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Taiga can hear them, now. Long, low, languorous things—rusted instruments to lance the wounded cries away—each knell a matchstrike flaring high into the murk of the air. He closes his eyes and the sound rips through the tattered black of his cloak, slips between his bones like mercury.
One.
He is waiting on the other side. Sometimes, Taiga believes that he has known the sight for longer than he has known himself. Patient and still, smile taut around the edges, his palm an altar laden with offerings from those he has coaxed beneath his feet. When he sees him, his lips will open, and out will spill a song of mourning that will come like a first rain.
Taiga trudges through the smoke. The clouds swell above him, heavy with storm. He licks at his teeth; his tongue comes away thickened by salt and iron and the vague sweetness of something he once knew.
(Everything is eaten, in the end. Everything is made to return.)
Two.
His eyes soften when he emerges from the gloom.
"Taiga," he says, like the word is something delicate, tinged with surprise. "You're here."
He used to laugh at that, once—used to feel the heat of it simmer in his throat like acid. There is nothing like that, now. There is no world in which the end does not look like this: the two of them, together, one last time.
"Nowhere else I coulda been, is there?" Taiga grins darkly, all teeth and blood. "Ya made sure of it, after all."
His smile widens until it cracks at the edges, scarlet tassels whipping past his face.
"Can't argue with you about that." He turns his head and gazes at something Taiga does not care to see. "I owe you an explanation, don't I?"
After everything we had, goes unspoken. After all the promises, all the laughter, all the nights where we told each other everything except the truth but we were there and in that moment it was enough, and I know these hands are bloody but they peeled tangerines for you and kept you from the rain so won't you hold them still—
"Nah," Taiga says. The other man blinks. His head tips to the side, slow and careful.
(If Taiga focuses enough, he can almost see him: soft in the whirlwind of his sheets on a summer afternoon, a laughing I'll never understand you tumbling free from his lips. Taiga had grinned, then, and pulled him close with a you got time to figure it out before it was lost between their mouths.
Of all the lies he'd ever tell him, that one was the worst.)
"You wanted something, didn't ya?" The words are sharp; Taiga can taste the edges of them as they leave. "This is how ya had to get it. I don't need anythin' more."
That catches him off guard. Taiga revels in the firelit shift of his features, the perpetual ease of them disturbed into something raw and real that he knows so intimately it makes up a part of himself. He is a masterpiece, an idol—the very last one.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He murmurs. Quietly, he holds his gaze. In study, in longing, in sorrow. Taiga has memorised the look of them all. "I'm sorry, Taiga." It comes out gentle, half in dreams. "I wish it could've gone some other way."
Taiga's laugh rattles the air. Despite it all, he softens.
"I ain't the one you should be apologising to, 'Nagi." There's ash smeared between his teeth; he swallows it down. "But I'll take it."
Three.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” Haku whispers.
“I know.” Taiga’s fingers flex into the empty air. He wishes he had his gun. “You always were too soft for it.”
The feeling sets in thick and heavy, sand seeping through the claws of his ribcage, pooling where his feet meet the ground. He inhales deep, shuddering, final; a welcome shock of pain blooms across his lips with his next rattling breath.
Slender fingers weave into his hair.
“Shh,” Haku soothes him, a roiling ocean away. His palms slip over the shells of his ears, and then there is only the molten gold of his gaze washing over the din, only the brush of his fingertips against his ash-stained skin. “It’ll all be over soon. I’m sorry.”
He repeats it, over and over and over again, apology and memory and plea rolled into one. Taiga watches him through the haze as it heaves its way down his throat, and the beat of his heart trickles to a close.
(He is beautiful. He was beautiful the last time, too, and the one before that, and Taiga is no prophet but he knows he will be beautiful the next, and the next, and the next.)
see the thing about taigahaku ft traitor! haku is that when haku thinks about his lies he thinks about his betrayal but when taiga thinks about his lies all he thinks about is the fact that he never told him i love you
this is deeply personal but i think all the time about a diasporic mc who struggles to retain their language + culture the more time they spend confined to darkwick’s isolated environment
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thinkin about shion finding out that you’re dating mio and going from trying to slit your throat to cornering you in a tent and licking into your mouth like he’s trying to subsume you send tweet
shion/mc, referenced established mio/mc. warnings for nonconsensual kissing, tear licking, and general predatory freak behavior from shion. possibly ooc shion (it’s been a while). dead dove do not eat
"Shion—"
"Quiet."
You swallow a cry as he seizes your jaw between gloved fingers. The air bears down on you, thick with dust, a cloying weight that presses itself between your bones and renders you immobile. Shion is statue-still before you, his eyes solitary, unblinking pinpricks of light suspended in the darkness.
"You talk so much." His breath ghosts over your lips. "So many excuses. You never quit. But he wants you." He presses closer. "Mio wants you."
If you could fight, you still wouldn't dare. Not when the fear puncturing your spine has your limbs dangling uselessly at your sides. Not when his grip threatens to rend the flesh of your cheeks like paper, tears prickling hot in your eyes. You pray, instead, when he tilts his head, slow and hawkish, for someone, anyone to come—
"My wife," he drawls, a thick, singsong lilt. "My wife, and my little brother. My little brother and my wife. That doesn't make sense." The tears threaten to spill over as his nails break flesh. "That doesn't make sense at all."
“Please, Shion,” you whisper, the words ill-formed and pathetic as your heartbeat hammers in your ears. “Please, I never wanted to take anything from you—“
“Ah?”
The whites of his eyes stretch around his narrow irises. A comical sight, if not for how it sends every nerve ending in your body flaring with the same animal urge to run. His grip on you is ironclad. You dare not breathe.
“‘Take’?” He rolls it over his tongue like a tasting. “Take.” Again. “Take, take, take. You would concern yourself with that, wouldn’t you, sweet little Inspector?” His nose brushes yours. “If you never wanted to take, wouldn’t you agree—now’s the perfect time to give back.”
He lunges forward. You flinch away, expecting a bite, a blow, a flash of pain—just as his mouth collides with yours.
Revulsion rears up in you. As soon as your lips seal shut he wrenches your jaw back open, tongue dragging over the ridges of your gums as it forces its way inside. His teeth clash against yours when he angles your head to probe at the sensitive webbing that anchors your tongue, sticky and invasive as his other hand wrapping around your neck. He's not letting you breathe, you realize faintly. A distant panic grips you; nausea whirls in your gut as your useless hands hook on his collar, claw at his neck, head growing dizzy as spittle pools on your tongue and leaks from the corners of your mouth—
When he finally releases you, the rush of air into your senses is agonising. Immediately you double over retching, throat raw, head threatening to split open in your hands, and only realise that you are crying when you wipe haphazardly at your mouth and feel tears as well as saliva smear across your skin.
"You didn't like that?" His voice pierces through the din. You heave another sob, the sound obscene. "Mio did that. I saw you two in his workroom." When your trembling eyes flicker upward, his nose is scrunched, chin still gleaming with spit. "It smelled like bog water. I didn't stay long."
It seems a million years ago, now. A tainted memory. Waning sunlight and Mio’s soft smile, his fingers slipping over your own.
(Where else has Shion been lurking, a voice whispers in the back of your mind. What else has he seen. What else could he use to bruise you, here and now. Did Mio know this would happen; the world tips before your eyes at the thought—)
“That’s not a bad face you’re making.”
In a flash Shion is crouched before you. You don’t know when you collapsed to your knees. You can only squeeze your eyes shut and hold back the bile in your throat as a papillated wetness drags a long strip up your cheek, viscid residue cooling rapidly in its wake.
“But Mio doesn’t like it when you cry,” he murmurs. His long fingers snake around your wrists, shackle you to the ground while he continues lapping at your skin. “I don’t get it. Nothing about you two is right.”
The rush of fear that had seized you earlier has dulled, now, into a hollowing kind of despair. You squirm weakly beneath him, filthy.
"You're so nice. You give so much." He inhales, long and slow, against you. "Our perfect, charitable little Inspector. You'd do anything to help us out, wouldn't you?"
Let me go. Let me go. Someone help me, someone help me, please please please—
"Until I understand," he repeats. When he draws back the glint in his eyes is something violent, wanting. Dread pools in your every crevice. “Touch me how you touch him. Until I understand."
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The dim night haloes her hair, turns it molten at the edges. It bleeds something into you that turns your words gentle when you say, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great captain.”
or: you meet the dionysia captain on the playground.
happy birthday maimaiiiii my sweetest jester i hope u had a good day today!!! @kongozas
The playground is empty when you arrive.
The bright plastic colours are dulled a muted monochrome under the distant circus lights. You almost turn back, frowning, but the swings creak faintly in the breeze, chains glinting like thin lines of silver, and just past their shadowed movement you see her.
There Jo is, sitting still as a statue on the top of the jungle gym.
She looks up when you make your way over. “Hey.”
From this distance you can barely tell that she’s been crying. The glass of her eyes have been flattened to a grey under the faded lights, rimmed more with sparkly blue eyeshadow than red. The only way you know is the lump in her voice, one that tastes all too familiar from your own desperate nights.
“Hey.” You look up at her. “Warm night.”
She cracks a laugh, golden and exhausted, and you huff a quiet sigh in relief.
She doesn’t make her way down, though, and so you take a seat on one of the lower bars. The discoloured metal ribs creak under you, a lot more than you expect, and as you gingerly place your body weight on what you hope is the sturdiest bar you pray it doesn’t collapse.
The circus seems further away, from here. You can see the ferris wheel still, dark and empty, and there are neon signs that still cast a blue and orange glow across the rest of the house, but you can barely hear anything past the rustling of nearby trees and the sigh of metal under your shifting weight. It’s almost far away enough you can imagine the circus a distant memory.
You settle into a more comfortable position, and wait.
Sure enough, the wind shifts, and with it Jo calls down from her position at the top of the structure. “Here to see me, cutie?”
You scuff an arc into the packed earth with your shoe. “Who else?”
“…Shion?”
“Nope.” You pop the p. It spins a laugh out of her, something golden that tumbles down the jungle gym and into your waiting hands.
She hops down soon after. Her scent arrives before she does, gently honeyed, and as she settles down beside you on the rusty bar her hair brushes your shoulder.
“How can I help you?”
You laugh. “You can’t. I just wanted— I just wanted to see you.”
Jo flips her ponytail lightly. She leans forward, just enough to cross her legs and tilt her head and grin at you. In the shadowed orange of the night her smile looks sharper, softer. “Oh?”
“What, a girl can’t come visit her friend?”
Jo rests her cheek on her palm. “Not when said girl is busier than all us ghouls put together.”
“You’re the one pulling a house back into a home.”
“Elias is helping,” she says. Her heel connects with the base of the jungle gym, sends a hollow ringing through the entire structure that buzzes up your arms.
“Elias is helping,” you agree. You try not to think about how her upper thigh is pressed up against where your hand is resting on the metal bar. You think about moving it. You decide not to.
“Mio’s gathered the clockwork students back together. They had their first meeting yesterday. And Shion…” Jo tugs the hem of her sleeve over her palm, rests her cheek on it again. “Shion hasn’t gotten into any trouble recently.”
“I haven’t seen him bother any general students today, yeah,” you say, and a quiet laugh spills between the both of you, sweet and sparkling.
“That’s more than I can ask for.” She is looking at you, but not really — her gaze is fixed somewhere past your shoulder, somewhere in the direction of her own tent.
The bruises under her eyes sink into your skin. It’s familiar, the same kind of bone deep exhaustion you feel after running and running and running and never getting where you need to be, the same kind of damned you feel mission after mission of useless anomalies. You know what this kind of tired feels like. You’d carry it for her, if you could.
The bar beneath your weight sighs as Jo shifts. She straightens up, arranges the hem of her skirt so it falls in a neat line right above her knee. When she opens her mouth again the admission is so quiet you nearly miss it. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
You watch as she fixes the hem of her skirt again, again. “It’s hard.”
She exhales. “It’s just that there are so many of them relying on me to get it together, to be the captain they need, and all I am is just…”
The breeze picks up, then, sweeps her words away in a rustle of leaves. You shake your head. “You’re already the captain they need. You’re warm and you’re kind and you listen and—“ you stop yourself, bite your tongue against the rush in case you spill something you regret. You’re welcoming and loyal and responsible. You’re always watching out for the people you love. When you laugh it makes the space between us so radiant I can’t look away. “And they’re so lucky to have you.”
Jo looks at you, then, her eyes terribly grey. The wind presses a strand of hair across her mouth and she lets it stay there. “All the general students think I’m steady. Reliable. Like I’m not constantly guessing what Darkwick wants me to do.”
You tuck your thumbs into your fists. You will not reach for her. “Maybe they think that,” you say, instead, “because you keep showing up for them. Even when you’re not sure of what to do.”
She smiles, but it splinters halfway, like something fragile striking the edge of a glass. “I’m trying so hard,” she says, “to fill Elias’ shoes. To catch up with all those months we were put in con— we were away. It still feels like I’m running after a goalpost that Darkwick keeps moving.”
“Fuckin’ Darkwick,” you say, and she laughs, soft and real this time. The dim night haloes her hair, turns it molten at the edges. It bleeds something into you that turns your words gentle when you say, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great captain.”
Jo turns towards you. Her arm brushes yours. Her warmth bleeds through her cardigan and your blazer, soaks into the kindle of you. You don’t resist this time when your hand moves to brush the hair away from her face.
Time catches, then, in the sea of her eyes. You are both dying under the weight of your own lives. It is hard not to drown, but it is so hard not to want to live, when it is with her. She blinks, eyelashes brushing the soft of her cheek, when your fingers tuck her curls behind her ear, and you feel it again, the strange slipping feeling you’ve been having around her, all ship on water, like the ground beneath you has decided it doesn’t want to be heartbeat-steady anymore—
But her phone is beeping, loud in the dim of the playground, and your feet find ground again like you have never left.
Neither of you say anything when she pulls away.
“Elias? Mm. Right. Mm, she did manage to find me. Yes, she didn’t get lost, don’t worry. Yep. I’ll walk her back soon.”
You can’t help the chuckle that escapes you when she hangs up with a roll of her eyes, and just like that the moment is broken, sugar shards scattering themselves beneath your tongue. When she leans backwards, stretching her arms in front of her, you tuck the memory of her high into the pocket of your cheek to savour later.
There is still time, there is still time (there isn’t).
“Elias told me you were here,” you say, instead. You run your fingernail against the button on your blazer. “He says you come here often when you’re sad.”
“That bastard,” Jo says, without any real heat. When she stands she offers you a hand up.
taps mic . first of all my(e)lin i just want to say that this has haunted me for . checks calendar . a month and 2.3 weeks. every waking moment i swear to god it was I HAVE TO READ LIN KUSANAGI(HAKU) 'THIS IS ME TRYING' (2026) but i just ended up staring and crying head empty and idk what i was afraid of but now i've figured it out . MY TEARS???? MY DESPAIR???? MY LOVE FOR YOUJFGLK SHAKES YOU SHAKES YOU TEARS IN MY EYES RIGHT NOW . ohhhhhhhh i must . thank you for your patience you are an angel and a saint and i'm so so sorry it took me so long but i ha ve rambled for long enough now i will ramlbel more too but about the Fic this time . cries i lov eyou
said it a thousand times before, will say it again - the way you craft atmosphere is always so MAGNIFICENT CRIESLFDJS . the unnerving kind of peace of the playground, of effervescent jo's stillness, and not to mention the way you always use COLOUR i could talk about it forever. bright plastic colours dulled a muted monochrome -> the glass of her eyes flattened to a grey (SO SO GOOD, you always make the character feel one with their environment in such a beautiful way. i immediately thought about your kaito piece, him in the field.... sobs again and shakes you. something i always always note about your prose is that it weaves individual elements of the story together so elegantly and your work always feels so cohesive as a result, like a tight-knit sensorial wonder of its own
RIMMED MORE WITH SPARKLY BLUE EYESHADOW MORE THAN RED AHHHHhoudfhLDKJLKJ that covering-up is soooo good with jo's character nodding nodding nodding I SEE YOU....... lump in her voice one that tastes all too familiar from your own desperate nights fuck man how could you say this to me . typing this out on myy? 3rd reread and it still hurts (even more knowing what comes next)
She doesn’t make her way down, though, and so you take a seat on one of the lower bars. The discoloured metal ribs creak under you, a lot more than you expect, and as you gingerly place your body weight on what you hope is the sturdiest bar you pray it doesn’t collapse.
bars -> discoloured metal ribs STANDING OVATION . i must admit your imagery in the dionysia pieces always feels so particularly special.... waves our copies of the night circus around YOU GIVE EVERYTHING IN YOUR WRITING SO MUCH LIFEBLOOD AND I CRY !!! EVERY TIME!!! the blocking is chef's kiss wonderful, too - not immediately going up to meet her for timidity, resting a few steps down, testing the waters of intimacy and hoping you don't sink straight away ("you settle into a more comfortable position, and wait) I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE ITTT
It’s almost far away enough you can imagine the circus a distant memory.
ohhh ohh OH WE'RE GETTING INTO I T .. CRYIES the circus a distant memory, the duties and expectations you're being crushed by a distant memory . claps and cheers and hollers through my tears . the contrast between the whirlwind din of the circus and the solitude you and her enjoy here is so lovely and poignant
here to see me cutie hey so what if i made a terrible sound and died . something golden..... gently honeyed scent.... okay so you want me to . checks my notes. die
the immediate "how can i help you?" ahhhdljfaofi SHAKES HER PLEASEEEE MY LOVE YOU DONT HAV E TO HELP SOMEONE ALL THE TIME PLEASEEE CRIES CREIS CRIES . LIN HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME . and the "elias is helping" right after + kicking the base of the gym ohhhh ........ holds her. ...... those subtle deflections away jo pleasepleasepl LE TMe kiss uyo idk . upper thigh pressed up against ur hand closes my eyes inhales exhales . not only am i not moving that hand, i am never washing it again (/j ... unless)
PLEASEJEFK HOLLERING elias helping rebuild dionysia, mio leading the artisans, and shion..... not doing anything Bad. i giggled out loud
The bruises under her eyes sink into your skin. It’s familiar, the same kind of bone deep exhaustion you feel after running and running and running and never getting where you need to be, the same kind of damned you feel mission after mission of useless anomalies. You know what this kind of tired feels like. You’d carry it for her, if you could.
hey soooo this wrecked me. just a little (a lot). the same kind of bone deep exhaustion the same kind of damned ...... YOU KNOW WHAT THISKIND OF TIRED FEELS LIKE YOU'D CARRY IT FOR HER IF YOU COULD FFFUKCKKKKK FUCK FUCKF UCKkjLKJ OHHHH what a LINE!!!! the pining ..... sobs
jo fixing the hem of her skirt when discomfited..... your details are always sooo good, the little mannerisms and habits you inject and the choice to observe them in the narration elevates the yearning soooo tastily I LVOE IT I LOVE TI jlkJ
WHEN YOU LAUGH IT MAKES THE SPACE BW US SO RADIANT I CANT LOOK AWAY FUCKKKKK FUCK FUCK FUCK . . oh god . she is like the sun isn't she . criesc ires cCRIES JOOOOOOOOO ,,,,, COLLAPSES ON THE LFLOOR
"jo looks at you then, her eyes terribly grey" the colour sapped out of her .... again ur imagery motifs wtv the analytical term is i forgor (only know lin writing good :thumbs up:) always SLAP . not moving to fix the strand of hair across her mouth .... that giving up when we just established her constant mindless tending to her appearance i'm gonna cry
YOU WILL NOT REACH FOR HER/?!??!??////// oh this hurt but it also . the way you capture yearning and restraint and temptation it is so fuckign GORGEOUS YOU KNOCK IT OUT OF THE PARK EVERY SINGLE TIME
"all those months we were put in con- we were away" hey. and then the "fuckin' darkwick" YEAH THATS RIGHT .T . that retroactive sanitisation of dio's containment, trying to chase after something that's only ever hurt you . takes the knife out of your hand and just goes at it myself . such a good detail
Time catches, then, in the sea of her eyes. You are both dying under the weight of your own lives. It is hard not to drown, but it is so hard not to want to live, when it is with her. She blinks, eyelashes brushing the soft of her cheek, when your fingers tuck her curls behind her ear, and you feel it again, the strange slipping feeling you’ve been having around her, all ship on water, like the ground beneath you has decided it doesn’t want to be heartbeat-steady anymore—
hey soooo this wrecked me. just a little (a lot) (2). i just Had to bold that sentence because oh my goodness it is so . i don't even have words any more, running out of them as i type but uhhflgjk . the recurring ocean/water/ship throughout, the little actions of tucking her curls back and her blinking sequestered in the narration- to me it is a trademark of yours, i think, how you manipulate rhythm and convey that gentle rush as a moment picks up and characters tip into making the move. the unsteadiness (thinking back to praying that the old bars don't give way beneath your weight right now!!) is transformed from guarded to romantic and i think it is such a lovely twist, the way it displays how love changes the world around you
ELIAS YOU FUCKING COCKBLOCK I'M GOING TO KILL YOU . the tension dissolving so abruptly, silence as you pull away.... i'm going to kill a janitor how fuckign DARE you . but also a trademark of yours, definitely, that push and pull and fading back into stone cold reality after this sensory whirl .
"sugar shards scattering themselves beneath your tongue" "you tuck the memory of her high into the pocket of your cheek to savour later" just especially pretty lines i had to tuck into the pocket of MY cheek to cry about
THERE IS STILL TIME THERE IS STILL TIME (THERE ISN'T) .i'm fuckign filing criminal charges against yuo you will NOT be getting away with this miss kusanagi . OHHHhhhhhh that ostensible hopelessness and how it's countered right as the piece closes - "you take it, and she doesn't let go" - all of your works are coloured by such a lovely muted hope . i always leave the closing line of a lin kusanagi(haku) piece breathless like oh my godfff the world is so beautiful
lin lin LIN....... head in my fuckingfl hands i really really can't find appropriate words but in this case i truly don't think there are any that would do what i'm feeling justice right now. thank you so much for the time and effort and LOVE you poured into this and your patience with me and your . existing. i cannot describe how honoured i feel to have a BIRTHDAY FIC WRITTEN?!lkj!k FOR ME/??!? much less by a writer like you it makes me dizzy just thinkign about it i feel like i got picked out in a crowd by a celebrity . from the bottom of my heart i treasure you so so dearly, your beautiful mind and heart and Everything, and i am . goingf to cry myself to sleep /pos now I Love You
MAIIIIII OHHH MYG DO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 BURSTING INTO TEARS YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS
maimai catching all the details..... when u pick up exactly what im putting down im . bursting into tears my GODFKHFD im so happy u see it and that u LIKED it oh myg fojsdhhd . i oew u my life. a full on literary analysis by the greatest literary mind of our generation what did i do to deserve this holy SHIT ???? i owe u everything forever i will do anythig u ask . anything. i will write anything u want for u just say the word 🧎🧎🧎🧎
The dim night haloes her hair, turns it molten at the edges. It bleeds something into you that turns your words gentle when you say, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great captain.”
or: you meet the dionysia captain on the playground.
happy birthday maimaiiiii my sweetest jester i hope u had a good day today!!! @kongozas
The playground is empty when you arrive.
The bright plastic colours are dulled a muted monochrome under the distant circus lights. You almost turn back, frowning, but the swings creak faintly in the breeze, chains glinting like thin lines of silver, and just past their shadowed movement you see her.
There Jo is, sitting still as a statue on the top of the jungle gym.
She looks up when you make your way over. “Hey.”
From this distance you can barely tell that she’s been crying. The glass of her eyes have been flattened to a grey under the faded lights, rimmed more with sparkly blue eyeshadow than red. The only way you know is the lump in her voice, one that tastes all too familiar from your own desperate nights.
“Hey.” You look up at her. “Warm night.”
She cracks a laugh, golden and exhausted, and you huff a quiet sigh in relief.
She doesn’t make her way down, though, and so you take a seat on one of the lower bars. The discoloured metal ribs creak under you, a lot more than you expect, and as you gingerly place your body weight on what you hope is the sturdiest bar you pray it doesn’t collapse.
The circus seems further away, from here. You can see the ferris wheel still, dark and empty, and there are neon signs that still cast a blue and orange glow across the rest of the house, but you can barely hear anything past the rustling of nearby trees and the sigh of metal under your shifting weight. It’s almost far away enough you can imagine the circus a distant memory.
You settle into a more comfortable position, and wait.
Sure enough, the wind shifts, and with it Jo calls down from her position at the top of the structure. “Here to see me, cutie?”
You scuff an arc into the packed earth with your shoe. “Who else?”
“…Shion?”
“Nope.” You pop the p. It spins a laugh out of her, something golden that tumbles down the jungle gym and into your waiting hands.
She hops down soon after. Her scent arrives before she does, gently honeyed, and as she settles down beside you on the rusty bar her hair brushes your shoulder.
“How can I help you?”
You laugh. “You can’t. I just wanted— I just wanted to see you.”
Jo flips her ponytail lightly. She leans forward, just enough to cross her legs and tilt her head and grin at you. In the shadowed orange of the night her smile looks sharper, softer. “Oh?”
“What, a girl can’t come visit her friend?”
Jo rests her cheek on her palm. “Not when said girl is busier than all us ghouls put together.”
“You’re the one pulling a house back into a home.”
“Elias is helping,” she says. Her heel connects with the base of the jungle gym, sends a hollow ringing through the entire structure that buzzes up your arms.
“Elias is helping,” you agree. You try not to think about how her upper thigh is pressed up against where your hand is resting on the metal bar. You think about moving it. You decide not to.
“Mio’s gathered the clockwork students back together. They had their first meeting yesterday. And Shion…” Jo tugs the hem of her sleeve over her palm, rests her cheek on it again. “Shion hasn’t gotten into any trouble recently.”
“I haven’t seen him bother any general students today, yeah,” you say, and a quiet laugh spills between the both of you, sweet and sparkling.
“That’s more than I can ask for.” She is looking at you, but not really — her gaze is fixed somewhere past your shoulder, somewhere in the direction of her own tent.
The bruises under her eyes sink into your skin. It’s familiar, the same kind of bone deep exhaustion you feel after running and running and running and never getting where you need to be, the same kind of damned you feel mission after mission of useless anomalies. You know what this kind of tired feels like. You’d carry it for her, if you could.
The bar beneath your weight sighs as Jo shifts. She straightens up, arranges the hem of her skirt so it falls in a neat line right above her knee. When she opens her mouth again the admission is so quiet you nearly miss it. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
You watch as she fixes the hem of her skirt again, again. “It’s hard.”
She exhales. “It’s just that there are so many of them relying on me to get it together, to be the captain they need, and all I am is just…”
The breeze picks up, then, sweeps her words away in a rustle of leaves. You shake your head. “You’re already the captain they need. You’re warm and you’re kind and you listen and—“ you stop yourself, bite your tongue against the rush in case you spill something you regret. You’re welcoming and loyal and responsible. You’re always watching out for the people you love. When you laugh it makes the space between us so radiant I can’t look away. “And they’re so lucky to have you.”
Jo looks at you, then, her eyes terribly grey. The wind presses a strand of hair across her mouth and she lets it stay there. “All the general students think I’m steady. Reliable. Like I’m not constantly guessing what Darkwick wants me to do.”
You tuck your thumbs into your fists. You will not reach for her. “Maybe they think that,” you say, instead, “because you keep showing up for them. Even when you’re not sure of what to do.”
She smiles, but it splinters halfway, like something fragile striking the edge of a glass. “I’m trying so hard,” she says, “to fill Elias’ shoes. To catch up with all those months we were put in con— we were away. It still feels like I’m running after a goalpost that Darkwick keeps moving.”
“Fuckin’ Darkwick,” you say, and she laughs, soft and real this time. The dim night haloes her hair, turns it molten at the edges. It bleeds something into you that turns your words gentle when you say, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a great captain.”
Jo turns towards you. Her arm brushes yours. Her warmth bleeds through her cardigan and your blazer, soaks into the kindle of you. You don’t resist this time when your hand moves to brush the hair away from her face.
Time catches, then, in the sea of her eyes. You are both dying under the weight of your own lives. It is hard not to drown, but it is so hard not to want to live, when it is with her. She blinks, eyelashes brushing the soft of her cheek, when your fingers tuck her curls behind her ear, and you feel it again, the strange slipping feeling you’ve been having around her, all ship on water, like the ground beneath you has decided it doesn’t want to be heartbeat-steady anymore—
But her phone is beeping, loud in the dim of the playground, and your feet find ground again like you have never left.
Neither of you say anything when she pulls away.
“Elias? Mm. Right. Mm, she did manage to find me. Yes, she didn’t get lost, don’t worry. Yep. I’ll walk her back soon.”
You can’t help the chuckle that escapes you when she hangs up with a roll of her eyes, and just like that the moment is broken, sugar shards scattering themselves beneath your tongue. When she leans backwards, stretching her arms in front of her, you tuck the memory of her high into the pocket of your cheek to savour later.
There is still time, there is still time (there isn’t).
“Elias told me you were here,” you say, instead. You run your fingernail against the button on your blazer. “He says you come here often when you’re sad.”
“That bastard,” Jo says, without any real heat. When she stands she offers you a hand up.
taps mic . first of all my(e)lin i just want to say that this has haunted me for . checks calendar . a month and 2.3 weeks. every waking moment i swear to god it was I HAVE TO READ LIN KUSANAGI(HAKU) 'THIS IS ME TRYING' (2026) but i just ended up staring and crying head empty and idk what i was afraid of but now i've figured it out . MY TEARS???? MY DESPAIR???? MY LOVE FOR YOUJFGLK SHAKES YOU SHAKES YOU TEARS IN MY EYES RIGHT NOW . ohhhhhhhh i must . thank you for your patience you are an angel and a saint and i'm so so sorry it took me so long but i ha ve rambled for long enough now i will ramlbel more too but about the Fic this time . cries i lov eyou
said it a thousand times before, will say it again - the way you craft atmosphere is always so MAGNIFICENT CRIESLFDJS . the unnerving kind of peace of the playground, of effervescent jo's stillness, and not to mention the way you always use COLOUR i could talk about it forever. bright plastic colours dulled a muted monochrome -> the glass of her eyes flattened to a grey (SO SO GOOD, you always make the character feel one with their environment in such a beautiful way. i immediately thought about your kaito piece, him in the field.... sobs again and shakes you. something i always always note about your prose is that it weaves individual elements of the story together so elegantly and your work always feels so cohesive as a result, like a tight-knit sensorial wonder of its own
RIMMED MORE WITH SPARKLY BLUE EYESHADOW MORE THAN RED AHHHHhoudfhLDKJLKJ that covering-up is soooo good with jo's character nodding nodding nodding I SEE YOU....... lump in her voice one that tastes all too familiar from your own desperate nights fuck man how could you say this to me . typing this out on myy? 3rd reread and it still hurts (even more knowing what comes next)
She doesn’t make her way down, though, and so you take a seat on one of the lower bars. The discoloured metal ribs creak under you, a lot more than you expect, and as you gingerly place your body weight on what you hope is the sturdiest bar you pray it doesn’t collapse.
bars -> discoloured metal ribs STANDING OVATION . i must admit your imagery in the dionysia pieces always feels so particularly special.... waves our copies of the night circus around YOU GIVE EVERYTHING IN YOUR WRITING SO MUCH LIFEBLOOD AND I CRY !!! EVERY TIME!!! the blocking is chef's kiss wonderful, too - not immediately going up to meet her for timidity, resting a few steps down, testing the waters of intimacy and hoping you don't sink straight away ("you settle into a more comfortable position, and wait) I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE ITTT
It’s almost far away enough you can imagine the circus a distant memory.
ohhh ohh OH WE'RE GETTING INTO I T .. CRYIES the circus a distant memory, the duties and expectations you're being crushed by a distant memory . claps and cheers and hollers through my tears . the contrast between the whirlwind din of the circus and the solitude you and her enjoy here is so lovely and poignant
here to see me cutie hey so what if i made a terrible sound and died . something golden..... gently honeyed scent.... okay so you want me to . checks my notes. die
the immediate "how can i help you?" ahhhdljfaofi SHAKES HER PLEASEEEE MY LOVE YOU DONT HAV E TO HELP SOMEONE ALL THE TIME PLEASEEE CRIES CREIS CRIES . LIN HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME . and the "elias is helping" right after + kicking the base of the gym ohhhh ........ holds her. ...... those subtle deflections away jo pleasepleasepl LE TMe kiss uyo idk . upper thigh pressed up against ur hand closes my eyes inhales exhales . not only am i not moving that hand, i am never washing it again (/j ... unless)
PLEASEJEFK HOLLERING elias helping rebuild dionysia, mio leading the artisans, and shion..... not doing anything Bad. i giggled out loud
The bruises under her eyes sink into your skin. It’s familiar, the same kind of bone deep exhaustion you feel after running and running and running and never getting where you need to be, the same kind of damned you feel mission after mission of useless anomalies. You know what this kind of tired feels like. You’d carry it for her, if you could.
hey soooo this wrecked me. just a little (a lot). the same kind of bone deep exhaustion the same kind of damned ...... YOU KNOW WHAT THISKIND OF TIRED FEELS LIKE YOU'D CARRY IT FOR HER IF YOU COULD FFFUKCKKKKK FUCK FUCKF UCKkjLKJ OHHHH what a LINE!!!! the pining ..... sobs
jo fixing the hem of her skirt when discomfited..... your details are always sooo good, the little mannerisms and habits you inject and the choice to observe them in the narration elevates the yearning soooo tastily I LVOE IT I LOVE TI jlkJ
WHEN YOU LAUGH IT MAKES THE SPACE BW US SO RADIANT I CANT LOOK AWAY FUCKKKKK FUCK FUCK FUCK . . oh god . she is like the sun isn't she . criesc ires cCRIES JOOOOOOOOO ,,,,, COLLAPSES ON THE LFLOOR
"jo looks at you then, her eyes terribly grey" the colour sapped out of her .... again ur imagery motifs wtv the analytical term is i forgor (only know lin writing good :thumbs up:) always SLAP . not moving to fix the strand of hair across her mouth .... that giving up when we just established her constant mindless tending to her appearance i'm gonna cry
YOU WILL NOT REACH FOR HER/?!??!??////// oh this hurt but it also . the way you capture yearning and restraint and temptation it is so fuckign GORGEOUS YOU KNOCK IT OUT OF THE PARK EVERY SINGLE TIME
"all those months we were put in con- we were away" hey. and then the "fuckin' darkwick" YEAH THATS RIGHT .T . that retroactive sanitisation of dio's containment, trying to chase after something that's only ever hurt you . takes the knife out of your hand and just goes at it myself . such a good detail
Time catches, then, in the sea of her eyes. You are both dying under the weight of your own lives. It is hard not to drown, but it is so hard not to want to live, when it is with her. She blinks, eyelashes brushing the soft of her cheek, when your fingers tuck her curls behind her ear, and you feel it again, the strange slipping feeling you’ve been having around her, all ship on water, like the ground beneath you has decided it doesn’t want to be heartbeat-steady anymore—
hey soooo this wrecked me. just a little (a lot) (2). i just Had to bold that sentence because oh my goodness it is so . i don't even have words any more, running out of them as i type but uhhflgjk . the recurring ocean/water/ship throughout, the little actions of tucking her curls back and her blinking sequestered in the narration- to me it is a trademark of yours, i think, how you manipulate rhythm and convey that gentle rush as a moment picks up and characters tip into making the move. the unsteadiness (thinking back to praying that the old bars don't give way beneath your weight right now!!) is transformed from guarded to romantic and i think it is such a lovely twist, the way it displays how love changes the world around you
ELIAS YOU FUCKING COCKBLOCK I'M GOING TO KILL YOU . the tension dissolving so abruptly, silence as you pull away.... i'm going to kill a janitor how fuckign DARE you . but also a trademark of yours, definitely, that push and pull and fading back into stone cold reality after this sensory whirl .
"sugar shards scattering themselves beneath your tongue" "you tuck the memory of her high into the pocket of your cheek to savour later" just especially pretty lines i had to tuck into the pocket of MY cheek to cry about
THERE IS STILL TIME THERE IS STILL TIME (THERE ISN'T) .i'm fuckign filing criminal charges against yuo you will NOT be getting away with this miss kusanagi . OHHHhhhhhh that ostensible hopelessness and how it's countered right as the piece closes - "you take it, and she doesn't let go" - all of your works are coloured by such a lovely muted hope . i always leave the closing line of a lin kusanagi(haku) piece breathless like oh my godfff the world is so beautiful
lin lin LIN....... head in my fuckingfl hands i really really can't find appropriate words but in this case i truly don't think there are any that would do what i'm feeling justice right now. thank you so much for the time and effort and LOVE you poured into this and your patience with me and your . existing. i cannot describe how honoured i feel to have a BIRTHDAY FIC WRITTEN?!lkj!k FOR ME/??!? much less by a writer like you it makes me dizzy just thinkign about it i feel like i got picked out in a crowd by a celebrity . from the bottom of my heart i treasure you so so dearly, your beautiful mind and heart and Everything, and i am . goingf to cry myself to sleep /pos now I Love You
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