#luan writes

You huff. "... Don't say that. I want you here. Annoying hands and all."

His favorite way to hug you is from behind. Face buried on the crook of your neck, arms crossed on your chest and gripping your shoulders, leaving little crescent moons on your skin when he forgets to trim his nails.

"Relax, Dazai, I won't disappear," you'd comment sometimes.

To which he gives you a smile and an apologetic shrug. And you don't know it, there's no way for you to, but that's exactly what he fears the most in those moments.

He whines your name from the other side of the office, dramatically dragging his feet until he reaches your desk, and plops down with his head on your lap, arms tight around your middle.

"There's a new suicide method I want to try," he states plainly.

You smack him on the head before resuming your disentangling of his wavy locks, a frown darkening your features. "Don't say that."

"What? I was planning to invite you to join me." He pouts.

"Don't. I'm not killing myself. You're not killing yourself."

You scratch at his scalp. One of your hands wanders down to feel the pulse on his neck. Steady, warm. Alive. His eyelids flutter. You care that I'm alive.

"Supposedly, electrocution doesn't hurt too much," he goes on. "It's not a great method for a double suicide though... Oh, but if we-"

"Why don't we try out that bakery I told you about instead? I don't think Kunikida would mind if we went out for an hour or so..."

Dazai's hands are usually cold. They turn even colder when he gets scared. You notice that when you drag him into your room, when his usually graceful steps are unsteady and bewildered.

You notice that he's scared before he does: The child-like look in his eyes, like he lost his favorite teddy bear; the slight tremble of his fingers he believes to be hiding well; the hesitation in his movements when he knocks on your door at night, smelling of sweat and booze, feeling a little more hollow than usual.

He says your name like a plea; a plea to be let in, a plea to take away the guilt and the emptiness and the hurt, a plea to be forgiven for using you like a lifeline.

He sits by your feet, doesn't allow himself to go any closer, but he grips the hem of your pajamas like the railing of a bridge, counting the floorboards and the circles you make on his back.

"I know what it's like," you mutter towards the ceiling. "The hopelessness, the... pfft. The hope for something better on the other side, because you're unable to find anything on this side."

He tugs on your clothes, searching for your face with burnt eyes. "Don't say that..." he whispers. You let out a heavy sigh and continue.

"Sometimes, I get so lonely it's as if I don't exist at all, and then you startle me with that heavy head of yours and those freezing hands and... And it's like- like my brain is a little... Less loud."

You finally meet his gaze, and the intimacy of it knocks the air out of your lungs. Your words turn quieter, your eyes turn glassy.

"... But I don't know what to do to make your brain a little more bearable to live with. I can't do anything at all. I wish I could. I truly do."

He gives you one of his charming smiles, calculated and bright, accompanied by a single tear rolling down his cheek, glistening with the lamplight.

"It's alright. You do yours and I'll do mine."

Oh, but he wouldn't ever forgive himself if you took that jump without him.

"I've never seen you cry before." You scrape off at the mask and force that wistful smile out of him. You both love and hate that expression: The piece of vulnerability he shows you most often, and the face of his melancholy.

"I don't think anyone at the agency has," he shrugs. His fingers rub gentle circles on your waist, still trying to sidetrack the conversation.

You rake your fingers through his hair, scratch at his scalp just the way he likes it, but the pensive look in your eyes doesn't match the gesture. "But I'm not just anyone. Am I?"

"No," he replies quickly. His eyes widen in surprise, then a genuine giggle slips past his lips. "No, you're not..."

He turns his head away, breathes a little more slowly, as if bracing himself. He pulls you closer, hugs you tight so you can't turn to look at him. He can't stand having your eyes on him anymore. The fondness in them stings, because he doesn't understand it, has almost given up on understanding it, and he can't accept it fully, either. He wants to run away from it, knows that running away will hurt you, and knows he'd also miss you like crazy. So he pulls you close, but out of sight.

His voice turns lower, softer... Distant, because he has retreated somewhere deep within himself, but he's also testing how much he can open the door before it hurts too much. "I always wake up crying, and never remember why."

You hug him a little tighter. He always falls asleep and wakes up before you do, always rests little less than you. The thought of him sniffling beside your sleeping form, the realization of your ignorance to his pain, it's disconcerting.

"Maybe it's just nightmares..." He continues with a sigh, lifting a hand to stare at it, at the angry scars on his naked arm. "I don't know. The numbness always comes back before I can figure out what shook me so."

Maybe it's the void itself, the hollow on his heart he doesn't know how to fill. Sometimes he wonders if he's doing something wrong, and he'd stop crying every night if he could just figure out what it is. Sometimes he chooses not to sleep at all, because the aching in his chest and the anesthetization that follows is too much to handle first thing in the morning.

You kiss his temple — tender, merciful —, and he inhales deeply, like you just saved him from drowning. He feels a little lighter. Not all ways to break from the emptiness have to be painful.

➵ I had to skip my antidepressants for a couple of days and now y'all have to deal with it too

➵ Dazai's disconnect from his feelings and his humanity and the repercussions of his depression are so interesting and so dear to me...

➵ Divider by @/mieluno

He'd turned his head towards you with a mildly annoyed "what are you doing?", all alarms up for a hidden weapon or any odd hands in a vulnerable spot. You'd laughed with some comment about how cute he was, the boss introduced you, and that was it for the rest of the night.

It became a habit. He braced himself whenever you showed up, ready to get thrown to the floor if you came running down the hallway, or for his hair to get tousled in all directions if the wrong person was near and you had to tone down your affections. You would place kisses on his head or pinch his cheeks or simply pat his shoulder and go on your way without much to add or explain.

He never let you see the way it made him smile, because, for once, he didn't have to fake it and he wasn't sure if he wore genuine joy well. 

He never pushed you aside either. Any questioning glances from outsiders were met with silent threats; any concerned looks from you were met with a simple pat on your back, and you knew he'd tell you if he didn't want you near. Hell, he rarely let anyone get so close unless it was for a joke or one of his cruel antics.

He asked you about it on a rare afternoon, when you both were alone waiting for a meeting to start, after you'd made a point of kissing his forehead before sitting down on your place at the table. It was a jest at most, something he already knew the answer to. "Are you in love with me or something?"

You smiled at him, shook your head. Years of working for the mafia had trained you to be reserved and sparse with your affection, but you knew what it's like to be in his place, if only separated for a couple of years. You couldn't protect either of you, it was too late for that, but you could hold him as long as he allowed you to. You would fan the flame of whatever warmth was left in him so the underground of the city couldn't extinguish it like it had extinguished yours; you didn't have anyone to give you respite from the stone cold reality of being an executive when you were eighteen, so you would offer him that silently and hope it does more good than bad.

"No, you're too young for me," you answered with a laugh, fell into your usual banter. "Don't tell me I'm driving the girls away from you, I don't think I've gone that far."

"No, it'll take more than you clinging to my side to overshadow my charm," he shrugged, dropping the subject as soon as the door creaked.

You were one of the few who didn't hold a grudge after he left the mafia. You were aware that you hadn't even begun to scratch at his shell in all those years, but you hoped that maybe some of your persistence in not letting him go more than a week without getting human affection had been aid in keeping the part of him that had the strength to walk away alive.

Hugging Dazai was like second nature to you, of course you wouldn't hold back even years later, being on opposite sides of the organizational war. You ran right up to him  and squeezed the air out of him with a tight hug, nevermind that his coworkers were ready to jump at any harsh movement, nevermind that you'd be defenseless as long as you were in contact.

"Dazai! Look at you! You're all grown up now, huh?" You placed a kiss on his temple, not bothering to hide the pride in your eyes when he patted your back with just a little more liveliness than before, when he smiled with his eyes and not just his mouth and muttered your name with a sincerity previously unheard of.

➵ Title from: All You Need Is Love by The Beatles

He mentally scolds himself. Once again, he's brought the ghosts and the bloodshed with him to the house, he's let the darkened mirrors reflecting all his failures gaze upon you.

"How was your day?" He drawls, sighing heavily as his hands remove his coat, the thick fabric pooling around him as he sheds the burden of violence from his body.

He listens to you while he removes his work clothes. He pays as much attention to the thudding of his boots and the aches in his body as he does to the timbre of your voice and your anecdotes.

Once Akutagawa has stripped down to his pants and bandages, he stands up to look for clean clothes to change into. You follow him with your gaze, going on with whatever story you had to tell, knowing better than to ask where he got hurt today.

There are new bruises on his ribs, a half-scabbed cut on his arm, he's hunching a little.

"Did you clean that?" You ask, pointing to the wounds with your finger. He hesitates too long to say yes, scowls at you as if pleading not to be bothered about it. He doesn't want to face what happened at work today.

You make him face it anyways, even though he's told you too many times not to ask about it: "With the mafia, the less you know, the better."

He chews on his sandwich while you clean his skin with iodine, makes a conscious effort to push aside the voice that reminds him of his weakness so he can properly take in your kindness.

He lowers his arm before you can finish securing the bandage on his torso, too impatient to wait for a kiss. His kisses are always rough, like his voice, like he loves, unable to understand why you do what you do for him but terrified to lose you regardless.

He tugs your lower lip between his like you'll run away, holds your jaw like it'll break if he presses too hard. He still smells of gunpowder and iron, and it makes you dizzy, makes you lean into him even more. He'll hold you up, even if all his bones are broken, he'll hold you tight.

You pull back just enough to get the words out. "Ryuu, I'm not going to bed if you don't let me finish patching you up."

He sighs, steals one last, chaste, kiss from your lips, and straightens up again so you can finish your work.

"Thank you, love."

➵ Wrote this after pulling an all-nighter, sorry if it's a bit rough

➵ Title from: Jaws by Sleep Token

➵ Divider by @viviansturns

Sigma hasn't had time to fall in love.

He spends most of his time working to run the casino, painstakingly managing, memorizing, placating, preventing and fixing things and people left and right. Hard days and sleepless nights are devoted to his job, and the free time he managed to squeeze in used to be filled with unanswered questions and prayers to make sense of his lost self. Used to be, because now-

You tap the table twice, leaving your player's card on top of your chips before walking up to Sigma.

"Ah, I was dying to see the prettiest face in this place." You link your arm in his and direct him to walk out to a quieter area. "Let me give you a small break. You must be tired, darling."

He'll be damned if this isn't love.

Feeling like only half a human doesn't mean he feels things halfway. No, he sinks into his emotions, tied and overpowered by the vines that grow from the deepest corners of his heart... And at the seed of it, there's you.

There's you and your flirty self, walking arm in arm with him through the casino, slithering your way through the crowds that look for you with idle chatter and unfinished affairs. You brush them off with a wave of your hand, a glass of liquor sent through the waitresses, or one of your cheeky smiles.

The picture is not dissimilar to what Sigma looked like before he spotted you, and even though he is the one in command of the place, he finds himself wishing he could be half as graceful as you appear right now.

He finds himself wishing he was good enough to have your attention fully on him, even when you're moving through the crowd.

He squeezes your hand, exhaling softly. He can't take his eyes off of you, and God, does he long to be under your gaze too. How could he not?

When he heard you were extending your stay at the casino, for once, he was more relieved than stressed.

He didn't just memorize your habits and the things you liked and regularly asked for because it's his job, he was actually happy to learn about you. Letting you into his unfinished world, it was like letting the sunshine in through the window.

You were so kind to him, so attentive. It was nerve-wrecking at first. Still is, to a degree. But it's also addictive.

"My, my, you're as pretty as a sword lily..." "Ah, thank you." "That's not the smile of someone who recognizes the flower I just mentioned." "I... Admit I don't know much about flowers." "It's a compliment nonetheless. I'll bring you some one of these days."

But the sun doesn't shine forever, does it?

Perhaps that's not a good metaphor. Your company has become rarer with time, your visits to the casino less frequent.

"... Y-You brought me coffee?"  "I did." "But I should be the one t-" "Ah, ah. Nope. Take it easy tonight. You work too hard." "... Would you wait until I finish here, and I'll treat you to dinner?"

Sigma isn't one to take things for granted.

"I'm going on a business trip soon, so I won't be coming here for a couple of weeks." You comment casually, gazing at the night sky. The wind blows your hair back and out of your face, and Sigma thinks he might cry at the way the moonlight bathes your face.

"There will always be a spot for you at the casino. I'll have your cosmo ready for you when you come back."

You let go of his arm with a sigh, a small smile on your lips, too sad for his liking. Your eyes dart to the floor as you turn on your heel towards the door, an insipid "Good night" on your lips.

"Make sure to call me if you need anything..." He stammers, his volume lower with each hesitant word.

Then again, the looming threat of losing however little he has has always been there. How could he get comfortable enough to expect something other than the loneliness that chases him endlessly?

When he sees you under the lamplight of the bar, your usual cosmopolitan in hand, that beautiful laugh of yours brought to life by a dark-haired man, he realizes he might have gotten too comfortable with you.

He got too used to your warmth, and now the wind of the night burns on his skin, a scowl twisting his features with jealousy for someone he couldn't allow himself to recognize for fear of mistreating him later on.

He stares at you instead, cheeks rosy and lively, and he wonders if it's from the alcohol or from awakening affection. You place a hand on the other man's arm, the gesture comfortable and familiar, those lips he longs for so much moving through the conversation. Sigma strides out of the room, a pit in his stomach with the shape of inferiority.

"Want to be my plus one for the night? I promise, I'll give you the best time you've ever had." "Oh, sorry to disappoint, but I can't accompany you for long. I have to- Ah..." "Give me a chance, will you? I don't think anyone would turn heads at you hanging out with one of your patrons." "That's not what I'm worried about." "Then grant me this dance. I'll convince you by the end of it." "... I suppose that's the least I could do for a first time customer. What's your name, зая?"

A knock on the door of his office startles Sigma out of his drunken nap. He checks his clock, 2am, and he's too dizzy to worry about all the work he missed in however long he was out for.

He's relieved to hear your voice call his name.

"Sigma? The staff are worried, you haven't answered in hours. Are you alright?"

He knocks half of the things on his desk to the floor when he stands up. When he opens the door, his vest and shirt are missing, leaving him stripped to his black turtleneck, contrasting against his pale complexion. His shoes are tossed aside carelessly on two different corners of the room, there's an empty bottle of gin beside the desk and a half-finished one dangerously close to the edge of it.

You barge in and close the door behind you before anyone else could see him like that, bloodshot-eyed and disheveled, hastily wrapping an arm on his waist to support his unsteady body.

He slurrs your name over and over, like it's a full sentence and you don't understand the meaning of it. You sit him down on his chair and dim the lights, which he thanks you for immediately, not having noticed how overwhelmed he was by them.

"Well, you're clearly not alright," you sigh. "I don't think I've ever seen you drink during work hours."

"I don't... Get like this... Often," He stares at you through half-lidded eyes. "God, you're lovely."

He smiles when he realizes he caught you off guard by the compliment. You rush to get him a glass of water, which he downs inmediately.

"And you decided to on a Wednesday night?" You brush his tangled hair out of his face, moving the long layers off the back of his neck and fanning his nape with your hand, making him shiver as his body cools down.

"I saw the love of my life flirting with someone else, what was I supposed to do?" 

You freeze. He grabs your wrist and twirls you to face him, pulling you closer until you have to support yourself on him, almost falling onto his lap. "And it got you here again. It's been a long time since you've visited me in private."

"I- You- You're too drunk right now." You deflect.

"I am." He nods, laying his head on your shoulder.

You sit sideways on his lap, his familiar smell of vanilla and cloves mixed with the liquor, invading your senses. You run your hands through his white locks, to which he presses his face further on your neck.

"You never told me you have a partner..." You comment absently, trying to figure out what to do with the drunken manager in your arms.

"I don't."

"Ah, it's unrequited love."

"It has always been. I mean, you're so nice to everyone. I'm the one who got over excited..."

You push him back by the shoulders, making him look you in the eye.

"Say that again?"

"... You're the kindest, brightest, most wonderfully charming person in the world, зая."

"Sigma-"

"And you deserve someone as beautiful as you. I just- I thought I..."

"Sigma, darling-"

"I let myself think for a moment that I could be your person. That I had the right to. But-"

"Sigma!"

You cup his face in your hands, exasperated, ready to scold him for being so unbelievably oblivious to the nature of your gestures, but he stares at you with those lilac eyes, dressed in fondness and fear and...

“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, love. I prefer to see you smile.”

He scoffs, wide eyed and bewildered. You smirk. "Did you think I was flirting with someone else earlier?"

He nods, lowering his gaze with shame.

"At the bar... The guy with the expensive watch and the nice shoes..."

You open your mouth to point out how absurd his assumptions are, but he grabs your hand and presses it to his chest. You feel his heartbeat, all fast and jiterry, beneath your palm, his breathing uneven with the nausea of drunkenness.

"My heart always does this around you, you know." He smiles sweetly. "Remember the night we met? When you asked me out to dance. I thought 'I couldn't possibly go on if I ever have to be apart from this person again.' You leashed me in completely."

You pull his hand back, press a chaste kiss to his knuckles. "I wasn't trying to leash you. I was trying to bring you and your stupidly handsome face into my life."

His cheeks turn a deeper shade of red. He leans closer, his voice barely above a whisper. "Well, you've brought me home for the first time in my life."

He kisses your cheek, then hides away on your shoulder once again, suddenly too conscious of himself. He tugs at the hem of your shirt, "I know it's selfish but, please, would you stay with me?"

You hug him tightly, nuzzling the crown of his head.

"I wouldn't ever think of leaving."

➵ This character is a new one for me, so I hope I did him justice. Figuring out his voice was very fun!

➵ I made him give reader a nickname in russian because everyone in the DOA except for Fukuchi comes from that country, and he's Fyodor's creation, and there's the theory that he's based on Sergey Nikolavich Syromyatnikov... It just seemed fitting alright. Also it would be really hot.

He developed a tic that imitates the calling of the chickadee some time after he started to hide in the woods. At first, it was fun hearing the birds answer, thinking there was one of them nearby, when in reality it was just a limping boy craning his neck and trying to put his accidentally dislocated jaw back in place after a bad tic fit. Now it feels mocking, like the forest itself is laughing at his annoyance.

His right shoe feels tighter than usual, and walking is getting difficult. He doesn't want to even peek at whatever is going on with his foot. He has vague memories of being smaller and everyone being worried about something being wrong with his foot. He remembers needles and scalpels, expectant eyes, people he can't quite place in rooms so white they made him dizzy, familiar and unfamiliar hands dragging him around.

Hands. Looking down at his hands scared him at first. They don't look anything like the ones in his memories. His fingers are thick and yellow at the ends, some wider than others, opened and bleeding, or infected and with no water to clean them nearby. He remembers hands with manicured nails, skinnier than his own, but also stronger. Strong, but gentle. Gentle hands that checked on him before going to sleep, gentle hands that cleaned his damaged skin with nice soap and wrapped him up in soft bandages. Gentle hands gripping the steering wheel, covered in blood. A body crushed under mechanical parts.

Tobias limps along the path in the forest, less discernible every new hour that inevitably arrives as he approaches the parts almost nobody wants to visit. He's not here to visit, he's here to hide. He's here so the fire doesn't reach him, so the dark, insistent tendrils can't get a hold of him. He's here so he can stay in control.

He remembers the gentle hands prying him with a spoonful of soup. He knows he has to eat, or he will weaken and die. Tobias doesn't know what hunger feels like. He wonders if it's similar to fear. As the anger and the excitement and the adrenaline wore down, more and more the farther away he got from the smoke and the brazen light of the fire, fear had begun to nest up in his chest, and after it carved enough of him to make itself comfortable, it never left again.

He pushes his hair forward on his face, adjusts the hood of his sweater often, makes sure he can't get any signals from his peripheral vision so maybe the crowd of bleeding children will stop chasing him.

"I don't know honey, he's staying as far as I know"

🃮

Tobias holds onto every passing thought he can, however painful, however frightening, however tedious. He doesn't want to slip into the fog again.

He tried to think of nice things, first. Blonde hair came to mind, and blonde hair came along with smiles and warmth and kindness. Blonde hair came along with care and belonging.

"That's Hobbes. He's a tiger...Yes, like the one in Whinnie Pooh. But better... Yeah yeah. And that's you! What do you mean he looks nothing like you? You've got the same nose!"

"The next time they say mean things about you, imagine you're a big strong tiger... Yes, exactly! And then they can't harm you, because you're stronger than them. And kinder. And funnier... I'm sorry they don't see that in you."

"You would rather study here at home? Well, I don't think mom would be against it. Are you sure you're willing to deal with dad though?"

Blonde hair came along with fear, eventually, as everything does. Blonde hair comes with glass shards and blood, with screams and screeching tires, and with that, the fog. So, eventually, he stopped thinking about blonde hair.

🃮

"D-d-d-da- d-daffy d-down d-d-d-d- No..." 

Tobias only remembers one song, and he can't sing it.

"D-d-daffy d-d-down d-di-dil-dilly has come t-t-to t-t-t-t- fucking hell!"

He knows the callings of the birds in the forest by heart now, and he doesn't just tic with the chickadee's calling, but also the blue jay's and, as culmination of his many attempts to stay aware of his surroundings, the word "squirrel!".

"Now put your tongue up and hold it there: nnnn. Let's try again, Toby."

"Connie! This retard you have for a son bit his tongue off!"

"You're doing well, Toby. Let's try pushing that sound forward. Can you move your tongue towards your teeth?"

"... Useless fuck. Speak louder!"

Tobias remembers one song. He remembers a warm, mellow voice singing it to him. He remembers being a child. The song makes him think about green eyes and open arms, about colorful rooms, about sour medication and encouraging faces he can't quite make out, fingers pointing to mouths he didn't want to look at...

"... t-to t-t-to-town with a yellow pet-t-t-ticoat... hmph."

🃮

It feels like years since the last time Tobias saw a wall. He remembers the walls of his bedroom, the way the smooth white mixed with his thoughts the last few days, the way yelling faces and hospital masks and blurring tears and stinging fists would come alive in the blank canvas.

He flexes his hand, the thin layer of filth cracks where his skin wrinkles. He's trembling, and it takes him more effort than usual to move.

He remembers when his room would flood with water sometimes, and if he opened the door it would spill over to the rest of the house. Lyra barged in like it was nothing, every time, and then he would drown in panic. But the floor would remain dry, or so she assured him.

The fruit is dry here, but it does its job. Anything the squirrels eat, he can eat too. Probably.

He remembers the papers in his hands melting onto the ceiling. He remembers the roof opening up to swallow him whole and worrying he'd be going without his sister or his mum. He remembers dreaming of running away, finding a way, any way, to get the people he loved to safety. He remembers pouring gasoline on the sidewalk and knowing it didn't matter anymore.

His cheeks are wet. He wipes them off with a dirty palm. The fog is coming back.

🃮

A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun

Until the tender Carpenter

Perpetual nail it down

Tobias rests with his back against a wide, strong tree. There's a spider carcass in his gloved hand. He tears its legs off one by one, holds the little limbs between his fingers and examines them as if they were precious stones. He likes this one because it's real, because he can pick it up and move it around. He's gotten tired of having fake spiders crawl up his back, of turning away from his leg then looking at it again and finding none of the insects that were eating away at him were real.

He remembered the smell of whiskey not long ago. It smells like home. He remembers hating it. It brings home back but it also brings the anger back. And with the anger, come the tendrils, the force that wants to pull him back to the road and...

He holds the dead spider up by its last leg. It dangles in front of him, seems larger than it is, larger than the tree behind it. He pretends the spider is climbing the branches, as one would climb stairs. Stairs are also part of home. He misses his home. His home is crushed under a car. His home is on fire.

🃮

Maybe resisting is futile, after all. Food isn't nice in the woods, and he walks a little slower every time he wakes up. 

Tobias drags himself like a bag of bones through the trees, under the hollow branches, over the protruding roots. Cobwebs cling to his clothes, their owners long tossed aside. Leeches suck at his skin, but he walks on. The farther away he gets from the forest's heart, the worse it smells. Dark, gooey rope tugs at his feet, makes him trip over on himself, tries to drag him back on the ground like a worm, but he gets up again and walks on.

His ears ring so loud he'd be thankful if his head just exploded, but he walks on. He walks on until he hears steps that aren't his own. He's angry, and he's weak, and he's scared. He's tainted. He was tainted from birth. He has nothing left to lose.

🃮

"Hey, those shoes are nice."

Tobias chews on a cold sandwich, his free hand scribbles into the wet dirt. The bodies beside him are stiff, the night is windy, the moonlight rains through tree branches and thick clouds. He is crying. He doesn't know why he is crying.

"You're very strong, you know?" He glances at the faces of the corpses laying beside him, tears pooling on his long eyelashes. "That was a real st-strug- struggle... People aren't as generous as they teach you to be when you're a child."

The last few bites are hard to get through. He stands up impatiently, drumming his swollen fingers on the side of his thigh as he assesses what he can take and what he shouldn't.

"You have clean clothes... Well, they're stained now. But they're not covered in shit," he chuckles. His laugh dissolves into a coughing fit. That makes him remember to take the water bottles. "You don't mind if I just take your backpacks altogether, do you? It's not like you can use them anymore."

He turns one of the bodies over with a kick, pulls the backpack of its limp arms, tossing it aside to check later, then he moves onto the next one. That one has a belly bag. "Can't be bothered to ta-t-take that- that off... Oh, those goggles are funny."

He lifts them to his face. The orange tint makes everything look less threatening. Even beautiful. He turns towards the dead boy, "what'd you use these for, hm?"

He sits down on the crushed weeds again, puts the goggles on fully. They warm up the vacant faces of his victims. Orange is a warm color, blue is a cold color. Green is also a cold color. "The forest must be cold, I suppose. Are you cold?"

He yanks the backpack off the third one. The fourth one wasn't carrying anything. That one was the smallest, probably the youngest. Also the easiest to finish. He had curly hair and full lips. His eyes look sad now that his heart has stopped beating, even through the orange lenses.

"What's t-t-that face for? Were they mean to- mean to you?"

Tobias brushes the boy's hair away from his face. He tries to be tender, but he nicks his nose with one of his thick nails in the process.

"They were mean t-to me too, you kn- you know?" He drinks half a bottle of water in one go, then pours the rest on the boy's parted lips. "I d-don't remember much of how t-things used to be, anymore. I d-d-don't think I really had the chance to be mean."

Tobias lays down beside the dead body. The metallic smell of blood floods his senses, the moon peeks at him through the tall trees, ropes of tar wrap around his ankles and, this time, the fear that comes with them is welcomed with open arms.

"Mom told me to smile for the camera. She- She said I- She said I had the prettiest face. I cried t-that night for the way I looked."

The boy's nose forms a beautiful curve, illuminated in the lonely night, like a flower petal. It makes Tobias smile "...Are they t-telling the truth, mom?"

He slips a rough palm under his sweater, feels his lower ribs under his skin, feels his belly button poke out a little, feels the soft hairs over his abdomen. He's surprised to find there's softness left in his body, to find the rise and fall of his breathing so soothing, so even, like the twinkling of the stars above him.

"... Sometimes I wish I could feel the pain I deserve."

➵ Thank you, @ripdrhomo so, so much for inspiring me to write this piece and letting me use your words in it as well.

➵ I tried narrating this in past tense and then found it sounds stupid when I started writing the flashbacks. I'll learn one day... I learned a lot writing this, actually. The rabbit hole of information about CIPA and speech impairments took over me and it wasn't even that prominent in what I ended up writing.

It did add a couple of new headcanons to the endless list though. This character has accompanied me for years and years, and I've thought far too much about him, made a million drawings of him on the backs of my notebooks and in probably every single sketchbook I've had since I was 11.

I hadn't read his original story since like 2022 and still got surprised about how barebones the writing style is lol but it is a creepypasta after all and this fandom is built on those kinds of things. I love the way it has changed over time, the twink proxy slendermansion days and the way we treat the characters now that we've all grown up too.

⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 He discovered your skills with strategy pretty quickly. Soon enough, you were ascending the ranks until he decided to just give you a post beside him so your contributions wouldn't be wasted in other minor branches.

Well, the process for becoming an executive can have some shortcuts for special cases... He placed you in a nearby office at first, but he would call you in to his so often he decided to just move you in altogether. For practical reasons. Of course, you were a pretty sight too. And he was fascinated by your line of reasoning whenever he asked you to explain a strategy. You would write the longest reports for him and he would toss the document aside, lace his fingers together and lean back on his chair, saying "Tell me all about it, sweetheart." Practicality be damned, he loved your voice too much.

⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 Elise embraced it much more quickly than him.

She's a gateway for all the things he represses. You weren't aware of her being his ability at first though. He left you two alone for an hour and when he came back Elise was sitting on your lap and you were reading her favorite book for her. Seeing the content smile on Elise's face, the gentle way you pointed out the illustrations on the well-loved pages, how naturally you two fit into each other's space. He fainted from the discharge of cuteness. You were worried out of your mind, but Elise just laughed at him, brushing you off entirely with a "Can I braid your hair?" He didn't stay upright very long after waking up to that sight. You, sitting criss-cross on the floor, peacefully filling out paperwork while his dear Elise put bows on your hair, idle chatter filling his cold office with warmth and life.

⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 He eased up to things little by little after that.

I mean, after you had not only Elise's approval, but also her affection, he couldn't ignore the butterflies in his stomach any longer. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't. You occupied his mind so often, if not just because he was wondering what your opinion on something would be, then because you were stopping his train of thought altogether. You would just pop up into his mind with your cute smile and your beautiful hands and your honeyed voice and he would lose it entirely, Elise teasing him about his "boyish crush." Oh well, what to do?

⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 He deemed flowers an appropriate gesture.

One morning, you were greeted by your favorite flowers on your desk, the bouquet wrapped up in a red bow beside your favorite beverage. You two are the only ones with a key to that office. He doesn't aknowledge it. You're too flustered to ask. The flowers get replaced at the very first sign of wilting, every time. Your favorites are the most frequent, but sometimes he mixes them up. Peonies, wisterias, pink camellias, pansies, cattleyas... He's a romantic at heart, of course he's knowledgeable in flower language. He was your teacher at one point, of course he had taught you about it.

‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 So you leave a vase with petunias on his desk one night, knowing he'd find it in the morning before you came in.

That day he doesn't wait for you to get to the office, he goes all the way to your living quarters, better dressed than usual, camellias in hand- red this time. "We're taking the day off, darling." He placed a kiss on your knuckles. "I'm spoiling you today." He never thought he'd prioritize something over his duty to Yokohama but... You were just too precious. So precious, he wanted you to see him. Not just Ougai, but Rintarou.

‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 He's cheesy, a little arrogant...

⋆˚꩜｡ He'd stare at you, so often. Especially when you were explaining something particularly clever. And then he'd point out details on your face not even you were aware of. Something about the curve of your nose, a mole on your shoulder, or how the light hits your eyes just right that night. ⋆˚꩜｡ He'd press his foot to yours under the table during meetings. Or slip his hand over your thigh, poker faced while you turn the same color as his scarf. ⋆˚꩜｡ "I have the feeling that you’re trying not to kiss me, and I give you permission to just do it." ⋆˚꩜｡ Writes you short poems and leaves them as sticky notes for you to find. ⋆˚꩜｡ Slowdancing to Paul Anka, Vera Lynn and Sarah Vauhgan.

‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 ... But needy too.

⋆˚꩜｡ This comes some months after making it official, but it comes in strong. ⋆˚꩜｡ You're in private? He's all over you. His head on your shoulder, a hand on your hair, . ⋆˚꩜｡ Head on your lap, hands gripping your waist, cigarrette smoke staining his breath as he declares how you light up his world. “I want to capture your smile, so I can always look at it.” ⋆˚꩜｡ Tugs your sleeve when he wants attention but doesn't want to ask for it out right. ⋆˚꩜｡ Gets jealous of Elise because you always end up greeting her before him as she goes running towards you.

‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 He's not afraid to show you off.

⋆˚꩜｡ You're in public? there's a hand on your waist, at all times. ⋆˚꩜｡ He covers you up in beautiful jewerly, and wears matching pieces so everyone knows you're with him. ⋆˚꩜｡ That's the perk of you being an executive, you can take care of yourself. But god forbid there's so much as a scratch on your arm. He'll make an example out of the imbecile who was responsible for it.

‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 You're his treasure.

➵ Title from: Welcome To My World by Jim Reeves

➵ This doesn't really do him justice but I don't think we should dismiss this character as often as we do.

➵ He's so interesting, and his real life counterpart has some AMAZING reads. I love him so much.

"Huh?" Chuuya tilts his head towards you, eyebrows knit together as he did his best not to come off as mocking. He hadn't heard anyone say that at the sight of a shooting star in years.

You straighten up, cringing internally at the realization that you said that out loud. "Nothing, never mind..." You chuckle nervously.

He huffs, turning to stare at the sky again, really paying attention to it now. "You can't just let that go by- Do you really still wish on stars?"

You shift your weight on your feet, a little shy now. "Well, no... Not seriously, anyways."

He smiles. "You do wish on stars, then."

"It's... It's like buying a lottery ticket. Just a little bit of hope to carry. I don't actually expect it to work."

"It's kinda cute." He shrugs.

You clear your throat. Silence stretches between you. Another comet passes by.

"If stars could actually grant you their blessing, what would you wish for?" You muse, voice quiet and careful.

He opens his mouth, then refrains from saying whatever answer he had in mind, turning his gaze away to the pile of cigarrette ends on the floor instead.

Slowly, subtly, he turns small, sorrowful- his breath a little more shallow, his shoulders a little hunched. Emotions that would usually manifest as the strength to fight take him deep into his memories this time.

Seeing him that way makes you shiver. You place a hand on his shoulder. He immediately assures you "I'm fine." You retreat.

He absently tugs at his lovelock, then shakes his head. He's lost too many friends, there's no point in forming a sentence to call all of them back to this plane, to ask for just five more minutes and daydream on how to make them worth it.

"Those hypotheticals aren't for me, is all..." He glances back up at the sky, sighing as the immense blue envelops his heart.

"Hm?" Kouyou turns to you with an inquisitive smile. "A wish?"

"Ah... Yes. There was a shooting star, so..." You trail off, shy. She snickers.

"Wishing of falling stars... Do you believe in that?"

"No, it's just for fun... Sometimes I need a little something to give me hope, you know?"

Her eyes narrow warily. "I have never prayed to the stars."

You tilt your head, a grin on your lips. "Could I convince you to try tonight?"

You see it, just for a fleeting second, a crack forming on her carefully constructed mask. She digs her nails into her palm, consciously brushing off the pain from her gaze, turning to stare at the clouds running over the sky.

Would bringing hope back into her soul be too much to ask?

She closes her eyes, shrugging in that dignified way of hers. "I'm afraid not, my dear."

"Oh, miss, come on. You must have something you'd like to ask for." You pry gently.

She shakes her head, her cheeks curve with a graceful smile. "There's no point if it's impossible. And if it's possible, I'll do the work to get it." "But that the fun part of it. Even if it's impossible, sending your desire to the universe might bring it to you. It's a nice thought."

She sighs. The back of her hand, covered by the sleeve of her kimono, brushes your cheek with rare affection.

"It is..." she almost whispers. "... a nice thought."

"A wish?" Mori gives you an amused chuckle.

"Oh God, did I say that out loud?" You frown.

His dark eyes trail fondly over your face. "Well, if there's someone I'd expect to wish on stars, it's you."

He brushes a lock of hair behind your ear. You glance at his hand, bare and long, adorned with battle scars and little moles. Holding the boss' hand sounds like something impossible, and yet tonight you venture to do it.

"Indulge me, Mori," You request softly, running your thumb over his knuckles. "What would you ask a star for?"

His sharp grin softens, the creases around his eyes a little more noticeable as he thinks of home.

He imagines fresh tea and walls filled with portraits, tall bookshelves illuminated by lamps, laughter and tenderness he hasn't allowed himself in years. Little wishes he can't afford scattered like the wounds on his body, reflected on the dancing girl he adorns with lace and mauls for battle when necessary.

"Who knows..." He wraps his fingers around your hand, gentle and wary, pretending for a moment that you're not as tainted as him. "Something warm, probably." His voice is low and thoughtful despite the dismissive words.

➵ Third piece for #fireflyjuly! following @monthlywritingchallenges prompt list!

➵ This must count for if I miss a day... Right?