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bakugo fluff to heal the soul!

bakugo katsuki was fuming in his seat.

it’s not necessarily strange for him to be doing so, but normally it was due to the antics of kirishima and kaminari that gets him all riled up. this time though? it was you.

it all started the moment you stepped foot into the classroom because as soon as mina noticed you, she was already shouting her heart out at this hour of the morning (not that the time mattered much to bakugo because he wanted her to shut up at all times of the day).

but it was what she said that ticked him off even more.

“y/n! you’ve got an admirer!”

bakugo katsuki had to watch in slow-fucking-motion how your face lit up in a (beautiful) smile that almost had his anger raging as wildly as his explosions because it wasn’t him that was making you smile like that.

it wasn’t his love letter that had you giggling and flustered, it wasn’t his bouquet of flowers that you were fawning over and it wasn’t his box of sweets that you were admiring. only he had the right to make you feel like that. 

bakugo is brought out of his misery with the familiar voice of a certain red-haired. “oi! thought you’d never confess to y/n, finally grew a pair?” kirishima asked, bending down to match the blond’s seated position. 

bakugo scowls harder as he gruffly murmured, “that wasn’t me.”

“oh man! really?” kirishima looked back at your desk, noticing the gentle way that you were handling the gifts, setting them down on the floor beside you. “i guess y/n is popular, better shoot your shot before it’s too late.”

small explosions spark from bakugo’s palms as he screams, “i know, dumbass!” 

for the rest of school he had to witness the dazed, delicate expression you wore, paired with a gentle smile that never seemed to fade from your lips the whole day. he even found you fiddling with the card you received, reading it over for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. 

bakugo could write a better one. 

and if that wasn’t enough, he had to watch the way you held the gifts closely in your arms, cradled protectively to your chest as you tried to preserve their sacredness, hearing about how you were going to ‘put the flowers on my windowsill. they’ll be so pretty!’. 

he was going to blast those stupid floras into pieces, not understanding why you were feeling so special over some stupid extra’s ‘chivalrous’ actions because you deserved far better.

and you better fucking believe that he could make you smile wider than anyone else 

that’s what he did, knocking on your door ferociously the next day, bakugo katsuki was holding an even bigger bouquet of arranged flowers, far more grand than the small one you received yesterday, as well as some of your favourite pastries from the local bakery that you always took him to. and as a card? well, it was him. did you need any more? 

was his heart racing because of nerves or because of spite? he didn’t know.

“coming!” your voice comes from the other side of the door and sure enough, the telltale sign of a door unlocking reaches bakugo’s ears. you greet him with a smile, “oh, hey! bakugo- whoa, that is a big bouquet of flowers.”

“‘s for you,” he grumbles, unable to look away from your expression, gauging for a reaction. you’re silent for a moment before pointing at yourself. 

a weak ‘me?’ slips past your mouth.

“who else, dumbass? you’re the only one worthy of fuckin’ flowers.”

he dumps them in your arms and you gape at him. “wait- was it you that gave me-”

“nope, but you best believe i outdid them.”

you laugh, a sound that bakugo has grown to cherish over the time you’ve spent together. with a softer, adoring look in your eyes, bakugo thinks he’s reached the peak of life as you meet his gaze. “thank you, bakugo,” you say quietly but there’s something in your voice that tells him that you’re trying to keep your giddiness on the low. he can tell in the way that you marvel at the flowers with a wondrous expression, holding them to your heart.

he scoffs, not in a dismissive way, but in a manner of content.

“oi, i’m takin’ you out tomorrow night, on a date.” bakugo tells you and your chest flutters in the way that it always does when you’re around him. “you’re always pretty so i don’t need to tell you this, but dress nice.”

you beam at him and his heart stutters, “‘kay, only for you though.”

“don’t say shit like that!” the blush on bakugo’s face tells you enough as he stomps away.

he’s happy when you send him a picture of his flowers that sit pretty on your windowsill.

I don't think we can 'lmao' our way out of this one, girls.

jazz is so good. have you guysheard of this shit theres tumpet

WISH I COULD | love sick! gojo satoru + gn! reader | 1,995 words | fluff | mutual pining, hurt/comfort, very idiots in love trope-y

*:･ﾟ✧ summary: set around the time of the hidden inventory arc. gojo comforts reader after they've been injured on a mission, kisses it better. but he's a bit pathetically in love about it all. *:･ﾟ✧ warnings: mentions of canon - typical violence, minor injury

The damp air of the bathroom clings to your skin uncomfortably, making it hard to breathe. You lean on the sink, trying to steady your tired limbs. The buzzing noise from the LED and your laboured breathing becoming increasingly louder with each passing moment as the quiet feeling of unease spreads through your body. You take a swipe at the foggy mirror, trying to ground yourself and ward off the onslaught of panic that was sure to follow. Two bright red cuts - one between your eyebrows and one just below your right eye - mark your skin. They are quite shallow. Probably won’t leave a scar. But they sting just enough to make moving your face uncomfortable. And they will make for an annoying reminder of a night you’d rather forget for at least a few days. 

Your hairs stand up at the change in temperature upon leaving the steamy bathroom. But the feeling is almost refreshing. You stretch your body down on the bed, clinging to your towel. Really, you just hope you are tired enough to drift off. Usually, the familiarity of your dimly lit room would provide a sense of comfort and safety. Tonight you find the silence more disturbing than anything, your eyes drifting to dark corners and the high windows. But every time you try to close them, you see the same flashing images. Its disfigured face. Sharp claws swinging too close to your neck, almost making contact. You’re not even sure if the memory is real anymore, and not just amplified and made worse by your distressed brain. But it feels real enough.

So you lift yourself off the bed, rummaging through your piles of clothes for something comfortable and clean to put on. Despite your general uneasiness you walk through the halls a bit slower than you normally would, your arms folded across your chest, gripping the loose t-shirt. Just outside, the trees are swaying in the wind, branches colliding with the windows periodically, making your skin crawl a little bit more each time. You don’t really have a destination in mind. It is late. In fact, you aren’t really sure exactly how late it is, but there is always a chance someone else might be roaming about. Maybe in the kitchen. Or by the vending machines. 

You stop in front of a familiar door. It’s almost automatic, muscle memory. Your eyes trained on the door, you consider your options. He’s not exactly the most tactful of people, but you cannot stand the thought of spending another moment alone with your thoughts. You knock gently, praying he’s fast asleep but almost immediately the door cracks open.

“Uh, hey” Gojo was clearly caught off guard. Worn out sweater hanging off his broad shoulders, he looks cozy and you feel a stab of guilt for disturbing him. “What are you doing here anyway?” He chirps. You don’t want him to know about your near-failure of a mission. You just cannot bear his smug reaction and his smart-mouthed comments. 

“Don’t tell me that semi-first grade gave you trouble?” Satoru has always had a talent for sniffing out weaknesses and he wasn’t one to hesitate or show restraint in his delivery. “I’m almost disappointed, you know.”

“Is it that hard for you to show some basic human empathy every now and then?” That was harsh. But you were disappointed in yourself, too. It shouldn’t have been such a challenging mission, but you hesitated, you pulled back. You felt that paralysing sort of fear that was almost foreign at this point, that you know cannot allow yourself to feel out there all alone.

His body shouldn’t be drowned by such a rush of guilt for simply stating the truth, yet it is. He finds no anger in your eyes. The usual curious glint replaced with dull exhaustion. Then he feels worse. He scrambles to find the right words but they simply won’t come. After all, he has never been good at this, so why would you expect anything else? But when he sees you, you, trying to steady your trembling limbs, pulling at the wide sleeves of your shirt to find some sense of protection, he wishes he was better. He wishes he knew what to say and what to do. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Gojo doesn’t ask about your injuries. He watches you intently, noticing every small movement of your face and every twitch of a muscle. You don’t notice how his eyes soften, how his face is tense with worry. 

“I just need some company, if that’s ok?” Need. It’s silly and maybe a bit selfish of him to be analysing your choice in words given the situation. But he can’t help the way his heart swells at the thought. You need his company. Need him. It’s not that he doesn’t usually feel needed. People need him every day. He’d argue they need him a bit too much sometimes. Well, what they need are his abilities, his strength, so they have no other choice. But you chose to come to him. The realisation makes him light-headed. His mind racing as he tries to regain his composure. 

Suddenly he is too aware of the silence hanging heavy between the two of you. He doesn't trust himself to speak, so he just opens the door wider, stepping out of the way. 

You brush past him, heading straight for his unmade bed. The room is doused in the mellow blue light radiating from the TV. Satoru kneels down to rummage through his disorganised drawer. There’s a familiar bright smile on his face as he turns to you, holding a few different DVDs. “I’ll be nice and let you choose the movie”. 

“I don’t mind. Just pick your favourite.”

He narrows his eyes and squeezes his cheeks between long, slender fingers. Arms wrapped around your knees, you follow his movements. You watch as he fumbles with the case, mumbling about the dwarves and the elves, and grey and white wizards. Sparkling, wide blue eyes hold your gaze, are you listening? It’s amusing, the exaggerated hand movements, the animated facial expressions. His overwhelming presence lulls you away from the fear and uncertainty that had so completely overtaken your every sense. 

Satoru doesn’t mean to ramble so much. But he’s so nervous and he cannot stop himself from explaining the plot of the film in great detail, making silly jokes that he knows won’t make you laugh. Suguru would tell him to shut up. Shoko would also tell him to shut up, but in a harsher, meaner way. But they’re not here to do that, and that’s exactly his problem. It’s not that the two of you don’t ever spend time alone, you do. You train together, eat lunch together, even go on longer missions together. Never like this though. You have never been so alone that he has to keep looking at you, can’t look away to still his dizzying thoughts or the blood rushing to his ears. It has never been so quiet that he could hear your rhythmic, shallow breaths, periodically interrupted by a huff in response to his nonsense. It’s so much more than he is equipped to deal with. “And then she takes off her helmet and sa-”

Of course he catches the pillow flying towards his face and snuggles it to his broad chest. He looks at you with pouty lips and wounded eyes. “Why do you always have to spoil every movie we watch?”

“Why do you always have to be mean?” He slumps his shoulders as he walks towards you.

The bed dips beneath his weight as he settles on it with outstretched legs and arms tucked beneath his head. You try to follow his lead but you’re too fidgety, suddenly overly aware of the heat radiating off his body. The way his chest rises and falls with each breath. The way his pretty eyelashes flutter. You realise then you have moved to your side, openly staring at him. You make no effort to stop yourself as the overdue exhaustion finally takes over. Your body feeling heavier with every passing moment, sinking deeper into the mattress. 

The movie is just background noise to Satoru’s struggle for self control. He tries so hard not to look, to focus on anything but the way your body curls at his side but he just cannot. So he turns to look at your face. You’re so beautiful. He always thinks you’re so beautiful. When you look at him with stern eyes, arms folded over your chest, challenging him. When your mouth is pressed in a tight line at something that annoyed you. When you laugh with your nose scrunched up, trying to hold back cute little snorts. And he always wants so desperately to be closer to you. 

Before his common sense can catch up with his body, he extends his hand, gently tracing the claw mark between your eyebrows. “Does it hurt?” Your watery eyes, heavy with exhaustion flutter open at the contact. “Just a little”. He hums in response as his hand moves to cup your face, his thumb inspecting the cut on your temple. The clean, soapy scent of his skin drowns your senses. He is so very close. And his hands are so tender, so reverent on your face. Blood rushes to your cheeks in embarrassment, and you hope he doesn’t feel your skin burning at his touch. 

Wet lips part just slightly as he meets your gaze. His chest tightens and aches with these feelings that he cannot even begin to understand. All he knows is that, in that moment, you are the whole world. The rest of it fades to black, it’s insignificant. You are gravity.

“Can I kiss it better?” He really should be embarrassed about how absolutely pathetic he is being. But he cannot find it in himself to snap out of it. He needs to be closer to you. Closer than this. He needs to show you what he could never say. Not only because he would be too much of a coward to, but because he doesn’t know if the words he needs to say exist. 

You can hear your heart pounding in your ears. But it is him that feels so raw and vulnerable, waiting for you pull away. To crash against you and not into you. 

You nod. It’s small and reluctant but it’s there. You feel as though you might never move again as he inches closer to you. His lips hover over your forehead and you can feel his warm breath on your face. Strands of his hair tickle your skin as his thumb draws circles on your cheekbone. He hesitates. 

He is crumbling at the sight of you. Eyes wide in anticipation, you feel so warm, so welcoming. And he tries to memorise every little detail. The way your soft skin feels underneath his hands, the smell of you slightly damp hair. The way your eyebrows knot just a tiny bit. The colour of your eyes. The way your eyelashes curl and move. He wants to remember it all. Just in case he never gets another chance to. 

Then he kisses your injured face. His lips so soft and warm. It’s such a careful, caring kiss but so incredibly intimate. Your whole body trembles at the sensation.  He kisses your temple too. And somehow he’s even closer. You can feel him with every particle of your being. You want to pull him into you, melt your body with his. You want him to consume you whole. But that’s not something you could ever say. So you smile into the crook of his neck, and you hope he knows that he makes everything better. 

Not another word is said between the two of you as you let yourself succumb to overwhelming fatigue. Satoru doesn’t sleep for a single moment that night. 

thank you for reading! interaction is very much appreciated! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

@nathalunalune @utahimeow

uh hi so!

i wrote this webpage that walks u thru looking after yourself when you know a thought is making you spiral. deployed it publicly bc i wanted it on mobile and i thought other people might like it too

check it oot

BAM: Empty Beds

in which king gojo satoru returns from a diplomatic mission to find his bed empty, and has qualms with it

gojo satoru x fem!reader

word count: 3k genre: kinda hurt/comfort but mostly fluff, royal au, childhood friends to lovers type: one-shot reader: fem (she/her pronouns, fem terms, fem clothing including dresses) warnings: gojo picks up the reader, the end is a little bit intense emotionally but not super bad the reader just has intimacy issues and gojo confronts her abt it

usurper!gojo tag || masterlist

“embrace me,” he orders, muffled against your throat. it’s sullen, demanding, and you make no move to comply.

your husband whines wordlessly at you—it’s that noise which calms the tumultuous unease within you, an assurance that whatever mood he’d been in is quickly passing (or that your touch is so important he’ll cast aside any other thoughts in favor of pleading with you). he kisses up your throat, along your jaw, only to nose against your cheek like some affectionate cat. when he speaks it’s a beg; beseeching. “embrace me, wife.”

“talk to me, husband,” you retort. “your sulking is bad for my health. i was terrified.”

against your skin, his lips quirk into a teasing smile. “you’re adorable when you’re terrified.”

Someone has slipped into your room.

You’re asleep. You have been for hours, yet Satoru’s borderline paranoid insistence on you learning to defend yourself even while resting have led to a far less deep manner of slumber, and so you’re roused by the simple sound of the door opening and are made aware of this unwelcome visitor the moment they enter.

It’s all you can do to keep still, even out your breath. Your mind conjures thoughts of your guards slaughtered just beyond your door, your maids and your ladies-in-waiting massacred in your vast array of rooms meant to be a sanctuary, your king returning home from his diplomatic trip east to find your own body not even in your shared bed but in the lonely one occupying the queen’s bedchamber, yours in name but so rarely used.

You hear the figure’s footsteps approach you; they sound large, imposing, though you dare not open your eyes until the ornate dagger beneath your pillow is in hand and the possible assassin close enough that it can do you any good.

Your fingers find the heavy hilt, wrap around it securely just as the mattress beneath you dips with the weight of the trespasser. The motions are ingrained in your body from weeks of practice with your husband; you lash out, knife against the intruder’s throat before they can realize you’re not asleep, aiming to slash at the throat—but then you pause, thankful that you’d opened your eyes to see the face of your attacker before you spilled their blood.

“Satoru?”

Keep reading

i wanna see usurper!gojo's courting shenanigans plsplspls

in which gojo satoru, your beloved king and betrothed, knows his time is best spent in your company riling you up.

gojo satoru x fem!reader

word count: 2.5k genre: fluff, royal au, childhood friends to lovers type: one-shot reader: fem (she/her pronouns, fem terms, fem clothing including dresses) warnings: once again hes pushy n the reader's a lil bit hesitant but hed stop if she rlly wanted, vague references to violence note: see i was gonna do a few lil scenes but the first one got away from me.... but basically the period of him courting the reader (which full disclosure isnt technically courting bc that should be happening before one proposes but this occurs while theyre engaged bc Gojo Didnt Get That Memo but i digress) is just him being WILDLY inappropriate for cultural standards, everyone silently pitying the reader, and the reader having a whole ton of conflicting emotions but ultimately rlly liking it 😭😭😭

usurper!gojo tag || masterlist

“they say you’re inhuman, you know.” you’ve finished the flower chain. his eyes don’t stray from your fingers as they nimbly connect the two ends and tie them together with a final stem into a thick circlet. “they said it a lot that night. they said you were the gods’ fury made mortal.”

he snickers. “how dramatic.”

you lift yourself up onto your thighs, shuffle towards him further and reach out, and he bows his head to let you place your creation upon it. your hand trails down when you let go, drifting over his ear and along his jaw as he lifts his head from its bow to look at you. you certainly mean to pull it away but his hand beats you to it, darting up to keep your palm against his cheek as you settle back down on the backs of your heels.

“i know why they came to that conclusion,” you say. “you terrified me when i saw you.”

“did you think me inhuman?”

you hum, eyes tracing along the band of flowers now gracing his forehead, falling to rest on his hand over yours. “no. never. monstrous, perhaps. odious. but very human.”

Satoru finds you out on the grounds, tucked away at the edge where the manicured gardens give way to rough forest. The weather has been turbulent, but for the first time since the coup there’s enough sun to stand being outside the castle longer than a scant few minutes. You’d said that morning that you planned to venture out, now that early spring flowers were beginning to bloom.

You’re cloaked in heavy furs, layers of skirts and wool protecting you from the cold, all elaborate garments that he’s gifted you. It's adorable (satisfying) to see you dressed up in his presents. He tells you as much when he finds you, delves into the treeline long before you see him so that he can sneak up upon you and whisper it into your ear to make you yelp and jump away.

“You mongrel,” you accuse with wide eyes and a hand on your heart as you work to steady your breathing. “Have you no respect for your future wife?”

“Ah, she admits it readily now? Progress.”

Your face twists as if someone has struck you. He chooses to ignore it and drops to sit sprawled out on the grass, beckoning unabashedly for you to join him on his lap. You won’t relent, he’s well aware, but he’ll have his desires known either way.

“Presumptuous,” you say. He'd die a happy man if you kissed him as many times as you called him that, but in lack of the former he’ll be content with the latter.

“Sit with me, my queen. I've missed you.”

“I am not yet your queen, Satoru,” you correct out of obligation. “You saw me an hour ago, we ate together.”

“Ah, but every moment apart is agony.” Satoru wonders if you know how serious he is beneath the breezy tone. From the way you wrinkle your nose, he doubts it.

“You have a meeting with your advisors now. You should not be out here.”

He pouts. “But you’re out here, and if I have to spend more time with those old fools than you today then I'll throw a tantrum tomorrow.”

You roll your eyes, let out a sigh that sounds long-suffering, but you shift your skirts and ease yourself down to sit gracefully before him with your legs tucked next to you. His threats aren’t empty and you know it.

“Fine.” You look down, as if inspecting the grass, spreading fingers along the blades as you begin to pluck wildflowers. Then you pause and glance up at him. “Remove those… oh, whatever they are. Let me see your eyes unhindered, at least.”

“Anything for my darling bride,” he coos at you, immediately doing as asked. He’d have done so anyway, if only to watch you lose yourself in staring when he reveals his eyes, catching yourself once he blinks and snapping your head back to the ground to busy yourself once more with plucking your blooms.

“How do you see a thing through those,” you grumble lowly, certainly just to break yourself from being flustered. It works too well; Satoru immediately jumps on the chance you’ve given him.

“Would you like to try them?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for a response, mind already conjuring an image of you draped in every golden chain and precious stone gracing his chambers.

He removes them from his face, pulling the chain from around his neck, and swiftly transfers them to yours before you can refuse—tilts your head up to look at him and tugs your hair out of the way with deft fingers, eases the gilded extremities onto your ears and lets the pads of his digits linger on either side of your head before pulling away. Pausing in your work and tilting your head back down to peer at him over the top of the frames, you blink at him owlishly from behind the glass, unused to staring through it. Precious, he thinks, and wishes briefly to kiss you—but he has to be smart about kissing you, calculating. Too much attention too fast and you have a tendency to pull away from him like the ebbing tide. It's agony for him, wanting nothing more than to hold you as much as he wishes, but as much as he wants there’s very little he hates more than when you tense under his touch and turn away from him.

“They suit you better,” he tells you, because they do. You look good adorned with jewelry of his design. “You oughtn’t wear them in public, though, or all the courtiers will be scrambling to get themselves a pair. Just for me, I suppose.”

Your nose wrinkles at the mention of your newfound influence, eyes darting to the side and lower lip pouting, an expression that makes him cast aside all his convoluted schemes to ease you into his affections. He leans down to peck at your lips, kiss away the pout, gone before you can complain. It’s fast enough that you don’t immediately recoil and give him a lecture on decorum, or perhaps you’re simply getting more used to it.

Satoru’s attention doesn’t stray as you return to your work. You’ve gravitated towards flowers with long stems, he realizes; collected them in a pile on your skirts, which you seem to have deemed large enough as you pick a notably long one up and begin to string them together in a chain. You don’t bother removing his glasses either, simply allowing them to slide down to the end of your nose. The golden chain clinks softly with every movement of your head.

He wonders when you learned to make them. You’ve always been so careful about the skills you acquire, but he thinks perhaps your mother might have taught you. Or his aunt, for how much she loves flowers, and for how much of her time as queen (he’s been told anyway) was spent doing such frivolous things as making daisy chains in the gardens. You’re so very meticulous with your actions, every choice carefully constructed. He knows you’ve been doing that less and less around him—perhaps it’s finally sinking in that he cares very little about your actions, that he finds everything you do to be enthralling. More likely you’ve exhausted yourself trying. You’ve certainly exhausted yourself attempting to rein him in, though he’d like to believe you’re beginning to allow yourself to enjoy his antics.

Posterity, he thinks, will paint him as you do—bold, brash, uncaring of tradition, unapologetic in pursuit of a woman far beneath his status. There are a great many reasons you hesitate to marry him, he doesn’t blame you for your doubt. Certainly when he was younger he’d never imagined himself the type of man you’d end up betrothed to; he couldn’t count on his fingers the number of more suitable matches for the both of you in the eyes of society, but whereas in his youth he might silence himself and go along with the whims of his advisors he’s lost all sense of decency now. His close call with death and the coup he’d spent years preparing for had rid him of any desire to compromise, and he stands now in a position where he can certainly refuse the very people who once held sway over him. And you appreciate all of that, he knows it. It’s one of the reasons he adores you so; beneath your veneer of decorum lies not a lady but a queen with desires all too different from those you’ve been forced to portray. He’s always known this, and to an extent he can’t find it within himself to regret the events that have led him to where he is today because if they hadn’t transpired he wouldn’t have you.

Satoru remembers a time in his youth when his mother made a passing mention that she enjoyed a certain hairstyle on young girls—two long braids, tied with ribbons. For months afterward all the upcoming court ladies wore it diligently, yourself included. He found it painful to see on you until he discovered that they made a lovely way to pull your nose from a book and fix your attention onto him, and that he could tug on the ribbons at the ends until they unfurled and he could pocket them to return later by tying them around the necks of one of his hunting dogs and sending it after you.

(If he were the kind of man you’d marry without hesitation he’d feel remorse for his childhood actions. Instead he’s the man you will marry, and he plots how to steal one of your hair ribbons again and return it in the same way. For memory’s sake.)

“They say you’re inhuman, you know.” You’ve finished the flower chain. His eyes don’t stray from your fingers as they nimbly connect the two ends and tie them together with a final stem into a thick circlet. “They said it a lot that night. They said you were the Gods’ fury made mortal.”

He snickers. “How dramatic.”

You lift yourself up onto your thighs, shuffle towards him further and reach out, and he bows his head to let you place your creation upon it. Your hand trails down when you let go, drifting over his ear and along his jaw as he lifts his head from its bow to look at you. You certainly mean to pull it away but his hand beats you to it, darting up to keep your palm against his cheek as you settle back down on the backs of your heels.

“I know why they came to that conclusion,” you say. “You terrified me when I saw you.”

“Did you think me inhuman?”

You hum, eyes tracing along the band of flowers now gracing his forehead, falling to rest on his hand over yours. “No. Never. Monstrous, perhaps. Odious. But very human.”

“You wound me. I might die by your cruelty.”

“Die, then.”

Satoru makes a show of it just for you. Falling back to sprawl on the ground, he gags violently, stabbing at his own heart with an invisible knife and convulsing with his tongue hanging out until you shriek for him to stop, voice filled with giggles. He takes that as a cue to still, to fall limp as if truly dead with eyes fluttering shut—then beckons you closer.

“I need…” he rasps out, barely audible.

You indulge him and do so. “My king?”

“…iss…”

“What?”

“True love’s kiss,” he repeats louder, pursing his lips expectantly. He doesn’t truly think you’ll do it, and you don’t—you lean in like you will, but bypass his lips entirely and bite his cheek instead.

He yelps, just for you, just so you’ll feel accomplished. And so he can see your smile, hear the smugness in your voice as you say, “It’s a miracle, you’ve come back to life.”

But he doesn’t give you weakness for free. No, he snakes his arms around your waist before you can pull back, and uses the grip to all but pull you on top of his lap as he sits up. Perhaps it’s his lack of insistence on you giving him a kiss, or perhaps he’s simply started to break down your walls enough, but whichever it is you don’t protest. Instead you seem to find flaws in the flower crown you’ve gifted him. Your lips purse, hands coming up to fiddle with the blooms. He realizes that he can’t stand a single moment of your attention on anything other than him, even if your fingers are nearly tangled in his hair.

“If I return to court with a crown of flowers made by my lover still on my head, do you suppose they’ll think me less inhuman?”

Your face falls at the suggestion, eyes widening in mortification. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“It's far more comfortable than that heavy gold. And I happen to personally adore the artisan who made it, so—”

“I don't trust you anymore, take it off! You’ve lost the right!” You attempt to remove it, but he reacts with the very reflexes that make him so inhuman, uses that monstrous height to lift his head higher than you can reasonably reach, though it doesn’t stop you from trying.

“It'd be rude of me to refuse a gift, my queen.” Laughing, Satoru holds you back with ease, eager for the excuse to put his hands all over you while you’re too worked up to feel self-conscious.

“Not yet,” you wail. “Not your queen yet, you knave!”

“Mine either way, though,” he replies smugly with a playful tug to the chain you still wear. “Covered in my presents. It’s only fair that I get to display a token you’ve given me, no?”

“No, it is not. You’ve stolen all of my outerwear and replaced it with these, I've no other choice. But you will not return to your advisors displaying that—that childish trifle, I won't allow it, you will not expose to the court that I made such a thing for yo—oh!”

He tackles you to the ground, careful not to even knock the wind out of you, though he steals your breath the moment you’re safe in his arms by pulling you into a kiss to keep you from talking further. He’d intended it to be faster, but his nose crashes into the tinted spectacles still upon your face and he’s filled with such ardor that he can’t help but deepen it.

Your hand slides behind his head, threads through his hair. He feels you snap a single stem between your fingers. The crown comes apart just as he takes a moment to pull away, and the flowers fall to scatter in the grass beneath him, a halo around your head. There’s a little smile on your face, your chest huffs with quiet laughter, and your palm slides down to the base of his hair. You use that hold and your other hand, which has fisted his tunic, to yank him down and connect your lips again.

Above, a cloud passes. Satoru can feel the sun shine warm on his back, hear the wind in the budding trees, smell the bite of melting snow and the petals of your wildflowers, yet there’s nothing that could distract him from the feeling of your kiss. His eyes close, he pushes closer though he hardly needs to with the way you still tug on his shirt. His arm comes up to brace next to your head, just to make sure he’s holding his own weight rather than crushing you, and the other leaves your waist to trail down your thigh and grip beneath your knee, shifting your leg to hook around him. If your mouth weren’t occupied he thinks you’d be lecturing him for such an obscene display in a place where anyone could stumble upon you—so he does well to keep it occupied, refusing to part even as your grip on his tunic loosens and he’s forced to grab your newly freed hand to pin it to the ground with fingers intertwined.

It's the first time you’ve ever kissed him. He already plots how to push you into doing it again when he finally pulls away, eyes locked on your swollen lips.

GOD I wish the minimum wage was a living wage.

I'm not flipping burgers, I'm cleaning litterboxes and doing basic vet care like checking weights, administering medicine, bathing, using IVs, keeping records, making lists, doing photography, and way way more. But the point is even if I was just cleaning litterboxes... I love the work. I wish I could pay rent. Shouldn't I be able to clean litterboxes and feed cats who were rescued from the streets and do that fulfilling wonderful work without wondering where I'm going to live?

Shouldn't someone be able to flip burgers, make art, clean up trash, care for the oceans, teach your children, or rescue animals without being forced to choose between their job and their bills?

What if I don't WANT to climb the ladder and use my degree and search for high stress high pay jobs in order to live? What if I want the high stress job of seeing a kitten crashing below survivable temperature and bringing them back from the brink of death, knowing that I'm the only thing standing between this homeless, unwanted kitten and an early grave?

Shouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't I be able to afford food and rent by doing that?

I don't want to work at a vet office that can give me steady pay increases. I want to work here, with cats who have no owners, nursing them back to health and helping pick their forever home. I want the infrastructure to support me in doing that. I want the laws to say I can and have programs in place to make it so my shelter CAN support me. I want rent to reflect wages. I want wages to reflect rent.

I want to help the world and be able to survive doing it. I want to thrive doing it. I want that for everyone.

POOL PARTY

A SIMPLIFIED VIEW OF BRAIN FUNCTION