COUNTING CROWS
Karasu Tabito x F!Reader ╱ High School AU
Based on the rhyme.
The ways that you and Karasu's relationship develops in the Counting of Crows.
genre ╱ "it's complicated" to lovers, slow (snail pace) burn, magic realism, fluff, mild angst, crack, occasional middle school flashbacks, a story that doesn't take itself tooo seriously (so you shouldn't either lol)
content warnings ╱ this series will include some misunderstandings, potentially crude jokes, characters being bad at feelings, mid writing el oh el, neglectful parenting, magic/folklore, oc's and that's kinda it for now. anyway, just a disclaimer, because i am using a rhyme that has been an oral tradition for several decades, it may not align with the one that you know due to differing variations or other factors.
status ╱ ongoing! very intermittent updates, author has NO consistency with fic writing
A CORVID PRELUDE.
Crows are unusual birds, infamous for the peculiarity that trails their every motion like duty. It is what their dark feathers tend to entail, with symbolism entrenched so deeply within them that it could be considered as the shadow of their existence.
Some recognise them for their intelligence and ingenuity. With their mere presence signifying the importance of using one’s mind to navigate and adapt to situations of all kinds—even (or perhaps, especially) those beyond anything particularly ordinary.
Others perceive them as harbingers of change, embodying transformations and the coming of nascent beginnings; the sole company of them indicating an impending shift to arise in one’s life.
And to some, they are considered as messengers of divinity, cast down from the venerable gates of spiritual realms with the purpose of delivering the words that fail to leave one’s lips.
They are a dictionary configured of various orphic proverbs, metaphors, and more that attempt to place a meaning to their name. Some form from the numbers of their flock, and others stem from the way in which they behave. Because humans tend to find patterns in everything, regardless of how baseless they may be.
You yourself never thought they were anything particularly extraordinary, dismissing them as strange birds with stranger superstitions. Every encounter meaning nothing more than any other. But, with the events that passed through time, you couldn’t help but end up second guessing the prospect of it all.
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the taste of tears that savored and satisfied his cheek.
the red, red fingerprints on his beautiful neck, adorned with those blue roses that (he) could spend days tracing over the rough ink on his skin.
fingerprints—fingers pressing into them.
a gagged choke, a cough. spit leaking from his mouth.
“kaiser…”
no response.
he pressed harder.
black dots in his vision waved hello and goodbye.
“kaiser!” a voice said, with a bit more urgency. desperation laced onto sound—no, that couldn’t be right. who could be despaired over the loss of someone like him?
frantic, frantic hands started prying on his fingers, his shirt, his hair. hands that wiped the spit leaking from his mouth, the blood weeping onto the tiles.
“kaiser!!” the voice repeated.
he wondered why that voice was so persistent. why couldn’t it just leave him be? it would be perfectly fine if he just died, there and then.
but persistent voice; persistent hands; managed to get his fingers off his neck.
“get up…please…” it pleaded.
kaiser had no will to.
“anything! just show me you’re alive…!”
he didn’t want to.
slow, deep sobs started permeating in the room. kaiser could hear himself in those sobs; but he was too strong to let those tears out. he was stronger than to let himself crumble in salt and misery.
so he let himself lay on the floor instead; because dying was easier than trying.
ONE FOR SORROW ╱ ch. [1] of counting crows (karasu x f!reader series)
August [28]
Summer's coming to an end;
I wonder if Autumn will bring something (a)new.
FREQUENCY ILLUSIONS are an irritating phenomenon. At least, to you they are.
It is a well established fact that everyone's brain is constantly bombarded with several scraps of sensory inputs every passing second, an amount far too much for anyone to thoroughly digest. The majority of them will simply slip through the crevices of your mind, flowing out like dew as they trickle away from the branches of your knowledge. The remainders usually manage to hook onto such rooks in the bark, either already familiar with the forms or bonded personally once they clamp onto the roots of your neurons. They repeat themselves throughout, like recurring species of birds (maybe corvids, maybe crows) adorning a sweeping oak tree. And, as it tends to go, the human mind will take keen notes of these repetitions, no matter what they are.
You imagine that must be why your eyes are trailing Karasu for maybe the twenty second time this month. He steps past your classroom with his hands resting in his pockets in that faux casualty and hair in that strange shape you can't seem to hate. Your eyes lull from beneath your lashes. You don’t know why he’s there, just that, recently, every time he is, you manage to spot him with seamless ease. Something quite abnormal when the scale of your school is considered.
To think it began with one measly conversation back in July. You can hardly recall what was being discussed; perhaps impending exams, or extracurriculars, or other things that don’t really matter. There’s only one thing you can confidently claim that you did not discuss, which was the way your friendship eroded away over the course of time. It isn’t any surprise, it’s always a universally unspoken habit of everyone to avoid talking about the nature of a relationship. That’s why people are usually so terrible with it. (You might be one of the worst.)
You forgot how the chat came to be as well. Something tells you it was the fault of the mild overlap of your social circles and the intervention of your best friends, but you aren’t very sure. All you know is that you don’t want to be seeing his face everywhere you go because whatever familiarity stirs only seems to translate into a heavy weight that envelopes your heart.
“[Last Name], what’s the answer to Question B?”
Blatantly ignoring the screams of “oh shit” droning on in your head as a resultant of your teachers words, you flick your gaze down at your textbook. The pages are slightly crinkled, little marks indicating where your pen pressed down too hard.
“Twenty-eight,” you reply in the smoothest tone you can muster, reading the scribbly drawl of your handwriting aloud.
“Correct,” she hums, flipping off the whiteboard pen with a dull click.
You lull your head on the palm of your hand. In all honesty, you’re mostly just being dramatic. Neither you or Karasu are bitter or anything, you personally just hold an immense disdain to growing up and apart. Whether that is limited to the said boy is something you don’t currently know, or ever intend to, really.
A small huff escapes from beneath your breath, so faint that you yourself barely manage to hear it. Pondering never does seem to do any good, not when you’re like this anyway.
A couple more questions and answers sprout within the room as your musings begin to tug on their own curtains.
The sharp ringing of the bell pierces throughout the school, signifying the long due arrival of break. Only a few seconds pass before the sound is replaced by an eruption of shoes squeaking against the floorboards and scraping of chairs as they slide into their designated spots beneath the desks.
“Make sure you do Chapter Thirteen everyone,” your teacher calls out to the class, meeting a few words of acceptance and several exasperated groans. The room trickles into emptiness as you take your time packing up, finger twitching mildly as you pull the zip of your bag closed.
Miriku leans against your desk slightly when she steps over, a smile spread across her lips. “You were staring at Karasu when he walked past.”
“Huh? No, I wasn’t,” you deny, moreso trying to defend yourself from whatever implications the statement had than the action itself.
“Liar,” she hums. “What’s up with you and him anyway.”
“Nothing. I was just surprised, I guess. I’ve been seeing him around a lot recently,” you say honestly, hanging your bag over your shoulder. It brushes against your uniform softly.
“Noticing …” she muses.
You jab her playfully in the arm as a response, “Let’s just go, I don’t really wanna stay in this classroom any longer.”
She smirks at your swift change of subject, slinging her arm around you as you both walk out the class, “If you say so then.” You don’t react to the motion, plenty used to her tactile affection. “I do say so.”
“Anyway,” she began, “Sora said she’d meet us at the rooftop a little late.”
“Hm, how come?”
“Something about organising an event with her teacher.”
You blink. “Oh, right. She did mention that.”
“Mhm.”
The two of you make your way down the stairs, chattering about idle topics as you weave through the mob of students. The buzz of their conversations blend with yours, causing some words to be lost in translation.
“Blending greens?”
“Huh? How’d you get that,” she laughed, the sound coming out like distant bell chimes. “I said I’m gonna buy something from the vending machine. Want anything?”
“Eh, I’m alright for today.” You paused in thought, a few people brushing past, “I’ll wait by the wall over there since it’s kinda crowded here.”
“Okay,” she replies before bounding over towards the machine. Its effulgent light illuminates the space ahead of it, spurring a gentle glow to dance over the small cluster of students there. You observe for a moment before stepping in the opposite direction.
You aren’t too sure what has caused a horde inside, but from the disgruntled complaints you’ve picked up on, it appears to just be the seemingly dull cloudy weather. It’s apparent that this summer has been nothing short of gloom, with glum tufts of clouds constantly wading throughout the sky and prohibiting the sun to shine its radiance upon the land. Frankly though, the matters of the weather have never really bothered you. Save for the rain.
Your body stiffens the mildest bit as you glance across the wall, spotting an all so exasperated Karasu stare into one of the classrooms with someone else's bag sitting in his hand. You recognise it to be Otoya’s distinctly green one.
“Hi Karasu,” you greet, eyes drifting away as you lean on the wall beside him. Miriku was now chatting to someone by the vending machine, it was hard to tell whether it was intentional that she was leaving you here momentarily.
“Hey,” he responded in a lacksidal tone, glancing at you briefly.
“How’ve you been?” you ask after a long moment.
“Yeah, good,” he replies. “You?”
“Fine,” you mutter beneath your breath. You wonder if the word even meets Karasu’s ears. Your gaze flicks over towards him, and for some reason, you begin to feel like every so-called frequent illusion has been nothing but a cover for something you refrain from addressing.
He sends you a sidelong glance, the blues of his eyes stirring with uncertainty under the weight of your stare.
“Is something bothering you? Ya seem a little off.”
—
“Is something bothering you? Ya seem a little off,” he asked.
“Just, didn’t do so well on a test,” you admitted in response, throwing your sweater on carelessly. “You’ve also been acting kinda off anyway.”
“Hm? You think so?”
“Yeah, it feels like you’ve been avoiding me a little,” you trail off into a murmur, mild embarrassment playing over your expression. Fortunately, the cloth you shimmy on conceals it, but you still feel the heat creeping along your neck.
“Oh,” he hummed, a small grin breaking across his lips. “So you’ve missed me?”
“Hey, don’t twist my words,” you replied, adjusting the jumper as it hugs around your torso.
He chuckled softly before fading into a quiet sincerity, “Sorry, I haven’t been meaning to or anything.” The moment swells. “Soccer has just kept me busy ‘nd stuff,” he added vaguely.
“Nah, it’s fine.” The leaves crunched as you shifted on your feet, the sound blending into the trees' agitation. A playful smile formed on your face. “Though, I suppose a good compensation would be if you bought me something from the vending machine,” you suggest in faux contemplation, scratching your chin to emphasise the point.
He let out a huff of amusement, “I suppose so. What d’ya want to buy?”
“Yakult, obviously,” you said.
—
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about me,” you answer easily.
He blinks at you, mumbling a weak word of compliance. He wonders if you know how weirdly difficult it is for him to do; to not think of you.
As you peel yourself away from the wall slowly, you take a discreet glance at him. Sunlight streams in from behind, casting a tender glow across his expression, one entirely incoherent to you now. The light traces along his fine cutting features, and you can only really think about how different he seems to be from a couple years ago. A difference that goes beyond physical appearance and how he carries himself, but not one you could really explain. You imagine that he probably feels the exact same way about you. Something strange, twinged with SORROW twists in the center of your heart at that prospect. Like a needle too precise to ever extract.
Your eyes flit to the window behind him momentarily. A flash of black goes by, the shape indicating a single crow flying past. You have an inexplicable suspicion that that, too, may become something you start noticing quite frequently in your mind. “See you, Karasu,” you eventually say, walking off to Miriku as her own conversation draws to an end.
“See ya,” he returns, gaze flicking away from your receding figure instinctively. Otoya still seems to be chatting up that girl in the classroom.
Moments such as these are ones that, unbeknownst to each other, you both actively avoid dwelling too far on. It isn’t as if there is much to think about anyway, for, they simply are what they are. (So it goes.)
authors note ╱ oh brother... we got two yearnatron 3000s here...
anyway, swear on my soul my writing will improve as this goes on because 😥
also, in case it was too vague, the interaction between the cuts was a memory
COUNTING CROWS M.LIST
Karasu Tabito x F!Reader ╱ High School AU Series
Based on the rhyme.
INTRODUCTION
A Corvid Prelude / Info + Prelude
CHAPTERS
One for Sorrow
Two for Mirth
Three for a Death
Four for a Birth
Five for Silver
Six for Gold
Seven for a Secret Untold
Eight for a Kiss
Nine for a Wish
Ten for a Bird you must not Miss
Eleven for Health
Twelve for Wealth
Thirteen Beware it’s the Devil himself
Fourteen for a Care
Fifteen for a Sojourn
Sixteen for a Home
Seventeen finds you Alone
Eighteen for Good Fortune
Nineteen for Justice
Twenty for a sign that the End has Begun
authors note ╱ just to clarify, the majority of these are metaphorical. nobody is dying, nobody is getting pregnant, nobody is turning into the devil (well, kinda) etc.
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.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
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