taken aback when he suddenly looks up at you, as if startled but you didn’t feel like spending any more in the presence of someone who despised you anyways, “goodnight,” you bid farewell, not noticing how he had opened his mouth to say something, scurrying out of the library as you make your way back to the common rooms before he could.

—

The next day at transfigurations, the two of you didn’t speak to one another at the beginning of class, like normal. 

You took out your books like normal, as did he, and began writing silently, like normal. Everything was going normally until he suddenly paused, his hand wavering above his essay as he set his quill down, turning his head over to you.

“Can I see what you’ve written?” 

You stop writing, eyes darting to the side as if you had misheard him.

Gojo points to the papers you’ve been working on as if you didn’t understand his first command. 

Wordlessly, you pass it over to him. 

He reads it over a couple of times, flipping through your endless pages, muttering some words to himself now and then. You would wager that compared to other people you had made far more progress in terms of how much you’d compiled, so you weren’t necessarily worried about the time restraint on this essay. 

You couldn’t say the same for him, however. 

You’ve never seen him look so intense, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed in clear concentration. He almost seemed frustrated, and it was a strange thing to see from somebody so usually put together. 

“Our work together is too divided, it looks like we haven’t been working with each other,” Gojo says as if that wasn’t purely what was the issue. 

You didn’t say anything, wanting to see what idea he’d propose.

“I need to finish the rest of these texts,” he jutted his chin to the textbooks you had given him last night, “We can work on the essay after classes are over, in the common room.” 

A part of you wanted to laugh at him as if he had just joked. 

But Gojo Satoru was not a joking sort of person. You rarely saw him smiling, even when with his friends, and it was even rarer for him to say something of any comedic value. Which could only mean that he was being serious and that he truly was proposing to work in the common rooms with…you.

A little snort escapes your lips, looking at him as if he were crazy. He looked at you as if you were the crazy one.

“I don’t go to the common rooms after class, it’s too busy,” you explained slowly to him, wondering if he was daft and even after all this time didn’t take the time to understand your situation. 

He blinked, eyes narrowing. 

“...and?” 

Your head tilted to the side, confused. 

“Well…there’s people there,” you explain even further. 

He scoffs, rolling his eyes as if you were stupid. 

“Ironically, that is the point of a common room.” Gojo looks back to his essay, picking up his quill as if he were done with this conversation, but you pushed.

“Right,” you say more curtly, nose flaring, “For you, it might be. But people don’t want me there.” You say, a truth that you had to stomach, something that you grew used to after too many unsavory encounters with other Slytherins when you tried to come down to the common rooms during social hours. 

“So during the hours of two to eight, you don’t go to the common room?” He didn’t even look up, his voice sarcastic, not believing such an insane thing.

“No.” You reply as if it was obvious as if he should at least know that this is why you rarely ever make an occurrence unless it’s early in the morning or late at night. 

That finally gets him to stop and look at you, confusion woven into his expression. 

“What?” He set his pen down again, and you noted that his eyes seemed a different shade of blue when he was confused, a little bit lighter than usual, he seemed like he was the only one not in on some sort of joke, “So from two to eight you just stay in your room?” 

You shake your head, playing with your fingers. 

“I’m not always in my room,” ignominy clear in your tone, “Most days I either go outside and do my homework or go to the library.” 

You hate the attention this brings to you from him. You’ve never had such a long conversation with somebody in your own house, let alone Gojo. You hated the way he looked at you as if you were either lying your arse off or even worse…pity?

But you almost shook your head at that thought. The great Gojo Satoru pitying you? 

“What if it’s raining?” He asked, pushing you to see if you were telling him the truth. 

“Then I go to the library,” you said as if it was obvious, mainly because to you it was. This was the usual schedule that you’ve become used to over the years, something you’ve just forced yourself to become used to despite wanting everything in your soul to go to the common rooms like everybody else, to laugh at their stories, to talk about your lives, like you were supposed to. 

“What if the libraries closed?” 

You squirm under his heavy gaze, wondering how the topic of transfiguration got turned around to him interrogating you. 

“Um, well, right now, because of the weather, I’d probably just go up to the astronomy tower if the library was closed. They don’t have lessons during the day. Or I’d probably just find a broom closet and do my work in there.” 

His head tilts just a bit, his lips quirking up into a disbelieving smile as if he just caught you in your lie. 

“In the dark?” Gojo presses, and you can hear the people around you already beginning to pack up their supplies, the class nearing its end. Had you spent this much time talking that you wasted nearly half an hour?

“I’d cast a lumos spell,” you argue, packing up your things as you break eye contact with him. You take your paper back, making sure the ink has dried before putting it in your bag. 

“I’ll be in the library,” you say finally, making sure that was the end of it, “See you there.”

—

In some strange way, meeting up with Gojo in the library became part of your routine. 

Every night at seven, after his quidditch practice would end, he’d run all across the entirety of campus to work on your transfigurations essay together. 

The two of you still didn’t talk much, but it was different nonetheless. 

“I’m tired,” Gojo suddenly announced, the candlelight flickering on and off from his face. 

You could visibly see the dark circles that were under his eyes, how he slouched (which was uncommon for him, seeing how he usually sat as straight as a ruler wherever he was), and how he couldn’t go four minutes without letting out an exhausted sigh. 

“You should take a break,” you muttered, not paying attention, head still stuck in your book as you continued to read the rest of the paragraph you were reading. 

Gojo snorted, rolling his eyes at the prospect. 

“I can’t take a break,” he dragged his hands across his face, “I need to finish this essay, the quidditch games in two days, and Snapes up my arse about that potion exam.” 

Your eyes flickered up to his, startled at how much he had spoken, but then tried to mask your surprise by looking back down to your book.

“Potions wasn’t too bad,” you offer, “And I can finish the last bits you have,” you look back up, putting your hand out, a silent ask for him to give you whatever it was that he had written so far. 

He clicked his tongue against his teeth, silently passing over his stack of parchment, and you scanned through it quietly, shrugging as you nodded once more. 

To be honest, the two of you were far ahead of the other students in your class. He had eventually concluded on his own that you’d be wasting more time not working together, so you guessed that he just had to suck up a bit and bite back on his pride and work with a muggle-born.

His rush to finish the essay was spurred on by the plethora of other things he needed to do, a drawback of being the prime and perfect Slytherin prince everybody made him out to be. 

“You don’t have much left,” you deduce, “I can just write about the Scalivier trials,” the trial in which a man refused to register with the ministry that he was an animagus, “I’ll have it done by Saturday, I’m nearly done with my bit.”

You slide his essay back to him, but stop when you see the perplexed look on his face. 

“Saturday’s the quidditch game?”. 

Your eyes dart to the side, squinting a bit as you try for a laugh. 

“…and?” 

He scratches at his temple, tilting his head to the side. After these past couple of days working with you, he’d be wrong to say that he became more and more increasingly perplexed with you. Six years he spent watching from afar, muttering words to his friends about the absurdity of your existence, but now that he was able to see you from up close, a part of him has to agree that you’re an enigma he’s never been able to crack. 

You don’t say much during class, you don’t talk to many people, and if he was being honest, in that sense, you mirrored him. You were reserved, but the times he picked and prodded at you, you seemed to open up. You don’t have any friends from what he could tell, often eating at the end of the table during the meals. He watched sometimes to see you during the common rooms during the times in which you said you never came, a part of him thinking he’d be able to catch you. 

Gojo Satoru would never admit it, but in a way, he had become interested in you.

“Well,” Gojo didn’t like to be the one confused, hating being perceived as if he didn’t know everything, which is something he prided himself on most of the time, “After the game, there’s the usual…party,” he bit out, hating the word, because it was so unruly from the usual balls and galas he was forced attend, too many people sweaty and jumping, “In the common room.” 

You blink owlishly at him, fidgeting with your quill, twisting and turning it around in your hand. 

“Right…so I’ll be here.” 

Now it was his turn to blink slowly. 

Was this really that hard to understand?

“Coming to the library after a quidditch game seems a bit anticlimactic, don’t you think?” He leaned back in his chair, playing with the green and silver tie around his neck. You wondered how he could bear to wear it even after classes were over, that even his most posh friend ditched their formal wear the moment they got back to their dormitories. 

“Thankfully I don’t go to quidditch games, so for me, it’s just climatic,” you said, smiling at your little joke, covering your mouth as you yawned, tired and longing for your bed. 

He sat up in his chair suddenly, looking even more shocked than before. This was the most emotion you’ve ever seen him emmett before and you didn’t know what to do with it. 

“What? Why not?” He seemed so startled that you almost wanted to laugh. It was strange seeing somebody you had regarded as stoic look like he did now. 

You shrug, rubbing your fingers across your eyes as you let out another yawn, resting your chin on your palm. 

“I went once, during my first year, but everybody seemed rather annoyed that I was there, and they crowded in front of me so I couldn’t see anything,” you recall back on the memory, one that you could remember vividly, “and I don’t know,” you’re suddenly very thirsty, your cheeks heating up the more he stared at you, laughing uncomfortably, “I don’t really understand…quidditch, so it works out in the end. And I also get to have some time to myself in the common room to do my homework, you know, unlike usual.” 

Gojo didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, and you tried to pretend that you had read something interesting to not embarrass yourself any further with your mindless babbling. Sure, he might be willing to work with you now, but that didn’t mean that Gojo Satoru was up for a friendly conversation with you.

You looked at him briefly, feeling your stomach churn a bit to see that he hadn’t stopped looking at you.

“Everything alright?” You asked. 

He nodded, biting on the inside of his cheek as he picked up his quill, a wordless agreement that the conversation was over.

—

Transfiguration the next day went by oddly silent. 

Gojo didn’t talk to himself now and then, he didn’t sigh his exasperated sigh, and he didn’t peek up every once in a while to check how much you’d written since the last time he had looked over. 

You didn’t pay it much attention, keeping your head down, your eyes to yourself. Silence was better than being reminded of your muggle heritage, which even then, Gojo had yet to remind you these past weeks.

Briefly, you looked up from what you were doing to see if Professor McGonagall was walking around or sitting at her desk, but in doing so you felt Gojo shuffle a little in his seat as if he had felt your sudden movement. 

“Tonight…” he started and you quickly nodded, waving off any of his worries. Of course, you chided yourself, he’s anxious about the quidditch match, nothing else.

“Yes, yes, I know, you have quidditch tomorrow. I’ll finish up what I have left and then start reading about the Scalivier trials tonight,” you finished for him, tracing some of the wood grains of the table with your finger. 

He shakes his head. 

“Not that - and I’ll finish up the trials by Sunday,” he’s avoiding eye contact, and if you didn’t know any better it seemed like he was trying to find his words, as if they had slipped from his tongue and were dangling in the air for him to grab, “Tonight…tonight, don’t go to the library.” 

You purse your lips, trying to smile to see if that was his goal, maybe he was trying to be funny.

“Would you like to meet in one of the broom closets then?”

You felt even more lost after it seemed like he was debating taking up your offer, but his eyes shone a bright shade of aquamarine, and his cheeks twinged a slight shade of pink. 

Strange. 

“No,” he chewed on his lip, as if he were anxious, a preposterous thing to even think, “No, come down to the common rooms around eight.” 

The cursed clock tower chimed, three loud rings, and it cut the two of you off once again. 

“Look, I told you-” you go to say but he cuts you off.

“I know, just come down.” He was being so cryptic, and he looked so on edge that it was starting to freak you out. He was already beginning to pack up, his eyes snapping to his group of friends that were nearing the two of you, and he quickly looked back down at you, his head dipping down urgently. 

“Eight. Be there.” 

—-

You couldn’t say you weren’t at least a little apprehensive. 

You were so nervous that you just stayed up in your room, not even coming downstairs for dinner as you waited for the clock on the wall to read eight. 

Why were you so nervous? You first asked yourself, but then asked the more logical question, what did Gojo want with you?

The minutes on the clock seemed to take hours to pass, and the hours seemed to take days. It was such a slow process, and you knew it would be going faster if you were doing something more productive with your time until it was necessary, but you couldn’t. 

The other girls in your dorms could come in and out, sometimes exchanging glances with their friends when they saw that you hadn’t moved from your spot, but they didn’t ask any questions, opting to just leave you be. 

You were picked at your fingers, cracking your knuckles, and finally, finally, the small hand pointed to the eight on that ancient clock. 

Funnily enough, even though you had been mentally waiting for this to happen, you waited for a couple of seconds, trying to calm yourself down, nodding to yourself that this wasn’t anything big and that you were just overreacting. 

Slowly, you rose from your spot on your bed, a little dent in the mattress from just how long you’d been sitting there. You turn the handle of the door, taking in yet another deep as you take a tentative step outside the safe sanctity of your room. 

The common rooms are usually more busy on Friday nights, and that might’ve been a blessing in disguise as you’re able to slip past most people, keeping your eyes peeled for a flash of white hair. 

You scan the couch area, the sitting area, and the large window that looks into the black lake, but you don’t see him. It’s only until you look near the entrance to the common room, the large oak double doors, do you see him. 

It seems like he’s scanning the area as well, blue eyes looking everywhere until they fall onto yours, and you’re able to sneak past some people watching as he cocks his head in the motion of the doors, and before you could do anything else, he leaves, and you take it as your sig to follow him.

You’re glad that nobody’s looking your way as you push the two doors open, looking to your right to see him waiting for you. 

You go to open your mouth to speak but he beats you to it. 

“Follow me, and be quick,” he’s already walking and you have to nearly jog to get to him, walking at a much faster pace seeing how his legs were abnormally long, “Put these on over your clothes.” 

Gojo throws you a pile of ratty-looking uniforms, but the more you open up the folded mess you come to realize that they’re old quidditch uniforms. In fact, when you’re finally able to get a good look at him you realize he’s wearing adoring green robes. 

You don’t say anything, multitasking as you walk and shrug over the (huge, it was practically dragging on the floor) robes, buttoning them up as quickly as you could without tripping over your feet, the quidditch uniform, or over the stones. 

He looks at you briefly, and he’s glad that you’re too busy trying to figure out how the robes are supposed to fit over you to notice the way his lips quirked up slightly at the look of you at the moment. 

“Put this on too,” he says once you're finally done, handing you another huge helmet, and you take it silently, pulling it over your head. 

The helmet is way too big for you, as it nearly hangs over your eyes, and you can barely see anything with it on, and you pause, a smile making its way onto your face as you push it up only for it to fall again.

You stop walking for a second, and when Gojo looks back he sees the helmet masking most of your face up until your nose, the only thing he can see is your large grin, the sleeves of the uniform enveloping your hands, reaching to your knees, and for the first time, he hears the softest sound, 

You’re giggling as you try to figure out how to tighten the straps on the helmet, not able to see where Gojo is because you have your head tilted down, struggling with the buckle until his boots come into your field of vision. 

All of a sudden you feel a hand tip your helmet upwards, and your smile falters when you now see his face, the way his eyes are swirling with different hues of blues, something you notice that happened when he was battling multiple emotions at once. You can tell that there’s a small, barely noticeable smile on his face, surely from how insane you look right now. 

You’ve never seen him look so at ease. His shoulders seem more relaxed, his jaw not clenched. It helped that he looked like he was smiling for once. 

But there’s no time to think as you feel the brush of him on your skin, his slender and swift fingers working fast and expertly at tightening the strap under your chin. He looks focused, his white brows scrunched up the way he always does when he’s trying to figure out a transfiguration rune. You feel your breath lodge in your throat. When he’s satisfied with how it was resting on your face his hands drop to his side, and his eyes slightly widen, as if he just realized what he had just done. 

He cleared his throat, looking around the hall to make sure that nobody was around, and he turned his back as he began his brisk pace out to wherever it was that he was taking you.

You walked, corrected, ran with him for a little more until he brought you to one of the openings of the castle, the one that led directly to the quidditch fields. 

“Where,” you were a little out of breath, noticing how the sun was nearly about to set, and also knowing that you sure as hell didn’t have a pass to be out this late, “Where’re we going?” 

“To the field,” he said, which was the answer you were most dreading. 

“Right, I can see that,” you feel hot under all these layers, despite the fact that it was late October and the weather was biting at best, “Why are we going out to the fields.” The breeze that was hitting your cheeks was stinging, so you were at least glad in that aspect that the quidditch robe offered you some sort of warmth. 

“Ravenclaws practicing right now,” Gojo said, turning around to look at you for a fleeting second, “I need to see what Nanami’s strategy is, and you need to learn quidditch.” 

You almost trip. 

And you need to learn quidditch.

His words were ringing in your head, possibly even louder than the blood rushing to your ears. He had to be lying, or have some sort of cruel prank planned out. He must be waiting for his friends to run out from behind one of the stands so that they could tie you to a tree. Not that he’s ever done that, but also not the first time it’d be happening at the hands of other Slytherins. 

Because sure, while you might’ve offended him in saying you didn’t understand how quidditch worked, that wouldn’t mean that he, Gojo Satoru, the Prince of Slytherin, hater of all muggle-borns alike, would be taking time out of his life to fix this wrong.

You should’ve just run the other way, ditched the scratchy uniform somewhere, and ran back to your dormitory, somewhere where you’d at least be safe from experiencing any sort of humiliation. 

But the closer that the two of you neared the stands, the more you felt confused. Because nowhere could you see any other Slytherins, and he was right, the Ravenclaw team was practicing right now, if the flashes of blue and white from above you meant anything. 

Which could only mean that…? 

Gojo finally stops at the stairs that lead you up the stands, his hand on the wooden railing. 

“We’re going…up?” 

He snorts, nodding as he ushers you to move. 

“Obviously,” his voice now seems more amplified with his small and cramped winding staircase, “I’m not going to be observing them from the ground.” 

You’re the one that’s ahead, so you try to go even faster so that he won’t be held up behind you, but everything is moving too fast. Did he give you these robes so that you’d seem like another player? So that you wouldn’t be marked up if you were seen out of your dormitory so late at night?

When you finally got to the opening, you were able to hear the yells that the Ravenclaw players were enhancing with one another. You hold the tarp that acted as the door above your head, heading over to one of the seats in the far back, feeling Gojo right on your tail. 

It had been years since you were here since you looked out into the fields. The stands were high, and the winds were stronger up here. Gojo sat where you were, to your right, and you waited silently to see what he was going to do. 

Nanami was the Ravenclaw seeker as well as the captain. You could see the flash of blonde hair as he flew by, the other team members either watching him or practicing with their respective posts. 

Gojo rested his elbow on his thighs, leaning in as he observed intently. 

Eventually, after a minute or two, he sat back up, leaning in closer to you. You could feel his hair ticking your temple, his nose inches away from your cheek as he began to talk. 

“In quidditch, you have seven players on each side. One seeker, one keeper, three chasers, and two beaters.” 

You nod, following along. 

“You see number seven?” He points to the guy flying around near the three tall hoops, and you nod again, “He’s a keeper. He makes sure that the other team doesn’t get any balls into the hoops.” Gojo is leaning even closer to you now, and you can feel half of his body pressing up against yours. You feel like you're heating up, and not because of the excessive quidditch uniform you’re wearing. 

“The beaters, number four and two,” he then points to the boy and the girl flying around, holding wooden bats, “try to protect their team from the bludgers; which is this black ball that sort of follows around team members, trying to knock them off their brooms. Those bats ward off the bludgers.” 

You make a mental note of everything he’s saying, trying not to be distracted by the fact that you’re being given a quidditch lesson from Gojo Satoru. 

“The chasers, which are the rest of them, aside from Nanami, throw around the quaffle to each other. Every time they get it through the other team's hoop, they score ten points…do you follow?” Gojo pauses, looking at you and you push your helmet up so that you can see him, giving him a confident nod. 

“All that’s left is the seeker-” 

“Which is you, right?” You cut him off, rubbing at your nose which was now freezing at this point. 

Gojo pauses, eyes flickering to you as he raises a brow. 

“I may not know quidditch but I’m not daft,” you tell him.

For a second there, you swear you could see the start of a smile play on his lips.

“Yeah,” he says, almost softly, “I’m the seeker.” You’re too busy looking ahead to notice that he’s busy looking at you, so you continue to talk. 

“...plus, Kento was telling me about it a while ago. He said you were really good.”

This time, his brow raised even further. 

“You know him?” 

You shrug, your eyes following the quick and hurried movements of all the players, too focused on their practice to notice the change in Gojo’s voice, or overall, the change in his entire demeanor. You must’ve missed how he slightly tensed up, or the way his eyes narrowed. 

“We had potions with Ravenclaw last year, remember?” You turn slightly to look over at Gojo before you go back to watching, “He helped me with some of my brews, but we talked about other stuff!” You had to raise your voice, the wind was getting stronger, “And Quidditch came up!”

Gojo’s nose flared momentarily before he swallowed thickly, his jaw ticking as he tried to focus back on the practice as well. 

“A-anyways,” he cleared his throat, not remembering that last time he choked on his words, “The seeker catches the snitch. I can’t see where it is now, but once the snitch is caught, the game is over.” He tried to push some of the hair out of his face, getting annoyed at how it kept getting stuck in his eyes. 

“I need to get something, I’ll be back,” Gojo murmured in your ear, pushing himself off of the seat as he walked in front of you disappearing down the stairs within seconds. 

You glanced at where he left but found yourself looking back to the players, your face breaking into another excited smile when you began to piece together what Gojo had just told you, finally able to understand quidditch after all these years.

The sun had set and the stars were peeking out through the sky, and you watched the players as they furiously rode around, each one tense and stressed for the match that would be happening tomorrow. 

You tried to hide yourself in the background as much as you could, now feeling a little more out in the open with Gojo gone.

The minutes ticked by and yet Gojo didn’t come back. Now and then you found yourself looking at the stairs, eyes darting back and forth from those on their broomsticks to where you had first entered from. 

Slowly yet surely, you found yourself in that position the first night you saw him at that library. 

When the Ravenclaw players slowly began dissenting from the air, running off the fields as they went in from shelter from the old, you felt a part of your stomach twist. 

This was all part of his plan, you concluded, shivering to yourself as you tried not to feel let down, or even worse, like an idiot for thinking anything had changed, that you had maybe actually begun to have a friend after seven years.

You feel your eyes water, either from the wind or from everything, and you make your way for the stairs, your lips trembling as you suddenly start to feel claustrophobic under all the clothes you're wearing, your fingers slipping and sliding as you try to take that wretched helmet off of your head.

You feel like if you go any faster you’re going to trip and tumble down the stairs, and it doesn't help that you’re already too distracted with trying to take the helmet off. You sniffle, your eyes blurry as you feel your heart beat rapidly in your chest. 

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

You couldn’t even tell if you were thinking that in your head or saying it out loud as you neared the end of the never-ending stairs, unbuttoning the buttons of the scratchy uniform as you bundled everything up in your hands, wiping at your wet cheeks with your palm.

Amongst all the things people have done to you over the years, this wasn’t the worst. You’ve had your room ransacked, your trunk thrown into the river, your shoes stolen on multiple occasions. You’ve been called a mudblood more times than you’ve been called your own name, and none of these things were actually done by Gojo. 

Perhaps you thought that deep down, maybe he could change. That maybe after all that time spent in the library, talking to you, controlling some of his laughs at your awful jokes, he saw that maybe muggle-borns weren’t as bad as he thought they were. 

And yet tonight you suffered your first prank, if that’s what this could even be called, at his hands. It didn’t hurt because of its nature, but because a naive part of you actually thought that he could’ve been your friend. 

But none of that mattered now, not that you-

“Where are you going?” 

You stop in your tracks, your head whipping around to the voice. 

It was now fully dark outside, the moon and the spare candles that were lit around the castle and the stands were the only sources of light. You could see his figure standing a couple feet away from you, his white hair like a beacon in the night. 

He takes a couple tentative steps closer to you, close enough so that you can see the furrow of his brows and the small pout on his lips. Damn it, you wanted to curse, you could hate him more if he didn’t look so pretty. 

“Back to the castle,” you snap, wiping at the corners of your eyes, throwing down the old uniform and the oversized helmet on the ground near his feet. You sniffle, looking to the side so that you won’t have to see his face.

“What?” He steps closer to you and you take a step back, your head still turned, eyes trained on the dewy grass, “Why?” You try not to think too much about the two sets of brooms in his hands, or how for some strange reason, he actually sounded dejected that you were leaving.

Letting out a shaky breath you laugh curtly, crossing your arms over your chest as you look up to the sky, counting the stars, wondering if that could calm you down. 

You hear the grass crunch under his feet, the warmth of his body as he comes in close to you. 

Why does he care? 

“I brought you a broom,” he holds it to you so you can see the outline of it, “Here,” he bends down to pick up the helmet you had thrown to the ground, “At least put this on,” he’s already securing it on your head, not noticing the way your lips were trembling, his fingers brushing up against your chin once again but you don’t him faster it, smacking his hand to the side as you rip the helmet off your head, throwing it with more force on the ground. 

“S-stop,” you murmur harshly, wiping at your cheeks, “Stop, stop whatever it is you’re doing-” 

“I’m not doing anything,” he snarls, his eyes a dark shade of navy blue, “So stop crying, I don’t know what it is you think I did.”

He’s angry now, good, it’ll be easier to yell at him if he’s just as amped up as you are. 

But when you finally look at him and get to see his face, it’s not the kind of anger you’re feeling. His eyes are narrowed, his eyebrows pulling together down the middle the way they do when he’s confused, the way you often see him looking like when he’s frustrated at your cursed transfigurations essay. He’s not angry at you because of you, he’s angry because he doesn't understand where your frustrations are coming from. 

He’s at least a head taller than you, looking down as his chest heaves slightly, waiting for you to say something, anything, so that he could explain himself for whatever it is he’s done wrong. His cheeks are a little pink, either from the cold or…something else, and his hair is messy, no longer kept the way it usually is. 

Gojo looks different.

And you don’t know who it was that moved in closer, whose rational mind slowly turned irrational as you two took another step towards the middle, but all you do know is that the two of you didn’t care as you roughly grabbed him by his robes, tugging him in as you slammed your lips to his. 

It happened in an instant, your lips moving against his soft one, your hands gripping onto that fabric for dear life. And for a second, you begin to pull away, your eyes opening in shock, but there’s no use, because Gojo slams his lips down onto yours as he pulls you into his chest. 

It’s rushed and messy, your teeth clash against one another, your hands going up from his chest as they intertwine around his neck, your fingers tugging on his long white strands and you hear him groan into your mouth. 

He moves fast, biting at your lips, one hand sprawled on the expanse of your back, the other one behind your neck, almost cradling the back of your head, tilting your head upwards to meet him. His tongue prods at your lips, and somehow, mindlessly, you part them a little more, moaning quietly at the way his tongue explores your mouth. 

Gojo leads you a little back, so that you’re up against one of the wooden pillars of the quidditch stands, offering you more stability, a good thing, seeing how you feel like you're becoming lightheaded, soon about to faint. 

“Fuck,” he whispers, heavy on your lips as he dips down again to kiss down your chin tilting your head up to expose the column of your neck, “Fuck,” he says once more, diving down as he sucks and bites at your skin, his movements growing faster and more erratic once he hears the soft and sweet mewls that escape your swollen lips. 

“G-gojo,” you whine, feeling hot as his hands travel across your chest, cupping your tits through your thin sweater as he continues to kiss down your neck, tugging some of the material down so that he could leave even more marks across your collarbone, “G-god, oh my god,” 

His pants tighten at your voice, his pupils dilate at the way you're pawing at him, pulling at him, needing him. 

“Satoru,” he says against your skin, “Not Gojo. Not you.” 

He’s delirious, he kisses you like you’re the air he’s been missing his entire life, and holds you to him as if you’re the only furnace in a land barren with snow. He needs you. 

Your fingers are lost in his hair, pulling and tugging, hearing the way his breathing stutters when you do so. 

One of your hands drops down to his chest, feeling at the skin that’s exposed from where his uniform was pulling up, and when your cold fingers make contact with the skin resting taunt on his stomach you swear you could hear him almost whine, his head momentarily dropping into the crook of your neck as he urges you to continue, holding your wrist tightly, pushing it up further. 

Your eyes find his, your breathing coming out in short spurts, and he seems so far gone, so transfixed with how you look under him, that the two of you fail to hear the footsteps that come near where the two of you were.

“Who’s there?” 

A voice calls out, and you see somebody behind him standing with a lantern. 

You push Gojo off of you, but he stays put, looking over his shoulder, shielding your body with his. 

“Oh, fuck off Taylor,” Gojo calls out, anger and irritation laced into his voice.

The boy's eyes widen when he realizes how it is, the blue and white Ravenclaw robes dashing away into the distance, the lantern long gone in a matter of seconds, but it’s no use. 

When Gojo looks down at you, you’ve been given too much time to come back to your senses. 

You push him away from you, and this time he moves.

You take a deep breath, not looking at him as you wipe at your spit-soaked lips, blinking rapidly as you try to make sense of what happened. 

He didn't say anything, but you could hear the quiet pants that escaped his lips, trying to catch some air. 

You open your mouth to say something but close it promptly, shaking your head in disbelief. 

You don’t think twice as you make your way back to the castle.

---

(part two)

taglist (CLOSED): @satorusemepls, @mokonasenpaiposts, @kao-ri, @rinxgojo, @notsochillnerd, @astral-hydromancy, @holylonelyponyeatingmacaron, @tedbunny333, @13-09-01, @mynameislove1, @hyunsuks-beanie

⟳ 26. INTOXICATED

You and Kaz arrive at the bar a little late, but just in time for the first few waves of shots being passed around. The place hums with energy, with dim lights, heavy bass, unfamiliar bodies pulsing near the DJ booth.

Ven spots you both from the second-floor lounge near the stairs, presumably the couch space he claimed for all of you.

“Over here!” he bellows, trying to cut through the music with bleary eyes. You spot your friends laughing at his theatrics, already nestled into the couch.

You snort. The night’s barely begun and he’s already half gone.

You scan the crowd between you and the stairs. Someone bumps into you in the chaos, jolting you off-balance. You instinctively reach for the nearest thing—

Kaz.

He feels your light tug and immediately turns to steady you, murmuring a quiet, ‘Careful,’ as he catches your arm.

He holds out his hand. “Don’t let go, okay?”

You smile and slip your fingers into his.

You weave through the crowd, hands clasped tightly so you don’t lose each other in the press of bodies.

“[Name]! Kaz! You guys made it!” Ven slurs, stumbling forward to greet you with a hug that lingers a bit too long.

“God, you already reek, and it’s not even ten p.m.,” you groan, hugging him back anyway.

He giggles. “That’s the thing! It is almost ten, and I’m not blacked out yet!”

You roll your eyes but smile. “Happy birthday, you menace.”

“Thank you!” he sings.

“Happy birthday, Ven,” Kaz says with a soft smile. Ven slings an arm around his shoulder.

“Take care of [Name] tonight, yeah?” Ven adds, waggling his eyebrows.

Kaz chuckles and gently removes Ven’s arm, patting his back. “I’ll look out for her.”

“Boo! No fun!” Ven laughs, tottering back to his seat.

You greet your friends, let Lumi pull you into a selfie, and down your first shot without even asking what it is.

Then another.

You slow down after a few more, pleasantly buzzed but still steady. Some of your friends head down to dance, pulled by partners or strangers into the tide of music. You and Kaz linger, watching from above.

“They’re so loud,” you say, amused as you hear their shouting voices above the music.

Kaz chuckles beside you, pouring himself a drink. “I’m surprised you’re not down there with them.”

Sighing, you take the same bottle and pour it into your own glass. “Normally, I would. But… I’m just not feeling it tonight. Not here.”

“The place?”

You simply hum in response, taking a sip of your drink.

“Soda? Really?” you say as you feel the liquid fizzing in your mouth.

“Someone’s gotta stay somewhat sober,” Kaz laughs as he proceeds to take another sip of his drink. “I already took my one shot of vodka and I already feel dizzy. I told you I don’t take alcohol well.”

You down the soda in your glass and fill it up again with the same drink.

“You do know Ven was just joking when he tweeted that,” you say with a breathy chuckle.

“Even so, I need to honor the celebrant’s wish,” he replies with a proud smile.

You shake your head and take a sip of your drink, not replying.

“Do you drink often?” he asks.

“Not recently, no,” you answer.

“Seriously? Even after the whole break-up?”

“Not a break-up,” you mutter, shooting him a look. He smiles amusedly in response. “And no. I didn’t drink then because I firmly believe alcohol doesn’t help with pain.”

And mostly because you didn’t want to end up doing something stupid while drunk.

“So you drinking now means… what? Progress?”

“Maybe?” You shrug. “I don’t know.”

But deep down, you know that’s not entirely true.

You’d be lying if you said you don’t feel anything for him anymore.

You just forced yourself to stop thinking.

No reminiscing, no late-night peeks at his profile, no checking what his ex posted.

You locked him away in your mind and told yourself not to look back.

That one day, time would dull it all.

His face. His voice. His touch.

Your feelings.

And honestly? Kaz helped with that. Willingly.

He knew all of this and was happy to help distract you and guide you through your emotions.

“You’ll get there eventually,” he says.

At one point you started to think the ‘therapist’ joke was becoming real.

You could feel him glance at you longer than usual, and you notice the warmth in his gaze.

And for a second, it feels like something you could want, something you could drown yourself in.

If only you were ready. But you’re still scared.

Maybe in the future.

“Yeah. I will,” you affirm to yourself.

But of course, just when you think the universe might give you peace,

out of nowhere—

Your eyes land on a familiar figure walking through the crowd at the entrance.

You squint to double check that it’s not just the alcohol in your system playing with your mind.

Your stomach drops.

Of course.

Just when you were talking about it.

And at such a vulnerable state, too.

You grip the edge of the couch instinctively, the cold of your glass grounding you.

Kaz sees your shoulder tense. He looks at you, wordlessly asking if you’re okay.

You turn to him. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

His worry slowly dissipates, and nods in understanding.

You make your way downstairs and to the dance floor.

Then you’re spinning around, moving too fast, eyes scanning the crowd until they land on Ven, drunk laughing with your friends, tipping back another shot like it’s juice.

You beeline to him.

“Ven.” You grab his arm and drag him out away from the group and near the bathrooms.

“Wah–? What’s wronggg?” he garbles.

“Why the hell is he here?”

Ven blinks at you, bleary-eyed. “Who?”

“Kuni.”

“Ohhhh,” he drawls, grin crooked. “Ajax asked to invite him. I said yes.”

“You what?” you hiss, louder than intended. “Why?”

He shrugs, like it’s the most casual thing in the world. “Thought it’d be fun.”

You stare at him in disbelief and betrayal. “Even her?”

Ven immediately sobers up. Not in expression, but in tone. “Hell no. I’d never let her near my party.”

“But he can?”

Ven just laughs—shrill, high, unbothered—and walks away with a stupid, ‘Good luck!’

You don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or go home.

Or strangle an intoxicated friend.

He’s lucky it’s his birthday.

So instead, you go to the open bar and order a whole bottle, bringing it with you.

You step upstairs and make your way toward the couch area, the bass from downstairs still thumping faintly beneath your shoes.

And there he is.

Sitting with Ajax and Kaz, a glass already in hand. Ajax is next to him, mid-speech, but freezes the moment he sees you, nearly choking on his drink. Kaz is settled across the couch, comfortably distant from them, staring at Kuni as if also not expecting him to be here.

You don’t hesitate. You walk straight to them and slide on the couch beside Kaz. Closer than earlier.

You pour yourself a drink, adding ice from the bucket.

No one says anything.

Not yet.

One shot.

Ajax tries, “[Name], he’s—“

The shot glass clinks on the table as you pour more.

Two shots.

Kaz gives you a subtle glance, like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t.

The tension is thick.

You lean back on the couch, letting your head rest for a moment. You don’t notice Kaz’s arm stretched behind you, resting casually on the top of the couch until you’re already half-leaning into it.

Not touching, but almost.

You don’t mean to look, but you feel it.

The weight of someone’s eyes on you.

He’s staring.

He hasn’t said a word. Just stares intensely at the both of you from across the couch like he’s trying to piece you back together in his head.

It’s like he’s waiting for you to break.

And it infuriates you.

You keep your face blank, but your thoughts spiral.

Why is he even here? Why did he accept Ajax’s invite knowing you’d be here.

Was it to mock you? To check up on you? To make sure you can’t move on properly from him?

You pour another drink, but hesitate this time. Your grip tightens. Your breathing hitches.

“You alright?” you hear Kaz whisper softly in your ear that sends shivers down your spine.

You nod. Barely.

Your surroundings begin to spin and blur. The crowd’s chatter and the music’s blaring beat fade into a distant, drowned-out hum.

You try to concentrate, not giving in to the alcohol. Your head tips against Kaz’s shoulder, resting. He doesn’t move.

You glance up, and sure enough, Kuni is still staring.

Still drinking you in like he has a right to.

But this time, he’s downing a bottle as he keeps his gaze fixated on the two of you.

Memories flood back.

The times when you kept saying to yourself that it’s the last time. That you’d end things with him.

And then Kuni shows up, like he always does, to remind you what you’re trying to leave behind.

You glare at him once. Hard. Daring him to look away.

He doesn’t.

If his expression earlier was somewhat readable, this time it’s impossible to comprehend.

Does he regret it? Or is he just proud of himself?

This pisses you off.

You want a reaction out of him.

He doesn’t just get to let you go and be happy. He can’t just be unaffected by all of this.

You want to show him what he took for granted.

There must be something.

And in a sudden burst of defiance, you grab the half-empty bottle on the table and down most of it.

The liquor burns, but it’s a distraction.

A blur.

Exactly what you need.

You stand up, wobbling as the rush hits your head.

Giggling, you turn to Kaz and grab his hand. “Let’s dance,” you say, voice slurred, eyes glinting with something between chaos and pain.

Kaz looks at you with a pointed expression, reluctant, but eventually follows.

From the couch, Ajax watches with wide eyes. “Hey, man…” he starts, already on alert.

Kuni’s still frozen, but only for a second. He finishes what’s left of his bottle and sets it down with a heavy thud and stands up.

“Don’t,” Ajax says under his breath, placing a hand on Kuni’s chest. “Don’t follow them. You’re drunk.”

Kuni doesn’t answer.

You and Kaz reach the dance floor. Amidst the bass pulsing and the people packed around you, in your mind, you have one clear drunk goal.

You start jumping to the beat, loose and unfiltered, dragging Kaz with you. You spin around and tug him closer, too close.

Arms on his shoulders, hips swaying near his. Kaz, ever steady, moves with you but still keeps a proper distance.

“Why are you doing this?” he mutters lowly, trying to catch your gaze.

You just laugh.

Loud. Drunken. Detached.

You don’t answer.

Kaz sighs. “Come on, let’s go bac–“

He’s about to let go and bring you back upstairs until he glances to the side.

Kuni.

Standing stiff at the edge of the dance floor, watching. Jaw clenched. Eyes locked on the space between you and Kaz, like he’s trying to will it away.

Ajax is behind him, trying to pull him back again.

Ah.

Realization hits him.

Kaz sees it now.

He sighs once more.

He knows this isn’t really about him, but he does it anyway.

He lets his hand rest on your waist, pulling your bodies closer. Your arms loop around his neck without thought. Despite being out of it, you can feel the tension between the two of you spike in the air.

Kaz takes it up a notch by slowly inching his face down to yours. You let him.

He doesn’t rush. Instead, he draws it out, lowering his face inch by inch, just enough for your breath to catch. His lips hover dangerously close, not touching, just waiting.

Daring.

And that’s when Kuni shifts.

A flicker of movement.

A reaction.

Ajax tries to hold him back, voice lost in the loud crowd. But Kuni pushes forward.

And before you can process it, a hand wraps around your arm, tugging you firmly, pulling you out of Kaz’s hold.

Your head spins. The crowd blurs. Your heartbeat spikes.

“What the hell are you doing?” Kuni confronts.

Kaz harshly shook off Kuni’s grip on you but kept his tone calm. “Maybe don’t grab her like that.”

“Maybe back the fuck off,” Kuni snaps.

“Oh, now you’re acting like this?” Kaz holds his stern gaze, challenging the other.

A few nearby partygoers paused mid-dance, turning their heads toward the commotion, eyes flicking between the raised voices and the tension unfolding. Some backing up to not get involved. Some were too drunk to care.

Ajax stepped between them, hands up. “Okay, cool it. Not the time–”

“Shut up.” Kuni brushes off Ajax and moves to grab your arm again.

You tug your arm back, voice slurred. “Stop it.”

You look at Kuni, eyes glassy. “You don’t… youu don’t have the right to act like this. You have Mona.” You point at his chest weakly, trying to push him away with your finger.

Fuck. The alcohol is really getting to you.

Kuni’s breath caught.

“You don’t understand,” Kuni speaks lowly.

You wobble a little as you take a step towards him, trying to straighten yourself. But the sheer audacity of what he just said sobers your mind up a bit.

“What?” you ask, still inebriated, but angry.

Don’t understand what?

That he can pull you in just to let go the second it gets real? Acting like he cares, only to vanish when it matters? That he can get back with his past while you mourn your one-sided relationship?

You’ve been trying to get well without him—trying to breathe, move on, forget—but he somehow finds a way to remind you of what once was.

So what exactly are you not getting?

“Why are you eve—”

You barely get the words out before everything crashes down at once.

And then,

You feel a pair of lips on yours.

⟳ BLURRED LINES — PREV | MASTERLIST | NEXT

You say you’re just friends. You say it every time you leave a party together, every time you wake up tangled in sheets, every time you swear it’s the last time. But habits form, lines blur, and pretending gets harder when jealousy starts to sting.

NOTE i’m posting this without proper proofreading lol i’m scared once i finish this smau and go back to read it, i’ll regret writing it sm. anw so let’s just pretend that mc can hold her liqour so well <3 also happy one month advanced birthday venti!

TAGLIST @joiurz @sketcheeee @mywillt0live @kyouzki @ylapsha45 @eternallykira-143 @bananasquash @kunikissr @swivi @ariesloves @lloversss @b-bbytears @kokoscutie @vi0let-writes @tomsishere @franaby @scaraenthusiast1 @iloveescara @usagiarchive @ilovecats-26 @quiechee @snetr @axquella @tatsuomii @lalalaloveallmydays @liyahbug @feiherp @jinjjjia @automaticpatroltragedy @mysterypotatoink @zuhahearts @adres-tia @ssetsuka @strwbrrybbpop @sesamemin @blvdmrcnry @aspinny @jiminscarmex @sammybeefangirls @lxkeeeeee @yu-yumii @linasxoxo @quiet-place-for-thoughts @randomhumans-blog @aaudreys @lesbi-snail @jayzioxx @meowpmzai @s-f-rants @cosmic-rainestorm @honey-and-sweetdreams @vincelikestomince @mono-dontidae @simeonmybabygirlicious @gugumioooo [50/50]

if your name is in bold, that means i can’t tag you

Me looking for yandere content the moment I step foot in any new fandom

warnings: mermaid hybrid satoru, exploration kink?, suggestive nsfw🔞 this is a long one~

“nngh!”

sounds of distressed whimpers force your head out of your book with furrowed brows—you can barely hear the cries under the steady crashing of waves and birds singing in the wind. part of you thinks you might be going crazy considering no one is within your proximity on this side of the beach. you blink rapidly as you attempt to listen in on the sound and when it doesn’t fade, you hesitantly stand and attempt to make your way closer to it.

but when it leads you to a cluster of all different sizes of rocks near the shore, you sigh. you’re close to just deem yourself crazy, maybe your fantasy book is just encouraging your imagination. but when the whining turns into a faint cry, your curiosity only grows. you squint at the area in attempt to spot the source as you take your shoes off and throw them closer to the dry sand along with your book, as to not get them wet.

you take a step into the wet sand at the very border of the shore where the waves meet your feet as you eye the area.

“is someone there?” you hesitantly call, cringing at the sound of your voice as you look around to make sure no one is seeing you speak to the ocean like an imbecile.

immediately the whining and sobbing halts abruptly, making your brows furrow further with curiosity.

“are- are you hurt?” you ask, taking another step closer to the rocks. the rocks are a bit intimidating even though they’re not submerged much since the tide has shifted so you gulp as you near them.

you’re now ankle deep into the water, no longer needing to go in any deeper to approach the rocks.

it’s silent now. you’re now second guessing if you even heard anything in the first place, but it’s too odd that the noises seemed to stop once you had spoken.

so you finally approach the rocks, laying your palms down on a large one to peek your head over it, half expecting to see a child that’s lost their way.

and what you see makes your eyes widen and the blood drain from your face. you gasp in a mixture of shock, fear, and confusion when you make eye contact with what looks like a fairy tail creature.

you jump back in surprise, stumbling and falling straight onto your ass, completely soaking your bottoms and the hem of your shirt.

“w-what-what the fuck?” you stutter to yourself, shaking your head harshly as you clench your eyes shut and grip the wet sand. maybe these fantasy books are finally getting to you or maybe you fell asleep on the beach and this is all a dream.

a moment later, you blink rapidly as you shakily stand. and this time, you walk around the rock so you can properly see what you think you saw without something in the way.

and once you do, you see it again, staring at you with wide piercing blue eyes. you can’t even speak as you analyze it, much less breathe. it looks deathly afraid of you, whatever it is, and it eyes your every step with the upmost observation and fear.

it’s long scaly fish like tail is a beautiful blue color, but it’s torso and head is seemingly human. it has milky white skin, pecks with nipples like a man, toned arms with little blue fins attached, and hands with fingers— though they seem more webbed than a normal persons. it’s tail begins where a normal humans legs would. it’s some kind of a creature that’s half man and half fish. if you didn’t know any better, you’d say it looks like a mermaid.

you don’t dare to take another step closer, staying a few feet away with caution. it’s tail is caught in some kind of netting connected to the rock and it looks as though the grip it has on it’s tail is so tight that there’s a bit of red blood seeping from it.

it’s not moving one inch as the baby waves crash gently on it. the creature is so still, in fact, that you’d believe it was dead if not for its eery eyes watching your every breath and the way it’s blinking every now and then.

you’ve had the ‘do aliens exist’ talk before, everyone has, but no matter your stance on it, actually seeing something inhuman and seemingly otherworldly is a whole nother conversation entirely.

your breath is shaky as you squint at the netting because even though you have no idea what this creature is, it looks like it’s in pain. you can’t help but wish to help it.

you gulp and take a step closer to get a better look at the netting but the moment you do, it flinches and it’s tail begins to slam against the sand with force— like it’s trying to scare you off by splashing you with the small amount of water under it.

and if his intent was to scare you, it works because you fall right back onto your ass with a gasp as droplets of water litter your face.

“i-i-i’m sorry! i- won’t h-hurt you!” you stutter out, voice shakier than it’s ever been as you wipe your face of the water. you aren’t even sure if this creature can understand your language, but even animals can understand intent so you figure it’s worth a shot.

hesitantly, it slows it’s flopping and tears begin to fall from its beautiful, gleaming eyes as soft whimpers fall from its lips. it seems as though it’s accepted its fate, that you will hurt it or even worse, kill it.

your brows twitch in sympathy as you stand once again. its teary eyes follow you every step of the way as you inch closer to it ever so slowly with hands extended, as if to communicate that you won’t hurt it.

and once you get close enough to potentially touch its tail, you crouch in front of the mid part of it with caution, eyes trained on it’s terrified face.

you gulp. “i’m going to t-try to get this off, okay?” you voice, knowing it likely doesn’t understand you.

it’s face contorts with confusion and eyes flicker down to your hands that are steadily moving towards it’s tail.

you pause for a moment, giving it time to process what’s happening before attempting to make contact. as you get just inches away, it flinches violently, tugging against the netting and letting out a painful whine.

“it’s okay! don’t move— calm down.” you coo, attempting to adopt a calming tone to your voice. it seems to help a bit because its tail stills, though still obviously hesitant.

although your natural curiosity urges you to touch its tail to learn more, you don’t want to frighten the injured creature any further. this is your first time encountering such a being, and it's likely the creature’s first time seeing a human.

you gently place a hand on the net around its tail, careful not to touch the tail itself to avoid scaring it. you carefully maneuver the netting, examining what can be done. the knots are tangled, but not impossible to undo.

you gently let go and look at its face once again with sympathy.

“that must hurt, huh? poor thing.” you coo as it softly sobs, “i’m going to unknot it now.” you explain with a newfound determination.

you begin working, carefully untying the netting as gently as possible. when the creature’s whines intensify from a particularly painful tug, you pause, easing up to show that you mean no harm. this gesture seems to soothe it, enough that its gaze shifts from your working hands to your focused face, filled with curiosity.

you notice that whenever your fingers get close to its tail, there's a subtle resistance, as if an invisible barrier is pushing against you, protecting it from your touch.

finally, you get it untied and you pull the ropesoff of it’s tail with an accomplished sigh. “all done.”

it’s eyes widen in shock as its tail suddenly moves freely. you huff with a cheerful smile, watching as the creature realizes it’s free and no longer doomed to die here. you can’t help but wonder why it was so close to shore in the first place.

then, suddenly, as if realizing you might still pose a threat, it swiftly turns and glides gracefully into a deeper part of the ocean.

you stand up with an expression of bewilderment as you watch it swim into the water, disappearing with a splash of its large tail.

you chuckle to yourself in disbelief, rubbing a hand down your face. your eyes remain fixed on the spot where you last saw it, hoping to catch just one more glimpse before you leave. you know no one would believe you if you told them what you just witnessed, but maybe that’s for the best, given how cruel humans can be.

just as you’re about to turn to retrieve your book and shoes, your eyes light up when it’s white haired head pops up, exposing its face as it stares at you from afar.

when it doesn’t move to leave immediately, you lift a hand and awkwardly wave, mentally cursing yourself when you realize it probably doesn’t know what that gesture means. sure, the way it’s just watching you is a bit unsettling, but it doesn’t seem to have any ill intent. you’re fairly certain it understands that you set it free—or at least, you hope so.

and then, you exhale sharply in bewilderment when it surprisingly copies your gesture, lifting a hand and waving back at you before disappearing back into the ocean.

the next few days you can’t help but visit the same area of the beach again, hoping that maybe you’ll see the astonishing creature again. but you don’t, not for days.

after about a week, you finally see it again, but any hopes or expectations you had are quickly dashed when it merely observes you from a safe distance in the water. you don’t dare to push the boundary and enter the water, fearing that it might scare the creature away or even the possibility that it could hurt you.

in the days that follow, it surprisingly returns each day at the same time to watch you for hours at a time. whenever another human comes by, it vanishes into the ocean in the blink of an eye, only to reappear and gaze at you again. you’ve noticed that it seems particularly interested in watching you read for some reason.

unfortunately, you have college classes to attend still so you’re forced to skip a beach day. the entirety of the class, all you can do is wonder if the creature is waiting for you to show up.

the next day, instead of lounging on the dry sand, you sit in the shallow water, where it reaches up to your waist, wearing your swimsuit.

to your surprise, when it pops up like usual, it doesn’t seem afraid of your new proximity but it stays a long distance away as it eyes you. its expression reads curiosity but you can’t be sure from this distance.

after spending about an hour idly watching the creature and playing with the wet sand under your hands, you grow comfortable. you even close your eyes and bask in the sun.

but when you hear the gentle ripple of water— as if something is moving, you peek open your eyes to see it much closer now.

it scares you at first, making you gasp and scoot back a bit with fear. but your reaction seems to scare it too, making it quickly retreat into the water again.

“n-no! wait! i’m sorry— come back!” you plead in fear that it might never return as you crawl in deeper on all fours, unsure if it can hear you beneath the water.

a moment later, it peeks up at you again, much further than before but still close enough to see. immediately you smile and wave, hoping it recognizes your gesture again.

and it does recognize it, showing a sort of naïveté as its eyes light up and it swims closer, shockingly fast. it’s a bit unnerving how fast it moves but maybe you should have expected as much from a creature of the water. you try not to show any signs of fear or shock at its movement so you don’t potentially scare it away again.

it then exposes its entire face as it lifts a hand and waves back with wonder in its eyes, only feet away from you. it seems it’s hesitant to come any closer because you’re in a shallow part of the shore— though you think that’s for the best because even if it hasn’t hurt you thus far, it’s an unknown creature that you know nothing about. it’s best to keep a small space between the two of you for now.

you take a seat in the water that’s now up to your lower ribs as you examine its beautiful features while it examines yours.

it’s facial features are that of the most beautiful in the world, you think, surpassing even the most famous of beauties in the human race. and it’s eyes are a color that shouldn’t be possible, so piercing blue that they’re almost glowing. its hair is milky white, much more pure of a white than any bleach could ever turn a humans hair— matching its eyelashes and eyebrows. you aren’t sure, but it looks like a man in his twenties.

“beautiful, you’re so beautiful.” you breathe out in awe, making it’s head tilt in curiosity— reminiscent of a puppy.

and then it suddenly speaks, but the language scares you. it’s like no language you’ve ever heard before and it’s tone sounds bewildered. it’s voice is deep and raspy, like a man and you’re not sure what you expected but it wasn’t that.

you can’t help but flinch and gulp a bit at the sound of it, it’s only natural to be afraid of such an unknown sound but you’re trying your best to be open minded.

as if responding to your sign of fear, it begins to speak again but this time— in english.

“c-calm— d-d-ow-n, poor th-thing.” it stumbles over its words, attempting so hard to copy your words and cooing tone from weeks ago when you were freeing it.

you can barely grasp what it’s trying to say, but as you piece it together, your jaw drops in awe. you’re amazed that it remembered what you said well enough to repeat it—especially since it’s using the same calming words you used on it to try to soothe you. It’s as if it’s trying to calm you down, even though it probably doesn’t understand the meaning of the words.

“amazing,” you breathe out, blinking in utter disbelief.

“ama—zong,” it repeats with a curious tone.

you giggle with your eyes crinkled closed as it mispronounces “amazing” as “amazong,” and your laughter only seems to intrigue it further. its white eyebrows twitch as it swims closer, trying to catch more of your laugh.

when you open your eyes again, you find it closer than before, causing you to stiffen and gasp. it’s now only a few feet away, and because it’s in such shallow water, it’s forced into a horizontal position, with parts of its tail visible behind it.

then, it speaks again, slowly, but in its own language like it’s trying to teach you a word.

“sa-tor-u.” it coos, sounding out the word for you to learn with gentleness.

the fear that rose when the creature came closer is quickly replaced with fascination as you focus on the word.

“satoru.” you repeat the word slowly and immediately it smiles as it lifts its tail and splashes the water excitedly.

you chuckle at the sight as droplets from the splash of its powerful tail land on your cheek.

“satoru. what does it mean?” you question with a smile, more to yourself than the creature as you wipe the water away from your cheek.

and as if detecting your questioning tone, he quickly points at itself and repeats the word again.

“you? your name?” you ask, eager to learn more about the creature. but he doesn’t understand your words and simply blinks at you. it’s astonishing that he wants you to know his name—not that you think he’s unintelligent, but you weren’t sure of his level of awareness. ‘satoru’ is primarily a male name, you wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve come across some humans with the name.

“uh- um,” you then point to yourself and speak your own name slowly, eager for him to learn yours now.

he repeats your name with determination to pronounce it correctly, and you nod with a big smile, delighted by the sound of his beautiful voice saying your name.

then, as if the setting sun is a curfew, satoru suddenly turns and dives into the ocean with urgency. but before disappearing for the night, he resurfaces briefly, waves with a smile, and then vanishes once more.

the following days are some of the most exciting of your life, stories you’ll tell your grandchildren about teaching a beautiful merman to speak english.

unfortunately, the first thing you teach satoru is how to say, ‘stay back or i will hurt you.’ its a bit tough to explain the meaning but once you point to his tail to remind him of the painful netting, he understands for the most part.

you’re afraid someone less moral will come across satoru who’s so beautiful and naive and innocent to the human world. you have to explain that not all humans are like you and though he’s a bit confused, he mostly grasps the concept.

you’ve found that the easiest way to teach satoru about words and meanings is to read to him. he listens to you for hours and when you begin to pick children’s books that help in learning english, he excels quickly.

soon, he’s able to speak at a moderate level and you’re simply aching to ask him every question in the book as you sit in your familiar place in the shallow water by the rocks.

“are you a mermaid?” you inquire, knowing it’s a silly question to ask considering ‘mermaid’ is a silly human term for fairytales.

“‘mer-maid?’” he repeats with curiosity, and you chuckle to yourself. you should have expected that response.

“where were you born? how old are you?” you instead question, eagerly.

he points to the open ocean before turning back to you. “eight— six.”

you hum in thought, recalling how you’ve already tried teaching him about human days and years, but it seems he has his own way of measuring time. you’ve discovered that in his terms, eighty-six translates to twenty-six in your time.

“are there a lot of your kind?”

“yes. lot.” he nods, seemingly happy to be able to communicate with you.

“are you able to get out of the ocean completely? or do you need the water to breathe?” you ask.

“no, i can get out. but we are not supposed to. rules,” he grumbles, clearly annoyed by the rule. you wonder if he might be a bit of a rebel in his society. this also explains why he was treading so close to the shore when he got caught in the net.

“can i ask question too?” he suddenly questions.

your brows twitch in slight surprise at his curiosity and you nod with a smile.

“why do you save me?” he suddenly asks, referring to the time you met and you freed him from the netting.

you exhale with sympathy as you gaze at him.

“why not? i saved you because you were in pain.”

he blinks at you with utmost wonder in his blue eyes and then quickly refocuses onto his next question— as if he’s afraid he won’t have time to ask everything he wants to.

“how many are you?” and his question slightly confuses you until it clicks that he’s asking your age.

“uh— in your time, i’m eight-one,” you explain, converting your age of twenty-one into a number he can understand.

he immediately coos, “cute. you are young. in my home, you would be offered up to mate.”

you blush a bit and gasp a bit before chuckling nervously. “o-oh!”

“do you have a mate?” he asks with gleaming, glowing eyes.

you breathe out a laugh. “no. do you?”

“how do you say—” he hums in thought, likely looking back on your language exercises, “—hell no.”

immediately, you burst into a fit of giggles. that phrase was one of your favorite to teach him.

“beautiful. you are beautiful,” his smile broadens at the sound of your laugh, breathing out audibly through his nose— making a noise reminiscent of an awe.

your eyes widen at his compliment, blinking rapidly as your cheeks burn. “w-wow, me? says you.”

“thank you!” he cheers, like a child who has been taught to say thank you after every compliment— it makes you snap out of your flattered state and giggle a bit.

“what are these? why?” he questions and you jump when you feel his fingers graze along your calf under water.

“m-my legs? um- i’m not sure why. to walk i suppose.” you shrug, slightly shivering at his touch with a blush. you hadn’t made physical contact yet and it’s a bit unnerving. he doesn’t seem to be the shy type.

“painful?” he questions with concern, fingers still curiously exploring your legs gently.

you giggle softly at his assumption, and he tilts his head at you with a curious smile. you figure he thinks your legs must be painful since they’re split in two instead of being one piece like his tail.

“no, not painful,” you shake your head, attempting to eye his hand traveling up your thigh through the murky water as you grip the sand.

“soft,” he says before dipping his head under the water, intently examining your legs. he runs his hands along them, but when he reaches the inside of your thighs in exploration, you gasp and quickly grab his hands to stop him before he can reach your private area. he surfaces, looking at you with a puzzled expression.

“hurt you? sorry, i’m sorry.” he pouts, slightly pulling back and lowering himself to show that he’s a non-threat submissively.

you huff and gently pull his hands from your legs so you can interlock yours with his— partly to keep control of where he puts them and partly to just feel his skin.

“you didn’t hurt me. that area is just,” you pause, thinking on the right words to use for this, “-sensitive and private.”

he moves closer again, your friendly gesture of holding his hands helping him to relax, as his fear of hurting you fades and interest takes its place. he says a word in his own language and you blink at him with confusion.

“what’s the word for— is it—mating organs?”

“um— ‘mating organs’?” and quickly you realize that you had never taught him a word for your reproductive organs and your face burns in embarrassment. “oh uh— yes, sort of.”

“can i see?” he questions, making your embarrassment sky rocket. it’s obvious he’s simply intrigued with the human body, without ill intent.

“uh— that’s not a good idea,” you quickly utter, letting go of his hands and shutting your thighs tightly.

he starts pouting, and if there’s one thing you’ve learned about satoru over the past few days, it’s that he’s kind of needy and playful, and definitely prone to pouting when things don’t go his way.

“why?” he whines, hands returning to caress your ankles gently.

“uh-um because— well, that’s like me asking to see your- fish-tail-mating area,” you exclaim dumbly, unsure of if he even has male reproductive organs like humans do.

he blinks at you, pout still prominent.

“‘fish tail?’” he repeats, thinking for a moment before his brows raise in understanding.

“you can see and i can see!” he shouts, as if he’s just solved the issue easily.

you gulp and your gaze flickers around, avoiding his gaze in utter disbelief. you’re pretty sure that he’s insinuating a ‘i’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ situation.

“please?” he pleads, and you wish you hadn’t ever taught him the word because his sweet, graceful tone sways you, as if his voice has a spell woven into it.

you can’t deny your own curiosity about his tail and his anatomy, so you find yourself looking around the empty beach before gulping and nodding—for research purposes.

he brightens up and promptly adjusts into a seated position. using his palms, he scoots closer to the shore, encouraging you to move back until his tail is completely exposed. he rests his back against one of the many rocks by the shore as the baby waves crash against the both of you.

you gulp as your eyes linger on his stunning physique, sitting back on your calves while you focus on where his abdomen transitions into his tail. he seems to notice your ogling, taking your hand and gently guiding your fingers from the wet ridges of his abs down to his scaly tail.

“w-wow, you’re so beautiful.” you breathe, lips slightly parted as your breathing deepens in astonishment.

he giggles, as if he’s quite used to this type of admiration, and lets you explore his tail. when you reach his fin, he playfully flicks it up, huffing in amusement when you flinch and gasp.

you then bring your hand to press against his warm chest, where his heart is and your jaw drops when it beats in such an irregular way— unlike any human heart.

“your heart! it’s- amazing.” you breathe in awe, moving your fingers around slightly to feel it better.

his head tilts in wonder before reaching out and pressing his own finger tips to your chest, just between your breasts.

and after a moment of waiting, he gasps and hunches forward to suddenly press his ear to your chest.

“boom! boom! boom! boom! boom!” he breathes in astonishment, now understanding why you were so amazed at his heart beat. he thinks yours sounds so comforting, he could stay pressed to your soft chest all day.

you chuckle and blink down at him, slightly embarrassed that he’s pressing into the fat of your breasts. but after a few long moments of him simply listening to your heart, you gently pull his head up to lean against the rock once more.

“you keep feel?” he questions, asking if you’re done exploring his body or not.

although you feel a bit deranged for letting your mind wander, you can’t help but ponder how his kind reproduces. you don’t see any visible dick of any kind but you do see a slight bulge where his dick should be.

you tilt your head at it, hesitant to ask but it seems you don’t have to because he notices.

“under. like your cover.” he gestures towards your bathing suit bottoms with a slight blush dusting his high cheekbones.

“o-oh, i see,” you stutter with a bashful smile, lowering your chin in an attempt to avoid eye contact with the bulge beneath his scales.

as if reading your mind, he then tilts his head down to make eye contact with you.

“you want to see?”

you part your lips and stutter, blinking rapidly.

“um- if that’s okay.” you gaze up at him nervously, biting your lip coyly. you figure if you’re ready to reveal what’s beneath your bottoms, it’s only fair that he does the same.

though he seems quite shameless and confident, he grows shy as he moves his scales to the side and exposes a slit.

your brows furrow, eyes squinting briefly as you focus in on the area. you can’t help but gasp when a long, thick member resembling a human cock slides out. it’s nearly identical to a humans, except for the fact that it has blue scales near the base.

it bobs, seemingly hard, but you aren’t sure if he’s naturally this size or not. you wonder if it’s potentially arousing him to show his genitalia to a human but you can’t deny the possibility that you’re just demented.

“w-wow, big,” you gulp, in a slight haze as you watch a bead of what looks like pre cum dribble out of his tip. you don’t even realize what you just said until he’s chuckling.

“human not ‘big’?” he questions, almost slyly. he seems quite confident in his body, which he absolutely should be considering how ethereally gorgeous he is from top to bottom.

you clear your throat and force your gaze away from his throbbing member.

“n-not usually that big.” you mumble. “are those.. scales?” you point at the scales near the bottom of his cock.

“yes, touch?” he asks, reading that look on your face as a look of a creature that wants to mate— though he’s not so ignorant as to be unaware that you’re likely just curious like he is.

your eyes widen even wider and your mouth opens and closes as you try to put your thoughts in order. you aren’t sure if he’s so shamelessly lewd as to ask you to jerk him off.

“no mate, just touch,” he attempts to clarify, delicately grasping your willing hand and moving it close until it’s just inches away from the scales you were curious about.

how many human can say they’ve ever had this opportunity before? to explore a merman’s body? you figure as long as you just touch briefly, it’s fine, it’s not like you have harmful intentions.

you gulp and your gaze flickers up at him as if to make sure it’s okay to be doing this before focusing on his cock.

you softly brush your fingers along the ridges of the bumpy, slick scales at his base, causing his cock to twitch. you glance up at his face as he whines a word in his language and unintentionally thrusts his hips toward your touch.

the scales are soft but textured at the same time, and they seem to ripple in response to your touch—as if they’re just built to react to stimulus that way.

“o-okay you can put it away,” you quickly mutter when you form the instinct to wrap your hand around his cock and pull more of those adorable whines out of him.

he nods, eyes lidded and breathing deeper than before. you watch as it slides back into his slit and he covers it with his scales once again. it’s a bit bizarre the way it retracts and moves but mostly fascinating.

“my turn?” he questions eagerly, gently nudging your legs with one hand as to make them part while the tip of his fin grazes your outer thigh.

your nerves rise as you close your eyes and take a deep breath. a promise is a promise and though it’s nerve racking, you want to prove that even though you’re a strange creature in his eyes, you’ll stick to your word.

“y-yes.” you nod with a nervous smile.

excitement litters his face as he moves to lie on his stomach, tail playfully tapping against the shallow puddle of water beneath.

you tentatively and somewhat embarrassedly get into position, with your legs bent on either side of his head and leaning on your elbows to watch what he does.

you attempt to take deep, steady breaths as he gently pushes your thighs apart with warm hands.

shakily, you let them part ways, allowing him to push them as far apart as they go until you feel the subtle burn of the stretch. it’s really not his fault, he’s likely completely unaware of how far your legs can push apart.

you can’t help but imagine how startling this sight would be if someone were to stumble upon it. he then pulls at the material of the gusset of your swimsuit with confusion, making your abdomen gently flinch.

“is this connect to you?” he looks up at you. it seems he’s asking if your swimsuit is similar to his scales that cover his slit.

“no, i can take it off.” you utter shyly before simply pulling it to the side so he can see your pussy.

immediately his eyes widen and he leans in so close that you can feel his breath fan over your twitching folds.

you’re aware he’s likely never seen a humans genitalia before and has nothing to compare yours to but it doesn’t stop you from growing self conscious under his stare.

“like me?” he asks, blinking up at you with furrowed brows. he’s attempting to ask if you have a cock that comes out of your slit as well, though your slit does look very different than his.

“n-no, no. it’s just a.. hole.” you explain, humiliated, blushing, and gripping the sand to cope with the embarrassing words.

“what is this bump?” he questions, pointing at your twitching clit, fingertip only breaths away from making contact.

“um— mating.. tool?” you cringe at your choice of words but he chirps a hum as if understanding— though you aren’t sure how much he could possibly understand form your poor explanation.

“touch?” he asks, not taking his eyes away from your slit. he doesn’t miss the way your ‘mating tool’ spasms when he speaks.

you gulp and close your eyes with a sharp exhale through your nose, trying to collect yourself and your naughty urges.

“why?”

“to see more,” he explains, “so compact.” you can tell he’s referring to the way your outer lips keep your inner lips closed to an extent in this position.

“o-okay,” you nod, watching him like a hawk as he reaches out and pulls one of your outer lips to the side, making your folds straighten out on that side. it allows for a peek into your clenching chasm and it only intrigues him further, squinting his eyes to look into your hole.

“smells yummy,” he whines out, causing your pussy to clench around nothing and slowly leak a bit of arousal. you bite back a moan at his unintentional compliment.

“a-are you done?” you gulp, hoping he doesn’t question your slick leaking out.

“this is your mating hole?” he refers to your pussy and you bite into your bottom lip, mind racing with ideas of ‘mating’ with the beautiful creature in front of you and how it would work.

“y-yes,” you stutter, breathy.

“you have mated before?” he asks, gaze flickering up at you and gently letting go of your lips. it takes everything within you not to laugh at his question, he’s basically asking if you’re a virgin.

“no, have you?” you turn his question back on him with a small smile.

“no, that’s for life long mate,” he admits with a matching smile, leaning in and licking an affectionate stripe up your inner thigh.

you gasp pathetically in pleasure and your thighs clench, making you quickly cover your pussy with your bottoms once again in fear of your urges pushing this experience too far before you know it.

“o-okay no more.”

he frowns a bit at the sight of your covered pussy and gently pushes back into the water to submerge more comfortably.

you settle into a criss crossed position after scooting closer until the water reaches your waist.

“thank you for showing me, you are interesting,” he coos with a smile, gently lifting a dripping finger to brush it down your cheek, making you shiver.

you exhale slowly and lean into his touch. “will i see you again?”

he suddenly seems as though he has an idea or remembered one, face lighting up.

“i be back—wait,” he voices briefly before turning and diving into the water so fast that you’d have missed it if you blinked.

you can’t help but furrow your brows and reach out to the ocean in fear that he might never come back— even in spite of his words. but a few moments later, he re-emerges, making you exhale in relief. he seems to have brought you a large white shell.

“watch,” he coos, keeping eye contact with you as he brings it to his lips and blows. a beautiful sound comes out of the shell, inducing a peaceful tranquil feeling deep within causing you to light up with awe.

“you call and i come,” he explains softly, wrapping your hands around the shell like it’s a precious gift.

your heart flutters at his words and the feeling of his hands around yours, eyebrows twitching in a pout when he lets go.

the sun suddenly sets below the ocean and now it’s his turn to pout. “i must go.”

and just like that, he kisses the back of your hand before escaping back into the dark ocean, leaving you to wonder when you’ll see him again.

—————-

i am so in love with mermaid satoru bye

baby, baby - ft. kinich

synopsis - mornings with ur boyfriend and his annoying lizard

includes - 0.4k wc, short and sweet, gross disgusting fluff, sfw

a/n - first fic, I really really hate this, no one talk to me I'm going to hide in a hole gulp

the natlan sun creeps through the curtains of you and your boyfriend's small, shared cottage, causing your eyes to slowly flutter open. your mouth feels dry as you wipe the dried drool on the corner of your lip, grumbling as you roll over, reaching for your boyfriend. yet, you only feel the slightly wrinkled silk of your sheets.

suddenly the bed feels colder at the loss of whatever contact you had fallen asleep with. kinich's your shirt draped over your body paired with sweatpants does nothing to quell the shiver on your skin. sure, you were used to kinich waking up first, but archons, did you hate it.

you sigh, sitting up before standing, your legs feeling like jello as you wobble to the living space. you enter to the sight of kinich wearing your pink "kiss the cook" apron, the one in which mualani got you as a gag gift for your birthday.

he swats ajaw away from the knob of the stove, the latter trying to turn it just to burn the pancakes kinich was working oh so hard to prepare for you before you woke up. but alas, it was futile.

you were awake.

and you were giggling.

his eyes widen as he turns his head back, just to see the smile that he loves so much. the one that constantly reminds him just how much he cares about you unlike any other.

"kinichhh!" you coo, rushing up to him and pulling his cheek. "you look so adorable!" you smile, showering his left cheek with as many kisses as possible.

he huffs, "it was supposed to be a surprise," kinich sighs as he glares at ajaw. ajaw simply shimmies away before disappearing, the effect of a few tiny pixels springing out from his departure. kinich sighs, seeing your stupid lovesick grin before moving the pancakes to a plate.

he spreads butter, syrup, and your preferred fruit onto the pancake, putting two small dollops of whipped cream on it soon after before using his fork to feed you a bite.

archons, the flavors just melt on your tongue. he's always been a great cook, but the way he cooks pancakes.. making the middle light and fluffy with a light crisp on the edge before perfectly topping it with precision, care, and love..

"yummy.." you sing, your arms wrapping around his neck. the morning ends with you two sat at the dining table, sharing a breakfast as you discuss your plans for the day with each other.

hiding from pursuers w Levi, him clutching you tight around some corner. is he just being careful? then why is your heartbeat flying? you feel the way his muscles are tensed against your back, ready for anything whenever it comes. just the heat of his body against the otherwise cold night. your pursuers pass. but is he just being careful when his touch lingers a little longer than it should…?