#lagoon x reader

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By the end of the selection process, Lagoon is incredulous when you choose him.

Vaguely, he wonders if you’d done so just because he’s the eldest amongst the meisters here. He has mixed feelings about this because even though he’s accepted a long time ago that he’ll be the butt of the old man jokes, he still doesn’t necessarily like it when it’s pointed out to him!

He doesn’t question your motives for choosing him (not because he doesn’t want to hear you calling him an old man!), but he does give you a heads-up about his current predicament.

As a senior in his guild, he already has a lot of responsibilities on his plate alongside his own personal matters. If you’re looking for someone who can dedicate their entire time and being to whatever projects you're taking on, then he should be standing at the very back of the line.

To his utter bafflement, you don’t change your mind. You’re open to the fact that there’s always something preoccupying him; however, what surprises him the most is how you go out of your way to help him.

You may not have the same experience that he’s collected over the years, but the effort that you pour into your work, the heart that you show whenever he assigns you to do something, is enough to convince him that you’re serious about this.

With you taking a portion of his workload, he frequently finds himself being able to finally take a deep breath and lean back against his chair, realizing that, after a long while, he truly has nothing to do now.

It’s times like these when he can finally turn to you and ask how can he help you now, and it fills him with a sense of pride that he’s capable of repaying your hard work with nothing on his mind weighing him down.

The requests you give him range from menial tasks like helping some townsfolk to definitely more dangerous ones that involve trekking to somewhere that his poor knees would protest at. He occupies the silence between the two of you with jokes, to which you always respond with a cheeky cheer that you’re always rooting for him! More often that not, it hacks out a sharp bark of laughter from him, and being able to travel with you to all sorts of places makes him feel younger than his age—to know that there are still things in this wide world that he’s never encountered before.

It’s these moments where he’s able to look up at the bright blue sky and let his mind roam free with a dream that he’s kept carefully secured close to his heart. He shares it with you, around a campfire, and he’s prepared for whatever sort of reaction you give because he knows how ridiculous it seems. Yet, as the two of you tuck into your sleeping bags, you give him a soft smile and tell him that you believe he can do it.

It stuns him far longer than he means it to. When he snaps back, he’s met with your peaceful sleeping face and he can’t help but feel nothing but fondness for you who chose him, a man past his prime, but still insisted that he wasn’t beyond his dreams.

He mulls over the idea of asking you about your reasons for choosing him tomorrow morning, but he easily sweeps that off the table. Whatever it is, he can just find out about it when the right moment comes. After all, he has all the time in the world to learn more about you.

“Hey, what are you doing out here without a jacket? Don’t you know the temperature’s been dropping lately? …Fuu, well, whatever. Here, you can have mine. Don’t worry ‘bout it, I work with vehicles, remember? Their engines usually keep me too warm.”

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From Towa’s perspective, this hardly changes anything.

His main objective has and will always be to build automata meant for helping human beings, and if you’re in need of his assistance, then he’s inclined to lend his services.

At first, if his presence isn’t necessarily required of him, he sends his automata in place. It’s a good opportunity to introduce his skillset to you and for his creations to experience an immersive lesson, and he doesn’t think anything wrong about it until you bring up your concerns to him.

When you try to explain to him that while his automata are doing their jobs, you prefer him, he’s perplexed. The conversation eventually descends into whether or not his automata are really performing up-to-task, but you manage to steer the topic to the main point: people appreciate seeing the face of the one who built the automata that makes their lives easier.

Understanding dawns on him then. Although he may be reluctant to comply with your wishes, he sees the weight of your words. If he wants his dream to succeed, then sacrifices must be made.

He doesn’t really know how to bring up the fact that he isn’t the best when it comes to idle discourse until you’re witnessing face-first how awkward his mannerisms are. He expects you to be disappointed, as this is an area that he’s lacking in; however, thankfully, you intervene and manage to salvage the situation.

With his social progress moving at a morosely sedate pace, his interactions with others almost always demand you to do damage control. It makes him feel somewhat helpless, even more so when you turn to him with only smiles and comforting words.

He’s supposed to be one helping you, not the other way around. He feels as if he’s violating the dream that he’d set his sights on.

You notice his predicament through the deviations in his behavior. His hands have started to twitch more often than not and his lips have been more downturned than normal. You confront him about it, and when he asks why, you tell him it’s because he’s your friend.

It’s a groundbreaking discovery if there ever is one. He’d assumed that you’d wanted a tool, someone malleable yet effective. He’s never entertained the thought of you choosing him to be your companion, your confidant, and everything else above utilization and disposal.

He informs you as such, because findings are important to share, and he’s witness to how something on your face breaks before you take his hand into yours, flint appearing in your gaze, as you tell him why you even chose him in the first place.

The truth settles in as both a burden and a promise. The former because now, more than ever, he wants to achieve his dream with and for you. The latter is so that he doesn’t forget that he can fall back and depend on you as much as you depend on him.

“...? Oh. It’s just you. Do you need me for something? ...No? ...Ah. You came here to spend time with me. I apologize, but I’m in the middle of working on a new project. Hmmm...come closer. Do you want me to teach you how automata work?”

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Link is only all too delighted to have you choose him!

Not only have you just presented him with the opportunity to meet the people who have no access to his level of technology, but also now he’s able to further his dream by connecting all sorts of different individuals and deepening the discourse of ongoing problems.

He tells you as such, making sure to be as transparent as possible because this is a considerable offer, and he makes sure to double the amount of dazzle in his beam when you accept.

Things start off shaky at first, now that he has you as an occasional partner in his broadcasts regarding your requests, but that’s how things usually are so he brushes them off, his mind set on the finish line.

He notices the curiosity from his audience about you, but he keeps his words casual yet careful, deflecting here and there when the questions become too personal and moving the spotlight back to him.

A fan asks him if he and you are friends, and it gives him pause. It isn’t as if he goes out of his way to spend time with you outside of work hours, but there are instances where catching dinner with you sounds appealing especially after a long day of work. He values professionalism most of all, and introducing friendship into your partnership might only complicate things.

In the end, he doesn’t answer the question, thanking the heavens that a distraction appears from behind. Still, he does mull over it before bringing it up to you. After all, a dialogue between both parties is only for the best.

The way your face scrunches up as you think over it is cute, and he wishes he had anything on his hands to document it but he’d left everything in the next room.

Eventually, you say yes with a shy smile. You tell him how much you enjoy his company, what traits you admire about him over the course of knowing him, and that his dream is a beautiful one that you want to support. Later on, when next he checks a mirror, he can perceive the pinkness of his ears that thankfully blends well with his hair. He bites his lip, trying to contain his smile.

Things start to change after that, and by how quickly it does, it makes him realize that it really only has been him that’s been halting the process. However, instead of feeling regretful, it only encourages him to improve on his relationship with you to make up for lost time.

With your permission, he starts to include you in more of his streams, promoting you from the person who gives him requests to an actual partner host. The two you end up having a question and answer segment and where the audience is free to shoot questions at the two of you. It’s his turn to read and he scans the list until his gaze lands on a particular one—what made you choose Link?

It’s an ambiguous question, one that doesn’t really pertain to why you chose him as a meister, but he asks you this anyway, curious to hear your answer. This time, it’s you whose cheeks turn rosy and the pointed look you give me only makes him grin cheekily. He regrets asking you, soon enough, when you give your answer because now he’s the one embarrassed.

“Hey, guys! I hope you’re all doing well. I’m at a farm with—guess who? Yup! Hahaha! Who else would it be? Well, I’ve got to go. We’re going to be having lunch, and I prepared a surprise picnic! I’ll tell you guys all about it later~”

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Hollow takes one good and long look at you before sticking his hand out.

He watches you stare at it, dumbfounded, before you realize what it means. Gingerly, you slip your hand into his gloved one and shake it awkwardly. He beams at you as best as he can through his mask and is relieved when your eyes light up and you don’t pull away.

The thing is—he’s aware of how people talk about him. The God of Death, they whisper under their breaths. It’s honestly embarrassing because he neither meant nor wanted to ever get that sort of reputation.

You can never find out about it. You’re one of the few people who don’t cower beneath his gaze and you chose him. He doesn't have to be a genius to figure out what you’d do if you found out that you just picked someone called the God of Death.

He does his best the first few weeks, ensnaring your attention to him as he distracts you from the rumors with conversations about everything and nothing. He also faithfully keeps his mask on because he knows that he doesn’t exactly look like the sun when he smiles.

However, this all comes to heed when the one thing he can’t control rears its head.

He’s waiting outside of a pawn shop as you negotiate with the owner. It’s really by chance when his gaze catches onto something interesting, something that he’s thought he’d only get to see once in his life. Before he knows it, he’s on the other side of the street, hands reverently running across the antique automobile that must date back to about twenty years. He tries—really, really tries—but it’s futile.

When you leave the shop with more money than you’d entered, you’re surprised to find him missing. You squint, trying to spot a head full of pale hair, and you smile when you catch sight of it. That same smile freezes on your face when you process just what you’re seeing.

As if sensing your gaze, he turns his stare towards you and his eyes widen. It would look comical, really, especially with him being elbows deep within the automobile’s hood, his fingers working into the engine that he’s never seen the same type of before. But neither of you owns that car, and you’re willing to bet that the elderly man clutching his chest just a few feet away and staring gobsmacked at the entire situation is the owner.

After getting dressed down by the owner and having to repair the engine, he still walks you home even though by now, you already know the truth that he’s been trying so hard to hide. The old man really hadn’t spared any mercy, laying out just why his epithet had fit him so well if this was how he acted.

A hand grasping his own snaps him out of his miserable thoughts. When he checks, he sees you looking up at him, concerned, before you smile fondly at him and reassure him in spite of everything. Something must show in the furrow of his brows because you stop, your smile widening, before you laugh and tell him that you’d know all along.

He is full-blown gawking at you now, because you knew? You nod, saying that you’ve already heard of him long before you two met, and the why that comes out of his mouth is unintentional. Your smile softens and you squeeze his hand once before looking off, your reasons slipping out of your lips like a prayer and dismantling him whole in the process of it.