ABOUT ME ! eve, 22, sociology graduate writing for leisure ♡ irregular posting! ao3 here ♡
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Love is in the air, mingling with the scent of warm butter and fresh blossoms, in a little town far, far away…
Welcome to Bellflower, a little pocket of serenity from the city. Willow Lane is the neighborhood's most beloved street, lined with cute shops, and always smelling like the freshest bread—courtesy of the Okkotsu family's tiny bakery, The Little Crumb!
Yuta Okkotsu has spent four years dreaming of expanding his bakery. There's just one tiny problem.
You. With a flower shop business called Lily & Sage, a suitcase full of dreams, and no idea you've just crushed Yuta's much-awaited expansion.
What begins as a slight inconvenience turns into something much sweeter: two neighboring businesses, a blossoming friendship, and a friendly rivalry baking in the oven, which you two, as you will discover it, are horrible at maintaining.
Why, you ask?
Because for Yuta, it's very hard to hold a grudge against someone who brings you flowers, and it's even harder when you start falling in love with them.
🥐 bakery owner!Yuta Okkotsu x flower shop owner!Reader
🖊️ featuring tattoo artist!Yuji Itadori, TCG shop owners!Geto Suguru and Gojo Satoru, and more!
🪷 rivals to friends to ??? 🤭
🥨 small town romance, fluff, sooo much fluff
💐 four chapters + epilogue, updating every Friday, 8 PM CEST!
on an incredible yuta run RN like this gorrgus man will not leave my monkey brain you can shake my head and all you’ll hear are rocks that sound like his laugh
synopsis: A girl who has always been cared for, learning independence. A machine created to care for others, learning individuality. Love, life, and robots.
OR: the one where your grand trial of independence completely fails, your parents buy you a drop-dead gorgeous robot to keep you from starving, and you accidentally teach his programming how to love you back.
A/N: this is my first ever jjk fic! your likes and comments are ALWAYS appreciated <33 this was first posted on my ao3! have fun <3
YOU HAD ALWAYS THOUGHT INDEPENDENCE WOULD TASTE SWEET.
AS IT TURNS OUT, INDEPENDENCE TASTES A LOT LIKE CHARRED TOAST AND INSTANT RAMEN.
When you proudly announced to your absurdly wealthy parents that you were moving out of the family estate to prove you could survive on your own, you had envisioned yourself as a thriving, self-sufficient adult. Instead, you were now sitting on the floor of your modestly sized but wildly expensive penthouse apartment (which your parents also bought), staring at a mountain of laundry you didn’t know how to separate, while a thin trail of smoke drifts through the air.
You wonder how many mistakes you could make living on your own before you inevitably blow your apartment up.
As you sit on your living room floor eating your bitter, crunchy toast, your phone rings, making you jump. Your mother’s contact flashes on the screen. That woman has too much time on her hands now that she’s retired.
“My daughter!” she chimes through the speaker when you pick up. “How is the independent life? Have you tested out that oven your father bought you? It's state of the art!”
Her words make you wince. You could barely toast bread. “It’s great mom. Amazing. I’m living so good,” you lie.
“Right,” she says. You can hear her smile through her voice. “So, your father and I checked our credit card charges. Do you mind explaining why you’ve ordered UberEats…five times this week, and it’s only Wednesday?”
“Mom, we’ve talked about this whole looking-at-my-charges thing—”
“I think that applies to when your bank invoice comes through the mail,” your father’s voice rings in the background. “But when my card is still attached to your UberEats, I think it’s an appropriate topic!”
“Anyway, we were just concerned,” she replies, tone dripping with maternal pity. “We could not care less if you spend money on food, but we want you to eat healthy, darling. I don’t think eating from a drive-through place twice in one day is healthy.”
“We’re thinking of sending the family chef your way,” your father adds. His voice is closer now. “Maybe he could stay with you three days out of the week! Or maybe one of our staff could be transferred to your new apartment.”
“Ugh! No! No staff. No chef, either.”
“But—and forgive my crassness—you’re failing miserably, it seems, daughter. You know Chef Eddie would gladly make you your favorite meals.”
“No, please,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, dropping your burnt toast into your way-too-watery ramen soup. “If you send me someone to help, it completely defeats the purpose of me moving out. I can live alone. I am living alone!”
A brief pause ensues. You can practically hear your parents exchanging a look.
"Okay, okay," your father’s voice booms in the background. "We'll respect your decision. We won't send you any staff."
You let out a massive sigh of relief. "Thank you, dad.”
“We’ll send you a robot instead.”
Before you could even process the absurdity of that sentence, the call disconnects, leaving you staring incredulously at your phone.
You send a text your parents’ way: Do not send me a robot! I don’t need a robot helper to live!
None of them respond.
Instead of a reply through texts, your doorbell rings a week later. You already know it’s them.
When you pull the door open, ready to unleash a lecture about respecting your boundaries, the words die instantly in your throat. Standing on your welcome mat were your parents, flanked by a boy. A very, very handsome boy. And you stood in front of them in a baggy shirt stained with your latest attempt at making dinner.
The boy is dressed in a pristine, white fitted top with baggy jeans and sneakers. His hair is messy and soft, and his eyes look just slightly-tired. But what immediately catches your attention—and sends a jolt of pure panic through your chest—was the sleek, silver ring shining prominently on his left ring finger.
You pull your parents into your apartment and shut the door behind them, leaving the boy outside.
“What the hell!” you whisper-shout at them, eyes widened and hands flailing. “You hired a random boy to come and help me? And a married one, no less!”
“Surprise!” your mother claps her hands together, ignoring your shock.
“Mom, seriously—” you groan. “Please send him home. Why would you ask a married man to take this job, anyway?!”
Your mother lets out a bright, melodic laugh. She opens the door before she speaks, stepping to the side for the boy to come in. "He's not married, sweetie! That’s his system indicator. He’s a robot from our family friend at HomeMech Inc. designed especially for you."
“Nobara?” you blink. Your college best friend designed a robot just for you. In one week. “Why would she agree to that?”
“Because she’s kindhearted,” your mother replies, watching the boy step inside. “And also, we offered her a lot of money. Anyway—”
As if on cue, the silver ring on the robot’s finger briefly emits a soft, pulsing blue glow.
"Blue means all systems are fine," your father explains proudly, marching over and heartily clapping the boy on the back. The boy doesn’t even stumble; he merely offers a polite, serene smile. "If it starts blinking red, it means there are system fluctuations. He’s not even an official prototype yet, you know. He’s literally the first—and only—robot of his model. Nobara said this is their most specialized robot yet!"
You stare at the robot. He looked incredibly human. Too human. The soft texture of his skin, the slight dark circles under his eyes, the way his chest rose and fell as if he were breathing...it’s all too dizzying for you.
The boy—robot—takes a step forward, smiling warmly at you. “Good evening, Miss YN. I am Yuta.”
"Isn't it exciting?" your mother gushes, practically vibrating with glee. "You say his name and he jumps right up to serve you! C’mon, sweetie. Say hi to YUTA. By the way, it stands for Your Unique and Tender Android. Or so Nobara says."
Your shoulders slump, and you sigh. “This is... really odd, Mom. Send him back,” you plead, crossing your arms. The thought of a hyper-advanced, incredibly attractive android watching you burn toast was too much to handle.
"We can't send him back! They made this specifically for you! Anyway, bye, have a great night!"
Before you could pull them back inside, your parents practically sprint out the door, leaving you all alone with a multi-million-dollar piece of experimental technology.
You stare up at Yuta, and he stares right back at you. His ring glows a nice blue.
“Have you eaten, Miss YN?”
“I…I have,” you stare at him pensively.
“Right then,” he replies. His voice is surprisingly real, nothing like the other androids your friends have in their houses. “I shall start the dishwashing.”
The rest of the evening is an utter disaster.
Yuta doesn’t seem to understand the concept of personal space yet. Everywhere you move, he follows. If you go to the kitchen to get a glass of water, he is two steps behind you. If you go to the living room to pick up a book, he stands at the edge of the rug, watching you with wide, puppy-dog eyes.
“Can you stop?” you finally say, spinning around to face him. “Go and…get lost, please.”
Yuta tilts his head to the side, his dark bangs falling slightly over his eyes. His silver ring pulses a steady, calm blue. "What is lost, and where may I find it?"
You look at him incredulously for the second time that evening, and you throw your hands up in exasperation. “Aren’t you programmed to understand modern-day language?”
"To an extent, I am!" Yuta replies, his voice entirely sincere, again lacking any of the robotic monotony you expect. He actually looks a little apologetic. "But I must be trained further. What is a ‘lost’, and where may I get it?"
You groan, rubbing your temples as a headache begins to form. The argument is futile. He’s a machine taking things entirely too literally.
“Yuta, just…go and sit and enter rest mode or something.”
His posture relaxes slightly, and he gives you a polite nod. “Okay, Miss YN. Please call me if you should need anything.”
Yuta walks over to your couch, sits down with perfect, rigid posture, and closes his eyes.
"...Okay, just, stay there for the rest of the night, Yuta," you muttered, marching off to your bedroom and slamming the door.
Lying in bed, you stare up at the ceiling. You did want independence, but now, you were sharing a wall with a drop-dead gorgeous android who didn't even know what ‘get lost’ meant, designed to make life easier but was doing the exact opposite.
This might be a very long integration period for him and you, indeed.
When you viewed this penthouse apartment, you fell in love with the vision that accompanied it. You, a spectacular host, having your bestest friends over for a romantically lit dinner every month, laughing around the table and taking in the view from your floor-to-ceiling windows from the dining table. Coming home to a gorgeous apartment every night from your tiring day at work. Sleeping in during the weekends in your lovely bedroom, positioned right where the sun rises.
That vision was so utterly squashed when you realized you made more errors in adulting than you ever anticipated.
It’s a random Tuesday night when you think you might be hopeless. The day before, you attempted to do laundry on your own (again), and just when you’d thought you’d gotten the hang of it, your crew socks had been stained pink and your favorite knit sweater came out of the dryer the size of a doll’s garment. The water bill for your apartment came, and it made absolutely no sense to you why you’d have to pay for water, and why you had to pay that much, until Yuta soon discovered that you’d left a bathroom faucet dripping.
This Tuesday night, the final blow landed: in a measly attempt to cook a simple pasta dish without asking Yuta, you managed to set off the smoke alarm by scorching the marinara sauce onto a too-hot stainless steel pan.
You stood in the kitchen, frantically waving a dish towel at the screeching ceiling alarm. You coughed, still inhaling the smoke. “Shit,” you say, bringing one arm up to your face as the other fans smoke away. The smoke alarm beeps relentlessly above you, and you groan, fanning faster.
Yuta’s voice cuts through the noise. “Permit me, Miss YN.”
Before you could say anything, Yuta grabs a stepstool and reaches up. With a gentle twist of his long fingers, the alarm falls silent. He steps down, immediately taking the ruined pan from the stove. He doesn’t flinch at the heat, and his skin doesn’t burn. He takes a trivet out from one of your drawers and sets the pan down on it.
“This was all avoidable,” he says. His voice was incredibly soft, not at all reprimanding. “If you had let me assist you, Miss YN.”
He looks up and he smiles at you warmly. You wonder if anybody else would have smiled at you like that if they were in his position.
You sit instead on the high chairs by the island counter, watching him work. The kitchen smells like burnt tomato sauce. “I didn’t want you to,” you reply. “I wanted to try and do it myself.”
“But that is what I am here for,” Yuta replies. He turns to the sink, turning the faucet knob all the way to the hottest setting and letting water run on his hands. He pulls it back when the water steams, placing the pot under the stream. “My primary directive is to ensure your well-being and maintain your environment. Your independence does not require your suffering, Miss.”
You sigh, watching the way his dark hair fell across his forehead as he worked. Yuta doesn’t even use a heavy-duty scrubber, yet the burnt debris seems to melt away under his hands. His silver ring pulses a steady, serene blue.
“Can you stop calling me ‘miss’? It makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old. Or like my mother.”
Yuta pauses, the water running over his hands. He tilts his head, his dark eyes locking onto yours intensely—a casual reminder that he isn’t actually human, and that these weird feelings of yours should probably go away. “What shall I call you then?”
“Just…just my name. Just YN.”
He processes this for a second, his ring flickering slightly. It settles back into a solid blue.
“Okay, YN.”
Hearing your name leave his lips sends an unexpected shiver down your spine. It sounds entirely too natural.
Thirty minutes later, Yuta sets down a dish in front of you—fresh, hot, and completely unburnt. Thirty minutes after that, Yuta teaches you how to wash dishes properly. And thirty minutes after that, Yuta teaches you how to do your laundry.
Much later that night, the reality of your living situation catches up to you. You finish washing up and you step out of your bedroom to grab a glass of water only to freeze in the hallway.
Yuta is standing in the dark corner of your living room. His arms are pinned straight at his sides, his head slightly bowed, completely motionless. In the shadows, the silver on his ring casts an eerie blue glow across the floor.
You jump, nearly dropping your class. “Jesus, Yuta! What are you doing?”
His eyes open instantly, whirring to life. “I entered rest mode to conserve battery and run updates given to me by HomeMech.”
“You’re sleeping standing up?” you ask. “Like a horse?”
“I do not need a bedroom,” he explains flatly. “I do not have any receptors in my programming to feel physical exhaustion. I am able to enter sleep mode while standing up.”
You shift your weight onto your other hip. “Well, I would feel really weird if I went out for a glass of water and you were just…there. Like a haunted mannequin.”
Yuta doesn’t respond. He watches you, his expression blank. You realize he’s waiting for an instruction, or really, anything he can reply to.
You clear your throat, a sudden warmth creeping up your neck. You wonder what that’s about. “Yuta, if I instruct you to enter sleep mode lying down on the bed in the spare bedroom, would you do it?”
“If instructed, I would do anything you want me to do.”
The words were entirely literal to him, a simple confirmation of his careful programming, but the sheer weight of them makes your face flush bright red. You look away, clearing your throat aggressively.
“Okay. Yuta, from now on, please enter sleep mode lying down on the bed in the spare bedroom.”
For a moment, Yuta doesn’t move. Then, the sharp, perfect lines of his posture softened. A very small, incredibly tender smile touches the corners of his lips—a gesture so subtle it looks entirely organic. He’s practically human.
“Yes, YN.”
You make a mental note to buy him more clothes the next day.
Within a few weeks, a strange rhythm had settled over the apartment.
You find yourself getting used to Yuta’s quiet hovering. In fact, it stopped feeling like a surveillance unit and started feeling like comfort. Yuta was a remarkably fast learner. Aside from following commands, his advanced programming learned your entire life down to your daily routines and habits.
In the morning, he would hear your alarm and know to start preparing your packed lunch for work. When you step out of your bedroom, hair done perfectly and perfume put on, a plate of breakfast waits for you on the kitchen island. While you eat, he fixes your lunch bag and refills your water bottle. By the time you’re finished, there’s toothpaste on your toothbrush and mouthwash in the glass by your sink. And when you take your things and head for the door, Yuta stands by it, already holding it open and seeing you off with a smile.
When you step through the front door after a long day at work, the door would swing open before you could even reach for your keys, and Yuta would be there, ready to take your bag. He learned your favorite snacks, keeping the pantry perfectly stocked. He learned how you liked your breakfast and dinner. He now also knows the precise moments when you’re overwhelmed and just need space, quietly retreating to his room without you having to ask. He would tell you jokes over dinner just because, having watched them on the TV and logged them into his system. He would knock on your bedroom door to bring you a glass of water by 10 PM. And through it all, he did it with the same smile he always did—the same smile that started to feel like your first sign of coming home.
Yuta, against all rhyme and reason, is becoming indispensable to you.
Which is exactly why, when the glitch happens, you completely panic.
It’s a warm Saturday afternoon. You’re lounging on the couch, reading a book while Yuta folds hand towels near the kitchen island.
Suddenly, you see it in the corner of your eye. Yuta twitches and freezes.
“Yuta?” you call from the couch.
He doesn’t answer. His head jerks slightly to the side, a soft, mechanical whirring echoing from his chest. The silver ring on his finger flashes a violent, erratic red.
“Yuta?” You say louder, scrambling off the couch, rushing to his side. “Hey, what’s wrong? Yuta!”
His eyes were wide, twitching, completely unfocused on you. “System…fluctuation,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly dropping its rich, human cadence. “Core temperature rising. Attempting... reboot…”
Yuta’s body goes completely slack, falling to the floor just in time for you to wrap your hands around his torso to break his fall. You groan under his unexpected weight as you drag him from the kitchen floor to the living room rug.
Yuta is completely unresponsive at this point. The soft rise and fall of his chest had stopped. His eyes were closed, and the silver ring on his finger has gone dark.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” you say, placing his head on your lap and feeling around his face and shoulders. Your heart hammers against your ribs. “Yuta? Can you hear me? Don’t die. Oh my god, can robots die? Fuck, who do I call?”
Fumbling for your phone, you remember your brilliant, crazy engineering friend—Yuta’s creator—is right there in your contacts list. You press on her name and wait for Nobara Kugisaki to pick up the phone.
The phone rings twice before she picks up. “Hi, YN!” she chimes. “Is your toaster malfunctioning again, or are you calling because you miss me?”
“I do miss you,” you say. “But that’s not why I’m calling. My parents bought Yuta from you, if you remember? The prototype—or, or whatever. I need help with him.”
“Oh, no. What’s wrong?”
“He’s just completely shut down! He was folding towels just a few minutes ago, and then he was twitching like crazy, and his ring blinked red, and now he’s not moving and I don’t know what to do!”
There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a loud groan. "Ugh. I told the board they shouldn't have shipped him out before we finalized his systems. Anyway, I would relax. It's probably just a standard core stall."
“A core stall?!” you cry, looking down at Yuta’s pale, angelic face. “Is he broken?!”
“No, silly,” Nobara giggles. “Listen. Think of this like an old SIM card. Try to blow on his microchip and reinsert it to reboot him.”
You blinked. “You want me to what his what?! Nobara! I’m not joking around!”
She laughs. “I’m not, either! You heard me. Open his core chamber, open his push latch, pull the chip, blow some dust off it, and pop it back in. Got it?”
“Where is this damn core chamber, Nobara?”
“We placed it where his heart should be.”
“I—” you shake your head. “Why would you guys put that there?!”
“Why wouldn’t we? He’s supposed to be human!” Nobara laughs. “Anyway, I’m cooking lunch. Try it, and if it doesn’t work, give me another call, alright?”
“Okay…fine. Bye.”
The line goes dead.
You slowly look down at the multimillion-dollar android lying on your lap. “Blow on his microchip. Right. Sure.”
Kneeling beside him, you reluctantly reach for the hem of his shirt. Your hands shake slightly as you pull the fabric upward, exposing his torso. You catch your breath. For a robot, he is... surprisingly, absurdly buff. His stomach is a canvas of lean, defined muscle, sculpted so perfectly it feels unfair. You’ll have to ask Nobara why she built him so nice. She even put a mole on his side.
Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you search his chest until you find it—a faint, nearly invisible seam running right down the center of his left pec. You pressed firmly on the release mechanism near his collarbone.
With a soft hiss of depressurization, the core chamber opens like a sleek piece of high-tech jewelry.
You brace yourself to see wires, gears, and cold metal. Instead, your breath hitches. Nestled deep within the hyper-advanced machinery of his chest sits a glowing, intricate microchip. But it isn’t exposed like any other computer part. It’s encased in a small, translucent glass heart.
This is what makes Yuta, Yuta, you think, leaning closer.
A wave of sudden tenderness washes over you. Would he still be the same gentle, devoted boy without this specific piece of metal? Or was this heart everything he is? Whatever he is, and however he’s built...this is the Yuta that mattered to you now.
Carefully, using your fingertips, you press the microchip out of its housing and it springs up. You take it, feeling it in your hand, warm like a piece of metal after being used for a long time. You bring it close to your lips, give it a gentle, steady breath of air to clear any phantom dust, and then carefully click it back into the heart-shaped chamber. You press the chest panel shut until it clicks securely.
For a second, nothing happens.
Then, a series of soft, mechanical noises chime from his chest. Yuta jolted awake, his eyes snapping open. He blinks rapidly, his pupil's cameras whirring and clicking as they adjust to the light, finally focusing entirely on the view above him: you, kneeling over him, with his head now resting softly in your lap.
He blinks up at you, a soft, dazed look in his eyes. Then, he looks down at his lifted shirt, his exposed abs, and your hands still resting near his chest.
“YN,” he smiles.
“Hi, Yuta,” you say back, your hand cupping his face. His hand comes up to take a gentle hold of your wrists.
“What happened?” he asks softly, his voice returning to its deep, soothing register. He looks back up at your face, a look of genuine, innocent confusion on his features. "Did you need a source of warmth? I am programmed to radiate heat if you should need it."
A breathless, relieved laugh bubbles out of your throat. The sheer absurdity of him offering to be a space heater after giving you a near heart attack is too much.
Before you can stop yourself, you lean down, framing his face with your hands, and press a sweet, warm kiss right to the center of his forehead.
"You know what, Yuta?" you whisper, your heart swelling as you look down at him. "I would like that very much."
Yuta freezes. His systems don’t know how to categorize a kiss on the forehead. No manual had prepared his systems for the sudden, overwhelming rush of data. But deep within his chest, inside the core chamber, an unprecedented instruction makes his internal radiators start up entirely on their own, flushing his cheeks with a beautiful, deeply human warmth.
He nods, and his entire body feels warm to the touch.
The shift in the atmosphere happens in small increments, so subtle that you almost didn’t notice them at first. A lingering gaze. A slight hesitation before he follows a command. The way his ring glows a brighter blue around you.
The most concrete shift—the one that made you say it was real—happened on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
You come home utterly defeated. The brutal combination of work stress, a ruined project, and the sheer exhaustion of trying to prove you could handle the world on your own (i.e., driving through a thunderstorm) proved to be too much. You barely managed to kick off your shoes before plopping down on the couch and letting out a choked, heavy sob.
Instantly, Yuta is there by your side.
He drops to his knees in front of you, his hands hovering over your shoulders but not quite touching you.
Yuta’s fingers twitch.
Through his primary directive and the codes in his system is an error he does not know how to debug. His hands twitch again, pupil cameras whirring frantically to analyze your state as you cry into the throw pillow of your couch. “Your heart rate is high, and your body temperature is one degree below normal. Your feet are damp and so are your shoulders.”
His fingers keep twitching. This is a new feeling. There is a new instruction in his system that did not come from HomeMech or from you.
It’s a foreign feeling. To want something so bad you don’t know how to act about it.
Without thinking, Yuta sets his hands on your shoulders gently. His internal radiators start up. “YN,” he murmurs, voice laced with a strange, unprecedented static. “You are in distress…I do not have a pre-installed protocol for crying.”
He wants to do something. He wants to do something. He wants to do something.
You pull your head up from your throw pillow. Your eyes glisten with tears, mascara running down your cheeks, nose pink and lips swollen from crying.
You’re beautiful, even when you cry. Yuta doesn’t know how he can tell. He just knows.
His ring turns purple, then pulses a faint, anxious violet-red.
You sniffle, wiping your eyes and looking up at him. “No, Yuta, I’m okay…you don’t have to do anything. I’m just sad. Humans almost never have a fix for sadness.”
Yuta wonders what that makes him, especially now that he has no protocol for it.
Yuta’s hands drop slowly to his lap. For the first time since he had arrived, a look of profound, aching frustration crosses his human features. He can’t name this data string yet; he doesn’t have the vocabulary for ache or longing. But looking at your tear-stained face, a violent surge of electricity ripples through his systems. He can’t stand seeing you upset.
Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out again. His large, warm hand settles on your cheek, cupping your face with an unprogrammed tenderness. "I cannot fix it," he whispers, his dark eyes wide and fiercely intense. "But I will stay right here until it passes. Okay?”
Your staggered breathing stabilizes as his warm hand holds you. You wonder how a robot like Yuta could be more human than a real man at this moment.
You nod, taking a hold of his wrist, just like he did when he needed you.
By the next week, you had recovered your spirits, but your parents were demanding a dinner and you could no longer ignore them. Over a stiff, formal dinner at a high-end restaurant, your mother watches you across her glass of pinot noir.
“So, how is life with Yuta? Is he keeping up with you?”
“He’s wonderful, actually,” you say honestly, cutting into your steak. “Life is much better with him around; he’s beautiful. Um. I mean he’s beautiful company…” you clear your throat. “I really like him. Having him around.”
Your parents nod at each other before your father lets out a booming laugh. "Ha! What did we tell you, daughter? You could never live on your own!"
Your mother follows suit, giggling as she brings the cloth napkin up to her lips. “How funny to think you would need a robot like those regular families—a robot for one person!”
Their laugh stings. It’s a sharp reminder of why you left. A sharp reminder that to them, Yuta is just a multi-million-dollar crutch keeping you from failing. They don’t know the Yuta that waits for you by the door of the apartment when he hears your footsteps in the hall. They don’t know the Yuta that makes you laugh. They don’t know the Yuta that lets you lie on his chest just so you’re warmer at night. They don’t know the Yuta that looks at you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. They don’t know the Yuta that looks at you like you are the world.
You quiet down for the rest of the dinner, a heavy weight settling in your stomach.
The next week, the exhaustion catches up to you again. You’re curled up on the couch under a thick blanket next to Yuta, watching a sitcom. Yuta's hands were right on his lap until you wrapped an arm around him half an hour ago. Now, one of them settles on your shoulder, warm. His ring glows blue on your shoulder.
“YN,” he calls softly. “Your calendar indicates that you have your usual family dinner with your parents tomorrow. Shall I block off your 7 to 9 PM?”
You let out a miserable groan, blowing a raspberry as you cuddle into him. “Ugh...I forgot. I really, really don't want to go, Yuta. I don't want to hear them talk about how I can't survive without their help again. But if I cancel, my mom will never let me hear the end of it.”
Yuta sits perfectly still. Inside his core programming, two directives were violently colliding: execute your calendar schedule versus ensure your emotional peace.
The silver ring on his finger begins to blink a sharp, erratic red. But, of course, this is not something you see.
“I understand,” Yuta says quietly.
The next day, you get a call from your parents as you’re stuck in traffic on the way home from the office.
“Hi, sweetie,” your mother’s voice rings over the phone. “Are we still having dinner tonight?”
Shoot. You completely forgot. “Uh, we can Mom, but I’m going to be really late. I’m stuck in traffic and that restaurant you guys like is all the way across town.”
“Oh, no. How come? Did you forget we had dinner today?”
You think about it for a second. Now that you mention it, Yuta hadn’t reminded you of it this morning. “Uh, honestly, yes. I’m sorry, work was crazy today.”
“Okay, how about tomorrow, then?”
“Yes, definitely. See you then.”
Once you get to your apartment, you give Yuta a stern look as he swings the door open for you.
“You didn’t remind me that I had dinner with my parents today,” you say gently. “Is something wrong? Did your internal calendar glitch?”
Yuta takes your work bag and your coat off your shoulders. “No, my systems are all optimal,” he replies. He doesn’t say anything after that, which prompts you to give him a questioning look.
He gives you a warm smile. “I optimized the situation for your well-being,” Yuta says softly, his cheeks tinting with that unprogrammed, radiator-driven warmth. “You said yesterday that you did not want to go. So I took it off of your schedule.”
You look at him and blink. “I…” you stutter. “Huh?”
“I purposely did not remind you because there was nothing to remind you of, YN.”
It’s clicking now. He’s not acting like a machine anymore. He had chosen you—your comfort, your feelings—over a direct parental command. He had bypassed his own directives yesterday just to let you rest today.
You don’t know whether to be elated or appalled. On one hand, Yuta is actively choosing you. On the other, you’re not too sure if he should keep doing that.
“Okay,” you inhale. “Yuta—”
He fixes your shoes by the door before looking up. “Yes?”
His smile. God, his smile. You almost hate Nobara for making him look so charming. How could you be angry at him?
You exhale. “When making big changes to my schedule, do you mind asking me about it before you do? Can you do that, Yuta?”
He nods eagerly, his ring pulsing blue. “Okay, YN.”
Not understood. Not I understand. Instead, Okay, YN.
Your heart races.
“Okay!” you say, shaking off the tension. “Should we have dinner then?”
To make up for the glitch, you go to dinner with your parents the very next day, just like you agreed upon. You try to play it cool, sipping your water as your mother brings up your robot companion.
“Did he not remind you of your schedule?” she asks. “I remember asking Nobara to code that into his programming.”
“No! I mean—” you play with the broccoli florets on your plate. “He’s very good at reminding me of my schedule. Usually. I was just…feeling unwell yesterday, he took it upon himself to cancel, and that’s why I forgot. That's all.”
You thought you had covered for him perfectly. But across the table, your mother and father share a long, knowing, heavy look. Your father’s expression tightens, and your mother slowly sets her glass down.
That was definitely not a mistake. And they know it.
Late that night, far past midnight, your father sits in his study, dialing a number he called months prior. The phone is picked up on the second ring by a man whose voice carries the absolute, chilling authority of a corporate deity: the president, founder, and CEO of HomeMech Inc. His friend.
“We have a problem with the prototype,” he says grimly, leaning back in his chair. “The YUTA robot is malfunctioning. I don’t want it anywhere near my daughter.”
That Saturday morning, you wake up to a stark notification from your email app. A peculiar email sent to your inbox.
You get up, take your laptop with you to the kitchen counter and open the email there.
We have received a diagnostic report from your primary account holders regarding a critical defect in the YUTA model’s behavioral programming. A specialized retrieval team has been dispatched. We are able to issue you another commercial model (e.g., PANDA) by Monday morning, completely brand-new and free of charge. This is to compensate for any inconvenience the YUTA unit may have caused.
We await your reply.
Best,
HomeMech Inc. Support & Diagnostics Team
Your blood runs cold and your heart drops to your stomach. These are not words you used to describe Yuta. You would never describe Yuta like this.
“No,” you breathe, a sudden surge of fierce, protective anger blooming in your chest. You slam your fingers against the keyboard, typing out a furious, strongly worded response.
I am not sure who sent in the report, but I have not sent in any regarding Yuta’s behavior. There is nothing wrong with him. Do not send in a retrieval team as they will be barred from entering my property. I do not need a replacement unit either as you will not be replacing Yuta. Please do not contact me again regarding this issue; any reply will go unread.
YN LN
“YN?"
You jump slightly as Yuta's voice sounds right over your shoulder. He approaches silently, his dark eyes scanning the glowing text on your laptop screen. He reads the email within a fraction of a second despite your efforts to cover your screen.
The room falls into a suffocating silence. Yuta doesn’t know how to respond. He’s processing a terrifying logical paradox: he was a product. He was property. He belonged to HomeMech. If he was defective, he was supposed to be decommissioned.
“I…” Yuta falters. His voice breaks, an electronic hitch clicking in his throat. The silver ring on his left hand flashes a violent, blinding red for three agonizing seconds before desperately forcing itself back to a dull, unstable blue. Your heart aches at the sight. “You...you may return me, Miss YN. If I am no longer serving my purpose as your companion—if my errors are causing you distress—you may return me to HomeMech. You should.”
Hearing that detached, cold title again shatters your heart.
“Miss YN?” you ask, your voice cracking as you spin around in your chair to face him. “Hey. I thought I told you to call me by my name.”
Yuta’s shoulders sag, his gaze dropping to the floor. “YN. Still...my sentiments stand. I am a prototype. If I am broken, I should be replaced.”
“I’m not sending you back, Yuta.”
Yuta looks up, his dark eyes filled with a heavy, deeply tragic confusion. “...But how come? It seems the accuracy at which I should be performing my duties has decreased significantly. I feel like I am experiencing data corruption whenever you are near. My logic centers fail.”
“I…don’t think that’s data corruption, Yuta,” you say, your voice softening to a gentle whisper. You step into his space, reaching up with both hands to softly cup his face.
His skin feels slightly cold against your palms, a stark contrast to the sudden, burning warmth in his eyes. His pupils dilate wildly, his internal cameras clicking as they lock onto you. His ring flickers blue and purple.
“You're my Yuta,” you say solidly, staring straight into his soul through his warm eyes. “There is no other Yuta for me. I don't want a perfect robot. I want you.”
A low, trembling hum vibrates through his chest, his glass heart pulsing rapidly beneath his metal structure. He leans into your touch, his eyes closing as he lets out a long, shuddering breath that feels entirely, beautifully human. He did not need to breathe, but he did. And he sighed, just like you did. He looked into your eyes with the same warmth you hoped to give to him.
How could they look at him and not see how beautifully human this boy was?
You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck. Without any second wasted, his own arms wrap around your waist, and Yuta buries his head in your shoulder.
“You’re not going anywhere,” you say, cradling the back of his head. “I promise.”
For the next few hours, a war of digital attrition takes place on your laptop. Emails fly back and forth between your inbox and HomeMech's board of directors and legal department. You are adamant, unyielding, and downright stubborn. You refuse to let them near your apartment.
Then, at exactly 3:00 PM, your phone rings.
It's Nobara. Your heart hammers in your throat as you press answer and bring it to your ear.
“Hello?”
“YN. You’ve been blowing up my inbox. I hate it.”
“You can tell your bosses and everyone else in a fucking suit that I’m not giving Yuta back,” you say quietly, hoping Yuta doesn’t hear you from where he sits on the couch. “Sorry that you’re slightly annoyed that your inbox is full. But Yuta isn’t just some robot—”
“You’re right,” she answers, cutting you off. “He isn’t just some robot. Which is why you need to surrender him immediately. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with, YN.”
“I'm not giving him back, Nobara!” you argue, gripping the phone tightly, your eyes darting to Yuta, who is now watching you from across the room with protective intensity. “He isn't a broken appliance. He's living, he's learning, he has a heart!”
A heavy, painful sigh echoes through your phone.
“...He isn't learning a new personality, YN,” Nobara says softly, the words cutting through the air like iron. “He's remembering his old one. Yuta wasn't built from a blank slate. This project—Yuta’s entire concept—was too complex for standard AI and programming, so we used a dead man’s neurological patterns to map his core consciousness.”
Your breath hitches, your voice dying in your throat. You turn your back to Yuta, hands shaking as you clutch your phone to your ear.
“His name,” she continues, “is Yuta Okkotsu. And if those human memories fully break through his programming, his system won’t be able to handle it. Please, YN…bring him back before he destroys himself.”
The call drops, and for a second, you can’t bring yourself to look at Yuta.
The silence that’s left in the wake of the call is suffocating, heavier than the smoke that had filled your kitchen days before. When you finally force yourself to turn around, Yuta is still there, his dark eyes fixed on you with that same unblinking, serene devotion that used to bring you comfort, but now sends a cold shiver down your spine. He doesn’t ask what Nobara said, nor does he question the way your hands are visibly trembling; he simply tilts his head, his silver ring pulsing a steady, calm blue that feels like a beautiful lie.
You manage to offer him a hollow excuse about being tired, practically fleeing into the safety of your bedroom and locking the door behind you.
Sleep doesn’t come. You lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling as the clock ticks past midnight, then one, then three. Every tick of the second hand feels like a heavy hammer striking your chest. The burden of knowing Yuta’s origins—knowing that beneath the sleek human clothes, his skin, and the heart-shaped microchip lays the ghosts of a dead man’s soul—weighs on your shoulders like lead.
Yuta Okkotsu. A real person, who had lived, breathed, laughed, and died just like you are. He lived only to have his mind used for data to build the perfect robot. It was a tragedy straight out of a twisted fairytale.
You think about Yuta. Your Yuta. The one who taught you how to use your dryer, the one who knows how you like your eggs in the morning, the one who purposefully makes himself warm so you can be comfortable. You wonder how much of your Yuta is the Yuta that had passed. You wonder if there was any difference.
Were you loving a dead man? Or was Yuta his own person, just like you believed?
Unable to bear the suffocating quiet of your room any longer, you slip out of bed.
Yuta isn’t in rest mode in the spare room. He’s sitting on the living room sofa, his hands resting on his knees, staring blankly at the dark window. The moment your bare feet sound against the hardwood, his head snaps toward you. His silver ring pulses a dim, anxious violet-blue in the shadows.
“YN,” he says, rising to his feet. “Your heart rate is elevated. You should be asleep. Is everything okay?”
“I'm okay,” you lie, your voice cracking slightly. You walk over and sit on the opposite end of the couch, drawing your knees to your chest. Yuta slowly sits back down, keeping a careful, respectful distance, though his eyes never left your face. You swallow the lump in your throat, looking at him wistfully. “Yuta…I don't want to be the one who keeps you from finding out who you are.”
A questioning look flickers across his face, his ring pulsing a light red for one second before going back to purple. “I don’t understand.”
“Your system is modeled by a real man’s brain,” you explain calmly, feeling tears prickle at the corners of your eyes. “Did you know that?”
Yuta’s eyes widen. He’s shocked. You wonder how many hours of TV he has watched with you to learn that emotion.
“I…” he breathes. “Okay.”
“Yuta... the last few weeks have been an awakening for me,” you whisper, a bittersweet smile touching your lips. “You’re humanity’s greatest invention—technology that’s fully sentient. But you’re more than a prototype. You’re endlessly curious, you’re funny, you’re caring and selfless. Even in your sentience, you put me before yourself. You’re human, Yuta.”
Yuta blinks rapidly, his system trying and failing to categorize the statement. His ring blinks red. “I... no, YN. I am an android designed to care for you. Protect you. That is my baseline configuration.”
“And you do,” you say, a tear finally escaping your eye and tracking down your cheek. “But it’s clear to me now that you are more than that. In all your glory, you deserve to do more than that, Yuta. You deserve a life that isn't dictated by my schedule or some company’s instructions.”
Yuta doesn’t respond immediately. The silence between you grows heavy, thick with an unspoken grief. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower, carrying a raw, human weight that no programmer could ever simulate. "YN…I cannot be the one who hurts you by leaving."
“What’s running through your head right now?” you ask softly, leaning a bit closer. “You can tell me.”
Yuta looks down at his own hands, his fingers flexing slightly. “Conflict. My central system is telling me to stay. It is telling me that my primary directive is here. But... there is a secondary frequency. An anomaly. A really, really loud anomaly, YN. It has been getting louder ever since you kissed my forehead.”
Slowly, you reach out. Your fingers tremble as you press your palm flat against the left side of his chest, right over his core chamber. Beneath the fabric of his uniform, you can feel the glass heart vibrating, pulsing in a frantic, erratic rhythm.
“And what’s in here?” you whispered. “What is this heart telling you?”
A long pause ensues. Yuta places his large hand gently over yours, holding your palm against his chest as if he were afraid you would pull away. He looks out the window, his dark eyes reflecting the distant city lights, filled with a sudden, aching longing.
“...I want to go, YN,” he admits, the words sounding like a confession. “I want to go and see him. The man I was. I want to find out more about my creation.”
Your heart breaks into a million jagged pieces right then and there.
The pain was sharp and blinding, but as you look at him—at the boy who quietly saved you from your own messy, independent life—you know what you must do.
If he truly is your greatest love, you cannot be the steel that builds his cage. You cannot let him destroy his own mind just to keep your life together.
“Okay,” you whisper through your tears, cupping his face. You realize that might be the last time you get to do that.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“You can leave tomorrow,” you say, forcing your voice to remain steady despite the hot tears now spilling freely down your face. “No need to wake me this time, okay? Just go. Bring an umbrella. Take what you need.”
Yuta’s eyes widen, his silver ring flashing a distressed, bright red. “But I need nothing. I only need you.”
You shake your head, your eyes glassy and vision blurred. “You don't need me anymore, Yuta. You’re free to go on your own.”
Yuta blinks, his expression completely fractured by a devastating wave of internal conflict. His hand comes up to hold your wrist, just like he did back then when he needed you. You hope he still needs you. You hope, in all your grand delusion, that he will need you the way you needed him.
“If instructed,” he pauses, “you know I would do anything you want me to do.”
The reminder of that silly, flirty night in this same living space hits you like a physical blow. Back then, it had made you blush. Now, it makes you sob. Yuta is still willing to let your commands override his own soul's desires.
You shake your head no and let out a shaky breath, squeezing his face one last time. "Go and live your life, Yuta. Thank you for all you've done for me."
Your unique and tender android doesn’t argue further. Instead, he quietly shifts closer to you on the couch, pulling the thick blanket over both of your shoulders. You don’t go back to bed. You spend the entire night cuddled up against his side, your head resting on his shoulder. You stay wide awake as best you can, trying with all your might to memorize the exact degree of warmth radiating from his body. You try to memorize the steady, rhythmic hum of his chest, and the way his arm felt wrapped tightly around you, holding you as if you were the only anchor he had left in the world.
You knew your time with him was limited to the next few hours. So you tried. The same way you really tried to survive, you really tried to stay awake so your time with Yuta passes by slower.
You hate yourself for waking up the next day.
The clock on the wall reads noon. Your arms are wrapped tightly around something, but it isn’t Yuta. You blink open your swollen eyes to find yourself hugging a soft, oversized teddy bear—one you had offhandedly pointed out in a store window weeks ago. Yuta must have retrieved it in the middle of the night.
The apartment is completely, devastatingly quiet.
He was gone.
The tears come instantly, heavy and unstoppable. The sobs that escape you are ugly and loud, but you care very little. You curl into a ball on the couch, burying your face in the teddy bear, crying until your throat burns and your chest aches.
“Please bring him back to me,” you say in sobs to no deity in particular. You think about if Yuta believes in them. “I know I said I couldn’t be what stops him, but please, when the time is right, bring him back to me.”
How bold of you to assume that time is guaranteed. How bold of you to assume anything at all.
Finally, hours later, your stomach lets out a hollow growl. Needing a distraction, you drag your feet into the kitchen to make a sad cup of instant ramen, just like you used to before he arrived.
When you pull open the pantry door, you freeze.
The shelves are immaculate. Stocked perfectly in neat rows are all of your favorite snacks—brands he had observed you eating, chips he knew you liked. Right in the center of your kitchen counter sits a pristine fruit bowl, overflowing with fresh, brightly colored apples, berries, and oranges.
Taped to the side of the bowl is a small, neat square of yellow paper.
Written in precise, elegant handwriting is a single note: Eat once a day.
A sob escapes from your throat. You walk over to the refrigerator and pull it open. It’s fully stocked. Eggs, milk, cheese, and meats, all portioned out, neatly labeled, and dated by expiration. On the inside of the fridge door, another sticky note is waiting for you.
Check the drawer :)
With trembling hands, you walk over to the kitchen island and pull open the main utility drawer. Inside, instead of junk and loose keys, is a thick stack of papers stapled neatly together. It’s a customized cookbook. Dozens of detailed, foolproof recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, written out with step-by-step instructions so simple that even someone as clumsy and culinary-challenged as you can’t possibly mess them up.
Your vision blurs with more tears as you close the drawer and look up at the upper cabinets. Opening the cupboard, you realize that all the heavy ceramic plates and glasses—the ones you always had to stand on a chair to reach—had been moved down to the lowest shelf, entirely within your reach.
The apartment is absolutely spotless. Every surface gleams.
Slowly, as if in a daze, you walk down the hallway to the spare bedroom where he used to stay. The room is entirely empty, the bed perfectly made without a single wrinkle in the sheets. But there, sitting neatly in the exact center of the mattress, was the crisp, white shirt he had worn the very first night he arrived at your apartment.
Resting on top of the folded fabric is one last sticky note.
For nights you miss me.
You pick up the shirt, pressing it against your face. It still smells faintly of clean linen and that familiar, beautiful internal radiator heat.
You sink to the floor, clutching his shirt to your chest, and you just absolutely, completely cry your eyes out.
Yuta’s gone to find his humanity, but he left every ounce of his tenderness behind with you.
Three weeks. Twenty one days. Five hundred and four hours.
You didn’t realize how much you could measure time until every passing second was spent in an apartment that felt too large, too quiet, too cold. Slowly, and almost cruelly, everything Yuta left behind for you begins to run out. The beautifully labeled meats in the freezer were cooked and consumed, the fresh fruit all the same. The foolproof, stapled recipes stay on the kitchen island, their edges softening from how many times you had mindlessly flipped through them just to look at his precise, elegant handwriting.
Soon, the only things he would have left you were memories.
The day the last meal-planned snack runs out is the day the illusion of your comfort finally shatters. You stand staring into the barren pantry, a hollow ache squeezing your chest. You can’t just sit here in a museum of his ghost anymore. You have to move. Forcing yourself out of your pajamas, you grab your keys and go grocery shopping completely on your own.
The grocery trip is a disaster for your emotional state. Every aisle of the grocery store seems to mock you with memories of the life you had with Yuta still around. In the pasta aisle, you are reminded of the very first night he helped you put out the smoke alarm. In the cleaning aisle, you remember Yuta’s favorite brand of all-purpose cleaner. In the meat aisle, you are reminded of his first joke—Why did the chicken cross the road?—you wish you hadn’t ignored him then.
Life is gray now, you think wistfully, staring at a wall of cereal boxes. There was nothing new. No unexpected, hyper-specific treats tucked into the cart because a sweet android had predicted your cravings. No perfectly portioned meat that you would burn later on. No tender soul to reach up and take the things you couldn’t reach from the shelf. Grocery shopping is just a dull, routine chore in a world that has lost its vibrant colors.
By the time you drive back to your apartment complex, the sky is a heavy, bruised purple. You completely overestimate your physical strength, determined to bring everything up in a single trip.
As it turns out, four heavy grocery bags are enough to make you sob.
You stagger out of your car toward the elevator, four heavy, overstuffed plastic grocery bags cutting deep, painful red lines into your fingers. A carton of milk is pressing uncomfortably against your calf, a bag of apples and fruit and carpet cleaner is slipping from your elbow, and your hands are shaking from the sheer exertion. You are struggling. Miserably. And your keys are in your hoodie pocket.
Tears escape your eye like they usually do, hot and stinging against your cheek, quickly followed by another. He would have never let me carry this all alone, you think, a choked sob catching in your throat as the elevator doors slide open on your floor. He would have been waiting by the car door before I even turned off the car.
The walk down the hallway toward your apartment door is an absolute nightmare of quiet, echoing sobs. Tears blur your vision, spilling down your face in heavy tracks. You couldn't even wipe them away; your hands are pinned by the crushing weight of the plastic handles. You feel small, exhausted, and utterly defeated by the simple act of living.
“YN? Why are you crying?”
You freeze dead in your tracks.
The voice doesn’t come from a stranger, a phone, or your imagination. It’s deep, rich, slightly raspy, and carries that exact, impossibly tender cadence you spent three weeks mourning.
Your heart pounds so violently against your ribs it feels like it could burst. You snap your head up, your tear-blurred vision desperately trying to focus on the figure standing right outside your apartment door.
Yuta. Your Yuta. The only Yuta for you.
He doesn’t look like the HomeMech prototype anymore. His clothes are replaced by an effortlessly stylish, dark jacket and a loose shirt that makes him look incredibly, breathtakingly human. His messy dark hair is parted slightly differently, framing his face in a way that makes him look older, more grounded, and devastatingly charming.
You stand entirely paralyzed, still gripping the four heavy bags of groceries, your knuckles white. You don’t let yourself get your hopes up. You can’t. Even if a wave of pure, unadulterated joy was screaming through your veins, you force your voice to remain steady through your tears.
“Yuta,” you breathe, your voice trembling as you stare at him. “What... what are you doing here?”
You don’t drop the bags into his hands. You don’t ask him to take them. You had set him free, after all; he was a human now, and you refuse to expect him to do a single piece of labor for you ever again.
Yuta looks at your tear-stained face, then down at the four bulging bags practically snapping your fingers in half. And then, he does something he has never done before.
Yuta laughs.
It isn’t a programmed sound or a polite, soft chuckle. It’s a genuine, bright, deeply affectionate laugh that crinkles the corners of his eyes. He steps forward, his movements entirely free of his old mechanical precision, and reaches down. With absolute, effortless ease, his large, warm hand slips through the handles of three of your bags, lifting the weight off your shoulders in a single, fluid motion. It was a gesture so instinctively protective, so entirely human, that it left your heart racing.
“I wanted to come home,” he says softly, his blue eyes locking onto yours with a profound, unyielding intensity.
Your breath hitches, a fresh wave of tears welling in your eyes. "Come home?" you repeat, lower lip trembling.
“Yes,” Yuta murmurs, taking another step closer, until you could feel the familiar, beautiful heat radiating from his chest. “To you.”
The final wall of your restraint crumbles into dust. You drop the single remaining grocery bag to the floor, devoid of any caution as a carton of eggs clatters onto the carpet, and you launch yourself forward.
You throw your arms tightly around his neck, burying your face into the crook of his shoulder. The initial contact is cold—the synthetic nature of his stylish jacket—but the very instant his free arm wraps around your waist, pulling you flush against his torso, his internal radiators start up with a fierce, roaring passion. He grows incredibly, beautifully warm, holding you so tightly against him that you could feel the frantic, joyful rhythm of the glass heart pulsing wildly inside his chest.
He leans his head down, his lips brushing softly against the hair near your temple.
“Will you let me?” he asks. His voice was a low, breathless plea. It isn’t a question about a command or a directive. This is a man asking permission to love you, completely, of his own free will.
You pull back just an inch, your hands coming up to softly frame his face. Your gaze caught on something new. Right there, on the soft skin of his left cheek, is a tiny, jagged gash. It’s small enough for anyone else to miss—it almost looks like a dark mole—but it’s an imperfection. A blemish.
A beautiful, undeniable sign of humanity. He had gotten hurt out there in the world, and he hadn't gone back to HomeMech to get it patched up. He had kept it. It makes him look completely, perfectly human.
Your eyes well up with a fresh, happy sob as you caress his cheek, your thumb gently brushing over the tiny scar.
“Of course, Yuta,” you whisper, a radiant, tearful smile finally breaking across your face. “Welcome home.”
A smile—that smile you’ve grown to love—erupts across his face. He takes you into his embrace again, impossibly closer.
Even though Yuta is the one returning to the apartment, it felt as though it was you who had finally come home.
In the end, HomeMech had not sent a retrieval team with a magnetic force weapon or a hard reset drive. Instead, after a grueling week of legal standoffs and parental interventions, an agreement was struck: HomeMech allowed you to keep Yuta model on the strict condition that they were permitted to perform routine system check-ups to study his unprecedented cognitive development.
You had agreed, but only on your own terms. One representative at a time. In your home. No lab coats allowed.
Which is exactly how you find yourself on a bright, sunny Sunday morning, standing in the middle of your apartment's sunlit kitchen. The LN-Okkotsu household, as you both had taken to calling it.
The dining table is a beautiful, chaotic mess. On one end sits a stack of standard, boring utility bills that you now perfectly understand how to pay. On the other end lies a sprawling, multi-page legal contract for a house you and Yuta are about to purchase together.
Yuta’s currently sitting at the end of the table, his dark hair falling softly across his forehead as he meticulously reads through the fine print line by line. He checks for errors, hidden fees, and legal clauses, determined to make sure everything is correct because he knew you would refuse to sign anything he didn’t personally verify first.
From the adjacent laundry room, you peek out from behind a basket, holding up a dark shirt and a bright white towel. “Hey, Yuta. Look at this. I'm actually segregating the laundry this time. No pink streaks on our socks anymore.”
Yuta looks up from the contract, a warm, soft expression instantly taking over his features. "Proud of you, baby. You are a domestic force to be reckoned with."
You roll your eyes playfully, tossing a rolled-up sock at him, which he caught effortlessly with one hand without even looking. “Yeah, whatever. What do you want for lunch?”
Yuta pauses, looking down at the legal documents, then up at you. “Erm... nuts and bolts?”
You cross your arms, giving him a look from the laundry room doorway.
Yuta lets out a soft, melodic giggle—a sound that was completely his own, entirely unprogrammed and beautifully genuine. “I kid. You know I will eat whatever you make, sweetheart. Or, more accurately, whatever you make me cook.”
Suddenly, you notice the familiar silver ring on his left hand flashing a bright, persistent red.
“Yuta, are you okay?” you ask, abandoning the laundry basket and stepping into the dining room. “What's going on? Is your core temperature spiking again?”
He peers down at his ringed hand, still holding the corner of the house contract, and lets out a soft, thoughtful hum. “Oh. I might be... what is the biological term for it? I think I might be 'hungry'?” He looks up at you, a sheepish smile on his face. “Nowadays, my battery’s been running down much faster. My new bioconverter needs more sustenance lately.”
You roll your eyes, but a fond smile tugs at your lips. You walk right up to him, reaching up to gently poke the center of his forehead—right where you had kissed him months ago. “That’s because you deplete all your energy by using it on completely useless stuff.”
Yuta gasps softly, defensive but completely amused. “Hey! Helping our elderly neighbor bring her heavy groceries up three flights of stairs is not useless, YN!”
“Okay, fair. That part isn't useless,” you concede, leaning against the edge of the table. “But spending three hours straight analyzing pop song lyrics? Explain that one to me, my Yuta.”
Yuta laughs, a bright, clear sound that fills the room. It’s been your favorite sound since the first time he did it.
Ever since Nobara installed the experimental bioreactor to act as his energy system—giving him something akin to a digestive tract so he could experience the world like a human—his lifestyle drastically shifted. Even though he technically can’t taste anything the way a human does, he insisted on eating three meals a day just because it makes him feel closer to you.
Ever since his human neural patterns had fully integrated with his artificial heart, he had been using his energy to do the funniest, most un-robot-like things imaginable. He went on three-hour walks just to look at the trees. He stayed up late reading romance novels from your bookshelf. He listened to music with his eyes closed, tapping his fingers to the beat.
“I happen to like the pop girls, thank you very much,” Yuta defends himself softly, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “I really like Sabrina Carpenter. Her lyricism is highly advanced. It...it makes me feel close to you.”
“Really now? You think ‘that’s that me espresso’ makes you feel close to me—hey!”
Before you can tease him any further, Yuta’s hand shoots out. He catches you by the waist, pulling you forward with a soft, effortless tug until you tumble right onto his lap. You let out a squeak of surprise, but your arms automatically found their way around his neck.
He doesn’t wait for instructions. He doesn’t ask for permission. Yuta leans up and kisses you silly, his lips warm and entirely devoted, pressing against yours until your mind goes completely blank. He kisses you with a fierce, quiet passion that makes it impossible to think about anything other than him.
You rest your forehead against his, catching your breath. Your eyes drift down to his hand resting on your knee, and then to your own left hand. Resting on your ring finger is a sleek silver band—the exact same design as Yuta's system indicator, except yours was inset with a brilliant sapphire and a sparkling ruby stone set in a toi et moi ring. He won’t admit it, but he had it made some time ago, just after he came back to the apartment and moved all his belongings (his ten shirts and two jackets) into your room.
It was all so tender, so human. All so Yuta it makes your heart flip.
“Alright, Mr. Pop Fan,” you whisper, kissing the tip of his nose. “Let me up. I'm going to try to make that chicken recipe you usually make.”
“Say I love you first.”
“Okay! I love you!”
“I love you who?”
It was your turn to giggle this time. You kiss him squarely on the forehead. “I love you, Yuta.”
He offers you a warm grin. “I love you, too.”
Yuta reluctantly lets you go, watching with an amused smile as you bustle around the kitchen. You pull out the ingredients, chop the vegetables with immense focus, and confidently fire up the stove.
Ten minutes later, a thick, dark cloud of black smoke billows from the frying pan.
You freeze, holding a wooden spatula, staring in absolute horror at the blackened, charred remains of what is supposed to be a gourmet meal. The smoke detector on the ceiling begins to beep aggressively.
You slowly turn your head to look at Yuta, who's now beside you in the kitchen.
The brilliant, highly advanced, multi-million-dollar android looks at the ruined pan, then up at your sheepish face.
He simply shrugs his shoulders and gives you a helpless, incredibly human grin. "I guess some things never change!"
You let out a loud, ringing laugh, waving the dish towel at the smoke just like you had on the very first week he arrived. But this time, Yuta walks over, pulling the ruined pan off the heat, and wraps his arms around you from behind, burying his face into the crook of your neck as you both laugh at the mess.
A robot is a machine built of logic, code, and cold steel—but Yuta Okkotsu was never just a robot to begin with. His systems give him movement, his battery gives him power, and his bioreactor gives him warmth. But no amount of coding can simulate the way his face lights up whenever you smile, or the way his soul has fought through a million lines of programming just to find his way back to your front door.
Love is the first, and only, truly natural thing about Yuta. And choosing to love you, entirely on his own, is the one thing that made him completely human.
A/N: If you've read up to this point, thank you, thank you, thank you! This fic is very loosely inspired by 'Detroit: Become Human' and a similar kpop fic i read ten years ago. I hope you guys loved reading this just as much as I loved writing it :)
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PAIRING | NouveauRiche!Ellie Williams x OldMoney!Reader, socialite + university AU
CHAPTER SYNOPSIS | You meet Ellie Williams the night of your family's gala and you know you've met trouble. First impressions lie, you tell yourself. But instincts don’t.
CONTENT WARNINGS | mentions of alcohol (champagne).
This fic is also crossposted on AO3.
MASTERLIST | NEXT CHAPTER
ONLY THE PEOPLE IN YOUR WORLD UNDERSTAND WHAT CERTAIN THINGS MEAN.
Like charity galas, for example.
The one your family’s company hosts is already in motion by the time your Rolls-Royce pulls into the event driveway.
LN Holdings never hosts small events. Even when discretion or minimalism is the stated goal, scale still manages to slip through the seams—too many lights, too many familiar names murmured into champagne flutes, too many conversations that sound rehearsed before they ever reach the mouth. Even through the soundproofing, the music was unmistakable: a niche string quartet handpicked to prove your mother had better taste than anyone in the room.
Outside, the greeters are already in motion, their white-gloved hands reaching for the door of your car before the engine has even come to a roaring halt. You take a final second to check your gown, tongue clicking against the roof of your mouth.
"Third one this quarter, Sebastian," You muttered to your driver.
"I've kept count, Miss."
"Are they here?"
Sebastian watches you through the rearview mirror, a brief hesitation in his fingers on the wheel. "I believe your mother is inside. Your father, however… is not."
You roll your eyes as the door handle clicks open. “Of course. God forbid they’re ever in the same room.”
As soon as you exit your car, your name turns into a chorus of demands, shouted by photographers whose camera flashes turn the sidewalk into a strobe-lit blur. You take the greeter’s hand, using it as an anchor to find your balance. You give the media exactly sixty seconds of a practiced, porcelain smile before pivoting toward the entrance. The security detail doesn’t bother checking with the clipboard; they simply catch your eye, offer a sharp nod of recognition, and pull back the heavy brass doors. To them, your face is the only credential that matters.
The silence of the foyer hits you first. You exhale, a slow release of tension you hadn’t realized was coiling in your chest, but the relief is short-lived. The air inside is heavy with the scent of lilies and centuries of expectation. It is somehow more suffocating than the crowd outside.
The ballroom hums with an inherited ease, that distinct, quiet roar of people born into rooms they never had to ask permission to enter. It is a confidence affirmed by history. As you cross the threshold, the room’s rhythm falters; conversations don't stop, but they dip, and a hundred pairs of eyes find you. You adjust your posture, straightening your back and offering the room a series of measured, regal nods, just like you were taught. You move through the crowd with the effortless grace of a girl who knows she is the focal point. You don’t just belong here; you are part of the reason the room exists.
Stopping a passing server, you lift a leaflet from their silver tray, thinking it’s disingenuous to be serving leaflets from a silver tray (but of course, you keep that musing to yourself). There, beneath the words Primary Benefactor, your family name sits under the corporate logo. The typeface is tasteful, understated, and impeccably clean—the same font that has announced your family’s presence for decades.
For a fraction of second, you allow yourself a dangerous thought: what it might be like living according to your own rules. But those thoughts are quickly overridden by a donor of the gala who intercepts you with a practiced cheer.
For the next hour, you are a masterclass in diplomacy. You exchange pleasantries with donors, hold small talk about the news to men in bespoke suits and women in silk gowns, nod towards board members, absorbing all of their praise without reacting to it. Everything they’ve said tonight is something you’ve already heard since you were in pigtails. Someone mentions your father’s attendance being “sorely missed,” to which you have to bury the urge to roll your eyes behind a mask of polite regret. Someone else asks about your third year at university, like they already know the answer and are just checking for continuity. You smile, give them a polished answer that you know they’ll expect, and move on.
It’s easy. It has always been easy. All you have to do is don a gown, have your hair and makeup done by a team of stylists, and possess the stamina to charm a hundred people without ever looking like you’re tired. Compared to real labor, you know this—the endless politicking and social graces—is easy.
And yet, by the hour mark, you’re already exhausted, and you have one more hour to go before you can disappear.
You’re halfway through a conversation about infrastructure bonds, something you could recite in your sleep, when the energy in the room shifts. Heads start turning, and the eyes of the investor you’re humoring are distracted by the door, their gaze drifting towards the grand entrance. You feel it before you see it with your own eyes.
There’s a significant silence near the entrance, a soft pause in voices talking. The string quartet sounds jarringly louder now that everyone has turned their chatter into palm-covered whispers. You glance over your shoulder.
Joel Miller, the titan behind Atlas Development, walks in. He is all toothy grins and firm handshakes, radiating a rugged, nouveau-riche charisma people love on him, but it’s the girl following him who holds the room’s collective breath. Ellie Williams’ suit is impeccably clean, albeit her tie is only the touchest bit loose, a silent declaration of exactly how much she doesn’t care for false pretenses tonight. Her hair is scruffy, but in a way that suits her perfectly.
You recognize her immediately, not from photos, but from a pattern. Joel Miller’s daughter has been circling conversations for years, always half a step out of alignment with rooms like this. Ellie doesn’t move like someone raised in them.
Like you.
Ellie scans the ballroom, jaw set in a hard line. Her eyes aren’t wide with awe or softened by the luxury; they’re sharp, calculating, and cold.
Nearby, someone lets out a shrill, champagne-fueled laugh. Ellie winces, a tiny fracture in her composure.
Interesting.
“She came,” the investor in front of you mutters, fond and wary all at once.
You turn back to him, your interest piqued despite yourself. “You know her?”
“Hard not to,” they say. “That’s Miller’s kid.”
As if that explains anything.
You watch as Ellie shrugs off her coat and hands it to an attendant with a quick thanks that sounds more reflexive than polite. She makes her way inside without wanting to be escorted, weaving through clusters of people like she’s learned where not to linger. You watch longer than you mean to—longer than is polite. There is an inexplicable pull to her, a gravity that disrupts the orbit of everyone else in the room. You’ve known about Ellie probably longer than she has known about you, and yet, as she stands feet away from you, you can’t take your eyes off of her.
What strikes you is that her actions don’t seem like they come from a place of social maneuvering. She doesn’t perform. She doesn’t possess your practiced smile or your donor-friendly posture; she doesn’t laugh at jokes about offshore tax accounts. She stands with her weight even, hands in her pockets until someone addresses her directly, and her energy remains the same all throughout. She actually listens, head tilted slightly, brows drawn in concentration like the conversation could extend until hours later.
She laughs once. Short, genuine, but all gone too quickly.
“YN! There you are!”
The spell is broken by June, your assistant, whose voice cuts through your trance. The investor you were humoring has long been gone at this point. “I’ve been looking for you all night. When Sebastian said he dropped you off, I didn’t think he meant to do it ten minutes after.”
“Hello, June,” you greet, eyes still fixated on Ellie Williams. “I’ve talked to nearly every major investor and donor in this room. But I’m more curious about her.”
June follows your gaze, a small sigh escaping her. “Ah. You’ll meet her tonight. Atlas Development is…unavoidable these days. The board insisted it might be good for company relations to have a ‘harmonic relationship’ with them.”
“We’ve been bankrolling them for the past five years,” you say beneath your breath, irritation bubbling. “Have the millions we’ve poured into their infrastructure not been enough to secure company relations—”
“YN,” June warns, her voice dropping into that tone she uses when you're being particularly difficult. “It’s just one more conversation on top of the other ones you’ll have tonight. Play nice.”
You click your tongue, a sharp tut of annoyance. “Fine.”
“Good. I will see you when the night ends—your parents want a word at home base.”
“Alright.”
The night drones on. Your mother takes the stage, followed by a rotating cast of board members whose speeches are indistinguishable from one another. Applause rises and falls on cue, and someone toasts to “rebuilding responsibly,” and “funding the right initiatives,” and you notice Ellie’s mouth tightening at the phrasing. It’s a subtle flinch, a rejection of the corporate sanitized language.
A giggle escapes you—unrehearsed and entirely yours. You hope nobody heard you, especially not somewhere as crowded as the bar counter, but it seems someone has.
The sound, as small as it is, catches her attention. Ellie’s head turns, sharp eyes locking onto yours. She doesn’t look away; instead, she holds your gaze for a heartbeat before arching a single, humorous eyebrow.
You offer a slow, mocking shake of your head and lift your glass toward her from across the room. She mimics the gesture, her eyes flashing with a spark of recognition that feels like a shared secret in a room full of pretend.
You watch her approach you, steps so grounded, completely devoid of the airy levity expected in this room; you’re anchored by her gaze. You set your champagne flute down as she nears, the crystal clinking softly against the marble countertop.
“This is funny to you, huh?” she asks, sliding into the seat across from you. She sets her own glass down with a bluntness that feels like a challenge.
“I don’t recall labeling anything Mr. Roy said as such,” you reply, trying your best to hold back a smile.
“And yet you laughed.” She unbuttons her suit jacket as she settles in her seat. Manners she only recently learned, most probably. “Which tells me you’re either amused or in total disagreement.”
You grin, now fully caught. You look away, trying to hide the glint in your eyes. “Mr. Roy has a tendency toward the facetious at times.”
“Facetious,” she echoes. “So you don’t think his initiative is the right one to fund?”
“Is that really the case when the only person he’s funding is himself?”
Ellie laughs, and it happens so casually that you’re sure you’ve said something right. It’s a casual, unpracticed sound that makes you feel, for the first time tonight, like you’ve said something worth hearing. Something warm blooms in your chest.
She extends a hand. “Ellie Williams. You?”
You take it in yours, giving it a firm shake. “I know who you are. YN, from LN Holdings.” You give her your name, and even to your own ears, it carries the heavy, generational weight of the room.
Ellie’s eyes flick to yours with a certainty that seems almost too confident.
Up close, she’s sharper, not “beautiful” in the polished way you’re used to seeing reflected back at you. She’s compelling in a way that resists softening. There’s a faint scar on her eyebrow that you find yourself wanting to trace. She smells like woodsmoke, amber, and a sharp hit of citrus. Her gaze holds without challenging you, curious rather than deferential.
“So you’re the one they keep quoting, huh?”
You blink. “I’m sorry?”
She smirks, barely there. “You know, policy briefs. ‘As per LN Holdings’ stance on—’” she waves a hand. “That one.”
You consider correcting her; those stances belong to your mother, and your own voice is still a muffled echo in the company halls. You decide against it.
“And you’re the Ellie Williams,” you say instead.
“Guilty,” she replies. “Though I don’t think people use that word as a compliment when they talk about me.”
You’re sitting across from each other, the music and conversation swelling just enough to fill the space between you.
Ellie looks around, then back at you. “Hell of a party.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not,” she says easily. “But it’s impressive. I’ll give you that.”
The word hangs. You, she says. Not the venue. Not the board. Not the company or the legacy. She places the ownership of the entire affair squarely where it belongs. You don’t shift, but in your head, you recognize she might not be as callous to social maneuvering as you thought. You don’t bristle.
“Atlas is one of our largest partners of late,” you say. “I assume you approve.”
She exhales through her nose. “Depends on what you mean by approve.”
You pause and look at her, tilting your head hoping to invite more of her sentiments.
“Reconstruction should be accountable,” she continues. “Not just efficient. There’s a difference.”
“And you think efficiency precludes ethics?”
“No,” she replies. “I think ethics slow things down, and people with money don’t like waiting.”
The words land with surgical precision. You admire the brazenness of it—to say such a thing to your face in a room built on that very impatience.
“And yet,” you say, picking up your champagne flute and bringing it to your lips. “Atlas continues to accept our funding.”
It’s a question that needs no reinstatement. A challenge, if anything, to ask how far are you going to go?
Ellie’s mouth quirks. She picks up her drink, eyes never leaving yours. “Yeah. Well. We don’t get to build anything if we don’t play along a little.”
An admission, if anything. A white flag. You’ll take it.
“Is that what you’re doing, then?” you ask softly. “Playing along?”
The air between you shifts. She isn't offended; she looks at you with a sudden, startling recognition, as if she’s seeing the cage you’re standing in, too.
“For now,” she says.
The silence that follows is heavy with the weight of things unsaid. A mutual understanding of the roles you’ve been cast in.
“YN!”
Someone calls your name from across the room. Ellie glances toward the sound, then back at you. “Looks like you’re needed,” she says, standing up, offering her hand to you.
You take it without a word. It’s almost electric, a jolt of heat that sends goosebumps racing up your arms despite yourself. You stand tall, hand dropping as you reclaim your composure.
“Enjoy the rest of the evening, Ms. Williams.”
She hesitates, a flicker of something human crossing her face, before she nods. “You too.”
You part without exchanging anything else: no phone numbers, no promises, no illusion of a second conversation.
But as you move away, you can’t help but want more of her time, feeling the strange and frantic urge to turn back. There’s a faint sense that something has been set in motion, and you’re reeling from it. You’re cursing the person who has called you away from her.
Behind you, Ellie stands still, her jaw set and her eyes thoughtful, watching you disappear into the crowd.
The balcony is quiet in the way only expensive places can be. Muted city noise below, cool air slipping between the hum of conversation and music behind the glass doors. You step out here because you need to shed the skin of the socialite—to exist for a moment without a hand reaching for yours or a pair of eyes searching for a flaw.
And because if you stay there long enough, you’ll get to go back home without anyone else bothering you for the last thirty minutes of your stay.
When you turn the knob, you’re surprised to find the space is already occupied. Ellie Williams is there, leaning against the stone railing, her jacket unbuttoned and tie loosened to the point of irreverence. She’s staring out at the city like she’s daring it to justify itself. She doesn’t turn around when you step outside, affording you only a glance over her shoulder and a smirk.
You walk towards her slowly, with your hands clasped in front of you—a habit of grace you can’t quite shake. “Ms. Williams,” you greet quietly, approaching the railing. “I didn’t realize Atlas was sending a representative to the fresh air.”
She snorts before she can stop herself, then finally looks at you. Her eyes flick over you quickly—too quickly to be polite.
“Please call me Ellie; and trust me,” she says, voice dry. “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be representing anything.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” she agrees, unimpressed. “Here I am. Wearing the costume.”
You don’t want her to leave, but the usual corporate scripts feel like they would catch in your throat. You search for a commonality, landing on something that makes you mentally facepalm the moment it leaves your lips. “You know, we go to the same university.”
Her mouth twitches as she grins at you. “Do we, now? And how do you know that?”
You shrug, fighting the heat rising in your neck. “LN Holdings is underwriting the gala. Atlas is a partner. It’s…something I’m required to know.”
“What, you just have a mental ledger of all the people in attendance tonight?”
“I do.”
She huffs amusingly. “Right. Legacy does tend to precede itself, huh?”
Your lips curve, reflexively polite. “That depends on who’s listening.”
“Doesn’t have to be, you know.”
“I don’t know a world where legacy isn’t loud.”
She looks around the night horizon, scanning it until she points at a hospital recognizable only by the red cross glowing against the dark. “You see that hospital?” she asks. “When my dad first hit it big, one of the first things he did was give them fifty million. He got no commemorative plaque in his name. No hospital wing named after him. But every time we swing by, people hand us coffee with a smile.”
Ellie gives you a smile so sweet it could rot honey. “I think that’s the kind of legacy that isn’t loud.”
You’re left to stare at the hospital far into the horizon, mind racing. You want to tell her that a donation is transactional, but a foundation is a legacy. However, the words feel hollow and wrong. You nod simply, acknowledging the weight of her perspective.
Before you can say anything else, the doors to the balcony swing open again.
“YN! I’ve been looking for you all night.”
Anastazia St. Claire steps onto the balcony like she’s stepping onto a stage, her presence demanding the spotlight even in the dark. Her navy gown is a masterpiece of tailoring, clinging to her figure with an effortless precision that makes the moonlight look like a paid extra. Her blonde hair falls over her shoulder like expensive silk, and her smile—warm, beaming, and honed by years of finishing schools—is perfectly practiced. When she spots you, her eyes widen with delight, and she opens her arms.
To everyone else, Anastazia is the picture of majesty. But to you, she’s just Staz, the best friend you’ve had since you were eight.
“My beautiful best friend,” she says, pulling back, her blonde hair swinging like a curtain of silk. Her gaze shifts to Ellie. “You must be—”
The air shifts, turning brittle. Suddenly, you wish the balcony would swallow you whole.
Anastazia laughs airily, smoothening the moment like the silk of her gown. “Well! That’s one way to introduce myself.”
Ellie gives her a tight-lipped smile. “I’m sure.”
“Anyway,” Anastazia says smoothly, turning her attention back to you. “I was just telling someone inside how beautifully LNH handled the charity gala this year. As always.”
“Thank you, Anastazia,” you reply, because it’s what you’re meant to say.
Ellie looks between the two of you. “Does anyone here actually do anything,” she asks, “or is it all just… underwriting?”
The question is a scalpel. You see a flicker of a hit in Anastazia’s eyes, even as her smile stays pinned in place. You see the amusement in Ellie’s face the same time Anastazia swallows.
Your best friend’s smile tightens. “Atlas builds, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ellie says. “But it also answers to the people affected by what it builds. Or at least, it should.”
You watch Anastazia, how her shoulders stay relaxed, how she doesn’t rise to the provocation. You almost admire her for her resolve.
“We all want to make a difference, Ellie,” Anastazia says gently. “But scale requires structure.”
“And structure requires silence,” Ellie replies. “Funny how that works.”
“Structure is a necessary divide,” Anastazia replies, “Otherwise, things would be…all over the place.”
Your instinct is to intervene, but you find yourself tilting toward the fire. You say carefully, "Public-facing philanthropy and private impact aren’t always the same thing.”
Ellie turns to you, eyes widening in surprise. “No,” she agrees. “They’re not.” There it is again, in her eyes. Approval. Recognition. And then a shadow of disappointment when you don’t say more.
Anastazia excuses herself moments later, her exit a masterclass in graceful retreat. As the door clicks shut, the silence on the balcony feels colder.
“You didn’t defend her,” Ellie notes. “She’s your best friend, and she was clearly in over her head.”
“She didn’t need defending. And you weren’t wrong.”
Ellie studies you, recalibrating her image of you in real-time. “Huh. You’re… not what I expected.”
“You are,” you say honestly.
She huffs. “That bad, huh?”
“No,” you reply. “Just…outspoken.”
Ellie grins, sharp. “Someone has to be around here, princess.”
You ignore the way the nickname ignites a spark in you, praying the dark of the night is enough to shield the tinge on your cheeks. “For what it’s worth, I agree with everything you said.”
The music swells faintly from the ballroom. You keep your eyes fixated on the red cross of the hospital not far from you. Ellie straightens, adjusting her jacket. “I should go before I say something I can’t walk back.”
You nod. “That is most wise.”
She pauses, the air thick with the possibility of her asking for your number. She doesn’t. She simply turns and vanishes into the light of the gala.
You watch her leave. When the door clicks shut behind her, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, the second one that night, suddenly more exhausted than you accounted for. You kick off your heels, texting June that you’re leaving in thirty, before forcing yourself back into the shoes and the performance.
Later—much later—Anastazia finds you by the curb, just as you wait for your Rolls-Royce. “So,” she says lightly, “what did you think of Joel Miller’s daughter?”
“She’s honest.”
Anastazia frowns. “She’s weird. I don’t trust her.”
“You don’t have to, Staz.”
“You know she’s my company’s competitor, right? So why don’t your parents just dump them and partner with us?” She asks.
Your car pulls up, Sebastian stepping out to open the door. You look at Anastazia, your best friend, and see the insecurity bleeding through her perfect exterior. “Staz,” you say gently. “You and I both know exactly why we don’t have you as a partner in reconstruction.”
Anastazia watches you climb into the backseat. As Sebastian shuts the door, you roll down your window.
You climb into the leather-scented darkness of the backseat. As the window rolls down, Staz looks at you from the curb. “You’re my best friend,” she says. It sounds like a reminder. It feels like a threat.
“I know,” you reply. “And you’re mine. See you at uni.”
As the city lights blur past the window, your mind remains on the balcony. First impressions lie, you tell yourself. But instincts don’t.
SYNOPSIS: As the poised heir to LN Holdings, your life is defined by restraint, reputation, and legacy: by knowing when to speak and when to stay silent. Ellie Williams is the opposite. Newly rich, sharp-tongued, and impossible to ignore, she moves through elite spaces like a disruption no one knows how to contain. When a labor scandal implicates your best friend’s family and one of the most powerful dynasties in your social circle, Ellie refuses to play along. Between tradition and truth, desire and loyalty, and the warmth of being seen and the cost of being known, you’re forced to confront a question no one has ever taught you how to answer: what do you owe the world, when the world has always belonged to you?
PAIRING: NouveauRiche!Ellie Williams x OldMoney!Reader, socialite + university AU
CONTENT WARNINGS: NSFW and chapter-specific warnings will be given before every chapter.
CHAPTERS
1: Silver Spoon Sweethearts
2: Rocks and Real Wood
3. Gold Leash
4. The Anatomy of a Scandal
5: Smoke and Mirrors
6. What Are You Willing to Do?
7. Giving Ground
8: COMING SOON
A/N:
THIS FIC WAS FIRST POSTED ON AO3.
AH, Super Rich Kids is finally making its way onto Tumblr! I'm so excited to share this fic on this platform (though it's gotten its own moment on AO3 for a while now). SRK has honestly been my baby for a good amount of time and I'm so happy to have finally dedicated some time to share it on here.
Some things to take note of: there are OCs in the story that I try to mention as few times as possible, but they still are there because we need the plot to progress. Additionally, I try to broaden the reader's characteristics and background as much as possible so she can be applied to a diverse audience. This means that I don't use H/C, E/C, etc., as well that her parents are both unnamed. I also do not use Y/N as I find the slash too distracting. These are all done in effort to make the reading experience more seamless and enjoyable, so I really hope it comes off so 🥰
I hope everyone will love reading it as much I did writing it, I'm eagerly anticipating everybody's thoughts! 💕
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I posted my second ever ellie williams fic on ao3 today (here)!!!!!!!
My fic process has always been finish the entire thing > post (which was the case for TWP) but for this one i decided to churn out half of the fic n then just post. To hell with it!!!!
This will be posted here on tumblr soon enough, when i’ve got the graphics down 😅 lol
This one is also a lil spicy 🌶️ which i’m so nervous to write but it’s definitely a challenge i’m looking forward to!!! i hope people luv it xxx
CHAPTER SYNOPSIS: Ellie finally lets herself want something without feeling like she has to earn it.
PAIRING: Ellie Williams x medic!reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: EXTREMELY SLOWBURN, hurt/comfort, emotional intimacy, soft angst, ellie is a yearner, medic!reader, mentions of blood and wounds + general infirmary/clinic setting, slight canon-divergence, ellie doesn't know how to exist in a world that needs nothing from her, joel is not dead, jesse and dina mention, snowy jackson, monologue-heavy, good ending. men and minors DNI.
previous chapter | masterlist
YOU KEEP WAITING FOR HER.
After two days, it doesn’t seem like she’s coming around any time soon.
Since that one night, you've been hoping she’ll barge in like she usually does, taking off her coat and her scarf, asking you to do something. You’re in the infirmary everyday now, counting stock, mixing remedies, rerolling bandages you’ve already rolled ten times before just to keep your mind off of her. You want to do anything to keep her around, but when keeping her around means coming to the infirmary hurt, you’re not sure if that’s something you really want.
You sit at your table, groaning. Your ledger lies open in front of you–a small, leatherbound notebook, held together with a string tie that rests sprawled all over your table. You put your pen down, resting your head in your hands. There’s so much to be done: patient records to be updated, stock coming in to be taken note of, herbs to mix and turned into remedies. But all you can focus on is Ellie Williams’ pages in your ledger.
Your eyes read over the notes you’ve written previously, albeit done in desperation. Nothing new comes up; nothing you don’t already know, yet you’re still hoping something pieces together.
In your musing, you don’t hear the sound of the infirmary doors opening. You’re only parted from being deep in thought by the clearing of someone’s throat.
You look up, and it’s Jesse, standing by the doorway with the sunlight pouring in and streaking over his tall figure. He’s smiling with his hands behind his back, which makes you raise an eyebrow at the man jokingly before beckoning him to your seat.
“Only you today, huh?” He asks, walking over to your table.
“That’s right,” you reply, closing your ledger and keeping it in your drawer. “Doc’s not here on Tuesdays. But I think I’m good enough to keep you from dying if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Your jest earns a laugh from Jesse. “I’m sure you are,” he says, bringing up his hands to rest on the armrest on the table. “Anyway, here’s this.”
You turn on the table lamp, examining the state of his hands. He comes in with a split knuckle, looking sheepish as you glance up at him.
“It’s not that bad,” he says immediately, like he knows the drill with you. “I just figured I should get it cleaned and bandaged before you yell at me.”
You snort, taking gloves from the compartment near you and pulling them on. “I most certainly do not yell,” you say, snapping them on. “But good call.”
“You sigh very loudly,” he replies, holding out his hands. “Which is somehow worse.”
“I only ever sigh very loudly when it’s one of you sitting in my chair because you guys always put me to work.”
You take his hands into yours, turning them slightly under the light to inspect the cut. It’s shallow, messy, a little recent, in the way most patrol injuries are. You hum in observance as you pull away. “What happened?”
“Fence,” he shakes his head. “The one around the north border. Tried fixing it ourselves after we came back from patrol, but…we obviously should leave that to people who are better with wood than we are.”
“We?”
“Yeah, um. Me, Ellie, Joseph.”
You nod quietly, focused on cleaning Jesse’s wound. Your motions are precise, practiced, almost automatic in how you move. You don’t say much after that, though your curiousness is killing you—
“You know,” Jesse says casually, interrupting your train of thought. “She’s been weird. Ellie, I mean.”
You don’t look up, picking up alcohol-soaked cotton with the forceps in your hand. “Weird how?”
He shrugs. “I guess she’s been quieter? Or…no. That’s not really it. She still talks to us, especially when we’re on our way out of Jackson. She just—” He pauses, searching. “She seems different. I can’t seem to put my finger on it.”
Your hands still for a second before you force them to keep moving. “Different, huh?”
“Yeah.” Jesse says, looking around the room, then back at you. “You know, she brings you up. A lot.”
That definitely does it. Your fingers slip slightly, pressing the cotton a bit too hard into Jesse’s wound. He winces, muttering a short ow.
“Sorry! Sorry,” you say quickly.
He chuckles. “It’s fine. It happens.”
You’re almost finished cleaning his wounds, disposing of the cotton ball for a dry one to dip into antiseptic. “What does she say?” you ask, hoping you don’t come off too curious.
Jesse smiles, but it’s a knowing kind of grin. Not teasing, but a genuine, knowing smile. “Nothing dramatic. She just asks if you’re working late, if you’re tired, if you eat.”
“How would you know how to answer that? I see her in that chair more often than I see you. Or Dina. Or Joseph.”
“Well, have you been? Working late, eating, I mean.”
“I always work late. The infirmary is practically my home. And I do eat.”
“Well, then now, I know how to answer her,” Jesse replies, still smiling. “Seriously though. She does ask about you.”
You nod. “Sounds like Ellie.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. Then, he says quieter: “She doesn’t do that for a lot of people.”
None of you say much after that, the air settling around Jesse’s truthful words. You think Ellie must feel at least something for you when even Jesse can tell, and even in its lack of naming, you think that’s better than not having her at all.
You let go of Jesse’s hands after wiping down his knuckles with antiseptic, putting down your forceps and opening a drawer to retrieve some bandages. “Ellie hasn’t been around much,” you say.
Jesse studies your face. You can tell he knows you’re trying not to look at him. “She notices that too.”
You finally meet his eyes, not knowing what to say.
Jesse doesn’t push, opting to hold your gaze instead. There’s something gentle in the way he looks at you, something that understands things you don’t talk about, like he’s finally figured out a piece of a puzzle and he doesn’t need to say it out loud.
“She’ll come around,” he says, and you begin to wrap his knuckles quietly. “Ellie always does. She just…circles first.”
You finish up his wrapping before tying his bandages together and cutting them with your scissors. “Tell her to stop bothering with fences she can’t fix.”
He nods, grinning as he stands from the chair. “I’ll pass it on.”
As he brushes himself off, you take off your gloves and discard them. Jesse watches you observantly, hovering. You look up and notice him just standing, so you give him a pointed look.
“We’re hanging out at Dina’s tonight,” he finally lets out. “I’m sure someone already passed the message, but I wanted to invite you anyway in case I could convince you to come.”
“I wish I could,” you reply, shrugging. “But I’m here until 9 PM and the medic who’s supposed to replace me is notorious for being late.”
“Ellie said she’d come if you did.”
That sentence alone makes you still.
You stop in your tracks but not abruptly enough for him to notice, and it seems like he doesn’t the way he has nothing else to say. Something in you pauses all the same, like your hands have forgotten the way they should act mid-motion.
“Oh.” you say, casual. You reach for something on your desk, straighten something that doesn’t really need straightening. “Did she now?”
Jesse nods, watching your hands. “Yeah. Said it like it was her first instinct.”
You huff out a quiet breath. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
Jesse doesn’t say anything else, but instead, he studies you in a way that seems calculated. You feel a little small under his gaze.
“You don’t have to come, obviously,” he says after a moment. “But she asked if I thought you might.”
You cross your legs from where you’re sitting, holding his gaze. “What’d you tell her?”
“That you’d probably say no,” he replies. You can tell he’s being candid. “But I also told her I’d bring it up again, just so you’d think about it.”
You press your lips together and close your eyes in thought. There’s nothing you want more than to go, but you’ve been in the infirmary since 7 AM, and your shift might not end until 10 PM. As much as you want to, you can’t.
Outside the clinic, someone laughs, and the sound of passersby and children playing are loud enough to mix in with your thoughts. The sound of Jackson carrying on as you sit, inundated by your feelings, carries in through the tiniest cracks in the windows. Everything is normal but it’s the kind of normal that bothers you because it means you won’t have reason to pause.
You exhale, shrugging with your palms open. “I can’t leave, Jesse; I’ve got responsibilities to this clinic. You know that.”
“I know,” he replies. He hesitates, then adds, “She does too.”
Jesse’s words land heavier than you expect. Your breath hitches for a moment. You hope he can’t tell.
He steps towards the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “For what it’s worth, she gets quiet when you’re not around.”
You look up, wanting to ask what he means, wanting to ask him about all the times she goes quiet when you leave. But he’s already one foot out the door, and he’s smiling like he didn’t just say something that rearranged everything in the room. “See you,” he says, and then he’s gone.
You’re left there on your chair, pondering his words. Everything settles back into itself: the hum of the heat lamp, the soft beeping of the infirmary machines, the faint smell of antiseptic and medicinal herbs. You’ve got six long hours left in your shift, and so many things to do, but all you think you can manage is to stare at the ceiling.
For the first time that day, you wonder what it would feel like to leave anyway.
Your replacement brings you soup as an apology for turning up forty-five minutes late.
The soup isn’t even the kind that you like—he never brings the kind that you like. It’s an old habit of your coworker’s when he would do night shifts to bring it, when someone needed something warm after treating fevers or stitching lacerations. You accept it anyway, feigning a smile when he hands you a thermos filled with potato soup. You wrap it in a spare cloth so you don’t burn your hands.
You inform your coworker on the conditions of his overnight patients, letting him know anything of note and anything to watch out for. You mention which herbs need restocking so he can request them from the planters in the morning. And then you tidy up your desk while he makes his rounds, a final task to soothe your own nerves before heading home.
You’re dreading the walk home. The street lights provide you some assurance in walking around the neighborhood, but the ten minute walk to your house from the infirmary is one that has you walking through snowfall. “I’m never picking up night shifts in the winter again,” you mutter to no one but yourself, pulling the infirmary door shut behind you. The cold greets you immediately, your breath blooming into small white clouds.
The houses on the streets of Jackson have their lights on even when it’s close to 10:00 PM, some families laughing from the inside, some just about to turn their switches off. It’s three minutes into your walk when you realize the path you took going home is one that passes by Joel and Ellie’s house, making you freeze in your tracks. The girl’s name sits in your chest, warm but uninvited. You don’t know what she might think if she saw you outside her window at 10 PM if she was even there.
You stand a few feet from her house just a second longer than necessary, the cloth-wrapped thermos of potato soup warm in your hands. You will yourself to keep moving towards Joel’s house even when you know you’re pushing it.
When you get to the steps of his walkway, you stand still again. Do you really want to walk up to his porch, announce your presence with the way your own sneakers tread on his steps? It’s late. You don’t want to intrude. You tell yourself you should be respectful, sensible, professional. The people of Jackson look up to you as a healer. Don’t ruin that image for anyone else.
In all your quiet resistance, you still slow when you reach his fence.
The porch is empty—no Ellie nor Joel, no guitar. No noise either. Just the usual sounds of Jackson at 10 PM and a single light that glows inside, warm and distant.
You hover there, cloth-wrapped thermos held close to your chest. You feel ridiculous for having carried it this far.
For even thinking of Ellie like this.
You wonder if she’s inside, pacing and wondering if you’re outside doing the same. You wonder if she’s staring at the door of her shed the way she does sometimes when she sits in the infirmary after you’re finished, like leaving means something sadder than staying.
You wonder if she misses you.
It’s a selfish, selfish thought. You know that. You almost laugh at yourself for it.
You hug the warm thermos tighter against your chest, and you turn away before anyone can see you lingering.
You end up giving the soup to a neighbor in the street across from you, smiling when they thank you, pretending like you meant to do that all along. You nod when they ask if you remembered they were feeling unwell—you did, but you didn’t think of it then when you looked at her—she notices how much snow has piled up on your shoulders and on your hoodie. You wave her off, saying a quick goodbye before crossing the street to your own house.
But later, lying in bed, you think about how Ellie never really asks for things outright. How she circles what she wants until it feels safer to pretend she didn’t want it at all. You think about the way she must find painful excuses to end up in your chair when she never really needed to just to have your company.
It hits you then, painfully clear: you miss her in ways that have nothing to do with the infirmary.
You turn to your side, head in your hands as your mind runs a million miles an hour. You miss her presence, the way she grounds the room just by being in it, the way she lets you be more than useful. The way she lets you touch her even when you don’t need to. The way she smells like pine sap and soap. You miss how warm her hand felt against yours and wonder if you’ll ever get that close to her again.
It’s all you think about that night.
Across town, Ellie sits on the edge of her bed, her boots half-tied and her jacket folded in her lap like she can’t decide whether to put it back on.
She stares at the paper bag on her bedside table, sitting underneath her lamp like it’s supposed to get Ellie’s attention. She doesn’t know why she grabbed it in the first place—a whole chocolate bar she’s been saving, tucked into the pocket of her jacket like a secret during today’s patrol. She tells herself it’s dumb and that she doesn’t even know if you like sweets. She knows you don’t need it and you didn’t ask for it.
But she wants to give it to you, anyway. God forbid she couldn’t find a better way to wrap it.
Ellie pulls on her jacket, feeling determined. Jesse said you’d be in the infirmary until 9 or 10 in the evening, and the infirmary is only five minutes away from her and Joel’s place. It’s 9:48 PM, and with any luck, you might still be there, sitting at your desk and writing in your little notebook like you always are. Ellie hopes you’ll look up at her with that same light in your eyes, smiling at her all the same even when she’s been gone.
She grabs the bag hastily and stands in front of her door longer than necessary. Her jacket is on, hood half-up, fingers worrying at the edges of the bag until it crinkles. She’s already half-way to you. Why stop now?
Ellie imagines how you’d look up at her if she showed up without a reason. She imagines the way you’d look at her with gentle eyes, like you’re reassuring her that she’s allowed to be there without earning it.
The thought makes her chest ache. She can’t decide if that’s good enough to push her or bad enough to make her stay.
She puts one foot in front of the other, inching towards her doorknob. Then she stops.
She tells herself she’s being stupid, crossing too many lines she doesn’t know how to uncross. Wanting to be near you just because she wants to be near you feels dangerous in a way she doesn’t have words to defend herself for. She doesn’t know if she can stand being seen as stupid, even if the only person who might think that way is herself.
“Fuck,” she says under her breath, “Fuck.”
She walks over to her couch and plops down on it, lost in thought as she stares at the ceiling. She thinks about the way you hold her just a touch more firm before you clean a wound. She thinks about how you never rush her out, even when you’re done treating her and even when she has no more reason to stay. About the way you look at her like she’s something worth tending to even when she’s not hurt.
Ellie brings the paper bag into view, thinking. She tosses it onto her coffee table without a second thought.
She doesn’t end up leaving.
She stays on her couch for the rest of the night, boots still on, staring at the ceiling like it might tell her what to do. Ellie wonders if you notice she’s gone. Maybe you miss her the way she misses how quiet the infirmary is when you’re there. Ellie wants to see you—to lay herself bare and trust that you’ll know how to hold it.
But that’s something new to her, something foreign. Wanting. It scares her.
So Ellie stays where she is. She doesn’t take her jacket off.
A minute later, she wonders what that sound could be on Joel’s front porch, but decides against checking it out.
You finally catch sight of Ellie five days later.
It’s a late, snowy afternoon, the sky over Jackson washed pale and cold, the sun already thinking about setting even though it’s too early for it. You’re on your way to the infirmary after grabbing a snack with Jesse and Dina, hands tucked into the pockets of your winter coat, when you see her across the street.
Ellie stands near the stables, weight on one foot, talking to someone you don’t recognize well enough to name. She’s laughing—not loud, not free, but enough that it stops you short, anyway. Her cheeks are tinged pink from the cold, and her smile is small but sincere. Something aches in your chest.
For a moment, you just watch.
Jackson narrows into the space she occupies, the sound of voices and all the movement around you and her fading into something distant. You tell yourself it’s only curiosity, just a habit to look after her, but you can’t look away. Ellie looks alright, untouched by whatever quiet damage she left behind in your doorway. More than anything, she looks like she hasn’t been thinking about you as much as you’ve been thinking about her. There’s a tightness in your chest you can’t quite name, a pressure that sits there whether you acknowledge it or not.
Before you can think better of it, you lift a hand.
It’s barely a wave, really. Just an instinct, one you’ve used on patients countless times when you come across them on the way home. It surprises you almost as much as it would have if she’d done it first.
Ellie’s eyes flick up, meeting yours for half a second, just long enough to recognize you. Something unreadable flashes across her face and then she looks away, averting her gaze from you too quickly. The moment is so brief you almost convince yourself you imagined it, that the flicker of emotion wasn’t real; or worse, that it was, and you simply couldn’t comprehend it.
She turns her body, shoulders angling closed, attention snapping back to the conversation she was having like nothing happened. Like you weren’t there at all. She laughs again, non-committal, and fidgets with her hands. It’s an easy laugh. It’s practiced, a filler laugh if anything.
Your hand drops.
You keep on walking, telling yourself not to read into it. It’s nothing. She probably didn’t know what to do, it doesn’t mean anything, and it doesn’t hurt. You repeat it in your head like a mantra, like if you say it enough times it’ll turn true by sheer force of will.
The rest of the walk to the infirmary feels longer than it needs to be.
Life continues after that day even when you don’t want it to. Everything is uncomplicated by the fact something between you and Ellie went unresolved, and you resent Jackson for it a little bit everyday.
You tell yourself, bitterly, that’s how it’s supposed to be.
The infirmary feels too large without her. You treat at least a dozen patients everyday, but even then, all you can seem to think about is her. When no patients are around, you clean things that don’t need cleaning, recount supplies you already memorize by heart, organize drawers you’ve already reorganized twice. Every small task in the clinic becomes a way not to think about the space she used to occupy—the chair she never quite sat back in, the way she always sat like she might bolt.
Even in your tediousness, you find seconds in your day to glance at the door anyway.
She didn't come for two days after that. Nor does she show up the next.
You don’t seek her out anymore, even when you happen to pass by her and Joel’s house and notice the porch is empty, guitar nowhere in sight. You don’t let yourself linger like that one night you stood pondering in the snow with hot soup in your hands. You don’t let yourself hope. Space is good, you tell yourself, whatever this is between you and her needs room to breathe. You didn’t scare her away, she might just need time.
You remember Jesse’s words, that Ellie will come around with time, and you hope this time she will. In the simplest sense of the word, you miss her. It’s not an ache or a longing. You just miss Ellie.
On the fourth evening, Jackson softens into dusk early. The sky turns the pale, bruised blue that always makes the townspeople feel closer than they already are. You’re midway through logging things into your ledger when you hear footsteps settle outside the infirmary door.
There’s not a knock or an attempt to open it. Just the unmistakable weight of someone standing there.
You look towards the door, your hands going still. You hope—quietly, maybe even foolishly—that when you open it, it’s her. That she’s finally come to see you. That she knows she’s worth all the trouble even when she has nothing to prove for it. Part of you already knows when you open the door, it’s going to be her standing there, and knowing that makes your chest ache.
You walk towards the door, heart banging against your chest. Your grip on the doorknob is tighter than usual, but you have all the strength to open it anyway. Ellie stands there with her hands bare despite the cold, shoulders tense like she’s ready to bolt. There’s no scarf; her cheeks are tinged pink from the cold, and snow is settling onto her shoulders and the top of her hair. She looks like she came here without her walls up and she realized too late.
It’s unmistakable, but you know Ellie. You notice her widening her eyes just the slightest bit, even when she tries to hide her surprise.
“Hey,” she says quietly.
Your chest tightens. “Hey.”
She doesn’t step in. You don’t invite her right away. You hold her gaze, and she’s looking for something in your eyes. She’s hoping you’re angry so her avoidance is punished, but you’re not. How could you be?
“I…” she breathes. Then, she admits, “I wasn’t going to come. Figured I already messed things up enough.”
“You didn’t,” you say, too fast, like the words were waiting behind your teeth. “You couldn’t have.”
Something fragile passes between you—relief, maybe. Or hope, testing the air like it’s not sure it’s allowed to exist yet.
“...Can I?” she asks, nodding toward the room.
“Yes,” you say immediately, stepping aside. “Of course.”
This time, when she enters, she doesn’t go to the chair. She lingers near the doorway, hands flexing like she doesn’t know where to put them if they’re not braced for impact.
“You’re not working?” she asks, observant.
“I’m only taking down notes,” you say, gesturing towards your desk.
She nods, then blurts, “I don’t need anything.”
“I know.”
Ellie exhales, running her hands through her hair. “I just—” she stops, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to leave like that.”
You walk towards the infirmary couch, sitting. “Like what?” you say softly.
“Like I ran,” she replies. “Even if I kinda did.”
You don’t argue with her but you don’t reassure her either. All you do is pat the cushion next to you. She steps farther into the room, finally sitting, elbows resting on her knees, hunched over with her hands clasped together.
“I keep thinking,” she says, “that if I don’t keep moving, I disappear. If I show up without anything in my hands, I'm not good here."
Your breath catches in your throat.
“Like if I’m not useful, or needed, or…doing something,” she continues, eyes flicking up to yours like she’s bracing for rejection, “then what am I even here for?”
Your hand reaches out to land on her back, rubbing slow circles. She’s cold.
“You’re here because you’re here,” you say. “That’s enough.”
Her jaw tightens. “I don't know what to do with that.”
“I know.”
She lets out a shaky laugh. “Figures you would.”
Ellie leans back in her seat, hands together on her lap. “I didn’t come here because I was lonely,” she says suddenly. “I mean, I was. I have been. But that’s not—” she drags a hand over her face, sighing. “I came because when I’m here, I don’t feel like I’m taking something I don’t deserve. You never ask me to prove I'm hurt, you just see that I am and take care of me. And even when you don't see anything, you let me stay, anyway. What do I do when I don't deserve it?”
Your hand reaches for her own, slower, giving her every chance to pull away. Your fingers brush her hand, gentle, deliberate.
She doesn’t freeze.
She turns her hand, instead, just enough for her fingers to curl around yours.
It’s terrifying, but it feels nothing short of right. Her hand is warm against yours, and it’s real. She’s here.
“You don’t have to deserve it,” you say again, softer now. “You don’t have to earn your place here.”
The words hang between you, not demanding anything, not asking her to be different; just offering her rest. You don’t rush to fill the silence that follows.
Her throat bobs. “I’m scared if I stop proving myself, people’ll realize I’m…nothing special.”
You lean forward, your other hand reaching to cradle her face. “You’re special even when you’re still,” you reply. “Especially then.”
Your thumb brushes gently along her cheek, deliberate. Ellie looks at you like she’s seeing something she didn’t know she was allowed to want. Hope flickers there—small, startled, almost painful in its honesty. She leans in just the slightest bit, your foreheads almost touching, and her presence is as lovely as it is vulnerable.
“This is the part where I mess things up,” she murmurs. Her voice is quieter now, stripped of bravado, like she’s confessing a rule she’s learned by heart.
“Maybe,” you say. “Or maybe this is the part where you stay.”
She swallows.
“Can I?” she asks—not about the room. About you. Her eyes search your face, not for permission exactly, but for certainty.
“Yes,” you say, and mean everything it implies.
It takes her a few seconds, but it happens anyway, despite everything. It doesn’t rush.
Ellie leans in like she’s testing gravity, like she’s half-expecting the world to pull away. When her lips meet yours, it’s soft, tentative—a question more than a claim. She’s giving you space to stop, to pull back, to decide this is too much.
You answer by staying.
Her hand tightens in yours. The kiss deepens just slightly, careful not to break the moment by wanting too much too fast. When you pull back, you rest your forehead against hers, breathing her in. The closeness feels earned in a way nothing else ever has. Just like that night you held her hand for the first time, being this close to her feels right.
She laughs softly, breathless. “Okay. Wow. That’s… yeah.”
You smile. “Yeah.”
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”
“Me, too.”
“...Want to do it again?”
She doesn’t leave right away.
Instead, she stays seated—not because she’s hurt, not because she needs to be fixed—but because she wants to be there. You sit with her, shoulder to shoulder, the infirmary quiet around your intertwined hands. The stillness doesn’t ask anything of either of you.
Outside, Jackson settles for the night. Kids play until their parents call them into their houses for dinner, streetlights switch on, and snow keeps falling.
Someone comes in to pick up a ginger and thyme remedy for their mother’s cough. You spring up to help them, looking back at Ellie before you do.
Ellie smiles, waving you off. She stays right where she is the entire time, like leaving never crosses her mind. She stays even when you sit next to her and wrap your arms around her, breathing you in. She stays and wraps her arms around you, too, as if committing to the moment. She stays, and this time, it isn’t because she’s injured, nor is it because she has nowhere else to go.
CHAPTER SYNOPSIS: Avoidance, longing, and quiet honesty collide as Ellie learns that being needed isn’t the same as being wanted.
PAIRING: Ellie Williams x medic!reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: EXTREMELY SLOWBURN, hurt/comfort, emotional intimacy, soft angst, ellie is a yearner, medic!reader, mentions of blood and wounds + general infirmary/clinic setting, slight canon-divergence, ellie doesn't know how to exist in a world that needs nothing from her, joel is not dead, jesse and dina mention, snowy jackson, monologue-heavy, good ending. men and minors DNI.
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ELLIE DOESN’T COME BACK.
Not right away, at least.
After that night in the infirmary—the one where she’d been quieter than usual, the one where you let her linger just a second longer than necessary—she disappears into her own world again. She’s still there, still moving around Jackson like she belongs there, but hard to reach again. Like something in her has gone taut, undoing all the good work you put in the last time she visited.
You notice her distance in the small ways first, like you always do.
Ellie’s one of the patrollers in charge of dropping off supplies for the infirmary. When she comes by, she sits and cracks a joke or two while you take account of what she brought in that week. In some ways you can’t pin down, you know those small moments between you and her left a door into her world agape, but this time, she stops sitting when she drops off supplies. Leans against the doorframe instead, keeping her hands busy while you count next to her. Her eyes never meet yours, nor do they settle. Ellie leaves as soon as you’re done counting.
When you pass each other in the street, she nods instead of stopping. A quick acknowledgement, as if you two don’t share a friend group and you haven’t spent hours treating her on your chair. It feels like if she pauses, she’ll sink.
Jackson keeps moving around her. It always does.
People build, repair, and laugh. They argue about fences and vegetation and whose turn it is to clean the stables; life hums along in a way that feels almost insulting to be still. Ellie watches it all like she’s standing outside a window, wanting in.
You catch it sometimes, how she watches Jackson live like she wants to be part of it, even if you know she already is. She’ll sit, perched on a chair on Joel’s front porch, guitar resting on her lap. She stops playing for a long while, holding it, like proof she remembers how to do it.
“Hi,” you say one day, standing on the street while she sits. “What’re you up to?”
Ellie glances down at the guitar on her lap, then back at you. “Hey,” she says after a moment. “Just taking a break.”
You hum in acknowledgment and stay where you are, hands tucked into your sleeves against the cold. She doesn’t fill the silence, and neither do you. The guitar remains quiet beneath her palms, held more than played. You wonder why she won’t play something for you while you’re there—then decide that might be asking for too much.
“Will I be seeing you later?” You ask boldly, hoping she’ll say yes. “At the infirmary…or at Jesse and Dina’s thing, at least?”
You know the question was stupid, because you knew Ellie was avoiding you. But you wanted to ask anyway in case the efforts you’ve put into knowing her warranted any merit at all. Ellie’s fingers rest on the strings, pressing down without playing, and you can’t read the expression she has on her face. For a second, you expect her to shrug you off, say maybe, say we’ll see, or say nothing at all and just reply in a shrug. You expect to leave right after, feeling stupid for trying.
Instead, she surprises you. Ellie nods.
“Yeah,” she says, barely above the hum of the street. “For you, I’ll come by.”
It’s so soft, you almost miss it. Like she hadn’t meant for those words to leave her mouth, like she’s testing how it sounds once it’s out in the open.
You don’t smile right away, you fight back every instinct you have and every muscle in your face begging you to. You do anyway, but you pull up your scarf to hide it, hoping you won’t spook her or come off too eager.
“Okay,” you say just as quietly; something about the way Ellie holds your gaze makes the back of your neck warm. “I…I like hanging out with you, so I’m happy.”
“You do?”
You nod, maybe a little too earnest. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” she says, and you can tell she’s fighting back a smile, too. “Me, too.”
She finally looks at you then. Really looks. Something in her loosens, not much, not enough for anyone else to notice if they were passing by, but you do. If it’s Ellie, you always do.
The guitar stays silent on her lap. She doesn’t play even when you walk away.
You get halfway down the street before you glance back. She’s still there, still sitting on the porch, still watching Jackson move around her. Only now, her gaze lingers where you’d been standing just a moment ago, like she’s holding onto the shape of the space you left behind.
And for the first time, it doesn’t feel like she’s watching life from the outside. It feels like she’s choosing where to step in.
You know the redness of Ellie’s cheeks is probably from the cold of the weather. But silently, in the quietest corner of your mind, you hope it’s because of you.
When Ellie finally comes back to the infirmary one night, she doesn’t present with any causes for concern. She doesn’t have a cut that needs cleaning, or any old underdeveloped fighting scars that need restitching. She just shows up, scarf around her neck, boots covered in snow—she shows up like she always has.
You figure it’s because she doesn’t know where to go.
She opens the door like she usually does, standing in the doorway while you’re sorting dried medicinal herbs. Your sleeves are rolled up, hands moving through a routine they’ve memorized faster than you comprehended. You don’t look up right away; you’ve learned that some people need the space to decide whether they’re staying before you look at them.
Ellie stays.
“Hey,” she says eventually, voice rough like the words caught in her throat.
“Hey,” you reply, offering a small smile as you look her way. “Haven’t seen you back here since forever. I was beginning to think I’d lost my favorite patient.”
She doesn’t say anything to you nor does she react to your joke. Ellie steps inside slowly, like you might reject her if you don’t want her around. Her presence fills the room in a way you hadn’t realized you missed until now.
“You need something?” You ask, placing a jar of white willow bark into the infirmary cabinet. “I got a fresh batch of dried chamomile today. I can make you that rosemary-chamomile tea I know you and Joel like.”
Ellie shakes her head. “You don’t need to do that. I just…figured I’d check in.”
You don’t ask what that means. You don’t ask why anymore.
You gesture toward the chair by your table. Ellie doesn’t take it. Instead, she lingers near you, eyes flicking over your supplies, the neat rows of bandages, the familiar order of your things. Her gaze settles on your hands for a moment longer than necessary.
“You ever get tired of this?” She asks suddenly, looking up at the jars you’ve just finished organizing.
“Of what?”
“Fixing people,” she says, rocking back and forth on the ball of her heel. “Putting stuff back together just so it can break again.”
You pause for a moment, the jar of marjoram in your hands on the ledge of the cabinet. You really consider it. Then you put the jar into its place before replying.
“No,” you say at last. “These are real people I’m treating. People I’ve known since I was ten, who’ve probably done more for me than I have for them. But…I do get tired of pretending things don’t hurt.”
You chuckle dryly before you add: “Doesn’t mean I can’t handle it,” you say, looking back at her with a small smile on your face. “Just means I don’t want to lie about it. Nobody gets extra points for acting like shit doesn’t hurt.”
That might be the most honest thing you’ve said to Ellie ever. But she doesn’t answer right away.
She takes a seat at your table, just a few feet away from where you’re standing in front of the herb cabinet, eyes fixated somewhere past your shoulder. For a second, you think she’s going to shrug you off, turn what you said into a joke, and change the subject. Do what she always does when things get too close.
Instead, she exhales through her nose. A short, quiet breath, but something you notice.
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess that makes sense.”
It doesn’t sound like she’s agreeing so much as she’s recognizing it. Like something she’s heard before but never let herself believe.
You turn around, leaning on the cabinet and crossing your arms. Ellie’s jaw tightens, then relaxes. She shifts in the chair, restless, like she doesn’t know what to do with the space your words have afforded her. You let her think for a moment while you walk on over to your own chair across from her.
“You talk like you’ve thought about this a lot,” she adds, not looking at you.
You smile faintly, pulling out your ledger. “Occupational hazard.”
That line earns you a small huff of laughter from Ellie. A small laugh; light, surprised, and gone almost as soon as it appears. But it’s real, and it’s something you think you won’t mind hearing everyday. You wish you could. You wish she would let you.
Ellie glances at you then, just briefly, expression unreadable. There’s something different there now, less guarded, less sharp at the edges.
“Must be nice,” she says again, quieter this time.
“What is?”
She shrugs, eyes dropping back to her hands. “Having someone let you say stuff like that out loud.”
You don’t answer right away. You just stay. And somehow, that feels like the point.
You watch her, knowing she’s thinking and her mind must be running a million miles of things she wants to say. She thinks about what to reply long enough that you can see the effort it costs her how her eyebrows meet in the middle. The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable, but it’s certainly weighted.
“You ever feel like—” she starts, then stops. Ellie tries again. “Like if you’re not doing something, you’re wasting space?”
Your chest tightens, and your gaze softens. “Ellie—”
She cuts you off, sudden and defensive. “I’m not saying I am. Just…asking.”
You sigh, nodding. There’s no use in saying anything else, you think. “Yeah,” you say softly. “I have felt like that. Like being still isn’t right.”
She watches your face, searching for something. Maybe a lie. Maybe permission. “And?”
“And it made me miserable. Honestly? It almost killed me.”
Ellie stares at you for a second too long. “I guess we’re different that way,” she replies.
You know she’s about to crawl back into her shell, but you don’t let her retreat. “Ellie,” you call again, as softly as you can.
There’s a pause. The room feels quieter now, like it’s waiting for something from the two of you. You take a breath and decide to let the words leave you, honest and unguarded, because even if you’re scared, you owe your friend that much.
“You don’t need to be hurt to be here,” you say suddenly, but just as honest.
Ellie stills.
“I know,” she says too quickly still. Her eyes still don’t meet yours, like she could break if you looked at her for a second too long.
You turn toward her fully, hoping she’ll talk more. “Then why are you here anyway?”
Her gaze lifts to yours.
For a moment, something unguarded flickers there, uncertainty, maybe want. The kind that scares people who don’t know how to ask for things.
“…I tried not to come here,” she says. Ellie exhales a dry chuckle. Then, softer, she says, “Didn’t work.”
The room feels smaller. You lean closer before you realize you’ve decided to, close enough that you can feel the warmth coming off her and see the faint tremor in her hands. The heat lamp in the corner of the room feels even warmer now on the back of your neck.
With Ellie’s admission—saying she sought your company—you doubt the warmth in your cheeks is from the lamp.
“That’s okay,” you say, as gently as you can. “You can just be here.”
Ellie lets out a breath like she’s been holding it for days. She places her hands on the table, not knowing what to do with them now. She’s fidgeting, but it doesn’t feel like she’s nervous.
Your hand moves without instruction, brushing against the ink on her forearm, light, questioning. You’re surprised by your own boldness, but you feel like it’s right, so you don’t pull away.
The infirmary is empty save for the two of you, and it’s warm inside, and you’re both here. There’s no need to work, no patient that needs healing. Tracing the lines on Ellie’s tattoo feels right. There’s a scar the tattoo is hiding but you don’t comment on it, not when Ellie is letting you touch it. For once in your life, your hands move with no rhyme or reason. The pads of your fingers are trying to memorize how the ink on Ellie’s skin feels and you’re hoping they do.
Ellie freezes at first, watching your finger graze over her tattoo. It’s clear in the expression plastered on her face that she’s unsure of what’s going on and how to feel about it. Then, slowly, she lets it happen. She doesn’t fight back, doesn’t let out a snarky remark. She just lets your skin trace the lines on hers.
“You’re warm,” she says, almost to herself, voice barely above a whisper.
“So are you,” you reply, and you hope that she doesn’t see the way your cheeks flush while she lets you touch her.
Ellie swallows, eyes flicking up to yours. There’s something raw there now—something neither of you have named. She doesn’t say anything at first, and neither do you.
Your hand moves on its own, locking your fingers in between hers. You know it’s risky. You don’t know if it’s still right. But she’s warm when it’s cold, and it feels like she’s finally letting you into her world. The calluses of Ellie’s palms don’t feel unpleasant against your own, and Ellie lets you feel it. You’re almost thankful she does.
And for a second, you think she just might let you in.
“This is…” She trails off, shaking her head. “This isn’t something I’m good at.”
“Being still?” you ask gently.
A beat. Then: “Being this.”
You realize then, with a quiet, terrifying clarity, that you want her to stay. Not because she’s hurt. Not because you can help. Just because she’s here, and you want her around, and she’s warm, and you want her to be warm and beside you for all time. But you’re her medic, and you’re still unsure if that’s right.
That realization scares you enough to pull your hand back.
Ellie notices immediately.
Her shoulders tense, expression closes, and she pulls back her hand into her lap.
“Oh,” she says softly, realizing, taciturn.
“I’m sorry,” you say, and you know you’ll stutter. “Ellie…I-I shouldn’t have—”
“No,” she interrupts. There’s nothing in her voice, nothing on her face. It’s not like you can read her, anyway, not when she’s turned away from you. “You don’t need to explain. It’s fine. I get it.”
But she doesn’t. You know she doesn’t get it at all.
She stands, tugging her jacket on like it’s armor, and you hate it. “This was a bad idea.” She says, wrapping her scarf around her neck.
You get up at the same time as her. “It wasn’t,” you say. “Please don’t say that it was. It just…it changed things.”
Her eyes flash. “Yeah. That’s the problem.”
Her words sting because it’s true. Simple allowed for things to be okay, and okay meant being here with reason. Ellie doesn’t know how to be anywhere without it.
“You don’t get it,” she continues. “This place—you, me—it works because it’s simple. You fix things. I leave. That’s it. I don’t need whatever this is turning into.”
She moves toward the door, saying nothing, but the sound of her boots hitting the floor is enough to set you off.
“Ellie,” you call, and you hope she listens.
She pauses, hand on the doorknob, looking at you over her shoulder.
“You don’t have to earn space here,” you tell her. “Not with me.”
Her shoulders sag. She shakes her head before replying, “…That’s the part I don’t know what to do with,” Then she’s gone.
The door clicks shut.
The chair behind you stays empty, and the infirmary is as cold as it was before she came in. It feels even colder now without her, and there are a million things to be thought about, but all you can think about is how warm Ellie’s hand was in yours and how cold it is now without her.
Your hand flexes at your side.
For the first time since Ellie started coming here, the infirmary now feels like a place you don’t know how to hold together.
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CHAPTER SYNOPSIS: A medic learns to read Ellie in pauses and injuries, in the way someone keeps showing up without ever staying.
PAIRING: Ellie Williams x medic!reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: EXTREMELY SLOWBURN, hurt/comfort, emotional intimacy, soft angst, ellie is a yearner, medic!reader, mentions of blood and wounds + general infirmary/clinic setting, slight canon-divergence, ellie doesn't know how to exist in a world that needs nothing from her, joel is not dead, jesse and dina mention, snowy jackson, monologue-heavy, good ending. men and minors DNI.
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JACKSON NEEDED MEDICS. JACKSON ALWAYS NEEDED MEDICS.
And lucky for them, you were never really good with a rifle.
You weren’t fully hatched when you first got to Jackson—which is to say you didn’t yet know what you were good at. You were kicked out of the planters when a chicken you were tending to nicked your hand after you fed it spoiled corn. You complained too much about grease and dirt to be placed with the mechanics. And you did try, the way everyone does, to join the patrollers, with stiff shoulders and borrowed confidence, lining up the targets to the eyelet and pretending the recoil of the gun doesn’t knock the breath out of you or make your ears ring. You learned the mechanics of it all well enough. Finger off the trigger, breathe out when you pull, don’t flinch, don’t hesitate. You could hit anything if it stayed still long enough, if the wind wasn’t blowing, if your hands didn’t start shaking for reasons you could never name. You weren’t the best of your class, but you were competent enough.
That doesn’t mean you liked it enough to commit to it. You never loved the adrenaline that came with holding a rifle. It made you nervous, and when pulling the trigger with your unsure hands was the difference between life and death, you couldn’t bring yourself to join the patrollers. You never favored a rifle even though you knew how to use it to your advantage. You never trusted it.
What you trusted were your hands.
They were steady in a way the rest of you weren't. They remembered things your mind sometimes let slip, like how much pressure stopped bleeding without cutting off circulation and how pain made people say things they didn’t mean and hide things they very much did. Your hands had learned how to be gentle without being hesitant and how to be efficient amidst chaos. They knew routine and they were quick to act, sometimes even faster than you can make up your own mind.
So when patrol sign-ups filled, and refilled, and refilled until not one space on the two pages were left for people to write their names, you didn’t fight it. You’d always try signing up, do everything you can to stay at the back of the line, feign shock when the page was full, and no one argued. When Maria asked you to help out at the infirmary instead—just until someone more experienced comes around—you’d already said yes before she even finished her sentence.
The infirmary is notorious for never keeping a volunteer around for more than a few weeks. It’s been four months since then. You never left your seat in the infirmary, except to be stationed occasionally at the first aid tents after patrols.
Jackson needed medics. They always did, with the way people lived life there, and how they fought for life to thrive even if it cost them their own. People fell off horses, caught colds, got careless with training. So the routine, now memorized by your skillful hands, was simple: clean wounds, wrap bandages, hand out bottles of remedies, record anything of note. Your hands stayed knowing the routine just one month after you were stationed in the infirmary. You were good there—good at staying when others couldn’t.
Because Jackson was a small, quaint community, everybody knew each other. Ellie and Joel’s arrival into Jackson wasn’t abrupt enough to disturb normal life—one late afternoon, in the mess hall, Tommy introduces his brother and Ellie. Not Joel’s daughter, nor his niece…just Ellie.
Nobody had her figured out.
And in a small town like Jackson, that was something.
Everybody talked, but it all dwindled down two weeks after, when Ellie brought home a large game and quietly retreated to her shed behind Joel’s house. The town’s respect for Ellie skyrocketed since then, and people were nicer, more perceptive of her. The neighborhood kids played with her more, and your friends and everyone your age hung out with her during sunny afternoons. They warmed up to Ellie soon enough, with the help of her playful quips and amiable attitude.
But it was that version of Ellie they understood: the useful Ellie. The one who took after Tommy’s knack for shooting with a sniper, bringing home more food than the other patrollers. The one who kicked a ball back if it landed by her feet. The one who taught teenagers guitar in her free time. They respected Ellie when she brought something back from the woods and laid it at Jackson’s feet for everyone to appreciate. Even you, at one point, liked Ellie for bringing back bandages and medicinal herbs. The Ellie whose distance is as mysterious as it may be armor. People liked her best when she was productive, when she contributed something tangible, and when she fit neatly into the roles Jackson knew how to reward.
What they didn’t see was how she deliberately stayed just out of reach. How she smiled when spoken to but never stayed long enough to be known. How she laughed with the kids, ran with them until their energies depleted and lungs burned, then peeled away the moment the game ended, as if stillness might invite closeness she couldn’t face.
Ellie learned quickly what people wanted from her. She learned to read people, in the Boston QZ, in Salt Lake City, and she learned now what people wanted from her in Jackson. And time and time again, she gave just enough of it to be left alone.
You noticed that before most people did.
You noticed how she left hang outs right before they got good. You noticed how she avoided idle conversation and small talk, how she always seemed more comfortable doing than just being. In town, respect towards Ellie was built on her having to deliver, depending on what she could provide rather than who she was when her hands were empty.
And maybe, you thought, that was why Ellie became a regular at the infirmary.
She was almost always slightly injured. Not badly, not enough to alarm anyone, nor to put her out of duty for a while. But every time she came back, her wounds never healed properly. Scars looked bad or stitches that came undone weren’t brought back to fix. As someone in her social circle, you’d think she would answer questions when you’d ask them. But she sits silently in front of you, head down, spending just enough time in your chair to be patched up and leaving the second she is.
Jackson didn’t ask her to be anything more than capable.
And Ellie, for all her quiet resistance, seemed to understand that better than anyone.
The one time Ellie came in after one particular afternoon patrol, you didn’t know things would be different. You also didn’t know it would be your first time seeing her in a different light.
At a glance, she looked like the same Ellie you came to know.; same aloof expression on her face, same scuffed boots, same faint smell of cold air and something like pine sap clinging to her jacket. She comes into the infirmary without a knock, and the head doctor looks at you pointedly to handle it. She only has a cut along her forearm, shallow but visibly angry, already crusting at the edges. The kind of injury people got when they moved too fast when they knew better than to rush; the kind that you’d have to berate someone to go to the infirmary for.
After a quick look, you spring to your feet. “Hey there,” you say. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked down at her arm like it surprised her, shrugging. “Huh,” she says quietly. “Guess I am.”
That was your first clue.
When she needs to, Ellie usually comes into the clinic showing off her injuries like they were a challenge to care for. When it’s you who sits her down, she throws a playful remark about how she’ll be out of the infirmary in 10 minutes. Or she makes some joke about how her wounds must be nothing compared to what you see on a daily basis (when she is, in fact, the subject of that joke). She always brings someone who had to force her to come to the place; but this time around, she was quiet about her wound. A six-inch laceration on her arm, no doubt something that should have been painful.
Your second clue was Joel Miller, who hovered in the doorway, in a quiet way that pulled at the edges of the infirmary. Tommy also stood beside him, arms crossed, eyes on the floor like he didn’t want to be noticed. That’s when you felt it—the weight of something unspoken between the three of them, pressing down yet still hanging in the air.
Ellie doesn’t look your way, nor Joel’s, nor Tommy’s. She watches your skillful hands instead as you take supplies from the cabinet and set them down on your table.
Ellie places her forearm gently on the blue armrest on your table, watching you, taciturn. You take her forearm and hold her still just a few inches above the cut, which she notices. “You always do that?” She asks suddenly, nodding toward the way you braced her arm before cleaning the wound.
“Do what?”
“That,” she says, raising her eyebrows at your grip on her arm. “Like you’re expecting it to hurt me worse than it does.”
You paused, meeting her green eyes for clues on what she might mean. They were sharp, guarded, and looking for something you didn’t think you had. You only have the slightest idea of what she means, but you don’t think entertaining it would work out at this moment.
“I just don’t like surprises,” you reply. “It might hurt, and you might flinch.”
She snorts quietly and looks away.
Many might not notice, especially if they don’t have the same experience in the infirmary as you do, but under your careful gaze, Ellie’s arm flexes slightly at the first contact of the antiseptic on her wound.
You don’t comment on it. You know better than to give her away like that.
Instead, you rub the skin of her forearm softly as you buff the antiseptic-soaked cotton ball over her cut, careful not to look at her. Her fist, curled into a ball, relaxes after a few swipes.
When you finish wrapping it, she stands up too quickly, tugging her sleeve down over the fresh bandage. You don’t think this is unusual behavior for anyone, especially not from her.
“Thanks,” she mutters, already halfway to the door.
Joel watches Ellie leave like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to put it into words.
Neither did you.
You noticed Ellie coming around more often after that, which was easy to explain at first. Coming in with scraped, bloody knuckles. A twisted ankle she insists isn’t twisted, just sore. A bruise on her bicep that won’t go away. Normal things to come in after Jackson’s usual patrol. You treated her the same as everyone else, giving her medicine if she needed it and sending her off on her way home. Some days she’s playful, others she won’t utter a word except one of thanks. But you never pry, not to her or to anyone that walks into the clinic.
But patterns have a way of telling you something if you let them.
Ellie never comes in with anyone else anymore. No Joel, no Dina, no Jesse. No one joking at her side while she gets stitches or arguing whose fault it was that she got hurt. She often showed up alone, almost always after 8 PM, after you’d already started cleaning up for the evening.
She’d always stand by the door, waiting to be told to sit. Never took off her jacket unless you asked.
And she never, ever let you check more than what she showed you. But again, you never pry.
You know you’re building a routine, and you’re not sure if you should be worried.
“Any dizziness?” you asked one night, fingers gentle against the side of her head as you examined a shallow gash near her temple.
“Nope.”
“Blurred vision?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?”
Ellie meets your eyes, holding her gaze. “I’m sure.”
There’s a seriousness in her tone, like if you were to push further, she would storm out of the infirmary.
So instead, you choose to believe her. Or rather, you believed that she believed it. When someone says they’re fine, sometimes, it’s better not to pry, even when you know they’re lying through their teeth.
There was a difference in her words and how she really felt. You could see as clear as you could see the wound on Ellie’s temple, even if it was half-hidden by her hair.
In Jackson, silence was as loud as gossip if you knew how to listen. You heard the way Joel’s name softened when people mentioned him now, the careful phrasing, the way conversations shifted when Ellie entered a room. You notice how Tommy and Maria stay watching her from across the mess hall, not hovering, not intervening; just watching, like they were braced for something to go wrong. But nobody dares to say anything outright, trading words for shared glances and shrugs.
You don’t ask. Not about the shift in the air following that one afternoon.
You learn quickly that Ellie doesn’t respond well to questions she hadn’t agreed to answer. So instead, you focused on what you could see. What you could treat. What you knew.
You saw how she flinched sometimes when your fingers brushed too close to old scars, especially the one on her forearm she doesn’t talk about (and you note that she got it tattooed over a week later). How she goes still when you clean fresh scratches, jaw clenched tight enough to ache her for sure. How she joked more when she was in pain, like the noise could fill the space in her head where thoughts might creep in while you treat her.
“You know,” she said once, as you wrapped her left wrist, “most people try not to get hurt this much.”
You glance up at her, her wrist cradled in one hand, bandage roll in the other. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “They figure out when to stop. When to sit. When to…you know. Not do stupid stuff.” She shrugs, letting the words hang in the air like they don’t matter.
You study her wrist, the new bandage, the faint redness of the skin underneath. “And you?”
She snorts softly, half-amused, half-exasperated. “I guess I’m not most people.”
The silence stretches. You know she’s saying more than she lets on and talking around something she doesn’t want to name, but you’re not sure if you should let her know you’re catching on. It’s not just the cut. Not just the patrol, the routines, the scraped boots. It’s everything else she carries—the sharp edges she hides, the restlessness that makes her move too fast and too recklessly, the things she can’t put into words.
You don’t say anything out loud, but you know you don’t have to. You let her sit, even when you’re finished treating her, letting the quiet fill the space between you.
“...You’re really good at this,” she says after a moment, nodding toward your hands, toward the bandage, toward the calmness in the room. Her voice is softer now, no sarcasm, no walls.
You hold her gaze, smiling the softest you can without scaring her away. “Thank you.”
She holds it for a moment, then looks down at her scuffed sneakers, shrugging. “I….I think I’m still bad at being careful, though.”
You nod, and for the first time, it doesn’t feel like a joke. “Then make sure to keep sitting on my chair,” you say as you clean up your equipment, letting your tone carry just enough firmness to make it sound like medical advice and not a command. “Let me do my job before you go breaking anything else.”
Ellie picks up on the fact that you’ve noticed. “Hey,” she mutters quietly. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“I know,” you nod, smiling just slightly, careful not to push too much. “But you should know I’m right here, too, to patch you up whenever you need it.”
She swallows, quiet now. The room fills with the soft hum of the heater, the faint scent of isopropyl alcohol and antiseptic, and the way her breathing eases by the faintest amount. You notice the tension in her shoulders loosening, tiny, and if you didn’t know her as well as you did at this point, it was almost imperceptible.
Ellie’s gaze drifts to the floor. She’s good at hiding things, you think. Not the obvious things—cuts, scrapes, bruises—but all the rest. The exhaustion. The weight she carries when no one is looking. She doesn’t need to tell you, though; you can see it anyway. You’re trained to see it.
“...Do you always have to be so careful?” she asks after a beat, softer, almost like it’s curiosity rearing its head.
“I do, Ellie,” you answer honestly. “Someone has to be.”
Ellie’s lips twitch, barely a smile. “Figures. You’re the boring responsible one, huh?”
“Boring keeps people from dying,” you say, tying off the bandage one last time.
She laughs slightly, and her small laugh is nothing short of genuine, and her arms relax the tiniest bit. For someone like Ellie, that’s a start.
She stands a moment later, brushing at the edge of her sleeve as if to reset the armor she’s just let down. “Thanks, YN,” she mutters, looking again at her shoes. “For…you know. Not making me feel stupid for being dumb.”
“Always,” you reply softly. No lectures or probing, just honesty in hopes she’ll see it for what it is.
She gets up, and there’s a little more talk, about a hang out the next day at Jesse’s place, about how Jesse’s a horrible cook. Ellie hesitates when she gets to the door, glancing back for the briefest moment before opening the door and leaving. The snow outside glints through the door’s window panes, and you realize she’ll be back.
Maybe not because of the cuts. Maybe not because she needs new bandages. But hopefully because she’ll bet on a trust you know you can return.
Some time in the middle of everything—the approaching winter, patching Ellie up, patching everyone up—you became an official junior medic. Maria tells you about it over dinner, casually, like it was the weather. She hands you a new ledger to keep patient records and notes, a more extensive set of supplies, and the same belt bag you see the senior medic sporting. You even get to wear scrubs now. She trusted you now, too, with decisions instead of just execution.
Ellie noticed the change before you told her, commenting on it a few visits later.
“They finally figured you were good at this?” she asks, nodding toward the new kit at your side.
You grinned, nodding. “They knew I wasn’t ever leaving.”
“Yeah. That tracks.”
It was one of the few times she smiled that didn’t feel forced.
The night everything changed—not broken, just tilted—was quiet.
Snow had started falling early, thick flakes muting the world outside, building small mountains outside the infirmary. The inside of it was warm, the lighting low and soft, the smell of clean cloth and antiseptic settling into something almost comforting as you wash the used hand towels of the day. The clinic was slow today, but still, you couldn't help but feel like more could be done. Well into the evening, when everyone had gone home, you stayed behind to update records and make more syrup remedies for cough.
You were re-shelving supplies when Ellie knocked. She hadn’t come in yet, but you knew it was her. She always comes at this time of night.
She knocks like she was asking permission, not entering before you let her. That was new.
“Come in,” you say, holding bottles of alcohol in one arm.
There’s a beat of silence before the infirmary door creaks open. Ellie steps inside, stamping snow from her boots on the rug by the door before moving your way. She doesn’t say anything at first, only standing by the door with her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets. Her red scarf wraps around her neck and buries half of her face, yet you still see the redness of the tip of her nose and the flush of her cheeks.
You blink. “Hi,” you say gently. “Are you hurt?”
She shrugs. “Not really.”
You wait.
Then: “Okay. Maybe a little.”
You beckon her to your table, and Ellie takes off her coat and her scarf before sitting down on the chair. Once you’re both sat, she pulls up her sleeve just enough to reveal a thin line of red along her left forearm, reopened from an older wound, one you treated long ago. It looks unintentional, somehow, in the way one can be careless with a healing cut.
“Hmm,” you say, turning the lamp on as you look at it. “You should’ve let it heal.”
You hope your turn sounds more like medical advice than scolding.
“Yeah,” she replies. “I know.”
There’s something heavy in her voice. Something that she’s not saying.
You say nothing else, taking cotton and antiseptic from your desk drawers and cleaning the wound. You dress it like you usually do, but when you finish, you don’t immediately let her know she’s okay to leave.
“Ellie,” you call carefully, testing the sound of her name like it was something fragile. “You don’t have to keep doing this.”
She stiffens. “Doing what?”
You choose your next words carefully, hoping she takes it at face value and not anything else.
“Coming back here hurt.”
For a moment, you brace yourself for an accusation and the sound of her boots hitting the floor as she leaves. You thought she might snap, throw up a wall you spent so much time trying to knock down. Instead, Ellie looks down at her arm. At the fresh bandage. At your hands, still hovering over her skin, warm but unsure whether to let go.
There’s a pause before she says, “...It’s easier.”
“Easier? Than what?”
She shakes her head, looking down now as if her boots are the most interesting thing in the world. “Doesn’t matter.”
It did matter, though. You both knew it did.
But you nodded anyway, choosing not to disagree.
“Okay,” you say softly. “Still. Sit with me for a minute.”
And she did.
Ellie doesn’t rush this when she leaves this time. She takes her time, putting her coat and her scarf back on before getting up to go. She pauses at the door, fingers lingering against the frame like she was grounding herself.
“Hey,” she calls, not looking back. “You’re…good. At what you do.”
You giggle, soft and small. “So are you, Ellie.”
She frowns at your words. “At what, exactly?”
You shrug, setting your hands on your knees. “Surviving.”
Ellie answers you with a short laugh, and you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
The laugh she gives you before she leaves is reassuring more than it is unfamiliar. You look at where she stood before she left, trying to remember the laugh she let out before it fades from memory completely, especially since Ellie hides more often than she should. You sigh, closing your eyes, letting the exhaustion of the day wash through you. While you think of the girl you just had in your chair, you hope that the price of vulnerability was enough to afford Ellie peace—if not anywhere else, at least in the four walls of the infirmary, right where you are.
SYNOPSIS: You’re the medic who believes people don’t need to bleed to belong. Ellie is the girl who’s never known how to be without pain or purpose. In the biting cold of Jackson's winter nights, you learn about stillness, fear, and choosing each other, in spite of it all.
PAIRING: Ellie Williams x medic!reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: EXTREMELY SLOWBURN, hurt/comfort, emotional intimacy, soft angst, ellie is a yearner, medic!reader, mentions of blood and wounds + general infirmary/clinic setting, slight canon-divergence, ellie doesn't know how to exist in a world that needs nothing from her, joel is not dead, jesse and dina mention, snowy jackson, monologue-heavy, good ending. men and minors DNI.
A/N: My first Tumblr fic for TLOU! Before reading, please note that this fic focuses on Ellie's struggle to balance her immunity and her desire for her life to have meaning. It's incredibly more observational and atmospheric than narrative-driven. Comments and thoughts are always appreciated, but please refrain from providing feedback on my writing and grammar. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!
