#open ended

A quiet café, a familiar smell and the moment you realise he might like you back.

pairing 𖦹 nishimurariki x fem!reader

warning 𖦹 if you’re allergic to fluff, mild sexual innuendo, flustered tension

genre 𖦹 tutor x student, friends to ? slow burn

word count 𖦹 1.3k

author’s note 𖦹 part 2 this is my first fic… feedback is very much appreciated as long as it’s done respectfully. hope you guys enjoy.

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The coffee shop smelled strongly of warm milk and freshly ground coffee beans with something sweet lingering in the air. Probably vanilla syrup. Usually, those scents reminded you of comfort and late nights spent drinking coffee with your friends.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the atmosphere felt too heavy. Every time the door opened, your heart raced. You couldn’t focus on the comfort that is usually felt here - not when you were waiting for him to walk through the door at any moment.

Ni-ki and you share a class together. In the beginning you guys barely talked much with each other but that changed a few months ago.

Ni-ki is the best math student in your class. Always getting perfect grades and praise from the teacher. You, on the other end, keep failing almost every test. Covered in red correction marks and quiet disappointment.

So when your math teacher announced that there was going to be another test, you started panicking. Your last resort? Asking the perfect math student for help. You were kind of embarrassed asking someone you barely exchanged words with for help but you were desperate. This is your last year, you can’t afford failure.

Ni-ki was kind of confused since he didn’t really know you but he immediately said yes. He loves teaching people everything about math so there was no reason for him to say no.

The first time was embarrassingly awkward. You kept stuttering, avoiding eye contact and fidgeting. You aren’t super outgoing but also not really shy. So you were confused as to why you acted so weird. Ni-ki however found this whole interaction amusing. Getting to know the girl who sits all the way at the front might be more exciting than he thought.

Slowly but steadily, you loosened up around him. You started talking in class together and got to know each other. You even looked forward to him tutoring you. Just an innocent friendship forming.

Until it wasn’t.

You don’t remember when they started - those lingering looks, accidental hand brushes, the way you laughed too hard at his dumb jokes. Every time you caught him looking at you, there was this strange flutter in your chest.

It drove you insane.

Through those moments you spent with ni-ki, you got to know that he wasn’t interested in all the girls who were throwing themselves at him. I mean, can you blame them? He’s tall, handsome and has a carefree personality. But where do you fit?

Does he only see you as a friend? Is he interested? What do these lingering looks mean?

So that’s how you find yourself sitting in the corner of your favorite coffee shop, anxious about his arrival. You don’t even know how long you’ve been sitting here. ten minutes? twenty? Who knows. The barista keeps throwing impatient looks at you. It’s the third time since you told her that you’re still waiting for someone before you can order.

But then he walks in.

His overgrown black bangs are falling over his forehead, a blue hoodie hanging loosely over his shoulders and baggy pants that somehow make him look even better. His bag is slung over his right shoulder and he moves effortlessly, with a confident expression that makes everyone notice him - including you.

That’s when you make eye contact with him. It feels like the time has stopped only for the two of you. As if the only thing that matters right now is you and him.

He smiles at you and comes to sit across from you.

“Hey” he greets while setting his bag on the floor. He leans back and relaxes into his seat.

“Hi” you mumble. You’re so nervous that you can’t even get a proper hi out. To give yourself a moment to calm down, you call the barista over and finally order something to drink.

“Have you been waiting long? You didn’t have to wait for me to order something,” he says. His gaze is so intense that you forget to answer.

“Y/N? Are you okay?” ni-ki asks, a concerned look in his eyes.

“Uh, yeah sorry I’m just worried about the test, you know?” you lie. Well it’s not really a lie. You’re really worried about it but that’s not the reason why you’re acting weird. You need to get a grip. There’s no way you will be able to sit here and have a normal conversation with him if you keep acting like this.

His eyes soften like they always do when you talk about your worries. He takes your hand and looks you in the eye.

“Hey, everything will work out fine, okay? You don’t need to worry - you have me.” he reassures.

Your heart starts to beat too fast. Your face feels too hot. You like your friends but none of them understand how important this is for you. Having ni-ki sitting in front of you and reassuring you does more than it should. You don’t know what to make of this feeling.

“Thank you, ni-ki. I know I don’t say it often but I’m really grateful for your lessons.” she adds softly.

He smiles gently, his eyes warm.

“You don’t ever have to thank me. I like spending time with you.”

The barista arrives with your drinks - one espresso and one americano. You grip your mug, take a sip and moan at the warm feeling.

Ni-ki leans forward and asks “Does it taste good?”

“Mhm” you murmur, taking another sip.

“Can I have a sip?” he whispers, looking straight into your eyes.

You choke on your sip.

“What?!” you sputter, leaving a small mess on your shirt and the table. Good thing you didn’t take your stuff out yet.

Ni-ki doesn’t seem to mind the little mess. He leans closer, a teasing smile on his face.

“I said, can I have a sip?”

“Why? I’ve seen you drink espressos before…” you exclaim, dabbing at your shirt with the napkins.

“I just want to see if it tastes as good as you make it out to be.” His grin widens at your confused expression and you realise, he’s actually enjoying this.

“You’re so weird” you mutter, trying to hide your smile. You look at each other and it feels like the whole world has faded away, leaving just the two of you. It feels like he is trying to convey something without actually saying it.

After what feels like a lifetime, you finally avert your gaze. You are confused. You like him - that’s obvious - and you think maybe he likes you too? You know he doesn’t share looks like that with just anybody. But you’re too scared to ask him.

You clear your throat and ask if you should begin. Ni-ki stares for one beat longer, then nods, grabbing his stuff out of his bag. You take your notebook out and show him the exercise.

He starts explaining how to solve the fractions, showing you how to divide a whole into equal parts. However you find it hard to concentrate on what he’s saying. You find yourself checking out the mole on his chin.

You want to kiss it.

The urge is sudden and pathetically overwhelming. It takes everything in you not to lean in and just kiss it. You force yourself to focus before he realises that you’d rather study his mole.

After an hour of pure torture, you finish your lesson, pack your stuff and get up. Despite the exhaustion lingering deep in your bones, you want to stay here with him. In this quiet, familiar coffee shop.

Ni-ki takes two steps forward, grabs your bag and stares down at you.

“You did well today, yn. I believe in you” he says quietly. You can’t look away no matter what. He slides the bag straps onto your shoulders and says one final thing.

“Let’s study at my house tomorrow”

Mason shook his gut, messing with the man trapped inside, and still contemplating whether or not he'd let the twink inside out, or just melt him on the spot and keep him...

Warnings; Angst; I left the character anonymous, so you can pick who you feel fits; enjoy,

“Your lover was a whole different man around you. He treated you like his world, something cherished, while he spat his cruelty at everyone else.”

Tws: stalking/mutual stalking, yandere, breaking and entering, reader goes through his stuff, he hits you with a bat, kidnapping?

Yandere crush who knows you like him, because it’s so obvious. He always sees you snap photos of him, follow him home, look in his window. But you never come into his house, never steal anything of his like he does with your stuff. He’s waiting for the day you try to break in, but it never comes.

He’s begun following you when you go to peer into his window, you always pout when you realize he’s not home. It hurts him to see you sad, but he needs you to try something.

After almost a month, you finally do. You push down his open living room window, squeezing yourself through and slowly walking past the white couch, the mahogany framed table with a glass center, the book shelves full of books he’s never once opened.

You believe you don’t have to worry, he doesn’t have any roommates, and he seems to have picked something up to do after the college classes.

You walk up the stairs, slowly tracing your hands over the railing, believing it’s an indirect way to hold his hand. You turn down the hall and walk into the master bedroom.

His fan is still on, his bed sheets in disarray, he never makes his bed. You consider making it for him, but then he’d know someone was here, maybe freak out and call the police, and they’d find your dna everywhere. You can’t let that happen.

You walk over to his closet, opening it revealing a mess. His clothes in bins, random junk thrown around, boxes full of books and much more. You begin going through the bins of his clothes. His shirts, pants, underwear, none of its folded, everything’s jut lazily thrown inside. You feel along the closet wall to help yourself get up, but feel a door handle.

You move aside some bags and see a small door, it doesn’t have a lock, and it’s a bit smaller than a door to a regular room. You turn the handle, push it open and step a leg inside without looking.

You pull yourself through, and look around. The walls are covered in photos of you, outside, during class, inside your home, sleeping. You notice a small table, a mattress, and a small box in the corner, shoved under the table. You walk over and open it. It’s filled his your missing things. A book you loved, a hairbrush you’d had for years, hair ties, underwear, even a vial of your blood.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist when you felt the handle.” You heard a voice behind you say, you didn’t want to believe who it was. You spun around, already trying to explain, “I can-“

Trope: Ghost culture is weird

Word: Bones

Scenario: Jason meets Dany as a ghost

Dialogue: “Wait, you can see me?”

Ever since Danny’s soulmate words came in, his parents’ attitude towards ghosts had done a 180. After all, what else but a ghost would say something like “wait, you can see me?” as an introduction? And if their perfect boy’s soulmate was a ghost, then ghosts couldn’t be all that bad. Jack and Maddie were soulmates after all, and they would never dream of trying to keep their son from his fated other half. (Maddie had the question “did you just build a spirit box out of a crockpot?” along her inner arm and Jack had “Obviously!” Stamped on his forehead.)

All that’s to say that the Fentons were no longer obsessed with catching any old ghost to study. No, instead they were obsessed with catching Danny’s soulmate to add them to the family. It made things pretty awkward when the portal opened up and the Fentons chased down every ghost to introduce their son, only to find Danny gone at the last minute and Phantom appearing to chase the other ghost back into the zone.

Danny was just about ready to die again of shame when Jack brought up the possibility that Phantom was his shy yet jealous soulmate, not ready to meet him yet but hating the idea of Danny meeting any other ghost first. Luckily Jazz pointed out that since Danny’s words were “wait you can see me?” It implied that his ghostly soulmate was a much weaker, invisible ghost that would only appear outside of Amity. Danny had never appreciated his big sister so much. He carefully didn’t mention that Phantom could go invisible at will.

Alas, one cannot stop a determined Fenton couple, only redirect them. Which is why they were on this grand family road trip to visit every cemetery and graveyard in America. Or at least, have Danny visit them. Jazz once again came in clutch insisting that nobody needed their whole family hovering around as they met their soulmate and demanded the parents visit colleges with her while Danny explored graves on his own.

Danny didn’t mind really, wandering around graveyards was far from the worst way his parents could have made him spend his summer. Besides, cemeteries were peaceful, beautiful even. And meeting (and teasing) the few ghosts who actually stuck by their graves was nice. Hey, as an obsession based ghost it was his right to poke a little fun at those boring graveyard ghosts who just stuck around their bones.

“Are you seriously haunting your own grave? I’m not sure I can think of anything more cliche and that’s coming from a ghost who goes by Phantom.” Danny tossed out as his usual cheeky introduction.

The ghost whirled around with a look of shock on his face. “Wait, you can see me?”

Danny felt his soul mark burn and his jaw dropped in mirrored shock. “Well I’ll be darned!” He laughed out loud. “I guess this trip wasn’t useless after all. Nice t’meetcha soulmate! I’m Danny.”

The ghost huffed. “Oh a’course I only meet my soulmate once I’m dead. Shouldn’a ‘spected any different given my weird ass words.”

“Uhm, I’m guessing you’re Jason? Or do you have a dead name you’d rather go by?” Danny nervously asked.

“Isn’t that an oxymoron? No one wants to go by their dead name. That’s the whole point.”

“Oh! Ghost culture is weird. Dead name means something different. It’s- a ghost’s dead name is who they want to be in death rather than who they were in life? Hmm. No, that’s not quite it. It’s who they always were, just crystallized and purified from everything that tainted it in life. Like, it’s who you are without life getting in the way.”

Catch and Release Speedrunning.

(Credit me if this ends up on TT :( please this will also be posted on ao3. Anyone can use or add to any of my posts so long as I am credited @squshymarsh or my ao3 @Theeverlongwhatnow)

Things were going good! Great actually considering just how bad things could have been. But Danny isn’t thinking about that. No sir. Cause if he thinks about what could have been he will have to think of Amity Park. And if he thinks about Amity then he will inevitably circle back to what he left behind there. And sure maybe one day when he’s older than fifteen and not living on the streets an entire country away from everything he’s ever known with only the stuff he left with and his two best friends but now is not that day.

Today he is a grungy fifteen year old walking around dirty alleyways in the grossest city he has ever had the misfortune of being in. All because someone decided they wanted to DoorDash Batburger at five in the morning.

Ah the things he does for money. This may ba a dangerous job for him to be doing. Then again what isn’t dangerous here? He’s in Gotham, the literal air is dangerous on a good day. But Doordashing is better than some of his and Tucker's first suggestions for procuring money. He may not need to eat as often as a normal human but they sure do. Plus if they get enough money they can afford a room at a motel or something. Sam still froths at the mouth at the idea of the luxury of a shower. Danny still teases her about acting like a typical rich girl. Especially when she complains about where they’ve decided to sleep for the night.

She takes it, returns it in kind. They all do. Because if they stop for a moment, think of the reality of their situation. Of the things they’ve sacrificed. People and lives all left in the dust barely settled around fake graves. Then it all becomes too much to handle. They can act like this is just another adventure, just another fun little gag. If they don’t think about it too much.

Danny turns from one street onto another. There’s squealing tires and gunshots down the street he turned opposite of. He doesn’t investigate, doesn’t even turn to look.

He’s not unused to the chaos of crime. Especially not now, it’s why they chose to come here. Because whatever chaos he brings just by existing is balanced out or even swept away by Gotham's. That balance is their peace. The reason they ran from home, a peaceful life.

Of course being a ghost, the one stuck between life and death, is its own flavor of chaos. Something which isn’t conducive to a peaceful life anywhere but here. Sure it’s not unlike what this grimey city has to offer. But it’s different enough that if something were to set off that balance, their peace, then they would be noticeable. And to be noticeable means being seen and being seen means being found.

Within the balance he, Sam and Tucker are just three street kids. A dime a dozen, an unfortunate story shared by so many kids in the city and further.

But if they are seen, they are three kids thought to be dead and not so subtly wanted by a very specific governmental agency. They would be found and they would be dead for real this time.

So no setting off the balance, which means no more getting haunted by phantoms of their past. Meaning. No ghosts.

Though he doesn’t change into his Phantom form anymore, Danny is still him in the way Phantom is still Danny. He was a ghost, a powerful one no matter how well he boxed away and hid that part of him. It only worsened when he started making portals out of ambient ectoplasm one day.

They were invisible to the naked or rather human eye. Only those deeply touched enough by death could see them and those tended to be the ones wanting to come through them.

Ghosts were coming through just like Amity.

The balance is at stake. He would have to stop existing to stop the portals from opening and drawing attention in the ghostly department. Which isn’t exactly possible since both his friends are doing everything possible to make sure his existence is continued. By force sometimes. So comprises, countermeasures and speedruns.

He learned how to open and close portals at will yet he still cannot stop them from opening at random. He can only close them as quickly as he can. Yet sometimes he just isn’t fast enough and a ghostly foe escapes the Zone and crosses the vail into the realm of the living. Threading the balance that their peaceful life relied so heavily on.

Phantom had once been an upholder of balance and peace. One where their lives were constantly at stake. Only sometimes.

He even let the ghosts indulge in their obsessions, letting humans enjoy what ghostly visitors had to offer to Amity. Before returning them to their places.

Now he has become one again though this time there is no indulgence of obsessions. No banter or fights.

A portal opens close to him, a ghost wiggles out in time only to get caught in the new and improved thermos and sent right back to the zone.

Tucker had taken one of the old and mostly busted FentonThermos’ and upgraded then made a new one with improvements. Gone were the days of them having to fight and struggle. Just for the ghost to work off enough energy and Ecto to be able to fit inside the old cruddy thermos’.

These new ones worked so well they souped vortex before the ghostly embodiment of weather had a chance to do much more than make it rain.

Nabbed right out of the air and shoved back into the zone within three minutes of his exit. The first and not the last.

They began timing it. Making a game of it, Ghost Nabbing they call it.

Another bit. Another gag. Just so they don’t have to face the reality of their ghostly friends, their family, trying to speak to them.

Because there’s no way anyone could be worried about failures.

Danny turns into an alleyway. Insulated delivery bag resting against his back filled with warm food. NewThermos clipped to his belt and phone in his hand.

He has Ghost nabbing down to a science now. There are two main parts of the operation. The capture then the release.

First Something sets off his ghost sense, the thermos is grabbed before the mist has a chance to leave his mouth, button clicked and the ghost caught.

Then the portal is opened with one hand, thermos shoved inside with the other and the button is clicked again, thermos withdrawn then the portal is closed by the hand they opened it.

Danny has managed to get his time down to thirty seconds and he’s looking to halve that in the next month or he owes Sam ten bucks.

He can’t make bets with Tucker since he’s the one who repairs the NewThermos and would sabotage it to win.

Goal in mind, he has cut down on anything unneeded in the interactions with ghosts just to shave milliseconds off the catch. Why does he need to know who he’s catching when they are staying long enough to even look at what he’s become?

That’s why he doesn’t question it, doesn’t even look when his Ghost sense goes off as he walks the alley.

Twenty seven seconds. The Thermos timer even says so.

A new record. He moves on heading for the apartment he needs to make this delivery to. No one answers the door when he knocks. He rechecks the address several times. This is it. No one answers the phone number he calls or the messages he sends.

Oh well, free food for him and the others.

———-

Jason is so confused.

What just happened? Where was he? How did he get here? Where was here and why was it so green?

Okay he needs to calm down. First things first. Check his surroundings for danger and clues. Which isn't a hard or long task since he’s now standing on a floating island made of gray dirt, dead grass and cracked sidewalk. The island is no bigger than ten feet in length by five in width. Beyond that it drops off into a void made of greens, purples and blacks. Mist and liquid swishing around like the sky here was a sea of matter trying to create something from its depths.

In that sea of chaotic creation are more floating islands. Some smaller than the one he stands on but most are larger. Like large enough to hold multiple buildings.

Buildings which he recognizes as the ones bordering his terf. Except these aren’t them. More like weird after images of them. The colors are all weird and washed out. Much like the gray dirt below him.

So he’s not in Gotham or he’s in some weird inbetween. Upside down? No dumb reference. It doesn’t even fit.

He moves on to how he got here.

What was the last thing he remembered before being spirited away to where, or when, ever this is.

He had gotten into an argument that nearly ended up with him shooting at Bruce since the old man was being an overbearing whine bag about the Alley and how he runs it. Again. Some choice words were said on both sides then he stormed off to meet the kid delivering his five am batburger so he could go back to his safe house. He’d seen the kid in the alley next to the safe house.

Jason even went to greet the kid. Then he was here. One second he’d been looking at the back of the kids head, wad of cash in hand about to announce his presence. He didn’t have anytime to react while the kid whirled around and pointed something at him. That’s saying something. For someone with bat and league trained reflexes being unable to react in time.

Now he was here. Standing on a floating island surrounded by voids of swirling green.