Supporting Fellow Authors - Tumblr Posts

𝙎𝙚𝙚𝙠 ☼

Synopsis_ you fail hide from your desperate husband

Pairing_ Yandere tanjiro x reader

Possible triggers_ unhealthy relationships, mentions of marriage, "predator vs. prey" dynamic, hiding, characters are aged up, mentions of drugging

──────────────────────────

"Please come out you're scaring me!" Tanjiros worried voice carried throughout your shared home. His once quiet footsteps were firm and commanding as he paced. "I-i know you're here, I can smell your fear..."

Your hand quivers as it clasps over your mouth. It was bad enough he knew your general location, if he had heard you breathe you were certain you would be in his clutches again.

Your hiding spot was the least clever you could have come up with. But it was the only one you could think of with the little time you had. You pressed yourself further onto the floorboard, thankful for the bed sheets that somewhat covered your position under the bed.

Wooden planks moaned in protest under tanjiros weight. The warmer he got to your hiding place the more you could hear his labored breathing. "Are-are you scared I'm going to hurt you?!" he pauses as if waiting for a response. "You know I could never!"

You try to stifle a whimper as a loud crash sounds a few feet away "Come now there's no need to hide away! its just me..." Despite his sugar-coated words danger seemed to be laced within them. Even with Tanjiro's desperation, his words didn't coax you.

Beads of perspiration clung to the nape of your neck as the edge of panic threatened your body with further convolutions of fear. You cursed yourself for giving yourself away to tanjro. For letting yourself be peer pressured by his admirers and friends. For being his bride.

You felt a pang of relief as the footsteps seemed to be farther away. His voice muffled you could hardly understand his manic words until he entered the bedroom once again "Surely you could be..." your heart dropped as he laughed "Of course! I should have known."

You are helpless as Tanjiro yanks you from your hiding spot and wraps his arms around you. You scream and fight as Tanjiro seats both of you on your shared bed. The distinct stench of blood clung to him making you wonder who had faced his blade.

Tanjiro kisses your tears as he smiles sweetly, seeming to have snapped back into his cheery self. "I know how much you adore games like these. But I think it would be more fun if you told me when you are playing."

You have trouble forming words as he gently strokes your hair. An act that would have been comforting under other circumstances. "Get away from me!" you muster, abruptly stopping Tanjiro's gentle strokes. His strong arms further tighten around you "I've always loved you y/n.." Tanjiro sighs, his response completely ignoring your plea. He buries his nose in the crook of your neck and inhales. "You're so perfect... You're everything to me... I can hardly contain myself when it comes to you." His voice cracks slightly as he strokes your hair once again.

with the last of your resolve, you push Tanjiros's face away from you and squirm. He falters slightly allowing you to free your leg. But your seeming success is short-lived as he grabs it pulling you into his embrace once again. He gives you a pitying frown as he gazes at you. "Maybe I need to pay Ms. Shinobu a visit..." Your eyes well with tears remembering the last sedative the bug hashria had given your husband to quell you.

Panic trumps your senses as Tanjiro shushes you with a kiss. Your hope of leaving forcibly taken once again.

---

Plantonic headcanons

Character: Tokito Muichiro

Note: this is heavily self inserted , and not proofread. This is a plantonic headcanons and yes I know he is a minor. That would be all

Main Masterlist

Series Masterlist

after Amane found Muichiro and brought him back to the demon slayer corps

you were summoned to the Ubuyashiki estate by the Oyakata-sama

as a strong warrior in both strength and will you were once a hashira

but was sadly ordered out of action due to a heavy injury after surviving a uppermost (whether you killed it or not is up to you)

so you were quite surprised when you got the message from the crow

and you met Muichiro in the estate for the first time

his injuries from the demon attack when he lost his brother was still fresh

he reminded you of yourself

so you immediately agreed when Oyakata-sama asked you to train him as your apprentice

you took him in as your own

and taught him everything you knew

you bandages his new wounds when he finally returns from training every day

you never stopped him from training and respected his instinctive rage

Muichiro sometimes looks at you for a moment and asks you who you are

he will probably improve eventually

It all stayed the same until one frightful day

to say you were shocked when he ran to you with a wide grin would be an understatement

you rushed to the butterfly estate right after you heard that Muichiro fought an uppermoon

you were beyond speechless when you saw him

Muichiro greeted you with a warm smile and shining eyes

and when he called you all sweetly and confidently

"y/n-sensei!"

not even pausing for a moment to remember who you were

you thought that you were dreaming

or you were just delusional

but no

it continued

on and on and on

he even lets you give him head pats

whenever he was not busy with missions

he stays with you

sometime you train together

or simply seat together and have a snack

but you couldn’t find it in you to complain

---

MISO SOUP AND SWEET POTATOS | g. tomioka

synopsis: you're tasked with convinicing Giyu to join the Hashira Training author's note: hello. this was a days worth of writing. from 11 am to 3 am. i even wrote parts in my notepad at work. i really like how this turned out. i finished the hashira training arc last night and think that final episode might've been the best episode of anime i have actually ever seen. this is a whole ass story cw: slightly suggestive, major spoilers for rengoku and the hashira training arc, character death, gore, ANGST, fluff, happy ending, not proofread, fem reader, use of y/n a lil, lover!giyu, hardheaded!reader wc: 6.3k

--------------------------------------------------------

“Would you mind talking to Giyu for me? So that Giyu, who tends to put himself into a negative frame of mind can start looking ahead again. Will you be persistent in your efforts to speak with him?” 

You stared at the letter. You reread it again and again and again. Your body still aches from the previous fight in the swordsmith village and you sort of hoped this was a hallucination. That you were still unconscious. But as your crow beside you squawked and you jumped you knew it was real. The paper crinkled beneath your hands. Kagaya’s handwriting is flawless and script. You followed the trail of his pen again. 

Would you mind speaking to Giyu for me?

You wondered if maybe this letter was accidentally sent to you. Even as your eyes wandered back up to the top of the paper that clearly said ‘Dear Y/n’. Even if it didn’t say your name there were no accidents with Kagaya. 

But… but there had to be. Out of everyone, all the Hashira that were certainly closer to Giyu. But you, the newest Hashira, had been chosen to speak with him? In what world did that make any sense? You barely knew the guy. Granted he had been the reason you joined the corp originally but he’d dodged your very presence the best he could ever since. 

Your village had been attacked about four years ago. Same old story for a lot of people victimized by demons. There was never a happy ending with those monsters involved. Always blood. Always loss. It was no different for you. Half of your family was slaughtered before you could even rouse yourself from sleep. But when you did all you saw was the inkblots of blood on your white walls, the color shining from being hit by the moonlight. You remembered sitting up and feeling numb as you heard someone screaming. The scream that never left you. Something you’d never be able to ingest for as long as you lived. 

When you got to your feet your mother had busted into your room. She looked pale, blood gushing from beneath her white nightgown. She scooped you up and kissed your head as she stuffed you into the closet. She shushed your cry’s and told you not to come out until the sun shone beneath the crack in the door. She gave you one last kiss. You didn’t know then it was the last. You reached for her but she pushed your hands back, silently shook her head then pressed the door closed. 

You’d always been a good kid. You stayed put exactly as you’d been told. Even as you heard more screams. Even as it went quiet. 

Only until that sun shone beneath your door did you move. You busted out of that closet. Your mother’s name is the first thing on your lips but she wasn’t the first person you saw. The scene in your house was horrific to say the least. The sights of the people you loved in multiple torn pieces is something that comes back to you in flashes when you fight demons. 

It spurs you on to do exactly what they did to your family back to them. To tear them to shreds. 

In the middle of it all was a boy. He was sitting so still that you didn’t even notice him amongst the slaughter. Your living room was still dark, dark enough that it kept this monster safe as it rose to its full height. No longer a boy but a creature from your deepest darkest nightmares. It had your family’s blood on its mouth as it smiled a wickedly devilish smile. 

“Hmm. Missed one.” It spoke in a gravelly tone as it swallowed whatever it was chewing on. You could guess what. You stepped back into your mother’s blood… or maybe your father’s? The blood, thick beneath your foot slid out from underneath you and you crashed into their bodies, something sharp sticking into your side as you gasped in sudden pain. Your mother’s hand still gripped a knife that had now lodged itself in your thigh. The demon only laughed. “Clumsy one aren’t you. Mother wasted her time hiding something so useless.” He growled, approaching with a predatory gleam in his dark eyes. 

When he pounced towards you something momentary took hold over you. You, a measly twelve years old, ripped that knife from your own leg and thrusted it into the demon's eye. The creature roared like nothing you’d heard before as it stumbled back away from you. You just blinked as you watched it, numbness contending with your fear. The creature yanked the knife out and tossed it angrily to the side. It growled, fuming as it charged back at you. You raised your hands to defend yourself, screwing your eyes shut. You heard the whoosh of something cutting through the air itself and when you opened your eyes the creature had halted its assault. It locked eyes with you moments before its head toppled right off its shoulder. You stared in abject horror as the creature's body started to burn a blood red color and you saw a figure behind it. You were as still as a statue as the figure behind  it took shape. 

The shape of a boy, he couldn’t have been much older than you. Eyes an indigo blue, dark and almost unfeeling as they met yours. You watched as he gave a quick swipe of his sword to rid it of the demons burning blood as he sheathed it back at his side. 

“Are you hurt?” He asked, his voice young like yours. You weren’t hurt. Somehow. And you couldn’t open your mouth to answer him, not with your body still on top of your parents. You just stared at him, even as your eyesight got cloudy and stinging tears slid down your cheeks. 

The boy walked towards you and remained still, unable to move as he bent down in front of you. He reached and clumsily brushed the tears from your face. It was as if he knew you wouldn’t part your lips to speak because wordlessly he, with immaculate ease, picked you up off the corpses and carried you out of the house. You moved for the first time in minutes as your head tilted to look back towards your family. 

“Eyes on me.” He said and sure enough your eyes snapped to him. To take in his face. Eyes endlessly dark blue as they stared forwards. He had to have been your age, maybe a year older. He had the shape of a young face, with full cheeks and raven black hair to the nape of his neck. You couldn’t look away, it had nothing to do with his looks but everything to do with his command. 

You were a good kid. When someone told you to do something you did it. Years later you would come to thank Giyu for that, for commanding you to look at him instead of glancing back at what remained of your family.

Everything after that was just sort of a blur. You stayed some place warm, a faint fire flickering and that boy with the sword stayed with you until some men in black uniforms found you. You remember not being able to walk, the shock and grief of the night not letting you. You’d held onto your saviors shirt, your fist balled. He let you, in fact he even came along with you and the men in black and when they asked you to let go you blinked at them. You hadn’t even noticed you were still holding on. You let go in an instant. Your hand is sore from how tightly you’d been clenching. The men in black’s hands were on your shoulders guiding you away and when you looked back your voice came to you. 

“What’s your name?” You asked, everything paused for you so you could hear his answer. 

“Giyu.” He answered. You put a name to his face. You parted your lips to thank him but nothing came out again. You couldn’t say thanks. Not when you were the only breathing because you cowardly hid in the closet. You felt you didn’t deserve to be thankful. You met his eyes again and something, somehow, told you he understood. He gave you the softest nod of his head and when he turned to leave you felt your heart drop. Like something had bonded you to this boy. But you turned and let yourself be whisked away. 

A year later you worked for the very same people as Giyu had. You were given a sword and trained thoroughly by a man with red and orange hair. You weren’t ever good with names but the fire in him fueled the fire in you. Which is why you eagerly learned that breathing style and trudged up that mountain to crush the selection test. 

A few years after that you ran into Giyu. You were sent on a mission to help the Water Hashira. You’d never met any other Hashira besides Rengoku so you were sort of apprehensive. You never liked meeting new people. All those years spent with Rengoku and his fiery personality you wished at least some of it had rubbed off on you but… you were still demure and quiet, quick to anger and prone to disappearing. You liked your alone time. You had all but begged Rengoku to let you go with him in his mission, apparently some demon had infested a train, that sounded far more exhilarating than helping some water Hashira you didn’t know. Rengoku did what he always did when you were disappointed. He gave you a sort of unwanted hug, though secretly you wanted and needed it, and ruffled your hair. 

“We’ll see each other in two weeks. Next mission is yours and mine.” He said and then he was gone and you were boarding a train going the opposite way. 

When you arrived, stepping off the train your eyes met the same indigo blue eyes from so many years ago. When you were both kids. Now both adults. You stopped where you stood, unable to walk any closer as everything fled back. Stuff you had managed to keep down deep for so many years. Memories you wanted to erase. All that time wasted and drudged back up in mere seconds. Giyu may have had those same eyes but he was grown now. His hair longer and tied back, his face had lost that boyish roundness. He looked tall and lean. Well at least taller than you. For a moment he looked just as surprised as you but he smoothed over that emotion into something practiced. 

“It’s you.” He said, his voice deep and soft. You swallowed, your hand resting on your sword. 

“You’re the water Hashira?” You asked and he nodded his head as the train behind you dinged and slowly pulled out of the stop, the wind brushing your hair over your shoulders. 

“You’re Rengoku’s tsuguko?” At that you nodded your head back at him. His eyes trailed to your sword, to your haori, and old one Rengoku had lent you. His eyes lingered on that fiery pattern.  

“I never learned your name.” He said and then his eyes flicked to yours. You swallowed dryly, you weren’t sure why he made you so nervous, why your heart was beating so fast. You wondered if he was a part of a life you wanted to die off. The scared girl in the closet was far from who you were now. Rengoku never got to meet that scared girl. No one had. Except Giyu. You told him your name and he repeated it, as if feeling how it felt on his own lips. Your heart skipped a traitorous beat at the way he spoke your name. It felt different coming from him. You grabbed ahold of yourself.

“Shall we?”

But your mission with Giyu was cut off with the sudden death of Rengoku. You and Giyu hadn’t made it back to the village before both of your crows had delivered the news. You still remembered everything about that moment. Giyu walking beside you, your haori catching a gust of wind, cold wind, as if winter was coming. You could replay your footsteps on the dirt road. The distant flapping of wings growing closer and closer and then stopping as they landed. Your initial glance over at the water Hashira before the delivering of the news. The ripple before the crack in your soul. Giyu had been present for the worst two days of your life. Something about losing someone again that felt like family irrevocably broke something in you all over again. This pain you felt before today you wondered for years if it would last. Rengoku had healed some of it. And begrudgingly and foolishly you let him in. But now you have your answer. This pain would last forever. You couldn’t even cry, you just stared blankly ahead, just as you had in your dark house wrecked with the stench of blood. 

You felt a hand on your shoulder, you didn’t want to look at him.

“Go, I’ll finish the mission.” He said, his voice different, there was a coldness before but now only warmth. You still didn’t look at him as you turned to leave.

“Be careful.” You choked out before taking off in a run back towards the train station. 

You’d seen Giyu a few times after that but only in passing, never long enough to start up a proper conversation though both of you hated talking. You never let anyone else in after that. You took up the position of Fire Hashira and the only thing fiery about you was your utter hatred for demons. The other Hashira were sort of weary of you and that kept them at a distance. You only talked when absolutely needed and was the first to leave after Hashira meetings. You liked that distance. You’d do anything to keep it. There was only so much heartbreak and loss you could take. You were at your limit. You didn’t have room for anyone in your scabbard dying heart. 

That’s why receiving that letter from Kagaya had caught you so off guard. He of all people knew who you were and still he asked you for a favor. Probably a dying wish. He had shown you kindness and since it was the only thing he’d ever asked you for, reluctantly, you found yourself at the front of Giyu’s home. It was cold out as your knuckles rapped against the wooden door. You waited, stepped back and looked off to the side, expecting to see Kagaya’s crow lingering around somewhere to report back to him. A minute had passed as you gave one more series of knocks. Nothing. Maybe he wasn’t home. You sighed and turned to leave just as the wooden door clicked and was pulled open. When you turned back those striking blue eyes met yours. There was skepticism on his face as you swallowed. That feeling that met you every time you saw Giyu never seemed to fade. That persistent speeding of your heart. That faltering of words. All highly inconvenient.

“Y/n?” Giyu spoke first, pulling the door open just a tad more. He was in casual clothing, he looked as though he may have just woken up.

“Giyu. I never knew you lived in this part of town.” You lied. You knew. 

“It’s quiet.”

“I can see.” The lack of noise was slightly unsettling, only the rustling of leaves in the wind could be heard. You swallowed. “May I come in?” Your voice was slightly strained and didn’t at all sound like you wanted to do that but to your detriment Giyu moved to the side. Giyu’s home was a reflection of himself. It was clean, almost sterile, with dark walnut furnishings and dark curtains. He really must’ve been sleeping because he reaches over and flicks on a few lanterns, casting an orange glow to his living room. 

“I wasn’t expecting company,” He says over his shoulder and you almost agree.

“Unwanted?” You ask and when he shakes his head ‘no’ you relax sort of. 

“I’ll make us some food. Did you travel long?” He asks as he leads you towards the kitchen. You take a seat at the kitchen island and watch him get to work. 

“Yeah. Long train ride.” You answer as Giyu nods his head. You know he’s probably dying to know why you’re here but you're sure if you told him things would turn sour. You watched Giyu gather ingredients and supplies, he was very orderly about things, kept things nice and clean as he prepared dinner for you both. You had a lot of experience cooking growing up with Rengoku, that man could eat and eat. Just at the thought you felt a pang and forced your face not to show it.

“Do you need help?” 

“That’s alright, you rest.” Giyu intones, setting a cup in front of you as he fills it with hot black tea. You thank him, wrapping your hands around the warm mug. You stare down into the tea for a moment and realize you had no idea how to go about this little favor Kagaya had asked of you. You barely spoke with anyone, you were well out of practice. How genuine would this ask even be coming from you? 

“How’re you?” You asked, not letting yourself be embarrassed by your lack of social skills. Giyu flicks on the stove.

“Do you really want to know?” He asked over his shoulder and stupidly, because he wasn’t even looking at you, you nodded your head before clearing your throat and speaking.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.” You hoped that didn’t come out as sharp as it sounded.

“I’m… well. Thank you for asking.” Giyu answered, his monotone answer at war with the words he spoke. He sounded anything but well. You remembered the last Hashira meeting. You remembered Giyu’s back turned as he said, “I’m not like the rest of you.” Unlike Sanemi you didn’t feel angry at that. In fact you knew how that felt. To feel unwelcomed and wanting it to stay that way. 

“If you’re well then I’m well.” You said and when Giyu turned, his eyes meeting yours, you felt a flash of how you saw him that first time. You blinked it away as he turned back.

“I didn’t think… you of all the Hashira’s would be the first to visit.” Giyu said, turning back to the stove. You stared at the back of his head. 

“Me neither.” You said with a soft sigh. “But here I am.”

“Here you are.” He says, his voice soft again. It did funny things to you. Funny things that only he could elicit. It was frustrating.

“Giyu…” You trailed off, unsure how to broach the subject. “Did something happen? To make you not want to help out with the Hashira training?” Giyu was quiet for a long moment. You watched him stir some stuff into the pan and for a moment you thought he hadn’t heard you. 

“Can we not… talk about that?” He asks almost kindly. But that’s all you needed to talk about. If you didn’t stay on topic you’d be doing Kagaya a disservice, though could you count that as a hardy first try?

“Of course.” You answered, fiddling with your hands. You’d left your sword back at the inn you were staying at and wished you’d had it just so you could fiddle with something else. “Though, I apologize but, I almost wish I could sit it out too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Training a bunch of snot nosed kids sounds like hell to me.” You spoke truthfully and watched Giyu;s shoulders rise and fall quickly, almost like he was maybe laughing, but he still wasn't facing you so you wouldn’t know.

“Not a fan?”

“I had my fill with the three from the swordsmith village.” Tanjiro, his little demon sister, Nezuko and Sanemi’s little brother Genya. All a handful. But very capable in a fight. 

“How’re your wounds? I… never got to ask.” Giyu says as he reaches for some seasoning, finally turning to the side to face you.

“Scarring up.” You said and Giyu nodded his head, his eyes drifting to the scar on your cheek.

“Two upper ranks. If anyone could handle them I knew it’d be you.” He says with a sort of gleam in his eye. 

“Can’t take the credit. That red head kid killed one of ‘em while MItsuri and I held off its body. Muichiro took one by himself.” You recounted, the fight honestly felt like it would never end.

“You and Kanroji worked together?”

“Surprising, right?”

“Not at all.” Giyu answers. “You two are very alike.”

“In what way?” You almost laughed at that statement. 

“Strong, fierce, never quit.”

“I think we all have that in common.” You say and Giyu gets this look in his eyes as he turns back away. You feel as though you lost some ground. You chew the inside of your lip. Clearly Giyu doesn’t feel as though he had that in common with you. Something ignited in you. A need to say something on your mind. “Giyu… I-- I never thanked you.”

“Thanked me?”

“I’ve… wrestled with it for a long time. How to… go about it. Kyojuro used to tell me to practice with all the people we met. To thank them for stupid things, like holding the door open or bringing me food. Just so the words didn’t feel so foreign. But I never really felt thankful for you saving me. I lived because my whole family died. Because I hid.” You take in a shaky breath. You’d never talked about this stuff out loud, not even with Rengoku. You felt embarrassed suddenly, shaking your head, you forced out a choked laugh. “Nevermind. I don’t know what I’m saying.” You felt his eyes on you but you forced yourself to keep looking down at your warm tea. As long as you stayed like this maybe he’d move the conversation along to something else. You cursed yourself for ruining the mood, if there even was one to begin with.

“You don’t have to stop. I… I would like to know more about you. I… always have.” Your eyes shot to his like a gun hitting its mark. Those dark eyes, you could swim in them. Get lost in them. Those eyes… could make you feel something. That made you shoot to your feet, your tea spilling over. Giyu didn’t startle, he just turned to grab a rag but when he turned back you were halfway to the front door. He dropped the towel on the table. “W-wait, Y/N,” He called to you but when he rounded into the living room the front door slammed closed. 

You fumbled outside, steps clumsy as you started to run and run. You didn’t want to think about it. You had to get away, as far as those legs of yours could take you. You could run to the next town over, retrieve your sword in the morning and never speak to the water hashira again. Never again. Favor be damned. What you felt was dangerous. That kind of thing left you the hollow husk you were today. You preferred this safe loneliness. You couldn’t ever be hurt again. You stopped for a moment, the cold air tough to run in as you huffed and puffed out condensation clouds.

“You’re fast.” You hadn’t even heard his approach. You didn’t turn, just swallowed.

“I- realized I have something to do in the morning. Can’t stay out late.”

“Come back, Y/n. Please.” His voice was doing that soft thing you body liked so much. You clenched your jaw, if you could stab your heart you would.

“Can’t.”

“Why? And… tell me the truth.” You heard him walk a bit closer. Please, you thought, just go back home.

“Maybe you’re right. What you said at the last meeting, that you’re not like us other Hashira. Maybe I just realized it.” You wanted to hurt him, it was a common defense you used quite often. 

“And?”

“And I’m wasting my time speaking with someone who’d rather sit on the sidelines.” You spat over your shoulder. That’ll do it, you thought, that’ll get him to leave. It was quiet, heartbreakingly quiet and you were too much of a coward to see the hurt you caused so you started to walk away towards your inn.

“I… don’t care if you hate me.” You stopped walking instantly and turned, Giyu looked stricken, as if you slapped him. You regretted turning around. “You can hate me all you want. Yell at me, hit me, whatever you want to do. But I need you to know… you might regret me saving you but I have never regretted saving you…”

“Giyu,”

“Please… let me.” He straightened slightly. “I… am amazed by you.” His words hit you like the sharpest sting. Like a knife in the gut that slowly twists. “You’re incredible, nothing ever could rival you. You… lost so many yet you fight with purpose. I could never be like you.” You tense your jaw, eyes sharp. 

“That’s where you’re wrong.” You take a step towards him. “I am hateful. I don’t have a purpose to fight anymore I just do it because it needs to be done. You don’t know me at all.”

“Maybe I don’t. But… I want to.”

“Why?”

“I’m not succinct.” Giyu sighs, as if tired. “I just do.” Want to know you. You stared at him and that traitorous heart of yours, that naive heart did another flip. You shook your head. 

“You don’t. No one does.”

“Rengoku did.” Your eyes lit like fire, some heat filling your soul. You wanted to yell at him for saying his name. For bringing him into this. But you’d done it first. 

“He’s dead. They all are. My whole family. I don’t want to know you. I don’t want you to know me. I want you to go back home and let me be.” 

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Maybe for the same reason your eyes find mine every time we're in the same room.” Giyu took a step closer, you watched him move as though he was going to strike you down. LIke he was going for a killing blow.

“I… I don’t do that.” The lie was so obvious to your ears it almost made you cringe outwardly. 

“I’m not trying to embarrass you because… I look for you in every room. I… I lied to you the second time we saw each other so many years ago I… I knew you were Rengoku’s tsuguko because he’d written to me. He… sensed something and told me he was sending you to me for that mission. I was so… so damn nervous to see you again after so many years. So curious about how you were faring and I couldn’t even get more than fifteen words out. And when Rengoku passed I would write Kagaya, ask him how you were because I was too much of a coward to ask you myself.” That’s why Kagaya wrote to you. Your heart still beat, skipped a beat then beat again. Everything was falling into place. Why Rengoku had sent you away when you had always gone on his missions with him. The scheming man was playing matchmaker. And even Kagaya was playing the same damn game. 

“Don’t say anything else, Giyu. Please.”

“I won’t speak the rest of the night if you come back. You can even leave at first light. Just please… let me feed you and give you a place to sleep.”

“My inn isn’t too far.”

“Please.” The emotion in his voice was staggering. It was a plea. It had sounded like something he needed even more than breathing. You stared at him. If you went with him now that would be the very first crack in your walls. You never gave an inch away since Rengoku died and if you started now everything would crumble.

“No. I’m going back to my inn.”

“I’ll join the hashira training.” He said and your lips parted in silent surprise. “That’s why you came tonight wasn’t it? You’d never do it alone so Kagaya must’ve written to you? Am I right?” Your face must’ve given away the answer because Giyu continued and you realized right here and now this is the most you two have ever talked. An hour together had more dialogue than almost eight years. And this was why you kept your distance all these years. Because if anyone knew you it was Giyu, he’d seen you at your lowest yet here he was… begging you to stay for just a few hours. “Come back and I’ll join. You can consider your favor a success.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I’d do it for you.”

“Be serious.” You growled and Giyu took another step forward. You hadn’t noticed him getting so close but suddenly he was close enough to touch. You stepped back. 

“Come back. Please.”

“You’re annoyingly persistent.”

“I just want you safe. That’s all.”

“You already saved me once. That’s enough.” You condemned with a shake of your head. Giyu looked doubtful for a moment, unsure of how to convince you to come back. But if you made good on Kaguya's favor this could be the end of it. “I’ll come back.” His eyes shot up to yours. “But I’m gone first light.” He nodded his head at that. 

Giyu finished up dinner as you set the table. It was quiet between you two after everything. Giyu had all but confessed the real depth of his feelings but you had an idea and it wasn’t something you’d let yourself dwell on. That idea was something close to hope. Something close to the degree of happiness. That’s not something you wanted. Not something you’d let yourself have. If there was one thing you were truly good at, it was self destruction. 

You took your seat as Giyu placed down the food. Miso soup with sweet potatoes. You stared at it, stricken. Rengoku’s favorite meal. 

“Y/n? Are you alright?” 

“Seriously? That was at least your sixth bowl.” You huffed as Rengoku smirked as he pulled the bowl to his lips, slurping down the rest of its contents. He placed it down and reached for the ladle again. You watched him in amused surprise as he dulled out a seventh bowl. “You’re overgorging yourself.”

“It’s too good. Who taught you to cook, kid?” 

“You did.” You sighed with an eyeroll as Rengoku laughed heartily.

“Ah! That’s right I did.”

You blinked a few times and suddenly your face felt wet. You pressed a hand to your cheek. You hadn’t cried since losing your parents. You thought you were incapable, that you had exhausted your tear ducts at night. You hadn’t cried when you lost Rengoku and you always felt inhuman because of it. You looked across the table and met Giyu’s wide eyed stare, he looked startled at your tears.

“What’s wrong?” He asked and you couldn’t stop the tears now. They fell so fluidly, so overwhelmingly. You tried to apologize but your words just came out in stuttered croaks in your throat. Giyu stood so fast he knocked his chair over as he crossed to the other side of the table. He dropped to his knees beside you and pulled you to him. Rengoku hugged you a lot. You’d say it was unwanted but it was something you needed. Giyu’s arms around you felt different. He hugged you close to his chest, his hand tangled in your hair as you fell prey to your emotions. But startlingly so… it felt nice. Bottling things up for so long had very nearly ended you and you might’ve been able to really shut off your humanity if it hadn't been for that damned letter. If it hadn't been for Rengoku’s unending kindness. If it hadn't been for Giyu’s persistence. You could’ve nearly ended up as black hearted as the demon that flipped your life upside down. That was the most startling revelation of them all.

Giyu hugged you tight as you fell to pieces. He didn’t let go, never even loosened his arms a little bit around you. He just held you and let you cry and cry. It should’ve been embarrassing but as he pulled your hair back out of your face and wiped your wet cheeks there wasn’t an ounce of that annoying sympathy in his eyes. Just utter understanding. And this was the most inopportune time, seeing as your eyes were probably bloodshot, nose probably running like crazy, but without thinking you sucked in a ragged breath and then pressed your mouth to his.

Giyu made a sound low in his throat, you felt his arms around you tighten, drawing you in, deepening the kiss. This wasn’t something you knew of. Your parent’s pecked each other’s lips and cheeks but this… no this was something for behind closed doors. For just you two. That fire that pooled in your stomach upon seeing Giyu had heightened at least tenfold when he pulled you into his lap. Your bodies pressed against one anothers, no room, not even a milimeter’s length of space. He kissed you softly, but you kissed him back hard. That chasm of loneliness in you had reached its peak and you wanted it gone. He gently ran his hand through your hair and you balled your fist in his shirt. He gently lowered you back and kissed you against the hardwood flooring of his kitchen. 

You shoved your chair away from you both and hooked your legs around his hips. He made another sound and you found that you liked it so you tightened your hold and slid your hand in his hair. That awarded you another sound, like a whimper. When he pulled back for air you yanked him by the hair back to your lips. Fuck air. You didn’t need that. You’d rather breathe him in. He whimpered again, his hips mindlessly moving, sending a wave of heat through you and this time it was your turn to groan. He hooked an arm around your back and with strength and swiftness, he hoisted you up off the floor without even breaking the kiss. You gasped in surprise and he walked you through the hallway. Kissing you against the wall and the door and the dresser before he finally made it to his bed. 

You two fell into the softness of his covers, his body trapping you beneath him. He trailed his lips away from yours and whimpered at the loss of contact. But he kissed both your cheeks, your forehead, the tip of your nose and to your jaw. He paid extra attention to your neck before kissing your collar bones. He kissed his way back down your body. Kissing your scars that had once been an eyesore to you. Ever so gently tracing some absentmindedly with his other hand. Whatever growing between you two was something to be earned. Sure you loved Giyu but you needed more time with him. You spent eight years barely speaking. You could tell Giyu felt that too because when his lips met yours again and pulled back you both blinked tiredly at one another. 

Astonishingly you watched the softest of smiles spread across Giyu’s face. You wanted to catalog this moment forever. To remember it till the day you died. Giyu pressed one last kiss to your forehead and then dropped beside you on the bed. He pulled you to him, your back pressed to his front. Your legs tangled as his hand reached across you and intertwined with yours. You blushed but settled against him. The dregs of sleep calling for you. You two didn’t need to speak another word.  

You watched the first light roll in through Giyu’s curtains. It shone like blades across his room. Giyu softly snored beside you, arms still around your body. You’d never kissed a single soul before but you knew what a kiss meant. You knew whenever your dad kissed your mom or the other way around that it was an unspoken way to say I love you. But it was a different kind of love your parents shared. You loved your family. You loved Rengoku. 

But you loved Giyu. 

You loved him as you clamped your fist in his shirt the night he saved you. You loved him when you stepped off that train. You loved him at every hashira meeting and every stolen glance. You loved him as you read Kagaya’s letter and loved him when he opened the door. As he chased you down in the street and begged you to come back to his home. So many problems never go away, some pain felt as though it would last forever and you never thought you could break through. You never thought you could just grow around it, because nothing was more persistent than a plant in the presence of the sun. You never told Rengoku you loved him, never told him how much he meant to you and that his kindness never fell to deaf ears. You had spent eight years loving Giyu and not letting yourself know it.

And all it took was some miso soup and sweet potatoes.

---

Muichiro finds it suitable to sling his arms round your shoulders, settle in between your legs with your back against a tree, and hide his face in the crook of your neck. "You're warm." he says, the vibration of his voice tickling you slightly. 

Pulling away, you gaze at his doe eyes, wrinkling at the corners of them when he smiles. "Can I kiss you?"

"What?" your voice is lower than a whisper, words coming out in a quick gasp. "W-well, I..."

He looks at you expectantly. 

"I..."

You begin to feel quite pressured, face heating up.

"Well-"

He presses his lips against yours. Muichiro has always been known to be impatient, anyways.

---

ᡣ𐭩 YOU'RE TOO SWEET FOR ME

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: one chance encounter at a bar and suddenly you're seeing dazai osamu everywhere you go. you must have truly done wrong in your past life for you to run into him at so many places so frequently. you can't let this go on—for his sake and for yours—but the stupid civilian is worming his way into your life, blissfully unaware of who you are and what you do.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: AHHHHHHHH GUYS I HOPE UR EXCITED BECAUSE I AM, i've been obsessing over this literally since the idea first came to me, i'm rlly hoping you guys enjoy this half as much as i've loved writing it. civzai is truly becoming my roman empire. please leave a reblog! always appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

If you had known stopping at some random bar in the southern part of Hodogaya-ku would lead to a fucking college student attaching himself to you like a goddamn leech, then you would have gone to a different bar. You should’ve known better; this area is close to YNU, but you figured it was lowkey enough that most of the college students wouldn’t know about it. 

It’s just your luck that the most irritating one just so happened to.

Your eye twitches as you take another sip of your whiskey, pointedly ignoring the brunette who’d made his home on the barstool next to yours. He’s talking about something—an assignment for his creative writing class that you could hardly give half a shit about—and your head hurts. You’d been hoping for a quick drink before having to go back to headquarters and give Mori the rundown on the negotiations with Mishima.

You don’t want to go back. Mori pissed you off by scheduling this meeting without notifying you of it until literally thirty minutes before. But you also think that if you stay here any longer, you might murder this kid—and that’s saying a lot for someone who usually refuses to get her hands dirty.

“... but you see, I just have no inspiration,” the student—he said his name, but you ignored it—complains loudly, slumping over dramatically onto the bartop. “How am I supposed to write with no inspiration? I have no muse, no drive, no will to live. What do I do, bella?”

You side-eye him heavily before turning your attention back toward the bartender, Kobayashi, a man who knows who you are and what you do since this is a place that the lower ranking Mafiosos frequent, and is watching the scene taking place with an expression that’s nothing short of concern. You recognize some of the other bar patrons as well—one is an informant of yours that you’ve been meaning to get in contact with, two of Chuuya’s subordinates are here, and one of Kouyou’s.

“Luckily, I’ve run into you, bella,” the man sighs dreamily, big brown eyes peering up at you from where he’s draped across the bar. “You’ll be my muse, won’t you?” 

For the first time since you’ve arrived at the bar, you address him, “I think I would rather die.”

He blinks once. Twice. And then he laughs so loud that it draws half of the patrons’ attention. “Would you allow me to die with you?” he pleads, hands clasped together as he leans in closer to you. “I knew you were the one for me—it could be beautiful, a double suicide on the banks of Tsurumi. I-”

“Okay,” you say more to yourself than him, placing your wine glass on the bar and rising to your feet. “I’m leaving.”

He pushes his lip out as he watches you rise to your feet. You tell Kobayashi to put your drink on your tab before turning on your heel and making your way out of the bar. Much to your extreme displeasure, the student seems to follow you, scrambling after you.

“Wait! Won’t you give me your name? Number?” he cries. 

You slam the door to the bar in his face, but he’s unperturbed, yelping and pushing it right back open. You grit your teeth when you realize Albatross is the one who came to pick you up and bring you back to base, which means you’re never going to hear the end of this from him or any of the other Flags. You can already see him peering out the closed window, trying to figure out who’s chasing you.

“No.”

“How will I find you again then?” he laments, and to your horror, he catches up with you, trying to grab your wrist to stop you from leaving. You toss him a flinty look before snatching your wrist back. 

“That’s the point.” You smile sweetly. “You won’t.”

You get in the car and slam the door shut, pointedly locking it before turning your attention to Albatross, who’s already chewing on his bottom lip, trying not to laugh.

“So,” he starts with a tone that lets you know you’re very much not going to like whatever he’s about to say.

“Albatross, shut the fuck up.”

Dazai stares after you curiously, watching as you slam the door shut to a car that probably costs more than everything he’s ever owned in his entire life. He doesn’t think he’s ever met someone like you before, and he doesn’t even know what it is about you that’s drawing him in. 

You’re beautiful but cold, aloof but magnetic. He hadn’t been the only one affected by your presence—he’d noticed the lingering stares of other men in the bar, the way the bartender always rushed to ensure that your glass was full, hardly able to meet your eyes. Something itches in the back of his head, a gut feeling that maybe he’s missing something, but Dazai disregards it, leaning against the brick wall of the building behind him, tilting his head up to look up at the vast night sky. 

He does know one thing for sure, and that’s that he thinks he’s found his muse. After four years of the worst writer’s block he’s had in his life, Dazai’s fingers finally twitch for a pen.

He finds a smile curling onto his lips—a genuine one—and the muscles of his cheeks strain from the unfamiliar stretch.

For the first time since Odasaku’s death, the emptiness that has been endlessly plaguing Dazai’s chest is pushed out by a warmth that he hasn’t experienced in years. Letting out a shaky breath, giddy and excited in a way that leaves a skip in his step, Dazai makes his way back to his apartment rather than the bridge as he planned, intent on trying to figure out a way to find you again.

Maybe another day, Odasaku.

The gods are sick and cruel. You’ve known this since you were a child—seven years old and sitting in the center of piles of corpses after your village got caught in the crossfires of the Great War, rescued by a man who promised to send you right back if you couldn’t prove your worth to him. Your entire life, you feel like you’ve been the laughing stock of whatever higher beings there are, which is why you’re aggrieved but not surprised when that boy from the bar shows back up in your life.

You don’t even notice him at first. You’re exhausted—you’ve spent the past forty-eight hours awake and on comms for Akutagawa Gin and Tachihara Michizou as they infiltrated one of the low-rung gangs trying to move into the northern wards of Yokohama. It took longer for them to get to the leader than you thought it would, you were confident that it would be an in-and-out, less than twelve hours, but here you are two fucking days later, and you can’t even go back to your apartment and sleep because someone is demanding your immediate presence.

You wonder, sometimes, if death would be easier.

A part of you wants to just straight up ignore Mori and go back home to sleep. You personally think you deserve it, considering the mission went off without a single issue besides the unexpected length of it, but you also don’t want to hear the man bitch and make snide comments about insubordination, so you give your coffee order to the barista—your voice a bit too harsh, so you make up for it with a generous tip and then go wait for it at the opposite counter.

“Wowwww,” an unfortunately familiar voice croons from a nearby table. “Look at those bags. Someone didn’t sleep well last night.”

You think maybe death would be easier.

“As if my night couldn’t get any worse,” you say tightly, lips pressed together in a strained smile as you stare ahead, refusing to even turn to look at the irritating college student.

“It’s actually morning,” he says astutely.

“Find someone else to bother.”

He ignores you, naturally, and you let your eyes slide shut as you will yourself some patience when you hear the chair scrape against the ground, signaling him rising to his feet. You keep your gaze trained ahead even as you hear him approach you.

“Do you believe in fate, bella?” he hums, leaning over your shoulder to look at you.

You squint as you stare forward, rushing desperately for the barista to hurry up with your coffee, and you pointedly step away from him. “No.”

Well, you don’t actually know the answer to that question. Do you believe in fate? You don’t think you do. You like the idea of being able to carve out your own future without the meddling hands of gods trying to interfere, but can you really believe that everything in your life that’s happened to you is just by sheer chance? You’re not so sure.

“Well, I believe in fate,” he begins, and you already know you’re not going to like where this is going. “If I didn’t before, I certainly do now. What else could have led me to you again so soon? The red string tied around our fingers is demanding our love to finally bloom; it no longer tolerates the distance between us. My fated, no wonder I’ve evaded death for so long; it refused to embrace me because it knew I belonged in your arms instead!”

You almost don’t even register what he says, blinking a few times as the words process. 

“Genuinely, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

You turn to face the brunette, appalled, and he gives you a sweet smile before saying, “You’ll have to be more specific. There’s a lot of things wrong with me.”

“Clearly,” you scoff, shaking your head and taking your coffee from the barista.

You can already feel your phone buzzing incessantly in your pocket. You don’t even have to look to know it’s Mori asking where you are, probably Chuuya bitching about having to cover for you too. You can’t waste any more time lingering around, so without another thought or word, you promptly leave the cafe.

“Hey! Hey, wait!” he calls after you. Much to your displeasure, he scrambles to grab his over-the-shoulder backpack before, much to your displeasure, chasing after you. “My name is Dazai. Dazai Osamu.”

“Did I, at any point, ask?” you ask irritably, making your way down the street in the direction of the headquarters, hoping that he leaves you alone before you get there because the last thing you want to do is get there with him trailing you like a lost puppy. Albatross already saw him following after you once. If he catches the kid around you again, he’s going to start making assumptions, and that’s the last thing you need because he’ll immediately go gossip to Chuuya and Lippmann about it.

“Well, no,” Dazai says, “but won’t you give me your name in return?”

“No,” you say, giving him a smile as equally sweet as the one he gave you before. You roll your eyes as you take a sip of your coffee. “Don’t you have more productive things to do than bother me? Like, I don’t know, finishing that assignment you spent two hours bitching my ear off about a few nights ago?” 

“You remembered.” Dazai stares at you with stars in his eyes, face lighting up. “I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

“It’s hard not to pay attention when you’re babbling in my ear,” you say dryly, a bit put off by how surprised and pleased he is over you remembering what he’d been talking about. “Why are you still following me?”

“I want your name,” Dazai pouts, words drawn a bit long as if to make a point, but it only makes your eye twitch. “Your number, if you’re feeling generous.”

“Well, I’m in a decidedly bad mood, so you’re getting neither,” you say, giving him a faux sweet smile that makes him push his lip out even further. “You look ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously cute?” 

“No. Ridiculous.”

“Your beauty blinds me to your cruelty,” Dazai sighs dramatically. “I will not be driven away.”

“You should have more self-respect,” you say flatly, giving him yet another facetious smile before letting it drop and giving him a side-eye. You look him over once as you do; he’s dressed casually in a cream sweater and corduroy pants, a brown bag slung over his shoulder. Cute, but sickeningly… civilian. He seems to notice your judgment of him and looks offended—you speak before he can complain. “I have to go to work, so it’s time for you to leave.”

“To work?” Dazai blinks as if he hadn’t expected that from you, brows furrowing. “You look dead on your feet. You should be going home.”

I wish, you think mournfully. Even just the thought of your bed makes your body heavy with exhaustion. You just want to sleep, but Mori won’t even allow you the relief of that. You can’t help but wonder if you pissed him off because you have no idea why he’s being such an asshole. You don’t even think you did anything this time; you disagreed with him at one of the executive meetings last week, but you weren’t even rude while doing it. And you thought your idea was good. 

You realize that Dazai is still waiting for a response from you, and you try to recall what he’d said, rolling your eyes when you do.

“Wow, thank you.” Your voice is dry and sarcastic. You give him a withering look that he meets with a stupid smile. “The longer you hold me up, the longer it’ll take for me to get home and sleep, so kindly fuck off.”

Dazai sighs. “The things I do for love,” he says mournfully, stopping in his tracks and giving you a downcast look, brown eyes wide and sad and lips curled down. You’re actually a bit surprised that he gave in, letting out a hum of appreciation—you almost didn’t think he would. “The next time we meet, you have to give me your name.”

“We’re not going to meet again,” you say firmly, and you mean it this time because if you see this guy again, you’re going to flee in the other direction. For his sake and your dignity because it’s only a matter of time before unwelcome eyes catch you with him.

“We will,” he sings. “Fate demands it of us. Goodbye, bella. Have a good day.”

You don’t respond to him when you walk away. Dazai is still undeterred. He’s hardly stopped thinking of you since that night at the bar a few days ago. Every time his mind drifts off, he finds himself picturing your face, longing to talk to you again. He thinks maybe it’s a bit weird for him to be so enamored by you after just two brief meetings, but there’s just something about you that’s drawing him in like a moth to flame.

His eyes linger on you until you turn the block and disappear from view. He’s a bit put out over the fact that he still doesn’t have your name, but he thinks that the meeting is still a win in his eyes. First at the bar, now at this cafe, you must live or work somewhere in the eastern part of the Kanagawa Prefecture—Hodogaya-ku or Minami-ku, maybe Nishi or Naka. He’s leaning toward the latter, considering you’re heading eastward to get to wherever your work is.

And it would make sense. Naka-ku has all of the high-end corporations, and you must work for one of them. Your outfit the other day, your outfit today—not gaudy wealth, but wealth for sure. He thinks the black suits you wear cost more than his tuition, and the rings adorning your fingers cost a liver or three. You can’t be much older than him if you even are, so you’re probably just a nepo-baby—father owns one of the big corps and gave you a high-up position right out of school. Probably never had to work a day in your life, he thinks bitterly of all of the time he’s spent working odd jobs just to afford rent in the area, surviving off cheap ramen and canned crab.

But it’s a bit odd, isn’t it? You look like you haven’t slept in two days, maybe longer. Dazai almost felt bad for badgering you just because of how exhausted you seemed. Dazai can’t imagine any type of business demanding that type of energy from one of its workers—especially a nepo-baby.

Dazai finally shakes his head, glancing down at his phone to see the time, sighing when he realizes it’s time to get to class for his poetry workshop, a bit more pleased because, for the first time since classes started three months ago, he actually has something to give to the professor.

The next time you run into Dazai, you see him first. Despite vehemently telling yourself that you would run in the other direction if you happened upon him again, you find yourself hesitating. You don’t even know why you’re hesitating; you shouldn’t be hesitating. 

You’re stopping at one of the libraries at YNU to meet with an informant of yours—the son of the leader of your political opposition in the House of Councillors—all it took was a few sweet words and teasing smiles to have the boy wrapped around your finger, giving you all of the dirty details of his father's dealings for you to use against him when trying to sway the swing votes to your side.

It’s supposed to be an in-and-out meeting, and you don’t want to spend more than 15 minutes in this building if you don’t have to. You still have to meet with one of the oil barons from Venezuela that Mori is trying to get in bed with, and you’re hoping to meet with Mishima before the new military bill passes through the House of Representatives in two months—you suppose you can do that tomorrow, but you’re pretty sure he’s leaving to go deal with some issue with his narcotics trade in western Europe in a few days so you don’t want to leave it to the last minute.

The kid—you don’t even remember his first name, you only know that he’s Kimura’s asshole son, and he cares more about getting his dick wet than the sanctity of family secrets (not that it bothers you considering you’re benefiting from it, but you digress)—is surely already upstairs in one of the private study rooms waiting for you, but your feet are rooted to the ground.

Dazai Osamu sits at one of the study tables in the back, brows furrowed as he reads whatever textbook is in front of him, dressed in a cozy brown sweater. He looks distinctly displeased, tongue poking out between his lips as he scribbles away at his paper—you can’t tell what he’s reading or writing, but it notably does not look like creative writing.

He also looks distinctly lonely. He’s sitting alone at a table meant for four, and there are dozens of groups of students around him, chatting and laughing in their study groups. There are tables for one person lining the walls, so you can’t help but wonder if he chose the larger table specifically to spite the people coming in groups so they have to cram at a smaller table or if he’s meeting people here.

Before you can stop yourself—because you should stop yourself—you find yourself making your way over to him. He doesn’t even notice you at first, not until you’re right in front of the table and peering down at the textbook he’s reading: Intro to Engineering.

“That doesn’t look like creative writing,” you say dryly, lips quirking up in amusement when Dazai physically startles at your appearance, looking up at you with wide eyes and parted lips. Almost cute, if he wasn’t so annoying—you think maybe if he was one of Kouyou’s girls, you might’ve given him a chance.

For a second, Dazai looks as if he’s going to make a quip—you expect a loud comment about fate and love, but instead, his expression softens after a minute as he looks down at his textbook, making you tilt your head to the side curiously at the change in demeanor.

“Intro to Engineering,” he finally says with a wry smile, motioning toward the book. “A required class, much to my extreme displeasure.”

“Sounds terrible,” you say absently, gaze flicking around, noting all of the prying eyes now not-so-discreetly eyeing your table. 

You’re used to people staring at you, you have eyes on you pretty much at all times, and a bunch of nobody college students are nothing compared to the eyes of politicians and foreign mafiosos, half of whom want your head piked. Dazai, on the other hand, doesn’t look quite as comfortable beneath the stares of so many of his classmates, which is surprising to you, considering how bold he was with you at the bar and in public the other day. 

“Are you meeting people?” you ask curiously, glancing at the empty chairs around him.

For a second, Dazai looks flustered. You watch as his eyes dart from the chairs and back up to you, the faintest pink hue spreading across his cheeks. His lips part to respond, but no words leave then, and he finally pushes out, “Yes.”

A lie. A blatant one at that, and he can tell how poorly it came out from the way he winces. You blink, curious as to why he doesn’t want to admit he’s at the library alone, but then shrug because you don’t really care.

“Why are you here?” You raise your eyebrows at the sheer attitude in the question, almost caught off guard by it. Dazai clearly did not intend for it to come out that way, so he immediately shrinks and then adds too quickly, “You don’t go to school here, I mean.”

“Yeah… okay,” you say dryly, a bit offended, wondering why you even came over here. Dazai looks remorseful at his words but only averts his gaze down to the table. Finally, you sigh, choosing your words carefully because you don’t want him—or anyone—to know you’re meeting someone because if anyone finds out Kimura’s kid is feeding you information, you’d be in a shitty position. Instead, you go with, “I own this building. I come to check on it from time to time.”

Any remorse on Dazai’s face is gone as he stares at you flatly. “You… own this building?”

“I donated the money to have it built, yes,” you say, unsure of why he’s giving you such a deadpan expression. 

And it’s the truth: you did it three years ago when you first realized Kimura’s son was attending YNU as a freshman. You needed an excuse to come to campus and ‘run into him,’ so you decided to just have a library built with the reasoning that your deceased father attended the university, and you wanted it in his name. 

Did your father attend YNU? You have no idea—hardly even remember the man—but you had Piano Man forge some records to show that he did.

“Why?” Dazai asks.

“I was in a good mood,” you say sarcastically to evade the question.

“You were in a good mood, so you decided to spend hundreds of millions of yen on a library for a university you don’t even attend?” he questions doubtfully.

“I was in an exceptionally good mood,” you amend smugly.

The expression on Dazai’s face is nothing short of bitter and withering. “The next time you’re in a good mood, you should pay for my tuition and rent,” he says snidely.

“Well, my next project is a zoo,” you say, and you can tell from the way Dazai’s eyes narrow that he knows he’s not about to like what you’re going to say. “We can fit you in with the rest of the baboons, I suppose. That’ll be your new apartment.”

“Haha. Very funny.”

“I thought so.”

As you banter, there’s something sharp and calculating in his eyes that you don’t like—you vaguely noticed it in the past two meetings with him but are only really catching it now as he stares steadily at you, trying to figure you out. Which you can’t let happen, obviously, so you give him a faux-sweet smile instead and lift your hand to wave your fingers in a goodbye, preparing to make your leave and go find Kimura’s kid upstairs. 

“I have to go,” you say, and then add belatedly, “hope this never happens again.”

Dazai pushes his lip out into a pout reminiscent of the one he gave you the other day outside of the cafe, but his heart doesn’t seem to be in it this time. His eyes are distant as they flick around the vast library again, disappointed almost. Lonely. You don’t know why you’re still standing there and you especially don’t know why you find your lips parting to speak.

You very much don’t know why your name comes out, and when Dazai looks up at you, eyes wide and with a shine in them that wasn’t there before, a question ready on his lips, you almost hesitate. Almost find yourself at a loss for words. Something that hasn’t happened to you in… years, actually. 

What the fuck?

You play it off quickly. “You wanted my name, didn’t you?” you drawl, looking down at him unimpressed as if you’re not entirely horrified with yourself right now.

Dazai looks at you as if you’ve handed him the stars, sun, and moon on a silver platter, and you decide it’s time to leave before he can say anything else—more importantly before you can say anything else—lifting your hand lazily to wave at him over your shoulder without looking back. 

Once you’re well out of sight—all the way up the stairs leading to the private study rooms with the one-way glass windows looking down into the main section of the library—you finally allow yourself one last look.

Dazai still sits the same exact way you left him, staring at where you’d left with a stupid smile on his face and a starstruck look in his eyes. You roll your eyes, and you firmly choose to ignore the faint smile curving at the corners of your lips.

Your name rings through his head on repeat, a giddy feeling spreading through his chest. His whole body feels light and his fingers thrum across the wood of the table he’s sitting at, unable to stop the smile that rises to his lips. You approached him this time and you gave him your name—progress, good progress. In his exhilaration, he can almost ignore the dozens of curious eyes lingering on him wondering who you were and how you knew Dazai of all people. 

He supposes he can’t blame them for being curious—you’re someone who’s clearly not cut from the same cloth as the rest of them; if your clothes didn’t make that apparent enough, the way you hold yourself does. And to approach him… Dazai isn’t particularly liked by the other students in his year—they think he’s odd. Which, he is odd, but they could be more discreet about it.

“Hey, Dazai-kun, who was that?” one of the third-year boys asks, leaning over from his table to try to get Dazai’s attention, intrigued gaze pinned on where you’d disappeared to.

Dazai pointedly does not acknowledge him. Partially because he’s not about to encourage competition, you’re Dazai’s muse, and Dazai is not keen on sharing you, but mostly because he doesn’t even know the answer to that question. 

Who are you? 

Dazai knew you were wealthy just from the way you dressed, but the way you so casually mentioned that you’d donated the money for this library to be built a few years ago was absurd. You can’t be much older than him, so what? You were eighteen or nineteen, donating hundreds of millions, billions of yen to have a library built? And for what? It doesn’t make sense. Dazai prides himself on his shrewd mind and ability to read people, but he just can’t figure you out. 

He must be missing something

He pulls out his phone, clicking on the safari app before hesitating. You only gave him your first name—he doubts that he’ll actually find anything on you, but a part of him holds out hope because you clearly have more money than god, and anyone with that much money must have some heavy sway on politics and society. Rich people have the media following them like dogs looking for a bone.

So, he tries, and he’s sorely disappointed when only websites about name etymology and pronunciation pop up. He sighs as he flips to a new page in his notebook, giving up on trying to figure out these engineering formulas for now. 

Instead, he writes your name at the top of the page, tapping his pen to his lips as he tries to figure out who exactly his new muse is. 

You don’t see Dazai for two weeks after that. You don’t have the chance to—you’re busy getting ready for the gala the government is hosting to honor some agency based in Tokyo. An excuse so they can gather all of the House Representatives and Councillors in one spot for both sides to advocate for or against the major military bill passing through the National Diet in a month and a half. You’ll be attending to represent the Mori Corporation, as always, and you’re hoping Mishima sends Kiyomasa on behalf of Age of Blue Co., his own front for the Sun and Steel. You think with the two of you taking on the burden of convincing the swing votes, you’ll get it done.

Now, though, you’re in a foul mood because you have to waste time you don’t have out of your day to deal with one of the landlords the Port Mafia is leasing property to. He’s been skimping out on payments owed and, evidently, has grown balls that he certainly shouldn’t have, considering he had the nerve to turn away two of your subordinates when they came to collect. He obviously thinks he can get away with it because it's a low-priority issue compared to all of the other things going on with the military bill and developments in China and Russia with Cao Xueqin and Vladimir Nabokov. You have half a mind to stuff a 24 in his mouth and pull the trigger just to show him how low of a priority he really is. 

You might, honestly, depending on his decisions in the next ten minutes.

You get to the complex in Hodogaya-ku half-past six in the morning, wanting to get this done and out of the way well before Tolstoy arrives in the city at ten to meet with you about the rising issues in the mainland. For once, luck seems to be on your side because when Albatross pulls up to the complex, you see Mado on the phone outside, in a heated conversation with someone.

“Have fun,” Albatross sings as you push open the car door to make your way over to the older man.

Mado catches sight of you instantly, eyes widening and pallor taking on a ghastly color as he hangs up on whoever he is talking to so he can take a step back closer to the front doors of the complex. You tilt your head to the side, pointedly shifting your suit jacket so he can catch sight of the gun holstered at your side before hiding it again.

“I wouldn’t do that,” you say with a thin smile as you draw closer.

“You’re-” Mado begins but cuts himself off quickly.

“Mado-kun,” you greet, hands clasped behind your back as you watch the man carefully. “I hear you had an issue with two of my subordinates.”

“I-”

“Or, well, there was no issue because you quite rudely turned them away,” you amend dryly. “I’d love to know your reasoning. I’ve got a few running theories of my own.”

“You misunderstand-”

“The most plausible theory, in my opinion, is that you think you can slide under the radar because there are more important things going on right now. You think you can make quick money by shaving off the money owed to us to keep for yourself,” you continue, smile falling off your face. “If that’s the case, I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken. The Port Mafia always repays its debts, and we always collect upon them.”

Mado takes in a stunted breath, then steps back again. “N-No. No, you misunderstand-” he tries again, and your lip curls up in frustration, eyes darting around the complex. 

It would be risky. Very risky. The Mafia controls all of the cameras in the complex, and you’re not in sight of any of the windows, but it’s broad daylight, and there’s always the off chance someone walks out while you’re in the process of putting a bullet through his skull. You’re just so fed up, and Albatross is right there…

You let out a puff of air, almost amused, as you take a step back and nod to yourself. Whatever, you think to yourself. It’s better than listening to him stumble over weak excuses, wasting even more of your time. Just as you’re about to reach for your gun, the door to the apartment complex slams open, and you halt.

“Really?” A familiar voice says, loud and frustrated. “You’re going to hang up on me now?”

You blink, head snapping to the side for your eyes to focus on Dazai Osamu, dressed in gray sweats and a black-tshirt, bandages wrapped all the way from his wrists disappearing under his shirt. He’s angry, brows furrowed as he glares at Mado, doesn’t even notice you standing there. Your irritation instantly fades, replaced with mild curiosity and entertainment.

“Dazai,” you greet easily, an amused smile curling at the corners of your lips. You ignore the stunned look Mado casts between the two of you. “You live here?”

Dazai freezes as soon as he hears your voice, brown eyes wide as looks at you, finally registering your presence. “You-what are you doing here?” He sounds caught off guard, in disbelief.

Almost the same question, almost the same tone as the way he asked why you were at the library two weeks ago, the smile on your lips now is decidedly mocking as you repeat the answer you gave him back then. “I own this building. The whole complex, actually.”

“You’re joking,” Dazai says flatly.

“Hmm,” you say, as if you’re thinking to yourself. “No, I don’t believe I am. Ask Mado-kun here, I’ve had to take time out of my day to come speak to him because he refuses to pay for the property we lease to him.”

You give Mado a faux-sweet smile, watching as he looks even more aghast as he looks between you and Dazai.

Dazai looks incensed by your words. “So not only do you refuse to fix my water problems, but you can’t even pay for the property?” he says snidely. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

You raise your eyebrows, glancing at Dazai and then back to Mado. “Is that so?”

“Dazai-san,” Mado laughs nervously. “Don’t be hasty now-”

“Hasty?” Dazai demands. “I’ve gone two weeks without water. Every time I call you about it, you blow me off.”

“How fascinating,” you say lightly, giving Mado a cool look. “Well, the complex will have a new landlord soon. Mado-kun, please head to the car so we can work out the details of terminating the contract.”

Mado stares at you as if you’ve just signed his death sentence. Which you suppose you have. Terminating the contract is a gentler way of putting terminating his life. You raise your eyebrows and lift your hand to shoo him away, making eye contact with Albatross who had stepped out of the car as soon as Dazai had come outside.

Albatross tosses you a wink and nods toward Dazai; you give him a withering look, directing your attention back to Dazai as Mado walks over to the sleek black car you’d arrived in.

The look Dazai gives you is akin to a kicked puppy, and his words are drawn out long as he speaks, a quiet whine that shouldn’t do something to you but it does. “I was suffering in your building for two weeks,” he pouts. “I should be compensated.”

You roll your eyes. “I’ll send someone to fix your water,” you say dryly. 

“You should give me your number,” Dazai says sweetly. “Just in case this happens again.”

“I’ll get you a new landlord and I’ll give you his number,” you say just as sweetly, relishing in the way he pushes his lip out even more.

“But what if it’s another bad landlord? I should have your number so I can call you just in case,” Dazai presses, tilting his head to the side and batting his lashes at you so blatantly that you have half a mind to snort and walk away.

Instead, you find yourself letting out a huff of laughter as you shake your head.

“Fine,” you say before you can stop yourself, which he clearly doesn’t expect from how his eyes shoot open, and you don’t expect from the way your heart rate spikes as soon as the words register. 

What the fuck?

You justify this by telling yourself that Mado’s inability to properly run the complex has, in turn, made the Mafia look bad, making it seem as if you’re unable to manage your own properties. It’s better to have someone who will instantly start complaining as soon as things go wrong so you can fix it right away.

Dazai scrambles to pull his phone from the pocket of his sweats and your lips quirk up a bit when you see the way his fingers are just barely trembling. 

Cute.

You can see him watching you anxiously from the corner of his eye as you type your number into his phone quickly with your first name and hand it back to him. A bit embarrassed by how quickly you gave in to him, you make up for it with: “Don’t bother me unless it’s urgent.”

“Mhm,” Dazai agrees as he takes his phone back from you, looking down at your contact information with bright eyes. Then he suddenly pouts, “You didn’t even give yourself a cute contact name. Just your first name. That’s so boring.”

You watch as he immediately starts typing and squint at him, “What did you change it to?” you ask suspiciously, trying to look, but he pockets his phone before you can, tossing you a saccharine smile.

“You should waive my rent too,” Dazai adds, voice soft and honeyed.

The fucking audacity of this kid, you think to yourself, almost laughing in disbelief. You just gave him your number against all better judgment—he has to have more than a few screws loose, maybe all of them. The worst part is, you think the more time you spend around him, the looser yours become, too, because somehow you’re actually considering it.

You shouldn’t even be having this conversation with him. He’s a civilian. You’re an executive in the Mafia. You shouldn’t have given him your number, you shouldn’t have given him your name, you shouldn’t have entertained any of this at all. He’s a civilian, and you can’t be giving him special treatment because he is a civilian. A normal guy going to university to live a normal life. The more time you spend around him, the more likely he is to become one of the nameless bodies dumped in the abandoned shipping container yard by the ports, caught in the crossfires of an underworld conflict that he shouldn’t be anywhere near just because he was seen with you.

This shouldn’t bother you. It shouldn’t. You’ve been the reason for countless deaths, pulled the trigger yourself on most, so why is it when you think of Dazai Osamu’s stupid big brown eyes glassy and empty—body forgotten and rotting in a pile of corpses in that dumping ground—do you find your mouth dry and your chest tight?

It’s an effort for you to force out a laugh and wave him off over your shoulder as you turn to leave. 

“Yeah, as if.”

There’s a skip in Dazai’s step as he makes his way back into his small studio apartment, fingers curled around his phone. As soon as he shuts the door, he flings himself onto his futon, pulling his phone out of his pocket and smiling at the new contact in it.

My Muse is what he’d changed the contact to from the boring name you’d entered it under as if you were only just an acquaintance to him and not his muse, his inspiration, his will to live. He clicks the message button on your contact and quickly types:

Dazai: hi (＠＾◡＾)

Instantly, it pops up that you read the message, and he waits anxiously for the three dots to appear, signaling that you’re typing a response, but they never come. He pouts to himself when he realizes that you’re not going to respond. A part of him wonders if maybe you gave him a fake number, but he doubts it. Still, Dazai wanted to get more information on you anyway, so he quickly pulls up a different contact. Dazai might not have a lot of friends, but he does have a lot of people who owe him favors.

Dazai: kataiii, remember when i helped u get a date with that brunette at the cafe? :P Katai: What do you want?

Dazai types in your number and promptly sends it to him. 

Dazai: tell me whatever info u can find about the person who owns this number.

Katai doesn’t respond, so Dazai figures that he’s already on the hunt. Instead, he grabs his notebook and flips right to the page where he’s been listing all of the things he’s noticed about you. 

Rich. Nepo baby?

Demanding job? What type of nepo baby has a demanding job?

REALLY rich? Built the nice library on campus, donated hundreds of millions of yen at 18/19 to build it—weird. Evaded answering when asked why.

Dazai taps his pen to his lips, trying to figure out what he wants to add on the next bullet point, and just as he thinks he’s formulated his next observation, his phone buzzes again.

Katai: No information. At all. Not even a name. Dazai: really? Katai: Yeah. Kind of weird, honestly. Usually I can find at least something small to go off of. It’s like this number doesn’t exist.

Interesting, Dazai thinks to himself, even more intrigued now as he sits up in his futon and starts making his next note. Wealthy, distant, cold, and apparently a ghost to even Katai Tamaya, who can usually find anyone and everyone with the smallest bit of information. 

Who are you?

You’re in a meeting with Mori, Kouyou, and Ace when you get the text. It’s from an unsaved number, but one that you already have ingrained in your head, considering you get several dozen texts a day from it. You don’t even know why you bother to check this time—you usually just ignore them until you have nothing better to do than see what he’s yapping on about. Maybe this time, it’s because it’s only a single message; you’re used to getting them en masse, eight or nine messages in a row, unnecessarily split up when they could’ve been combined into one message.

As Ace drones on about whatever issues he’s having at his casinos, you spare a glance down at your phone, unlocking it to click on the message. You halt when you see that the only thing Dazai sent you is a ping with his location. Your eyes flit back upward to make sure no one is looking at you, and then you type a quick message back.

You: ?

You wait, tongue scraping against the roof of your mouth as the three bubbles pop up on your phone. His response is quick, and your stress levels skyrocket when all he sends is a “help.” Your mind races as you try to figure out what to do—if you leave the meeting now, you’re bound to draw Mori’s attention, but…

You shouldn’t care. What are you doing? You should not care. He’s a random kid that you happened to run into a couple of times, who has somehow managed to convince himself that the two of you are fated. He’s delusional and annoying, and you’d probably be better off with him gone and unable to bother you. His existence puts you in danger as much as it does him, and the fact that you’re sitting here actually contemplating going to this location to see what’s wrong is proof enough of that.

Shit.

Once again, you’re forced to justify your own actions to yourself as you find yourself rising to your feet. You tell yourself you’re only heading there to put an end to this, to tell him that he has to stop bothering you, to stop texting a dozen times a minute, several times a day. To tell him that he has to forget about you and go back to whatever he was doing before he ran into you at the bar that night.

With all eyes on you, the cogs in your mind turn quickly for an excuse. You only come up with a vague and weak one, one that you know Mori will question later on.

“Something urgent just came up,” you say, smiling thinly at the three other executives at the round table. You pointedly ignore the curious look in Mori’s eyes, knowing nothing good ever comes from drawing his curiosity. “I have more important things to do than listen to Ace whine about his own failings.”

“You-” Ace spits out, face going red as he stands up, but you’re already leaving the conference room.

You: Have the car outside in 2 minutes. Albatross: not ur personal chauffeur 😒 i’m busy

You roll your eyes at the response as you make your way into the elevator, clicking the button to bring you down to the first floor. Each second in the elevator feels like an eternity, and you find yourself glancing back down at your phone frequently to see if Dazai sends another message, but he does not.

What are you doing?

You find yourself shaking your head, a bit lost and taken aback by your own actions, as the elevator doors slide open to the first-floor lobby. You ignore your subordinates and the other Mafia underlings as you make your way to the front doors of the headquarters. 

Albatross is dutifully waiting outside for you.

“Not my personal chauffeur, huh?” you say sarcastically as soon as you open the door to sit in the passenger seat. “What happened to being busy?”

“You take me for granted,” Albatross complains, head lolling to the side against the headrest to toss you a side-eye. “Where we goin’, doll?” 

You show him the location sent to you, and you pointedly ignore the knowing look Albatross gives you at the unsaved number in your phone. He takes it in his hand to zoom into the precise location and raises his eyebrows.

“The hell is he doing on that side of the city?” Albatross says more to himself than to you, putting the phone down and shifting the car into gear. You also pointedly ignore how he immediately knows who you’re rushing off to help. “‘s a ten minute drive. I’ll get there in three.”

Oh god. It’s not like you haven’t been in car chases with Albatross before, but you don’t think anything can prepare you for the lurching in your stomach as he takes off. They’re fun usually, but you’re also usually with Chuuya, and you’re also usually distracted trying to gun down whoever is giving chase, you’re not paying attention to how dangerously he’s weaving in and out of traffic to get from place to place.

Albatross looks entirely exhilarated. There’s a wide smile on his face, pupils blown wide, sunglasses hanging off the bridge of his nose as he leans forward. He lets out a wild laugh as he takes such a jarring turn that your shoulder slams against the car door. You toss him an angry glare, but Albatross is entirely unperturbed, doesn’t even notice as he lets out a whoop.

That side of the city. You hadn’t even noticed while in the meeting, sparing a glance back down at your phone. Dazai’s up in Tsuzuki-ku—all of the city is under the Port Mafia’s control, all of the city and well beyond, really, most of Japan is under the Port Mafia’s thumb, but the northern wards are frequently tested by lower-rung gangs hoping to try to sliver some of the Mafia’s heartland away from them. They always fail, but sometimes it can get messy, and recently, there’s been another making moves in Aoba-ku.

Your chest tightens in a way that it definitely shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be the first time a wannabe rival to the Mafia targeted someone close to an executive to try to get their hands on one, and you hadn’t exactly been subtly approaching him that day at the library. Two years ago, an organization called the Serpent’s Tongue targeted a girl Chuuya’d been talking to trying to get him to turn himself in—a civilian girl, actually, one that he dragged into this life just like you’re unintentionally doing with Dazai. He turned himself over for her; they killed her anyway, and the whole organization paid for it with their lives. So did all of their families. You don’t think Chuuya’s ever gotten over it.

You’re not trying to start a gang war for a civilian that you’ve met a handful of times, but…

“Should we call for backup?” Albatross asks you, uncharacteristically serious, as the two of you draw closer to the location sent to you. “What if it’s a trap? That Yakuza syndicate’s been pretty active up here in Aoba and Tsuzuki,”

“No,” you say, because you’re not fucking calling in the Black Lizards for this civilian. That’ll make this a whole operation, and then Mori will find out, and then everything will go to shit. “... I’ll text Chuuya.”

You: Where you at? Chuuya: Checking in on the ports in Kanagawa. What’s up?

You: Be on standby?

Chuuya: ??? Ok. What’s going on?

You don’t respond, slipping your phone back into your pocket and resting your head on the window. If Chuuya’s at the ports in Kanagawa-ku, then it won’t take him more than three or four minutes with the Tainted Sorrow to get to your location. You don’t need him barreling over here now if this is something you can handle on your own. The less people that know about Dazai fucking Osamu, the better.

“Uhhh,” Albatross begins. “I don’t think your boy’s in trouble, doll.”

Instantly, your blood pressure spikes.

You follow Albatross’s gaze to where he’s looking at a strip of shops, pulling to a stop in front of an affordable men’s warehouse. You stare blankly. Albatross looks like he’s about to start laughing.

“I’m going to kill him,” you breathe out, stepping out of the car and slamming the door shut so hard that you hear Albatross cursing at you from inside, even when you get all the way to the door of the store.

Your phone is buzzing incessantly, so you pull it out before you go into the building.

Chuuya: Hello?? What’s happening? Where are you? 

Bitterly, you type out a response.

You: Forget it. False alarm.

As soon as you open the door, you’re met with the overwhelming scent of shoe polish and cheap dye. A store attendant comes up to you to ask if you need help with anything, but you’ve already spotted Dazai in the back, looking lost as his eyes card between three black suits.

“You,” you spit out loud enough to get his attention. Dazai’s eyes widen as he looks up at you. “You have some nerve.”

“Bella.” Dazai ignores your ire, a smile lighting up his face. “You came!” 

“You said help,” you accuse angrily. “You said help and sent me a location with no explanation.”

“I do need help,” Dazai pouts. “I don’t know anything about suits. You wear such nice ones all the time, I figure you can help me pick one out.”

“Do I look like a goddamn stylist, Dazai?” You raise your voice, livid, blood still running hot from the panic you felt when you saw the text, how you’d exposed yourself in front of Mori, from the anxiety of trying to figure out if you needed to bring in the Black Lizards if this was a trap.

Dazai draws back a bit now as if only just realizing that you’re genuinely pissed, and you think you should take your gun and stick it in your own mouth because why are you feeling guilty when he’s the one in the wrong? You haven’t felt guilty for anything a day in your fucking life.

A sick part of you that you want to carve out and throw away defends him. How is he supposed to know the implications of what those messages could mean to someone like you? He’s a college student whose biggest problem of the day is working out the answers to his class assignments, and he has no idea who you are and what you do. He doesn’t know that the first thing that comes to your head is the sight of Chuuya’s girl’s head rolling on the fucking ground, watching him scream over her body. Doesn’t know that there are people out there with blood that runs as black as tar that are trying to hunt you down, would jump at the chance of any weakness to exploit.

You force yourself to calm down. You take a breath, take a step away, look up to the ceiling, and pray to a god you don’t believe in to give you the patience to get through this day.

“Well, since you’re here already…” Dazai tries, giving you a sweet smile and batting his long lashes.

Your eye twitches.

You drag your gaze from his face to the three suits he’s considering. Your lip curls up a bit in disfavor as you reach out to pinch the material between your fingers—it’s stiff and scratchy to the touch, surely uncomfortable to wear.

“What do you need this for?” you finally ask, glancing at him.

“I’m going on a date,” Dazai says proudly. You snort and look him over once. His jaw drops in offense, “That was so rude, what does that mean?”

“What do you really need it for?” you ask dryly. 

Dazai withers, shoulders slumping. “My journalist professor is having me attend some event with him. Told me to get something nice to wear so I don’t look out of place.”

“And you think this will do the job?” you ask distastefully. “This looks like something a high schooler would wear to a school dance.”

Dazai looks helplessly at the suit you’re judging. “How can you tell?” he whines. “It’s just a suit.”

“The material and the color. It’s washed out.”

“Why are rich people so pretentious?” Dazai mutters, more to himself than you, and you raise your eyebrows as you watch him pout, clearly taking in the differences between the suit he picked out and the one you’re wearing. Still, he continues bitterly, “It’s just a suit.”

“You’re going with a journalist. He’s going to want you to blend in so people aren’t careful about what they say around you,” you note offhandedly, tilting your head to the side as you look over him. “The more you dress like them, the less likely they’ll be to notice you and the looser their lips will be.”

This is your field of expertise, you learned all of this when you were thirteen and fourteen, just learning the ropes of mafia politics. The first lesson you learned was that of the importance of being able to camouflage yourself in any crowd—the importance of not only acting and sounding like you belong but looking like you belong. If one thing is even a little off, you’ll be sniffed out by bloodhounds. You don’t even notice how you’re absently lecturing him on it until you catch sight of him from the corner of your eye.

Dazai’s looking at you, curious and taking in your words. You don’t like the sudden intense attention from him, so against better judgment, you sigh and change the subject. 

“Come on,” you say. “I’ll take you somewhere else.”

Dazai’s mouth is dry as he trails after you into a luxury boutique in Nishi-ku. Everything about the place makes him feel uncomfortable and sorely out of place, from the way even the store attendants are dressed in suits that Dazai couldn’t dream of affording to the way he catches them casting looks toward one another as their eyes drift between you and Dazai.

“Yeah, uh, maybe we should go back to that warehouse? I can’t afford this,” Dazai says hesitantly, nearly tripping over a stand because he isn’t paying attention to where he’s walking.

“Obviously,” you say flatly, and Dazai would feel offended, but when he tries to peek around for the price on one of the suits near him, he finds, to his mortification, that there’s not even a price tag to look at. “Kido-san, can you get the backroom set up to take his measurements?”

Measurements, Dazai mouths to himself, feeling a bit lost.

An older man, who must be Kido, nods his head in acknowledgment. “Of course, hime.”

Dazai’s head snaps to the side, watching as your eye seems to twitch at the honorific. 

“Hime?” Dazai whispers urgently, growing more confused by the second. He thought he had a general idea of who you are but finds that every meeting with you leaves him more and more bewildered.

“Don’t call me that,” you scowl before turning to look at him. 

Dazai feels strangely seen under your stare, shifting on his feet from side to side as your gaze trails down from his face to his waist. You squint and then reach out, pinch the fabric of his cotton shirt, and pull it to the side; Dazai bites back a surprised yelp, which you seem to catch from how you give him a distinctly unimpressed look.

“I-” Dazai starts to say, but he doesn’t even know what he wants to say, so he just trails off awkwardly. 

You don’t seem to notice either way because whatever you’re looking for, you seem to have found, letting out a pleased hum as you make your way to the back of the store, leaving him alone with two female store attendants who are observing him like he’s some unknown specimen.

“So, how do you know her?” One finally approaches him with an excited gleam in her eyes, eager for some gossip. “Hime has never brought anyone to us before, not even Nakahara-sama.”

Dazai doesn’t know how to respond to that. Partially because he’s still caught on the way they address you as hime and partially because he’s caught on whoever ‘Nakahara-sama’ is and why they’re so impressed that you brought him here and not them. He feels smug about it, actually, so smug that he entirely forgets to respond until the woman draws back.

“Oh! We won’t tell anyone,” the woman rushes out, shaking her head as if thinking that’s why Dazai isn’t answering her question. “We have a completely confidential policy with our clients, and hime is our most important. We wouldn’t ever risk betraying her trust.”

Dazai’s mind is whirling, trying to store all of the information he’s receiving so he can put it down in his notebook when he gets home. Hime, the reverence in the store attendants’ voices when they talk about you, going to a boutique with a confidentiality policy… that’s all a bit weird, isn’t it? Dazai isn’t sure—rich people are weird in general, maybe it’s not unheard of for high-end boutiques like this to have policies in place in case clients come in and have to talk about their business. Nobody would want to go somewhere where attendants leak trade secrets for a quick buck. 

Hime, though, why-

“Stop badgering him.” Your voice rings through the small boutique as you step out from the backroom, arms folded across your chest as you give the two attendants a sharp look. “Dazai, come.”

Dazai feels like you’re treating him like a pet dog, but he does dutifully follow after you. You motion to a pedestal in the middle of the room and Dazai makes his way over to it, feeling a bit embarrassed as he stands on top of it. You lean against the wall, and Dazai isn’t really sure what to do when Kido waddles over with a measuring tape, so he holds his arms out.

You instantly snort and look away, Kido flattens his lips.

Dazai is embarrassed, but lowers his arms.

“Take off your clothes, Dazai-sama,” the older man snaps his fingers together.

Dazai freezes, hardly even taking note of the honorific because he’s mortified by what’s being requested of him. He does not want to do that because he doesn’t want you to see that he covers his whole body with bandages. He’s had more than enough people see the bandages and immediately cringe away, imagining what monstrosity must lie beneath them for Dazai to hardly even allow an inch of visible skin. Sensing his discomfort, he watches your eyes track down to the bandages peeking over his collar and sleeves, and then you pointedly turn around to face the wall, sighing as you pull out your phone.

Dazai’s lips part a bit in shock, not expecting you to immediately recognize the issue and move to try to fix it. He thinks maybe only one person ever in his life has been able to read him so easily, and he’s been gone for four years. 

For the first time since Odasaku’s death, Dazai feels like someone is actually seeing him.

“Shirt, Dazai-sama,” Kido urges impatiently, and Dazai swallows thickly as he pulls off his sweater, noticing the man pause when he sees the bandages wrapped around Dazai’s whole torso and chest.

“I don’t ever go without them,” Dazai says awkwardly, “I-”

“Take the measurements as is, Kido-san,” you say sharply from where you’re still facing the wall.

Kido doesn’t argue with you, immediately getting to work on measuring Dazai’s waist and hips. As he does, Dazai feels particularly uncomfortable with you still standing there facing the wall, so he finds himself talking.

“The day we met at the cafe, I was going to a poetry workshop,” he says suddenly. “For uni. It’s one of my classes this semester.”

“Yeah?” you ask, and Dazai is almost surprised that you’re indulging his conversation, a stupid smile twitching on his lips. “What’d they have you doing?”

“Our professor had us write free-verse,” Dazai continues, fingers thrumming against his thigh as he speaks—a nervous habit that he can’t seem to break. Kido slaps his hand to get him to stop when it messes up the measurement of his hips, and Dazai promptly stills. “I prefer free verse. It’s my favorite style of poetry.”

Dazai doesn’t really know why he’s rambling about this, but he can’t seem to shut himself up. He can feel his cheeks getting hot, realizing this probably isn’t a conversation you’d be interested in partaking in, and just as he’s about to awkwardly change the subject, you speak up.

“… I prefer sonnets,” you tell him after a few moments of silence.

“You read poetry?” Dazai asks, a bit too doubtfully, from the way you click your tongue in irritation.

“Not often. I don’t have the time for it, but I am not uncultured,” you say, and Dazai smiles a bit—he can practically see the scowl that’s on your face. “Il Canzoniere. Francis Petrarch. That’s my favorite.”

Dazai tilts his head to the side, considering you in a new light. “Huh,” he says more to himself than you. “I didn’t expect that.”

“Put your shirt back on and remove your pants, Dazai-sama,” Kido orders and Dazai nearly jumps, almost having forgotten about the man in his conversation with you. Dazai quickly does as asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable standing there in his briefs with his bandages wrapped around his legs. “I’ll be quick.”

“Why is Il Canzoniere your favorite?” Dazai asks curiously when Kido gets to work measuring each of Dazai’s thighs and calves.

You hum to yourself and then answer, “I think the Petrarchan view of love is very… accurate. How it’s so coveted despite how painful it may be. Among all of his other ideas, of course, but that I think is the most meaningful to me.”

Dazai’s lips part to respond, but for a second, no words leave them. Finally, he clears his throat and forces out, “Yeah… Yeah, I agree with that, too.”

“You’ve read?” you ask.

“Of course, I’ve read.” Dazai is almost offended by the question. “It’s Petrarch.”

“Have you really read it, though? The translations don’t do it justice.”

Dazai blinks. “You can speak Italian?” 

“Several languages,” you drawl, as if it’s nothing. “Useful for business.”

Before Dazai can respond, Kido rises to his feet and motions for Dazai to pull back up his pants, noting down the measurements on his pad. “The rest I can do with your clothes on. You’re free to turn back around, hime.”

You do, and Dazai’s breath hitches at the unreadable expression on your face as you lean back against the wall and look over him. “What made you choose to go into English? Not exactly a useful major unless you plan on going into law or publishing.”

Oh. Dazai hesitates, throat bobbing as he swallows, lashes fluttering as he averts his gaze down toward the floor. “My friend… he passed away a few years ago. Right before I was about to enter college, actually. He asked me to finish his book for him—I told him I don’t know anything about writing and that it’ll turn out bad if he had me do it, but he insisted… and I mean, I can’t really say no to my dying best friend, can I?”

He thinks this might be the first time he’s talked about Odasaku out loud since his death. He didn’t go to the funeral, hasn’t talked to Ango since it all happened. He’s emotionally isolated himself from everyone for years, and Dazai is feeling more than a little vulnerable because he doesn’t even know why he’s telling you all of this. He just can’t seem to shut his mouth.

“I think you’ll do it justice,” you tell him after a few moments of silence.

Dazai looks up at you, dark eyes wide and imploring. He searches your face to see if you’re just fucking with him but only finds sincerity—you immediately look away, focusing on the wall instead. A smile tugs at the corners of his lips and he’s positively vibrating at your words until Kido lets out a heavy sigh.

“Dazai-sama, please stop moving so much.”

Dazai stills immediately and instead focuses on trying to help Kido finish up the measurements as quickly as possible. Dazai’s only been to this part of Nishi-ku a handful of times, but if he remembers correctly, there’s a cafe two blocks down, and this is his chance. 

This is his chance to ask you on a date. He has to take it. He hasn’t felt this giddy, this happy, this hopeful since before he lost Odasaku. Dazai hasn’t looked forward to the future like this in years, just surviving each day, wishing each passing one was his last, but not wanting to disappoint Odasaku by not fulfilling his last request. He’d been at his breaking point that day at the bar, but then he met you.

Then he met you. And yeah, you hadn’t shown much interest in him that night. Not at all, actually, but Dazai had never been drawn to someone like he’d been drawn to you before in his entire life. He’d known something was there, even if that did make him a little delusional. His heartbeat is erratic in his chest, and he’s clumsily trying to help speed things up, but he thinks he might be doing more harm than help. 

When Dazai looks over to you again, he finds himself flustered by the expression on your face. Your head is tilted to the side as you observe him, lips curved up, and a look in your eyes that can only be described as fondness. You don’t notice that he caught you staring, so Dazai tries to burn this image in his head as quickly as he can. He’s used to contemptuous, judgmental looks, he doesn’t think anyone has ever looked at him so affectionately before. It makes him feel warm, like he’s someone who’s capable of being loved. 

The look disappears as soon as you realize he caught you—Dazai misses it instantly. He watches instead as a flurry of conflicted emotions crosses over your face, and he wishes he could read your mind, know what you’re thinking, but he does know that he doesn’t like the painfully neutral expression that settles there, a dreadful feeling growing in his stomach that makes him feel as if something is wrong.

“Are you okay?” Dazai asks, trying to figure out what had changed so quickly.

You don’t respond to him—rather, you look at Kido instead, making his stomach drop.

“Is that all?” you finally ask as Kido rises to his feet.

“Yes, hime,” Kido tells you. “I’ve finished with the measurements.”

“Good,” you say, and then turn on your heel to leave without even sparing another glance toward Dazai. Caught off guard, he readjusts his shirt and nearly trips over his own feet, trying to rush after you. “When do you need this by, Dazai?”

Dazai doesn’t like the sudden distance in your tone, a far cry from the easy conversation the two of you had just been holding, but he forces himself to respond. “Uh, by the end of the month, I think?”

“Kido-san will have it done for you by the end of the week,” you say, tapping something into your phone, hardly paying attention to him. “Come back and pick it up then. Charge it to my card when you’ve figured out the pricing for it, yeah?” 

“Of course, hime,” Kido agrees and Dazai feels a bit unsettled.

“You’ll come with me to pick it up, bella?” he prods, nudging your shoulder and trying to peek over to see what you’re typing, trying to figure out if something is wrong, if he’d done something to cause the abrupt change in attitude or if you’d gotten a text about work or something instead. He feels a bit nervous, his tongue swollen in his mouth, watching you carefully.

You stare at him, and for a terrible, terrible second, Dazai thinks you’re about to tell him no. But then the tension in your brows disappears, letting out a soft puff of air as your expression smoothes out.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Yeah, I will.”

When Dazai smiles, feeling light and relieved, hopeful that maybe for the first time since Odasaku’s death, he won’t have to be alone, he misses the way your expression drops as you look away from him. 

“This needs to stop.”

You stiffen at the sound of Chuuya’s familiar voice coming from the door of your bedroom, your shirt half-unbuttoned as you get ready for bed. You raise your eyebrows, turning to look at him over your shoulder, a bit thrown off because you hadn’t even heard the elevator come up to your room.

“Please, enlighten me as to what has you so worked up that you’re barging into my bedroom while I’m half-dressed,” you say dryly, giving Chuuya a cool look as you turn to face him, crossing your arms over your chest.

Chuuya looks uncharacteristically angry at you, lips curled down, eyes cold. It almost makes you draw back, mind racing to try to figure out what you might’ve done to piss him off. You can’t remember the last time he’s been mad at you like this—you’re not sure if he ever has been.

“Dazai Osamu. Fourth year literature student at Yokohama National University. Graduated from Kanagawa Sohgoh High School four years ago. Currently living in building number 10511898050 in the residential area of Iwaicho in Hodogaya-ku, unit number 409. He has an eight am class Mondays and Wednesdays, a two pm class Tuesdays and Thursdays, a-”

“Enough,” you cut him off, voice clipped and heartbeat thudding in your ears as you stare at Chuuya, watching as he gives you a sharp look. 

“It took me less than ten minutes to get all of that information on him,” Chuuya says, voice low, “and no, I didn’t have Albatross help me. What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything,” you say, jaw tight. “He’s just some random fucking kid who I bumped into once and won’t leave me alone now, that’s-”

That’s a lie, you know it, and evidently, Chuuya knows it too from how he scoffs at you and shakes his head. Your expression twists, throat spasming as you swallow. You’d known you were in trouble since you left the boutique—when you’d caught your gaze lingering on him as he fumbled to help Kido with the measurements, only making more work for the poor man, a warm feeling spreading through your chest when you saw how he gradually became more and more comfortable as you entertained his conversation, rambling about poetry and literature, the solemn look that crossed his face when he spoke about his friend.

“I think you’ll do it justice.”

You hadn’t even noticed the way you instinctively made an effort to reassure him, not until he looked back up at you and you saw the pretty flush spreading across his cheeks, gaze flitting to the ground, too flustered to meet your eyes. It’d been like someone tossed cold water right over you, drawing you from your thoughts and smacking you right back into reality.

You had every intention of rebuking him as soon as you finished finalizing the details of the order with Kido—you did. You were going to tell him not to contact you again, that if he did, you’d block his number. You were going to tell him to forget about you and go back to whatever he was doing before he met you that night at the bar—you were. But when he looked down at you through his lashes, unsure and hesitant, as if he knew what you were about to say to him but had the slimmest hope that maybe he was wrong, and-

And you couldn’t do it.

Fuck.

Who even are you anymore? You’re so bitter that you can taste it in your mouth, it’s an ugly and uncomfortable taste. You don’t even know where this is coming from—the reluctance to hurt this kid, the weakness. Because that’s what this is, it’s a weakness, one that you know better than anyone that people will exploit, and you are still putting him in danger.

“Yeah?” Chuuya lets out an unamused laugh, taking a step forward and pulling something out of his pocket. His gaze is challenging, and you have a pit in your stomach, one that tells you you’re not going to like whatever he’s about to say. “The fuck is this then, huh?” 

He slaps a copy of your own credit card transactions down into your hand. Your blood boils when you see the red circle around the recent payment you made to Kido; above that, the 50k yen wired to the new landlord of the complex.

“You’re going to get this fucking kid killed,” Chuuya tells you, leaning in close. “You must realize that by now. You’re going to get him killed. If I could get all of this information so easily, it’s only a matter of time before one of our enemies does. That syndicate in the northern wards. The Red Chamber. Cao Xueqin will have him chopped into pieces and send you on a fucking treasure hunt across the city to get all of his limbs together for a proper burial. And for what? You’re bored? Is that it? You’re gonna have this kid tortured to death because you’re bored?”

You don’t answer, glaring at him as you try to calm yourself down, but you’re unusually rattled by Chuuya’s words. You find your mouth dry, your fingers shaking in your pockets. The sharp, snide words you would usually smack him back with die on your tongue, and you feel like a fool staring at him.

Your lack of response seems to trigger some sort of realization in Chuuya and you watch as his eyes widen briefly, leaning back.

“You actually care about him,” he says quietly, and now he’s the one who looks uncertain, averting his gaze to the side as he thinks.

“No, I don’t,” you correct immediately, shaking your head. “I don’t, Chuuya.”

“You do,” Chuuya murmurs. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t continue this. Cut it loose now, before it gets any further, before you end up getting him killed.”

“I’m not you,” you spit out, a low blow, you know. To Chuuya’s credit, he doesn’t react beyond a sharp inhale, nostrils flaring briefly.

“No, you’re not,” he agrees. “I wouldn’t be so fucking stupid to make the same mistake twice.”

“That was your mistake,” you hiss. “Not mine.”

Chuuya laughs, a huff that’s more mocking than amused, as he takes a step away from you. You’d think you’d prefer anger or hate more than the thinly veiled pity within them now. 

“It’ll be your mistake too soon,” he warns, stuffing his hands in his pocket as he turns to leave. “You’re smarter than this.”

You are. You are smarter than this. You know this will turn out the same way it did with Chuuya. You can picture it sometimes. Dazai’s body in place of hers, bruised and beaten, lacerations lining his cold body and his head severed from his neck—a trophy to be taken by your enemies. His blood stains your hands and clothes, no matter how much you scrub your skin raw and no matter how many new outfits you buy. Whenever you look down, you see his blood dripping off of you.

“I’m not reaching out to him again,” you finally say, ignoring the way your chest tightens. “Get the fuck out of my apartment, Chuuya.”

Chuuya looks back at you, not even bothering to hide the pity this time. You have half a mind to slap it right off of his face.

“For your sake and his, I hope you don’t.”

“Dazai-kun, are you even paying attention?”

Dazai startles out of his own head, blinking rapidly as his gaze focuses on Professor Ui, who’s watching Dazai with a disapproving frown. Dazai gives the older man a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry, Ui-sensei. I was distracted,” Dazai apologizes, glancing once more back down at his phone, smile softening a bit when he sees you read his messages complaining about such a late meeting on campus. You don’t respond, naturally, but Dazai can practically picture you rolling your eyes at him.

“Please focus,” Professor Ui says tightly. “It’s essential that you understand our plans going into this event. We have two weeks left to prepare.”

Dazai sighs as he puts his phone down, looking up at Professor Ui and the two other students who are going to be working this event with him, both of whom look irritated by Dazai’s lack of focus.

“The event we’ll be attending is going to be hosted at the Tocho for a special agency in Tokyo that handles violent crimes associated with criminal enterprises. They made huge progress in pushing the Scarlet Gang out of the Asakusa Ward—the government wants to celebrate them for it,” Professor Ui explains, for the second time clearly, seeing how the two other students share a look with one another. “The whole event is pretty much just a mask for Representatives and Councillors in the Diet to gather and advocate for and against a major military bill about to pass through the Lower House.”

Dazai can already feel himself losing focus again, itching to text you yet another update that you won’t respond to, but he knows you’ll read. He wonders what you’re doing right now—whatever rich people do at seven on a Thursday night, he supposes. Probably out drinking with people, he thinks, jealous that he’s stuck on campus getting the rundown on this stupid assignment. He pouts a bit to himself, wondering if you’re with other guys right now, listening to them ramble on in the same way Dazai did to you, but before his thoughts can spiral too much in that direction, Professor Ui clears his throat.

“Our goal during this event is to find viable proof to move forward with an exposé on a crime syndicate known as the Sun and Steel,” Professor Ui says, and Dazai suddenly straightens, interested in what his professor is saying. “We’ve received a tip that one of their executives is going to be attending this event under the pretense of being an interested party—invites have been sent out to a lot of major corporations who have stakes in the bill. We believe that the Sun and Steel is using a company called the Age of Blue as a front for its criminal activities—if we can find proof and expose them for what they are, it can be a major stepping stone to taking down some of the bigger organizations in Japan.”

“Ui-sensei,” Hinami says, leaning forward in her seat. “The government wouldn’t really let some mafias attend an event for an agency that’s dedicated to taking them down. That’s a bit…”

“Ironic,” Ayato snorts, folding his arms over his chest. “I mean, if there’s no proof of their front company being involved in shady shit—oh, uh, sorry, sensei—shady stuff, it’s not like they can just pick and choose which to invite. Or, well, they can, but it won’t be a good look.”

“Exactly,” Professor Ui says, “and the government can’t do anything about them until they have due cause.”

“That’s what we’re for,” Dazai notes, “... but why us? You’re an adjunct professor—work for Ivory Eagle, that newspaper company that everyone’s been talking about. You have a whole team, why do you need a bunch of college students?”

“Does it matter?” Ayato says with a sharp grin. “Imagine if we pull this off? Our careers would be set. We’d have helped with the takedown of a mafia.”

Dazai thinks it does matter, eyes settling on the unreadable expression on Professor Ui’s face. His two classmates might be giddy with anticipation over such a ‘cool’ assignment, but mafia business is dangerous. Dazai might be fond of the idea of death, but he’s got a final wish to fulfill before that—plus, the idea of being tortured to death isn’t exactly appealing to him. He’s not sure that it’s just a coincidence that Professor Ui chose three students who have no family to help with this assignment. Otsuka Ayato, a second-year student who was orphaned during the Dragon’s Head Conflict six years ago; Koda Hinami, a third-year student who's been in and out of the foster system since she was a baby; and Dazai, whose mother killed herself when he was seven and whose aunt abandoned him, whose only guardian died four years ago.

No one would come looking for any of them if things went poorly. 

“You won’t be in danger,” Professor Ui assures them. “Just think of it as a way to test your skill in information gathering while in a conversational setting—go in there, observe, make small talk, and see what you can find out. They’ll have their guard up around my fellow journalists and I, you three are new faces. All you’re going to do is go in there and talk. No danger.”

Dazai isn’t convinced.

“Ui-sensei, you said this is meant to be a stepping stone?” Hinami asks curiously, changing the subject before Dazai can press any further. “A stepping stone for who?”

Professor Ui smiles thinly. “The Port Mafia.”

---

You and Muichiro spend a rainy night in together.

Muichiro x Reader

fluff

————————————————————————

You loved nights like this. They always brought some sort of comfort to you. It was peaceful. Your boyfriend was with you. It was the weekend and he decided to spend the night. The two of you were cuddled up on your bed, your head on his chest, and his arms around your waist. “Mui, would you like to start a movie?” You looked up at him with tired eyes. He looked back down at you and gave you a soft smile. “Sure darling, want me to pick?” You nodded at him enthusiastically. You hated picking the movies.

After shuffling through the selection for a bit, he settled on a movie. The sounds of the rain brought more comfort into your room. The soft pitter pattering could be heard. As the movie continued, you were being lulled to sleep by muichiro rubbing circles into your back and running his fingers through your hair. You clutched onto him tighter and snuggled your head into his chest more.

You let out a small yawn. “Aww is someone getting tired?” You chuckled softly. “Mhm, jus’ a little.” This time he chuckled, he leaned down and placed a sweet kiss on your head. The rain had picked up now. You could hear the wind hit the windows as the droplets of water now came crashing down. “Hmph, it seems like we’re in for a storm tonight.” You shifted slightly in his hold. “That’s okay, it’s more peaceful that way.” He continued rubbing circles in your back, he liked the way his hoodie bunched up when he did it, making it look bigger on you than it was.

As the movie came to an end, Muichiro went to say something when he heard your small snores. He smiled to himself before he gave you a kiss on the head. He shuffled slightly, careful not to wake you. He pulled the comforter over the two of you and allowed the sound of the rain to lull him into a deep slumber.

---

Still one of my favorite fics to this day <3

Never A Dull Moment With You Around

Pairing: Yoriichi x FlowerPillar!Reader

Synopsis: You thought it would be nice to give Yoriichi some flowers. In the most unconventional way possible. 

Warnings(?): Swearing (of course it’s you). A bit of a dumbass reader (but nothing bad about that lmao). And a manga spoiler, nothing major, just a small tip of the hat for something that happens very much later into the manga (I mean Yoriichi is a manga spoiler on his own so go off I guess)

A/N: So I wanted to try my hand at writing a Yoriichi fic (because he really gives me strong Giyuu vibes and I thought they were gonna out him as Giyuu’s predecessor but they never did lmao) So yeah. Reader screws around with the First Breath User hehe

Word Count: 6k~ (Not edited haha)

＝＝✿＝＝｜✧••❀••✧｜＝＝✿＝＝

Keep reading

---